• AUSTRALIA $2.00 • BELGIUM BF60 • CANADA $2.00 • FRANCE FF1 0 • ICELAND Kr150 • NEW ZEALAND $2.50 • SWEDEN Kr1 0 • UK £1.00 • U.S. $1.50 INSIDE Behind Belgrade's carnage in Yugoslavia THE l.ntemational Socialist Review- PAGES 9-16 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 56/NO. 28 AUGUST 14. 1992 Washington threatens Rightist killers military assault on Iraq terrorzze• BY FRANK FORRESTAL As the Militant goes to press, Washington is stepping up military pressure against the Sarajevo Iraqi government. Patriot missiles and mis­ sile launchers from a U.S. base in Germany BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS have been sent to Kuwait. Joint military SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina- exercises involving 2,000 U.S. Marines and As the French Hercules plane, carrying Kuwaiti forces are scheduled to take place United Nations insignia, landed at the air­ in the Persian Gulf this week. port here July 23, explosions could be heard Since early March Washington has been throughout the area. Incessant artillery and beating the '!Var drums. Its latest threats sniper frre by Serbian rightist forces based against Iraq are the most serious since the in the surrounding hills has made every day Gulf War cease-fife agreement was imposed a living hell forthe city's remaining 300,000 in 1991. residents. The crisis began July 5 when the Iraqi The plane, on which this reporter flew in, government denied United Nations officials brought another shipment of food for the access to the agriculture ministry building city's besieged population. UN convoys are in Baghdad. The UN officials claimed the now virtually the only means to get into ministry housed documentation on Iraq's Sarajevo. weapon systems and demanded the right to The three-mile ride from the airport, con­ search it. trolled by 1,500 UN troops, to the city's With each passing day, U.S. officials made burned-out center is one of the riskiest ones it clear they were preparing a massive bomb­ you can take. Also on July 23, Cable News ing campaign. Network camera woman Maggie Moth had "Pentagon officials suggested that they are her jaw blown off by a "dum-dum" explo­ drafting plans for days and even weeks of al­ sive bullet frred by a sniper just outside the lied bombing," reported a Wall Street Journal airport. article.Republican senator Richard Lugar ad­ The main street that run~> the length of the vocated "targeting Iraq's electric grid, its road city from north to south is best known as system and, specifically, the road from Jordan "Sniper alley." Dozens of people have been by which it receives many supplies, if an air Wclshington has 21,000 military personnel and hundreds of warplanes stationed in shot there by snipers on top of a few build­ attack comes," the Journal reported. Persian Gulf. Detailed plans have been readied for extensive bombing of Iraq. ings controlled by rightist killers led by According to the U.S. Defense Depart­ Radovaj Karadzic's Serbian Democratic ment, 21,000 U.S. military personnel are The big-business press relentlessly compliance with the cease-fire agreements, Party. stationed in the Persian Gulf area. More than cranked up its prowar propaganda as the I will support American participation in Drivers avoid it by flooring the gas pedal a dozen F-117 Stealth fighters, along with latest crisis mounted. "Time to Punish Hus­ such action." to race through a parallel back street. All the 140 Air Force warplanes, including F-15Es, sein - Again," editorialized the New York The tension was finally broken when the high-rise buildings downtown have been A-lOs, and F-111 s, are currently in Saudi Times on July 24. Democratic presidential Iraqi government agreed to allow UN in­ bombed by dozens of shells. More than a Arabia. Seventeen warships armed with contender Bill Clinton joined the chorus: spectors to search its agriculture ministry in third of the rooms at the Holiday Inn, the Tomahawk missiles are in the Gulf and the "Let there be no mistake. If the United Baghdad July 26. Qaiming victory, Presi- biggest hotel at the city's center, have been Red Sea. Nations decides to use force to ensure Iraqi Continued on Page 20 destroyed. The hotel is now inhabited by a few dozen foreign journalists. One reporter, staring at a 2-inch bullet hold in the cracked window of his room on the fourth floor is nervously assured by the War, depression face working people hotel maid that everything is okay because Continued on Page 19 Events of the past two weeks, from Iraq, as evidenced both by Bush's currying less, not more stable. They are part of a Washington's steps toward war against Iraq favor with Saddarn Hussein right up to the world of deepening instability, driven by the to Ross Perot's dramatic abandonment ofhis time of Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, opening of the new world depression and presidential campaign, have sharply brought and by the goals of the war itself. intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries. 1992 International before working people the reality of a future But coming out of that war, both Iraq and The continuing turmoil in politics in the Socialist Conference of more brutal wars and economic depres­ the Middle East as a whole have become Continued on Page 22 sion for growing layers of the population. Washington is deadly serious in its prep­ arations for an attack on Iraq under United The Nations cover. While the latest crisis, over Socialist candidate concludes South Africa fact-finding tour Communist EDITORIAL Manifesto BY GREG McCARTAN zations, "broad numbers of people are dis­ JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Es­ cussing and deciding themselves what ac­ Today whether UN weapons inspectors would gain telle DeBates, Socialist Workers candidate tions will be most effective in showing the entry to the agriculture ministry building in for vice-president of the United States, con­ regime that it must stop the violence and Baghdad, was averted, it is only a matter of cluded a one-week fact-finding tour here accept majority rule." August 5-9 at Oberlin time before Bush and the regime of Saddam July 15 in the midst of a sharpening conflict Another way this is reflected, she said, is College, Oberlin, Ohio Hussein will be at the brink again. The Bush between the white minority regime and anti­ the fact that "so many people I met with - administration has detailed plans for mas­ apartheid forces. township residents, rank-and-file union Conference classes and feature sive bombing and destruction oflraq's elec­ What she found was "the growing polit­ members, student leaders -expressed a trical, oil-refining, and other industrial in­ presentations will discuss how ical self-confidence and organization of mil­ real interest in meeting a communist run­ frastructure. fighters and revolutionary­ lions of working people and youth who are ning for high public office. They were inter­ minded workers can draw on Washington's war moves take place as the determined to bring an end to apartheid and ested in an intensive exchange of ideas. brutal Hussein regime begins reasserting establish a democratic republic," DeBates They wanted to know about the struggles the historic lessons of the itself on several fronts, including once more said in an interview. working people and youth in the United working class and communist declaring that Kuwait belongs to Iraq. "The way in which the campaign of mass States are involved in." movement in confronting the For its part Washington feels the urgent action, aimed at forcing the government to DeBates's tour was hosted by the ANC wars, racism, and economic need to shore up its influence in the vital meet demands put forward by the African Youth League, which organizes tens of thou­ crisis of capitalism. Middle East region, especially with the National Congress (ANC}, is being con­ sands of young people in the struggle major power in the area, Iran, extending its ducted is just one sign of this," the socialist against apartheid. The Youth League has For more information call (216) influence more widely, from Afghanistan to candidate said. Through branches and re­ chapters across the country and is headquar­ 861-6150 or phone numbers listed the former Soviet republics of central Asia. gions of the ANC, the ANC Youth League, tered in Johannesburg, along with the ceo- onpage20. Washington seeks a compliant and reliable trade union locals, and community organi- Continued on Page 5 Britain: Communists fuse with young socialist groups- page7 ~ IN ~ BRIEf____________ _ Canada jobless rate increases rate of interest without cutting into the amount received by the creditor. Canada's jobless rate hit 11 .6 percent in 0&Y reported a net loss of $2.05 billion June, the highest among the major industri­ Canadian (U.S. $1.72 billion) for the 1992 alized nations. This is up from 11.2 percent fiscal year. On May 14, O&Y filed for the in May. equivalent of bankruptcy protection in a To­ Andrew Pyle, an economist at MMS Inter­ ronto court. 0&Y blamed the loss on weak­ national, pointed to the "still general weak­ ness in the real estate, energy, and forestry ness in Canada's economy" while Doug Por­ markets. The $2.05 billion loss compares ter, economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia, with a $359 million loss a year earlier. said that he could not rule out a 12 percent jobless rate before the end of the year. Trial of chemical plant officials begins in Bhopal, India Thberculosis on the rise The trial of nine Indian officials of Union The number of cases of tuberculosis has Carbide India Ltd.