>World Socialist Web Site
>http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/
>
>By Mike Head and Michael Conachy
>22 July 1999
>
>In the wake of the US-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the people of Serbia are
>confronting a "dramatically awful" humanitarian crisis - far bigger than
>that in Kosovo - according to a senior Red Cross official. People have no
>jobs, often no water and electricity, and face a desperate situation in
>the coming winter.
>
>Speaking after returning from a visit to the war-torn Balkans, Jim
>Carlton, the secretary-general of the Australian Red Cross, said NATO's
>air war had devastated the basic industry and economy of Yugoslavia,
>creating widespread unemployment. The suffering added to an already
>serious refugee situation, with more than 500,000 people previously driven
>out of other parts of the Balkans.
>
>Carlton travelled last month to Belgrade and several cities that were
>targetted by NATO, including Novi Sad and Nis. He also visited Kosovo and
>refugee camps in Albania.
>
>"The destruction in Novi Sad was phenomenal," he told the World Socialist
>Web Site. "I saw the bridges that had been blown up, the oil refinery that
>was reduced to scrap and the hospitals and schools where bombs went
>astray.
>
>"It was eerie. The oil refinery must have been hit by at least 100
>sorties. It was just blackened and twisted metal - there was nothing left
>standing. After the first weeks of the bombing, NATO shifted to economic
>targets. Most sources of employment have been wiped out - that is the main
>problem now.
>
>"The humanitarian assistance that the Red Cross can get into Serbia is
>minuscule compared to the need. Economic reconstruction is required.
>
>"After some years of economic sanctions, the economy was already in a
>parlous state. Now it is kaput. Many places have no electricity and no
>water. Many roads are affected. It took us three hours to drive from
>Belgrade to Novi Sad - a trip that normally takes an hour - because of
>diversions.
>
>"They face a massive rebuilding task and in the meantime they face high
>levels of unemployment, which will make it difficult for people to cope."
>
>Carlton left little doubt that the NATO bombing of refineries, factories
>and other workplaces was calculated. He described the missile attacks as
>"incredibly accurate". He gave one example - the defence building in
>Belgrade opposite the Red Cross office. Several missiles had struck it.
>The exterior had been left intact but inside was only a blackened shell.
>
>In addition to the economic damage, Yugoslavia was attempting to cope with
>half a million refugees from elsewhere in the Balkans. The worst affected
>victims were the Serbs who had fled the Krajina, now part of Croatia, in
>1995. Carlton visited what is called a "collective centre" for them in
>Novi Sad.
>
>"About 60 Krajina refugees were housed under pitiful conditions in a
>village hall. They were sleeping in bunk beds with no privacy. There was a
>little toilet block out the back in the mud, with two loos and a shower
>block. The cooking facilities were hopelessly inadequate. It reminded me
>of a visit to Cambodian refugees on the Thai border in 1979.
>
>"Their physical conditions and psychological state were profoundly
>distressing, and their fate was impossible to imagine in the difficult
>economic plight of the country. Their relief allocation from the Yugoslav
>government was just one deutschemark per person a day - that is about 90
>cents Australian."
>
>Carlton and the International Red Cross are concerned that the Western
>media will continue to ignore the fate of the Serbian people and refugees
>for political reasons. He provided the WSWS with a copy of an article he
>had written for the Melbourne Age on the situation in Serbia, a
>contribution that the newspaper chose not to publish.
>
>Part of the article read as follows: "On Monday I visited Novi Sad, the
>most prosperous city of Serbia. It is a handsome city, with strong
>Hungarian influences on its culture, and containing a sizeable Hungarian
>minority. Australia will have seen television images of the destruction of
>the three bridges across the Danube at Novi Sad, and the burning of its
>oil refinery. They will also have seen pictures of the destruction of a
>school and two apartment buildings by a missile that went astray.
>Miraculously no one was killed in the incident.
>
>"I saw all these sites. With the loss of the bridges, not only transport
>but also water supplies were cut off for one third of the city. I saw the
>uncovered ferries crowded with up to 100 people huddling together in the
>rain crossing the swift-flowing and broad expanse of the Danube, and
>another 100 waiting in the rain on either side. I wondered what their
>plight would be in the freezing Serbian winter.
>
>"It is estimated that at least a quarter of Yugoslavia's electricity
>supplies will be out for the winter, in a country that relies heavily on
>electricity for domestic heating. Electricity shortages and the
>destruction of a substantial proportion of the oil refining capacity,
>together with other industrial plant, have already expanded the number of
>unemployed, with little hope of early recovery.
>
>"These observations apply not only to Novi Sad, but to the whole of
>Serbia, and to a great extent the smaller component of the Federal
>Republic, Montenegro. In the eyes of a humanitarian organisation like the
>Red Cross, the victims of these appalling circumstances are mostly
>ordinary people hoping to go about their lives in peace and security, and
>with virtually no direct influence over the political process."
>
>Carlton cannot be accused of being pro-Serbian, let alone left-wing. He is
>a former senior official of Australia's ruling Liberal Party and served as
>a shadow minister before the election of the current Howard government.
>His comments reflect the anxieties of the International Red Cross, which
>is appealing for funds to address the emergency situation.
>
>Red Cross workers remained in Yugoslavia throughout the NATO bombing,
>despite fears for their security following the arrest of two Australian
>CARE workers on charges of spying. Among the Red Cross field workers are
>nurses, logisticians, refugee camp managers and water and sanitation
>engineers. Their presence shows that aid work continued during the war,
>notwithstanding CARE's claims that the arrests had made it impossible for
>such work to be maintained.
>
>Other agencies, notably the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
>have expressed alarm about the human catastrophe in Serbia. The UNHCR
>estimates that some 100,000 Serbian and Roma (Gypsy) refugees have fled
>Kosovo and sought safety in Serbia and Montenegro since the end of NATO's
>77-day bombing campaign. They are in "urgent need of assistance,"
>according to an UNHCR media release. "If emergency aid is not immediately
>provided to these people, 40 to 50 percent of whom are children under 16
>years of age, UNHCR believes their situation could turn desperate when
>winter comes."
>
>It estimates that there are 530,000 refugees previously expelled from
>Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 40,000 of whom are still living in
>overcrowded and dilapidated collective centres.
>
>The UNHCR suggests that Serbian authorities are putting considerable
>pressure on refugees to return to Kosovo, citing Serbian press reports
>that school directors have been instructed not to enrol Kosovar pupils and
>that the Kosovar refugees are being denied pensions and fuel rations.
>
>At the same time, according to UNHCR staff, the situation facing
>non-Albanian minorities remaining in Kosovo is "becoming critical". Homes
>are being burned on a daily basis, entire Serb and Roma communities have
>been forced to seek evacuation and protection from NATO occupying troops,
>and up to 10,000 Serbian refugees from Prizren are sheltering in the
>Strpce area.
>
>While most Western media reports focus on the return of Albanian refugees
>to Kosovo and on accounts of alleged mass graves and Serbian war crimes,
>little coverage is being given to the plight of NATO's war victims in the
>remainder of the country. This censorship is designed to justify NATO's
>two-month onslaught and to suggest that the Serbian people simply deserve
>whatever treatment is meted out to them.
>
>Yet the conclusion is inescapable: under the pretext of averting a
>humanitarian disaster, the US-NATO bombardment has created one. Indeed, it
>has exacerbated an immense tragedy that already existed because of the
>earlier conflicts triggered by the major powers in Croatia and Bosnia.
>
>See Also:
>Report on impact of war in Yugoslavia: Potential environmental
>catastrophe in Balkans
>[14 July 1999]