------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 27, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WASHINGTON’S STOOGE: DJINDJIC ASSASSINATION EXPOSES U.S. ROLE IN SERBIA
By Heather Cottin
Zoran Djindjic is dead, shot down by snipers' bullets on March 12. Djindjic had the distinction of being one of the only nationally known politicians in Serbia to support the U.S./NATO 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia that began exactly four years ago on March 24, 1999.
The authors of the assassination are still unknown. Many speculate that infighting in organized crime was behind it. Though he was unpopular, even hated by the masses, no one expects his death to improve the political climate in favor of the left.
Based on Djindjic's sellout of Yugo slavia, a commentary by author Neil Clark that appeared in the Guardian newspaper of Britain on March 14 described him as "the Quisling of Belgrade," referring to the Nor wegian politician who turned that nation over to the Nazis during World War II.
Djindjic, wrote Clark, was the point man when the U.S. and other Western governments engineered "the removal of a government that did not suit their strategic interests." The West called it "humanitarian intervention." In reality it was "regime change," as is now planned on an even larger scale in Iraq.
That earlier regime change was based on destroying Yugoslavia's economic infrastructure, targeting civilians and then threatening a new war while freely supplying cash to the so-called Democratic Opposition of Serbia.
The figure many Serbs called "the German" was brought to power in 2000 when the Western-backed DOS overthrew the Socialist Party-led government of Slobodan Milosevic. Breaking Yugoslav and international law, in June 2001 Djindjic delivered Milosevic into the hands of the Hague Tribunal, the court NATO created and ran.
Djindjic presided over the privatization of the factories, mines and social services of Yugoslavia, facilitating the breakup of more Yugoslav republics after the coup that brought him to power in 2000. Under Djindjic, Yugoslavia's social services were privatized or dismantled and sold cheap to U.S.- and Germany-based monopolies, while crime, drug trafficking and poverty flourished. He even agreed to abolish the name "Yugoslavia," which had united the various peoples of the Balkans for more than half a century.
Under Djindjic's program of privatization, utility prices soared, unemployment rose to 30 percent and real wages fell by 20 percent. Now over two-thirds of Serbs live below the poverty line. He became premier not by being elected to office, but through an agreement among the anti- Milosevic forces--especially with the more popular Vojislav Kostunica-- that recognized Djindjic's connections to German and U.S. imperialism.
The Serbian government is using Djindjic's assassination as an excuse to institute political repression, directing their attacks on the remaining supporters of Slobodan Milosevic. The police have been militarized, the news media is under restriction, and the Serbian government has declared a state of emergency.
Zoran Djindjic was the corrupt beneficiary of U.S. regime change and instituted the economic reforms that destroyed Yugoslavian society as surely as the NATO bombs destroyed its infrastructure.
Many in the U.S., even in the progressive movement, were deceived and their anti-war sentiments neutralized by the media's demonization of Milosevic and the Serbian people. Now they see similar techniques used against Iraq to justify another brutal intervention that has nothing to do with the stated motives.
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