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"An individual, a group, a party, or a class that is capable of 'objectively' picking its nose while it watches men drunk with blood, and incited from above, massacring defenceless people is condemned by history to rot and become worm-eaten while it is still alive. On the other hand, a party or a class that rises up against every abominable action wherever it has occurred, as vigorously and unhesitatingly as a living organism reacts to protect its eyes when they are threatened with external injury - such a party or class is sound at heart. On The Balkan Wars, Leon Trotsky, February 1913. |
Comrades
We agree that Blair and Clinton are hypocrites - the plight of the Kosovars is of little concern to them. We agree that every socialist worthy of the name must defend the rights of the Kosovar refugees to enter and live in Britain. We agree with you that NATO and its bombing of civilians in the Balkans must be opposed.
But we disagree with you about three important matters:
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NATO's military policy is mainly to smash up the Serbian economy, bombing bridges, factories and power installations. They are fighting to force Milosevic to sign a Rambouillet-type deal which would leave Kosova as part of a Serb Yugoslavia, and Western troops on the ground. A Serb official has claimed that NATO's bombing had killed over 300 people.
That is one side of the war. The other side is scarcely mentioned in the pages of Socialist Worker or your pamphlet, 'Stop the War', and that is Milosevic's genocidal war against the Kosovars.
When you do mention this side of the conflict it is to talk it down, to explain that Milosevic is no Hitler, the Kosovars are not facing a Holocaust, that the West is probably lying about atrocities - because the West always does.
Let us for now accept that this is true. Nevertheless you must accept that the Kosovars face extreme Serb nationalist terror. You must agree that thousands have been butchered by the Yugoslav army and Serb paramilitaries; very many - who knows how many - have been raped; Pec - a town of 80,000 - has been emptied and now lies in ruins; over half the ethnic Albanian population - well over a million - have been made refugees; racist 'ethnic cleansing' has taken place on an enormous and vast scale.
The Kosovars are the victims of a terrible crime. If Milosevic is not a fascist like Hitler - he is only acquitted on a technicality.
And who should socialists say is to blame for this crime against humanity? You want to say: 'NATO'. But a socialist who blames NATO for the ethnic cleansing becomes a moron in the face of the facts.
NATO bombings gave Milosevic an "excuse"; Milosevic and Serb bigots are to blame - they are responsible for the ethnic cleansing, they carried it out.
Does this statement make socialists 'pro-NATO'? No, only rational.
The main feature of this war is the Serb war against the Kosovars.
Whether you precisely agree with that statement or not, you will surely agree that socialists should do whatever we can to defend the oppressed Kosovars. A socialist party which fails to do so will, as Trotsky said, "rot and become worm-eaten".
The "Kosovar question" does not mainly reduce itself - as SW presents it - to the matter of defending refugees against the British immigration authorities. Of course we should do this.
But we should also do what we can to defend the Kosovars in Kosova itself.
That means supporting the right of the Kosovars to self-defence against Serb nationalism and the Serb state.
All socialists should support arming the oppressed Kosovars - they have a right to get weapons from whoever they can, including NATO. This is simply the approach revolutionary socialists have generally adopted to colonial revolts - and the rebellion of the Kosovars against Serb domination is certainly a colonial-type revolt.
Does this mean we give political support to the Kosova Liberation Army? No - why should it? The KLA is a nationalist army. What we support is the just war of the Kosovars against occupation. If the KLA play a good part - good. Does this mean the KLA, backed by the US and Britain, would turn into a Contra type army, as SWP public speakers suggest?
The difference between the US-funded Contras and the KLA is that the Contras were an isolated, foreign-backed force trying to overthrow a popular government, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. The KLA are massively popular resistance to foreign - Serbian - occupation. The parallel is not with the Contras but with Kurdish guerrilla forces resisting Iraqi rule (who have been funded and armed by the West).
No doubt governments which give guns always attempt to extract concessions from those they "help". However the West's current policy is to stop the Kosovars getting weapons. They do not want the Kosovars to act as an independent force fighting resolutely for their independence, something which the West (and Socialist Worker) opposes.
Callinicos, writing in Socialist Worker, argues for opposing Kosova's independence. He says: "Arming the KLA and backing Kosovan independence would make the situation worse." Why? Because: "An Albanian nationalist army, hardened by war and enjoying mass support in refugee camps could threaten the integrity of half a dozen states throughout the region."
Firstly, how does Callinicos square this with what the SWP says about the Palestinians? Change the word "Albanian" to "Palestinian" and read this sentence again!
Secondly, since when have socialists taken responsibility for the "integrity" of the Balkan states and the crazy way their borders have been drawn up?! Why would we, for example, stand against the right of the Albanian-majority areas of western Macedonia to secede if they wanted to? Callinicos has balanced the rights of the oppressed to fight, against the "integrity" of the capitalist states' in the region... and come down on the side of capitalist "integrity"!
There is a basic question of democracy here. The Kosovars want independence - all indications are that there is a big majority of the Kosovars for it.
Consistent democrats and socialists should support their right to independence (and should support their right to independence even if we did not favour it).
We should demand that the Yugoslav troops get out of Kosova, now. Does the SWP support the removal of the Yugoslav troops from Kosova? The SWP does not say. The SWP does not seem to care.
Given the scale of repression and violence the Kosovars face, there is a great, pressing reason to support their democratic right to self determination - now. Obviously - and we agree - there is no fully-democratic, fully-stable bourgeois solution to the national questions in the Balkans. But some bourgeois solutions are better than others!
Independence is preferable to continued oppression inside Serbia.
And what is your alternative to independence? That Kosova should remain part of the rump Yugoslavia, dominated by Milosevic? That is absurd!
Or a socialist federation of the Balkans? - which we also favour, but which is little more than socialist propaganda in the present situation, and should not be used to duck the question of independence now.
Chris Bambury says he would rather march with Serb nationalists than Madeleine Albright (Haringey public meeting, 8 April, in response to an AWL comrade). We will march with neither - and since neither Serb nationalists nor the US government agree with arming the Kosovars, independence for Kosova or a free federation of the Balkans, we will not be troubled by their presence... Which leaves the SWP with the Serb chauvinists...
The main problem with the simple slogan 'Stop the bombing' is that this is exactly what Milosevic is demanding. And this is precisely why reactionary, flag-waving, anti-Kosovar Serb nationalists, and a rag-bag of Stalinists who believe Milosevic continues to defend the "unity" of "socialist, anti-imperialist Yugoslavia", are able to march alongside Tony Benn and the SWP - as hundreds did on Sunday 11 April in London.
The division Socialist Worker has made between Serbs - those that are for Milosevic and those that oppose him - is not the politically important division to make (just as the important division in Britain is not for or against Blair - which would see us line up with Tories, fascists and the Liberals).
Opposing Milosevic says nothing much about what Serbs positively believe.
And much of the anti-Milosevic opposition is very chauvinist too.
The key, important division inside the Serbian working class is between the (presumably) very tiny minority which supports the Kosovars democratic rights, and those that are nationalists because they want Serbia to maintain control of Kosova (or worse). Lenin explained what should be expected of a socialist workers' movement in a country like Serbia:
"Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the basis of free union - and a free union is a lying phrase without the right to secession - such parties are committing treachery to socialism."
If all socialists campaign for is 'stop the bombing of Yugoslavia' any half-decent, thinking person will ask 'and what about the Kosovars?'. 'Stop the bombing' does not equal 'stop the war' because it says nothing about the other side of the war, the war the Kosovars face.
And being 'anti-war' is not really right, either, because we are not
pacifists and we must support the war of self-defence the Kosovars are
waging against the Yugoslav state's ethnic cleansing.
Defend the Kosovars!
Independence now! Yugoslav forces out of Kosova!