Re: Right of Knin to self determination

[wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Paul Cockshott)]

Chris
-----
I concede that in other parts of the former Eastern Bloc, there are
parties
that have assumed a more overt nationalist character but also retained
important democratic or even socialist aspects. Presumably Paul feels
the Serbian marxists are of this sort.

Paul
----
I hold no brief for the Serbian Socialist Party, defence of the right
of self determination does not imply sympathy with the representatives
of those demanding it.


Chris
-----
When Slovenia seceded the Yuglosav
federal army was sent in. That was impermissible in marxist terms
whatever
the motives behind the action of the Slovenes.

Paul
----
It would only be defensible were it an action by a workers state
supported by local working class elements to suppress counter revolution.
This was the motivation of some of the Jugoslav Army officers, but given
the non-communist state leadership in Belgrade this was not what was
actually being done.

Chris
-----
Paul may have more evidence than me, and I certainly concede Ustazi
fascist links with the Croat regime, but it is not clear to me that in
parts of Croatia not subject to war, there have been human rights
abuses against non-Croats.

Paul
----
See below, originally posted by anti-fascists in Zagreb.




DISCREETLY CELEBRATING THE END OF FASCIST RULE

Croatia may have joined in the celebration of the 50 years
since the victory against fascism , but we smelled a rat. On
May 8 , 1945 Zagreb was liberated from fascist rule, to
which not a word was uttered by state media. Tu=man , being
the only government man celebrating the day with other
heads of state. Recently Croatian monuments have been
erected for German victims of World war II , and praise
given to Ustashi collaborators as well. The number of
victims of Jasenovac concentration camp has gone down
officially while the estimates of post war victims (victims
of Partisans) have skyrocketed. Presently there are brigades
in the Croatian army named after prominent Ustashi officers
; numerous anti fascist monuments have been destroyed and
anti fascist street names changed (2500 monuments, streets,
squares and plaques). There is a big diffErence between the
state's talk against fascism and their action. This should
be the last time Croatia separates itself from its NDH , and
recognize s the crimes committed by the pro fascist
government. Most Croatians didn't support NDH , but HSS the
Croatian Peasant Party which took an anti Ustashi stance ,
had frequently worked with partisans and was being chased by
the Ustashi. During a speech the Croatian President of
Parliament twice critized England and mentioned NDH only
once which he did in the positive context of rescuing allied
pilots. We are against the absolvement from Ustashi crimes
but also against post war crimes committed by the NOV and
the following one party one mind regime. We are also against
crimes in this war from all sides. We see answers more in
looking to the future than being fucked with by state
proganda "history".

Chris
-----
Clearly a marxist position would say that the Serbs in Krajina had a
right
not to be oppressed whatever state structure they lived under. I presume
they had the right to use their language and to have their children
schooled in that language. Marxists should have defended that and still
defend it. But the Greater Serbian nation counter strategy to the right
of
Croatia and Bosnia to secede was to insist on the breakup of multi-ethnic

civil powers and to force population expulsions. That is a violation of
human rights that has not only caused great injustice and suffering but
from a marxist view of the national question has caused great disunity
among working people.

Paul
----
You are standing things on their head.
This presentation of Croatia as a multi-ethnic civil power is nonsense.
Jugoslavia was one, but the whole motivation for the breakup of that
multi-ethnic civil power by the Croation nationalists was to create
an ethnically based state. People who had until that point been
Jugoslavs were now supposed to consider themselves citizens of
an overtly ethnic/sectarian Croat state. A state which moreover, by
its ideology and symbolism presented itself as the inheritor of the
Ustashi state, which state had a history of genocide comparable only
to that of Nazis.

The democratic solution to this would have been to have local plebicites
to determine which areas actually wished to seceed from Jugoslavia.
Given that neither the Croatian nor the Bosnian governments were willing
to countenance that, resort to arms in defence of self determination
was inevitable. Failure to recognise this right to self determination
on the part of the Croatian and Bosnian government played into the hands
of Serbian fascism and allowed the dominance of Chetnik groups within
Serbian territory in Bosnia.

Chris
-----

I accept that the Croatian attack should be criticised but it probably
could not have been stopped. What could still be stopped is active
atrocities by the Croat forces.

Paul
----
No you are right it could not be stopped, backed as it was by massive
covert military supplies and training from Croatia's backers ( in breach
of UN sanctions of course). Now we see its result, 150,000 people forced
to flee as a result of shelling of towns and cities. One more step in
the rewriting of history and the rehabilitation of european fascism.


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