Panelists Criticize NATO Actions in Kosovo

Last night, for the second time in two days, panelists at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) discussed the international crisis in Kosovo.

The moderator of the panel, Kalypso Nicoladis, an assistant professor of public policy at KSG, called "US Foreign Policy, NATO, International Law and the War in Yugoslavia" a "rather biased" presentation.

All three panelists--Steven Burg, professor of political science at Brandeis University, Hurst Hannum, professor of international law at the Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Ziljan Schuster, associate dean of the Business School at the University of New Haven--were critical of NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia.

About 50 people heard the eight-minute presentations by each panelist, and the question and answer session that followed at KSG's Wiener Auditorium last night.

Burg used most of his time to focus on the political-diplomatic background of the Kosovo crisis.

He said a decision was made by American policymakers to withdraw from Bosnia by the fall of 1996 because of national interests, including the then-upcoming presidential election.

He also said Albanians knew an armed struggle was inevitable.

"The KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] certainly saw American intervention as a way to secure liberation," he said.

Even though Burg called the Serbians' persecution of ethnic Albanians "morally reprehensible," he claimed it was within their rights to wage war against an insurgent population within their state.

He also criticized the Rambouillet Agreement, a proposal signed by Albanians but rejected by Serbs, which called for an autonomous Kosovo still under Serb rule.

"America forgot to pressure both sides to create an agreement they [Albanians and Serbs] can both live with," Berg said.

Hannum explored two questions: the legality of the bombing under NATO laws and the value of military action. He answered no to both points.

"If a situation is sufficiently bad," intervention is justified, he said. However, Hannum said the facts in Kosovo do not justify NATO intervention.

He did not deny that there were war crimes. However, "up until March 23 [the day before NATO bombing began], the highest estimate I have seen was 2,000 killed, mostly Albanians, but some Serbs as well." This, however reprehensible, "doesn't justify the war," he said.

"We don't know how to get [to the end] from here," Hannum said. "NATO has dug us an awful big hole."

During the end of the panel, Hannum further addressed the war crimes and human rights violations in Yugoslavia.

"The theory is great--let's stop human rights violations--but when you try to do that, it's hard to do," he said.

Schuster used his eight minutes to talk passionately about the war, which he called an "unsuccessful bombing campaign" and an "open-ended engagement."

"The real exodus [of ethnic Albanians] occurred after the beginning of NATO bombing," he said.

At the beginning of the question-and-answer session, Hannum asked the audience to remember that the Albanians were oppressed. "Serbians killed women and children, villages were burned, massacres occurred," he said, "we shouldn't sit here and forget that these are the facts."

When an audience member criticized the speakers for denouncing NATO's actions without offering a solution to the current situation, Hannum said the first step must be to reevaluate the NATO bombings.

"The first thing we need to do--at least privately--is to admit that what we've done was a mistake," Hannum said. "When acting on our universal sense of outrage and we make things worse, then we've done the wrong thing," he said.

Burg, however, gave more concrete suggestions.

"The solution begins by responding constructively to the other side," said Burg, referring to the side of Slobodan Milosevic, the current president of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. "The solution is extensive autonomy of Kosovo inside Serbia," he added.

"The guilt of the Yugoslavs does nothing to excuse the stupidity of the NATO and American policymakers," Burg said.

The panel was sponsored by the Kokkalis Program of Southeastern and East-Central Europe, established in September 1997 with the aim of improving relations across Southeastern and East-Central Europe and between the region and the rest of the world.