Material World: The End Of National Sovereignty? (2008)

The Material World Column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Globalization versus National Capitalism

In 1648 the first modern diplomatic congress established a new political order in Europe, based for the first time on the principle of “national sovereignty.” This principle drew a sharp dividing line between foreign and domestic affairs. Each “national sovereign” was given free rein within the internationally recognized borders of his state. No outsider had any right to interfere. Recognized borders were inviolable. The “sovereign” was originally simply a prince; later the term was applied to any effective government.

National sovereignty facilitated the undisturbed development of separate national capitalisms – British, French, German, American, and so on. Interstate boundaries were stabilized. Governments were able to take protectionist measures to defend home manufacturers against foreign competition.

Even today the principle of national sovereignty is far from dead. It is enshrined in the United Nations Charter: Chapter VII authorizes the Security Council to impose sanctions or use armed force only in the event of a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression.”

National sovereignty undermined

But in practice national sovereignty has been deeply undermined – first of all, by the emergence of a global economy dominated by huge transnational corporations. International financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization and IMF have largely taken over economic policy making. Indebtedness leaves many states with merely the formal husk of independence.

Some groups of states have “pooled” part of their sovereignty in supranational regional institutions. The prime example is the European Union.

The old interstate system has also been destabilised by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the USSR into 26 new states, four of which lack international recognition. The decision of the West to recognize the independence of Kosovo from Serbia has set a precedent that makes it easier to carve up other states. Of course, the “independence” of Kosovo – occupied by NATO forces, governed by officials from the European Union, its constitution drafted at the US State Department – is purely notional. Russia has now retaliated by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Although this will encourage secessionist movements inside Russia, blocking Georgia’s accession to NATO is evidently a higher priority (see September’s Material World).

Legitimising aggression

National sovereignty is not only undermined in practice, but also contested in theory.

Thus, in recent years the United States and its closest allies have sought to legitimise their military attacks on other states. True, such attacks are nothing new. What is new is open advocacy of the principle of aggression. The main rationales used are the prevention of nuclear proliferation, counter-terrorism and humanitarian intervention (see August’s Material World).

It is instructive to compare the Gulf War of 1991 with the current war against Iraq. The Gulf War, at least ostensibly, was launched in defence of the principle of national sovereignty, violated by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The elder Bush resisted pressure to “finish the job” – occupy Iraq and throw out the Ba’athist regime – out of concern that it would lead to the breakup of Iraq and, in particular, a new Kurdish state that would destabilise the whole region. Such considerations have not deterred his son.

Globalisation of capital, fragmentation of states

Paradoxically, the fragmentation of states is a natural corollary of the globalisation of capital. From the point of view of the transnational corporations, states no longer have important policy-making functions. It is enough if they enforce property rights and maintain basic infrastructure in areas important for business. Small states can do these jobs as well as large ones. In fact, they have definite advantages. They are more easily controlled, less likely to develop the will or capacity to challenge the prerogatives of global capital.

Global versus national capitalism

All the same, there is nothing inevitable about globalisation. It has lost impetus recently, and may even have passed its zenith. One sign is the disarray within the WTO. Another is Russia’s change of direction: in contrast to the Yeltsin administration, which was politically submissive and kept the country wide open to global capital, the Putin regime reasserted national sovereignty, expelled foreign firms from strategic sectors of the economy, and ensured the dominant position of national (state and private) capital.

Global versus national capitalism has emerged as an important divide in world politics. This divide exists, first of all, within the capitalist class of individual countries. Thus, even in the US, the citadel of globalisation, some capitalists – currently excluded from power – are oriented toward the home market and favour national capitalism. And even in Russia some capitalists support globalisation.

Nevertheless, the pattern of political forces differs from country to country, and as a result the global/national divide is reflected in international relations. Here the “globalisers,” led by the US, confront in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China and the Central Asian states) an embryonic alliance of national capitals bent on restoring the principle of national sovereignty to its former place in the interstate system.

A different perspective

This context clarifies the difference between our perspective as socialists and the attitude of anti-globalisation activists. Being against capitalist globalisation is not the same as being against capitalism in general. We have ample past experience of a world of competing national capitalisms – quite enough to demonstrate that there is no good reason for preferring such a world to a world under the sway of global capital. The main problem with the movement against globalisation is that it can be mobilized so easily in the interests of national capital, whatever the intentions of its supporters.

To be fair, some anti-globalisation activists are aware of this danger. Acknowledging that humanity faces urgent problems that can only be tackled effectively at the global level, they emphasize that they are not against globalisation as such: they are only against the sort of globalisation that serves the interests of the transnational corporations. This then leads them to explore ideas of globalisation of an “alternative” kind. These ideas at least point in the right direction. Socialism is also an alternative form of globalisation – a globalisation of human community that abolishes capital.

Stefan

The perils of fooling the people (2003)

From the September 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Iraq war has already left a significant mark on the British political scene. The Labour government, whilst floundering around trying to drum up support for its weak excuses for war, found itself obliged to submit a resolution authorising war to the House of Commons. Historically, the decision to commit troops has been the exclusive preserve of the executive branch of the British government, a hang-over of Crown prerogative, with the Monarch as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

In the Kosovan adventure in 1999, the government stoutly refused to permit a vote in the Commons, sure that it could use its authority to unilaterally commit the air-forces to the bombardment of Serbia. The argument runs that the Commons cannot have a vote, because before war the government requires the freedom to manoeuvre and negotiate and to use the threat of violence as a part of diplomacy; and when troops are committed, it would be stabbing them in the back, damaging to morale, were any MPs so villainous as to vote against the war.

Of course, what is an innovation in Britain has been long practice in other powers. The USA has it written into its constitution that declarations of war are the preserve of Congress, whereas control of the armed forces is the preserve of the President. The War Powers Act, further stipulates that the US cannot commit forces for more than sixty days to a war-zone, without the permission of Congress, to prevent Presidents engaging in the 19th century practice of in effect declaring war by invading a neighbouring country. Despite all this legal finagling, during the Kosovan business, the Congress managed to simultaneously refuse to give consent to war, and yet voted war credits. The pretence to respecting the law was only saved by the fact that the war only lasted sixty-three days.

The British government’s recent concession to parliamentary democracy, then, is hardly a leap into the democratic control of the armed forces. British MPs, concerned with keeping their government in place, with pleasing the leader that may prefer them, desperate to keep their jobs and places, sought around for reasons to support their government, for an apparently honourable excuse for supporting the executive’s war drive. These self-same MP’s are the ones now bleating that they were deceived by the “Dodgy Dossier” and trembling with fear lest they be implicated in the mendacity.

The significance lies in the breaking down of the secret preserve of government cliques over military policy. Whilst these still have absolute command over the deployment of murder as a tool of policy, increasingly, they have been compelled to submit to public opinion. Where before, the lies they told to justify war were mere bureaucratic formalities, blatant excuses for doing what those in power were going to do anyway, now they are the bedrock of mass politics for gaining the necessary public support for slaughter.

Although the powers that be feel confident about their capacity to deploy the mass media in order to dominate the ideas of the electorate, this capacity is not absolute. The machinery of ideology does not run smoothly, and different parts jar and clash; whatever Orwell thought, people do have memories and can spot a shift in the line. The ideas being broadcast by the power-mongers and the mass media have to conform with the expectations of their intended audience, or they won’t work. So, a party that has come to power trumpeting justice and freedom can only sell its wars to the consumers of the justice and freedom line, in those terms.

Hence why the government felt the BBC weren’t supportive enough (even though many outsiders felt that it was overwhelmingly broadcasting to a war agenda, without criticising the government). The relative independence of a media organisation from government means it has to act as the best interpreter of the information to hand, which may not be to the exact liking of state officialdom. If the government cannot give a resolutely clear line – as this one could not – then the media has to flail around in confusion. The biases and structures which help co-ordinate élite control of media are structural predispositions, rather than an automatic chain of command, and there is nothing to prevent one part from accidentally (or otherwise) undermining another.

This is further hampered by the relative freedom of information that the capitalist state requires to function, meaning that embarrassing documents and memos can be uncovered, dodgy deals unearthed. To keep the vast mechanism that is the modern state functioning requires massive flows of information to move around relatively easily. This means that it is difficult to keep the circle of knowledge tight, or to prevent media outlets (and others) from obtaining information from different sources and thus confusing the picture the executive clique want to project. Also, it may not be easy to obtain counter-facts, but they can be found by trying – particularly by determined opposition groups.

What this amounts to, is that to embark on a game of mass deception is becoming increasingly precarious for governments, and each time it is embarked upon, the power of its deception tools wears. People begin to see that they have been lied to, begin to mistrust decisions made by small groups of people in darkened rooms, and the mystique of rule by cabal begins to wane. Mass politics, in short, negates the old style government of the 19th century type that so many prominent politicians admire.

While mass politics – that is, small bands of leaders using the population as an undifferentiated lump to reflect their ideas and policies off – has seen tremendous concentrations of power into the hands of élites, it has also seen these leaders increasingly hamstrung by their need to keep their followers. It has meant moving more and more of politics into the open as the various factions appeal to “the mob” for support on which they can base their careers.

Thus, Blair and his cohorts could not quietly knife the BBC in some darkened room, but were forced into public to rebuke them and openly try and exert power upon them. That is, politics is moved into a level of public consciousness, where the people know what is going on, and feel moved to comment and act upon that knowledge. The old way was of an unconscious politics, where people were kept from power by simple ignorance. The more power is made conscious, the more it highlights those parts – such as the use of secret intelligence briefings by Blair and Co – that are secretive, of which we are kept unaware.

The goal of a genuine democracy would be to make all actions by the community and its bodies consciously controlled by the community as a whole. Our present society clearly falls short of this, with government manoeuvring in the hugger-mugger more appropriate to a military campaign than the life of a community; and unequal electors hiding their votes for fear of retaliation. There cannot be democracy where there is social inequality. Nor can there be democracy where some have access to information denied to others; and can make decisions based on that secret information – able to go on protesting the correctness of their decisions, despite evidence of false claims, because they have more secret knowledge, which they – alas – cannot share with us.

Socialism, as a society of equals involving a common knowledge of what resources are available and the clearly communicated opinions of the members of the community, would remove any possibility of such rule by mendacity. Genuine open democracy means the common voice will be heard, rather than passively echoing the principal characters like the chorus of a Greek tragedy. Taking the decisions away from cliques and into the hands of a community controlling its own world via commonly owned means of production, means we would finally move into a collectively conscious, democratic society.

Pik Smeet

Blogger's Note:

See also: Letter: BBC independence? (November 2003)

Material World: Campaigners for humanitarian intervention: “useful idiots” of militarism (2008)

The Material World column from the August 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is nothing new in governments claiming to be motivated by humanitarian concerns when they go to war. To take a couple of old examples: tsarist Russia supposedly fought the Ottoman Empire in order to rescue Armenians from massacre by the Turks, while British intervention following the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 was justified by lurid drawings of “Huns” skewering babies on their bayonets (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWatrocities.htm). The enemy atrocities might be real, as in the first example, or imaginary, as in the second, but in both cases the claim of humanitarian motivation was fraudulent. Governments decided for or against war on the basis of (sometimes erroneous) calculations of economic and strategic interest.

That remains true today. Never, however, has it been more important for governments to win public support for wars by claiming humanitarian motives. As in the past, some of the “facts” underlying the claims are fabricated. Thus, Tony Blair repeatedly claimed that 400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves, although the number of corpses uncovered was only 5,000.

But again, the claims are false even when the facts are true. Often this is obvious because the atrocity occurred long before foreign governments expressed any outrage over it. Why bring the matter up just now? Britain and the US had no objection when Saddam used poison gas on Kurdish villages in 1988 because at that time he was their ally. The weeks preceding the dispatch of British troops to Afghanistan were marked by a media campaign against the oppression of women in that country, with even Cherie Blair roped in. The issue was then dropped as suddenly as it was raised.

A public movement for humanitarian intervention

What is new is the emergence, within the broader human rights movement, of a loosely organized network that campaigns for military intervention wherever that seems to be the only effective means of halting or preventing genocidal atrocities against some ethnic group. Currently, for example, there is an international campaign for intervention in Darfur (Sudan).

During my non-socialist period, I was involved for a while in one of the organizations that makes up this network: the Institute for the Study of Genocide (ISG). My research, publicized through the ISG, helped to bring the massacres of Bosnian Moslems by Serb militias to the attention of the US media and politicians – including, notably, Bill Clinton, who at that time was campaigning for president. Later Clinton did intervene militarily in Yugoslavia, though over Kosovo rather than Bosnia.

Unlike governments, anti-genocide activists like the ISG have quite genuine humanitarian motives. They recall how “the world sat by” and allowed the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust to proceed. (Though at war with Nazi Germany, the Allied command turned down pleas to bomb the railway lines leading to Auschwitz.) They are determined to establish humanitarian considerations as an integral part of policy making, so that “we” will not let such terrible things happen again.

Any decent person will sympathize with this line of thought. But there is a problem with it. Let us shift our focus from the moral imperative of effective action to the political forces capable of such action. Who is “the world”? Who is “we”? The only “we” capable of intervening is governments with their armed forces. But governments do not exist for humanitarian purposes. They are therefore loathe to intervene for humanitarian reasons, and it is close to impossible to compel them to do so.

Pros and cons

From the point of view of governments, the existence of a public movement for humanitarian intervention has both pros and cons. It is irritating and embarrassing to have to face down emotional public demands to intervene in places where no important “national interests” are at stake – in Rwanda, for instance, or Darfur. On the other hand, when you are inclined to intervene anyway for other, more “important” reasons it is extremely convenient to have a public movement pressing for intervention. That makes it much easier to drum up public support for war, and at the same time you can enhance your democratic credentials by “responding to public opinion.”

In the case of Yugoslavia, the demand to intervene effectively over Bosnia was resisted, but the campaign in which I participated prepared the ground for intervention over Kosovo. The evidence now available suggests that in Kosovo, in contrast to Bosnia, there was never any real danger of genocide (as opposed to the usual ethnic cleansing). In Kosovo, however, and again in contrast to Bosnia, significant interests were at stake, such as a major oil pipeline and metal-mining complex (see April 2008 Socialist Standard).

Illusory success

It may appear to campaigners for humanitarian intervention that they have a certain limited success. They “win some and lose some.” But if we look more deeply into the real interests involved we see that their success is largely illusory. It is by no means clear that their efforts have the net effect of reducing the amount of suffering in the world. In fact, by supporting and helping to legitimize brutal and devastating wars they may well increase the total of suffering.

The epithet “useful idiots” (or “useful fools”) was used to pillory Western pacifists who supposedly served the interests of the Soviet Union, though without intending to do so and for the best of all possible motives. Jean Bricmont borrows the expression for a different purpose, calling campaigners for humanitarian intervention the “useful idiots” of Western militarism and imperialism (Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2006). Again, this is not meant to cast any aspersions on their motives.

As socialists we would only question the stress on “Western.” In principle such people could equally well serve as useful idiots for non-Western (Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc.) militarism and imperialism, though in practice they are active mostly in Western countries.

Calls for humanitarian intervention only make sense in terms of a false conception of the nature and functions of government. They feed a delusion that obscures the reality of our capitalist world, thereby making it harder to overcome that reality.

Stefan

More nationalist madness in the Balkans (2001)

From the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Late June and early July saw much tension in Macedonia, threatening once more to ignite nationalist hatreds that have ripped the Balkans apart now for almost a decade.

It was uncannily ironic that as Yugoslavia was sending former president Slobodan Milosevic to stand trial in The Hague on war crimes, a mob of 5,000 Macedonian protestors, including police, soldiers and reservists, stormed their parliament and forced president Boris Trajkovski flee in fear of his life. His crime? He had agreed to a Western brokered cease-fire with Albanian rebels and also allowed NATO to ferry rebel fighters to safety from a village they had captured six miles away from the capital Skopje. Not only was the mob furious that their government had signed a cease-fire with a movement that Nato’s own command had labelled “terrorists” and “murderers”, but here was the West once again coming to the aid of insurgents.

Ostensibly, the Albanian rebels claim to be only interested in winning equal civil rights for Albanians and constitutional changes. This however is no civil rights movement. If so, then why the armed insurgents and why do they call themselves the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA)? The answer is simple, they are nationalists bent on creating a greater Albania. They are after territorial gain and control of the porous borders which show a fair profit in drugs and arms smuggling and the lucrative trade in “illegal” immigrants. Violence and guerrilla warfare as practised by the NLA is not normally the stuff of “civil-rights” movements, which generally pursue a non-violent agenda. It is the remit of liberation forces intent on wresting territory from its present owners. What has prompted the NLA to pass themselves off as a “civil-rights” movement is NATO’s refusal to redraw the borders of the Balkans.

Moreover, why do they launch attacks on government forces? Simple – they hope to incur a heavy-handed response from Macedonian forces which would win them support from Macedonia’s Albanian population, who perhaps need a little egging on, bearing in mind their social and economic gripes, and from Kosovo – Albanians and Albania itself. They have further counted on benefiting from a similar situation when their parent organisation, the KLA, incurred such a harsh and brutal response from Serb forces that NATO was forced to intervene on behalf of the Albanians in 1998.

The risk of all-out war is serious enough. It is feared that the mob fury could now be focused on isolated pockets of Albanians in Macedonia (they make up one third of the population) now that Trajkovski has agreed to the temporary EU brokered cease-fire. At present the rebels have captured areas of territory in the west of the country and have cut off water and electricity supplies, further inciting Macedonian hard-liners in Skopje to demand armed intervention – a situation made all the worse with the rebels threatening to descend on Skopje to protect Albanians living there.

Chief protagonists of the Macedonian Slav majority, including Prime Minister Ljubco Georevski still hanker after a ham-fisted solution to the problem and perhaps the fact that the government has recently taking delivery of eight new attack aircraft – doubling the size of its air force – and that Georgevbski’s VMRO-DPMNE political party have recently handed out automatic weapons to 2000 reservists suggests they are not putting much faith in a peaceful solution to the crisis. If Macedonian Slavs, tired at the slow pace of a settlement in their favour, frustrated with the unchecked gains of the rebels, decide to even the score and attack ethnic Albanian areas, this will most certainly witness the beginning of a new wave of civil war.

 A political settlement however is still on the cards, with negotiators from the EU and NATO having set an unofficial deadline for a peaceful solution, which would then pave the way for British, French, Italian and Greek soldiers to take part in a mission to disarm Albanian rebels. The cease-fire, signed by the heads of the Macedonian army and police force as well as the NLA, consists of two linked agreements – one between the NLA and NATO and the other between the Macedonian forces and NATO, with the NLA agreeing to disarm if a political settlement can be reached.

Critics, meanwhile, warn that by acknowledging the NLA as a legitimate protagonist in debates about Macedonia’s future, the West has effectively conceded the carving up of Macedonia along ethnic lines – and this is cold comfort for Macedonian nationalists and the paramilitary groups now springing up and arguing for the expulsion of Albanians from Macedonia’s mixed communities. Many Macedonians still remain distrustful of the US, who they see as pro-Albanian following the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and are contemptuous of any Western-designed solution.

Little surprise, then, that Balkan analysts see only a deteriorating situation and one that can’t be solved by further Western solutions that sparked the storming of the Macedonian parliament.

To date the present conflict has not been as bloody as previous Balkan disagreements, but it has nevertheless resulted in 100,000 refugees who represent perhaps 5 percent of the population. It is perhaps too early to predict events in the coming weeks in Macedonia. Whilst nationalism, like the disease it is, can be diagnosed, there remains no immediate prognosis. For it feeds on fear and insecurity, alienation and ignorance which themselves can lead to irrational passions and attempts at quick-fix and spontaneous violent attempts at remedy which always prove counterproductive and detrimental to all concerned.

Nationalist conflict has raged for 10 long years in the Balkans. What, in all honesty, have any of the victors gained? What is the “independence” they yearn after, if it means being trapped within borders – artificial constructs, no, prisons – inside of the bigger prison of capitalism?

John Bissett

The socialist position on Kosovo vindicated (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very occasionally, the bourgeois media serve socialists tasy snacks which cut to the reality of how capitalism operates. Hidden away on the comment pages of the Guardian, arch greeny liberal George Monbiot provides a compelling case for how Caspian Sea oil was a major factor in the Kosovan war after all. With one eye on an article by fellow liberal Jonathon Freedland (written at the time of the bombing), which mocked the idea that oil had anything to do with the war effort, Monbiot quotes from various prominent sources to demonstrate the opposite.

The Trans-Balkan oil pipeline (which is coming up for approval) will transport Caspian Sea oil from the Black Sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. According to a paper by the US Trade and Development agency, the pipeline will “provide American companies with a key role in developing the vital east-west corridor” and “facilitate rapid integration” of the “Balkans with western Europe”. Monbiot says that there is “no question” that this featured prominently in Balkan war politics. The then US energy secretary said: “This is about America’s energy security . . . We’ve made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it’s very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right.” The pipeline does not pass through the former Yugoslavia, but as the Albanian president said: “no solution confined within Serbian borders will bring lasting peace”. Monbiot adds that “the message could scarcely have been blunter: if you want Albanian consent for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands of the Serbs”. Subsequently, we can now fully understand the strategic need for “stability” in the Balkans.

The May 1999 Socialist Standard said that “wars are fought over markets, investment outlets, raw material sources and trade routes and strategic points to control them”. Liberals mocked us at the time. Now, after their support for the slaughter of our class in Kosovo, they will have to concede that we were right all along. Thanks George!

Letter: The Balkan War (1999)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Balkan War

Dear Editors,

Surely you can do better than that in your comments on the Balkan war?

That war was and is an ethnic one pure and simple. For ten years now Serbs, Croats and Bosnians have indulged in a war of racial hatred. Kosova was Milosevic’s last straw and he played it out to the last.

It was time that the rest of Europe woke up, even though they took a dozy attitude to the events in Africa. Somebody had to say enough is enough, and it was right to turn on the Serbs and halt their genocidal attitude to the Kosovo Albanians.

The Belgrade Serbs cocked a deaf ear to Kosovo and indulged in “pop” concert patriotism, something the Brits missed out on in their hatred of the Irish.

If you wanted to relate political beliefs to anything out there, why not indulge yourselves in sussing out that bastard “Jackson”, the drunken badly-spoken military man of the infamous paratroopers, who are always brought out along with the Ghurkas when there is dirty work to be done.

Bill Connor, 

Heywood, Lancs

Reply:

You’re quite wrong. For there to be a race war there would have to be races. But races (and “ethnic group” is just another, equally unscientific, word for “race”) don’t exist. There is only one race—the human race. Even by the sloppy definition, based on superficial visible anatomical differences, used by those who perpetuate the myth of “race” it is clear that the people in former Yugoslavia would all be members of the same race. Or can you tell the difference between an “Albanian” and a “Serb” just by looking at them?

What’s at work in former Yugoslavia is nationalism, which is a political doctrine that preaches that people with a common history or language or religion form a separate “nation” from all other people and have the right to have their own political state to defend their common interest. Socialists have always rejected this doctrine, not just because it isn’t true (people who have a common history or speak the same language do not have a common interest; they are divided into classes, and a worker who speaks a particular language has a common interest with workers speaking other languages but not with a capitalist who speaks the same one) but also because of its practical consequences.

Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to “their” so-called “nation-state”. In states where a sizeable minority of the population do not fit into the definition of that state’s “nation”—because, for instance, they speak a different language, especially if this is the language of another state—then there is at least a potential problem, to which the final solution is so-called ethnic cleansing. The establishment of independent states in eastern Europe following the break-up of the Tsarist and Austro-Hungarian empires in the First World War led to massive transfers of populations between the new states, precisely because the borders of those states did not correspond to the distribution of the population by “nationality” as defined by language. The same thing is happening again today with the break-up of Yugoslavia since the collapse of state-capitalism in 1989-90.

So-called ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia is the consequence of the creation of new capitalist states in the area and the attempts of their new or would-be ruling classes to consolidate their rule. The Serbian ruling class under Milosevic wanted to clear Kosovo of Albanian-speakers to get rid of a “disloyal” minority within Serbia that was becoming ungovernable. Similarly, the KLA is now trying to clear Kosovo of Serbian-speakers because they know that they will never be able to get them to be loyal to the independent state they hope to set up.

Ordinary Serbian-speakers and ordinary Albanian-speakers have the same interest, in getting on with their lives while capitalism lasts and ultimately in establishing socialism. What interest can they have in burning down each other’s houses—and worse? Clearly, they are being manipulated by rival nationalist politicians seeking to consolidate new capitalist states.- Editors

Letters: Legal war? (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Legal war?

Dear Editors,

I am horrified to watch that NATO are waging war on Yugoslavia without declaring war, in fact, no UN Resolution was passed by the Security Council permitting NATO’s barbaric bombing of Serbia.

I do not condone ethnic cleansing anywhere on this planet, equally I cannot condone Anglo-American-led NATO International Gangsterism in the Third World, getting one country or religion against another and promoting proxy wars for hegemonistic goals.

The Western alliance which arrogantly describes itself as the “International Community” has now embarked on a multi-faceted aggressive campaign to bring Iraq, Yugoslavia and other Third World countries to their knees.

Curiously, Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council of the UN, are not being consulted; on the contrary they are being rebuffed. China is more interested in her world-wide economic interest and as such China is not challenging the Anglo-American aggressive designs anywhere. The US has become the UN and Kofi Annan its General Secretary, is reduced to an American stooge.

I often ask myself: what have we done to deserve this. “New World Order” or more appropriately “New World Disorder”, especially after the ending of the Cold War.

Is this what is called the “Ethical Dimension” of foreign policy? The self-appointed “International Community” has become judge and jury and executioner.

In the political dictionary, the word “imperialism” is out of style but the barbaric bombing in Serbia, Yugoslavia tells us that “imperialism” is alive and kicking, bullying, intimidating, bombing and killing small nations of the third world.

Avtar Pabla, 

Coventry  

Reply:

It is true that, unless they conform to the UN Charter, wars are technically illegal under international law. Yet even since it was adopted in 1946, wars have gone on in some part of the world, the biggest of which, the Korean War, was waged under the UN flag. This merely illustrates what Socialists have always argued, that peace treaties are merely worthless scraps of paper. We have never placed any confidence in the UN as a means of stopping war. As wars are caused by the rivalry between capitalist states over markets, trade routes, investment outlets and raw materials that is built into capitalism, only the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by the world-wide system of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit can do that- Editors.  

Mistaken identity

Dear Editors,

I can’t work out your rationale on Serbia—Stop the bombing!!—Stop the bombing!! And? Then what? Count how many hundreds and thousands of Albanian Kosovan refugees have been forced out of their homes?

Count how many unmarked, mass, civilian Albanian Kosovan graves are currently being filled over by Serb tractors?

Count how many Albanian Kosovan women, young and old, have mysteriously “disappeared” into “Serb safekeeping”?

Count how many Albanian Kosovan houses, shops, workplaces, villages and small towns have been left in smoking ruins by the Serb military?

Count how many mines the Serb authorities are placing around all the Kosovo borders so that Albanian Kosovans “who have nothing to fear” can feel safe and wanted in their own country?

Is this the same SPGB who claim to be on the side of the oppressed and powerless? Supporting the demands of one of the most brutal, right-wing, authoritarian, unreconstructed, military regimes in Western Europe? With the Serbs’ proven track record in Bosnia and Croatia over the last 10 years?

Shame on you?

“Uncle Vladimir”, 

London N16

Reply:

Although we are in favour of the immediate stopping of all wars, i.e. of the killing of innocent workers on both sides, the posters you have seen proclaiming “Stop the Bombing” have not been put up by us, but by some Trotskyist group which is no doubt supporting Serbia as the lesser evil in the current NATO-Serbia war. So your criticism is misdirected. Besides, of course, as V.I. Lenin you may be their uncle but you’re no relation of ours.

And just because we don’t support the NATO bombing campaign does not mean that we therefore support the Serbian army. We are against both sides, Serbian capitalism as well as NATO imperialism who are fighting over an issue—who should control the territories of the former Yugoslavia—which is not worth the sacrifice of a single worker’s life- Editors.  

“Socialism” or what?

Dear Editors,

Your pathetic reply to Paul Azzario’s letter (April Socialist Standard) illustrates quite convincingly the need to change the name of the party.

When the “S” word is propagated by Socialists, the bemused recipients will have mental pictures triggered of anything stretching from the Labour Party, the “Socialist” countries via Russia’s Soviet past. Surely, even you must admit that nearly 100 years of dedicated slog, has produced no discernible dent in the solid front of political ignorance.

Socialist propaganda goes in and out of the mind with the greatest of ease, because actual examples of Socialism in action are difficult to point to, thus the mind has nothing to work on.

Whatever Socialists do, life will be difficult, so I am suggesting that they try “Lateral Thinking” to assist in getting around part of the problem.

At the moment Socialists use “Direct Thinking”!, e.g. we are “Socialists”! and refuse to change our name no matter how great the confusion! It is the “Charge of the Light Brigade” mentality, the ruinous head-on clash! We count the few survivors and honour them but we are no nearer to Socialism.

Why not attack from the flank. Disarm the enemy by changing your name and use only meaningful words, where others cannot follow. E.g. “One World, Free Access to Everything Produced”. This is a bit of a mouthful, but it is pure Socialism, where no-one else can follow!

I am sure that a competent wordsmith can improve on such a heading, which cuts out all mistaken ideas associated with that “S” word. Supporters of Blair, Benn, Yeltsin, Castro, Trotsky and others will have the ground cut from beneath their feet and be forced to start thinking positively—for the first time.

Sam Levitt, 

London NW3

Editorial: The Balkan War (1999)

Editorial from the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again European cities are being bombed. Once again displaced persons are on the move. This has never ceased to be the lot of people in Africa and Asia but one of the claims of Western capitalism was that it had at least established peace and prosperity in Europe. Now full-scale war has returned to Europe. The illusion that permanent peace and prosperity is possible under capitalism has been shattered.

The NATO bombing raids on Yugoslavia are aimed not just at direct military targets but at the industrial infrastructure of power stations, fuel depots, factories, chemical plants, roads, railways and bridges which serve civilian purposes as well as supplying the Serbian military machine. All this represents the destruction of useful wealth. As Socialists have always said, war means social regression.

But is it sometimes necessary? Although we are not pacifists (we would countenance fighting should a pro-capitalist minority take up arms to try to prevent the democratic establishment of socialism) we say there is no such thing as a “just war”. Wars are fought over markets, investment outlets, raw material sources and trade routes and strategic points to control them.

The present Balkan War is no different. It is a continuation of the process that started in 1991 when Slovenia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, in which the stake has been: who shall control the territories of the former Yugoslavia—Serbia or the West, in particular Germany?

When “communism” (in reality state capitalism) collapsed, the NATO powers had a choice. Let the Serbian ruling class continue to maintain order and stability in the area so that trading and profit-making there could continue normally. Or apply the principle of “national self-determination” in the hope that a collection of smaller, more “ethnically pure” states would provide greater stability.

Reunited Germany, with its historic enemy Russia on its knees, was able to revive its ambitions in Eastern and Central Europe and it led the way in working for the break-up of Yugoslavia so that it, rather than Serbia, could dominate the area. First Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia, then Macedonia broke away or rather were broken away. The result, however, has not been stability. Quite the reverse, with only a NATO army of occupation maintaining a fragile peace in Bosnia and eastern Croatia.

And now Kosovo. Serbia claims that it is fighting to retain Kosovo because this is the cradle of “Serbian civilisation”, but there is more at stake than the bones of Prince Lazar. As retired Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, who commanded UN troops in Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo, has pointed out: “Quite frankly, they want the northern half of Kosovo. That’s where the mines and natural resources are” (Times Colonist, Victoria, 26 March). There has been speculation in the media that this may be the compromise that will emerge once the killings and bombings have stopped: the partition of Kosovo with Serbian forces controlling an ethnically-cleansed north and a NATO army of occupation looking after the impoverished refugees in the south.

Faced with this latest manifestation of capitalist barbarity and cynicism we once again place on record our abhorrence of all war and call upon workers everywhere to unite to bring the war-prone capitalist system to a speedy end.

Watching the war go by (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalists have never gone to war to promote Justice and they never will.

Last year The Most Dangerous Man In The World was Saddam Hussain. Pronounced Sadaaam Hoosayn by the plastic propagandists employed to spin the latest line for CNN. There had never been a nastier dictator than the Evil Saddaaam and that was why forces of the American Empire—sorry, NATO—had to “go in there and kick ass”. Any resemblance to a gangland settling of scores should be ignored. After all, that upright defender of virtue, Slick Willy Clinton, had cast himself as Batman against the Iraqi Joker, with wee Tony doing his best to look like Robin.

But let us not distract ourselves with nostalgia. That was yesterday’s war. Now, in the world of CNN-speak, an even more demonic evil has come to threaten the stability of the globe. Plucky little Kosovo must be defended. Think not of the fact that nine out of ten Americans had never heard of Serbia, let alone Kosovo, until CNN told them about it fifty times a day. The threat to the New World Order has been identified. Milosevic must be banged to rights. The propagandists, using a script uncannily similar to Wag The Dog (a fictional account of a sleazy US President saving his reputation by a bogus war against Albania), invite us to shout and curse against the crimes of the Belgrade regime.

And, blinded by the light of the TV screen, large numbers of decent people are weeping for the oppressed Kosovars and cheering NATO as it drops its bombs on Serb towns and villages. Because most people are decent and they hate to see injustice against a defenceless minority, so they are sucked in to the drama of war.

But there are some other defenceless minorities whose plight is not shown on CNN. There are some defenceless minorities for whom NATO would not so much as fire a shot from an air gun. In fact, the NATO states are the very ones which have sold the weapons by which these defenceless minorities are oppressed. For example . . .

There are the Kurds in Turkey. Between 1990 and 1994 about one million Turkish Kurds were driven from their homes. Over 40,000 Kurds have been killed. And in 1994 Turkey became the biggest single importer of US military equipment and the world’s largest arms purchaser. Turkey is a member of NATO. Its troops are currently part of the NATO forces in Yugoslavia. Why is NATO attacking Serbia and not Turkey? The US administration justifies Turkish state atrocities on the grounds that they are defending “law and order” against Kurdish terrorists. The Serbian regime uses precisely the same logic: that it has only slaughtered people and burnt villages to the ground in a war against Kosovar terrorism.

Within the past month 10,000 people were killed in a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There are countless refugees. When did we hear about this on the TV News? Where are the calls from those incorrigible humanitarians, Albright and Cook, to send aid to these refugees and to stop the fighting? Since 1994 820,000 have died in Rwanda. Since 1986 a million and a half have died in Sudan. Where was CNN?  

What about East Timor? Conduct a simple experiment. Go on to the streets of Kansas City or, for that matter, White City in London and ask people what they think about the slaughter of the Timorese people. Most will never have heard about East Timor. The propagandists have forgotten to tell them about that atrocity because that one is a NATO-armed assault on a defenceless minority. East Timor was taken over by Indonesia in 1975, since when one third of its population has been killed—that’s 200,000 people. Since 1975 the USA has sold over $1 billion of weapons to the Indonesian dictatorship. The other main arms suppliers are Australia and Britain. Just as the NATO troops were whizzing off to knock the shit out of Belgrade, Indonesian militia entered a church full of people in East Timor and slaughtered them. Reports have not made it on to the CNN News, perhaps because the reporters are too busy congratulating the West upon its humanitarian campaign to help oppressed minorities.

There is something deeply disgusting about the pretence that bombing is a civilising mission. The people who drop bombs from the sky upon towns and villages are bullying cowards and deserve no respect from anyone. The people who give them the orders to drop their bombs are self-serving hypocrites whose concern for the safety of Kosovar refugees is about as genuine as their domestic concern for single mothers, the unemployed and the disabled. The minority who own and control the world—the Directors of USA Inc and UK Plc—are ruthless, exploitative thieves whose primary interest is in the fast buck and protecting what they imagine their interests to be. The capitalists have never gone to war to promote justice and they never will. Indeed, the notion that justice can be furthered by violence can only make sense when you have a social system that is rooted in violence and plunder.

We will no doubt be told that by opposing the military escapades of Clinton and Blair we are siding with those who are committing unspeakable acts against defenceless Kosovars. Socialists side with no state, for all states are merely organised forces of national coercion. We are opposed to the lot of them and support the interest of the oppressed, not selectively, but wherever they are. In time of war we refuse steadfastly to be deluded by the crass propaganda of any section of the ruling class or to become entrapped in the rhetoric of militarist terror.

Instead of taking sides between this nation or that, we oppose all nationalism. Workers have no country. None to live for. None to die for. Workers should refuse to fight, for every drop of working-class blood shed in battles within capitalism is wasted.  

CNN’s viewing figures have gone up since the war in Yugoslavia started. What exciting pictures the explosions make. What a terrific diversion from thinking about the poverty of life under the profit system it is for wage slaves to be presented with 24-hour live coverage of Clinton’s Heroes. CLOBBER SLOBBA, says the Sun, ever eager to find new depths of banality, illiteracy and tastelessness by which to woo its prey. So, we sit at home and we watch the war and just occasionally we might wonder how much it cost to build the US bomber planes (more than the total GDP of Albania, as it happens) and what kind of world we might live in if those resources were not used to produce ever more sophisticated weapons of death, but libraries, homes and hospitals for all.

Steve Coleman

Letters: Not my war (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not my war

Dear Editors,

Like you I am opposed to dropping bombs on my fellow human beings. My “side” is opposed to the “sides” of Milosovic, the KLF and the NATO powers, including “our” government. My “side” is for peace and live and let live against power politics, territorial urges and militaristic posturing.

Having no shares or property to defend, I give all Tommies permission to take it easy and stay at home with their wives and bairns. The airmen and soldiers are victims too of a cynical, greedy two-faced hypocritical bunch of warmongers.

If war is ever “necessary” this should proceed by the politicians heading the column into battle.

Robert J. Taylor,  

South Shields 

We have a dream

Dear Editors,

We have a dream, it’s a big one too. Our dream embraces the whole of humanity and they don’t come much bigger than that. In our dream we see every person on the face of the Earth having the same value, priceless! In our dream gone will be the days where one person’s life will be considered more valuable or less valuable than any other. Gone will be the days when someone will be paid as much for reading the News for a day as a nurse will receive for a whole year of looking after the sick. Gone also will be the days when some have a life of untold luxury, wealth and privilege just because they happen to be born in a certain bed.

We have a dream . . . in a socialist world buildings will be built to the highest possible specification (just like banks are now) to be inhabited by people and not to house lumps of gold, bits of coloured glass and pretty pieces of paper. We don’t know how long it might be before our dream becomes a reality, it might take quite a while. We realise that there are plenty of people who have a vested interest in retaining the demeaning values upon which society is based . . . for the time being they are doing alright thank you, Jack.

Capitalism is a reality, but the dream that once was, for too many, has now become a soul-destroying nightmare. One million people in this country alone take a daily dose of Prozac (anti-depressant) to help them get through each day. This is a legal drug, just imagine how many more are getting away from it all by “fixing” on anything that they can lay their shaking hands on.

The fact is of course that capitalism has and continues to fail people in their millions, they see no hope, they have no hope, worse still they don’t even have a dream.

John Phazey, 

Sutton Coldfield

 

Labour no good

Dear Editors,

Re your article “What’s New about New Labour?” (March, Socialist Standard), it is of course, perfectly true that (so-called) “New” Labour is no different from Old Labour. The Labour Party never was a socialist party. Over the years it has had many far left hot-heads in it; one of the most notable being Aneurin Bevan (although, towards the end of his life, he mellowed considerably). The Labour Party in its policies was only really a left-wing conservative party. That is why, in my opinion, it has spent most of the years of its existence in opposition.

When in government, it has introduced means testing for the for the very poor, cut dole money, introduced a compulsory two years’ national service for all young men on attaining the age of 18, banned strikes making them illegal, operated wage freezes, limited wage increases. True, they introduced child benefit after the war; but, in old money, Hugh Dalton, then Chancellor, put a shilling on 20 fags and sixpence on 10 fags to pay for it. The aforementioned policies seem more like the policies of a far right Thatcherite party than a so-called Labour Party.

One of the first assertions in the Labour Constitution was: “The Labour Party is a Socialist Party”. It wasn’t and never has been. But the one that always amuses me sadly is the old Clause 4: “To secure for the workers by hand and by brain, the full fruits of their labour and the most equitable distribution thereof.” Jolly decent of them eh! Who was anyone to deny the workers by hand or brain the full fruits of their labour?

I always remember in the long ago, November 1956 to be exact, as a young engineering apprentice in the Ford Motor company, I was invited to join the AEU. I had to fill in a form and attend the branch I had chosen with my seconder who had joined me. The new recruits stood out at the front of the meeting and the Branch Chairman read a text out to them (I suppose they still have it). The first part of the text had in it: “Our ancestors and predecessors were vilified and persecuted and, what prosperity we have now, is the fruits of their labour.”

Most of the text, however, has faded from my memory. The part I do remember is the end part: “May you live to see the day when we have ended the system that causes unemployment, that causes poverty in the midst of plenty, and replace it with a just and equitable one.” In the intervening years, particularly during the Thatcher years, my thoughts have often gone back to that far-off night. Would I ever live to see that day?

Stuart P. King, 

Romford, Essex 

Become a socialist

Dear Editors,

I think that most folks have heard of Socialism but I doubt very much that their definition coincides with mine—a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community—a world-wide community of 5½ billion of us humans.

We Socialists are quite satisfied that the only way to achieve this goal is by political action. Use your vote to bring about an end to the present system, capitalism, which deprives the worker of the wealth they alone produce.

The solution to most of the ills of the world is a simple one, establish Socialism. However it cannot be done without a majority of Socialists. Our socialist candidates will flat-out tell you that they don’t want your vote unless you want socialism. Reforming capitalism is not on the agenda. Our political opponents have been doing that for over 200 years.

The socialist can point the way but they will not adopt the role of “leader”. Have you heard this before? “Where there are leaders there are led, where there are led there are bled.”

We must first cast off the role of being a follower. You may think you cannot be hoodwinked. That you are extremely intelligent. That you are too wise in the ways of the world. The facts prove otherwise. You have voted for the Whigs and Tories, the Democrats and Republicans, the Liberals and Conservatives for the past 200 years. These are facts. Let us face it: you have been misled year after year. Your “leaders”, with their smooth talk and promises, have proven that followers are made to be bled. Become a Socialist and learn how this capitalist system operates and why it cannot function in the workers’ interests.

Bill Hewitson,  

Santa Monica, California

Bombing for peace—the real crisis in NATO (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Western liberals are in a flap about NATO’s bombardment of Serbia. Whichever position they take appears to condone violence against somebody, and the shallowness of liberal thinking has never been more cruelly exposed than now. Yet the cynics are having trouble too, because they can’t see an economic motive behind NATO’s actions, and nobody can believe that the West would spend £2 billion on a purely humanitarian exercise when it didn’t show the slightest concern over East Timor, Rwanda or any other killing ground of recent years.

It’s easy to see the economic value of Kosovo to Milosevic, but what’s in it for NATO? The West don’t seem to be after land or resources in the area, and is facing a huge bill for its pains. So is NATO really a cuddly philanthropic defender of the weak?

Wars, though generic to capitalism, do in fact interrupt the process of wealth accumulation and are frequently against the interests of large sections of the capitalist class, who will therefore try to prevent them. You can’t make money when some gangsters are shooting up your casino. Hence capitalism’s need for an international police force. But as with a domestic police force, the willingness of populations to accept law enforcers whose main concern is private property and money-making depends on those enforcers also preventing other types of crime, like mugging, rape, murder and street violence, which don’t directly concern the owning class but which worry the hell out of the rest of us. If the police couldn’t prevent a gang war on your doorstep you’d start wondering why you bothered respecting the law yourself. And when the law breaks down, the looting starts.

At the heart of this crisis is the problem of credibility, not only for NATO in its efforts to keep the peace, but for the Western Liberal Democracy model of capitalism. This is more serious than it sounds. Capitalism, as everyone knows, requires majority support and participation. Now you can enforce this support the hard way, by having a police state with heavy duty surveillance, martial law, “disappearances”, 24-hour border patrols and a huge state propaganda machine. This is the 1984 approach of George Orwell, but there are severe practical problems, because such a system is incredibly expensive to maintain and, being so crude, unable to get the best out of its workers. The collapse of state capitalism in Eastern Europe had long been predicted by the Socialist Party for these very reasons (although it lasted much longer than we expected).

The other way to ensure support is much cheaper, more efficient, more stable, and more user-friendly. It is called Liberal Democracy. Nobody is going to rebel if they believe that they are already free, and this belief is central to the West’s perception of itself. Consequently the capitalist class is obliged to tolerate a (semi-) free press, the vote, and open criticism of itself, because there has to be evidence of this “freedom” for all to see. And there are other costs. We will not co-operate unless capitalism supplies us with a reasonable safe and secure environment. The police rule by popular consent, and could not rule otherwise. Employment has to be supplied, or else a dole, otherwise food riots will ensue. 

 

The credibility of “Western democratic capitalism” is in bad shape, even for Westerners. We are better informed than we’ve ever been, and we are not impressed by what we see. Nobody believes in leaders like they used to. Nobody doffs their cap to their local MP as they once did. We are accustomed to think of them as generally useless and usually corrupt. Governments, we realise, don’t really care a damn about us except for that little X once every five years or so. Thirty percent of the population doesn’t even bother to give them that.

After the pyramid-selling fiascos in Albania a couple of years ago, capitalism in the region has a poor public image. Millions in Eastern Europe were hoping it was going to be better than Leninist state-capitalism but the bread queues are still there and instead of the secret police they now have the Mafia, that ultimate expression of the free market. If it now appears that NATO, the international Police Department, can’t even stop some tinpot dictator from murdering his way to power, the capitalist hold over workers’ minds will be weakened. We will begin to see through their cosy propaganda and their self-serving laws that nobody else obeys anyway. We might turn back to fascism. But what is worse, we might go forward to socialism. There are no bars on our windows, thanks to the money-saving logic of capitalism. There is only our belief in the system that prevents us acting, and that is increasingly under strain.

Paddy Shannon

Kosovo: Open for business (2008)

From the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kosovo became an independent state in February and was immediately recognised by the US and most European countries. We look at one of the reasons why.

Kosovo emerged as an independent State after decades of uneasy existence as part of Serbia. There was an inevitable new anthem and new flag.  But there are real political concerns best not forgotten in the ballyhoo and hopes for a brighter future. 

One man interviewed by the BBC’s Mark Mardell described how during the war he fled his village with many relatives under attack by Serbian troops. He had to leave his aunt behind and she was burnt to death. He said: “Kosovo is rich in minerals and rich in farming land, is rich in all other aspects. Here, we provided wealth for so many years for the whole of Yugoslavia, there is no reason why we cannot provide now for just Kosovo. That’s why I’m saying Kosovo has a bright future.” (Mark Mardell’s Euroblog: ‘Mining Kosovo’s Future’  29 January)

Alongside the declared humanitarian reasons for the UN intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s there were other, economic and political, considerations also in play. It is these interests that will shape future developments in the states of the former Yugoslavia and dominate the lives of workers there.

The New York Times (8 July 1999) carried an article by Chris Hedges about the Stari Trg mining complex in Trepca, Kosovo. Possibly inadvertently, it gave an insight into some of the  considerations that surrounded the decision to intervene. According to Hedges, “The sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion.”

It was the reported view of the mine’s director, Novak Bjelic, that “The war in Kosovo is about the mines, nothing else. This is Serbia’s Kuwait – the heart of Kosovo. In addition to all this, Kosovo has 17 billion tons of coal reserves.” The Yugoslav web site www.yugoslavia.com (now defunct) described Trepca as having the “richest lead and zinc mines in Europe.” The capacity of the lead and zinc refineries ranked third in the world and the area as a whole represented some 80% of Yugoslavia’s mineral deposits. The problem was they were old and inefficient and seriously polluting.

According to Michael Palairet of the University of Edinburgh, a leading authority on the economic and social history of the Balkans,

  “The Trepca system ‘as a rule’ lost money under Yugoslav socialism … Because of Trepca’s incapacity to generate funding of its own for investment, all investment funding had to be financed externally, by fund providers who did not anticipate that they would see any return on (or of) their capital.” In his opinion the $5bn figure quoted by Hedges above was exaggerated. However while Trepca consistently performed poorly, this was not because it could not have been managed more effectively: “Unlike most heavy industry… Trepca had good mining assets and low cost access to energy, so on the face of things there were no structural reasons for its inability to trade profitably.” (European Stability Initiative)

Further insight may be gained into the economic underpinnings of the UN intervention from a report by the International Crisis Group. The report is interesting in that it provides further evidence that the breakup of the former Yugoslavia was in large part motivated by conflicting economic interests. The various regions of the Federal Republic had fallen out over how their assets and liabilities were to be divided and allocated. The differences were long standing and could not be resolved peacefully. In other words it was a fight among competing capitalists interests. One of these interests lay in Kosovo – the supposed “heartland of Serb identity.”

 “Trepca is a sprawling conglomerate of some 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo … Its great mineral wealth is the basis of the economy of Kosovo, but the complex is badly run-down as a result of under-investment and over-exploitation by governments in Belgrade.” (Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG Europe Report N°82, 26 November 1999) )

In 1974 Tito’s new constitution accorded the province near-republic status, with its own parliament and courts, Kosovo elites enjoyed a period of greatly increased control over their own resources. They used their enhanced authority to build factories in Kosovo that capitalised on their mineral production, created thousands of jobs, and brought some income into the province.

After Tito’s death, pressure grew for more rights and greater political and economic autonomy, but with little success. Belgrade reasserted control of the mines.  Kosovo Albanian workers were accused of having stolen vast quantities of gold and silver and many engineers and technicians were fired.

  “From 1981-89, Belgrade monopolised the export of Trepca’s minerals to Russia and elsewhere, reaping the profits in hard currency and oil, while compensating the Kosovars only with electricity and other non-fungible forms of payment.…

  Trepca’s Kosovar management attempted to sell its products on the European market and to modernise the facilities’ modes of production, only to be foiled time and again by the Serbian government, which was in the process of “integrating” Serbia’s economy – that is, of tethering all economic sectors even more closely to Belgrade.

  By the late 1980s, with the final integration into the Serbian system of the power generating system, Kosovars had lost virtually all control over their economy, as they would over their politics and civic freedoms.” (Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG))

In 1996 Trepca had exported $100 million of products, making it the largest exporting company in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and an invaluable foreign exchange earner at a time when the country was experiencing grave economic difficulties.

Throughout the 1990s the ownership of Trepca conglomerate was never entirely clear. In November 1997 Trepca was under consideration for privatisation by the federal government in Belgrade. This process stalled when the ‘red businessman’ Zoran Todorovic, was murdered by a gunman in Belgrade. Todorovic had been a close confidant of Slobodan Milosevic and was one of the richest men in Yugoslavia.  He was one of a group of state capitalists who had been able to use their political connections to purchase state assets at bargain prices. (He was also director of Beopetrol, another state firm in the process of being privatized.) This was in effect a conversion of state owned assets into de facto privately owned ones by the ruling capitalist class.

Officials of the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), who took over governing Kosovo in 1999 after the withdrawal of Serbian troops, concluded  that the complex was overall public property and therefore came under their authority in accordance with its mandate. The then head of UNMIK, Bernard Kouchner (now French Foreign Minister), confirmed that an international consortium had been appointed to run the plant. A $16m (£10.7m) investment package was also announced, funded by Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and the EU. The money was to be spent on a full-scale refurbishment of the plant prior to it being sold off.  “We have no intention of closing any part of the Trepca mining complex. On the contrary, we’re going to make it safe and profitable.” he said. (The Guardian, 15 August 2000)

But it was not only the mines that capitalist interests had their eyes on. In July 2000 it was announced that a fund run by the billionaire George Soros was to invest $150 million (most backed by U.S. guarantees) in companies in the Balkans. Soros Fund Management would invest $50 million of it own equity in new businesses, expansions or privatization in the region and would have full autonomy to choose the investments in a whole swathe of South East Europe. Soros had invested millions of dollars in philanthropic endeavors in the region, but said this fund would practice “tough love,” and be driven purely by profit.

The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation had agreed to provide a loan guarantee for another $100 million of investments. OPIC describes itself as a self-sustaining federal agency that sells investment services to American businesses expanding into emerging markets around the world. It provides a level playing field for U.S. businesses in emerging economies.

“Since 1971, OPIC has supported nearly $130 billion worth of investments that will generate over $61 billion in U.S. exports.” (Dead Link.)

The Soros investment was conceived at a “donor” conference in Sarajevo in 1999. It was one of a series of efforts to take advantage of emerging investment opportunities in the Balkans. “A year ago, after NATO won the war in Kosovo, more than 40 leaders came together in Sarajevo determined to win the peace with economic investments”, according to National Security Advisor Samuel M. Berger.

George Munoz President and CEO of OPIC said he was pleased that they were making the region safe for international capital. It was a demonstration that “Southeast Europe is an important region on which we should focus our efforts, to enable it to rebuild and enter the global marketplace as a full partner. The Southeast Europe Equity Fund is an ideal vehicle to connect American institutional capital with European entrepreneurs eager to help Americans tap their growing markets.”

The Soros Private Funds Management, he said, was sending “ a strong, positive signal that Southeast Europe is open for business.”

Gwynn Thomas

The Coming Balkan Conflict? (2001)

From the April 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two years after NATO and the UN moved into the former Yugoslavia to police a region beset by conflict since the Balkan break-up of the early 90s, a new conflagration threatens. Macedonian troops have clashed with Albanian rebels on the Kosovo border and, on the Serbian border, Albanian nationalists have launched attacks against Serb police positions.

Along the Kosovo/Macedonia and Kosovo/Serbia border, former members of the KLA have formed into guerrilla units intent on creating a “Greater Kosovo”. In the south of Kosovo the small and nascent Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) aims to annex north and eastern Macedonia, whilst on Kosovo’s eastern border, a sister organisation, the UCBMP (Liberation Army of Prosevo Medvedja and Bujanovo)—all towns in the southern part of Serbia with an Albanian ethnic majority—is demanding border changes so that 70,000 ethnic Albanians living in Serbia are included in Kosovo.

Whilst the nationalist insurgents would have it that a “Greater Kosovo” is at stake, that includes the ethnic Albanian populations of Serbia and Macedonia, others envisage a “greater” Albania, an Albania merged with Kosovo which would become the largest state in the Balkans, if not the most impoverished. Control of the borders is also allegedly a reason for the recent wave of unrest, for whoever controls these also controls the lucrative and illicit trade in drugs and arms and “illegal migration”.

The UCBMP have caused such much mayhem in the Presevo Valley that NATO has handed back part of the border buffer zone to Yugoslav military control, to special units of the 7th battalion of the Yugoslav army created by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. In other words, the West has sided with forces that battled for a Greater Serbia and only two years after NATO supposedly went to war with Serbia on behalf of Kosovo Albanians.

Once thing is certain—the West has clearly underestimated the threat of Albanian nationalism and indeed dissipated the once popular belief in Kosovo and Albania that NATO was an ally of Kosovo Albanians. There is also a lack of any consensus between NATO and the UN about the shape of any final Kosovo settlement, and US policy is still out of step with the other NATO allies.

Whilst UN officials see in KLA violence a game plan intended to provoke a swift retaliation from Macedonia (home to 600,000 ethnic Albanians) which will in turn incite Kosovos, Stratfor (the US Security consultants) sees the “primary motive for the [UCPMB] campaign in the Presevo valley [to be the desire] to provoke a harsh response and thus damage relations between the new Yugoslav government and K-For”. The UCPMB plan—if indeed it was a plan—has turned sour. The demilitarised Zone is now being policed by Serbian troops under the watchful eye of NATO and the US wishes to settle the Kosovo problem peacefully and to integrate Yugoslavia into a plan for long-term regional stability.

All the signs are that NATO’s Frankenstein is up and walking, fed on the same raw nationalism that has brought so much bloodshed to the Balkans this past decade, bent on carving out a greater Albania from Albania, Kosovo and the ethnic Albanian regions of Macedonia and Serbia. But they face repeated obstacles: not least is the desire by Western powers to cement relations with new President of Yugoslavia Vojislav Kostunica.

K-FOR (the Western peace-keeping force set up to police the region) failed to disarm the KLA, which went on the initiate a criminal network safe in the knowledge they had the backing of US Intelligence. And as the Observer reported on 11th March, that the CIA encouraged KLA fighters to mount a rebellion in southern Serbia to undermine support from President Milosevic. As one K-FOR battalion commander pointed out:

  The CIA have been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic. Now he’s gone, the US State Dept. seems incapable of reigning in its bastard army.

One Foreign Office analyst observes:

  We are not looking at a repeat of the circumstances when Yugoslavia began to disintegrate at the beginning of the 1990s. The people we are now dealing with are the fanatics who became wealthy out of national politics, crime and war. They feel that their power is being eroded and they will fight to survive (Guardian, 3 March).

Elsewhere, to the west of Kosovo, nationalists in Montenegro, lulled by the US into believing it would be permitted to split from Serbia once Milosevic was ousted, have been told to put aside these aspirations and re-forge ties with Serbia—news that is already inciting the nationalists of Montenegro. Meanwhile, Croat nationalists allied to Bosnian Croat leader Ante Jelavic are denouncing the government of the Muslim-Croat Federation, threatening to unravel the 1995 Dayton agreement which partitioned Bosnia along ethnic lines. Suddenly, Spring-time in the Balkans looks set to see war once again blossom.

For almost a century, this journal has been consistent in its opposition to nationalism, in the belief that nationalism is a killer epidemic, creating conflict from which those with the least to gain have the most to lose. Whatever cause and victory the misinformed defenders of nationhood believe they are fighting for, it pales into insignificance when compared to the real war that needs to be waged on the battlefield of ideas and against an elite who perpetuate the myth of nationhood for their own ends and always to our detriment.

We maintain that, regardless of the supposed “century-old hatreds” the real problem is that the Balkans is a cockpit for the Great Powers and their local client states and their states-in-waiting. Despite their cultural, historical and religious differences, there is more that unites Muslims and Christians, Albanians and Serbs, than can ever divide them. Their real needs—needs people the world over identify with—can only ever be fulfilled in a world devoid of borders or frontiers. We can only hope it is not too long before the long-suffering people of the Balkans come to realise this.

John Bissett