NATO and Yugoslavia
Dismantling socialism was far from peaceful
By John Catalinotto
What is the relationship between Washington's endless "war
on terror," the expansion of NATO, and the so-called war-crimes
trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the Netherlands?
Until Bush's European trip brought it back into focus,
people might even have forgotten that the NATO war alliance
still existed. Though the most aggressive elements in the Bush
administration would like to avoid consulting the U.S.'s NATO
allies, Washington still has a NATO strategy.
That strategy is aimed at completing the recolonization of
Eastern Europe and of the former Soviet Union. NATO expansion
does this while keeping West Europe tied behind its U.S.
imperialist senior partner.
Pentagon analysts made this strategy public by leaking a
document to the media in 1992. Printed in the New York Times
that March, it made it clear that Washington sought hegemony in
all regions, and would carry this policy out in Europe through
NATO.
Yugoslavia was the last of the once-socialist countries to
resist NATO's eastward expansion. The U.S. and NATO bombed the
Belgrade government into accepting occupation of the province
of Kosovo in 1999. The Western powers organized a coup to
overthrow the Socialist Party government in that country in
October 2000.
Eastward sweep of NATO
In 1991, the U.S. and NATO had no bases in Eastern Europe.
In the Balkans there were only bases in Greece, a NATO member.
During 10 years of wars and subversion against Yugoslavia, the
Pentagon managed to get troops stationed at military bases in
Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia and Bulgaria.
Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland became NATO members just
in time to help attack Yugoslavia.
Since that setback, the pro-capitalist regimes in all the
other countries once part of the Soviet bloc--except for
Belarus--have been clamoring to join the imperialist
alliance.
By November, NATO may ask Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria to join, plus maybe Slovakia.
Albania, Macedonia and Croatia have also applied, and Ukraine
will apply in July.
The leaders of these countries are willing to give up to
Western imperialism the little sovereignty they have left now
that their national economies have been "globalized," that is,
integrated into the imperialist-dominated world market.
They see NATO membership as a military guarantee against a
mass pro-socialist upsurge. But their strained national budgets
will now be buying U.S.-made weapons instead of providing funds
for health care, education and welfare.
The U.S. war on Afghanistan and new U.S. military bases in
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgizstan have been steps to
recolonizing Central Asia and the Middle East. In a similar
way, the war on Yugoslavia and NATO expansion has turned the
formerly independent socialist republics into neocolonies.
Baghdad conference defends Milosevic
Since mid-February, Slobodan Milosevic, who was president of
Yugoslavia when that country was attempting to resist U.S./NATO
attack, has been on trial before a court in The Hague, charged
with war crimes and genocide regarding civil wars in Kosovo,
Bosnia and Croatia.
Though the court pretends to be impartial, it was set up by
NATO powers to try only people from the former Yugoslavia for
war crimes. U.S./NATO crimes are conveniently out of the
court's jurisdiction.
The Seventh Session of the Follow-up and Coordination
Committee of the Baghdad Conference, meeting in that city May
7-9, not only issued statements condemning globalization but
defended Milosevic against this court. The conference had 160
representatives of 90 political parties and organizations from
over 40 countries, including all Arab states.
What makes the statement interesting is that while Milosevic
has been charged with crimes against mostly Muslim populations
in Kosovo and Bosnia, these charges have not confused the
representatives of countries that are mostly Muslim.
The conference adopted a statement saying it did "not accept
the legality of the tribunal because it is politically
motivated and not legally constituted," that only the people of
Yugoslavia are competent to deal with any matter pertaining to
Yugoslavia, and that "President Milosevic should be released
immediately from illegal detention."
At another conference, held by the European Peace Forum in
Athens May 17-19, participants from 20 countries recognized
that the trial of Milosevic was not just an attack on an
individual but on "an individual, who, for numerous reasons,
has become the symbol of resistance against NATO's
conflict-fomenting policy of intervention into the internal
affairs of Yugoslavia and against the NATO war."
According to this Europe-based anti-war coalition, "In the
eyes of NATO, this war will only be won, and the dismemberment
of Yugoslavia only accomplished, if and when this symbol has
been brought into discredit."
Milosevic defends himself
In other words, the U.S. and NATO planned a show trial in
The Hague to discredit Milosevic and punish him, and thereby
discredit the Yugoslav resistance. But Milosevic has surprised
them. He has refused to recognize the court's authority and is
waging a strong political and legal defense.
In his opening statement in February, the Yugoslav leader
turned the tables on NATO politically. He exposed the
subversive activity of German imperialism in recognizing and
prompting those elements trying to break apart Yugoslavia, thus
fomenting civil war. Then he told how the U.S. eventually led
NATO in a murderous war that included 78 days of high-tech
bombing of the nation's infrastructure and killed or wounded
thousands of civilians.
The prosecution then presented witnesses who tried to show
war crimes were committed or that Milosevic was responsible.
The Italian daily Il Manifesto reported Feb. 27 that through
his cross-examination Milosevic had discredited five witnesses
in the first two weeks of the trial.
Milosevic continued to challenge all witnesses in his
cross-examination. Some retracted their statements. Others had
to admit they were connected to groups like the KLA (Kosovo
Liberation Army), who were actively fighting the Yugoslav
authority with U.S. and German-supplied weapons.
During all this, Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia was
no longer in power. He was working out of a 9-foot by 15-foot
cell with an insecure telephone line. He was nevertheless able
to prepare for witnesses through strong support from
researchers and experts in Serbia who sympathized with his
resistance, whether or not they supported his politics. This
itself was a sign that within Yugoslavia the spirit of
resistance to imperialism had not died out.
Even his political enemies in the media were forced to
recognize that Milosevic was winning support, especially in the
state of Serbia, but also wherever his arguments got publicity.
A March 1 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported,
"Serbs following the trial say Milosevic is winning."
With a staff of 1,100 and all of NATO's power behind them,
the prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia at The Hague were still unable to keep
Milosevic on the defensive. Faced with this situation, the
media simply stopped giving the trial daily coverage. In the
U.S., it will get into the major newspapers at most once a
week. It is a show trial with no show, because it would
convince few people that Milosevic is guilty.
The one recent major article on the trial, written by former
New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld in the May 30
New Yorker, was an undisguised attack on Milosevic. Lelyveld
accused Milosevic of "bullying" witnesses, despite his complete
lack of real power.
Lelyveld wrote that U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark was considering
being a witness at the trial and "sounded as if he relished the
prospect of being cross-examined by Milosevic." Anyone who read
Clark's book, "Modern Warfare," knows that Clark virtually
admitted NATO waged a colonial war against Yugoslavia and that
a goal of U.S. bombing was to intimidate civilians and force
surrender.
A lot of people who opposed U.S./NATO aggression in
Yugoslavia might be hoping Gen. Clark gets his wish. Then there
will be at least one time a real war criminal stands before the
court. And an opportunity to show how Bush's worldwide war grew
out of Clinton's aggression in Yugoslavia.
Reprinted from the June 6, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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