Reprinted from The Common Good, No 12, Pentecost 1999
Interview - Jacques de Maio, veteran Red Cross worker
In April 1999, our European correspondent met with Jacques de Maio, Deputy Head, Central Tracing Agency and Protection Division, International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
CG Early in April, the NATO forces started bombing parts of Yugoslavia on the basis that Kosovo was being ethnically cleansed by the Serbs. You were there. How do you perceive all that? What are your thoughts?
Jacques Here, the situation has deep roots in the past. What I can tell you as a privileged witness of the degradation of the situation in Yugoslavia over the past ten years, I would say: this is simply the latest stage of a continuous degradation which has resulted in three wars already in the Balkans. I think about Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. Now there is Kosovo, and there is a legitimate fear that the war might spread also to Macedonia or Albania or even involving other regional powers in the area. What I can tell you is that there is a long, long sequence of humanitarian catastrophes in the area.
One must remember that in the disintegration of Yugoslavia massive displacement of population is something which has happened on a large and widespread scale, and it has spared no one community. The first one to suffer from massive displacement were the Serbs, actually. This has triggered vicious circles of hatred, sometimes invoking religious grounds, the Catholics against the Orthodox and the Christians against the Muslims.
For the Serbs, the memory of past victimisations is very strong and in turn legitimates for them sometimes or condones a number of repressive policies which result in particularly carrying out ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which is part of Yugoslavia but which is, as you know, inhabitated by a big majority Š 90% Š by Albanians, who are ethnically distinct from Serbs. One must remember that in the disintegration of Yugoslavia massive displacement of population is something which has happened on a large and widespread scale, and it has spared no one community. The first one to suffer from massive displacement were the Serbs, actually. This has triggered vicious circles of hatred, sometimes invoking religious grounds, the Catholics against the Orthodox and the Christians against the Muslims.
But I believe that was a pretext for other more deep motives behind that and that was the notion that political concerns were so strong that cohabitation did not work, despite the fact that large shares of the population were very eager to live together. In 1995, just before the resolution of the Bosnian conflict, there were as many as 300,000 Serbs who were expelled from the place where they had been living for centuries. They had been settled down there in the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries to actually protect the European Christian world against the Ottoman Š the Turkish Š occupation and expansionistic views. They still feel it very strongly that they have had an important role to play in preventing Islamisation of Europe, and Albanians are Muslim, the Bosnians are Muslim, and they felt very strongly that they were defending not only their own survival but also the survival of Christianity.
Now, the fact is that Albanians, among whom there is also a minority of Christians, they are being expelled from the place where they have been living for decades, if not centuries, not on the basis of their religious background, but simply because of their ethnic background. There is a significant distinction to be found between Serbs and Albanians, and they were simply felt as aliens which should go away from there. Now we are witnessing a sequence of humanitarian catastrophes coming from all sides. The Serbs would invoke a self-defence in pushing away Albanians. Europe and the United States, all together the NATO forces, are invoking the need to respond adequately to a situation of massive violation of human rights and humanitarian law. Everybody is invoking pointedly a number of problems they have endured in the past to justify more violence, and this is something which is worrying us very much.
CG The Serbs seem very much in solidarity with one another and their leader. How do you perceive them responding to this crisis? How do the Serbs see the NATO forces?
Jacques Well, the vision by the Serb people of the NATO strikes is crystal clear. It is an aggression by a coalition of countries, an aggression against a sovereign state, based on propaganda disseminated by biased media throughout the west. This is the vision of the Serbs. The fact that there was some dissent and discontent with their leader, Milosevic, now is a secondary issue. The fact is that the Serbs are now more united than ever in communing together against what they feel is totally unjustified aggression motivated by political and strategic ideas from the west and which does not
Well, the vision by the Serb people of the NATO strikes is crystal clear. It is an aggression by a coalition of countries, an aggression against a sovereign state, based on propaganda disseminated by biased media throughout the west.
give them the benefit of truth. They truly feel that they are being victimised, first, because there is a military strike being carried out against their country; second, because they feel the victimisation they have been enduring in Kosovo itself has not been duly acknowledged; and third, because they think there is a double if not triple standard, in the sense that when we witness massive human rights and humanitarian violations all over the world, well, it is quite strange that the international community reacts in Yugoslavia but not in other countries. This is their perception.
On the other hand, one should not overshadow the fact that there are almost two million Albanian people living in Kosovo, most of whom have now either been forced out of their homes in unspeakable conditions, and the luckiest among them have made it through the borders of Macedonia, of Albania, and are now looking with a lot of question marks about their immediate future. And then we have an unspecified number of Albanians who have been forced out of their homes, but who have not managed to find shelter abroad. Kosovo is a place where now you have military, paramilitary, and uncontrolled Serb forces on the rampage. We donÕt know exactly whatÕs happening there. We may take it for a fact, based on our experiences of Bosnia and Croatia, that there is a massive pattern of violations of the right to life, of the right to dignity, and we are very much worried about what is going on there. The ICRC is very proud in the sense that even during the genocide in Rwanda, we were the only ones able not to save all the Tutsi population, but to save some tens of thousands of them, which is a drop in the ocean, but which is still something.
As a citizen of the world and a Red Cross spirit holder, I can say that there is no such thing as a humanitarian strike. There is no such thing as a just war, in the sense that I cannot adhere to the idea that there are good wars and bad wars. This is a politicianÕs point of view. I respect it, but I cannot endorse it.
CG This is the Red Cross?
Jacques Yes, the ICRC, yes. And in Bosnia, we were the only ones able to work all throughout Bosnia, for instance, including in Serb-controlled areas. Now, in Kosovo, and this is a terrible failure, the fact is that the security situation was so bad that we had to withdraw from the province, therefore depriving us of the possibility of carrying out an impartial and strictly independent humanitarian action. So we donÕt know actually what is going on in Kosovo. We can only fear that the worst is indeed actually happening.
CG Just a final question, but a deep one. The argument which we heard from Claire Short, for example, the other day, the Minister in the Blair cabinet, that NATO forces have gone in because of the ethnic cleansing that is going on in Kosovo. If thatÕs correct, is there any other way that you think it should have been handled? Have you got an opinion about that?
Jacques As an ICRC Red Cross delegate, I cannot pronounce myself on the validity of political arguments or discourses. As a citizen of the world and a Red Cross spirit holder, I can say that there is no such thing as a humanitarian strike. There is no such thing as a just war, in the sense that I cannot adhere to the idea that there are good wars and bad wars. This is a politicianÕs point of view. I respect it, but I cannot endorse it. What I know for a fact, because I have been working in many countries where there is massive violation of the very principle of humanity, is that the response of the international community is not that strong that it is in Yugoslavia. So the point made by the Yugoslavs that there are double or triple standards, I think is very true.
On the other hand it is true also that the suffering experienced by the Albanian people deserves an appropriate response. Now, I donÕt want to say, IÕm not ready to say that this appropriate response goes for military means. But, indeed, it must be more simply that international conferences and declarations of principle. I sincerely think that if we had addressed since the very beginning of the Yugoslav catastrophe, the fear of the SerbÕs minorities to be exposed and threatened by other minorities or by Islamic threats and expansion, then by reassuring them we could have imagined a new way of cohabitation. But IÕm also thinking about the Kurdish people in Turkey, IÕm thinking about the stateless persons in Kuwait, IÕm thinking about the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation, IÕm thinking about a number of populations all over the world who donÕt have the possibility to claim for another strike when their suffering is even worse than the one of the Albanians.