May 17 - 23, 1999
Greetings from Global Policy Forum,
As several of our new postings highlight, the Kosovo war has a huge economic aspect. The journal "Jane's Defense Weekly" estimates that NATO nations are spending $65 million each day. A New York Times article discusses the war's impact on the Pentagon budget and Jim Hightower's piece "Corporations and Kosovo" exposes the corporate stake in the war.
Although the bombing of the Chinese embassy received extensive coverage, most of the US media have ignored the more recent and widespread "collateral damage" to diplomatic quarters in Belgrade. On Wednesday, May 19, NATO bombs damaged the Swedish embassy, in spite of a warning by Sweden just a few days earlier that NATO maps should be updated to avoid this site. Sweden's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister lodged strong protests with NATO, calling the event "absolutely unacceptable" and insisting on further clarification. Then, the following evening (Thursday, May 20) Swedish Ambassador Mats Staffansson was attending a reception at the Swiss embassy when it, too, was hit. "We were just sitting down to dessert," he reported, "when a huge explosion smashed the big window of the dining room. The Slovakian Ambassador, the Papal Nuncio and I threw ourselves immediately under the table to escape the flying glass." The unlucky diplomat survived this double shock, as did his counterparts. But they were outraged. During these sorties and others, NATO bombers damaged a number of other diplomatic sites, including those of Spain, Iraq, Norway, Hungary, Israel, Pakistan and India.
While the UK government called this week for a ground campaign and intensified war, other countries in Europe are backing away from NATO's Kosovo campaign. Events of the week were striking: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated in a BBC interview that Germany would be absolutely opposed to the use of ground troops, while the Italian Parliament passed a resolution calling for an immediate end to the NATO bombing.
Secretary General Kofi Annan gave a speech to the Hague Appeal for Peace that went a step further in his criticism of the United States for taking military action without the Security Council's endorsement. He balanced his remarks by taking to task China and Russia for having ignored the ethnic cleansing. Annan warned: "Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy."
Annan also made note of Rwanda, saying the "Council's unity and inaction in the face of genocide" in Rwanda was flawed, as was its "division, and regional action" in Kosovo. Both times, he said, UN members "should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the Charter, and find unity in defense of our common humanity." Annan also criticized "the flouting of international sanctions imposed by the Security Council by individual Member States, and even regional organizations."
GPF's Security Council work was in high gear this week, as the NGO Working Group on the Security Council had meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov on May 17 and with Argentine Ambassador Fernando Petrella on May 21. On Friday, we sadly bid farewell to intern Holger Osterrieder of the University of Bamberg who has done outstanding work on GPF's Security Council program for the past two months. Holger has had a key role in recent improvements to our web site and has also done wonders in the technical upgrading of our computer network. We will miss him.
