Citation
Wilson, H.C. (1999), "Editorial", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308caa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Editorial
As I sit and prepare this issue of the Journal I am saddened by the events occurring in Kosovo.
Over 100,000 people removed from their homes. Families split up. Whole towns and villages are being destroyed to prevent the displaced returning. Refugees having all personal documents taken from them as they cross the borders, thus removing any legal rights to return to their homelands. Young men vanishing after being dragged out of the lines of the displaced. Neighbouring countries are closing frontiers. Land-mines being buried along the escape routes. People being used as human shields to protect military targets. The list of atrocities just goes on and on.
What saddens me most is the inability of the rest of the world to take any effective action to bring the process to a halt. We just have to sit by and watch it happening. Governments arguing with each other as to the best methods to stop the atrocities. Governments threatening the possibility of a world war if their chosen path is not adhered to by the rest of the United Nations.
The total inability of the United Nations and NATO to come up with a consensus of opinion as to what to do is incomprehensible. These organisations have been in existence for decades and they have demonstrated that they are totally unprepared for an event such as this despite the huge amounts of money that have been lavished on their existence. NATO troops have been training together for military intervention since its formation and yet we are told that to put ground troops into Kosovo would take months to achieve. It is therefore probably just as well that the former USSR did not attack the NATO alliance countries, as we would have required three months' advance notice of such an action.
The sluggish response to this situation is not tolerable. While politicians argue amongst themselves innocent people are dying; innocent people are being thrown out of their homes; town and villages are being destroyed and human rights are being grievously abused. The aid agencies cannot enter the disputed area to reach those still trapped and can only perform their duties reactively and are doing a sterling job, but there is a desperate need to get them into Kosovo in safety.
When this tragedy is finally brought to a close I believe, and this is my own personal opinion, that an international commission should be set up to investigate the need for such leviathan organisations given their absolute failure to protect the citizens in their hour of need. These two organisations consume billions of dollars each year and, as this event has shown, the return for that investment is woefully short of what could and should be expected.
Henry C. Wilson