The following is abridged from a statement issued by the independent trade union federation NEZAVISNOST in Belgrade on April 29 to mark May Day, May 1. During the Bosnia war, Nezavisnost, which claims 300,000 members in Serbia, joined with other anti-nationalist organisations to condemn Belgrade's aggression against Bosnia. We have made a few minor corrections to the English.
This is the eighth consecutive wartime May 1. In this century, no other European state has had such a long war. Serbia has never declared war. But for eight years, war has been the main element of our lives and our fate. For eight years, the workers' May 1 has been stained with our blood and with the blood of those who were until recently our fellow citizens.
For eight years, warmongering, nationalist and chauvinist songs and slogans have been heard. For eight years they have been dividing us into Serbs and the "others", while in the name of the working class they are closing down factories, sending workers out into the streets and flea markets, with no future or hope.
NATO came at the end of the final act of the play. Workers whose factories NATO finally finished off joined the workers who have been out of work for years thanks to the adventurist, irresponsible and anti-labour policy of the Serbian regime.
Let us hope that in the final episode of our collective tragedy, when the two enemies, domestic and foreign, joined forces against us, the workers open their eyes and see why all this happened.
Throughout this period, they expected and demanded that we prove our patriotism by obediently following those in power and by betraying our workers' interests, by betraying May 1. Many of us accepted this. That is why Serbia has turned into rubble. That is why May 1 is bloodstained.
Starting from this May 1, workers have to start using their own heads. And there is no place in a worker's head for Serbs, Albanians, or any other people. In workers' heads, Serb, Albanian and all other nationalities are struggling for workers' rights and freedoms, for better wages, safer and better pension plans, a life with dignity.
Workers who are not ethnically divided, workers who carry no other sign of recognition, can be an invaluable contribution to the building of a democratic society, where an individual is placed before nation. That is how we will finally achieve peace and ensure that this is the last bloody May 1.
We owe this to all our fellow workers, who in the past have lost their lives all over the world fighting for the interests of the world of labour, and whose sacrifice we seem to have forgotten. This is our last chance to return to the values that International Labour Day, May 1, stands for.