By John Catalinotto
Prague, Czech Republic
from: Workers World
Twenty-eight parties and organizations from 16 countries met here May 8 and May 9 to coordinate efforts to stop "the barbaric aggression against Yugoslavia led by the U.S., Germany and their allies and shamefully backed by all the social-democratic governments of Europe," as the conference statement read.
Hosting the meeting was the Czech section of the Nino Pasti Foundation, an organization founded by an Italian general who became an anti-militarist. The group has been active in anti-imperialist work in Italy.
Conference participants met in the headquarters of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the successor to the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
Groups of varying size and influence were present from 12 of the 19 NATO states, including the three newest members from Eastern Europe - Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - and also from Sweden, Russia, Bulgaria and Iran.
As Nino Pasti Foundation spokesperson Paolo Pioppi remarked in his opening address, the organizers wanted the gathering to be a "working meeting." That meant to try to arrive at specific steps the groups could take within their organizational limitations to unite and "to fight this struggle by every means possible."
The statement warns that "the monstrous crimes being committed against the population and government of Yugoslavia, the trampling underfoot of all international laws, herald a war that goes far beyond the Balkans to involve the whole world, particularly Russia and China. The U.S. and its allies have taken the collapse of the USSR as a green light for world military intervention, which they are systematically proceeding to implement in a ferocious and barbaric way, recalling and even surpassing Nazi military enterprises."
Participants noted that the rotten role of the social-democratic parties in power in most of the European NATO countries, and the participation of even communist parties in some of these governments—most notably France—was an obstacle to mass anti-war work.
Those present were encouraged to hear a report from the International Action Center on the anti-war activity in the United States, since the capitalist media hides much of this news. IAC work has proceeded from local to nationally coordinated actions, with a national demonstration at the Pentagon set for June 5.
A group of a half-dozen U.S. Vietnam-era veterans and resisters was also represented in Prague. They live in the area of Worms, Germany, and are known as the Stop the War Brigade. They have already coordinated an anti-war demonstration of hundreds in Heidelberg and have leafleted to U.S. troops in this area of southwestern Germany appealing to GIs to resist the war. There are still 100,000 U.S. troops in Germany.
The meeting decided to establish a center in Prague to try to coordinate international actions to stop the war against Yugoslavia and future imperialist wars. Specifically, it will try to coordinate the collection, translation and distribution of important news about the war.
In the developed NATO countries where the volume of news is sometimes overwhelming, this means using new electronic technology to select, summarize and share the most important news, analysis and facts - especially those exposing the lies of the imperialist governments and media.
This technology is not so readily available in the countries of the former socialist camp and elsewhere in the Balkans. The participants from these areas felt it would be important to receive even limited reports of both analyses of government policies and popular opposition to the war.
The importance of this information can be seen from the points raised by the following delegations.
The delegate from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Tonyu Bakalov, reported to the conference that "from the first moment the aggression started against Yugoslavia, there were protest demonstrations in Bulgaria and they now take place daily in cities and in small villages." He noted that before the Bulgarian government closed the borders, hundreds had crossed over into Yugoslavia to give blood.
Wiktor Zbigniew of the Polish Communist Party - "Proletariat" - said that young people were joining the party, that the present anti-popular pro-war policies were increasing a broad front against imperialism, and that demonstrations were also taking place in Poland.
Dimitris Karagiannis of the Greek Committee for International Peace and Detente reported that the Greek movement was trying to "blockade all NATO and U.S. bases. We have a demonstration every week at the U.S. Embassy. Young people are refusing to fight for the flag of NATO and sailors have refused to sail a Greek warship into the Adriatic Sea under NATO colors."
Nina Andreeva of the All-Union Communist Party-Bolshevik said in an interview that most Russians see the war as "U.S.-NATO aggression against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, and the conflict in Kosovo as an internal problem to Yugoslavia."
Andreeva had spoken to hundreds of Czech communists at a public ceremony May 9 at a Prague monument honoring the 140,000 Soviet soldiers who died liberating Czechoslovakia from Nazi imperialism in 1945. Her strong words indicting U.S.-NATO imperialism for its aggression against Yugoslavia received strong applause and thanks from the rank-and-file members.