arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

A number of people in the ZNet forum system and elsewhere have raised questions about the prominent role they see assigned to US-NATO in the flood of commentary on recent events in Yugoslavia, "gloating over the victory of the opposition in Yugoslavia--as if that affirms the NATO bombing" (as one puts it). Others have noticed a similar focus with an opposite emphasis: denunciations of US violence and subversion for the overthrow of an independent Serb government in favor of Western clients. I've been asked for my own reaction. What follows is an amalgam of several forum and other responses.

It's surely right that publicly the Clinton-Blair administrations are "gloating" over the outcome, and that the usual cheerleaders are doing their duty as well. That is commonly the case whatever the outcome. But we should not overlook the fact that more serious observers -- as anti-Milosevic as you can find -- are telling quite a different story. For example, the senior news analyst of UPI, Martin Sieff, described the outcome of the election as "an unpleasant shock to both incumbent Slobodan Milosevic and the Clinton administration (Sept. 25), pointing out that Kostunica "regularly denounces the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year as `criminal'," "implacably opposes having Milosevic or any other prominent Serb tried as a war criminal," and worse still from the Clinton-Blair point of view, "does appear to accurately express the democratic aspirations of the Serbian people."

That's correct across the board, and Sieff is not alone in reporting it. In his campaign throughout the country and on state TV, Kostunica "condemned "NATO's criminal bombing of Yugoslavia" and denounced the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) as "an American tribunal -- not a court, but a political instrument" (Steven Erlanger and Carlotta Gall, NYT, Sept. 21). Speaking on state TV after taking office, he reiterated that while he sought normalization of relations with the West, "the crimes during the NATO aggression, nor the war damages, could not be forgotten," and he again described the ICTY as a "tool of political pressure of the US administration" (Oct 5, 6).

In the British press, some prominent (and bitterly anti-Milosevic) correspondents have pointed out that "The West's self-satisfaction cannot disguise the reality of the Balkans...it was not the bombing, the sanctions and the posturing of NATO politicians" that got rid of Milosevic. Rather "he was toppled by a self-inflicted, democratic miscalculation," and if anything his fall was impeded by Western intervention: the rotten situation in the Balkans "has been made worse by intervention,... NATO's actions escalated the nastiness, prolonged the resolution and increased the cost." "At the very least, outsiders such as [British Foreign Secretary] Mr Cook should stop rewriting history to their own gain. They did not topple Mr Milosevic. They did not bomb democracy into the last Communist dictatorship in Europe. They merely blocked the Danube and sent Serb politics back to the Dark Ages of autocracy. It was not sanctions that induced the army to switch sides; generals did well from the black market. The fall of Mr Milosevic began with an election that he called and then denied, spurring the electors to demand that the army respect their decision and protect their sovereignty. For that, Yugoslavia's democracy deserves the credit, not Nato's Tomahawk missiles" (Simon Jenkins, London Times, Oct. 7). "The kind of people who made last Thursday's revolution" were those who were "depressed in equal measure by the careless savagery of the Nato bombing and the sheer nastiness of the Milosevic regime" (John Simpson, world affairs editor of BBC, Sunday Telegraph, Oct. 8).

Serb dissidents, to the extent that their voices are heard here, are saying pretty much the same thing. In a fairly typical comment on BBC, a Belgrade university student said: "We did it on our own. Please do not help us again with your bombs." Reaffirming these conclusions, a correspondent for the opposition daily Blic writes that "Serbs felt oppressed by their regime from the inside and by the West from the outside; she condemns the US for having "ignored the democratic movement in Yugoslavia and failing to aid numerous Serbian refugees" -- by far the largest refugee population in the region. A prominent dissident scholar, in a letter of remembrance for a leading human rights activist who recently died, asks whether "the ones who said they imposed sanctions `against Milosevic' knew or cared how they impoverished you and the other people like you, and turned our lives into misery while helping him and his smuggling allies to become richer and richer," enabling him to "do whatever he wanted"; and instead of realizing "the stupidity of isolating a whole nation, of tarring all the people with the same broad brush under the pretense that they are striking a blow against a tyrannical leader," are now saying -- self-righteously and absurdly -- "that all that is happening in Serbia today was the result of their wise policy, and their help" (Ana Trbovich, Jasmina Teodosijevic, Boston Globe, Oct. 8).

These comments, I think, are on target. What happened was a very impressive demonstration of popular mobilization and courage. The removal of the brutal and corrupt regimes of Serbia and Croatia (Milosevic and Tudjman were partners in crime throughout) is an important step forward for the region, and the mass movements in Serbia -- miners, students, innumerable others -- merit great admiration, and provide an inspiring example of what united and dedicated people can achieve. Right now workers' committees are taking control of many companies and state institutions, "revolting against their Milosevic-era managers and taking over the directors' suites," as "workers took full advantage of Yugoslav's social ownership traditions." "With Milosevic's rule crumbling, the workers have taken the communist rhetoric literally and taken charge of their enterprises," instituting various forms of "worker management" (London Financial Times, Oct. 11). What has taken place, and where it will go, is in the hands of the people of Serbia, though as always, international solidarity and support -- not least in the US -- can make a substantial difference.

On the elections themselves, there is plenty of valid criticism: there was extensive interference by the West and by Milosevic's harshly repressive (but by no means "totalitarian") apparatus. But I think the Belgrade student is right: they did it on their own, and deserve plenty of credit for that. It's an outcome that the left should welcome and applaud, in my opinion.

It could have happened before. There is good reason to take seriously the judgment of Balkans historian Miranda Vickers (again, as anti-Milosevic as they come) that Milosevic would have been ousted years earlier if the Kosovar Albanians had voted against him in 1992 (they were hoping he would win, just as they did this September). And the mass popular demonstrations after opposition victories in local elections in 1996 might have toppled him if the opposition hadn't fractured. Milosevic was bad enough, but nothing like the rulers of totalitarian states, or the murderous gangsters the US has been placing and keeping in power for years all over the world.

But ridding the country of Milosevic doesn't in itself herald a final victory for the people of Serbia, who are responsible for the achievement. There's plenty of historical evidence to the contrary, including very recent evidence. It's hard to think of a more spectacular recent achievement than the overthrow of South Africa's Apartheid horror, but the outcome is far from delightful, as Patrick Bond has been documenting impressively on ZNet, and as is obvious even to the observer or visitor with limited information. The US and Europe will doubtless continue their (to an extent, competing) efforts to incorporate Serbia along with the rest of the Balkans into the Western-run neoliberal system, with the cooperation of elite elements that will benefit by linkage to Western power and with the likely effects of undermining independent economic development and functioning democracy, and harming a good part (probably considerable majority) of the population, with the countries expected to provide cheap human and material resources and markets and investment opportunities, subordinated to Western power interests. Serious struggles are barely beginning, as elsewhere.

Noam Chomsky