Serbia's war
According to Justin Starchevic (Write on, October 7), "Milosevic should help Bosnian Serbs in their civil war for the same reason that Australia always helped Britain and America in their wars". Good comparison. As socialists, we opposed British and US imperialist wars in Vietnam, the Gulf or elsewhere. Likewise, we oppose the support given by the Milosevic regime to the fascist Chetnik forces operating in Croatia and Bosnia.
Far from representing "Serbian self-determination" with the support of all Serbs as Starchevic maintains, these backward forces, revivals of the pre-World War II Serbian chauvinist monarchy, are actively involved in the denial of self-determination to the great majority of people in the areas they occupy.
It's certainly true that there have been cases of Serbs being expelled from regions occupied by their rivals. Dave Holmes in his article (GLW, September 16) made clear his opposition to this. But there can be no denying that the overwhelming majority of those expelled from their homes are Muslims and Croats. If the Milosevic/Chetnik forces are protecting Serbs, how do you explain the siege, bombing and conquest of so many towns where the great majority of the people are Muslims or Croats? How do you explain the fact that the Serb chauvinists have conquered 70% of Bosnia when Serbs are only 33% of the population?
Starchevic may not want to see the genocide against the Muslim population by the Serb chauvinists, but contrary to what he asserts, thousands of Serbs do: the 100,000 Serbs who demonstrated against the war in Belgrade with the slogan "Defend Sarajevo"; the Bosnian Serbs who defied Chetnik fascism and took part in the defence of Sarajevo alongside their Muslim and Croatian allies; the Bosnian Serbs who remain in the Bosnian government; the Croatian Serbs who demonstrated for the return of the Croats expelled by the Chetniks; the thousands of Serbian army deserters.
Starchevic may well believe that Milosevic is "not over-enthusiastic to surrender workers to free market conditions". Yugoslav workers already had the highest unemployment in Europe long before perestroika, due to the system of "market socialism". Milosevic's rise to power was linked as much to the massive extension of this "free market" as to Greater Serbia. His economic reforms resulted in inflation of thousands of per cent as his regime tried to please its IMF backers. He was at it long before Tudjman appeared. It is this drive to restore capitalism that has led to this nationalistic massacre.
As for the imperialist attitude, the US maintained a pro-Serbia position until several months ago. Since that time, anyone can tell the difference between rhetoric and action. The West will go in and "save" the Muslims ved the Kurds after the Gulf War: when the massacre is virtually complete.
Michael Karadjis
Sydney
Mike Tyson again
Regarding the Mike Tyson-Desiree Washington affair: I was writing (Write on, GL #73) about a very controversial case of rape (in its particular circumstances one cannot be absolutely sure if it was rape unless one was actually in the bedroom with the two participants at the time), which happened last April under unusual and conflicting conditions; one cannot compare what your correspondents and all of us want — general safety for women at night in the streets, at home, everywhere — with this particular case, now apparently under appeal.
If I know there is a hungry man-eating (or person-eating) lion in a cage, I would be very silly to go into the cage and then object when it ate, or attempted to eat me. It was the nature of this particular beast, and if I court danger I know is there, I must accept the consequences. And if I have courted danger, I am not exactly a victim.
I still don't have an answer to my question: What did Desiree Washington expect to happen when she visited this lion, well-known for its voracity, at 1.30 in the morning? Wasn't she tempting it? Her case is quite different from that of a woman or child suddenly raped in the street, at home or at work. This "victim" knew exactly what she was doing when she walked into the lion's den. The speed with which she immediately claimed an enormous sum of money for damages also seems suspicious.
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic
Mordecai Vanunu
The recent article about the prisoners on death row in the US prompts me to write about another prisoner's cruel and inhuman treatment.
According to the BBC's World News Service, the incarceration of Mordecai Vanunu by the Israeli government for revealing to the press the fact that Israel was secretly making nuclear weapons, has been going on for seven years now. All this time he has been held in solitary confinement in a tiny damp cell (7ft) with one visitor a month. This is sheer torture! He is beginning to deteriorate mentally. He is classed as a traitor, yet only exercised his democratic rights in a so called democracy, on a matter of conscience. A traitor is one who gives secrets to hostile powers.
With the change of government in Israel, pressure should be brought to bear for his release on humanitarian grounds. Contact Amnesty International for further information.
Connie Frazer
Findon SA
Victorian election
The Victorian election will hopefully lay to rest the myth orate. It would be easier to introduce Hegel into a class of year 4 students than try to persuade voters to abandon the bourgeois two party system. Phil Cleary's success was indeed a pyrrhic victory, considering the Victorian disaster. Not even the New Zealand example made an impact; people turned to the Libs like sheep to the slaughter.
If one considers the ever increasing right wing monopoly of the print media, television, particularly cable TV and the seemingly unstoppable trend towards an all out money democracy like Japan and the US, the future looks bleak indeed. Recessions are used to break unions, environmental concerns are rubbished as unaffordable luxury and the electorate believes it which underlines the notion that only total disasters will change people's attitudes.
In that context, newspapers like the Â鶹´«Ã½ are of extreme importance, although the odds in the struggle to break the bourgeois stranglehold on power are very high indeed.
Michael Rose-Schwab
Rapid Creek, NT