THE BALKAN WAR
To see on TV these long lines of refugees afraid for their lives is unbearable. It is hell at our door step. It is a humanitarian disaster that we believed not to see again. Is not a dream but reality. A sad ending of this century. The upsurge of international solidarity towards the Kosovar, the commitment of societies and humanitarian organizations, the although limited opening of borders to refugees, all these give us hope. At the beginning of the conflict I signed with many others an appeal made public on March 30. This appeal was towards NATO to stop bombing and to promote self-determination in Kosovo.
We don't accept the false dilemma: to agree to the intervention of NATO or to endorse the backward politics of Serbia's power in Kosovo. The NATO air raids have imposed the OSCE withdrawal from Kosovo and have facilitated and not prevented a ground attack of the Serbia's paramilitary forces; they rouse the worst of ultranationalistic retaliations against the Kosovar people. Serbia had to face the alternative: accepting as the only possible base of negotiation the peace plan drawn by the governments of USA or/and European Union or the bombing of its territory. No lasting solution to a major political conflict inside a sovereign State can be implemented by force from the outside. It is not true that every attempt has been made to find a solution and a frame of agreements to make them acceptable by both parties. Kosovar negotiators were forced to sign an agreement that they had first rejected under the promise that NATO will send ground troops to defend their cause....
We don't accept the claims that legitimate NATO interference, it is not true that NATO air raids protect Kosovar people, neither their rights. It is not true that the bombing of Serbia opens the route to a democratic regime in Serbia. Time goes. War becomes more intensive. Air raids did not solve anything. Each bomb hitting Belgrade reinforces Milosevic regime by putting the Serbia people behind him. As always, the Orthodox Church is on the side of the Serbs. To rely on the power of weapons is to acknowledge one's weakness. You don't stop atrocities by sending military aircraft's. War only aggravates problems and miseries. It is a source of new oppressions for the people at war. It is costly, very costly. But for war you always find money. It is an insult to the poor. Without doubt, you need more courage for peace than for war!
