The Kosovo Precedent and Syria (Or Why International Laws Apply Only To Some)

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/29-0


The NATO bombing of Kosovo is now being used as the model for attacking Syria without a UN mandate, but what the story of Kosovo really exhibits is how military powers ignore international law when it no longer suits their aims. (Reuters file)

***SNIP


By way of challenging the standard assumptions, here are a few conclusions I’ve drawn from the Kosovo experience:

The US Government Can Safely Ignore Less Violent Approaches

In October 1998, Yugoslavia had agreed to accept a 2,000 member unarmed civilian Kosovo Verification Mission operating under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as a way to address the continuing crisis. Only 1350 were ultimately deployed and violence continued during its five month existence, yet a December 24 UN Secretary General’s Report stated that “[D]espite tensions, displaced persons continue to return to their homes. UNHCR estimates that some 100,000 people have now returned.” A January 30 Report estimated 190,000 citizens displaced within Kosovo and another 93,000 outside the province and noted a certain portion of refugees returning after each exodus. A March 17 Report put the number of internally displaced at 211,000. While it would seem a misuse of the language to call a situation with over 200,000 refugees “stabilized,” it also seemed to be the case that it was not rapidly deteriorating either.

Nonetheless, NATO announced its intention to bomb and the monitors were quite understandably withdrawn two days later – over the objections of the Yugoslav government.

The US Government Can Easily Keep Important Facts out of the Discussion

Yugoslavia’s Milosevic government had long since exhausted most of the world’s sympathy in the Bosnian Civil War, so its apparent intransigence at the Rambouillet Conference negotiations called to deal with the ongoing Kosovo crisis only served to dilute what little remaining patience remained in the outside world. On March 18, 1999 negotiators for the US, the UK and the Albanian Kosovars signed the Rambouillet Agreement while the Yugoslav and Russian negotiators refused to do so. Six days later began the NATO bombardment of Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.