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| October 5, 2000 |
| October 5, 2000 |
Security Forces Key to Yugoslavia's Future As Violence Erupts
By Tomas Valasek, Senior Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org
Demonstrators stormed the parliament and TV buildings in Belgrade after the Yugoslav Constitutional Court's ruling on Wednesday annulling the results of the September 24 presidential vote. By Thursday afternoon, the opposition was in control of both buildings as well at least one police station. Opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica won the election but the government of incumbent President Slobodan Milosevic declared that Kostunica failed to gain 50% of the votes and had to face a runoff. Kostunica challenged the government's assertion in the Constitutional Court, which has thrown out the results altogether.
In a surprising twist, the Serbian police both regular units and Special Forces have offered only token resistance or refused to confront the demonstrators altogether. The Special Police, in particular, were created to protect the regime in precisely the kind of crisis Slobodan Milosevic faces today. The Special Police have been better trained and paid than both regular police and the military in an attempt to secure their loyalty to Milosevic's regime. Equipped with armored troop carriers and heavy weapons, they are closer to military units than regular police. These fatigue-clad units were seen guarding the Parliament building but they, too, stepped aside after firing off several rounds of tear gas canisters. A Serbian opposition leader told Western media that the heads of many police precincts have switched sides and joined with the opposition (CNN, October 5, 2000).
The apparent collapse of police lines leaves the military as Milosevic's weapon of last resort. Since the end of the Kosovo war, Milosevic has replaced the top brass with men whose only loyalty is to him. The former Defense Minister, Pavle Bulatovic, was assassinated under mysterious circumstances on February 7, 2000. The new Chief of Staff, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, is the former commander of Yugoslavia's Third Army, which carried out the brunt of the fighting in Kosovo. But while Pavkovic and his immediate circles are loyal to Milosevic, there is no guarantee that mid-ranking officers and ordinary troops will comply if ordered to shoot at the demonstrators. Some units have gone unpaid for long periods of time. In March 2000 hundreds of reservists, protesting their call-up for duty, attacked draft officials in the town of Kraljevo. By some accounts, most of the troops voted for Kostunica in the September 24 elections. The districts with high percentage of military officers such as Novi Sad voted solidly for the opposition (Balkan Crisis Report No. 181, October 5, 2000).
The troops' morale was also weakened by defections of several high-profile generals to the opposition. Momcilo Perisic, the former Chief of Staff, broke ranks with Milosevic after the Kosovo defeat in 1999 and now heads the opposition Movement for a Democratic Serbia. Three ex-Yugoslav Army generals, Radoslav Martinovic, Blagoje Grahovac, and Nedeljko Boskovic, joined the government of Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro. Montenegro, technically still a part of Yugoslavia, has enjoyed de facto independence from Serbia for the past two years. Its President Djukanovic has been one of Milosevic's most vocal opponents.
The wildcard in Belgrade today are the several private paramilitary forces in the capital. The leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, as well as the late paramilitary leader Arkan have at times controlled dozens of armed men. Arkan, however, was killed in January 2000, while Seselj has been marginalized by the opposition's successful election bid and his party's poor showing in the September 24 vote.
For the latest analysis of the situation in Yugoslavia, visit CDI's "Balkans Conflicts" website.
Of Fuzzy Numbers and Pipe-Dreams
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
The first of the 2000 presidential election debates may be remembered primarily (if at all) for the plethora of what one debater termed "fuzzy numbers." One could easily forgive most of the estimated 43 million (also a fuzzy number) who tuned in if their eyes and minds glazed over before they tuned out.
By happenstance, Congress is trying to wrap up its business by Friday, October 6. But with so many appropriations bills still mired in the legislative process this date has become a pipe-dream (more fuzziness). Either they will have to stay longer or call a lame-duck session after the November election.
One of the bills still mired in the congressional morass is the Commerce, State, and Justice (CSJ) Appropriations Act. In this bill is the money for paying U.S. obligations to the United Nations. As many Americans know, the U.S. is in arrears for peacekeeping assessments and technically has come close to losing its vote in the General Assembly for falling so far behind in remittances. Many also know that the U.S. is attempting to coerce the U.N. to lower the rates of assessments both for peacekeeping (from 30.4% to 25%) and regular operating assessments (from 25% to 22%).
Simple and straightforward, no? If only it were so. But alas, fuzziness strikes again.
1. The Request.
2. The Appropriation. Both the House and Senate appropriators are unwilling to go above $500 million for U.N. peacekeeping for FY2001 -- but for different reasons.
Fortunately, the House has relented and freed the $240 million and the Senate has let go $167 million.
But the twists and turns don't stop here.
A General Accounting Office report (GAO/NSIAD-00-228-BR) released in September said that the $846 million requested for peacekeeping in FY2001 probably would not cover the actual assessment. GAO attributed the shortfall -- which it set at $44.4 million -- to increases in the size and costs of the missions to Sierra Leone (May 2000), Congo (also May 2000), Lebanon (July 2000, required because of the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon), and the new mission along the Eritrean-Ethiopian border (July 2000). GAO cites the anticipated $600 million increase in the total U.N. peacekeeping bill (to $2.67 billion) over the programmed U.N. 2001 budget (July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001) of $2.1 billion as the basis for its conclusion. In fact, costs may not escalate quite as much as the Congo mission is stalled and deployment to Ethiopia-Eritrea is slower than expected.
The assessment level is further complicated by two other factors. Normally, peacekeeping mandates are approved for 6 month periods and, under U.N. procedures, assessments can be made only for missions approved. Thus only half of a mission's expected annual cost can be assessed at any one time, and therefore the total 12 month cost to a member state can only be approximated.
The second complicating factor (alluded to above) is that the U.N. budget year begins three months before the U.S. budget year ends. This means the Administration lacks a reliable estimate of peacekeeping costs (since allocation of costs is on a percentage basis) for the July-September period when it compiles the U.S. budget. The uncertainty -- and underfunding -- is compounded when missions are started or expanded when re-authorized during this July-September period because assessments will be levied for such missions when they are created or expanded.
Finally, there's the question of U.S. arrears, which the U.N. says now amounts to $1.7 billion for all assessments.
Congress last year allocated $582 million toward U.S. peacekeeping arrears on condition that the General Assembly adjust the U.S. assessment rates for both peacekeeping and regular operating in this Autumn's General Assembly session. Both Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke are pressing the case, arguing that the world has changed enough since the current assessment rates were established (after World War II for regular assessments and 1973 for peacekeeping) to warrant a re-allocation of charges. Yet at the same time they concede that poor countries will continue to require deep discounts (now reaching as high as 90%) and that the permanent members of the Security Council should pay a premium because of their status. In fact, just this week the General Assembly's Fifth Committee began discussions on revamping the assessment levels. The full Assembly will probably not take up the issue until December.
Fuzzy? Yes. It's probably nothing more than a pipe-dream, but just maybe by January 2001 some things will be more clear.
Positive Steps, But Landmines Remain Major Issue
Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org
Last month, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) launched "Landmine Monitor Report 2000: Toward a Mine Free World." The report, the second produced, provides a country-by-country analysis of mine use, production, trade, stockpiling, humanitarian demining, and mine survivor assistance. The ICBL undertook the Landmine Monitor Initiative in order to "monitor implementation of and compliance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and more generally to assess the efforts of the international community to resolve the landmine crisis." Compiled by a team of 115 researchers from 95 countries, the Landmine Monitor marks the "first time that non-governmental organizations are coming together in a coordinated, systematic and sustained way to monitor a humanitarian law or disarmament treaty."
Because of the absence of a monitoring mechanism in the Landmine Treaty, the Landmine Monitor is used by states to gauge the level of the Treaty's effectiveness. To that end, the Landmine Monitor was presented to the Second Meeting of States Parties in Geneva during the second week of September. Approximately 665 people attended the meeting, including representatives from current Treaty signatories, observer states, and non-governmental organizations. The meeting participants adopted a declaration deploring the continued use of landmines and a President's Action Program summarizing initiatives being undertaken to rid the world of landmines. A third meeting was scheduled for September 2001 in Managua, Nicaragua.
As of September 11, 2000, 139 countries have signed the Mine Ban Treaty and 107 countries have ratified it. The United States still refuses to sign the Treaty, claiming that anti-personnel landmines are crucial for U.S. defense of Korea. President Clinton has said the U.S. will sign the Treaty by 2006 if suitable alternatives are found. However, the United States continues to research and develop mine systems that would violate the 1997 Treaty.
The United States is not alone in its opposition to the Treaty. Others including China and Russia remain outside the community of countries that have committed to banning this inhumane and indiscriminate weapon. More and more, however, non-signatory countries are becoming the exception rather than the rule. In a Landmine Monitor press release, Jody Williams, co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize and former ICBL coordinator said, " We are winning the war against antipersonnel mines. While mines continue to be laid and take far too many victims, it is clear the Treaty and the ban campaign are having a major impact globally. There are fewer mine users, producers and exporters, and most importantly fewer victims, while there are more mines being destroyed and more land being cleared and returned to productive use."
In its analysis, the Landmine Monitor details information on landmine use and effects. According to the Landmine Monitor, at least 11 governments and more than 30 rebel groups, including three treaty signatories, have used mines since March 1999 (the date of the Treaty's entry into force). Angola has acknowledged that it continued to use mines in its conflict with UNITA, also a mine user. Burundi and Sudan are alleged to have used mines, but both countries deny the Landmine Monitor's assertion. Non-signatory states have also been accused of continuing to use landmines. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Israel, Russia, and Pakistan are also named as mine users. Non-state actors in Sudan, DRC, Senegal, Uganda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Burma, Kashmir, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Georgia, Turkey, Northern Iraq, South Lebanon, and Colombia are also reported to use mines.
Since March 1999, Chechnya and Kosovo saw the highest number of landmines planted. In Kosovo, the Yuglosav forces are estimated to have placed 50,000 mines and the opposing Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is also to believed to have laid mines. In Chechnya, both Russian and Chechen forces have used mines.
The Landmine Monitor also cataloged occurrences of landmine injuries. Acknowledging that the estimates were "sketchy and incomplete," the report found that Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Mozambique all saw decreases in the number of landmine injuries, but new injuries were recorded in 71 countries, including 492 deaths and injuries in Kosovo.
Although many significant issues must still be solved, there are some positive signs that the Landmine Treaty has made progress in diminishing the effects of landmines. The Landmine Monitor reports that approximately 22 million landmines have been destroyed, including 10 million since March 1999 (an additional 250 million mines remain stockpiled in 105 countries). Further, the number of landmine producers has dropped from 54 to 16, and there was no significant trade in landmines in the 1999-2000 period. There has also been a marked increase in funding for humanitarian mine action -- more than $211 million in 1999.
The nearly three-quarters of the world's countries that have signed and ratified the Landmine Treaty should be applauded for their efforts. But there is still a long way to go. Non-signatory states should be urged, and perhaps shamed, to join the Treaty -- this means continued pressure on the United States to halt its programs that violate the Treaty and to sign the Treaty as soon as possible. In addition, mechanisms must be put into place to make sure landmines are not used in conflicts, especially by states parties. Demining and humanitarian efforts must continue and be strengthened.
The movement to ban landmines has had many successes since the 1997 Treaty. Continued efforts are crucial for continuing this momentum.
For more information on last year's report see, "First Meeting of States Parties to Landmines Treaty Meet in Maputo," Weekly Defense Monitor, May 6, 1999, or visit the ICBL's website.
American Technology and World Leadership
Oscar Lurie, Research Associate, olurie@cdi.org
Americans are horrified by occasional TV pictures showing starving people, especially children, in remote parts of the world. Nearly 800 million human beings are now considered to be undernourished, most of them in poor third world countries. In those same countries, the population is expected to increase by almost two billion by 2025-2030. The world's farmers will have to increase food production by at least 50 percent if billions of people are to be saved from starvation.
President Clinton's December 1999 "A National Security Strategy For A New Century" states that U.S. strategy "is founded on continued U.S. engagement and leadership abroad....We cannot lead abroad unless we devote the necessary resources to military, diplomatic, intelligence, _and other efforts_ [emphasis added]. We must be prepared and willing to use all appropriate instruments of national power...to provide global leadership...."
These beliefs must motivate the President's $ 305.4 billion defense budget for 2001 because there are no significant threats against which America must be defended. Moreover, voices in some friendly countries are beginning to express resentment at what they consider to be American military domination.
There is an opportunity for peaceful leadership which would do great good and not be resented. This is to use American science and technology to mitigate the present and future food crises in the third world.
The science of molecular biology has made impressive progress over the last generation, particularly in the U.S. and Europe where it has led to significant corporate investment in technology to improve the growth of food plants by genetic modification (GM). The corn borer, an insect which has caused $1 billion damage annually to the U.S. corn crop, is now being eliminated in this country by use of a GM seed.
But GM technology cannot be inexpensively applied in the third world, most of which lies in the southern hemisphere. It is estimated that it costs from $30 to $50 million even to get a GM crop seed to the field in the United States. Even if the resulting food were suitable for southern dietary habits (not always the case), the corporation that has the proprietary rights would quite reasonably set a price high enough to realize a big profit from its risky investment -- a price far beyond the ability of poverty-stricken farmers to pay.
There are also safety questions about the use of GM seed, questions whose resolution may entail higher costs for sub-Saharan Africa than for Iowa:
Hence, for genetic research to be valuable in the southern hemisphere, it must be done on crop varieties now raised in the south using genes from other local plants. But it is costly to employ northern scientists on experiments in these locales or to train southern biologists to do the work.
These costs and the dearth of financial resources in poor countries mean that free market economics will not work to solve the southern food crisis. Scientists must be subsidized to do this work by the governments of industrialized countries so that these governments own the results and can give them freely to the poor countries which need them.
Such a plan would be one of the "other efforts" President Clinton advocated to preserve U.S. leadership. This is an ideal opportunity for the U.S. to take action that can help save billions of lives without "destroying the village in order to save it." Putting our traditional humane values into action will garner more respect and support than all the money and effort spent on our military interventions in Bosnia or Kosovo.
A New Name for "National Missile Defense?" -- NMD should be renamed to AMD,"Allied Missile Defense," said Richard Armitage, advisor to Republican presidential nominee George Bush. The Republican Party platform calls for the missile defense system to protect not only the United States but also its allies in Europe and elsewhere. Britain and Norway have already informally discussed such protection with U.S. defense officials. Some European allies object to NMD partly because it offers them no security benefits while potentially jeopardizing their safety. Some Russian officials have threatened that Moscow might target NMD installations on the European continent with nuclear weapons and other unspecified countermeasures (see CDI's new Issue Brief, "National Missile Defense: What Does It All Mean?" for more information on Europe's role in NMD).
President Warns of Coup Attempt in Croatia -- President Stipe Mesic of Croatia dismissed 12 generals on September 29, accusing them of plotting a coup. Days earlier the generals signed a letter protesting the Mesic government's cooperation with the Hague Tribunal for Balkan war crimes. Mesic said the letter was meant to test the waters ahead of the coup and said he had to act swiftly to prevent chaos. During the 1991-95 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Croat forces forcefully drove out thousands of ethnic Serbs and occupied large parts of Bosnia. Mesic came to power last year promising to hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and human rights violations which occurred in the course of those campaigns.
Procurement a "National Priority" -- According to Deputy Defense Secretary Rudy de Leon, boosting the Pentagon's procurement budget will be a "national priority" in the coming years. Speaking at the annual Defense Orientation Conference Association meeting this week, Mr. de Leon said that the procurement budget, which currently stands at $60 billion, will have to grow to $70 billion within five years, and continue to be a priority after that.
Ukraine's Pro-Western Foreign Minister Fired -- President Leonid Kuchma released Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk from his post. Tarasyuk was a vocal advocate of Ukraine's rapprochement with the West, and was responsible for steering Ukraine into close cooperation with NATO. He was apparently fired as a part of an effort by President Kuchma to strike a more friendly tone toward Moscow. Ukraine remains completely dependent on Russia for energy resources. The country has fallen far behind on its gas and oil bill payments to Russia, raising fears of energy shortages in the coming winter unless it can work out a new arrangement with Moscow.
Quotation of the Week -- From the presidential debate, October 3, 2000;
Governor George Bush: "I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very care about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place."
Vice President Al Gore: "I think we should be reluctant to get involved in someplace in a foreign country. But if our national security is at stake, if we have allies, if we've tried every other course, if we're sure military action will succeed and if the costs are proportionate to the benefits, we should get involved. Now just because we...don't want to get involved everywhere doesn't mean we should back off anywhere it comes up."
This week on America's Defense Monitor: "Star Wars: New Hope or
Phantom Menace?"
For 40 years, American scientists have tried -- and failed -- to build a system to protect the United States from long-range missile attack. The recent successful test of a missile interceptor breathed new life into Ronald Reagan's dream of a national shield against enemy missiles. But will building "Star Wars" make us any safer?
Airs in Washington, DC on Sunday, October 8 at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 32.
Airs in NYC on Friday, October 13 on Channel 25 at 7:30 p.m., and on
Saturday, October 14 at 7:00 a.m. on Channel 13.
Visit our web site for transcripts, CDI resources, and related links.
Regular Price: $39 each
INTERNET PRICE: $29
Order at 800-CDI-3334, or on the web.
NOW AVAILABLE! CDI's Issue Brief "National Missile Defense: What Does It
All Mean?"
As the debate in the United States on the planned deployment of the national missile defense (NMD) system heats up, the Center for Defense Information (CDI) has released a timely Issue Brief, "National Missile Defense: What Does It All Mean?" on this important national security issue.
The Issue Brief is designed to offer unbiased, in-depth, and up-to-date information on all aspects of the NMD debate to citizens, educators and decision-makers nationwide. Missile defense has gained additional prominence as one of the most divisive and defining issues in this year's presidential campaign. The 56 page document includes the following:
In addition to the print version, CDI is preparing a web site with further information on the National Missile Defense program. Each section in the print version will be updated on the web, on an as-needed basis, to keep the document current.
Readers of the Issue Brief will further benefit from access to the latest CDI documentary on missile defense, "Star Wars: New Hope or Phantom Menace?" This thirty-minute film contains interviews and testimonies by the nation's foremost experts on missile defense. A transcript of the film is available on the Web.
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Please send a check for $5 to the Center for Defense Information, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036. Please write "Issue Brief" on the check. For more information, please e-mail Tomas Valasek.