Professor B.S. Chimni of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, K. Subramanium, Lt Gen Satish Nambiar, S.K. Singh, J.N. Dixit and A.N.D. Haskar thrashed out the reasons for the present crisis in Kosovo, debated NATO's action and established India's role in the situation.

Starting with a brief on international law and the role it plays, Professor Chimni said that all norms of the United Nations had been flouted when NATO decided to bomb Kosovo. Agreeing with Chimni, K. Subramanium said: ``Humanitarian consideration is definitely not the consideration here. The reasons for the bombing, I feel, are different.'' Qualifying his statement, Subramaniaum added: ``The first possible reason may be the fact that on its 50th anniversary, NATO finds the need to make Europe feel insecure. The Kosovon problem is probably to ensure that the Balkans remain in turmoil and subsequently, American leadership continues to play a role in the region. Or maybe, the United States needed a laboratory to test their technological developments since the Gulf War.''

J.N. Dixit went on to say that the NATO was not trying to replace the United Nations, but was making it irrelevant. ``They have violated their own charter also,'' Dixit said. ``There is nothing in their charter that mentions that they are the guardians of virtue or protectors of the world. Moreover, the major suffering in the region has been because of the bombing, not Serbian atrocities.''

The only countries which would be safe from such attacks, according to Subramanium, are ``those that have nuclear weapons and every other country will be vulnerable''. He further described the action as a way to ensure that the ``indispensability of the US continues into the 21st century''.

Drawing from his tenure as commander of the UN troops in Yugoslavia in 1992-93, Lt Gen Satish Nambiar said it was obvious even then that ``Kosovo was a powder keg waiting to explode''. ``The humanitarian aspect in this case is tragic and the blame lies at NATO's doors,'' he said adding that the people of Kosovo deserved a better deal. The main consequence of this crisis, Haskar said, would be the ``eventual cessation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia''. He added that NATO had got itself into a big mess and had not worked out any means of getting out of it.

With a general consensus on the issue, the gathering also felt that India should make its stand clear on the issue and go beyond just condemning the bombing.