NATO Attacks Balkanisation of Yugoslavia

THE armed aerial might of NATO has been launched against Yugoslavia. From the 24th of March, waves of planes and missiles have struck Belgrade and other targets all over Serbia and the province of Kosovo. Thirteen out of the nineteen member States of the NATO under the leadership of the United States, are contributing their planes and equipment for this massive bombardment. Clinton and the NATO spokesman have declared that the bombing will continue till the Yugoslav Government accepts the "agreement" which NATO wants to impose on it.This latest act of aggression against Yugoslavia violates all international laws. First of all, the United Nations Charter prohibits any country from resorting to military action against another country except in self-defence. In any other situation, there has to be sanction given by the UN Security Council for military action. Knowing that Russia and China, both Permanent Members of the Security Council, would not allow any such resolution to pass, the United States and its allies have bypassed the UN Security Council. Secondly, the NATO alliance has attacked Yugoslavia which has not committed aggression against any of the NATO countries or its allies. NATO is further demanding that its troops be stationed in a non-NATO country. Why has this brazen act of aggression taken place?

A DECADES' OLD STRATEGY

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which was forged out of the liberation struggle against Nazism during the Second World War, consisted of six republics under a federal structure: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The new socialist state, Yugoslavia, had emerged out of the fiery ordeal of the anti-fascist struggle under the leadership of Tito. It was the heroic partisan war waged by the communists which had welded the unity of the various nationalities and groups historically divided along ethnic and religious lines.

The subsequent undermining of Yugoslavia's socialist and federal structure was the prelude to the repetition of the scenario that took place in the Soviet Union and other East European multinational states. The pressures for breaking up the federation, increasingly penetrated and influenced by Western powers, saw a rush among the various imperialist countries to extend their spheres of influence within Yugoslavia. Germany was the first to recognise Slovenia and Croatia after referendums were held in 1991 on breaking away, and at the time boycotted by those forces loyal to maintaining a united Yugoslavia.

The tragic events consequent to the dismantling of the Yugoslavian federation in 1991, saw virulent ethnic and religious nationalisms filling the vacuum, and imperialist intervention fuelling the fratricidal conflicts. Throughout this period, the USA and its allies focussed on highlighting the atrocities committed by the Serbian chauvinists, while underplaying the violence perpetrated by the Croatian and Muslim chauvinists.

FIRST DIRECT INTERVENTION

The first major imperialist intervention took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina where an armed conflict was raging between the Croat-Muslim side and the Serbs. The United States and its NATO allies particularly Germany, openly sided with the Croat-Muslim forces, and after edging the United Nations out of its peace-keeping role in Bosnia, the US conducted the most intensive bombing of the Bosnian Serb positions.

In August 1995, in a fortnight, 4,000 sorties were launched, with the most sophisticated weapons like the Tomahawk and Cruise missiles, just as in the Gulf war in 1991. This bombing was the first such attack in Europe since the Second World War.

This indiscriminate bombing was accompanied by a new offensive by the Croat-Muslim forces to capture the Serb areas within Bosnia. The 'peace agreement' imposed as a result of this bombing and known as the Dayton Accord, led to the induction of 32,000 NATO troops into Bosnia-Herzegovina of which 7,000 are American troops.

Bosnia was divided into three NATO-controlled zones, under the US, British and French troops respectively, with the overall command resting with the US armed forces. A Croat-Muslim entity and a Serb-Bosnian entity was created under this dispensation.

NEXT TARGET -- KOSOVO

The American plan to complete the dismemberment of the Yugoslav federation has now been taken forward with the direct military attack on Yugoslavia. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is now left with only Serbia and Montenegro. Having first accomplished the colonisation of Bosnia, now the target is the detachment of Kosovo from the Serbian Republic.

The Kosovo province which borders on Albania and Macedonia has an Albanian majority population, though the claim of 90 percent of the people being Albanian is an exaggeration. The province has 15 percent Serbs, 10 percent Montenegrins, 5 percent Roms, 5 percent Egyptians and 2-3 percent Turks. There is a long history of conflict between the ethnic Albanian population of this province and the Serb majority in the Republic of Serbia. The question of autonomy for Kosovo has been at the centre of the struggle for protecting the rights of the Albanian minority in the republic. However, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the occupation by NATO troops of Bosnia in 1995, the problem in Kosovo assumed a new dimension.

For over a year now the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been waging an armed struggle for independence against the Serbian administration. The KLA is patronised by the German ruling circles and it is directly financed and helped by the extreme right-wing forces in Albania. For instance it is well known that the KLA operates from the estate of Sali Berisha, the former president of Albania who was toppled after the notorious financial scandal of the pyramid company that he promoted in which millions of Albanians lost their life savings. The KLA is the spearhead for the imperialist circles and provides the pretext for the USA and Western European countries to interfere in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia.

The propaganda machine of the US and the MNC's-controlled media will seek with half-truths and outright fabrications, to justify the bombing. One has only to recall the lie put out about the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Co. in Sudan being a factory to produce chemical weapons to justify the attack on it last year. A few days later the US Administration admitted it was a pharmaceuticals factory but opposed the call by Sudan for an on-the-site inspection by the United Nations.

TOTAL PURSUIT OF GLOBAL HEGEMONY

The United States in the post-Soviet Union era has determinedly been pursuing its aim of total global hegemony. Any nation-state or government which defies or refuses to fall in line with its global ambitions is labelled as a "rogue state". In this list at the moment, falls Iraq, Libya, Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Yugoslavia. Just as in the case of Iraq, the aim of the military action is meant to topple the government of Slobodan Milosevic. The ultimatums, the threats at the point of the gun to accept US terms -- are all part of the same rhetoric and tactics used in the case of Iraq. The arrogant hectoring tone used against Saddam Hussein is repeated against Slobodan Milosovic. In both countries, the US military muscle is deployed not to "liberate" the long suffering people of Iraq, or the oppressed Kosovans, but to topple the leader of a state which refuses to accept US hegemony and surrender national sovereignty.

The immediate preliminaries to the shameless aggression on Yugoslavia are the diplomatic manoeuvres which took place prior to the attack being launched. In February talks were held at Rambouillet near Paris, between the Yugoslav side and the Kosovo Albanian delegation under the co-chairmanship of the foreign ministers of France and Britain. The United States and NATO were waiting for the failure of these talks to launch the military attack against Yugoslavia. However events unfolded contrary to the expectations. It was the Kosovan-Albanian side which refused to accept anything short of independence through a referendum. The talks had to be abandoned and after much persuasion and arm-twisting by the United States, the Kosovan side finally agreed on March 15 to self-rule with NATO troops supervising the new arrangement. The Yugoslavian side while accepting the terms of autonomy, refused to accept NATO troops on its territory to enforce the agreement. (See piece by Subash Chopra in the following page)

It is the refusal to accept this one-sided agreement of Paris on March 15, imposing foreign troops on Yugoslavia which is cited by NATO as the reason for attacking Yugoslavia. By the massive bombardment of the Kosovo province and its capital Pristina, the NATO is laying the basis for direct intervention by its ground troops. The destruction being wrought in Kosovo will naturally lead to a large-scale exodus of refugees, as in fact is happening apart from the violent attacks by the Serbian para-military forces. This will provide the pretext for intervention by the ground forces of NATO. The NATO had planned to put 28,000 troops in Kosovo to enforce the agreement on Yugoslavia. These troops are being mobilised in the neighbouring republic of Macedonia.

IMPLICATIONS MUST BE NOTED

The aggression on Yugoslavia has many disturbing parallels in history and it has ominous implications for the future. The last time Belgrade was bombarded was in 1941 by the Nazis. Hitler launched a blitzkerg from April 6, 1941 that flattened Belgrade; 58 years later, the aggression against Yugoslavia by the NATO forces sees the involvement, for the first time since the Second World War, of the German armed forces. German war plaNes have been conducting bombing raids on Yugoslavia, the first time the German air force has conducted such a military operation after the Second World War.

The Balkans has historically been a pivotal area for European imperialist rivalries. The Balkans region is the primary route between the oil rich Black Sea and Caucasus region and the East Asian states on the one side, and Western Europe on the other. Germany is interested in an oil pipeline from East Asia to Germany which would run through the former Yugoslavia. This has been one of the longstanding dreams of the German ruling classes. The then German Chancellor, Kohl, had announced in 1995 that Germany had reached an agreement with Croatia for a pipeline to run through its territory. It should be noted that the president of the Croatian Republic, Franjo Tudjman, is a notorious anti-Communist who adopted the flag and currency of the fascist Ustashi regime which collaborated with the Nazis during their occupation. During the war in Bosnia, US military officers acted as advisors to the Croatian forces.

The true fate of the former republics of Yugoslavia can be seen from the manner in which the US occupation troops are behaving in Bosnia. Recently the US military authorities demanded the removal of the Bosnian Serb president Poplasen, a move which was opposed by the Bosnian Serb parliament. There are US military bases in Albania and Croatia and NATO troops are now stationed in Macedonia.

The NATO which has been extended to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, is now the instrument for the imperialist expansion into the Balkans, to divide up areas of influence under US hegemony. The Serbian Republic headed by Milosovic stands as an obstacle to be demolished to complete the longstanding aim of the imperialist powers to "re-conquer" the Balkans which had eluded their grasp after the Second World War.

The Serbian people suffered the most in the Balkans during the Nazi occupation when 1.2 million Serbs died in the resistance to the Nazis and their Ustashi collaborators. The Serbs had declared "Bolje rob nego rob" (better the grave than a slave) when they rejected Hitler's ultimatum. It is this spirit which the NATO aggressors will find difficult to subdue despite their savage bombardment of Yugoslavia.

The stance of the Clinton administration and NATO can lead to only one conclusion -- failing to subdue the Yugoslav government and people, the imperialist circles will come out openly for an independent Kosovo after converting it into a NATO protectorate. For this the armed gangs like the KLA will be given military backing to wage a civil war in Kosovo to chain Serbia.

THE "DIVINE" RIGHT TO INTERVENE

The inexorable logic of the US stand is the doctrine that it has the right to intervene in any internal conflict in a nation-state involving sizeable ethnic or religious minorities. This applies all the more to multi-national states. The Indian ruling classes would be well advised to absorb the dangerous implications of this doctrine. Whether it be Kashmir or the separatist movements in the North-east as in Nagaland, US imperialism has announced its intentions to curtail national sovereignty if it suits its interests. Imperialism, which has been unremittingly hostile to the national liberation movements of this century, has changed course as the century ends. It promotes ethnic nationalism to break up big states which are recalcitrant to its hegemonic aims. Narrow nationalism based on ethnic-religious identities in the post-1991 era have nothing to do with the anti-imperialist nationalisms of the colonial and post-second world war period. Such chauvinisms result in fratricidal conflicts, bloodshed and disruption of popular unity.THE INTRINSIC NEED FOR DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLEFighting for the rights of minorities, for protection of their identity and autonomy, is part of the democratic struggle against oppressive State and ruling class policies. Invoking imperialist intervention to break up nation states, destroying national sovereignty and fuelling ethnic and religious conflicts is the way of reaction and imperialist toadying.

It is imperative that India stand up and firmly proclaim its solidarity with Yugoslavia, mobilise actively the countries of the third world and the non-aligned movement to call for a halt to the NATO aggression. The United Nations should be forced to come out in defence of national sovereignty and against the use of force against countries which do not transgress international laws. The Vajpayee government cannot remain content with statements deploring the NATO action. It has to voice the strong feelings of the Indian people more directly and forthrightly. Right now the BJP-led government is engaged in wooing the US to regain its favours after the Pokhran tests. As a first step, the Vajpayee government has agreed to resume military training programmes by the US armed forces for Indian armed forces personnel. It is time that all other political parties join with the Left to demand an immediate end to the Indo-US military collaboration which is being revived by the Vajpayee government.