Socialist Action /March 2001
Imperialists Getting Deeper into Balkan
Tangle
Our international editor, Gerry Foley, has just
returned from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Here is his initial report.
By GERRY FOLEY
When I was in Yugoslavia in the first two weeks of February, the local
press began to report speculation that a deal was in the making between
the new government and the Western powers. It supposedly involved turning
over former strongman Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague Court to be tried
for war crimes in return for NATO backing up the "moderate nationalist"
government of Vojislav Kostunica against the Albanian guerrillas in the
Presevo Valley.
Regardless of the truth of these rumors, they indicate the shifting political
sands in Yugoslavia today.
It remains to be seen if Kostunica will extradite Milosevic, although
in mid-February the Belgrade press reported rumors that his arrest was imminent.
It seems evident that handing over the former strongman to a U.S.-dominated
international court would be seen as an outrage by a large section of Yugoslav
citizens.
The predominant opinion that I found in Belgrade was that Milosevic should
be judged in Yugoslavia both for corruption and war crimes because that
was essential for the nation to clear its conscience and recover its self-respect.
There was a widespread feeling that the Western powers had no right to
sit in judgment on Milosevic because they had supported him for most of
his time in power and had committed war crimes themselves.
On the other hand, Serbian chauvinism is still strong, and the right-wing
chauvinists do not want Milosevic tried for war crimes but only for corruption.
Many of them were also involved in the war crimes of the regime.
The United States in particular has been pushing its demand for extraditing
Milosevic. This is obviously important to them to establish their credentials
as the policeman of the Balkans.
However, Kostunica's declared independence from NATO was an important
element in his victory in the Sept. 23 elections. He could risk losing that
image if he turns over Milosevic to the Hague Court. In fact, he gave a
very cold reception to the Hague prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, when she visited
Belgrade recently.
Of course, sacrificing Milosevic could have advantages for Kostunica,
in that the former leader could serve as a scapegoat for the old regime
and deflect demands for a radical purge of those who profited from its corruption.
Most of the new capitalist layer enriched themselves from the manna of Milosevic,
and if Kostunica is determined to restore capitalism, as he says, purging
them now would amount to a virtual social revolution, which Kostunica wants
to avoid at all costs.
NATO's stance in Eastern Kosovo
Regardless of whether there is an explicit deal between the imperialist
powers and Kostunica for suppressing the Albanian resistance in the Presevo
valley, NATO has moved more and more clearly to adopting such a position
in practice. It has announced that it will allow the Serbian repressive
forces to move back into the area, if the Kostunica government makes some
gestures of negotiating with the Albanian population.
For some time, NATO forces, specially the British contingent, have been
trying to cut off the guerrillas in the Presevo valley and destroy their
base of support in Kosovo. The Serbian press and government have generally
decried this effort as insufficient, but they are more and more playing
up statements by NATO military and political leaders denouncing the guerrillas
and promising action against them.
For example, the Feb. 28 issue of Politika, formerly a megaphone
of Milosevic and now changed into a voicebox of the new government, wrote:
"The SENSE agency reported from London that the British commanders
are considering the possibility of action against the Albanian terrorists,
because 'force in the only language they understand,' as the [right-wing]
London Times writes." Because of their experience in fighting liberation
forces in Northern Ireland, the British military has been taking the leading
role in attacking the Albanian guerrillas.
Young members of the Citizens Parliament, a group of radical opponents
of Milosevic, in the city of Cacak, stated that they could see the point
of view of the Albanians in Presevo. They told me that the Serbian army
and police in Presevo are the same that participated in Milosevic's attempted
genocide of the Kosovar Albanians. This is the only group I found in Serbia
that consistently and courageously defended the Albanians against Serbian
chauvinism.
The legal political leaders of the Presevo Albanians have insisted that
representatives of the guerrilla organization have to be included in any
negotiations with the Serbian government, because the great majority of
the Albanian people supports them.
At the same time as the NATO forces have been stepping up their operations
against the Presevo guerrillas, they have been reinforcing their attempts
to disarm the Albanian population of Kosovo proper. In its March 2 issue,
Politika reported that the UN administration of Kosovo had just announced
a new decree on arms, making the possession of weapons punishable up by
to 10 years in prison.
Ever since it occupied Kosovo, NATO has been announcing seizures of arms
from Kosovars. Raids and searches for arms have been constant and frequent.
Finding weapons has not been difficult, because the Kosovar Albanians have
a tradition of bearing arms, and huge amounts of weapons flowed into the
country as a result of the 1997 uprising in Albania. At that time, the masses
seized the arsenals of the army of right-wing strongman Sali Berisha-which
had been trained and equipped by NATO.
The NATO disarmament effort has been limited only by political conditions.
Now, with an allegedly democratic and pro-Western government in Yugoslavia
and an electoral majority for the party of imperialist stooge Ibrahim Rugova
in the Kosovo municipal elections, the NATO commanders probably think that
they have a more favorable situation for disarming the population.
Nonetheless, armed rebellion by Albanians is now spreading to neighboring
Macedonia, where about a third of the population is Albanian. Albanian guerrillas
have seized control of some localities, rattling dovecotes throughout the
region.
The political groups that organized the Kosovo Liberation Army-the People's
Movement of Kosovar (LPK) and the National Movement for the Liberation of
Kosovo (LKCK)-both have programs calling for the unification of the Albanian
people in one Albanian state. (About half the Albanians in the region live
contiguous to but outside the borders of Albania).
The LKCK maintains an underground organization among Albanian populations
outside Kosovo based on the perspective of a pan-Albanian armed struggle
to create a genuinely independent and united Albanian state.
Even the faction of the former KLA that capitulated to imperialism in
the Rambouillet negotiations that preceded NATO intervention has begun denouncing
the government of Albania as a puppet of the West. (See the previous issue
of Socialist Action.)
Moreover, while Western capitalists are swarming into Yugoslavia, seeking
to buy up the profitable parts of the old state enterprises at bargain prices
and seeking juicy contracts to rebuild the war-wrecked infrastructure, the
more politically unstable Albanian-inhabited areas remain much less attractive
to foreign investment.
The Yugoslav press sometimes refers to this as a kind of revenge for
the Albanian uprising against domination by Serbians and other Slavs. But
this trend also points to the possibility of growing alienation of the Albanian
people from the imperialist powers.
Capitalism offers no answers
In the rump Yugoslav federation itself, the political climate now is
generally favorable to Western capitalist investment. I found that many
of the union leaders I talked to were convinced that the country had been
so drained by the plunder and ruinous policies of Milosevic and his cronies
that it now had now had no choice but to submit to the dictates of international
capitalism.
On the other hand, unions are growing very rapidly. That seems to be
the most immediate result of the 1999 mass uprising in which the workers
ousted the bosses they hated the most. That experience must certainly have
had deep and lasting effects that can emerge in future struggles.
The average wage is from $35 to $70 per month, less than wages in India.
But although Yugoslavs complain that they are living from hand to mouth,
the standard of living is still clearly qualitatively higher than in India.
It is clear that the would-be restorers of capitalism have no answer
to the country's basic economic problems. The deindustrialization of the
country started by Milosevic and his cronies is being continued and accelerated.
But the commonly expressed hopes that Yugoslavia can recoup its losses on
the industrial front by building up its agriculture and increasing agricultural
exports are obviously illusory.
Whatever niche Yugoslav agricultural products may have found for the
moment on the generally glutted international market is probably the result
of very low prices. This reflects the fact that normal capitalist relations
and imperialist control of the Balkans are still a long way from being established.
That is obviously why the imperialist powers are interested in maintaining
and increasing their military bases there. But they may still find their
reins on the region increasingly slippery.
Socialist Action /March 2001 |