 |  |  |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
| | |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said in an interview published on Friday that Kosovo and Montenegro should be allowed to split from Yugoslavia.
"It would be unnatural to try to preserve Yugoslavia when the component elements of Yugoslavia are no longer able to work together," Brzezinski told Kapital, a Bulgarian business weekly.
"It would have been senseless to keep Kosovo within Yugoslavia in view of what was happening in Kosovo to the Albanian majority," he said, referring to what the West calls ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by Serbian forces earlier this year. However, Western officials say it should not be allowed to split from Yugoslavia formally.
Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, added, "If Montenegro and Serbia cannot work well together in some sort of a federation, then obviously the dissolution of these links makes more sense."
Belgrade says the West backs secessionist trends in reform-oriented Montenegro, which introduced the German mark as a parallel currency to the Yugoslav dinar on Tuesday. The smaller Yugoslav republic says the move was purely for economic reasons.
Brzezinski said that the further breakup of the Yugoslav federation could be peaceful only if the Balkan region was stabilized and received enough financial aid, primarily from the European Union. He said the NATO air-war over Kosovo, in which US forces played the leading role, "brought home to the Europeans the degree to which Europe is still predominantly an American protectorate."
"The Europeans do not like that reality," he said, and will try to amend the situation, which will be a difficult process accompanied by conflicts and tensions. "I also, however, would add hastily that I do not think the Europeans, for all their talk, will in fact do very much to change the relationship," he said. "They do not have the political will and they do not have the inclination to make the necessary sacrifices."