It is quite clear that Milosevic could not have done all this alone. There is a 20 years history of growing nationalist and chauvinist attitudes penetrating the former League of Communists of Yugoslavia, crushing legal accountability and developing a social formation that is social fascist. Sorry Doug, I cannot argue my case without using such a concept. This is an extremely serious debate. It is not about impugning motives to people that they are themselves social fascists but if they overlook an analysis of the formation that has given rise to Bosnia as well as Kosovo, they are not approaching the issue in a marxist way.
It is clear that NATO has blundered about the potentialities of the ethnic cleansing and one of the reasons they have blundered is that they do not have such an analysis. The Observer today quotes a senior British Minister involved in the war describing Milosevic as simply mad. That he most certainly is not.
A CNN profile of Milosevic yesterday was indulging in this bogeyman type of biography. A particularly crude twist was the suggestion that the real sinister influence behind Milosevic is his wife, "who is a marxist".
Now I cannot remember her name, hence the thread title. I do know that she has set up her own party that is supposed to be some sort of rival to her husbands, which sounds most dubious to me. I am sure that I am likely to regard her political views as infected with revisionism of marxism on the national question and either colluding in or actively abetting social fascism and social chauvinism.
But do any other correspondents have more factual information, from any point of view, on Mrs Milosevic? What sort of a marxist is she?
Chris Burford
London