War in Yugoslavia--Background to a Green Decision.

• Author: Vollmer, Ludger

Many of us wonder what sense Green politics makes if we cannot only not prevent participation in a military attack--especially one which is controversial under international law--but even tolerate and actively bear responsibility for it. The first Red-Green coalition, of all things, decides in favor of participation of the Bundeswehr [the German armed forces] in combat missions by the much-criticized NATO, without any decision of the UN Security Council.

Ruling or Opposing?

The Alliance 90/The Greens were the only party which, since the beginning of the nineties has consistently pointed to the dangerous situation in Kosovo. Our reminders to take this conflict seriously were not heard. After the community of nations had, in our view, pursued completely misguided policies in the Yugoslavia conflict for 10 years, we were, as a ruling party, stuck with the results. Even if we bear no responsibility for this, we still cannot duck responsibility for this legacy. We are not living in the world of our programmatic visions, our alternative designs, but in a reality which cannot simply be reinterpreted according to our wishes. While as an opposition party we had to do nothing but state our opinion openly and bluntly, we must now, as a ruling party, try to implement our political positions in practice within the complex interchange of international relations.

The real world of national foreign policy confronts us with the simple truth that the Greens are not a great power. There are many other protagonists who also represent legitimate interests, and who are stronger. In addition, we have quickly experienced the fact that there is no such thing as an independent German foreign policy. The Federal Republic acts almost exclusively as a member of an alliance or an international organization. It tries to contribute to the formulation of policy. However, it can never determine it alone, and must largely subject itself to treaties or, in accordance with the solidarity principle, to the results of the common formulation of opinion. This would be possible only at the price of complete unilateralism, of "going it alone," which would, moreover, be ineffective because of the self-isolation which would immediately follow. The sequence of decisions, which led to the combat mission, can only be understood in the context of this principle of multilateralism, to which there is n o alternative for German foreign policy.

The Kosovo Conflict, the "Act. Ord." Decision and International Law

The conflict in Kosovo got dramatically more critical after the beginning of 1998. In the fall, as fears rose that the Yugoslav leadership was planning a policy of expulsion and extermination of the Albanian Kosovar population, as it had with the ethnic cleansings in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that because of the coming onset of winter an enormous catastrophe was in the offing, the international community of nations felt forced to intervene. The Security Council and General Assembly of the UN condemned the operations in Kosovo in strong terms. At the instigation of the USA, NATO planned to threaten the Serbian leadership of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with air strikes, in case the atrocities were not stopped. In a complicated constitutional situation, the German political structure had to decide during the transition from the old to the new Federal Government whether it wanted to support this...