Bosnia Herzegovina under Pax Americana
The cease-fire has a reactionary and contradictory basis. But we should seize it, in order to increase the space for resistance
Resolution adopted by the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International in February 1996 to reactionary policies. 1 THE CEASE-FIRE HAS A REACTIONARY AND CONTRADICTORY BASIS 1.1. INTERNATIONALLY: PAX AMERICANA AND NATO RE-DEPLOYMENT
The Dayton-Paris accords confirm the double failure of the UN and the European Union in the "management" of the first major "post-Communist" crisis. The NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) is taking the place of the discredited United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). US leadership has imposed itself in a spectacular fashion through this development. Despite the demarcation of US, French and British spheres of operations, the US plan signed in Paris adopts the basic philosophy of the European negotiators — division of Bosnia on an ethnic basis. But it also reflects the new equilibrium between the politico-military balance of forces on the ground. The consolidation of the Croatian Army has enabled it to carry out (since summer 1995) attacks on Serbian secessionists (in Krajina] and operations in Bosnia. At the same time, the position of [Serbian President Slobodan] Milosevic has strengthened at the expense of the Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale. The third politico-military pre-condition of these accords was the dependence of the Sarajevo government on its Croat and American "allies". This is no US engagement in a war to defend "the Bosnian cause". . This is realpolitik, designed to "contain" the war.
Clinton is still not ready to commit the US to a war in Bosnia. Because US imperialism does not have sufficient direct interests there to justify the risk of loosing its boys, and making a commitment in the face of public opinion.
For a certain period, this justified the distancing of US leaders from the Yugoslav, later Bosnian crisis. But in a second period, this led them to make a 'moral' denunciation of the European negotiators, who accepted, de facto , the logic of ethnic cleansing. The US began to demand the lifting of the embargo on arms sales to the Bosnian Army. This was a way of looking good in the Muslim world, and a section of public opinion disgusted by pictures of the conflict. All without getting involved in the war.
While the Republican opposition adopted the demand for the lifting of the embargo on arms sales to the Bosnian forces, the domestic crisis in the United States and a number of international factors - the relationship with Russia, European pressure against American isolationism — were pushing Clinton towards a new policy. These pressures culminated in summer 1995, by which time the US President now needed a diplomatic success at any price, in order to consolidate his power on the home front, and confirm the international leadership position of the US, through the NATO re-deployment. But Clinton still faces a Republic majority [in the US parliament] which will only support a US troop presence in Bosnia to the extent that the "peace" accords are credible. Clinton is also faced with volatile public opinion:
"America's international role" if that involvement seems to bring peace, but marked by the Somalia syndrome.
The Paris accords provide for a progressive lifting of the arms embargo. The US goal is to be able to withdraw their troops about twelve months from now. But since the consolidation of the Croatian Army, there is also the question of aid to the Bosnian army, to try to establish some equilibrium between the armed forces on the ground. There is still a significant
Bosnia Herzegovina * difference of opinion between the US and its European Union and Russian "partners" on this question. Behind the establishment of IFOR, there are a number of conflicts of influence . Resistance to American hegemony is still present, particularly in the European desire to affirm a European pole (though Europe is finding it as difficult to unify its foreign policy as to adopt a single currency).
In the meanwhile, the application of the accords is based on a massive deployment of NATO troops. NATO now has the legitimacy of its new role of "pacification force", under direct US command. At the same time, the alliance has begun a process of redefinition of its "partnership" relationship with Russia and the east European countries, and articulation of its own structures with those of the crystallising European armed forces. The reintegration of France into NATO institutions — without any public debate -is part of this process.
The international left must denounce the new forms which American diktats are taking, and the re-deployment of NATO militarism, even after the Warsaw Pact has been dissolved. Recognition of the bankruptcy of the UN is translating into a new concentration of
International Viewpoint n° 275 21
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* Bosnia-Herzegovina imperialist powers. This impregnates the overall reactionary conditions of the conclusion of the Dayton accords. And the resulting, necessarily fragile peace.
This general denunciation should be accompanied by vigilance and exposure of the effects of a massive, lasting imperialist presence on the ground, which could lead to a campaign for the withdrawl of these troops. But we must also seize the cease-fire accords, with the contradictory dynamic they express, in order to widen the space for resistance to the reactionary policies which dominate [the region]. 1.2. INTERNALLY 1.2.1. REACTIONARY ALLIANCES
The accords were approved without the defeat of the various exclusivist nationalist policies. Quite the opposite. The plan rests on the "balance" of reactionary regimes and alliances.
• an anti-Serb Croato-Muslim alliance.
• an anti-Muslim Croato-Serbian alliance.
• the consolidation of a 'Great Croatian' policy and armed forces.
• the affirmation of Milosevic's power, at the expense of his former far-right allies, and the populations which had believed in "Greater Serbia".
• a Bosnian government dependent on the US and NATO for maintaining the frontiers of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It is [Croatian President Franjo] Tudjman's double language since the start of the war (recognising Bosnia, combined with a Serbo-Croatian alliance for its dismemberment) which has made possible this state of affairs, of which he is the major benefactor. Tudjman's deep disdain for his Muslim pseudo-allies (who he says he wants to "civilise") is the product of a narrow nationalism: notoriously antiSemitic and anti-Serb. Inside Croatia, this nationalism is in conflict with political and cultural pluralism, and in particular the regional specificities of Dalmatia and Istria.
The reinforcement of Tudjman's army, mainly with German and US support, was the pivotal element in the new balance of forces. Defence Minister Gojko Susak, a "Herzegovian" émigré who incarnates the extreme-right wing of Tudjman's HDZ party, is directly responsible for the ethnic dismemberment of Bosnia since 1992, and this summer's military "ethnic cleansing" of Krajina, formerly controlled by Serb secessionists. The absence of any denunciation of these policies gave
Tudjman all the confidence he needed. Enough to suppress the constitutional measures favourable to [Croatia's Serbian minority] (introduced in 1991 under international pressure. Enough to give the vote, and seats in the Zagreb parliament, to Croats living outside Croatia. Enough to promote Tihomir Blaskic, chief of the Croatian HVO militia which "ethnically cleansed" Herceg-Bosna and destroyed the Muslim part of Mostar, within the Croatian Army, just after he and five of his companions were accused of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal. The Croato-Bosnian alliance is far from being an "anti-fascist" alliance. It is essentially military, and antiSerb. It weakens the Croato-Muslim Federation in Bosnia and reinforces Serbian nationalism and all the fears of the Serbian population.
Milosevic also comes out of the war as a winner. He had encouraged the war in order to consolidate his power, and he stopped it for the same reasons. After benefiting from the sanctions (which were perceived as the cause of the economic disaster) he will benefit from their lifting. He wants to find some international political recognition, and take a key place in the diplomatic games of the Balkans. This is why he will probably switch his economic policies (he has until now been hostile to neo-liberal policies), which will certainly accentuate the social polarisation of Serbia, just like all the other societies subjected to the restoration of capitalism. But Milosevic is also confronted with the difficulty of controlling his former extreme-right allies over the issues of the "solution" to the Serbian question in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and over the frozen question of Kosovo, which must sooner or later come back to the foreground. For the moment, Milosevic can find a social base in the population of Serbia itself. People are fed up with war, and not motivated by the pursuit of the goals of Greater Serbia. But this same social base may dissolve if socio-economic questions
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come to the fore again, no longer associated with the sanctions. Karadzic and Mladic are playing for their power, their privileges, maybe even their lives. They are finding a popular base among the miserable masses of Serbian refugees: the losers of the policy of Greater Serbia in Croatia and Bosnia
Herzegovina. The marginalisation of these two men implies an alternative leadership, enjoying sufficient confidence from the population concerned. Milosevic has only limited possibilities to solve this major problem. Any real stabilisation also depends on a political orientation which is capable of re-establishing confidence.
Contradictory aspects of the plan, like the Greater Croat menace, or recognition of the Republika Srpska in
Bosnia despite the relative weakening of the power of Karadzic, will deepen the political and ethnico-national polarisation in the
Croato-Muslim federation, and in the SDA party of Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic.
In general, nationalist extremists on all sides are playing with the "natural"
dynamic of "ethnic cleansing", the goal of which was to build homogeneous territories. The function of the violence was to spread hate and fear, so as to ensure "spontaneous" departures, and non-return.
The cohabitation and neighbourly relations between the communities has been destroyed by massive displacement of populations. This has modified the ethnic composition and political climate in the towns. This is generally the case in the "Serbian" districts of Sarajevo, where many people are rootless, but currently occupying apartments which do not belong to them. Most Sarajevans [in the part of the town under Bosnian control] complain about the massıve arrival of Muslims from Sandjak (a rural region between Montenegro and Serbia) who have in part changed the character of the town. Tuzla is more and more suffocated by its refugees from the countryside. Serbian refugees are used to pressure Croats and Hungarians to flee from Vojvodina. Only the massively Albanian province of Kosovo seems to have escaped the goal of "Serbianisation", as a result of the refusal of Serbian refugees to move 1.2.2. CONTRADICTORY SIGNATURES, CONTRADICTORY READINGS OF THE ACCORD
• Bosnian sovereignty is affirmed, but anything that could lead in that direction is, for the moment, non-existent. There is neither common currency (except the German Mark, official currency across Bosnia), nor a common army, nor a common foreign policy.
• On the contrary, the division of the country on an ethnic basis is consolidated by important points in the accords. The
Republika Srpska is recognised. Relations neighbouring states are more within the competence of the separate "entities"
state. There is a
"corridors" (the Posavina corridor in the north joining the two Serbian blocs, and a corridor to link Gorazde with Sarajevo). If the country is to be reunified, what is the sense of all these debates?
Nevertheless, the multi-ethnic reality of the Federation (where more than 150,000
Serbs live) has made it the site of antinationalist resistance. In particular, there are the Serbian "civic councils" which oppose both the policy of a Greater Serbia and discrimination against Serbs inside the
Despite the authoritarian tendencies within the SDA (Izetbegovic's party, similar to those in the other nationalist parties, the Bosnian "Muslim question" has a very different dynamic from that of the
Great Serb and Great Croat nationalist projects. Tuzla and Sarajevo, "mainly Muslim", are host to international, pluralist and multi-ethnic meetings which are for the moment unimaginable in Croatian Herzeg Bosna and [its capital city] Mostar, where a terrible apartheid reigns, or in the Republika Srpska.
The Milosevic-Karadzic conflict is allowing the first contacts with the fragile Serbian opposition in Karadzic's Republic. This shows that another dynamic is
All the non-nationalist organisations of the Federation came together in September, behind a common declaration of "Principles for establishing a durable peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina". This text sets out the conditions for a "non-confessional, multicultural, multi-faith and multi-ethnic" with "decentralised federal units" but not "mono-national" component parts. These groups demand a referendum, as a real consultation of the population.
The reinforcement of the alliance of the anti-nationalist forces in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia is the only way to have a positive effect on the accords, at least in the sense of a defence of political pluralism and the right of minorities (and, therefore, the right of return of the refugees).
Bosnia Herzegovina *
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• Russian left demonstrates against
Chechnya war
• International
Women's Day 1995 in
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• Salvador's FSLN becomes a single party
• Indian feminists debate the UN
Conference on Women
• "Land and Freedom"
debate on Spanish left
• 1 million African
Americans march in
Washington DC
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International Viewpoint n°275 23
* Bosnia-Herzegovina 2. WIDENING THE SPACE FOR RESISTANCE TO REACTIONARY POLICIES 2.1. SEIZING THE CONTRADICTORY ASPECTS OF THE ACCORDS.
We can do this by setting ourselves a double task
• making the means of implementation of the accords transparent (including denunciation of imperialist interests and the reactionary policies of the regimes in place.) extending the possibilities for plurality of expression and organisation: a precondition for the emergence of progressive political alternatives.
2.1.1. The organisation of elections is anticipated within a very short period - six to nine months. This period reflects the preoccupations of American domestic politics rather than a desire to create the means to reverse the logic set in place by the war. Without circulation of persons and alternative projects across the whole territory, elections can only confirm fears and revanchism, and favour the most extreme nationalist parties, rather than serving as a factor of cohesion. Support for the deployment of pluralist and media independent of the regimes, expressing themselves over the whole territory is a major necessity. So is the circulation of alternative constitutional projects. We must be ready to support any demand by the democratic opposition to delay the elections until these pre-conditions are present (the Dayton accords are supposed to guarantee these conditions). We will use all examples which demonstrate the function of IFOR -imposing ethnic division, not helping rebuild the country — in order to develop a campaign for the withdrawl of these troops. 2.1.2. AID FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC TISSUE AND LINKS
Peace also requires a reconstruction plan which pushes for association and solidarity between communities (at the scale of the
Balkans). Not an aid conditional on the carrying out of privatisations which will destroy the socio-economic tissue even more than the war did... if they don't incite a new outbreak of hostilities. Campaigns for
"positive discrimination" in the attribution of aid can widen the links already established through town-twinning, and
24 International Viewpoint March 1996 actions directed at the European parliament and the various governments. Aid should favour projects jointly managed by the different "entities". It should support those communes which make practical steps to organise the return of refugees. There should also be vigilance over and transparency in the direction proposed by the International Monetary Fund (which has the right to name the governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to the accords). 2.1.3. THE QUESTION OF THE RIGHT TO RETURN OF THE REFUGEES.
This is only credible if it is global (covering the entire ex-Yugoslavia) and systematic, with collective guarantees. For the moment, this is a completely formal "right". It is expressed as an individual right which, in the current climate, is a smokescreen. The domination of the states concerned by reactionary regimes, with a common interest in managing the refugee question in a framework of "ethnic" consolidation of their state, makes the hope of a "choice" of return largely utopian. Nevertheless, the preference for return is still massive. Particularly since the refugees are feel uneasy unwelcome everywhere. They are either "immigrants" or poor cousins, unpopular even within their ethnico-national community. The right of return is an essential axis of resistance, because it is organically linked to the rights of minority communities in each state or territorial entity. In practice, this right can only be realised if the extremist nationalist leaders and their bands are marginalised. In this framework, we will denounce any policies of the governments which would try to paralyse the activity of the Hague Tribunal against war criminals.
There must be vigilance against any discriminatory or humiliating treatment wherever it happens. In particular, the governments of the European Union will use the Dayton "peace" accords and the provisions for organising the participation of refugees in the forthcoming elections in order to expel refugee (now that there is peace...) The central axis in this area should be controlling the conditions of implementation of the right to return, or a right to compensation and a decent life, in the framework of the free choice of those
Organisations of the "SOS Refugees"
type may multiply in and outside Bosnia, collecting refugees' requests and informing them of their rights. This activity can be combined with the preceding ones — organising elections which would enable refugees to re-establish contact with their commune of origin, or management of aid.
We should develop a "logic of control" on these four points: elections, aid for the rebuilding of Bosnia, activity of the international tribunal against war criminals, and refugee rights — alongside those organisations which support the project of reconstruction of a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina. Links between trade unions and between organisations which defend individual and collective rights could form the basis for ad hoc bodies for control "from below" of the accords hatched at the summit, in a logic of denouncing imperialist policies. Monitoring and publicity about the behaviour of IFOR troops in each of the countries involved is part of this logic. Since Tuzla remains the main site of internationalist meetings which support the resistance to reactionary policies, International Workers' Aid can find its place in this new context, redefining 2.2. DESPITE THE DAYTON ACCORDS, THE CEASE-FIRE DOES NOT MEAN PEACE.
The intermingled national questions of the Balkans are still there, particularly in Kosovo and Macedonia. There cannot be peace without a systematic and equal treatment of all national questions, at the Balkan level and in a Balkan framework, in opposition to the construction of nation-states built on an exclusive basis. This means, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as in the whole Balkan space, the recognition of all national identities, the defence of collective rights for all the communities (under different forms, which exclude ethnic cleansing) in the framework of states based on citizenship and on the defence of all democratic freedoms.
• The major challenges and socioeconomic choices of a democracy which respects individual and collective rights will return to the foreground. Peace will not be built in a race to privatise, or in the deepening of the differences between regions, or in a deepening poverty. In such a context, we must extend international trade union links, established through actions in solidarity either against the war and ethnic cleansing, or in defence of workers' rights and in resistance to the politics of
These are the challenges for Europe — for that "other Europe" of the peoples, of the workers. *
Notes
1. Opinion polls suggest that 27% of voters are sympathetic to the idea of a possible secession of the (relatively prosperous) north eastern part of Italy.