Gorbachev: NATO Has Broken All Its
Teeth On Yugoslavia
SYDNEY, May 24, 1999 -- (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."
((c) 1999 Agence France Presse) |
