Support for war dwindles in Europe
By John
Catalinotto
Public support for NATO's war on Yugoslavia is diminishing
in the NATO countries as the war drags on and its punishment of
the civilian population becomes apparent. This has also begun
to weaken the position of social-democratic and "green" parties
that back the imperialist war.
In mid-May, a former minister in the French government of
François Mitterrand, the 1960s left intellectual Regis
Debray, wrote a first-hand account of events in Kosovo for the
daily newspaper Le Monde that countered the incessant
demonization of the Yugoslav government and Serbian people. It
exposed some of the lies about the so-called crimes of the
Yugoslav army in Kosovo and revealed some of the crimes
committed against the Yugoslav people.
That Debray's mild article was immediately attacked by the
French intellectual establishment shows how far that
establishment had gone in supporting the imperialist war
against Yugoslavia. What makes it especially difficult for the
anti-war movement in France is that the government is Socialist
Party-led, with participation by the French Communist Party
(PCF) and the French Green Party.
Instead of combating the war with all its strength, as any
real communist party should, the PCF has instead been attacking
the Yugoslav government headed by Slobodan Milosevic. In
addition, the other "far left" parties--Workers' Struggle and
the Revolutionary Communist League--have taken the absurd
position of being for the "liberation" of Kosovo, putting them
on the same side as NATO and its "Kosovo Liberation Army."
Despite this misleading by the traditional left, polls in
France show support for the bombing dropped below 50 percent in
the third week of May.
In Germany, leading bodies of the Green Party in some of the
major cities have split off because of the pro-war position of
the Green leadership. German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer, a
Green leader, has been a major spokesperson for German
participation in the war. While refusing to break with the
government's war policy, a recent Green special congress
demanded that the regime press for a negotiated settlement of
the war.
Green support for the bombing has eroded partly because it
has become clear that the massive bombing of Yugoslavia has
brought with it enormous destruction of the environment.
This writer--who was an editor of the book "Metal of
Dishonor," about weapons made with depleted
uranium--participated recently in meetings in The Hague,
Netherlands, and in Bonn, Germany. In both of these meetings,
environmental destruction, including that by DU, was a major
point.
The meeting in The Hague on May 15--hosted by the groups
"NATO means war, down with NATO" and the New Communist Party of
the Netherlands--mobilized new support for protests against the
war in Yugoslavia. The groups had held a protest the week
before in Amsterdam that brought out 1,500 people against the
war, and are planning a national action for June 5.
The Bonn meeting on May 17 featured Dr. Siegwart-Horst
Gunther, who has gathered information about DU's effects on the
Iraqi population, and Lenora Foerstel of Women for Mutual
Security. By the end of the meeting the audience was painfully
aware that the war against Yugoslavia was also a war on the
environment.
The question for the anti-imperialist movement is how to
turn this growing concern over the war into a potent force
independent of the NATO governments that is capable of ending
NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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