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<A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:522188">The Hidden History of the War
Against Yugoslavia
</A>
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Subject: The Hidden History of the War Against Yugoslavia
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, May 11, 1999 3:29 PM
Message-id: <89b83ca0&[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Hidden History of the War Against Yugoslavia
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
source: William F Hagel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear Friends,
I hope we will still be friends after this very long e-mail.
If it were not for the devastating US/NATO attack on Yugoslavia and human
suffering on both sides, I would not be moved to share these two articles
with my list of friends.
I wrote the first article out of a sense of outrage at the
massive manipulation of our natural and healthy compassion for the
suffering of innocent civilians by a government
that has and still is inflicting suffering on innocent populations for
political/ideological ends. My purpose is to demonstrate that whatever
the motives for this heartless bombing, humanitarian concern is not one
of them.
The second article by Dave Stratman picks up where mine leaves
off by offering information relating to two other official reasons for
this military intervention, the lack of any other alternative in dealing
with Milosevic and the preservation of stability in the region. If
Stratman's information is accurate the questions are why didn't the US
throw its considerable weight behind the democratic opposition for a
popular overthrow of Milosevic and is a stability gained by military
intervention prefered over one gained by a victory of democratic forces?
April 24, 1999
HUMANITARIAN?
The United States government and its NATO junior partners claim
they were forced to bomb Yugoslavia out of humanitarian concern for the
victims of Milosevic's dictatorship. Because this is the main rational
for what would be condemned as an outright criminal attack on a country
with which we are not at war, it is important to examine this claim of
humanitarian concern going beyond the rhetoric to actual deeds.
At the early start of the Cold War, upon reports (rumors?) that
the Indonesian Communist Party was planning a revolt, the Indonesian
military with the support of the CIA carried out a preemptive campaign in
which upwards of one million people were massacred. Anyone on the CIA's
list of suspected communists was systematically eliminated without due
process. It is incredibly difficult to believe there were one million
Indonesian Soviet agents or that indiscriminate slaughter was the answer.
Also in the case of Indonesia one doesn't have to go back that
far to illustrate the US concern for humanity. In 1976 Indonesia annexed
the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in flagrant violation of
international law and the wishes of the people of Timor. Since that day
the Indonesian military has conducted a bloody campaign to overcome the
resistance of the people of Timor who only want their independence. In a
revealing demonstration of the concern for humanitarian interests. the US
government has enthusiastically supported the Indonesian military with
money and weapons in this near genocidal war against the people of East
Timor.
The war against Vietnam was based on an outright lie and a
paranoid deception. The Gulf of Tonkin attack on an American vessel was
the lie and the paranoid "domino theory" of communist conquest was the
deception. Neither one proved to be true. The object was to accomplish
in Vietnam what the Indonesian military did in East Timor with US
approval, to pick up a colony abandoned by another power. In this case,
France was finally forced to surrender by the Vietnamese liberation army
but not before the US made the "humanitarian" offer to help the French
overcome the Vietnamese by using the atom bomb. The French, to their
credit refused the offer. The US "humanitarian" effort in Vietnam cost
55,000 American lives one million Vietnamese lives, widespread ecological
destruction from chemical warfare and the ongoing death and injury from
the thousand of landmines the US employed in a "humanitarian" effort to
"save" the Vietnamese people.
The civilized world was horrified by the ruthless Khmer Rouge
attempt to cleanse Cambodia of western influence. The slaughter of a
million Cambodians left no doubt about the criminal nature of this
enterprise. Yet for many years, the US government openly supported the
Khmer Rouge claim to a seat on the UN and secretly helped to support them
in the field with weapons and supplies. The reason for this
"humanitarian" support of one of the most cold blooded regimes of this
bloody century? The US hoped to use the Khmer Rouge against the
Vietnamese government. The details of this sordid policy were hidden
from the American people with the complicity of the commercial media.
Nicaragua suffered under the US supported dictatorship of Somoza until
1979 when he was finally overthrown in a popular rebellion. The US
responded in typical "humanitarian" fashion by open and clandestine
efforts to overthrow the new democratically elected government. Economic
pressure, CIA sabotage, including the illegal mining of Nicaraguan
harbors and the arming of death squads specializing in killing and
terrorizing civilians was the US "humanitarian" response to the first
ever democratic government in Nicaragua. This "two wrongs make a right"
policy was justified by the preposterous claim that this tiny desperately
poor third nation of peasants was a threat to our national security. In
hindsight it is disturbing to contemplate the power of the media to sell
such a bald-faced lie.
The same can be said about El Salvador and Guatemala where the
attempt by a desperately poor peasantry to free itself from a military
imposed semi- feudalism was met with a genocidal attack by a military
financed, uniformed, armed and trained by the US. Thousands of innocent
peasants, including women and children were slaughtered in protecting the
power and privilege of a handful of propertied elites. Among the victims
of this slaughter were Archbishop Oscar Romero, four American Catholic
church women, countless priests and lay church leaders All of the death
squad leaders involved in these crimes were trained by the American
military in the School of the Americas or as it has come to be known the
School of Assassins. The "humanitarian" impulse of the US government can
best be judged by the fact that to this day after the full disclosure of
these crimes, the US refuses to close down this notorious installation
and is continuing to train more third world military.
Chile elected Allende, a socialist president who had the nerve
to exercise Chile's sovereign right to nationalize the US owned copper
industry. At the behest of the copper industry, the US embarked on a
campaign to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected
government. The US orchestrated a military coup which murdered Allende,
killed thousands of his supporters and other political opponents and
installed a reign of terror, the effects of which are still felt to this
day. Fortunately for the cause of justice, General Pinochet, the Chilean
puppet of US "humanitarian" policy, is being held in England pending
criminal charges of war crimes.
In invading the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, the US
claimed that Cuban forces were on the island building a military airfield
and that American students were in danger from a local insurrection none
of which proved to be true. The Cubans on the island were civilian
construction workers, not military. The airfield was strictly for
civilian, not military use and the students were never in danger. In
fact, the government of Grenada offered to airlift the students to other
islands but the other islands under US pressure refused to allow this.
To justify the invasion of Grenada the US employed a humanitarian concern
for the safety of the students where no danger existed.
The US expression of "humanitarian" concern about the fate of
oppressed minorities is especially suspect in the case of Iraq and
Turkey. Both governments severely repress the Kurdish minority including
savage attacks on civilian villages and ethnic cleansing of whole areas.
When the US needed Saddam Hussein to counter the influence of Islamic
Iran, we armed him to the teeth and turned a blind eye to the plight of
his victims. It was only when we no longer needed him and he got too big
for his britches that we suddenly became concerned about the Kurds the
Kuwaitis and other victims. Our "humanitarian" response is to impose
economic sanctions and bombing attacks that have resulted in the needless
death of at least 500,000 innocent children while not touching a hair on
Saddam's head. When questioned by a reporter about this effect of the
sanctions, Madeline Albright the "humanitarian" Secretary of State
replied that it was a tough decision but in the final analysis it was
worth the cost.
Contrast this with our treatment of Turkey. For years the
Turkish military has been conducting a campaign against the same Kurds
that Saddam Hussein is oppressing. The Turkish effort if anything is far
more devastating including hundreds of villages destroyed, over a million
refugees and countless killed. Turkey even violates international law by
extending its attacks on Kurds beyond it own borders in Iraq. The
difference is that this is done with the active support of the US
government which is the major supplier for the Turkish military effort
In this case our "humanitarian" conscience is conveniently put aside
because Turkey is a key NATO ally
Last but not least is the example of Haiti. After suffering
many years under the cruelest of dictators, the Haitian people finally
elected a democratic government with Aristide as president. As soon as
Aristide was elected on a platform of social reform the US government
through the CIA organized a coup that overthrew him forcing him into
exile here in the USA. The coup resulted in the killing of anyone who
dared speak against the coup. The killers, Tonton Macoute, were
organized and armed by the CIA. When the US military finally went into
Haiti to "protect democracy" their first act was to steal the official
Haitian records which would have exposed the role of the US and the CIA
in overthrowing the democratically elected government and supporting the
dictatorship. To this day the US supported death squads are active in
Haiti and the US refuses to return intact the stolen documents to the
Haitian government. Thousands of innocent Haitians have suffered and
are still suffering as a result of US "humanitarianism".
The record of US "humanitarian" concern forces us to look
beyond official explanations for the horrific bombing of both Kosovo and
Iraq. It is not enough to expose the lies our government uses to justify
its military policy, it is necessary to learn the real reasons for this
criminal violation of international law and human decency. For this one
must go beyond the establishment commercial media to the internet, the
independent publishers and independent press.
Anyone interested in receiving additional material from independent
sources can contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*
New Democracy: Why Is the US Bombing Yugoslavia?
source: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear Friends--
I have printed below an article about the U.S.-led attack on Yugoslavia
which you may find interesting. If you do, please pass it on. For a free
copy of the issue of New Democracy in which this article appears, please
send me your postal address.
Dave Stratman
**************
WHY IS THE U.S. BOMBING YUGOSLAVIA?
By Dave Stratman, New Democracy, May-June 1999
Millions of Americans are shocked, confused, or disgusted by the US-led NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia. The bombing doesn't seem to make any sense. Military
analysts have stated repeatedly that bombing alone will have little effect
on Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's ability to carry out the "ethnic
cleansing" of Kosovo. Indeed, the NATO bombing has led to a massive increase
in the number of ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo just as predicted. In
addition, far from weakening Milosevic, the bombing campaign has
immeasurably strengthened his hand, so that a democracy movement which two
years ago seemed close to overthrowing Milosevic has now been drowned in a
sea of Serbian national unity against the U.S. and NATO. The U.S. bombing
has given Milosevic something he could never have achieved by himself: an
external enemy against which all Serbs can unite.
What's going on here? Why would the U.S. and NATO undertake a bombing
campaign which has achieved the opposite of its stated goals?
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE WAR
The most important facts for understanding the present
situation have been carefully concealed by politicians and the media.
Since the mid-1980s, Yugoslavia has been the scene of a vast working
class movement which threatens to overthrow the International Monetary
Fund (IMF)-backed Communist government. (Kosovo and Serbia are two of the
six republics which formerly constituted Yugoslavia.) Since 1987,
Slobodan Milosevic has been the IMF's strongman in Belgrade, enforcing
IMF-imposed wage cuts and austerity measures, and organizing ethnic
atrocities and civil war in a desperate bid to forestall revolution.
In the face of widespread worker discontent about the lack of
democracy
and a 7-day student takeover of the University of Belgrade in June, 1968
(under the slogan, "Down with the Red Bourgeoisie"), Yugoslavia borrowed
heavily in the 1970s and built up a huge debt to the IMF, which in 1985
topped $20 billion. Payback began in 1980. From 1980-84 the standard of
living in Yugoslavia fell nearly 40%. In 1984 strikes centered in the
Yugoslav republic of Macedonia broke out and spread to other republics.
Strikes and demonstrations continued to grow. In July, 1988 thousands
of
striking Croat and Serb workers "in a revolutionary mood" fought their
way through police cordons and stormed Parliament. They called for
"united action by the entire Yugoslav working class." In October, 30,000
workers bearing red flags and banners proclaiming, ""Long Live the
Working Class!" and "Down with the Fascist Regime" occupied the iron
works in Titograd and forced the resignation of Montenegrin Communist
officials, while in Belgrade 5,000 Serb workers fought their way into
Parliament to demand the resignation of the government. Strikes and
hyperinflation swept the country. In December, 1989 there was 2000%
(two-thousand percent) inflation; over 650,000 workers from several
republics went on strike together.
The working class movement brought together Yugoslavs of every ethnic
background. The movement was at least implicitly revolutionary, and it
terrified the international elite, for if sucessful it might easily
spread beyond Yugoslavia and spell the end of the smoothly-managed
transition from Communist to capitalist forms of elite rule in Eastern
Europe. As the elite are aware, successful revolution and true democracy
anywhere could well lead to revolution everywhere.
DIVIDE AND RULE
As the working class movement grew, the Yugoslav ruling elite
increasingly faced a stark choice: either smash the growing movement or
go under. Rather than lose their grip on power, they decided to dismember
the working class movement by dismembering the country. The dissolution
of the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and the ethnic fighting and atrocities
are parts of a carefully orchestrated elite strategy to divide and
destroy the working class movement.
The six republics of Yugoslavia were united under a non-ethnic
Communist
government since the end of WWII. Slobodan Milosevic became chairman of
the Serbian League of Communists in 1987 and later president of
Yugoslavia. He organized the "Milosevic Commission," which in 1988 called
for market-oriented reforms and he "urged Yugoslavs to overcome their
unfounded, irrational, and... primitive fear of exploitation' by foreign
capital." (Lenard Cohen, Broken Bonds, p. 56) Milosevic moved to destroy
working class resistance to IMF restructuring programs. With "near
monoply control" of TV, radio, and newspapers, the Communist government
under Milosevic began an intensive propaganda campaign to divide the
working class into warring ethnic groups, claiming that Serbs, the
largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia, were under attack by Croats and
others in the republics beyond Serbia. In every
republic, ethnic groups were bombarded with propaganda to set them
against each other. Nationalist paramilitary groups were organized to
carry out "retaliatory" atrocities. Serb nationalist thugs were armed in
Croatia, while Croat officials armed their own groups. Nationalist
parties from various ethnic groups received increasing support.
Slovenia, the most developed of the republics, seceded from Yugoslavia
in June, 1991. A 10-day war followed which "instilled a sense of
discipline and national pride in the Slovenian labour force" and finally
enabled Slovenian leaders to restructure the economy. (Christopher
Bennett, Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse, p. 223) Fighting broke out between
Serbia and Croatia, and atrocities were carried out to stoke ethnic
hatred. "The people carrying out these actions were generally not from
the local area. It was not a case of people who'd lived side by side for
decades suddenly deciding to kill each other. Neither was it an eruption
of long-suppressed ethnic hatreds, as the media make out. It was a
well-organized state policy." (Wildcat No. 18, Summer 1996, p. 17)
Croatia, Macedonia, and later Bosnia-Herzogovina also seceded. Serbia,
Montenegro, and Kosovo are all that remain of Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile the opposition movement continued to grow. In March, 1991 a
half-million marched on Belgrade, demanding the ouster of Milosevic, and
anti-government riots shook the capital. In April, 1991 700,000 workers
in Serbia one-third of the workforce struck. In July, 1993 farmers
blockaded roads and unions called a general strike. In August the
government issued a 500 million dinar note worth about $10. In September
1993 the Bosnian Serb army mutinied. Thousands of Serbs avoided the draft
or deserted; in 1995, only 6% of young Montenegrins called reported for
duty. Whole villages conspired to hide their young men.
In winter, 1997 fifty consecutive days of massive demonstrations
demanding the ouster of Milosevic shook Belgrade. According to a former
Boston Globe reporter living there who fled once the bombing began, the
same crowds are now in demonstrations against NATO organized by
Milosevic, while the leaders of the democracy movement are all fleeing.
"[NATO] had to know bombs would crown Milosevic emperor for life."
(Boston Globe, 4/4/99)
ELITE GOALS IN YUGOSLAVIA
To figure out the real goals of political leaders, sometimes it's
necessary to look not only at what they say but at what they do. What
have U.S. and NATO leaders actually done in Yugoslavia? Through the IMF
they have imposed repeated wage cuts, devaluations, and massive lay-offs.
They supported a "peace process" which has kept that country in a state
of war for eight years. They brokered agreements producing massive
dislocations of populations and the fragmentation of Yugoslav society.
And now with their bombs they are driving people into the arms of a hated
politician whom people before the bombing had been trying to overthrow.
Milosevic has been the U.S.-IMF man all along. Bombing Kosovo and
Serbia
is a last desperate bid by the elite to smash the revolutionary movement
and keep Milosevic in power. The targets of the bombs are the solidarity
and self-confidence of the working people of every ethnic group. They
want to destroy the working class movement and divide Yugoslavs into
war-ring fractions. Their goal is counterrevolution.
THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY
The actions of the U.S. and NATO are not signs of strength but weakness.
Acting through the Yugoslav elite they tried to control working people
with Communist rhetoric, with capitalist rhetoric, with threats, with
police clubs, with bullets, with "restructuring," with ethnic atrocities,
with civil war, and each time they failed. They rely now on massive
military force because they lack sufficient moral or political
credibility to achieve their
ends by other means. They carry out these actions at great political
cost: their actions expose them as utterly without morality.
The world elite are willing to pay this price because they know that
much more is at stake than Yugoslavia alone. The last few months have
seen neighboring Romania, where workers overthrew a Communist dictator in
1989, shaken by huge strikes and marches on Bucharest by miners and other
workers. Neighboring Albania has been virtually without a government
since a popular uprising in 1997. Russia, with its historic ties to the
Serbs, is in the throes of strikes and complete disillusionment with
capitalist reforms. NATO air strikes are no doubt intended to rally the
people of these countries to their respective elites and to tell them
also, "Keep in line or you'll get
the same."
Now when it seems at its moment of greatest power, the world elite is
actually very weak. It has no ability to inspire, only to compel. People
are bound to elite control not out of loyalty but because they see no
alternative.
What is the alternative? We should build a worldwide revolutionary
movement to overthrow elite power and establish true democracy, based on
equality and solidarity and the social relations of working men and women
of every race and nationality. This new world exists now, in the lives
and struggles of ordinary people everywhere. Wherever men and women treat
each other with love and respect, wherever people love their children and
teach them to be considerate human beings, wherever people support each
other in the face of attacks, wherever people stand up and fight for a
better world, there reside the values and relationships which are the
basis of a new society.
AFTERWORD: INVISIBLE WORKERS
To prepare this article I reviewed a number of current books on
Yugoslavia. None of them mentioned the strikes. Only one or two mentioned
the massive demonstrations against Milosevic. I also reviewed current
left analyses. The struggle of the working class of Yugoslavia doesn't
figure in most of them. (One anti-Marxist publication from the U.K.,
Wildcat No. 18, Summer 1996, had some good analysis.) The information in
this article comes almost entirely from newspapers: The Guardian, The New
York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe. The fact that
years of massive working class struggle in Yugoslavia is invisible to
scholarly writers and also to the left is a sure sign that we need a new
way of seeing the world. DS
New Democracy is published 6 times a year. Subscriptions, $7. webpage:
http://users.aol.com/newdem
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nytcov-05.11.99-23:27:54-12116
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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