, 2000

Latest news from America's Progressive Community

• TERESA CRAWFORD, teresa@advocacynet.org, www.advocacynet.org
  Teresa Crawford was arrested and expelled by Serbian authorities last March while engaging in conflict-resolution efforts in Kosovo. She is a university fellow in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. "That the international community has resorted to bombing as the only way to deal with Milosevic and his regime jeopardizes the future of the region," she said. "Bombing or no bombing, all the people of Kosovo whose communities are being destroyed will have to live together."
• JULIANNE SMITH, jsmith@basicint.org, www.basicint.org
  Senior analyst at the European Security desk at BASIC (British American Security Information Council), Smith said: "Serious questions about the bombing of Yugoslavia remain unanswered: Is NATO's involvement in Kosovo worth sacrificing a system of international law that we have spent over 50 years developing? What are the implications for NATO-Russian relations, with the Russians recalling their ambassador from NATO, Primakov turning his plane around, and the Russians canceling their Y2K nuclear cooperation with the U.S.? Is bombing actually going to save lives? Clinton says the bombing will prevent further escalation of the conflict, but as we have already seen with the riots in Macedonia, it appears that the opposite could be the truth."

• MICHAEL BEER, nonviolence@igc.org, www.igc.org/nonviolence
  Director of Nonviolence International, Beer recently provided strategic nonviolence seminars to Kosovars in Pristina. Beer said: "Clinton and NATO have not 'done everything we possibly could to solve this problem peacefully,' as the president claims. Instead, Clinton's strategy has marginalized the role of the Russians, the UN, the OSCE, non-governmental organizations and the Serbian opposition."

• DAVID McREYNOLDS, DavidMcR@aol.com, www.nonviolence.org A staffer of the War Resisters League, McReynolds said: "Any democratic opposition in Serbia -- and it does exist -- will be largely destroyed by bombing. The same is true of any hope for nonviolent alternatives in Kosovo."

• KANI XULAM, akin@kurdish.org, www.kurdistan.org Director of the American Kurdish Information Network, Xulam commented: "Clinton says he deplores the Serbian government because it is denying the Kosovars 'their right to speak their language, run their schools, shape their daily lives,' yet he calls Turkey one of our 'allies.' But Turkey does these exact same things to the Kurds there, but the U.S. arms them. Is that a 'moral imperative'?"

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