Yugoslavia; imperialism, the democratic opposition and the liberal-left

By Dave Silver, September 2000

What is the real interest of western imperialism, particularly US., German and French, in the Balkans? What is the fundamental source of conflict, civil war and ethnic antagonisms first in Bosnia then in Kosovo? The cries in unison by Washington, Berlin and Paris and backed by the military might of NATO, that it is the dictator and ethnic cleanser Slobodan Milosevic. Jumping on this bandwagon are sectors of the liberal-left such as the Pacifica reporting by Jeremy Scahill on WBAI's Democracy Now, or the Vietnam Vets Against the War, the Brecht Forum, and assorted neo-marxists, social democrats and new left currents.

Lacking a class analysis these currents essentially accept the bourgeois media's Lies and distortions which the corporate rulers demand. The Liberal-Left apparently has forgotten Marx's German Ideology where he states that the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. These currents could not or would not confront the historical fact that it was inter imperialist rivalry and the need for a client state in the Balkans that was responsible for the fratricide in what was left of socialist Yugoslavia. They condemned the NATO bombing and Milosevic as equally evil.Why did this former Communist turned nationalist politician have to be destroyed? Simply he stood in the way of the ruling class plans for an oil pipeline through the Balkans to the Caspian Sea and eventually the vast riches of Russia. Milosevic was the only European leader to say no to the stationing of western and NATO troops on Yugoslav soil.

In a message to the Serbian people, from the Brussels foreign ministers meeting the imperialists informed them that if they vote out Milosevic sanctions would be lifted. This call was backed up by U.S. naval maneuvers in the Adriatic off the Yugoslav coast. Who is this new democratic darling of the imperialists? A long time anti-communist Vojislav Kostunica leader of the Democratic Opposition, said at an election rally in Belgrade he wanted to live in a good European democratic state, echoing the former counter revolutionary heroes like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. These are the same kind of heroes that were silent when Nazis and Croatian fascists wereintegratedinto the C.I. A. right after the defeat of German fascism. The Liberal-Left do not ask the questions like why did Serbia lift Kosovo's autonomy since that would lead to the knowledge that the mercenary so called Kosovo Liberation Army is being funded by western imperialists to destabilize Yugoslavia and protect the corporate mining interests in the Trepca mine complex. That is why British, Danish and French troops were sent in to secure the $5 billion dollar profit making oil, lead and zinc operations.

The Liberal-left by and large accepted as fact the imperialist lies regarding the alleged genocide by Serbs in Srebrenica 5 years ago. The Washington orchestrated lies were covered in the veneer of concern for humanitarianism similar to the lies by a PBS documentary on the mass graves in Vinnitsa in the Ukraine supposedly done by that dictator Stalin. Later Reuters and German prisoners of war indeed confirmed that they were graves the Nazis used.for their victims.

Anti-communism and anti-imperialism are what Marx called antagonistic contradictions.