Over the past 15 months NATO forces, with U.S. jets doing most of the dirty work, have bombed Serbian targets in Bosnia eight times. While U.S. president Bill Clinton professes his desire to end the carnage in the former Yugoslavia, Washington is moving step by step to widen the war and make it more difficult for working people there to fight for a solution to the conflict.
Every move by the imperialist powers toward military intervention in the Balkans should be condemned by working- class fighters around the world. Whether the assaults are carried out under the NATO banner or United Nations flag, they place obstacles in the way of a resolution of the war.
Only the working class has the capacity and desire to end the slaughter and build a society that can travel the path to growth, economic development, and social justice. Workers and farmers throughout Yugoslavia, irrespective of nationality, united in the 1940s to make a revolution, defeat fascism, and topple capitalist and landlord rule. Today, they need the time and political space opened with the fall of the Stalinist machine to again fight their way into politics and find a working-class solution to the crisis. In defiance of the murderous attacks and chauvinist campaigns carried out by rightist forces over the past five years, millions of working people remain deeply hostile to the idea that they must no longer live with, work alongside, and marry people of different national origins, as they have done for decades. Imperialist intervention narrows the political space and makes it harder for workers to unite and overcome the challenges they face.
Contrary to its pretensions, Washington has no humanitarian concern for the victims of the fighting in the Balkans. In fact, since the armed conflict broke out, the rulers in the United States and most European countries have closed their borders to refugees fleeing the slaughter. The NATO bombings have resulted in greater loss of life, yet the imperialist powers are determined to continue. The last U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia complains that "We have not yet shown either the willingness or ability to carry out a concerted campaign of air strikes."
The debates and decisions in parliaments and state houses, which are widely reflected in the media, on whether and when to intervene are based on the imperialists weighing how best to assert their own economic, political, and strategic military interests, not concern for the workers in or out of uniform.
The Contact Group's decision to widen the Balkan war has brought to the surface deep conflicts among imperialist powers in Europe and North America. The recent NATO bombings, like the air strikes last April, August, and November, were unilateral acts by the U.S. government after winning cover from some other NATO members. These actions expose the increasing contradictions in the so-called alliance. The air raids are aimed at expanding Uncle Sam's influence in the region. Paris and London are adding troops in the hopes of maintaining their stake.
The slaughter in the former Yugoslavia is not an ethnic battle. The forces fighting there are led by contending bureaucrats of the former privileged ruling caste who want to integrate the economies of the different republics into the sinking world capitalist system. They use the banner of nationalism to wage a ruthless gang war for control of land and resources.
Working people around the world have no interest in expansion of imperialist intervention in the Balkans. Despite their peacekeeping claims, the imperialists will only perpetuate the slaughter and oppression of the people of that region. Working people can best support our brothers and sisters in the former Yugoslavia by demanding: Stop the U.S. bombing! All UN troops and armaments out now!