Kosovo shows danger of
over-reliance on
military solution
The recognition of Kosovo’s independence by many countries stems from the existence of other important principles of international law besides sovereignty, including those of self-determination, humanitarian intervention and the pragmatic one of ensuring stability in the region, Jehan Perera writes from Colombo
Sri Lanka was back in the international headlines throughout the world. This was mainly on account of the Sri Lankan government’s eloquent denunciation of the unilateral declaration of independence by the breakaway state of Kosovo. The government said it could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations and the established global order of sovereign states and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security.
The factor that has caused anxiety in many countries affected by separatist conflicts is that UN assurances of state sovereignty notwithstanding, the precedent has been set in which a unilateral declaration of independence can attract support from powerful countries that make it a fait accompli. In the case of Kosovo, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 placed Kosovo under the authority of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, with security provided by the NATO-led Kosovo Force, and legally reaffirmed Serbia’s sovereignty over the region.
Sri Lanka’s objections to Kosovo’s decision to claim independence from Serbia have been echoed by several other countries, including global giants Russia and China. One reason why Sri Lanka’s opinion was put on terms of equality with those of the global giants was the sense of reality on which the Sri Lankan statement was grounded. The Sri Lankan statement came from a bitter experience of prolonged warfare and international intervention, and not from mere theoretical possibilities.
Sri Lanka has already experienced a unilateral declaration of independence. In 1992, the North-East Provincial Council, headed by Varatharaja Perumal, declared independence. But no country took notice of this declaration as the Sri Lankan government dissolved the rebellious administration. On the other hand, about a month ago, the LTTE called on the UN and the international community to recognise the sovereignty of the Tamil nation. Although no such recognition was forthcoming, with a part of Sri Lankan territory still under rebel LTTE control, Sri Lanka is more vulnerable to a unilateral declaration of independence than most other countries.
Countries such as Russia and China, and also Spain and Indonesia, which joined the minority of countries that have objected to Kosovo’s declaration of independence, also face separatist problems. Spain is acutely sensitive to the demands of Basque and Catalan nationalists for a separate state. Cyprus is alarmed at any move that could imply that the breakaway Turkish Cypriot part of the island, which is not internationally recognised, could win diplomatic legitimacy. Chechan rebels in Russia, on the other hand, welcomed the declaration of independence by Kosovo and held out the hope of the same for themselves.
Oppressive solutions
The violence inflicted on the rebel populations within some of those countries has been worse than in Sri Lanka. The Russian campaign against separatism by Chechnya led to the literal flattening of its capital, Grozny. In China, the Tibetan problem continues to fester, with Lhasa being settled by ethnic Chinese, and the Dalai Lama remaining a symbol of resistance to the world. In both these countries, the central government has imposed its will without any compromise with the aspirations for autonomy of its separatist minorities.
Despite its relatively better track record of observing human rights and respecting minorities in general, Sri Lanka remains more vulnerable to a possible break-up of the country than either Russia or China. Apart from the fact that the LTTE continues to be in control over a part of the country, another reason is that Sri Lanka is a relatively small and poor country with much less resources to fend off a separatist challenge to its sovereignty. By way of contrast, both Russia and China have huge militaries and economies that no country would wish to confront.
The lesson from Serbia is that a country that lacks both military and economic clout to put fear into the rest of the world, needs at least to retain international goodwill to escape being divided. Initially, Serbia had the advantage, as the Western countries, led by the United States, were not in favour of Kosovo becoming a separate state. In fact the United States was particularly opposed to the Kosovo Liberation Army which it had even banned as a terrorist organisation. But there were two important considerations the Serbian government failed to bear in mind.
Serbia failed to demonstrate progress with regard to the restoration of autonomy to Kosovo that the far-sighted Yugoslav leader President Tito had formulated, but which was taken away following his death. Constitutional reforms in 1974 that gave education, health and housing to the autonomous regions and provinces had also given Kosovo self-government in many areas of social life including police and the judiciary. The Serbian government under President Milosevic tried to keep Kosovo by centralising political power in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, withdrawing the autonomy it had, and by stationing its military in Kosovo.
Second, during its struggle to keep Kosovo within its sovereign power, Serbia failed to convince the international community that the government was serious about protecting human rights in all circumstances, even in the midst of civil war. Instead there were repeated demonstrations of civilian massacres and ethnic cleansing. The war that the Serbian government declared against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army turned into a nationalist campaign to chase off entire village communities and change the ethnic balance in parts of Kosovo.
Retaining support
At the present time the Sri Lankan government is giving its primary emphasis on using its military power to defeat the LTTE and to re-taking the territory under rebel control. The advance has been slower than anticipated and at heavy human and economic cost. Abductions and killings have terrorised the Tamil community. There has also been large-scale displacement of people in the course of military operations. The premature departure of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons who came to Sri Lanka to ensure that the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Human Rights Violations would conduct their inquiry in accordance with international standards is a further blow to the government’s human rights record.
The lesson from Serbia however is that gaining control over the ground is no guarantee of sovereignty. The more powerful Serbian army was able to go into Kosovo and retake territory, but when the cry of human rights abuses grew too much, the Western powers intervened to halt the progress of the Serb forces and eventually expelled them from Kosovo.
The recognition of Kosovo’s independence by many countries stems from the existence of other important principles of international law besides sovereignty, including those of self-determination, humanitarian intervention and the pragmatic one of ensuring stability in the region. This is the reason why the protection of human rights and the proposal of a just political solution need to be the two key elements in the government’s strategy to protect the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, rather than a one-dimensional assertion of sovereignty and reliance on military victory over the LTTE.
As stated by constitutional scholar Rohan Edrisinha in a recent interview with the Daily Mirror, ‘when a constitutional democracy has to combat terrorism or internal rebellion it has to do so subjected to certain civilised norms and restraints that have been placed on themselves by the virtue that they are an accountable, responsible state. It is not in line to say that we can resort to any mechanism to protect our territorial integrity. You have to even prosecute a war in accordance with certain basic humanitarian norms.’ If the government gets involved in a military option which results in ethnic cleansing or changing of the demographic balance, and if this is coupled with an absence of any serious attempt at a political solution then there is a danger that Sri Lanka could lose the moral goodwill that is needed to retain the support of the international community.
In this context it is worth noting that the Sri Lankan government statement on Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence also included the observation that it was ‘particularly regrettable, since all efforts at reaching a negotiated political settlement on the future status of Kosovo, as envisaged by the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, have not been exhausted.’ In making this statement the government showed the path that needs to be followed if the international community’s support for Sri Lanka’s unity is to be assured. The theory must now be practised.
Jehan Perera is media director of the National Peace Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He can be reached at: jehanpc@sltnet.lk
The US and the new regime in Islamabad
by Fazle Rashid
Pervez Musharraf, smarting under the pains of an electoral debacle, still remains the darling of the White House and the Pentagon. This is borne out by the fact that President Bush visiting Africa called Pervez Musharraf to repose his trust and confidence on him. Pakistan occupies, for understandable reasons, a significant place in US foreign policy.
This strategy may not change under a Democratic party presidency though two party front runners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have promised to change the US stand vis-à-vis the war on terror and Pakistan. The presence of senior Democratic party leaders in Islamabad on the election day point to that. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, and John Kerry Democratic party presidential candidate in 2004 were both present in Islamabad and had a meeting with Pervez Musharraf.
Washington was in a great dilemma. It wanted a clean and honest election and at the same time wanted to see Pervez Musharraf firmly saddled in power. The election has received a clean chit from international observers though they roundly upbraided the long duration of the emergency rule, a point which ruling elites in Bangladesh would do well to note.
Parvez Musharraf is not in immediate danger of losing his office, though the victorious parties, the PPP and PML (Nawaz Shareef) want him to step down. Muslim League and PPP do not have the requisite two-thirds majority in the parliament to impeach him.
Washington is particularly worried about a possible curtailment of the facilities it is receiving for its war on Taleban and al-Qaeda. The US is worried about Nawaz Shareef who stubbornly refused to bow down to the pleadings of Bill Clinton to abandon Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Pakistan detonated nuclear bombs during the prime ministership of Nawaz Shareef, when Bill Clinton was the US president.
The military arrangements US entered with Pakistan allowed America to deploy Predator surveillance aircraft to attack Taleban and al-Qaeda strongholds from undisclosed bases in Pakistan, the New York Times reported on Feb 22 this year. But the prospects of changes in Pakistan has the Bush administration worried that the new operations could be curtailed, NYT said. The US officials fear that the new arrangement could be choked in its infancy.
Instead of having to confirm the identity of a suspected military leader before attacking allowed American operators to strike convoys that bear the characteristics of al-Qaeda and Taleban leaders on the run so long the risk of civilian casualty is judged to be low. There was a CIA base in Pakistan which was kept a close guarded secret so it does not
cause political embarrassment for Musharraf. The Bush administration, during its last year in office, will make a last ditch effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden before Bush leaves office. The State Department fears that the administration’s full scale backing of Musharraf is a wrong headed strategy that could now blow up. The new government in Pakistan may reach a truce with the militants allowing the new government a breathing space. The victorious parties in Pakistan contend that the new government will be more effective in countering militancy than the military-dominated government of Pervez Musharraf. Some senior American officials sounded more optimistic saying the cooperation between US and Pakistan in the medium and long term will be more closer than before. The assistant secretary of state for South Asia Richard Boucher said the Bush administration would work with whatever government Pakistanis
formed. He said the US was looking forward to working closely with the new Prime Minister and President Parvez Musharraf. The new leaders are regarded with some skepticism in Washington.
Nawaz Shareef and Zardari have agreed on a common agenda and are working together to form a government. The new government is likely to scrap many unpopular decisions the Musharraf government took. Nawaz Shareef wants the reinstatement of the dismissed judges. Asif Zardari’s visit to the US embassy for a meeting with the American ambassador came under sharp criticism from the media. The protocol demanded the US envoy calling on Zardari. Lawyers in Pakistan took umbrage of the fact that President Bush being reluctant to recognise that Pakistan has spoken loud and clear against Musharraf. ‘The guy (Musharraf) is history, please don’t prop him up,’ Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer who led the anti-Musharraf movement has told the press.
Election madness
Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens, writes Howard Zinn
There’s a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I’ve never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held –– security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure ‘life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness’ for working people.
Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: ‘Well, I’m writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can’t tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now.’
On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline ‘Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in ‘07.’ The subhead was ‘7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the ‘06 rate.’
A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.
Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What’s not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.
This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the presidential contest has mesmerised liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticised the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvellous democratic political system won’t allow them in.
No, I’m not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes –– the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organising our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighbourhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
Let’s remember that even when there is a ‘better’ candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal-Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidised housing ––were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army ––thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
In 1934, early in the Roosevelt presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organisations with hundreds of thousands of members.
Without a national crisis –– economic destitution and rebellion –– it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.
Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off centre. The two leading presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.
They offer no radical change from the status quo.
They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.
They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.
None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.
So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.
Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes –– they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organised and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.
Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
The Progressive/US, February 24, 2008. Professor Howard Zinn is the author of ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ ‘Voices of a People’s History’ (with Anthony Arnove), and most recently, ‘A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.’
Seven wonders of nature
The Cox’s Bazar sea beach and the mangrove forest of Sundarban are truly wonders of nature, but due to greedy over-exploitation of man these are now threatened.
AA
On e-mail
Who is the loser?
I wonder what we gained by stopping Sloan from meeting the journos. The long story you got by this government’s action would have been replaced by a much shorter version carrying the criticisms that Sloan might have made and which we hear everyday.
Haq
On e-mail
Slogans to uproot corruption!
This is about your news item on the ACC chief’s whirlwind tour across the country promoting awareness against corrupt people and corruption.
Sheikh Mujib is on record having said that it is not the poor cultivators or the day labourers, but it is the educated class (the so-called) who are the culprits and corrupt. It couldn’t be more true.
It is the government officials at all levels who have the power to harm the ordinary people and harass them for bribes and undue kickbacks, in cash or kind. It would do better if the ACC chief chose to address the government officials and their greedy wives to live a clean life instead of raising slogans in mosques, madrassahs and colleges.
Lecturing around does very little, action does.
Habib Khondkar
Shantinagar, Dhaka
Pakistan election
Defeat of Musharraf is actually the result of anti-American vote by people of Pakistan. It seems that the Pakistanis would rather have a corrupt democratic government that will turn a blind eye on growing fundamentalism and terror camps rather than have a dictator who is willing to rid the country of terror menace.
Shahana Rahman
On e-mail
* * *
These elections will not bring any positive change in Pakistan. I couldn’t understand yet how Pakistani people can put their trust again on these two corrupted parties?
Zubair
Dhaka
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Next on Quick Comments
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a. Emergency has to go for polls, says CEC (New Age, February 25)
b. Sloan as tourist can’t address press: govt (New Age, February 25)
c. Indo-Bangla train service to resume after 43 years (New Age, February 25)
d. Dept likely to deal with price monitoring, says adviser (New Age, February 25)
e. CNG price may go up to Tk 15 by March, gas price will also increase (New Age, February 25)
f. Govt inaction heightens recruitment crisis in Saudi Arabia (New Age, February 25)
g. Revised policy suggests one-third parliamentary seats for women (New Age, February 25)
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