INTERNATIONAL Workers' Aid (IWA) convoys will converge on Split, Croatia, 8 April. The IWA is "back on the road" following the success of the fist convoy to Tuzla, Bosnia last year, and the determination of the recent IWA conference in Amsterdam to But financial aid is still needed and we urge every reader to send what they can to the Build direct links
International Viewpoint #255 April 1994 of many occasions where we are able to co-operate. The main convoy from northern Europe arrives on 12 April and we are planning a weekend event in Split before unloading and preparing our off-road trucks for the run to Tuzla.
Following arrival in Split meetings will be organised with local trade unions, which have continue building and spreading the campaign. often been at the forefront of the anti-war opposition. Direct links between rank-and-file workers in the former Yugoslavia and Western Europe have, throughout the war, been
IWA account in Denmark (see opposite). This is why plans are being hatched to bring trade unionists from former Yugoslavia to
Western Europe to meet and talk with the workers who have helped build the IWA A delegation from the Sarajevo-based union federation, Savez Sinokata B-H, has already visited Brussels, primarily for a meeting with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Their request for membership was refused and, instead, they were Jenny Mees, a driver on the first convoy to Tuzla and member of the Belgian section of the Fourth International, also met with the Bosnian delegation and asked them if they would be prepared to attend a conference and speaking tour of trade unionists which would also include Croatians and Serbs. While at first they said "no" to the inclusion of convoys. Serbs, "because they are the aggressors", after discussion they agreed. The ETUC, offered a probationary relationship. who will be in Sarajevo for 1 May, clearly has its own agenda for the re-organisation of the trade union movement in the event of a "peace settlement" along ethnic lines. Another reason, if any more were needed, for demonstrating that there is an alternative
Many of the routes to central Bosnia are open and there are less HVO checkpoints. There is now a ferry to cross the Neretva river at Bjiela and there is talk of re-building the bridge. In Gornj Vakuf children are playing in the streets and people are tending their gardens. Their is still some tension around Visoko where the "Bosnian Serbian Army"
has yet to withdraw all their guns, and shells are still falling on Kladanj
As well as an increase in traffic from humanitarian aid organisations there are now a number of Bosvision of international workers' solidarity. Gerard Macklin O
THE second
International
Workers' Aid (IWA)
convoy is on the road and the newly established IWA office in Split,
Croatia, sent us the following report.
AS of Saturday 19 March International Workers Aid has been working from its new office in Split. We are currently overwhelmed with organising for the arrival of the international convoy. At present our main priorities are registering as an NGO with the Croatian authorities, hiring a warehouse, sorting out customs and opening a bank account so that the next convoy is not bedevilled by bureaucratic and logistical problems. We are expecting the first loads of aid from Spain and Germany to arrive on 28 March and we will by then have a warehouse and efficient customs clearance procedures. We are co-operating in the receipt of the Spanish load with SOS Balkanes from Euzadi. We hope this is the first nian-led initiatives One of these, the Convoy of Salt and Cereal, has been jointly organised by the Logistics Centres of Tuzla, Srebrenica, Gradacac and Brcko, and is sending ten trucks through at a time. In addition a lot of independents, businesspeople and "black-marketeers" are starting to organise runs. All food getting through will have the effect of depressing prices of basic commodities. The price of flour had risen to 30 deutchmarks a kilo last winter but is now starting to fall as supplies get The cease-fire is holding; at least between the HVO and the beleaguered Bosnia-Herzegovina government. However, the real beneficiaries of this deal will be the Croatian government and their German backers, whose economic power will very likely absorb the shattered Bosnian economy. Whether the Serbs can be persuaded to join this "confederation" remains to be seen (it
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would leave them most if not all of the ground they hold and in effect divides the country into the ethnic cantons they have supported at Geneva). Meanwhile Bosnia remains isolated and desperately short of the basic commodities for everyday life.
The real losers of this war are the working people and farmers evicted from their towns and villages, the people who are now an army of 2 million refugees. Maybe three or four percent of these people have escaped from war, starvation and refugee camps to Western Europe. How many of those left can return to their homes? This "peace" solves none of the problems of the Balkans. The effects of this war will last for a gene-
Telex 27000 - SWIFT DABADKKK
Account no. 4180862161
We must broaden and deepen our campaign. The need for international working class solidarity and direct labour movement links represented by our aid convoys assumes an even greater importance. *
Tuzla, Bosnia:
A man cries next to his dead brother and nephew, killed by Serb shells 9 March
— one day after UN troops took control of the airport
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International Workers' Aid Donations to should be rushed to: DK-1092 Copenhagen K 2-12 Holmens Kanal Den Danske Bank Denmark International Viewpoint #255 April 1994 7