ABSTRACT: Yugoslavia no longer has either the motives or the possibility to pursue a policy of non-alignment. The illusion of the "national way" is not viable in any part of the world. Western governments prefer "cushion States" to real democracies. In this way they are forcing Yugoslavia towards a civil catastrophe even before a political and economic one. It is urgent for Yugoslavia to become a member of the European Economic Community.

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

An apparently marginal fact has been broadcast by the press of all the political tendencies in a very symptomatic way. The episode of the repression of intellectuals in Yugoslavia, including Milovan Djilas, was put in the context of the economic and social problems of the Yugoslav Republic, but without pointing out exactly what the problem was and explaining its essential difficulties.

Yugoslavia has a government which courageously faces a strict policy in its attempt to avoid bankruptcy, and to have and to hold credit and trust on the international level. The directions of the World Bank officially, and those of the EEC which are always discreet, are followed as far as possible, or at least the efforts to respect them are pursued with admirable tenacity. But if bankruptcy has been avoided until now, this is due to a western policy of aid on a grand scale, starting with that from America, even though it is often presented in another guise: "Swiss", for example. The Yugoslav obsession for non-alignment the dogma and the totem of all the ruling generations without exception since 1949 constitutes the ideology fully preferred and spread by the countries which are members of NATO and the European Community. At the same time, the lies and the illusions of "national independence" of "the Yugoslav way", taken as prospects and not only as past history or chronicles of past events, are holdi

ng under mortgage the culture, the politics and any medium or long term prospect which is not a prospect of insecurity.

The truth is that to propose a national orientation is no longer viable without inviting ridicule, and this is also true for societies such as the English and the German; and that the non-alignment is the expression of a disastrous subculture which is not by chance cultivated and maintained as much by the East as by the West of the World. Yugoslavia no longer has either the motives or the possibility for non-alignment. On the other hand, just like Burkina-Faso, Mali, Italy or Spain, Greece or Sweden.

The military-industrial summits of the "western" system, show their interest in leaving this "ball" free to roll, or better still, obliging it to roll where it suits them. Political democracy and an ideal alignment on this would complicate their existence. It is better, far better that at Ouagadougou, or Bamako, Belgrade or Bagdad, there should be no "alignment" on the democratic front, on the inside or on the outside, but that these peoples should be governed without "western" respect for individual and political rights, to be used as "cushions" or "no man's lands".

Throughout the legislation of the European Parliament, we came up against the obstinate will of the EEC and the Conservative and Social Democratic forces present in the Parliament. The will to "respect" the "independence" of Yugoslavia as that of the "Third World". The will to generously applaud its "non-alignment", the will to proclaim disinterest, incredulity and substantial hostility to those developments of political democracy and the non-statutory organisation of the economy (with the exception of private foreign initiatives) in these countries. In this manner Yugoslavia is being led and precipitously urged to a cultural and civil catastrophe, even before it becomes political and economic. In vain we ask for Yugoslavia to be officially informed of the Community's wish to see the country an integral part one day, and an "associate" of the Community immediately.

In vain we have stressed that the respect for human, social, ethnic, political rights which implies, or should imply, membership of the Community, belongs to the history and culture, to the desire and the profound convictions of the Yugoslav people, and of its ruling classes also. In vain we have repeated that this is why the sovereignty and "independence" of this friendly country should not be violated but that it needs to be respected at least as much as we respect ourselves. We have repeated our proposal that Yugoslavia should share the historic adventure of a political Europe with us, for a policy of justice, freedom and peace. In this manner we would have both enriched and supported the internal debate of the leading groups, and enabled all the currents of scientific and political thought, that cannot exist in Yugoslavia as elsewhere as nationalist, nationalised, and "neutralist", to exist in a non-clandestine, undiminished way. The internal debate would have happened anyway, and would certainly b

e dramatic, but alive and vital. It is becoming more and more dramatic, but on the contrary, certainly neurotic, inconsistent and useless. A "culture" is continuing to be spread, which sees nothing but East and West, assumed equal in their Pantagonism, each flattened on top of the other, one against the other, potential enemies for the very sake of the "originality" and "independence", of the country. In a word, the EEC and the European Parliament like each of our States, support the irrelevance, if not precisely the danger, of a democratic and liberal trend on the inside, and an anti-Soviet trend on the outside, to the growth of the country.

It is multi-party Europe, with strong anti-democratic tendencies and temptations, which has a definitively guilty conscience for itself and for the others. On the contrary, we must have faith and make it. Yugoslavia deserves it. Long live then the European, Democratic, and "aligned" Yugoslavia in a structural policy of peace, life, and the historical West South alliance. This Utopia, is, amongst other things, the same that we are proposing to the Europe of the States and nations of today.