On 6 December, the Albanian capital Tirana hosted the latest conference of the “Western Balkan” states and the European Union. Read more...

Introduction

The Balkans are being torn apart by two wars. The first, waged by NATO with laser-guided missiles from over 700 fighter planes, is designed to bomb Serbia into submission. The second is being mercilessly fought by Serbian army and militia against the Kosovar Albanians with the aim of driving them from their homeland; in a word, genocide. Read more...

The history of the Bosnian crisis is littered with failed imperialist peace plans. Each of them involved a recognition by imperialism of territorial gains made over the slit throats and raped bodies of tens of thousands of civilians. These plans drawn up by retired senior politicians and diplomats—Vance-Owen (Mark I and II), Owen-Stoltenberg, the Contact Group and now Clinton— have all put multi-ethnic Bosnia on the dissecting table. Read more...

The proposed settlement over the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina is a big blow against the longstanding multi-ethnic character of the old republic in former Yugoslavia. For centuries economic and political developments have combined to prevent the Bosnian Muslims, in particular, from attaining a national consciousness. Michael Gatter explores the reasons for this, and asks what difference the experience of war has made. Read more...

Yugoslavia faces the prospect of a horrific civil war between the peoples and ethnic groups that make up this most multi-national of European states. Revolutionary Marxists condemn without hesitation the fomentors of national strife. The Serbian, Croatian and Slovenia nationalists are all guilty of this. Cynically playing with the fire of chauvinism which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths during the Second World War, reviving the pogromist traditions of the Chetnik and Ustasha fascists, they have brought the country to the brink of a repetition of these events. Read more...