A war of our times
THE war in what was once Yugoslavia is not that conflict
September 14, 1992 ex-YUGOSLAVIA on the regime tempted by an "ethnically pure Croatian nation" and the intimidation of minorities.
War is a means by which these regimes seek to achieve legitimacy. Violence, force, battles are, in their eyes, the founfrom a bygone age that many would like to imagine. On the contrary, it sums up all too well the main features of our times. We are not seeing some product of congenital Balkan "backwardness" nor the sudden explosion of a time bomb of ancestral ethnic antagonisms. The shocking cynicism of the spectators at the neo-fascist attack on the refugee hostel in the German city of Rostock shows that Yugoslavia has no copyright on the crisis in social consciousness.
The "Yugoslav crisis" is the political and social product of the world as it is today.
ding acts of the chauvinist and ethnic legitimacy with which they want to cloak their regimes. This is the use of war for the likes of Milosevic and Tudjman, and this is the explanation for the discreet compromises between Zagreb and Belgrade at the expense of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Following the example set at the top, we have seen small local potentates proliferate, even more keen than their mentors to implement ethnic purity in their fiefs.
### Poverty and inequality
CLAUDE GABRIEL - September 2, 1992
A
T the outset, the desire of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia for national liberation was an expression of the search for a freer and more generous society.
But it fell under the influence of the fatal illusion that liberty and abundance could only come about if the road back to capitalist and Western normality could be found. This evidently required the deepening of the role of the market and its laws and of competition between peoples, enterprises and regions. The final ambition was to beat one's neighbour in the race to get into the rich European Community.
This confusion favoured and gave a platform to every kind of demagogue and former leader seeking refurbishment, for whom considerations of democratic and national rights were never going to be allowed to compromise the new needs of capitalist accumulation.
The new wine was put into old bottles; the finally alienated political consciousness was turned to the advantage of the various aspirants who parcelled up the remnants of the old state apparatus, including its barracks, its arms and its soldiers.
The Milosevic regime in
Belgrade has been in the forefront of the war-mongering. The reactionary project for a Greater Serbia is the only answer the ruling cliques have been able to find to rebuild their positions. Appeals to the nation and patriotism have served as pathetic excuses for the incredible violence they have decided to employ against the non-Serb populations to satisfy their ambitions.
Milosevic's criminal energy
But Milosevic's criminal energy is not due to the fact that he is the sole and final vestige of "communism", as the rightwing press complacently implies. In fact the bureaucracy of the former regime has fragmented to give birth in each republic to all manner of nationalist politicians and wheeler-dealers who have made a bad joke out of the radical democratic resolution of the right of self-determination for all. This also applies in Croatia where a fascist far right exerts pressure
The special fury of the Belgrade leaders is related to one of the deep causes of the conflict; that of the dismemberment of the old state against a background of poverty and unequal development. The Serbian leadership feels obliged to weaken richer Croatia and destroy multi-cultural Bosnia to gain more of the territory of the former Yugoslavia for itself. The Great Serb arguments are nothing more than an ignoble excuse for justifying the terrible consequences of the regime's ambitions.
The urgent need for internationalist, anti-militarist and democratic action is felt everywhere. Small antiwar forces exist everywhere; among the youth, women, intellectuals and journalists who want to fight against barbarism. They are, unfortunately, still too weak to change the course of events. However hope would become realistic if a popular movement succeeded in putting an end to
Milosevic in a way that opened the door to, among other things, a radical purge of the Serb armed forces and self- determination for the populations of Kosovo and
Vojvodina. This would give a huge boost to progressive forces everywhere who want to oppose all the various authoritarian nationalist options that have everywhere supplanted aspirations to liberty and happiness.
Up until now, all the
Western powers have adopted pragmatic approach to the Yugoslav crisis. Appeals to the right to self-determination have been used to justify the recognition of new states 3 when it suited the needs of
International Viewpoint # 234 • September 14, 1992 ex-YUGOSLAVIA Paris or Bonn, but this "principle" turned out not to apply to Macedonia or Kosovo.
The unending spiral of conflict has now forced the West to attempt to coordinate a long term project. The aim is to end the war, halt the outflow of refugees and stabilize strong states. If the West were able to achieve an agreement between Zagreb and Belgrade, whole sections of the population would find themselves under the heading of the "profits and losses" of negotiations.
No complete and harmonious solution to the national and democratic issues raised by this conflict can come from the actions of the so-called Western democracies. All solutions they come up with will amount in one way or another to "robbing Peter to pay Paul".
An alternative line of action would require: putting forward a conception of democracy, social control, national rights and internationalist understanding which runs wholly counter to capitalist needs; this is true both for the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere in Europe and the rest of the world. The West is unlikely to give lessons to the Serb and Croat leaders that could boomerang. What use are figures such as the European Community's negotiator (until his recent resignation) Lord Carrington, when we can see how his state deals with the Irish question?
In our eyes the Western powers have no right or ability to intervene in this matter; they are societies marked by furious competition, violence, profiteering and rising racism.
### Euro-opportunism
The real measure of the generosity of the EC is given by the opportunism of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who has seized the moment to push through his plan for changing the German constitution to allow military operations outside his country's borders, and to call for a harder policy against immigration and the
And what a splendid opportunity for EC president Jacques Delors to play the warmonger and thereby implicitly defend his plan for a rapid military integration of the EC. The war is embarrassing, but it
The "right to humanitarian intervention" is the new catchphrase in which strategic calculations are wrapped. The French foreign minister declared in Le Monde (August 27, 1992) that the Yugoslav crisis was a 'testing ground" for Europe. And this is indeed an apt expression. As in the Gulf war the various proposals have only a tangential relation to the conflict; also at stake are the future of 4 ry policy. The fate of the peoples is of no NATO and of a specific European militamore importance here than in the Gulf conflict, but the opportunity to put the finishing touches to the New World Order is too tempting.
One of the distinctive features of the Yugoslav crisis is that it does not for the moment allow at a mass level a demonstration of the possibility of effective solidarity independent of official actions. has not yet been possible to make the link between progressive and mass