NO COMMENTS THIS TIME

ETHIOPIA

"Spectator Nations Could Suffer Similar Treatment By NATO"

Independent, Amharic-language weekly Kiyit editorialized (4/8): "When the United Nations was established, its founders had sought to put an end to military aggression by the high and mighty against the weak and defenseless states. Today, however, the UN has sadly been made irrelevant and has become an impotent witness to the arrogant aggression of NATO against Yugoslavia. The international community has also kept an undignified silence with only feeble protests by Russia and China. Meantime, Yugoslavia bleeds by the hour. If, therefore, today's spectator nations do not join ranks to stop this slaughter, they should know that they will only be waiting for a similar treatment themselves--and soon."

ZIMBABWE

"Bombings Spins Out Of Control"

An editorial in the government-controlled Sunday News said (4/11): "The NATO Alliance will certainly prevail in showing off sophisticated military technology, and causing more widespread devastation and human misery by turning thousands more Kosovars into refugees.... All the NATO effort has proved so far is that might does not make right."

CANADA

"NATO Blew It"

National affairs columnist Michael Harris wrote in the conservative Ottawa Sun (4/13):

"Violence usually begets violence, not peace. Make no mistake about it: Yesterday's meeting between Secretary of State Albright and the leader of the KLA is the surest sign that, despite all those upbeat press conferences in Brussels, this war is going badly.... Having bypassed the United Nations to keep Russia and China from vetoing the strike on Yugoslavia, NATO may well have sown the seeds of the UN's demise. After all, if the West can bypass the UN whenever it chooses to make unsanctioned war, what use is it anyway?"

CUBA

"Yugoslavia: The War And Its Truths"

Elson Perez Concepcion said in official Communist party central committee Granma (4/13): "The United States has very clear goals to achieve in the aggression against Yugoslavia: 1) to install its forces in the center of Europe, a traditional zone of Russian influence, 2) to keep moving closer to the Russian borders, which parallels the admission of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary into NATO, 3) [to impose] itself as a decisive factor in order to intervene in European conflicts."

SINCE TIMES IMMEMORIAL THE WARS HAVE BEEN FOUGHT BECAUSE OF WOMEN. REMEMBER THAT ANCIENT BEAUTY HELEN OF TROY? TODAY WE HAVE THE NOTORIOUS LADY IN RED, AND BECAUSE OF HER MANY OTHER LADIES ARE ALREADY WEARING BLACK. BUT SHE HAS ONLY JUST STARTED...

FRANCE

"The World's Most Powerful Lady"

Michele Cotta aired this commentary on privately funded RTL radio (4/13): "From New York to Washington, everyone knows that when Madeleine wears red, it means she is in a fighting mood...even if she has convinced the Allies of the U.S. goodwill not to exclude the possibility of negotiations.... This is why the world's most powerful lady, who convinced Bill Clinton that no other solution than war could be envisaged, is getting ready to meet with Igor Ivanov.... But how to ask Russia for its help in negotiations with Milosevic, all the while continuing with the strikes?... Most of all, what is the final objective?"

IT MUST BE SPRING BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE ARE SEING THE LIGHT IN PARIS

"The Battle For Peace"

Pierre Rousselin judged in right-of-center Le Figaro (4/13): "On the war front, the United States is the one leading the operations.... Europe has no other choice. But with regard to the battle for peace, we have a choice. It is Europe's future that is at stake. This is where we will have to make sure the United States does not take us in a direction that would not be good for Europe. In her meeting today with Igor Ivanov, Madeleine Albright will try, in her own words, to try to find a way to involve Russia in the solution. But the United States is skeptical, in spite of its declarations. It wants at all costs to keep the Kremlin from offering Milosevic a way out.... France and Europe have an essential mission to accomplish. It is not a question of avoiding a Russian veto at the UN. We cannot
afford to offend Russia.... We cannot add to Russia's humiliation. It would be running the risk of seeing another Milosevic in the Kremlin sometime in the near future. To avoid this, France and Europe must enroll Yeltsin's and Primakov's support in favor of peace."

IT DOES NOT SAY IN THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS IF THE ANTICHRIST IS A MAN OR A WOMAN

"The Strength Of Reason"

Managing editor Paolo Gambescia commented on the front page of pro-PDS (leading government party) daily L'Unita (4/13): "It is too soon to be optimistic, but something is moving.... If the road towards peace seems possible now, it is because of the cohesion among Western countries and the sense of responsibility shown by Russia.... As we have always been maintaining, this is possible because, at last, the UN has resumed a role of its own; because Moscow has made its opinions heard while avoiding the temptation of presenting itself as the antagonist of the West; because Europe has begun, while respecting agreements and pacts, to define its own peace strategies; and because NATO is now convinced that the time has come for a diplomatic offensive."

"Albright Is Necessary To Put Enemies (And Allies) In Line"

Provocative, classical liberal Il Foglio noted (4/13): "Secretary Albright left for Brussels and then Oslo, after deciding to get the situation under control again, to beat the `Anti-Albright party', to take, if necessary, NATO's nervous Allies by the scruff of their necks, to verify face-to-face Russian intentions, to launch some signals of the opening of negotiations, but always, and only, under the Alliance conditions.... This is Albright's war, everyone says....

"She is a real hawk, indeed.... Among the Allies she has selected the `A League'--UK, Germany and with fatigue France too, and the `B League', led by Italy. If the Kosovo operation does not fail, and this is her bet, it is on the basis of this classification that the Hawk Albright intends to re-found NATO."

ISRAEL

"Albright's 'European' Past"

Columnist Ran Kislev wrote in independent Haaretz (4/13): "The Washington Post last week cited a senior U.S. diplomat that Secretary Albright's childhood explains her attitude toward the Kosovo crisis.... It may be added that not only the fact that she was born in Czechoslovakia has influenced her thinking but also, and mostly, her having
been born a Jew.... In the political will Hitler left in his Berlin bunker, he accused the Jews of past and future European and world wars.... Could it be that the diplomat cited in the Washington Post recently read Hitler's testament?"

AND THAN THERE ARE THOSE UNDISCIPLINED MINDS WHO QUESTION THE MOTIVES BEHIND THE 'INTERVENTION'

WEST BANK

"Disciplining Serbia"

Rajab Abu Sarieh commented in independent, Pro-Palestinian Authority Al-Ayyam (4/13): "The Serbian government in particular and the Yugoslav federal policy in general, are considered to be deviations from the New World Order, and therefore the United States is using the Serbian [crisis] to enforce its own policy and coerce the Serbs into obedience. The goal of the American and NATO intervention in Serbia is to discipline the Serbian regime and not to defend the right of the Albanian Kosovars for a homeland."

WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE TRANSLATES THIS TO BORIS AND VLADIMIR AND GENADIY

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

"Russia's Superpower Nose Is In The Dust"

The English-language Khaleej Times said (4/12): "Together with the Kosovo tragedy, which has spawned a humanitarian catastrophe while Yugoslav towns and cities are being bombed, Russia's superpower nose is in the dust by NATO expanding and overriding the authority of the United Nations."

FACING REALITY

HONG KONG

"Partnership For Peace Unravels With Air Strikes"

Cary Huang opined in the independent Hong Kong Standard (4/13): "Having built strategic partnerships with all the major world powers, Beijing hoped the new rules of governing this world and solving international conflicts were agreed. This is what Beijing is seeking as the post-Cold War world order. The U.S.-led NATO military action has in
effect undermined this foundation.... It also sent a chilling message to Chinese leaders who are suspicious about U.S. support for separatist sentiment in Taiwan...the most explosive flash-point of conflict between the Pacific powers. That is why Beijing has upped the ante recently by launching a propaganda campaign that compares NATO's air strikes with those by Nazi Germany--something highly unusual in the period preceding a state visit by a Chinese leader to Washington."

PLEASE DON'T REMIND AMERICANS ABOUT THEIR OWN ETHNIC CLEANSING, BECAUSE AS
USUAL THE SERBS WILL PAY THE PRICE

"As The Century Changes, All Else Remains The Same"

Bernard Fong argued in the independent Hong Kong Standard (4/13): "A big nation created by ethnic cleansing, the United States, that underwrites a small nation created by ethnic cleansing, Israel, forbids another small nation from going the American way of ethnic cleansing.... The United States spends billions bombing away but scrimps on relief because, in a virtual video game, which is the NATO campaign of folly, blasting is more fun than salvaging. Americans tend also not to understand that, for the Serbs, the tactic is wrong even when the cause is just."

OH, THEY DO KNOW ALL THAT, BUT AS LONG AS IT WORKS, THEY'LL KEEP DOING IT

CANADA: "NATO Misleading When It Compares Serbs To Nazis"

Isabel Vincent wrote in the conservative National Post (4/12): "However horribly the Serbs are acting in Kosovo, comparing them to the Nazis is manipulative and misleading. Today, in the third week of air strikes, NATO members seem to be intensifying their exploitation of the international community's collective guilt over the Holocaust to push through a military agenda in Yugoslavia that many have begun to question.... In reality, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia not so much to prevent 'genocide' but to bolster the Kosovo Liberation Army in its fight for self-determination.... While it is true the Serbs may have committed terrible atrocities in Bosnia, Croatia, and now most likely in Kosovo, their actions are hardly comparable with Hitler's Final Solution, where death camps and
gas chambers were set up with the sole purpose of wiping out European Jewry. Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, has indeed forced tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, but he has not committed genocide.... In the interests of appearing morally righteous, NATO and its Allies have resorted to a type of Orwellian double-speak in which terms such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' have been robbed of their original meanings. They seem to have become little more than political slogans to rally the public behind a rather questionable cause."

IS MEXICO NEXT OR WILL THEY HAVE TO WAIT THEIR TURN?

MEXICO

"Kosovo, A New Failure Of The International Community"

Miguel Reyes Vayssade wrote in independent, centrist El Universal (4/12): "We cannot sympathize with the neo-Nazi Milosevic and his genocidal atrocities, but neither can we support Clinton's arrogance and his continuing military interventionism that run against all the principles of Mexico's foreign policy. Under other circumstances, Mexico would have already raised its voice in international fora. But not even opposition parties have officially protested (against the strikes). The same indifference will be shown when the U.S. interventionism focuses its batteries on our own territory at any moment of our future history."

AND FOR THE END, SOME PROPHETIC WORDS FROM HAITI

"Haitians, Open Your Eyes To The Crisis In Kosovo"

Florian Saint-Elie opined in independent Le Matin (4/7): "Rather than use the deadly but always ineffective weapon of economic sanctions...Bill Clinton has simply returned to bombing, his favorite sport, and has dragged with him a feckless Europe, unaware of the catastrophe that will befall it, [a catastrophe] for which it will surely bear the cost."