29.04.1999

A just cause

Critical support for KLA does not mean backing Nato says Michael Malkin

Are they freedom fighters or terrorists, partisans engaged in a just struggle against national chauvinist mass terror or agents of imperialism? In essence, the attitude adopted to the KLA by some leftwing groups serves to define the ideological bankruptcy of those who, abandoning any serious attempt at Marxist analysis, choose instead to revive the redundant polarities and anachronistic rhetoric of the Cold War - the ‘Yugoslav defencists’; or to take up positions objectively indistinguishable from liberal bourgeois ideology - the social-pacifists.

For the arch-proponents of ‘Yugoslav defencism’ at the Morning Star, Nato’s offensive against Serbia seems to have induced an acute bout of Cold War nostalgia. It is as if the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the demise of ‘official communism’ had never really happened. Unconditional defence of the USSR has been replaced by unconditional defence of Yugoslavia. Just as in ‘the good old days’, when the Morning Star regurgitated every word that came from the mouth of Tass as if it were holy writ, so now it fills its pages with communiqués from Tanjug. Its editorials might just as well have been written in Belgrade. Hence, the KLA are roundly condemned as “criminals”, funded by Germany and the USA as part of a fiendish plot to “break up the former Yugoslavia so as to make a client state for Germany, which is a repeat of policies pursued in 1914 and 1939” (editorial, April 21).

The principal charges levelled by the Morning Star against the KLA are that the latter are “terrorists”, whose goal is the creation of “an ethnically pure, Albanian-only Kosovo”; that they are not so much a military force as a gang of “drug-traffickers”; and, most grotesquely, that they are “fascists”.

The first accusation is, of course, pure routine. As “terrorists”, the KLA are legitimate targets, and Milosevic’s campaign of terror against the entire population of Kosova, with its mass murder, rape, arson and looting can be portrayed as

“the Yugoslav national army stepping up its offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army - an organisation which western intelligence agencies identified as a terrorist group a year ago, but which is now treated as an honoured Nato ally” (editorial, April 17).

The second allegation has a curious provenance, originating in part from remarks made by Tory maverick Alan Clark, to the effect that the KLA are “drug dealers”. Since Clark is “no communist”, his words carry weight, the Morning Star implies. Of course, Clark was a notorious Cold War warrior. Anyway the problem for the paper was how to give substance to the smear. Its answer was an article by Brian Denny entitled ‘Trafficking to the west’ (April 15). This classic piece of scissors-and-paste journalism draws on snippets from various sources to the effect that “It is said that between 25% and 40% of all heroin in the US was supplied by the leading Kosovo-Albanian cartel”; a report from the German Federal Criminal Office is cited to demonstrate that “ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin”; according to the Morning Star, the German government itself is involved with the “cartel” (in order to “further Bonn’s aim of breaking up Yugoslavia”) and the CIA is similarly accused of financing Kosovar “freedom fighters through the laundering of drugs and money”.

It may well be that a “Kosovan-Albanian drugs cartel” exists, but an attentive reader of Denny’s poisonous little confection will notice that he silently conflates this “cartel” with the KLA, producing not one shred of evidence proving KLA involvement in drug-running.

Thirdly, the Morning Star plumbs new depths of absurdity by claiming that the KLA are “fascists”. It ‘substantiates’ this claim by reprinting a curious article from “Workers World Service”, according to which “many leaders of the KLA trace their roots to a fascist unit set up during World War II by the Italian occupiers”. What is more, the KLA “has patterned some of its uniforms and insignia on the fascist unit” (April 13). When the ‘Yugoslav defencists’ are reduced to bolstering their arguments with abysmal nonsense of this kind, one can only wonder what they will think up next? Perhaps the KLA will be ‘unmasked’ as covert agents of freemasonry or international Zionism?

There is one issue of some substance that brings the ‘Yugoslav defencists’ and the bourgeois-pacifists (notably the Socialist Workers Party) together, and that is the question of imperialism’s military support for the KLA, and its corollary, the assistance given by the KLA to Nato’s bombing offensive, specifically in relation to providing Nato with targeting intelligence on Serbian troop movements and dispositions. For the Morning Star, the KLA is simply and only a catspaw of the Nato powers, its military campaign nothing but an adjunct of the very real conspiracy by the imperialists to gain hegemony over the Balkans.

For Socialist Worker, the KLA is a “problem”, because “... an Albanian nationalist army, hardened by war and enjoying mass support ... could threaten the integrity of half a dozen states throughout the region.” Hence, “arming the Kosovo Liberation Army and backing Kosovan independence would make the situation worse” (April 10). So far as military cooperation between Nato and the KLA is concerned, Socialist Worker appears to agree with the maxim that ‘by their friends shall ye know them’: under the headline ‘KLA’s friends’, the paper tells us that the KLA is presented by “some” (eg, the CPGB) “as a fighting force to support. But the KLA admits it is being trained by the British SAS and US special forces teams” (April 24). Evidently, the SWP, currently undergoing its own crisis of identity and direction, has too weak a stomach and too little theory to countenance support for the messy kind of struggle in which an organisation like the KLA chooses to seek help where it can find it. Much safer to wash one’s hands of the whole business and espouse the sort of bourgeois pacifism touted by the likes of Bruce Kent, or get into a cosy bed with the MPs who run the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, and bemoan the fact that “war leads to catastrophe”.

At a rally organised by this committee in London on April 21, the comedian and SWP member Mark Steel (though he did not declare himself in the latter capacity) told his audience that the KLA was an “anti-working class” force meriting no support, and that the Kosovars’ struggle for self-determination was a “distraction” from the main issue, which, according to Steel, is to offer support to the “anti-Milosevic elements” in Serbia.

Comrade Steel is probably right to say that such “elements” exist, but if he believes that they are socialists, bursting with suppressed proletarian internationalism and a fervent desire to embrace their Kosovar brothers and sisters, we can only conclude that he is living in a dream world. If these “elements” in the Serbian political and military leadership decide to ditch Milosevic, it will be because he is a loser and hence a danger to their own skins, not because he is failing in his ‘socialist’ duty. As to the Serbian working class, there is no sign yet of any outburst of a revolutionary socialist commitment to justice for Kosova. To paraphrase a certain Jewish German: while it does not actively side with Kosovar self-determination the working class in Serbia can never free itself.

The question of how we should view the KLA’s cooperation with Nato forces is of prime importance, a question demanding Marxist clarity and perspectives. First, the facts: is the KLA being trained by the SAS? Certainly, if authoritative sources in the bourgeois media are correct (see, for example, The Sunday Telegraph April 18). It is probable that the KLA is already receiving covert military assistance in the form of weapons as well as training. It is possible, though in my view unlikely, that this assistance will eventually become a matter of public Nato policy - such a development would bring about a serious confrontation with Russia, which would then feel itself obliged to break the arms embargo in favour of the Serbians.

Do any of these facts or possibilities mean that, as Marxists, we should jettison support for the KLA in order to maintain our ideological purity by refraining from giving comfort to an organisation self-righteously castigated by many on the left as a tool of imperialism? No, they do not. Such a view is one-sided, mechanical and reeks of cowardly opportunism. In the first instance, there is the fact that the KLA and the Kosovars’ struggle for self-determination is a just one. They have the right to get military aid where and when they can. Did the Provisional IRA’s acquisition of arms from Libya make them ‘tools of Arab nationalism’? And what about the Boston Irish?

Furthermore, as we have consistently argued, there is a decidedly positive aspect to the dialectic of the present situation: of course, we never support the war aims of imperialists. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Nato bombing has reduced the already enfeebled Serbian economy to a state of ruination. An eventual Nato victory, however high the cost in terms of lives and material, must be inevitable. As always, it will be the working class, the ordinary men and women of Yugoslavia, who will have to pay the price for Milosevic’s chauvinist dreams of creating a Greater Serbia - they will pay for it in the coinage of mass unemployment and social deprivation. Just as significant, divisions at the top, coupled with demoralisation turning to anger below, will provide an opportunity for socialists. In this situation, the possibility of a genuine socialist alternative, marked by the resurgence of class politics, can come onto the agenda. This consideration leaves aside the obvious - indeed, the more important - fact that the demand for a Nato ground offensive - promoted by Blair at his most ‘patriotic’ and bellicose - may well cause irreparable damage to the military and political cohesion of the imperialist bloc even before it begins. In short, the situation is pregnant with possibilities which even a cursory glance should make clear to any Marxist theoretician or organisation worthy of the name.

To judge by the reaction of some comrades, you would think that the issue of Kosovar self-determination had suddenly sprung up from nowhere. They appear to lack any historical grasp of the background to the present conflict. The apparent golden age of ‘Yugoslav unity’, so cherished by the ‘Yugoslav defencists’, was imposed by the Tito regime from above. It may have contained some positive aspects, but it was nonetheless a fudge, in essence a betrayal so far as Kosova was concerned. The 1946 constitution of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia made no mention of Kosova as a distinct political entity, thus reneging on promises made by Tito when the Yugoslav and Albanian partisans fought side by side against the Nazis.

The constitution of 1963 offered a notional concession to Kosovar aspirations by declaring Kosova an autonomous province of the Socialist Republic of Serbia. Yet another new constitution, that of 1974, gave the Kosovar provincial assembly the right to elect its own members to the Chamber of Republics and Provinces of the Yugoslav federal parliament.

Nevertheless, with the Yugoslav economy tottering Serbian chauvinism reasserted itself. Three hundred Kosovars were killed and some 7,000 jailed in 1981 as a result of the spring demonstrations for more autonomy. With the advent of Milosevic in 1987, and his plan to re-establish the Yugoslav bureaucracy on Serbian nationalist foundations, the situation worsened. The Yugoslav army was sent into Kosova and more killings and reprisals followed. By July 1990, the Milosevic regime’s assertion of Serb dominance against the rights of Kosovars to self-determination led to the arbitrary abolition of Kosovar autonomy and the dissolution of their provincial assembly and government.

The polls held in Kosova in the spring of 1992, in the teeth of Serb opposition, resulted in the election of Ibrahim Rugova of the Democratic League of Kosova (LDK) to the post of president of the Independent Republic of Kosova, and gave a mandate to a Kosovar parliament. Needless to say, the results of these elections were declared invalid by the Belgrade regime. As the only reaction open to them, Rugova and the Kosovar parliament declared the creation of a Kosovar government in exile, based in Germany, under the prime ministership of Bujar Bukoshi.

This government was supposedly responsible for furthering Kosovar interests abroad, but as Sabri Kicmari, foreign affairs spokesman of the KLA put it recently, “All the [Bukoshi] government has done for six years is sit in Bonn drinking coffee” (The Daily Telegraph April 23). While Bukoshi endured the pains of exile in German coffee houses, his countrymen at home came under increasingly ferocious assaults from Milosevic’s army and special forces, and the KLA took up an armed struggle in defence of Kosova’s right to self-determination. These are the immediate, concrete origins of the present conflict.

Readers will recall allegations by Nato spokespersons to the effect that Rugova had been assassinated by Serb forces. To their acute embarrassment, the same spokespersons had subsequently to admit that Rugova was not only not dead, but was engaged in negotiations with Milosevic to bring about an agreed settlement. This “treachery”, as the KLA sees it, and their disillusionment with the diplomatic intrigues of the LDK government in exile, recently led Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA and its principal negotiator at Rambouillet, to declare the Bukoshi government abolished. Thaci replaced it with a cabinet, under his own leadership, in which the KLA predominates. It is Thaci, as de facto prime minister of Kosova living rough alongside his troops, with whom Robin Cook and other Nato ministers are in contact by satellite telephone.

Such is the nature of politics in the real world, as opposed to the tidy world of theory and abstraction. Thaci may, as yet, lack a formal democratic mandate from the people of Kosova, but everything suggests that he and the KLA have the overwhelming support of the Kosovar population, both those who remain in their homeland, hiding in the forests from Serbian murderers, and the million or so who have been forced to flee for their lives.

The cause of the Kosovars and the KLA is just. Communists - not only in Britain, but crucially Serbia - should support the democratic content of their programme, while criticising their petty bourgeois and nationalist prejudices and shortcomings, not least the illusion that Nato is a trustworthy ally.