Socialist Action /March 2000
The Truth Behind U.S.-Led Imperialist
War in Balkans
By NAT WEINSTEIN
On Feb. 21, an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 ethnic Albanian Kosovars marched
on the Serbian-controlled portion of Mitrovica justly demanding that this
important mining and industrial city be placed under the control of the
people of Kosovo.
The terms of the agreement reached by U.S.-led imperialism and Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic ending the 78-day bombing war maintained the
legal status of Kosovo as a province of Serbia. The agreement, moreover,
provides for the division of Mitrovica into two parts, with the valuable
Trepca mining and metallurgy complex centered in the Serb-controlled northern
half of the divided city. 
The big question is why did the U.S.-led NATO forces allow Kosovo to
remain, at least nominally, a province of Serbia and why did they leave
the Trepca industrial complex in the hands of the current Serbian majority
of northern Mitrovica?
And the even bigger question is whether imperialism intends to abide
by the terms of the agreement ending the fighting-at least for the time
being-or will it find a pretext for a renewed military assault directly
into Serbian territory?
The reaction to the ethnic Albanian march on Mitrovica by NATO spokespersons
was ambiguous and larded with conflicting signals.
On the one hand, seeming to register NATO/United Nations approval of
the march from Pristina and smaller neighboring cities, troops under the
command of the United Nations accompanied the march to Mitrovica. And to
assure the protesters demanding the return of ethnic Albanians to their
homes in the Serb-controlled northern half of Mitrovica of NATO support
for their demands, various NATO spokespersons told Albanian protesters that
that, indeed, was NATO's intention.
On the other hand, it became clear by Feb. 29 that despite repeated pleas
for more troops by NATO commander Gen. Klaus Reinhardt of Germany, virtually
none were forthcoming. In other words, the United States and other imperialist
nations participating in the Kosovo "peacekeeping" operation show
little interest in sending more troops to Kosovo or northern Mitrovica.
A New York Times report datelined "Washington, Feb. 29" begins
with this interesting report on the status of the Kosovo operation: "Irritated
that American troops had to retreat from a bottle-throwing mob in Kosovo,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, has written
to NATO's supreme commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, telling him not to use
American troops outside their designated sector.
"The letter, according to Pentagon and NATO officials, told General
Clark that other countries involved in the NATO peacekeeping operation had
to send more troops to Kosovo before significant numbers of American troops
would again be allowed on a mission outside the sector assigned to the United
States control."
The article went on to report "a mood of discontent" in the
Senate Armed Services Committee reflecting its "anger at European allies"
for not contributing enough troops needed to enforce the Kosovo "peacekeeping"
operation. Several senators, moreover, complained that there had been a
deal reached between the Americans and the Europeans in which the United
States would "lead" the bombing attack on Yugoslavia and, in return,
the Europeans had pledged to lead the "peacekeeping" in Kosovo
"but had failed to live up to their promise."
The article ends with Gen. Clark noting that "the Yugoslav president,
Slobodan Milosevic, was very much in control in Serbia and that he was unlikely
to be defeated or disappear any time soon."
What does it all mean? It means one of two things and perhaps both: Either
the NATO nations are in deadly fear of a renewal of the war, this time on
the ground in very hostile Serbian-controlled territory, and thus the likelihood
of very heavy casualties to be suffered by NATO troops and civilians with
a resumption of hostilities.
Or, it means that the NATO nations are convinced that Milosevic is their
best bet-and is in the best position-to carry through the real aims of world
imperialism in Yugoslavia; that is, to most effectively carry out the privatization
of the Yugoslav economy.
It appears at this point of the unfolding crisis in the Balkans that
both explanations are closest to the truth. That is, imperialism would rather
that Milosevic disappear, but at the same time they need his services and
fear the American people's reaction to a resumption of the war, this time
on the ground, with the terrible casualties that it would entail.
Let's take a closer look at one of the most compelling factors supporting
our explanation of the real motives behind the imperialist war on Yugoslavia
and the spurious imperialist rationalization-that it was motivated by the
"humanitarian" goal of saving the ethnic Albanian majority of
Kosovo from "genocide."
Imperialists compete for shares of Trepca mines
Michael Karadjis, a free-lance political commentator, analyzes the role
of the Trepca zinc, lead, cadmium, gold, and silver mining and metallurgy
complex in the north of Kosovo as the motive behind the U.S.-led imperialist
war on Yugoslavia.
He quotes Chris Hedges, the Balkan writer for The New York Times, who
described the Trepca complex as the "most valuable piece of real estate
in the Balkans.... [And that] the Stari Trg mine, with its warehouses, is
ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, freight yards, railroad
lines, a power plant and the country's largest battery plant."
The Trepca complex is nominally a state-owned enterprise centered in
northern Kosovo but spread throughout Yugoslavia. Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic has been gradually selling off parts of Trepca to private shareholders
in the major imperialist countries of the world. Milosevic himself, to be
sure, has transferred a large portion of the Trepca mining and industrial
complex into his personal property as well.
This is the key to understanding the current seemingly schizophrenic
attitude by world imperialism toward Milosevic and his gang of chauvinist
Stalinist bureaucrats and emerging capitalists.
The fact is that after the economic crisis that struck much of the Balkans,
including Yugoslavia, at the end of the 1980s, imperialism saw the Milosevic
regime as the force that could most effectively carry out an austerity campaign
designed to cut the living standards of the working class of the federated
republics of Yugoslavia.
It is also a well-known fact that imperialism could not itself make the
workers of Yugoslavia pay the usurious interest on debts owed by that country
to imperialist banking institutions. For the task of enforcing imperialist
demands, an indigenous force was indispensable.
Milosevic, who had from the first proved himself a reliable collaborator
with imperialism, was its obvious choice. In all such situations, imperialism
requires native rulers to do their dirty work for them. They decided long
ago that Milosevic was the man best suited for the job of chief enforcer
of imperialist interests.
Imperialism certainly understands the quid pro quo basis of such collaboration,
in the course of which its indigenous agents personally build their own
independent fortunes as they privatize the Yugoslav economy for the mutual
benefit of imperialists and their native lackeys. To be sure, however, such
a partnership is predicated on the condition that imperialism gets the lion's
share of the loot.
However, as inevitably happens, Milosevic and company's assault on the
living standards of the Yugoslav working class set in motion a growing resistance
by workers against the imperialist austerity campaign, enforced by the Milosevic
regime after Yugoslavia was unable to make the usurious payments on its
debts to imperialist bankers. Moreover, the related campaign of privatization
of the collectivized economy aroused further resistance among the Yugoslav
working class.
Milosevic, thus threatened by an increasingly rebellious working class,
sought to lighten the debt-burden of his primary base of support among Serbian
workers by transferring a larger portion of the debt onto the backs of workers
in the other Yugoslav republics.
In Kosovo, for instance, Milosevic drove down the living standards of
miners and other workers in the Trepca complex centered in Mitrovica. And
when miners organized strikes and other measures of resistance, he found
it necessary to secure his base in his own Serbian working class and pacify
them somewhat, by ousting ethnic Albanians from their jobs, replacing them
with Serbs.
That is the classic strategy of divide and conquer invariably followed
by any ruling minority, whether they are bosses or bureaucrats.
This monstrous crime by Milosevic and his gang of pro-capitalist bureaucrats
against the fundamental principle of working-class solidarity was what set
into motion the fratricidal conflict between Serbians and non-Serbians in
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and ultimately the ethnic cleansing of
Kosovo's Albanian majority.
Milosovic's abolition of Kosovo's autonomy within the framework of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1989 was only the first step in his ruthless
chauvinist attack on the unity of the Yugoslav working class.
The other equally chauvinist Stalinist regimes in the Yugoslav federation,
predictably, responded similarly by refusing to base their opposition to
Milosevic on his violation of the principle of proletarian internationalism,
which had been the glue holding the workers' republics of Yugoslavia together
in defense of their common class interests.
Thus, it is no mystery who bears major responsibility for the formerly
united peoples in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia having been cast into
its current purgatory of unending civil and ethnic conflict-and thus impotence
against its imperialist oppressors and its aspiring pro-capitalist junior
partners among the Stalinist bureaucracies in each of Yugoslavia's federated
republics.
Class-collaborationist vs. class-struggle strategy
Under the impact of the Milosevic regime's assault on the ethnic Albanian
majority of Kosovo, leaders of Milosevic's victims made the mistake of having
perceived imperialism as the enemy of their immediate enemy, their Serbian
oppressors. But that is only half true. The real enemy of imperialism was
not Milosevic, it was the working class of all of Yugoslavia-Serbs, Croats,
Bosnians, and Kosovars alike!
Thus those who looked to imperialism as an ally in their struggle for
self-determination did not understand that imperialism had reasons other
than defending Kosovo's right to self-determination. On the contrary, imperialism
refused to so much as promise the ethnic Albanian majority its support for
Kosovo's right to govern itself and to decide its own fate as laid down
in the central provisions of the notorious Rambouillett Treaty, under which
the horrific 78-day air assault against both Serbia and Kosovo was ruthlessly
executed.
The real reason for imperialist intervention everywhere in the world,
from Vietnam to Iraq to Yugoslavia, to mention only a few of their many
violations of the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, can
be boiled down to world capitalist imperialism's insatiable quest to expand
their fields of investment into new markets now closed to them, and thus
open the door to ever larger profits.
But before we try to look for an alternative strategy to the one now
being followed by those in the leadership of the people of Kosovo, we must
first attempt to prove that the aims of the imperialist assault on Yugoslavia
is not motivated in any way by concern for the Kosovar victims of the Milosevic
regime's barbarous oppression. Rather, it is a classic instance of the relentless
drive by world imperialism for the conquest of new markets in a shrinking
world marketplace.
Essential nature of the problem and its solution
In order to better understand the conflicting sides of imperialism's
campaign to expand into Yugoslavia and the other workers states in Eastern
Europe and elsewhere, it's important to perceive the following four main
factors involved in imperialism's shorter-term and longer-term goals:
1) The combined struggle by all imperialist powers is to break down the
resistance of workers in the former Soviet bloc countries to a capitalist
takeover of their economies and the destruction of the remaining conquests
of their socialist revolutions.
2) At the same time, there is already sharp economic competition among
the world's imperialist powers for the largest shares of the new fields
of investment and profits-a competition slated to become explosive when
the expansion of the productive forces of global capitalism saturates the
markets when the multiplying mass of commodities being produced cannot find
buyers.
3) The struggle within the workers states between the gangs of bureaucrats
and emerging capitalists in each of these nation states against their own
working classes will be intensified when the bubble economy bursts. Unlike
before the forced march toward capitalist restoration began, the workers
states are now at least partly dependent on the stability of the global
capitalist economy. Thus, when the impending crisis breaks out of control,
their already declining economies will sharply drop further.
4) And finally, like the developing conflict between capitalists, the
conflict between each of these gangs of bureaucrats morphing into capitalists
against each other will also reach crisis proportions.
This last factor explains the conflict by the Serbian gang against its
counterparts in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The only real solution to Kosovo's deadly dilemma
While the people of Kosovo had no choice but to resist with everything
they could muster against the Milosevic regime's barbarous and deadly ethnic
cleansing and expulsion from their homes and land, independence in itself
is not a solution to their problem. Without finding a solution to the social,
economic, and political underpinnings of oppression, the problem of oppression
can be somewhat reduced but not eliminated.
Neither, however, is there any solution for the Serbians, Croats, Bosnians,
and the other peoples of Yugoslavia of their oppression by world imperialism
strictly within and of themselves. Such a problem is for them also not fully
achievable based on their own resources alone.
There are few oppressed peoples anywhere that have the power based on
their own resources alone to liberate themselves from far more powerful
oppressors. Even in the best case, it is absolutely necessary to win reliable
allies in order to ultimately prevail.
Revolutionary Cuba, for instance, has so far succeeded in maintaining
its national independence from the U.S. imperialist Goliath just 90 miles
from home only because Cuban leaders maintained internal class solidarity
and to the extent of their ability extend it to other suffering victims
of capitalist imperialism in Latin America and Africa.
Though blockaded by the American imperialist colossus, Cuba has educated
and produced a large supply of medical doctors for export, free of charge,
to those peoples under the heel of imperialism which had driven them down
to lowest possible depths of impoverishment.
Such superbly honorable sacrifices made by this island socialist republic
of some 11 million souls in the name of human and class solidarity has strengthened
Cuba against imperialism, and will come back in spades when the developing
global economic crisis breaks loose and leaves workers everywhere with no
choice but to find their way back to the class struggle road to freedom.
As distant as a common working-class offensive against imperialism and
the capitalist-restorationist Stalinist bureaucratic agents of world imperialism
may appear at the moment, it is the only way out of the dilemma faced by
the workers of Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Asia-and,
to add the obvious, the fundamental challenge facing the world working class.
I will conclude with the historic slogan of revolutionary socialism:
"Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains
and a world to gain!"
Socialist Action /March 2000 |