By Warren Hoge
London -- Europeans reacted on Thursday with a mixture of dread at the return of large-scale combat to the continent where two world wars were fought, apprehension that the conflict could spread, and widespread if sometimes grudging support for the allied decision to take military action.
"The war between Serbia and NATO for Kosovo is forcing us into a kind of 'great leap backward' toward places, tensions, fears that history had seemed to have left behind forever: war in the Balkans, Russia's return to the language of the Cold War and the apparent impotence of the U.N.," said Rome's La Repubblica in a front-page editorial. Describing Europe's choice as one between "cholera" and "plague," the Belgian paper Le Soir said the outcome was unclear but that leaders were right to choose the "plague" of airstrikes on Yugoslavia to put an end to the ethnic violence in Kosovo.
The European press has been giving stark and ample coverage to the massacres of villagers in Kosovo and the flight of refugees, and this has built up substantial popular feeling for taking steps seen as bringing some relief to the beleaguered residents of the province and punishing the people harming them. A common concern expressed even by strong supporters of the bombings was the failure to obtain U.N. approval before going in. Lord Healey, a former Labor defense minister in Britain, called it a "terrible error." In Spain, El Pais, the country's most influential newspaper, said, "It should not be forgotten that this is the first offensive operation against a sovereign country and that it does not carry the legal legitimacy that a U.N. Security Council resolution would have lent it."
Outright opposition came mostly from politicians with leftist or Communist backgrounds, though their protests did not carry the force they would have a decade ago when the left held more influence on the continent. In Spain, Willy Meyer of the Communist-led United Left called the action a "leap backward in civilization in favor of barbarism," while in France, Robert Hue, head of the French Communist Party, said he disapproved of the strikes as a "direct violation of the United Nations charter." The daily Liberation said, "At this stage, we must ask whether airstrikes are a substitute for a political solution and the answer can only be negative."
Tony Benn, a longtime Labor militant, led a group of the party's left-wing members in the House of Commons in denouncing the allies for conducting a "war of aggression." It was, they said, an act that violated their party's values of "internationalism, peace, and the peaceful settlement of disputes." They were far outnumbered by Labor members who shouted out their backing of the government's decision to bomb. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Berlin for a European Union summit meeting, said, "We really have no alternative but to act in the interests both of humanity and the wider strategic interests of the region."
British newspapers across the board gave their backing to the bombardment while expressing anxiety about whether it would be effective in persuading Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to negotiate. They cautioned the need to keep control of the scope of the action. "A deadly gamble, but we are right to strike at Milosevic," The Independent headlined its editorial while The Guardian said that Britain should be making "discreet but serious preparations for the use of ground troops."
German newspapers gave cautious support to the attacks, noting they were the first hostile action by German forces since the end of World War II. "The aim of the action is definitely morally justified, but questionable in terms of international law and not backed by the U.N.," said the mass circulation Bild. Reactions sometimes followed the pattern of traditional alliances. Many Turks welcomed the airstrikes as a blow in defense of fellow Moslems. "A slap for the Serb Hitler," the normally sedate Milliyet newspaper said. Greeks and Greek Cypriots, with historic ties to Orthodox Christianity, deplored the strikes, saying they proved that Europeans still had not found a way short of war to solve their own problems.
Even Socialist opponents of the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Spain expressed "support and solidarity" for the bombing, though they criticized him for not explaining the country's commitment of fighter planes and an in-flight tanker to parliament. The leader of the ruling conservative Popular Party, Javier Arenas, said that Spaniards understood the need for force. "The bombings were done in the name of freedom and human rights and came after an intense negotiation process," he claimed.
El Pais said that "NATO is covered by a moral legitimacy" in taking to the skies. ABC, a leading conservative daily, argued: "The intervention is large-scale because the clamorous brutality that made it necessary also is large-scale." With French air force and naval units involved in the attack on Kosovo, President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin have so far unequivocally backed NATO action against their historical Serbian ally.
Chirac, in a statement made on Wednesday from the summit meeting in Berlin, said "the French people will understand the necessity of action," adding "peace is in jeopardy today, peace on our soil, peace in Europe and human rights. Everything has been done to find a reasonable and peaceful solution, one that adheres to the tenets of human rights. Everything." Ahead of Jospin's address before the French Parliament on Friday, only Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a left-leaning nationalist who resigned as Minister of Defense in 1991 at the outbreak of the Gulf War, has hinted at objection to NATO airstrikes. He expressed "his conviction that Serb and Kosovar coexistence can only be achieved through political channels" and reiterated "his preference for a political solution."
Le Monde editorialist Alain Frachon said NATO's action is based on several gambles: that Milosevic is "a poker player who is bluffing" and will end up ceding to pressure; that, having built his career around the Kosovo issue, he needs the pretext of international "aggression" to back down; that he is above all concerned with retaining power and will not prolong a crisis that could eventually topple him; and that he cannot long absorb the political impact of NATO's attacks on his military machine. Frachon concluded: "Neither the military nor politicians can guarantee any of this. They are counting on the relevance of the military attacks to their political objectives. Certain experts are skeptical."
