Milosevic launches murder massacre

Maude Paul reports.

People in Britain saw on our TV screens a little girl in Kosova screaming uncontrollably in horror at the sight of her father lying dead alongside 39 other civilians massacred in the village of Recak by Serbian forces. We saw villagers huddled together in the woods on the mountainside in freezing weather. Their village had been surrounded by Milosevic's soldiers, shooting and shelling indiscriminately into their homes. And we remembered Bosnia.

Bosnian miners were saying throughout the war in Bosnia: "This really started in Kosova and that's where it will end." It was back in 1991 when the so-called international community was heralding a new era of freedom in eastern Europe that Milosevic's Serb regime imposed military rule on Kosova. It was this move that began the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Thousands of ethnic Albanian miners resisted and were thrown out of work and in the name of imposing so-called unity, the nationalist bureaucracy in Belgrade sent in troops against the Kosovan miners, beginning the brutal war of conquest of Greater Serbia.

In the spring of 1998 Serbian special police units started the killing and destruction of villages in a so-called anti-terrorist offensive. By the autumn 400,000 people had been uprooted, 400 villages and hamlets had been targeted. Altogether 257 settlements had been abandoned by their inhabitants, 200,000 people were living rough in the hills and fields.

Reminiscent of the arms embargo imposed on the Bosnian people, New Labour's Robin Cook proposed an arms embargo in Kosova. Milosevic's troops guarding all the borders and terrorising the villages are armed to the teeth with tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships, cluster bombs and such like. They laughed in Cook's face. According to his philosophy they were upholding international law when in December they killed 36 ethnic Albanians as they attempted to smuggle weapons across the boarder from Albania.

In fact, the Kosova Liberation Army has obtained some arms and more young Kosovans are joining in the fight against the occupying forces. Socialists cannot share the army's nationalism, or its tactics which rob the working people the chance to decide their own future by their own mass actions. However, we will not join those hypocrites who condemn so-called violence and preach pacifism to the oppressed.

By the end of the year, what was called an agreement had been reached and monitors were sent in. They watch the killing and destruction from a distance, protected by NATO forces, with the threat of armed strikes against Milosevic.

But that is not really a serious option for imperialism. They can bleat as much as they like about "crimes against humanity" but the last thing they want is victory against Milosevic which would give confidence to the working class. They can do business with Milosevic.

As socialists, we seek to strengthen links between workers internationally. In defending the Kosovan people's democratic national rights, it is our responsibility to help workers of Kosova to lead the freedom fight. In opposing Serb military rule in Kosova, we, at the same time, place no confidence whatever in NATO, imperialism's military arm.

Contact: Workers Aid For Kosova, c/o Bob Myers, 29 Demsne Road, Manchester, M16 8YD, telephone: 0161-226 0404; email: workersaid@redbricks.org.uk, website: http://www.redbricks.org.uk/workersaid/

previous article ·  Feb '99 index of LLB ·  write to LLB ·  LLB home page ·  next article