Jugoinfo
The Global Reflexion Foundation contributes, according to her ability,
to
the distribution of information on international issues that in the
media
does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We
receive information from different sources, that does not necessary
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our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail.
******************************************************
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
- Will Moldova be the next Kosovo
- It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About Everyone Else?]
- Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
- "Democracy" will not be for all pockets
*****************************************************
TARGETS, a Dutch monthly publication on international affaires, will
organize a public meeting to discuss the current developments in
Yugoslavia and the role of the Western powers.
The meeting will be adressed by:
· Jürgen Elsässer, editor of the German monthly publication KONKRET and
· Nico Varkevisser, editor-in-chief of TARGETS
Date: Sunday, October 29
Place: Akhnaton, Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Time: 15.00h
Jürgen Elsässer will present his new book: 'Kriegsverbrechen'. Die
tötlichen Lügen der Nato und ihre Opfer im Kosovo-Konflikt. (including a
file on Srebrenica)
*************************************************************
Will Moldova be de next Kosovo
NEW ANTI-RUSSIAN NATO MACHINATIONS
by Denis Petrov
On October 2, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow saw fit to deny the existence
of a
secret plan cooked up by American spooks and the Organization for
Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to partition Moldova. Bearing in mind
events in the Balkans in recent years, this denial was enough to
convince
most Russian and Moldovan/Romanian patriots that the plan is already
operational.
The State Department was reacting to a September 23 article in the
influential Izvestiya daily, claiming that talks between Russia and
Moldova
on the fate of the breakaway “Dniester Moldovan Republic”
had
broken down because of a “secret plan” pushed by the West to
annex Moldova to Romania and the Dniester region to Ukraine.
(This self-styled Dniester Republic, sometimes referred to as
Transdnistria, is a predominately Slavic, Russian-speaking region. In
1940
it was fused with the former Romanian province of Bessarabia to form the
Soviet Moldovan Republic in one of Stalin’s notorious land grabs.)
According to Izvestiya, the plan would involve annexation of the
Dniester
region by a nationalist Ukraine. The paper strongly implied that the
West
was backing the resurgent Ukrainian nationalist movement in pro-NATO
Western Ukraine-as a prelude to further NATO expansion. As in Kosovo,
however, the NATO-crats plan on exploiting nationalism only tactically:
the
real aim is to force the unconditional removal of the Russian 14th army
from the Dniester region, making way for an eventual NATO military
presence. Meanwhile, a suitably tamed and re-united Romania -- one that
would be bound by OSCE guidelines on "human rights" not to enforce
recent
laws giving the Romanian language legal predominance -- would be
absorbed
by OSCE/EU structures. The price for eventual integration into the
European
Union would be the negation of a distinct Romanian identity.
Izvestiya further claimed that a delay in Russian-Moldovan talks was
forced
on the Russian delegation, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeniy
Primakov,
as a prelude to scuttling the Russian plan to transform Moldova into a
confederation that would leave the Moldovan state intact while granting
the
Dniester region autonomy. Under the American plan Russia would carry out
a
phased withdrawal of the 14th Army, which the OSCE would pay for.
The Primakov plan, which appears to have suited both the Moldovans and
the
Russians -- at least for now -- was not enough to satisfy the NATOcrats:
Russia would still maintain ties with an autonomous Dniester Republic,
ties
which would probably include a guarantee of Dniester self-determination
should Moldova eventually rejoin Romania. Moreover, the region would
probably seek admittance to the Russian-Belarussian Union under such
circumstances, thereby maintaining Russian influence in the region. The
“secret plan” was devised to pre-empt such eventualities.
On the same day as the Izvestiya article, Kommersant, a
business-oriented
Russian daily, filled in the missing pieces to the diplomatic puzzle.
Kommersant pointed out that the U.S. Congress had recently allocated $45
million for funding "military assistance" to certain former Soviet
republics, including Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova.
The aim appears to be to weaken Russian influence in those states by
undermining the Russian-brokered CIS, a commonwealth of former Soviet
republics, and strengthening a Western-influenced GUUAM
(Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova) counterpart.
The net effect of the NATO/OSCE/EU machinations would be to isolate
Russia
by creating a NATO-dominated buffer zone on the periphery of the former
Soviet empire. This buffer zone would also just so happen to include a
number of states acting as gas and oil transit lines, states whose
importance will only increase as Caspian sea deposits are developed.
It
is small wonder then that an increasing number of Russians view the West
with suspicion and downright hostility: The ultimate objective of
NATO’s version of the Anaconda plan would be to weaken, if not
dismember, Russia.
***************************************
The URL for this article is
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm
It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About
Everyone Else?]
by Felicity Arbuthnot [10-26-2000]
[Felicity Arbuthnot has written a great deal about the Gulf War and
depleted uranium, as well as about the attack on Yugoslavia. An
interview
with Ms. Arbuthnot follows.]
In a week which has seen the French government follow their Italian
counterparts in launching an enquiry into the effects of depleted
uranium
(DU) on their soldiers in Kosovo, the Portugese Defence Minister, Julio
Castro Caldas has informed NATO Headquarters that he is withdrawing
Portugese troops from Kosmet. They were not, he said, going to become
uranium meat.
DU, first used in the 1991 Gulf war, is both chemically toxic and
radioactive and is used as coating, ballast or core for weapons.
Two Italian K-FOR soldiers have been flown to Rome suffering from
cancers
and the Rome Military Attorney has joined his colleagues in Milan,
Turin
and Venice in investigating DU in Kosovo and the Balkans and effects on
Italian troops. Last month the Yugoslav Ambassador to the Czech
Republic,
Djoko Stojicic told media in Prague that K-FOR soldiers in
Kosovo-Metohia
had long been experiencing health problems associated with DU. Quoting
NATO
French Air Force Commander, General Joffret he said the West apparently
wanted to get rid of their nuclear waste, contaminating the region.
Belgium
and Dutch troops are instructed by their governments not to eat local
produce and that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles
decontaminated. K-FOR contingents have drinking water flown in.
Portuguese Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas said his decision
should
have been made earlier and that Portugese forces should not have
participated in last year's 72 day war in the Balkans. Former
UK Minister of Defence, now NATO Secretary General, George Robertson
was
well aware of the dangers posed by DU, he said.
Portugese soldiers were sent on missions in the area poisoned with
depleted uranium, Pereira wrote in the influential Lisbon journal
'Diario
de Noticias'. NATO confirmed that the area was contaminted by DU and the
UN
representative also confirmed and apologised. Pereira stated that there
was
opposition in the headquarters of other countries performing missions in
poisoned areas. If it is hard to persuade military circles in
Washington,
Paris, London or Berlin to send their troops to the critical areas in
Kosovo, does that mean that the Portugese are to represent uranium
meat?
Earlier this year a seven page document warning of the hazards of DU
was
placed in the mail boxes of all personel working out of the UN building
in
Pristina and the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Command in Europe (SHAPE) issued warnings to United States Commands
urging
the widest possible dissemination to forces of other nations. A recent
meeting of the United Nations Environment
Programme attended by bodies including the International Atomic Energy
Authority and the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute resulted in
ongoing consultations as to how to proceed with a scientific field
assessment of DU sites, according to Director Klaus Toepfer. Previous
assessments had been hampered by NATO's refusal to provide maps of
affected
areas.
This Wednesday, Dr Asav Durakovic and Dr Hari Sharma, world renowned
radiation experts who tested sick Gulf war veterans for the presence of
DU
in their bodies and found up to one hundred
times the safe limit remaining eight years after the Gulf war, will
brief
the Justice and Human Rights Commission at the European Parliament.
If Balkans Syndrome is proven to affect K-FOR and reportedly other
people
working in the region, might not the native population of Kosovo also
suffer the cancers and birth deformities from DU
which as we know have devastated Iraq?
And how does this question figure in the calculations of NATO?
***
Interview with Felicity Arbuthnot
I spoke to Felicity Arbuthnot, author of the above article, in the wee
hours of this morning, October 25th. She told me the following story:
"In
June of 1999, on the day that they announced they were sending ground
troops into Kosovo, I rang the Ministry of Defense and I said, "Are we
now
going to see a wave of Balkans War Syndrome?" And they said, "Absolutely
not! The Minister himself has given strict instructions that no
personnel
must go near anything that might have been hit by depleted uranium
weapons
and if it is unavoidable they must wear full radiological protective
clothing."
Jared Israel: Doesn't that slightly contradict their other positions?
That
Gulf War Syndrome has nothing to do with depleted uranium?
Felicity Arbuthnot: Exactly. So I said, "What about refugees we're
encouraging to return not to mention the people who did not leave, the
Serbs and Roma and so on," and they said, "Oh, that has
nothing to do with us. That's UNHCR [the UN refugee organization]."
So I rang up UNHCR and put the same question to them: "What is going to
happen to these people?" And I said one of the things that the Ministry
person had told me was they had been told not to
disturb the soil lest dust should come up. I said, "How are they going
to
rebuild their homes if you don't disturb the soil?"
Israel: Especially since the homes that had been hit with shells
containing DU would be exactly the ones where you would have to tear
down,
consequently distrubing dangerous soil.
Arbuthnot: That's exactly right. Then UNHCR said to me, "What's DU?" So
I
sent them about three trees worth of material.
Israel: They didn't know what DU was?
Arbuthnot: I sent them piles and piles of stuff and they then said,
"You
know, this is really extremely alarming. Do you think we should pull our
personnel out?" And I said "Well, if you are encouraging the refugees to
go
back and you pull your personnel out and they get sick and I were they
I'd
be reaching for my lawyer." So they went very quiet. And you know, in
the
article I speak of this report which mysteriously appeared in the pigeon
holes of all the personnel that work out of the UN headquarters in
Pristina
warning of the dangers of DU. And you know there are hundreds and
hundreds
of people working out of there. And then, there are the people who live
there as well as those who have been driven out since NATO arrived and
who
should like to come back, aren't there?
www.tenc.net Emperor's Clothes]
******************************************
Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
Special coverage of the unrest in Yugoslavia
By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press
CACAK, Yugoslavia (October 20, 2000 3:27 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The farmhands and factory workers who
surged
through the doors of Yugoslavia's parliament seemed to be acting on
impulse, seizing the moment to oust Slobodan Milosevic.
Truth is, every step was planned.
Activists from this central Yugoslav city had been planning the uprising
long before they drove to the Yugoslav capital on Oct. 5. They brought a
list of targets, 10 days worth of food, a front-end loader and trucks
full
of rocks - ready to do battle with the Milosevic regime.
"People were ready for this," said Dragan Kovacevic, a local coordinator
for pro-democracy forces. "We had had enough of these piecemeal acts. We
needed concrete action."
The Cacak activists had also infiltrated the ranks of Milosevic's feared
police and said they knew in advance how they were likely to react.
The groundwork for the tumultuous events that toppled Milosevic had been
laid as much as four years earlier, when the opposition won elections in
Cacak and Velimir Ilic became mayor.
The job came with a television and radio station, one of many local
media
outlets that dotted the Yugoslav countryside. Considered too small to
worry
about, Milosevic loyalists didn't bother to shut them down when they
muzzled the Belgrade media.
Tensions had been building since the Sept. 24 elections, which the
opposition claimed Vojislav Kostunica had won. A showdown loomed.
Then, Knez, Bozo, Janjo, Vaske and other activists, who spoke on
condition
they only be identified by their first names, heard radio reports that
miners in the nearby town of Kolubara were on strike to pressure
Milosevic
to step down.
Urged on by their mayor, the men, who had lost much of their youth
fighting
wars that kept Milosevic in power, headed to the mine. They joined
thousands of others who had already swept past police blockades.
The events at the Kolubara mine provided a dress rehearsal for the next
day. That's when Kovacevic unleashed the next phase of the plan.
Thousands gathered at 7:30 a.m., along with 230 trucks loaded with
rocks,
farming tools and other equipment, "ready for God knows what," Kovacevic
recalled.
The mood was somber. Most of the crowd knew only that they were going to
"liberate" Belgrade. Details weren't revealed until the convoy was under
way, passed from car to car as it snaked along the 60 miles of twisting
highway.
The first target was the parliament building. Then the state television
station. Finally, the presidential palace.
"Every time I fought, I fought for my countrymen," Knez said. "This was
the
same."
On the road to Belgrade, others joined in, heeding a call by Kostunica's
forces to converge on the capital. The Milosevic regime knew people
would
be coming and had erected roadblocks.
Ilic led the Cacak group, just behind a truck carrying the front-end
loader.
After a brief effort at negotiation, they smashed through two police
barricades, crushing trucks blocking the road, using crowbars, hammers
and
stones.
Some police officers stepped aside after subtle persuasion: Those in the
convoy reminded their neighbors they knew where they lived.
By the time the Cacak convoy arrived in Belgrade, it stretched for 10
miles. People in the capital watched in disbelief as it rolled in.
Participants stopped to smoke and regroup before taking on the
parliament,
the symbolic seat of power.
They stormed its steps, then stopped. Thousands joined the Cacak group.
After nearly two hours, someone in the crowd hit a police officer with a
bottle. Tear gas flew.
The crowd surged into the building. At about this time, the crowd split
in
two, with half staying behind to secure the parliament and the others
moving to the television station, according to plan.
Ilic said the opposition had recruited some of the elite police units
safeguarding the regime's most important asset - its propaganda voice.
"This Belgrade unit, that Milosevic counted most on for special actions,
was completely on our side," Ilic said. "We had an agreement with them
to
do this together, and they supported us fully."
Just in case the police unit changed its mind, the pro-democracy forces
sent along another front-end loader. With little resistance from police,
the station fell quickly. Ringleaders opted not to march to the third
target - Milosevic's palace. They feared their ranks were too depleted.
Back in Cacak, another element of the plan snapped into shape:
Pro-democracy operatives reminded the local police they knew where they
lived and the officers quickly surrendered.
The Kostunica camp seized a transmitter belonging to the
Milosevic-controlled state television network and broadcast news of the
events in the capital to as much as two-thirds of the country.
Soon, everyone learned about front-end loader revolution.
****************************************************
Hungary active in Yugoslav affairs
http://www.centraleurope.com/hungarytoday/news.php3?id=211147
Hungary Lobbying For Amnesty For Yugoslav War "Deserters"
BUDAPEST, Oct 19, 2000 -- (BBC Monitoring) It has been promised to the
Hungarian foreign affairs state secretary [Ivan Baba] in Yugoslavia that
those who have been convicted at home on charges of desertion from the
army
after fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary will be given amnesty.
[Reporter] The administrative state secretary of the Hungarian Foreign
Ministry has conveyed the Hungarian government's message to the
democratic
forces of Yugoslavia. At a press briefing on his return to Budapest,
Ivan
Baba summed up the key point of this message in the following way:
[Baba] We definitely and unambiguously continue to be interested in the
strengthening of democratic forces and European democratic values in
Yugoslavia and in Yugoslavia becoming a democratic constitutional state
in
the European sense.
[Reporter] The state secretary forwarded an invitation to President
Vojislav Kostunica to take part as a special guest in the summit of the
Central European Initiative in Budapest in November. The Hungarian state
secretary's Yugoslav partners promised that they would help the
restoration
of the
navigability of the Danube as soon as possible, agree to the abolition
of
border crossing duties and deal with the question of amnesty for
Hungarian
and non-Hungarian Yugoslav citizens who had been convicted at home on
charges of desertion for fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary. According to
Ivan Baba, their number is several thousands.
Ivan Baba repeated to his Serb negotiating partners in Vojvodina that
the
Hungarian government was interested in cross-border cooperation and
supported the autonomy demands of Vojvodina Hungarian organizations.
In Szabadka [Subotica, northern part of Vojvodina], Ivan Baba met Jozsef
Kasza [chairman of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, SVM], who was
recently elected, for the fifth time, as the mayor of Szabadka. Kasza,
as
other leaders in Yugoslavia, asked for Hungarian fuel and energy aid
before
the winter, which is expected to be hard.
Asked by "Chronicle" [this program], Ivan Baba said that the Yugoslav
side
noted Hungary's request for a Hungarian consulate to be opened in
Szabadka
and a Hungarian trade mission - with diplomatic or non-diplomatic status
-
to be opened in the smaller member republic, Montenegro.
Source: Hungarian Radio, Budapest, in Hungarian 1600 GMT 18 Oct 00
Miroslav Antic
http://www.antic.org/SNN/
*************************************************
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
IN BELGRADE, OIL JUMPED FROM 15 TO 51 DINARS
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
In Belgrade, the price of one liter of oil had jumped from 15 to
51dinars,
price of bread from 6 to 14 and of sugar from 6 to 45. "Democratic
prices",
mock the consumers, already disappointed. In
Kragujevac, trade unionists of Zastava are beaten and persecuted. At the
same time, financed western press celebrates "good affairs in sight".
And
finally, one US senator already threatens Kostunica to expand NATO to
Slovenia. What are the connections between these four facts?
Michel Collon
Our Western media do not speak about Yugoslavia anymore. Still,
important
things are happening there. And revealing... Before, government gave
subsidizes for the production of basic food products. So farmers and
merchants still had enough gain, but consumers could buy in spite of
embargo. Nobody was dying of hunger. But the DOS opposition had
announced,
in its "G 17 plus" program, that
"the new government will immediately suspend all the subsidization, with
no
regret or hesitation, because it will be difficult to apply this measure
latter". Indeed, it didn't take them long at all!
Los Angeles Times of 15th writes: "When Kostunica supporters forced out
most managers in state-owned shops and factories and put their own
people
in charge, that system of controls collapsed and prices immediately shot
up. New directors are moving quickly to make their plants more
profitable. "
Problem: consumers are dissatisfied and elections are in two months. So,
director of G 17, Mladjan Dinkic, is accusing...Serbian government,
still
run by SPS socialists, of "wanting to create chaos". But argument is not
holding water: this government is not functioning precisely because of
the
chaos created by DOS, its street-violence and "crisis comittees" which
forcibly took over the control of all institutions.
"We will be able to export to Yugoslavia"
Therefore we see already that the "prosperity" announced in election
promises will not benefit to all the pockets. But who will? Answer of
Italian financial supplement of International Herald Tribune of 10th
(Italy is Yugoslav economic partner No. 2) "Perspectives seem good and
Italian export goods - shoes, textile, food products - will be the first
to
profit the occasion. But privatization in Yugoslavia might also attract
the
interest of foreign investors. Lot of public sectors - counting in
energy
and airports - can be licenses soon and their re-structuring might give
the
space to new foreign capital.
What does it mean to "give space"? At the spot, at the moment of putsch,
a
friend of mine, Radmila, warned me: "Actually, our electricity worked
really well. Foreign companies would want to put its hands on it. But to
invest, they demand significant profits, which means huge tariffs
growths.
People do not understand that this G17 program will ruin them!"
About the export of Italian shoes...Having forgotten my moccasin's back
home, I had to buy a new pair in Belgrade: 1 100 dinars. Tree times
less
than the Italians, which I usually buy. Maybe somewhat less "chick", but
comfortable and solid. What will happen, with new regime? With their
financial power, western multinationals will take the control over
Yugoslav
factories, closing a big part of them, and western products will flood
over
the local market. Europe would be able to get rid of its food-stocks, at
unbeatable prices, because of European Union subsidization (so there! in
this case, it's good to subsidize, isn't it?). "Crazy cows" and other
genetically trafficked food-products can feed the Serbs then, they're
too
numerous anyway, right? But West will throw in some help, they
say..."Help"? Germany wants absolutely to re-open the Danube, so it will
open funds. Gifts? No, loans. To keep Yugoslavia "cooperative" in
extortion
of payment like numerous other countries forced by spiral of debts to
always the biggest concessions.(???) In short, Yugoslavia will pay for
the
bombing damages!
Scandalous. And what will this cleaned Danube serve for? First of all,
to
flood the country with German merchandise, which will eliminate local
products from the market.
In short, instead of promised prosperity, one New York Times editorial
of
15th predicts that "at worst Yugoslavia's economy could follow Russia's
path, to corruption and decline".
Why are syndicate activists beaten?
In Kragujevac, car factory Zastava trade unionists have been
sequestered
and beaten by ex-opposition gangs, people responsible for truck
department
were forced to resign. Progressive Italian daily Manifesto (which rather
supported Kostunica) is appalled:
" Syndicate members have been independent, as much from Milosevic as
from
opposition. They relayed humanitarian operations of Italian syndicates.
But
opposition syndicate activists (formed in Rumania by US experts) are
pressuring the workers, threatening them with massive layoffs. "We
fought
for the workers, without engaging ourselves in politics. This is our
crime!" concluded one of them".
All those facts are linked together. To push through this IMF policy -
high
prices , closing ups, layoffs and gifts to multinationals, every
possibility of syndicate or leftist resistance - must be eliminated. In
Belgrade, one office of New Communist Party has been burned down by
rightist militia.
And if all this is not enough, listen to the threats of American senator
Biden: " If Mr. Kostunica thinks he will be able to continue with one
aggressive nationalist Serbian politics, only under milder appearance,
then
we'll have to talk him out of it. In this case, we should concentrate
our
ex Yugoslavia politics on preparing more democratic and more prosperous
Slovenia, for the next NATO enlargement".
NATO, again? So there, and they kept telling us that Milosevic was the
only
problem over there! And what if the problem was the resistance of
Serbian
people in general, to economical imperialism and military interventions
of
the West? Kostunica - or some other soon - being put in charge to bring
those people up to date. The game is far from being finished in
Yugoslavia.
A lot will depend on the resistance capacity of workers. Some leftist
alternative is indispensable, and resistance is being prepared. We'll be
back there.
******************************************************
Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
to
the distribution of information on international issues that in the
media
does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We
receive information from different sources, that does not necessary
reflect
our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail.
******************************************************
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
- Will Moldova be the next Kosovo
- It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About Everyone Else?]
- Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
- "Democracy" will not be for all pockets
*****************************************************
TARGETS, a Dutch monthly publication on international affaires, will
organize a public meeting to discuss the current developments in
Yugoslavia and the role of the Western powers.
The meeting will be adressed by:
· Jürgen Elsässer, editor of the German monthly publication KONKRET and
· Nico Varkevisser, editor-in-chief of TARGETS
Date: Sunday, October 29
Place: Akhnaton, Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Time: 15.00h
Jürgen Elsässer will present his new book: 'Kriegsverbrechen'. Die
tötlichen Lügen der Nato und ihre Opfer im Kosovo-Konflikt. (including a
file on Srebrenica)
*************************************************************
Will Moldova be de next Kosovo
NEW ANTI-RUSSIAN NATO MACHINATIONS
by Denis Petrov
On October 2, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow saw fit to deny the existence
of a
secret plan cooked up by American spooks and the Organization for
Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to partition Moldova. Bearing in mind
events in the Balkans in recent years, this denial was enough to
convince
most Russian and Moldovan/Romanian patriots that the plan is already
operational.
The State Department was reacting to a September 23 article in the
influential Izvestiya daily, claiming that talks between Russia and
Moldova
on the fate of the breakaway “Dniester Moldovan Republic”
had
broken down because of a “secret plan” pushed by the West to
annex Moldova to Romania and the Dniester region to Ukraine.
(This self-styled Dniester Republic, sometimes referred to as
Transdnistria, is a predominately Slavic, Russian-speaking region. In
1940
it was fused with the former Romanian province of Bessarabia to form the
Soviet Moldovan Republic in one of Stalin’s notorious land grabs.)
According to Izvestiya, the plan would involve annexation of the
Dniester
region by a nationalist Ukraine. The paper strongly implied that the
West
was backing the resurgent Ukrainian nationalist movement in pro-NATO
Western Ukraine-as a prelude to further NATO expansion. As in Kosovo,
however, the NATO-crats plan on exploiting nationalism only tactically:
the
real aim is to force the unconditional removal of the Russian 14th army
from the Dniester region, making way for an eventual NATO military
presence. Meanwhile, a suitably tamed and re-united Romania -- one that
would be bound by OSCE guidelines on "human rights" not to enforce
recent
laws giving the Romanian language legal predominance -- would be
absorbed
by OSCE/EU structures. The price for eventual integration into the
European
Union would be the negation of a distinct Romanian identity.
Izvestiya further claimed that a delay in Russian-Moldovan talks was
forced
on the Russian delegation, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeniy
Primakov,
as a prelude to scuttling the Russian plan to transform Moldova into a
confederation that would leave the Moldovan state intact while granting
the
Dniester region autonomy. Under the American plan Russia would carry out
a
phased withdrawal of the 14th Army, which the OSCE would pay for.
The Primakov plan, which appears to have suited both the Moldovans and
the
Russians -- at least for now -- was not enough to satisfy the NATOcrats:
Russia would still maintain ties with an autonomous Dniester Republic,
ties
which would probably include a guarantee of Dniester self-determination
should Moldova eventually rejoin Romania. Moreover, the region would
probably seek admittance to the Russian-Belarussian Union under such
circumstances, thereby maintaining Russian influence in the region. The
“secret plan” was devised to pre-empt such eventualities.
On the same day as the Izvestiya article, Kommersant, a
business-oriented
Russian daily, filled in the missing pieces to the diplomatic puzzle.
Kommersant pointed out that the U.S. Congress had recently allocated $45
million for funding "military assistance" to certain former Soviet
republics, including Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova.
The aim appears to be to weaken Russian influence in those states by
undermining the Russian-brokered CIS, a commonwealth of former Soviet
republics, and strengthening a Western-influenced GUUAM
(Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova) counterpart.
The net effect of the NATO/OSCE/EU machinations would be to isolate
Russia
by creating a NATO-dominated buffer zone on the periphery of the former
Soviet empire. This buffer zone would also just so happen to include a
number of states acting as gas and oil transit lines, states whose
importance will only increase as Caspian sea deposits are developed.
It
is small wonder then that an increasing number of Russians view the West
with suspicion and downright hostility: The ultimate objective of
NATO’s version of the Anaconda plan would be to weaken, if not
dismember, Russia.
***************************************
The URL for this article is
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm
It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About
Everyone Else?]
by Felicity Arbuthnot [10-26-2000]
[Felicity Arbuthnot has written a great deal about the Gulf War and
depleted uranium, as well as about the attack on Yugoslavia. An
interview
with Ms. Arbuthnot follows.]
In a week which has seen the French government follow their Italian
counterparts in launching an enquiry into the effects of depleted
uranium
(DU) on their soldiers in Kosovo, the Portugese Defence Minister, Julio
Castro Caldas has informed NATO Headquarters that he is withdrawing
Portugese troops from Kosmet. They were not, he said, going to become
uranium meat.
DU, first used in the 1991 Gulf war, is both chemically toxic and
radioactive and is used as coating, ballast or core for weapons.
Two Italian K-FOR soldiers have been flown to Rome suffering from
cancers
and the Rome Military Attorney has joined his colleagues in Milan,
Turin
and Venice in investigating DU in Kosovo and the Balkans and effects on
Italian troops. Last month the Yugoslav Ambassador to the Czech
Republic,
Djoko Stojicic told media in Prague that K-FOR soldiers in
Kosovo-Metohia
had long been experiencing health problems associated with DU. Quoting
NATO
French Air Force Commander, General Joffret he said the West apparently
wanted to get rid of their nuclear waste, contaminating the region.
Belgium
and Dutch troops are instructed by their governments not to eat local
produce and that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles
decontaminated. K-FOR contingents have drinking water flown in.
Portuguese Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas said his decision
should
have been made earlier and that Portugese forces should not have
participated in last year's 72 day war in the Balkans. Former
UK Minister of Defence, now NATO Secretary General, George Robertson
was
well aware of the dangers posed by DU, he said.
Portugese soldiers were sent on missions in the area poisoned with
depleted uranium, Pereira wrote in the influential Lisbon journal
'Diario
de Noticias'. NATO confirmed that the area was contaminted by DU and the
UN
representative also confirmed and apologised. Pereira stated that there
was
opposition in the headquarters of other countries performing missions in
poisoned areas. If it is hard to persuade military circles in
Washington,
Paris, London or Berlin to send their troops to the critical areas in
Kosovo, does that mean that the Portugese are to represent uranium
meat?
Earlier this year a seven page document warning of the hazards of DU
was
placed in the mail boxes of all personel working out of the UN building
in
Pristina and the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Command in Europe (SHAPE) issued warnings to United States Commands
urging
the widest possible dissemination to forces of other nations. A recent
meeting of the United Nations Environment
Programme attended by bodies including the International Atomic Energy
Authority and the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute resulted in
ongoing consultations as to how to proceed with a scientific field
assessment of DU sites, according to Director Klaus Toepfer. Previous
assessments had been hampered by NATO's refusal to provide maps of
affected
areas.
This Wednesday, Dr Asav Durakovic and Dr Hari Sharma, world renowned
radiation experts who tested sick Gulf war veterans for the presence of
DU
in their bodies and found up to one hundred
times the safe limit remaining eight years after the Gulf war, will
brief
the Justice and Human Rights Commission at the European Parliament.
If Balkans Syndrome is proven to affect K-FOR and reportedly other
people
working in the region, might not the native population of Kosovo also
suffer the cancers and birth deformities from DU
which as we know have devastated Iraq?
And how does this question figure in the calculations of NATO?
***
Interview with Felicity Arbuthnot
I spoke to Felicity Arbuthnot, author of the above article, in the wee
hours of this morning, October 25th. She told me the following story:
"In
June of 1999, on the day that they announced they were sending ground
troops into Kosovo, I rang the Ministry of Defense and I said, "Are we
now
going to see a wave of Balkans War Syndrome?" And they said, "Absolutely
not! The Minister himself has given strict instructions that no
personnel
must go near anything that might have been hit by depleted uranium
weapons
and if it is unavoidable they must wear full radiological protective
clothing."
Jared Israel: Doesn't that slightly contradict their other positions?
That
Gulf War Syndrome has nothing to do with depleted uranium?
Felicity Arbuthnot: Exactly. So I said, "What about refugees we're
encouraging to return not to mention the people who did not leave, the
Serbs and Roma and so on," and they said, "Oh, that has
nothing to do with us. That's UNHCR [the UN refugee organization]."
So I rang up UNHCR and put the same question to them: "What is going to
happen to these people?" And I said one of the things that the Ministry
person had told me was they had been told not to
disturb the soil lest dust should come up. I said, "How are they going
to
rebuild their homes if you don't disturb the soil?"
Israel: Especially since the homes that had been hit with shells
containing DU would be exactly the ones where you would have to tear
down,
consequently distrubing dangerous soil.
Arbuthnot: That's exactly right. Then UNHCR said to me, "What's DU?" So
I
sent them about three trees worth of material.
Israel: They didn't know what DU was?
Arbuthnot: I sent them piles and piles of stuff and they then said,
"You
know, this is really extremely alarming. Do you think we should pull our
personnel out?" And I said "Well, if you are encouraging the refugees to
go
back and you pull your personnel out and they get sick and I were they
I'd
be reaching for my lawyer." So they went very quiet. And you know, in
the
article I speak of this report which mysteriously appeared in the pigeon
holes of all the personnel that work out of the UN headquarters in
Pristina
warning of the dangers of DU. And you know there are hundreds and
hundreds
of people working out of there. And then, there are the people who live
there as well as those who have been driven out since NATO arrived and
who
should like to come back, aren't there?
www.tenc.net Emperor's Clothes]
******************************************
Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
Special coverage of the unrest in Yugoslavia
By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press
CACAK, Yugoslavia (October 20, 2000 3:27 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The farmhands and factory workers who
surged
through the doors of Yugoslavia's parliament seemed to be acting on
impulse, seizing the moment to oust Slobodan Milosevic.
Truth is, every step was planned.
Activists from this central Yugoslav city had been planning the uprising
long before they drove to the Yugoslav capital on Oct. 5. They brought a
list of targets, 10 days worth of food, a front-end loader and trucks
full
of rocks - ready to do battle with the Milosevic regime.
"People were ready for this," said Dragan Kovacevic, a local coordinator
for pro-democracy forces. "We had had enough of these piecemeal acts. We
needed concrete action."
The Cacak activists had also infiltrated the ranks of Milosevic's feared
police and said they knew in advance how they were likely to react.
The groundwork for the tumultuous events that toppled Milosevic had been
laid as much as four years earlier, when the opposition won elections in
Cacak and Velimir Ilic became mayor.
The job came with a television and radio station, one of many local
media
outlets that dotted the Yugoslav countryside. Considered too small to
worry
about, Milosevic loyalists didn't bother to shut them down when they
muzzled the Belgrade media.
Tensions had been building since the Sept. 24 elections, which the
opposition claimed Vojislav Kostunica had won. A showdown loomed.
Then, Knez, Bozo, Janjo, Vaske and other activists, who spoke on
condition
they only be identified by their first names, heard radio reports that
miners in the nearby town of Kolubara were on strike to pressure
Milosevic
to step down.
Urged on by their mayor, the men, who had lost much of their youth
fighting
wars that kept Milosevic in power, headed to the mine. They joined
thousands of others who had already swept past police blockades.
The events at the Kolubara mine provided a dress rehearsal for the next
day. That's when Kovacevic unleashed the next phase of the plan.
Thousands gathered at 7:30 a.m., along with 230 trucks loaded with
rocks,
farming tools and other equipment, "ready for God knows what," Kovacevic
recalled.
The mood was somber. Most of the crowd knew only that they were going to
"liberate" Belgrade. Details weren't revealed until the convoy was under
way, passed from car to car as it snaked along the 60 miles of twisting
highway.
The first target was the parliament building. Then the state television
station. Finally, the presidential palace.
"Every time I fought, I fought for my countrymen," Knez said. "This was
the
same."
On the road to Belgrade, others joined in, heeding a call by Kostunica's
forces to converge on the capital. The Milosevic regime knew people
would
be coming and had erected roadblocks.
Ilic led the Cacak group, just behind a truck carrying the front-end
loader.
After a brief effort at negotiation, they smashed through two police
barricades, crushing trucks blocking the road, using crowbars, hammers
and
stones.
Some police officers stepped aside after subtle persuasion: Those in the
convoy reminded their neighbors they knew where they lived.
By the time the Cacak convoy arrived in Belgrade, it stretched for 10
miles. People in the capital watched in disbelief as it rolled in.
Participants stopped to smoke and regroup before taking on the
parliament,
the symbolic seat of power.
They stormed its steps, then stopped. Thousands joined the Cacak group.
After nearly two hours, someone in the crowd hit a police officer with a
bottle. Tear gas flew.
The crowd surged into the building. At about this time, the crowd split
in
two, with half staying behind to secure the parliament and the others
moving to the television station, according to plan.
Ilic said the opposition had recruited some of the elite police units
safeguarding the regime's most important asset - its propaganda voice.
"This Belgrade unit, that Milosevic counted most on for special actions,
was completely on our side," Ilic said. "We had an agreement with them
to
do this together, and they supported us fully."
Just in case the police unit changed its mind, the pro-democracy forces
sent along another front-end loader. With little resistance from police,
the station fell quickly. Ringleaders opted not to march to the third
target - Milosevic's palace. They feared their ranks were too depleted.
Back in Cacak, another element of the plan snapped into shape:
Pro-democracy operatives reminded the local police they knew where they
lived and the officers quickly surrendered.
The Kostunica camp seized a transmitter belonging to the
Milosevic-controlled state television network and broadcast news of the
events in the capital to as much as two-thirds of the country.
Soon, everyone learned about front-end loader revolution.
****************************************************
Hungary active in Yugoslav affairs
http://www.centraleurope.com/hungarytoday/news.php3?id=211147
Hungary Lobbying For Amnesty For Yugoslav War "Deserters"
BUDAPEST, Oct 19, 2000 -- (BBC Monitoring) It has been promised to the
Hungarian foreign affairs state secretary [Ivan Baba] in Yugoslavia that
those who have been convicted at home on charges of desertion from the
army
after fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary will be given amnesty.
[Reporter] The administrative state secretary of the Hungarian Foreign
Ministry has conveyed the Hungarian government's message to the
democratic
forces of Yugoslavia. At a press briefing on his return to Budapest,
Ivan
Baba summed up the key point of this message in the following way:
[Baba] We definitely and unambiguously continue to be interested in the
strengthening of democratic forces and European democratic values in
Yugoslavia and in Yugoslavia becoming a democratic constitutional state
in
the European sense.
[Reporter] The state secretary forwarded an invitation to President
Vojislav Kostunica to take part as a special guest in the summit of the
Central European Initiative in Budapest in November. The Hungarian state
secretary's Yugoslav partners promised that they would help the
restoration
of the
navigability of the Danube as soon as possible, agree to the abolition
of
border crossing duties and deal with the question of amnesty for
Hungarian
and non-Hungarian Yugoslav citizens who had been convicted at home on
charges of desertion for fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary. According to
Ivan Baba, their number is several thousands.
Ivan Baba repeated to his Serb negotiating partners in Vojvodina that
the
Hungarian government was interested in cross-border cooperation and
supported the autonomy demands of Vojvodina Hungarian organizations.
In Szabadka [Subotica, northern part of Vojvodina], Ivan Baba met Jozsef
Kasza [chairman of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, SVM], who was
recently elected, for the fifth time, as the mayor of Szabadka. Kasza,
as
other leaders in Yugoslavia, asked for Hungarian fuel and energy aid
before
the winter, which is expected to be hard.
Asked by "Chronicle" [this program], Ivan Baba said that the Yugoslav
side
noted Hungary's request for a Hungarian consulate to be opened in
Szabadka
and a Hungarian trade mission - with diplomatic or non-diplomatic status
-
to be opened in the smaller member republic, Montenegro.
Source: Hungarian Radio, Budapest, in Hungarian 1600 GMT 18 Oct 00
Miroslav Antic
http://www.antic.org/SNN/
*************************************************
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
IN BELGRADE, OIL JUMPED FROM 15 TO 51 DINARS
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
In Belgrade, the price of one liter of oil had jumped from 15 to
51dinars,
price of bread from 6 to 14 and of sugar from 6 to 45. "Democratic
prices",
mock the consumers, already disappointed. In
Kragujevac, trade unionists of Zastava are beaten and persecuted. At the
same time, financed western press celebrates "good affairs in sight".
And
finally, one US senator already threatens Kostunica to expand NATO to
Slovenia. What are the connections between these four facts?
Michel Collon
Our Western media do not speak about Yugoslavia anymore. Still,
important
things are happening there. And revealing... Before, government gave
subsidizes for the production of basic food products. So farmers and
merchants still had enough gain, but consumers could buy in spite of
embargo. Nobody was dying of hunger. But the DOS opposition had
announced,
in its "G 17 plus" program, that
"the new government will immediately suspend all the subsidization, with
no
regret or hesitation, because it will be difficult to apply this measure
latter". Indeed, it didn't take them long at all!
Los Angeles Times of 15th writes: "When Kostunica supporters forced out
most managers in state-owned shops and factories and put their own
people
in charge, that system of controls collapsed and prices immediately shot
up. New directors are moving quickly to make their plants more
profitable. "
Problem: consumers are dissatisfied and elections are in two months. So,
director of G 17, Mladjan Dinkic, is accusing...Serbian government,
still
run by SPS socialists, of "wanting to create chaos". But argument is not
holding water: this government is not functioning precisely because of
the
chaos created by DOS, its street-violence and "crisis comittees" which
forcibly took over the control of all institutions.
"We will be able to export to Yugoslavia"
Therefore we see already that the "prosperity" announced in election
promises will not benefit to all the pockets. But who will? Answer of
Italian financial supplement of International Herald Tribune of 10th
(Italy is Yugoslav economic partner No. 2) "Perspectives seem good and
Italian export goods - shoes, textile, food products - will be the first
to
profit the occasion. But privatization in Yugoslavia might also attract
the
interest of foreign investors. Lot of public sectors - counting in
energy
and airports - can be licenses soon and their re-structuring might give
the
space to new foreign capital.
What does it mean to "give space"? At the spot, at the moment of putsch,
a
friend of mine, Radmila, warned me: "Actually, our electricity worked
really well. Foreign companies would want to put its hands on it. But to
invest, they demand significant profits, which means huge tariffs
growths.
People do not understand that this G17 program will ruin them!"
About the export of Italian shoes...Having forgotten my moccasin's back
home, I had to buy a new pair in Belgrade: 1 100 dinars. Tree times
less
than the Italians, which I usually buy. Maybe somewhat less "chick", but
comfortable and solid. What will happen, with new regime? With their
financial power, western multinationals will take the control over
Yugoslav
factories, closing a big part of them, and western products will flood
over
the local market. Europe would be able to get rid of its food-stocks, at
unbeatable prices, because of European Union subsidization (so there! in
this case, it's good to subsidize, isn't it?). "Crazy cows" and other
genetically trafficked food-products can feed the Serbs then, they're
too
numerous anyway, right? But West will throw in some help, they
say..."Help"? Germany wants absolutely to re-open the Danube, so it will
open funds. Gifts? No, loans. To keep Yugoslavia "cooperative" in
extortion
of payment like numerous other countries forced by spiral of debts to
always the biggest concessions.(???) In short, Yugoslavia will pay for
the
bombing damages!
Scandalous. And what will this cleaned Danube serve for? First of all,
to
flood the country with German merchandise, which will eliminate local
products from the market.
In short, instead of promised prosperity, one New York Times editorial
of
15th predicts that "at worst Yugoslavia's economy could follow Russia's
path, to corruption and decline".
Why are syndicate activists beaten?
In Kragujevac, car factory Zastava trade unionists have been
sequestered
and beaten by ex-opposition gangs, people responsible for truck
department
were forced to resign. Progressive Italian daily Manifesto (which rather
supported Kostunica) is appalled:
" Syndicate members have been independent, as much from Milosevic as
from
opposition. They relayed humanitarian operations of Italian syndicates.
But
opposition syndicate activists (formed in Rumania by US experts) are
pressuring the workers, threatening them with massive layoffs. "We
fought
for the workers, without engaging ourselves in politics. This is our
crime!" concluded one of them".
All those facts are linked together. To push through this IMF policy -
high
prices , closing ups, layoffs and gifts to multinationals, every
possibility of syndicate or leftist resistance - must be eliminated. In
Belgrade, one office of New Communist Party has been burned down by
rightist militia.
And if all this is not enough, listen to the threats of American senator
Biden: " If Mr. Kostunica thinks he will be able to continue with one
aggressive nationalist Serbian politics, only under milder appearance,
then
we'll have to talk him out of it. In this case, we should concentrate
our
ex Yugoslavia politics on preparing more democratic and more prosperous
Slovenia, for the next NATO enlargement".
NATO, again? So there, and they kept telling us that Milosevic was the
only
problem over there! And what if the problem was the resistance of
Serbian
people in general, to economical imperialism and military interventions
of
the West? Kostunica - or some other soon - being put in charge to bring
those people up to date. The game is far from being finished in
Yugoslavia.
A lot will depend on the resistance capacity of workers. Some leftist
alternative is indispensable, and resistance is being prepared. We'll be
back there.
******************************************************
Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
" The "October surprise" that brought a change of power in Belgrade was
actually two events, one superimposed on the other. One was a democratic
election, made in Serbia. The other was a totally undemocratic putsch,
made in the "international community", otherwise known as NATOland. "
---
http://www.zmag.org/johnstonem.htm
11 October 2000
IN A SPIN
by Diana Johnstone
The "October surprise" that brought a change of power in Belgrade was
actually two events, one superimposed on the other. One was a democratic
election, made in Serbia. The other was a totally undemocratic putsch,
made
in the "international community", otherwise known as NATOland.
The democratic election would have been sufficient to oblige Slobodan
Milosevic to retire as Yugoslav President. The majority of Yugoslav
voters
had long wished a change in leadership, and Vojislav Kostunica emerged
as
an acceptable alternative.
But the NATO-backed putschists wanted more. They wanted two things that
the
legal elections could not provide: a dramatic media spectacle that would
fit the Western "spin", and a seizure of power beyond the limited powers
of
the Yugoslav presidency.
The Democratic Election
The Yugoslav elections were called by Milosevic himself. Having been
elected President of Serbia in the country's first multi-party elections
in
1990, the "dictator" had followed the constitutional rules and left the
Serbian presidency at the end of his second term, whereupon he was
elected
by the Yugoslav parliament to the mainly symbolic office of Yugoslav
president. Having sponsored a constitutional change which would allow
him
to be re-elected, but by universal suffrage, he went on to call early
elections, months before his term was to run out in mid-2001.
Milosevic was lured into this move by advisors pointing to deceptive
public
opinion polls indicating that he could win by a margin of 150,000 votes
in
the autumn, before winter hardships turned voters against him. This is
similar to the "joke" played on French president Jacques Chirac, who
called
the early elections that brought his left opposition headed by Lionel
Jospin into office. In Paris, it is even rumored that it was a French
advisor who urged Milosevic to make this fatal error.
In short, Milosevic was not a "dictator" but a calculating politician
trying to stay in office in a multi-party electoral system he had
largely
introduced. Aware that his popularity ratings had long been in decline,
he
counted on several factors to help him get the necessary 50% of the vote
to
be re-elected President of Yugoslavia. These were
· the chronic squabbling of the so-called "democratic" (meaning
bourgeois, as the Swedes call the center right) opposition and the
public
rejection of its main leaders (especially Democratic Party leader Zoran
Djindjic);
· the fact that Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic was sure to
call for a boycott of the elections as part of his secession strategy,
which would leave only pro-Milosevic voters willing to go to improvised
polling stations;
· the prospect of a couple of hundred thousand solid votes from
Kosovo constituencies (where ethnic Albanians would, as usual, boycott
the
election) and from the armed forces.
Aware of its weakness, the opposition which had first loudly demanded
early
elections then threatened to boycott them, claiming that they would be
rigged by Milosevic. The NATOland chorus joined in, proclaiming that
Yugoslav elections would not be "fair and free" and that Milosevic was
certain to cheat.
In fact, thanks to a normal democratic system of multi-party supervisors
at
polling stations, cheating in Yugoslav elections was nearly impossible
in
Serbia proper, except perhaps for the hundred thousand or so soldiers
who
vote in barracks. Kosovo and Montenegro offered limited opportunities
for
cheating only because of the obstructionism of the separatists. In the
end,
Milosevic was a whopping 700,000 votes short. Official results gave
Kostunica over 48% of the vote in a five-man race. This fell slightly
short
of the 50% required to win, but indicated an almost certain landslide in
the runoff against Milosevic, who trailed by some ten percentage points.
(Yugoslav electoral law calls for a second round if no candidate wins an
absolute majority in the first round.)
Here is where both sides contributed to a confusion that gave an
opportunity to the putschists to move to steal the election. Apparently
in
a state of shock, the government announced the results slowly and
without
complete details. The "Democratic Opposition in Serbia" (DOS) backing
Kostunica demanded recognition of a claimed first round victory and
announced it would boycott the second round. This raised the danger of a
second round that Milosevic could win by default. The prospect of two
winners -- one in the first round, the other in the second -- would have
created a dangerous civil war situation, favorable to NATO intervention.
Kostunica's backers argued that since Milosevic had cheated in the first
round, he would cheat even more in the second -- this was not plausible,
but widely believed anyway, as the demonization of the former leader and
future scapegoat picked up momentum.
The DOS thereby moved the contest from the ballot box into the streets,
where "the people" would demand recognition of Kostunica's election.
This
prepared the way for power -- and property -- to change hands amid
confusion and violence.
Neither the police nor the Army was willing to support Milosevic against
a
patriotic Serb like Kostunica who had won popular support in a legal
election. Their neutrality seems to have been ensured by the influence
of
two key figures dismissed by Milosevic two years ago, former security
chief
Jovica Stanisic and former army chief of staff Momcilo Perisic, who
retained friends and influence in the police and the armed forces
respectively. The rallying of other figures who had been part of the
Milosevic power structure was hastened by Kostunica's reiterated
assurances
that there would be no vengeance. Former Milosevic followers began
flocking
to the side of Kostunica seeking protection from his short-run supporter
and long-term rival, Zoran Djindjic, well known as Germany's man in
Serbia.
Thus Kostunica gained the Yugoslav presidency both because he was _not_
Milosevic and because he was _not_ Djindjic. But Djindjic has been
strikingly active in grabbing the substance of victory away from the
successful DOS candidate.
The Media Spectacle
It is arguable that Kostunica -- considered the most honest of political
leaders -- could have won the presidential election just as easily (more
easily, some supporters claim) if the United States and its NATO allies
had
refrained from pumping millions of dollars and deutschmarks into the
country to support what they called "the democratic opposition". But it
is
far less likely that without all that excess cash, we would have been
treated to the spectacle of the October 5th "democratic revolution",
when a
large crowd stormed the venerable Skupstina, the parliament building in
the
center of Belgrade. That event, presented to the world public as the
most
spontaneous act of self-liberation, was probably the single most planned
act of all. It was staged for the TV cameras which filmed and relayed
the
same scenes over and over again: youths breaking through windows, flags
waving, flames rising, smoke enveloping what some newspapers described
as
"the symbol of the Milosevic regime".
This was utter nonsense. It was like calling Big Ben the "symbol of the
Blair regime" or the Capitol the "symbol of the Clinton regime". But the
Western spinners needed symbols and drama for the latest episode in the
hit
TV fiction series of the 1990s starring the "genocidal dictator",
Slobodan
Milosevic. It wouldn't do for "Europe's last communist dictator" simply
to
lose a democratic election. Something more exalted was needed. So there
was
an attempt to revive a hit drama of a decade earlier, the "fall of
Ceaucescu", which was also contrived and staged. If Milosevic and his
wife
met the same bloody fate as the Rumanian ruling couple, that would be
"proof" enough for the media that they were equivalent to the dictator
couple of Bucharest.
But they weren't and fortunately it didn't happen quite like that. In
Belgrade there was no equivalent of the Securitate (Rumanian secret
police)
to stage the drama. There was only a gang of toughs bussed in from
Cacak,
as the town's mayor later boasted to Western media, who led the mob up
the
Skupstina steps and easily broke into the scarcely guarded building,
which
was systematically vandalized and set on fire, causing considerable
damage
to public property. The liberators then went on to smash shop windows
and
steal property in nearby shopping streets. This failed to provoke the
bloodshed that would have improved the TV show, but the vandals did
their
best.
The fiercely anti-communist mayor of Cacak, Velimir Ilic, told the
French
news agency AFP that his armed "commando" of 2,000 men had set out quite
deliberately on October 5 to "take control of the key institutions of
the
regime, including the parliament and the television".
"Our action had been prepared in advance. Among my men were ex-parachute
troops, former army and police officers as well as men who had fought in
special forces," he told AFP. "A number of us wore bullet-proof vests
and
carried weapons", he added proudly. Ilic said contact was maintained
throughout the action with high police and Interior Ministry officials,
but
that president-elect Kostunica was unaware of what was going on. "We
were
afraid he'd be opposed", said Ilic. And indeed, when he got word of what
was going on, Kostunica by all accounts prevented the commandos from
hunting down Milosevic and giving their spectacle a bloody finale.
Some of these former "special forces" commandos included veterans of the
civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia. The peak of irony lies in the fact
that
such paramilitaries, primarily responsible for giving the Serbian people
the (unjustified) reputation of "ethnic cleansers" and war criminals,
were
instantly promoted by Western media into heroes of an inspiring
"democratic
revolution". But there is a consistency about it: the same tiny group of
men are able to perform for world media as an exaggerated caricature of
"the Serbs", first as villains, later as heroes.
The ordinary citizens of Belgrade deplored the violence of October 5th,
as
they had deplored the violence of the civil wars. And the large crowds
who
gathered in Belgrade squares to support their candidate, Kostunica, were
blissfully unaware of how they were being used as extras in an
international TV production.
Violence Versus Votes
The law-abiding citizens of Belgrade were also unaware of how the
euphoria
in the streets would provide cover for an ongoing campaign of violence
and
intimidation aimed at changing the whole power structure in Serbia,
outside
of any democratic or legal process. The Skupstina that was targeted for
vandalism was not "the symbol of Milosevic's regime" but a parliament
where
the Socialist Party and its allies still had a duly elected majority.
The
"democratic revolution" in the streets did not attack a Bastille prison
to
liberate dissenters, but the seat of the democratically elected
representatives of the people. The mob ransacked and set fire to the
federal Electoral Commission offices inside the Skupstina, reportedly
setting fire to ballots collected there, making it highly unlikely that
the
disputed first round score will ever be satisfactorily clarified.
The spectacle enabled the managers of street violence to claim the
"democratic revolution" as their own, openly attempting to relegate
Kostunica to a figurehead role.
Since then, throughout the country, Socialist Party headquarters have
been
assaulted and demolished, officials have been beaten and expelled from
their functions by gangs of "democrats". The most lucrative enterprises
have been seized. Strange parallel governments called "crisis
headquarters"
have been set up without any democratic mandate to redistribute property
and offices. The "revolutionaries" can be sure the NATO benefactors of
Serbian democracy will not ask for their money back so long as they
target
the left, which is identified only as "the Milosevic regime". The clear
lesson: "democracy" is not defined by elections, but by NATO approval.
Methods don't matter. The end justifies the means.
Franco-German Rivalries
All through the Yugoslav drama of the past decade, not to mention for
well
over a century, internal conflicts have reflected external great power
rivalries. This is still going on.
Among these rival powers, Russia scarcely counts any more. The Russians
have more to lose from the Western absorption of Serbia than the Serbs
have
to gain from the Russians, who have been too weak to do anything to stop
the steady erosion of their influence in the Balkans. As one observer
put
it, "the Serbs have the impression that the Russians only want to share
their poverty, while the Serbs would rather share American wealth".
The rival powers are now all Western. A few years ago, Paris tried to
support Vuk Draskovic against both Milosevic on the one hand and the
German
party (represented by Djindjic) on the other, but Draskovic proved too
unreliable. Today, the implicit rivalry is between Kostunica, supported
by
France, and Djindjic, supported by Germany.
This division is a matter of political principle as well as personality,
and relates to conflicting French and German views of the future of
Europe.
Kostunica, as is constantly repeated is a "nationalist" or, we could
say, a
patriot, who wants to preserve his nation-state, by giving it a new,
modern
democratic constitution. As a scholar of American federalism, he would
base
a political order for the future Yugoslavia on the American 18th century
model.
For Djindjic, this is old-fashioned nonsense, good only for a
transitional
moment toward the dissolution of all the Balkan nations into a modern
European Union where politics will take a backseat to business.
Djindjic,
who studied Germany, believes in "civil society" where the private
sphere
outweighs the _res publica_, and public political life is reduced to
imagery. Business versus politics could sum up the conflict between
these two.
Kostunica plans to stay in office for only a year, just the time to
complete his constitutional reform. Thereupon Djindjic, who could never
have won this election, openly hopes to take over.
The Economy, Stupid
For many years, the alternate currency in Serbia has been the
Deutschmark,
traded on every street corner by men murmuring "_devize, devize_".
During
the weeks leading up to the fall of Milosevic, so many D-marks have
flooded
into the country that the precious currency recently lost half its
value.
Everyone believes that most of this money flows in through Djindjic. It
seems to have been spent less on the election (Yugoslav election
campaigns
are not the expensive affairs run in the United States) than on
preparing
aspects of "the putsch" that followed: the forceful takeover of media by
"independent" (i.e., NATO-approved) journalists, of key businesses and
official positions which has been going on since the October 5 arson of
the
Skupstina.
The European Union has moved quickly to lift some economic sanctions
against Serbia and Madeleine Albright has also proclaimed the need to
give
the Serbian people "some dividends out of democracy" and to help
President
Kostunica. "We want to support him, we want to get assistance to him.
I've
been talking to our European partners. We will be lifting certain
economic
sanctions to make sure that the people can recover and the Danube is
cleared," she declared.
Here the key word is "Danube". NATO bombing destroyed Serb bridges and
blocked the Danube to European shipping, much of it German. The priority
for Germany is to reopen the Danube, and it is for this purpose that
important funds will be provided. To be precise, funds will be _lent_:
Western generosity will take its usual form of the "debt trap", and
Yugoslav public services will have to be cut back for years to come in
order to repay the Western powers for rebuilding the transportation
structure they themselves destroyed. The reconstructed transportation
structure will be used to ship other people's commercial goods through
the
country to other people's markets. The "democratic dividend" will mainly
benefit German business.
But for the moment, the Serbian voters do not want to worry about that.
They have been bombed, isolated, sanctioned, banned from traveling to
other
countries, reduced to poverty and treated as pariahs. Their main "crime"
was to have wanted to preserve multiethnic Yugoslavia and to have been
reluctant to give up all the benefits of self-management socialism in
favor
of the "shock treatment" impoverishing people in Russia and neighboring
Bulgaria. Since Yugoslavia was not part of the Soviet bloc, its people
were
slow to realize that the defeat of the Soviet bloc meant that they too
had
to bow to the dictates of the West. Now they can dream of being "normal"
Europeans again. For a relatively small minority, the dream of
prosperity
will no doubt come true. For others, there will be some unpleasant
surprises. But that doesn't matter now. People have had enough of not
being
paid their wages more than a couple of months out of the year, of having
to
heat only one room, of shortages and travel bans. Young people,
especially,
want to live like other Europeans of their generation
"People in Serbia are not looking for the truth", observed Serbian
writer
Milan Ratkovic, who lives in Paris. "They are looking for comforting
lies."
From being portrayed as monsters, the Serbs are suddenly being
celebrated
by Western media as heroes. They can turn on Western TV and see heroic
images of themselves. "Look," says Ratkovic, "we held out longer than
anybody else in Eastern Europe. Against us, the West had to use all its
weapons and all its tricks." Sometimes the only way to solve a problem
is
to change problems.
actually two events, one superimposed on the other. One was a democratic
election, made in Serbia. The other was a totally undemocratic putsch,
made in the "international community", otherwise known as NATOland. "
---
http://www.zmag.org/johnstonem.htm
11 October 2000
IN A SPIN
by Diana Johnstone
The "October surprise" that brought a change of power in Belgrade was
actually two events, one superimposed on the other. One was a democratic
election, made in Serbia. The other was a totally undemocratic putsch,
made
in the "international community", otherwise known as NATOland.
The democratic election would have been sufficient to oblige Slobodan
Milosevic to retire as Yugoslav President. The majority of Yugoslav
voters
had long wished a change in leadership, and Vojislav Kostunica emerged
as
an acceptable alternative.
But the NATO-backed putschists wanted more. They wanted two things that
the
legal elections could not provide: a dramatic media spectacle that would
fit the Western "spin", and a seizure of power beyond the limited powers
of
the Yugoslav presidency.
The Democratic Election
The Yugoslav elections were called by Milosevic himself. Having been
elected President of Serbia in the country's first multi-party elections
in
1990, the "dictator" had followed the constitutional rules and left the
Serbian presidency at the end of his second term, whereupon he was
elected
by the Yugoslav parliament to the mainly symbolic office of Yugoslav
president. Having sponsored a constitutional change which would allow
him
to be re-elected, but by universal suffrage, he went on to call early
elections, months before his term was to run out in mid-2001.
Milosevic was lured into this move by advisors pointing to deceptive
public
opinion polls indicating that he could win by a margin of 150,000 votes
in
the autumn, before winter hardships turned voters against him. This is
similar to the "joke" played on French president Jacques Chirac, who
called
the early elections that brought his left opposition headed by Lionel
Jospin into office. In Paris, it is even rumored that it was a French
advisor who urged Milosevic to make this fatal error.
In short, Milosevic was not a "dictator" but a calculating politician
trying to stay in office in a multi-party electoral system he had
largely
introduced. Aware that his popularity ratings had long been in decline,
he
counted on several factors to help him get the necessary 50% of the vote
to
be re-elected President of Yugoslavia. These were
· the chronic squabbling of the so-called "democratic" (meaning
bourgeois, as the Swedes call the center right) opposition and the
public
rejection of its main leaders (especially Democratic Party leader Zoran
Djindjic);
· the fact that Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic was sure to
call for a boycott of the elections as part of his secession strategy,
which would leave only pro-Milosevic voters willing to go to improvised
polling stations;
· the prospect of a couple of hundred thousand solid votes from
Kosovo constituencies (where ethnic Albanians would, as usual, boycott
the
election) and from the armed forces.
Aware of its weakness, the opposition which had first loudly demanded
early
elections then threatened to boycott them, claiming that they would be
rigged by Milosevic. The NATOland chorus joined in, proclaiming that
Yugoslav elections would not be "fair and free" and that Milosevic was
certain to cheat.
In fact, thanks to a normal democratic system of multi-party supervisors
at
polling stations, cheating in Yugoslav elections was nearly impossible
in
Serbia proper, except perhaps for the hundred thousand or so soldiers
who
vote in barracks. Kosovo and Montenegro offered limited opportunities
for
cheating only because of the obstructionism of the separatists. In the
end,
Milosevic was a whopping 700,000 votes short. Official results gave
Kostunica over 48% of the vote in a five-man race. This fell slightly
short
of the 50% required to win, but indicated an almost certain landslide in
the runoff against Milosevic, who trailed by some ten percentage points.
(Yugoslav electoral law calls for a second round if no candidate wins an
absolute majority in the first round.)
Here is where both sides contributed to a confusion that gave an
opportunity to the putschists to move to steal the election. Apparently
in
a state of shock, the government announced the results slowly and
without
complete details. The "Democratic Opposition in Serbia" (DOS) backing
Kostunica demanded recognition of a claimed first round victory and
announced it would boycott the second round. This raised the danger of a
second round that Milosevic could win by default. The prospect of two
winners -- one in the first round, the other in the second -- would have
created a dangerous civil war situation, favorable to NATO intervention.
Kostunica's backers argued that since Milosevic had cheated in the first
round, he would cheat even more in the second -- this was not plausible,
but widely believed anyway, as the demonization of the former leader and
future scapegoat picked up momentum.
The DOS thereby moved the contest from the ballot box into the streets,
where "the people" would demand recognition of Kostunica's election.
This
prepared the way for power -- and property -- to change hands amid
confusion and violence.
Neither the police nor the Army was willing to support Milosevic against
a
patriotic Serb like Kostunica who had won popular support in a legal
election. Their neutrality seems to have been ensured by the influence
of
two key figures dismissed by Milosevic two years ago, former security
chief
Jovica Stanisic and former army chief of staff Momcilo Perisic, who
retained friends and influence in the police and the armed forces
respectively. The rallying of other figures who had been part of the
Milosevic power structure was hastened by Kostunica's reiterated
assurances
that there would be no vengeance. Former Milosevic followers began
flocking
to the side of Kostunica seeking protection from his short-run supporter
and long-term rival, Zoran Djindjic, well known as Germany's man in
Serbia.
Thus Kostunica gained the Yugoslav presidency both because he was _not_
Milosevic and because he was _not_ Djindjic. But Djindjic has been
strikingly active in grabbing the substance of victory away from the
successful DOS candidate.
The Media Spectacle
It is arguable that Kostunica -- considered the most honest of political
leaders -- could have won the presidential election just as easily (more
easily, some supporters claim) if the United States and its NATO allies
had
refrained from pumping millions of dollars and deutschmarks into the
country to support what they called "the democratic opposition". But it
is
far less likely that without all that excess cash, we would have been
treated to the spectacle of the October 5th "democratic revolution",
when a
large crowd stormed the venerable Skupstina, the parliament building in
the
center of Belgrade. That event, presented to the world public as the
most
spontaneous act of self-liberation, was probably the single most planned
act of all. It was staged for the TV cameras which filmed and relayed
the
same scenes over and over again: youths breaking through windows, flags
waving, flames rising, smoke enveloping what some newspapers described
as
"the symbol of the Milosevic regime".
This was utter nonsense. It was like calling Big Ben the "symbol of the
Blair regime" or the Capitol the "symbol of the Clinton regime". But the
Western spinners needed symbols and drama for the latest episode in the
hit
TV fiction series of the 1990s starring the "genocidal dictator",
Slobodan
Milosevic. It wouldn't do for "Europe's last communist dictator" simply
to
lose a democratic election. Something more exalted was needed. So there
was
an attempt to revive a hit drama of a decade earlier, the "fall of
Ceaucescu", which was also contrived and staged. If Milosevic and his
wife
met the same bloody fate as the Rumanian ruling couple, that would be
"proof" enough for the media that they were equivalent to the dictator
couple of Bucharest.
But they weren't and fortunately it didn't happen quite like that. In
Belgrade there was no equivalent of the Securitate (Rumanian secret
police)
to stage the drama. There was only a gang of toughs bussed in from
Cacak,
as the town's mayor later boasted to Western media, who led the mob up
the
Skupstina steps and easily broke into the scarcely guarded building,
which
was systematically vandalized and set on fire, causing considerable
damage
to public property. The liberators then went on to smash shop windows
and
steal property in nearby shopping streets. This failed to provoke the
bloodshed that would have improved the TV show, but the vandals did
their
best.
The fiercely anti-communist mayor of Cacak, Velimir Ilic, told the
French
news agency AFP that his armed "commando" of 2,000 men had set out quite
deliberately on October 5 to "take control of the key institutions of
the
regime, including the parliament and the television".
"Our action had been prepared in advance. Among my men were ex-parachute
troops, former army and police officers as well as men who had fought in
special forces," he told AFP. "A number of us wore bullet-proof vests
and
carried weapons", he added proudly. Ilic said contact was maintained
throughout the action with high police and Interior Ministry officials,
but
that president-elect Kostunica was unaware of what was going on. "We
were
afraid he'd be opposed", said Ilic. And indeed, when he got word of what
was going on, Kostunica by all accounts prevented the commandos from
hunting down Milosevic and giving their spectacle a bloody finale.
Some of these former "special forces" commandos included veterans of the
civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia. The peak of irony lies in the fact
that
such paramilitaries, primarily responsible for giving the Serbian people
the (unjustified) reputation of "ethnic cleansers" and war criminals,
were
instantly promoted by Western media into heroes of an inspiring
"democratic
revolution". But there is a consistency about it: the same tiny group of
men are able to perform for world media as an exaggerated caricature of
"the Serbs", first as villains, later as heroes.
The ordinary citizens of Belgrade deplored the violence of October 5th,
as
they had deplored the violence of the civil wars. And the large crowds
who
gathered in Belgrade squares to support their candidate, Kostunica, were
blissfully unaware of how they were being used as extras in an
international TV production.
Violence Versus Votes
The law-abiding citizens of Belgrade were also unaware of how the
euphoria
in the streets would provide cover for an ongoing campaign of violence
and
intimidation aimed at changing the whole power structure in Serbia,
outside
of any democratic or legal process. The Skupstina that was targeted for
vandalism was not "the symbol of Milosevic's regime" but a parliament
where
the Socialist Party and its allies still had a duly elected majority.
The
"democratic revolution" in the streets did not attack a Bastille prison
to
liberate dissenters, but the seat of the democratically elected
representatives of the people. The mob ransacked and set fire to the
federal Electoral Commission offices inside the Skupstina, reportedly
setting fire to ballots collected there, making it highly unlikely that
the
disputed first round score will ever be satisfactorily clarified.
The spectacle enabled the managers of street violence to claim the
"democratic revolution" as their own, openly attempting to relegate
Kostunica to a figurehead role.
Since then, throughout the country, Socialist Party headquarters have
been
assaulted and demolished, officials have been beaten and expelled from
their functions by gangs of "democrats". The most lucrative enterprises
have been seized. Strange parallel governments called "crisis
headquarters"
have been set up without any democratic mandate to redistribute property
and offices. The "revolutionaries" can be sure the NATO benefactors of
Serbian democracy will not ask for their money back so long as they
target
the left, which is identified only as "the Milosevic regime". The clear
lesson: "democracy" is not defined by elections, but by NATO approval.
Methods don't matter. The end justifies the means.
Franco-German Rivalries
All through the Yugoslav drama of the past decade, not to mention for
well
over a century, internal conflicts have reflected external great power
rivalries. This is still going on.
Among these rival powers, Russia scarcely counts any more. The Russians
have more to lose from the Western absorption of Serbia than the Serbs
have
to gain from the Russians, who have been too weak to do anything to stop
the steady erosion of their influence in the Balkans. As one observer
put
it, "the Serbs have the impression that the Russians only want to share
their poverty, while the Serbs would rather share American wealth".
The rival powers are now all Western. A few years ago, Paris tried to
support Vuk Draskovic against both Milosevic on the one hand and the
German
party (represented by Djindjic) on the other, but Draskovic proved too
unreliable. Today, the implicit rivalry is between Kostunica, supported
by
France, and Djindjic, supported by Germany.
This division is a matter of political principle as well as personality,
and relates to conflicting French and German views of the future of
Europe.
Kostunica, as is constantly repeated is a "nationalist" or, we could
say, a
patriot, who wants to preserve his nation-state, by giving it a new,
modern
democratic constitution. As a scholar of American federalism, he would
base
a political order for the future Yugoslavia on the American 18th century
model.
For Djindjic, this is old-fashioned nonsense, good only for a
transitional
moment toward the dissolution of all the Balkan nations into a modern
European Union where politics will take a backseat to business.
Djindjic,
who studied Germany, believes in "civil society" where the private
sphere
outweighs the _res publica_, and public political life is reduced to
imagery. Business versus politics could sum up the conflict between
these two.
Kostunica plans to stay in office for only a year, just the time to
complete his constitutional reform. Thereupon Djindjic, who could never
have won this election, openly hopes to take over.
The Economy, Stupid
For many years, the alternate currency in Serbia has been the
Deutschmark,
traded on every street corner by men murmuring "_devize, devize_".
During
the weeks leading up to the fall of Milosevic, so many D-marks have
flooded
into the country that the precious currency recently lost half its
value.
Everyone believes that most of this money flows in through Djindjic. It
seems to have been spent less on the election (Yugoslav election
campaigns
are not the expensive affairs run in the United States) than on
preparing
aspects of "the putsch" that followed: the forceful takeover of media by
"independent" (i.e., NATO-approved) journalists, of key businesses and
official positions which has been going on since the October 5 arson of
the
Skupstina.
The European Union has moved quickly to lift some economic sanctions
against Serbia and Madeleine Albright has also proclaimed the need to
give
the Serbian people "some dividends out of democracy" and to help
President
Kostunica. "We want to support him, we want to get assistance to him.
I've
been talking to our European partners. We will be lifting certain
economic
sanctions to make sure that the people can recover and the Danube is
cleared," she declared.
Here the key word is "Danube". NATO bombing destroyed Serb bridges and
blocked the Danube to European shipping, much of it German. The priority
for Germany is to reopen the Danube, and it is for this purpose that
important funds will be provided. To be precise, funds will be _lent_:
Western generosity will take its usual form of the "debt trap", and
Yugoslav public services will have to be cut back for years to come in
order to repay the Western powers for rebuilding the transportation
structure they themselves destroyed. The reconstructed transportation
structure will be used to ship other people's commercial goods through
the
country to other people's markets. The "democratic dividend" will mainly
benefit German business.
But for the moment, the Serbian voters do not want to worry about that.
They have been bombed, isolated, sanctioned, banned from traveling to
other
countries, reduced to poverty and treated as pariahs. Their main "crime"
was to have wanted to preserve multiethnic Yugoslavia and to have been
reluctant to give up all the benefits of self-management socialism in
favor
of the "shock treatment" impoverishing people in Russia and neighboring
Bulgaria. Since Yugoslavia was not part of the Soviet bloc, its people
were
slow to realize that the defeat of the Soviet bloc meant that they too
had
to bow to the dictates of the West. Now they can dream of being "normal"
Europeans again. For a relatively small minority, the dream of
prosperity
will no doubt come true. For others, there will be some unpleasant
surprises. But that doesn't matter now. People have had enough of not
being
paid their wages more than a couple of months out of the year, of having
to
heat only one room, of shortages and travel bans. Young people,
especially,
want to live like other Europeans of their generation
"People in Serbia are not looking for the truth", observed Serbian
writer
Milan Ratkovic, who lives in Paris. "They are looking for comforting
lies."
From being portrayed as monsters, the Serbs are suddenly being
celebrated
by Western media as heroes. They can turn on Western TV and see heroic
images of themselves. "Look," says Ratkovic, "we held out longer than
anybody else in Eastern Europe. Against us, the West had to use all its
weapons and all its tricks." Sometimes the only way to solve a problem
is
to change problems.
La lotta continua
nonostante la sconfitta a Belgrado
11 ottobre
di Sara Flounders e John Catalinotto
Di fronte all'enorme pressione degli Stati Uniti e dei
loro alleati della NATO, a una
manifestazione di 200.000 persone che chiedevano che si
ritirasse e agli attacchi violenti
di unit� paramilitari organizzate, il presidente jugoslavo
Slobodan Milosevic si � dimesso
il 6 ottobre.
Gli avvenimenti pongono due interrogativi di importanza
vitale per la classe operaia e i
movimenti contro la guerra e progressisti in tutto il
mondo.
Il primo �: da che parte state? E' stata una vittoria del
popolo, come proclamano i grandi
mezzi di comunicazione di massa, o una sconfitta per la
classe operaia in Jugoslavia e in
tutto il mondo?
Il secondo interrogativo riguarda l'esito dello scontro in
atto: quale classe avr� il
controllo dello stato, cio� dell'esercito, la polizia, le
leggi e i tribunali? La classe
capitalistica internazionale, che controlla la Banca
Mondiale, il Fondo Monretario
Internazionale, le grandi banche di investimento e le
societ� multinazionali avr� ora il
controllo di tutte le leve della vita economica e politica
anche in Jugoslavia?
Le manifestazioni di massa hanno dato agli avvenimenti le
sembianze di una insurrezione
rivoluzionaria. Ma si tratta di un'apparenza ingannevole,
perch� abbiamo in realt�
assistito a un golpe controrivoluzionario sostenuto dalla
NATO, un golpe ancora
incompleto contro il quale � possibile resistere.
I dirigenti della NATO acclamano Kostunica
L'indicazione pi� ovvia sul carattere degli avvenimenti �
venuta dai dirigenti dei paesi
NATO che l'anno scorso hanno condotto per 11 settimane la
brutale campagna di
bombardamento della Jugoslavia. L'entusiasmo sfrenato del
presidente americano Bill
Clinton, del segretario di stato Madeleine Albright, del
primo ministro britannico Tony
Blair, del cancelliere tedesco Gerhard Schroeder e del suo
ministro degli esteri, il verde
Joshka Fischer, dovrebbe essere sufficiente a chiarire il
significato degli avvenimenti
della settimana scorsa per chi avesse pensato che il voto
per Kostunica o la sommossa a
Belgrado fosse una vittoria della democrazia.
Ebbri del loro apparente successo e ansiosi di
attribuirsene il merito, i politici da
Washington a Berlino vantano ora i loro sforzi organizzati
per rovesciare il governo
Milosevic.
Ecco qualche esempio:
7 ottobre (Reuters) La Germania ha fatto sapere sabato di
aver sostenuto l'opposizione
jugoslava con finanziamenti di milioni di marchi.
Anche la Norvegia ha affermato di aver contribuito a
finanziare la campagna elettorale
che ha portato alla vittoria del candidato
dell'opposizione Vojislav Kostunica e subito
dopo al rovesciamento dell'uomo forte presidente Slobodan
Milosevic.
Il settimanale Der Spiegel parla di circa 30 milioni di
dollari quasi tutti di provenienza
statunitense fatti passare tramite un ufficio a Budapest.
Altri 45 milioni di marchi dalla Germania e da altri paesi
occidentali sono stati pagati alle
amministrazioni locali controllate dall'opposizione. Lo
Spiegel scrive che il ministero
degli esteri ha mandato circa 17 milioni di marchi tramite
16 citt� tedesche che vi hanno
aggiunto il loro contributo.
9 ottobre (Agence France Presse) "Il capo di stato
maggiore USA, generale Henry
Shelton, ha lodato luned� la Bulgaria per il contributo
dato al rovesciamento del
presidente jugoslavo Milosevic"
La loro tattica comprendeva il pompaggio di decine di
milioni di dollari ai partiti di
opposizione, in un'economia ridotta alla fame e distorta
da otto anni di sanzioni. C'erano
poi le minacce militari di utilizzare, in caso di vittoria
di Milosevic, le bombe NATO e le
truppe di stanza nei paesi confinanti e le promesse ben
pubblicizzate di por fine alle
sanzioni e dare inizio a un'era di pace e prosperit� se
fosse stato eletto Kostunica.
Kostunica � un politico anticomunista di basso profilo e
professore di diritto
costituzionale, sostenuto da 18 piccoli partiti divisi su
tutto messi insieme da Washington
con finanziamenti e pressioni brutali per formare la
"Opposizione Democratica Serba"
(DOS). Kostunica si � presentato sulla base del programma
economico del Gruppo dei
17, redatto da economisti jugoslavi che lavorano per il
Fondo Monetario e la Banca
Mondiale. Le "soluzioni" che prospettano per la Jugoslavia
comprendono la fine del
sistema sanitario gratuito e di ogni sussidio per gli
affitti, l'alimentazione e il trasporto.
L'obiettivo � la trasformazione di tutta l'economia con la
rapida privatizzazione della
maggior parte delle industrie e la vendita a basso prezzo
a investitori stranieri di quelle
che garantiscono maggiori profitti. Anche in economie
assai pi� prospere, questo tipo di
terapia choc � sfociato in licenziamenti di massa.
Basta vedere come sono precipitati i tenori di vita dei
lavoratori dei paesi confinanti,
come la Romania e la Bulgaria, quando hanno aperto le loro
economie alle banche
imperialiste e adottato le ricette del FMI.
Ma � proprio questo l'obiettivo che la coalizione di
Kostunica sembra perseguire.
L'agenzia Reuters riferiva il 10 ottobre le parole
dell'economista della DOS Miroljub
Labus, secondo il quale il FMI avrebbe accolto entro il 14
dicembre la Jugoslavia nel suo
ovile se l'opposizione avesse formato in tempi brevi il
suo governo.
Il ruolo del Partito Socialista
Nonostante le molte concessioni e i compromessi, il
Partito Socialista Serbo di Milosevic
ha lottato per mantenere l'indipendenza della Jugoslavia.
Ci� gli ha guadagnato l'ostilit�
della reazione imperialista mondiale. Per 10 anni gli
imperialisti USA e dell'Unione
Europea hanno fatto di tutto per smembrare la Federazione
Socialista Jugoslava e spazzar
via persino la memoria di questo stato multietnico, mentre
il PSS e il partito alleato della
Sinistra Jugoslava resistevano.
I mezzi di comunicazione di massa dell'imperialismo hanno
demonizzato Milosevic
chiamandolo dittatore. Ma Milosevic e il suo partito erano
stati eletti per governare la
Jugoslavia, avevano guadagnato stima e rispetto per aver
guidato l'eroico popolo
jugoslavo nelle 11 settimane di combattimento contro
l'aggressione NATO e avevano
difeso l'economia jugoslava dalla penetrazione
imperialista.
E' vero che il PSS ha perso il sostegno attivo della
classe operaia che era stata la sua base.
Il partito non � riuscito finora a mobilitare le masse per
difendersi dagli attacchi. Tuttavia
Milosevic ha avuto due milioni di voti e il Partito
Socialista ha la maggioranza legale in
organismi importanti, compresi il Parlamento Federale
Jugoslavo e quello della Serbia.
Ma sarebbe sciocco pensare che Washington e i suoi alleati
limitino le loro tattiche al
terreno della legalit� parlamentare.
Lotta per il potere
In un periodo di competizione pacifica e di discussione, i
18 partiti della DOS che
sostengono Kostunica si dividerebbero subito. Kostunica �
un monarchico e nazionalista
serbo, mentre altre formazioni della coalizione sono
antimonarchiche e si battono per
l'indipendenza delle province della Voivodina e del
Sangiaccato dalla Serbia.
Inoltre un congruo periodo di pacifica dialettica politica
dimostrerebbe che il programma
economico di Kostunica rappresenta per i lavoratori
jugoslavi un disastro peggiore delle
sanzioni e l'inevitabile svendita della sovranit�
jugoslava e serba offenderebbe molti dei
suoi attuali sostenitori.
Ecco perch� Washington e i suoi agenti sono passati subito
a metodi extralegali per
impadronirsi di tutto l'apparato dello stato e hanno preso
di mira i ministeri chiave e in
particolare gli apparati di sicurezza, la polizia, il
sistema bancario e tutto l'apparato
mediatico e attaccato violentemente il PS e gli altri
partiti di sinistra.
Nelle elezioni il Partito Socialista e la Sinistra
Jugoslava hanno conquistato la
maggioranza in tutte e due le Camere del Parlamento
Federale. Secondo la costituzione
jugoslava, il Parlamento � pi� importante giuridicamente
della presidenza, che ha compiti
di rappresentanza. Ancora maggiore � l'influenza del
Parlamento Serbo dove la sinistra �
in posizione dominante e che su pressione del DOS ha
convocato per dicembre nuove
elezioni.
Gli strateghi imperialisti spingono in direzione del
rapido controllo dell'intero apparato
statale, il che significa epurare i dirigenti della
polizia e distruggere l'esercito jugoslavo
che ha le sue radici nella rivoluzione socialista del 1945
e nella lotta partigiana contro i
nazisti.
Privato di un apparato armato che lo difenda, il popolo e
in particolare la classe operaia
jugoslava sar� alla merc� dei banchieri e degli
imprenditori imperialisti che hanno le
forze NATO nel Kosovo e nei paesi limitrofi e i loro
agenti a Belgrado.
Le bande extralegali dell'imperialismo
Le bande anti-Milosevic hano attaccato i partiti di
sinistra e i centri del governo. Velimir
Ilic, sindaco di Cacac, nonch� un disertore che aveva
rifiutato di cooperare con l'esercito
jugoslavo durante la resistenza contro la NATO dell'anno
scorso, si � vantato sul New
York Times di aver organizzato commandos anti-Milosevic.
Dice Ilic: "Abbiamo
organizzato una squadra di giovani professionisti, par�
dell'esercito jugoslavo e giovani
poliziotti e ci siamo coordinati con le unit� di elite
della polizia del ministero degli interni
a Belgrado. A noi si sono uniti esperti di arti marziali e
boxeurs professionisti. Avevamo
anche poliziotti in abiti cvili per il coordinamento con
le citt� vicine".
Ilic ha dichiarato alla Agence France Presse che disponeva
di 2000 uomini e che una
parte era armata. "Un certo numero dei nostri aveva
giubbotti antiproiettile e armi: Il
nostro obiettivo era molto chiaro: assumere il controllo
delle istituzioni chiave del
regime, compreso il Parlamento e la televisione". Non ha
detto se fossero pagati e da chi,
ma si � vantato che le sue forze, con divise della
polizia, avevano aperto il Parlamento e
seminato confusione tra i ranghi dei poliziotti. Dentro,
aveva presentato la banda a Zoran
Djindjic, l'organizzatore della campagna di Kostunica.
Secondo Michel Collon, corrispondente del settimanale
belga Solidaire da Belgrado,
Djindjic aveva coordinato gli attacchi al Parlamento e
alla Televisione serba e aveva fatto
uso di pressioni e minacce contro i giornalisti per
prender possesso della pi� importante
televisione pubblica, della radio e della stampa, compreso
il quotidiano Politika.
Gli squadristi di Djindjic, subito dopo la presa del
Parlamento, avevano messo a
soqquadro anche la sede del PS di Belgrado e quella del
piccolo Nuovo Partito
Comunista Jugoslavo. A Belgrado e dintorni sono state
incendiate inoltre le case di
attivisti del Partito Socialista e fatti anche pi� gravi
sono accaduti in provincia.
La lotta continua
Il 10 ottobre i dirigenti della DOS hannno raggiunto un
accordo con il Partito Popolare
Socialista del Montenegro per nominare il dirigente di
quel partito, Pedrag Bulatovic,
nuovo primo ministro nel Parlamento Federale Jugoslavo.
Bulatovic ha dichiarato che il
suo partito, che era allineato con il Partito Socialista
di Milosevic, intendeva formare un
governo con la DOS "per bilanciare le forze politiche nel
Parlamento Federale".
Ci vorrebbe molto pi� spazio per spiegare tutte le
possibili manovre parlamentari. Ma
questo � davvero secondario. Washington e i suoi agenti
impiegheranno pressioni di ogni
tipo contro gli individui, i partiti politici e la
popolazione nel suo complesso per impedire
che la dialettica politica pacifica sbarri la strada alla
controrivoluzione.
Collon e altri corrispondenti da Belgrado hanno notato che
la popolazione era disgustata
dall'incendio del Parlamento e dalle altre violenze. Anche
i sostenitori di Kostunica
dicono di aver votato per una vita migliore, non per le
vendette. Ma se la polizia e
l'esercito evitano di impegnarsi a mantenere l'ordine,
solo l'organizzazione attiva della
sinistra potr� difendere le sue posizioni.
Il ministro della difesa jugoslavo generale Dragoljub
Ojdanic ha rivolto un appello
pressante al Partito Socialista perch� mobiliti le sue
forze. In una lettera aperta, Ojdanic
mette in guardia i Serbi dal pericolo di estinguersi come
popolo. "La divisione tra i Serbi,
dice il generale, favorisce i piani dei nostri nemici
dichiarati" per occupare il paese. Il
generale fa riferimento ai legami della DOS con la NATO.
Qui negli Stati Uniti � importante in primo luogo che la
sinistra comprenda che gli
avvenimenti del 5-6 ottobre rappresentano un duro colpo
per i lavoratori e per la
sovranit� della Jugoslavia. Serve la solidariet� attiva
con coloro che in Jugoslavia
continuano a resistere allo sviluppo della
controrivoluzione, siano essi nel Partito
Socialista, negli altri partiti di sinistra, nei
sindacati, o nella polizia e nell'esercito.
L'imperialismo � riuscito a strappare con le sue grinfie
una posizione di considerevole
potere in Jugoslavia oggi. Ma la lotta continua.
Gli autori di questo articolo hanno organizzato il 10
giugno scorso a New York il
Tribunale Internazionale che ha condannato i crimini
commessi dalla NATO nei 78
giorni di bombardamento della Jugoslavia.
(Traduzione italiana a cura del
TRIBUNALE ITALIANO
CONTRO I CRIMINI DELLA NATO
e-mail: tribunaleclark@...
fax. 068174010
tel : 0338-7963539)
---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono
fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di
segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Per contributi e segnalazioni: jugocoord@...
*** QUESTO SERVIZIO E' ANCORA IN FASE SPERIMENTALE ***
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Da oggi su
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nonostante la sconfitta a Belgrado
11 ottobre
di Sara Flounders e John Catalinotto
Di fronte all'enorme pressione degli Stati Uniti e dei
loro alleati della NATO, a una
manifestazione di 200.000 persone che chiedevano che si
ritirasse e agli attacchi violenti
di unit� paramilitari organizzate, il presidente jugoslavo
Slobodan Milosevic si � dimesso
il 6 ottobre.
Gli avvenimenti pongono due interrogativi di importanza
vitale per la classe operaia e i
movimenti contro la guerra e progressisti in tutto il
mondo.
Il primo �: da che parte state? E' stata una vittoria del
popolo, come proclamano i grandi
mezzi di comunicazione di massa, o una sconfitta per la
classe operaia in Jugoslavia e in
tutto il mondo?
Il secondo interrogativo riguarda l'esito dello scontro in
atto: quale classe avr� il
controllo dello stato, cio� dell'esercito, la polizia, le
leggi e i tribunali? La classe
capitalistica internazionale, che controlla la Banca
Mondiale, il Fondo Monretario
Internazionale, le grandi banche di investimento e le
societ� multinazionali avr� ora il
controllo di tutte le leve della vita economica e politica
anche in Jugoslavia?
Le manifestazioni di massa hanno dato agli avvenimenti le
sembianze di una insurrezione
rivoluzionaria. Ma si tratta di un'apparenza ingannevole,
perch� abbiamo in realt�
assistito a un golpe controrivoluzionario sostenuto dalla
NATO, un golpe ancora
incompleto contro il quale � possibile resistere.
I dirigenti della NATO acclamano Kostunica
L'indicazione pi� ovvia sul carattere degli avvenimenti �
venuta dai dirigenti dei paesi
NATO che l'anno scorso hanno condotto per 11 settimane la
brutale campagna di
bombardamento della Jugoslavia. L'entusiasmo sfrenato del
presidente americano Bill
Clinton, del segretario di stato Madeleine Albright, del
primo ministro britannico Tony
Blair, del cancelliere tedesco Gerhard Schroeder e del suo
ministro degli esteri, il verde
Joshka Fischer, dovrebbe essere sufficiente a chiarire il
significato degli avvenimenti
della settimana scorsa per chi avesse pensato che il voto
per Kostunica o la sommossa a
Belgrado fosse una vittoria della democrazia.
Ebbri del loro apparente successo e ansiosi di
attribuirsene il merito, i politici da
Washington a Berlino vantano ora i loro sforzi organizzati
per rovesciare il governo
Milosevic.
Ecco qualche esempio:
7 ottobre (Reuters) La Germania ha fatto sapere sabato di
aver sostenuto l'opposizione
jugoslava con finanziamenti di milioni di marchi.
Anche la Norvegia ha affermato di aver contribuito a
finanziare la campagna elettorale
che ha portato alla vittoria del candidato
dell'opposizione Vojislav Kostunica e subito
dopo al rovesciamento dell'uomo forte presidente Slobodan
Milosevic.
Il settimanale Der Spiegel parla di circa 30 milioni di
dollari quasi tutti di provenienza
statunitense fatti passare tramite un ufficio a Budapest.
Altri 45 milioni di marchi dalla Germania e da altri paesi
occidentali sono stati pagati alle
amministrazioni locali controllate dall'opposizione. Lo
Spiegel scrive che il ministero
degli esteri ha mandato circa 17 milioni di marchi tramite
16 citt� tedesche che vi hanno
aggiunto il loro contributo.
9 ottobre (Agence France Presse) "Il capo di stato
maggiore USA, generale Henry
Shelton, ha lodato luned� la Bulgaria per il contributo
dato al rovesciamento del
presidente jugoslavo Milosevic"
La loro tattica comprendeva il pompaggio di decine di
milioni di dollari ai partiti di
opposizione, in un'economia ridotta alla fame e distorta
da otto anni di sanzioni. C'erano
poi le minacce militari di utilizzare, in caso di vittoria
di Milosevic, le bombe NATO e le
truppe di stanza nei paesi confinanti e le promesse ben
pubblicizzate di por fine alle
sanzioni e dare inizio a un'era di pace e prosperit� se
fosse stato eletto Kostunica.
Kostunica � un politico anticomunista di basso profilo e
professore di diritto
costituzionale, sostenuto da 18 piccoli partiti divisi su
tutto messi insieme da Washington
con finanziamenti e pressioni brutali per formare la
"Opposizione Democratica Serba"
(DOS). Kostunica si � presentato sulla base del programma
economico del Gruppo dei
17, redatto da economisti jugoslavi che lavorano per il
Fondo Monetario e la Banca
Mondiale. Le "soluzioni" che prospettano per la Jugoslavia
comprendono la fine del
sistema sanitario gratuito e di ogni sussidio per gli
affitti, l'alimentazione e il trasporto.
L'obiettivo � la trasformazione di tutta l'economia con la
rapida privatizzazione della
maggior parte delle industrie e la vendita a basso prezzo
a investitori stranieri di quelle
che garantiscono maggiori profitti. Anche in economie
assai pi� prospere, questo tipo di
terapia choc � sfociato in licenziamenti di massa.
Basta vedere come sono precipitati i tenori di vita dei
lavoratori dei paesi confinanti,
come la Romania e la Bulgaria, quando hanno aperto le loro
economie alle banche
imperialiste e adottato le ricette del FMI.
Ma � proprio questo l'obiettivo che la coalizione di
Kostunica sembra perseguire.
L'agenzia Reuters riferiva il 10 ottobre le parole
dell'economista della DOS Miroljub
Labus, secondo il quale il FMI avrebbe accolto entro il 14
dicembre la Jugoslavia nel suo
ovile se l'opposizione avesse formato in tempi brevi il
suo governo.
Il ruolo del Partito Socialista
Nonostante le molte concessioni e i compromessi, il
Partito Socialista Serbo di Milosevic
ha lottato per mantenere l'indipendenza della Jugoslavia.
Ci� gli ha guadagnato l'ostilit�
della reazione imperialista mondiale. Per 10 anni gli
imperialisti USA e dell'Unione
Europea hanno fatto di tutto per smembrare la Federazione
Socialista Jugoslava e spazzar
via persino la memoria di questo stato multietnico, mentre
il PSS e il partito alleato della
Sinistra Jugoslava resistevano.
I mezzi di comunicazione di massa dell'imperialismo hanno
demonizzato Milosevic
chiamandolo dittatore. Ma Milosevic e il suo partito erano
stati eletti per governare la
Jugoslavia, avevano guadagnato stima e rispetto per aver
guidato l'eroico popolo
jugoslavo nelle 11 settimane di combattimento contro
l'aggressione NATO e avevano
difeso l'economia jugoslava dalla penetrazione
imperialista.
E' vero che il PSS ha perso il sostegno attivo della
classe operaia che era stata la sua base.
Il partito non � riuscito finora a mobilitare le masse per
difendersi dagli attacchi. Tuttavia
Milosevic ha avuto due milioni di voti e il Partito
Socialista ha la maggioranza legale in
organismi importanti, compresi il Parlamento Federale
Jugoslavo e quello della Serbia.
Ma sarebbe sciocco pensare che Washington e i suoi alleati
limitino le loro tattiche al
terreno della legalit� parlamentare.
Lotta per il potere
In un periodo di competizione pacifica e di discussione, i
18 partiti della DOS che
sostengono Kostunica si dividerebbero subito. Kostunica �
un monarchico e nazionalista
serbo, mentre altre formazioni della coalizione sono
antimonarchiche e si battono per
l'indipendenza delle province della Voivodina e del
Sangiaccato dalla Serbia.
Inoltre un congruo periodo di pacifica dialettica politica
dimostrerebbe che il programma
economico di Kostunica rappresenta per i lavoratori
jugoslavi un disastro peggiore delle
sanzioni e l'inevitabile svendita della sovranit�
jugoslava e serba offenderebbe molti dei
suoi attuali sostenitori.
Ecco perch� Washington e i suoi agenti sono passati subito
a metodi extralegali per
impadronirsi di tutto l'apparato dello stato e hanno preso
di mira i ministeri chiave e in
particolare gli apparati di sicurezza, la polizia, il
sistema bancario e tutto l'apparato
mediatico e attaccato violentemente il PS e gli altri
partiti di sinistra.
Nelle elezioni il Partito Socialista e la Sinistra
Jugoslava hanno conquistato la
maggioranza in tutte e due le Camere del Parlamento
Federale. Secondo la costituzione
jugoslava, il Parlamento � pi� importante giuridicamente
della presidenza, che ha compiti
di rappresentanza. Ancora maggiore � l'influenza del
Parlamento Serbo dove la sinistra �
in posizione dominante e che su pressione del DOS ha
convocato per dicembre nuove
elezioni.
Gli strateghi imperialisti spingono in direzione del
rapido controllo dell'intero apparato
statale, il che significa epurare i dirigenti della
polizia e distruggere l'esercito jugoslavo
che ha le sue radici nella rivoluzione socialista del 1945
e nella lotta partigiana contro i
nazisti.
Privato di un apparato armato che lo difenda, il popolo e
in particolare la classe operaia
jugoslava sar� alla merc� dei banchieri e degli
imprenditori imperialisti che hanno le
forze NATO nel Kosovo e nei paesi limitrofi e i loro
agenti a Belgrado.
Le bande extralegali dell'imperialismo
Le bande anti-Milosevic hano attaccato i partiti di
sinistra e i centri del governo. Velimir
Ilic, sindaco di Cacac, nonch� un disertore che aveva
rifiutato di cooperare con l'esercito
jugoslavo durante la resistenza contro la NATO dell'anno
scorso, si � vantato sul New
York Times di aver organizzato commandos anti-Milosevic.
Dice Ilic: "Abbiamo
organizzato una squadra di giovani professionisti, par�
dell'esercito jugoslavo e giovani
poliziotti e ci siamo coordinati con le unit� di elite
della polizia del ministero degli interni
a Belgrado. A noi si sono uniti esperti di arti marziali e
boxeurs professionisti. Avevamo
anche poliziotti in abiti cvili per il coordinamento con
le citt� vicine".
Ilic ha dichiarato alla Agence France Presse che disponeva
di 2000 uomini e che una
parte era armata. "Un certo numero dei nostri aveva
giubbotti antiproiettile e armi: Il
nostro obiettivo era molto chiaro: assumere il controllo
delle istituzioni chiave del
regime, compreso il Parlamento e la televisione". Non ha
detto se fossero pagati e da chi,
ma si � vantato che le sue forze, con divise della
polizia, avevano aperto il Parlamento e
seminato confusione tra i ranghi dei poliziotti. Dentro,
aveva presentato la banda a Zoran
Djindjic, l'organizzatore della campagna di Kostunica.
Secondo Michel Collon, corrispondente del settimanale
belga Solidaire da Belgrado,
Djindjic aveva coordinato gli attacchi al Parlamento e
alla Televisione serba e aveva fatto
uso di pressioni e minacce contro i giornalisti per
prender possesso della pi� importante
televisione pubblica, della radio e della stampa, compreso
il quotidiano Politika.
Gli squadristi di Djindjic, subito dopo la presa del
Parlamento, avevano messo a
soqquadro anche la sede del PS di Belgrado e quella del
piccolo Nuovo Partito
Comunista Jugoslavo. A Belgrado e dintorni sono state
incendiate inoltre le case di
attivisti del Partito Socialista e fatti anche pi� gravi
sono accaduti in provincia.
La lotta continua
Il 10 ottobre i dirigenti della DOS hannno raggiunto un
accordo con il Partito Popolare
Socialista del Montenegro per nominare il dirigente di
quel partito, Pedrag Bulatovic,
nuovo primo ministro nel Parlamento Federale Jugoslavo.
Bulatovic ha dichiarato che il
suo partito, che era allineato con il Partito Socialista
di Milosevic, intendeva formare un
governo con la DOS "per bilanciare le forze politiche nel
Parlamento Federale".
Ci vorrebbe molto pi� spazio per spiegare tutte le
possibili manovre parlamentari. Ma
questo � davvero secondario. Washington e i suoi agenti
impiegheranno pressioni di ogni
tipo contro gli individui, i partiti politici e la
popolazione nel suo complesso per impedire
che la dialettica politica pacifica sbarri la strada alla
controrivoluzione.
Collon e altri corrispondenti da Belgrado hanno notato che
la popolazione era disgustata
dall'incendio del Parlamento e dalle altre violenze. Anche
i sostenitori di Kostunica
dicono di aver votato per una vita migliore, non per le
vendette. Ma se la polizia e
l'esercito evitano di impegnarsi a mantenere l'ordine,
solo l'organizzazione attiva della
sinistra potr� difendere le sue posizioni.
Il ministro della difesa jugoslavo generale Dragoljub
Ojdanic ha rivolto un appello
pressante al Partito Socialista perch� mobiliti le sue
forze. In una lettera aperta, Ojdanic
mette in guardia i Serbi dal pericolo di estinguersi come
popolo. "La divisione tra i Serbi,
dice il generale, favorisce i piani dei nostri nemici
dichiarati" per occupare il paese. Il
generale fa riferimento ai legami della DOS con la NATO.
Qui negli Stati Uniti � importante in primo luogo che la
sinistra comprenda che gli
avvenimenti del 5-6 ottobre rappresentano un duro colpo
per i lavoratori e per la
sovranit� della Jugoslavia. Serve la solidariet� attiva
con coloro che in Jugoslavia
continuano a resistere allo sviluppo della
controrivoluzione, siano essi nel Partito
Socialista, negli altri partiti di sinistra, nei
sindacati, o nella polizia e nell'esercito.
L'imperialismo � riuscito a strappare con le sue grinfie
una posizione di considerevole
potere in Jugoslavia oggi. Ma la lotta continua.
Gli autori di questo articolo hanno organizzato il 10
giugno scorso a New York il
Tribunale Internazionale che ha condannato i crimini
commessi dalla NATO nei 78
giorni di bombardamento della Jugoslavia.
(Traduzione italiana a cura del
TRIBUNALE ITALIANO
CONTRO I CRIMINI DELLA NATO
e-mail: tribunaleclark@...
fax. 068174010
tel : 0338-7963539)
---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono
fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di
segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Per contributi e segnalazioni: jugocoord@...
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