councilor.org
| Source | Doug Vaughan |
| Date | 99/05/27/11:46 |
| The proposed resolution (see below) is a muddled hash of misdirected enthusiasms and hidden sympathies, some of which I share and so propose we clarify and debate: 1. The resolution must, in its body, establish a basis in fact for the claim that NATO has "targeted journalists." This should be done by using their own words (Gen. Clark or Jamie Shea explaining policy of targeting, e.g., state-run TV Srpska, which was bombed at least twice.) NATO's policy is in fact contradictory: They claim never to intentionally target civilians, and to regret the inevitable but minimal "collateral damage" which is justified on a choice of evils theory: Civilian casualties are a necessary but lesser evil in the effort to protect the helpless Kosovars. Or so the argument goes. But what's scary is the subtext lurking in the rhetorical rubble: The justification for the attack on the TV station was that it was housed in a building that also held the headquarters of Milosevic's political party. These are "legitimate" targets (that is, you won't get accused of a war crime for attacking them) only if one accepts the premise that Milosevic is the moral equivalent of Hitler, and his party -- or at least its extreme nationalist wing, the fascist Chetniks it has absorbed since the collapse of Yugoslavia -- are analogous to the Nazis. Then, of course, anything goes. And that's exactly the argument the Serb nationalists (including TVSrpska) use against the KLA, denounced in Serbian propaganda as pro-German terrorists. The latter proposition at least has some factual validity, as the European Union's own anti-drug agency suggests. But it hardly justifies attacks on civilians. In short, the Nuremberg principle has been stood on its ear by NATO, on its head by Serbia. NATO's post-debacle "after action" excuse for hitting Serb TV, casualties be damned, portrayed the employees as something akin to Goebels: They apologized for ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, hence, they got what they deserved. NATO's policy is guilt (or at least punishment) by association -- much like Goebbels'. It rests on the notion that journalists who are citizens of other states are enemy propagandists and ideological partisans in support of their own government's evil policy. This may be true in fact in a given particular case (say, US television commentators or big-paper reporters on the invasion of Panama, or the Gulf War), but who's to judge? The rules of war, weak and unenforceable as they are, evolved precisley to take such decisions out of the hands of the soldiers and their commanders. NATO's line is unacceptable as an exception to the rule against inflicting harm against non-combatants because it would invite reciprocal targeting of journalists on any "side" of a conflict on the basis of the perception of any other side. Rules of war were invented to mitigate the generalized barbarism of the generals and their political commanders-in-chief. Its very survival threatened by total war, the species has painfully evolved the self-protective mechanism of piecemeal pacifism, to the point of outlawing wars of aggression, torture and killing of prisoners, and targeting of civilians. So, additionally, reference should be made to the appropriate articles of the various conventions to which the US is a signatory, even though it has waged war, without declaring it so, in yet another cowardly evasion of its own supposed constitutional requirements. 2. Who are these "various parties"? If this is not merely an offhand pretense at even-handedness, the parties should be specified, as should their "atrocities and other crimes" -- such as...? The Serbian regime has also "targeted" journalists -- for harassment, beatings, expulsions -- on the grounds of providing aid and comfort to the foreign aggressors, but in contravention of Yugoslav and international law. Do we condemn this? What about Croatian persecution of journalists? Or do we dodge this with vagueries to avoid controversy? 3. The clarity of the resolution is further compromised by references to "sovereignty" and "surrounding sovereign republics" (elsewhere rendered as "other sovereign nations" [sic])-- without suggesting why this concept is significant to the argument against killing reporters or other non-combatants. The presumed rationale is the international legal precept which bars states (not "nations") from intervening in the internal affairs of other states whose sovereignty over particular territory is mutually and reciprocally recognized; e.g., Serbian control of Kosovo. The principle of non-intervention was designed to protect the weaker states from the stronger, but it has gradually come to be conditioned on the right of self-determination and the duty of all states to protect the rights universally guaranteed to all persons. NATO acknowledges Serbian/Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo, but claims a right of humanitarian intervention to protect the rights of Albanian Kosovars to self-determination and freedom from persecution from Serbian authorities, who claim only to be exercizing legitimate sovereign authority to protect their national territory from secession instigated from abroad. I regard the former claim as a specious and casuistical justification for an illegal war, the latter as an excuse for the oppression that triggered Kosovar separatism. But the case has to be made. This is a political and historical question which should be faced squarely, not begged. It is a quite different argument to say that, however (ig)noble the declared ends (saving the Kosovars, restoring them to their homes), NATO's means are inappropriate and murderously counter-productive. I believe we should call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, a halt to the bombing, a UN peacekeeping force (hence Russian and Chinese cooperation) to enforce the cease-fire and return of Kosovars to their homes (and right of Serbs to theirs in Croatia, and vice versa), and UN supervised plebescite for Kosovo. 4. Which brings us to the roots of the conflict: The "surrounding sovereign republics" and how they got that way. Presumably, these are Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and Montenegro (an "autonomous" republic with Serbia in "sovereign" Yugoslavia). The other "sovereign republics" were carved from multinational Yugoslavia over the past decade by a combination of imperial (US-German-UK) intervention and nationalist aspiration -- Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Macedonia. (For the moment, I resist the invitation to compare US actions in the civil wars of say, Spain, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Central America, Angola, Mozambique, Congo 1960 vs. 1997,Timor, Kurdistan, etc. Merely to list the names is to wallow in the hypocricies -- itself a strong argument that no good can come of the good intentions our government claims for itself.) NATO policy rests on the implicit and ultimately racist assumption that these nationalities cannot and will not live peacably together -- especially in a nominally socialist state -- and must be separated into smaller ethnically discrete states. For over a century, this strategy has required "cleansing" each territory of other ethnic groups by the locally dominant nationality which takes on an increasingly fascist cast in the name of its own rights and proclaims sovereignty at the expense of others. The ancient Romans and the modern British called this "divide-and-rule" but every empire has practiced it: In the Balkans, that means the Ottoman Turks who favored the converted Muslims over the Orthodox, the Germans who backed the genocidal Croatian Catholic Ustashi, the Russian succor to the little brother Serbs, the British playing each against all for oil interests, and now the neo-liberal triumphalists of NATO, led by the US, in quest of a pliant Greater Albania. Needless to say, this has no historical basis beyond the ignominious record of outsiders instigating such intramural wrangling; it is at best a self-fulfilling prophecy. It should come as no surprise that this assumption conveniently favors penetration and control of their economies by the transnational banks and industrial companies headquartered in the big powers. 5. The clause stating we take no sides is an escape from facing these difficult issues, which demand a principled response. A simpler, more forthright formulation would condemn NATO's intervention, which violates the UN Charter, condemn the predictible consequences, which include the inevitable casualties among non-combatants, including journalists, in violation of international law. We should also condemn the Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovars, including journalists. And we should condemn the atrocities committed by Albanian separatists against the minority Serbs within Kosovo. Human rights for humans, not just some journalists. Interested NWU members might take a look at Jim Naureckas's piece in the May-June issue of Extra! (www.fair.org); Noam Chomsky's analysis in Z Magazine; the Committee to Protect Journalists is also debating a response. _________________________________________________ Resolution______: Human Rights for Journalists WHEREAS journalists have been targeted for attack during the war in Serbia and in the surrounding sovereign republics of the former Yugoslavia; and WHEREAS the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other parties have publicly stated that journalists and news organizations are legitimate targets in warfare; and WHEREAS Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees journalists and other citizens "the right to freedom of opinion and expression," which includes the freedom "to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers;" BE IT RESOLVED THAT: 1. The National Writers Union condemns the position of NATO and all other parties who suggest that journalists are legitimate targets in warfare. 2. The National Writers Union condemns the atrocities and other crimes that have been committed against journalists and other citizens by various parties during the conflict in greater Yugoslavia. 3. Taking no side in the civil war in Serbia or in other sovereign nations, the National Writers Union supports the human rights of journalists |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho