Western banks destroyed Yugoslavia The money keeps rolling in... Michel Chossudovsky Drowned in the barrage of images and self-serving analyses are the economic and social causes of the conflict. The deep-seated economic crisis which preceded the civil war has long been forgotten.
In the eyes of the global media, Western powers bear no responsibility for the impoverishment of Yugoslavia's 24 million people and the division of that country by war.
In fact, through their domination of the global financial system, the Western powers, from the beginning of the 1980s, brought the Yugoslav economy to its knees, contributing to stirring simmering ethnic and social conflicts.
Far from "helping Yugoslavia's war-ravaged successor states", creditors and international financial institutions are busy at work collecting former Yugoslavia's external debt, and transforming the Balkans into a safe-haven for free enterprise [..]
The economic reforms now being imposed on the "successor states"
are a natural extension and continuation of those previously implemented in federal Yugoslavia. In the tragic aftermath of a brutal and destructive War, the prospects for rebuilding the newly independent republics appear bleak.
Despite a virtual press blackout on the subject, debt rescheduling is an integral part of the peace process. The former Yugoslavia has been carved up under the close scrutiny of its external creditors, its foreign debt has been carefully divided and allocated to the republics.
The privatisation programmes implemented under the supervision of the donors, have contributed to a further stage of economic dislocation and impoverishment of the population. Accross ex-Yugoslavia, GDP declined by 50% in just four years (1990-93).
The decline into ethnic conflict was a tragic response to the regime's dead-end. Much of the blood is on the hands of the Western bankers who profited from the destruction of Yugoslavia. * Source: extract from "Dismantling former Yugoslavia, recolonising Bosnia, " 1996
• Juhani Lohikoski
17 Norway: Youth leads regroupment • Bertil Videt americas
18 Zapatista referendum
• Peter Gellert
19
• USA: Free Mumia Abu-
Jamal!
asia
20 Pakistan: Left unity conference • Eva Chang
21 Obsession, repression
• Arif Azad
22
India: The tyranny of economic globalism
• Ajit Muricken debate
28 Women and sport
• Catherine Louveau and
Isabelle Forest reviews
32
"The Marxism of Ernest
Mandel"
35 Obituary: Bret Smiley
36 Internet: Kosovo, Palestine history
13 The disintegration of Yugoslavia • Catherine Samary
International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 3
Kosovo gua sett mer 1012291093 the 250 9001U3 inte into acci Pre Rai pol aut "tel WOI pre rep mer wel curI Grc Rar rec( was den of a UC Ko: rouI Gro Sigr with