Monitor: Nato intervention in kosovo

European comment on whether the strategy pursued by the Western allies over Kosovo will result in the safe return of the refugees

Research
Friday 30 April 1999 23:02 BST
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La Stampa

Italy

IT MAKES no sense anymore to wonder whether or not the bombings were necessary, or effective. They have succeeded in further weakening the Serbian strategic armament. The military and paramilitary bands in Kosovo have no fuel and in a short time they will run out of ammunitions. If Nato does decide to send ground troops, they will just have to disarm, not even fight, the rest of an army in disarray.

Liberation

France

HOW CAN we stop the massacres? How can we stop the deportations? Even under the bombs, despite the destruction of homes, despite the destruction of factories, despite the blows to his television station, Milosevic has kept the initiative. He is free to carry his agenda on to the end. Time is on Milosevic's side, aiding his tactics to destabilise the region. Nato, on the other hand, does not have time on its side. The allies who have just met in Washington cannot ignore this.

Der Bund

Switzerland

THE WAY the alliance is going about its intervention on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians is becoming the acid test of its proclaimed aim to achieve a "Euro-Atlantic security environment". Nato will have to prove itself in the extraordinarily difficult task of levelling and cultivating the ground for a new beginning after the war, rather than leaving behind a Balkan pile of rubble. In the immediate future, that means winning the war - not necessarily by conquering Kosovo or the whole of Yugoslavia, but in such a way that the ethnic cleansing of the province can be reversed and it can't happen again.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Germany

BY SAYING that a peaceful solution to the Kosovo crisis must be measured by the swift and safe return of refugees to their homeland, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan exhausted every means of political decision left to him. First, the refugees can only feel secure in their homeland when they no longer fear being harassed by Serb police or massacred by paramilitary bands. For that, an international protection force which in emergency situations can protect itself and the people will be necessary. That is only possible if Milosevic fulfils Nato's conditions, which he has so far refused, or when his power is militarily broken. That is probably why Annan cannot approve of Nato's military mission in Yugoslavia; that he does not publicly disapprove of it, rather welcomes its goals, speaks for itself.

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