Fighting to the end became a practical alternative to a mock international trial. Forcing a treaty settlement on Serbia where Serbia would lose the sovereign territory of Kosovo guaranteed an escalation of the fighting and the forced removal of the Kosovars from their homes. l 1730 Ignoring the fact that more than 500.000 Serbs were uprooted from Croatia and Bosnia with the encouragement of NATO intervention did great harm to the regional effort to reestablish more stable borders. The sympathy shown Albanian refugees by our government and our media. although justified. stirred the flames of hatred by refusing to admit that over a half million Serbs suffered the same fate and yet elicited no concern from the internationalists bent on waging war. No one is calling for the return of certain property and homes. Threatening a country to do what we the outsiders tell them or their cities will be bombed is hardly considered good diplomacy. Arguing that the Serbs must obey and give up what they see as sovereign territory after suffering much themselves as well as face war crimes trials run by the West makes no sense. Anyone should have been able to predict what the results would be. The argument that. because of humanitarian concerns for the refugees. we were forced to act is not plausible. Our efforts dramatically increased the refugee problem. Milosevic. as he felt cornered by the Western threats. reacted the only way he could to protect what he considered Serbia. a position he defends with international law while being supported by unified Serb people. If it is the suffering and the refugees that truly motivate our actions. there is no answer to the perplexing question of why no action was taken to help the suffering in Rwanda. Sudan. East Timore.
Keywords matched
refugees refugee