Yugoslavia/NATO Info 27; 2/2 5/5/99 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Yugoslavia/NATO Info 27; 2/2 5/5/99 part 2 of 2 New Scientist: Radioactive Shells New Scientist May 1, 1999 Pg. 21 HEADLINE: Radioactive shells Even commentators who support NATO's airborne military action against Serbia have expressed alarm that the alliance forces have not ruled out the use of depleted uranium in their armour-piercing munitions. It is one of the densest naturally occurring elements - almost twice as dense as lead - which makes it ideal for penetrating armoured targets such as tanks. It has found its way into weapons such as the nose cones of cruise missiles and munitions for Apache helicopters and Harrier jump jets. Depleted uranium is a radioactive waste material produced in the uranium enrichment process, with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Britain's National Radiological Protection Board (www.nrpb.org.uk) refuses to comment on the use of radiological sources in weapons for national defence, but can comment on the properties of depleted uranium as a material. It says depleted uranium is a strong source of beta radiation, emitting 2 millisieverts per hour. "That's a big dose if you're in contact with it," says an NRPB spokesman. "It's not a matter of life or death, but it (depleted uranium) is a significant radiological source." A day's worth of skin contact would give the maximum allowable contact dose for a year. Depleted uranium was first used openly in the Gulf War. According to the American Gulf War Veterans Association, hundreds of tonnes of munitions employing depleted uranium were used against Iraqi artillery and armoured vehicles. Check their site at www.gulfwarvets.com. Since the initial Gulf conflict, it has been unofficially blamed for increases in leukaemia cases recorded in Iraq. The veterans estimate that around 600 000 troops were exposed to depleted uranium in the Gulf. Antenna, a Dutch social affairs site, hosts pages that attempt to document the alleged effects of depleted uranium weapons. Check them out at http://antenna.nl/wise/uranium/dedg.html. For more science news see http://www.newscientist.com *************************************** MESSAGE FROM DIANA JOHNSTONE ABOUT VOIVODINA Dear Friends, I have been informed by telephone from Yugoslavia that NATO bombing of the chemical industry in Novi Sad has apparently caused an environmental disaster. A huge toxic cloud is said to hang over the city, and people are fleeing from the region. This report comes from visual testimony, not from scientific analysis of the nature of the chemical pollution caused by NATO's bombing. It should be pointed out that the very heavy damage inflicted on the important city of Novi Sad since the beginning of NATO's air offensive appears to have strategic aims totally unrelated to the Kosovo problem. Novi Sad is the cultural and economic capital of the rich northern Serbian province of Voivodina, a province remarkable for the good relations between the many different ethnic groups that live there, which include a large Hungarian minority, enjoying extensive cultural autonomy. A fertile plain, Voivodina is both Serbia's "breadbasket", and undoubtedly the easiest part of the country to invade by foreign armies, thanks to the flat terrain. =20 From the first week of the air offensive, NATO has targeted bridges over the Danube. The Danube as it passes through Serbia is a mighty river, with few bridges. The most important have all been destroyed. The obvious strategic aim of such targeting is to cut off Voivodina from the rest of Serbia. There is good reason to suspect that certain strategists envisage detaching Voivodina from Yugoslavia, perhaps as yet another "independent protectorate" of NATO, or eventually to be partly absorbed by Hungary and Croatia. Politically, this would require a propaganda preparation in the form of accusations that ethnic Hungarians or other minorities were being abused in some way by Serbia. NATO could "respond" rapidly to such accusations by invading from the territory of new NATO member Hungary, or from Croatia, or both. =20 Meanwhile, the heavy bombing of Novi Sad seems to have no purpose other than to ruin and depopulate that important city, with its majority Serb population. The destruction of the city's industry and the pollution of its environment are hard to explain otherwise. It could be said that the population of Voivodina in general, and Novi Sad in particular, have very little interest whatsoever in Kosovo, other than to have served over the years as the land of economic opportunity for many Serbs, Albanians or others who have left Kosovo in search of a better life. In a special supplement on Kosovo, the Italian geopolitical quarterly "Limes" has published a map showing the eventual final partition of Serbia into six pieces (not counting Montenegro). One of these would obviously be Voivodina. In short, while the European and American left argue about "humanitarian intervention", the geostrategists are paying attention to what this war is really about: the division and conquest of the Balkans.=20 -- Diana Johnstone, May 1, 1999 **************************************** AFP: NATO could face war crimes court if guilty of Yugo abuses: Robinson GENEVA, April 30 (AFP) - UN human rights chief Mary Robinson on Friday warned that NATO forces could be tried by a war crimes court if it appeared to have committed "serious" rights violations in Yugoslavia. The International Criminal Tribune for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague had the powers to investigate war crimes committed by any of the parties to an armed conflict, she told the Human rights Commission. "The actions of individuals belonging to Serb forces, the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) or NATO may therefore come under scrutiny, i it appears that serious violations of international humanitarian law have occurred." The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, large numbers of civilians have been "incontestably" killed. Civilian installations were targeted on the basis that they are or could be of military application, and "NATO remains the sole judge of what is or is not acceptable to bomb," Robinson said in an update to the commission on Kosovo developments. "In this situation, the principle of proportionality must be adhered to by those carrying out the bombing campaign." They had to weigh the consequences of their campaign on the impact of civilians in Yugoslavia. NATO air strikes against Yugoslav targets began on March 24. Robinson again called for an end to "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo and a peaceful solution to the crisis. "Unless diplomacy succeeds, Kosovo will be throughly cleansed of Albanians while Serbs will, on present performance, be bombed without end," she told the commission which wraps up its six-week session Friday. She said that those responsible for deliberate ethnic cleansing in Kosovo must be brought to justice. She also urged Yugoslav authorities to declare "unequivocally that every refugee and displaced person will be entitled to return to his or her home in safety." Serbian military and paramilitary forces have expelled hundreds of thousands of Kosovars, most of whom have ended up in overcrowded camps or with host families in Albania, Macedonia, and the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. More than 120,000 refugees have been temporarily accepted by Western European countries. ********************************************* Serbia Info General Haig again criticizes NATO Gen. Haig again criticizes NATO May 02, 1999 Bonn, May 2 (Tanjug)- Former U.S. secretary of state and NATO supreme commander (1974-1979), retired U.S. General Alexander Haig once again criticized NATO aggression on Yugoslavia as a totally absurd campaign on Sunday. Gen. Haig told the Berlin Tagesspiegel that NATO had no business in Kosovo and Metohija and the reason for the launching of the air strikes against Yugoslavia was concern for the further meaning of NATO's existence, so that he said something was urgently needed to justify that existence. Gen. Haig had criticized NATO seven days ago in an interview to a Munich weekly, when he termed NATO aggression on Yugoslavia an extremely daring adventure. Gen. Haig said at the time he would never advise such a campaign. ******************************************* Money Laundering Suspected in Kosovo Funds By Yojana Sharma BERLIN, Apr 29 (IPS) - Funds continue to flow South to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), often to buy arms, despite warnings by Germany's credit agencies that Kosovo Albanians could be using accounts in Northern Europe to launder the gains of heroin-trafficking gangs operating around Europe. Unofficially, the German government tolerates fund-raising activities by the KLA, which draws on the generosity of some 320,000 Kosovars in Germany. Like NATO allies, the KLA is fighting against a common enemy, Serbia. Germany's Federal Credit Supervisory Agency has warned the Association of German Banks that they could be acting against the law by allowing several suspect Kosovo Albanian accounts to remain open. Estimates vary widely on how much money is raised in Germany and sent South. Germany's domestic intelligence organisation, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently estimated that some 850,000 dollars per month are sent from the country to support the KLA war effort. Germany has the largest concentration of ethnic Albanians outside the Balkans and many are asked to contribute some three percent of their net wages to support the war . This percentage was first mentioned in a call for solidarity by Kosovar leader Bujar Bukoshi who now lives in exile in Bonn. As support for the Kosovo rebels grows among ethnic Albanians in Germany, many find donations a satisfying way to support the war effort. Many would like to fight, but a large number are refugees in Germany and Austria. Travelling to the Balkans to take part in the fighting - as many say they would like to do - would jeopardize their asylum status. However, precisely because many Kosovo Albanians are asylum seekers living on state welfare, analysts say the funds raised seem higher than what Kosovars in Germany could afford to be paying. Police, banking organisations and anti-drug agencies suspect much of the money is sent to German, Swiss and Austrian accounts by clans who run the heroin trade in Southern Europe. Germany's Federal Credit Supervisory Agency says clear evidence of laundering has emerged from investigations into Kosovar businesses and travel agencies in Northern Europe - many of them front companies set up to launder criminal gains. Kosovar humanitarian aid organisations say funds not only come from Kosovars in Western Europe but generous Germans and other Europeans as well, and this would account for the large sums. Shaqir Gashi is a member of the Mother Theresa Association for Humanitarian Welfare with branches in a number of German cities which organise aid to refugees in the Balkans. His group is purely humanitarian with no links to fighting groups. He said Germans were also extremely ready to make donation in cash and kind. "Without the Germans,'' he said recently ''we would never make it.'' But analysts in berlin say that this cannot be true for the KLA. Little if any of their funding comes from outside their own ethnic group. The Federal Credit agency says funds are not only from dubious sources, but also that funds earmarked for humanitarian purposes are finding their way into other accounts and going towards ''fulfilling the military needs of the KLA''. The German authorities have long been concerned about funds being used for arms purchases by the KLA. German laws ban the export of weapons while German and European Union regulations make the transfer of money for weapons illegal. The German Bank regulatory authorities have also been particularly concerned about the Democratic Association of Albanians in Germany (DVAD) founded six years ago. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution maintains the DVAD is a front organisation for a guerilla-linked organisation, the Peoples Movement of Kosovo. In a media interview recently DVAD chairman Ibrahim Kelmendi admitted there was no way to be ''absolutely certain'' that money raised in the country would not be used to buy weapons. ''We are not collecting money for weapons,'' Kelmendi is quoted as saying. ''We are collecting funds for humanitarian aid. But it is possible that the money we have collected and sent has been used for weapons.'' A fund '' Homeland Seeks help'' based in the small German town of Siegburg near Bonn, and operated by the DVAD is particularly suspected of using funds for arms purchases. That fund continues to take donations. ''It is certainly possible there will always be abuses, '' says Kelmendi. According to Banks large sums are still being paid into the account of the DVAD despite warnings by the Federal Credit Agency that money is withdrawn in cash and carried to Switzerland for distribution to Kosovar groups including the KLA. The German government has considered several times whether to ban the DVAD over the illicit use of funds raised in Germany. This week the government said only that German police continue to monitor the funds and would intervene ''appropriately''. And even if the German authorities were to find a way to close down these accounts and prevent the DVAD from fund raising, Kelmendi maintains Kosovars in Germany would ''find other ways to help their families back home.'' The KLA representative in Germany Sabri Kicmari admits that donations from Kosovars in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are an important source of funding for the KLA. However, Kicmari will not divulge how much money has been collected by the KLA in western Europe or how it will be spent. ''That is a matter for the officers'', he says vaguely. Kosovar students questioned in Berlin say they would support money going to the KLA for weapons. Although many had contributed small amounts to humanitarian organisations they say if they had more money they would not hesitate to donate to the KLA, even if it went towards weapons purchases. ''How can we live under the Serbs?'' says one student, ''We must fight them and free Kosovo.'' Kicmari himself says that Kosovars with steady jobs in Western Europe would do better to stay and ''support our liberation struggle financially,'' rather than volunteering to fight. ********************************************* Balkans Economies Battered by War in Yugoslavia By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Apr 29 (IPS) - While NATO warplanes continue to rain bombs on the infructure of Yugoslavia, the economies of Belgrade's pro-NATO Balkan neighbours also are taking a beating. Already battered by the ripple effects of Russia's financial meltdown last year, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are likely to suffer an average loss of at least five percent in their 1999 economic growth rates, according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Assuming a protracted NATO campaign against Yugoslavia, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have estimated that the cost of taking care of refugees through the end of the year will top 430 million dollars. The impact of the war itself on Yugoslavia's six Balkan neighbours in increased transportation costs, lost investment, and declines in tourism and trade in 1999 will exceed 1.8 billion dollars - or 2.5 percent of their combined annual gross domestic product (GDP), according a Bank-IMF paper. These are conservative estimates, stressed financial officials who held a preliminary donors' meeting here during this week's semi-annual spring Bank-IMF meetings. ''It's not just Kosovo and the Yugoslav republic,'' World Bank president James Wolfensohn is reported to have told the meeting, ''but also adjacent states.'' Indeed, Yves Thibault de Silguy, the European Union's (EU) commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, told donors here that reconstruction costs for the entire region could reach 30 billion dollars, although most of that would be spent in Yugoslavia itself, once the war is over. The European Union and the World Bank will be co-chairing efforts to raise money from some 40 international and bilateral donors in a series of country-and region-specific meetings that will take place in May. They have also been charged with designing and coordinating plans for how to spend that money. The three most-affected nations besides Yugoslavia - Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia - are the the poorest in Europe. With per capita incomes of 750 US dollars, 950 dollars and 1200 dollars, respectively, they also rank among the world's poorest 50 nations. Yet they have borne the brunt of the outflow from Kosovo of more than 600,000 refugees - a number expected to go even higher as the war intensified. In addition, the costs of sheltering the refugees could escalate sharply if they do not return home to Kosovo by October, when colder weather sets in. ''Northern Albania and Macedonia are starting in October, (and) you can no longer live in tents,'' said Michael Deppler, Director of the IMF's European Department. The World Bank is confident that international donors will provide some 300 million dollars - most of the money required to care for the refugees - but the three governments will still have to divert more than 100 million dollars between them from development to humanitarian relief, according to the Bank-IMF report. And even that amount could be ''significantly underestimated at this stage,'' the report cautioned. The three countries - all of which were politically fragile even before the refugee flow began - face other economic losses. The uncertainty created by the crisis will necessarily reduce foreign investment, while the damage sustained to Yugoslavia's transportation infrastructure effectively cuts off a vital link between Albania and Macedonia and Central Europe. Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina especially will be hard hit by the ongoing conflict because Serbia, which is bearing the brunt of NATO's bombing, has long been a major market for their exports. Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania - all with larger populations and wealthier economies - will nonetheless also suffer economic losses, according to the Bank-IMF report. Croatia's Adriatic Coast, which last year earned some 2.5 billion dollars from tourism, is poised to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in summer bookings, while Romania and Bulgaria, which whose agricultural and other exports to central and western Europe traditionally travel along the Danube or over highways through Yugoslavia, must now use longer and more expensive routes. All six countries will suffer from the uncertainties caused by the war, including losses in foreign investment and business confidence, which, in turn, will set back economic reform and privatisation programmes, the report said. And those factors will have a major impact at the micro- economic level, according to the vice president for the European and Central Asian region of the World Bank, Johannes Linn. ''If a business loses 20 percent of its exports and trade opportunities, that may be the difference between staying in business or going out of business, and the impact on employment, on the economy as a whole, can be much larger than just the 20 percent of trade,'' he said. International donors already have taken a number of steps to deal with these losses. At a conference last week in Brussels, donors pledged 750 million dollars for Bulgaria in 1999 of which about 100 million dollars was earmarked to help Sofia overcome the effects of the Kosovo crisis. A similar meeting will be held next week for Macedonia and another for Bosnia-Herzegovina in late May in Paris. The European Union also has scheduled a major donors' conference for May 27 in Bonn. That meeting - at which much more specific estimates of projected losses will be presented - will consider a medium-term regional programme for the Balkans. The World Bank, which has been providing emergency aid to Albania and Macedonia, is preparing adjustments in its lending programmes to all of the affected countries. In addition, the IMF can draw on facilities designed to compensate countries for the unexpected loss of export earnings and other income. The Paris Club of bilateral donors this week also agreed to defer foreign debt payments owed by Macedonia and Albania through at least next March, and other forms of debt relief for affected countries are expected. *************************************** Global Reflexion - Foundation for International Cooperation P.O. Box 59262 - 1040 KG Amsterdam - The Netherlands At: Center for International Cooperation Sloterkade 20 - 1058 HE Amsterdam - The Netherlands Ph. ++ 31 20 615 1122 / Fax: ++ 31 20 615 1120 e-mail: office@globalreflexion.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-05.12.99-03:44:46-4423