Stop the NATO bombing!
The war in Kosova, Serbia and Montenegro is a central political issue worldwide. Green Left Weekly believes the fundamental action needed is a halt to NATO's bombing.
NATO is an alliance of the European imperialist powers (and Canada) with the US (part of a system of alliances between the main imperialist power, the US, and the other imperialist powers, such as Australia) to act in their common interests under US leadership.
NATO is pursuing its war to serve the interests of these powers in the Balkans, against those of the Kosovars, Serbs and other nationalities of the region. It knew the war would not help the Kosovar people, but provide cover for ethnic cleansing by the Milosevic regime, which is preparing the partition of Kosova. It also knew the war would compel political forces developing in opposition to Milosevic to unite with him in opposition to the war. This interference in the internal affairs of Serbia, which has forestalled the possibility of the development of a more democratic and less nationalistic regime there, is a denial of Serb self-determination.
Green Left Weekly also believes the Serbian war against Kosova must stop and that the Kosovar people must be able to implement, by force of arms if necessary, their decision, made as an act of national self-determination by the Kosova provincial assembly in 1990, to become independent of Serbia. NATO is opposed to this, and through the Western powers' arms blockade, has denied the Kosovars the military means for defending themselves and winning their independence, as it did to the Bosnians.
Counterposed to this approach are at least three others. Many openly support the NATO bombing, or even ground troops, or silently acquiesce in it. This includes Labour, socialist, social democratic and those Greens parties that are in government in NATO countries. In Australia, the ALP "left" has said nothing against Beazley joining Howard in tail-ending the US.
Others, exemplified by the Communist Party of Australia, are campaigning against the imperialist war in a way that skirts the crimes of the Serbian regime and its national chauvinism and hostility towards the Albanian-speaking majority of Kosova. (See "The wrong weapons to defeat imperialism", page 12.)
There are also those, like the Australian Greens, who, from a perspective of support for peace and human rights, do support Kosova independence, but call for this to be achieved by a cease-fire by all parties involved and UN intervention. But this denies both the right of the Kosovars to resist their oppression and the determinant role of imperialism in the Balkans conflict.
The attempt to have the UN resolve the conflict in favour of Kosovar human rights flies in the face of the body's role as a "security" organisation. The UN is a major front for the US to organise its "new world order". In Kosova, as in Bosnia, UN intervention would be an avenue, not for national self-determination, but for the implementation of the plans of the US and other imperialist powers through the partition of the nation's territory as a miserable "compromise" between the imperialist states and Serbia.
The Greens face the danger of being entrapped into support for a plan such as that proposed by the German government's Greens foreign minister — implementation of US-NATO wishes, with certain face-saving measures for the Serbian regime — because they have not made clear that NATO military action must stop, regardless of the actions of the Serbian regime. If that is not spelled out, scenes such as the NATO bombing of Kosovar refugee convoys can't be used to explain that NATO is not acting because of humanitarian interest but because of its own interest and that its war must be opposed, but will instead serve to reinforce grudging acceptance of NATO's argument that this is regrettable "collateral damage".