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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 4/11, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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In the documentary presented on the Discovery channel Dec. 26-30, brief mention was made of a significant document issued by the Federal Council of National Defense, a top Yugoslav military body.
The document was titled "Report Concerning the Actual Situation in the World and Yugoslavia, and Immediate Tasks of the Yugoslav People's Army." It charged that there were "Western designs" to dismember Yugoslavia.
Although the FCND report is not available in English, parts of it are translated in the book "The Destruction of Yugoslavia," by Branka Magas.
The report was delivered to the Yugoslav army on Jan. 25, 1991, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It indicates that the Yugoslav military believed that the continued presence of the USSR would prevent an all-out drive against Yugoslavia.
This assessment was probably correct. It was after the collapse of the USSR that Yugoslavia became a primary target of the Western imperialist powers.
The FCND report says that "though future developments in the USSR cannot be predicted with any certainty," the presence of the Soviet state blocked the Western imperialist powers' drive to overthrow socialism in Yugoslavia.
In Yugoslavia, the document says, "socialism has not yet been finished off, brought to its knees. Yugoslavia has managed to withstand, albeit at a high cost, the first attack and wave of anti-communist hysteria. Real prospects of maintaining the country as a federative and socialist community have been preserved.
"Western planners have achieved considerable success in the realization of their basic strategic orientation--the destruction of communism and the socialist option--but not their ultimate aim. They have not succeeded in overthrowing communism in any country where the revolution had been authentic." Again, this was written before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"As far as our own country is concerned, the West has realized that the Yugoslav idea and socialist option have much deeper roots than they had envisaged, so that the overthrow of socialism in Yugoslavia is not the same thing as in other countries. This is why we can expect that they will modify the method of their action and move to an even stronger attack. It would be very important for them to achieve complete success in Yugoslavia. For they would be cutting into a country where revolution had been authentic.
"Their further activity is likely to develop on two fronts, with two different aims. On the one hand, they will try to overthrow those Communists who have retained power, either in individual republics or at the Federal level."
This will be done in part by demanding constant elections "until their proteges take power."
The report continues, "The other front is the break-up of Yugoslavia, accompanied by vilification of Communists. This strategy has been confirmed by several explicit actions. This is shown also by the well-known prognosis of the CIA that `Yugoslavia will fall apart within eighteen months.' We know with what intentions such statements are given, and that they always have a clear function.
"The same is true of the State Department declaration of 25 December 1990, which contains a threat that the USA will `strongly resist all use of force or pressures aimed at arresting the democratic process or establishing a non- democratic unity of Yugoslavia.' The essence of the message is quite clear: they will overthrow socialism in Yugoslavia even at the price of its disintegration. At the same time, this is a warning to the Army not to prevent this process.
"The support for democracy expressed in certain circles in the West is a transparent demagogy, because for them democracy is only that which corresponds to their aims and interests. For them, democracy in our conditions is primarily one that is anti-socialist."
The report also brings up the political conditions necessary to defend socialism.
"Based on the ideas of Yugoslavism, national equality, brotherhood and unity, freedom and social justice the [Communist] Party [of Yugoslavia] achieved victory in the war of 1941-45.
"These are the same ideas that will bring victory to the League of Communists--Movement for Yugoslavia. The Army can ensure the conditions for a peaceful resolution of the crisis, but it cannot solve the question of Yugoslavia. This can be achieved only by a strong political organization, whose program will be accepted and supported by the broadest social layers."
So here is a document showing that in December 1990 the U.S. State Department threatened the Yugoslav government with the use of force if it in any way resisted the destruction of socialism and the break-up of the country. This report deserves careful examination for understanding what's behind the war in Bosnia.
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