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Yugoslavia elections { September 27 2000 }

Fwd: U.S./NATO STEAL YUGOSLAV ELECTIONS (fwd)

>U.S./NATO STEAL YUGOSLAV ELECTIONS--
>Soft Money and Hard Threats
>
>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.
>
>International Action Center
>39 West 14th Street, Room 206
>New York, NY 10011
>email: iacenter@iacenter.org
>web: www.iacenter.org
>CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE www.mumia2000.org
>phone: 212 633-6646
>fax: 212 633-2889





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