G'day all,
A twenty-minute surf through the PeaceNet pages and some relevant book
blurbs offer these insights on the West's role in creating the Yugoslav
nightmare.
We may have an episode now that makes NATO's unprecedented unilateral
invasion cause for mixed feelings, but if you look at the historical whole
a little bit, you get a picture that makes this episode look a lot like a
sad chapter in a tragedy authored by Western foreign policy - a policy made
up of arrogant naivete at best and murderously opportunistic destruction at
worst.
We might ask: what if we hadn't promoted socially destructive austerity
programmes in post-communist-bloc Yugoslavia?
Or (bearing in mind that our priority should have been saving lives then
too, but for some reason it wasn't back then):
if break-up there must be: what if we'd immediately supported our formal
declaration of Bosnian statehood with some substance, like a regulatory
military presence at Sarajevo's request (as opposed to the invasion we're
now perpetrating in Yugoslavia, for instance)?
Anyway, for what it's worth ...
______________________________________________________________
On the role of Western-imposed economic austerity policies in gradually
destroying Yugoslavia, post-Tito; this:
______________________________________________________________
... many of the country's citizens, particularly the younger generation,
understood the benefits of remaining within the multinational federation
even if those benefits were articulated through stale, communist-era
slogans such as "brotherhood and unity" and, my personal favorite, "after
Tito, more Tito" (posle
Tita, Tito). The non-nationalist federalists who coalesced in the late
1980s around Ante Markovic, Yugoslavia's last federal prime minister,
believed that most people would place greater prosperity above all other
concerns and that the will of ordinary citizens would determine events.
They were overly-optimistic about the ability of the economy to power
reforms, and grossly out of touch with the nationalist political forces
wrenching Yugoslavia's social fabric.
Despite economic and social advances, Yugoslavia's political
capacity had been squandered in the 1970s and in the
decade following Tito's death. Under the weight of austerity measures to
alleviate the country's foreign debt, Yugoslavia's modest prosperity
rapidly eroded. By the mid-1980s its substantial middle class, the key
support base for the federalists, was under siege and increasingly
insecure. One million people were officially unemployed, with the jobless
rate beyond 20 percent everywhere except Slovenia and Croatia. Double-digit
inflation would skyrocket by the decade's end, depleting the savings of
most of the population and fueling
widespread industrial actions.2 Most people were struggling to hold on to
what they had, and these fears made them ripe for exploitation by the
nationalists.
________________________________________________________________
Concerning the role of the EC in destroying constitutional federation in
Yugoslavia; this form journalist Nora Beloff (it comes from her book *Death
of a Nation*):
________________________________________________________________
'By 1991, the Yugoslav federal government was struggling for its existence.
What made the struggle hopeless was the decision of the EC to prevent the
Yugoslav federation from having recourse to its own armed forces in order
to preserve the state of Yugoslavia. Under the contemporary belief in the
wickedness of the use of armed force, this seemed synonymous with favouring
peace. In reality, as this policy was applied in Yugoslavia, it turned
out to be the reverse. Had it not been for misguided foreign intrusion,
the Yugoslav catastrophe need never have taken place.'
'In April 1992, Bosnia was recognised as an independent state against the
wishes of most of its minority Serbs ... the West's recognition, combined
with its failure to protect Bosnia's borders, served as the casus belli for
Serbian and Croatian attacks on Bosnia rather than the cause of the war
itself. '
_________________________________________________________________
Concerning the UN's role in destroying the Yugoslav constitution; this:
_________________________________________________________________
Almost fifty years after Tito's map-makers had cobbled
together the borders of Tito's "federation", Western
governments decided to metamorphose these into
frontiers of internationally-recognised states.
On 22 May 1992 a plenary session of the UN General
Assembly welcomed by acclaim the new states of
Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia with Hercegovina
within their Titoist administrative boundaries.
_________________________________________________________________
Concerning the US's role in guaranteeing further strife for purposes not
directly related to Yugoslav peace; this, on the post-Dayton scenario:
_________________________________________________________________
With the United States finally in the driver's seat, the Dayton agreement
exploited the warring parties' exhaustion but its only immediate
consequence was the establishment of a cease-fire and separation of forces
by NATO troops. For most Bosnians this was a welcome development. US
negotiators presented the accord as a
breakthrough when it was really a clever fait accompli. Like each of the
West's previous proposals dating back to the failed Lisbon accord of March
1992, Dayton outlines a three-way ethnic division (with Muslim and Croatian
entities federated), enshrines nationalist leaders and their armies (three
armies will exist in post-Dayton Bosnia), legitimizes ethnic parastates,
and preserves the power structures that precipitated the war. Moreover, the
treaty's implementation is wholly dependent on the deployment of a massive
Western occupation army.
the timing of the US initiative was odd, coming after the strategic balance
had shifted and Bosnian Serb forces were facing a rout by Bosnian and
Croatian armies. With Belgrade unlikely to intervene, Bosnian government
troops might have recaptured much of the republic had they not been ordered
by the United States to halt offensive operations. This suggests the United
States intervened to preserve the existing power structures in order to use
them as proxies at the negotiating table.
_________________________________________________________________
and on EC/UN/US legitimation of ethnic cleansing; this on the Dayton Agreement:
_________________________________________________________________
If the ostensible reason for this segregation is to amelio- rate ethnic
friction, then we must assume that "ethnic cleansing" is a strategy that
now has the imprimatur of the western negotiators . Moreover, a forcible
separation will, in the eyes of each ethnic group, again represent another
"historical wrong" against one's own people which would then have to be
eradicated in some future ethnic cleansing.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
