BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BOBBIS MISAILIDES
TIRANA, Albania - Following the May Day weekend, Washington
significantly escalated the U.S.-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
The imperialist force is using new weapons and striking at
targets that have begun to cripple communication among working
people throughout Serbia and Montenegro in a qualitatively new
way and deprive them of basic necessities such as water and
electricity.
As the Militant went to press, the media reported that Washington and other imperialist powers signed a joint statement with Moscow calling for an international armed force in Kosova and the withdrawal of Belgrade's forces from the region. Kosova is reportedly to remain part of Yugoslavia down the road, with some type of self-government. There are no indications yet as to Belgrade's response.
"For two days we have had no electricity in almost the entire city of Belgrade except for an hour or two," said Branislav Canak during a May 5 telephone interview from his home in Belgrade. "Water has also been cut off as a result of the NATO bombing." The 2 million people in Yugoslavia's capital are now struggling to find potable water. "Water tanks sent by the government in some neighborhoods are not enough to supply the population."
Canak is the president of Nezavisnost (Independence), the trade union federation, independent of government control.
A similar, if not more stark, situation has prevailed in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's third-largest city and the capital of Vojvodina, the country's main agricultural region that borders Hungary. According to Dusan, a member of the Students Union in Novi Sad who spoke to Militant reporters by phone May 5, the city has had no running water for 10 days.
The effects of the latest intensification of the U.S.-NATO bombing are bringing disaster on working people. Perishable food is spoiling in refrigerators across the country while ovens that run on electricity cannot be used for cooking. Telephone lines have deteriorated.
With much of the country's TV and radio network out of commission, including local stations that are increasingly being targeted by NATO's bombers, it's very difficult to know what's happening beyond your neighborhood, said Canak.
Beginning on May 3, NATO began using a new warhead that dusts power cables with graphite filaments, triggering massive short circuits. Based on telephone interviews by Militant reporters, bombs or missiles using this new technology appear to have been used repeatedly in the last three days.
"We are able to turn off and on the light switch in Belgrade," NATO spokesman Jamie Shea boasted with imperial arrogance May 4. It's part of tightening "the noose" around Yugoslavia, as NATO commander Wesley Clark put it, following the April 23-25 war summit of the imperialist military alliance in Washington, D.C. In addition to Belgrade, NATO has attacked effectively the power grids in a number of cities in Serbia, such as Drmno, Kostoloc, Bajina Basta, and Novi Sad.
Humiliation, anger, will to resist
The effect on working people and youth in Yugoslavia is to
solidify the view that they are the main target of the U.S.-
NATO assault. "I feel humiliated and angry," said Dusan, asking
to get the message around the world that it's more important
than ever to demand an end to the bombing. "It's not damaging
the regime. It's damaging ordinary people. We are less likely
to accept NATO troops in Kosova now." Dusan was among the
students who led the 1996-97 protest movement that forced
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to reverse his
antidemocratic annulment of municipal election results.
"Milosevic justifies the `ethnic cleansing' against Albanians in Kosova in the name of fighting `UCK terrorists,' just as NATO justifies the killing of civilians supposedly to protect Albanians from Milosevic," he added.
The "collateral" damage is mounting, as claims of attacking military targets become transparently flimsy. On May 2, for example, NATO aircraft bombed the village of Valjevo, 60 miles southwest of Belgrade, destroying a two-story house and damaging many apartment buildings nearby. NATO officials claimed they were targeting a tank plant there, without offering any evidence that such a factory exists.
"Now I see that NATO's words about civilians not being the enemy were lies," said Sonja Yovanevic, a government employee in Belgrade. "I didn't believe them anyway."
An increasing number of young people and workers in Albania are also coming to the conclusion that the brutal assault on Yugoslavia is against their interests. "It's terrible," said Kliton Nenaj, a student at Tirana University, on May 6, referring to the cuts in electricity around Serbia. Nenaj was ambivalent about the NATO attacks before. "It's another example that people, whether Serb or Albanian, are those who suffer. The politicians have created the entire problem."
In the 45 days since Washington launched the attack on Yugoslavia, NATO warplanes have flown more than 15,000 sorties, reaching 600 per day this week. A number of bombers are now flying at lower altitudes than the 15,000 feet jets kept at so far, and are coming into more clashes with Belgrade's air force.
"They are moving toward attacking everything that moves. They could very well see what they are bombing," said Dusan, pointing to the bus that was bombed in Kosova May 3, killing about 35 people.
The skyline over Novi Sad was black from the smoke rising from the city's oil refinery, which had been bombed again before Dusan spoke to us on the phone. The city's main TV transmitter had also been knocked out. According to Dusan, food supplies in and around Novi Sad are beginning to run out, even though Vojvodina has the country's highest agricultural production. With fuel shortages, farmers are having a harder time using machinery on the land. Individual gasoline rations have already been cut to 5 gallons per month, down from 10. Many hospitals that lack their own power generators are having to operate with candles, we were told.
This comes on top of the destruction of much of the country's industry and infrastructure the last six weeks, which had brought unemployment to more than 70 percent.
Attacks on Montenegro intensify
NATO's bombing campaign has also intensified in Montenegro,
where Washington has been trying to engineer a break-up of the
republic from its federation with Serbia. To appease a "pro-
Western" administration there, Montenegro's industry and
infrastructure had been spared until the end of April. Not any
longer. During the first week of May, a number of bridges and
the railway from the port of Bar to Belgrade have been bombed.
"Workers are the target," said Dragan Duric, in a telephone interview May 5. Duric is the international officer of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Montenegro. The bombing of the railway is having a devastating effect on the already dwindling production at the republic's main steel plant at Niksic. "In the last week, a number of villages have been bombed and homes destroyed for the first time," he added. The first civilian casualties in Montenegro occurred this week, though the government in Podgorica, the republic's capital, has not released figures so far.
According to Vojin Djukanovic, economy minister of Montenegro, the port of Bar, which had been working at 50 percent capacity before the bombing is now operating "at about nothing, 5 to 10 percent perhaps." Around 40 percent of Montenegro's workforce was already without jobs as of the end of April. If Washington enforces its planned naval blockade to stop oil shipments arriving at Bar "it would be the end of Montenegro, it would strengthen the forces of Slobodan Milosevic and would even provoke a civil war here," said Djukanovic.
Those in the administration of Montenegro's premier Milo Djukanovic favor a more rapid opening of the republic to imperialist bank trusts and integration of Montenegro into the world capitalist market. The republic's administration has kept its well-armed police force under its control, despite demands by Belgrade to turn over command of the police to the federal army.
Duric, who has been among the vocal opponents of the anti- democratic policies of the regime in Belgrade, said an escalation of the tension between the republic's police and federal army would be disastrous for working people. "NATO should stop its bombing right now and no ground troops should be sent into Kosova."
The latest escalation of the air raids come as top NATO military commanders have indicated the assault on Yugoslavia has failed to achieve the expected capitulation of the Belgrade regime.
"Quite frankly and honestly, we did not succeed in our initial attempt to coerce Milosevic through air strikes to accept our demands," said Gen. Klaus Naumann, who is retiring May 6 as head of the alliance's military arm. It has been a mistake by NATO to refrain from using "surprise and overwhelming power," he added. Belgrade has given no indication so far that is ready to accept an armed NATO force in Kosova and withdrawal of its forces from the region, which are the main imperialist demands.
The escalation of the U.S.-NATO bombing campaign is ratcheting up tensions between Washington and Moscow. Russia's parliament scrapped consideration of the Start II nuclear treaty for now, which would have substantially reduced Moscow's nuclear warheads.
The Chinese government, which has also opposed the imperialist assault on Yugoslavia, has announced new plans to modernize its military because of the nature of the unfolding NATO war in the Balkans.
An article in the People's Liberation Army Daily said Beijing should adjust its military strategy given NATO's high- technology assault against Yugoslavia. The article said that China should be prepared "for limited war under high-tech conditions." The paper said that Beijing had carried out insufficient research and even less training on "warfare against air strikes and remote precision strikes from a distance." The indicated shift could lead to greater development of intermediate and long-range missiles able to hit distant bases or ships, such as aircraft carriers, said a front- page article in the May 5 Financial Times of London.