Socialist Action /June 1999
By GERRY FOLEY
As NATO has stepped up its bombing of Yugoslavia and more and more shifted
the focus to economic and social targets, antiwar sentiment has been growing
in the neighboring countries.
These countries-Italy, Greece, Hungary, and Rumania-would inevitably
be directly affected by any land assault on Yugoslavia. But they are already
feeling the effects of the massive bombing.
Rumania has a right-wing government that aspires to NATO membership and
has given the Western alliance permission to overfly its territory in order
to attack Yugoslavia. But the pollution caused by the NATO bombing has already
become an explosive issue in the country.
Acid rains have started to occur in southeastern Rumania threatening
forests and agriculture. Leaves have been falling from plants and trees.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported a statement by the Rumanian minister
of the environment, Romica Tomescu, on May 26 deploring the dangers of war-caused
pollution: "In the long term, negative effects are to be feared on
animals and the population, as well as the aquatic life in the Danube and
the Black Sea."
In Mehediniti in the south, which faces the Serbian oil port of Prahovo,
hit repeatedly by NATO, villagers have been complaining of dizziness and
headaches.
The Rumanian minister reported a drastic increase in hydrocarbons (oil)
and heavy metals in the Danube. The concentration of zinc is 20 to 50 times
the acceptable level. Even so, the Rumanian Ecological Convention has begun
a law suit against Tomescu, accusing him of underestimating the war damage
to the environment and of "doing nothing to protect the population."
AFP noted a headline by the daily Jurnulul National that proclaimed,
"Rumania is threatened by an environmental catastrophe, while the authorities
pretend they know nothing about it."
Bulgaria, which also has a right-wing government that aspires to membership
in NATO, reported the eighth oil slick on the Danube. Nearly all the Danube
bridges that had linked Serbia to Bulgaria and Rumania have been destroyed.
Italian fishermen protest bombing
Excess NATO bombs jettisoned in the Adriatic have alarmed Italian fishing
industry workers. The Italian daily Il Manifesto reported May 21
that two bombs were caught in nets only two miles off the Italian coast,
in shallow sandy-bottomed waters:
"They were thrown back into the sea on the orders of the Grado port
authorities. They marked the spot with a buoy ... It will be the job of
the Ancona naval base to deactivate them.
"These bombs were certainly not part of those that [Premier] D'Alema
got reassurances about from NATO. If, there were only 143 bombs, as said
yesterday, they were certainly not part of the 100 to 108 bombs jettisoned
in deep water, nor those that were supposed to be dropped 30 miles from
the coast."
The fishermen have begun to organize protests. Il Manifesto of
May 25 reported that the economy of coastal towns dependent on trawling
for shellfish have been wrecked. The tourist industry vital to the coastal
towns of the Adriatic countries has also been paralyzed.
In its May 29, issue, Il Manifesto reported that a new alert had
been issued about jettisoned bombs in another area. The Italian government
has called for a "voluntary halt" to fishing from June 4 to July
15, and offered some compensation. But the fishing industry is not convinced
that the compensation can be depended on or will be enough.
At the conclusion of the national assembly of the fishing industry, the
president of the Fishermen's League of the Marche, Daniel Palestini, said
there was only one solution to the problem, "It is the war that has
to halt, to end, otherwise it will become a tragedy in every sense."
Depleted uranium
More insidious and longterm than the chemical pollution and even lost
bombs, however, is the impact of missiles lined with depleted uranium, which
have been mainstays since the Gulf War. Depleted uranium, or Uranium 238,
has a half life of 4.5 million years.
The Hungarian daily Nepszabatsag pointed up the radiation danger
in its April 23 issue, citing articles in the German TV magazine Monitor
and the daily Suddeutsche Zeitung.
The writers described the evidence of damage to the health both of American
soldiers exposed to depleted uranium and the Iraqi population.
Hungary is one of the possible bases for a land invasion of Serbia. NATO
planes are based there, and Italian troops and war materiel have recently
been shipped there, despite assurances from the Hungarian government leaders
that they will not allow their country to be used as a launching pad for
an invasion.
The Hungarian press has been expressing astonishment at the brutality
and the apparent indiscriminate character of the NATO bombing of Vojvodina,
the part of Yugoslavia bordering Hungary and where there is a large Hungarian
minority.
For example, Nepszabatsag wrote May 31: " On Saturday and
Sunday [May 29-30], NATO planes staged an unprecedentedly severe bombing
of Vojvodina. ... After a series of deafening explosions, the population
rushed in panic into the streets. This was the eighth time North Atlantic
Pact strategists have hit the Vojvodina TV station, with two-and-half-ton
bombs. The building crumbled at the second bombing. Now for the first time,
this weekend, nearby residences were damaged...."
"This attack on the Danube bank seems rather senseless. ... The
people living there can only guess what the real target was."
This example just downriver along the Danube obviously does not inspire
much enthusiasm among Hungarians for getting involved in NATO's war against
Yugoslavia.
In the case of Greece, a long-standing member of NATO, the public opinion
polls show an overwhelming 96 percent of the population against NATO's war
on Yugoslavia.
Socialist Action /June 1999 |