Facts on the Balkans you won't get on CNN
"NATO in the Balkans," 240 pp., Ramsey Clark et al.,
International Action Center, New York, 1998, $15.95.
By Deirdre Griswold
When the U.S. started sending combat troops to Vietnam,
hardly anyone in this country knew anything about the history
of that Southeast Asian nation. This reviewer was on the first
demonstration against that war, in August 1962, and the people
on the street had no idea what or where Vietnam was.
Within a few years, however, the horrors of the war had
reached into almost every household. Everyone had a friend or
relative who was killed, wounded or stressed out. There was a
burning desire to understand what was going on, where this
conflict had come from, who had made the decisions that led to
such a bloody disaster.
Anti-war literature began to appear on campuses, in
bookstores, and even in military barracks. It explained the
Vietnamese people's hatred of colonial oppression, and how the
U.S. was trying to conquer a nation that had resisted both
France and Japan.
Now again, in 1999, a stunned U.S. population is desperately
in need of some history that has not been sanitized by the
Pentagon censors and the little group of policy makers in the
State Department and White House.
Fortunately, a book already exists--published last year by
the International Action Center--that can shed a great deal of
light on why the people of Yugoslavia, who for decades were
united in a socialist federated republic, are today resisting
the further dismemberment of their country.
"NATO in the Balkans," a compilation of essays by former
U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, is rigorous and
scholarly in presenting well-documented facts about the history
of NATO, its role in Bosnia, the background to Yugoslavia's
breakup, and the way in which the Western media have abetted
imperial designs on the country.
Researchers and historians like Michel Chossudovsky, Thomas
Deichmann, Gregory Elich, Lenora Foerstel and Sean Gervasi have
chapters in the book, along with Clark.
But its solid scholarship does not get in the way of this
book being a ringing call for action and resistance. Pieces by
activists Richard Becker, Heather Cottin, Alvin Dorfman, Sara
Flounders, Barry Lituchy, Sam Marcy, Nadja Tesich and Gary
Wilson--all of whom also buttress their arguments with
well-researched information--seek to build a movement against
NATO aggression in Yugoslavia, in the tradition of the anti-war
literature of the Vietnam era.
Each chapter in the book is well referenced. An index
provides quick access to topics like the U.S.-directed bombing
of the Krajina in 1995--the International War Crimes Tribunal
in the Hague just got around to finally putting out a report on
the 200,000 Serbs displaced from their homes in four days in
that campaign--or the role of the Ruder Finn public relations
firm in branding the Serbs as fascists.
Books can be ordered from the International Action Center,
39 W. 14 St., Suite 206, N.Y., N.Y. 10011, phone (212)
633-6646.
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