CKNW Editorial
for June 30, 1999

Every day that goes by I get more nervous about our presence, through Nato, in Kosovo.

I don’t think that a lot of those who supported Nato really understand what the quarrel was all about in the first place. It was and remains a civil war with Albanian Kosovars trying to secede from Yugoslavia. Without question this was aggravated by Serbia, some ten years ago, withdrawing the autonomous designation for Kosovo and there can be no doubt that the civil war was being repressed most brutally indeed by Serbia before Nato stepped in. But it was no less a civil war for that.

It’s all very well to say that we didn’t intend to intervene in a civil war and give one side a victory but that’s precisely what we did – and had to know would be the consequence. From this moment on, there will be no Serbs to speak of in Kosovo and this is a land, one must remember, of enormous historical significance to Serbs.

Now, it could well be argued – indeed I would argue it – that the principle of self determination of peoples should carry the day although that sounds a bit hollow from Canadians who would deny Quebec that right on a simple majority. But while we all give mighty praise to the notion of self determination of peoples we are mighty selective about where we give actual help. We certainly don’t give it in Rwanda, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey or China for example.

Then there is the argument that not to have stepped in would have been appeasement of the sort practiced by Britain in 1939 – that Britain and France went to war with Germany over Poland, though there was no common border, and Britain declared was against Germany in 1914 over the latter’s invasion of Belgium. There is a very important distinction between those examples and Kosovo. Both Poland and Belgium were independent countries and in each case Britain had a treaty guaranteeing her military support.

The Balkans, I freely admit, is a place where political boundaries seldom coincide with ethnic ones. It has centuries of unrest and bloodshed behind it and, in a relatively small area has several religions and several languages. The fact is, however, that Yugoslavia has been recognized as including Kosovo for 80 years. It has never been questioned by the international community. Which brings to mind another little bit of interesting hypocrisy on the part of the interventionists – here we would go to war to help break up a state which is recognized by us yet we wouldn’t lift a finger to help Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia whose absorption by Soviet Russia was never recognized.

But, it’s said, if we had not done what we did, thousands of Albanians would have perished. And I have no doubt that they would have. And the international community would have to deal with that as best they could.

A callous statement? Perhaps, until you remember that neither Nato nor the United Nations invade and bomb in order to stop genocide unless it’s damned convenient and relatively risk free for them to do so. We only intervene, not on the basis of moral requisite alone, but where we can do so without getting hurt ourselves. We are not, for example, going into Cuba to stop the firing squads.

I have no idea whether or not the Serbs could have been stopped by the United Nations, the body the international community gives the only power of such intervention to. I think they would have. But as I have said before, it’s not only the crisis of the moment you must deal with but the crises to come … and if these crises to come will, because of what you contemplate doing, be worse than the one you’re in it makes sense to pause before you act.

The situation is now terrible. A hostile Serbia poises eager for revenge, a revenge she will be as patient as is necessary for it to be achieved. We have Montrenegro now ready to fully secede from Yugoslavia which cannot be accomplished peacefully. We have Croats and Bosnians to the North ready to exact their revenge the moment it’s feasible. Then we have the enormous pressure for a greater Albania which will draw Albania, Macedonia, Greece and most likely Turkey into the fray. The people who are cheering and kissing our soldiers now will, as soon as it becomes clear that we won’t support a Greater Albania, be at our throats. Russia, whose strength is returning and who sees itself as having been humiliated by Britain and France (and Canada) bypassing them, are in a very nasty humour.

But let me close on this note. All the foregoing consequences might be worth stepping in and replacing cleansed Kosovars with cleansed Serbs. Maybe Nato was right.

But where was the consultation with the people? Where were the frank appraisals of the likely consequences as I in my inexpert way have outlined above. In short, where was the informed consent of the Canadian people before this action was undertaken?