Jeg legger ut - i to deler - en fersk analyse av David Peterson fra 6. juli
1999 av Kosovo-fredsavtalen og hvordan den er blitt (evt. blir) (mis)tolket
av NATO. Artikkelen er lagt ut med forfatterens tillatelse.
En kortere versjon ble sendt ut 6. juli 1999 (som en del av en
bonusordning) til folk som månedlig støtter ZNet økonomisk: "... the
Commentaries are a premium sent to monthly donors to Z/ZNet and that to
learn more about the project folks can consult ZNet (http://www.zmag.org)
and specifically the Commentary Page
(http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm)."
Hvis noen har kommentarer formidler jeg dem gjerne videre til David Peterson.
Knut Rognes
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RESCUING ONE FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: THE SAGA OF THE "MISSING FOOTNOTE"
By David Peterson (Approx. 3,620 words, plus an Appendix)
A conflict of interpretations
On June 3, the Serb Parliament voted 136-74 to ratify the terms of a
cease-fire with NATO--a "notable achievement for NATO," the Washington Post
reported, "which over the past ten weeks has flown more than 31,000 sorties
and dropped nearly 20,000 bombs and missiles on Yugoslavia to force the
Milosevic government to end its brutal crackdown against the ethnic Albanian
majority in Kosovo."
The outcome of the Serb vote was largely along party lines, with the
vast majority of Deputy Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party
members voting to reject the document. "[W]e will not stay in the Serbian
Government from the moment that troops from aggressor countries,
particularly the U.S.A., enter Kosovo," Seselj said before the Serb
Parliament. "NATO troops for sure will not feel safe in Kosovo."
The document ratified by the Serb Parliament had been hand-delivered to
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic the previous day by Finnish President
and European Union representative Martti Ahtisaari and Russian Special
Representative to Yugoslavia Viktor Chernomyrdin. Talks between this trio
to end the bombing had been going forward since late May; talks between
Milosevic and Chernomyrdin (and before Chernomyrdin, various other Russian
officials) since shortly after the bombing began. Reports of the trio's
final meeting in Belgrade portray Milosevic as having asked Ahtisaari and
Chernomyrdin whether the terms laid out in the document were the "best" ones
"he was going to get from NATO" (New York Times). "I had to be candid,"
Ahtisaari later informed the media; "it was the best offer the international
community could come up with."
"In a swift retreat that may spell political trouble for him down the
road, Milosevic agreed to withdraw all Yugoslav military and police forces
from Kosovo--and allow 50,000 foreign troops under a United Nations flag,"
the Times's Steven Erlanger reported. However, "Some confusion remains over
who will lead the international force and over its exact makeup," he added.
"The agreement accepted Thursday [June 3] by Milosevic says the forces will
be under the auspices of the United Nations, but European and American
officials say the troops will in fact be commanded by NATO."
What the document really says
Understandably, the conflict over the command and composition of any
occupying civilian or military force for Kosovo had long been the most
contentious difference between NATO and Yugoslavia. In October, 1998,
Belgrade first agreed to the deployment of 2,000 unarmed peacekeeping
observers under the auspices of the Organization of Security and Cooperation
in Europe--a mission the OSCE/NATO never took seriously, it appears, having
deployed no more than 1,300-1,400 observers by the date in March when they
were hastily ordered withdrawn (March 19), NATO's attack then imminent.
Moreover, Belgrade made a series of offers from February through May of this
year in which it agreed to allow some kind of more robust international
civilian presence into Kosovo, provided it was under the command of the
United Nations and included a sizeable Russian contingent. But Belgrade
never wavered in its rejection of a military presence composed of the
adversarial parties of the Contact Group (the U.S., U.K., France, Germany
and Italy--the "quint" that in fact occupies Kosovo today). Not once--not
from the first day of talks at Chateau Rambouillet straight through any
period you care to mention. Of course, what would happen on the ground in
Kosovo in June was another matter. More about which shortly.
The relevant terms of the June 3 agreement weren't perfectly clear, but
they weren't impossible to understand, either. Especially not as they
applied to the command and control of the peacekeeping force to be deployed
in Kosovo. (See, e.g., Noam Chomsky, "Kosovo Peace Accord," and David
Peterson, "What the Documents Really Say," www.zmag.org.)
By June 3, Associated Press had already begun circulating an English
translation of what it called the "Kosovo peace plan approved by the Serb
parliament today." According to AP's translation of the document, the two
articles relevant to the deployment of a peacekeeping force for Kosovo
stated:
"3. Deployment in Kosovo, under U.N. auspices, of efficient
international civilian and security presences which would act as can be
decided according to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and be capable of
guaranteeing fulfillment of joint goals.
"4. International security presence, with an essential NATO
participation, must be deployed under a unified control and command and
authorized to secure safe environment for all the residents in Kosovo and
enable the safe return of the displaced persons and refugees to their
homes."
And so when a commentator on "state-controlled" Serbian Television read
that evening from the text of a statement that Milosevic's Socialist Party
issued in conjunction with the Parliament's vote, the statement
acknowledged, correctly, as it turned out, that "The role of the United
Nations is being affirmed in accordance with the U.N. Charter." At least
insofar as one sticks to the actual terms of the June 3 agreement, that is.
The words as they had been committed to paper. And agreed to--first by
Milosevic, and then by the Serb Parliament.
Over the course of the next seven days, the
Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin-Milosevic document of June 3 would return to the
world of international affairs in three more incarnations, each subsequent
incarnation being either identical with or imperceptibly different from the
others:
1. In a letter to the president of the Security Council dated June 7 (in
June, that was the Permanent Representative of Gambia to the United
Nations), the Permanent Representative of Germany wrote that he had the
"honor to bring to your attention the agreement on the principles (peace
plan) to move towards a resolution of the Kosovo crisis…," principles that
the "Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Assembly of
the Republic of Serbia accepted…on 3 June…" (Document S/1999/649). This
letter then reproduced the text of the June 3 agreement, including the exact
same terms one finds in Article 3 and 4 (above--the only marginal exceptions
being related to the difficulty of translating the terms from Serb to
English.)
2. In a Security Council resolution drafted in Cologne on June 8
(Document S/1999/661), the Security Council once again reproduced, this time
under Annex II, the exact same terms one finds in the document transmitted
to the president of the Security Council the previous day. Naturally,
Articles 3 and 4 remained unchanged, and still read as they did on June 3.
3. Finally, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 was passed on June 10.
This resolution introduced some changes into the draft resolution of June 8.
(For example, using the threat of a veto, the Chinese ambassador Shen
Guofang was able to insert a new opening paragraph that reaffirmed the
"principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and the primary
responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international
peace and security…." Unfortunately, in the real world, the importance of
this change is a matter of implementation, not mere words.) However, and
crucially, Articles 3 and 4 of Annex II remained unchanged. That is, they
still read exactly as they did in the Kosovo peace plan of June 3.
Thus as of June 10, the Government of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, and the 15 members of
the U.N. Security Council had been presented with, read, understood and
passed a document that, in its final incarnation, stated the following with
regard to the old bone of contention between NATO and Yugoslavia, the issue
of the command and composition of the international security and civil
presence to be deployed in Kosovo:
"3. Deployment in Kosovo under United Nations auspices of effective
international civil and security presences, acting as may be decided under
Chapter VII of the Charter, capable of guaranteeing the achievement of
common objectives.
"4. The international security presence with substantial North Atlantic
Treaty Organization participation must be deployed under unified command and
control and authorized to establish a safe environment for all people in
Kosovo and to facilitate the safe return to their homes of all displaced
persons and refugees."
Unambiguously, Articles 3 and 4 of this U.N. document called for (among
other things) the deployment of an international security presence within
Kosovo, under U.N. auspices and according to Chapter VII of the U.N.
Charter--this last clause meaning under the command and control of the
Security Council's Military Staff Committee, not a unilateral or
multilateral power independent of the Security Council. Of course, also
unambiguously, the NATO powers were invited to play a role in the security
deployment--a "substantial" role, no less. After all, who in world owns the
most and the biggest guns? But the NATO powers were not authorized to
command the security deployment. Nor were they authorized to comprise the
overwhelming majority of its forces on the ground. That right was to be left
up to the Security Council, acting according to Chapter 7 of the U.N.
Charter. Or to repeat what the Times's Steven Erlanger noted one week
before: "The agreement accepted Thursday [June 3] by Milosevic [and
reiterated not less than three more times over the course of the next week]
says the forces will be under the auspices of the United Nations"--not under
the auspices of the NATO powers. And this despite the fact that, as Erlanger
also correctly pointed out, "European and American officials say the troops
will in fact be commanded by NATO."
The "missing footnote"
But that's the way things work in the world of words--the old world of
cease-fire agreements, peace treaties, and U.N. resolutions. In the real
world--the world of the "new internationalism," a "new world where our
television screens are not full of suffering night after night," in short,
in a world governed by NATO's "New Moral Crusade" (Tony Blair)--things work
quite a bit differently.
On June 9, the New York Times buried a very short, and very curious,
176-word story on page A13. Titled "A Missing Footnote: 'NATO at the
Core'," this little story was published without a byline, though datelined
Washington. The entirety of the story about the "Missing Footnote" is
important enough to be quoted in full:
"When the Serbian Parliament voted on an international peace proposal
last
Thursday [June 3], it omitted one footnote on NATO's participation in the
security force that would enter Kosovo, while approving the rest of the
proposal. The footnote is also missing from the Security Council resolution
drafted today [June 8] in Germany. Following is the footnote from last
week's proposal:
"It is understood that NATO considers an international security force
with 'substantial NATO participation' to mean unified command and control
and having NATO at the core. This in turn means a unified NATO chain of
command under the political direction of the N.A.C. [North Atlantic Council]
in consultation with non-NATO force contributors. All NATO countries,
partners, and other countries will be eligible to contribute to the
international security force. NATO units would be under NATO command. It is
understood that Russia's position is that the Russian contingent will not be
under NATO command and its relationship to the international presence will
be governed by relevant additional agreements."
That was it. In 176 words anonymously tucked away on page A13, and
without having to name a single source for this earth-shaking piece of news
about the "missing footnote," the New York Times declared (to recall Mr.
Erlanger's words once again) that the agreement accepted by Milosevic and
ratified by the Serb Parliament on June 3, and later reiterated not less
than three times by the leading members of the international community,
including the U.N. Security Council and the draft of the same document
circulated by the U.S. State Department at the time, really says what
European and American officials say that it does: that the troops will in
fact largely consist of, and be commanded by, those NATO powers having the
biggest guns--though for some strange reason, Serb and Russian revisionists
who have yet to figure out how the "new internationalism" works kept
insisting that the documents say the troops will be commanded by the United
Nations.
Rewriting history as fast as it happens
Naturally, those of us who know at least something about this strange
saga of the "missing footnote" have been curious to learn what, exactly, is
going on here. Searches of the Nexis database for mentions of the whole or
different parts of the two key sentences turned up a total of 11 "hits"
(matches for the various phrases) across a spectrum of possible sources that
included all "News," "All Magazines," "All Wire Services," "All Non-US
News," and "All Transcripts."* (Because of their ubiquitous recurrence,
mentions of the phrases "NATO at its core," "NATO at the core," and
"substantial NATO participation" were not searched for.) Besides the June 9
article in the New York Times, the London Times (June 4), the Glasgow Herald
(June 4), the London Daily Telegraph (June 4), the San Diego Union-Tribune
(June 9, reprints the NYTimes story), London's Guardian (June 10), the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (June 10, reprints the Guardian story), and the
South Bend Tribune (June 10, also reprints the Guardian story) published the
two key sentences in full. In fact, the June 4 Glasgow Herald represents the
single instance that I could find in all English-language sources that
published the complete text of the June 3 Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin-Milosevic
agreement including the mysterious Second Footnote (the so-called "missing
footnote"). Other partial mentions of the two key sentences were found in
the Scotsman (June 4) and the London Times (June 16). And in his June 10
statement before the Security Council, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Peter
Burleigh explained that the Yugoslav "authorities have accepted that KFOR
will operate with a unified NATO chain of command, under the political
direction of the North Atlantic Council, in consultation with non-NATO force
contributors" (Federal Documents Clearing House Political Transcripts, June
10). Needless to say, the actual text of U.N. Res. 1244, which the Security
Council adopted that same day, did not bear out Burleigh's interpretation of
it.
Clearly the saga of the "missing footnote" forces some questions upon
us:
1. Did Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin deliver a document to Milosevic on June 2
that contained the "missing footnote," and did Milosevic reject the
footnote, leading the Serb Parliament to ratify everything but the "missing
footnote"?
2. Did the Serb Parliament ratify the full document (the "missing footnote"
included), but then release a copy of the document to the public and to AP
from which the footnote had been excised?
3. Did Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin deliver a document to Milosevic on June 2
which did not contain the so-called "missing footnote," so that when the
Serb Parliament voted on June 3 to ratify the document, the Serbs were not
ratifying the "missing footnote," there being no such footnote for them to
ratify?
Note that the correct answer to these questions is far from certain.
Among the few scattered articles in the British press to have reported the
footnote's existence, the Daily Telegraph acknowledged the obvious--that the
June 3 agreement suffered from a "lack of clarity" on questions concerning
the command and composition of the force to be deployed in Kosovo. More
revealing, however, was the Daily Telegraph's (June 4) acknowledgement that
The ambiguity was only worsened when diplomats travelling with the
European envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, and the Russian representative, Viktor
Chernomyrdin, appeared to have different understandings on the command
structure of the new force in Kosovo.
According to the Russian version, spelled out in a footnote attached to
the agreement document, Russian forces will work alongside but not within
Nato.
"It is understood that Russia's position is that the Russian contingent
will not be under Nato command and its relationship to the international
presence will be governed by relevant additional agreements," the footnote
said.
Meanwhile, the European version played up the role of Nato at the centre
of the peace implementation force for Kosovo.
"It is understood that Nato considers an international security force with
'substantial Nato participation' to mean unified command and control and
having Nato at the core," the footnote said.
"This in turn means a unified Nato chain of command under the political
direction of the North Atlantic Council in consultation with non-Nato force
contributors. All Nato countries, partners and other countries will be
eligible to contribute to the security force. Nato units would be under Nato
command."
This lack of detail means the Kosovo crisis may have many more turns to
take before its completion.
The Daily Telegraph's recognition of the conflicting interpretations of
the June 3 document--between a Russian (and Serb) interpretation of it, and
a European (and U.S.) interpretation--is worth considering. Or, rather than
speaking of two interpretations, perhaps we should speak of one
interpretation (the Russian-Serb one), and one willful misinterpretation
(the U.S.-European one)? To make the same point more honestly, I strongly
suspect that "A Missing Footnote: 'NATO at the Core'," the story reported
by the New York Times on June 9 (and elsewhere as well) is apocryphal--an
instance of the rewriting of the history of the Kosovo conflict even before
anybody else has the chance to write its "first-draft," so to speak. A
pre-emptive strike against the truth, if you will, by those who enjoy the
power to bend and twist history de jure (I mean the words, words, words that
make up the official documents) until it conforms much more strictly to the
facts as they unfold on the ground.
Seeing that the first mentions of the Second Footnote to the June 3
document were all in the British press (i.e., the June 4 editions of the
London Times, the Glasgow Herald, and the Daily Telegraph), one possible
explanation is that someone within the British Government or close to the
Ahtisaari delegation anonymously leaked the alleged footnote to these
newspapers, with the expectation that they would serve as a conduit for the
leak, regurgitating it in an unquestioning fashion. Remember: No official
draft of the June 3 agreement has ever contained a Second Footnote. Not the
English-language translation of the agreement that AP first put on the
wires. Not the draft of it circulated by the State Department. Not the
draft that Germany transmitted to the Security Council on June 7. Not even
the draft incorporated into Security Council Res. 1244 as Annex II. As a
matter of fact, the "missing footnote" does not seem to exist
anywhere--except, and here's the crucial qualifier, in the U.S.-European
"interpretation" of the document, and in the scattered reports that I listed
above. Otherwise, we would have to conclude that the U.N. Security Council
committed the gigantic blunder it would have taken for it to pass a
resolution while mistakenly leaving the crucial Second Footnote out of the
text.
Far more plausibly, the "missing footnote" went missing for the very
good reason that it simply does not exist. Rather, it has been grafted onto
the document ratified by the Serb Parliament in order for NATO to be able to
tell the world that the Serbs and the Russians finally agreed to the
occupation of Kosovo by NATO, proving that NATO's move from a "phase where
force was serving diplomacy to a phase where diplomacy is now serving the
military option" (State Department spokesman James Rubin) was essential to
resolving the crisis in Kosovo.
"The phenomenon is routine," as Noam Chomsky says. "It received a
classical literary expression centuries ago when Pascal, in his satire on
casuistry, singled out the 'utility of interpretations' as the most
effective mechanism by which the powerful can loftily uphold high principles
while reversing them in practice." (The New Military Humanism: Lessons from
Kosovo, manuscript, forthcoming from Common Courage Press.)
Applying this cynical principle to the Kosovo situation, it means the
rewriting of history as fast as it happens: transforming reality (i.e., a
document the terms of which describe an international security presence
under U.N. auspices and according to Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter), into
the powerful's version of reality (i.e., a NATO-led security presence under
the command of the North Atlantic Council--precisely the concrete situation
that NATO managed to realize on the ground in Kosovo.)
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