Stop the Bombing; End the WarA statement from Members of ECAAR’s
Board and Associates, May 7, 1999.
We, members of the Board and Associates of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, call on President Clinton to order an immediate halt to the bombing of Yugoslavia.
Politically, bombs have forced no changes in Yugoslav policy; the
psychological reaction to bombing is, as always, stronger and stiffer resistance.
To a great extent, the bombs have been aimed at the civilian economy of Yugoslavia, and so at the political and social destruction of that country. We condemn all human rights abuses in Kosovo. But this is a strategy that brutalizes a nation for the crimes of its leadership, without effectively punishing those crimes.
The bombs have no humanitarian rationale. They have not slowed the
eviction of the Kosovar people, the many murders that have been reported,
nor the destruction of Kosovar homes. And to those casualties, the bombs
add hundreds of innocent Kosovar and Serb civilians, who are dying in entirely
predictable accidents every day.
Here at home, the bombing serves as a pretext for those who wish Congress to provide vast new funds for military expansion, without debate. Only a ceasefire can prevent this economic folly.
The United States should return to the bargaining table, to seek a diplomatic solution with the aid of our friends in Greece, Italy, Russia and elsewhere. We support every diplomatic initiative to bring this crisis to an end and every measure to bring relief to the refugees and to civilians inside Kosovo, and we welcome the diplomatic progress that seemed apparent on May 6th.
Ecaar Board Members: James K. Galbraith (Chair), Barbara Bergmann, Jurgen Brauer, Lloyd J. Dumas, Robert Heilbroner, Michael D. Intriligator, Lawrence R. Klein, John Tepper Marlin, Franco Modigliani, Robert J. Schwartz, Dorrie Weiss. Ecaar Associates: Gar Alperovitz, Norman Birnbaum, Robert L.
Borosage, William A. Darity, jr., Richard F. Kaufman, Leslie Spira Lopez,
Jeffrey G. Madrick, Josephine D. Martin, Wayne Merry, Richard Parker, Dimitri
Papadimitriou, William Raiford, Marcus Raskin.
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