The US-led NATO
aggression of Yugoslavia and the carving up of Kosovo amongst the major Western
powers, marks a turning point in the post cold-war era of US imperialism’s
increasingly aggressive role. The new NATO Charter gives the official stamp of
legitimacy to it. The post cold-war decline in US defence spending having been
reversed since the last couple of years is further indication of the 21st
century being ushered in amidst devastation, wars and increased destruction.
Serbia has been
bombed back to a condition that existed after World War II. Damage is estimated
to be upto $100 billion; its per capita income has dropped by 30%; over 5 lakh
people have been displaced from work because of bombing of industries;
two-thirds of Serbia is without electricity; 35 bridges, 3 oil refineries, TV
and radio broadcasting station, large parts of central Belgrade, drinking water
supplies... have been bombed out of existence. The bombing of fertiliser and
chemical plants have resulted in enormous environmental damage, leading to the
evacuation of about one lakh people. Besides, thousands of civilians have been
‘mistakenly’ bombed.
In Kosovo itself,
according to UN estimates, about half the houses had been destroyed and upto 70%
damaged - mostly by Serb forces, but also by ‘mistaken’ NATO bombing.
Besides this huge
destruction, the ‘Campaign for Peace’ group estimates that the 79 days of
bombing would have cost roughly $100 billion. Add to this the cost of sustaining
half-a-million refugees and rehabilitation costs - put at $30 bn - and a
peace-keeping force of 50,000 (costing some $15 bn annually) together with an
army of UN administrators .... the destructiveness of this limited imperialist
war (there was no official declaration of war) has been gigantic. Add to this
the destruction of thousands of lives - mostly civilian, the trauma and
devastation of lakhs of families, the torture and butcheries of hundreds of
fighters ... it is a tragedy of monstrous proportions. The first of its kind in
Europe since World War II.
Before turning to the
lessons to be drawn from this war, first let us see how this war was concluded.
A NATO Agreement
The final agreement,
proposed by the G-8 countries and brokered by the Russians was a total sell-out
to NATO’s demands. Russia meekly signed on the dotted line dictated by NATO
generals. The agreement is even more humiliating for Yugoslavia than the one
proposed to be signed at the Rambouillet peace talks, before the beginning of
the bombing. The agreement is not only anti-Yugoslavia but is also anti-KLA and
against the interests of the Kosovo people. It only serves the imperialists’
interests of NATO that carves it up amongst the 5 major NATO powers (US,
Britain, France, Germany and Italy) and hands over administrative control, not
to the Kosovar people, but to imperialist administrators. It defacto turns
Kosovo into a Western imperialist protectorate situated in a highly strategic
region, enabling NATO to more effectively police not only East and Central
Europe, but also the oil-rich Central Asian countries.
The Agreement, that
was adopted in toto, by the UN Security Council says :
First, the
peace-keeping forces will function under the coercive Section VII of the UN
Charter, which gives it the right to use force. Section VII involves the
imposition of the forces on a particular country, giving it enormous powers....
while Section VI would have entailed an invitation to the forces by the Yugoslav
government, with limited powers. Now, having entrenched themselves in Kosovo,
the US can use these powers to bomb Yugoslavia whenever it decides that Belgrade
is not cooperating.
Second, the Agreement
to station peacekeeping forces is open-ended... without any expiry date, as
exists in the mandates for UN forces in Macedonia and Angola. If there had been
an expiry date each subsequent extension would have required concurrence of all
five Security Council members. Now the forces can be stationed there
indefinitely. Not incorporating an expiry date could well lead to a situation
like Iraq, where lifting the embargo is being blocked by US and Britain, both of
whom have veto powers.
Third, the Agreement
says that the peace-keeping forces will function under a "unified command
structure" with a "fundamental NATO component". Without actually saying a NATO
command, this aspect is left vague allowing NATO to take control through the
back-door. This snake-like treachery of the Russians, allows it to fool its own
people and the Serbs that the Russians will have a separate command structure,
while actually allowing the entire mission to be under NATO operation.
Fourth, the Agreement
says that all must cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which has hauled up Milosevic and some others as war
criminals. This ‘judgment’ was passed based on ‘evidence’ provided by British
intelligence. The ICTY chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour of Canada, has refused to
investigate charges that NATO has grossly violated the laws of war.
Fifth, the Agreement
accepts Kosovo as an integral part of Yugoslavia (while providing for
"substantial self-government) and does not even call for holding a referendum at
a future date to decide on its independence, as had been earlier agreed in the
Rambouillet peace talks. It also calls for the immediate demilitarisation of the
KLA. Both the demands were first opposed by the KLA but, later they signed an
agreement with NATO.
Finally, the
Agreement calls for the establishment, under Security Council auspices, of an
interim administration for Kosovo "to ensure conditions for a peaceful and
normal life for all inhabitants". Hardly had the agreement been signed when the
UN began preparations to deploy thousands of aid workers, administrators, police
and support staff in Kosovo. The operation, known as the UN Interim Mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK) is expected to last years and cost billions. No doubt, as in
Iraq, much of this huge cost will be extracted from the local people of
Yugoslavia.
These last two points
of this agreement virtually deny the very essence of the Kosovo people’s
struggle for liberation. By being turned into a NATO protectorate, the Kosovo
people will now turn from being prisoners of the Russian-backed Yugoslav
chauvinists into prisoners of the Western imperialists.
What is more, the
entire process of implementing the ‘peace’ displayed the utter arrogance of the
NATO chiefs and their contempt for not only Russia, but also the UN.
Even after
Milosevic’s acceptance of the G-8 proposals NATO continued its bombing. This
bombing continued throughout the talks between the armed forces of the two sides
to decide on the withdrawal of Serb forces out of Kosovo. At these talks British
generals virtually dictated terms to the Serbs, with a gun pointed at their
head. Once the Serbs signed on the dotted line, bombing was paused and
immediately sought to bulldoze the G-8 proposals through the UN.
Never has the UN
looked so pathetic and irrelevant as during this entire Kosovo episode. So
contemptuous was NATO of the UN, that even before the passing of the proposed
resolution it had already announced that the commander of the international
peace-keeping force will be a British General and that the bulk of the so-called
international peace-keeping force will be that of NATO’s. In fact during the G-8
deliberations in Bonn, British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, revealed his
colonial contempt for China and the other UN member-countries, when he said that
the G-8-drafted resolution was bound to be rubber-stamped by the Security
Council.
For all Russia and
China’s fulminations, the Resolution was passed by 14 votes to zero with China
abstaining. While Russia’s capitulation was total, China did not even assert its
right to veto. Thereby international brigandage was given legitimacy.
International law has been bombed into its grave. With the UN ‘rubber-stamping’
the NATO-dictated resolution, not only has it given an acceptable face to
imperialist war-mongering, it has signed its own death warrant. It has lost all
validity for its existence. From now on it is the law of the wild — let not the
imperialists now complain of ‘terrorism’ etc; they themselves have set the
terms; the people of the world will act accordingly.
What then are the lessons to be gained from
this Kosovo conflict ?
Lesson One : US Imperialism is the Greatest Danger to
Mankind
The war in Yugoslavia
(as also Iraq) indicates a new brazenness of US imperialism which was relatively
subdued after its defeat in Indo-China and with the existence of a parallel
imperialist superpower in the Soviet Union. With the imperialists, for the
present, not yet divided into competing blocs, and with no power to challenge
the US, the genocidal American regime is free to ravage the world. The one
million killed in Iraq through bombings and sanctions, together with the
devastation of Yugoslavia, is a warning to all countries of the world — to fall
in line, or else face destruction. If a country in the heart of Europe can be so
despoiled, what of third world countries !
It also is the
initiation of a new kind of war, wherein the aggressors face the least risk; do
not confront the ‘enemy’, but instead bomb the entire country back to the
dark-ages — then strangulate it through sanctions. This ‘high-tech’ war (or
surgical warfare) matches in its brutality that of Hitler’s mafia. There, the
gas chambers were crude, now similar brutality is effected ‘surgically’ through
impersonal bombings and even more impersonal deaths through starvation, disease
and environmental damage. Then Goebbels’ crude propaganda, is now replaced with
an even more Goebelsian monopoly media.... but with a sophistication not known
to Hitler — lies, half-truths, distortions, whipping up of hatred etc., is now
beautifully packaged and is aggressively pushed in each and every household
through the TV.
The first lesson to
realise through this war is that, this ravaging monster has been unleashed on
the world arena and must be stopped. Countries are being forced to either
prostrate before it and get ‘willingly’ crushed (as happened in East Asia) or
get forcibly trampled on (as in Iraq or Yugoslavia). Unless this Godzilla is
stopped in its track, country after country will be destroyed, the fires of war
will engulf large parts of the globe. No appeasement, no pacifist opposition can
hope to stop its advance. If it is not hit, it will not fall.
All defeatist
thinking of hopelessness before its mighty war-machine only whets its appetite.
The ‘end of history’ syndrome, the NGO’s pacifist sterility, the silence of a
consumerist middle class, only serve to encourage and facilitate its
rapaciousness. Yet if a tiny Vietnam could check-mate the mightiest war machine
in the world, an aroused people can puncture its inflated ego. In the face of a
people’s war, its high-tech weaponry will be of little use.
Even in the
imperialist war in Yugoslavia, NATO forces were on the verge of defeat. Had the
war dragged for another month, the NATO camp would have been in disarray. By
that time, if it did not induct ground troops, there would have arisen
uncontrollable conditions amongst the refugees, and NATO would have got fully
discredited as a spineless monster indulging in fruitless bombing killing
thousands of civilians. Besides, discontent was brewing in the refugee camps
with the horrifying living conditions; and with a desperate need to get the
refugees back before the onset of winter there was an urgency to wrap up the war
immediately. On the other hand, if ground troops were sent, NATO would have
split, and the large number of casualties which they would have suffered would
have resulted in large unrest within the imperialist countries themselves.
Faced with this
dead-end, it was Russia that came to the rescue of NATO.
Lesson No. 2 : Russia, A toothless Imperialist Bear
At this critical
moment, the more pro-West Yeltsin stooges, ousted the more aggressive
Russian-imperialist group, and allocated Chernomyrdin to negotiate the
surrender. Not that the Primakov-led group did much to face the NATO onslaught —
they had more bark than bite. But, with Chernomyrdin, the bark turned to a
whine, and like a tame puppy wagging its tail it bartered a sell-out in exchange
for a few dollars.
The total sell-out at
the G-8 agreement and Russia’s endorsement of it at the UN was so obvious, that
it stage-managed a takeover of Pristina airport by 200 Russian para-troopers, to
give the impression of independent assertion. The stunt helped diffuse anger
within Russia; it also helped give an impression of victory to the Serb forces.
Yet, through the
entire process not one of the demands being put forward by Russia and the Serbs
were accepted by NATO. They demanded the a skeleton Serb force be allowed to
stay in Kosovo to defend Serbian monuments and local Serb civilians — but by
June 20 not only had the army and para-military left, but even the entire police
force. The Russians demanded a separate zone for peace-keeping and refused to
function under NATO command — but, at the agreement between Russia and the US,
chalked out at Helsinki, Russia was not given an independent zone and its
proposed 3,600 forces were to be carved up within the American, French and
German zones. Defacto overall command would remain with NATO and with an
overwhelming presence (37,000 of the 50,000 proposed peace-keeping force is that
of NATO) Russian troops would remain an ineffectual appendage.
Finally Yeltsin
servility at the G-8 Summit was rewarded by a massive financial aid package to
prop up the Russia economy. In return Yeltsin agreed to continue the START-III
negotiations and even signed a declaration on the return to "full democracy" in
Yugoslavia. This declaration ruled out any Western aid to Serbia as long as
Milosevic continued in power, yet it was signed by Yeltsin.
The second lesson is
that Russia, even with its huge arsenal of weaponry, is unable to be an
assertive imperialist power due to its total bankrupt economy and increasing
dependence on Western finance. In a bourgeois system CAPITAL is primary .... and
weaponry only seek to assure the dominance of capital. When CAPITAL in Russia is
in a total state of collapse, its powerful weaponry gives it only limited
bargaining power. Unless the Russian economy revives and that too on an
independent footing (i.e., not through the domination of US or German capital),
it will continue to remain a toothless bear.
Lesson No. 3 : Chinese Hypocrisy
China sought only to
utilise the Kosovo issue to push its own bourgeois selfish interests. Increase
in its foreign trade, enhancement of foreign capital, admission into the WTO,
etc., is what it bargained for over the lives of thousands of Serb and Kosovo
people. Even the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade and the killing of three of
its citizens (which, in effect, amounts to an act of war against China) was
utilised by the new Chinese bourgeoisie for a few added crumbs from the West.
All its tough
anti-West talk looked more like hypocrisy in the light of its actions at the UN
over the Kosovo issue.
At the Security
Council it first insisted on a resolution "strongly condemning" the attack on
the Chinese embassy. It finally accepted a statement expressing "deep distress
and concern" over the attack. Its attitude towards the G-8 resolution was even
worse. After strongly condemning it, when it was finally presented in the UN
Security Council, it did not even vote against it, but merely abstained.
Though it had the power to prevent the resolution from being passed, as one of
the permanent members, it refused to exercise its right of veto. In other words,
it too has collaborated in the NATO offensive, by allowing the resolution to
pass.
The third lesson, is
that China being an outright capitalist country, no matter what its socialist
mask, will act according to its own self-interest vis-a-vis other countries. It
will barter principles and justice for a share in the bourgeois cake.
Lesson No. 4 : Self-determination cannot be
achieved through dependence on one or the other imperialists
It is a fact that
Russian-backed Serb chauvinism wreaked havoc on the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo.
This continued for over a decade and reached its peak during the NATO bombing.
Even if NATO reports of mass graves are exaggerated, the Serb nationalist policy
of mass extermination cannot be denied. Destruction of entire villages; turning
nearly half the population into refugees; tortures, rapes and mass killings; can
never be condoned or glossed over. Condemnation of NATO bombing cannot ignore
Serb brutalities, nor can it exonerate Russian imperialism’s backing to these
marauders.
Yet, this Russian
backed Serb chauvinism cannot be fought by dependence on Western imperialism. As
we have seen NATO has totally sold out the national aspirations of the Kosovo
people; it has stabbed to KLA in the back by refusing its demand for referendum
on independence; it has undertaken the task to immediately disarm the fighters,
and in the new structure in Kosovo the people have no role .... where Serb
administrators and police will be replaced by thousands of imperialist stooges,
and Serb armed forces will be replaced by that of NATO. Besides, Kosovo people
and the region’s vast natural resources will be utilised to part-sustain this
gigantic army of occupation. The last drop of blood will be squeezed out of
them, in order to pay for their own incarceration by the NATO/UN regime.
The KLA fighters will
have to take to arms again - this time against the Western forces. The West has
never trusted the KLA due to its Marxist antecedents and supposed Islamic
connections. It had backed the traitor Rughova (who lately struck a deal with
Milosevic and went to Italy, to be rousingly welcomed by the Italian prime
minister) and was forced to deal with the KLA when it found Rughova’s party
totally isolated. In the process it has created factions within the KLA and got
a section to act as its fifth column against Serbian forces. It will now seek to
further the faction-fighting, thereby attempting to destroy the genuine fighting
forces. NATO’s utter contempt for the KLA is reflected in a recent statement by
Western military experts which said that "the KLA has turned into a sort of
liberation mafia run by a band of self-styled warlords."
The fourth lesson
from the Kosovo conflict, is that no national liberation movement can advance by
depending on any of the imperialist factions. Utilising contradictions
amongst them is one thing; depending on either faction is quite another matter.
No liberation force should give up its arms at the dictates of the imperialists
and should always retain the initiative in battle. They must realise that it is
not one or other of the imperialists that are their allies, but the democratic
and proletarian forces that really support their right to self-determination,
including secession. The imperialists only seek to utilise national liberation
movements in their power-play, and stab them in the back once their use is over.
History has proved this time and again. It is once again being enacted in
Kosovo.
Lesson No. 5 : It is only people’s movements that
can beat back the imperialist offensive and achieve the self-determination of
Nations
NATO fears not Russia
nor China, but more the rising tide of people’s movements against the war, in
their own countries and around the world. This war has exposed not only the
brazenness of NATO, the spinelessness of Russia, the hypocrisy of China, but
also the outright bankruptcy of the pacifists. In this first-ever war unleashed
by the European powers in the last 50 years, the Party of the Greens has been
directly involved. Being part of the German government they also bear
responsibility for the genocidal bombing.
It is the growing
people’s movements against the war that has unnerved the governments. May day
demonstrations saw massive protests against the war. In Italy, in mid-May, three
outlets of MacDonald were attacked with bombs and two military vehicles were set
ablaze by Italian protesters. In Greece, on April 27th, protestors stopped
shipment of trucks and tanks. In Germany, at a Greens party convention to
endorse the bombing, there was violent opposition to that section which
supported the bombing. Finance minister, Fischer, was pelted by paint-bombs by
anti-war protestors during a heated party congress. Also in Germany huge
demonstrations have taken place at the G-8 meetings and its yearly summit. In
mid-June, Britain witnessed the most violent demonstration in the last decade.
Thousands of demonstrators laid seige to the city of London. After venting their
anger against a MacDonalds restaurant, the demonstrators fought pitched battles
with the police, that continued for hours. Many of these protests were linked
to, not only the war in Yugoslavia, but also against imperialist policies in the
third world.
The fifth lesson is
that, it is these rising protests in the imperialist countries, combined with
the armed struggles in the third world countries, that are giving the
imperialists nightmares. It is this force alone, that can act as a major bulwark
against imperialism.
Meanwhile, NATO’s
next step will be to try and destabilise Montenegro and displace the Milosevic
government in Yugoslavia. The recognition of the Kosovo people’s right to
self-determination, including secession, is the starting point for any unified
struggle of Serbs and Kosovars against both NATO and the Russian-backed
Milosevic government. A fight against both is the only guarantee for peace in
the Balkans.
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