Page 5 - illyria

Wednesday, May 27, 1992
I l l y r i a
5
Editorials
2.1 MILLION PEOPLE CAN’T BE WRONG
There was something eerily quiet about Sunday’s elections in Kosova. The Serbs actually let the people of Kosova vote. Although one observer said there was some “low-level” police harassment, there were no shootings or beatings, but several arrests were reported. Some people were able to wait up to three hours in order to vote — peacefully!
Have the Serbs become nice guys? Is this their way of saying they’re sorry for generations of repression?
We don’t think so.
The presence of international observers may have had something to do with it. Thankfully, seven foreign nations, three internation- al organizations and about 100 foreign newspapers sent represen- tatives. All these people, many with cameras and notepads, look- ing over the Serbs’ shoulders made them behave. It would not have been beneficial for “Greater Serbia” to brutally attack the peaceful Kosovars. Any politician could see that.
Although the Kosovars put on a good show for the world and voted peacefully for their future, the Serbs put on a pretty good show of their own. With James Baker and the E.C. weighing tougher sanctions and the threat of international isolation over their heads, the Serbs refused to take the bait and appear as sav- ages before the world.
Thanks to the help of the international community, the Kosovars were able to establish their first democratically elected govern- ment.
Will it be recognized by Belgrade? Some say “yes.” Others say “no.” We say...”eventually.”
It’s difficult to say what will happen next in Kosova, but ulti- mately the majority will rule and Belgrade will have no choice but to recognize those elected on Sunday as the true leadership of Kosova.
2.1 million people can’t be wrong. Nor can they be ignored.
GORBACHEV’S LOST BILLIONS
By Ellsworth Raymond
Ahuge $24 billion in Western and Japanese loans is needed to cure the sick economy of
the former Soviet Union, according to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Euro-American financial wizards. Loaning this vast sum would strain the treasuries of capitalist countries already in an eco- nomic recession.
Would this great capitalist gift soon convert ex-Soviet countries into hap- py democracies enjoying the bless- ings of private enterprise? Maybe not. Let’s look at the dismal record of 1990-1991, Gorbachev’s final peri- od of power.
During these two years, the Gorbachev regime received $28 bil- lion in capitalist grants and loans, even more than the amount now being planned. Germany provided the biggest share, but the United States donated $3.9 billion, South Korea $3 billion, and Japan $2.5 billion. Even humble Spain loaned $ 1.5 billion, while poor Communist China helped with $750,000.
All $28 billion yielded meager Soviet results.
During 1990-1991, Soviet industrial output shrunk by 10 percent. In 1991, 62 major industries produced less than in 1990. Little of the money was spent on modernizing industry, where one-third of all work was still per- formed by hand. Nor was any serious effort made to reduce waste. Half of the timber cut in Russian forests was left uncollected to rot on the ground.
Despite the industrial crisis and the end of the war in Afghanistan, Gorbachev upped the Soviet defense budget from 70.9 billion rubles in 1990 to 96.6 billion in 1991, a big increase of 36 percent.
Striving for greater peasant produc- tivity, Gorbachev during 1990-1991 increased collective farm salaries by a huge one-third. This pay raise failed.
Peasants sowed 13 million fewer acres than before, and farm output shrunk by one-sixth. A record 40 percent of the 1991 harvest was lost in spoilage, exceeding the usual waste of 25 to 30 percent.
As a result, Gorbachev had to spend almost $25 billion of his $28 billion foreign loans for imported food, including enough grain to avoid winter hunger by the long-suffering Soviet people. Desperate for more dollars, the Soviet Union sold $1 bil- lion worth of Russian-mined dia- monds to a South African firm, which shapes and sells jewelry.
In another search for foreign funds, the U.S.S.R. in January 1991 decreed that all its trade with ex-Communist
East Europe be conducted in Western convertible currency. The goal was
to force East Europe to pay sound money for Soviet oil, gas and raw materials, instead of the previous goods barter. But impoverished East Europe and the bankrupt U.S.S.R. had little Western cash for such trade, which quickly sunk to one-third of its previous level. East Europe was still willing to barter, as a means of mar- keting its low-quality machines and consumer goods that were unsalable to the West. But Gorbachev refused to return to barter, thus further depressing the economies of both East Europe and his own country.
Soviet oil exports to West Europe were the biggest source of hard cur- rency for the U.S.S.R. in the early Gorbachev era. But during 1990- 1991, exports of this “black gold” shrunk 50 percent because machinery was lacking to dig enough new wells to replace old oil wells that had gone
dry.
To buy desperately needed
Western wares in addition to food, the U.S.S.R. started paying with real Siberian gold. So the Soviet gold stockpile slumped during 1990-1991 from $28 billion worth to a mere $3 billion. What was bought with these golden billions is a mystery, since the country still suffers severe short- ages of consumer goods, including simple medicines.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin believes that high Communist Party officials, without Gorbachev’s knowledge, sneaked billions of Soviet dollars and gold bars abroad into secret accounts at Western banks.
Either these thieves were trying to preserve party funds or creating huge nesteggs for themselves in case of future exile. Y eltsin is asking Western governments to help locate this stolen fortune and to return it.
Without any war damage to repair, Gorbachev peaceably plunged his U.S.S.R. into a deep economic depression. In creating this man- made disaster, his government wast- ed or stole foreign loans and domes- tic gold stocks worth many billions of dollars.
No wonder Yeltsin refuses to hire any of Gorbachev’s financial advi- sors!
Albania’s new democratic regime will probably soon receive Western loans to help save its battered econo- my.
Use of these foreign funds must be carefully planned and controlled so that Albania can avoid the suicidal financial blunders of Gorbachev’s U.S.S.R.
Prof. Ellsworth Raymond is a for- mer Soviet affairs specialist for the State and Defense Departments and a professor at New York University. He has written six books about the Soviet Union.
Results from aid were meager
Letter
THE SILENCE OF SERBIA’S INTELLECTUALS
To the Editor Of The New York Times April 7, 1992
Your Belgrade Journal (March 27, 1992), “Amid Serbia’s Battle Crisis, Old
Voice of Dissent,” portrays Milovan Djilas as a man who con- demns both the president of Croatia and the president of Serbia as responsible “for the fragmenta- tion of Yugoslavia because they had consolidated their power by appeals to raw nationalism.”
I believe that the guilt should be spread out even more responsibly to the Serbian intelligentsia, who failed to come out and speak on behalf of the human rights of the Albanians in the autonomous province of Kosova, now in their third year of martial law and occu- pation by Serbian troops. The Croats generally condemned the occupation of Kosova but accept- ed it, hoping in the vein of Munich, that this would be suffi- cient to satisfy Milosevic’s insa- tiable chauvinism. How wrong they were...
This writer wrote to Djilas on Feb. 12, 1990, imploring that he come out and “speak for peace and brotherhood amongst Albanians and Serbs” and called him “the man with the civic courage and wisdom necessary to save the state
of Yugoslavia from the abyss of civil war.” I concluded the letter
by asking him, “Would you rise to the task in the 1990s, as you did in the 1950s under much more daring circumstances?”
Unfortunately, Mr. Djilas, even after receiving my letter personally, failed to answer and failed to act. Even my plea to have him and the Serbian intelligentsia intervene for the release of the writer Adem Demaci, then 27 years in Yugoslav prisons and now a Sakharov Prize winner, received no answer. Selective human rights activism is not acceptable in this age when the world has become a global village.
P.S. On May 9, Illyria printed excerpts of my letter to Djilas but by not printing the date of the letter and by inserting the adjective “for- mer” before the word “Yugoslavia” may have misled readers into believing that the letter was sent after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and in the heat of the inter-ethnic war. Nobody at this time has or can exert any influence on the ruth- less dictator Milosevic except a concerted economic and military effort by the European Community and the United States.
Agim Leka M.D. Baldwin, N.Y.
IT’S NOT YET TIME FOR CHAMPAGNE
By Harry Bajraktari
For a long time now Albanians have been fighting for rights denied by the Serbian regime.
We have talked to each other, reached out to our international friends and have slowly but surely laid a foundation for winning inde- pendence and freedom from the Communist tyrants.
Now freedom and democracy are within reach. But it is not yet time for celebration and we should not yet claim victory.
As in Croatia and Bosnia- Hercegovina, Milosevic’s Serbs still have not indicated that they are will- ing to yield their self-imposed author- ity. Our families, friends and neigh- bors in Kosova are in more danger now than ever.
The next step will be for those elected to actually take office, and that act will certainly be met by Serbs wielding machine guns and batons. International observers will be gone, and the flurry of international press covering events will decrease. If we fail to keep the world informed, Milosevic’s goons will massacre Albanians in Kosova.
Our job now is to make sure that the international media stay involved with Kosova and to also make sure that they report the full story.
For example, in a New York Times article published Tuesday, I noted some misconceptions and inaccura- cies.
“But the residents of the region have voted by a crushing majority to
secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia as part of a long-term plan to become part of overwhelmingly Muslim Albania,” said John Burns’ May26storyinTheNewYork Times.
Not only does this statement dis- count the over 1,000,000 Albanian Orthodox Christians in Albania, Macedonia and Kosova, but it also ignores a healthy Catholic popula- tion of close to 500,000 in those republics as well. It also overlooks the fact that Albanians — of whatev- er religious background — have
lived in relative harmony for thou- sands of years.
Notwithstanding, the reference to a Muslim or Greater Albania is also inaccurate. Ours has always been, first and foremost, a fight for rights and freedom and liberty. Joining Albania has always been defined as a last resort for gaining fundamental rights and liberties that belong to every human being.
The Times article went on to dis- cuss the Battle of Kosova. “The bat- tle has come down in Serbian leg- end, reinforced in poetry and folk song, as the pivotal event in Serbian and Balkan history. It is one that opened the door to the 5 00-year Turkish occupation of Serbia and of
what is now Bosnia and Hercegovina, and to the domination of the Christian Orthodox Serbs by the Muslim Turks.”
The raping and pillaging of peo- ples by the Turks in their scourging of Europe and the Middle East touched much more than the Serbian population, and the Timeswriter should have taken that fact into full consideration. Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Austrians and Hungarians (at the time of Ottoman domination, por- tions of Austria-Hungary were annexed), Syrians, Palestinians and peoples as far west on the African continent as Morocco and many more suffered under Ottoman domi- nation.
Moreover, it seems ironic that any one would justify Serbia’s historical claim to Kosova for a battle that was lost. It is true that Serbs joined forces with Albanians in the Battle of Kosova. But they joined to fight a shared enemy and as allies lost lands historically belonging to Illyrians.
Our fight is certainly not over. We must work day and night to tell the world what is right and true and to stop possible misperceptions from influencing policy that will effect our homeland.
Take a moment out of your busy day to write five letters to local newspapers in your area. (You may call them to ask for addresses and the names of editors). Let them know what is really happening in Kosova.
Our fight is not over