Re: hurray for Slobo-Mladic-Karadzic, heroes of the working class

[Ben C <benj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Without having followed this debate so far or wanting to take hard sides...

Nestor Gorojovsky wrote:
"1. Milosevic's own party is the _Socialist_ Party of Serbia. Since
Mellor's asking on the "attitude of the socialists", I suppose he
ignores this fact, or that he does not believe the "socialist" to be
anything but a rubber stamp." etc
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w41/msg00023.htm

Following: excerpts from "National oppression and the collapse of Yugoslavia" 
by Michael Karadjis 1999 (from Links magazine).

"following Markovic's introduction of an even more drastic IMF
austerity and privatisation package in January 1990, which virtually
stripped the republics of any cash, the three dominant republics went
into revolt in their opposite directions. Part of this was fierce
competition over the spoils of privatisation.

"In Serbia, the League of Communists changed its name to Serbian
Socialist Party, claiming to be based on western European social
democracy, while in practice being based on the principles of pre-World
War II Serbian reaction. A new constitution made the Serb nation
dominant without any mention of other specific minorities, while Kosova
and Vojvodina were reduced to mere provinces of Serbia like any other."
(...)

"The charge that imperialism encouraged secession in
order to break up "socialist" Yugoslavia, even if true, would not alter
the right to self-determination. If imperialism wanted to encourage
secession, it would find much more fertile ground if the nation was
oppressed.

"But in any case, this view of imperialism is a complete fantasy. The
IMF and World Bank strongly pushed Yugoslav /recentralisation/.
In particular, the US, the EC, Britain and France insisted throughout
1990 and 1991 that Yugoslavia remain united. Even proposals for a
looser confederation, which might have saved Yugoslavia, were rejected,
because they were in total opposition to the IMF's needs. When Tudjman
visited the White House in October 1990 to gain US support for the
Croat-Slovene confederation proposal, he was told "coldly" by Bush's
national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and "permanent adviser"
Henry Kissinger, that the US supported the maintenance of Yugoslav
federalism and unity "at all cost".

"Kissinger, Scowcroft and Bush's assistant secretary of state,
Lawrence Eagleburger, all had important business connections with
Yugoslavia. During the 1991 war, the major Western initiative was to
impose an arms embargo on Yugoslavia, which prevented the disarmed
Croats from getting arms, while the Serb-dominated JNA was one of the
largest military forces in Europe."

Full article: http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue13/Karadjis.htm



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