Humanitarian bombardment

Humanitarian bombing is a satirical allegory to refer to the massive bombing of Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia .

It is an allusion to the statement of the ex-president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel ^[1] . In 2004, there was a dispute between him and the senator and European Parliament candidate Richard Falber over the dictum “humanitarian bombing” ^[2] . Havel called the senator a "liar," while Falbrus believes that Havel has a "short memory." The incident flared up after, on a Sunday’s television show, asking “Was Vaclav Havel the president of Europe ?” Falbr replied that “he doesn’t imagine the person who invented the concept of humanitarian bombing ” ". A rebuttal later appeared in the press, in which Havel writes that "he not only did not invent, but he never applied and could not apply a similar formulation." Richard Falber, in turn, recalls an article by Havel in the newspaper Le Monde on April 29, 1999 ^[3] :

I think that there is an element in the NATO invasion of Kosovo that no one can doubt: air attacks, bombs are not caused by material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian : the main role is played by principles, human rights , which have priority even over state sovereignty . This makes the invasion of the Federation of Yugoslavia legal even without a UN mandate.

Original text (Fr.)

Dans l'intervention de l'OTAN au Kosovo, je pense qu'il ya un élément que nul ne peut contester: les raids, les bombes, ne sont pas provoqués par un intérêt matériel. Leur caractère est exclusivement humanitaire: ce qui est en jeu ici, ce sont les principes, les droits de l'homme auxquels est accordée une priorité qui passe même avant la souveraineté des Etats. Voilà ce qui rend légitime d'attaquer la Fédération yougoslave, même sans le mandat des Nations unies.

The expression was also used after the war in Yugoslavia: for example, Fidel Castro , commenting on the foreign intervention in Libya (2011), said ^[4] :

Never before has a large or small country, in this case with just a population of five million, been the victim of such a brutal attack by the Air Force with thousands of fighter-bombers, with more than a hundred submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers and an arsenal sufficient to destroy the planet. <...> Nevertheless, now the criminal and discredited NATO will write a “beautiful” story about its “humanitarian” bombing.