Communist Web
Friday 24th March 2000 9.30pm gmt
Yugoslavia and US terrorism
by Rob Gowland
Yugoslavia was subjected to NATO air attack - using missiles and "smart
bombs" - for 78 days. The country incurred losses of at least $100
billion, a huge sum for a small country.
NATO deliberately knocked out every trunk route - road, rail and river -
between Yugoslavia and all its neighbours as part of Washington's strategy
of ruining the economy of any country that defies it. Even when the bombing
is brought to a halt, the victim country goes on suffering with
infrastructure and trade both in ruins. And to make sure they stay that
way, sanctions are imposed.
The people of Yugoslavia have accomplished some remarkable feats of
reconstruction under extremely difficult conditions. In all, NATO destroyed
or seriously damaged 45 road bridges and 17 rail bridges, but already most
important road and rail traffic has been restored with new or reconstructed
bridges.
As part of US tactics to encourage the ethnic Hungarians of the north of
the country to "rise up against Milosevic", NATO heavily bombed the
northern city of Novy Sad and destroyed all bridges over the Danube,
cutting off Novy Sad and the northern province of Vojvodina.
This, it was apparently thought, would make the ethnic Hungarian population
welcome the prospect of Hungarian and NATO troops as liberators and
peacekeepers.
Predictably, it had the opposite effect. The Hungarian minority in northern
Yugoslavia has no desire to join Hungary or to bend the knee to NATO.
Tito built a multi-ethnic country and Slobadan Milosevic's government has
continued that policy while reaping the benefits of it at the same time.
With the support of the local people and enterprises, work on
reconstructing the road bridge between Novy Sad and Belgrade began just
three days after the bombing was halted. It was completed in record time.
Reconstruction
In fact, the Serbs accomplished some remarkable feats of construction in
tackling NATO's handiwork: they built new railway bridges in 60 days, for
example. They set a world record for the construction of steel bridges.
At the same time, despite the urgency of the situation, historic old stone
bridges were carefully restored, not just replaced with modern steel
structures.
Since the end of hostilities the Ministry for Reconstruction has fully
restored or replaced:
28 main bridges
4 railway bridges
2 roads
1 railway line
4 heating plants
7 schools or colleges
4 hospitals
445 houses or flats and the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade.
Work is presently going on at 65 sites, including ten road bridges, 12
railway bridges, two... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/yug/yug.html
