The newly formed Action Council for Peace in the Balkans best reflects the cynical double-speak where peace means war. It is composed of the bipartisan forces of U.S. militarism that are framing the debate. Members of the Executive Council include Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor under Carter; Frank Carlucci, a national security advisor and secretary of defense under Reagan; Hodding Carter, a state department spokesperson under Carter; Max Kampelman, who headed Reagan’s nuclear arms team; and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s United Nations ambassador.
On July 12, 1995, this Council for Peace in the Balkans issued a call for "an end to the arms embargo against Bosnia, the withdrawal of the UN forces from Bosnia and an effective NATO air campaign." This "peaceful" group asserts that the "air campaign" should be "strategic and sustained," not "pinprick strikes." The statement concludes, "A failure to act will be disastrous for the people of Bosnia, for the U.S., and for our vital interests in Europe."
CIA and Pentagon involvement in the civil war in the Balkans has positioned the U.S. militarily in a strategic region. At the same time it has frayed the developing unity among its European imperialist rivals. These U.S. rivals bear the increasing burden of hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees, thousands of ground troops in position and the bitter acrimony of competing interests.
What appears to be a bureaucratic dispute between NATO and UN officials is in reality a struggle between the imperialist ruling class of the U.S. and its European rivals, who fear being drawn into a protracted war. Each defends its right to carve up this strategic region in accordance with its own interests. But the Europeans have troops on the ground. If their forces take casualties while the U.S. calls the shots, opposition at home will rise.
There seems to be a great deal of information on close German-U.S. collaboration at the expense of British and French interests. But even this may change. The fact that the U.S. arms and trains the Croatian troops may be a sign that Washington is asserting itself in Croatia also.
The debate on U.S.-controlled NATO forces helping to evacuate UN "peacekeepers" reflects an expanding effort to make the U.S. the only power deciding the fate of the Balkans. Both France’s and Britain’s determination to be bigger powers in Europe now that the Cold War is over is reflected in their large commitment of troops under the UN flag throughout Bosnia.
But the Pentagon has been able to totally frustrate the British and French troop placements by encouraging the Bosnian government, which is totally dependent on the U.S., to sabotage any agreements.
Washington’s November 1994 decision to unilaterally end support for the UN Security Council arms embargo was the most open statement to date that it would pursue its own agenda in Bosnia at the expense of the Europeans. This decision is also at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of uprooted and displaced people caught in the crossfire.
Sanctions: Economic domination of the region
The UN Security Council voted to impose a sanctions blockade on the remains of the Yugoslav Federation (Serbia and Montenegro) on May 30, 1992.
The UN Security Council vote was rushed through to pre-empt a UN report published two days later saying that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was in full compliance with the UN demands that all Yugoslav Federal Army troops be withdrawn from Bosnia.
These sanctions strangling all economic life were imposed only on the Serbs, in spite of the fact that the World Court in the Hague ruled that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was not the aggressor in the conflict in Bosnia.
UN sanctions have not been imposed on Washington’s client states in the region, the Croatian and Bosnian governments. The UN Security Council did not even discuss imposing sanctions on the Croatian government in response to its August 1995 massive attack on the Krajina section of Croatia and its expulsion or "ethnic cleansing" of over 200,000 Serbs there.
Although the stated aim of sanctions is to end arms shipments from Serbia to the Serbs in Bosnia, U.S. and Western powers used the opportunity of enforcing the sanctions to gain control of all the roads, waterways and communications in this strategic part of Europe. All approaches to seaports and airports are sealed off.
The Pentagon now controls all navigation on the mighty Danube River—major thoroughfare of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. All shipping is restricted. The Danube is more important for Europe than the Mississippi River is for commerce in the U.S. All countries of the Danube Basin—not only Serbia but Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia—thus effectively come under the blockade.
The Western capitalist powers are the only ones that stand to benefit from the resulting economic dislocation in a number of formerly socialist countries that are now forcibly going through privatization of their major industries and resources. Entire industrial complexes, no longer able to be competitive in the world market or even to receive raw material for production or ship their goods, can literally be bought for a song by multinational corporations.
Although medical and humanitarian goods are supposedly exempted, the sanctions disrupt the entire supply system—its markets, foreign trade, communications and transport. Funds, bank accounts and credit are frozen. Yugoslavia is a country with limited resources that is forced to cope with a flood of almost 2 million refugees displaced from Croatia and Bosnia. More than 40% of the refugees are under 18 years old. Basic medicines, food, fuel for cooking, heating and running industries and sanitation are at crisis levels.
All the imperialist powers, but particularly the U.S., recognize that Yugoslavia sets precedents for intervention in the former republics of the Soviet Union. In early December 1994, the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe met. Its first military action was to authorize a "peacekeeping mission" to Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. The stated purpose of the forces going into Nagorno-Karabakh is to prevent a Bosnia-like situation. Their track record is not encouraging.
Ownership and control of the newly privatized industries and natural resources is at stake. In a war-torn region, all of this can be bought for a song. Who will control the markets, the rich resources, the rebuilding and the new investments? Military control of the situation will be decisive. Diplomacy is only a cover for the military struggle.
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