BY NATASHA TERLEXIS
NOVI SAD, Vojvodina, Serbia - Over 125 women from throughout Yugoslavia, joined by small delegations of women from other countries, participated in an antiwar vigil in the central square of this town August 7. They stood in a wide circle - all dressed in black - holding signs against nationalism, war, and war preparations. Signs like "Stop apartheid in Kosovo" held center stage, assailing the conditions imposed on the Albanian majority in the Kosovo region at the hands of the Serbian regime. "People in the town were mostly friendly," said Natasha a youth from Belgrade, who was handing out flyers to people. "One person even asked how to affiliate with Women in Black; this was a man!"

Women in Black (WIB) has been organizing protests every week in Belgrade for the past seven years against "ethnic cleansing" and the war in Yugoslavia. The protesters here were participants in the sixth international meeting of the Network of Women's Solidarity Against War.

Spotlight on Kosovo
The Belgrade regime revoked Kosovo's autonomous status in 1989. This was part of whipping up a chauvinist campaign, as competing wings of the Stalinist bureaucracy that had ruled Yugoslavia for decades prepared to go to war over the country's territory and wealth. The ending of autonomy for Kosovo and Vojvodina, where Novi Sad is located, were blows to the gains made by Albanians and other nationalities in the Federated Yugoslav state, as workers and farmers began to forge a new society following the revolution that overturned capitalist property relations there after World War II.

Today the Serbian regime is again scapegoating Kosovo to stir up Serbian nationalist sentiment. "The media is full of stories of attacks on Serbs by Albanians in Kosovo," said Stasa Zajovic, a central figure in WIB. "Women are a special target of this pro-war campaign. We are being told that we are not real Serbs if we don't have a lot of babies. They speculate about the year when Serbs will become a minority in Serbia, losing out to Albanians and `other Muslims' like those living in the Sandzak region."

During last winter's mass protests against election fraud and for democratic rights in Belgrade, WIB found there was political space to make the occupation of Kosovo an issue and get a hearing. On December 13, after a march of nearly 350,000 people, demonstrators paid homage with a moment of silence for Feriz Blackori, a Kosovo Albanian killed by Serbian police the previous day during interrogation.

About a dozen women from Kosovo attended the conference. Eleonora Halimi, who works for Doctors of the World in Pristina, Kosovo, spoke about the constant harassment that young people especially face from Serb authorities. "The police will come into your house saying they are looking for arms," she said. "I don't know of any family who has not had the experience of some member taken in for interrogation."

"There are no jobs at all" for Albanians there, she added. "Anyone who can possibly leave goes, especially to Germany."

However, she didn't have any good words for the leadership of the Albanian independence struggle and was not at all eager to be added to Albania. Those who speak in the name of Kosovo Albanians in the international arena seek financial and political support from Washington and other imperialist governments. Halimi said she thought investment and development is needed in Kosovo, and doesn't see that it could come from anyone other than from capitalists. At the same time it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. A Greek capitalist has been negotiating with the Serb authorities to buy a gold mine there. "We told him `don't buy this. It belongs to the Albanian people,' " she said.

Challenges facing women
"Women have double chains: Serb occupation, as well as subjugation to men within the family," said Nazlie Bala from Prizren, Kosovo. The right to know about reproductive functions and control them independently of the family is a key issue. Forms of precapitalist exploitation of women - such as polygamy and the selling of women -that were not widespread but had never been stamped out are now being defended by many conservative men as a form of preserving "cultural identity." A new consciousness among some young women, who are also fighting for national rights, is taking this on.

"The most impressive thing about the conference for me was the women who were there," said Ipek Ilkkaracan from Women for Women's Rights in Istanbul, Turkey. She noted that sitting around a table discussing the fight for women's rights were members of the region's religious and national groups who are "told by our governments to hate each other."

In addition to WIB activists, participants included volunteers from many women-oriented NGOs and foundations, and workers from refugee centers. They came from the Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia. Representatives of international women's organizations such as Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights also attended. International participants came from Israel, Palestine, Chechnya, Hungary, Turkey, Greece, the United States, and several Western European countries,

What next in Yugoslavia?
During the workshop entitled "The war did not end with peace but with a truce -What next?" and in many discussions afterwards, activists gave their appraisal of the situation in Yugoslavia now. The "truce" referred to is the Dayton agreement, imposed by U.S. imperialism on the warring Yugoslav governments. It lays the basis for the partition of Bosnia and provides the pretext for the presence of tens of thousands of NATO troops in Yugoslavia.

Although many appreciated greater mobility on the roads since the Dayton accords were signed, including no longer having to go through Hungary to get from Sarajevo to Belgrade, all pointed to the single most important question as that of the refugees. Jasna Baksic Muftic from Sarajevo explained that there are no immediate perspectives for the return of 1.5 million refugees to their homes, even though the accords were presented as a vehicle for this. The Dayton accords cannot bring more than a cease-fire, she said because "those who signed the agreement for peace are those who waged the war and because it fails to satisfy any side of the conflict."

"Where I live now is a `reserve,' which does not belong to anyone," said a young refugee originally from the Krajina area of Croatia, now a resident of a refugee camp in Serbia. "It is impossible to obtain the documentation they require to allow you to go back home, even though you supposedly have the right." Refugees are also marginalized in the areas where they temporarily live. According to Zajovic, one out of three residents of Serbia is not a constitutional citizen.

Baksic Muftic said that Bosnian refugees have begun to organize across ethnic and religious lines over the last year into a multicultural Organization for the Return. "They have held conferences of about 200 people in Sarajevo, Mostar, and other Bosnian towns."

One young woman from Sarajevo said that in her town "People are tired of nationalism, of hunger, of churches, and of mosques. Fewer people attend services," she said. Others disagreed with her assessment in the discussions under the theme "The globalization of patriarchy, conservatism, and fundamentalism" that dominated the second day of the conference. Sentiment was definitely in favor of her conclusion, though, that "healing the economic wounds will recreate a multiethnic Bosnia, which is the only one possible."

"An army cannot bring peace" was a common statement, but the workshop did not call on the NATO occupation force to leave, nor did it denounce Dayton. Even among those who saw Dayton as intervention from foreign powers eager to control a part of Yugoslavia, there were illusions in the international war crimes tribunal of The Hague. "Who can bring them to justice? There is no one in Yugoslavia strong enough to do it," said Vanda Perovic from WIB in Belgrade.

A layer of lesbian activists were the one of the most youthful and energetic components of the conference, determined that human rights and women's rights must also apply to them. Also attending the conference were several young men who had refused to fight in the Serbian army during the course of the war. As many as 50 percent of the young men called up refused to present themselves to fight against the working people of Slovenia and Croatia. "We have won an amnesty for those deserters," explained Bojan Aleksor from Belgrade. They are pardoned on condition that they do their service now. "Most people are doing it, although there is also a strong movement of conscientious objectors."

Natasha Terlexis is a member of the Foreign Airline Workers Union Federation in Athens, Greece.  
 
 
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