Ljubodrag Simonovi ± a Replay to Noam Chomsky

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Mr. Chomsky deserves respect for his brave resistance to Americanimperialist politics. Unfortunately, in the interview with the Belgrade daily paper

³Politika´

of May 7th and 8th, 2006, Chomsky sees the ultimate solution for theBalkan crisis in the implementation of Washington¶s policy.To the question ³What do you see as a realistic solution to the final statusof Kosovo and how much does it differ from what the USA advocates today?´Chomsky replies: ³I have for a long time felt that the only realistic solution to thefinal status of Kosovo is actually the one offered by the president of Serbia(Dobrica osi), I think, sometime in 1993, that is a kind of partitioning of theSerbs. There are few Serbs left now, but what used to be Serbian regions should be a part of Serbia, the rest can be ³independent³, as they call it, which meansintegrated with Albania. I simply did not see any other solution ten years agoeither.´Chomsky¶s idea is not new. It is actually a ³model´ for Kosovo that in theSecond World War was realized by fascist Italy and Germany. As for Chomsky¶sreference to Dobrica Cosi, the ex-president of Yugoslavia, it is, as a matter of fact, a highly problematic alibi in view of the motives behind Cosi¶s advocatingthe division of Kosovo.Chomsky¶s position is identical to that of the American establishment.That is, Chomsky does not speak of a just and principled solution to the problemof Kosovo, but of a ³realistic solution´. What actually is the basis of Chomsky¶s³realism´? First of all is the fact that the Albanians are a majority in Kosovo, andthat they do not want to live in Serbia. Would Chomsky¶s ³realism´ be really³realistic´ if America did not stand behind the Albanians? In that case wouldn¶tanother kind of realism apply, namely that the Albanians represent about 15% of the population of Serbia and that the Serbs, as a majority, do not want Kosovo tosecede from Serbia? Chomsky¶s ³realistic solution´ is actually founded on theresults of the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs and other non-Albanians (about300,000), carried out by Albanian terrorist groups which, even according toChomsky, were organized and armed by the USA ± as well as the settlement inKosovo of hundreds of thousands of Albanians from Albania.What would happen if the principle of ethnic majority ³self-determination´ were applied to the solution of the question of ethnic minoritiesin European countries? Would, according to Chomsky, the Albanians¶ breakingoff of western Macedonia and its annexation to Albania be a ³realistic solution´?Or the Greeks¶ annexation of the parts of Albania where they are the majority?Or the Turkish annexation of the parts of Bulgaria and Greece where theyrepresent the majority? Or Hungarian annexation of the parts of Romania, Serbia

and Slovakia where they are the majority of the population? What aboutAbkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabach, etc.? What about Catalonia, theBasque country, Corsica, South Tirol, parts of Turkey where the Kurds form themajority, or Crimea and other parts of Ukraine populated by Russians, as well asthe Baltic states with a majority Russian population?Chomsky offers to the Albanians of Kosovo as a national minority theright to form their state and to be annexed to Albania. What about the right of theSerbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina ²who are not national minorities, but constitutive peoples²what of their right to decide on their independence?The question is whether Chomsky is aware that his ³realistic³ conceptionin fact gives legitimacy to the principle of ethnic cleansing openly backed by theAmerican administration. Chomsky¶s conception, no matter what the author¶sreal motives are, represents an invitation to a violent breaking up of multi-ethnicstates. What would that mean for Serbia where 24 nations live? Practically, allthe border areas of Serbia would become zones where national clashes could be provoked in order to make possible their annexation to the neighboring countries.Provocations already exist in the parts of the country populated by Muslims(Sandak) and Hungarians (Voivodina).How can the secession of that part of the country which represents thefoundation of the Serbian state and the national consciousness of the people be³peacefully´ accepted by the Serbs? Serbs are aware that the real occupiers of Kosovo are not Albanians, but Americans. Chomsky doesn¶t mention the presence in Kosovo of camp ³Bond-Steel´, which is the largest Americanmilitary camp in Europe. And that is, in fact, the main reason why Americans aretrying to tear off Kosovo from Serbia and to annex it to Albania. Americans aretrying to turn the Balkan and East-European states into a military corridor inorder to isolate Europe from Russia and prevent Europe from approaching theMiddle East. ³Greater Albania´ would become the main strategic point in theAmerican plan to become entrenched in European territory. In his interviewChomsky ³forgot´ to mention that the immediate reason for the NATO bombingof Yugoslavia was Miloevi¶s refusal to sign the document in Rambouillet inwhich the Americans demanded the deployment in Yugoslavia of over 30,000 NATO soldiers. In effect, they demanded that Miloevi endorse the occupationof his country.In answering the question ³Why the USA started that war?´ Chomskyrefers to the book by John Norris that states, ³The real cause of the war hadnothing to do with care for the Kosovo Albanians. The real cause was that Serbiadid not implement the required social and market reforms, which meant that itwas the only corner of Europe refusing to accept neo-liberal programs dictated by the USA, and this had to be stopped.´ In the same interview Chomsky saysthat Miloevi ³should have been overthrown, and probably would have been, inthe early 90s, had the Albanians voted.´ Chomsky sees in the political groups in

Serbia who played the ³Trojan horse´ for the USA and who received hundreds of millions of dollars from the USA to overthrow Miloevi, and in the separatistAlbanians, the forces which should have overthrown Miloevi. How cananybody fight the criminal policy of the USA in the Balkans, and, at the sametime, give support to the political forces carrying out the American policy in theBalkans?What is Chomsky¶s opinion of Miloevi? Chomsky thinks thatMiloevi ³committed many crimes´, ³that he is not a good person´, ³that he is aterrible person, but the accusations against him could have never been proved.´To the question ³Are you a Miloevi sympathizer?´ Chomsky replies, ³No, hewas terrible... I certainly would never have dined or talk to him. Yes, he deservedto be tried for his crimes, but this trial could not be carried out even had it beenhalf fair. It was a farce; they were actually happy that he died.´For what ³crimes´ should Miloevi have been tried and why should hehave been overthrown in the beginning of the nineties? ± The man whointroduced the multi-party system and brought about a constitution according towhich the citizen and not the nation is the basis of the political formation of society, something that was thoroughly opposed by the political forces whichChomsky supports. Chomsky didn¶t give a concrete reply to the repeatedquestion.Basically, Chomsky has no political vision of the Balkans that might givethese countries the possibility of preserving their independence, without whichthe story of ³democratic freedoms´ is but a farce. That is the reason whyChomsky constructs some ³democratic´ opposition which ought to haveoverthrown Miloevi ± something that never really existed. Madeleine Albrighthas many times said that Yugoslavia was bombed in order to bring to power those who would support American policy in the Balkans. This is the realopposition that tried to overthrow Miloevi, and that came to power on October 5th 2000 ± that turned Serbia and Montenegro into an American colony.In the ³democracy´ which the West imposed on Serbia by militaryaggression more than 50% of the population capable of working is without a job;over 65% of the people under 30 are without a job; the average salary is below300 ¼/month; almost 80% of the employed in the private sector have no socialsecurity; in Belgrade alone there are over 80,000 drug-addicts; today¶s students pay as much as ten times higher fees than in Miloevi¶s time; in the process of forced privatization almost all the important factories, mines, water resourcesand other social property have been sold for small money to Western companiesand domestic mafias; the gross national product is below the level it was evenduring the time of the harshest economic sanctions; never was the number of young people emigrating from the country greater than today; newspaper andtelevision houses critical of the West are being closed; people are losing their jobs daily if they do not conform to the ruling policy; banks are being robbed