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May 1999
US WAR BILL DESTROYS YUGOSLAV AND
DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENTS
Local communities in Yugoslavia as well as the United
States will suffer from major oil spills and the dumping of
toxic waste from mining operations, as a result of a US$15
billion war bill approved by the US Congress last week.
The bill, which was approved on May 13, 1999, provided
almost twice as much as the US$6 billion that President Bill
Clinton asked for bombing Serbia in return for abuses
against ethnic Albanians in the country. Members of Congress
strongly supported the President's request and added in an
extra US$2.5 billion for operations and maintenance of
equipment as well as US$1.8 billion for a military pay raise
plus additional funds to replace depleted bombs, purchase
other weapons and recruit.
Slade Gorton, a US Republican Senator from Washington state
threw his support behind Clinton's bombing campaign in
exchange for approval to permit the Crown Jewel gold mine on
indigenous lands of the Colville peoples in his state: "I do
believe that this war was started frivolously and pursued
incompetently. But I do believe we've got to pay for it," he
said.
Gorton's quid pro quo advances the plan of the operators of
the proposed mine, Battle Mountain Gold, to remove the top
of Buckhorn Mountain situated close to the Canadian border.
In developing an open-pit they propose to use of 30 million
pounds (13,636 tons) of cyanide to obtain the precious
metal.
The federal government announced in March that the mining
proposal could not go forward as planned because it violates
a little known provision of the 1872 Mining Law. The law
limits the amount of public land that can be used for
dumping waste. "The proposed mine would have illegally
dumped toxic mine waste on 490 acres (about 200 hectares) of
publicly-owned land,'' said Dave Kliegman of the Okonogan
Highlands Alliance, a local community organization.
In addition to this so-called "Mining Rider", the newly
approved war bill will delay both new cleanup rules for
mining companies here in the US as well as the payment of
higher royalties by oil and gas companies for drilling on US
public lands. And to rub salt into the wounds, the war
package will be paid from cuts in Social Security
savings.
Meanwhile Group-17, a caucus of independent, market-oriented
Yugoslav economists, said that the bombing campaign that the
United States launched on March 24 with its allies in the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), had caused over
US$10 billion in damage, exceeding the damage caused by Nazi
bombing of the country in the Second World War.
A total of 16 refineries and chemical plants have been
destroyed. The bombing of the Novi Sad refinery in Belgrade
has created an oil spill stretching for 15 to 20 km (9 to 13
miles) in the Danube River, which is now moving towards the
Black Sea.
The bombings have also killed a number of civilians
including ethnic Albanians. For example on May 14 NATO
bombings killed 79 Albanian refugees village of Korisa who
were fleeing Serb forces exactly one month after 75 refugees
were killed when NATO attacked a convoy near Djakovica. In
addition a residential neighborhood in Nis; a civilian bus
on a bridge in Kosovo; a passenger train; a village in
southern Serbia; and most notably the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade, have become "collateral damage" in the war.
"We are drawing the attention of the international community
to the fact that the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia
represents an act of brutal retaliation against an entire
nation and not a punishment of (Serbian President)
Milosevic's war machinery," says Group 17.
SOURCES: "Congress-Spending Highlights" Associated Press,
May 14, 1999. "NATO investigates allegation of strike on
civilians" By Candice Hughes, Associated Press, May 14,
1999. "Uproar Over Waste from Gold Mines" By Danielle
Knight, Inter Press Service, May 10, 1999. " NATO Raids
Cause More Damage than Nazis, By Vesna Peric-Zimonjic, Inter
Press Service, April 23, 1999.
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