Chomsky on the Balkans...and Colombia

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Colombia has been the leading western recipient of US arms and 
training as violence has grown through the 90s. That assistance is 
now increasing under a 'drug war' pretext that is dismissed by 
almost all serious observers.
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THE GUARDIAN

Monday, 17 May 1999

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* COMMENTARY *
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Nato's Balkans intervention marks
a turning point in the global order
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By Noam Chomsky

The many questions about the bombing of Yugoslavia by the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organisation --meaning primarily the United States-- 
come down to two fundamental issues: what are the accepted and 
applicable 'rules of world order' and how do these apply in the case 
of Kosovo? 

There is a regime of international law and international order, based 
on the United Nations Charter and subsequent resolutions and World 
Court decisions. It bans the threat or use of force unless authorised 
by the Security Council after it has determined that peaceful means 
have failed, or in cases of self-defence against 'armed attack' until 
the Security Council takes action.

There is a tension between the rules of world order laid down in the 
UN Charter and the rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights, a second pillar of the world order established under 
US initiative after the second world war. The charter bans force that 
violates state sovereignty; the declaration guarantees the rights of 
individuals against oppressive states. The issue of humanitarian 
intervention arises from this tension. It is this right that is claimed 
by the US/Nato in Kosovo. 

There has been a humanitarian catastrophe there in the past year 
that is overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav military forces. In 
such cases, outsiders have three choices: to escalate the catastrophe, 
to do nothing, or to mitigate the catastrophe. The choices can be 
illustrated by other contemporary cases.

In Colombia, according to US state department estimates, the annual 
level of political killing by the government and its paramilitary 
associates matches that of Kosovo, and more than a million people 
have fled the atrocities. Colombia has been the leading western 
recipient of US arms and training as violence has grown through the 
90s. That assistance is now increasing under a 'drug war' pretext that 
is dismissed by almost all serious observers. Bill Clinton's 
administration has been particularly enthusiastic in its praise of 
President Gaviria, whose tenure in office was responsible for 
appalling levels of violence, according to human rights organisations. 
In this case the US reaction was to escalate the atrocities.

Perhaps the most compelling example of the third choice --to try to 
limit violence-- was the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 
December 1978, ending Pol Pot's atrocities, which were then at their 
peak. Vietnam pleaded the right of self-defence against armed 
attack. The Khmer Rouge regime (Democratic Kampuchea, DK) was 
carrying out murderous attacks against Vietnam in border areas.

Reaction in the US was instructive. The press condemned the 
'Prussians' of Asia for their outrageous violation of international law. 
They were harshly punished for the crime of having terminated Pol 
Pot's slaughters, first by a (US-backed) Chinese invasion, then by the 
US imposition of extremely harsh sanctions. This example tells us 
more about the 'custom and practice' that underlies 'the emerging 
legal norms of humanitarian intervention'.

Today the nearer one gets to the conflict region, the greater the 
opposition to Washington's insistence on force, even within Nato. 
Under Clinton the defiance of world order has become so extreme as 
to be of concern even to hawkish policy analysts. In the current issue 
of the leading establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel 
Huntington writes that, in the eyes of much of the world, the US is 
'becoming the rogue superpower', considered 'the single greatest 
external threat to their societies'. A realistic 'international relations 
theory', he argues, predicts that coalitions may arise to 
counterbalance the rogue superpower. 

In Kosovo, the US has chosen a course of action that escalates 
atrocities and violence. It is also a course of action that strikes a blow 
against the regime of international order, but which offers the weak 
at least some protection from predatory states. A standard argument 
is: 'We had to do something; we could not simply stand by as 
atrocities continued.' That is never true. One choice, always, is to 
follow the Hippocratic principle: 'First, do no harm.' If you can think 
of no way to adhere to that elementary principle, then do nothing. 
There are always ways that can be considered. Diplomacy and 
negotiations are never at an end. 

For those who do not adopt the standards of Saddam Hussein, there 
is a heavy burden of proof to meet in undertaking the threat or use 
of force in violation of the principles of international order. Perhaps 
the burden can be met, but that has to be shown, not merely 
proclaimed with passionate rhetoric. The consequences of, and the 
reasons for, such violations have to be assessed carefully - and not 
simply by adulation of our leaders and their 'moral compass'.

Noam Chomsky is professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Copyright 1999 The Guardian
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