A L S O+T O D A Y Beginner's guide to the Balkans By Laura Rozen A week ago, few Americans could find Kosovo on a map. What's behind the crisis Clinton's committed to solve Kosovo update By Laura Rozen Macedonian officials leave hundreds of Kosovo Albanian refugees stranded Milosevic's proposal The Yugoslav president says he's ready to stop his campaign against Kosovar Albanians and take his place at the negotiating table, but only if NATO halts its airstrikes   T A B L E+T A L K Has Larry Flynt delivered dynamite revelations or dirty laundry leftovers? Dissect the Flynt Report in the Politics area of Table Talk   Search and ye shall find -- personal health, family wealth and bibliophilic happiness at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     R E C E N T L Y Endgame? By Jeff Stein As the crisis spirals out of control, everybody scrambles for a quick solution. Everybody but Milosevic (03/30/99) Postcards from Yugoslavia Postcards from Yugoslavia: E-mail lets ordinary citizens get their story out to the world (03/30/99) A raft of refugees Reports of genocide, political assassinations and a Serbian "scorched-earth policy" punctuated the sixth day of allied bombing in Yugoslavia (03/30/99) Calling Kosovo By Laura Rozen Serbs and ethnic Albanians are united -- in misery -- as the bombing and the terror continue (03/29/99) The empires strike back By Jeff Stein As the world focuses on the Balkans, the return of Germany and Japan to military action barely made news (03/29/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		BOMBING THE BABY WITH THE BATH WATER | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - My friends in the West keep asking me why there is no rebellion. Where are the people who poured onto the streets every day for three months in 1996 to demand democracy and human rights? Zoran Zivkovic, the opposition mayor of the city of Nis, answered that last week: "Twenty minutes ago my city was bombed. The people who live here are the same people who voted for democracy in 1996, the same people who protested for 100 days after the authorities tried to deny them their victory in the elections. They voted for the same democracy that exists in Europe and the U.S. Today my city was bombed by the democratic states of the U.S.A., Britain, France, Germany and Canada! Is there any sense in this?" Most of these people feel betrayed by the countries that were their models. Only yesterday a missile landed in the yard of our correspondent in Sombor. It didn't explode, fortunately, but many others have in many other people's yards. These people are now compelled to take up arms and join their sons, who are already serving in the army. With the bombs falling all around them, nobody can persuade them -- though some have tried -- that this is only an attack on their government and not their country. It may seem cynical that I am writing this from the security of my office in Belgrade -- secure, that is, compared to Pristina, Djakovica, Podujevo and other places in Kosovo. But I can't help asking one question: How can F-16s stop people in the street killing one another? Only days before the NATO aggression began, Secretary-General Javier Solana suggested establishing a "Partnership for Democracy" in Serbia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia to promote stability throughout the region. Then, in a rapid U-turn, he gave the order to attack Yugoslavia. With these attacks, it seems to me, the West has washed its hands of the people, Albanians, Serbs and others, living in the region. Thus the sins of the government have been visited on the people. Is this just? There are many more factors in the choice of a nation's government than merely the will of the voters on Election Day. If a stable, democratic rule is to be established, and the rise of populists, demagogues and other impostors avoided, the public must first of all be enlightened. In other words there must be free media. NATO's bombs have blasted the germinating seeds of democracy out of the soil of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro and ensured that they will not sprout again for a very long time. The pro-democratic forces in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serbian entity, have been jeopardized and with them the Dayton peace accords. NATO's intervention has also given the green light for a local war against Montenegro's pro-democracy president, Milo Djukanovic. The free media in Serbia has for years opposed nationalism, hatred and war. As a representative of those media, and as a man who has more than once faced the consequences of my political beliefs, I call on President Clinton to put a stop to NATO's attack on my country. I call on him to begin negotiations that aim at securing the right to a peaceful life and democracy for all the people in Yugoslavia, regardless of their ethnic background. As a representative of the free media, I know too well the need for people on all sides of the conflict to have information. Those inside the country need to be aware of international debate as well as what is happening throughout this country. The international public needs the truth about what is happening here. But in place of an unfettered flow of accurate information, all of us hear only war propaganda -- Western rhetoric included. Of course, truth is always the first casualty in war. Here and now, journalists are also being murdered. Radio B92 is continuing its work as much as the circumstances of war permit. It is continuing to broadcast news on the Internet, via satellite and through a large number of radio stations around the world that continue to carry its programs out of solidarity. SALON | March 31, 1999 Veran Matic is editor in chief of Belgrade's banned Radio B92 and a leading peace activist. He has won many international awards for media and democracy, the latest being last year's MTV Europe "Free Your Mind" award. Early this year he was named one of this year's 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. Distributed by the Global Beat Syndicate   PHOTO: AP/WIDE WORLD