Workers' Aid?
to our natural partners in former Yugoslavia — trade unionists, feminists and left radicals? This is the challenge facing International Workers Aid and Workers Aid for
Bosnia. Both organisations recently organised convoys to the mining town of Tuzla in
International Viewpoint n° 270 — October 1995 15
Dominique Duclois and Annick Coupé of the French communication workers' union SUD! participated in the August 1995 convoy to Tuzla organised by Workers' Aid for Bosnia International Viewpoint: Why did SUD support the convoy?
SUD had not previously been involved in any real solidarity with Bosnia. Partly through lack of time, but also because the question is quite complicated. As a trade union, we don't have a deep analysis of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the course of the war, and who is responsible. We decided to participate after trade unionists from Tuzla visited Paris in January-February 1995. This visit clarified for us who was the aggressor and who the aggressed. The multi-ethnic and multi-cultural aspect of the Bosnians' struggle seemed to express the same values that we as a trade union defend. Our struggle against the far right and racism here in France is linked to the struggle in Bosnia on the same questions.
We also felt that, if the trade union movement doesn't involve itself in the solidarity campaign, we will be leaving the field open for extremists and fundamentalists of all kinds. And last but not least, SUD has always said that solidarity doesn't stop at the gate of your workplace, nor at the country's frontiers.
The Tuzla trade unionists who visited Paris made an appeal for French participation in a British convoy that was being planned. I should note that, while it proved easy for SUD to get involved, I don't think we really managed to mobilise across the PTT (Post Office/Telephone company). Of course, collecting material and delivering it over there is positive. The problem is being able to explain what is happening in Bosnia, and the need for solidarity, here in France, inside the PTT.
This difficulty partially explains the progressive loss of the idea of international solidarity across the French trade union movement, and not just concerning Bosnia. The strong tradition of solidarity in the [mainly Communist] CT federation, and the Polish solidarity work of the [moderate] CFDT federation is fading, because of the difficulties facing the trade union movement. The disintegration of the East European countries, and the particularly complicated situation in Bosnia also have their effect. Most people start feeling that there is no difference between the different warring parties - because they don't understand what's going on. How was the August 1995 convoy organised?
The coal-mining region of Tuzla collected important aid for the British miners during their great 1984 strike. The war and the fascist siege of Tuzla led them to request aid for themselves. This is how Workers Aid was created — to support the workers of Tuzla. SOB (France) was formed in 1993 following contacts with the British campaign. Only a handful of people were involved at the beginning, but we have managed to organise two convoys to Tuzla.
Four SUD militants accompanied our 38 tonne lorry, which carried foodstuffs. As well as delivering the aid, we wanted to show out support for the workers there by our very presence in the besieged city.
As we drove down the Croatian coast, the effects of the war became more and more tangible. In the north we were held up by the large number of trucks transporting wind-surfing equipment for tourists. But in Masenica the bridge had been dynamited. The whole Zadar region was in ruins. We finally arrived in Split, where we met up with the other participants, 20 vehicles, mainly from Britain, but also from France, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
We were blocked for two days in Split by the formalities demanded by the Croats of "Herzeg Bosna".2 While we were waiting we saw a convoy of a hundred trucks carrying petrol: presumably as part of the preparation for the offensive against Knin, the main town of Krajina [Croatian region until recently controlled by Croatian Serb secessionists].
The next stop was Mostar, at the frontier between "Herzeg-Bosna" and Bosnia. The Muslim part of town was completely destroyed by the Croats at the beginning of the war. The [historic] bridge was destroyed, and the mosques dynamited. The Croatian side of town is intact.
The people we spoke to told us that the Croats are blocking the UN initiatives to reconstruct the town, because they refuse all co-operation with the Bosnian Muslems. Most of our contacts thought that 80% of the Mostar Croats would prefer the partition of the town. We discharged part of the aid, and moved on.
We followed the river Neretva for 100 km, through a region where everything had been destroyed. In one village the Other aid initiatives
AJUDA OBRERA (CATELONIA) AND ARQUITECTOS SIN FRONTERAS
International work brigade to reconstruct university buildings (2 groups of 35 participants). Shares many of the priorities of IWA, but has some very militant demands which go beyond IWA's broad platform
How to provide concrete aid to the people of Bosnia, and at the same time reach out north-eastern Bosnia. Here are their reports.
Contact: tel/fax +34 3 186180 (Diego)
HELSINKI CITIZENS ASSEMBLY
Six hundred participants are expected for the fourth Helsinki Citizen Assembly in
Tuzla, 19-22 October 1995
AID
CONVOr
16 International Viewpoint n° 270 - October 1995 mosque had been dynamited, in the second the Catholic church is riddled with bullet-holes. We were astonished to see that there are a number of Croat zones inside Bosnia. And each time you pass through a frontier post, into a town flying the Croat flag, where the cars carry Croatian number plates. We used a UN track subject to intermittent Serb sniper attacks. You drive at night, with all the lights off.
Finally we arrived in Tuzla. We were surprised to see the factories working - all we had seen so far had been former factories converted into barracks and warehouses for the largest army in Bosnia - the United Nations Protection Force. Tuzla is still an industrial town. The power station and the mines are still running. People work one month, and spend one month at
Our meetings with the trade unions revealed that we and they have quite different conceptions of trade unionism. In fact, there are not independent working class organisations in Bosnia. The old trade unions exist, and their representatives are elected, but they are very linked to the state apparatus. For example, we came to one meeting which we thought we had arranged with the trade unionists of the post office, and we were received jointly by the directors of the post office and one
International Workers Aid: Tuzla projects report
* We support the Kreka mine "Heart to Heart" women's association's appeal for funds to produce shoes in the Aida shoe factory in Tuzla (at a unit cost of 50 DM). IWA's goal is to raise funds for at least 1,000 pairs of shoes (including for the 450 women working in the Kreka complex). We are also helping them find funds and equipment to start a souvenir business and to make better use of the mine kitchen's vegetable gardens
* The two mammographs and the echograph machine have been delivered to the Gildings primary health centre in Tuzla (the central clinic refused them, as they are not new models). We also donated 3,300 DM for primary installation costs. The machines were transported to Tuzla by Médecins sans Frontières and Equilibre, so we saved some funds which we can use for another project.
* We hope to sign an agreement with the primary health centre to provide a breast control and smear test at a cost of 1 DM per woman. It should be easy to raise money for this project abroad.
* New attempts are being made to start a trade union for health workers. This is an opportunity to build solidarity among nurses unions in the West.
* The Danish and Flemish IWA groups are working with local schools and teachers groups/unions. 10,000 DM from Flemish IWA and 4,500 DM from the Danish group (a grant from the European trade union Education International) have been delivered to local projects under IWA supervision.
* Other IWA projects under way include women's and trade union newspapers, and co-operation with those in Tuzla who wish to build or renovate the trades unions.
For more information contact your local IWA group or write to: International Workers Aid - Belgium, c/o Jenny Mees, Manteliusstraat 12, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium, tel./fax +32 11 22 27 66 trade union representative. Having said this, there was no blockage of our desire to contact ordinary trade unionists. We spoke with a number of miners, and with the women's association of the Kreka mine complex.
We know that there is a class struggle in Bosnia too. It takes the form of a trade union struggle, and a struggle against the nationalist parties, including the SDA [Party of Democratic Action, in power in Sarajevo. Muslim nationalist]. This is why we didn't just deliver our material aid, but tried to make contact with the local trade union opposition currents too. What do the trade unionists of Tuzla think about privatisation?
A privatisation programme was adopted by the Yugoslav federal government at the beginning of the 1990s. The war stopped all this, but the debate did start. We
International Viewpoint n° 270 - October 1995 17 were told that the miners of Kreka had voted against the privatisation of their mines. In some other mines, the miners apparently bought shares in their mines. We had the impression that the miners there understand the risks of privatisation (profitability criteria, redundancies and so on), but at the same time they think that privatisation is the way to re-launch the town's industrial potential. How was your aid distributed?
Our first step was to visit Radio Tuzla and the television, where the arrival, goal and contents of our convoy were announced. The miners have their aid distribution controlled by representatives of Workers Aid. Unfortunately, there is no workers' control of aid distribution via delegates or trade union representatives.
One comforting fact, in Tuzla, is that there is no black market, except for some luxury products. Which suggests that the possibilities for diverting aid are minimal, especially since convoys have started arriving regularly. What now?
All the SUD comrades who participated in the convoy want to go back again. We will be transmitting the new requests from Tuzla, and making new appeals. And we will be going back to make contact with those militants who want to build and independent workers' movement, not just in Bosnia but also in Serbia and Croatia.
This kind of solidarity should be encouraged. I think it is something we can reproduce in a number of other situations. Algeria for example SUD can be contacted at PO Box 74, 75960 Paris, CEDEX 20 France. Notes 1, See Interational Viewpoint #267, June 1995, 2. No particular problems were experienced with the customs authorities of either Croatia proper or the Bosnian government.
Life in Tuzla: "People don't eat rich
Jenny Mees visited Tuzla in July-August 1995 for IWA - Belgium. The materials published here are edited extracts from her report dated 29 August 1995, available from IWA Belgium, Manteliusstraat 12, 3500 Hassalt, Belgium. tel./fax (+32 11) 222766 THE REGION oF TuzLa, and particularly the town itself, is still the multi-cultural and democratic society that we support. Don't doubt it. But... the pressure is high. Life is hard. There is a lot of corruption and favouritism. A lot of undemocratic machinery at work. For example: who can stay at work and who has to go and fight? Who can get a job with the municipality? Who can get an apartment? Who will receive an aid parcel? Who can get papers to go abroad, and who will have to stay?
You see more girls wearing the Chador (Islamic head-scarf), and more people use new, religious forms for greeting and saying goodbye. There are more people in the mosques, and more religious life. This is all the influence of the many rich Islamic humanitarian organisations. People want to survive, and many are making a way for themselves by betting on the
But people are also striving to show their affinity with their own Moslem cultural heritage. This is stimulated by some teachers in the schools, but also by the new books from the Bosnian Ministry of Education. TV Sarajevo also plays a role. There is a new emphasis on the Muslim cultural and historical heritage of Bosnia. People want to know more about all this - without being "big" Muslims. This is surely normal- every nation needs to have roots in a common language, culture, history, etc. Of course, many people stress that they are Europeans, with an European culture... but this is somehow difficult. Europe is letting them down, is not interested in them. And what is "European culture" anyway? To dress like people in London and to use a computer? A nation needs more.
If the war ends, with some acceptable political solution for Bosnia, then this process can develop. But now? The small?) group of very active people who invest themselves in the fight for an European identity, for an outspoken multi-ethnic and civic option are moving in an emptiness, without roots in the mass of hljeb pecIvolepine O the town's population. Because the option they propose seems so powerless, so without future, and because their solutions and options are so cut off from those of the maybe not-so-educated and enlightened ordinary citizens, let alone the mass of refugees.
For example, one of the posters produced by the Citizens' Forum (Forum Gradana) after the fall of Srebrenica could have been understood in a quite different way than the publishers intended. Having said this, the
Forum organised three days of petitioning for the re-instalment of Prime Minister Haris Siladjic after he resigned, with a huge success. Which shows that there is another reality - that of living together as good neighbours, in mutual understanding. Bosnians are not at all fanatical or intolerant people, not even after three years of war. If only they are given some kind of chance.
Only the most marginal people still go hungry nowadays. Food and the most common daily goods are cheap in Tuzla. But most people still have no money whatsoever. So vegetable plots and gardens still play a major role in almost everyone's life.
People don't eat rich. Most meals consist of flour, pasta or rice and the garden vegetables (onions, potatoes, beans, cabbage).
Some people have a second job (taxi-driver, working for a foreign NGO, night-watchman, repair man) which brings in some cash. Most regular day jobs are unpaid. You can also trade your possessions. You can still see many street-vendors, and people selling furniture and other belongings.
Most people get something from time to time, even those who are not on any of the priority lists. I have the impression that access to a packet also depends on the activity and energy of the individual concerned And those in work usually get one meal at the office or factory, typically a thick soup and big piece of bread.
Water is connected for a few hours early morning and late afternoon. Electricity is connected all the time, and rationed to 6 kW/day for each household. It could be worse. Gasoline is rather cheap, at 1-1.5 DM/litre, and there are a lot of cars in the streets. What is very expensive is material for domestic repairs (paint, nails, tools) and office equipment. One photocopy costs 1 DM.
Russia