From: news@cc.swarthmore.edu (USENET News System)
Subject: THE UGLY ROLE OF WESTERN GOVERNMENTS
Originator: vuksan@ginger
Organization: Swarthmore College
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 01:39:36 GMT

@4. THE UGLY ROLE OF WESTERN GOVERNMENTS
 
The West said: it should rather stop at once; and the west said the
same thing many times. In fact I quitted keeping record of how many
times exactly a long time ago.
West also repeatedly invited to the same negotiating table the same
people who cynically violated all peace treaties and cease-fire
agreements that they had previously signed. So, western governments
kindly asked them: would you like to sign a new one?, yes?, o.k.,
please, sign here. By doing this, according to the western
corporate business standards, responsibility was transfered from
the "concerned public" to the undersigned individual.
Unfortunatelly, the same standards weren't applied further, when
the undersigned had to be accountable for following the contract,
he had signed, to the letter.
For example: Yugoslav Air-Force is banned to fly over Bosnia.
However, since the ban is in force, Yugoslav combat aircraft flew
more than hundred flights, including bombing sorties of Bosnian
cities and villages.
Another example: The world sent about 100 milion $ worth of relief
shipments to Sarajevo. Half of those shipments were seized
immidiately on the airport by Serbian forces (which are supposedly
boycotted). Serbs are selecting out meat, telephone gear, fire-
fighting equipment and the newsprint (donated for Sarajevo's
independent daily Oslobodjenje /Liberation/).
One more example: The UN embargo against Serbia is so extensively
violated that it serves no purpose whatsoever. Certainly, Serbian
government creates shortages of basic goods to make people feel the
effects of embargo as to make them more willing to hate and to
fight. Yugoslav Army doesn't suffer at all.
Such an outrage is met in the west mostly by a lip service and ever
present statement that "the other side" also does bad things.
Actually, what Europe or America are doing is not a whole lot
different of what Serbs, Croats and muslim Slavs are doing. Blaming
the "others". As Serbs are blaming Croats and muslims, and as
Croats are blaming Serbs and muslims, and as muslims are blaming
Serbs and Croats: U.S. is blaming  the E.C. for ineptitude in
dealing with Yugo-war and E.C. is blaming the U.S. for not
providing the usual leadership in the case of Yugo-war; France and
Britain are blaming Germany for early recognition of Croatia and
Slovenia, Germany is blaming France and Britain for hesitating to
recognize republics. Acting secretary of state, Eagleburger, is
blaming "Yugoslavs" for irrationality, telling the war would end
when people exhaust themselves or die. Members of different ethnic
communities of former Yugoslavia in the U.S. are blaming
Eagleburger - Croats for his past Serbian connections, Serbs for
the American role in pushing for UN embargo of Serbia.
 
Essentially, the whole world became very anxious and unsecure after
the collapse of the old cold war world order. That brought to
surface all sophisticated differences between different western
governments, political systems, economies and cultures. Not doing
anything meaningful in former Yugoslavia seems to be the only thing
left that the west still agrees upon. It is horrifying to realize
that western democracies are unable to cope with each other and
with themselves if there is no dark spot on the planet to which
they can refer as The Evil. Soviet empire served the purpose as the
Evil Empire for many years. Now, Yugoslavia fits the place. As
Yugoslavia is far smaller in size, the level of The Evil (abuses,
inhumanity...) has to be proportionally greater. It is very
discouraging for the world peace that the only thing western
societies tend to have in common is of negative character. The west
needs a fundamental change to enable itself to work cooperatively
toward the positive (instead of negative) goals. It is also
important to acknowledge that today west includes East Europe and
republics of former Soviet Union.
 
The East, after becoming west, had even more complex problem: as
the east-European society was also definig itself AGAINST some Evil
(the West in the case), it has the same problem like the former
West - to define itself on positive goals. However, by becoming
west the East committed the act of self-destruction, so unlike the
previously western societies the Eastern societies lack established
set of values and codes of behavior (mores). Moral disorientation
among common people made those societies very vulnerable. The
shortage of positive denominators in the west, destroyed democratic
attempts of social movements in the East which were lingering for
hope about a decade. It was obvious that the East was dying. The
search for solutions became discouragingly fruitless, debilitating,
hopeless. Finally the East entrusted itself to the West (I remember
when Tomaz Mastnak, a Slovenian sociologist and peace activist
wrote about what to do to end the endless Yugoslav economic
deterioration: "solution is easy to find: just look on the other
side of the Alps" - to the West). We hoped that if we (the East)
become them/you (the West) our problems would end. The West greatly
encouraged that idea. It was very disappointing to find that the
prosperity of the west was relative. The west become looking all
the sudden very bleak after the east disappeared. And the west
didn't have the solution. Actually, the west itself began crumbling
after the self-destruction of the east. Hope was vain. I see the
same disappointment every time in individual cases - when I meet
somebody who just recently emigrated from the Eastern Europe to the
West.