Recognise Croatia!
For months now, the Yugoslav People's Army, assisted by Serbian paramilitary groups, has been waging a brutal war against the Republic of Croatia. Tanks, artillery, naval vessels and the air force have been used to attack Croatian cities, ports and villages in an all-out effort to stop Croatia from leaving the Yugoslav federation.
The Yugoslav army's aggression against Croatia is in clear violation of the 1974 constitution which recognises the right of each of Yugoslavia's six constituent republics to secede from the federation. Last December, more than 90% of Croatia's population voted for independence.
By ignoring the demands of the federal government to withdraw its forces from Croatia and repeatedly violating cease-fire agreements, the army generals have demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice countless lives in order to hold Yugoslavia together. Their objective is to preserve their bureaucratic privileges, which are dependent on the maintenance of a Serb-dominated Yugoslav state.
The "federal" army's aggression against Croatia has been supported by those seeking to create a "Greater Serbia" out of the disintegrating Yugoslav state — an alliance between the remnants of Stalinist "communism" in Serbia headed by Slobadan Milosevic and a section of Great Serbian chauvinism reclaiming the traditions of the monarchist Chetniks.
While Western leaders have made noises of sympathy for the plight of Croatia and called for a negotiated solution, they have given back-handed support to the Yugoslav army's aggression by imposing an arms embargo on all sides in the conflict. Such an embargo has had little impact on the ability of the "federal" army to wage war, since it is already well equipped with heavy weapons, much of them supplied by the Western powers.
The practical effect of the arms embargo has been to ensure that the Croatians are unable to obtain the weapons they need to resist the Yugoslav army's aggression. And unless they can mount a successful resistance, it is unlikely that the generals can be "persuaded" to observe a cease-fire and allow a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
The Western powers have also assisted the Yugoslav army's war by refusing to recognise Croatia's January 25 declaration of independence. The Yugoslav army and its Serbian supporters are thus able to portray the conflict as a "civil war" and a purely "internal" affair, rather than an act of international aggression and foreign occupation of Croatia.
At the same time, the West European governments have begun floating the idea of using their own military forces to "resolve" the conflict. This is a further move — the first being the Gulf War — to test public reaction to the European Community becoming a regional cop in the "New World Order", with particular responsibility for maintaining "order" in eastern Europe.
The only just solution to the present crisis in Yugoslavia is one that recognises Croatia and the other breakaway republics of tion as independent states. Any new union between these states can arise only on the basis of full respect for their sovereignty and opposition to their occupation by the Yugoslav "federal" army.