Experts on Collateral Damage

Podgorica May 12, 1999

On the Other Side of the Bombs

By the beginning of the seventh week of NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, almost three million people have suffered "collateral damage"

AIM Podgorica, 8 April, 1999

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

Case one: Having previously killed her three children, the mother who attempted suicide, explained this tragedy to physicians with a wish to spare the children fear of what she was afraid of the most - the war.

Case two: A successful physician of one of Belgrade hospitals who had worked as a refugee from Croatia in Bosnia, then as a refugee from Bosnia in Serbia, one afternoon, having returned from work found his wife packing to flee again. Without uttering a single word, he entered the room and killed himself.

In the first weeks of the war in Belgrade, the known wartime phenomenon was registered of reduction of the number of committed and attempted suicides. However, the mentioned two of the total of three cases illustrate the depth of personal tragedy which cannot be classified as collateral damage, whatever its creators may think.

These are just some of the data or cases the description fo which could be heard at the debate of eminent Belgrade experts gathered recently in Belgrade in order to illuminate, each from his/her own domain the real meaning of "collateral damage" and "incidental victims" of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the past seven weeks. The organiser of the gathering was Serbian Anthropological Society and City Library.

According to the words of Dr. Marija Djuric-Srejic, in a group of 40 interviewed patients with heart failure, the difficulties of 32 intensified - but only three of them reported to their doctors, while the others decided to treat themselves the on their own. The oncological clinic in Belgrade publicly appealed on the patients not to refrain from diagnostical examinations, the number of which dropped from 700 to 1000 a day before the beginning of the aggression to just about 200. In relation to the number of people suffering of malignant ailments in Serbia, this endangers lives of about 60 thousand of those who suffer from these diseases and about 24 thousand of those whose illness will not be diagnosed nor treated in time.

At the fertility department of the gynaecological clinic of the clinical hospital centre in Belgrade, the number of cases of miscarriages and premature childbirths has increased, as well as perinatal illness and death rate, while the number of patients has decreased - by two thirds. Referring to the catastrophic effects of the sanctions between 1992 and 1995, Dr. Marija Djuric-Srejic wondered what effects might be expected of this war, what the meaning would be of things such as "loss of homes, chronic stress, hunger, physical disability, psychic trauma, irregular medical supplies, late diadnosing and inadequate therapy, polluted environment, inaccessibility of health services, poor sanitary conditions..."

Experts of different profiles, however, did not speak about individual cases and evident victims in bombed columns of refugees, passenger buses and trains, city centres or suburbs (in seven "mistakes" NATO admitted, at least 287 persons were killed, and many more civilians were wounded; the "remaining" about one thousand dead and five thousand wounded are not considered even as "incidental victims"). The experts spoke only of longterm, incomparably more pernicious consequences of collateral damage.

According to Predrag Polic from the Chemical Faculty, on 18 April Belgrade avoided evironmental catastrophe thanks to pure luck. A strong westernly wind prevented poisonous substances from Pancevo industrial zone - primarily phosgene and vinyl chloride, but also products of combustion of fuel and oil derivatives, carbon monoxide, aldehydes which are present in photochemical reactions, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in particles of soot - from spreading over Belgrade. Rain also reduced air pollution, but "in favour" of more lasting pollution of soil, surface and subterranean waters. What was fortunate for Belgrade was not for settlements to the east of Pancevo. In Kovin, for instance, lettuce was for days smeared with greasy soot, and rain dissolved paint on cars. "Had Baric been shot that night and had fluorine hydride or fluorhydric acid been emitted, not even gas masks would have helped people in the affected regions".

Environment inspector Dragoljub Bjelovic confirmed that emptied tanks of vinyl chloride monomer and half-emptied tanks of ammonia in the fertilizer factory were hit in Pancevo. From the refineries and tanks in Novi Sad, Pancevo and Smederevo enormous quantities of oil and its derivatives were poured into the Danube, and along with air pollution and subsequent results of photochemical reactions, these will affect territories of neighbouring countries, too. Since 4 May, fishing on the Danube downstream from Pancevo has been banned.

Ivan Ivic, president of the Committee for Children's Rights, warned against the disturbing silence of international organizations, including specialised agencies of the United Nations, UNICEF above all. Limiting his concern only on international conventions on rights of the child, education for all and development of culture of peace, Ivic pointed out that longterm effects on mental health will most severely affect school children, a population of 1.3 million of them. The specific techniques of this war - uncertainty and sudden strikes - have exceptionally severe psychological consequences. "Fear, sirens, detonations, absence of fathers from homes, elimination of physical danger by separation from parents and family, all that can have far-fetching negative effects on development of children and young people", says Ivan Ivic. Complete disorganization of everyday life threatens to develop destructiveness. Adolescents are especially in danger, who were until recently part of the western global culture of the young, and now uncertainty and fear are coming exsactly from that direction, while in their immediate surroundings there is only destruction for them to 'learn by model'".

President of the League of Psychologists, Dr. Zlatko Trebjesanin, also warns that "killing of the soul" of an entire population is extremely severe because it produces long-lasting consequences later on. "The breakdown occurs after the war", stresses Trebjesanin, indicating that lasting stress threatens children, women and the elderly the most, affecting not only integrity but also identiry of personality, the concept introduced into psychology on the basis of investigation of the psyche of war veterans.

Expressed doubt that "collateral damage" occurs by accident is strongly raised by technology of NATO war waging - shooting from a great distance with the help of screens and joysticks, the technological element of remote control which does not affect individual mechanism of psychological restraint active when the attacker and the victim are in direct contact. Civilians "on the other side of the bombs" are much more aware of this fact - and therefrom more directly exposed to results of stress, helpless wrath and (un)certain possibility to appear on lists of "collateral damage" or "deep regrets" in NATO statements.

As concerning cultural monuments, micro-seismic trembling of the soil and strikes of surrounding explosions have direct consequences the extent of which - at least in Kosovo - cannot be assessed at this moment, said Marko Omcikus from the Republican institute for protection of monuments of culture. Serious effects are, for example, separation of the foundation of fresco paintings from the walls, cracks and falling off of mortar. It is quite uncertain - at least as long as the war lasts - what the effects will be of air pollution caused by incessant bombing on the paint of frescoes from the world cultural heritage. Omcikus drew attention to the fact the heritage from the last two centuries form a special category of destroyed or damaged monuments of culture, city and folk architecture represented by, for instance, the city core of Novi Pazar, were on UNESCO lists of protected world cultural heritage.

Prevention of humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo which NATO got involved in on 24 March by bombing the chosen targets in Yugoslavia, affected the entire population of the country. Its direct results were already experienced by more than 1200 dead civilians, several thousand wounded, several hundred thousand displaced persons and refugees, at least two million persons left without their jobs and income, and all those who are nowadays wondering how they will survive the forthcoming winter in the demolished and impoverished country. From this aspect, with its extent and consequences collateral damage exceeds the objective because of which NATO took action against Yugoslavia.

Spomenka Lazic (AIM)