Preparing for imperialist peace?

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Mon May 24 14:22:59 PDT 1999


One of the great weaknesses of the left political line which consists *solely* of opposition to the war by NATO against Serbian Yugoslavia, is that it fails to analyse and therefore to criticise the nature of the peace that will follow, and which is being shaped even now.

In broad terms the Serbs have thoroughly defeated the Kosovo Albanians and driven all but a few of them from their homeland. The NATO coalition even without the use of ground troops is clearly well set to defeat Serbia. The attacks on electricity, water, and fuel make this inevitable, even if Milosevic may have an interest in hanging on for a few months and the West may give him a face-saving formula.

What are the politics of the peace which will, whether we like it or not, follow the war?

Remember that war is the continuation of politics by other means, and peace is the continuation of war by other means.

While I understand and respect the view of leftists to be zealous in opposing any military action by their own government, it will be no more possible to resist every *political* act of interference by our own governments in the region than it has been easy to stop the war itself.

Ultra-leftists object to sober assessments of the balance of forces on principle, but the reality is if we want not just to analyse the world however bitterly, but to change it, we must assess where there may be a few openings to influence events in a more rather than a less progressive direction.

Clearly socialist revolution is impossible in any of the countries of the Balkans. (The Albanians had the arms en masse and the will recently but they simply did not know what to do with them.)

So what is desirable short of a revolution? What is desirable with armed forces of repressive states still in place?

A system of apartheid in the Balkans? Kosovo split? Macedonia split? A corridor for Greater Serbia to the sea through whole of part of Montenegro tied more inescapably as part of Serbia itself? Major transport routes across the mountains to link Albania to the Albanian rump of Kosovo?

A Marshall plan for reconstruction financed with inward investment from international finance capital in return for sale of land rights throughout the region? This would provide the funds to bulldoze the burned out Albanian villages and provide golf courses and theme parks for western visitors, which would at least provide some employment for the minority of the former population who wished to return.

Or what?

Is being left wing all about observing the world with a morally sharp eye, without ever attempting to change it?

Chris Burford

London



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