> http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/yugoslav1102.html

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 2, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

PRICES UP, LAYOFFS AHEAD

IMF policies make
inroads in Yugoslavia

By Pat Chin

It's been less than a month since the U.S.-funded
counter-revolutionary coup by election in
Yugoslavia installed Vojislav Kostunica as the new president of
that Balkan country.

But the people of Yugoslavia are already beginning to feel the
bite of the International Monetary
Fund.

No formal agreement has yet been signed with that predatory
financial institution. But Kostunica's
Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition has already started to
implement its deadly provisions.

Shortly after Socialist Party of Serbia head Slobodan Milosevic
conceded defeat in the Yugoslav
presidential elections, the new regime lifted price controls on
basic consumer goods, fuel and
services. Since then, costs have risen sharply. In Belgrade, for
example, the price of one liter of oil
has reportedly jumped from 15 to 51 dinars, a kilo of bread from
6 to 14, a liter of sugar from 6
to 45, and three kilos of detergent from 180 to 220.

Mocked as "democratic prices" by consumers, the increases have
caused deep dissatisfaction.
The removal of price controls is being blamed on the Serbian
Parliament, which is dominated by
SPS loyalists. But it was initially praised by the Western news
media and trumpeted by the DOS
as a great achievement

Most state institutions--including the Central Bank--were
forcibly seized by small groups of
CIA-trained counter-revolutionary gangs following the
imperialist-backed coup disguised as a
"popular uprising." Their leaders include the G-17 group of
economists who wrote the
IMF-approved program adopted by Kostunica's coalition.

"Immediately after taking office," reads G-17's "Program of
Radical Economic Reform," "the new
government shall abolish all types of subsidies. This measure
must be implemented without regrets
or hesitation, since it will be difficult if not impossible to
apply later, in view of the fact that in the
meantime strong lobbies may appear and do their best to block
such measures....

"This initial step in economic liberalization," warns the
document, "must be undertaken as a 'shock
therapy' as its radical nature does not leave space for
gradualism of any kind."

When G-17 seized control of the Central Bank in the name of
"democracy," it stopped the outflow
of cash used by the government for price controls on basic
consumer goods. This effectively
blocked the financing of state subsidies, and was done under the
guise of "preventing the Socialists
from transferring money abroad."

New managers seek higher profits

In addition, reported the Oct. 15 Los Angeles Times, "When
Kostunica supporters forced out
most managers in state-owned shops and factories and put their
own people in charge the system
of controls collapsed and prices immediately shot up." Moreover,
the new factory directors "are
moving quickly to make their plants more profitable."

Faced with simmering resentment over spiraling prices--and with
elections for the new Serbian
Parliament set for Dec. 23--G-17 director Mladjan Dinkic has
tried to blame the SPS-dominated
governing body. He says he now favors a "return to regulations
of prices for certain basics as well
as imports of cheaper equivalents from abroad to tackle
unjustified price hikes." (French Press
Agency, Oct. 16)

Dinkic is using a potentially explosive situation to feign
concern for the "suffering of the people."
But it was this demagogue who agreed to the IMF demand for an
end to price controls and
government subsidies. Dinkic's collaboration with NATO and IMF
officials took place secretly in
Bulgaria just before the Sept. 24 elections. The IMF plan
stipulates "price liberalization" as a
precondition for loan negotiations.

The consummate opportunist, Dinkic would use the crisis, if
allowed, to open Yugoslavia to a
flood of cheap imports, which would destroy local businesses and
farms.

Who's behind G-17?

G-17 is funded by the Washington-based Center for International
Private Enterprise, which is
linked to the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED was
created in 1983 as an
"acceptable" front for subversive counter-revolutionary plots
hatched by the CIA.

Three of G-17's leading members, Dusan Vujovic, Zeliko Bogetic
and Branko Milanovic, are
Washington-based staff members of the IMF and World Bank. Others
also have strong ties to
these imperialist financial institutions. ("Lethal Medicine" by
Michel Chussodovsky and Jared
Israel)

G-17 coordinator Prof. Veselin Vukotic is also linked to the
World Bank. He was the minister of
privatization in 1989 under Yugoslav Premier Ante Markovic. It
was just before--and part and
parcel of--the cataclysmic breakup of the Socialist Federation
of Yugoslavia instigated by the
United States and Germany.

Vukotic helped implement the World Bank Financial Operations
Act, which forced many
companies into bankruptcy. From 1989 to 1990 he directed the
liquidation of more than 1,100
Yugoslav industrial firms, according to the World Bank.

"Over 614,000 industrial workers were laid off out of 2.7
million. The areas hardest hit were
Serbia, including Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. Real
wages did a nosedive.
Social programs collapsed. Unemployment shot up." (Chussodovsky
& Israel)

Devastation of the economy was calculated to create severe
hardship and inflame ethnic rivalry.
This set the stage for the breakup of the Yugoslav Socialist
Federation and expansion of the
capitalist empire in the post-Soviet era.

Bringing in the Deutschmark

After NATO marched in and occupied Kosovo-Metohija last June,
Vukotic declared that the
southern Serbian province "should also have its own currency."
(AP, June 26, 1999) Since then,
the German Deutschmark has become legal tender, and Germany's
Commerzbank now controls
almost the entire banking system there.

This "elder statesman" of G-17 is also reportedly "one of the
economic brains behind Montenegrin
secessionism." Vokotic has in fact been put in charge of
auctioning off state property by the
puppet Djukanovic regime in Montenegro.

World Bank Senior Economist Dr. Dusan Vojovic is Washington's
link to G-17. In August he was
put in charge of negotiating "one of the world's most deadly
economic packages" for the Ukraine,
already blistered by IMF-World Bank reforms. (Chussodovsky &
Israel)

Then there's Dr. Zeliko Bogetic. This IMF adviser--also to
Djukanovic--holds a senior position at
the financial institution. In 1994-96, he forced the IMF's
structural adjustment program on
Bulgaria. All social defenses were stripped in the onslaught.
Price controls, subsidized food,
housing and medical care, among other things, were devastated.

"This is not simply a group of economists," explain the authors
of "Lethal Medicine." "It is a
network. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are
using this network to impose their
policies on Yugoslavia. Meanwhile they tell everyone the fiction
that G-17 is a homegrown
alternative."

This is the reactionary cabal aligned with Kostunica's coalition
that claims it will lead Yugoslavia to
prosperity.

Symbol of resistance

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been under brutal
U.S.-instigated sanctions for 10 years
for its resistance to NATO expansion and IMF plunder. This led
to a steep decline in the standard
of living. But the country was kept from total collapse--unlike
Bulgaria--because of price controls
and state subsidies.

Milosevic and his Socialist Party coalition had become a symbol
of resistance. That's why
Washington wants his administration crushed.

In an arrogant and open display of interference in the affairs
of a sovereign nation--something the
U.S. government would never tolerate here--Washington
shamelessly earmarked close to $200
million of the wealth created by the working class to oust
Milosevic. That's money that could have
been spent on education, childcare and health care, housing for
the homeless and the poor, food
for the hungry.

"In Yugoslavia," writes Belgian journalist Michel Collon from
Belgrade, "the game is far from being
over. A lot will depend on the capacity of workers to resist.
Some leftist alternative is
indispensable, and resistance is being prepared."

- END -

> http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/belarus1102.html

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 2, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

Belarus: NATO's next
target?

By John Catalinotto

Flushed with their success in removing Slobodan Milosevic from
the presidency of Yugoslavia, the
NATO powers moved on quickly to begin to undermine another
country further to the east. Their
media also began to compare Milosevic with that country's
leader.

The target this time was Belarus and especially its president,
Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus, a
country of 10 million people that until 1991 was part of the
USSR, had scheduled parliamentary
elections for Oct. 15.

According to the official results, slightly over 60 percent of
the people voted in this election. Fifty
percent were needed to make it valid. Those elected were largely
supporters of Lukashenko and
his policies, which Washington calls "authoritarian."

There were 574 candidates competing for 110 seats.

Lukashenko's opposition, like the opposition in Yugoslavia,
denounced the elections as rigged and
claimed only 45 percent of the people voted. Washington and
other Western governments refused
to observe the elections but declared them fraudulent anyway.

Why does Washington want to get rid of Lukashenko? On a visit to
Cuba in early September,
Lukashenko praised Cuban President Fidel Castro, calling him "a
legendary figure" and saying "his
life is a political manual for any politician in the world." He
added that he and the Cuban leader
shared "exactly the same points of view" on world issues. This
alone would anger U.S. leaders.

Belarus has always been grateful for Cuba's aid to those made
ill by the nuclear catastrophe at
Chernobyl.

Washington also wants to open up Belarus to the International
Monetary Fund, NATO and the
transnational monopolies. The Belarus opposition shares that
goal.

Along with opposing the U.S. internationally, Lukashenko has
pushed completely different internal
policies from those in other East European countries.

Conditions differ from rest of East Europe

Wolfgang Richter, the head of the Society for the Protection of
Civil and Human Rights in
Germany, was in Belarus during the Oct. 15 election. Richter was
observing for his organization,
not the German government.

In a report published in the German daily newspaper Junge Welt
on Oct. 21, Richter gave a view
of life in Belarus that contrasted sharply with that in many of
the other former socialist countries.

Richter remembered his bitter experiences in Moscow, Sofia,
Bulgaria, and Bucharest, Romania,
and had to ask if there was hunger in Belarus too. People
laughed out loud that he could even
suggest it, he wrote. And there was almost no unemployment. Only
1.7 percent of the people
were registered as jobless, while 2.6 percent of jobs were
without workers.

Living standards were low, Richter recounted, and so was the
amount paid retired people for
pensions. But it seemed everyone got enough to live on and was
dressed well. There were not the
great differences between rich and poor seen in capitalist
Russia, Bulgaria and Romania. And even
if pensions and salaries were small, they were paid each month,
not held back for months and
years as in those countries.

Education through university was still free, and students
received stipends to live. Cultural events
were still low-priced, with "one-third of the seats at the
concert filled with young people," wrote
Richter.

$15 billion left country

In the first few years after the counter-revolution in the USSR,
up until 1994, capitalism had free
reign in Belarus. More than $15 billion left the country, which
was on the verge of civil war.

Then Lukashenko was elected president, and parliament passed a
whole new set of laws.

Richter mentions that the German corporate press--Der Spiegel,
the Frankfurter Allgemeiner
Zeitung and others--were already denouncing the Belarus
elections just as they had the elections in
Yugoslavia. Richter was an observer at both elections and found
them both held by normal rules.

What's the population's view of Lukashenko? "For the people who
we spoke to," wrote Richter,
"his name stood for the effort to get social security for the
population, for a stable economic and
political development, against corruption, for strengthening the
union with Russia and for the
struggle against NATO's expansion to the East."

Perhaps that's why Washington and Berlin want to demonize
Lukashenko and undermine Belarus.

- END -

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