Bulgaria's foreign political orientation has nothing to do with the outcome of the war in Yugoslavia:
- Bulgaria sees her future within the framework of NATO;
- being Yugoslavia's neighbour country with historically complicated interrelations, Bulgaria is not going to get involved in the war waged on the territory of that country.
However, some questions arise in this respect:1. The progress of the military operations and the declarations made by the West do not give confidence that NATO has a clear vision of the different possible developments of the conflict with Yugoslavia. Within only a few days there will be no Albanians left in Kosovo - they are being massacred and driven away. It isn't very likely for the Yugoslavian military power to be seriously degraded. Milosevic's authority is growing. With each day the war becomes increasingly anti-Serbian rather than one anti Milosevic.
2. The war was started without UN's sanction. This has devaluated the existing system intended to achieve balance In the World. What is NATO's vision about the future of international relations?
3. It would be an exaggeration to argue that since 1989 NATO and the U.S.A. have pursued a consistent policy towards the Balkans and Bulgaria. This policy provides grounds for assuming that the United States and Russia have reached an agreement, the way they did in Yalta. It is not by chance that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were admitted to the Alliance, while the rest of the countries applying for NATO membership have not been given any clear-cut and unambiguous sign that NATO will let them in its structures.
4. In Russian, Romanian, Serbian, as well as Western commentaries on the war in Yugoslavia, there are already some hints suggesting the idea that this is a war against Orthodoxy, in defence of the "European Muslims". The absurdity of similar theses cannot be refuted by words alone. The Balkan peoples need unambiguous, historically weighty arguments that the war in Yugoslavia is not part of the century-long clash between Christian Europe and the Islamic world.
5. The World at Large, NATO, the EU, etc. have to change their negative attitude to the Balkans and the Balkan nations.
I am tempted to remind that it is in the Balkans that the idea of democracy was born, that one root of modern civilization sprang up on this soil. The war in Kosovo is at a closer distance from Olympus than the Trojan war was.
The history of the Balkan peoples derives, directly or indirectly, from classical antiquity.
Unfortunately, the wars in the Balkans cannot be separated from the aggressive, crude and illiterate interference by the Great Powers.
It is a wrong thesis to argue that within the boundaries of the Ottoman and Austrian-Hungarian Empires the Balkans were peaceful. From among the Balkan peoples were recruited the soldiers who fought for these empires, and the growth of these empires represents a sequence of wars. It does not mean that as long as there was peace in the Balkans only in the times of the Warsaw Pact, this Pact should be restored.
By virtue of their singularity, their culture and overall contribution to the development of civilization, the Balkan nations deserve the World's
respect.
After the Trojan War there came the return home. Odysseus must know for certain that a very, very long journey is ahead of him on his way back home.
by Petko Simeonov