Dear comrades,
Allow me to express my congratulation to the organizers of this gathering, on their laudable initiative, and my gratitude for granting me the honour to address and greet you as comrades and friends, on behalf of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia and on my personal behalf. I am firmly convinced, based upon the motives that brought us all here for these two days, that friends we are, and that is a critical approach and grounded condemnation of brutal events, which began many decades ago.
The events that we are witnessing today in Eastern Europe in Ukraine, which at the moment represent the greatest threat to world peace, began after the tectonic socio-political changes of the 90s of the last century and are a continuation of the “Cold War”, which divided European nations since World War II. The Yugoslav area had a special role and place in imperialist plans.
Aggression, which the so-called international community that, in fact, meant a group of the world’s richest countries led by NATO and the U.S., carried out of spring 1999 against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In its essence, it is a typical model of a war for gaining territory, waged by a developed center against the undeveloped periphery, following the division for which the Brzezinski Doctrine laid down the blueprints. This war was a continuation of the tectonic social-political processes from the 1990s, whose goals were incursion of big capital eastwards, and gaining new territories.
By means of this incursion, the capitalism that had faced a deep crisis during the 1980s, has eventually achieved its three objectives and postponed its demise from the global societal stage to history for an indefinite period of time.
The thus achieved objectives of the capitalism are as follows:
- Economical
- Political and
- Military ones.
The economic objective comprised:
- Gaining new markets;
- Assuming the raw materials, infrastructural and financial base in the newly acquired areas.
- Gaining access to cheap labor, through workers in countries of the transferred capital or through immigrants in own countries.
- The political objective was all eliminations of socialism in Europe and of self-management in Yugoslavia.
- The military objective comprised eastwards incursion under the overall goal of nearing and surrounding Russia and China. This one is still underway
The aggression against the FRY in spring 1999, besides being a part of the overall strategy of territorial conquests, judging by the mode of its implementation and exerted brutality, was tasked to punish a disobedient party. Strongmen from the richest countries had little problem finding collaborators within the political elites of the countries of the former socialist block for the purpose of breaking apart the hitherto social-political establishment; thus, the latter gave both their nations and the resources at the silver platter to the big global capital. The problem arose in the former Yugoslav space. A specially disliked was the Yugoslav model of self-management socialism, as an example of a natural positioning of labor in the society and of the dignity of workers who had been in charge of their own lives, backed by full state sovereignty.
This outside orchestrated and inside implemented process put all of us to mercy, i.e. ruthlessness of the global powerfuls, with the leading roles assigned to the seceding Republics of Slovenia and Croatia, and followed in the domino effect by Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia without any real rational need based on economic or any other logic. Later Montenegro too. The only barrier to territorial conquest was the FRY, the remnant of the former state that, although with an already changed social-political setup, was perceived as the last bastion on the road of the imperialist rulers and, as such, had to be disciplined. One may deduce this feature of punishment from the double standards that the international community had been applying to different republics and nations of the former Yugoslavia, meaning that what was allowed to some was not permitted to others. There followed brutal aggression of NATO forces that failed to inflict major military damage on the FRY, in spite the fact that the ratio of troops and military equipments between the aggressor and the victim was the biggest ever recorded in military history. Although the military casualties were rather small, civilian casualties and material damage were very high. The infrastructure and material substance of the country were devastated through applying most sophisticated and most brutal means, which were militarily unjustified and manifestly intended for destruction of civilian facilities, often with disastrous consequences. The absolute brutality is reflected in the use of ammunition with depleted uranium that permanently contaminates the environment; the absurdity of its applications is additionally corroborated by the high percentage of casualties within the ranks of the aggressor units who had been handling such ammunition.
An unprecedented act was done against Serbian state, in that a part of its territory was ripped away contrary to all international legal norms, and a subsequent imperialist protectorate was introduced in Kosovo and Metohija with the biggest military camp in this part of the world. This act created a fake, quasi-state territory, having no own economy for the basic livelihood of its citizens, unrecognized by half of the countries that represent the majority of the world’s population. Its key purpose was to serve as springboard for the U.S.A. and NATO in their quest towards the Caspian Basin. This last thesis was only substantiated in August 2008, when the U.S.A. and NATO, standing on one foot in Kosovo and Metohija, tried to step with the other on the Caucasus; fortunately, they failed.
In addition to aggression against FRY, there are other examples which tell contrary to what the propaganda is trying to make us believe in. These are Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria war, penetration to ex-USSR regions, intention to install the missile shield in Eastern Europe, creating crises in the world by permanent institutional terror thus fuelling a desperate-ridden non-institutional one, tolerating Israel in its carrying out genocide, and the substitution of the United Nations. Namely, all these reveal that NATO is not an army of peace where, by virtue of own conscience, all peace-lowing nations should gather. Rather it protects merger of principles and institutions, such as capitalist ownership and the so-called free market, which secure the absolute power of certain chosen, condense proprietary layers, over the thoroughly exploited working masses in developed capitalist societies, it means safeguarding privileged mighty states against the vast majority of the third world and the under-developed countries. Therefore, NATO is not an isolated, non-political military structure, but the capitalist social system per se; more precisely, it is the military reflection thereof. Hence, NATO is not an army of nations, as the propaganda tries to convince us, but an army of the rich minority that rules the developed societies on the world, with duty to protect itself against the poor majority. This is exactly why NATO was not abolished after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, as the naive ones expected, because the dissaprrance of that Pact did not mean the disappearance of the key enemy of the rich, that being the poverty and misbalanced global development as direct results of the capitalist order.
Rather it protects merger of principles and institutions, such as capitalist ownership and the so-called free market, which secure the absolute power of certain chosen, condense proprietary layers, over the thoroughly exploited working masses in developed capitalist societies, it means safeguarding privileged mighty states against the vast majority of the third world and the under-developed countries. Therefore, NATO is not an isolated, non-political military structure, but the capitalist social system per se; more precisely, it is the military reflection thereof. Hence, NATO is not an army of nations, as the propaganda tries to convince us, but an army of the rich minority that rules the developed societies on the world, with duty to protect itself against the poor majority. This is exactly why NATO was not abolished after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, as the naive ones expected, because the disappearance of that Pact did not mean the disappearance of the key enemy of the rich, that being the poverty and misbalanced global development as direct results of the capitalist order.
Since it protects the minority against the majority, NATO unmistakably has imperialist character. In particular, the imperialist character of NATO arises from the fact that the U.S.A. has a dominant role in the organization of the global capitalist order, acquired upon supplanting their European competitions after the end of WWII. The U.S.A. awards membership in NATO and determines its power and strategy. This is best illustrated by its latest strategy of the U.S. homeland security, which publicly states intentions of the most powerful country in the world to accomplish its supremacy by means of threats and use of military might, namely by modes of power that comes second to none in the world. The core goal of this strategy is to prevent any forms and expressions of threats to the power dominance and reputation of the U.S.A. in managing the global affairs, for maintaining control over the global resources. At present, such resources involve energy, and tomorrow will deal with fresh water and preventing social-political developments that many jeopardize the world order in which the capital rules, and the leading role of the U.S.A. By virtue of this strategy, the U.S.A. assumes the right to wage “pre-emptive wars” upon its own discretion. This approach renders meaningless provisions on self-defence of states guaranteed by the United Nations Charter, and makes the U.S.A. the global emperor, globe-cop and the single biggest threat to peace.
The peace that NATO strives to is a sort of a limited peace for a part of Europe and North America in order to preserve the stability of the capitalistic order, but it does not relate to peace in other parts of the world. The U.S.A. and other Western powers are free to resort to violence against the ineligible, disobedient and weaker countries in the world.
NATO neither is nor can be a protector of most of the semi-developed and developed states and nations, since it defends the order rather than individual countries. It protects inequality and it would never protect socialism. All NATO does is protect power of such minorities in the protected states that maintain and deepen the inequalities, in their own interest.
This also applies to the countries established on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. NATO can defend only such actors who have, assisted by the world order, robbed all material and social wealth produced by the workers before the secession of the 1990s, thus gaining economic and political power they keep on reproducing and strengthening.
Countries established on the territory of the former Yugoslavia do not belong to the circles of the imperialist powers, either pursuant to their past, or pursuant to their interest. Although some of them were used in the past by the then imperial powers: by turning their territories into a protective cordon or by fighting on foreign fronts, in favour of other’s imperial interests. These countries cannot expect to be developed by the multinational companies and foreign banks and, consequently, they should not be asking for protection from the cited circles, let alone fighting for their interests. Quite the contrary, if they as small and semi-developed countries want to survive and develop, they should better opt for such majority that see its priority in more just economic and political relations and authentic development outside the imperialist alliance of the mighty ones, defended by NATO. Once in NATO, we will lose the last shreds of our sovereignty and dignity of a nation that has previously fought for a better and more humane world, free of any imperialism.
The recent events, indicate that the capitalism has accomplished its historic mission and that is not more capable of addressing the needs of the humanity. Therefore, it should take a leave from the social arena because the future of the world is determined by alternative; socialism or barbarism.
