EXPLAINER: Putin’s Balkan narrative argument for Ukraine war

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

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FILE - A woman walks in front of the destroyed former Serbian army headquarters in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 24, 2010. Well before Russian tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was using the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ostensibly offer justification for the invasion of a sovereign European country. The Russian president has been particularly focused on NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999 and the West’s acceptance of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. He claims both created an illegal precedent that shattered international law and order, apparently giving him an excuse to invade Ukraine. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)


BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Well before Russian tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was using the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ostensibly offer justification for the invasion of a sovereign European country.

The Russian president has been particularly focused on NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999 and the West’s acceptance of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. He claims both created an illegal precedent that shattered international law and order, apparently giving him an excuse to invade Ukraine.

Putin’s arguments, repeated several times since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, appear to follow this line: If different ex-Yugoslav republics and the former Serbian province of Kosovo could become independent with Western backing and wars, why can’t Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea peninsula and the rebel-controlled, majority Russian areas in the east of the country split from their mother nations — with Russian help?

With strong U.S. support, ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo seceded over Serbia’s strong objections. Russia, a historic ally of the Serbs, argued then that this set a precedent that could trigger a series of statehood claims elsewhere in the world.

In July 2010, U.N.’s highest court ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was legal but did not outright endorse Kosovo’s claim to statehood.

There are many differences between the Russian attack on Ukraine, seen in the West as one of the darkest moments for Europe since World War II, and the wars in the Balkans that left more than 120,000 people dead and millions homeless. There are also some similarities.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN DIFFERENCES?

NATO didn’t occupy Kosovo after driving Serbian forces out of the former Serbian province, but sent in peacekeepers. Russian troops, meanwhile, took control of Crimea even before its referendum to join Russia was held.

NATO intervened in Kosovo only after significant evidence of Serbian abuses against ethnic Albanians, including mass killings and deportations. Russian forces intervened in Ukraine with no major abuses or violence reported against ethnic Russians.

Kosovars declared independence but did not join their ethnic brethren in neighboring Albania in a single state. Crimea, which has a majority Russian population, signed a deal to join Russia two days after the referendum which was deemed flawed and undemocratic by the West.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN SIMILARITIES?

Both interventions started with false claims that ethnic minorities are being persecuted in neighboring countries. The Serb-led military unleashed a heavy barrage of artillery against towns and villages in Croatia in 1991, something similar to the initial attacks by Russian forces against Ukraine.

Just as Croats, Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians feared Serbian repression during the autocratic rule of late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, ethnic Russians feared Ukrainian nationalists.

WHAT DID PUTIN SAY?

“(German Chancellor Olaf Scholz) has just said that the people of his generation — and I certainly belong to that generation myself — find it difficult to imagine some war in Europe,” Putin said following talks with Scholz in Moscow on Nov. 15.

“But all of us were witnesses to the war in Europe that NATO unleashed against Yugoslavia,” Putin said. He recalled that it was a major military operation involving bombing strikes against a European capital, Belgrade.

“It did happen. Without any sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. It is a very sad example, but it is a hard fact,” Putin said.

He has argued that by intervening in Kosovo, the West created a precedent with longstanding consequences.

WHAT IS THE WEST’S TAKE ON THAT?

At the press conference with Putin, Scholz hit back at the Russian president’s arguments over NATO’s actions in Kosovo, saying this was done to prevent genocide, referring to the persecution of Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces.

Western leaders have repeatedly rejected Putin’s arguments, saying Kosovo was a unique case due to the large number of victims during the Balkan wars amid the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had insisted that Putin’s analogies between the West’s actions in Kosovo and Russia’s intervention in Crimea are “shameful.”

WHAT COULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES?

There are fears that the pro-Russian Serbian leadership could try to use the international attention focused on Ukraine to further destabilize its neighbors, particularly Bosnia where minority Serbs have been threatening to join Serbia.

European Union peacekeepers in Bosnia have announced the deployment of some 500 additional troops, citing “the deterioration of the security internationally (which) has the potential to spread instability” to the region.

Kosovo’s leadership fears Serbia could be encouraged by Russia to try to intervene in its former province to stop the alleged harassment of minority Serbs. Kosovo has asked NATO for a fast track to membership in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, something neither Serbia nor Russia would likely accept peacefully.

Kosovo officials have rejected Putin’s parallels between the NATO intervention in Kosovo and his invasion of Ukraine as “totally baseless and ridiculous.”

___

AP Balkan correspondent Dusan Stojanovic covered the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s and events in Ukraine in 2014.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KOSOVO

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Thesis on The Kosovo Crisis and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
(originally written May 1999, Bill Clinton set the stage for George W. to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for humanitarian purposes.)
http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/war-whats-it-good-for-profit.html

War Is Peace-keeping

To misquote Orwell.

When is WAR not WAR?

When it is part of a convoluted argument by Progressives For War, (PFW) in order to justify their mistaken allegiance to the Canadian State and its military actions. In this case in both Afghanistan and Haiti. These are NOT WAR's according to the PFW.

This is the argument posed by Skippy the Amazing Wonderdog, and cross posted at the Torch . Skippy sez, and pardon me while I quote him extensively in order to address his argument;

This is not really the case in Afghanistan. The enemy Canadian soldiers face -- or do not face, in fact -- is not organized in any military sense, does not occupy terrain, and cannot be defeated through firepower alone. Calling this a "war" is an attempt to manipulate perception by emphasizing combat operations.

The Taliban certainly are an organized military as they were also the Government and State of Afghanistan and as such can be considered the Government in exile. There are also Warlords, gee that title might hint at their involvement with 'war', who rule a variety of provinces. There is Al-Qaida which was an army in Afghanistan, and of course there are various armed tribal groups spread through out the Tribal districts between the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. All of these are organized Mujahadin armies. Even if they use Guerrilla tactics.

Does it matter what we call it? Yes, it matters a great deal, at least as far as public opinion is concerned. Canadians seem happy to support "peacekeeping," but they aren't so keen on seeing Canadian troops deployed in a "combat role." But what does that really mean?

Peacekeeping which is currently being trashed by the Right and the PFW,is also being dismissed as an outmoded idea by the Conservative government and its spokespersons. Peacekeeping by definition is:

• Deploy to prevent the outbreak of conflict or the spill-over of conflict across borders;
• Stabilize conflict situations after a cease fire, to create an environment for the parties to reach a lasting peace agreement;
• Assist in implementing comprehensive peace agreements;
• Lead states or territories through a transition to stable government, based on democratic principles, good governance and economic development.

What we are not doing in Kandahar is peacekeeping. We are in combat to pacify the province of Kandahar and its surrounding region in order to create the conditions for peacekeeping.

There was plenty of support for a "combat role" in the Balkans, where one side of the civil war had been demonized.

True, especially when the war against Serbia was declared the first Humanitarian War by Clinton. However there were many of us opposed to that war, including some who now support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jingoism and nationalism in this case was replaced with bleeding heart liberalism, the poor suffering Albanians in Kosovo vs. the nasty demonic Serbs. However as that war was conducted and Serb civilians were targeted, the humanitarian gave way to the usual conduct of war. And suddenly it was clear that this was an Imperialist War as all wars are.

Nobody seemed to notice at first that our operation in Somalia was not "peacekeeping," and Canadians initially supported that ill-fated deployment. There would have been little objection to sending troops into Rwanda to stop the genocide by force.

In fact Somalia was a peace keeping mission from the beginning . The failure which led to scandal and national shame, a national inquiry found that the mission was ill conceived from the begining, was that Canadian military leadership failed to define it as a Peacekeeping mission rather than a combat mission. Canadians were led to believe that Somalia was a peacekeeping mission, but with the American involvement it quickly degenerated into another oil war, with the consequences of being a failure for the UN and a disaster for Canadian Forces.

Rwanda on the other had was the result of Imperialist disdain and interference. In this case the interference of France and Belgium, the former colonial masters in that region of Africa, it was their refusal to allow the UN in, and their support of the Hutu subaltern leadership that led to the disaster. The failure of American Imperialism in Somalia, their first defeat in battle since Viet Nam, led them to abandon Rwanda.

There would be, on the other hand, a strong objection to deploying Canadian troops in a "combat role" to overthrow a government -- in other words, to "war" as we usually understand it

Really then what was the coup that Canada supported militarily in Haiti two years ago? Canada led the joint American, French, UN troops in a combat operation to overthrow a duly elected government? And we are still there. Despite the most recent election. These are combat operations, war by any other name.

And in Haiti's case we led those operations, because of Quebec's close relationship with Haiti. In fact as I have written here, it is because both Canada and Quebec view Haiti as our 'neo-colony'. See Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story


So let's ask an expert on War, Carl Phillip Gottfriedvon Clausewitz as to his definition of it;

War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.

Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and Science in order to contend against violence. Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power. Violence, that is to say physical force (for there is no moral force without the conception of states and law), is therefore the means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed; and this is, correctly speaking, the real aim of hostilities in theory. It takes the place of the final object, and puts it aside in a manner as something not properly belonging to war.

So yes folks this is a war we are in. And yes we should be opposed to this war.

Those PFW who say this is not war are merely deluding themselves, or like Skippy the Wonderdog barking at the moon.



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Clausewitz, Canada, Harper, War, military, government, troops, CF, Afghanistan, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Orwell, anti-war

Lou Coatney: Russia now left with no choice but nuclear war


Lou Coatney
Tue, May 3, 2022
The Register-Mail



I was a junior in Rock Island Senior High during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when we almost did have a nuclear war with Russia then, but this is infinitely worse, with weapons far more powerful and instantaneous and computerized retaliation systems like Russia’s Dead Hand.

In Juneau in the '80s, I strongly defended national defense and nuclear deterrence when we were on the defensive, but we have since become the aggressor. In 1992, I was at Gorbachev’s end of the Cold War speech at Westminster College in Missouri, and we were all so happy the fear was OVER, and we could welcome the Russians as the friends they wanted to be.

Instead, our “liberal/humanitarian interventionists” and “neoconservatives” — the revolution, coup-, and war-spreading opposite of conservative who are utopians like their older members were once openly Trotskyists — have since wrecked everything: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine/Russia.

Ukraine war: 'It's heartbreaking': Former Galesburg resident reflects on invasion of her native Ukraine

In 1999 we broke our promise — documented — not to push NATO east, when we added Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Russia-hating Poland. Then, we forced our Kosovo bombing war on the Serbs with Rambouillet Appendix B which made betrayed and enraged Russian democrat Boris Yeltsin turn Russia back over to its national security community: Putin.

See George Shultz’s Dec. 11, 2020, Washington Post column about the Russians’ trust we had and threw away.

In 2014 we broke our Budapest peace agreement with the Russians with our Kyiv coup — not a “revolution” for four obvious, objective reasons — threatening them at their throats with NATO which became an aggressor with Kosovo and then Libya — no longer a legitimate defensive alliance.

In 2016 was a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — World War 3 then. In the final 2020 debate, Kristen Welker wouldn’t ask Biden the most dangerous question and issue: whether he would push for adding Ukraine to NATO as he has long wanted.

By Nuremberg starting/causing a war is the worst war crime of all, begetting all the war crimes which follow. And Biden and Blinken stubbornly and decisively opposing the Russians getting the security treaty they need (and we owe them after our broken promises/agreements) caused this war, making them at least as responsible for any war crimes which have happened.

Zelensky himself specifically triggered the war when — pumped up by the Europeans at Munich — he indicated Ukraine would be open to getting nuclear weapons. The next day, the Russia invaded.

It was always known the Russians could not win a conventional war with us/NATO which this now is. Just as we left them with no choice but war, they are now left with no choice but nuclear war.

The Russians have real civil defense and some chance of survival. We do not, except for our war-eager elites, of course.

Ukraine opinion: Roundtable: What U.S. actions in Ukraine would you support?

Parents and grandparents should be strongly telling Congress that we do not want nuclear war and that it/they should instead be pushing Ukraine to sign a treaty to end this Ukraine War, before it becomes the nuclear holocaust my generation has always lived in dread of.

I cannot believe this is happening, and I deeply fear for my children and grandchildren.

Lou Coatney was born in Galesburg and grew up in Rock Island. He was a volunteer U.S. Army draftee in NATO in West Germany. His WIU thesis about the 1940 Katyn Massacre (and others) as a Cold War issue can be read on ibiblio. He is a retired Carl Sandburg College librarian over in Norway for his two younger Norwegian-American children.

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Ukraine invasion: Russia now left with no choice but nuclear war

War! What's it Good For? Profit

IRAQ
THIS WAR IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION
Ok enough of this crap, about contractors. Lets call a spade a spade, these so called contractors are hired guns; mercenaries attached to the US military. So why isn't the media calling them that? Cause the news would read different. Lets take Fallujah for instance if you heard or read or watched a news broadcast that said four heavily armed mercenaries were ambushed and killed by residents of Fallujah, well that would have a different spin than calling them contractors.
Contractors imply some guys in coveralls working driving a truck or building something or serving food to someone. It does not imply a guy in military khakis carrying weapons. Mercenaries are hired killers however, and calling them contractors as if they were another truck driver, is clever and disingenuous and the media has played right into this rhetorical slight of hand.
Iraq is Bush and the Republicans first full scale Privatized war. Sure mercenaries have been used in other recent conflicts but not on this scale. Bremers role in Iraq is to privatize all existing state owned industries and civil infrastructure.
The military is being supported by 10,000 mercenaries from companies in the US and UK. The UK is the largest supplier of mercenaries, it has several of the largest companies, made up of former SAS, special ops personnel.
The US has recently seen a boom in private security/mercenary companies all headquartered in Virginia around the CIA and Pentagon. These companies are made up of ex US military personnel and ex CIA.
To say that these folks don't understand the military code they once served is ridiculous. The reality is they are outside the Uniform Code of Justice because the US Congress did NOT declare War in Iraq. However in 2000 the US Congress passed a law that would put these 'civilian' mercenaries under Military oversight, they just haven't applied it.
Mercenaries (Military Contractors sic) are part of the overall effort of the US to contract out all the support services in its operations in Iraq. Troop suppliers are contracted out, field operations contain military personnel supported by contracted out food, medical and material supply personnel. Infrastructure is being built by private contractors such as Bechtel and Halliburton. Much of this is not just oil pipelines, but the schools and hospitals, electrical generating stations, etc.
Sure the US says its building hospitals and schools, but lets look at what they are building, private hospitals and private schools. The ideology of privatization and contracting out, so called free enterprise is behind the destruction and reconstruction of Iraq. Saddam was the excuse. The reasons for the war are many, oil security, Israel’s security, most importantly what Bush and his Republicans bring to Iraq is in the words of Senator Elizabeth Dole: "a free market." So privateers are running the country under the protection of mercenaries and US troops.
What about the workers in Iraq? They are not allowed to organize unions under a 1987 law passed by Saddam. Since the state controlled all enterprises all workers were made government employees under the law.
Bremer has continued to use this law to disallow free collective bargaining in Iraq. Independent unions have arisen and workers have gone on strike only to be told by the Coalition Government and its Finance ministry they have no right to strike or unionize. US military forces have attacked union offices in Baghdad.
There are no union or worker representatives present in the Governing Council nor has the UN made any effort to include the workers and their unions in the new government coming into effect in July.Yet the ILO is part of the UN and has not been called in to review the conditions of the working class in Iraq.
This is reality of the war in Iraq, it is to take over the infrastructure of the country, remove it from state control and sell it off to the highest bidder, which is exactly what Bremer and Company are currently doing. State run industries are being sold off at fire sale prices with no concern for the workers in those industries.
Lets look at where all the billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq are going
Mercenaries cost $100,000 a year
Contracted Truck Drivers (like James Halwell) $1000 a week
Average Iraqi Oil worker- $160 a month
This is the real outrage of Bush's Privatization war.
Until the media ends its complicity with the US government by calling mercenaries "contractors" the people of Canada, the US and the UK will continue to be hoodwinked as badly as the Iraqi prisoners.

Printed online at Indymedia, Resist.ca, Rabble.ca, and excerpted in Alberta Views, September 2004



Don't Call them Contractors
Dear Editor
Lets call a spade a spade, these so called military 'contractors' are hired guns; mercenaries, attached to the US military. So why isn't the media calling them that? Cause the news would read different.
Lets take Fallujah for instance if you heard or read or watched a news broadcast that said four heavily armed mercenaries were ambushed and killed by residents of Fallujah, well that would have a different spin than calling them contractors.
Contractors imply some guy in coveralls working driving a truck or building something or serving food to someone. It does not imply a guy in military kahkis carrying weapons. Mercenaries are hired killers however, and calling them contractors as if they were another truck driver is clever and disingenuous, and the media has played right into this rhetorical slight of hand.
The military is being supported by 10,000 mercenaries from companies in the US and UK. The UK is the largest supplier of mercenaries, it has several of the largest companies, made up of former SAS, special ops personnel.
The US has recently seen a boom in private security/mercenary companies all headquartered in Virginia around the CIA and Pentagon. These companies are made up of ex US military personnel and ex CIA.
To say that these folks don't understand the military code they once served is ridiculous. The reality is they are outside the Uniform Code of Justice because the US Congress did NOT declare War in Iraq. However in 2000 the US Congress passed a law that would put these 'civilian' mercenaries under Military oversite, they just haven't applied it.
Until the media ends its complicity with the US government by calling mercenaries "contractors" the people of Canada, the US and the UK will continue to be hoodwinked as badly as the Iraqi prisoners.


Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Thesis on The Kosovo Crisis and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
(originally written May 1999, Bill Clinton set the stage for George W. to invade Afganistan and Iraq for humanitarian purposes.)

The current undeclared war being conducted by NATO against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians has been seen as a political act. Both left and right wing commentators those in favour of the war and those opposed have posed their arguments in political and humanitarian terms.
The fact that this war is a direct result of the current crisis of global capitalism, has been overlooked if not out right ignored by those debating on either side of the war.
That politics should be divorced from economics as well as their military implications reveals the short comings of current left wing analysis and critique.
One reason is that this war is happening in our time, at this moment in history.
It is hard to stand back and look at the larger picture, when an immediate
response is demanded by the situation.
But this war is just one more low intensity conflict that has occurred since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And in fact more of them will occur as the contradictions of capitalism expand exponentially through the process of global neo-liberalization and the creation of international trading blocs.
A political-economic interpretation of this war is needed to put this moment in its historical context, free of the prejudices of the current power politics at play but by no means ignoring them or their influence.
The current war in Yugoslavia has stabilized the global financial capital market.
The justifications for the war are irrelevant propaganda, the real reason is fourfold:
The launch of the Euro Dollar and the development of the European Union as a perceived threat to American geo-political and military hegemony, and the subsequent need to expand that hegemony in Europe via NATO.
The collapse of the Russian and Asian economies which created a deflationary economic cycle (stagflation).
The increasing exponential boom bust cycle on Wall Street, where the market breaks 10,000 crashes and booms again to 11,000 points all occurring during the war.
The need to destroy excess production in order to stabilize the world market and expand the neo-liberal trade accords and trading blocs, which had been stalled by a mass movement world wide in opposition to those accords. This is a ‘bombing’ war, aimed at the destruction of production capabilities in Yugoslavia weaking it for a Marshall like reconstruction plan via the European Union, and the need for the United States to rid itself of large amounts of costly armaments.
The old adage that when capitalism reaches a crisis it uses war as a way of stabilizing itself should not surprise us at the end of the 20th Century. The fact that capitalism as a global market no longer needs to create ‘World Wars’ but can function with low intensity wars, to do this, is what is new.
Hard on the heals of a year long market depression in Asia, and the complete collapse of the Russian economy in the spring of this year, the world capitalist system now faced a deflationary cycle, mass overproduction and stagflation, economic terms not used since the 1930’s.
The launch of the Eurodollar and the creation of the European Union, added a new trading bloc challenge to American Economic and Political hegemony. The subsequent expansion of euro-capitalists like the Dahlmer-Benz/Chrysler merger are symptomatic of trading bloc hegemonic struggles in this period of global expansion of the capitalist world system.
Both the crash of the Asian trading blocs and the expansion of the EU trading bloc produced a bust on Wall Street.
Since the war began Wall Street has subsequently broken the 10,000 and 11,000 point mark. War is the health of capital and its state.
Most commentators have focused on the political/humanitarian issues around this war. These are not the prime factors for this war, they are the propaganda issues that are used to arouse the support of the various publics.
Like the war against Iraq, which was a low intensity conflict a test ground for the latest in American weapons technology, this war is more about global financial capitalism than about geo-politics or territorial acquisition. The war against Iraq, and the subsequent war in the Sudan, were about maintaining American corporate hegemony over oil. In Iraq’s case the war was to curtail the pending dumping of billions of gallons of oil onto the market which would have disastrous economic consequences for the Transnational Oil Companies and their OPEC client states.
It was a war to maintain market share.

The international intervention in the Sudan, was also an oil war, in order to secure
a stable political and economic situation for predominately American Trans-National Oil companies in the region.
The fact that limited intervention was conducted by the United Nations in Rwanda, was due to the lack of support French Imperialism garnered for its geo-political and economic interests in the region. Destabilization of this region , which is rich in oil, heavy metals and other mineral resources, was in the vested interests not of French Imperialism but its competitors in the European Union and of course the United States.
Yugoslavia is the current victim of the neo-liberal agenda.
Mass mobilizations against the third world debt, the MAI and other trade accords as well as calls for capital controls (such as the Tobin Tax) had been garnering strength and legitimacy when the war was declared.
The war immediately resulted in a boom on Wall Street thus thwarting the very real danger of a deflationary drive towards stagflation in the United States. It allowed the U.S. to reassert its hegemony via NATO over the European Union. And it allowed Russia to be a player in European geo-politics providing a momentary stabilization in its economic and political spiral towards chaos.
The war now allows the United States a greater say in the power politics of dividing up the Balkans, which had been until now dominated by the EU and its most powerful member; Germany.
Conversely it has worked in favour of stabilizing the Euro, as well as cementing the EU as a political as well as economic alliance, with Britain acting as the voice of Europe backing it’s American allies.
Canada’s role in supporting NATO’s war, reveals the depth and dangers of the corporate trade agreements and economic blocs like APEC, NAFTA, the WTO.
These accords, as well as our membership in NATO, compelled the Liberal Government to act as a comprador nation to American Imperialism, completely negating our ability to act independently as a member of the UN Security Council with the right to veto.
This is a market driven war, it is about trade agreements and the expansion of neo-liberal globalization and economic stabilization. National sovereignty, ethnic cleansing and the creation of Balkan democracy are so much propaganda masking the real reason for this war; to remedy the contradictions of an overheated global capitalist world system facing a pending global depression.

Also see:http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/REGIONAL/ECE/flaws.pdf
The fatal flaws underlying NATO'S intervention in Yugoslavia
By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
USI, New Delhi April 6, 1999



Iraq

oil

socialism

labour

anarchism

anti-war

political

Politics

After Ukraine, Europe wonders who’s next Russian target

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

1 of 10

A man walks past a mural depicting Vladimir Putin, in Zvecan, Kosovo, Dec. 15, 2018. For some European countries watching Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine, there are fears that they could be next. Western officials say the most vulnerable could be those who are not members of the NATO military alliance or the European Union, and thus alone and unprotected — including Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova and Russia's neighbor Georgia, both of them formerly part of the Soviet Union — along with the Balkan states of Bosnia and Kosovo.

 (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)


BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — For some European countries watching Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, there are fears that they could be next.

Western officials say the most vulnerable could be those who aren’t members of NATO or the European Union, and thus alone and unprotected — including Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova and Russia’s neighbor Georgia, both of them formerly part of the Soviet Union — along with the Balkan states of Bosnia and Kosovo.

But analysts warn that even NATO members could be at risk, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Russia’s doorstep, as well as Montenegro, either from Moscow’s direct military intervention or attempts at political destabilization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “has said right from the start that this is not only about Ukraine,″ said Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Warsaw office.

“He told us what he wants to do when he was listing his demands, which included the change of the government in Kyiv, but he was also talking about the eastern flank of NATO and the rest of Eastern Europe,” Baranowski told The Associated Press in an interview.

As Ukraine puts up stiff resistance to the two-week-old Russian attack, Baranowski said “it’s now not really clear how he’ll carry out his other goals.”

But the Biden administration is acutely aware of deep concerns in Eastern and Central Europe that the war in Ukraine may be just a prelude to broader attacks on former Warsaw Pact members in trying to restore Moscow’s regional dominance.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said that “Russia is not going to stop in Ukraine.”

“We are concerned for neighbors Moldova, Georgia, and the Western Balkans,” he said. “We have to keep an eye on Western Balks, particularly Bosnia, which could face destabilization by Russia.”

A look at the regional situation:

MOLDOVA

Like its neighbor Ukraine, the ex-Soviet republic of Moldova has a separatist insurgency in its east in the disputed territory known as Trans-Dniester, where 1,500 Russian troops are stationed. Although Moldova is neutral militarily and has no plans to join NATO, it formally applied for EU membership when the Russian invasion began in a quick bid to bolster its ties with the West.

The country of 2.6 million people is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and it’s hosting tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled the war. The invasion has prompted heightened concerns in Moldova not only over the humanitarian crisis, but also because of fears that Putin might try to link the separatists east of the Dniester River with Ukraine via the latter’s strategic port of Odesa.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Moldova last week and pledged: “We stand with Moldova and any other country that may be threatened in the same way.”

Moldovan President Maia Sandu said there was no indication yet the Russian forces in Trans-Dniester had changed their posture, but stressed that the concern was there.

“In this region now there is no possibility for us to feel safe,” Sandu said.

___

GEORGIA

War erupted between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 when Georgian government troops tried unsuccessfully to regain control over the Moscow-backed breakaway province of South Ossetia. Russia routed the Georgian military in five days of fighting and hundreds were killed. Afterward, Russia recognized South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, as independent states and bolstered its military presence there.

The government of West-leaning Georgia condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but hasn’t shown the same solidarity that Kyiv displayed during the Georgia-Russia war. Hundreds of Georgian volunteers were stopped by authorities from joining an international brigade fighting Russia in Ukraine.

Georgia’s seemingly neutral stance has turned out thousands in nightly rallies in central Tbilisi in solidarity with Ukraine. Last week, Georgia’s government applied for EU membership just days after declaring it wouldn’t accelerate its application as fears of a Russian invasion grew.

___

THE BALTICS

Memories of Soviet rule are still fresh in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Since the invasion of Ukraine, NATO has moved quickly to boost its troop presence in its eastern flank allies, while Washington has pledged additional support.

To residents of the Baltic nations — particularly those old enough to have lived under Soviet control — the tensions prior to the Feb. 24 invasion recalled the mass deportations and oppression. The three countries were annexed by Josef Stalin during World War II and only regained their independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

They joined NATO in 2004, putting themselves under the military protection of the U.S. and its Western allies. They say it is imperative that NATO show resolve not just in words but with boots on the ground.

“Russia always measures the military might but also the will of countries to fight,” said Janis Garisons, state secretary at Latvia’s Defense Ministry. “Once they see a weakness, they will exploit that weakness.”

Blinken, who visited Latvian capital Riga on Monday, said the Baltics have “formed a democratic wall that now stands against the tide of autocracy” that Russia is pushing in Europe.

___

THE BALKANS

It would be hard for Russian troops to reach the Balkans without engaging NATO forces stationed in all the neighboring countries. But Moscow could destabilize the region, as it already does, with the help of Serbia, its ally which it has been arming with tanks, sophisticated air defense systems and warplanes.

The Kremlin has always considered the region its sphere of influence although it was never part of the Soviet bloc. A devastating civil war in the 1990s left at least 120,000 dead and millions homeless. Serbia, the largest state in the Western Balkans, is generally blamed for starting the war by trying to prevent the breakup of Serb-led Yugoslavia with brutal force -- a move resembling Moscow’s current effort to pull Ukraine back into its orbit by military force.

There are fears in the West that the pro-Moscow Serbian leadership, which has refused to join international sanctions against Russia, could try to use the attention focused on Ukraine to further destabilize its neighbors, particularly Bosnia, where minority Serbs have been threatening to split their territories from the joint federation to join Serbia. Serbian officials have repeatedly denied they are meddling in the neighboring states, but have given tacit support to the secessionist moves of the Bosnian Serbs and their leader, Milorad Dodik.

The Russian Embassy in Bosnian capital Sarajevo warned last year that should Bosnia take steps towards joining NATO, “our country will have to react to this hostile act.” Joining NATO will force Bosnia to take a side in the “military-political confrontation,” it said.

EU peacekeepers in Bosnia have announced the deployment of about 500 additional troops to the country, citing “the deterioration of the security internationally (which) has the potential to spread instability.”

Kosovo, which split from Serbia 1999 after a NATO air war against Serbian troops, has asked the U.S. to establish a permanent military base in the country and speed up its integration into NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Accelerating Kosovo’s membership in NATO and having a permanent base of American forces is an immediate need to guarantee peace, security and stability in the Western Balkans,” Kosovo Defense Minister Armend Mehaj said on Facebook.

Serbia said the move is unacceptable.

Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence is recognized by more than 100 countries, mainly Western nations, but not by Russia or Serbia.

Montenegro, a former ally that turned its back on Russia to join NATO in 2017, has imposed sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine and is seen as next in line in the Western Balkans to join the EU. The country is divided between those favoring pro-Western policies and the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian camps, raising tensions.

Russia has repeatedly warned Montenegro’s pro-Western President Milo Djukanovic, who led the small Adriatic state into NATO, that the move was illegitimate and without the consent of all Montenegrins.

Russia may hope to eventually improve its ties with Montenegro in a bid to strengthen its presence in the Mediterranean.

___

Stephen McGrath in Bucharest, Romania, Matthew Lee in Washington, Sabina Niksic in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Humanitarian War

US Progressives For War have a new Kosovo in their sights; Darfur. While opposed to the war in Iraq and so so about the continuing war in Afghanistan now they want the US , and of course Canada, to enter the conflict in the Sudan, specifically to defend the victims of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

`It's always in Canada's interests to try to elevate... humanitarian rights.'
Peter MacKay, foreign affairs minister

A conflict that the international community has exasperated by its lack of involvement but its overflowing of crocodile tears. And would the discovery of oil reserves in the region and its neighbour Chad have anything to do with this? Nah.

Sat Apr 29, 1:40 PM ET

Laura Cacho of Working Assets hands a protester a sign during a mass rally against the war in Iraq on Saturday, April 29, 2006 in New York, NY. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree)

The international community has had plenty of opportunity to intervene with armed force, to create a barrier between the refugee camps and the conflicting forces in the region. But like Rawanda the original colonial powers in the region pull the strings behind the scenes, exerting their great power influence over the region. In this case the US and Canada have less to say about this than say oh Britain and France the original Imperialist powers in the region.

The Sudan Wars were a series of conflicts in the Sudan part of Africa in the late 19th Century. The conflicts erupted between the British and the Muslims Africans in the Sudan in 1881 because of religious disputes and the British attempt to end the "new" slavery trade. Muslim fundamentalists instigated a rebellion against the British, driving them and their Egyptian armies from Sudan. Britain atoned for the loss in 1898, militarily reclaiming control of the Sudan. Following this engagement, competition between Britain and France for the south of Sudan led to military conflict, ended by diplomatic avenues which partitioned the disputed area. Both events demonstrate the intensifying struggle to control Africa, and the conflict between the European powers in the race of imperialism. This conflict gave rise to the beginning of World War I. Sudan Wars

French Equatorial Africa (Introduction)
Chad • Congo • Gabon • Central African Republic

French Equatorial Africa was a former administrative grouping of four French territories in west central Africa. It was first formed in 1910 by the federation of three French imperial colonies — Gabon, Middle Congo, and Ubangi-Shari-Chad — comprising a total area of 969,112 square miles (2,500,000 sq km). Chad was separated from Ubangi-Shari in 1920 to form a fourth colony.

In 1934, French Equatorial Africa was transformed into a unified territory of France, but in 1946 it was re-divided into four separate overseas territories (TOM — territoires d'outre-mer).

The federation ended in 1959 after the territories had chosen — in 1958 — to become self-governing republics of the French Community. Middle Congo was renamed Republic of the Congo, and Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic. All four republics attained their independence in 1960.

In the case of Africa, this human element is seen in the variety of forces that affected or moulded her history and experience. Lydia Polgreen summarized the roots of Africa’s present burden: Africa was a land carved for a colonial feast. For her, “it is a truism of Africa that the borders bequeathed by white colonial powers, drawn in the 19th-century scramble for Africa at the convenience of London, Paris and Brussels, became the Blackman’s burden”. And if the inherited colonial- nation state has been the Blackman’s burden, it has also been the African despot’s best friend, a powerful tool when wielded by crafty hands. In fact, the excesses of African dictators, from Mobutu Sesse Seko to Robert Mugabe, from Sani Abacha to Charles Taylor, were enabled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the inherent conflicts created by artificial state boundaries that allowed a powerful central government to play tribal, ethnic and religious groups against one another. Aligned to that, colonialism destroyed some African cultural values and structures that would have conduced to the emergence of accountability in governance. This is well depicted by the fact that until now as Ali Mazrui argued, “Africa has borrowed Western tastes without Western skills, Western consumption patterns without Western production techniques, urbanization without industrialization, secularization (erosion of religion) without scientification.” African Poverty as Failure of Leadership

Beware of war for humanity or humanitarianism, behind the rehtoric lies the profit motive. And it is the only motive that drives war, whether for good or evil.

What the postcolonial left who oppose intervention and the liberal internationalists who support intervention in Darfur (but oppose it in the Middle East) share is a common concern about the conditions of the Third World. They are likely to agree that the West is fully or partially responsible for the deterioration of those conditions. Unlike those on the right like the current President of the U.S., their foreign policy ideas transcend crass national self interests and are burdened by their moral consciences. Where they disagree however is in what role the West can play in alleviating the global south’s conditions. Where the liberals want the West to intervene to save the poor Africans from killing themselves (which can be understood in a post-Rwanda context as either humanitarianism or on the other extreme, a neo-imperial continuation of the white man’s burden), the postcolonial left want the West out of the third world. Since the West is responsible for the poverty, war and low rates of democratic and human development in places like Africa, the Middle East and beyond – vis-à-vis colonialism and neo-colonialism – they should just butt out. SkarredBlog

Also See: War and the Market State

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War in Kosovo and sexual violence, a painful legacy




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In Kosovo, thousands of people suffered sexual violence during the war: today institutions recognise them as civilian victims of the conflict, but for many talking about the trauma they suffered remains an insurmountable obstacle
26/04/2024 - Arta Berisha Pristina

"Unheard Voices" is a memoir that collects untold stories of men and boys, as young as 14, who were raped during the war in Kosovo.

Even though they have not yet spoken publicly, at least ten men raped by Serbian forces during the war told their tragic stories to civil society organisations that support survivors of wartime sexual violence. This confirms that sexual violence as a weapon of war does not target only women and girls.

"I have a certain shadow, a certain ice in my soul, I can't take it away, because what they have done to me doesn't hurt anymore, the pain has passed, but my soul is ice cold", writes one of the witnesses in the book, a survivor who was only 14 at the time.

The book was presented at the Women Peace Security Forum , organised by the President of Kosovo in Prishtina last week, as part of an awareness campaign dedicated to survivors of sexual violence during the war in Kosovo which started on April 14, the Memorial Day for victims of sexual violence during the war.

The number of survivors is estimated up to 20,000 including women, girls, men and boys. However, few have spoken up publicly, mainly because of social norms and taboos that still dominate Kosovo's society, especially when it comes to acknowledging rape as a war crime instead of shaming the victims.

Likewise, very few victims had their status recognised by the Government Commission on Recognition and Verification of the Status of Sexual Violence Victims during the Kosovo liberation war, created in 2017 .

Deadlines

At the very beginning, the time limit for applications was five years, the same as the duration of the Commission's mandate. Last year, this term expired, but the Kosovo government decided to extend it for another two years, namely until May 15, 2025, due to the small number of applications.

At the Peace Forum, Minister of Justice Albulena Haxhiu said that 1555 people, including 88 men, have had their status recognised by the Commission so far.

"It is estimated that in Kosovo, about 20,000 thousand people were raped during the war; together with the President and Prime Minister, we are working to encourage them to apply for recognition, because it is not their fault that they have been sexually abused".

Civil society organisations believe that the government should not put a deadline to applications.

"Taking into account the specific nature of crimes of sexual violence, the peculiarities of the trauma, the difficulties of documentation, the stigma and exclusion surrounding the victims both in the family and in the community they live in, as well as other international practices, we as an organisation have constantly advocated that the right to apply should be a permanent right guaranteed by law", Feride Rushiti, Executive Director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims, told OBCT.

According to some sources speaking to OBCT, decision-makers hoped that a deadline would motivate survivors to apply. Unfortunately, this was not the case. According to an electronic answer by the Commission, since the beginning of the process on 05.02.2018, the Commission has received 2028 applications.

Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman became the first woman to speak out publicly, first on public TV in 2018 and then on several other platforms. When she was only 16, she was abducted by a Serbian police officer and raped by him and another civilian in a village nearby her home.

"I believe there is no need to put deadlines on this", she said to OBCT, adding that she is in permanent contact with the victims, and some of them told her that their husbands have died and now they are ready to apply.

Krasniqi Goodman also asked the Kosovo Government to reconsider all the applications that the Commission has refused as not completed due to the difficulties victims have 25 years after the crime to testify about what really happened.

Niger’s Military Coup Triggers Child Marriages, Sex Work in Neighboring Countries

By Issa Sikiti da Silvail

Girl refugees from Niger now living in Benin, often end up as child brides. Graphic: IPS

COTONOU/BENIN , Apr 26 2024 (IPS) - A group of young girls aged between 15 and 17 sit tight, following attentively a lesson being taught by a Mualim (Islamic teacher) in a makeshift madrassah (Qur’anic school) located in one of the impoverished townships of Benin’s economic capital, Cotonou. They arrived in Benin recently, fleeing poverty, hunger, climate change, and rising insecurity in their home country, Niger, in the aftermath of the military coup that toppled democratically-elected president Mohamed Bazoum.

Among them are Saida, 15, and Aminata, 16, who are already “married” to Abdou, 22, and Anwar, 25, two Niger youths who have been living in Benin for some time. The lessons are over and Saida heads outside the overcrowded compound where her husband, Abdou, came to pick up his wife on a rundown motorbike.

“She has not been feeling well lately and I think she might be pregnant,” Abdou says without embarrassment. Asked about the circumstances leading to the couple becoming husband and wife, he says: “If in Benin or where you come from, this seems strange, it is normal in Niger for a young girl to become someone’s wife as soon as she reaches 15.”

Niger has one of highest prevalence rates of child marriages in the world, where 76% of girls are married before their 18th birthday and 28% are married before the age of 15, according to Girls Not Brides figures.

Child marriage is most prevalent in Maradi (where 89% of women aged 20–24 were already married by age of 18), Zinder (87%), Diffa (82%) and Tahoua (76%). Girls as young as 10 years old in some regions are married, and after the age of 25, only a handful of young women are unmarried, according to the Girls Not Brides statistics.

Steady increase 

However, Abdou says there has been a steady increase in such cases since the military coup due to the social and economic meltdown triggered by regional and international sanctions, which left Niger’s economy hanging in balance. France, a former colonial power, suspended development and budget aid to Niger, vowing not to recognize the new military authorities. In 2021, The French Development Agency (AFD) committed €97 million to Niger.  Moreover, the World Bank recently warned that 700,000 more people will fall into extreme poverty this year in Niger. In addition, nearly two million children could be out of school, including 800,000 girls.

Multiple suspensions of development aid from several countries and organizations will result in a shortfall of nearly US$1.2 billion in 2024 (more than 6% of the country’s GDP).

“Life has become unlivable since the coup and the closure of borders. In addition, insecurity has risen, forcing farmers to stay away from their fields. In other parts, climate change has rendered farmland useless; it is a triple tragedy for Niger, but the authorities continue to talk nonsense on TV,” says a Benin-based Islamic teacher identified only as Oumarou, who fled to Cotonou in the aftermath of the coup.

“And as a result, many families are left penniless and dependent on humanitarian assistance. Consequently, some families are seeking help from their relatives and family friends living in Benin and Togo to take their daughters under their care. Niger’s people help each other a lot and prioritize community life over individual interests.

“The girls arrive in these two countries and are quickly dispatched to Niger’s households, where they work as domestic workers without pay. Yes, they don’t get paid because they eat and sleep there and are made to feel as if they are part of the family.”

However, Oumarou says that as time goes by, these people begin to feel that they can no longer carry the burden. That is where they pass a message through the elders to Niger youths who want a wife to come and discuss.

Suitors wanted 

“As soon as a suitor is found, we inform the girls’ parents, who, in most cases, do not hesitate to allow the marriage to proceed. As God-fearing people, we cannot let the youth take a girl without doing a formal religious ceremony.

Asked if he was aware that he was committing a crime by acting as an accomplice to child marriages, he became defensive and politicized the issue: “What’s criminal and illegal in that procedure? How can you describe our good gesture to help these poverty-stricken girls rebuild their lives as a crime?

“Okay, if it’s indeed a crime. How do you say about France, which has been stealing our natural resources, notably our uranium, for decades without giving us anything in return? And what about the crimes committed by the West during the colonial era in Africa? Did anyone investigate those crimes and bring the perpetrators to book or make reparations for what they did?” the man said, storming out of the room where the interview was taking place.

However, not everyone in Niger is God-fearing and therefore does not follow the religious procedure. Anwar says her wife told him that she owes him her life after rescuing her from the abusive family where she was working as a donkey.

“I have been taking care of her ever since as a wife and a little sister. I don’t need anyone’s permission or blessings to make her my wife. We have been living under the same roof since last year and that’s a sign of marriage,” he says with a wide smile.

Aminata describes the hell she went through while working for one of these families. “They make you work like a slave, right from Fajr [Islamic dawn prayer] up to Isha [evening prayer] and even beyond. It’s very stressful. Most of the time, you don’t even eat well. They keep yelling at you whenever you make a slight mistake. Anwar is a good man and a caring husband,” she says through a translator.

Anwar says most of these girls do not have a formal (western) education. “That’s why they cannot understand French. They only speak their vernacular language and some Arabic because they only attend Qur’anic school.”

Niger has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, and very few girls attend formal school, as priority is given to boys. The Niger literacy rate for 2021 was 37.34%, a 2.29% increase from 2018.

Factors that contribute to this, including high dropout rates, high illiteracy rates, insufficient resources and infrastructure, unqualified teachers, weak local governance structures, and high vulnerability to instability, have been blamed for the low level of educational attainment, according to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“I want to ensure that she gets a good education now that she is in Benin, far away from that rotten country, where the system does not allow girls, especially in the rural areas, to attend school,” Anwar, who himself did not finish high school, says.

Niger girls no longer “God-fearing”? 

While child brides jostle for makeshift husbands to take care of them away from their impoverished and famine-hit country, in other parts of Benin, street life has become the way of survival for some Niger women. “Niger men used to mock us, saying that their women were God-fearing and not immoral like us. Now the trend has been reversed. Look at the way those two Niger girls out there are shoving for a wealthy client,” Susan, a Beninese sex worker, says.

She claims the girls arrive in the “workplace” every evening well covered from head to toe but take it off and put on some sexy clothes, only to wear them again after the end of the shift. “Now, who fears God the most? The hypocrites or the people like us who have nothing to hide?”

Prostitution is illegal but remains prevalent in big cities and near major mining and military sites. UNAIDS estimates there are 46,630 sex workers in the country. Some sources say poverty, forced marriages, rising insecurity, and climate change continue to push many girls into prostitution, sometimes with the complicity of their families and marabouts (witchdoctors).

A source close to Nigerian and Ivorian pimping syndicates says there is a huge appetite for Niger girls in several countries across the region, including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Ghana. Asked why it is the case, the source says: “From what I heard, girls from other countries, including Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria, have been used many times and are big-headed, while Niger girls seem fresh, disciplined, respectful, and docile. That’s why they make good wives. The demand has been growing since the coup.”

The source says the three countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger) desire to quit the regional bloc, Ecowas, will have a negative effect on the sex trafficking business as it will curtail the free movement of people and goods across the region. According to a 2022 report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), women and girls constitute 69% of victims and survivors of trafficking in Niger.

While Niger’s military authorities reinforce their grip on power and castigate the West’s neo-colonialist and imperialist attitude and Ecowas’ interference in Niger’s internal affairs, life seems to be getting harder in this uranium-producing West African nation, forcing thousands of underage girls and women to seek a better life elsewhere.

A researcher who recently returned to Benin from Niger says: “You must live in Niger right now to understand what is going on there. Forget what you see on state TV. If residents of the big cities, like the capital Niamey, are trying harder to stay alive, many people are hopeless in the countryside because the humanitarian situation is terrific.

“Those who say development aid does not work are lying because they have never been on the ground to see for themselves.”

Note: The names have been changed to protect their identities.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape - Frauenkultur

... Against. Our Will. Men, Women and Rape. SUSAN BROWNMILLER. Fawcett Columbine • New York. Page 5. Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If ...