Bosnia: International Workers Aid lays new plans
Socialist Outlook1990sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
International Workers Aid was formally constituted to build international solidarity with the people of Bosnia, and the workers of the Balkans, in Manchester last week.
The formation of a properly organised international campaign was a big step forward.
Adopting a resolution from the Scandinavian delegaTHE MANCHESTER conference of Workers Aid for Bosnia, and International Workers Aid, produced a very mixed result. While the international meeting on Sunday 31 October was a success (see above), the Saturday 30 October conference of British Workers Aid resulted in a hijacking of the campaign by the Workers Revolutionary Party. By seizing absolute control, by refusing to allow the establishment of any democratic structures, by reducing the campaign to a front, the WRP has effectively divided the campaign. As a result of this undemocratic hijack, Socialist Outlook refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the conference decisions. Its supporters will continue to build Workers Aid through supporting the initiatives of International Workers Aid. But we refuse to work in a campaign which has been reduced to a front for the WRP. ALAN THORNETT reports. ALTHOUGH it has yet to reach Tuzla, the Workers Aid convoy has been a big success. It raised the banner of an international working class response to the Bosnian disaster throughout Europe.
It made crucial bonds with the trade unions in both tions, the meeting decided to establish an international coordination on a minimal political basis, although campaigns in particular countries would be free to adopt their own slogans. This included:
• Solidarity with the workers of the Balkans • No to ethnic cleansing and ethnic partition • Solidarity with multi-ethnic Bosnia • Asylum rights for those fleeing the war in ex-Yugoslavia The meeting called for political, material and humanitarian aid to those forces in ex-Yugoslavia; and for an international co-ordination based on a loose structure and decisions based on consensus.
Immediate plans of the international campaign include the following:
• To take responsibility for the three trucks currently in Split, trying to get to Tuzla.
• Develop on-the-spot contacts, knowledge, channels for aid to unions, as well as women's groups and peace groups, who resist the war and national chauvinism.
• Launch a campaign demanding the opening of Tuzla airport to humanitarian aid • Prepare for a new, larger, convoy at the beginning of next year.
• Prepare for an international day of action on 11 DeThe meeting was attended by delegations from France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia.
A delegation from the Swedish SAC union was present.
Unfortunately, after the decision to establish the international co-ordination was taken, supporters of the British WRP, and small groups associated with them, walked out. one from each local group and sponsoring organisation to be elected later.
This was opposed by the WRP who argued for a nonelected committee open to anyone - just as it had been before the conference.
The majority of the international delegations - there were delegations or representatives from France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary and Slovenia - announced that they would not be voting on resolutions, since it was clearly a conference of the British campaign. The WRP proposals were then carried on both counts - for the northern route campaign and for no elected steering committee. The large delegation present from the Manchester Bosnian community were persuaded by the call for a 1,000 lorries. In the end they were the decisive vote in the conference.
Elections rejected The decision to reject elected structures for the campaign was in reality a formula for total control by the WRP over the campaign. The demagogic claim that this will empower large numbers of people is nonsense.
The lack of elected structures is always in fact a formula for control by an unelected minority who control the apparatus -the office, the bank account, the telephone number, the addresses and the knowledge of what is going on. It is a typical unaccountable bureaucracy.
Instead of seeing the campaigns in other European countries as a big extension to the campaign the WRP saw them as a threat to their own control.
Worse, they then claimed that the Saturday conference, one third of which was made up of people from Manchester, was in fact the 'international' body, making the Sunday international meeting irrelevant.
The international delegations refused to accept this British chauvinist attitude and refused to steamrollered by an unrepresentative British conference.