This may seem melodramatic, but in Spectre’s view the novel interpretation of international law favoured by Clinton, his vicious lapdog in Downing Street, and the other NATO warriors represents the biggest threat to peace and democracy since Hitler and Mussolini pulled similar tricks – and with almost the same justifications – in the 1930s. At least then the nations which became the Allies were run by men who, whatever else they may have been, appeared to have some understanding of the gravity of war, of what it really means to drop bombs on people, to invade their countries, to try to force them, by violence, to do one’s will. Now we have Clinton, Blair and, playing a strange, demented game of his own, the unspeakable Yeltsin: it is as if capitalism were a single firm, bereft of its ruthless, astute, determined founders, run instead by the old boss’s dissolute, irritable and dim-witted son.
It is vital that the left presents an alternative to this nightmarish state of affairs, and that we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by secondary questions. The biggest of these is, of course, our attitude to the Yugoslav government and its leader, Slobodan Milosevic. There are those in the anti-war movement who march beneath the slogan Neither NATO nor Milosevic, who see themselves as campaigning against two great crimes against humanity – not only NATO’s bombing but the Yugoslav Army’s ethnic cleansing. On the other extreme are parties and individuals who express absolute solidarity with Yugoslavia’s government, who see Belgrade as in the forefront of the struggle against imperialism, and who either deny that the ethnic cleansing has happened at all, claim that it has been exaggerated, or say simply that the internal affairs of a sovereign state are none of our damned business. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, the movement against the war must remain united around a single slogan: stop the bombing, lift any threat of further bombing, and do it now.
Of course, whoever is responsible, there are now hundreds of thousands of refugees, the majority of them Kosovan-Albanians, and they deserve our support and solidarity as much as do any of this war’s other victims. The demonisation of the Kosovars by some elements is simply the mirror-image of the demonisation of the Serbs, and is no more acceptable. It may be, moreover, that Serbs, organised in both regular and irregular forces, have committed atrocities against the Albanian minority – indeed, it seems certain that this is so, to one extent or another. It may also be that Milosevic has encouraged this. His record does not encourage the belief that he is above such behaviour.
We can say that if Milosevic is guilty of even some of the charges laid against him, then he is, possibly, a war criminal. As long as the war goes on, however, until and unless the situation can be normalised to the extent that a political opposition can once again function within Yugoslavia, we cannot be sure whether Milosevic’s crimes could be established, in a court of law, beyond reasonable doubt.
Clinton and Blair are, on the other hand, clearly war criminals, and on several counts. Point 1: NATO’S action, for which they, more than anyone else, are responsible, violates Article 2 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against a sovereign state which has committed no act of aggression outside its borders. Point 2: the action violates NATO’s own charter, which allows the use of force only if a member of the alliance is attacked. Point 3: the attempt to force Yugoslavia to sign the Rambouillet accords under threat of force violates Articles 51 and 52 of the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which forbid such coercion. Point 4, any attempt to coerce Yugoslavia to surrender its sovereignty over Kosovo would violate the Helsinki Accords Final Act of 1975, which guarantees the territorial integrity of all European states.
When we have done all we can to stop this murderous aggression, then will be the time to argue the rights and wrongs of Milosevic, his government and armed forces. For now, we must concentrate on the proven war criminals running our own countries. If we succeed, we can get up petitions and organise meetings demanding that the Yugoslav President be jailed for life, hung up by his toes, or canonised by the Pope. Whether we see him as Monstrous Milo or Saint Slobodan is not yet relevant. We have a war to stop, and if we fail, we will have allowed a principle to be established which will permit the US and its allies to wage war whenever, wherever, against whomever they choose, with only a universal code of ethics, defined by them but applicable to everyone everywhere, as its justification. How long a fragile international peace, parliamentary institutions, or our own movement could survive in such a world is not a question whose answer we should be anxious to discover.