-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 27, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------U.S. openly funds anti-gov't Yugoslav media
By Gary Wilson
While the Republicans in Washington claim to be scandalized over reports that Bill Clinton's re-election campaign received money payments from rich foreigners, none of them seems to be upset that the rich U.S. government is openly paying right-wing politicians and the counter-revolutionary media in Yugoslavia.
The Zajedno opposition in Yugoslavia seeks to overthrow the government headed by Slobodan Milosevic. Its primary backing comes from the U.S. government.
Its leaders are anti-socialist counter-revolutionaries, ultra-nationalists and religious monarchists.
Although Zajedno failed to win working-class support, the Western media played up and exaggerated its daily rallies. After great pressure from the U.S. government and the other imperialist powers, the Milosevic government offered some concessions to Zajedno.
But the U.S. government now says it wants nothing less than the complete abdication of the Milosevic government and its replacement by the U.S.-controlled Zajedno. The Feb. 13 New York Times quoted an unnamed U.S. official threatening Milosevic: "His days are numbered."
Washington is increasing its funding of Zajedno as well as of "the anti-Milosevic media," the Times reported. "Some of the money can be delivered immediately through the American Embassy in Belgrade," reported the Times.
But most of it will "be funneled through American groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems," according to the Times. These agencies, which purport to be independent human-rights organizations, are really fronts for U.S. government subversion worldwide.
In addition, funds to Zajedno and anti-socialist media like the radio station B92 are also being funneled through a foundation set up by financier George Soros called the Open Society Institute. The Soros Foundation has played a major role in funding counter-revolutionary operations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Shameless intervention
The U.S. government claims it is only supporting "democracy" in Yugoslavia. But its actions are in reality blatant intervention of an outside imperialist power into the internal affairs of another country.
Consider the howl Washington raised when it was suggested that the Libyan government might give some money to the Nation of Islam. The U.S. government claimed that this was illegal and would at the very least require the Nation of Islam to register as an agent of a foreign government.
The amount of money that Libya was reported to have offered the Nation of Islam is only a small fraction of what the U.S. government is openly pumping into organizations in Yugoslavia. Has Zajedno registered yet as an agent of the U.S. government?
As for opening up the media in Yugoslavia, will the U.S. government now offer to open up the U.S. media to those who have been denied access?
Will the U.S. government now guarantee funds and whatever else is necessary for a Black-owned and run television network that would be easily accessible nationwide? One that could tell the truth about what is happening to Mumia Abu-Jamal and other African American political prisoners in the United States?
Will there now be a TV channel dedicated to the labor unions and the struggle for justice in sweatshops across the U.S.? Or one for the lesbian and gay community? Or access to a nationwide media outlet run for and by women?
U.S. capitalism is not in the business of guaranteeing equal access here at home. And it's no different in any other part of the world.
Foreign policy is really an extension of domestic policy. Just as U.S. domestic policy is about cutting social services while making the rich richer, its foreign policy is meant to bring about the same results. And that is what the U.S. government is funding in Yugoslavia.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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