Un articolo incredibilmente critico sui regimi coloniali ed
antidemocratici instaurati in Bosnia e Kosovo dalle amministrazioni
straniere e' apparso sul "Los Angeles Times" a fine dicembre:
---
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, Sunday, December 31, 2000 OPINION
International Mission Is Now a Mockery of Democratic Principles
By TED GALEN CARPENTER
WASHINGTON--With the signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995, the
United States and its NATO allies committed themselves not only to
helping bring peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina but also to helping build a
democratic political system after the breakup of Yugoslavia. That effort
has failed. Despite systematic attempts by Western powers to undermine
them, nationalist parties fared well in the November elections, as they
have in every election since 1995. Bosnia is a Potemkin democracy: a
colony of the West run by increasingly arrogant and autocratic
international bureaucrats. Equally troubling, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization has adopted similar tactics in Kosovo, and that pattern
threatens to become the norm wherever nation-building missions are
undertaken.
One glaring abuse has been the lack of respect for freedom of
expression. Officials from NATO, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations harass or suppress
media outlets that dare to criticize the Dayton accords, the conduct of
the NATO peacekeeping force, or the decisions of the special war crimes
tribunal. How far such powers can go became apparent in April 1999, when
the OSCE's puppet media commission ordered a Bosnian Serb television
station to carry an address by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright on the Kosovo crisis. Apparently freedom of the press in Bosnia
means that media outlets can be required to transmit statements by a
foreign official dealing with events in a neighboring country.
The international authorities also have used questionable tactics with
regard to a core component of any democratic political system: the
holding of elections. Candidates for public office have been barred from
the ballot by the Office of the High Representative (the top
international civilian body in Bosnia)-often for transparently cynical
reasons. In the 1998 national elections, for example, commissioners
disqualified four Bosnian Croat candidates because of alleged biased
coverage in their favor by television stations in Croatia.
The authorities also toyed with the idea of disqualifying the Bosnian
Serb Radical Party's Nikola Poplasen, who ultimately won the
presidential election, for making a television appearance in neighboring
Serbia on the eve of the election. Such an appearance, some election
watchdogs argued, violated the 24-hour "media blackout period" imposed
in Bosnia.
Matters escalated before the spring 2000 municipal elections, when the
commission in charge banned the entire slate of the Radical Party (which
had won the presidency in the previous national elections). That action
would be akin to the Federal Election Commission in the United States
disqualifying the Republican or the Democratic parties.
Banning candidates they dislike is not the only method international
authorities have used to manipulate election results. Manipulating
voter-registration lists has been a more pervasive tactic. Instead of
requiring a voter to cast a ballot in the district in which he or she
currently resides, election rules allow the voter to cast a ballot for
candidates in the place where he or she resided in 1991, before the
Bosnian civil war erupted.
But most of the refugees have little prospect of returning to their
prewar homes. In the 1997 elections, six municipalities elected exile
governments. About one-fifth of the parliament in the Bosnian Serb
Republic (one of the two political entities that make up
Bosnia-Herzegovina) consists of delegates of Muslim parties "elected" by
voters who are unlikely ever to set foot in the Serb republic. Indeed,
the 1998 victory of the West's favored candidate for the Serb seat on
Bosnia's three-member presidency was due almost entirely to the votes
cast by about 200,000 displaced (primarily Muslim) voters. Allowing
massive numbers of nonresidents to cast ballots delegitimizes the
democratic process.
When all else fails, international authorities simply remove elected
officials they dislike. The most prominent official purged to date was
Poplasen, but he is hardly the only one. Literally dozens of Serb, Croat
and Muslim officials have been ousted--and often prohibited from running
for office again.
The international authorities are running Bosnia as a protectorate with
an increasingly tattered democratic facade. The high representative's
dictatorial tendencies include matters large and small. He has imposed
his own choices for the country's currency and the design of new coins.
His office even directed the selection of a new national anthem.
What is occurring in Bosnia today is not the evolution of a democratic
system, but the ugly face of new-style colonialism. Worst of all,
ambitious would-be nation-builders apparently see the Bosnia
intervention as a template for similar missions in the Balkans and
beyond.
The same pattern of media control, for example, is already emerging in
Kosovo. NATO forces shut down one Albanian-language newspaper in
Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, for publishing a story contending that
the peacekeeping force was biased in favor of the Serbs. Another was
threatened with a fine and closure for having the temerity to describe
KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, as an occupying army. Political
correctness reigns supreme in Kosovo, with international officials
decreeing that one-third of the candidates for the recent municipal
elections must be women.
The nation-building effort in the Balkans may have begun as a
well-meaning attempt by Western leaders to help construct pluralistic,
democratic societies from the ruins of civil war. The results, however,
confirm Lord Acton's observation that absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Regardless of the initial motives, the international
missions in Bosnia and in Kosovo have turned into a mockery of
democratic principles.
Ted Galen Carpenter Is Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy
Studies at the Cato Institute and the Editor of "Nato's Empty Victory: a
Post-mortem on the Balkan War."
---
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antidemocratici instaurati in Bosnia e Kosovo dalle amministrazioni
straniere e' apparso sul "Los Angeles Times" a fine dicembre:
---
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, Sunday, December 31, 2000 OPINION
International Mission Is Now a Mockery of Democratic Principles
By TED GALEN CARPENTER
WASHINGTON--With the signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995, the
United States and its NATO allies committed themselves not only to
helping bring peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina but also to helping build a
democratic political system after the breakup of Yugoslavia. That effort
has failed. Despite systematic attempts by Western powers to undermine
them, nationalist parties fared well in the November elections, as they
have in every election since 1995. Bosnia is a Potemkin democracy: a
colony of the West run by increasingly arrogant and autocratic
international bureaucrats. Equally troubling, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization has adopted similar tactics in Kosovo, and that pattern
threatens to become the norm wherever nation-building missions are
undertaken.
One glaring abuse has been the lack of respect for freedom of
expression. Officials from NATO, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations harass or suppress
media outlets that dare to criticize the Dayton accords, the conduct of
the NATO peacekeeping force, or the decisions of the special war crimes
tribunal. How far such powers can go became apparent in April 1999, when
the OSCE's puppet media commission ordered a Bosnian Serb television
station to carry an address by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright on the Kosovo crisis. Apparently freedom of the press in Bosnia
means that media outlets can be required to transmit statements by a
foreign official dealing with events in a neighboring country.
The international authorities also have used questionable tactics with
regard to a core component of any democratic political system: the
holding of elections. Candidates for public office have been barred from
the ballot by the Office of the High Representative (the top
international civilian body in Bosnia)-often for transparently cynical
reasons. In the 1998 national elections, for example, commissioners
disqualified four Bosnian Croat candidates because of alleged biased
coverage in their favor by television stations in Croatia.
The authorities also toyed with the idea of disqualifying the Bosnian
Serb Radical Party's Nikola Poplasen, who ultimately won the
presidential election, for making a television appearance in neighboring
Serbia on the eve of the election. Such an appearance, some election
watchdogs argued, violated the 24-hour "media blackout period" imposed
in Bosnia.
Matters escalated before the spring 2000 municipal elections, when the
commission in charge banned the entire slate of the Radical Party (which
had won the presidency in the previous national elections). That action
would be akin to the Federal Election Commission in the United States
disqualifying the Republican or the Democratic parties.
Banning candidates they dislike is not the only method international
authorities have used to manipulate election results. Manipulating
voter-registration lists has been a more pervasive tactic. Instead of
requiring a voter to cast a ballot in the district in which he or she
currently resides, election rules allow the voter to cast a ballot for
candidates in the place where he or she resided in 1991, before the
Bosnian civil war erupted.
But most of the refugees have little prospect of returning to their
prewar homes. In the 1997 elections, six municipalities elected exile
governments. About one-fifth of the parliament in the Bosnian Serb
Republic (one of the two political entities that make up
Bosnia-Herzegovina) consists of delegates of Muslim parties "elected" by
voters who are unlikely ever to set foot in the Serb republic. Indeed,
the 1998 victory of the West's favored candidate for the Serb seat on
Bosnia's three-member presidency was due almost entirely to the votes
cast by about 200,000 displaced (primarily Muslim) voters. Allowing
massive numbers of nonresidents to cast ballots delegitimizes the
democratic process.
When all else fails, international authorities simply remove elected
officials they dislike. The most prominent official purged to date was
Poplasen, but he is hardly the only one. Literally dozens of Serb, Croat
and Muslim officials have been ousted--and often prohibited from running
for office again.
The international authorities are running Bosnia as a protectorate with
an increasingly tattered democratic facade. The high representative's
dictatorial tendencies include matters large and small. He has imposed
his own choices for the country's currency and the design of new coins.
His office even directed the selection of a new national anthem.
What is occurring in Bosnia today is not the evolution of a democratic
system, but the ugly face of new-style colonialism. Worst of all,
ambitious would-be nation-builders apparently see the Bosnia
intervention as a template for similar missions in the Balkans and
beyond.
The same pattern of media control, for example, is already emerging in
Kosovo. NATO forces shut down one Albanian-language newspaper in
Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, for publishing a story contending that
the peacekeeping force was biased in favor of the Serbs. Another was
threatened with a fine and closure for having the temerity to describe
KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, as an occupying army. Political
correctness reigns supreme in Kosovo, with international officials
decreeing that one-third of the candidates for the recent municipal
elections must be women.
The nation-building effort in the Balkans may have begun as a
well-meaning attempt by Western leaders to help construct pluralistic,
democratic societies from the ruins of civil war. The results, however,
confirm Lord Acton's observation that absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Regardless of the initial motives, the international
missions in Bosnia and in Kosovo have turned into a mockery of
democratic principles.
Ted Galen Carpenter Is Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy
Studies at the Cato Institute and the Editor of "Nato's Empty Victory: a
Post-mortem on the Balkan War."
---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
Sito WEB : http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Archivio di JUGOINFO:
> http://www.ecircle.it/an_ecircle/articles?ecircleid%c2%91979 oppure
> http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Contributi e segnalazioni: <jugocoord@...>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I gruppi di discussione + interessanti e divertenti!
Le liste + calde!!
Il meglio di eCircle!!!
http://www.ecircle.it/ad770791/www.listparade.it