International situation (1992)

Wars, barbarism, class struggle: The only solution to the spiral of wars and barbarism is the international class struggle 

Since the beginning of the 'era of peace and prosperity' opened by the fall of the Berlin wall, the disappearance of the eastern bloc and the break-up of the USSR, there have never been so many wars and local conflicts; never has mili­tarism been more omnipresent, never have arms sales of all kinds reached, such a scale, never has the threat of nuclear proliferation been so great, never have the plans for new weapons, including ones to be used in space, been so far ad­vanced; never have so many human beings suffered such hunger, poverty, exploitation and wars; never since capital­ism began has such a large proportion of the world popula­tion been thrown out of the productive process, most of them condemned to permanent unemployment, to absolute pauperization, to begging, to all kinds of illicit trades, to crime, to wars and nationalist or inter-ethnic massacres ... The open economic recession is getting deeper in the big industrial countries, the great world powers, and in particular the biggest one of all, the USA; hundreds of thousands of work­ers are being hurled into the jaws of unemployment and mis­ery. The era of peace and prosperity promised by President Bush, by the whole world bourgeoisie, is proving itself to be an era of wars and economic crisis.

Chaos and Anarchy In every corner of the planet

The USSR is gone. Exit Gorbachev. The CIS is still-born. Tensions between the republics get sharper and more ag­gressive every day. The emerging states squabble over what's left of the ex-Union. The main thing at stake is the remains of the Red Army, its conventional weapons of course, but also its nuclear ones (33,000 to 35,000 warheads!). It's a question of forming the strongest possible national armies in order to ensure the imperialist interests of each state against its neighbors. The ex-USSR is under the bloody reign of every man for himself; nuclear threats are being issued by rote. Despite the (western) international pressure, Kazakhstan refuses to say whether or not it is going to hand over the tac­tical and above all strategic weapons on its territory; Ukraine has grabbed a division of nuclear bombers (17 February) and is trying to keep the Black Sea fleet for itself. Yeltsin's Russia, in command of the 'unified' army of the CIS, ie in a po­sition of strength vis-a-vis the others, has even expressed its fears about a future nuclear conflict with Ukraine[1]. This tells us a lot about the nature of the relations between the new states and the role played by the military within them. These relations are imperialist and antagonistic: the balance of forces rests on military and especially nuclear power.

This conflict-ridden situation is made more acute by the catastrophic state of the economy. 90% of the Russian popu­lation is living below the poverty line. Famine is spreading despite the aid from the west. Industrial production is falling brutally while the liberation of prices has led to three-figure, South American style inflation. This total bankruptcy will in turn throw oil on the fire of the conflicts between the new states. "Economic war between the republics has already be­gun" affirmed Anatoli Sobtchak, the mayor of St Petersburg on January 8.

This conflict of interests, both political and economic, is go­ing to accelerate the chaos, and multiply tensions and con­flicts, local wars and massacres, among the various na­tionalities of what we can already call the ex-CIS. The re­publics are at odds over the military heritage left by the de­funct USSR. Nearly all of them are in conflict over the ques­tion of frontiers: the case of Crimea - Russian or Ukrainian -is the best known. Each republic in turn has one or more na­tional minority declaring its independence, taking up arms, forming militias: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian mi­nority in Azerbaijan; the Chechenes in Russia, who have been attacking barracks in order to get weapons; and every­where the Russian minorities who are getting increasingly anxious, in Moldova, in Ukraine, in the Caucasus and in the central Asian republics. And then there's Georgia, torn in two by murderous combats between partisans of the 'democratically elected' president Gamsakhurdia on the one hand, and his former leading ministers and their militias on the other. Everywhere there are dead, wounded, massacres of civilians, destruction, nationalist hatred and terror between small peoples who previously lived together, and who to­gether suffered the terror of Stalin's version of state capital­ism. Today, desolation and chaos rule without any challenge.

This explosion of the ex-USSR, this situation of bloody anar­chy, has reawakened local imperialist appetites that for a long time were contained by the all-powerful 'Soviet' apparatus; and they hold the seeds of even bigger confrontations. Iran and Turkey are engaged in a real race to establish the first embassies in the Muslim republics. The Iranian press accuses Turkey of wanting to 'impose the western model' on these republics by making them lose their 'Muslim identity'. Turkey, supported by the USA, uses the Turkish-speaking nationalities (Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Turkomens) to get one step ahead of Iran, which in turn tries to enlist the aid of Pakistan in this imperialist contest ...

The disappearance of the division of the world into two great imperialist blocs has meant the end of the discipline that used to reign, the end of the established, 'stable' rules that regu­lated local imperialist conflicts. Today, they are breaking out everywhere and in all directions. The explosion of the USSR can only further aggravate this phenomenon. Everywhere, on all the continents, new conflicts are breaking out, develop­ing, while the old hot spots have not cooled down either, on the contrary.

The Philippines and Burma suffer from bloody and perma­nent guerilla warfare (China has sold more than a billion dollars worth of arms to Burma!). A state of anarchy is de­veloping in central Asia. Military confrontations of all kinds (Kurdistan, Lebanon) continue in the Middle East despite the 'calm' in the region since the terrible crushing of Iraq in the Gulf war.

Africa as a continent is sinking into a nightmare: bloody re­pression of riots by hungry populations; coups d'Etat, guerilla wars and inter-ethnic clashes, proliferating in the midst of an economic disaster. Imperialist tensions between Egypt and Sudan are exacerbating. Social chaos is spreading in Algeria, the fighting goes on in Chad, Djibouti is shaken by confrontations between Afars and Issas.

"Africa cannot rid itself of the spectre of alimentary in­security ... Aid is urgently needed for Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and even for Zaire. Civil wars, massive de-placements of populations, drought, these are the causes in­voked by the FAD"[2]. Do we need to explain that the term "alimentary insecurity" is an elegant way of avoiding the more brutal word famine?

In comparison, Latin America seems a haven of peace. It should be said that it does enjoy the particular attention of its great northern neighbor. The sub-continent is still the USA's backyard. The numerous antagonisms between Ar­gentina and Chile, and between Ecuador and Peru, to cite only two of the various frontiers that have given rise to mili­tary skirmishes, have so far been contained. But the continent is still marked by violence. Guerilla violence (Peru, Colom­bia, Central America); the violence of state repression against populations which are also hungry (eg the riots in Venezuela); violence resulting from the advanced decompo­sition which is hitting the states: drug gang wars in Colom­bia, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia; the massive assassination by the police and various militia of the street children abandoned in their millions and subjected to the miseries of hunger and drug addiction, left to themselves in the slums, vast shit-heaps that ring the cities.

This list of chaos and wars, of killing and terror, would not be complete if we didn't mention Yugoslavia. This country no longer exists. It has exploded in a fracas of fire and blood. For months, Serbs and Croats killed each other and tensions grew between the three nationalities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. New confrontations are brewing a few hundred kilometers from the big industrial centers of Europe! Like the explosion of the USSR, the explosion of Yugoslavia has reawakened old tensions and created new ones. For example, Macedo­nia's desires for independence have dangerously revived an­tagonisms between Greece and Bulgaria. And above all it has sharpened tensions between the great powers, Germany and the USA, and within Europe.

Here is a rapid and incomplete, and yet frightening and dra­matic, photograph of the world (for the moment we are ex­cluding the situation in the big industrial countries, the USA, Japan and western Europe; we will be coming back to this later). Here in a few words is the reality of the capitalist world. A capitalist world that is rotting and decomposing. A capitalist society that can only offer humanity wars and misery.

Arms sales at fever pitch

If anyone doubted this war-like perspective, the explosion of arms sales must convince them of it.

Arms sales of every kind, from the most simple to the most sophisticated and murderous, are now escaping any control. The planet has become an immense supermarket of weapons, where competition between the merchants is becoming sharper all the time. The disappearance of the eastern bloc and the economic catastrophe which is hitting the countries of Eastern Europe and of the CIS have thrown the incredible ar­senal of the Warsaw Pact onto the market, with prices tum­bling daily: hundreds of armored cars are being sold by weight, at 10,000 dollars a ton![3]

In 1991, the ex-USSR sold 12 billion dollars in arms. Russia and Kazakhstan sold 1000 T-72 tanks and also submarines to Iran. "Information gathered by the western services would give one to believe that the Glavosmos company, which is shared by both states, offered its foreign clients the propul­sive sections of the SS-25, SS-24 and SS-18 ballistic missiles, that could if need be serve as space launchers".[4]

Czechoslovakia under the 'humanist' Vaclav Havel sold the bulk of the 300 tanks it put on the market to Syria. The lat­ter, plus Iran and Libya, are buying from North Korea Scud missiles "much more precise and effective than the Soviet Scuds that Iraq launched during the Gulf war".[5]

Although they are worried about these massive and feverish sales, the great powers also take part in this huge bazaar. The USA wants to sell more than 400 tanks cheap to Spain.

"Germany has promised to deliver to Turkey, for around one billion dollars, materials that comes from the stocks of the former 'eastern' army".[6]

All states being imperialist, when one buys weapons others are forced to follow, thus further sharpening tensions: "Iran has bought at least two new attack submarines built by the Russians. Saudi Arabia wants to buy 24 F-15E McDonnel Douglas fighters in order to transform its aerial forces in such a way that they can deal with Iranian submarines".[7]

All capitalist states, big or small, weak or powerful, are in­volved in these imperialist rivalries, in these growing ten­sions, in the arms race, in the bottomless pit of militarism.

Although the fear of chaos forces the great powers into joint action behind the USA ...

There is a real concern about the growing chaos sweeping the capitalist world. This is forcing the most powerful national bourgeoisies to try to limit the expression of their imperialist appetites.

With the break-up of the eastern bloc, the USA, Germany and the other European countries were at first very careful not to accelerate the disorder in the former Warsaw Pact countries. In particular, they all supported the efforts of Gor­bachev to maintain the unity and stability of the USSR, and to keep himself in power. Nevertheless, their worst fears have already been realized. Their concern now is the eco­nomic and social chaos that is unfolding: the threat of famine, and as a result of massive emigration, the risk of all kinds of military confrontations, and above all the burning question of the control over tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. There is an extremely grave risk of nuclear prolif­eration. Now four unstable states, instead of one, are in pos­session of weapons of mass destruction. And while it is easy for the USA to survey 'strategic' weapons, it's not the same with 'tactical' weapons. The 'small' atomic bombs are highly mobile, dispersed, and anyone could get hold of them, use them or sell them given the prevailing state of anarchy. This is why we are seeing conferences about aid to the CIS, pro­posals for the dismantling of nuclear weapons, agreements between the USA and Germany to employ the atomic scien­tists of the ex-USSR. The aim is to maintain a minimum de­gree of control over nuclear weapons and limit the extension of chaos.

... Imperialist antagonisms grow stronger all the time and exacerbate tensions

Presenting to the US Congress the war scenarios that the USA might have to confront in the future, the Pentagon chief General Powell made it clear that "the real threat we face to­day is the threat of the unknown, the uncertain".[8] It's in order to face up to this unknown that the US is changing its military strategy and is setting up a version of Reagan's Star Wars more adapted to the current international situation and to its fear of surprise, uncontrollable nuclear wars. This is called GPALS, Global Protection Against Limited Strikes, the aim of which is to completely neutralize any nuclear mis­sile no matter where it is launched from or where it is going.

The US defends its hegemony

The USA has a particular interest in the struggle against chaos in general, and against nuclear proliferation and the risk of uncontrolled local nuclear conflicts in particular, be­cause such things could undermine its position as dominant imperialism. We saw this during the Gulf war[9], and during the Middle East peace conferences, from which the European countries were excluded[10]. We have just seen it again at the conference about aid to the CIS held in Washington, in which the USA organized everything, dictated the agendas, nominated the commissions and their presidents at its conve­nience. It once again reduced the European countries, Ger­many and above all France, to an impotent walk-on role; in the media presentation of the first airlifts of food to Russia these countries were made to look quite ridiculous.

The GPALS program, which, we might say in passing, says a lot about the world, and especially about the Ameri­can, bourgeoisie's belief in the 'era of peace' that is supposed to reign under Bush's new world order - this new Star Wars program is also the latest expression, and it is a consider­able one, of the USA's aim to preserve its hegemony. It wants to ensure "collective security from Vancouver to Vladi­vostok". Translation: it wants to maintain, definitively or at least for a very long time, American military supremacy "from V to V" over Europe and Japan.

As for the 'reductions' in arms expenditures, the so-called 'peace dividend' for the American bourgeoisie, there's no question here of it reducing its armaments and its war effort. It's simply a matter of dispensing with all that is obsolete. That is to say, the part of its arsenal that was concentrated on the USSR and which has less reason to exist. They will try to sell some of this at unbeatable prices. The rest? A mountain of metal which cost a fortune (it's the lion's share of the huge American deficit). On the other hand the Star Wars pro­gram (SDI) is increasing by 31%. The total cost of the program will be 46 billion dollars ... the arms race con­tinues.

Germany is more and more a factor in the world imperialist scene

A whole series of events have confirmed the inevitable ten­dency for Germany to come forward as the main imperialist rival to the USA[11]. And the American bourgeoisie knows this quite well. Since the month of September 1991, a few months after the US demonstration of force in the Gulf, the Washington Post pointed to the various expressions of Ger­many's new "assertiveness":

"Germany threatens to recognize Croatia and Slovenia; it led Europe to ratify the independence of the Baltic states; it sharply criticizes its western allies for their hesitations about aid to the USSR; it is calling for a rapid ban on short range missiles; proposes that the CSCE creates its own peacekeep­ing force, and calls on its allies to give it more control over the troops stationed on its own soil".[12]

"In December, Germany forced the hand of its European partners by recognizing the two republics barely a month af­ter the Maastricht summit where the principle of a joint for­eign policy and defense was accepted at Bonn's request; the Bundesbank has unilaterally raised its interest rates by half a point, ten days after this same summit, which had rated a process of monetary union; Germany did not facilitate dis­cussion at the GAIT, despite Helmut Kohl's promise to make concessions over agricultural subsidies. Finally, the diplo­mats of Federal Germany are adopting an increasingly impe­rious attitude in Europe and the USA. We know that Kohl wants to impose German as the working language of the EEC ...".[13]

The American, British and French bourgeoisies, even though in different ways, are all offended by the new German "assertiveness". They are no longer used to it. The former appearance of unity is cracking up more and more as Ger­many is inevitably forced to defend its own imperialist inter­ests, which are antagonistic to those of the USA. In particu­lar, it urgently feels the need to revise the Constitution which forbids it from sending troops abroad: "The engagement of military means to realize political objectives in Europe and the nearby regions should not be excluded".[14]

In fact, after the Gulf war, Germany also revealed its current limitations in the Yugoslav affair: without any military weight, and above all absent from the UN Security Council, it could not give the aid it wanted to Croatia. The USA, by paralyzing the EEC's efforts to establishing a cease-fire, and by delaying the decision to send in the UN Blue Helmets, gave a free hand to the Serbian army to wage a bloody war and push back Croatia's territorial ambitions.

French imperialism, caught between two evils, chooses the lesser

The French bourgeoisie, which finds no consolation in being a second-rate imperialist power, is caught between its desire to break free of the onerous protection of the USA, and its 'eternal' fear (ie, since the beginning of capitalism) of Ger­many's power. It believes that it has found a solution to its problem in Europe, in the EEC. In the framework of a United Europe, it could rival the USA, and at the same time, among twelve nations, it could juggle with Germany and control it.

For the moment, it is playing the German card and is playing it very seductively: it has proposed putting its nuclear forces in the service of European defense. The German minister of foreign affairs has responded "with interest" to this proposal. The USA gave itself all the main parts in the conference on aid to the CIS - which Mitterrand judged to be superfluous - and in the organization of Operation Provide Hope (the de­livery of food supplies to Russia). In response France pro­posed that it should be the G7 that organized this operation. The G7 is currently presided over by ... Germany.

The latter has not been immune to the charms of the French: after the creation of the Franco-German brigade, there was an agreement to cooperate on a 'Eurocopter' (a military one of course) and Germany is keen on buying the French fighter, the Rafale.

But if any marriage takes place, it will be one of con­venience. The love between them doesn't go that deep, as we saw over Yugoslavia, when France, a 'Mediterranean power', leaned at first towards the US-British side, since it wasn't too happy about Germany getting to the shores of the Mediterranean as it was attempting to do via Croatia. How­ever, for the moment, the idyll continues. But it is bound to pose problems for France.

Tensions between the USA and Europe get sharper

In fact, France is now at the center of a battle which goes be­yond it. "The revival of tension between the USA and France marks the dawn of a new era in which the old allies seem to be turning into new rivals in areas such as trade, military strategy and the new world balance, according to certain high officials of America and France".[15]

The weak point of the French-German alliance, on which the American bourgeoisie is concentrating its strength, is of course France. America is pushing all the harder because France could help Germany to acquire nuclear weapons.[16]

The events in Algeria, Chad and Djibouti, the social and po­litical instability of these countries, are being exploited by the US to put pressure on France, putting into question the latter's presence in its historic spheres of influence, and this after France has already been expelled from Lebanon. This is taking place through the FIS, which is financed by Saudi Arabia; through the government of Djibouti which, under Saudi influence, is challenging the presence of the French army on its territory; and through Hissene Habre, the Ameri­can protégé in Chad. The hand of the USA is there, making use of the frightful chaos in these countries, a chaos which it is exacerbating in the pursuit of its own imperialist interests, just as the defense of German imperialist interests in Yu­goslavia has only amplified the decomposition that reigns there.

American pressure is also very strong at the economic level, via the GATT negotiations with the EEC. Here again, it's France which is the main target on the question of agri­cultural subsidies. Linking together questions of security, of American engagement in Europe, to the resolution of the dif­ferences in the GATT, the USA is blackmailing the European countries and trying to divide them.

As a Bulgarian journal Douma, put it: "While Europe is building the 'common European home from the Atlantic to the Urals', brick by brick, the USA is destroying it brick by brick under the banner of from Vancouver to Vladivos­tok".[17]

Japan, another rising imperialist power

More and more, Japan is playing an international political role which, is of course still far below its real ambitions, but which is getting there bit by bit. Bush's journey to Asia and Japan in particular, which had the fundamental objective of redeploying American military forces in the Pacific (the mil­itary base in Singapore) gave rise to all sorts of declarations by the Japanese leaders about the 'illiteracy of American workers', their 'lack of ethics'. This was following US pres­sure to open the Japanese market to American products. Apart from these secondary matters, which do however re­veal the current climate and the new "assertiveness" of the Japanese bourgeoisie, Japan is more and more demanding that it should play an important political role in the imperial­ist arena: it is increasingly posing the question of the reorganization of the permanent council of the UN; it heads the UN force in Cambodia; it is intervening more and more on the Asian continent (China, Korea), which has made the USA more than a little anxious[18]; and it is demanding with growing insistence that Russia should restore the Kurile Is­lands to it (here it is supported by Germany).

Japan is moving much faster than Germany on military ques­tions. The revision of the Constitution limiting the dispatch of foreign troops abroad is much more advanced. And above all, "it is amassing enormous quantities of plutonium. A hun­dred tons. Much more than it could consume in its 39 nuclear reactors ... The prospect of a pacifist and stable Japan being transformed into a nuclear power isn't a priori alarming. However, Japan is giving itself the means to build nuclear weapons, and each step it takes will be heavy with interna­tional consequences".[19]

There can be no doubt about it: the new world order, which was supposed to bring humanity peace, is heavy with men­ace. On the one hand chaos and decomposition invade the planet and exacerbate all kinds of local conflicts, rivalries and regional imperialist wars; on the other hand, imperialist antagonisms between the great powers are getting increas­ingly acute. On the surface still relatively 'soft', measured, even polite and courteous, they are going to deepen and they will aggravate and accelerate - in fact they are already doing so - the effects of the decomposition of the capitalist world, the chaos and the growing social and economic catastrophe.

One alternative to capitalist barbarism: communism

Faced with the barbarism of the capitalist world, where the tragic disputes with the absurd, the only force capable of of­fering an alternative to this historic impasse is still suffering from the effects of the events which marked the end of the eastern bloc and of the USSR. The international ideological campaigns about the 'end of communism' (which falsely amalgamate communism with Stalinism), about the 'definitive victory of capitalism' have momentarily succeeded in depriving the workers of any perspective of another soci­ety, of an alternative to the hell of capitalism.

This disarray affecting the proletariat, and the decline of its militancy[20], add further weight to the growing difficulties resulting from the decomposition of society. Lumpenisation, despair, nihilism, which already affect large portions of the world proletariat (especially in the east) are a real danger for those workers who have been thrown out of production. This is particularly true for the young. The cynical way that the bourgeoisie uses this despair adds up to a further difficulty. In particular, the ruling class is developing and heightening anti-immigrant and racist feelings, which risk being further fuelled by the massive waves of immigration to come (especially from the eastern countries). The false opposition between racism and anti-racism, totalitarianism and democ­racy, fascism and anti-fascism, is part of an attempt to divert the workers away from their own struggles, from the anti-­capitalist terrain of the defense of their living conditions and of opposition to the bourgeois state. This is why revolution­aries have to denounce these campaigns implacably.

Nevertheless, times are changing and the economic crisis, the open recession which is hitting the biggest world powers, above all the USA, has returned to first place in the workers' concerns. Attacks against the working class are accelerating brutally in the main industrial countries. Wages have been blocked for a long time and in the USA "the real average wages of the workers are lower than they were 10 or 15 years ago".[21] But above all, there is a dramatic increase in re­dundancies, particularly in the central branches of the world economy. In the computer industry, IBM cut 30,000 jobs in 1991 and intends to do the same in 1992; in the car industry, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have built up huge losses (7 billion dollars) and are also pushing through massive lay­offs; the same goes for the arms industries (General Dy­namic, United Technologies). Thousands of jobs have been chopped in these sectors. Thousands more in the service in­dustries (banks, insurance): "The number of people request­ing unemployment benefit leads to the conclusion that 23 million people had no jobs last year."

Out of a population of 250 million in the USA, 9% of the population, 23 million people are living from 'food stamps'. More than 30 million live below the poverty line and so qualify for health insurance, 'Medicaid'. But 37 million, who live just above the poverty line, don't qualify even though they still can't afford to pay for health care. For these peo­ple, the smallest illness becomes a family catastrophe. All to­gether that's 70 million people living in poverty! This is the much vaunted 'prosperity' of 'triumphant capitalism'.

Of course, the massive redundancies don't only hit the American workers. Unemployment rates are particularly high in countries like Spain, Italy, France, Canada, Britain. This involves the central sectors of the economy, cars, steel, armaments. Even the flowers of German industry, Mercedes and BMW, are laying off workers.

The working class of the industrialized countries is being subjected to a truly terrible attack, an attack which aims to bring its living conditions to the lowest possible level.

Redundancies, wage-cuts, the general deterioration of living conditions, will compel the working class to return to the fray, to the path of massive struggles. These struggles will again have to confront the political barriers erected by the left parties and the leftists; they will have to deal with union maneuvers and corporatism, and look again for the extension and unification of the struggles. In this political combat, revolutionary groups and the most militant workers will have a crucial role, intervening to help the movement go beyond the traps laid by the political and union forces of the bourgeoisie.

At the same time, these attacks against working class living conditions will give the lie to the myth of capitalist prosper­ity, and will expose to the mass of workers the real bankruptcy of capitalism, its historic failure on the economic level. This development of consciousness will push workers once again to look for an alternative to capitalism; bit by bit it will undo the effects of the bourgeoisie's campaigns about the 'end of communism' and accelerate the search for a wider and deeper perspective, for the historic and revolutionary struggle. In this process, communist groups have an indis­pensable role in reminding workers of the historical experi­ence of their class, in reaffirming the perspective of commu­nism, its necessity and possibility.

The future will be at stake in the class confrontations which will inevitably take place. Only the proletarian revolution and the destruction of capitalism can take humanity out of the daily hell that it is living through. This alone can prevent the barbarism of capitalism going on to its ultimate, dramatic conclusion. This alone can lead to the establishment of a hu­man community where exploitation, poverty, famines and wars will be eradicated once and for all. RL 23.2.92

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but itself life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ! " (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program)

 

---

 

[1] Le Monde 31.1.92

[2] Le Monde 19.1.92

[3] According to the Czech press translated in Courier Inter­nationale 66 and Le Monde 11.2.92

[4] Le Monde 16.2.92

[5] International Herald Tribune 21.2.92

[6] Le Monde 16, 2.92

[7] Baltimore Sun, cited in International Herald Tribune 12.2.92

[8] International Herald Tribune 19.2.92

[9] See International Review 63, 64, 65

[10] See International Review 68

[11] See 'Towards the greatest chaos in history' IR 68

[12] Washington Post 18.9.91, translated into French by Courier International 65

[13] Editorial of Courier International 65, 30.1.92

[14] Declaration by the German Minister of Defense, G Stoltenberg, Le Monde 18.1.92

[15] Washington Post, cited by the International Herald Tri­bune, 23.1.92

[16] See the declarations of the US Vice President, Dan Quayle, Le Monde, 11.2.92

[17] cited by Le Monde, ibid

[18] International Herald Tribune, 3.2.92

[19] Financial Times, translated into French by Courier In­ternational 65

[20] See IR 67, 'Resolution on the international situation', 9th congress of the ICC

[21] International Herald Tribune, 13.1.92