[ La Germania ha svolto un ruolo-chiave nello smembramento di
Cecoslovacchia e Jugoslavia: questo ruolo e' stato illustrato dal prof.
M. Polreich, ex ambasciatore cecoslovacco all'OSCE, in un discorso
tenuto nel 2000 all'Universita' di Oxford... ]
German influence in Eastern Europe
OXFORD - Germany played an important role in splitting Czechoslovakia
and breaking up Yugoslavia in the Nineties. This is shown in a speech
that was given by Miroslav Polreich, a former Czechoslovak
OSCE-ambassador, in the year 2000 in Oxford. As Polreich explains, the
German government also argued against a possible peaceful settlement of
the then ,,ethnic" conflicts in Kosovo.
Source:
www.freenations.freeuk.com
The European Union and German influence in Eastern Europe
By Dr. Miroslav Polreich
Thank you very much. I am glad to be here in this nice, historical
city, especially among people with an economic and intellectual
awareness, and people who are so active democratically.
Well you know, I have studied American foreign policy all of my life,
but if there is one thing I do not understand, it is American foreign
policy, because it's unpredictable. Being a Czech, and my grandfather
was German - my name is Polreich, which indicates my German origins -
and being from Europe, and I would say, not only from Eastern Europe, I
have to follow German policy. I am not a good student of German policy,
but I understand it very well.
Well, being from Czechoslovakia, and from the Czech Republic now, I
give you a very short glimpse of the country. You know, Czechoslovakia
was considered as a more Western type country, because we had democracy
between the wars. You know, Pilsudzki Poland, Horthy Hungary, not to
mention Germany, were the fascist regimes, all surrounding
Czechoslovakia. Then came Munich [the notorious Munich agreement
between Britain, France, Italy and Germany, in 1938, when the Sudeten
territories were given to Germany]. So historically we were always
content to belong to the West.
As you know the country has now split - into Slovakia and the Czech
Republic - 5 million Slovaks and 10 million Czechs. In Slovakia there
are 600,000 Hungarians in the southern part, and about 400,000 gypsies,
which you should know about (many have sought asylum in the UK - ed).
The split was very peacEful. It was not necessary to do it, because if
there had been a referendum, everybody says that 70 percent of Slovaks
would say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia", and 70 of Czechs would
say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia". So why did they split? It's
because of the power of the media, and much of which even at that time
- I'm speaking about late 1992 - was already in the hands of Germans.
In my country there is only one leading paper which could be described
as independent. All the others are controlled by German interests,
either by ownership, which is about 90%, or by the power of
advertisement. Remember that newspapers live by advertisements and
massive areas of our economy are controlled by foreign corporations.
So, there were some articles saying that we should split otherwise
there might be war - newspaper sales thrive on sensationalism! But at
that time, the Czech Prime Minister Klaus, and the Slovak leadership
negotiated in many meetings and they decided the country should divide.
There was no crisis - Slovaks wanted to be free, have their own
president, ok, they have it, and Czechs said, after all, well, Slovakia
is a poor part of our country, we will be better off, anyway, so let
them go, and be free. We cooperated, there's no problem, we are
friendly.
I know Yugoslavia - we know that Serbs and Croats, they don't like each
other, and so on. But human beings as such don't hate each other by
nature, but nationality can be very easily misused by politicians.
Let's say 20% of Croats and Serbs married each other. They didn't even
think about what they were - that my wife or grandfather is Croat or
Serb. They didn't care. But then they started to care, because it
served a purpose. Those communist leaders, lets say moderate communist
leaders, because Yugoslavia was different from other eastern,
Russian-controlled countries. So, they exploited national differences
to incite hatred. You know my diplomatic career stopped when I was at
the Security Council protesting the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968,
and one interesting point is that Yugoslavia was afraid that the
Russians would continue and attack Yugoslavia as well. So, besides the
federal army, they created local, national army units. And those units
have been used recently to fight the federal army but those units had
been established in order to resist the Russians in '68.
Well, then after the Russian invasion I was not able to travel, I was
not able to do my job, I was unemployable because I was considered to
be a traitor - my children understand what it means to be children of a
traitor. But Czechoslovakia is now under a transition, economic
transition, which means privatization. We Czechs - we don't have any
money. So, privatization means that somebody else has to come from
abroad to buy almost everything the State used to own. Well, our
richest and closest neighbor is naturally Germany. So, our companies
are owned by Germany, our media are owned by Germany, which almost
seems to be the norm - but it is not what we thought a sovereign nation
was going to be. Well, I will finish with the case of the Czech
Republic.
There is today a new ideology. Our President Havel, who embraces this
new ideology, has said ,,Well, we don't have to speak about nationhood,
about nations, or sovereignty. That's the idea of the last century. Now
we are in the modern world. We have the right of the individual, the
right of the people as such. That has nothing to do with nationality."
Now we in the Czech Republic have a social democratic government, which
unlike communism should allow differences. But somehow, because social
democrats are also in power in Germany and of course they all embrace
internationalism, they said ,,Well, we have to follow the German line,
this is the right way. Be close to the Germans. Well, no nation is
important, no sovereignty is important, after all, we have to give up
sovereignty partly to NATO, partly to the European Union. So what?"
But there was one thing new that was introduced, in all Eastern
European countries - regionalism - which means the unimportance of the
nation states. Prague or Warsaw are not important. I mentioned Warsaw,
because now, for the Germans Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic -
none are of importance. For them, there is one big problem - that's
Poland. That's 42 million people. So it is through the ideology of
regionalism, I think you will see it soon, that's the way we'll see the
final division of Poland. I think it's the fifth division in history,
because Warsaw power is not important. It is different regions, which
are important - and that means that Polish nationhood has to be much
easier to control. This is the situation as I see it in Eastern Europe.
Already we see that those regions within nations want to have direct
representation at the EU with less connection with their respective
capitals.
There were very important changes in 1990. Well, practically it started
in 1985, when Gorbachev came to power - the changes started in Moscow.
If there had been no changes in Moscow, you could have had no changes
in Eastern Europe. We tried, as Czechs in 1968. You know the result -
occupation. But, then the Russians started to change. We can argue why,
but anyway, there was perestroika, glasnost, and new thinking.
But what happened when the bi-polar world - communist East and
capitalist West -disappeared? There was time for cooperation and trust
in the whole Europe, in the whole world. You know, disarmament. The
Soviet Union had more than 5 million men under arms. Now they have a
little bit more than 1 million. And Americans closed their bases
abroad, at home, so this was a huge disarmament, the greatest in
history. Just consider the veto at the United Nations - in the Security
Council. It was used for decades by both sides, mostly by the Russians
but then in the 1990s - no veto. For several years, there was
absolutely no veto in the Security Council. Everything was done by
consensus. Americans used the veto in some minor matters but generally
there was a situation of cooperation. There was a deal in the 1993
signing, in Oslo, of the treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.
You know - both guys got the Nobel prize for that. But it reflects the
atmosphere of the beginning of the '90s. There was a war in the Gulf,
agreed by the United Nations, of a kind which had not been possible
before- an action against a sovereign state. And there was so-called
,,preventative diplomacy". And, there was a transformation of NATO on
the table, which means, especially from an American point of view,
universal security. If you are not secure, I can't be secure. That's
why Americans supported at the time the partnership for peace, which
meant every European nation, including Russia participating with
consultation, some military training, or working together. So, this was
the European scene, at the beginning of the '90s. I was signing for it.
At that time I was working in Vienna, in my post in the OSCE. But, what
happened then?
The Germans came, with the theory of a security vacuum. In a bi-polar
world, there had been two sides. Now they had disappeared, so which way
would everything go? And in our press, it was published every day, that
we were not secure. We were looking for a new enemy. Surprisingly,
looking eastward again. ,,Russia is unpredictable. What are you going
to do? 30 million Russians will move through Europe, because they live
poorly and will want to move where there is wealth" and so on. If you
opposed these theories, which I did, they tried to make fun of you, and
you know there are more Slovaks in America as immigrants, than
Russians. There are some Ukrainians in Canada. Only at Harvard does
every other name end in 'ov.' But, in general there were no mass
movements of Russians. So, there was just this German theory.
Then, another question, a major question - NATO was to expand
eastwards. So, President Havel and President Walenza at the time, were
for it. Madeleine Albright, who speaks Czech as well as I do, because
she was born in Prague, and educated there and later in Belgrade too -
they all started to support the expansion of NATO, which was a German
idea although Americans were strongly against it. And I will give you
the proof. This is from an American study, I think from Brown
University, that's from Rhode Island, when they were evaluating NATO
enlargement The study concluded that ,,President Havel, of the Czech
Republic has even charged that the United States is again betraying the
countries of east central Europe, much as Czechoslovakia was betrayed
at Munich in '38, and at Yalta in '45." So, Americans were traitors
because they didn't want enlargement. But then Polish nationalists, and
some others pressed the American government to change their position.
So NATO was enlarged. Then there is the much more important question -
the case of Yugoslavia.
Well, if there were to be changes in the Balkans, or Yugoslavia should
split, it had to be done peacefully by negotiations. Well, we
negotiated over and over again. Americans surprisingly - let's remember
those days - were supporting a unified Yugoslavia, in any case. You
don't split the country, even if you fight. That meant the Serbs were
not very willing to negotiate, because they had the support of their
powerful ally, Milosevic's ally, the United States. At that time
Yugoslavia had a president who was an American citizen and had just
returned to his native Yugoslavia. Russia was not involved. So then
came the Germans recognizing those two countries - Croatia and
Slovenia. As in the 1930s the Vatican followed, and President Havel was
the third. You know the relationship between the Czechs and Yugoslavs
is a special relationship. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 by
President Masaryk. President Masaryk had been travelling in the United
States, fighting for the foundation of his country, but with a Serb
passport in his pocket! Of course, he was also an Austro-Hungarian
citizen at that time since Austria-Hungary was the imperial power up to
1918. We always had a very close relationship with Yugoslavia.
So any action against Yugoslavia was very unpopular in the Czech
republic. At first the European Union had been against recognition of
Croatia and Slovenia. Then there were the negotiations on the
Maastricht Treaty just on the way, so the Germans agreed to among other
things an opt out for the British from the Single European Currency if
the other members states approved the break up of Yugoslavia - which
you did - so did the European Union. Then, in the American case, it was
a little bit more complicated. The whole media was practically on the
Croat side, or against Serbs, to be more exact. (Large sums of money
had been transferred to New York and London to finance pro-Croat
propaganda -ed) On the occasion of opening the Museum for the Holocaust
in Washington, President Havel spoke. That was his first statement on
the Yugoslav crisis, and the first place where he said ,,bomb". By
chance, I was in Washington a week after, and just watching the
television, there was an interview by President Clinton, and the
question was, 'President Havel said here we should bomb Yugoslavia.
What do you say to this?' And you know what Clinton said? I will quote
- I remember it, because I was shocked. ,,Well, the situation is much
more complicated, because we don't have only Bosnia-Herzegovina, we
have Nagorno-Karabach, and Northern Ireland", which is not very smart,
I would say even it's pretty stupid, but he said that, which means that
was the real position of the Americans at that time, not to take sides.
Well, and what happened after that? A bomb exploded in that market in
Sarajevo, many people were killed. There was a bomb in that queue for
bread and many people were killed. Everything was caused by Serbs.
Well, after some time, documentation said something different, but that
was later and in the meantime the whole media had been turned against
the Serbs. So, American society and their government felt they had to
switch their position.
Well, I would like to speak about Kosovo a little bit. We have heard a
very interesting speech from Mark Littman QC, with considerable
documentation, so I will be brief. I was on the first mission in 1992
in Pristina, in Kosovo. It was a mission organized by the OSCE, which
was more or less a military mission. Chief of the mission was Canadian
Ambassador David Peel, and we had negotiations between the Serbs and
the Kosovo Albanian leader Dr. Rugova for many days and nights, and we
had everything at our disposal. At that time Serbs, or Yugoslavs showed
us everything we wanted to see, where we wanted to stop by helicopter.
Those military men mostly from NATO countries could take pictures and
everything, but we were asked by Rugova that we (Ambassador Peel and I)
should stay there, immediately, on the spot, and secretly negotiate
between him and the Serb side.
The Serbs were prepared to talk anywhere with anybody. If the other
side wanted secrecy, ok. Rugova had this condition. So I asked my
authorities at that time. (Minister Dienstbier was out of the ministry,
and I was intending to go with him. You know, he is now the
Commissioner for the United Nations on the Balkan Human Rights issue.)
So I asked the authorities, and they told me 'We consulted the Germans,
there was no intention of having any kind of deal over Kosovo.' So then
I stopped my diplomatic activities and instead devoted myself to
research. But my evaluation was, that when the war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina was over there would be war in Kosovo. So I
approached the authorities in Prague, offering them my mandate from
Rugova, to go and negotiate. It was in '95, '96, '97. They refused.
They said to me, well, it's up to Havel. But I said that no-one would
know so there was no risk. If we didn't succeed, nobody would know. If
we succeeded, we would save many lives. They told me, it's up to Havel
to decide himself. So, there were no negotiations. I insisted, I
threatened, now it's out, despite the press trying to censor the truth.
So this was, I think, the main responsibility of our government. Which
means that we were not able to help at the time whenKosovo was out of
the media headlines and both sides were amenable to an agreement and
the war could have been prevented.
But I started to speak about the German position. I mentioned several
reasons why German foreign policy started to differ from Western
countries, from Americans, from the European Union. Somehow, they are
in power in Europe - economically, financially, in the media, the press
and propaganda, absolutely, number one, no comparison. That means they
practically took over the situation, and using the pretext of splitting
Yugoslavia the way they arranged, the war in Kosovo, where Americans
practically did the job for the Germans, they now enjoy effective
military power not only in eastern Europe. I think the situation of
NATO is not important now. Why? I think the presence of America in
Europe is not important now. They have some other spots in the world to
control.
So what happened in Europe? Even when Milosevic was in power, there was
no problem with Vojvodina, where there is a large Hungarian minority
inside Yugoslavia. No problem with Sandzak, Muslim problems. But until
recently we could read every day how Serbs were killing them, raping
women. Now, immediately, when the war in Kosovo was finished, nothing
happened. We have no problem in southern Slovakia, where those
Hungarians are living in an absolute majority over Czechs, and this is
the part of the country which never belonged to Slovaks, not even to
Slavs, and Hungarians lay claim to it. No problem. Hungarian Slovaks
are even in the government. Everything went smoothly, which means the
Germans took over Europe as such. Germans took responsibility for their
new territory, and Germans want to keep it calm. You noticed that the
first aid to the Serbs (after the fall of Milosevic) or to Yugoslavia
now, came from the German side. And I believe, that even Germans will
try to find a good relationship with Yugoslavia, to help them, and in
the near future, they have to make a major, new agreement with Russia,
not to divide power but (let's call it a better name) to divide
responsibility.
I don't understand very much about French policy. I never concentrate
on that. I don't know much about Great Britain's policy. I know this is
a special country, thanks to its close relationship with the United
States, which is a little different. But our part of Europe, like it or
not, is Germany's responsibility now. So if we are speaking about
unifying Europe under the nice blue flag, well Europe is united already
(although I don't like the flag). I have to admit that. Whether I like
it or not is not very important, it is a fact.
So, and this is where I would like to end, before me now is the
question how much Germans will be responsible, how we can influence
that responsibility taken by Germany, and if we, as the Czechs, or as
the Slovaks, or even as the Poles, could survive, as a cultural entity
in the European scene. This is my problem. I would say, I studied
America, I don't understand America. I lived there. And I respect
Americans as such. I respect them in many ways. But they are quite
naïve. You know, Genscher (the former German Foreign Minister) wrote in
his memoirs about Bosnia-Herzegovina, about Yugoslavia. And you know
what he said - and he is right. By the end of the war in Yugoslavia we
Germans have repaired the deeds or the consequences of the first World
War. What happened after the First World War which the Germans have now
,,repaired"? - the foundation of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the end
of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Today we have Otto von Habsburg
seeing in the European Union a new Charlemagne empire and the Germans
have moved in to Eastern and Southern Europe.
But who helped them to do that? Unfortunately it was the Americans. And
I would say that Clinton, before he leaves office, should go to
Arlington cemetery in Virginia, kneel down, and say, 'Boys, what you
died for in the first and second world wars, I gave up to the Germans
for nothing.'
Thank you.
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/news/article/1053907950.php
Cecoslovacchia e Jugoslavia: questo ruolo e' stato illustrato dal prof.
M. Polreich, ex ambasciatore cecoslovacco all'OSCE, in un discorso
tenuto nel 2000 all'Universita' di Oxford... ]
German influence in Eastern Europe
OXFORD - Germany played an important role in splitting Czechoslovakia
and breaking up Yugoslavia in the Nineties. This is shown in a speech
that was given by Miroslav Polreich, a former Czechoslovak
OSCE-ambassador, in the year 2000 in Oxford. As Polreich explains, the
German government also argued against a possible peaceful settlement of
the then ,,ethnic" conflicts in Kosovo.
Source:
www.freenations.freeuk.com
The European Union and German influence in Eastern Europe
By Dr. Miroslav Polreich
Thank you very much. I am glad to be here in this nice, historical
city, especially among people with an economic and intellectual
awareness, and people who are so active democratically.
Well you know, I have studied American foreign policy all of my life,
but if there is one thing I do not understand, it is American foreign
policy, because it's unpredictable. Being a Czech, and my grandfather
was German - my name is Polreich, which indicates my German origins -
and being from Europe, and I would say, not only from Eastern Europe, I
have to follow German policy. I am not a good student of German policy,
but I understand it very well.
Well, being from Czechoslovakia, and from the Czech Republic now, I
give you a very short glimpse of the country. You know, Czechoslovakia
was considered as a more Western type country, because we had democracy
between the wars. You know, Pilsudzki Poland, Horthy Hungary, not to
mention Germany, were the fascist regimes, all surrounding
Czechoslovakia. Then came Munich [the notorious Munich agreement
between Britain, France, Italy and Germany, in 1938, when the Sudeten
territories were given to Germany]. So historically we were always
content to belong to the West.
As you know the country has now split - into Slovakia and the Czech
Republic - 5 million Slovaks and 10 million Czechs. In Slovakia there
are 600,000 Hungarians in the southern part, and about 400,000 gypsies,
which you should know about (many have sought asylum in the UK - ed).
The split was very peacEful. It was not necessary to do it, because if
there had been a referendum, everybody says that 70 percent of Slovaks
would say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia", and 70 of Czechs would
say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia". So why did they split? It's
because of the power of the media, and much of which even at that time
- I'm speaking about late 1992 - was already in the hands of Germans.
In my country there is only one leading paper which could be described
as independent. All the others are controlled by German interests,
either by ownership, which is about 90%, or by the power of
advertisement. Remember that newspapers live by advertisements and
massive areas of our economy are controlled by foreign corporations.
So, there were some articles saying that we should split otherwise
there might be war - newspaper sales thrive on sensationalism! But at
that time, the Czech Prime Minister Klaus, and the Slovak leadership
negotiated in many meetings and they decided the country should divide.
There was no crisis - Slovaks wanted to be free, have their own
president, ok, they have it, and Czechs said, after all, well, Slovakia
is a poor part of our country, we will be better off, anyway, so let
them go, and be free. We cooperated, there's no problem, we are
friendly.
I know Yugoslavia - we know that Serbs and Croats, they don't like each
other, and so on. But human beings as such don't hate each other by
nature, but nationality can be very easily misused by politicians.
Let's say 20% of Croats and Serbs married each other. They didn't even
think about what they were - that my wife or grandfather is Croat or
Serb. They didn't care. But then they started to care, because it
served a purpose. Those communist leaders, lets say moderate communist
leaders, because Yugoslavia was different from other eastern,
Russian-controlled countries. So, they exploited national differences
to incite hatred. You know my diplomatic career stopped when I was at
the Security Council protesting the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968,
and one interesting point is that Yugoslavia was afraid that the
Russians would continue and attack Yugoslavia as well. So, besides the
federal army, they created local, national army units. And those units
have been used recently to fight the federal army but those units had
been established in order to resist the Russians in '68.
Well, then after the Russian invasion I was not able to travel, I was
not able to do my job, I was unemployable because I was considered to
be a traitor - my children understand what it means to be children of a
traitor. But Czechoslovakia is now under a transition, economic
transition, which means privatization. We Czechs - we don't have any
money. So, privatization means that somebody else has to come from
abroad to buy almost everything the State used to own. Well, our
richest and closest neighbor is naturally Germany. So, our companies
are owned by Germany, our media are owned by Germany, which almost
seems to be the norm - but it is not what we thought a sovereign nation
was going to be. Well, I will finish with the case of the Czech
Republic.
There is today a new ideology. Our President Havel, who embraces this
new ideology, has said ,,Well, we don't have to speak about nationhood,
about nations, or sovereignty. That's the idea of the last century. Now
we are in the modern world. We have the right of the individual, the
right of the people as such. That has nothing to do with nationality."
Now we in the Czech Republic have a social democratic government, which
unlike communism should allow differences. But somehow, because social
democrats are also in power in Germany and of course they all embrace
internationalism, they said ,,Well, we have to follow the German line,
this is the right way. Be close to the Germans. Well, no nation is
important, no sovereignty is important, after all, we have to give up
sovereignty partly to NATO, partly to the European Union. So what?"
But there was one thing new that was introduced, in all Eastern
European countries - regionalism - which means the unimportance of the
nation states. Prague or Warsaw are not important. I mentioned Warsaw,
because now, for the Germans Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic -
none are of importance. For them, there is one big problem - that's
Poland. That's 42 million people. So it is through the ideology of
regionalism, I think you will see it soon, that's the way we'll see the
final division of Poland. I think it's the fifth division in history,
because Warsaw power is not important. It is different regions, which
are important - and that means that Polish nationhood has to be much
easier to control. This is the situation as I see it in Eastern Europe.
Already we see that those regions within nations want to have direct
representation at the EU with less connection with their respective
capitals.
There were very important changes in 1990. Well, practically it started
in 1985, when Gorbachev came to power - the changes started in Moscow.
If there had been no changes in Moscow, you could have had no changes
in Eastern Europe. We tried, as Czechs in 1968. You know the result -
occupation. But, then the Russians started to change. We can argue why,
but anyway, there was perestroika, glasnost, and new thinking.
But what happened when the bi-polar world - communist East and
capitalist West -disappeared? There was time for cooperation and trust
in the whole Europe, in the whole world. You know, disarmament. The
Soviet Union had more than 5 million men under arms. Now they have a
little bit more than 1 million. And Americans closed their bases
abroad, at home, so this was a huge disarmament, the greatest in
history. Just consider the veto at the United Nations - in the Security
Council. It was used for decades by both sides, mostly by the Russians
but then in the 1990s - no veto. For several years, there was
absolutely no veto in the Security Council. Everything was done by
consensus. Americans used the veto in some minor matters but generally
there was a situation of cooperation. There was a deal in the 1993
signing, in Oslo, of the treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.
You know - both guys got the Nobel prize for that. But it reflects the
atmosphere of the beginning of the '90s. There was a war in the Gulf,
agreed by the United Nations, of a kind which had not been possible
before- an action against a sovereign state. And there was so-called
,,preventative diplomacy". And, there was a transformation of NATO on
the table, which means, especially from an American point of view,
universal security. If you are not secure, I can't be secure. That's
why Americans supported at the time the partnership for peace, which
meant every European nation, including Russia participating with
consultation, some military training, or working together. So, this was
the European scene, at the beginning of the '90s. I was signing for it.
At that time I was working in Vienna, in my post in the OSCE. But, what
happened then?
The Germans came, with the theory of a security vacuum. In a bi-polar
world, there had been two sides. Now they had disappeared, so which way
would everything go? And in our press, it was published every day, that
we were not secure. We were looking for a new enemy. Surprisingly,
looking eastward again. ,,Russia is unpredictable. What are you going
to do? 30 million Russians will move through Europe, because they live
poorly and will want to move where there is wealth" and so on. If you
opposed these theories, which I did, they tried to make fun of you, and
you know there are more Slovaks in America as immigrants, than
Russians. There are some Ukrainians in Canada. Only at Harvard does
every other name end in 'ov.' But, in general there were no mass
movements of Russians. So, there was just this German theory.
Then, another question, a major question - NATO was to expand
eastwards. So, President Havel and President Walenza at the time, were
for it. Madeleine Albright, who speaks Czech as well as I do, because
she was born in Prague, and educated there and later in Belgrade too -
they all started to support the expansion of NATO, which was a German
idea although Americans were strongly against it. And I will give you
the proof. This is from an American study, I think from Brown
University, that's from Rhode Island, when they were evaluating NATO
enlargement The study concluded that ,,President Havel, of the Czech
Republic has even charged that the United States is again betraying the
countries of east central Europe, much as Czechoslovakia was betrayed
at Munich in '38, and at Yalta in '45." So, Americans were traitors
because they didn't want enlargement. But then Polish nationalists, and
some others pressed the American government to change their position.
So NATO was enlarged. Then there is the much more important question -
the case of Yugoslavia.
Well, if there were to be changes in the Balkans, or Yugoslavia should
split, it had to be done peacefully by negotiations. Well, we
negotiated over and over again. Americans surprisingly - let's remember
those days - were supporting a unified Yugoslavia, in any case. You
don't split the country, even if you fight. That meant the Serbs were
not very willing to negotiate, because they had the support of their
powerful ally, Milosevic's ally, the United States. At that time
Yugoslavia had a president who was an American citizen and had just
returned to his native Yugoslavia. Russia was not involved. So then
came the Germans recognizing those two countries - Croatia and
Slovenia. As in the 1930s the Vatican followed, and President Havel was
the third. You know the relationship between the Czechs and Yugoslavs
is a special relationship. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 by
President Masaryk. President Masaryk had been travelling in the United
States, fighting for the foundation of his country, but with a Serb
passport in his pocket! Of course, he was also an Austro-Hungarian
citizen at that time since Austria-Hungary was the imperial power up to
1918. We always had a very close relationship with Yugoslavia.
So any action against Yugoslavia was very unpopular in the Czech
republic. At first the European Union had been against recognition of
Croatia and Slovenia. Then there were the negotiations on the
Maastricht Treaty just on the way, so the Germans agreed to among other
things an opt out for the British from the Single European Currency if
the other members states approved the break up of Yugoslavia - which
you did - so did the European Union. Then, in the American case, it was
a little bit more complicated. The whole media was practically on the
Croat side, or against Serbs, to be more exact. (Large sums of money
had been transferred to New York and London to finance pro-Croat
propaganda -ed) On the occasion of opening the Museum for the Holocaust
in Washington, President Havel spoke. That was his first statement on
the Yugoslav crisis, and the first place where he said ,,bomb". By
chance, I was in Washington a week after, and just watching the
television, there was an interview by President Clinton, and the
question was, 'President Havel said here we should bomb Yugoslavia.
What do you say to this?' And you know what Clinton said? I will quote
- I remember it, because I was shocked. ,,Well, the situation is much
more complicated, because we don't have only Bosnia-Herzegovina, we
have Nagorno-Karabach, and Northern Ireland", which is not very smart,
I would say even it's pretty stupid, but he said that, which means that
was the real position of the Americans at that time, not to take sides.
Well, and what happened after that? A bomb exploded in that market in
Sarajevo, many people were killed. There was a bomb in that queue for
bread and many people were killed. Everything was caused by Serbs.
Well, after some time, documentation said something different, but that
was later and in the meantime the whole media had been turned against
the Serbs. So, American society and their government felt they had to
switch their position.
Well, I would like to speak about Kosovo a little bit. We have heard a
very interesting speech from Mark Littman QC, with considerable
documentation, so I will be brief. I was on the first mission in 1992
in Pristina, in Kosovo. It was a mission organized by the OSCE, which
was more or less a military mission. Chief of the mission was Canadian
Ambassador David Peel, and we had negotiations between the Serbs and
the Kosovo Albanian leader Dr. Rugova for many days and nights, and we
had everything at our disposal. At that time Serbs, or Yugoslavs showed
us everything we wanted to see, where we wanted to stop by helicopter.
Those military men mostly from NATO countries could take pictures and
everything, but we were asked by Rugova that we (Ambassador Peel and I)
should stay there, immediately, on the spot, and secretly negotiate
between him and the Serb side.
The Serbs were prepared to talk anywhere with anybody. If the other
side wanted secrecy, ok. Rugova had this condition. So I asked my
authorities at that time. (Minister Dienstbier was out of the ministry,
and I was intending to go with him. You know, he is now the
Commissioner for the United Nations on the Balkan Human Rights issue.)
So I asked the authorities, and they told me 'We consulted the Germans,
there was no intention of having any kind of deal over Kosovo.' So then
I stopped my diplomatic activities and instead devoted myself to
research. But my evaluation was, that when the war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina was over there would be war in Kosovo. So I
approached the authorities in Prague, offering them my mandate from
Rugova, to go and negotiate. It was in '95, '96, '97. They refused.
They said to me, well, it's up to Havel. But I said that no-one would
know so there was no risk. If we didn't succeed, nobody would know. If
we succeeded, we would save many lives. They told me, it's up to Havel
to decide himself. So, there were no negotiations. I insisted, I
threatened, now it's out, despite the press trying to censor the truth.
So this was, I think, the main responsibility of our government. Which
means that we were not able to help at the time whenKosovo was out of
the media headlines and both sides were amenable to an agreement and
the war could have been prevented.
But I started to speak about the German position. I mentioned several
reasons why German foreign policy started to differ from Western
countries, from Americans, from the European Union. Somehow, they are
in power in Europe - economically, financially, in the media, the press
and propaganda, absolutely, number one, no comparison. That means they
practically took over the situation, and using the pretext of splitting
Yugoslavia the way they arranged, the war in Kosovo, where Americans
practically did the job for the Germans, they now enjoy effective
military power not only in eastern Europe. I think the situation of
NATO is not important now. Why? I think the presence of America in
Europe is not important now. They have some other spots in the world to
control.
So what happened in Europe? Even when Milosevic was in power, there was
no problem with Vojvodina, where there is a large Hungarian minority
inside Yugoslavia. No problem with Sandzak, Muslim problems. But until
recently we could read every day how Serbs were killing them, raping
women. Now, immediately, when the war in Kosovo was finished, nothing
happened. We have no problem in southern Slovakia, where those
Hungarians are living in an absolute majority over Czechs, and this is
the part of the country which never belonged to Slovaks, not even to
Slavs, and Hungarians lay claim to it. No problem. Hungarian Slovaks
are even in the government. Everything went smoothly, which means the
Germans took over Europe as such. Germans took responsibility for their
new territory, and Germans want to keep it calm. You noticed that the
first aid to the Serbs (after the fall of Milosevic) or to Yugoslavia
now, came from the German side. And I believe, that even Germans will
try to find a good relationship with Yugoslavia, to help them, and in
the near future, they have to make a major, new agreement with Russia,
not to divide power but (let's call it a better name) to divide
responsibility.
I don't understand very much about French policy. I never concentrate
on that. I don't know much about Great Britain's policy. I know this is
a special country, thanks to its close relationship with the United
States, which is a little different. But our part of Europe, like it or
not, is Germany's responsibility now. So if we are speaking about
unifying Europe under the nice blue flag, well Europe is united already
(although I don't like the flag). I have to admit that. Whether I like
it or not is not very important, it is a fact.
So, and this is where I would like to end, before me now is the
question how much Germans will be responsible, how we can influence
that responsibility taken by Germany, and if we, as the Czechs, or as
the Slovaks, or even as the Poles, could survive, as a cultural entity
in the European scene. This is my problem. I would say, I studied
America, I don't understand America. I lived there. And I respect
Americans as such. I respect them in many ways. But they are quite
naïve. You know, Genscher (the former German Foreign Minister) wrote in
his memoirs about Bosnia-Herzegovina, about Yugoslavia. And you know
what he said - and he is right. By the end of the war in Yugoslavia we
Germans have repaired the deeds or the consequences of the first World
War. What happened after the First World War which the Germans have now
,,repaired"? - the foundation of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the end
of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Today we have Otto von Habsburg
seeing in the European Union a new Charlemagne empire and the Germans
have moved in to Eastern and Southern Europe.
But who helped them to do that? Unfortunately it was the Americans. And
I would say that Clinton, before he leaves office, should go to
Arlington cemetery in Virginia, kneel down, and say, 'Boys, what you
died for in the first and second world wars, I gave up to the Germans
for nothing.'
Thank you.
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/news/article/1053907950.php