GREECE sive while a minority turned to the Serb nationalists.
The CDU is not so much a party as a disparate coalition. To overcome internal conflicts and contradictions, the party is organised on a highly centralised asis, and run in an autocratic manner: Tudjman and his immediate advisers belong to the party's centre. The right wing are nationalist hawks and/or clericals, while the left shades into Social Democracy. Despite the efforts the CDU has made to win the confidence of Croatia's Serbs, the Serb minority remains fearful. It is being squeezed on both sides, by Croat and Serb extremists alike. SU: Does Yugoslavia have a future? Could a restored federation exist after a stage of Independence of the republics?
ML: We should be clear about what the position of Croatia and Slovenia actually is. Their official position until now has been that they want to be sovereign states - not secede. This means that federal laws should not apply unless they are accepted by the republics. This is really a programme for confederation.
They that want to be completely inde pendent, but do not reject the possibility of some form of economic co-operation in that framework. Croatia and Slovenia have proposed two possible forms of confederation - with either a joint parliament with limited powers or a council made up of equal numbers of delegates from each of the federal units. things in its competence, OT joint meetings of delegations the different republics to do the same. Serbia ejected every proposal I think that Yugoslavia was a tremendously useful framework for developing the of a battle between national groupings. jugating the other nationalities ing to ethnic rivalries. Croatia./ dominate the whole federation. Croat population. solute. the fight for Slovene and Croatian independence. key leaders explicitly support him on this. While this may be changing under the political framework for the restoration of capitalism. repression. overthrow of the Milosevic regime. complex. None of the major political forces at play want to resist capitalist restoration; none of them stand for democratic socialism. The failure of the Yugoslav model of 'socialism' has led to a struggle which takes the form But this does not mean that socialists can be neutral in the conflicts taking place. The main feature of the situation is the drive by the Serbian leadership in Belgrade, under ex-Communist Slobodan Milosevic, to create a 'Greater Serbia' by subSince he came to power in the Serbian CP in 1987 Milosevic has attempted to guard the position of the party elite by appealThe main target of this offensive is Now, as Michele Lee explains on these pages, the ederal army is in a de facto alliance with Milosevic. The army's attack on Slovenia is directly in line with Milosevic's plans to Every day there are new clashes in the Croatian territories bordering on Serbia. Groups of 'Chetniks' - Serbian irregulars - are fighting to drive Croats out of town of mixed Serb and No form of socialism is likely to come out of the present conflicts. What is at stake is the right of self-determination of the Croats and Slovenes. For socialists, their right to national sovereignty, and if they want it independence, must be abThe prospect of any form of confederation has been sabotaged by the intransigence of the Serbian leadership. Socialists are never neutral on the right of self-determination for oppressed nationalities. The key aspect of the struggle today is A particular responsibility now falls on the opposition inside Serbia itself. Milosevic is increasingly unpopular; in March there were mass strikes and demonstrations against him. However, unfortunately the opposition has not distanced itself from Milsoevic's aggressive attitudes towards Croatia; indeed many The attitude of political leaders in the West, including the Labour Party, has been utterly cynical, defending the integrity of the Yugoslav federation against the rights of nationalities pressure of public opinion, there is no doubt that their key objective is a stable If the expected attack on Croatia comes during the summer the whole region could experience a devastating tragedy. There could be genocide against the Croats. The Albanian army is mobilised on the southern Yugoslav border to intervene in support of the Albanians in Kosovo, also victims of Milosevic's The key now to any social progress in the region is the fight for Slovene and Croat independence, and the revolutionary