How to Remove Consequences of War?

"Marshall's Plan" for South-East

The attempt to revive Bosnian economy "bit by bit" showed that this is a hopeless process. The announcement of "Marshall's Plan for the Balkan" is the first serious promise, but also disclosure that only a joint way out is possible when such small states are concerned

AIM Banja Luka, 27 May, 1999

The government of Republika Srpska has calculated that due to the war in FR Yugoslavia, this entity suffers a daily loss of 2.5 million dollars. Should the war last, the funds promised at the recent donors' conference will be just a patch on the pants which have just about fallen apart. In fact, it is impossible to actually balance the account because of interconnections of the two economies. The fact that 50 thousand workers have lost their jobs after NATO strikes against FR Yugoslavia had begun is a much more severe warning than other figures. Have their posts gone forever? In other words, how many of them will get their jobs back after the end of the war?

There is no answer to this question. The only thing that is certain is that the economies of RS and FRY are so interconnected that this has equal significance as collective emotions. But, summing up the figures would not lead to a reliable result. "From the economic point of view, this conflict is an external shock for the countries in the region", estimated experts of the UN Economic Commission for Europe seated in Geneva. Loss of the market, cutting off the flow of raw materials, interruption of transportation (navigation on the Danube, interrupted air, land and railway traffic), even slowing down and interruption of flows of "grey economy" quickly pacified the initial neighbourly malice and seriously deepened the concern.

Good Idea

Although it is hard to explain reasonably and with as many fact as are known so far to the public all the parallel actions which are nowadays initiated from the West it does not mean that they are not evident. While Joshka Fischer, Madeleine Albright, Robin Cook and Hubert Vedrin are forcing bombing of FRY, killing and demolition of practically everything (bridges, railroads, flyovers, refineries, refrigerator factories, prisons, hospitals, post offices, antenna posts, media, buses, trains, tractor columns) - these same people are at the same time announcing "Marshall's plan for the Balkan". Therefore, except for being a sad story about human nature and dark chasm of irrationality and modern society, this is at the same time and - probably the only - gleam of hope for the region which was pushed to the verge of economic and social catastrophe by the "Yugoslav crisis". Now that NATO has almost taken it into its hands, Balkan has become the "powder keg" the fuse of which should immediately be cut off or things might become much worse than even the "greatest players" could have imagined.

In this cheerless atmosphere the phrase "Marshall's plan" in itself gives rise to optimism. American state secretary George Marshall was in 1948 the main protagonist of an American foreign political (primarily economic) operation which brought evident progress and stability to Western Europe.

Nowadays, Marshall's plan sounds like a fairy tale. "American assistance" around South and Central America, the Middle East, and finally Eastern Europe and primarily Russia, did not even closely have such results. On the contrary, one could even speak of anti-results. Things got worse for many because of American assistance, so that all they could do was long for the position of those the USA kept on their "black list". Even FRY, under drastic sanctions in the past decade had "higher economic growth than countries in its surroundings, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia, which were the favourites of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), powerful instruments of American 'assistance'".

Starting Position

Belgrade economist Danijel Cvjeticanin believes that it is a question whether a certain country is going to be given the "role of a market, a territory-resource or a military testing ground". "The capital interested in resources will advocate the right of the stronger". Cvjeticanin thinks that "the space inhabited by the Albanians obviously is not assigned the role of a market". The Serbs, however, believe that they are. They believe that reports from the surrounding countries and Europe show that they are right. A few days ago a statement was issued by Hans Dietrich Genscher, former German foreign minister, who is believed to be a Serbophile: "It is necessary to open the prospects of membership in the European Union to successors of former Yugoslavia, including the Serb people". This is important "in order to ensure peace on the whole continent".

Hungary is already announcing its "participation in reconstruction of Yugoslavia". The Croatians speculate that time has come for "good neighbourly relations" because it is necessary to "make use of the fact that Serbia will soon become the greatest construction site in south-eastern Europe". The Slovenians who claimed that they had gone from the Balkan are now increasingly insisting that they too be given a place in the future development of Balkan countries with European money".

It is assessed that for "peaceful Balkan" it is necessary to allocate 30 billion dollars. This is a lot, but "only about 0.4 per cent of this year's economic production of 15 member countries of the European Union". And the Greeks have offered Thessalonike to be the seat of the future centre for reconstruction of Balkan.

Indeed, the only way to reduction of all Balkan tensions would be their "economic treatment". The case of Bosnia shows this best. The revisionist change of the Dayton accords introduced so far with the attempt to bring things back to normal formally through democratic elections or by military threats and pressure to make people and nations take "remedies" from well-paid civil servants, visiting democrats - obviously yielded no results, except in annual reports. Should there be a Marshall's plan - the region has a chance to return to peace and throw away its wars on the "rubbish-heap of history". But, nevertheless, if "Marshall" does not come down to the European south-east, this primarily may mean that the West does not really care to see a stable Balkan, which has unfortunately so far been the only known approach. And the consequences of this approach were felt a long way off.

Petar Reljic

(AIM)