Keynote Presentation: No to NATO Festival in Washington, DC

On March 24th, 1999 NATO forces started an attack on Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, then – Yugoslavia.

The bombing lasted for 78 days.

This intervention became a model for future military campaigns organized by NATO. I think, this should come as no surprise.

After all, the bombing of Yugoslavia was a good war. It is widely regarded as one of the most successful military campaigns
United States took a part of after the end of the cold war.

The bombing of Yugoslavia was good for a reason.

Good wars are the ones in which the country doesn’t lose its people. No American lives were lost in the attack.

Good wars have a moral justification.
After a decade of civil wars in former

Yugoslavia, it was agreed by the world that Serbs deserve whatever is coming their way.

Brilliant Serbian writer Milorad Pavic would later say that for this period Serbs became the world’s “most hated nation”.

The same idea – “you deserved it” – was repeated to me by my close Bosnian friend.

Good wars get rid of bad guys.

Slobodan Milosevic, the authoritarian Serbian president, was eventually removed from power.

Democratic elections were held. Kosovo, a Serbian province and a proclaimed cause of 1999 bombings, was declared an independent state.

It seems that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia ticks all the boxes of a good war.

In my art I often try to express my vision of this “good war”. Today, I will try to talk about it.

I was brought up by my grandmother – my parents divorced when I was 2 years old.

It could have been the civil war – my father was Croatian and my mother was Serbian.

Maybe they were just bad at being married.

I grew up poor. My grandmother didn’t earn much, so I had to help her work in the market from the time I was five.

I was about to start elementary school when the bloodiest parts of the Yugoslavian civil war occurred. My role in this civil war was limited to being bullied for a Croatian last name.

When American President Bill Clinton and, according to his memoires, his wife, Hilary Clinton, decided to launch a bombing campaign with a help of NATO, I was about to turn eleven.

Most of the well-off people left Belgrade. Bomb shelters were guarded by men trying to protect their families. There was no place for my grandmother, me, and our pet parrot Zuka. We had to stay outside, under the falling bombs, witnessing the burning city.

One of these nights, when the bombing was especially severe, my grandma apologized to me that she couldn’t protect me, and told me that this must be the end. I hugged her. I felt love. I was ready to die.

I didn’t, I was lucky. But many did.

The kids: Milica, 3 years old, Marko, 2 years old, Bojana, 11 months old and 76 more kids were killed by the bombs.

The adults: over 2,800 people. These numbers are just immediate deaths.

15 tons of depleted uranium in bombs caused dramatic increase in cancer diagnoses (110 %) to be exact compared to the prewar period.

Poverty, political chaos, drugs, and crime ran rampant, fueled by the damage cause by the bombing.

Many of my friends didn’t make it through. They were killed by cancer, by drugs, by crime. Some took their own life.

I owe it to them to stand in front of you today and try to convince you that the idea of the “good war” is a lie.

The world does not work like politicians in lofty offices think it does. You can’t improve things by destroying them.

The idea of a “good war” is a sick joke. It is a sign of an intellectual and moral laziness. The good wars damage lives and souls of innocent people, changing them forever.

If you drop bunch of bombs on poor, crime ridden, politically corrupt society you will get more poverty, more crime, and more corruption.

Also, you will get thousands of dead innocent people, people who did not deserve to be killed, each one with a story.

Just like me.

On June 10th, 1999 NATO forces finished the attack on Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, then – Yugoslavia. The bombing lasted for 78 days.

But this sound will stay in me forever.

by Ana Maria Gower

Keynote Presentation: No to NATO Festival in Washington, DC

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