Posted on 02/27/2009 6:37:07 PM PST by BabaYaga
PRAGUE — Bosnian Serb leaders have threatened to pull out of state institutions and are pressing anew for independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatening to throw the fragile, multiethnic country into political crisis once again.
Analysts and observers of the region said the situation could unravel the United States-brokered Dayton accords of 1995, which ended a savage war that killed more than 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, between 1992 and 1995. The pact divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb Republic, presided over by a decentralized political system that reinforced rather than healed ethnic divisions.
The crisis comes at a critical time, just a few weeks after the United Nations and European Union envoy to Bosnia, Miroslav Lajcak, was appointed foreign minister of his native Slovakia, creating what analysts called a potentially dangerous power vacuum. United Nations officials stressed Tuesday that Mr. Lajcak would continue to exercise his powers until a replacement was found.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Muslims want another war ... nobody else ...
Why not? One of them is US president.
Bosnia = micro-Yugoslavia
It should be dissolved.
Someone once said “someday, while the world is looking the other way, a Third World War will be ignited by some absurd plot in a ridiculous country in the Balkans with a name nobody can pronounce for a cause even they can’t fathom”?
(paraphrase)
If war starts:
1. Sprska has no army now, just light arms like everyone else
2. Croatia has the most modern army of the West Balkans and they are ready.
3. Bosniaks (Muslims) are extremely angry and all they need is guns and direction, something Croatia, Turkey, Iran and Arabs will easily provide
4. If Serbia joins it has to be careful about who gets on the other side (the loser gets smaller!!! Maybe Sandzak, Vojvodina, or Presevo?)
5. Even if Russia wants to help, they can't; Serbia is landlocked and surrounded by NATO members or aspiring NATO members.
6. If a NATO member goes to war against a non-NATO member will US, Germany, UK just sit out? No!
7. If US gives the Albanians (very soon to be NATO members) the go ahead they will attack and take Presevo Valley and probably take Nis as well (it was 100% Albanians before they were thrown out by Serbs in 1878)
8. Albania has a defense treaty with Turkey, a NATO member and the world's 4th military power if needed.
9. Albania and Croatia get along just great now and Serbia's 25,000 poorly armed soldiers can barely handle one front.
Conclusion: Srpska will not go anywhere, at least not now, and not with those borders. No one will back them diplomatically or militarily. Russia will be kept out by US, Germay, France, UK and Turkey and poor Serbia is trying to join EU while declaring neutrality (after being surrounded by NATO countries.) Being declared a 'joint criminal enterprise' yesterday over Kosovo did cut their wings quite a bit.
See http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/27/europe/27hague.php
My guess is that US and EU will use the crisis and the checkmate on Serbs to disband Srpska once in for all. Tadic and Dodik are scared of that as their declarations to support it point out. Essentially, NATO is in control and no war will be allowed because the consequences are too big.
Something like that yes ...
and right after it goes this one:
“the problem with the Balkans is that they produce more history than they can consume locally”
It never ends inside the Balkans ...
But Western diplomats and officials on both sides of the ethnic divide stressed that the conflict was a political war of words that was unlikely to spill over into violence. “Dodik wants to make clear that the right of the Republika Srpska to exist is beyond dispute,” said Mr. Milosevic, Mr. Dodik’s spokesman. “No one wants war.”
Good 'ol Bosnia...a festering wound in the Balkans...
In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Hercegovina and I'm sure that there were those that thought that this act would "unlikely spill over into violence."
Six years later, as a direct result of the annexation and of Serbs being forced to live in a hostile environment, violence did indeed spill over and we had this little thing called World War One.
Anyone who doesn't take the current events going on in Bosnia seriously or with some measure of "concern" clearly has no historical memory.
______________
What are they angry about?
Good for them. Every other group was allowed to seek independence, why not them?
Good for them. Every other group was allowed to seek independence, why not them?
What a giant lie.
The Serbs were our friends. They fought alongside us, and died for freedom. The Muslims went to war with them, and Bill Clinton bombed the Serbs from 15,000 feet. There was no “genocide.” That fat chick, Albright, kept revising her numbers, until today she admits there were very few.
It was a politically correct action by a perjurer. Our friends, the Serbs, paid the price. And now, we find out their wives were raped, and their children, by muslims during and after the fact.
And now, upper reaches of the US have no choice but to back the liar in chief. Yet after reports tell a different dtory. We will not forget.
Ready for what? Croatia has no say in Bosnia's affairs, you spent an inordinate amount of time on typing for no reason.
Modern by whose standards, Albania's? LOL!!!
Does Serbia have a say? Croatia, Serbia and the Muslims are all 'shareholders' in Bosnia so your point is invalid. As for Croatian Army: please read first about their modernization. I just posted a few things that make it extremely unlikely that Serpska will secede and that NATO will not allow another war.
Ridicule as much as you want, but Albania and Croatia will join NATO on April 4th and will have two dozen nations behind them. Serbia on the other hand is alone, and has over 10,000 bureaucrats that leach off it's military budgets and only 29,000 soldiers. Read what Serbia's ex-Defense chief said about the miserable state of its military.
Uh huh, tell that to the Slovenes.
So explain why Milorad Dodik is one of the most popular politicians among the Herzegovi then? The Hercegovi Croats want nothing to do with Bosnia and would love to see it dissolved as much as the Serbs, so invariably, Croatia will not stand in the way of watching Bosnia dissolve because that is exactly what she wants it to do.
The irony of the name you selected has obviously escaped you.
When Croatia joins NATO even Slovenia has to do its part (like Greece that had to allow NATO troops to pass so they could go to Kosovo,) other issues notwithstanding.
So explain why Milorad Dodik is one of the most popular politicians among the Herzegovi then? The Hercegovi Croats want nothing to do with Bosnia and would love to see it dissolved as much as the Serbs, so invariably, Croatia will not stand in the way of watching Bosnia dissolve because that is exactly what she wants it to do.
No where did I state that Croats want to stay in Bosnia. It's obvious: Croats in BiH would rather be united with Croatia, Serbs there with Serbia and Kosovo with Albania, however never mistake the reaction of nationalists with state objectives and actions. Serbs might be able to 'leave,' but not with those borders. Last time Muslims and Croats fought together and only NATO bombing threats stopped them from taking Banja Luka. Why would Croatia sit still when before the war 48% of the Srpska population was non-Serb and now it's 97% Serb? Dodik has 0 support in EU or NATO. Only Russia supports them, and that's only to make work harder for EU and NATO.
Now you tell me, will Serbia send its army if war breaks out once Dodik declares independence?
What nations will recognize them?
How will they defend their 'Republic' if Bosniaks pick up arms (almost certain) and if Croatia sends its army?
Will Serbia send its dilapidated army even as it seeks iMF funds to prevent national bankruptcy?
What arguments will Bosnian Serbs use to justify the declaration of independence, considering that ICJ found that Bosnian Serbs committed genocide (read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide ,) not the other way around?
Keep in mind Serbian arguments against Kosovo's UDI as you answer them.
The irony of the name you selected has obviously escaped you.
I am changing my name to smarter-than-montyspython. Will that make me automatically smarter?
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