Kostunica, Djindjic and Washington
Would they keep their promises ?
MICHEL COLLON
Belgrade, Monday, September 25,
2000, 3 p.m. According to a scenario we had already reported,
all the Western media rushed to announce that Kostunica, the opposition candidate, had won
the presidential election. It was nevertheless evident that the results were still minimal
and that the reports were all part of a psychological battle.
Currently, each party is claiming victory, but Kostunica seems to lead in the presidential
election. The governing coalition also, while
acknowledging the loss of certain cities in local elections, announced that it was
victorious in the parliamentary vote.
In any event the parliamentary elections present certain differences: the party of
Draskovic (SPO) and the radicals would lose less on
that arena, and the governmental majority (more important in fact than the role of
president) will have to be negotiated by the alliances. In
addition, it should not be forgotten that the republics - Serbia and Montenegro - have
more legal powers than the Yugoslav federation, and
that the Serbian elections will take place in a year.
There still remains a large gain by the Kostunica tendency.
In any case this should put into perspective the hysterical media campaign unleashed over
the past few weeks by the U.S. and in the West,
according to which Milosevic inevitably was going to manipulate the elections, which could
only be fraudulent.
I was invited to oversee the legitimacy of these elections in the company of 200
international public figures who came from more
than 50 countries. We have been able to go wherever we wanted, throughout the entire
country. We visited hundreds of polling places,
interviewed voters and members of the voting bureaus. We were able to establish that the
operations took place here as they do in many
other countries. Each vote was certified by the representatives of the different parties,
including the opposition. Everyone told us that the
operations were perfectly regular.
At Vranje, an opposition representative who was also a member of the Otpor student
movement (supported by the U.S.) came to the
central bureau to complain to us of grave irregularities at Bureau 19. We went there with
a team of 12 observers. But everyone present told
us that there were no problems. The only thing to report was a man who voter while staying
outside the isolation booths. These things
happen all over the world.
At Subotica, a representative of the Hungarian party also came to complain, but my
Hungarian colleague on the observer team went
to check it out and there was no substance to the complaints. There was the impression
that these false complaints were part of a
coordinated tactic aimed at discrediting the vote should Milosevic win.
It remains undeniable that Kostunica has obtained many votes, and that there is a great
possibility of a second round. It is even more
important then to clarify what is at stake.
What opposes the two sides ?
What is the conflict between the two sides? Milosevic embodies resistance to NATO. He had
enormous support during the war and also a
certain prestige arising from the rapid reconstruction of the bridges, the roads and a
part of the factories destroyed during the war.
The traditional leaders of the opposition (Draskovicand Djindjic) would have certainly
lost if they had contested Milosevic in the
election because they were compromised by their close relationship to NATO and the great
majority of Yugoslavs remain firmly attached to
the independence of their country-they absolutely don't want to become a colony.
Yesterday, a friend told me that in 1941, when Hitler issued an ultimatum to Yugoslavia,
people demonstrated in the streets of
Belgrade under the slogan, " Better dead than enslaved. "
Will Yugoslavia become a country of slaves, a colony ? I fear it would if the leaders of
the opposition parties are able to put their program
into effect.
Certainly, Kostunica has multiplied his criticisms with regard to the U.S. and NATO. He
had to do it if he wanted to keep in contention in a
country like this one. Only, although he remains quite vague concerning his economic and
social program, it would be helpful to examine
this program closely.
Kostunica's program is that of a group of far right-wing Yugoslav economists, known under
the name of "G-17". It includes : 1. The
introduction of the German Mark as the national currency ! 2. A sharp reduction of the
military budget which would deprive the country of
the means of defending itself against new aggressions. 3. To get in line with the
anti-social prescriptions of the International Monetary
Fund.
After a year of reprieve, the poor part of the population will be deprived of its "
social security net " which has permitted it to survive
up to now. It will have to buy necessities at the going prices in Western Europe while
having a current purchasing power close to many
countries in the Third World.
These are the same reforms that have already devasted the economy of countries like
Bulgaria, Albania or Romania.
A Romanian observer confided to me this morning, "They promised us that after the
fall of Ceaucescu, unrestrained capitalism
would bring us prosperity. But today, the economy is in ruins. We have built up a debt of
$10 billion [thousand million], but you cannot
see a single investment. The buildings under construction under Ceaucescu have still not
been completed, no new housing is being built,
the youths are forced to wait until their relatives die before they can get an apartment.
"Now these youths are beginning to think it all over. After having given in to the
temptations of Coca Cola, McDonalds and Co., they
ask themselves: 'Where will I find a job that I can live on?' Many will want to emigrate.
Germany just offered 10,000 visas for youths
qualified in computer science. Won't it be a brain drain that will deprive the country of
the means of developing ? "
In effect, it is time to think it over. Many Yugoslavs have voted for Kostunica, hoping
that in changing leaders, they would rid
themselves of the international sanctions that are strangling their country and forcing
them to live a difficult life. But will Kostunica's victory
really bring them relief and stability?
Three elements make up the reply to that question: 1. Where will the money come from? 2.
The example of a precedent like Nicaragua. 3.
What has the West brought, up to now, to Kosovo and Metohija?
With Kostunica, Djindjic and the IMF, would the population be relieved?
1. Undoubtedly the money from the West will go into certain pockets in this country. The
true head of the opposition, Zoran Djindjic-the
person who pulls Konstunica's strings-has received millions of dollars to do Washington's
work.
And a new business-class has developed, and it is stamping impatiently at the starting
gate. It wants to get all the freedom to end
social protection for the working class and regulated working conditions-in order to be
able to exploit to the maximum the Yugoslav labor
force, which is qualified and competent in numerous sectors. It wants to be able to set up
widespread competition among the workers,
submit them to the pressure of unemployment and the fear of layoffs, to make them work
without respecting safety and security rules, day
and night, including weekends.
In brief, to work under a tyranny of fear, as in the so-called " advanced "
countries where a large part of the workers are dying on
the job, more and more stressed out, while another part of the workers are deprived by
unemployment. This is the fate that awaits the
Yugoslav people. Without including the deregulation dear to G-17, which would certainly
permit them to enjoy 'advantages' like meat
affected by mad-cow disease or stuffed with hormones and dioxin, and other pollutants.
A grand illusion currently dominates the Yugoslav youth, because it is the youth above all
that holds the most illusions regarding
Western promises. The grand illusion is the belief that by accepting the will of the
multinational corporations and the western political
leaders, the Yugoslav population will be compensated by prosperity.
But where does the riches of the western multinational corporations come from in the first
place? From the fact that they pay almost
nothing for the raw materials they steal from the Third World. And that in all the
countries of the world where they exploit the workers,
they do everything to keep the workers' salaries as low as possible.
Besides, they are obliged to apply these methods due to an economic rule of the system of
capitalist competition: if they don't do it, they
will be beaten and eliminated by their competition. So wherever they operate, they need to
keep the wages and the living standards low. In
short, if the rich countries are rich, it is because they steal from the poor countries.
Also, when they promise a poor country that by submitting it can will be able to join the
rich countries' club, it's a lie. This promise
cannot be kept, because if they are not more oppressed and exploited to steal from, there
will no longer be exploiters who enrich
themselves. The only solution is a world without exploiters and exploited, a world of true
international cooperation based on solidarity.
2. Then, can U.S. promises be believed? I just had a discussion on this with a Nicaraguan
observer: " I am struck by the resemblance
between the situation in Yugoslavia today and that of Nicaragua in 1990.
"At the time, to overthrow our progressive government, that of the Sandinists, they
had armed the bands called " Contras ", who
massacred and terrorized the population, like the UCK (KLA-Kosovo Liberation Army). On the
other hand, they financed political parties,
and were quite generous with their promises of a better life, to win the 1990 elections.
" They succeeded. The people voted for the right wing in order to get out of the war
and in the hope of improving their standard of
living.
"But the promises have not been kept and today the situation for the Nicaraguan
people has grown enormously worse. In this
country of 4 million inhabitants, unemployment has climbed to 40 percent, and with it
crime, prostitution, drug trafficking. At the red
lights, you are approached by a crowd of begging children.
" Health has deteriorated. Diseases that the revolution had eliminated are now
returning, like pneumonia. Mortality rates, especially
that of infants, are increasing. Illiteracy, which the revolution had reduced to 2.9
percent, has climbed back to 39 percent today.
" Because of this lamentable economic and social situation, the suicide rate of our
youth is the greatest in the Americas : each day, a
youth commits suicide. This is what happens when you put your confidence in U.S. promises.
" But I am confident that the Sandinist left will win the next elections this
November. The polls show it leading 42 percent to 23
percent. "
3. A third element that contributes to our ideas of what to make of Western promises comes
from looking at what they have done in
Kosovo and Metohija. The West had promised to bring peace, democracy and tolerance among
the different nationalities.
And what is going on there now? More than 5,000 terrorist acts have been committed in a
year, killing 1,000 people. Some 350,000
Serbs, Jews, Romas, Moslems and members of other national minorities have been chased out
under the eyes of and with the assistance of
NATO. Result: the Albanian mafia have transformed this region into a exchange center for
drug trafficking, stolen automobiles and
prostitution. Even the Washington Post (Sept. 20) cited a high U.S. official in KFOR who
confessed that Kosovo had been transformed into
a "gangocracy." And Montenegro equally, under the new government the U.S.
installed and financed, has begun to transform itself into a
revolving door for these criminal deals.
A celebrated criminologist from the University of Party, Xavier Rauffer, denounced
"an enormous traffic in human beings, a gigantic
prostitution that now has infested all of Europe, a prostitution directed by Albanian drug
addicts. We are experiencing at the current
moment an inundation of all of Western Europe of heroine that is coming from the
Balkans." (RTBF, March 24, 2000)
It is known that the big European banks secretly launder the fortunes accumulated from
this trafficking. Will NATO succeed in
transforming all the Balkans into a 'gangocracy'? Will the Yugoslav and European youth see
themselves more and more turned over to this
plague of drugs?
Colonialization does not mean stability
The colonialization of Yugoslavia and the Balkans by the West would not bring stability.
If social inequalities and misery grow, the people
will realize that they have been deceived and will revolt in order to regain their
independence. They will seen then that NATO's military
bases have as their function not only strategic objectives for a confrontation with
Russia, for the oil of the Caucasus and of the Middle East,
but also the role of repressing the people of the Balkans.
NATO has supported the fascist dictators Franco and Salazar, it put into place the
dictatorship of the Greek fascist colonels in 1967,
then that of the Turkish officers. It would not hesitate to do it again. It would be
better not to let the fox into the henhouse. Today,
discontent is growing in countries like Macedonia and Romania and observers from these
countries have told me that the coming elections
there could result in a return of the left.
In Yugoslavia also, if Kostunica - that is to say, Djindjic - comes to power, it would
undoubtedly not take long for the Yugoslav
people to understand that they have been deceived. To break and repress revolts, the U.S.
and its friends will certainly try once again to
arouse confrontations between nationalities.
Resistance is therefore the only possible road to assure peace and social development in
the Balkans. Milosevic has declared in his
last major electoral speech: "If we become a colony, we will never be free of
sanctions, for to be a colony is the worst form of sanctions. If
we become a colony, we will have no chance of development, neither in the long or the
short term. "
On this point there is no doubt he is correct.
The responsibility of the young people of the world
At the current moment, it is impossible to predict what will happen here. Many elections
are taking place simultaneously and there are still
no clear indications about the results of the parliamentary voting. What will be the
result for Milosevic's Socialist Party? Besides, this
involves parliamentary elections at the level of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
The elections for the Serbian parliament will take
place in a year.
>From now to then, U.S. pressure and intervention won't be lacking, but also, there
will be political debate. And the resistance of
progressive sectors who aspire to build a society different from that of savage capitalism
attacking the world. And many reversals can still
take place.
In that debate, the progressive youth of the 'rich' countries and that of the exploited
countries of the East and of the Third World have a
very important role to play. To become conscious that the world is not what the TV and
advertising makes it out to be, that is impossible
for all the people of the world to receive an entrance pass for admission to the club of
thieves, that only solidarity, and not colonialization,
will permit development.
To live and develop in dignity, one cannot count on the promises of the masters of fashion
and the launchers of bombs and missiles,
but only on ones' own forces.
Michel Collon is an author of two books on the Balkan crisis and
a resolute anti-war and anti-NATO activist
Written for Belgian weekly paper Solidaire
English translation by International Action Center iacenter@iacenter.org
michel.collon@skynet.be
Anti-Imperialist League -- www.ptb.be/international/indexfr.html
posted 6 October 2000
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