BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
NATO forces fired the first shots in their war mission against Yugoslavia, in separate incidents involving Italian and British troops in the first week of January.
On January 4, NATO troops shot several rounds in response to an attack that wounded a soldier guarding an Italian post, in territory held by Belgrade-backed Serb forces. They apparently did not hit the unknown gunman.
The attack occurred in Vogosca, a northern suburb of Sarajevo where 2,500 troops from Italy will be deployed. The soldier was the first NATO casualty from hostile gunfire since NATO forces began their occupation of Bosnia in late December. Four British soldiers and one U.S. GI have been wounded by land mines.
NATO officials reported that British troops came under hostile fire January 6 while on patrol in the northwest Bosnian town of Sanski Most. The soldiers jumped off their Warrior armored vehicle and fired 62 rounds, but were unable to hit or identify their attackers.
Some 29,000 out of an expected 60,000 NATO troops had been deployed as of January 3. All of the forces from NATO member countries are to be in place by the end of the month. The armies of the various warring forces in Bosnia are supposed to pull back 2.5 miles from a 600-mile-long "confrontation line" by January 19, and allow the NATO military force to move in between them. The U.S.-led force took over from United Nations troops December 19.
The Clinton administration and its imperialist rivals in London, Paris, and Bonn aim to overthrow the workers state in Yugoslavia. Their goal - to wipe out the gains of the socialist revolution that triumphed there in the mid-1940s and to reestablish capitalism - will require a military confrontation with the workers and peasants of Yugoslavia.
The warring gangs in Bosnia continue to clash with each other and with working people. Two Croatian cops shot and killed a Muslim youth who ran a road block in Mostar December 31. Males between the ages of 16 and 60 are prohibited from crossing a line that divides the city in southwestern Bosnia into Muslim and Croat sections.
Clashes in Mostar
Croatian cops wounded two Muslim policemen January 4 and
a Croatian policeman was killed January 6 by gunfire
originating in the Muslim area of Mostar. Later that
night, Croatian forces launched grenades into the Muslim
side of the city.
During the 10-month war that erupted there in 1993-94, Croat forces backed by the Zagreb regime proclaimed a country in a region of Bosnia and called it Herceg-Bosna. They still maintain an army and collect customs duties and taxes there. According to the London Financial Times, Croat officials in Mostar have imposed a $10 tax on every truck delivering relief supplies to central Bosnia.
Under the Dayton agreement imposed by Washington, Herceg- Bosna would dissolve by late January. The territory would become part of the federation that is supposed to be jointly administered by Muslim and Croat forces, while under a central government with its capital in Sarajevo. Mostar is considered to be a crucial part of the so-called Muslim-Croat federation that is to control half of Bosnia.
Taking advantage of the clashes in Mostar, NATO forces increased their armed patrols in that city. Bosnian government authorities have reportedly asked NATO officials to take control of Mostar from the European Union. The European Union assumed control of the city as part of an agreement in 1994 that called for an end to the fighting between Muslim and Croat forces in Bosnia.
While Croatian president Franjo Tudjman stated his support for the Dayton pact, local Croatian authorities in Bosnia would lose considerable power if it were implemented. "Their real problem is they have to give up Herceg-Bosna," a European official told the New York Times.
Washington's military forces are gradually expanding their occupation of Bosnia, seeking to establish their right to move anywhere and challenge anyone in their way. On a January 6 scouting patrol in Vlasenica, a caravan of heavily armed U.S. troops from the 4th Battalion 12th Infantry pulled up in front of the Drina Corps Command, the center of operations for 30,000 Serb troops backed by Belgrade. They confronted a group of Bosnian Serb soldiers carrying machine guns, although no clash took place.
The scouting mission was to help U.S. commanders determine where to establish six base camps of the First Armored Division's Second Brigade. Each camp will hold 600- 800 troops.
Two days earlier, a convoy of 13 U.S. Humvees loaded with machine guns and grenade launchers, along with 46 paratroops from the 3rd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Combat team, swept into the town of Lopare. The operation, also intended to display Washington's military might, passed unchallenged through the Serb checkpoint at Memici on its way to Lopare. A garrison town in Bosnia held by Belgrade-backed forces, Lopare falls in a zone to be patrolled by 1,500 Russian troops. According to the Washington Post, the Russian force "has been slow in getting" there.
In yet another incident, NATO forces pressed troops loyal to chauvinist Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to release 16 Bosnians they had detained in Sarajevo suburbs under their control.
Karadzic reappeared on television in early January for the first time in several weeks. "Although we were successful in defending them militarily, we have lost by political means our ancient homes in Sarajevo," he said. "Now we must regain them by a long and uncertain political struggle."
Karadzic was referring to his opposition to a provision of the Dayton agreement under which Vogosca and four other suburbs of Sarajevo controlled by his forces are supposed to return to the control of the Bosnian government by mid- March.
The Dayton accord also requires Karadzic to give up his post on the basis that he was indicted as a war criminal by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. "I am here, and I will stay here," said a defiant Karadzic, the Associated Press reported.
Another component of the Dayton pact was Washington's agreement to lift its military and economic sanctions against Serbia, which the U.S. government imposed three years ago to increase its influence in the region. On December 28 President Bill Clinton suspended the sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Clinton administration sent Secretary of Defense William Perry to Europe and the Middle East. Perry, accompanied by NATO commander George Joulwan and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, visited U.S. troops in Hungary who were bound for Bosnia. They then went to Sarajevo, Tuzla, and the Croatian town of Zupanja. There they re-entered Bosnia by walking across the newly built pontoon bridge where the bulk of Washington's 20,000 occupation troops will cross over.
Clinton himself is projecting a visit to Bosnia the weekend of January 13-14.
Perry left the Balkans for the Middle East, another volatile region where Washington maintains a military presence to defend its imperial interests. On January 8, the defense secretary told reporters in Jerusalem that Washington would be willing to include troops in a "peacekeeping" force in the Golan Heights, a piece of Syrian territory occupied by Israeli forces. Since 1979, U.S. GIs have been deployed in the Sinai desert as part of a 2,400-member international force.
Washington's expanded intervention in the Balkans comes at the expense of its imperialist rivals, particularly Paris. Lt. Col. Virginia Pribyla, an Air Force spokeswoman, announced plans on January 5 to launch U-2 spy flights from an airfield in southern France. The Air Force is already flying KC-135 tankers from the French base. This move underscored the French capitalist rulers' weakened position relative to their U.S. competitors.
Chechnya war adds to volatility
In addition to the friction between the imperialist
powers, the role of Russian forces in the Yugoslav
conflict remains a major source of tension. Moscow has its
own interests that diverge from those of Washington and
other NATO powers. The Russian government has backed the
Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
Political instability within Russia gives the imperialist governments added headaches. Most recently, the war in Chechnya has again flared up. An estimated 20,000 people have been killed in that 13-month-old conflict, which began after Moscow sent troops to crush a popular independence movement there.
On January 9 a band of Chechen fighters stormed a large hospital in Kizlyar in the autonomous republic of Dagestan - which is part of Russia - and took an estimated 2,000 hostages. They vowed to leave only after Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya. Most of the hostages were released the next day. A few days earlier, 100 prominent Russian writers, actors, composers, and singers published an open letter calling on President Boris Yeltsin to end the "fratricidal war" in Chechnya. The letter was printed on the front page of the Izvestia newspaper under the headline "Stop the War in Chechnya."
"The senselessness and unpopularity of this war is obvious to everyone," the letter stated. "How much more evidence is needed to show that a solution by force is hopeless?"