[R-P] (4 de 4) (Inglés) Acumulación global de capital y desastres complejos: el caso de Europa Sudoriental

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

(4 de 4)

Institutionalisation of  (neo)colonial complex disaster,
economic turmoil and social devastation

The “Dayton Agreement” drafted by Western experts and
imposed in 1995 on Serbs, Croats and Muslims of B&H,
presents the blueprint for the institutionalisation of new
protectorates or colonies of competing Anglo-American and
Continental European TNC and financial oligarchy in post-
Cold War Euro-Asia. It contains in the Appendix the
Constitution that among other things specifically
stipulates that the governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia-
Herzegovna  will be appointed by the IMF and the governor
of the Central Bank of Bosnia-Herzegovina shall not be a
citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovnia or a neighbouring country. In
article VII it is explicitly forbidden for the Bank of B&H
to accord credits through money creation. Local government
without fiscal revenues, possibility to control money
creation and  borrow from the national Central Bank as a
“lender of last resort”, was disabled to conduct a stable
and sovereign economic investment and development policy,
while individual local banks become dependent exclusively
on the credit lines from foreign banks.

It is important to stress that these new credits from
western banks are in great part accorded on the basis of
deposits made in them by the people who enriched themselves
as war profiteers connected with smuggling Mafia. Deposits
including received commissions from sales, are borrowed
back by the governors of the country in the form of
credits.

The central government’s economic responsibility is  reduced
to (decimated) foreign trade, reception of new credits and
returning of interests on external debt. Internal debt to
citizens is neglected and rise and fall of  interest rates
is determined by foreign monetary authorities in accordance
with their own perceived benefit. The local government’s
monetary policy is restricted through supervision  of the
IMF controlled Currency Board to overseeing the limitation
of the monetary mass that circulate within the country to
the volume of available foreign currency used as legal
tender (Deutche Mark and soon Euro, or $US), dependent on
(declining) good will of foreign creditors. This amounts to
colonial control of national currency and economy. The
entire economic policy of the “host” country is thus
subordinated to foreign financial interests. This is in full
accordance with the maxim of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1734-
1812), founder of one of the most powerful banking houses:
"Give me control over a nation's currency, and I care not
who makes its laws".

Foreign corporate capital is oriented on buying of the most
profitable public enterprises,  devalued by a decade of
previously imposed sanctions and armed conflicts, at the
“rock bottom” prices (Pickering, Thomas, 2000), on
repatriating locally generated profits to the safety of
investors’ own country. They are de-industrialising local
economy through  closing down that part of local production
which used to provide self-sufficiency (especially in the
field of military equipment) or would compete on the local
market with production of investors’ branches in the
countries with still lower labour costs, where minimum
guaranteed incomes were under $50 a month. The use of
acquired and closed down industrial property is often
changed in search of bigger profits through real estate
speculation or establishing of wholesale trade. Thousands of
workers dismissed from their jobs were thrown out on the
street, and still are not absorbed through opening of new
work places, since the new foreign owners are not interested
in realising such programs. Foreign creditors and new
institutional investors are more interested in quick gain
through repayment of high interest rates and speculations on
the world exchanges of stocks and derivatives. All these
interests widely diverge from the economic interests of the
host country’s population. They are realised and their
dominance maintained through the colonial administration and
occupation military force,  which initially had over 70,000
troops in B&H.

According to Schiller Institute’s researchers, IMF, WB, EU
and other transnational bureaucrats headed by the High UN
representative for civil reconstruction, in fact sabotaged
the reconstruction of Bosnia. Invested at the top with veto
legislative powers in the proclaimed aim to fight rampant
corruption, they oriented 2/3 of the money from “donation
conferences”,  which slowly simmered  just in a fraction of
a promised sum and mostly in a form of new credits, towards
paying of the interests on the B&H part of the former
Yugoslavia’s external debt and on new  external credits,
while the largest part of the remaining third was used for
hiring of Western administrators, consulting firms and
NGOs. A small amount which was actually invested in
reconstruction, went mostly on short term credits for small
projects in services and light industry private sector that
created few new jobs. Explanation for this policy the
authors found in the interest of British and American
financial capital to divide Europe and prevent its
industrial integration in order to be able to continue to
control it (Cheminade, J., Komp, L., Fimmen, E., 1999).


The Central Bank in Montenegro is like the Central Bank in
B&H illustrative for the derogation of national economic
sovereignty and complete monetary control of local finances
by foreign bank authorities.  The economy of Montenegro,
like the economy of B&H and other countries of
South_Eastern Europe, is envisaged to become a dependent
service zone and supplementary economic space for
imperialist countries. The only difference Between B&H and
Montenegro is the fact that Montenegrin government
consented to this indirect foreign control before the
bombing and direct military occupation. It made up its mind
in February 1999, after it was shown a multi-million dollar
computer simulation named “Synthetic Environments for
National Security Estimates (SENSE)”. It is developed by
the Institute for Defense Analysis from Washington at the
request of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark,
for the purpose of “show[ing]leaders in the former East
bloc the economic impact of their decisions.” It “allow[s]
participants to influence the economic growth and
development of a fictitious country Acrona, neighbouring
Colonia, through interactive decisions,” in the process
“teach[ing] the principles of political, economic and
military interrelationships.” The Montenegrin leadership
thus learned the lesson that if their proposed course of
action would be in any way inconsistent with the interests
of NATO , the consequence would be disastrous (Priest,
Dana, 2000; Dinmore, Guy, 1999;
http://www.eucom.mil/exercises/99/ sense/index.htm, cited
in Dajkovic, Alex, 2001).

Themes for discussion and further research

The aim of this paper will be fulfilled if it succeeded to
stimulate further already existing public and professional
interest in finding out the complex internal and external
social factors of social crisis and their catastrophic
complex disaster effects,  in the context of the
contemporary process of the TNC and financial oligarchy’s
attempt at world-wide imposition of neoliberal conception
and strategy of globalisation. This research has amply
documented  main aims and means of realisation of such
strategy  - the “free flow” of capital, labour and
merchandises on the global free market, realised through
economic, covert military, overt diplomatic, mass media,
(il)legal and finally overt military “opening” and
“privatisation” of debtor societies.

Privatisation wherever it was implemented, worsened working
conditions, intolerably reduced rights of workers and their
trade unions through  “flexibilization” of labour,
decimation of redistributive social programs, drastically
lowered standard of living and life expectancy. On the other
hand, unemployment and competition of cheap but generally
well trained and educated labour on the glutted and
“flexibilised” increasingly global labour market increased,
like the prices of basic foods and services, criminality and
corruption, feelings of anxiety, insecurity, apathy and
pessimistic world outlook (see the contributions of I.
Angelov, A. Barton, V. Ivanova, A. Markovskaya, J.Plusnin
and B. Peper to ESA 2001 D&SCRN Session III: “Global
economics, transitional economies, social crises and complex
disasters”). Even George Soros, a billionaire who
appropriated his wealth through  financial speculation,
admits that "extending the market mechanism to all domains
has the potential of destroying society" (statement quoted
in International Herald Tribune, Paris, April 4, 2001).

The experience of protracted calamities of deep economic,
social, political, cultural and moral crisis and armed
conflict  in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
imposed the theme of war as the most calamitous
manifestation of  a complex disaster situation to both  the
lay public and the scientific community throughout the
world.  It  was to be expected that such debate and
research agenda imposition would be present the most among
social scientists and the people at large living in
countries the most affected by crisis and (war) complex
disaster situations in the post-Cold War era. This
expectation tends to be corroborated by the fact that five
out of seven panellists participating in the Session on
complex disasters within context of globalisation and
social crisis at the ESA 2001 Conference,  came from
Eastern and South-Eastern part of Europe, in which war
complex disaster symptoms with devastating social impact
have been currently the most concentrated. The fact that
the remaining two panellists coming from US and Western
Europe have  chosen the same research field, suggests that
actually there is no social crisis-free region in the
entire world, which finds itself in the process of conflict
ridden transition/transformation. A prudent remark must be
added, that so small a sample of ESA Conference
participants is not sufficient for a statistically valid
conclusion. It presents, however, a sufficient empirical
basis for the supposition that  a probable common motive of
this particular group of panellists to study, explain and
understand social crisis and complex disaster’s/
catastrophe’s/ uncertainty's determining factors and
consequences in all spheres of individual and social
existence, is to draw from this research possible practical
lessons. They might concern suggestions of social action
strategies that should be implemented in order to alleviate
most nefarious present effects of the eastward trans-
Atlantic globalist expansion of TNC and financial capital,
and to attempt to prevent their escalation into the
terminal nuclear disaster.

Space limit forces me to leave this implicit or explicit
practical motive of social crisis and complex disaster
research for some future discussion.  Here I would just like
to summarise the proposition, drawn from data presented in
this paper, for the debate and further research:  if present
trends of privatization and deregulation continue unabated,
the war complex disaster will be most probably
institutionalised in Yugoslavia and surrounding Balkan
countries, through the restoration of (neo)colonially
dependent peripheral capitalism and criminalised
authoritarian governments.

Some chances for the elevation to the level of the semi-
peripheral capitalism exist provided that sufficiently
strong patriotic social movements in local communities are
formed,  ready to defend the sovereignty over national
resources and promote regional cooperation of neighbouring
states having mutually complementing economies. NATO
“Partnership for stability” in South-eastern Europe, being
imposed by TNC capital and financial oligarchy in its quest
for control of row materials, labour force, market outlets
and industrial waste dumping grounds, in fact causes
destabilisation of the region, inciting war complex disaster
situation. It would have to be substituted by united
democratic front oriented toward a sustainable, sovereign,
integrative and self-reliant development of national and
regional natural and human resources through democratic
social participation of Balkan people in managing their
lives.

For its realisation it would be necessary to accomplish
regional cooperation  in provision of 1) the banning of
depleted uranium weapons and making the Balkans nuclear free
zone; 2) reparations from NATO for environmental
radiological and chemical contamination 3) writing off of
cumulative interest rates on old external debt and Central
Bank creation of long term credits at simple interest rate
for investment in infrastructure, agriculture and industry,
non-profit housing and in public social services for the
common good.

The present trend of atheir liccelerated deregulation and
privatisation or sell off of public patrimony and strategic
energy, mineral, water and banking systems to TNC and
financial oligarchy, should be stopped and reversed, in
order to enable their use for common good .

The internal and external obstacles impeding the
implementation of the autochtone development strategy of
national and regional economic, political, military and
cultural independence, integration and self-relying
government of, by and for the Balkan peoples,  instead of
the rule of, by and for the interest of financial oligarchy,
would have to be overcome.

It must always be emphasised that the mobilisation of all
available material and human resources for the realisation
of national sovereignty and self-determination  lose their
emancipatory character as soon as they begin to suffocate
the movement for the social liberation and abolishment of
domination and dependence of individuals within national and
regional borders. Redirection of the social discontent of
exploited and atomised direct producers through populist
manipulation of their ethnic and religious feelings and
(mis)use of the church, surrender the legitimisation, social
integration and mobilisation tool in the hands of the new
pretenders to national state leadership and control.

The realisation possibilities of theoretically more
“desirable” society options that could be imagined as
helpful for avoiding of the war complex disaster escalation
into nuclear catastrophe, structurally are limited by the
inherited and actual constellation of social forces on the
national and global plane. It can be modified only through
social emancipation of the economically exploited and
politically repressed majority of humanity, when it renews
hope and faith in the possibility of betterment of the life
situation through cognition led self-conscious and self-
organised individual and collective action.

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  Wherever it was implemented, including California, US,
privatisation and deregulation did not bring promised
possibility to choose between more suppliers and thus get lower
prices. On the contrary, it led to several times higher prices
and worse supply, imposed by regulation or dictate of private
monopolies and oligopolies (Hoefle, John, 2001).
10