Resolution of the Anti-imperialist Camp Assisi 2003

Down with the inquisition tribunal in The Hague!
Defend Slobodan Milosevic!

For more than ten years Yugoslavia resisted against the US-led world order. While the secessionist movements and newly founded republics embraced imperialism, Yugoslavia tried to preserve at least some of the social gains achieved by the popular masses and refused to obey to the neo-liberal dictates of the IMF. The main reason for the ferocious imperialist aggression was the emblematic political value of the resistance of the Serb people to preserve their national independence against the entire imperialist world order. While the Western "civil society" under the guise of "humanitarianism" sided with imperialism, Yugoslavia´s resistance had to be crushed as it could have encouraged other oppressed people to revolt.

Only after having bombed Yugoslavia for more than two months NATO eventually could achieve its goal to topple the government of Slobodan Milosevic by a coup d´à©tat. The Western corporate media called it a "democratic revolution" as ten years earlier in Eastern Europe and Russia. But extraditing President Milosevic to The Hague the new pro-imperialist rulers violated the constitution and overruled the entire Yugoslav juridical system proving that they had created a Banana republic on the Balkans depending completely on Western grace and arbitrariness.

Also the so-called tribunal in The Hague is a violation of international law as the UN security council under US dictate arrogated itself the right to jurisdiction which according to the UN Charter is an exclusive prerogative of national states. It is paid by the aggressor states of NATO and serves one single purpose: to justify their imperialist attack on Yugoslavia and to force the victims of the aggression to declare themselves to be the aggressor. Whereas an indictment of NATO for the massive crimes in its aggression on Yugoslavia was declared to be out of scope of an institution which carries the official name "International Criminal Tribunal on former Yugoslavia". With its aim to fabricate "legal grounds" for the secession of Kosovo and the abolishment of the Republika Srpska and with its interference into internal affaires of Serbia, the tribunal is also a tool of further imperialist aggression and colonization of the Balkans.

However, Slobodan Milosevic´s brave defence completely foiled their plans. He was able to evince the fabricated lies and to discern the real reasons for the aggression: the US design for their global rule. The most important political prisoner in the World today and the war prisoner of NATO deserves full solidarity of all progressive forces for his solidness and courage in rejecting legitimacy of power which keeps him in custody and in exposing the imperialist aggression in the Balkans.

After the four years of preparing the false charges by the "prosecution" failed to bring any results, the "tribunal" does not even want to grant the "defendant" the half of that time. In any respect the tribunal ridicules basic judicial standards. While they employ hundreds of people president Milosevic is barely allowed to receive visits from his lawyers. Although it is a purely political process Slobodan Milosevic is being completely sealed off the public. He is neither allowed to speak to the press nor to his supporters. At any cost NATO wants to avoid a new "Reichtagsbrand" trial transforming the tribunal into a modern form of inquisition where the sentence has been decided in advance and where the defendant is deprived of all internationally guaranteed rights (including of medical care) and is becoming a subject of total arbitrariness.

Meanwhile, in the shadow of imperialist aggression against Iraq, another phase of aggression against Yugoslavia took place. The Western puppet in Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, was assassinated by those mafia elements on whose help he depended to seize power. His successors used the occasion to impose the state of emergency, to abolish any democratic right and to "cleanse" the state apparatus from all progressive remnants. Actually one wing of the mafia has gripped governmental power destroying the other criminal syndicates. Also after the state of emergency has been lifted many restrictions on civil liberties remain in place. A further split of the country took place – with abolishing the name …‘Yugoslavia´, the country was turned into a weak union of states, without any democratic approval. The media is under tight governmental control. Political opponents can be incarcerated for months without due trial. Serbia experiences the worst dictatorship since the time of German military rule. Meanwhile by implementing the common recipes of the IMF the national economy is sold off to foreign capital and the country is being de-industrialised. The majority of the people is being precipitated into abject poverty and misery. In spite of their Pinochet-type human rights record, the puppet rulers are praised by USA and EU of their "democratic achievements".

The Anti-imperialist Camp is worried about the tendency within the SPS to adapt to the imperialist rule according to the model of the former communist parties in Eastern Europe and thus to betray the ten years of popular resistances which they led.

The Anti-imperialist Camp supports all those forces in Serbia who keep on struggling for the national sovereignty and social equality and will lend its active solidarity to a broadest front of popular anti-imperialist forces to be constructed. The struggle against the imperialist plundering must be linked to the one for national independence. Therefore the occupation of Kosovo by NATO must end and the province must be returned to Serbia. The national cleansing of the Serbs and other minorities must be revoked and a solution worked out based on the concept of an anti-imperialist Balkan federation recognising equal rights of both Serbs and Albanians.

Only the federative Yugoslav idea could unify the peoples of the Balkans against imperialism securing social justice, progress and peace. This is why imperialism attacked Yugoslavia. Despite the distorting Western propaganda, the secessionist movements embracing imperialism, claiming the right of national self-determination against Yugoslavia and refusing to grant the very same right to the Serbs, were the ones who destroyed Yugoslavia and not the Serb struggle to preserve their equality and independence from imperialism. In fact, the Serbs where the only ones to defend the Yugoslav principle of a multi-national state. In the same way like Nazi-German imperialism was destroying Yugoslavia in WWII, US-German-NATO imperialist axis did it now, by combining the support to national hatred, extremism and atrocities with military aggression, occupation and imposing puppet regimes. To save the Balkan people from national conflicts and social misery there remains one single solution: the democratic Balkan federation against imperialism.

We call upon the anti-imperialist forces to mobilize for and to join or in other way endorse the Serbian-International demonstration at The Hague on 8 November 2003.

Down with the pro-Western dictatorship in Serbia!
Free Slobodan Milosevic and abolish the political tribunal in The Hague!
NATO out of the Balkans!