Deindustrijalizacija i radnički otpor - Pokret za slobodu

esenting workers from 3 cities and 5 branches of industry (electricalcomponents, pharmaceuticals, rail-products, food-processing, andconfectionary products). One of the groups in the new CoordinatingCommittee, the workers of Zastava Elektro from the city of Raca arecurrently in Belgrade in front of the headquarters of Serbia's PrivatizationAgency.The Global Balkans collective interviews Milenko Sreckovic of theFreedom Fight movement in Serbia, and a Secretary of the CoordinatingCommittee for Workers Protests in Serbia, about the current situationin the country.The IMF was just recently in Serbia to negotiate re: the disbursementof a $4.3-billion loan to the country. What is thecurrent situation in Serbia with respect to the economic crisis?What makes 2009 an important year in Serbia's privatizationattempts?The current economic collapse in Serbia would have occurred evenwithout the 'economic crisis.' It's the direct result of a range of neoliberaleconomic measures. The privatization process in Serbia, which isa central component of the neoliberal project, brought about the ruinof many factories and the near total de-industrialization of the country.This process began in 2001, in its most extreme form, when the new'democratic' government of Serbia introduced a new Privatization Law.At that time all socially owned property was confiscated and its privatizationbecame mandatory. A deadline was imposed by state authoritiesfor the completion of the privatization process. That deadline runs outat the end of this year!However, following 8 years of privatization, the general opinionis that privatization only served to ravage an economy that somehowmanaged to survive the sanctions of the 1990s and a [three month]NATO bombing campaign in 1999. Of course, it wasn't the most prosperouseconomy in Europe at the time, but it had the potential to developand employ a large number of people given the right approach.By 2002, a number of domestic development banks [i.e. Beobanka,Investbanka, Beogradska banka, Jugobanka] 1 , which could have extendedcredits to industry at low-interest, were deliberately driven intobankruptcy by the government. With this move the space was created1 These four banks covered 70% of the assets in the banking system of FYR atthe time; they were liquidated as part of an IMF/World Bank directive that sought theliquidation of all but 2 of the 28 domestic banks.342