New cop on the block

BONN, MARCH 26: With NATO warplanes pounding Yugoslav targets for the second straight night, analysts have questioned the role to be play...

BONN, MARCH 26: With NATO warplanes pounding Yugoslav targets for the second straight night, analysts have questioned the role to be played by the North Atlantic military alliance in the next century. They also examined the role that NATO members, especially those with greater economic and military muscle, were prepared to assign to the United Nations, the world body set up more than 50 years ago to manage world affairs in a peaceful way.

Against the backdrop of the action against Yugoslavia, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that while he understood why force might have been necessary, the Security Council should have been involved in any decision to use it.

8220;The Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. This is explicitly acknowledged in the North Atlantic Treaty,8221; Annan said at the UN headquarters in New York. His remarks came just ahead of the Security Council emergency meeting requested by Russia who, along with China, demanded an end to thebombings.NATO was founded at the height of the Cold War to deter a possible Soviet-led communist aggression against democratic states headed by the United States.

In the wake of its first offensive against a sovereign state, however, analysts pondered whether NATO was now moving towards taking over the role of global sheriff8217; in the absence of effective instruments of governance in a rapidly globalising world. There also was concern that, in contrast to the US-led Allied attacks against Iraq in 1991 to force President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait the latest bombings were aimed at bringing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic around to accepting NATO troops presence in his country to monitor a negotiated peace plan for the Kosovo province. This, according to foreign diplomats here raised the question of how far can the US and NATO go in pressuring heads of governments and states to abide by the universal norms of civilisation.

8220;I cannot subject my family to torture and then claim my home ismy castle8217;,8221; said one African diplomat who did not wish to be named.8220;However, this does not mean saying yes to NATO as a global policeman8230; we need to evolve effective instruments of global governance.8221; But he and other diplomats from Africa and Asia where national boundaries were arbitrarily drawn understood the rationale behind the NATO bombing of Serbia the larger of Yugoslavia8217;s remaining two republics. As explained by NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana in a statement in Brussels yesterday: 8220;Our actions are directed against the repressive policies of the Yugoslav government, which is refusing to respect civilised norms of behaviour in this Europe at the end of the 20th century.8221;

Solana8217;s viewpoint was shared by Germany8217;s Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. 8220;The international community of states cannot sit back and watch the human tragedy in this part of Europe,8221; Schroeder said.German warplanes have been in action in the Balkans with others from Britain, Canada, France, Italy andthe Netherlands. It was the first time since the end of World War II in 1945 that Germany had joined its NATO allies as an active participant in a military conflict. The government8217;s decision was widely approved in a parliamentary vote yesterday in Bonn.The NATO rationale is that some 2,000 people have been killed since February 1998 in the ongoing struggle between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels seeking independence for the province.