-----Original Message-----
from: mart <mart@sgci.com
Comrades and friends,
this is an e-mail forwarded to me today. James Bisset is the former
canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia. He was testifying today, in Ottawa, in the House
of Commons, to the standing Committee on foreign affairs and international
trade. please read and forward this widely.
comrade Mart
-----original message-----
from: doslos <doslos@sprint.ca
date: february 15, 2000 7:25 pm
subject: fw: [ a must read!ambassador Bisset's address to scfait today!
-----original message-----
date: tuesday, february 15, 2000 7:01 pm
subject: ] a must read!ambassador Bisset's address to scfait today!
NOTES FOR ADDRESS TO STANDING COMMITTEE FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
1: Introduction
----- I wish to thank the Committee for giving me the opportunity of
speaking this morning.
----It is some comfort to know that although i was not allowed to speak to
anyone in the canadian embassy in Belgrade during a recent visit there
that I am free to speak to members of the canadian parliament.
----I have been an outspoken critic of the nato bombing of Yugoslavia. I
believe it to have been a tragic mistake --- a historic miscalculation that will have
far reaching implications.
----When Nato bombs fell on Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of last
year they caused more than just death and destruction in that country. The
bombs also struck at the heart of international law and delivered a serious blow
to the framework of global security that since the end of the second world
war has protected all of us from the horrors of a nuclear war.
----Kosovo broke the ground rules for Nato engagement and the aggressive
military intervention by Nato into the affairs of a sovereign state for
other than defensive purposes marked an ominous turning point in the aims
and objectives of that organization. It is important that we understand
this and seek clarification as to whether this was a "one-off" aberration or a
signal of fundamental change in the nature and purposes of the
organization. This is something the Committee might well examine in the
course of its work.
2: An illegal war
----Nato's war in Kosovo was conducted without the approval of the united
nations security council. it was a violation of international law, the
United Nations charter and its own article 1, which requires Nato to
settle any international disputes by peaceful means and not to threaten or use
force, "in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United
Nations."
----Spologists for Nato including our own foreign and defence ministers
try to avoid this issue by simply not mentioning it. There has been no attempt
to explain why the United Nations security council was ignored. No effort
to spell out under whose authority did Nato bomb Yugoslavia. The ministers
and their officials continue to justify the air strikes on the grounds that
the bombs were necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and atrocities, despite all
the evidence that by far the bulk of the ethnic cleansingtook place after
the bombing not before it. It was the bombing that triggered off the worst
of the ethnic cleansing.
----As for the atrocities it now seems that here again we were lied to
about the extent of the crimes commited. United States secretary of Defence
Cohen told us that at least 100,000 kosovars had perished. Tony Blair spoke of
genocide being carried out in Kosovo. The media relished in these atrocity
stories and printed every story told to them by Albanian, "eye
witnesses." The myth that the war was to stop ethnic cleansing and
atrocities contiues to be perpetrated by department spokesmen and large parts of the
media.
----No one wants to defend atrocities and the numbers game in such
circumstances becomes sordid. Nevertheless numbers do become important if
they are used to justify military action against a sovereign state. In the
case of Kosovo it appears that about 2000 people were killed there prior
to the Nato bombing. Considering that a civil war had been underway since
1993 this is not a remarkable figure and compared with a great many other hot
spots hardly enough to warrant a 79-day bombing campaign. It is also
interesting to note that the un tribunal indictement of Milosovic of may
1999, cites only one incident of deaths before the bombing: the infamous
Racak incident, which itself is challenged by french journalists who were
on the ground there and suspect a frame-up involving us general Walker who
sounded the alarm.
----The kosovo "war" reveals disturbing evidence of how lies and duplicity
can mislead us into accepting things that we instinctively know to be
wrong. Jamie Shea and other nato apologists have lied to us about the bombing.
The sad thing is that most of the canadian media, and our political
representatives have accepted without question what has been told to us by
Nato and our own foreign affairs spokesmen.
3: An unecessary war
----Perhaps the most serious charge against the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia
is that it was unnecessary. Nato chose bombing over diplomacy, violence
over negotiation. Nato's leaders tried to convince us that dropping tons
of bombs on Yugoslavia was serving humanitarian purposes
----A un security council resolution of october 1998 accepted by
Yugoslavia, authorized over 1300 monitors from the organization for security and
cooperation in Europe [OSCE] to enter Kosovo and try to de-escalate the
fighting. From the accounts of a number of these monitors their task was
successful. while cease-fire violations continued on both sides the
intensity of the armed struggle was considerably abated.
----The former czech foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, and canada's own
Rollie Keith of Vancouver, both monitors for the OSCE on the ground in
Kosovo, have publicly stated that there were no international refugees
over the last five months of the OSCE's presence in Kosovo and the number of
internally displaced only amounted to a few thousands in the weeks leading
up to the bombing.
----The OSCE mission demonstrated that diplomacy and negotiation might
well have resolved the Kosovo problem without resorting to the use of
force. It was the failure of the United States to accept any flexibility in its
dealing with Belgrade in the weeks leading up to the war that spelled
diplomatic failure.
---- The adamant refusal of the USA to involve either the russians or the
United Nations in the negotiations. the refusal to allow any other
intermediary to deal with Milosovic and finally the imposition of the
Rambouillet ultimatum which was clearly designed to ensure that Yugoslavia
had no choice but to refuse its insulting terms.
----It is now generally accepted by those who have seen the Rambouillet
agreement that no sovereign state could have agreed to its conditions. The
insistence of allowing acess to all of Yugoslavia by Nato forces and the
demand that a referendum on autonomy be held within three years guaranteed
a serbian rejection.
----The serbian parliament did, however, on march 23, state a willingness
to "examine the character and extent of an international presence in Kosovo
immediately after the signing of an autonomy accord acceptable to all
national communities in Kosovo, the local serb minority included. " The
United States was not interested in pursuing this offer. Nato needed its
war. Nato's formal commitment to resolve international disputes by
peaceful means was thrown out the window.
----The Rambouillet document itself was not easily obtained from Nato
sources. The chairman of the defence committee of the french national
assembly asked for a copy shortly after the bombing commenced but was not
given a copy until a few days before the UN peace treaty was signed. I
hope that members of this committee have a copy to look at and will be able to
find out when and if Canada was informed of its conditions.
4: Nato's campaign a total failure
----We have been asked to believe that the war in Kosovo was fought for
human rights. Indeed the president of the Czech Republic received a
standing ovation in this House of Commons when he stated that Kosovo was the first
war fought for human values rather than territory. I suspect even president
Havel would have second thoughts about that statement now that a large
part of Yugoslav territory has in effect been handed over to the albanians.
----The war allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing has not done so. Serbs
gypsies, jews, and slav muslims are being forced out of Kosovo under the
eyes of 45,000 nato troops. Murder and anarchy reigns supreme in Kosovo as
the KLA and criminal elements have taken charge. The United Nations admits
failure to control the situation and warns serbs not to return.
----The war allegedly to restore stability to the Balkans has done the
opposite. Yugoslavia's neighbors are in a state of turmoil. Montenegro is
on the edge of civil war. Macedonia is now worried that kosovo has shown the
way for its own sizeable albanian minority to demand self-determination.
Albania has been encouraged to strive harder to fulfill its dream of
Greater Albania. Serbia itself has been ruined economically. Embittered and
disillusioned it feels betrayed and alienated from the western
democracies.
---- The illegal and unecessary war has alienated the other great nuclear
powers, Russia and China. These countries are now conviced that the west
cannot be trusted. Nato expansion eastward is seen as an aggressive and
hostile threat and will be answered by an increase in the nuclear arsenal
of both nations. After Kosovo who can with any conviction convince them that
Nato is purley a defensive alliance dedicated to peace and to upholding
the principles of the United Nations?
----More seriously the Nato bombing has destroyed Nato's credibility. Nato
stood for more than just a powerful military organization. It stood for
peace; the rule of law, and democratic institutions .the bombing of
Yugoslavia threw all of that out the window.
----No longer can Nato stand on the moral high ground.its action in
Yugoslavia revealed it to be an aggressive military machine prepared to
ignore international law and intervene with deadly force in the internal
affairs of any state with whose actions or behaviour it does not agree.
5:conclusions
----There are those who believe that the long standing principle of State
sovereignty can be over ruled when human rights violations are taking
place in a country. Until Kosovo the ground rules for such intervention called
for Security Council authority before such action could be taken. Apologists
for Nato argue that it was unlikely security council authority could have been
obtained because of the veto power of China or Russia. So it would appear
rather than even try to get consent Nato took upon itself the powers of
the Security C ouncil. I am not sure we should all be comfortable with this
development.
----Undoubtedly there may be times when such intervention is justified and
immediately Rwanda comes to mind. But intervention for humanitarian reasons
is a dangerous concept.because who is to decide when to take such action
and under whose authority? Hitler intervened in Czechoslovakia because he
claimed the human rights of the sudeten germans were being violated.those
who advocate a change in the current rules for intervention are free to do
so but until the rules change should we not all obey the ones that still
have legitimacy?
----Nato made a serious mistake in Kosovo. Its bombing campaign was not
only an unmitigated disaster but it changed fundamentally the very nature and
purposes of the alliance. Does article 1 of the Nato treaty still stand?
Does nato still undertake to settle any international disputes in which it
may become involved by peaceful means? Do the Nato countries still
undertake to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of
force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the united nations?
----Kosovo should serve as a warning call that canadian democracy needs a
shot in the arm to wake it up to the realities that foreign policy is
important-important because as happened one day last march canadians can
wake up and find they are at war. Canadian pilots were bombing Serbia. Yet
there was no declaration of war. The canadian parliament was not
consulted. The majority of the canadian people had no idea where Kosovo
was -let alone understand why our aircraft were bombing cities in a fellow
nation state that had been a staunch ally during two world wars.
----It was not only yugoslav soverignty that was violated by Nato's
illegal action. Canadian sovereignty was also abused. Canada had become involved
in a war without any member of the canadian parliament or the canadian people
being consulted.the ultimate expression of a nation's sovereignty is the
right to declare war. Nato abrogated this right. ----
----If it essential that we give up some of our sovereignty as the price
we pay for membership in global institutons such as nato then it is mandatory
that such institutions follow their own rules, respect the rule of law,
and operate within the generally accepted framework of the United Nations
charter. This Nato did not do. It is for this reason i would suggest your
committee must ask some tough questions about the nature of Canada's
involvement in the Kosovo war.
James Bissett
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