HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Hey all, just had a "crazy" idea that slipped into my mind as I've been working on a paper about the EC's recognition policy viz. Yugoslav republics regarding another important geostrategic aspect of the Balkans. It is a well-known fact that both Albania and Yugoslavia pursued largely independent foreign policies during the Cold War (Yugoslavia by becoming dependent on both blocs and Albania by cutting itself off from both). Needless to say there was a somewhat justifiable paranoia in both Belgrade and Tirana of defending themselves from attacks or invasions carried out by either super-power. To this end both regimes constructed EXTENSIVE networks of anti-nuclear bunkers and tunnel systems that would preserve guerrilla forces in case of a nuclear attack. We know that the United States has been developing "bunker busting" bombs since at least the aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999, with little effect to date. This is obviously a tough technology to develop, especially considering that many of these sites were built to withstand nuclear attack. But knowledge of bunker technology raises another question. Is it possible to defend from "nuclear" counter-attacks by employing sophisticated bunker defences resistant to such offensive technologies? Is the United States seeking to seize and establish military presence precisely in those regions and countries where relatively sophisticated bunkers have already been established (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, where else?)? This would fall into line with our broader, well-founded, and explicitly acknowledged thesis of the quest for American global military domination and especially the subjugation of Russia, China, etc. It is not inconceivable that US forces are building up and reinforcing these bunkers to provide strategic defensive positions flanking Russia from all corners, from which limited nuclear tactical strikes can be launched while withstanding a nuclear counter-attack against US forces deployed in the regions around Russia. Remember JA MiG-fighters took off after the NATO aggression from such underground bunkers as well (a perfect place to hide US long-range tactical bombers), as Yugoslavia had built reinforced underground air-hangars. I remember my grandfather (who had friends in Yugo-commie and military circles, a veritable whose who of Yugo-commie life, including Milosevic's uncle and even the now infamous Mahmut Bakalli among others), when I was little, telling me about an JNA installation near the Adriatic that he had visited. According to him there was tons of Yugoslav made Super-Galeb Mig-fighters underground in such installations. I never knew if this was true or not - he had a penchant for exageration sometimes when it came to Cold War issues and as a former soldier was easily exited by talk of military technologies - but after the NATO aggression when those Yugo planes took off from underground hangars I was suprised to see that my grandfathers story on this issue wasn't maybe so far off. This all isn't that big of a deal really, something we already know, but I've never thought about this aspect of Washington's engagement in the Balkans or Afghanistan for a mother. Given the Bush administrations recent shift in nuclear policy towards a more ready nuclear posture, this aspect becomes somewhat terrifying (as if having a Moronic Nuclear Age Napoleon at the helm of the world's most aggrisively expanionist power wasn't enough!!!). Oh yeah! Almost forgot, I also came upon another interesting factoid as well. Yugoslavia was the PRESIDENT of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1991, i.e. exactly the year when it was dismembered by the NATO alliance. Its dismemberement thus wasn't just a message to Russia, but to the entire non-aligned world. Rereading Security Council and UN documents from the era I was struck by the support that non-Aligned states were giving to Yugoslavia, which ITSELF asked for the imposition of an arms-embargo to stem the flow of arms coming from the FORMER COLONIAL POWERS of AUSTRIA and GERMANY. Countries like Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, India, Yemen, Cote d'Ivoire, etc. - all on the UN Security Council in 1991 - expressed an incredible degree of solidarity with the Yugoslav delegates. Remember, one of the guiding principles of the post-WWII order and of the decolonizations struggles was the principle that the borders achieved upon decolonization became sancrosanct (i.e. the principle of UTI POSSEDETIS). Although never portrayed in these terms in the West, Yugoslavia's borders where the result of a 150 year decolonization struggle against Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, and the second Yugoslavia was the product of the national liberation struggle of Yugoslav peoples against the German Third Reich. In fact this was the official narrative of the Yugoslav communists justifying their involvement in the Non-Aligned Movement. The discourses of the Yugoslavs inspired the national liberation discourses of other peoples fighting for decolonization. As the delegate from Zimbabwe said during the September 25th 1991 session of the Security Council, Yugoslavia was not only the President of the NAM, but a potent symbol for south African peoples that nulified the myth of apartheid and showed how diverse groups could work together to build socialism. Returning to the principle of UTI POSSEDITIS, it states that borders gained upon decolonization are sancrosanct, unless agreed to be changed by all players within a country. The EC in fact invoked this principle, however, to justify Yugoslavia's dissolution by privileging the internal republican borders over the federations international borders! In terms of international law, this effectively established the grounds for a (very dubious) precedent whereby the internal administrative boundaries of all NAM states could be subject to revision (and thus crushing the original application of the principle of uti possedetis only to colonial contexts). There was thus an incentive for many NAM states to play along with the West's story that Yugoslavia had "dissolved" (i.e. this allowed the West to neutralize further calls for self-determination from Palestinians, Serbs, Kurds, etc. after their "chosen peoples" had achieved their own independence). Yet many states still rejected this thesis and more than half the NAM still recognized FRY as the sole legitimate successor of the SFRY. What is interesting in particular is that Yugoslavs as a whole never had a right to vote on their desire to preserve Yugoslavia or to effect a divorce (in fact, while the US pushed for republican level elections in 1990, it never required Yugoslavia to hold federal level elections). In this way it could claim that Yugoslavia's federal leadership lacked the democratic legitimacy of the republican regimes. Izetbegovic in particular was instrumental in stalling the holding of federal elections claiming that "the Serbs" would "dominate" these (even though they constituted only 36% of the population and where politically fractured between those with a Yugoslav, and those with a more ethnic Serbian political tendency, the later being in the minority). Where national-fascists largely supported by emigre organizations won the US and Germany proclaimed "budding democracies" and recognized their UNSUPERVISED referenda (that had completely dubious wordings). Where indigenous communist forces won the Western corporate media stayed quiet on the democratic triumph of these communist parties (especially in the case of Montenegro, where a massive workers movement in 1989 managed to dislodge the old and corrupt republican leadership). In effect it is hard to say that the "dissolussion" of Yugoslavia reflected the self-determining will of all Yugoslav peoples! By and far most Yugoslav citizens, even in the secessionist republics wanted the preservation of some type of common state (even though visions of what this meant differed). Even if all the people in Slovenia and Croatia wanted out-right indipendence, this would still represent some 6-million people in a total population of 26-million Yugoslavs. Considersing that even secessionist Albanian leaders demanded their own "Republic" and not independence - in order not to win the sympathies of many Yugoslav Albanians who still wanted to live in Yugoslavia - it is hard to sell the idea that the current outcome is more "natural". In fact the ethnic particularism of today is so sharp, that NATO has managed to establish 16 internationally supervised territories, with varying degress of autonomy, continuity and "independence" (just like Bantustans) across the Balkans after introducing nationalism into the Yugoslav equation. These new "independent" or "autonomous" regions are all non-viable economic entities (non-of them disposing of sufficient resources for an independent economic policy, thereby fully dependent on Western creditors) including: Slovenia, Croatia, Eastern Slavonia, Bosnia (includes: Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna, Muslim-Croat Federation, Republic of Srpska, Brcko), Vojvodina's Union of Hungarian Municipalities, Vojvodina, Serbia, Kosovo (Albanian), Kosovo (Non-Albanian ghettoes), Sandak, Presevo-Bujanovac-Medvedja Region, Montenegro, Macedonia (Albanian), Macedonia (Non-Albanian), etc. many of these such as Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia are further sub-divided by checkpoints seperating different NATO member state zones of operation (thus Bosnia has a French, British, and American zone, while Kosovo has a French, British, Italian, American and German zone). It is interesting to note that the destruction of Yugoslavia also broke with the traditional peacekeeping norm that NO NEIGHBORING STATES or FORMER OCCUPYING POWERS should participate in such operations, as not only did Turkey, Hungary, Austria, and Germany participate in such operations, but the nationals of Germany and Austria where even allowed to GOVERN these regions again (not to mention to have their operations financed by "Greater Hungarians" like Soros, or unreconstructed Hapsburghs, like Otto!) The point about Hungary isn't incidental, or because I have a thing with Hungarians, since the impetus for Yugoslavism in the late 19th and early 20th century was the joint Croat and Serb struggle against the forced Magyarization of their populations, that came under Hungarian rule in Slavonia, Croatia, and Krajina - in this sense too Hungary is a former colonial power as well. Yugoslavia, and the struggles of all its peoples, in a sense marked the first phase of decolonization in the 20th century. One thing that we've never considered is what role did Yugoslavia play as the head of the Non-Aligned Movement at that time? What was it proposing? Did it take a position on Iraq for instance in 1991? Did the leadership of the Socialist Republic of Serbia or SR Montenegro make any comments on the mass-arial killings carried out on Iraq? I'm sure we won't find the answers too suprising, although finding out can only deepen our understanding of how big the stakes were viz. Yugoslavia. The fall fo Yugoslavia was a clear message to the Third World, the lesson wasn't lost on anyone. It is sad however, that since 1992 the NAM has been completely split on Western intervention in the Balkans however, ever since the "Bosnia" card was played by the US administration since Aprial 1992. 52 countries, comprising the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) where instrumental in forwarding the "West is standing by in the face of Serbia's genocidal aggression" thesis. Such a position deeply split the NAM and prevented a coherent policy (the NAM adopted resolutions condemning unspecified "aggression", while the OIC states pushed to color this in anti-Serbian language for the benefit of NATO). The main pushers of this particular policy within the OIC, it should be noted, where Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait, i.e. regimes that had cheered the advance of US imperialism in the Persian Gulf and where mum on Israeli occupation of Palestine. By taking up the cause of Bosnia's "embattled" Muslims these governments could easily deflect attention from their own failings in encouraging genocidal measures such as the Iraqi sanctions and the devastating US bombing campaign of January-February 1991 against the population of Iraq. The OIC is partly to blame for expanding the power of NATO, whose sights now are targeted again on largely Muslim populations and again to no benefit of the venal and corrupt pro-US Middle Eastern regimes that cheered on NATO in Bosnia and Kosovo! There needs to be a greater critique analysis of the Third World's response to the Yugoslav crisis and a greater attempt to recontextualize the Yugoslav drama in a frame-of-reference that is more relevant to its nature as a non-aligned member of the Third World (instead of the excessively Westernized discourse that we have now, which obscures the modern roots of Yugoslav policies and attitudes and tries to recolour them in the language of the 19th century). Imperialism, apartheid, and fascism are the three central planks of the US drive to global dominance --> it is no accident that they all converged in 1991 as the USSR was collapsing to destroy the leader of the NAM by early 1992 (the only other organized block of countries not fully bending to Washington's diktat)! Anyway, I'm kind of rambling now... :-) cheers! Kole --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
