CNN's take this morning was highly nuanced, but no less significant for that.
With repeated showings of a map of "Yugoslavia" which interestingly
appeared to include Kosovo, their apparently most authoritative report
(which is on their web-site this morning) came from Milan Panic, introduced
as former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia. He and other sources sympathetic to
the CNN interventionist position suggested there was little if any
effective popular opposition to Milosevic's early morning arrest among
Serb's in Belgrade. We shall see. But he also carefully played down any
suggestion that it was prompted by the withdrawal of $50 million of US aid
if Milosevic is not handed over to the Hague court of human rights, even
though Milosevic will be investigated on charges of corruption and the
abuse of power.
Other contributors noted that this would not meet charges of crimes against
humanity, but it was important that Milosevic should be investigated first
for what he had done to the Serbian people. Posters asking who is guilty,
with a picture of Milosevic, were prominently displayed. The possibility
that they had been financed with funds from the US or the EU, was not
mentioned. One US commentator suggested that even if Milosevic is not
handed over to the Hague by the US deadline, it would not appear
constructive if the US cut off the aid within a few hours of Milosevic's
arrest by Serbian authorities.
No mention of course was made of the arguments that the NATO action against
Yugoslavia also amounted to significant evidence of crimes against humanity.
Panic's wider geopolitical position was revealing: He suggested that the
the former Yugoslavia was not really a US issue except in so far as the US
might reasonably be asked for money!? Rather it was a European problem and
the territories should all join the EU [or at least come under the aegis of
the EU] as soon as possible. He suggested that Tudjman and Milosevic were
twin nationalist tyrants who had colluded in carving up Yugoslavia at the
cost of many lives.
Carefuly dressed in an authoritative suit, Panic appeared to represent the
reasonable face of pro-European monopoly capitalism, or at least that wing
of the new Serbian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia that believes it will get
a reasonable deal by cooperating with Western European monopoly capitalism.
[It will see. At its best it may be in a similar position to its
counterparts in Poland and Slovenia.]
Although I just recognised his name I did a web-search to check Panic's
stance. The most revealing reference I found in a report from a web site
called BASIC. This apparently stands for the British American Security
Information Council, and claims, rather unconvincingly to my mind, that it is
"an independent research organization that analyzes government policies and
promotes public awareness of defense, disarmament, military strategy and
nuclear policies in order to foster informed debate"
It is no doubt heavily funded by governmental and capitalist sources in the
US and UK, because they think it helps facilitate debate. Recent articles
on their site suggest ingenious attempts to position themselves to try to
bridge the significant gap between the new US nuclear policy and what would
be more acceptable to Europe. (This is vital to the UK, since the UK's
chosen niche in the world is to be a brdige between the US and Europe.
BASIC may therefore be one of those non-governmental structures, part of
the growing international ideological state apparatuses that mediate
potential conflicts of interest between imperialisms).
The extract on Panic below is from a longer article written in 1998
http://www.basicint.org/eur_kosovo_chron2.htm
presenting an allegedly impartial chronology of events leading up to the
Kosovo war. While of course it could not be impartial, it is instructive in
terms of what US and UK governmental analysts might have accepted as
impartial. The comments on Milan Panic in 1992 show how closely bound up he
is with international capitalism, though at that stage that do not signal
that he might lean more to European capitalism than to US capitalism.
Although these is about geopolitical and class forces manifesting
themselves through individuals, Panic's pointed suggestion reported this
morning that Milosevic is a coward for not committing suicide points to the
underlying bitterness of this battle, but also that capitalism is seeking a
nuanced framework for bringing Serbia and all parts of the former
Yugoslavia under the aegis of European monopoly capitalism.
"July - August - Milan Panic, a Serbian-American businessman from
California is appointed Yugoslavia's Prime Minister. Milosevic thinks of
him as the figurehead to deal with the international community. Prime
Minister Panic attempts to convince Milosevic to resign as President of
Serbia, offering to help to set him up in California as the director of a
new American-Yugoslav bank. On the 10th, Prime Minister Panic rushes to
Helsinki to meet with the US Secretary of State Baker, who is attending a
ministerial conference of the CSCE, to gain American support for his plan
to remove Milosevic. Secretary Baker rejects his plan as does the acting
Secretary of State, Eagleburger, who declines to meet with Panic in a
subsequent attempt by the Prime Minister to convince the Americans. In the
following weeks, without outside political support from Washington but
still determined to remove Milosevic, Panic turns to President Dobrica
Cosic and to General Zivota Panic. Panic discusses with them the
possibility of either arresting Milosevic or defeating him in the upcoming
elections. Cosic and Zivota Panic do not rule out the first possibility but
they consider US help necessary. Unable to get the crucial support of the
US, Panic confronts Milosevic privately. During the International
Conference on the Former Yugoslavia held in London on August 26/27, Panic
openly condemns Serbia's repression in Kosovo and does "not speak for
Greater Serbia but for greater peace." This move represents Panic's
ultimate effort to show to the Americans his intentions and therefore to
obtain their help. But it also marks the watershed for Milosevic, who
immediately upon his return to Belgrade decides to block Panic."
All these developments suggest the importance of a close analysis of how
Europe and the US are mediating their imperialist contradictions. In the
present context, to the extent the people of Serbia and the former
Yugoslavia have any influence on the result, I suggest they should have the
support of democratic opinion that if Milosevic committed crimes, they are
best first investigated internally in Serbia. That is in the interests of
the Serb people, and of wider internationalism among people. It is the best
position for resisting US demands that others should be accountable for
crimes against humanity, while it and its allies, are not. It provides the
best framework for trying to salvage any progressive features of socialist
cooperation in Serbia and other former Eastern European countries, while
separating that goal from distortions of post-socialist corrupt oligarch
and nepotistic capitalism.
Chris Burford
London
