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The Way Away from the “Powder Keg” to the Oasis of Peace”– and Back Again 1. The Albanian Question versus the Macedonian Question: Historical background Peace and stability in Macedonia have always been heavily dependent both on internal and external factors. From a more recent point of view, it seems that the Kosovo conflict has explicit importance for the survival and future prospects of this country. It is a consequence not only of the fact that Macedonia is the nearest neighboring country, but rather of the fact that the Kosovo Question is a part of a wider Albanian Question in the Balkans. Moreover, within its own borders Macedonia itself is burdened with a part of this complex historical problem. The puzzle is additionally made more complex by the existence of so-called Macedonian Question. The impact of the Kosovo conflict on Macedonia can best be explored through focusing on the facets...

LONDON– Jedini racionalni razlog za vazdusne napade zapada na Jugoslaviju je taj sto Washington i London treba da sacuvaju vlastiti kredibilitet. Zivoti mladica bice zrtvovani da bi se sacuvao obraz staraca. Rekli su da ce to uraditi i zato ce to i uraditi. Ovo je taman toliko neodgovorno koliko je i glupavo. Kako je planirano operacija ce se izvrsiti po visokoj vojnoj ceni. Ovo nece biti repriza nedavnih bombardovanja Iraka. Srbi imaju mogucnost da uzvrate, a ciljevi NATO-a su brojni. On ovde nije samo flotila ratnih brodova u obliznjim morima, u ovom slucaju ti su i NATO-ove trupe u Bosni i Makedoniji. Drugo, zapad opravdava ovu operaciju neophodnoscu da se izbegne humanitarna katastrofa. Svi cemo biti svedoci paradoksa koji ce proizvesti bombardovanje iz vazduha. Dok bude konsolidovalo podrsku bombardovane nacije koja ce stati iza svog vodje, (lekcija iz nase skorasnje istorije), ono ce takodje prozvesti i novu humanitarnu katastrofu cije...

LONDON- The only rational reason for western air attacks on Yugoslavia is that Washington and London have to maintain their credibility. Young men’s lives will be sacrificed for older men’s face. They said they would do it. So they do it. This is both irresponsible and stupid. At the most basic it will be done at a most severe military cost. This is not going to be a repeat of the recent bombings of Iraq. The Serbs do have the capacity to hit back and NATO’s targets are many. Not just the off-shore flotilla of warships but NATO troops in Bosnia and Macedonia. Second, the West is justifying the operation as necessary to avoid a humanitarian disaster. We are now going to witness the paradox of aerial bombing. While it consolidates the support of the nation being bombed behind their leader, (the lesson of its short history), it will also create...

LONDON- Arms deals gone wrong are leaving quite a trail. The murder of Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme? The murder of Andre Cools, the socialist politician in Belgium, whose party colleague Willy Claes had to resign as secretary-general of NATO, caught up in the investigation and questions that followed? A British journalist found hanging in a hotel room in Chile, eight years ago? And now the long and tortuous saga of Jonathan Aitken, the former British minister of state for defense procurement. “If there is a more serious case of corruption in post-war British politics we would be interested to know about it”, editorialised the Guardian last week, the paper which exposed the million dollar racket. All these, bar the last, have serious question marks. Nothing has ever been proved in court. In Palme’s case we only have the circumstantial evidence that he was the front man for a controversial deal...

LONDON- If you are one of my American readers this could well be my last column for your newspaper. More and more evidence points to the conclusion that America’s interest in the outside world is shrinking faster than a pricked balloon; and the media are setting the pace, rapidly downsizing their foreign bureaus and sharply reducing the space they give to foreign affairs. Nevertheless, it does not follow that American policy makers and business pace-setters are winding down THEIR interest in the world outside. On the contrary. But this divergence–the media and the populace going one way–to bury their head in the sand–and the leadership going the other, aggressively promoting America overseas is creating serious problems. As Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University sums it up in another of his telling essays in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, “The U.S. is unlikely to become an isolationist country. But it could...

LONDON- Olesegun Obasanjo, the likely winner in Nigeria’s presidential election on Saturday, combines to a rare degree brain, brawn and charm. Of massive build, his self assurance and determination often compel others to bend before his will. His detractors would call him ruthless; he does not suffer fools, and many have withered before his unconcealed scorn. Yet he is not a self-inflated man. Arrogance is not his vice. Only released from prison last June, after three years of struggling to maintain his spirits in a dank cell, he has moved quickly to regain the presidency he voluntarily relinquished twenty years ago. It was the same self-perpetuating clique of self-enriching military officers who incarcerated him, who had turned to dust his earlier effort, when he was president in the late 1970s–and himself a military appointee–to return the country to democracy. Two summers back I went to visit his old and trusted friend,...

Feb. 17, 1999 LONDON- Two weeks on, the sentiments of the moment somewhat subsided, it’s now very clear that the death of King Hussein of Jordan ushered in a new and perhaps painful era in the Middle East. Fifty heads of government may have made the pilgrimage to the funeral in Amman out of respect, but more likely the real compulsion–and in President Boris Yeltsin’s case, a sheer act of will power–was a worry, verging on paranoia, that if the present dispensation of military and dynastic strongmen in the Arab Middle East disappears before a full peace is made with Israel there will be chaos, war– and who knows what that may bring? Everybody there knew that King Hussein’s efforts to introduce a larger role for an elected parliament foundered on rank and file hostility to making peace with Israel. When King Hussein’s coffin entered the ground, all that was left...

LONDON- The nineteenth century’s “Great Game” was the rivalry between Russia and Britain over access to the riches of India. But even then it was fueled in part by the competition for Caspian Oil. The Caucasus and Central Asia were not only the route to India but a prize worth fighting for itself. Today a new Great Game is being played in the very same region, between Russia and America. One century on, the pawns in the middle are the new post- Soviet states of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, all of whom are desperate to use the energy potential of the Caspian basin to strengthen their independence. Some idea of the high rolling stakes being bet can be gained from the statement earlier this month by the chief foreign affairs adviser to the president of Azerbaijan, Vafa Guluzade. He told a number of newspapers that Azerbaijan wants a U.S....

LONDON- The nuclear reprocessing issue is not going to disappear off the political map even though German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder last week overrode his environment minister and postponed legislation that would have led to a quick ending of the shipping of nuclear waste to reprocessing plants in Britain and France and also a fairly rapid closing of the country’s 19 nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry is a big and powerful lobby and, as the debate over compensation for broken contracts demonstrates, vast sums are at stake. But as the unanswered questions mount on both the issues of health and military security it can be only a matter of time before all rational governments introduce the kind of radical steps the German government initially announced. Indeed, Schroeder, despite his intervention on the side of delay, is committed to end the export of radioactive waste and the subsequent reprocessing within a handful...

Proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the establishment of a European Civil Peace Corps Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy 28 January 1999 A4-0047/99 CONTENTS Procedural page A. PROPOSAL FOR A RECOMMENDATION B. EXPLANATORY STATEMENT Annex: Proposal for a recommendation B4-0791/98 At the sitting of 17 July 1998 the President of Parliament announced that he had referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy the proposal for a recommendation to the Council by Mr Spencer and 38 other Members on the establishment of a European Civil Peace Corps (B4-0791/98). At its meeting of 24 September 1998 the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy considered the proposal for a recommendation and decided to draw up a report. At the meeting of 24 September 1998 the committee appointed Mr Gahrton rapporteur. At its meetings of 1 December 1998, 7 January and...

BETÄNKANDE med Europarlamentets förslag till rekommendation till rådet om inrättandet av en europeisk civil fredskårUtskottet för utrikes-, säkerhets- och försvarsfrågor28 januari 1999 A4-0047/99 PROTOKOLLSIDA Vid plenarsammanträdet den 17 juli 1998 meddelade parlamentets ordförande att han hade hänvisat förslaget till rekommendation till rådet från Spencer och 38 andra ledamöter om inrättandet av en europeisk civil fredskår (B4-0791/98) till utskottet för utrikes-, säkerhets- och försvarsfrågor. Vid utskottssammanträdet den 24 september 1998 behandlade utskottet förslaget till rekommendation och beslutade att utarbeta ett förslag till betänkande. Vid utskottssammanträdet den 24 september 1998 utsåg utskottet Gahrton till föredragande. Vid sammanträdena den 1 december 1998, den 7 januari och den 22 januari 1999 behandlade utskottet förslaget till rekommendation, som hade utarbetats av utskottets ordförande, och godkände detta enhälligt. Följande deltog i omröstningen: Cushnahan (tredje vice ordförande och ordförande för sammanträdet), Gahrton (föredragande), Aelvoet, Bernard-Reymond, Burenstam Linder, Caligaris (suppleant för Bertens), Cars, Frischenschlager (suppleant för La Malfa),...

LONDON – The UN has now decided to give up on peace-keeping in Angola, the site of Africa’s second longest-running civil war in a continent where it’s difficult to measure the worst. It certainly proves what Clausewitz wrote, that everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. An Angolan peace was arbitrated as long ago as 1991. It couldn’t have been more straightforward–giving both sides a share in running the country. Yet human malevolence and personal greed is now so out of control that the antagonists don’t want peace. They want the spoils of war, in this case diamonds and oil, and they want it all. Again, to paraphrase Clausewitz, war is not just an act of senseless passion. Belligerents often calculate the relative costs of continuing the conflict versus reaching some kind of compromise agreement. We know very little about how to make peace. Compared with the...