The Bosnian War;
What is to be done?
October 26, 1992
THE following resolution on the continuing war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was adopted at the October 1992 meeting of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. DOCUMENT
S ARAJEVO symbolizes the
possibility that the Serb, Croat and Muslim communities can live together, as they have done in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) for centuries. The resistance of this city's mixed population is crucial for the survival of a multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina and for reversing the process of "ethnic cleansing" in the new states emerging from the Yugoslav crisis, particularly in Serbia.
This is why the Serb nationalists, led by Radovan Karadzic, after having proclaimed a Serbian Autonomous Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to build a Greater Serbia, want to break the back of Sarajevo's resistance by laying siege to the city and destroying its unity.
This is also why, in spite of the formal proclamations of alliance between the Croatian government and Bosnian President Allia Izetbegovic, the Croat nationalist in B-H led by Mate Boban are allowing the strangulation of Sarajevo, because they too, in agreement with Karadzic, have "liberated" "their" Croat state of HerzegBosna.
Serb and Croat nationalists, in proportion to their different weight in the Bosnian population, have reached an understanding for the dismantling of B-H in favour of the Serbian and Croatian republics. Both willingly sound the false alarm of a Bosnian "Islamic Republic"; both ignore the fact that secular currents are today dominant among the Muslims of this republic.
The Muslims, along with the mixed populations of the cities, are today the main victims of this dismantling and of the massacres. They are opposed to the shared goal of the Croat and Serb nationalists which is also also behind the project of dividing B-H into ethnic "cantons"
The support given until now to this orientation by the European Community (EC) and the United Nations (UN) authorities and the exclusion of the antiwar movements and anti-nationalist parties who asked to be heard at their "peace conference" bears witness to the logic of the imperialist powers who dominate these institutions — a logic that cares little for the real interests of the peoples concerned. The shifting, unprincipled and irresponsible positions that these powers have taken since the beginning of the crisis also illustrate the same narrow defence of the dominant states' interests.
### Military intervention
This is the kind of logic that would prevail if the the imperialist powers intervened militarily. Therefore we must oppose any imperialist military intervention by the EC or UN. A foreign military intervention in Serbia would harm the opposition to Milosevic without hindering the activities of the paramilitary groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It would not eliminate the causes
As for an intervention in Bosnia, it would enmesh itself in a guerilla war without any clear battle lines, with every possibility of letting loose a "Balkan storm". A murderous quagmire and not peace would be the reality.
Nor can we accept a situation where the presence of UN forces consolidates the relation of forces and the logic of ethnic cleansing" perpetrated by the Serb and Croat paramilitary factions with the complicity of the Serbian and Croatian govern-
The only solution is the development of multiethnic civil and social resistance to reactionary policies and to every kind of ethnic and religious discrimination be it Serb, Croat or Muslim. Above all, the Great Serbian nationalism that threatens to ignite Kosovo and its Croat counterpart threatening to "settle" by force the resistance of Croatian Serbs must be politically
There can be no progressive outcome to the crisis and no durable peace without solutions negotiated by the parties themselves, guaranteeing that no one asserts a right to self-determination by denying it to others through the creation of ethnically "pure" nation-states.
ex-YUGOSLAVIA Four priorities We have four priorities in this situa tion:
1- Taking into account the pivotal role
of the political situation in Serbia and the central responsibility of the Greater Serbia project for the current war we must multiply our ties with and support for the peace forces in Serbia. We must support the antiwar movement and the deserters, inviting their spokespeople to our countries; we must support the student peace movement and the independent union; we must support the independent Serbian media (especially Vreme, Borba and Radio '92) and we must give material aid to counter the harmful effects on these movements of the embargo against Serbia. 2- We must support, above all through the establishment of "twin cities" all the communities, cities and villages of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia that declare themselves zones of peace and resist the logic of "ethnic cleansing". We should campaign to help multiethnic and multinational movements find means of expression (free radios, conferences, open access to TV, concerts for peace...). We should support the Interethnic Forum by publicizing its analyses and its charters of rights and freedoms.
We should note the planned Conference of Municipalities for Peace in Skopje (Macedonia) on November 6-9. 3- We must mount a political campaign against the dismantling of Bosnia-Herzegovina and against the logic of ethnic cantons for the disarmament of all Serb and Croat paramilitary forces which support this logic, a campaign for the maximum of political and material aid to all multiethnic resistance and for breaking the isolation of Sarajevo.
We should campaign for the revelation of everything to do with the detention camps and for an international tribunal of independent personalities on the crimes related to "ethnic cleansing" 4. We must aid the refugees in the countries to which they flee and in the republics of ex-Yugoslavia, focusing on aid for voluntary return of refugees to their homes and on legal and physical protection for those who want to resist "ethnic cleansing"
November 9, the European day of antiracist action is an opportunity for marches and support initiatives for Sarajevo's resis- 27 tance to "ethnic cleansing". *