They have been involved, from what they say, in a quite different strand of left-wing work in the Former Yugoslavia than the current of chauvinist Serbian social facism that people think it is their anti-imperialist duty to regurgitate uncritically.
That current has been about working quietly in multi-ethnic pluralist human rights work.
>MADRE has worked for 15 years with community-based women's organizations
>worldwide to provide emergency relief, health care & human rights advocacy
>to communities in crisis. MADRE has worked with multi-ethnic, democratic
>women's organizations in the Former Yugoslavia since 1993.
It was in an attempt to link up with that type of current that I copied the assessment of the devastation of Kosovo by the Helsinki Human Rights Group, and why I objected to Yoshie forwarding it to the list with some rubbishing from Louis Proyect. I do not deny that this current will have capitalist backers. I do assert it also has real life of its own. It needs to be fostered to create a pluralist society.
I am very glad NATO has abandoned its appeasement role, (which was also imperialist in character - even more so than its war role) but one of the criticisms to be made of NATO is its condescending saviour approach. It should have had a bottom up approach, and it should have insisted in bargaining on fostering not international monitors but the structures of civil society, of the sort that MADRE has worked with.
It is positive and essential that the MADRE statement asserts early on the magnitude of the oppression of the rights of the Kosovo people. I suggest every protest against NATO must recognise this. Not only morally and objectively but pragmatically. If the left protests against NATO without supporting the rights of the Kosovans it will just isolate itself even more.
I too think it is a pity Yoshie left, but it was her decision about how she was going to use her time. Others will have to decide whether to forward Serb social fascist material in order to be able to condemn NATO. If they do, I and others will criticise it. But it is a pity that Yoshie did not stay to answer the charge. It would have been in the interests of the anti-war movement to do so.
This weekend anti-war activists need to decide if they want their demonstrations to appear on the news reports with large pictures of a war criminal on prominent display throughout their gathering.
If Rakesh does not want to be thought a buffoon himself, he might check what I actually wrote before he himself writes: "Calling Yoshie a social fascist only highlights that you are a buffoon." Likewise I am less impressed with him than I usually am, if he talks about "LBO bombers". Similarly I object to Gar Lipow calling me a "bombing/invasion enthusiastic".
What is happening is terribly unfair to individuals including poor me but quite a healthy feature of a discussion list, that we are being challenged and are challenging others, to try to get to grips with a very serious and complex situation without being one sided. I think Yoshie and others have been one-sided reproducers of Serb social fascist material. I am accused of wanting to bomb for the sake of NATO expansionsim, which of course I do not.
The point where I am critical of the MADRE statement is in failing to uphold the Kosovans right to self determination. They emphasise Kosovan oppression, but do not defend their right to decide their own lives.
For my part the KLA certainly do deserve support. That need not be unconditional. Even now they should be pressed to accept the rights of others, and be prepared to engage in a reconciliation process in due course. But providing the overall military superiority of the Serb nationalist-dominated Yugoslav army is neutralised, the Kosovans should be helped to fight back against the Serb war of annexation. It would seem to me to be moderate and restrained to use air superiority for European troops of NATO to occupy strategic high ground along the borders of Kosovo/Serbia to neutralise any further attacks from the outside by the Serbians, and then to assist the Kosovans to restore democratic civil society within an independent country bu military, political and economic means.
That is better than bourgeois pacifist patronising humanitarian gestures shipping them far from their own country. (Of course temporary measures will be necessary.)
The fight against Serb annexation of Kosovo is a just struggle. They must regain their land, not only for their own sake but for what it says about human rights in the whole of Europe. As MADRE says there were communities. There must be communities again.
> Indict Milosevic as a war criminal under the UN Genocide Convention.
Absolutely. And demand the USA to sign up to the Rome International Court of Human Rights.
What excuse do they have for not doing so?
Suggested slogan for anti-war demonstrations:
"For a just peace".
Chris Burford
London