The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.35           October 7, 1996 
 
 
NATO out of Yugoslavia now!  

The elections in Bosnia were a sham organized by Washington under the boot of 60,000 NATO troops. They highlight the necessity for working people around the world to demand that the imperialist occupation force get out of Yugoslavia now.

The U.S. rulers used their military might to intervene in the Balkans last year in order to overthrow the workers state in Yugoslavia. Washington and its rivals in Bonn, Paris, and London seek to erase the social gains of the 1945 workers and peasants revolution in Yugoslavia and return the country to capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination.

The Dayton accord, rammed down the throats of the warring factions by the White House, was put together to crystallize the carving up of Bosnia and allow imperialist troops to pose as "peacekeepers." Using this agreement as cover, the imperialists hope to further divide working people in the region.

The NATO-sponsored elections had as a collateral goal legitimizing the nationalist gangs that started the slaughter in Bosnia. The chauvinist Bosnian Serb forces and their masters in Belgrade, the Croatian nationalists, and the ruling caste in Sarajevo are all fragments of the former centralized Stalinist regime that began the war to divide land, factories, and other economic resources in order to guarantee or enlarge their competing privileges. In doing so, they provided an opening to the imperialist powers to intervene.

The elections not only did not bring peace and stability to the Balkans, but registered the fact that the problems working people face have been exacerbated, and the U.S.-led occupation is about to be extended. Only a handful of Bosnia's more than 2 million refugees have returned to their homes for fear of reprisals. The Yankee troops have not embarked on any reconstruction of the republic as promised earlier. At the same time, Bonn and other capitalist powers have begun expelling Yugoslav refugees from their countries. Meanwhile, the chairman of Bosnia's new three-member presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, who seeks to implement aspects of the imperialist agreement, has warned "a new war would start if Bosnia-Herzegovina fell apart."

U.S. officials are drawing up plans to politically justify Washington's occupation force remaining in Yugoslavia. The New York Times reported that Clinton administration officials have stated "for months that a follow-on peacekeeping force would be necessary on the ground in Bosnia." The masters of Wall Street still cannot rely on the chauvinist regimes in power to do the job - even after they gave them the stamp of `democratic elections.' U.S. and other imperialist troops will have to take the Yugoslav working class on and smash it militarily before returning the country to the fold of the world market system.

The biggest danger to working people in Yugoslavia are the NATO troops themselves. U.S. defense secretary William Perry has already stated a willingness to use "air power" against the toilers of Yugoslavia if any "follow-on force is needed."

Working-class resistance to the imperialist occupation force and to the policies of the wanna-be-capitalist gangs in power will grow. Protests like the demonstration of 10,000 workers who marched in Nis, Yugoslavia, May 13 demanding back pay, are an example of this resistance. Other battles will be waged to halt deteriorating living standards worsened by the world capitalist depression.

The NATO troops are the biggest obstacle to Yugoslav workers and farmers in organizing such resistance and in the process gaining self-confidence to replace the bourgeois-minded regimes in the Yugoslav republics with their government.

That's why working people the world over should demand U.S. and other imperialist troops get out of Yugoslavia now!  
 
 
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