SIGHTINGS


 
Gorbachev - NATO Has
Broken All Its Teeth On Yugoslavia
5-24-99
 
 
 
 
SYDNEY (Agence France Presse) - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called Monday for a negotiated end to the war in Kosovo arguing that NATO has already broken all its teeth trying to cripple Yugoslavia.
 
In the only face-to-face interview he has given during a brief visit to Australia to deliver "motivational" lectures, he told ABC radio here he was very pleased Yugoslavia was beating the combined might of NATO.
 
He also questioned what NATO might be able to achieve against nuclear powers or larger countries when it has proved itself incapable of defeating Yugoslavia.
 
"Two thirds of the world's fire power -- NATO's firepower -- cannot cope with Yugoslavia," said the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
 
"So what would they do with China, with India, with Russia or Indonesia or whatever other countries?"
 
He said NATO could destroy Yugoslavia by bombing. "But morally, politically, they have been defeated," he said. "The problem is that they can't stop."
 
Gorbachev, who as Soviet leader from 1985-90 played the key role in brokering the pact that ended the Cold War, also accused the United States of abandoning the post-Cold War agreement for a new world order.
 
He said efforts had been made to improve the efficiency of the United Nations so that it could address the challenges of a post Cold War era.
 
But these were thrown out and some people were impeding UN reforms, he said. "Now it is clear who these people are.
 
"Look at what's happening with the European security process. Yugoslavia is just proving the point that I've been making for some time.
 
"That is that Americans have changed a strategy that we initially agreed with America and with other western countries and Nato countries.
 
"The Americans have abandoned that strategy that we created for a post Cold War period. They are instead implementing a strategy of the only superpower. They just want to confirm themselves as the only superpower."





SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE