[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Separatism and Empire Building in the 21st Century

[Bill Totten]

Throughout modern imperial history, 'Divide and Conquer' has been the
essential ingredient in allowing relatively small and resource-poor
European countries to conquer nations vastly larger in size and
populations and richer in natural resources.

by James Petras

http://petras.lahaine.org (June 06 2008)


Introduction: The Historical Context

It is said that for every British officer in India, there were fifty
Sikhs, Gurkhas, Muslims and Hindus in the British Colonial Army. The
European conquest of Africa and Asia was directed by white officers,
fought by black, brown and yellow soldiers so that white capital could
exploit colored workers and peasants. Regional, ethnic, religious, clan,
tribal, community, village and other differences were politicized and
exploited allowing imperial armies to conquer warring peoples. In recent
decades, the US empire builders have become the grand masters of 'divide
and conquer' strategies throughout the world. By the 1970s, the CIA made
a turn from promoting the dubious virtues of capitalism and democracy,
to linking up with, financing and directing, religious, ethnic and
regional elites against national regimes, independent or hostile to US
world empire building.

The key to US military empire building follows two principles: direct
military invasions and fomenting separatist movements, which can lead to
military confrontation.

Twenty-first century empire building has seen the extended practice of
both principles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, China (Tibet),
Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Somalia, Sudan, Burma and Palestine - any
country in which the US cannot secure a stable client regime, it resorts
to financing and promoting separatist organizations and leaders using
ethnic, religious and regional pretexts.

Consistent with traditional empire building principles, Washington only
supports separatists in countries that refuse to submit to imperial
domination and opposes separatists who resist the empire and its allies.
In other words, imperial ideologues are neither 'hypocrites' nor resort
to 'double standards' (as they are accused by liberal critics) - they
publicly uphold the 'Empire first' principle as their defining criteria
for evaluating separatist movements and granting or denying support. In
contrast, many seemingly progressive critics of empire make universal
statements in favor of the 'right to self-determination' and even extend
it to the most rancid, reactionary, imperial-sponsored 'separatist
groups' with catastrophic results. Independent nations and their people,
who oppose US-backed separatists, are bombed to oblivion and charged
with 'war crimes'. People, who oppose the separatists and who reside in
the 'new state', are killed or driven into exile. The 'liberated people'
suffer from the tyranny and impoverishment induced by the US-backed
separatists and many are forced to immigrate to other countries for
economic survival.

Few if any of the progressive critics of the USSR and supporters of the
separatist republics have ever publicly expressed second thoughts, let
alone engaged in self-critical reflections, even in the face of decades
long socio-economic and political catastrophes in the secessionist
states. Yet it was and is the case that these self-same progressives
today, who continue to preach high moral principles to those who
question and reject some separatist movements because they originate and
grow out of efforts to extend the US empire.

Washington's success in co-opting so-called progressive liberals in
support of separatist movements soon to be new imperial clients in
recent decades is long and the consequences for human rights are ugly.

Most European and US progressives supported the following:

1. US-backed Bosnian fundamentalists, Croatian neo-fascists and
Kosova-Albanian terrorists, leading to ethnic cleansing and the
conversion of their once sovereign states into US military bases, client
regimes and economic basket cases - totally destroying the multinational
Yugoslavian welfare state.

2. The US funded and armed overseas Afghan Islamic fundamentalists who
destroyed a secular, reformist, gender-equal Afghan regime, carrying out
vast anti-feudal campaigns involving both men and women, a comprehensive
agrarian reform and constructing extensive health and educational
programs. As a result of US-Islamic tribal military successes, millions
were killed, displaced and dispossessed and fanatical medieval
anti-Communist tribal warlords destroyed the unity of the country.

3. The US invasion destroyed Iraq's modern, secular, nationalist state
and advanced socio-economic system. During the occupation, US backing of
rival religious, tribal, clan and ethnic separatist movements and
regimes led to the expulsion of over ninety percent of its modern
scientific and professional class and the killing of over one million
Iraqis ... all in the name of ousting a repressive regime and above all
in destroying a state opposed to Israeli oppression of Palestinians.


Clearly US military intervention promotes separatism as a means of
establishing a regional 'base of support'. Separatism facilitates
setting up a minority puppet regime and works to counter neighboring
countries opposed to the depredations of empire. In the case of Iraq,
US-backed Kurdish separatism preceded the imperial campaign to isolate
an adversary, create international coalitions to pressure and weaken the
central government. Washington highlights regime atrocities as human
rights cases to feed global propaganda campaigns. More recently this is
evident in the US-financed 'Tibetan' theocratic protests at China.

Separatists are backed as potential terrorist shock troops in attacking
strategic economic sectors and providing real or fabricated
'intelligence' as is the case in Iran among the Kurds and other ethnic
minority groups.


Why Separatism?

Empire builders do not always resort to separatist groups, especially
when they have clients at the national levels in control of the state.
It is only when their power is limited to groups, territorially or
ethnically concentrated, that the intelligence operatives resort to and
promote 'separatist' movements. US backed separatist movements follow a
step-by-step process, beginning with calls for 'greater autonomy' and
'decentralization', essentially tactical moves to gain a local political
power base, accumulate economic revenues, repress anti-separatist groups
and local ethnic/religious, political minorities with ties to the
central government (as in the oppression of the Christian communities in
northern Iraq repressed by the Kurdish separatists for their long ties
with the Central Baath Party or the Roma of Kosova expelled and killed
by the Kosova Albanians because of their support of the Yugoslav federal
system). The attempt to forcibly usurp local resources and the ousting
of local allies of the central government results in confrontations and
conflict with the legitimate power of the central government. It is at
this point that external (imperial) support is crucial in mobilizing the
mass media to denounce repression of 'peaceful national movements'
merely 'exercising their right to self-determination'. Once the imperial
mass media propaganda machine touches the noble rhetoric of
'self-determination' and 'autonomy', 'decentralization' and 'home rule',
the great majority of US and European funded NGO's jump on board,
selectively attacking the government's effort to maintain a stable
unified nation-state. In the name of 'diversity' and a 'pluri-ethnic
state', the Western-bankrolled NGO's provide a moralist ideological
cover to the pro-imperialist separatists. When the separatists succeed
and murder and ethnically cleanse the ethnic and religious minorities
linked to the former central state, the NGO's are remarkably silent or
even complicit in justifying the massacres as 'understandable
over-reaction to previous repression'. The propaganda machine of the
West, even gloats over the separatist state expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of ethnic minorities - as in the case of the Serbs and Roma
from Kosova and the Krijina region of Croatia ... with headlines
blasting - 'Serbs on the Run: Serves Them Right!' followed by photos of
NATO troops overseeing the 'transfer' of destitute families from their
ancestral villages and towns to squalid camps in a bombed out Serbia.
And the triumphant Western politicians mouthing pieties at the massacres
of Serb civilians by the KLA, as when former German Foreign Minister
"Joschka" Fischer (Green Party) mourned, "I understand your (the KLA's)
pain, but you shouldn't throw grenades at (ethnic Serb) school children".

The shift from 'autonomy' within a federal state to an 'independent
state' is based on the aid channeled and administered by the imperial
state to the 'autonomous region', thus strengthening its 'de facto'
existence as a separate state. This has clearly occurred in the Kurdish
run northern Iraq 'no fly zone' and now 'autonomous region' from 1991 to
the present.

The same principle of self-determination demanded by the US and its
separatist client is denied to 'minorities' within the realm. Instead,
the US propaganda media refer to them as 'agents' or 'trojan horses' of
the central government.

Strengthened by imperial 'foreign aid', and business links with US and
EU multinational corporations, backed by local para-military and
quasi-military police forces (as well as organized criminal gangs), the
autonomous regime declares its 'independence'. Shortly thereafter it is
recognized by its imperial patrons. After 'independence', the separatist
regime grants territorial concessions and building sites for US military
bases. Investment privileges are granted to the imperial patron,
severely compromising 'national' sovereignty.

The army of local and international NGO's rarely raise any objections to
this process of incorporating the separatist entity into the empire,
even when the 'liberated' people object. In most cases the degree of
'local governance' and freedom of action of the 'independent' regime is
less than it was when it was an autonomous or federal region in the
previous unified nationalist state.

Not infrequently 'separatist' regimes are part of irredentist movements
linked to counterparts in other states. When cross national irredentist
movements challenge neighboring states which are also targets of the US
empire builders, they serve as launching pads for US low intensity
military assaults and Special Forces terrorist activities.

For example, almost all of the Kurdish separatist organizations draw a
map of 'Greater Kurdistan' which covers a third of Southeastern Turkey,
Northern Iraq, a quarter of Iran, parts of Syria and wherever else they
can find a Kurdish enclave. US commandos operate along side Kurdish
separatists terrorizing Iranian villages (in the name of
self-determination); Kurds with powerful US military backing have seized
and govern Northern Iraq and provide mercenary Peshmerga troops to
massacre Iraqi Arab civilian in cities and towns resisting the US
occupation in Central, Western and Southern regions. They have engaged
in the forced displacement of non-Kurds (including Arabs, Chaldean
Christians, Turkman and others) from so-called Iraqi Kurdistan and the
confiscation of their homes, businesses and farms. US-backed Kurdish
separatists have created conflicts with the neighboring Turkish
government, as Washington tries to retain its Kurdish clients for their
utility in Iraq, Iran and Syria without alienating its strategic NATO
client, Turkey. Nevertheless Turkish-Kurdish separatist activists in the
PKK have lauded the US for, what they term, 'progressive colonialism' in
effectively dismembering Iraq and forming the basis for a Kurdish state.

The US decision to collaborate with the Turkish military, or at least
tolerate its military attacks on certain sectors of the Iraq-based
Kurdish separatists, the PKK, is part of its global policy of
prioritizing strategic imperial alliances and allies over and against
any separatist movement which threatens them. Hence, while the US
supports the Kosova separatists against Serbia, it opposes the
separatists in Abkhazia fighting against its client in the Republic of
Georgia. While the US supported Chechen separatist against the Moscow
government, it opposes Basque and Catalan separatists in their struggle
against Washington's NATO ally, Spain. While Washington has been
bankrolling the Bolivian separatists headed by the oligarchs of Santa
Cruz against the central government in La Paz, it supports the Chilean
government's repression of the Mapuche Indian claims to land and
resources in south-central Chile.

Clearly 'self-determination' and 'independence' are not the universal
defining principle in US foreign policy, nor has it ever been, as
witness the US wars against Indian nations, secessionist southern
slaveholders and yearly invasions of independent Latin American, Asian
and African states. What guides US policy is the question of whether a
separatist movement, its leaders and program furthers empire building or
not? The inverse question however is infrequently raised by so-called
progressives, leftists or self-described anti-imperialists: Does the
separatist or independence movement weaken the empire and strengthen
anti-imperialist forces or not? If we accept that the over-riding issue
is defeating the multi-million killing machine called US imperialism,
then it is legitimate to evaluate and support, as well as reject, some
independence movements and not others. There is nothing 'hypocritical'
or 'inconvenient' in raising higher principles in making these political
choices. Clearly Hitler justified the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the
name of defending Sudetenland separatists; just like a series of US
Presidents have justified the partition of Iraq in the name of defending
the Kurds, or Sunnis or Shia or whatever tribal leaders lend themselves
to US empire building.

What defines anti-imperialist politics is not abstract principles about
'self-determination' but defining exactly who is the 'self' - in other
words, what political forces linked to what international power
configuration are making what political claim for what political
purpose. If, as in Bolivia today, a rightwing racist, agro-business
oligarchy seizes control of the most fertile and energy rich region,
containing 75% of the country's natural resources, in the name of
'self-determination' and autonomy, expelling and brutalizing
impoverished Indians in the process - on what basis can the left or
anti-imperialist movement oppose it, if not because the class, race and
national content of that claim is antithetical to an even more important
principle - popular sovereignty based on the democratic principles of
majority rule and equal access to public wealth?


Separatism in Latin America: Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador

In recent years the US backed candidates have won and lost national
election in Latin America. Clearly the US has retained hegemony over the
governing elites in Mexico, Colombia, Central America, Peru, Chile,
Uruguay and some of the Caribbean island states. In states where the
electorate has backed opponents of US dominance, such as Venezuela,
Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua, Washington's influence is dependent on
regional, provincial and locally elected officials. It is premature to
state, as the Council for Foreign Relations claims, that 'US hegemony in
Latin America is a thing of the past'. One only has to read the economic
and political record of the close and growing military and economic ties
between Washington and the Calderon regime in Mexico, the Garcia regime
in Peru, Bachelet in Chile and Uribe in Colombia to register the fact
that US hegemony still prevails in important regions of Latin America.
If we look beyond the national governmental level, even in the
non-hegemonized states, US influence still is a potent factor shaping
the political behavior of powerful right-wing business, financial and
regional political elites in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina.
By the end of May 2008, US backed regionalist movements were on the
offensive, establishing a de facto secessionist regime in Santa Cruz in
Bolivia. In Argentina, the agro-business elite has organized a
successful nationwide production and distribution lockout, backed by the
big industrial, financial and commercial confederations, against an
export tax promoted by the 'center-left' Kirchner government. In
Colombia, the US is negotiating with the paramilitary President Uribe
over the site of a military base on the frontier with Venezuela's oil
rich state of Zulia, which happens to be ruled by the only anti-Chavez
governor in power, a strong promoter of 'autonomy' or secession. In
Ecuador, the Mayor of Guayaquil, backed by the right wing mass media and
the discredited traditional political parties have proposed 'autonomy'
from the central government of President Rafael Correa. The process of
imperial driven nation dismemberment is very uneven because of the
different degrees of political power relations between the central
government and the regional secessionists. The right wing secessionists
in Bolivia have advanced the furthest - actually organizing and winning
a referendum and declaring themselves an independent governing unit with
the power to collect taxes, formulate foreign economic policy and create
its own police force.

The success of the Santa Cruz secessionist is due to the political
incapacity and total incompetence of the Evo Morales-Garcia Linera
regime which promoted 'autonomy' for the scores of impoverished Indian
'nations' (or indianismo) and ended up laying the groundwork for the
white racist oligarchs to seize the opportunity to establish their own
'separatist' power base. As the separatist gained control over the local
population, they intimidated the 'indians' and trade union supporters of
the Morales regime, violently sabotaged the constitutional assembly,
rejected the constitution, while constantly extracting concession for
the flaccid and conciliatory central government of the Evo Morales.
While the separatists trashed the constitution and used their control
over the major means of production and exports to recruit five other
provinces, forming a geographic arc of six provinces, and influence in
two others in their drive to degrade the national government. The
Morales-Garcia Linera 'indianista' regime, largely made up of mestizos
formerly employed in NGOs funded from abroad, never used its formal
constitutional power and monopoly of legitimate force to enforce
constitutional order and outlaw and prosecute the secessionists'
violation of national integrity and rejection of the democratic order.

Morales never mobilized the country, the majority of popular
organizations in civil society, or even called on the military to put
down the secessionists. Instead he continued to make impotent appeals
for 'dialog', for compromises in which his concessions to oligarch
self-rule only confirmed their drive for regional power. As a case study
of failed governance, in the face of a reactionary separatist threat to
the nation, the Morales-Garcia Linera regime represents an abject
failure to defend popular sovereignty and the integrity of the nation.

The lessons of failed governance in Bolivia stand as a grim reminder to
Chavez in Venezuela and Correa in Ecuador: Unless they act with full
force of the constitution to crush the embryonic separatist movements
before they gain a power base, they will also face the break-up of their
countries. The biggest threat is in Venezuela, where the US and
Colombian militaries have built bases on the frontier bordering the
Venezuelan state of Zulia, infiltrated commandos and paramilitary forces
into the province, and see the takeover of the oil-rich province as a
beach-head to deprive the central government of its vital oil revenues
and destabilize the central government.

Several years into a Washington-backed and financed separatist movement
in Bolivia, a few progressive academics and pundits have taken notice
and published critical commentaries. Unfortunately these articles lack
any explanatory context, and offer little understanding of how Latin
American 'separatism' fits into long-term, large-scale US empire
building strategy over the past quarter of a century.

Today the US-promoted separatist movements in Latin American are
actively being pursued in at least three Latin American counties. In
Bolivia, the 'media luna' or 'half-moon' provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni,
Pando and Tarija have successfully convoked provincial 'referendums' for
'autonomy' - code word for secession. On May 4 2008 the separatists in
Santa Cruz succeeded, securing a voter turnout of nearly fifty percent
and winning eighty percent of the vote. On May 15, the right-wing big
business political elite announced the formation of ministries of
foreign trade and internal security, assuming the effective powers of a
secession state. The US government led by Ambassador Goldberg, provided
financial and political support for the right-wing secessionist 'civic'
organizations through its $125 million dollar aid programs via AID, its
tens of millions of dollar 'anti-drug' program, and through the NED
(National Endowment for Democracy) funded pro-separatist NGOs. At
meetings of the Organization of American States and other regional
meetings the US refused to condemn the separatist movements.

Because of the total incompetence and lack of national political
leadership of President Evo Morales and his Vice President Garcia
Linera, the Bolivian State is splintering into a series of 'autonomous'
cantons, as several other provincial governments seek to usurp political
power and take over economic resources. From the very beginning, the
Morales-Garcia regime signed off on a number of political pacts, adopted
a whole series of policies and approved a number of concessions to the
oligarchic elites in Santa Cruz, which enabled them to effectively
re-build their natural political power base, sabotage an elected
Constitutional Assembly and effectively undermine the authority of the
central government. Right-wing success took less than two and a half
years, which is especially amazing considering that in 2005, the country
witnessed a major popular uprising which ousted a right-wing president,
when millions of workers, miners, peasants and Indians dominated the
streets. It is a tribute to the absolute misgovernment of the
Morales-Garcia regime, that the country could move so quickly and
decisively from a state of insurrectionary popular power to a fragmented
and divided country in which a separatist agro-financial elite seizes
control of eighty percent of the productive resources of the country ...
while the elected central government meekly protests.

The success of the secessionist regional ruling class in Bolivia has
encouraged similar 'autonomy movements' in Ecuador and Venezuela, led by
the mayor of Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Governor of Zulia (Venezuela). In
other words, the US-engineered political debacle of the Morales-Garcia
regime in Bolivia has led it to team up with oligarchs in Ecuador and
Venezuela to repeat the Santa Cruz experience ... in a process of
"permanent counter-revolutionary separatism".


Separatism and the Ex-USSR

The defeat of Communism in the USSR had little to do with the 'arms race
bankrupting the system', as former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzyenski has claimed. Up to the end, living standards were relatively
stable and welfare programs continued to operate at near optimal levels
and scientific and cultural programs retained substantial state
expenditures. The ruling elites who replaced the communist system did
not respond to US propaganda about the virtues of 'free markets and
democracy', as Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush and Bill
Clinton claimed: The proof is evident in the political and economic
systems, which they imposed upon taking power and which were neither
democratic nor based on competitive markets. These new ethnic-based
regimes resembled despotic, predatory, nepotistic monarhies handing over
('privatizing') the public wealth accumulated over the previous seventy
years of collective labor and public investment to a handful of
oligarchs and foreign monopolies.

The principle ideological driving force for the current policy of
'separatism' is ethnic identity politics, which is fostered and financed
by US intelligence and propaganda agencies. Ethnic identity politics,
which replaced communism, is based on vertical links between the elite
and the masses. The new elites rule through clan-family-religious-gang
based nepotism, funded and driven through pillage and privatization of
public wealth created under Communism. Once in power, the new political
elites 'privatized' public wealth into family riches and converted
themselves and their cronies into an oligarchic ruling class. In most
cases the ethnic ties between elites and subjects dissolved in the face
of the decline of living standards, the deep class inequalities, the
crooked vote counts and state repression.

In all of the ex-USSR states, the new ruling classes only claim to mass
legitimacy was based on appeals to sharing a common ethnic identity.
They trotted out medieval and royalist symbols from the remote past,
dredging up absolutist monarchs, parasitical religious hierarchies,
pre-capitalist war lords, bloody emperors and 'national' flags from the
days of feudal landlords to forge a common history and identity with the
'newly liberated' masses. The repeated appeal to past reactionary
symbols was entirely appropriate: The contemporary policies of
despotism, pillage and personality cults resonated with past 'historic'
warriors, feudal lords and practices.

As the new post-USSR despots lost their ethnic luster as a consequence
of public disillusion with local and foreign predatory pillage of the
national wealth, the leaders resorted to systematic force.

The principle success of the US strategy of promoting separatism was in
destroying the USSR - not in promoting viable independent capitalist
democracies. Washington succeeded in exacerbating ethnic conflicts
between Russians and other nationalities, by encouraging local communist
bosses to split from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to form
'independent states' where the new rulers could share the booty of the
local treasury with new Western partners. The US de-stabilization
efforts in the Communist countries, especially after the 1970's did not
compete over living standards, greater industrial growth or over more
generous welfare programs. Rather, Western propaganda focused on ethnic
solidarity, the one issue that undercut class solidarity and loyalty to
the communist state and ideology and strengthened pro-Western elites,
especially among 'public intellectuals' and recycled Communist
bosses-turned 'nationalist saviors.'

The key point of Western strategy was to first and foremost break-up the
USSR via separatist movements no matter if they were fanatical religious
fundamentalists, gangster-politicians, Western-trained liberal
economists or ambitious upwardly mobile warlords. All that mattered was
that they carried the Western separatist banner of 'self-determination'.
Subsequently, in the 'post Soviet period', the new pro-capitalist ruling
elites were recruited to NATO and client state status.

Washington's post-separatism politics followed a two-step process: In
the first phase there was an undifferentiated support for anyone
advocating the break-up of the USSR. In the second phase, the US sought
to push the most pliable pro-NATO, free market liberals among the lot -
the so-called 'color revolutionaries', in Georgia and the Ukraine.
Separatism was seen as a preliminary step toward an 'advanced' stage of
re-subordination to the US Empire. The notion of 'independent states' is
virtually non-existent for US empire builders. At best it exists as a
transitional stage from one power constellation to a new US-centered empire.

In the period following the break-up of the USSR, Washington's
subsequent attempts to recruit the new ruling elites to pro-capitalist,
client-status was relatively successful. Some countries opened their
economies to unregulated exploitation especially of energy resources.
Others offered sites for military bases. In many cases local rulers
sought to bargain among world powers while enhancing their own private
fortune through pillage.

None of the ex-Soviet Republics evolved into secular independent
democratic republics capable of recovering the living standards, which
their people possessed during the Soviet times. Some rulers became
theocratic despots where religious notables and dictators mutually
supported each other. Others evolved into ugly family-based
dictatorships. None of them retained the Soviet era social safety net or
high quality educational systems. All the post-Soviet regimes magnified
the social inequalities and multiplied the number of criminal-run
enterprises. Violent crime grew geometrically increasing citizen insecurity.

The success of US-induced 'separatism' did create, in most cases,
enormous opportunities for Western and Asian pillage of raw materials,
especially petroleum resources. The experience of 'newly independent
states' was, at best, a transitory illusion, as the ruling elite either
passed directly into the orbit of Western sphere of influence or became
a 'fig leaf' for deep structural subordination to Western-dominated
circuits of commodity exports and finance.

Out of the break-up of the USSR, Western states allied with those
republics where it suited their interests. In some cases they signed
agreements with rulers to establish military base lining the pockets of
a dictator through loans. In other cases they secured privileged access
to economic resources by forming joint ventures. In others they simply
ignored a poorly endowed regime and let it wallow in misery and despotism.


Separatism: Eastern Europe, Balkans and the Baltic Countries

The most striking aspect of the break-up of the Soviet bloc was the
rapidity and thoroughness with which the countries passed from the
Warsaw Pact to NATO, from Soviet political rule to US/EU economic
control over almost all of their major economic sectors. The conversion
from one form of political economic and military subordination to
another highlights the transitory nature of political independence, the
superficiality of its operational meaning and the spectacular hypocrisy
of the new ruling elite who blithely denounced 'Soviet domination' while
turning over most economic sectors to Western capital, large tracts of
territory for NATO bases and providing mercenary military battalions to
fight in US imperial wars to a far greater degree than was ever the case
during Soviet times.

Separatism in these areas was an ideology to weaken an adversarial
hegemonic coalition, all the better to reincorporate its members in a
more virulent and aggressive empire building coalition.


Yugoslavia and Kosova: Forced Separatism

The successful breakup of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact alliance
encouraged the US and EU to destroy Yugoslavia, the last remaining
independent country outside of US-EU control in West Europe. The
break-up of Yugoslavia was initiated by Germany following its annexation
and demolition of East Germany's economy. Subsequently it expanded into
the Slovenian and Croatian republics. The US, a relative latecomer in
the carving up of the Balkans, targeted Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosova.
While Germany expanded via economic conquest, the US, true to its
militarist mission, resorted to war in alliance with recognized
terrorist Kosova Albanian gangsters organized in the paramilitary KLA.
Under the leadership of French Zionist Bernard Kouchner, the NATO forces
facilitated the ethnic purging, assassination and disappearances of tens
of thousands of Serbs, Roma and dissident non-separatist Kosova Albanians.

The destruction of Yugoslavia is complete: the remaining fractured and
battered Serb Republic was now at the mercy of US and its European
allies. By 2008 a EU-US backed pro-NATO coalition was elected and the
last remnants of 'Yugoslavia' and its historical legacy of self-managed
socialism was obliterated.


Consequences of 'Separatism' in USSR, East Europe and the Balkans

In every region where US sponsored and financed separatism succeeded,
living standards plunged, massive pillage of public resources in the
name of privatization took place, political corruption reached
unprecedented levels. Anywhere between a quarter to a third of the
population fled to Western Europe and North America because of hunger,
personal insecurity (crime), unemployment and a dubious future.

Politically, gangsterism and extraordinary murder rates drove legitimate
businesses to pay exorbitant extorsion payments, as a 'new class' of
gangsters- turned- businessmen took over the economy and signed dubious
investment agreements and joint ventures with EU, US and Asian
multinational corporations.

Energy-rich ex-Soviet countries in south central Asia were ruled by
opulent dictators who accumulated billion dollar fortunes in the course
of demolishing egalitarian norms, extensive health, and scientific and
cultural institutions. Religious institutions gained power over and
against scientific and professional associations, reversing educational
progress of the previous seventy years. The logic of separatism spread
from the republics to the sub-national level as rival local war lords
and ethnic chiefs attempted to carve out their 'autonomous' entity,
leading to bloody wars, new rounds of ethnic purges and new refugees
fleeing the contested areas.

The US promises of benefits via 'separatism' made to the diverse
populations were not in the least fulfilled. At best a small ruling
elite and their cronies reaped enormous wealth, power and privilege at
the expense of the great majority. Whatever the initial symbolic
gratifications, which the underlying population may have experienced
from their short-lived independence, new flag and restored religious
power was eroded by the grinding poverty and violent internal power
struggles that disrupted their lives. The truth of the matter is that
millions of people fled from 'their' newly 'independent' states,
preferring to become refugees and second-class citizens in foreign states.


Conclusion

The major fallacy of seemingly progressive liberals and NGOs in their
advocacy of 'autonomy', 'decentralization' and 'self-determination' is
that these abstract concepts beg the fundamental concrete historical and
substantive political question - to what classes, race, political blocs
is power being transferred? For over a century in the US the banner of
the racist right-wing Southern plantation owners ruling by force and
terror over the majority of poor blacks was 'States Rights' - the
supremacy of local law and order over the authority of the federal
government and the national constitution. The fight between federal
versus states rights was between a reactionary Southern oligarchy and a
broader based progressive Northern urban coalition of workers and the
middle class.

There is a fundamental need to demystify the notion of 'autonomy' by
examining the classes which demand it, the consequences of devolving
power in terms of the distribution of power, wealth and popular power
and the external benefactors of a shift from the national state to
regional local power elites.

Likewise, the mindless embrace by some libertarians of each and every
claim for 'self-determination' has led to some of the most heinous
crimes of the twentieth and 21st centuries - in many cases separatist
movements have encouraged or been products of bloody imperialist wars,
as was the case in the lead up to and following Nazi annexations, the US
invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the savage Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and breakup of Palestine.

To make sense of 'autonomy', 'decentralization' and 'self-determination'
and to ensure that these devolutions of power move in progressive
historic direction, it is essential to pose the prior questions: Do
these political changes advance the power and control of the majority of
workers and peasants over the means of production? Does it lead to
greater popular power in the state and electoral process or does it
strengthen demagogic clients advancing the interests of the empire, in
which the breakup of an established state leads to the incorporation of
the ethnic fragments into a vicious and destructive empire?

The James Petras Website

http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1738&more=1&c=1


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