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The limited international conference on the future of the Balkans held in Sarajevo, Bosnia July 29-30 has been a repetition of the haste, lack of planning and disregard of the real interests of the Balkan people that have marked the whole western imperialist drive to dominate that region.
From the messy mindless air war against Yugoslavia to its messy aftermath in Kosovo, the perpetrators of these disasters are moving to create the further mess of satellitehood.
The objective of the Sarajevo summit was the shaping of a "stability pact" for the Balkan states, which would have the aim of integrating them economically with the rest of Europe and to "anchor them firmly in Euro-Atlantic structures." The structures implied are NATO and the European Union.
As put forward in Sarajevo, the "stability pact" could not have been a greater misnomer. It excluded any representation from Yugoslavia, which has long been portrayed in the west as the source of instability in the region. Its exclusion from the conference could only add to Balkan instability. It is compounded by Britain and the U.S.' demand for the Yugoslav government of President Slobodan Milosevic to be overthrown.
Historically, the Balkans have been known as an unstable region of ethnic antagonisms. These were largely overcome by the establishment after World War II of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was an eminently stabilizing factor together with the fellow socialist states of Bulgaria, Rumania, Albania and Hungary.
That stability broke down with the collapse of the socialist regimes in those countries at the beginning of the 1990s, a development in which the cold-war strategy of western imperialism played a major part.
Yugoslavia, however, remained a socialist entity - albeit in modified form - and, therefore, became a target of NATO-headed drives to dismember its federal republic. Ethnic nationalist, separatist tensions and ambitions were whipped up, leading to the detachment of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzagovina and Macedonia, accompanied by bitter civil wars and attempts by the core state of Yugoslavia, Serbia, to prevent the disintegration. More than anything else, this great instability was brought about by the same powers now proposing a stability pact.
Germany's role in this assault on the Balkans has been particularly insidious, echoes of the Nazi army's occupation in World War II.
It was German intrigue, playing on ethnic extremism and relying in part on dormant fascists who had been Nazi allies, that split Slovenia and Croatia away in 1991-1992. Germany has made use of the Balkan wars that have followed to scrap its post-WW II law barring the sending of its armed forces outside its borders. Not only are German troops now in the Balkans but the once-hated Luftwaffe took part in bombing Yugoslavia.
It was Germany that concocted and put forward the concept of a post-war stability pact as early as the first week in April before the bombing had gotten fully under way, making use of its current presidency of the European Union (rotated every six months). It was projected by the German foreign minister, the backslider Green, Joschka Fischer, who also called for all republics of federated Yugoslavia to become members of the European Union. On May 27 representatives of 28 countries were invited to Bonn to prepare the ground for a stability pact conference.
As a result of this initiative and maneuvering, Germany got itself the plum post of special coordinator for the Balkan stability pact, Bodo Hombach, one of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder closest aides.
There is a stumbling block for imperialist schemes in the Balkans: All the rest of Eastern Europe are members of the World Bank and IMF and have been made clients of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) set to finance and guide the transition from socialist to "free market" economies. Yugoslavia is the lone holdout.
Hence, the drive to destroy Yugoslavia, first by dismembering it, then by trying to bomb it into submission with the air war. The attempt now is to strangle it economically, deny it aid and organize the overthrow of its independent government. Yugoslavia's exclusion from the stability pact conference is a part of that strategy.
Prior to the recent war, Yugoslavia lived in a relatively cooperative relationship with its neighbors and the rest of the Balkans, with extensive trade. The bulk of the exports of Bulgaria, Rumania and Macedonia to central and western Europe passed advantageously through Serbia. This was all demolished by the NATO bombing.
It is the professed aim of a stability pact to rebuild the damaged and dislocated Balkan economies, but not as they had been. They are to be integrated into the western European economic structure.
It is proposed to remove "administrative and policy barriers to the free flow of goods and capital," and especially to improve the investment climate. Part of the latter aim is the privatization of the state or nationalized sectors of the economy that still remain.
An example of how this will work out is currently on view in Bosnia, which has been ruled by a western administration since its separatist war. An extensive privatization decree went into effect in May, with vouchers distributed to the population as shares. Western investors have moved in to buy up the vouchers, putting key sections of the economy in foreign hands.
However, the stability pact has made little headway. The Sarajevo conference turned out to be little more than a photo-opportunity for leaders of 40 countries that attended. Attempts to get a joint statement condemning Milosevic were blocked by Russia, the final wording merely urging the Yugoslav people "to embrace democratic change."
A stability steering committee of the G-7 nations and Russia will operate from Brussels with three subcommittees, on democratization (anti-Yugoslavia), economic cooperation (i.e., tying Balkan markets into the European Union), and security (putting the Balkans under the NATO umbrella). Such a pact is unlikely to create stability in the Balkans.