To anti-war Kosova homepages and sections on web sites.

Two messages on

1. National anti-war home pages

2. EU using the Kosova war to implement new anti-human refugee politics.

The message include a short article on national anti-war pages and a list included. A longer text on EU new combined war and refugee politics will be send separatly.

Tord Björk

environmental and solidarity activist

PS The participants at Friends of the Earth Sweden Annual General Meeting in Norrköping 18.4 decided to demand end to the NATO war and stop ethnic cleansing and safe return for refugees from all former Yugoslavia. Environmental and economic aspects criticising the International Monetary Fund for its promotion of international unjust economic conditions contributing to civil war was also pointed at in the statement.

1. National anti-war home pages

It is of importance that the anti-war movement get better links with each other. You will here get a list of 11 national homepages with extensive information on activities against the NATO war and related issues. In short period the anti-war movement in almost every country in Western Europe have established web information sites mobilising support against the bombings. The international links on these sites are mainly dominated by english material although the material is mainly or only in the national language. Very few sites have any connection to other mobilising sites in Europe and if so only to a very few. This is an attempt to help connecting the anti-war movement better. If you have new or better examples on mobilizing home pages, please send and e-mail to tord.bjork@mjv.se, board member of Miljöförbundet Jordens Vänner - Friends of the Earth Sweden but living in Norway.

2. EU using the Kosova war to implement new anti-human refugee politics.

There is a great lack of material on the anti-war home-pages related to the refusal of EU to accept the kosovars as refugees. There is some material on a home page in the Netherlans but in dutch. To make the international reesponsibilites and pre-planning of the crisis more known a special article from circular letter Fortress Europe? is included in this electronic message. It can be published but only after asking the editor nbusch@mail.falun.telia.com In many aspects the Yugoslavian conflict is the result of a integrated EU politics as much as a result of NATO security policy. German interests has been a driving force with economic growth for EU-member states as the main aim. The starting point of disastrous international intervention on the Balkan was made when EU refused to listen to UN general secretary Cuellars advice to not recognise any new country in former Yugoslavia unless the rights of the minorites was guaranteed and not have assymetric politics towards Croatia and Serbia. In the included paper on refugee politics the reason why such lack of interest for the ethnic cleansing in Croatia accepted by Germany and the US and a new refugee politics is emerging. In the official EU document from last year it is stated bluntly that refugee politics have to change as countries of origin have economic problems that EU cannot change. Thus policing is the solution and not to establish a new economic more just world order dimnishing the refugee problem by political and economical means instead of endless escalation of state violence and control. It is time to focus on the EU war and not only NATO.

Article 1:

11 National anti-war homepages

German traditional weapon industry Thyssen-Krupp-Stahl is not only producing arms but also the home of trade unions now mobilizing against the NATO war. IG-Metall at a Dortmund facility, IG-Metall Hamburg and IG-Metall-Jugend were among the hundred organisations mobilizing for the national demonstration in Berlin that took place on 8th of may. This is one of the news that is possible to find by looking at the national anti-war home pages that now emerge all over Western Europe.

Prejudices about the anti-war movement to be organised by those struggling for years to protect the rights of kosovoalbanian refugees also gets confirmed by looking at the oldest special page with reports on kosovoactivities. It is the dutch homepage which is supplementet by a special section on the EU refugee politics which is now turned into "displaced person" politics with the Kosova war as a test case. Unfortunatly this unique material on the web is in dutch. While many now knows that the war is not a war but a humanitarian intervention and occupation dictate is a Rambouillet peace agreement, nobody seems to know that EU refuses to accept the kosovars as refugees. The security political focus of the anti-war movement is unfortunatly making the anti-human change of EU refugee policy invisible.

The national home-pages are sometimes the result of heroic individual initiatives. In Norway and Italy such independent anti-war home pages have a very broad information on protests and other material. The very best national anti-war home-page in Europe is actually made by Nils Plie in Norway. The British have already organised a special Peace in Balkans committee which produces an excellent home-page updated frequently with news. Quite a few Kosova web sites are strong sections on peace movement home pages. The German campaign section have short peace action information abotu hundreds and hundreds of activities, in total 235 kb long with an extraordinary amount related to the Balkan war. The Danish, Italian and French Kosova sections are somewhat less volumnious but still quite large while the Finnish peace committee have a Kosova site according to Finnish activists but I cannot get the address to work on my computer. Even Iceland have Kosova material on the "UT NATO" home page. In Austria and Sweden it is publishing houses that have made the effort to make extensive anti war homepages. Another source is left wing parties like in Belgium. Switzerland has very little material and it is splitted on both left-wing parties, peace organisations and Mediahilfe, a special solidarity organisation for indepedent media. The country with the strongest actions against the war is impossible for most to reach with its special alphabet but many other national home-pages reports from the strong greek movement. Spain is another country with large mass demonstrations against the war which is hard to find web material about although an large section on the Espana Roja web site is devoted to Kosova texts in Spanish.

This information is produced by Nordisk motmaktsträff, the Nordic counter power gathering which is an initiative by Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish popular movements that are critical towards globalisation. It is to be held 1-6. 8 in Falun in Sweden with the purpose of uniting unemployment, environmental, labor, peasants, peace, womens, animal right's, solidarity, antirasists and other movements against the globalisation politics of transnational corporations.

Tord Björk

National Kosovo/Kosova anti-war homepages:

Danmark/Denmark:
http://www.fred.dk, WebMaster@fred.dk

Deutschland/Germany:
http://www.friedenskooperative.de/, friekoop@link-k.de

Finland/Suomi:
http://listen.to/kosovo which is alias for www.rauhanpuolostajat.fi (3.4.2003: site unreachable) (I cannot get any of the addresses to function on my browser).

France:
perso.wanadoo.fr/patrick.simon/kosovo.html (3.4.2003: Link ungültig), Patrick.simon@wanadoo.fr

Island/Iceland:
www.herinnburt.net (3.4.2003: site existiert nicht mehr), herandst@iceinter.net

Italia/Italy:
http://www.peacelink.it/, ramalkandy@iol.it,
or http://www.urra.it/mauro/

Nederland/The Netherlands:
http://www.ddh.nl/fy/kosova/nederland/1999/, boyd@sociamedia.nl

Norden/Nordic countries:
http://move.to/motmakt, loui@online.no

Norge/Noreg/Norway:
http://www.leftist.net/~nilsplie/jugoslavia/jugoslavia.htm, nilsplie@online.no

Sverige/Sweden:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5580/, bombprotest@swipnet.se

UK/Great Britain:
http://www.peaceinbalkans.freeserve.co.uk/, committee@peaceinbalkans.freeserve.co.uk

Österreich/Austria:
http://www.servus.at/kanal/nato.htm, kanal@servus.at

Here is included also special sites not on the link list of almost no other anti-war sites with action material or texts hard to find elsewhere:

Deutschland/Germany:
http://www.muenster.org/frieden/ (The estensive home-page of the anti-war opposition in the Green Party). There are also a wide range of other German anti-war and Kosova home pages

Espana/Spain:
http://er.users.netlink.co.uk/urbiorbi/Yugoslavia/index.htm (many spanish documents but no activity reports), eroj@eroj.org

Nederland/The Netherlands:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ac/kosovo/(Special section with critical Kosova refugee politics)
http://www.stelling.nl/konfront/ (useful selection of mainly english and dutch texts on Kosova, some not found on the mostly visited american anti-war pages)

Schweiz/Suisse/Suiza/Switzerland:
http://www.medienhilfe.ch/ info@medienhilfe.ch (supporting indepedent media in Yugoslavia)
http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/comtex/ (fixed 3.4.2003) (peace committee with Kosova petition),
http://www.gsoa.ch/ (pacifists with Kosova petition).

Sverige/Sweden:
www.eurocoop.ch/fortress_europe.htm (3.4.2003: link ungültig), (Refugee and policing politics in Europe. Newly established with old but highly relevant material from circular letter Fortress Europe? published in Sweden)

The three maybe most popular link sites on national home-pages are the US based Znet and International Action Center and the Swedish based Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Studies.