Years after Milosevic, Serbia's illusions persist

IHT ^ | August 31st, 2005 | Roger Cohen

[mark502inf]

The Serbian mistake of 1918, when the victorious kingdom gambled on [establishing] Yugoslavia, rather than consolidating a compact state of Serbia, continues to haunt Belgrade.

Territory governed from Belgrade continues to shrink. Next year, Montenegro can call a referendum to decide whether to secede. -snip-

Montenegro is not alone in contemplating exit. Negotiations are likely to begin this year on the status of Kosovo, formally part of Serbia, in reality a ward of the international community, and in the minds of almost all its ethnic Albanian citizens a putative independent state.

What goes around comes around. Kosovo was the launching pad for the crazed nationalism engineered by Milosevic as Yugoslavia began to crumble. Now it will, in all likelihood, be the last piece of Serbia to go ... -snip-

The problem, however, is that Serbia, ever quick to denounce ethnic Albanian "terrorism" in Kosovo, has scarcely begun to confront the crimes it committed on a vast scale in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.

A video of Serbs killing Muslims at Srebrenica, shown in June, provoked a shock here. That was salutary. It was also a terrible indictment of the degree of Serbian ignorance ...

-snip- ... progress toward EU membership will not occur until two chief protagonists of Serbian violence, General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are handed over to the international tribunal. ...

Within the army, younger officers, with an eye on potential NATO membership, favor Mladic's handover. But older officers cannot accept this. "They say they will never accept the arrest of a man with whom they fought in Bosnia," ...

That's interesting. One of Serbia's many fictions is that the Yugoslav Army never fought in Bosnia and the campaign there had nothing to do with Belgrade. Nonsense, of course, but Serbia remains ambivalent about reality.

[kosta50]

Well, Kosta, the Slovenes disagree

And you (conveniently) belive them, right? Have you read the Yugoslav Federal Constitution of 1974? I doubt it. Guess what: it had no provision for secession by a referendum. The reason for that was given in a typical communist convoluted way: since the peoples of Yugoslavia freely opted to live in one country after WWII (the referednum was rigged by the communists), they have spent their right to secession.

Secession could be accomplished not on a local but only on a federal level, and it required a consensus. In fact, all state constitutions required the same, which is why the Bosnian secession as well as Croatian secession were illegal.

The concensual requirement was built into the Constition precisely by the people who later seceded! It was intended to avoid what the communists called "mayorisation" or outvoting by majority populations.

In your ignorance of the subject matter, you simply accept the side that you favor as the "official truth." There is no attempt to be impartial and to consider both sides. Your prejudice is all you need.

[kosta50]

...those who know the Serbs best all wanted out--the Slovenes, the Croats, the Bosnians, the Macedonians, the Kosovars, and now apparently even the Montenegrins

Again you are spilling your ignorance on this subject. They "knew" the Serbs how? Serbia is the most mulitethnic state of all former Yugoslav states. Apparently, the Croats, the Bosnians, the Slovenes and Croats had no problem living in Serbia -- along with 20 some other nationalities. So, Serbia could not have been such a bad place.

Montenegrins are Serbs, but communist Yugoslavia made them into a separate "nationality," while admitting that by their origins they are Serbs. However, because Montenegro has a sense of statehood, having been a separate state, it has clearly a dual identity. Thus old 19th century Montenergo's passports would say that the bearer is a "Montenegrin citizen" of "Serb nationality."

All the Montenegrin delegates to the 4th Internationale declared themselves as Serbs. Milovan Djilas, a one-time No. 2 man in Tito's Yugoslvia (Tito was a Croat) said he was a Serb from Montenegro on his dying bed.

Decades of lies fed to Montenegrin generations convinced some that Montenegro is a land of people separate from Serbs. Such as a minority, but in coalition with Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, form a majority party in current Montenegro.

Montenegro is like Austria. A German state that considers itself not part of Germany. If Montenegrins feel the same about Serbia, they should secede. But don't forget that half of all Montenegrins live in Serbia! Half of Serbia's political and cultural elite is Montenegrin. Even if they do separate, they will remain one and the same people.

[kosta50]

Don't forget: Tito was a Croat

[Pantagruel]

He most certainly was, Kosta. I assumed that we all know that, but just in case:

1) J. B. TITO (Croat),
2) E. KARDELJ (Slovene), and
3) V. BAKARIC (Croat),

with their disciples in the post-Tito era

1) S. DOLANC (Slovene),
2) J. VRHOVEC (Croat), and
3) B. MIKULIC (Croat from Bosnia and Herzegovina)


Still, the mindless litany about "Serb dominated" Yugoslavia goes on and on and on...Like a freaking broken record fer Chrissake

[bob808]

Mark,

When the latinos in California decide they want their own "Aztlan", arm themselves, and declare California their own independent state... will you condemn US troops who move in to try to restore order as "nationalist nutjobs" who are "attacking" California?

[bob808]

Still, the mindless litany about "Serb dominated" Yugoslavia goes on and on and on..

Very true. Tito's own policy was called "Weak Serbia, Strong Yugoslavia" for Heaven's sake!!!

[Pantagruel]

Aw come on Mark...have you looked at the "ethnic makeup" of the political and military elite or did you somehow miss that?

Anyway, I feel like I'm talking to a wall here. Believe what you want man, I can't help you.

Later

[Pantagruel]

Looks like we're beating a dead horse Bob, eh?

[bob808]

I hope not. I really do hope Mark considers the issue a little more, as I believe he has been misled on many points.

[mark502inf]

when the latinos in California decide they want their own "Aztlan", arm themselves, and declare California their own independent state... will you condemn US troops who move in to try to restore order

Bob, if the US troops go in and remove every latino in the local government and replace them with Anglos from out of state, dynamite their churches, close the schools, shut down the major businesses, surround the towns with armored vehicles & then shell them or shoot a few civilans before moving in and giving the populace 30 minutes to start walking to the Mexican border--to include those who've lived there for generations, then murder those who don't move fast enough; then yes, I'll condemn US troops. And until that starts happening, your analogy is distinctly imperfect.

[mark502inf]

have you looked at the "ethnic makeup" of the political and military elite

Not my point, panta. It was Milosevic coming to power and the rise of Serb nationalism that precipitated the break, regardless of who filled which block in the organizational charts of the old Yugoslavia.

[Jane_N]

Hate to say it but you are right Pantagruel. You see Mark belongs to the group of people that couldn't point out Yugoslavia on a map before the wars started, and now afterwards they seem to believe they are experts on all things Balkan. They seem to be totally unaware of things going on there before the wars, totally unaware of the fact that the Croatian diaspora for example have never considered themselves as Yugoslavs (I remember reading about the Croatian diaspora in Australia when growing up in the 70's and their gathering of money and weapons to one day be able to leave the Yugoslav Federation). He also seems totally unaware of Stipe Mesic's speach when he took over the position as Yugoslavia president where he stated clearly for all that he is the last president of Yugoslavia.

It's easy to blame the Serbs for everything that went wrong in Yugoslavia but before we points fingers at one side only we should learn to look at each sides role. For as we all are well aware; it takes two to tango...

Unfortunately many who have opinions on the Balkans threads belong to the same category as Mark.

[bob808]

Mark,

You're putting the cart way, way before the horse.

Here are some quotes from Milosevic's "infamous"speech where he was allegedly whipping up Serbian nationalism:

Today, it is difficult to say what is the historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and what is legend. Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage.

Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it.

Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.

etc...

Please, read the entire speech and tell where he was advocating all this alleged Serbian intolerance? It's complete bullshit.

If you consider the geopolitics, it's also completely illogical. Why would Milosevic & Serbia want to destroy Yugoslavia? Since the early 19th century when the first small portion of the fledgling Serb state won its independence from the Ottomans, one of the chief foreign policy goals of Serbia was to unite all its countrymen in one state. Serbia had that in Yugoslavia.

It's illogical. Think about it. One the one hand, critics (wrongly) condemn Yugoslavia for being "Serb dominated". On the other, the condemn "Serb nationalism" for destroying it.

You can't have it both ways.

[ma bell]

jane, you make a good point. The Croats were looking to break away and needed to bide their time and they used PR quiete nicely.

The Slovenes were whipped into hysteria at the thought of being severed from FRY and still being part of FRY. The Croatians bullyed them into their self-proclaiming hysteria.

muslims were being radikalized by the Sandjak muslims that were being brought into the Alija self-declared govt.

[Pantagruel]

>>Not my point, panta. It was Milosevic coming to power and the rise of Serb nationalism that precipitated the break, regardless of who filled which block in the organizational charts of the old Yugoslavia.<<

Mark, all I can say to you is that you shouldn't believe everything you see and hear on TV. The mainstream media has been peddling this BS claim for a very long time, without a shred of evidence. But if you are willing to dig a little deeper, you can find a fair amount of information that sheds a totally different light on this subject (supported by FACTS, not some pseudo - rationalistic analyses and unsubstantiated musings that the mustream media feeds us). As Jane pointed out, for example, the Croats were working very hard to destroy Yugoslavia long before SM's time, Kosovo Albanians too. Search the Net and you will find. It's all there at your fingertips, all you need is a little time and effort. (I'll even make it easier for you: just google avramov, rolovic and prepare to be surprised)

[Jane_N]

Just something i found when I googled ustasha + Australia:

"But when political terror arrived in Australia, it came not from the Left but the Right. On New Year's Day, 1967, an explosion ripped through the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney, the climax of a wave of attacks on Yugoslav property going back to 1963. By 1970, bombs had torn through the Melbourne consulate too - and Yugoslav clubs, businesses, churches and homes.

Those Ustasha migrants who came in here in the '50s had formed an armed militia, dedicated to liberating their Croatian homeland from Yugoslav Communism. After secret military training in Australia, the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood tried to launch an armed uprising in Yugoslavia."

http://www.abc.net.au/time/episodes/ep8a.htm

"Australia has long been the base for overseas terrorist operations. The Croatian Ustasha had been carrying out arms training and a number of bombings under what appeared to be the beneficent arm of Liberal rule at that time. Yugoslav travel agencies and consulates have been attacked and murders attempted in the Yugoslav community. In September 1972 sixteen people were injured by a bomb in a Yugoslav travel agency. Raids were mounted into Yugoslavia by commandos trained in Australia. The September, 1978 raid on an arms training camp indicates that Ustasha is still militarily active. As well, Australian Nazis possessed extensive weaponry (and undoubtedly still do) and petty harassments and announcements of death lists have occurred frequently. Bricks, guns and firebombs were all used by the Nazis to damage property, and terrorism occurred when they bombed the Communist Party headquarters in Brisbane in April 1972."

http://flag.blackened.net/noterror/cantblowup.html

"Right-wing groups have been responsible for at least as much politically motivated violence
as groups on the left. During the 1960 and 1970s the Yugoslav anti-communist Ustasha was
responsible for, or the prime suspect in, a series of bombings and terrorist incidents in
Australia. As Mack’s analysis of recorded terrorist incidents points out, Ustasha violence
accounted for fully one quarter of the incidents, and represented the only category which
persisted for the review period between 1963 and 1978 (1981: 221). Although Ustasha
violence was serious and persistent, ASIO and Special Branches were slow to treat it as a
subversive or terrorist organisation because they empathised with its anti-communist outlook.
The Ustasha groups were allowed to flourish within the Yugoslav community while bombings
and other incidents were automatically attributed to communist provocateurs (Hall 1978: 81–
82; Mack 1981: 220–21; McKnight 1994: 171–81; 246)."

http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/hcpp/mcculloch.pdf

"30 years ago I was involved with the Committee for Democracy in Australia, which was a body dealing with the Ustasha. Ustasha was a terrorist
group which I believe acted here in Australia, and ASIO knew about it and that was not made
public."

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/pjcaad/Terrorbill2002/PHmelb020502.pdf


"One, the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood, a
hit squad formed in Australia in 1961, is composed mainly of
second-generation Croatians who have maintained close ties with the old
Ustasha network.

The brotherhood has been responsible for much of the "secret war" waged
against the Yugoslavian government during the past fifteen years, including
the bombing of a Yugoslav passenger plane in 1972 that killed twenty-seven
people and the 1976 hijacking of a TWA plane in New York that resulted in the
death of a New York City policeman. And, like their older compatriots, the
new generation of Ustasha has shown itself to be willing to rely on the help
of sympathetic third parties.

Two Croatian terrorists, assisted by five conspirators on the outside,
entered the Yugoslav Embassy in Stockholm in April 1971. Their target was
Vladimir Rolovic, the Yugoslav ambassador and the man who two years earlier
had given the Australian government a report on Croatian terrorist activities
originating there. For exposing their operations, Rolovic's punishment was
death. After binding and taunting the ambassador, the Croatians killed him,
instantly becoming causes celebres in Croatian emigre circles around the
world.

In reaction to their subsequent life sentences, three other Croatians
hijacked a Swedish plane in September 1972, demanding the release of their
seven comrades. The Swedes released them and all except one, who refused to
leave the Swedish prison, were then given asylum in Spain."

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com">http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg16034.html

So I like I said, Yugoslavia's problems started a lot earlier than many who blame the Serbs for everything think...

[kosta50]

Bob, if the US troops go in and remove every latino in the local government and replace them with Anglos from out of state, dynamite their churches...I'll condemn US troops. And until that starts happening, your analogy is distinctly imperfect"

As is your answer, Mark. Your answer implies that the Serbs just picked up one day and decided to do all these condemnable things out of a clear blue.

Now, if southern California seceded (illegally) and started firing non-Latinos simply because they are non-Latinos (as was the case in Tudjman's Croatia -- Serbs were fired from jobs for being Serbs and not Miloshevich's supporters), or if they actually committed atrocities against the non-Latinos (as the Croatians have done), and glrofied those who did (as Croatians have done), then your hypothetical answer would have to be modified.

If the Latinos of Souther California started to attack sheriff deputies, police stations and army units, as was the case in Kosovo and Slovenia, your answer would have to be modified.

If the Latinos of Southern California organized "Latino Liberation Army" and began to systematically terorize non-Latino population, your answer would have to be modified...

We did not just wake up one day and decided to attack Iraq. Something led to that decision (right or wrong, regardless how you see it now), and something led Serbs to react to illegitimate secessions, and armed terrorist rebellion on their own territory.

This does not mean that individual commanders or soldiers did not break any laws or commit murders -- that's a given for the Serbs as it is true of all the other grop in the Blakans and the world, and -- yes -- incluidng us.

No side is clean or morally pure. Your problem is that you peddle this perverse lie that Serbs committed wrong as a matter of policy and not individual decisions.

[FormerLib]

And you are Exhibit A for kneepad-wearing fans of Clinton.

[kosta50]

Your naive (and erroneous) theory that all these people who wanted to leave Yugoslavia could not be wrong, ergo the Serbs must be, only shows your ignorance of the subject at hand. Your insistence that Miloshevich somehow twisted the Slovenian hand and "forced" Slovenia into secession is just plain dumb. You have read it in the media and you are simply parroting it.

Miloshevich had no power outside of Serbia. The Yugoslav federation at that point was a bunch of disjointed sovereign states with a weak and barely functioning federal government. The sovereignty of the states went so far as to have ministers of foreign affairs and negotiating international agreements. How could Miloshevich, in Serbia, influence Slovenia or threaten it?

The non-Serb states habitually voted against Serbia (it was even known was the 'unprincipled coalition') and the consensual requirements (which the secessionists used to their advantage as long as it suited their agenda) for all decisions made federal government all but lame. The presidency was made up of individual representative states and two provinces in Serbia. Even when Miloshevich established a pro-Serb-voting block, with 'yogurt revolutions' in Montenegro, and Voyvodina, and political manipulation in Kosovo, it gave Serbia four votes -- Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia constituted the other four votes. So, at no time was Serbia in a position to dictate anything in SFRY under the 1974 Constitution.

Miloshevich was only an excuse for the other nationalists, primarily Croatians, to justify their own nationalist and secessionists goals. In fact, in the late 1960's Tito came down hard on the Croatian nationalists within his own communist ranks -- the period known as the "Croatian spring." That never ended; it was merely subdued. So, Miloshevich was a convenient excuse to rekindle it. Slovenes objected to Kosovo because they did not want their funds to go to Kosovo relief. Kosovo was always impoverished because Albanians were too busy making babies and living off federal aid. They simply thought Kosovo was not their problem. The reasons for secessions among these states take on a completely different meaning when you dig past what you read in the media and some well choreographed "official truths."

[getoffmylawn]

Great post, Kosta, but you're wasting your time with that guy.

That mark guy is the definition of a troll. He doesn't care in the least about finding out the truth or learning about the Balkans. He only wishes to seak out his next opportunity to bash the Serbs. If you guys want to use his ignorant and hate filled posts as a spring board for helping to clear the record and help unmuddle the reality of the situation to some thoughtful lurkers, then fine. Just don't think you're going to change the mind of a troll with a less then admirable mission.