BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The U.S. and other imperialist troops in Yugoslavia pushed to establish the right to move their military force anywhere they want, as the first major deadline of the Washington-imposed "peace" agreement approaches. Under the guise of enforcing provisions of the accord that require all combatants and their weapons to be moved at least two kilometers from the front lines by January 19, NATO troops have begun foot patrols.
"We are going to go dismounted now," declared Lieut. Col. William Briscoe of the U.S. Fourth Battalion, 12th Infantry. "The Americans will go anywhere and everywhere." According to the New York Times, in some cases NATO commanders can order combatants to move as far back as they deem necessary. Capt. Hugo Jackson, commander of Company C, told the Times he has orders to move any weapons that he considers a danger even further than two kilometers outside the zone of separation, setting the stage for future military confrontations.
Several thousand troops from the various warring gangs in Bosnia retreated from their front lines January 14, five days before the deadline. The two-and-a-half-mile buffer zone will be occupied by imperialist troops. In mid-March Bosnian troops will move to occupy some of the land around Sarajevo held by Belgrade-backed forces led by Radovan Karadzic.
NATO continues to build up its occupation force of 60,000 soldiers in Bosnia. Its troops have already closed or knocked down every military roadblock in two-thirds of Bosnia, and are now manning hundreds of roads and convoy routes. NATO forces have also occupied a key dam, allegedly to prevent sabotage by Croatian soldiers. British troops have taken control of some hydroelectric plants in Bosnia.
The NATO military mission in the Balkans is a war drive against working people in Yugoslavia as a whole, with the goal of demolishing the social gains of the socialist revolution won by workers and peasants in the 1940s. The imperialists aim to restore capitalist social relations there using massive military firepower.
Clinton gives troops war pep rally
U.S. president Bill Clinton paid an 18-hour visit to the
Balkans January 13, where he spoke to GIs at the U.S.
staging base in Taszar, Hungary; the Aviano air base in
Italy; and in Tuzla, Washington's headquarters in Bosnia.
Clinton commended the soldiers for being "warriors for
peace" during his pep talk in Tuzla. "Where our values and
our interests are at stake, we must act," he said. "Your
country is very proud of you."
At Taszar airfield in Hungary, where nearly 7,000 GIs are preparing to go to Bosnia, Clinton bragged that the war base there was now "home to the largest American military operation in Europe since World War II." So far, some 7,600 of the projected 20,000 U.S. combat troops have entered the sector of Bosnia to be occupied by Washington's forces.
Clinton also met with Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic in Tuzla and stopped for a brief chat in Zagreb with Franjo Tudjman, president of Croatia, to twist his arm into complying with the Dayton plan. Bosnian government forces and troops who look to Zagreb exchanged artillery fire in the Usora valley of Bosnia January 13. The Bosnian government has expressed fears of Zagreb's intent to annex regions of Bosnia captured by Croatian troops in earlier assaults on the republic.
The Clinton administration announced January 14 that U.S. civilian contractors will begin training Bosnian government soldiers in the next 60 days. Pentagon officials say the troops would be trained in Bosnia and possibly Turkey. U.S. military authorities have recommended that Military Professionals Resources Inc., which employs many retired U.S. military officers, be given the contract for the training.
Washington has already projected widening its role in the Balkans beyond its stated mission of "peacekeeping." U.S. defense secretary William Perry asserted January 11 that NATO soldiers will escort investigators looking for mass graves in Bosnia and provide security to all civilians and international organizations traveling through Bosnia.
"If the War Crimes Tribunal wants to go to Srebrenica and dig up some graves, we'll provide the security that allows them to do that," Perry said. U.S. admiral Leighton Smith, the commander in chief of NATO forces in Bosnia, echoed Perry when asked about Washington's military mission in the Balkans. "What I've said we needed is that ability to move forces in theater as we need them," Smith replied.
Perry said the U.S. military was not about to launch a manhunt for political opponents. "We want to be clear we're not conducting posses," he said. But he stated that Washington would provide intelligence information to tribunal investigators. NATO forces "are prepared to arrest indicted criminals if we come across them in the course of our duties," he added.
Washington sets up spy network
According to the Washington Post, the CIA is
establishing a spy network in Bosnia to monitor "activities
of political and military opponents" of the accord the
Clinton administration rammed down the throats of the
warring gangs in Yugoslavia. CIA agents will join with spies
from the U.S. Defense Department to gather information
concerning threats to imperialist interests.
Meanwhile, the conflict of interests between Moscow and Washington is widening as political instability continues to wreak havoc on the Yeltsin regime. The Chechnya crisis and the bending by Russian president Boris Yeltsin to pressures heaped on him by ultrarightists and Stalinist forces has dismayed the U.S. rulers. "Yeltsin is swerving away from reform," lamented the Times editors.
The first 150 Russian soldiers arrived in Tuzla January 12. Moscow agreed to send the troops provided they would not be under direct NATO command. A Russian general who is deputy commander at the NATO headquarters in Brussels will relay orders to troops in the field. Their actions are supposed to be coordinated by the U.S. commander in Bosnia, Maj. Gen. William Nash. Washington is clearly calling the shots in this military mission. Of the three sectors in Bosnia to be patrolled by Washington, London, and Paris, the U.S. military operation will include troops from Russia, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Turkey.
In another development, the United Nations Security Council January 15 set up a new occupation force of 5,000 troops to oversee the withdrawal of Belgrade-supported Serb forces in Eastern Slavonia. Eastern Slavonia was captured from Croatia in 1991. Washington had insisted that the operation be conducted under UN command.