It happened a few months before I was to start at SOAS. I was back in Ilford and, for some reason, I found myself at the local Sainsbury’s to pick up a few groceries. This, after all, was before the cats had come on to the scene. Despite it being lunchtime and towards the end of the week, no less, the supermarket was surprisingly empty.
Which may explain why I still remember it so vividly.
Standing before me in the checkout queue was a young woman of around my age. She was looking neither at the cashier nor at the mounting bill as her items were being scanned. Her glance was cast nowhere but down. And then, suddenly, the cashier was speaking to her. Informing her rather loudly, the way the Brits do when confronted with a foreigner, that she still had some ‘balance’ left. She should go and add more purchases because the shop was not authorised to hand over any change. This one-sided exchange was sufficiently loud for the sparsely dotted lines of nearby customers to hear. The tut-tutting was almost immediate. And then I noticed that the cashier was waving in the young woman’s face what looked like a gift voucher. Except that it was anything but. Then the murmurings became louder. The word ‘refugee’ was bandied about. Suddenly, the young woman’s face began reddening by the minute as she desperately shoved her few canned items into a plastic bag before almost running out of the shop; where good food was supposed to cost less.
At that moment I understood. The young woman was part of the living collateral damage of the NATO-led humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. She was the recipient of the Blair government’s largesse. The one dictating that while his country was bombing hers to kingdom come — she and a handful of her compatriots would be granted a safe-haven. And in return, to appease Daily Mail readers and the like, the benefits system would provide spending vouchers for essential items only. Meaning no booze n’ fags allowed. Blair, after all, didn’t do excess baggage. Therefore, those such as that unfortunate young woman would have to check-in their dignity at the door.
A few months later I would be at SOAS studying for my Master’s degree. In our second term there, our department went totally old skool and took us on a college trip to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and then on to Brussels for the EU Parliament and NATO headquarters. None of us had any idea just how enormous the latter would be. It had a hairdresser’s and post office and anything else needed for a bit of well-earned cabin fever. As we were making our way towards our allocated meeting spot we noticed row upon row of suited and booted and, frankly, rather sullen looking soldiers readying to despatch to Kosovo as part of the recently concluded peace efforts there. It brought back memories of the young woman and the needless humiliation back in Ilford.
Kosovo achieved what Bosnia didn’t. That is, a gateway for American military presence in Europe. Today, the latter is still home to Camp Bondsteel. It may or may not be coincidental that this lies strategically close to the proposed vital energy corridors of the Caspian Sea
My thoughts have intermittently returned to her this week as the news came of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serbian commander, being sentenced to life imprisonment. He today stands charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995; as well as the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995. Though this extends to just one municipality.
In my mind the stories of that young woman and the Butcher of Bosnia are intertwined.
Kosovo achieved what Bosnia didn’t. That is, a gateway for an American military presence in Europe under the auspices of the NATO war machine. This was Blair’s gift to the Alliance as it celebrated its 50th birthday in the post-Cold War climate: the precedent of humanitarian intervention. He saw himself as part of the New Internationalists who would rule the world under the false banners of liberty, the rule of law and human rights; as if these can ever be guaranteed by the barrel of someone else’s gun. And so it was that Britain and Europe would have the world believe they were still reeling from the horrors of delayed military action in Bosnia. That they were consumed with guilt at having such atrocities played out in the continent’s very backyard. The most likely explanation, however, is that London was still smarting from the public dressing down by the then American ambassador to NATO (1993-1998) who blamed it for preventing UN or Alliance intervention to rescue the Bosnians. Today, Kosovo is still home to Camp Bondsteel — said to be the largest and most expensive foreign US military base in Europe since the Vietnam War. It may or may not be coincidental that the base lies strategically close to the proposed vital energy corridors of the Caspian Sea.
I, for one, am not persuaded that the Bosnian Muslims received justice this week. Just as I remain unconvinced that the Kosovo intervention was waged over values, not territory. I wonder what that young woman would say today.
The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at [email protected] and tweets @humeiwei
Published in Daily Times, November 25th 2017.