By Sara Flounders, Co-Director, International Action Center September 27, 2000
On Sept. 26 the State Election Commission in Yugoslavia announced the results of the Sept. 24 elections. The candidate backed by the U.S. government and the European Union, Vojislav Kostunica, received 48 percent of the vote to President Slobodan Milosevic’s 40 percent.
Since neither candidate received more than 50 percent, a run-off election has been set for Oct. 8.
Kostunica’s immediate reaction was to reject participation in a run-off election and demand that Milosevic concede defeat. Bill Clinton, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and other NATO leaders who bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 also demanded Milosevic concede.
The first point for the whole international movement that opposed NATO war against Yugoslavia to keep in mind is that the Yugoslav elections were not “free and fair.” Imperialism stole the election through its blatant pressure, bribery and interference.
The elections raise a vital question. Will Yugoslavia be turned over to the Western banks and corporations? Will the assets of industrial enterprises be broken up and sold off, as they have been in every other country in Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Republics? Will the majority of the population be relegated to living below the poverty line?
The Sept. 24 elections involved three layers of voting. Besides the presidential vote, there were also municipal elections, in which the U.S.-backed opposition won many cities and towns.
There was also an election for the Yugoslav Federal Parliament. The coalition of the United Left, the Socialist Party and the SP’s sister party in Montenegro won a strong majority of both houses. In Montenegro it was unopposed, as the pro-Western government abstained from the election. Under Yugoslav law, Parliament has more rights than the president and directs the government, electing the prime minister.
But a setback for Milosevic in the presidential election puts more at risk than the future of one individual. He was the main target of the war carried out by U.S. and NATO—the imperialist world powers—and because of that he has come to symbolize Yugoslav resistance. In addition, he was at the center of the coalition of forces that led Yugoslavia during the 78 days of bombing.
All the social gains of an independent country that had broken free of imperialist enslavement and held out during years of encirclement and war are now endangered.
WESTERN INTERFERENCE DISTORTED ELECTION
In this election the U.S. and European Union governments used every possible dirty trick, corrupt practice and payoff, and then bragged about them. Threats of bombing, promises to end nine years of sanctions, intimidation and military maneuvers heightened the tension.
On election day the Pentagon and Croatia held their largest joint military exercises ever--a joint landing on an island in the Adriatic near Montenegro, part of Yugoslavia, to simulate an invasion. Fifteen British war ships have now moved into the Mediterranean. A U.S. aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea has moved closer to Montenegro.
The major media here—the New York Times on Sept. 20 and the Washington Post on Sept. 19--have described in detail the exact amounts funneled into the opposition parties, radio and TV stations and newspapers. The U.S. Congress publicly voted on $77 million in open interference. Then on Sept. 25, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to send another $105 million to aid anti-Milosevic forces in Serbia and Montenegro.
These articles describe suitcases of cash handed over at the border, endless supplies of computers, fax machines, cell phones and the trainers to use them. These goods have been passed to the opposition through front organizations, NGOs and media outlets.
Weeks before the election, Western-funded polling organizations announced that Kostunica would win a sweeping victory. For the West’s media monopoly beaming into Yugoslavia, there were only two options. Either Milosevic would lose or there would be massive fraud.
The U.S. State Department announced that even if Milosevic won by overwhelming odds, Washington would refuse to accept the results.
HOW SHOULD MOVEMENT EVALUATE THESE EVENTS?
Those who opposed NATO bombing in 1999 and all the militant activists who have taken on the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, globalization and sweatshops have a stake in what happens next in Yugoslavia.
Are they ready to stand in solidarity with whatever steps are necessary to keep another country from being forced under the boot of the IMF and World Bank?
Washington, London, Paris and Berlin have openly intervened and bragged of it. In the face of these admissions, those in office in Yugoslavia have every right to void the elections and disqualify the opposition.
In the United States, France, Britain or Germany, would such an election have been allowed to continue? In the United States no political organization is permitted to accept funds from another government for political purposes unless it publicly registers as an agent of a foreign power. The U.S. ruling class is determined that only it should control the electoral process.
Any U.S. politician found accepting contributions, bribes or payments of any kind from a foreign government is disgraced, attacked and could face criminal indictment.
Just the allegation that the Clinton administration accepted a contribution from an ethnically Chinese businessperson who might have had contact with China sent every politician running for cover.
CORRUPTION AND TREASON
It is important to recognize that the Yugoslav government has the moral right to nullify this election on the basis of outrageous outside interference. It has every right to refuse to proceed with further elections under conditions of war, sanctions and occupation.
The Parliament has every right to establish a criminal inquiry into the funding sources of the opposition. Government prosecutors have every right to indict and jail the politicians and publications that have corrupted the election process.
The masses have every right to go into the streets and denounce the opposition parties and publications as agents of a foreign power.
Kostunica, until now a minor politician considered a Serb nationalist with a long history of anti-Communism, consistently maintains that he has not accepted any money from the West. He has even criticized the NATO bombing and sanctions. No Yugoslav politician could win significant votes if seen as a NATO stooge.
It may be true that he personally has not pocketed any money. But Kostunica has surrounded himself with political parties and organizations that are toadies to the NATO countries. His whole campaign has been publicized by radio and television stations and newspapers wholly and openly financed by grants from Washington and Berlin.
He is supported by the U.S. and European imperialist powers because his political program, even if it criticizes NATO, embraces the very policies that NATO is demanding. He is the easiest of the politicians to make into a pawn because he has no personal base. He is the candidate of a bloc of 18 small feuding political parties that have no common interests or ideology. They are united only by opposition to the government and their willingness to accept foreign funds.
U.S. ENGINEERED COUPS AND COUNTERREVOLUTIONS
The big U.S. monopolies and banks and Washington itself have never accepted an election as “free and fair” if it put their class interests in danger or brought the masses onto the scene. Since the end of World War II the U.S. has organized the overthrow of more than 50 governments.
In Chile in 1973 the CIA organized a military coup to drown the progressive legally elected government in blood. It did the same in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
In 1990 the U.S. orchestrated the overthrow of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Washington had cobbled together a 20-party coalition whose only aim was to overthrow the government and restore the old propertied class. It promised to end the “Contra” war and sanctions and provide massive aid if the popular Sandinistas were defeated.
In this situation, much like the one today in Yugoslavia, Washington succeeded in manipulating the election to drive out the Sandinistas. But the U.S. never came through with the aid, and now some of the lowest-paid sweatshops in the world operate in the “Free Trade Zones” of Nicaragua.
‘FREE ELECTIONS’ IN A COUNTRY UNDER SIEGE?
Yugoslavia, like Nicaragua, illustrates the dangers of holding an election in the midst of an unrelenting war, sanctions and occupation of part of the country by foreign armies. With their dominance of the world media, the lure of material goods, the bribes and the threat of further punishment, these powers were able to reach right into the country.
President Milosevic was trying to get a mandate by calling a vote when the opposition seemed divided, weak, discredited. But the imperialists quickly strengthened them using tactics refined over decades of interventions.
Yugoslavia, a small, beleaguered country maneuvering to survive, has allowed dozens of openly pro-imperialist parties to maintain offices, staff, publish newspapers, organize and to participate in elections. These concessions have only further emboldened the enemies of the Yugoslav workers.
Even though the imperialists complained that they were not allowed to monitor the elections, hundreds of foreigners did come in as election observers and certified that they were “free and fair”--that the government honestly and legally abided by all election procedures. But this shifted attention from the actual fraud taking place: the massive intervention and intimidation by imperialism.
The political opposition was allowed to engage in practically unrestrained acceptance of foreign assistance, advice and media hype. The whole process was corrupted by an army of Western advisors and pollsters.
WILL U.S./NATO FORCES SUCCEED?
Reports from election observers and even the big-business media show there is a hard core of working-class support for Milosevic from those who see him as a defender of the country against NATO. Even among those who naively voted for Kostunica out of anger against Milosevic, there are many who want to resist Western imperialism.
The question facing the Yugoslav masses now is will the Western multinationals, on the basis of this election distorted by intervention, be able to capture the state apparatus and open the door to super-exploitation?
Will the enemy that failed to break Yugoslavia’s resistance with 78 days of bombing be able to take over by manipulation of an election--or will the government be able to resist?
If the left organizations and patriotic parties in Yugoslavia resist, will the progressive and working-class and anti-war movements in the West defend them against an inevitable propaganda blitz from the West and a possible new military campaign?
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
One contribution to this effort could be a Commission of Inquiry to examine the corrupting role that the U.S. government, the European Union, their NATO military arm and their international financial organizations played in the Yugoslav election.
This Inquiry could gather and publicize information on these institutions’ efforts to subvert and overthrow the Yugoslav government. It could also gather information on the open and secret funding of political parties, organizations and publications by U.S. government agencies.
The Inquiry could deepen international understanding of Yugoslavia’s problem by incorporating testimony and reports on U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of other governments. This would include the overthrow of other popular governments in Guatemala, Panama, Chile, Iran and Indonesia and also intervention in elections in Italy, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guyana and others.
Activists in other NATO countries could organize their own Commissions of Inquiry and public hearings to examine how this latest intervention violated their laws. Similar information came to light earlier when hearings and tribunals in many countries put U.S. and NATO leaders on trial for war crimes against Yugoslavia.
The importance of international solidarity should never be underestimated. Yugoslavia must not stand alone.