Europe - Socialist Action

Les premiers dilemmes de Nicolas Sarkozy

1st July 2007 Socialist Action 0

First published: July 2007

Le projet de Nicolas Sarkozy au moment de son élection était tout à fait clair. Lorsque les USA ont lancé leur offensive en Irak, trois des quatre principaux gouvernements européens ne l’ont pas soutenu, la France, l’Allemagne et la Russie. Seule la Grande Bretagne a activement collaboré avec les forces américaines. Bien que l’opposition de ces puissances européennes ait été essentiellement verbale, cette division au sein même du camp impérialiste a incontestablement renforcé le mouvement anti-guerre au niveau international et dans une certaine mesure, bien que très restreinte, la résistance en Irak.

Yugoslavia – alliances to fight NATO’s new age of imperialism

1st December 1999 Socialist Action 0

First published: December 1999

For anyone who thought NATO was serious about a ‘humanitarian’ war, the facts are now clear. NATO claims to have killed 5,000 Serb troops in Kosovo. In addition more than 1,000 civilians have been massacred by NATO, and thousands of others wounded and maimed. The combined total is nearly 20 times more than the 340 deaths of which Slobodan Milosevic has been accused by the war crimes tribunal. In addition, NATO will be responsible for the thousands of other deaths of the young, the sick and the old which will result from its destruction of the civilian infrastructure of an entire country.

NATO’s plan for Kosovo is a colonial dictatorship. Its model is Bosnia, where the United States and European Union have imposed a colonial administration in which their appointed ‘High Representative’ can and does depose elected leaders at will, has his own army and where the head of the central bank is appointed by the IMF. So much for the idea that NATO bombing had anything to do with self-determination for anyone.

If the people of Yugoslavia continue to refuse to submit to Washington, NATO has already made clear that the economic blockade will continue to amid plans to further break up the country.

NATO’s goals in Yugoslavia

1st December 1999 Socialist Action 0

First published: December 1999

NATO’s goals towards Yugoslavia are well established. Through the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Yugoslavia had enjoyed rapid economic growth, industrialisation and relative political stability on the basis of three pillars. First, its planned economy gave it the possibility of a relatively independent path of economic development, not subordinated to more powerful outside imperialist powers. Second, its federal constitution, together with economic planning, united the great majority of its different peoples on the basis of almost unprecedented constitutional respect for the national rights and redistribution of economic resources from the richest to the poorest parts of the country. Third, its international position, as a non-capitalist state outside the Warsaw Pact at the height of the Cold War, allowed it to balance between east and west, being courted by both, and enjoying access to western financial credits.

After the bombing of Yugoslavia – the US prepares to confront China

1st December 1999 Socialist Action 0

First published: Dec 1999

The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia set a precedent for unilateral military action by the United States and its allies outside of any framework of international law – making clear that such wars would not be subject to vetoes by China or Russia within the United Nations Security Council. This was not an ‘accident’ necessitated by the urgency for humanitarian intervention, as NATO claimed. The bombing was meticulously planned many months in advance. The destruction of the post-World War Two international political order was rather a central goal of the bombing and the way in which it was launched.

Capitalism hits a brick wall in Russia

1st October 1998 Socialist Action 0

First published: October 1998

In one of the most spectacular financial explosions in history, on 17 August, in the space of one day, Russia’s entire financial system collapsed. Stock markets around the world were sent reeling, not because of Russia’s weight in the world economy, nor the big losses incurred by Western banks speculating on the Russian bond market, but because Russian capitalism had run into a dead-end from which there appeared to be no way out. What really rattled the markets was the possibility that, faced with destitution this winter, the Russian people might call a halt to the re-introduction of capitalism, which having already resulted in the greatest peacetime industrial collapse in history, now promises worse. As one commentator said, it began to dawn on the markets that capitalism’s victory over socialism might turn out to be only a short episode at the end of the 20th century. Even the financial press, and people like George Soros, echoed this sentiment.

Unionists try to wreck peace process

1st February 1998 Socialist Action 0

First published: February 1998

Unionist politicians and loyalist death squads are doing everything in their power to wreck the Irish peace process. While Ian Paisley boycotts the talks, David Trimble sabotages them from within by refusing to talk to Sinn Féin, and loyalist paramilitaries murder Catholics chosen at random. Their common goal is to block any fundamental change in Northern Ireland’s status quo.

The Unionist programme is very simple. Northern Ireland must be maintained as a sectarian state in which nationalists are treated as second class citizens. Unionism stands for discrimination in employment, housing, education, culture, religion and politics. Nationalist resistance is met with sectarian murders, pogroms and legalised repression. Unionism correctly sees the partition of Ireland and British rule in the north as the guarantees of the privileges and discrimination which cement the Orange bloc.