‘The struggle of people against power,’ wrote Milan Kundera, ‘is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ The idea that the Nato bombing has to do with ‘moral purpose’ (Blair) and ‘principles of humanity we hold sacred’ (Clinton) insults both memory and intelligence. The American attack on Yugoslavia began more than a decade ago when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund set about destroying the multi-ethnic federation with lethal doses of debt, ‘market reforms’ and imposed poverty.
Millions of jobs were eliminated; in 1989 alone, 600,000 workers, almost a quarter of the workforce, were sacked without severance pay. But the most critical ‘reform’ was the ending of economic support to the six constituent republics and their recolonisation by Western capital. Germany led the way, supporting the breakaway of Croatia, its new economic colony, with the European Community giving silent approval. The torch of fratricide had been lit and the rise of an opportunist like Milosevic was inevitable.
In spite of his part in the blood-Ietting of Bosnia, Milosevic, the ‘reformer’, became a favourite among senior figures in the US State Department. And in return for his co-operation in the American partition of Bosnia at Dayton in 1995, he was assured that the troublesome province of Kosovo was his to keep. ‘President Milosevic,’ said Richard
— source johnpilger.com | john pilger | 20 Apr 1999