Dear Jim, I read both your email and that of David in response. Thanks for the discussion - we should have an organized one. SO and the FI have focused on the war as a war against the workers of Yugoslavia - going back to the horrendous destruction of the economy through imposition of the IMF debt. The hyperinflation that resulted was greater than that in the Weimar Republic. When the workers resisted - through strikes (more than 1000 in one year alone) - Milosevic played the ethnic card with great Serbian chauvinism, Tudjman and the other nomenkatura did likewise. We do not support the KLA as a national liberation grouping. There is much to show the role of the CIA in constructing and arming the KLA. David will agree with that - he draws a separation between the KLA leadership and defense groups on the ground. Do they really go by the name KLA? Also, the KLA's position is for a protectorate and a U.S. invasion. Please find below the SF Labor Council's resolution on the war. I believe it is a better model to use because it is from a labor council even though the content of the Golden Gate LP chapter's and our own are better. I think Ralph and Alan would agree. Our goal is to get labor resolutions such as the SFLC passed to ward off resolution's such as those issued by the Canadian Auto Workers and the UE which call for NATO troops and negotiations. I've attached below both the SF Labor Council resolution and the FI timeline on the war. I'll send in another email the article wrote on Bosnia which is informative in that it predicts much of what is happening now. Mya Voted and Passed unanimously By the Executive Board of the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) on April 21, 1999 and then passed by the Council on April 26. Whereas, NATO forces under the leadership of the United States have unleashed massive air strikes against Yugoslavia designed, in the words of NATO officer in charge, U.S. General Wesley Clark, to "demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure" of the country, and, Whereas, the U.S. government is allocating billions for war to destroy among other things, bridges, apartment buildings, and factories, as opposed to spending our resources to improve the quality of life in the U.S., and to assist in the productive development of the Balkans and elsewhere, and, Whereas, the massive bombing is contributing to and has in fact severly exacerbated the plight of the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo who are persecuted by the Milosevic regime but whose right to self-determination has never been supported or recognized by the United States or NATO. Therefore Be It Resolved, that the San Francisco Labr Council call for an end to the war, an immediate halt to the NATO/U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia, and an end to the intervention. Be It Further Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council rejects the notion that the U.S. government has, by military might, the legal, or moral right to intervene and police the world in such disputes, and, Be It Further Resolved, that this resolution be sent to the National AFL-CIO, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and to President William Clinton. -- The ORGANIZER: BACKGROUND ON WAR IN KOSOVO +++++ NOTE: The following article appeared in the weekly (April 20, 1999) newsletter of the Fourth International, published in Paris. If you would like to receive more such background articles on the situation in ex-Yugoslavia, we can send you reprints from back issues of The Organizer newspaper, or back articles from La Verite/The Truth, the theoretical journal of the Fourth International. The Organizer +++++ Yugoslavia: The Facts An unprecedented flood of false propaganda accompanies the missiles and bombs launched by NATO. True to its program, the Fourth International views the situation from the terrain of social classes. Whatever the side, and whatever the nationality, one finds the exploiters and the exploited, the abandoners and the abandoned, those who oppress and those who are oppressed. The last ten years of Balkan history is testimony. It is enough to point to the facts. These facts allow any worker, any youth, to understand the real reason behind NATO¹s intervention in the Balkans, and reports that this intervention establishes the maintenance of oppressive, dictatorial regimes in the region. _ 1980: Directives by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union require plans for privatization, reorganization, and mass layoffs. Thousands of workers are to be willingly liquidated by the nomenklatura in the service of IMF and the European Union. After this, between 1994 and 1996, more than 1,000 enterprises are liquidated in Serbia alone. _ March 1987: Yugoslavia is bending more and more beneath the burden of the debt and debt servicing repayment required by the International Monetary Fund. Debt servicing alone absorbs nearly $4 billion each year. Inflation climbs off the chart and industrial growth collapses. In March 1987, the International Monetary Fund imposes--and bureaucrat in all the republics comprising Yugoslavia submissively carry out--wage freezes, legalization of layoffs, and financial deregulation. The country¹s official number of unemployed is 1.3 million, but the actual number is considered to be nearly 2 million. These brutal anti- worker measures spark an enormous strike movement. Based in the industrial centers of Croatia, the strikes spread quickly throughout the entire country, obliging the Milosevic government (at the time, the federal government of all Yugoslavia) to reverse its course but to raise the threat of using violence to restore order. _ 1987 : Despite this threat, the waves of strikes by workers does not abate, each strike followed by another. For the year 1987, there are 1,623 strikes involving 365,000 workers (compared with 174 such strikes in 1982). _ The year 1988 begins just as auspiciously. Meanwhile, the poverty rate rises from 19 percent in 1979 to 60 percent in 1988. During the first nine months of 1988, there are 1,360 strikes. _ July 6, 1988: Thousands of workers, Croats and Serbs united, occupy the Yugoslav federal parliament. They meet in the working-class city of Vukovar (which later will become the object of military attacks, as the bureaucracy seeks to bury in ashes the very place where workers of all ethnic origins had gathered). As a Greek newspaper explains: "the federal Parliament had become the permanent target of the mass of demonstrators, who often went to Belgrade on foot. It is the need to divert this movement, and to channel it, that led the bureaucracies to the brink of playing the nationalism card." (Eleftherotypia, published by the weekly magazine International Courier, February 4, 1993). _ January 8, 1989: A new law eliminates forced repatriation of profits and the capital of foreign firms. Henceforth, there are no obstacles to the exploitation of natural resources and the workforce. Wage levels, which had gone from $400 to $800 per month in 1979, fell to $120-$150 per month in 1988. The inflationary spiral reaches new heights (by December 1993, it will have reached 200,000 percent in Serbia). In 1980, Yugoslavia¹s debt was $20 billion. Between 1980 and 1989, Yugoslavia repaid $84 billion, but the debt remains $20 billion in 1989. Paying more than four times the debt only keeps the debt afloat. Summarizing the period from 1987 to 1989, Criton Zoakaos--an American economics expert in Morristown, New Jersey, writes: "In 1987, old Yugoslavia was still a functioning State. The International Monetary Fund then decided to take in hand the country¹s economic policy and to its notorious shock therapies : devaluation, wage freezes, lifting of price constraints As the country¹s economy contracted from this shock, central government resources declined, leading the International Monetary Fund to heighten its pressure for a tax increase in order to balance the budget. "This led to another collapse of the new dinar,¹ the Yugoslav currency once considered strong (in 1986, it was equivalent to US$22). These centrifugal forces begin to tear the federation apart, as the wealthier provinces of Croatia and Slovenia refuse to allow their resources to be diverted to the poorer provinces. "Yugoslavia then broke into pieces, as ethnic and religious rivalries were revived as a means of taking control of the continually diminishing national wealth. As a result, the people of Yugoslavia were ruined. By December 1989, the dinar had dropped in value from $22 to 11 cents. By December 1991 the situation was one of hyperinflation, with the value of the dinar plummeting by half again, finally reaching its current value of 0.003 cents. "Hyper"-layoffs accompanied the hyperinflation. "When the initial IMF shock therapy struck Yugoslavia, the social disorders took as their first form not that of ethnic tensions, but rather of massive and ongoing strikes and other workers¹ actions. Until 1988, it was impossible for journalists stationed in Belgrade to find the least evidence of ethnic passions. Generally, people turned to ethnic solutions only when it appeared that any possibility of their having a normal economic life had been destroyed. Ethnic cleansing" intervened only after the shock therapy¹ of the IMF had done its work." _ March 9, 1991: For several weeks, the hard-pressed Milosevic regime has multiplied its provocations, alleging, as part of its whirlwind of war-mongering, assassinations of Serbs by Croats. Milosevic had amended the Yugoslav constitution by eliminating the autonomy of Kosovo in 1990. In Belgrade, more than 100,000 Serbs are in the streets in a demonstration against his policies. Their slogans: "Down with Milosevic! Down with the war!" Milosevic answers with his police, and the first fatalaties of the Yugoslav wars are Serbs killed by the Serbian police. Shortly after these demonstrations, the first war breaks out, leading to the separation from Yugoslavia of Slovenia and Croatia. _ June 1991: The independence of Slovenia and Croatia is proclaimed on June 25. In the short war between the Yugoslav federal army and the Slovenian militia, Milosevic receives the support of France, Great Britain, and especially of the United States. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, in Belgrade on June 21 (that is, four days before the unleashing of the offensive), declares: "The United States will not recognize Slovenia as an independent State. The Yugoslav crisis affects everyone, because it threatens to lead to internal conflicts that would destabilize all of Europe." Buttressed by this support, the Milosevic regime moves on to an offensive against the Albanian population in Kosovo. War begins in Slovenia, and then in Croatia. On July 1 in Belgrade, there is a demonstration: "Respect the rights of the people to make their own choices!" A thousand women demonstrate with their cry of "Return our children, Serb troops in Serbia!" _ August 1991: War rages between the Yugoslav federal army and Croatian troops. On August 27, a siege of the city of Vukovar begins; Vukovar is taken on November 18. A worker militant testifies: "On July 6, 1988, the workers of this region occupied the federal parliament. They were workers from a large company, 60 percent Croats and 40 percent Serbs, who took united action against the parliament, and who then accepted of a large company, and who then accepted no division between nationalities. Vukovar is a city of 50,000 inhabitants with a long working-class tradition. That is why this city could not be divided, and the reasons I have indicated are why this city no longer exists. For more than 100 days, the city was subjected to open-ended destruction, with bombardment by rockets, shells, and so on. Serb and Croatian workers together defended the city with their own hands, and the Croatian government of Tudjman made no effort to contribute to Vukovar¹s defense. In Serbia, estimates are that 86 percent of the armed forces deserted there, because they refused to take part in this war "The media never showed this resistance to the war. In the same way today, the media shed tears over the fate of Mostar, Sarajevo, and all of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in effect creating propaganda for the military intervention and ethnic divisions in the region. The massacres in Bosnia, the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, are intended to show the entire world that the people of this country are unable to live side by side freely." _ Autumn 1991: At the initiative of the European Economic Community, a "peace conference for Yugoslavia" takes place, where the imperialist powers propose to "transform Yugoslavia into a confederation of sovereign and independent Republics, with this stipulation: "Within each Republic, each national community, wherever it is in the majority, will have parliamentary, legal, and administrative autonomy." Thus was born the first plan for the "cantonisation of Yugoslavia." At the initiative of "Europe," but in fact instigated by the American leaders, who assigned "to the European Community the task of implementing, through every possible diplomatic means, a solution in Yugoslavia that would be amicable for all." (New York Times, October 11, 1995) _ November 23, 1991: The founding congress of the independent trade union Nezavisnot meets, with 126 delegates representing 110,000 members in Belgrade. Vukovar has just fallen. The congress adopts a resolution against the war: "If the war continues, there will nobody left to work Stop the war before life itself is halted." _ December 1991: 75 Serb reservists abandon the front and go to Belgrade, demanding to be relieved. In Obrenovac, the parents of 150 reservists demonstrate and demand the return of their sons. Federal military authorities establish 10,000 as the official figure of "insubordinates." In reality, the figure is undoubtedly quite higher; in the industrial city of Kragujevac alone (where, in particular, Zastava cars are produced, and where at this time bombings are concentrated), there are 6,157 "insubordinates." _ 1992: After end of the first conflict (which sees the separation of Slovenia and Croatia), all the economies are left lifeless. In Serbia, 50 percent of the workers no longer receive wages paid regularly. The count in the country is 2 million unemployed out of 6 million active workers. Inflation is massive. In Slovenia, where one counts 100,000 unemployed (unemployment was almost non-existent two years before the war), the strike wave deals a crushing blow against privatization measures. In Belgrade, the general assembly of teachers calls for a general strike on March 6. _ Spring 1992, Kosovo: Miners of the Serb nationality go out on strike to obtain payment of their wages. Minors from among the Kosovar Albanians lend their support. _ April 1992: The war begins in Bosnia. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators march in Sarajevo (Bosnia). Their slogans: "Serb, Muslim, Croat, all as one!" _ June 1992: 15 of 28 medical faculties in Belgrade are engaged in an all-out strike. Their slogans: Strike, Slobo [Slobodan Milosevic] get lost!" The strike spreads to the town of Nis. _ June 28, 1992: Between 150,000 and 200,000 demonstrate in Belgrade, with cries of: " Milosevic¹s resignation, and the dissolution of all the institutions!"; "Free elections!"; "Constituent assembly!" Along the procession, banners from the independent trade union Independence stand out. _ December 15, 1992: The International Monetary Fund ratifies the dismantling of Yugoslavia and proposes a distribution of the debt. In response, Milosevic says he will adopt a privatization law for Serbia. In Croatia, Tudjman declares: "It is necessary that our country be accepted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank so that we may offer a better prospectus for foreign investors." _ January 2, 1993: The Vance-Owen Plan (Vance represents the United Nations and Owen the European Union) proposes to partition Bosnia into nine provinces on an ethnic basis (three Serb cantons; three Croat cantons; two Muslim canton; and Sarajevo). Spurned by the Bosnian Serbs, this plan will reappear in Summer 1993 in the for of the Owen-Stottenberg Plan, which will be accepted by all the parties. The path is laid officially--by the European Union and by the United States, which dominates the United Nations--for the ethnic carving-up of the region. _ 1993: 30,000 minors strike in Serbia, followed by the metalworkers. _ 1993: United Nations troops (UNPROFOR) protect the "border" Milosevic has delineated by occupying 30 percent of Croatian territory. _ May 1993: At the beginning of the conflict in Bosnia, 103 of 110 municipalities include people representing the three Bosnian nationalities (Serb, Croat, and Muslim) One in three couples is mixed. This does not prevent the signing of an initial accord between the United States, France, Spain, Great Britain, and Russia proposing the creation of six security zones in Bosnia. As Le Figaro writes: "The allies have bet on Milosevic." In Belgrade, the independent trade union Independence calls for a general strike with these slogans: Peace and freedom, and the right to work and to live!" _ July 1993: As of July 1993, the U.S. State Department has calculated that 1.4 million people would be "displaced" as a consequence of the partitioning of Bosnia. As one will see, these U.S. administration forecasts-objectives will be exceed: some 4.5 million people will be displaced. It should be noted that, as of July 29, 1993, the Owen-Stottenberg (European Union and United Nations) has proposed a veritable carving-up of Bosnia, arguing that later there could be "exchanges of areas and populations" between the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. _ August 27, 1993: The Spanish newspaper El Mundo makes public what it calls "the dirty business of the blue helmets in Sarajevo." Trafficking of cigarettes, alcohol, and heroin, as well as arranging for prostitutes, is directly organized by the "blue helmets" present in Sarajevo since August 1991. _ September 4, 1993: The "peace plan" concocted by the United Nations for Bosnia is described by the American newspaper International Herald Tribune: "Sreto Tonosevic, a Serb, was twice married, first to a Croat now to a Muslim. He has four children, two of whom are Catholic, a third Muslim, and a fourth who is Orthodox. Everything is mixed in this family. We are a true family of Bosnia,¹ which he says with pride, since multi-ethnic families like his represent close to 30 percent of the 4.4 million people who live in Bosnia and who have been condemned to a horrible fate by the last peace plan worked out in Geneva for the partition of Bosnia into three ethnic republics. Zenive, Bosnia¹s third-largest city, is in the middle of the republic designated as Muslim "The city illustrates what is perhaps the greatest human tragedy that has befallen on the unfortunate territory of the Balkans: the final tearing apart of the remaining multi-ethnic cities that, in one way or another, survived the war only to succumb to the peace plan imposed by the Europeans and the United Nations." _ September 15, 1993: Mutiny in the tank regiments in Banja Luka, a Serb city in Bosnia. The mutineers "intend to arrest those profiting from the war." _ March 18, 1994: Under the ęgis of U.S. authorities in Washington, an agreement is signed saying "Croats and Muslims" will be based in "ethnically homogeneous" cantons in Bosnia. This signifies an obligation to the most atrocious of "ethnic cleansing," since as of this date one-third of couples in Bosnia are mixed. _ April 11, 1994: At the request of the United Nations, NATO strikes Yugoslavia under direct pressure from the United States. The International Herald Tribune (May 30) reports and writes of "the American will to fight to the last European soldier in Bosnia." _ Autumn 1994: As the mobilizations in Serbia against the Milosevic regime expand, the Spanish daily newspaper El Paļs explains how the imperialist powers imperialists help Milosevic: "the Western allies want to aid the old, plague-stricken Milosevic, who is now perhaps their only card to alter the situation in Bosnia. For example, consider the surgical strike on Monday against the Bosnia Serb airport in Ubdina, where nearly 40 NATO bombers left intact the control tower and a dozen planes. These actions aim to create breathing room for the Serb president." _ June 1995: NATO strikes are aimed at Serb targets in Bosnia. It is the beginning of a massive exodus of the populations. _ June 1995: Yugoslavia¹s debt is broken up into different pieces for sharing. Before this ever comes to Yugoslavia, the first ethnic sharing has been outlined behind closed doors at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The precise distribution: 36.52 percent to Serbia; 28.49 percent to Croatia; 16.39 percent to Slovenia; 5.4 percent to Macedonia; and 13.2 percent to Bosnia. The ethnic carving-up can now begin for real. _ August 1995: 200,000 Serbs in the vicinity of Krajina are driven out by the Croatian army. At the same time, thousands of Croats are driven out of Banja Luka by Serb troops. Whether Serb or Croat, it is essentially working-class and peasant families that are thrown onto the roads of the exodus. The Wall Street Journal (August 15) writes: "The Serb, Croatian, and Muslim refugees are set loose on a dismal exodus across ex-Yugoslavia. In this way, the objective of the four- year-old war has been achieved: the uprooting of entire populations to create ethnically homogeneous territories." Clinton declares (August 10) that this is "a really promising moment." His secretary of state is delighted: today "opens a window of opportunity." _ August 1995: Bosnian crisis. The United States systematically plays the Milosevic card. Clinton has regular discussions with his special envoy. A total of 4.5 million people have been displaced: workers, peasants, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and so on. _ September 1995: On the ground, the carving-up of Bosnia is achieved. The "international observers" are astonished: off by less than 1 percent, the borderlines are set according to the plan outlined a few weeks earlier in Washington. Thus, the so-called "ethnic wars"--made in Washington--reverse the traditional concept of wars and armistices. Once upon a time, armistices were based on borders established as the result of military action. Today, within the framework of wars against all the peoples of the region that have been completely fomented, prepared, and manipulated by imperialism and their various relays, the war stops at lines set in advance in Washington offices. As Le Figaro cynically writes: "American diplomacy set things up for Slobodan Milosevic." _ January 1996: The Dayton Accords are signed. They sanctify the "cantonization"--the ethnic cleansing--of Bosnia. Some 60,000 NATO soldiers (20,000 of whom are from the United States) are sent in to apply the agreement. _ January 1996: The Serbian economy is devastated by the war. To rebuild will require "proceding with a massive privatization," according to the newspaper News Europe. _ Early 1996: Under the control of NATO troops (1/3 from the United States), "necessary adjustments" are made to align the "ethnic borders" according to the Dayton Accords. As a result, tens of thousands of expelled Bosnian Serbs directed towards Kosovo, an area of Serbia that is majority (95 percent) Albanian- -thus preparing the next war. A few months later, the same NATO-U.S. troops play a direct role in the expulsion of 60,000 Bosnian Serbs from Sarajevo to a hovel called Karadzic (in Bosnian Serbia). _ August 1996: Massive workers¹ strikes in Serbia, particularly in the city of Nis (today under NATO bombing). During this entire period, waves of strikes take place--despite the war (and continue after the cessation of combat)--against the plans to privatize and liquidate social property in the republics of the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia, the workers defend public ownership of the mines and of electricity; the same for the miners and at all the large enterprises in Croatia, to keep them under State ownership. Similarly, Slovenia is shaken by massive strikes by metalworkers. _ February 1997: Massive strikes by Serbian teachers demanding a wage increase. Of 2,000 schools in the country, 1,800 are affected by the strike. At the same time, strike waves hit the auto and arms factories, particularly in Kragujevac, by now devastated by NATO bombs. Massive strikes also break out in the shoe factories of Belgrade, where workers protest against not being paid their wages. _ March 1997: Metalworkers in Serbia issue an appeal for a national strike. _ Spring 1997: The creation in Belgrade of the Association for Independent Workers¹ Politics, a member of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers¹ International. _ Spring 1997: Insurrection in Albania. The people rise up against a government accused of having stolen the people¹s savings and literally plundered the country. Privatizations are also blamed. Committees of Public Safety spring up around the country. Journalists evoke the spectrum of "soviets." Under the cover of humanitarian aid, imperialism intervenes to help with "restabilization," a task given over to the Stalinists with their renamed "Socialist Party." _ May 1, 1997: In Rumania, workers¹ demonstrations take place, particularly around the slogans: "No to privatizations!"; "No to the structural adjustment plans!"; "Withdraw Rumanian troops from Albania!" Here, then, are all the verifiable facts concerning the ten years between 1987 and 1997. These facts establish that in the Balkans, as throughout the world, there are oppressors and the oppressed, exploiters and the exploited. The facts establish that the exploiters are the International Monetary Fund, the imperialist powers, and all the regimes comprised of the old nomenklaturas (including the Milosevic regime), which implement privatizations, layoffs, and the plundering of the people solely to profit the speculators of Wall Street. The facts establish that the so-called "ethnic conflicts" were and are, deliberately and scientifically, introduced and maintained by imperialism and its local relays as an instrument to divide the workers and the people. The facts establish that the workers, the peasants, the youth, whenever they had the possibility to do so, came together in defense of their rights and of democracy. That is why, based on these facts, the Fourth International appeals for a resolute struggle: _ For an immediate halt to the bombings and the NATO intervention! _ For an end to the war! _ Against all the war-mongering governments, particularly the most powerful imperialists and its allies, the governments called "the plural left of Jospin, Schröder, Blair, and so on!" These are slogans that make it possible to open the way to satisfy the requirements for democracy: the right of the people, the right of all the people--Serb, Croat, Kosovar, Bosnian, and so on--to settle things for themselves freely and sovereignly."
