>And now for something completely different, about Kosova. Funny thing about
>this is, if what follows is true and we had all known it three weeks ago, we
>might have foregone a lot of arguments.
I attach below a copy of my post to marxism-unmoderated from over 3 weeks ago, 19th March before the war started.
The article Max copied here is one that bears out the analysis, that members or supporters of the KLA have been gambling that they could manipulate NATO into getting deeply involved against the Serb nationalists. This would create a momentum for them to win full independence.
By contrast NATO was attempting to manipulate the situation and denying the Kosovars the right to a referendum on independence even after 3 years.
The fact that the KLA says that hundreds of thousands of Kosovars are now in hiding facing starvation does not of course speak well of the Serb fascists, but also suggests that the KLA was indeed gambling, without an accurate estimate of the balance of forces and of the true character of NATO.
NATO now looks as if it is at least 30 days off sending in a mere 24 Apache close combat helicopter gun ships (USA has 600) by which time most of the Kosovars left in the country will either have had to surrender for deportation or be dead.
My post of 19th March does indeed address some of these issues 3 weeks ago. (follows)
Chris Burford
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Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 08:07:51 +0000 To: marxism-unmoderated at buo319b.econ.utah.edu From: Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> Subject: M-U: Kosovans as hostages
Serbia has now packed Kosova with armed forces, although it has reluctantly signed that Kosova can have broad autonomy.
This raises the question about how adventurist the KLA have been, given that the territory could never have permitted a sustained people's war. They have therefore been gambling on the reliability of the imperialist powers to intervene to prevent ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.
Clearly the Serbs are deliberately using the threat of ethnic cleansing to deter the imperialist powers from launching air strikes against them. That does not sound very marxist either.
I put the paradox again to the more rrrevolutionary subscribers to this list: there is a coincidence of interests here between the aim of increasing working class unity through respecting bourgeois democratic rights, and the interests of the imperialist powers in having a peaceful international market for maximising profits. Despite the fact that the imperialist powers demonstrably cannot lead the struggle for bourgeois democratic rights consistently, in this particular configuration the imperialist powers are more progressive than the Serbian social fascists.
And no, I am not saying that atrocities have only been committed by one side, but I am assuming that in order to achieve ethnic cleansing a degree of terror is necessary.
Let me challenge the rrrevolutionary marxists, who know well, that terror may be an element of policy by any ruling regime, by saying let us assume that the Serbian regime will use the absolute minimum of terror. For example they might decide that the exemplary torture, mutilation and public execution of a mere hundred Kosovans, would cause less suffering than the less dramatic death of one thousand, as it would ensure a more rapid mass migration to Albania.
Let us therefore set the atrocity argument to one side, since every Leninist knows that terror may occasionally be a necessary element of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I would still ask why the threat of ethnic cleansing by the Serbians is anything other than social fascist, and is less progressive than the unreliable, vascillating and self-interested policy of the imperialist powers.
Chris Burford
London.
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