FOR A MULTI-ETHNIC AND SOVEREIGN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA The following resolution was adopted by the February 1993 meeting of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International: IN RESPONSE to the Geneva negotiations we reaffirm our defence of a sovereign and multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina. Any plan that ratifies the tearing apart of the republic into territories carved out on an ethnic basis by Serb and Croat nationalists supported by the Belgrade and Zagreb governments, cannot bring peace. The demand to lift the embargo on sending arms to the Bosnian forces is an answer to the main Great Serbian aggression; it also makes it postheir national origins.
We can expect the Bosnian armed forces to reject the Vance-Owen plan in its essence. The terrible paradox is that in so doing they will appear to be warmongers and "extremists", while in fact they are, at least in the urbanized centre of the republic, the only defenders of a multicultural and multi-ethnic approach in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "If we had greater means, there would be fewer victims," argues Dizdarevic. Main weakness not military
But it is important to recognize that the main weakness — the real cause of our powerlessness in this conflict - is
A foreign military intervention would have an opposite logic, escaping any control by the Bosnian populations; it would be counterproductive, not military. The non-nationalist Bosnian left has not yet succeeded in giving the "really existing" multi-ethnic Bosnian resistance a political platform, that is, a clear alternative to the politics of nian forces. This position goes together with active support to political and civic movements that are working for a dialogue among the communities and a free union of democratic and multi-ethnic states. We denounce all policies of exclusion and revenge, whatever their share of responsibility in unleashing this war: this is the political precondition for weakening Great Serb nationalism, the most violent and threatening force confronting the diverse communities of the Yugoslav region, which is using humiliation and rape to impose its "ethnic cleansing". We support the feminist campaign to demand that rape be included among War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Our active solidarity with the victims of rape must rely on the independent citizens' movements struggling against the nationalisms in power, in particular Serbian women in the anti-war movement that is opposing Milosevic's policies, and the women attacked by the Croat press as "witches" because they have dared to say that Croats have also raped women. If the map of Great Serbia is drawn up by force in the name of Serb self-determination the war will continue, and will spread to Kosovo and Macedonia. War will break out again in Croatia if the Serb question is settled there by force in the name of Croat self-determination. Croats, war will engulf the Balkans. * exclusion.
Such an alternative cannot be credible unless it goes beyond the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, unless it firmly entrenches itself in the resistance to the nationalist powers in Serbia and Croatia. But can it be only based, as Dizdarevic proposes, "on human rights, in opposition to the logic of the rights of peoples""?
Recognizing the right to call oneself "Bosnian" or "Eskimo" (when one does not want to be identified as a Serb, Croat or Muslim), rejecting the terrorism of the right of "peoples" imposed by a few through force - does this also mean denying the right of those who want to call themselves Serb, Croat or Muslim? There is no model, but we will have to invent such a democracy - that combines individual and collective rights, within the perspective of the withering away of states and borders. *
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Rape and ethnic cleansing
International Viewpoint #243 March 1993
RAPE is being used as a weapon in the war now underway in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This practice is not without its precedents.
While it is impossible to estimate the number of rapes, the fact that they have taken place cannot be denied. Thousands of women have been raped in the course of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. CLAIRE BATAILLE*
O fficial missions, including
from the United Nations (UN) and European Community (EC), inquiries by non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International as well as the shocking accounts given to journalists, leave no doubt as to the systematic use of rape as a part of the policy of ethnic cleansing.
There is an urgent need to organize concrete solidarity initiatives — linking up with those women's organizations who address this dimension of the conflict in their daily activity.
From last September onwards, feminist organizations in the former Yugoslavia alerted public opinion and denounced the crimes, demanding that they be counted as war crimes as judged as such by an international tribunal. By October petitions on the issue were circulating in some Western countres.
More is involved here than "lapses" by soldiers taking advantage of the war situation to attack women without fear of punishment. In this war it seems that rape is being used not only as an instrument of humiliation, terror and control as commonly happens in time of war, but also a way of emptying the villages and sowing irreconcilable hatred between communities, thus furthering ethnic cleansing.
Thus women of all ages held in camps or outside them have been repeatedly raped, and some have died as a result.
*This article originally appeared in the February 18 issue of Rouge, publication of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International.
Some very young women have said that classmates were among the rapists, as if to make the inter-communal divisions irreversible.
In this context, an international campaign has been launched to denounce these horrible crimes; to call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice; for women who become pregnant as a result of rape to have abortions free of charge if they wish; that they should get the care they need in women-run centres; and that those that wish it should benefit from the right to asylum and be recognized as refugees. This is the substance of an appeal published by the French Alliance of Women for Democracy in the January 16 edition of the French daily Le Monde.
However, in other cases, we find that the issue of the rapes is being used for dubious political ends, in particular to promote imperialist military intervention against Serbia. For example, a petition published in Elle magazine and elsewhere denounces rape "made into a weapon of war by the Serbs" and demands "that the French government uses all possible means to bring this barbarism to an end". Similarly the text of an appeal for a demonstration on January 23 put out by some major French trade unions, including the CFDT — close to the ruling Socialist Party — and the teachers' union FEN sets the objective of "putting out of action the regime of president Milosevic, responsible for crimes against humanity and inventor of the planned and systematic use of rape"
Such texts lie by omission. All the international inquiries have found that rape is practised by all the parties when they capture villages, even if Serbs are evidently the main ones responsible. Nor is there any direct evidence of orders from the Serbian capital Belgrade directing the policy of rape.
It takes considerable ignorance, furthermore, to claim that Milosevic has invented the "planned and systematic use of rape". Without going back to the dawn of history, we can cite examples such as Pakistan's war in Bangladesh in 1971 when at least 200,000 Bengali women were systematically raped in the course of the nine
CROATIAN feminists have issued a letter to Western feminists about the danger of abuse of the rape issue by militarist forces. Here are some excerpts: "It seems to us that aid for raped women is taking a curious turn, insofar as this aid is controlled by governmental organizations, the health ministries of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and in particular by male gynecologists. We fear the use of cases of rape for propaganda purposes, in order to further the spirit of hatred and revenge, to provoke further violence against women and new attacks on the survivors. Until now, much has been said on this issue, but little done. The atmosphere of journalistic sensationalism has mainly served to upset the victims a little more...a serious solidarity project with women requires understanding, patience and time. This is why women involved in peace initiatives have decide to start to support self-organization of women in the refugee camps. Here we simply wish to underline the principles on which our activity should be based: • Women must support women, for only women can understand the deep crisis suffered by a raped woman. • The work must be undertaken by nongovernmental organizations to avoid manipulation of the issue for narrow political ends. • Solidarity centres must be set up in all the states of former Yugoslavia for raped women live in all of these states. • The network of such centres must be decentralized and under the control of women. • An exchange of experiences by women active in such work in various countries is needed to build a network of institutions and volunteers as quickly as possible. Long-term aid must be organized." This letter was issued by: the Independent Alliance of Women of Croatia; the Autonomous Women's Centre; The Women's Information and Documentation Centre and the Antiwar Campaign of Croatia. The Autonomous Women's Centre can be contacted at: Tkalciceva 38, Zagreb, Croatia. Tel: (Yugoslavia) 41 688 278. *
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"Witch" hunt in Croatia
LATE last year the Croatian magazine Globus published an unsigned article entitled "Croatia's feminists rape Croatia", which accuses leading Croatian feminists of "contributing a lot to hiding the truth" by not accepting that "it is not women who have been raped [in the ongoing civil war] but Croatian
International Viewpoint #243 March 1993 months war. Most of them were then rejected by their families.
Rape was also used as a weapon in the colonial wars in Algeria and Vietnam. I can still remember the evidence amassed by American feminists which showed that rape was "a part of the daily routine" for women and Muslim women who have been raped".
American troops in Vietnam and was the
In fact, several of the women attacked - Rada Ivekovic, Jelena Lovric, Slastandard means of getting information out venka Drakulic, Vesna Kasic and Dubravka Ugresic — were the first to idenof female prisoners.
tify the encouragement of rape by Serbian forces in Bosnia. Their "anti-
An attempt is being made to use the
Croatian" crime was their argument that it is "a matter of personal and victims of rape by people who, having national honour to accept the deplorable fact that 'our boys' are doing it abandoned the Bosnian resistance at the too. 'Our boys' who we should renounce, if we want to be just in this unjust outset, are now trying to make up ground in the eyes of public opinion by irresponsible
The Globus article mixes conventional anti-feminism with all the local chawar-mongering — particularly true in Franracter of Croatian reaction. "The five 'witches' [joined] the feminist 'move ce on the eve of elections.
ment' in the early seventies... They have found versatile support in Marxist
At the beginning of January, France's centres of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The political qua-
Minister of European Affairs Elisabeth drangle of feminism-Marxism-communism-the Yugoslav ideal functioned
- The smal group of ther
Guigou and Simone Veil, who has been very well. The destruction of Yugoslavia and the fall of communism were involved in several commissions of inquiry, great shocks to our heroines... The small group of them who, in spite of launched a national fund raising campaign their theoretical positions and physical appearance did succeed in finding a for victims of rape. Welcome as such an marriage partner, chose...Serbs. It would be immoral to mention these facts initiative may be, it cannot compensate for were it not, when one looks at it now, on top of everything, systematic pollthe diplomatic treachery of European tical choice rather than an accidental matter of love."
governments. To organize solidarity with
Feminists, and by inference all critical women journalists, are then "little victims of rape is a good thing; it would be girls of communism" and "Yugo-nostalgics". There are no worse insults for even better to support the multi-ethnic the Croatian elite, with its falsified "1,000-year" history and its Catholic resistance and reject the division of Bosnianationalist hatred for women's liberation.
Herzegovina along ethnic lines. *
In a reply published in the oppositional daily Slobodna Damacija on December 13, 1992, some of the "witches" condemned "the degree of pervertedness of the mind which abuses even the rape of women to humiliate and
Scapegoats proscribe other women. We should ask ourselves; who are the people profi-
"WHEN a ruling party seeks "culprits'
Information and messages of support to Women's Lobby, Zagreb, c/o and "traitors, particularly sacrificial male
Vesna Kesic, Odranska 3, 41 000, Zagreb, Croatia. * goats' for slaughter, homosexuals have always been a primary target" comments a
Serbian journalist in the December 1992 issue of the bulletin of the International
Lesbian and Gay Association. The note
This works all the better in Serbia, one of the last nations in Europe in which homosexuality is criminalized: Article 110 of the penal code calls for up to one year in jail for consenting sexual relations between adult males. Rarely enforced, article 100 hangs like a Damoclean sword in the hands of the authorities over the politically undesirable, yet of greater concern is the drastic rise in the degree and intensity of political and physical violence against homosexuals.
One of the hard-liners of the Socialist
Party, Rados Smiljkovic, declared: "Our opposition is under the direct influence of international organizations comprised of masons and homosexuals. Over here we know very little about the exceptionally large power and vigour and influence of these organizations".
Writer Momo Kapor criticized Serbian intellectuals thus: "If the models of today's intellectuals and writers are Céline and Ezra
Pound, the poet as traitor as well as those war".
ting from rapes of women and why?" fags from the Western shores Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, then this shows very much their insatiable provincial cravings to have been part of the greater world in which they personally never got to smell."
Kapor has the same disregard for peace demonstrations in Belgrade. "These small, insignificant parties in Belgrade always will find so many lesbians, homosexuals, fatalists whatever you will, an association of possessed Dobermans, writers who will support them on everything."
Anti-homosexual hysteria also motivates the controversial painter and writer Dragos Kalajic, an ideologue of the rightwing Serbian Party of Restoration (SNO). He once called the independent student radio station B-92 which led a campaign "struggle for Peace" to announce: international defeatists are propagating homosexuality and American whining The leader of SNO, Boris Jovic, has publicly opposed "the occupation of Europe by alien Indo-Arab-Black hordes who will only bring us the narcotics trade and homosexuality". *
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BLACK AFRIcA