They never learn
The city lay in ruins. Hardly a building had escaped damage, most of them were totally destroyed. Low-flying fighter jets could still be seen swooping low, dropping their deadly cargoes on a city that had virtually been bombed off the map.
In the surrounding countryside armoured divisions kept up their relentless pressure on the handful of freedom-fighters still holding out. Refugees filled the roads, telling stories of brutality at the hands of government soldiers. Thousands of miles away in Northern European capitals and in the United States, diplomats and politicians called for restraint. They urged a negotiated settlement to a conflict that had cost thousands of lives.
The two sides were instransigent. The rebels only wanted to discuss full independence, the government side were only willing to offer wider autonomy. The international community looked on - impotent to act in what was essentially a domestic affair of a sovereign state. The city?: Grozny. The place?: Chechnya. The penalty paid by Moscow for its overreaction to a people asking only that they be allowed to govern themselves?: Received jillions of dollars in aid and membership of the G-7.
What message does this send to people like Slobodan Milosevic? Well, if you want to be taken seriously by the international community, stop fooling around by using small arms and field artillery to kill a few hundred rebels and civilians; bomb them to the pre-industrial era and reduce Pristina to a heap of smoking rubble. The international community has a record of reacting positively to leaders who demonstrate a total lack of regard for human life - the human life of others, that is. If those lives belong to an almost defenseless, civilian ethnic minority, so much the better.
Kill one person and you are considered a murderer and will be justly reviled. Kill several, and you may be described as a serial-killer and HBO will make a television movie about you. Kill thousands - and IMF/World Bank officials will doubtless call you 'Mr President' and beat a path to your door. But only if you are presiding over a country that has strategic geo-political significance to the Western leaders who hold the purse strings of the IMF/WB. Having oil, nuclear weapons or a cash-crop attractive to Western markets that you can sell to finance interest payments on IMF/WB loans is another distinct advantage to aspiring despots and dictators.
Throughout the week I have watched with growing concern the warlike rhetoric coming out of NATO headquarters in Brussels. While they have said they will strike at both sides in an effort to halt the violence in Kosovo, we know full well that they really mean 'Serb' exclusively. It was the same way in Bosnia. The message this sends to people who may be an ethnic minority in their country, but a majority in the region in which they live is quite frightening. It tells them that it is okay to take up arms and rebel.
NATO defense ministers repeated that a military option was essential to back diplomacy to force Milosevic to the negotiating table. I've mentioned this before, but Belgrade sent negotiating teams to Pristina on several occasions only to find themselves sitting at a table - alone. The rebels only want to talk about independence - Belgrade is only offering wider autonomy. When I say 'only' it is not meant to diminish the offer being made by Belgrade. For the autocratic, fiercely nationalist Milosevic, that is quite an offer and should not be underestimated.
I remember a former US ambassador to pre-Bosnia Belgrade once saying that while he simply could not trust a word uttered by Croatia's Franjo Tudjman or Bosnia's Alija Izetbegovic, Milosevic usually came through on what he promised - so his promises should be taken seriously. They never were and Yugoslavia fell apart with the most appalling bloodshed.
I wonder what will happen if the Kosovo Albanians are successful in their quest for independence? Will their neighbours in Macedonia want the same thing? Whoa, how about a 'Greater Albania'? Macedonian Albanians enjoy a fair amount of civil rights under the Macedonian constitution, but ethnic Albanian political parties are clamouring for more. On one level they will be delighted if Kovoso Albanians win their independence from Belgrade - on another level they will be jealous as hell.
NATO leaders say they are determined to prevent another Bosnia. So far, they have failed to convince me they learned anything from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the worst blood-bath on the European continent since the Second World War.
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