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Friends United Meeting |
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June 1999
A Prayer for Kosovo and for All of Us
By Ben Richmond
April 1999 saw too much killing. Writing at the end of this horrific month, I can only pray that by the time this appears in June, the killing will have stopped.
On April 20, two children set out to create mayhem in their school in Littleton, Colorado. They killed twelve classmates, a teacher, and themselves. The next day, the Washington Post reported, President Clinton addressed the nation, "Parents should take this moment to ask what else they can do to shield our children from violent images and experiences that warp young perceptions and obscure the consequences of violence-to show our children by the power of our own example how to resolve conflicts peacefully."
Newscasts this month were filled with images of NATO's continuous bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Amid much concern about the impact of point-and-shoot videos, a steady diet of murder-as-entertainment on TV and movie screen, and easy access to guns, there was much that we in the United States did not discuss. We did not discuss the words of the prophet:
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind...." (Hosea 8:7, KJV)
The week of the school massacre, also saw the heads of state of nineteen European and North American nations come to Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of their military alliance. In his address, President Clinton spoke about the purposes of the bombing campaign they were undertaking:
"We are in Kosovo because we want to replace ethnic cleansing with tolerance and decency, violence with security, disintegration with restoration, isolation with integration into the rest of the region and the continent."
Would that bombs could achieve such ends!
Missed opportunities
My friend, Rodney Powell, an evangelical pastor serving in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, called for advice. That morning, the clerk of his Ministry and Counsel had called him to say, "We have to do something." She had been watching the hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees fleeing the genocidal campaign of killings, rape, detention, burning of villages that has been given the odious euphemism, "ethnic cleansing." I gave him a list of relief agencies working in the region.
Rodney asked, "What do we do when testimonies clash?" Perhaps he was wondering if was possible to oppose a war that appears so just.
A just war?
Among the criteria set out by theologians of the just war theory are: Just Cause (to protect innocent life and secure basic human rights), Competent Authority, Last Resort, and Probability of Success. Hearing about the Serb atrocities, I was almost convinced of the justice of the cause. But when NATO issued an ultimatum and pulled out the international observer force from Kosovo, and the flood of refugees started, I wondered about the "probability of success. And was war really the "last resort," or was this foolishness-played at the cost of real lives?
Debt crisis
There is more to the story of Yugoslavia than ethnic conflict. During the Cold War, after Stalin removed Tito from the Warsaw Pact, Yugoslavia was something of a favorite of the Western powers. To support its independent position (as part of the policy of containment of the Soviet Union), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank undergirded its economy with easy loans.
"By the early 1980s, Yugoslavia's leaders, finding they owed twenty billion dollars they did not have, were forced to adopt an austerity plan that cut imports (and notably consumer goods) to the bone, left one in five Yugoslavs unemployed, and eventually pushed inflation beyond the twenty-five thousand percent mark....The political effects were devastating....
"The Americans, whose aid program was by the late 1980s quite small but whose wealth might have allowed them to exert substantial influence, had decided, [former U.S. Ambassador] Zimmermann writes, to rely on 'one of the few admirable figures in a landscape of monsters and midgets'-Prime Minister Ante Markovic. A modernizing businessman, Markovic dreamed of making Yugoslavia 'a Western democratic country with a capitalist system.' But he could do little without money. 'Four billion dollars...would be a good start to help a reform that's going further than anything in Eastern Europe.'" ("The US and the Yugoslav Catastrophe" by Mark Danner, November 20, 1997, New York Review of Books.)
The Bush administration was not forthcoming. Markovic lost out; Milosovic was in, riding popular resentment against IMF imposed austerity measures. Milosevic has been compared with Hitler for his genocidal campaigns. Here is another comparison: Hitler came to power on popular resentment against punitive war reparations imposed at Versailles which led to staggering inflation.
A lesson: heed the ecumenical movement's call for debt relief (see page 8). It may be too late for the Balkans, but just last week there was rioting in Kingston, Jamaica. Why? "Demonstrators were protesting a government decision Thursday to increase gasoline prices from $1.55 a gallon to $2...The new taxes are to help pay off the Caribbean island's mounting debt and a bailout of failing banks." (Associated Press, April 20)
Maybe Jesus' way of loving enemies is smart, as well as right. What the U.S. and NATO are doing now is creating the conditions of future wars.
The march of folly?
NATO's bombing campaign came after Milosevic refused an ultimatum to sign the Rambouillet Agreement. Its provisions for insertion of NATO troops in Kosovo and the creation of a new semi-autonomous republic to protect the Albanian Kosovars are well known. Not publicized was the provision of Appendix B which allowed for NATO occupation of the entirety of Yugoslavia: "NATO personnel shall enjoy...free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]....This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations." (U.S. State Department, "Rambouillet Agreement" www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/)
Did the framers of this "agreement" seriously expect "the last dictator in Europe" to agree to accept such terms of surrender? This, at the hands of an alliance including Hungary (whose similar ultimatum against Serbia provoked World War One), and Germany and Italy (its World War Two invaders). This war was not a "last resort."
I cannot understand the point of this war. Is there some mysterious "real politic" behind NATO's actions? Or are we seeing another chapter in Barbara Tuchman's history, The March of Folly?
Clearly, bombing was not going to protect Kosovars on the ground. As in Iraq, U.S. leaders talk of bombs as "sending a message," or provoking an uprising. Vain thoughts. There was a Serb opposition, but it is silenced. Veran Matic, editor-in-chief of Belgrade's banned Radio B92, wrote on March 30, 1999:
"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 a hundred 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 USA, Britain, France, Germany and Canada! Is there any sense in this?'"
Nonviolent alternatives
Having lost the war to protect the refugees, the cry is now to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army, to take back the land. Last year, the KLA was accurately described by the United States as terrorist. The KLA only appeared as a political force after the NATO powers had ignored and marginalized the pacifist president of Kosovo. (He is now being maligned as a "Quisling" for talking with Slobodan Milosovic.)
One of my enduring regrets is that I made an editorial decision two years ago not to carry a story about the nonviolent struggle of the Kosovo students, despite the appeal of Friend David Hartsough who was working to publicize their cause. (I didn't want Quaker Life to appear overly political.) One of the great shames of Western policy (governmental and peace movement) is that we have frequently failed to support nonviolent movements. Lesson: Let us try to be more creative-Christian Peacemaker Teams is showing a way.
The Sacred No
There is a sacred duty to say "No."
Even in the midst of the terrible ambiguity of human suffering, our "no" proclaims that there is a God, greater than the god of war, who demands our allegiance. For the sake of our children, for the sake of the children of Littleton, Colorado, let us not give assent to evil, even when it is cloaked in a chimera of justice.
Child Soldiers
I received a letter this month from a "child soldier" (see page 7) who enlisted in the U.S. army as a 17-year-old. He gave me permission to share some of it here:
"I am originally from Indianapolis, Ind. Eighteen years is my age, for the next week anyways, and I've been in the U.S. army for 15 months now....
"My childhood was never anywhere near religion of any kind, and I have always wanted to travel, coming from a not-so-wealthy background, I guessed that the military was my only way to do so....
"I jus wander (sic) if I am an "evil" person....I see all the anguish going on in Europe now, and it hurts ones heart, I wish to help all of those involved, but I am jus one person, and if my unit was deployed to that region, I don't know what would happen. I don't wish to fight anyone, for they are the same as our soldiers, jus boys who thought they are doing something honorable for their people....
"(A lost guy in ranks)"
He said it was a relief to his mind when I wrote him back that he was not evil; all of us make decisions we regret, and God's grace is sufficient to cover them all.
For the sake of these children, let us be firm in our "No." They need a consistent witness to the grace and peace of our God.
War Taxes
Friends have making their voices heard. Lloyd Lee Wilson wrote sharing the decision of Virginia Beach Friends to start a 24-hour vigil for peace. He went on, "In a separate but related action, Susan and Lloyd Lee Wilson reported to the meeting for business at Virginia Beach that the conflict in the Balkans had crystallized their decision to
undertake war tax resistance. Virginia Beach Friends Meeting immediately approved a minute supporting their action as consistent with historic faith and practice of the Religious Society of Friends." I hope many Friends will recover our ancient testimony that payment of taxes for war is incompatible with the Gospel. Our "no" calls our nation to repent of the culture of violence, and witnesses to the grace of God.
The Sacred Yes
The Richmond Declaration of Faith has a beautiful section concerning peace:
"We feel bound explicitly to avow our unshaken persuasion that all war is utterly incompatible with the plain precepts of our divine Lord and Law-giver, and the whole spirit of His Gospel, and that no plea of necessity or policy, however urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals or nations from the paramount allegiance which they owe to Him who hath said, "Love your enemies"; (Matt. v. 44, Luke vi. 27.) In enjoining this love, and the forgiveness of injuries, He who has bought us to Himself has not prescribed precepts which are incapable of being carried into practice, or of which the practice is to be postponed until all shall be persuaded to act upon them...." (my emphasis)
Our "No" to war safeguards the "Yes" that is ours in Christ. It is possible to live peaceably and justly in this world. Some of what that "Yes" may look like is pointed to in peacemaking and acts of mercy (see news pages 16-17). But we do not have to be wise in the ways of this world to know the wisdom of God:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous....Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48, NRS)
The persistence of sin is fearful. Yet, the power and goodness of God is greater. So, my prayer remains: Yes, Lord! Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. Even so, come amongst us, Lord Jesus!
Ben Richmond is managing editor of Quaker Life.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting