April 12, 1999: Break through psychological warfare!

After almost three weeks of the uninterrupted bombing of Yugoslavia from the air, NATO has not reached its military goals. Neither the submission of the Milosevic regime nor the planned deployment of NATO troops in Yugoslavia could be achieved. Instead, the attacks gave rise to a gigantic wave of refugees from Kosovo. Because the NATO war, and especially an invasion by NATO ground troops, is opposed by a majority of the German population, the federal government is stepping up psychological warfare with the help of media which are almost completely in line. To prepare for a ground war, mainly three propaganda lies were spread last weekend.

1. The NATO war is supposedly "not a new form of imperialism, but an act of emergency aid for a persecuted minority formerly protected by 'social movements'. Not even economic interests are behind the NATO intervention, as was the case in the Gulf War.” (German daily newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, April 9, 1999) The same NATO strategists, who yesterday supported anti-people dictatorships like Suharto in Indonesia and Mobutu in the Congo and today supply the weapons for the Turkish government's genocide of the Kurds, are suddenly being guided by pure humanitarian goals in Kosovo?!
NATO headquarters are constantly spreading new rumors for their own justification with feeble evidence. Those are methods of psychological warfare. Their value is demonstrated, for example, by what has already been exposed as the lie about the ten thousands of refugees who disappeared in Kosovo. Before the report of their disappearing was spread worldwide, they were already sighted by UN aids in various camps in Albania and Macedonia. The aim of this psychological warfare is exposed in the news magazine "Spiegel” on April 12, 1999: "A ground intervention would have to have the character of emergency aid, every inaction on the part of the alliance would have to be regarded by the public as the failure to give aid. But for this the German federal government needs facts or, even better, pictures of atrocities committed by Milosevic henchmen or at least proof of decisive military victories of the alliance in war. But that is exactly what is lacking at the moment.”
NATO headquarters and ministers like Scharping are dissatisfied because of these shortcomings. Therefore they spread lies and half-lies according to the motto "something will remain in people's minds”.

The MLPD condemns this psychological warfare. It defends the right of self-determination of the Kosovo Albanians as well as that of the Yugoslavian nation. The most important precondition for ending the misery of the refugees lies in the immediate halt of the NATO attacks.

2. Especially foreign minister Fischer maintains, in the face of protests coming from his own party, that this war is restricted to the Balkans and must be led by the NATO with antifascist goals against the "new Hitler” Milosevic. That is deliberate misinformation aimed at misusing the basically antifascist feelings of the population.
Although the NATO war, under the leadership of the imperialist super power USA, is being led directly against the Milosevic regime, it aims at reaching Yugoslavia as an outpost of the eastern great power Russia. It aims at pushing back Russia's sphere of influence and power. After Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic entered the NATO, the former Soviet republic Azerbaijan made an offer to the NATO and the USA to install military bases. The Caucasian-Caspian oil region is the next goal of the NATO. For this purpose, it is trying out its new strategy of worldwide intervention in Yugoslavia. Imperialist Russia sees this as a provocation and threatens with military intervention in Yugoslavia and, further, with the use of atomic weapons against NATO states.
The imperialist NATO war intensifies the threat of a 3^rd World War. It is deliberate deceit when this war is compared to the Anti-Hitler Coalition in the 2nd World War. The 2nd World War changed its character as an imperialist war after two years of warfare in the summer of 1941, when the Hitler fascists invaded the, at that time, socialist Soviet Union. Not until then did the international working class stand up for a second front against fascist Germany and achieved, by putting pressure especially upon the governments of the USA and Great Britain, their military intervention. That situation cannot be compared to the present one. Neither is it a case of defending a socialist country nor is Milosevic going for fascist world domination. It is, moreover, the NATO, with the USA at its head, that is aiming at imperialist world hegemony with its war against Yugoslavia and the underlying strategy. Even a UN mandate would basically not change anything about this policy, as is being demanded by various persons criticizing the war intervention from the ranks of the SPD or the Greens. The MLPD declares: Imperialist wars must be opposed whether the NATO gives itself a mandate or whether it gets the approval of the UN Security Council.

3. The worldwide resistance against the NATO war in Yugoslavia is, for the most part, being censored in the German media. And propaganda is made to give the impression that whoever opposes the NATO war also supports the war crimes of the Milosevic regime. What is concealed is that the developing resistance movement against the NATO war in Yugoslavia is not at all supporting the reactionary Milosevic regime.
In declarations from numerous factories and trade unions, workers take a clear position and, at the same time, adamantly reject the support of war operations by the DGB-leadership. For example, a letter written to German Chancellor Schroeder and foreign minister Fischer by the union representatives council of the Semikron company in Nuremberg states the following:
"The bombs over the working class city Aleksinac hit workers and we are also people who must work hard for their money. We feel that we are also being hit...We also condemn Milosevic's persecution of the Albanian population. But your attack has strengthened his nationalism instead of weakening it. We are against all forms of nationalism. In our plant, workers of different nationalities work together very well. We feel as one. We cannot overlook the grief and the horror that our Yugoslavian colleagues are feeling and their concern about their families. The disaster that you are causing with your bombs also costs 500 Million German marks per day. How can you afford to do this in the face of the high unemployment in our country? Do you plan to collect this from us in the form of taxes and cutbacks in social services? We call upon you to stop the bombardment of Yugoslavia immediately!”

Aside from such activities in factories and trade unions and in other social institutions in Germany, international protests against the NATO war in Yugoslavia are also being concealed. The Italian police, for example, used tear gas against demonstrators who were demonstrating in front of the air force base Aviano against the NATO air war on April 11. According to official sources, four demonstrators were hurt. That shows that violence is not only directed against the Yugoslavian people, but also to suppress active resistance within the NATO countries themselves.

In an appeal entitled "Workers must fire upon workers!” , metal trade unionists from the German city of Oberhausen call up for participation in the weekly rallies at 5.30 p.m. on Tuesdays in the city centers until the NATO war is over. The unionists declare: "That is a real signal for the international workers' movement. International workers' unity is stronger than war, expulsion and genocide.”
The MLPD supports this initiative. Especially the rallies on Tuesday, April 13th, 1999 must set a timely signal against the psychological warfare and for stopping the NATO war and all preparations for a ground war.

Active resistance against the NATO war in Yugoslavia!