On March 24th, the NATO began their äir campaign" against Yugoslavia, committing a military aggression. The declared goal of this war is the "prevention of a human tragedy". However, the thought that this war itself is a tragedy is virtually ignored by the media. Political leaders and experts of various kinds argue that the military intervention is the only alternative to allowing the humanitarian catastrophe to proceed without doing anything about it. Since the start of the war, this incantation is repeated like a mantra. However, as pacifists and women and men in the peace movement, we refuse to follow this logic of war because
We demand immediate termination of the air attacks and of the attempt to enforce "peace" with military means. We put forward the following reasons for our proposal:
The air strikes do not help the Kosovo people at all. The women and men in Kosovo are in a desparate situation. Food supply and civil structures have broken down completely. Several hundred thousands of people are forced to flee without having anywhere to turn to. The air strikes do not help these people in any way. Instead, they make their situation even worse: The war results in frequent closings of the borders to neighbouring countries, thus making it even more difficult for the people to escape from the war atrocities.
We therefore demand:Instead of massive air strikes, there should be massive help for restoring food supply, shelter, and civil life. If it is not possible to provide adequate help and support to refugees locally, they must be admitted to the wealthy European countries. We appeal to these states not to further humiliate the refugees by debates about the burden which they might be to the rich countries. It is also important to grant political asylum to deserters from all military organisations. Everyone who denies asylum to deserters from the Yugoslavian army collaborates with Milosevic in keeping up the "moral" of his troops.
The air warfare increases the suffering in Kosovo, it does not relieve it. After the civil war in Kosovo in spring and summer of 1998, an OSCE observer mission was implemented in Kosovo. This resulted in a limited relaxation of the tensions. Of course, this was not a satisfactory result, but it was a beginning which could have been used as a basis for further steps towards peace and reconciliation.
Right after the OSCE observers were evacuated, the paramilitary ßpecial police forces" resumed their brutal war against the civilians. The chance of building upon the small initial success of the observer mission was thus wasted; it was one of the first victims of the NATO warfare. There is no realistic chance that the warfare itself will stop the aggression of the Belgrad regime against the population in Kosovo. The power of the Serbian nationalist forces in the civil war are essentially unchallenged and unhampered by the air warfare now, two weeks after the beginning of the air campaign. The Iraq example indicates that this may go on for many years. Since eight years, the allied forces have full control over the airspace in the no-fly zones, and yet, the Saddam Hussein regime is able to terrorize the population in these zones at will.
We therefore demand: The OSCE observer mission should be reinstated and resumed as soon as possible. The OSCE should be funded to allow the observer mission to be extended by elements of conflict mediation and recovery aid.
The Western world has watched the peaceful resistance in Kosovo for half a decade without giving any support. The crisis in Kosovo began when Milosevic revoked the autonomy of the Kosovo province in 1989. The LDK (democratic league of Kosovo), chaired by Ibrahim Rugova, has campaigned with peaceful means against the violations of the rights of Albanians since then. Only after this conflict was ignored for more than half a decade, the UCK (liberation army of Kosovo) emerged and started fighting for the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia with military violence.
Today, the main (if not the only) argument which is heard against pacifist positions is "we cannot stand by and watch this tragedy proceed". However, all those political leaders who invoke this argument now have stood by for years and watched the LDK's nonviolent struggle without making any move to support a peaceful, fair and sustainable resolution of the issue.
Thus, the culmination of the Kosovo crisis is not a result of processes which could neither be foreseen nor influenced. As with all humanitarian catastrophes and tragedies in this decade, this culmination announced itself since several years, and experts have proposed various concepts for mediating in this conflict and for supporting pathways towards a peaceful solution. These concepts could have been implemented with moderate effort.
Now, our political leaders argue that there is no alternative to military action. But this lack of civil options is a result of a long time of political inactivity, and therefore, it must be considered to be a political failure.
We therefore demand:The concepts underlying German foreign affairs must be fundamentally revised. Today, national and economic interests dominate decisions about support for the solution of conflicts in or between other countries. These interests are typically endangered only when violence breaks out openly. Consequently, decisions about commitments for support are made much too late. This results in a hurried and unprepared search for a solution in situations which are already extremely difficult due to escalation of violence.
Therefore, instead of national or economic interests, the findings of conflict studies should become the basis for decisions about peaceful interventions.
The NATO warfare makes peace and reconciliation much more difficult.Bombings inevitably claim civil victims. Numerous people were already killed by the NATO air campaign. Many Serbs blame the Albanians for these casualties, and solidarity and support for the Milosevic regime consequently grow. All speeches by Western government representatives in which all responsibility for the victims of war is given to Milosevic will not change this effect. Furthermore, the example of the military NATO operations will encourage the UCK to continue their military operations. As a result, a way towards peace will be much more difficult to find now than it was in Rambouillet.
We therefore demand:The Western countries should accept their (partial) responsibility for the catastrophe in Kosovo. Milosevic is undoubtedly responsible for the suppression of the Kosovo population. He and his regime are also mainly responsible for the civil war which broke out openly a year ago. However, Milosevic cannot be held responsible for the lack of solidarity of the Western world with the Kosovo population, the LDK and Ibrahim Rugova. It is a failure of the NATO countries that they continuously ignored the Kosovo conflicts, thereby encouraging Milosevic to use increasing violence.
Now, a brutal war is raging in Kosovo. But nonetheless, further steps of escalation, such as the NATO air warfare, mean steps even further away from peace. We therefore demand to stop the air attacks immediately. The funding which was authorized for the warfare should be used for repairing the damage that was done, and for the development and implementation of peace concepts with nonviolent and civilized means by independent institutes and organisations which are competent in conflict studies.
The NATO air warfare is a violation of the law of nations. The law of nations does not allow assaults on other states for any reasons. This regulation was built into the Charta of the United Nations after the world wars, in order to prevent catastrophes and atrocities which human beings had to endure during these wars for all future.
The allied powers of the second world war liberated Germany from the Nazi regime through a military invasion. Thus, the notion of overpowering a country by military force in order to create peace certainly was familiar to those who developed the law of nations and the UN Charta after the second world war. Nonetheless, nothing like a "right to make war against countries ruled by tyrants" was built into the law of nations. Only the United Nations may allow an exception from the ban of military attacks against other countries.
Now, the NATO has broken this law of nations. The Federal Republic of Germany is involved in this trespassing. For the first time since the second world war, Germany participates in a warfare. The German forces are fighting outside of German territory, making this activity also a violation of the German constitution which permits the use of military force only for the defense of Germany within its territory.
We thereofore demand:Germany must withdraw its forces from the warfare in Yugoslavia immediately. The government should condemn the NATO activity as a violation of thw law of nations.
In the new NATO statute, which is scheduled to be passed in this month (April 1999), assaults without a mandate by the United Nations, like the air warfare in Yugoslavia, shall be provided as a regular instrument, to be used by the NATO countries for enforcing their political and economic interests around the whole world. The plans for passing this statute must be cancelled, and the underlying doctrine must be revised fundamentally and critically, before assaults like in Yugoslavia are committed elsewhere and endanger peace worldwide.