Sir, - It is strange that Mr Bertie Ahern should tell the European Movement's conference on NATO's so-called "Partnership for Peace" that he wishes to sign up for that partnership in the very week in which NATO went to war against a sovereign State for the first time in its 50 years' history, without consulting the United Nations and almost certainly in breach of international law.
Mr Ahern is of course entitled to change his mind on whether it is in Ireland's national interest to sign a PfP treaty with NATO, compared to the view he expressed in opposition. But can he deny that joining PfP without holding a referendum of the people would be "a sleight of hand" and "fundamentally undemocratic"? For that is how he described failure to hold a referendum on PfP in a Dail speech of March 28th, 1996. Even if the Taoiseach is right in saying that a referendum is not constitutionally required, it is quite open to the Government to let the people decide in a political referendum. Article 6 of the Constitution indicates that the Government may ask the people to decide any question of national policy. The text of Mr Ahern's 1996 speech makes clear that that is the kind of referendum he had then in mind.
For Ireland to join NATO's PfP at this time would be to co-operate in what appears to be the US government's project of sidelining the United Nations and turning NATO into a kind of substitute UN for the new millennium. This new NATO, with the revised "mission statement" it is proposed to give it on its forthcoming 50th birthday, would be under US dominance, surrounded by a circle of satraps and client States, Orwellian "partner for peace", willing to interfere in the domestic affairs of States without a UN mandate, all using NATO-standardised weaponry, and commissioning that from the arms manufacturers of NATO's major countries.
"But what was to be done about Kosovo?", as Professor Noam Chomsky, that distinguished American, asks in an article criticising the NATO bombing. "We could not simply stand by as atrocities continued. That is never true. One choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle, "First, do no harm". If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementary principle, then do nothing. There are always ways that can be considered. Diplomacy and negotiations are never at an end."
In assessing the Kosovo problem it is worth recalling that this, like virtually all the ethnic conflicts of the present-day Balkans, was ultimately precipitated by the fateful American and EU-led decision, taken back in 1991, to recognise Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia as sovereign States within their existing, internal-Yugoslav, administrative boundaries, and to recognise Serbia/Montenegro as the vestigial Yugoslav Federal Republic. This was done in blatant contravention of the basic norms of international law governing the recognition of States, which require mutually agreed borders first.
If the international community - practically speaking the US and EU - had said to the relevant Yugoslav nations and national minorities aspiring to statehood at that time: "You have a right to independence if the majority of your people want it, but you must first work out your boundaries with your neighbours. We are willing to help in arbitrating these fairly, will give you money if you co-operate, and deny you recognition if you do not" - these aspiring new States would have had an incentive to work peacefully with one another in agreeing sensible Nation State boundaries. Instead the EU, led by Germany, and the USA, gave the green light to the national politicians of former Yugoslavia to use main force in carving up that multinational State, and to grab what they could.
The break-up in this fashion of the old Yugoslavia, and the international recognition of its successor States, was described at the time by former German Foreign Minister Dietrich Genscher as "a great victory for German foreign policy."
Breaches of international law by NATO's leading members in 1991. Further breaches by the same States in the current Balkan War. Article 29.2 of the Constitution commits Ireland to accepting the "generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States." How can that acceptance be constitutionally compatible with Mr Ahern's Government signing a PfP treaty with NATO at this time? - Yours, etc., Anthony Coughlan,
Secretary, The National Platform, Crawford Ave, Dublin 9.