FAQ - Short History of Yugoslavia
Vitaca Milut
1.
Serbs and Croats came to the Balkans from Eastern Europe in
the sixth century A.D. They ultimately formed small duchies - the
Serbs under the nominal suzerainty of the Byzantines; the Croats
under the Franks and Venetians.
2.
Croatia never had a full-fledged independent state. Their
kings were Papal vassals who received crowns from Popes John X
(King Tomislav 925 AD) and Gregory VII (King Zvonimir, 1076) in
return for absolute fealty and fixed yearly tribute. Croatia ceased
to exist as a separate political entity after signing the Pacta
Conventa with Hungary in 1102 and Austria in 1527. Until the end
of World War I in 1918, the Croats lived in separate
semi-autonomous and semi-feudal provinces of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
3.
Serbs had several fully independent kingdoms between 1159 and
1345 that combined to form a large empire between 1345 and 1389.
This empire was defeated by the Turks in 1389 at the Battle of
Kosovo. Serbia then became a small semi-independent
tributary state (despotate) until it was abolished entirely by the
Turks in 1459. Serbs overthrew Turkish rule in 1804, reconquered
Kosovo-Metohija during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and built a
modern democratic state of free land-holding peasants.
4.
The Serbs living in Krajina came to their present domicile in
two waves. The first group, now settled in Dalmatia, came from
Kosovo-Metohija in 1347-1355 at the invitation of Dowager
Princess Jelena Subic. The princess built several Orthodox
monasteries, churches and schools for them. The Serbs in the
northern part of Krajina (Lika and Slavonija) came between 1460 and
1490, fleeing from advancing Turks. They were settled on feudal
fiefs which at the time were completely abandoned by their Austrian
and Hungarian lords and Croat serfs. The original land-patents
given to the Serbs by Austrians refer to these lands as "desertum
primum et secundum". These Serbs were given the status of free
peasants in return for military service against the Turks. Their
"Military Border" was under direct control of Vienna and
independent of the Austrian governors of Croatia.
5.
Serbia lost 25 percent of its total population and 56 percent
of its adult male population during the Balkan Wars and World War
I. (To put these figures into perspective, it is helpful to know
that casualties reported from both sides participating in America's
Civil War totaled two percent of the population). Serbia fought
with the Allies in both World War I and World War II.
6.
The idea of South Slavic unity (Yugoslavism) originated among
Croats. It began as a literary movement in 1850, when at a meeting
in Vienna three Croat writers, I. Kukuljevic, F. Miklosic and I.
Mazuranic, invited two Serbian linguistic reformers, V. Karadzic
and Dj. Danicic, to sign an "Agreement on Common Literary Language,"
whereby their reforms would become the basis for the Serbo-Croatian
literary language. This remained an intellectual idea with slight
popular support among Serbs and virtually none among Croats who
resisted giving up their orthography.
7.
"Yugoslavism" was transformed into a political idea during
World War I by three Croatian deputies of the Austro-Hungarian
Parliament, A. Trumbic, F. Supilo and J. Smodlaka. They were
Dalmatians, and as such, were alarmed by the Allied London Treaty
of 1915 which assigned parts of Dalmatia to Italy as a prize for
joining the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since the same
treaty gave parts of Slovenia to Italy, the Croat deputies invited
some Slovenian colleagues to approach the Allied Kingdom of Serbia
with the plea to include all of Croatia and Slovenia in its claims
as a war prize under the slogan of a "South Slav State," based on
ethnic and linguistic kinship with Serbs. Thus, Serbia was to use
its enormous war-prestige to thwart the Italian claims upon the
South Slavic lands which at the time were enemy territory. This is
how the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed in 1918.
8.
In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes changed its
name to Yugoslavia.
9.
Under the attack by the Axis powers in April 1941, Yugoslavia
fell. Yugoslavia was completely encircled by the Nazi war machine
countries of Albania, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
10.
Serbia's Colonel (later General) Draza Mihailovic and his
Chetniks formed the first guerilla resistance to Hitler in all of
Europe, but Serbs paid dearly for resisting the German army of
occupation, as reprisals were set of 100 Serbs shot for every
German killed and 50 Serbs executed for every German wounded.
11.
On April 10, 1941, the illegal Croat fascist party (Ustashe)
proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia. Its policy, as
articulated by its minister of education, was to kill one part of
all Serbs living in Croatia, push one part over the border and
convert the last part to Catholicism. The Independent State of
Croatia was a full-fledged Axis co-belligerent, officially at war
with all Allies. (It declared war on the United States on December
12, 1941).
12.
World War II Croatia had more men under arms proportionately
than any other Axis state. It had 160,000 regulars (Domobrani);
75,00 Fascist militia (Ustashe); and 15,000 police auxiliaries
(Oruznici and Redarstvo). In addition to its own units, Croatia
provided more volunteers for the German Army than anyone else in
Axis Europe: five full-strength divisions, three Wehrmacht (369th,
373rd, 392nd) and two Waffen SS (13th and 23rd), plus a "Croat
Legion" of 7,000 volunteers serving under German command at the
Russian front, and an anti-aircraft unit of 500 men serving in
Austria. These units were officered by Germans and wore German
uniforms and insignia, but all had the Croat national "chessboard"
emblem on the sleeve of their jackets, the same emblem the new
Croat Republic is using, the same emblem which Serbs in Krajina
fear.
13.
The Croatian Ustashe operated numerous extermination camps,
including the one at Jasenovac, which was the third largest death
camp in all of Wartime Europe. According to the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, 77% of all Jews, more than 500,000 Serbs and 20,000 Gypsies
living in Croatia were annihilated by the Ustashe during World War
II. When Herman Neubacher was the high ranking Austrian Nazi
serving as special German envoy for Southeast Europe he wrote,
"When the leaders of Ustashas boast to have slaughtered one million
Orthodox Serbs, that in my opinion is self-glorifying exaggeration.
On the basis of reports I had received, I estimate the number of
defenseless Serbs who were slaughtered at three-quarters of a
million."
14.
During World War II, the newly formed Albanian fascist militia
in western Kosovo-Metohija brutally expelled 70,000 Serbs and
brought in about an equal number of non Serbian speaking Albanians
from Albania. In northeastern Kosovo-Metohija, Serbs were left
undisturbed until 1944, when the 21st SS "Skanderberg Division"
began operating in the area. Manned by Albanian volunteers from
Kosovo-Metohija, the division massacred thousands of Serbs and
forced others to flee to German-occupied Serbia.
15.
Most historians claim about 15 percent of the Serbian
population was killed during World War II. Some revisionists claim
this figure was closer to seven percent, but these are often the
same revisionists who state Croatia suffered the worst genocide
during World War II without clarifying that the genocide in Croatia
was conducted by Croatians and Muslims against Serbians, Jews and
Gypsies. Approximately 200,000 Serbian Orthodox Christians were
forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism during World War II.
16.
Unlike German and Austria, Croatia never apologized for its
war crimes.
17.
Yugoslavia's interior borders have no basis in history. They
were drawn up secretly by five members of the Central Committee of
the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1943. Serbs were not represented
at this AVNOJ meeting because Serbia was, at that time, under the
control of Mihailovic's guerrillas.
18.
One of the first acts of Josip Broz Tito, who was half
Croatian and half Slovenian, was to pass a law March 6, 1945
prohibiting Serbs who were expelled from Kosovo-Metohija from
returning to their homelands. The act voided all land-deeds made
during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but not those made under Axis
occupation. Tito then kept the borders to Albania open from 1945
to 1948, allowing another 115,000 Albanians to move into Kosovo-
Metohija. From the Albanian-controlled provincial government of
Kosovo-Metohija, the Albanian immigrants in Kosovo-Metohija
received cash subsidies, welfare and child support payments equal
to twice the average Yugoslav wage - the bulk of it financed by the
Republic of Serbia.
19.
The decision to allow the "Albanization" of Kosovo-Metohija
was made by three Politburo members: Tito, Bakaric and Kardelj (all
Croatians and Slovenians). Edvard Kardelj remarked at the time that
the decision must not be publicized because "it would give powerful
arguments to Serbian bourgeoisie and Draza Mihailovic who would
accuse us of breaking up Yugoslavia."
20.
In a meeting February 23, 1967, Tito and Kardelj called in the
communist leaders of Kosovo-Metohija and told them "All you need
to undo Rankovic's injustices and have your way in Kosovo-Metohija
is to bring up your share of (Communist) party membership."
Following this, Kosovo-Metohija Albanians joined the communist
party in droves, took over the provincial assembly, government,
courts, police, schools, and public enterprises and launched a
systematic terror over non-Albanians including Serbs, Moslem Turks
and Gypsies. Thousands of the oppressed fled to Serbia.
21.
In 1974, Kosovo-Metohija was made a full-fledged sovereign
state of the Republic of Serbia by Yugoslavia's communist
government in yet another effort to dilute Serbia's representation.
As a result of numerous terrorist acts perpetrated against Serbs,
and the law that was in effect from 1945-1990 that forbade Serbs
from returning to Kosovo-Metohija, the population in Kosovo-
Metohija-Metohija today is more than 85% Albanian.
22.
Metohija literally translates to "monastery land given by the
feudal lord." Because Kosovo-Metohija is regarded as the
cradle of Serbian civilization and is the site of numerous
monasteries which have been classified by UNESCO as international
treasures, Serbians have an obvious bond to the area. These same
monasteries and their trove of artistic treasures have been
desecrated and destroyed in an attempt by the Kosovo-Metohija
Albanians to eradicate proof of Serbian history in the area.
23.
Tito controlled Yugoslavia from 1944 until his death in 1980.
He carved Yugoslavia into six republics and two autonomous
provinces as a means of diluting the strength of the majority
Serbian population. The republics and provinces rotated the
governance of Yugoslavia, so that little Slovenia, with only eight
percent of Yugoslavia population, actually controlled the
presidency as often as the 40 percent Serbian Majority.
24.
Slovenia and Croatia are often called more prosperous states
than Serbia, without any explanation as to how this imbalance
occurred. Tito moved factories and industry to Slovenia and Croatia
at the expense of Yugoslavia's other republics.
25.
Much of the current fear felt by Serbs living in Krajina,
Banija, Western Srem and Slavonia, the hotly contested areas within
Croatia's Tito-drawn internal borders, dates to the genocide
conducted against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies living in those
territories. This genocide was conducted by the Croatian and Muslim
Ustashe who ruled the Independent State of Croatia during World War
II. This fear has been revived by the following events which
occurred over the last two years:
a. When Croatia declared its independence June 25, 1991, its
leaders resurrected the same chessboard insignia for its flag
that had been worn by the Ustasha during World War II. This
would be the same to Serbs, as Jews seeing their neighbors
sport German swastika armbands.
b. Reports of discriminatory taxation and job dismissals of Serbs
because they were not ethnically pure Croatians increased
dramatically in 1991.
c. Non-Croats were asked to sign loyalty oaths to the Croatian
government, not to the state, which had just demanded its
independence from a nation voluntarily formed 73 years before.
d. Serbians have lived in Krajina, Western Srem, Banija and
Slavonia since their ancestors settled the territories more
than 500 years ago. After hearing of Croatia's intention to
hold a referendum to vote on secession from Yugoslavia, Serbs
in Krajina conducted their own referendum on May 14, 1991.
They voted for autonomy from Croatia if Croatia voted to
secede from Yugoslavia. This referendum was not acknowledged
as legitimate by the Croatian government, yet Croatia expected
its referendum on secession held five days later, on May 19th,
to be recognized by the Yugoslav federal government and other
governments of the world.
26.
Croatia demands the right to self determination, yet denies
this right to Serbs in Krajina, Banija, Western Srem and Slavonia.
27.
The Croats and Slovenes who want to secede insist that
Yugoslavia's external borders can be changed. Yet, they also insist
that Yugoslavia's arbitrarily drawn internal borders that were
never democratically verified or internationally recognized cannot
be changed.
28.
To fully comprehend the difference between Serbs living in
Croatia's Krajina, Western Srem and Slavonia, and the ethnic
Albanian minority living in Kosovo-Metohija, it must be realized
that Serbs in Krajina, Western Srem and Slavonia are not requesting
to separate from Yugoslavia, but rather requesting that they remain
an integral part of it. Croatia was only an independent nation
prior to 1102 and between the years of 1941-1945, when it was a
Nazi regime. Serbs were invited to live in the Krajina, Western
Srem and Slavonia territories. They were not squatters. They are
only asking that they remain a part of Yugoslavia because they do
not feel safe in an independent state of Croatia, which, by its
very constitution, declares them an ethnic minority and has already
discriminated against them, and in view of recent history, they
have precious little reason to trust promises made by the Croat
government, having seen what it really intends to do only months
ago.
29.
In addition to Kosovo-Metohija being the cradle of Serbian
civilization, it is, even as an autonomous province, part of
Serbia. Kosovo-Metohija was a part of Serbian State prior to the
formation of Yugoslavia and prior to the formation of the Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
30.
Yugoslavia's current internal borders strand well over 30
percent of the Serbian population outside Serbia proper. These
Serbs are still being deprived of the cultural, ethnic and
religious rights that should exist in any democracy.
31.
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina are a religious, but not an
ethnic community. Despite much guesswork as to their origins, it
is a fact that most of them are muslimized Slavs, once christians
who changed their faith in order to avoid being second-class
citizens in the Ottoman Empire, and to avoid paying taxes reserved
for all non-muslims.
32.
The Bosnian problem all too often disregards the following,
easily verifiable facts:
a) Ethnic Serbs represent 39% of the total population;
b) Ethnic Serbs own as private property some 60% of the land in
Bosnia-Herzegovina (according to official land books and
registers and census data, 1981/1991) This raises an
intersting question: if it is known that land is traditionally
passed on from father to son, and if Serbs own some 60% of the
land, how is it they are merely 39% of the population? It must
be remembers that most ethnic Serbs killed in WWII came from
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which also provided the worst
of Cbutchers of WWII;
c) Bosnian Serbs and the Serbian government right from the start
kept claiming that a premature recognition of Bosnia-
Herzegovina as an independent state would cause bloodshed. The
EEC went on nevertheless, the US followed suit, and bloodshed
there was, for many reasons, yet now, the Serbs are blamed for
the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina;
d) Both groups of Serbs also stated from the outset that the only
way to negotiate a lasting and stable peace was to reach an
agreement between all three ethnic groups in Bosnia, yet it
is only the Serbs who are blamed for the war there;
e) The fact that several right-wing muslim countries, such as
Libya and Saudi Arabia, are involved in the conflict in Bosnia
is also kept as subdued as possible, despite a half-admission
of Libya. These countries provided money and arms, yet Serbia
is blamed;
f) The fact that even in his early writings, the Bosnian muslim
president Alija Izetbegovic, claimed that a muslim state must
be formed in Bosnia, and that no muslim state can tolerate any
other religion, putting Islam above one and all (see his book:
"The Islamic Declaration", Sarajevo 1971/1991) means nothing
to the Western countries, who blame Serbia for everything;
g) The fact that Croatia as of May 1992 had over 30,000 armed men
(108th, 109th, 117th, 126th, etc divisions), with 80 and 120
mm mortars and tanks, recognizing and enforcing only Croatian
laws in Bosnia seems to mean nothing to the Western countries;
the Serbs are blamed for everything.
33.
The same is true of most Muslims living in the Serbian
province called Sandzak. They too are of the same ethnic origin as
the Serbs, but as opposed to Bosnia-Herzegovina (where current
muslims originate from both Serbs and Croats), their origins are
almost entirely Serbian.
34.
Only the Albanians are a really different ethnic group, with
their own roots, which are as yet not quite clear historically
(some say they originate from the Illiryans, the original
inhabitants of the Balkans, while others say they draw their roots
mostly from the Turks).
35.
During the war, the majority of ethnic Albanians collaborated
with ethier the Italians or the Germans; it was then that the
exodus of Serbs was perpetrated, under the auspices of the Germans,
in order to bribe the Albanians with Serbian land and an ethnically
pure region.
36.
After the war, Tito's communist government passed several laws
1945-1947, forbidding Serbs to return to Kosovo-Metohija, in effect
giving their land to Albanians. Moreover, in his dream of a Balkan
federation encompassing Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, Tito
allowed many Albanians from Albania to settle on Kosovo-Metohija.
This process continued well into the seventies, and to this day,
there is an unknown number of non-Yugoslav citizens living on
Kosovo-Metohija.
37.
Most of the dirty work in illegally Albanizing Kosovo was
perpetrated under the auspices of one Fadil Hoxa, Tito's close
associate, who pushed many effectively illegal and anti-
constitutional acts through by declaring loyalty to Tito and
suggesting that it was necessary to satisfy the needs of the
Albanian people in land. In return, he mobilized Albanian masses
into the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
38.
All those who dared question this policy were quickly removed,
and often persecuted. This includes the greatest living Serbian
writer, Dobrica Cosic, who questioned the democratic spirit of such
acts. In the meanwhile, federal and much more so republican funds
were set up for the development of Kosovo. The money was used but
no accounting or justification was ever given in Tito's days. The
Serbs were poressured to leave, and at the same time, the
unaccounted funds served to weaken Serbia, which began to lag
behind in development, in good part due to disproportionally large
sums set aside for the development of Kosovo.
39.
After Tito's death, the Albanians increased their persecution
of the Serbian minority on Kosovo, with much assistance from
Slovenia and Croatia, which used the Albanians to weaken Serbia.
Yet, in 1992, after being recognized, both Croatia and Slovenia
simply pass on to others refugees of Muslim origin, let alone
Albanians.
40.
The Kosovo Albanians had every opportunity to use their
democratic rights, equal but no longer greater to the rights of any
other citizen of Serbia. In view of the fact that the development
funds were put under strict control, the false standard of living,
for years lulling the Albanians, necessarily had to decline to its
more realistic levels. Local nationalist parties used this fact to
indoctrinate ethnic Albanians that there was a special war waged
against them by Serbia.
41.
The fact that ethnic Albanians boycotted the elections held
in Serbia in 1991 is not a question of their being or not being
allowed to vote, but of the fact that Albanian parties decided not
to run in the elections. This was and is their privilege (and a
completely legal act), but offers no ground for blaming Serbia;
some Serbian oppositon parties also boycotted the elections, while
others took part in them.
42.
In 1992, when the world public outcry for the rights of ethnic
Albanians was at its peak, in Pristine (the capital of the province
of Kosovo), over 20 magazines and daily papers are being published
and freely sold on Albanian throughout Serbia; all legal documents
are on both Serbian and Albanian; most political parties are
operating quite freely and completely legally if they applied for
registration, etc.
*
An Analysis of Germany's Yugoslav Policy
By Nora Beloff
In the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Germany has played a bigger role than any
other outside country. The German government, having turned its back on the
past, almost to the point of forgetting it, has intervened unilaterally in
order to achieve what it hoped would be freedom, democracy and peace. The
sequel, indeed to some extent the consequence has been anarchy, vicious
inter-ethnic bitterness and bestial violence which, at the time of writing,
is still going on.
Defying French, British and American views, Germany eagerly promoted the
collapse of an internationally recognised state, without any apparent concept
of the future of the diverse communities scattered like a leopard-sin on
Yugoslavia's ethnic map. For early two years German policy has been directed
towards prompt, unconditional recognition of the independent states of Croatia
and Slovenia. Other Western powers, anxious not to strain relations with a
vital partner in the European Community and NATO, and with no clear idea of
what to do, meekly followed suit.
Few ordinary Germans, now aghast at the violence and cruelty of the current
civil war, know that Hitler linked the Serbs with the Jews as a people to be
exterminated; nor that he entrusted this sub-branch of the holocaust to his
Croat and Moslem proxies.
The slaughter, described in gruesome detail in both German and Italian war
archives, was perpetrated not only in concentration camps. Hundreds of
thousands of Serb men women and children were hacked to death, their villages
razed to the ground. Often villagers were packed into barns or churches which
were then set on fire and several Axis documents report that bodies were
mutilated.
Hitler merged Bosnia with Croatia and German records indicate that the Moslems,
who provided 2 SS divisions and a local militia, were no less merciless than
the Croats. Both wore on their uniform the chequered insignia of the Ustashi
(Croat equivalent of the Nazis) which, today, is on the flag of the newly
Independent State of Croatia. In whipping up Moslem militancy, the Germans
brought in the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was mobbed by cheering
crowds when he visited Sarajevo. Towards the end of war bands of Serbs reaped
atrocious reprisals against Croats and Moslems, soldiers and civilians alike.
But the casualties they inflicted were less than 100th of what they suffered.
After the war there were no amends and the enmities were represed. But this
historical background makes it less difficult to understand why the Serbs
in Bosnia, fully supported by the Serbs in Serbia, refused to subject
themselves to a Moslem-Croat majority. It also becomes clearer why a rump
Yugoslavia, deprived of its Catholic components and so overwhelmingly
dominated by Serbs, would be alarming to the Moslems and Croats. With these
blood-soaked memories a centralised 'nation-state' of Bosnia was a
non-starter. For if, as the Germans maintained, it had become impossible
to hold Yugoslavia together, it would be even harder to integrate the Muslims,
Croats and Serbs crowded into the smaller space of Bosnia, largely cut off
from he more developed world and obsessed with wartime memories of
inter-ethnic massacres.
As the crisis worsened the Germans rightly came to disbelieve everything said
by the Serb nationalist leader, Slobodan Milosevic. But they remained
willing to believe the very comforting and conciliatory statements from the
Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic. They may not have known that, at the last
election, a moderate Muslim, representing the live-and-let-live tendency
common to many members of his community, was trounced by Izetbegovic who
speaks to his fellow Muslims at home (and presumably during his frequent
travels to the Middle East) in implacably fundamentalist terms.
In a 70 page Islamic Declaration, which he spent many years compiling, and was
published, first in 1970 and reprinted in 1990, he expresses anathema against
the very concept of a nation-state (one of which he is now president), arguing
that Muslims can be mobilised only in the overriding cause of Islamic unity.
Germany's championship of the Croats has been matched by contempt for the
Serbs. Senior German officials have argued that Tito was right in keeping
them divided and weak, this being the only way of restraining their hegemonist
impulse. But the Germans acceptance of the Croat view that the Serbs are
inherently expansionist and aggressive has boomeranged. The more the Germans
despise them, the more the Serbs evoke wartime memories of the Croat-German
alliance. And the more the Serbs identify Germany with the Nazi past, the
more they enrage the Germans. This vicious circle is obvious to other
diplomats but, for most Germans, Yugoslavia is too near and the past
too painful for them to see.
The origin of this anti-Serb bias, which is reflected on German TV and in
most of the press, can be traced primarily to the influence of the vociferous
spokesmen of the half-a-million, largely uneducated, Croat guest-workers.
The Germans have accepted their version of Croat history (which intelligent
Croat intellectual know to be a fantasy), claiming that the Croats have a
continuous record of statehood since the middle ages, which a new unified
Germany is morally bound to support.
What really happened was that Croat chieftains in the eleventh century extended
their power over several principalities. But, early in the twelfth, Croat
noblemen subjugated themselves to a Hungarian king, in return for being able
to retain their land and serfs. From then until the Nazis installed the
Ustasha chief Ante Pavelic at the head of 'an Independent State of Croatia';
the Croats were never ruled by any of their own compatriots.
Further, the presence of of Serb communities within the confines of Croatia
goes right back to the seventeenth century, when Orthodox Slavs were
fleeing North to escape the Turks. The Habsburg emperors offered the
ownership of land and a special status in return for military service
against the Ottoman empire. Thus Catholic and Orthodox communities lived in
close proximity and it became impossible, then as now, to draw a single
line separating the one from the other.
The Origins of Yugoslavia
The Germans eagerly accepted the Croat nationalist fiction that the creation
of Yugoslavia after the First World War, like the division of Germany after
the Second, was imposed by force and consequently lacked international validity.
Yet the concept of Yugoslavia a union of South Slavs, was originally a Croat
idea. In the heyday of romanticism, a Croat philosopher in Vienna propagated
the proposition that the Slav subjects of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires
should free themselves from their imperial masters and create a new state.
Though this would incorporate different religions, the emancipationist mood
was expected to eliminate the risk of conflict.
Later in the nineteenth century other Croats were attracted by a more
pernicious form of nationalism, precursor of National-Socialism, in which
the exigences of nationhood transcend all considerations of morality. It was
this ideology which influenced Franjo Tudjman, who was to become President
of Croatia. After being released from Tito's prisons he blamed all Croatia's
miseries not on the corrupt and cruel communist regime which had locked him
up, but solely on the domineering Serbs. From his three books, Big Ideas and
Little Nations, 1969 Nationalities and contemporary Europe, 1981, and The
Wasteland of History, 1989, it is clear that he regards the Jews as well as
the Serbs as racially inferior. Herr Eberhard Dingels, head of the
international department of the SDP, recalls a fraternal socialist meeting in
1959, attended by Tudjman: having been a Partisan, he was still in General's
uniform, dedicated to Titoist communism, but already unashamedly expressing
his hatred of Jews.
Tudjman's defenders abroad argue that his works only record history but the
texts not only cite antisemites but applaud their talent and endorse their
verdict. He also claims that the Jews, by their internationalist
egalitarianism, "directly help to maintain and even to incite anti-Jewish
sentiment." Since he became President, Tudjman has sought recognition and
respectability. He tried and failed to induce Jewish intellectuals to join
his government and he declared that Croatia dissociates itself from the UN
resolution equating Zionism with the Nazis. But in his books, the state of
Israel is declared 'Judeo-Nazi'. In present day Germany, any German who
flaunted these sentiments would be excluded from civilised society. Tudjman
is heralded as the liberator of an oppressed people.
Tudjman has applied the German-ethnic concept of citizenship to his own
country in which, at the last census, 17 of the population declared
themselves non-Croat.
Most Westerners are surprised that under the German system, any ethnic German
can claim citizenship and its attendant benefits, regardless of where they
come from and even if their families had become part of another state
centuries ago. And those whom the British and French call immigrants, but
the Germans call guest-workers, cannot be naturalised, even if their fathers
as well as themselves were born in Germany.
Imitating the German model Tudjman's 1992 law of citizenship extends passports
only to ethnic Croats. For others, this concession would be at the discretion
of the Croat authorities.
The Serbs from Serbia itself were modernised under French rather than German
influence and never incorporated this racial tenet, either in their ideology
or behaviour. But the concept of Yugoslavia has always divided them. The
Serb novelist Dobrica Cosic, in a semi-documentary historical novel,
convincingly recounts passionate arguments in 1914 between the older
generation who yearned to link up with the Orthodox world and the young,
eager to join a Western-type union with the Slav subjects of the
Austro-Hungarian empire.
The proposition widely held in Germany, that the Serbs and Croats are
innately hostile, contradicts the historical record showing centuries of
peaceful coexistence: they fought each other only when outside rules
recruited them into rival armies.
The first Yugoslavia, under the Karadjordjevic dynasty disappointed
politically conscious Croats, who had expected some degree of autonomy.
Instead they were subject to a centralised state, on the Jacobin model:
though Zagreb became its financial and industrial capital, and the Slovenes
played an active part in government and administration, all decisions
ultimately rested with the Serb king.
Under the shadow of war the British-educated Prince Regent recognised that
Yugoslavia could not hold together unless the Croats were granted home rule.
In 1939 a deal was negotiated with Macek, the popular leader of the Peasants'
Party, who later refused to collaborate with the Nazis. He spent part of the
war confined in the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp, which he described
in his subsequent memoires.
Though there was no time to see if autonomy would have worked, it seems clear
that, had the westernised monarchy lasted, the kingdom of Yugoslavia would
have had to take a looser, federal form.
Admittedly reconciliation after the events of 1941-5 would have been difficult.
Hitler had carved up Yugoslavia, given Croatia to his malignant puppet Ante
Pavelic, allocated Dalmatia to the Italians and compensated Pavelic with
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today, again, this region is being claimed as part of
'historic Croatia'.
Every Serb family would know of the massacres perpetrated by Pavelic who,
after representing the racialist 'Party of Rights' in the Yugoslav parliament
had been expelled in 1929 and became a protege of Mussolini. He named his
new party, Ustasha and back in Zagreb in 1941 proceeded to implement his
'final solution' against the Serbs. The numbers slaughtered are still
uncertain but according to the most reliable sources 350,000 is the minimum.
Tudjman and his supporters have flatly refused to examine the war records
from either the Allied or Axis archives and have crossed a naught from the
reputable figure.
But in Yugoslavia, unlike in Germany, the perpetrators of the war crimes were
never exposed and their compatriots never admitted or regretted the atrocities.
Indeed many young Croats have grown up without ever being confronted with the
evidence and when they are told, simply refuse to believe it.
Tito, himself half-Croat and half-Slovene, did his best to propagate the
Partisan mythology that all Croats, barring a handful of collaborators, fought
against the occupiers side by side with the Serbs. In reality, the Germans
treated the Croats far more humanely than they treated the Slovenes and Serbs
and many Croats fought on the German side until the end of the war. From
1941 to late 1943, nearly all the guerilla fighters were Serb. The Partisans
drew their recruits in Croatia and Bosnia from survivors of the Ustasha
massacres whereas Drazha Mihajlovic, faithful to the exiled government, drew
his support from Serbs in Serbia itself. The protracted civil war between
the pro-communist Partisans and he anti-communist loyalists divided Serb from
Serb: a reminder against treating the Serbs as a monolithic entity. Today
again the Serb communities are passionately divided.
Tito's Yugoslavia
As things turned out, it was the Russians not the western allies who drove the
Germans out of Belgrade, so enabling Tito to install his own communist
dictatorship over a 'liberated' Yugoslavia. Tito was still Stalin's disciple
and like Stalin he named his country 'a federation' whereas in fact it was
highly centralised round his own person. He ruled by decree, collectivised
everything and imprisoned or shot presumed anti communists - or even
communists insufficiently deferential to himself. Tito had tens of thousands
of fellow-Yugoslavs killed at the end, or soon after, the war and about one
million went through his prisons. But everything took place behind an
impenetrable iron curtain and when the killing was over and after 1948 when
Stalin excommunicated Tito from the communist block, the Curtain was lifted
on a now petrified and monolithic Yugoslavia. The West ignored the bloody
record and in the West he found himself cheered from the right for his
anti-Stalinism and from the left for his 'progressive' anticapitalism.
Tito's Flawed Legacy the subject of my last book, showed Tito's virtuosity
in playing ethnic and social groups against each other and in delegating
power and patronage exclusively to those faithful to him. His most damaging
bequests to his ill-governed and, in many ways bestialised country, was the
colossal federal army, almost the biggest in Europe and his abuse of power
in the reconquered province of Kosovo
In the cold war atmosphere Tito managed to persuade credulous westerners
that the Yugoslav army was the only barrier keeping the USSR from the
Adriatic. After the breach With Moscow Stalin had indeed prepared an
invading army to get rid of Tito but the 'Truman doctrine' for the protection
of Greece and Turkey indicated that the Americans would not tolerate any
further Soviet advance: Stalin drew back knowing he would not survive an
east west conflict. The same caution constrained his successors and it
was the existence of NATO and not Tito's inflated army that kept the
super-militarised USSR at bay.
Nevertheless Tito and his successors continued to receive the military,
financial and diplomatic backing which was to produce the present overarmed
federal military monster.
Finding Yugoslavia too diverse to run as a single entity, Tito divided the
army into two: a federal force to defend the fronters and the system, and
local militias available to his trusted chleftains. Now the militias have
ganged up with the local ethnic groups while the federal army has shown
itself desperate to preserve the union which alone gave it legitimacy. Some
generals thought that, as the US owes its own existence to victory in a long
and bloody civil war, they could count on American sympathy.
The Kosovo Catastrophe
The beginning of the end of Tito's Yugoslavia came when the Serb communist
leader sent troops to deprive Kosovo of its status as 'Autonomous Province'.
Previously, for all practical purposes, the province of Kosovo had the same
rights - and deprivation of rights - as the six republics of which Tito's
federation was composed; all of which were compelled to implement his brand
of communism.
Having ordered his partisans to reconquer Kosovo regardless of cost, Tito
initially reincorporated it into Serbia allowing Rankovic, his police-chef
to hold down the Albanian majority by tested Stalinist methods. But after
riots in 1968, Tito changed tack, giving power and patronage to his Albanian
nominees and prohibiting the Belgrade press from reporting the vengeful
harassment to which the vulnerable Serb minority were then being subject.
Milosevic's reassertion of Serb rule over what Serbs treasure as the cradle
of their medieval empire, was just what he needed to revive his battered
authority at a time when Communism everywhere was crumbling. But his reckless
use of force and his overt manipulation of the Federal presidency enabled the
Croats and Slovene ex-communists to retaliate, by whipping up their own
nationalist sentiments. The repression of Kosovo justified the proposition,
echoed in Germany, that Milosevic would soon be turning his guns to the West.
But though Milosevic committed himself to defending Serb minorities outside
Serbia, there is no evidence he ever contemplated Serb military dominance
over the whole of Yugoslavia
The Federal army, which did have a vested interest in preserving the union,
was manifestly divided about what to do. They would hardly have launched
a massive attack with tanks and heavy armour had they not been deliberately
insulted and provoked.
Confident of German and Austrian support, the nationalists in both territories,
some anti communist but most of them ex communists, came to feel they could
safely tear up the Yugoslav constitution and declare unilateral secession.
Origins of Civil War
The killings began in the summer of 1990, after Tudjman had been elected
President of Croatia. The Serbs shot at his armed followers, who had been
sent in to take over town halls and police stations previously manned by them.
Violent skirmishes produced the beginnings of an exodus of civilians from
both sides, which at the last Red Cross count number over a million.
Serb irregulars managed to cut communications between Zagreb and the coast,
tourism collapsed and, had it not been for vociferous German encouragement,
Tudjman would probably have settled for a negotiated arrangement,
restoring Serb autonomy.
Even then, Tudjman might have been reluctant to take on the Federal Army had
he not had his hand forced by the usually conciliatory Slovenes. In June 1991
the nationalist leaders, defying sensible advice from wiser compatriots,
not only broke off relations with Belgrade but also sent their militia to haul
down the Yugoslav flag from the international frontier with Austria.
Understandably the Federal army intervened. They sent in, and very soon
afterwards pulled out - a highly inappropriate convoy of tanks and heavy
armour along with a small number of infantrymen, easily outnumbered by the
local Slovene militia. The surrender was all the swifter as the general
commanding the operation happened to be Slovene.
International opinion has too readily assumed that the Federal army was always
a tool of the Serbian government: they were indeed often in collusion but
Milosevic's complete control dates only to May 1992, with the purge of senior
officers. Under Tito's system, the highest ranking officers were chosen
according to an ethnic key, ensuring all the communities were represented.
Junior officers on the other hand were always mainly Serb: indeed it would
rarely occur to an educated Croat, Slovene or Muslim to choose a military
career.
Many Germans, thinking along ethnic lines, defend the independence of the
homogeneous state of Slovenia as inherently virtuous. But the Slovenes
themselves are already coming to the conclusion that, as long as there is
fighting in their backyard, they will be short of investment, tourism and
access to the captive market, which their industry previously enjoyed.
Under the flag of independence, life has become a lot more difficult.
Some Slovenes privately deplore the independence fervour: old ones remember
the Nazi treatment of Slovenes and dread renewed subordination. Many young
Slovenes, less alarmed by Austro-German dominance, have lived their lives as
Yugoslavs, travelled freely, exchanged people and ideas and are shocked by
the narrow chauvinism of their current leaders. Perhaps this was why,
before the independence referendum, the Slovene Minister of Information sent
a directive ordering the Ljubljana press 'to mobilise' for an affirmative
answer. Among the list of obligations was the fanning of racial hatred:
editors were told to play up anything disagreeable said by a Serb about
Slovenes.
Slovene chauvinism would seem to be only skin-deep. The prima ballerina of
the Slovene national ballet was born in Nish (Serbia), and educated at the
Zagreb school of ballet. At a recent reception Slovene leading personalities
saw nothing odd in toasting the success of this prototype of Yugoslav talent.
At the end of last year, Slovene leaders were in desperate haste to acquire
a constitution in time for the scheduled German recognition. The communists
and anti-clerical liberals informed the leading Christian democrats that they
would withhold the necessary majority unless the projected constitution
legalised abortion. It did.
According to the Archbishop of Ljubljana, there is no country in the world,
with the possible exception of one African state, which has abortion written
into its constitution This did not prevent the Pope from promptly
recognising the newly independent state.
Tudjman, who could hardly let himself appear less resolute than his Slovene
colleague, vainly ordered the Federal army to leave Croatia and proceeded
to try and blockade and starve out military garrisons, stationed around
Croatia - legally, under the old regime. The army often, but not always,
has supported the Serb irregulars. One exception was at Gospic, capital of
the mainly Serb province of Krajina, which was commanded by a Croat. When he
surrendered it is reported that his Serb second-in-command committed suicide.
In subsequent revenge killings in Gospic the Serbs who had taken refuge in a
cellar were dragged out by uniformed Croats and Some 75 have remained
unaccounted for.
According to a local Orthodox bishop and other Serb survivors, the Croats
demolished the Orthodox church and wiped out the adjoining cemetery. As
Zagreb closed the area to Red Cross and Amnesty personnel, there was no Western
confirmation and no TV programmes.
This does not, of course in any way justify the viciousness on the Serb side
nor the wanton killing and destruction of whole Croat communities and the
devastation of so many villages and towns. But the Croats have been quick to
see that if they use their churches as convenient high-points from which to
shoot attackers and as ample spaces to store weapons, this has the additional
usefulness of provoking attacks on sacred and often historically precious
Catholic places of worship: the ruins make excellent television.
The area of Dubrovnik, form which the federal garrison had withdrawn several
years previously, was turned in 1990 into a Croat stronghold and the Croat
marksmen had no compunction in shooting from behind the ancient walls. Serious
damage has been done to the front and windows of some buildings, though Western
visitors expecting to see a city in ruins have, on the contrary, found the old
city is still virtually intact.
Reasons behind German Policy
In supporting Croatian and Slovene independence the Germans have seemed to be
defending the principle of self-determination: giving each ethnic group the
right to form its own nation-state. But German policy makers, who have studied
the ethnic map of Yugoslavia, recognise that the intermingling of communities
makes self-determination impossible: it would produce hundreds of mini-states.
Nor is there any international criteria for deciding how big a group must be,
nor how substantial the majority, in order to qualify its people for the
statehood.
Instead, top officials say, German policy is guided by support for the
immutability of frontiers and the rights of the majority, within these
frontiers, to decide their future. No one has explained why the present
frontiers of Croatia, drawn by the Communists during the war and englobing
large numbers of non-Croats, should be any more immutable than, the frontiers
of the previously recognised Yugoslavia. Nor is there any moral reason why
the Croats have a better case for rejecting rule from Belgrade than the Serbs
of Krajina from being governed from Zagreb or the Serbs from Bosnia from
submitting to Moslem/Croat rule from Sarajevo.
Some German officials have justified the speedy recognition of Croatia as a
way of establishing a Western presence in Zagreb which could exercise
restraint. But so far, no restraining influence has been apparent. The
Germans have stood by and sustained support, though descendants of the Ustashi
families, who had fled to the US, Canada, Australia, Austria and Germany had
returned to Croatia to re-animate the racist ideology. 'U' for Ustashi (the
Croat equivalent of the Swastika) is scrawled on Zagreb walls. One
manifestation has been a cult of Mile Budak, Pavelic's minister of education
who was the first to announce Ustashi intentions. At a rally in Gospic (where
fifty years later Serbs were again being massacred) he promised Croatia would
be cleared of Serbs: one third by expulsion, one third by killing and one
third by forced conversion to Catholicisim, which would turn them into Croats.
Further, there seems to have been no German objection, or reduced support,
when Tudjman passed an anti-Serb law of citizenship, when he raised exorbitant
taxes on Serb-owned property or when he failed to enforce existing law to
protect Serb residents from arson, confiscations and assault. The consequence
of German conspicuous support for the regime has had disastrous consequences
on the Serbs: in Serbia itself Milosevic has been able to whip up frantic
hysteria, by alleging German complicity with the Croats. And the Serb
minorities, in both Croatia and Bosnia, often with Milosevic's support,
are willing to perpetrate any crime or bestiality, in what they perceive as
a last-ditch fight for their own survival.
Many educated Serbs are appalled at the frenzy and violence. Liberal Serbs
are currently engaged in demythologising Titoism and it was recently suggested
to them that there is new material available, showing that the targets for
the Royal Airforce were selected by the Partisans. This means that Tito was
responsible for the notorious bombing of Belgrade on Eastern Monday, 1944.
Serb liberals preferred to hold back the evidence: Tito was a Croat and it
would only further inflame anti-Croat passions, already out of control.
Germany's best contribution to restore tolerance and trust between their
respective churches, would be to persuade their proteges to follow the German
example, and openly and unconditionally disassociate themselves from those who
committed the wartime genocide. So far the Vatican has colluded with the
communists in covering up the past, in part, perhaps, because of the
unassailable evidence that some Fransican monks incited and participated in
the Ustashi massacres.
The entrenched hierarchy may never have allowed the present Pope to know what
was done in his Church's name and the Germans Catolic leaders would be
uniquely competent to tell him.
Senior German officials claim credit for having got Tudjman to sign the
Carrington deal, admitting UN troops into the minority areas. But what has
happened is the reverse of a solution: as Tudjman's Consul General in Munich
said, the Croats need the UN troops to negotiate the departure of the Federal
army: once the federal soldiers had left the Croats would ask the UN to
withdraw. If the Serbs in Croatia behaved according to Croatian law, they
would have nothing to fear. This is quite different from what Carrington had
promised the Serbs: the UN would stay until some formula was agreed in which
the minorities could appeal for protection to some international tribunal.
Only the Germans could have forced Tudjman to clear up this dangerous
misunderstanding, in advance of the arrival of the UN troops.
The Croats are once again assuming that the Germans will be on their side and,
indeed, on May 11th 1992 Herr Genscher was the first to proclaim the EC
diplomatic rupture with Belgrade, designed to end the siege of Sarajevo. But
the restoration of peace depends first and foremost on he reconciliation
between Croats and Serbs in which neither would be humiliated and in which
blame would be fairly shared. Perhaps a change of German foreign minister
will lead to a more balanced policy.
May 13th, 1992
London
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Loran Pezdirc
Vitacha writes:
>8.
[deleted]
Before you start to talk about the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, why don't
you tell us something about first constitution of Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats ad Slovenians? Why don't you tell us that this first
constitution was appropriate whitout agreement of Croats? This is
very important information for happening in Yugoslavia before the
proclamation of independence in Croatia and Slovenia. You also
don't mention the dictature of Karadjordjevic and murder of croati-
an leader Stjepan Radic by the serbian delegate in parliament in
Belgrad.
>9.
> Under the attack by the Axis powers in April 1941, Yugoslavia
>fell. Yugoslavia was completely encircled by the Nazi war mashine
>countries of Albania, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
That all happened after the brave king Karadjordjevic was escaped
to England with whole gold from the state-safe. Yugoslavia
never get this gold back.
>11.
> On April 10, 1941, the illegal Croat fascist party (Ustashe)...
^^^^^^^
What's going on, Vitacha!?
If you didn't noticed it, that what you wrote is TRUTH!!
Do you really think so, or was that just a type-mistake?
Yes, it's truth that this party came illegal as the ruling
party in Croatia, 'cause the legal leader of Croats Vlatko
Macek (after death of S.Radic the president of HSS) refused
the nazi-vision of Croatia.
>12.
[deleted]
> but all had the croat national simbol "chessboard"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>emblem on the sleeve of their jackets, the same emblem the new
>Croat Republic is using,
You get the point here too!
"Chessboard" is CROATIAN NATIONAL SIMBOL and not a simbol
that ustashas invented. They just used this emblem on the same
way as the Nazis used german eagel and the Japanees the sun.
The eagle is still the simbol of Germans and the sun is still
the simbol of Japanees. Why shouldn't Croatians use they natio-
nal simbol?
As sign of distance from NDH, the government of Croatia decided
in 1946 to change the "chassboard". In original configuration
(which was used by ustashas) it's first field is white.
From the year 1946 first field is red, and in this form is using
as state-simbol of Croatia today (with emblems of croatian
provinces above it).
> the same emblem which Serbs in Krajina
>fear.
Very poetical formed.
You just didn't mention that since 1989 serbian nationalists use
again the simbols of chetniks, who murdered hunderts thousands
of Moslems, Croats, Macedonians....
WHAT ABOUT THEY FEAR??
>23.
[deleted]
> so that little Slovenia, with only eight
>percent of Yugoslavia population, actually controlled the
>presidency as often as the 40 percent Serbian Majority.
SO WHAT?
Luxembourg is also a little country but he has right on presidency
in EC. This right has every member of every, as union of equal
members defined, community. Serbs just didn't get a point.
It's very interesting that you (in the following text) didn't say
anything about serbian "bueraucratic revolution" that began in
1987. About scanning :"GIVE US WEAPONS!" before serbian parliament
in 1989. About "Meetings of truth" (organized by serbian nationalists
in 1990) which were payed from money-reserves of Yugoslavia. About
actions of serbian police-forces and YNA on Kosovo and the number
of murdered Albanians who just demonstrated for they rights.
About order to the members of colective presidium of ex-YU from
Wojvodina and Kosovo to vote like serbian member does? About
actions of YNA who were started by B.Jovic (president of YU-presidi-
um at that time) without necessary agreement of other members?
Why don't you tell somethin about that?
Because of fear?
Davorin Dujmovic
, if he can earn D+, is ready to join the University of BCI
(Balkan Club of Idiots), where other lectures like this one
are offered.
If you however missed this chance to earn the credit don't worry
couse Vitaca is going to repost this in a two weeks 47th time.
For more details contact:
1-800-Cleansing, and ask for
Voyeslow Sestely - a rector and a president of the Beard Club for Men
Zarko Raznjatovic Arcan - regular professor, specialist in Kosovo
history and knives (pardon, knights)
Radovan Karadzic - a poet and an expert of Balkan medicine
Faruk od Bosne
|> 42 POINTS WORTH REMEMBERING
|>
|> 1.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> the sixth century A.D. They ultimately formed small duchies - the
|> Serbs under the nominal suzerainty of the Byzantines; the Croats
|> under the Franks and Venetians.
|>
|> 2.
|>
|> 3.
|> Serbs had several fully independent kingdoms between 1159 and
|> 1345 that combined to form a large empire between 1345 and 1389.
|> This empire was defeated by the Turks in 1389 at the Battle of
|> Kosovo. Serbia then became a small semi-independent
|> tributary state (despotate) until it was abolished entirely by the
|> Turks in 1459. Serbs overthrew Turkish rule in 1804, reconquered
|> Kosovo-Metohija during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and built a
|> modern democratic state of free land-holding peasants.
Bosnians had several fully independent duchies between 1158 and 1355
when Bosnian ban Tvrtko promoted himself to the King of Bosnia, Serbia,
and Dalmatia (since he conquerred a big chunk of thoese days Serbia).
From 1355 to 1463 Bosnia was a Kingdom. 1463 she was surrendered to
Turks. At that time Bosnia's borders were: Drina to the east, Una to
the west, Sava to the north and the Adriatic coast to the south
(roughly from Zadar to Kotor).
|>
|> 4.
|> [deleted]
Because of non-christian religion the Bosnians (they were
prosecuted by Popes, as well as by east-ortodox) got along well
with Turks. By and large Bosnians (nobles and serfs) accepted Islam.
That allowed them semi-independent pashadom which included Sandzak
and western Monte-Negro. This also allowed them to offer a shelter
to serbian refugees fleeing Serbia in front of advancing Turks.
Until 19-th century, serbs in Bosnia were serfs to the Bosnians.
After that they were used as a fifth column to undermine Bosnians:
first by Turks to supress the Bosnian uprisings, and then by serbs
from Serbia and Russia to undermine Habsburg's Austria. They never
served their own interests, nor the interests of Bosnians as their
benefactors.
|>
|> 5.
|> Serbia fought with the Allies in both World War I and World War II.
Serbia had never chose sides. In the WWI Serbia served Russia to
destroy the Habsburg Empire, drugged the world into a global massacre
which cost a millions of lives and unprecedente destruction. In the WWII,
given the option, serbian king signed a pact with Hitler, and Drazha
Michailovic would lead Serbia to the German side, as his actions during
the WWII showed. Measured on the genocide scale, Drazha is the biggest
nazi of all (if the present they serb criminals did not surpass him).
|>
|> 6.
|> The idea of South Slavic unity (Yugoslavism) originated among
|> Croats. It began as a literary movement in 1850, when at a meeting
|> in Vienna three Croat writers, I. Kukuljevic, F. Miklosic and ...
The Illiric movement wanted to establish a democratic Balkan state,
the confederation of: serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenians,
Albanians, Macedonians, and Monte-Negrins.
|>
|> 7.
|> [deleted]
|>
|> 8.
|> In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes changed its
|> name to Yugoslavia.
However, they got the dictatorship monarchy with the serbian kings
to suppress all constituents in favour of serbs. That was a period of
first land robbery in Bosnia. Before 1918 70% of Bosnian land was
owned by Bosnian Muslims, 25% was state property, and 5% was owned
by serbs, Croats, and others (see posting from Sept 23 1993). All
non-serbs in Yugoslavia felt serbs as invaders. Serbs, however, got
this land from alies, under provision of establishing a confederation
of all Balkan peoples. Instead, between WWs Yugoslavia was a prison of
non-serb nations.
|>
|> 9.
|> Under the attack by the Axis powers in April 1941, Yugoslavia
|> fell. Yugoslavia was completely encircled by the Nazi war machine
|> countries of Albania, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
1941 serbian (not Yugoslav) army surrendered (without battle) to
the nazis, and Yugoslavia ceased to exist.
[deleted]
|>
|> 16.
|> Unlike German and Austria, Croatia never apologized for its
|> war crimes.
After all, should they? Serbs who? Sheshelj and karadzic?
They wouldn't understand it anyway. They accept the other way of
communications.
|>
|> 17.
|> Yugoslavia's interior borders have no basis in history.
Bosnia had current borders roughly from 1158 until 1463, as a sovereign
Bosnian state (Kingdom), had those borders as a Bosnian pashadom within
the Ottoman Empire 1463 to 1787, within the Austro-Hungarian Empire
1787 to 1918, and within post WWII Yugoslavia 1941 till now.
|> were drawn up secretly by five members of the Central Committee of
|> the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1943. Serbs were not represented
|> at this AVNOJ meeting because Serbia was, at that time, under the
|> control of Mihailovic's guerrillas.
|>
[deleted]
|>
|> 21.
|> In 1974, Kosovo-Metohija was made a full-fledged sovereign
|> state of the Republic of Serbia by Yugoslavia's communist
|> government in yet another effort to dilute Serbia's representation.
|> As a result of numerous terrorist acts perpetrated against Serbs,
|> and the law that was in effect from 1945-1990 that forbade Serbs
|> from returning to Kosovo-Metohija, the population in Kosovo-
|> Metohija-Metohija today is more than 85% Albanian.
Between WWs, Kosovo (as well as other non-serb) areas
were systematically colonized by serbs, while the natives were
routlessly expelled by the serbian police regime (see posting about
Vasa Cubrilovic lecture). Communists (Tito's) Yugoslavia, though
still favouring serbs about 3 to 1, didn't favour them as much as
serbs would like. Meaning, Tito prevented serbs (by demoting Rankovic)
of expelling Albanians and Muslims from their homelands. That caused
revolt of some serbs.
|>
|> 22.
|> Metohija literally translates to "monastery land given by the
|> feudal lord." Because Kosovo-Metohija is regarded as the
|> cradle of Serbian civilization and is the site of numerous
|> monasteries which have been classified by UNESCO as international
|> treasures, Serbians have an obvious bond to the area. These same
|> monasteries and their trove of artistic treasures have been
|> desecrated and destroyed in an attempt by the Kosovo-Metohija
|> Albanians to eradicate proof of Serbian history in the area.
The old serbian lie about cradle of serbian civiliation. Have you
ever been in Pecka Patrijarsija? Since there is Muratovo Turbe on
the Kosovo field, Kosovo should be the cradle of Turkish civilization too.
Which monasteries have been destroyed? None. Which monasteries have been
desacreted? None. Thanks God there is no serbian monasteries in Bosnia.
However, what about Mosques in Bosnia (like Aladza dzamie in Banja Luka,
Kara-Djoze bey Mosque in Mostar, etc. etc.)?
|>
|> 24.
|> Slovenia and Croatia are often called more prosperous states
|> than Serbia, without any explanation as to how this imbalance
|> occurred. Tito moved factories and industry to Slovenia and Croatia
|> at the expense of Yugoslavia's other republics.
Nonsense again. State sponsored industry mostly went to Serbia.
like car manufacturing, electronics, import/export, administrations,
banks, etc. In fact all state's political and economic power, during
the state centralization, was based in Belgrade. Even more:
all military manufacturing (comprising the big chunk of Yu economy
although some located outside of serbia, was under total control
of serbs: like Soko (airplanes) Mostar, Borac (armored) Travnik, etc.
Even more: forest exploitation (Sipad the second largest company in
ex-Yu) was entirely controlled by serbs. Only after the economic
decentralization took place, the other regions like Croatia, Slovenia,
and other Republics start to flourish.
|>
|> 25.
|> Much of the current fear felt by Serbs living in Krajina,
|> Banija, Western Srem and Slavonia, the hotly contested areas within
|> Croatia's Tito-drawn internal borders, dates to the genocide
|> conducted against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies living in those
|> territories. This genocide was conducted by the Croatian and Muslim
Can you please support your claim about Muslims' attrocities?
And rather talk about genocide of Drazha's cetniks over the Muslim
poulation in Bosnia.
|>
|> 26.
|> Croatia demands the right to self determination, yet denies
|> this right to Serbs in Krajina, Banija, Western Srem and Slavonia.
New Croatian Constitution did not included serbs as constitutional
people of Croatia. Instead, 12% of serbs in Croatia are taken as a minority.
Does the Constitution of Serbia treats serbian Muslims and Albanians
(over 25% of population) as Constitutional peoples?
|>
|> 29.
|> In addition to Kosovo-Metohija being the cradle of Serbian
|> civilization, it is, even as an autonomous province, part of
|> Serbia. Kosovo-Metohija was a part of Serbian State prior to the
|> formation of Yugoslavia and prior to the formation of the Kingdom
|> of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Populated over 85% by Albanians, Kosovo should be and is the
land of Albanians.
|>
|> 30.
|> Yugoslavia's current internal borders strand well over 30
|> percent of the Serbian population outside Serbia proper. These
|> Serbs are still being deprived of the cultural, ethnic and
|> religious rights that should exist in any democracy.
Nobody prevents those serbs to go back to Serbia where they came
from after WWI.
|>
|> 31.
|> Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina are a religious, but not an
|> ethnic community.
That's what your retarded brain dreams. Muslims in Bosnia have
a history of a nationhood same as serbs (in Serbia) and Croats
(in Croatia). And under fair circumstances are more capable for
nationhood than serbs. That's the basic drive of serbian wish
to destroy Bosnia and others. As you said, the weaks are the most
agressive.
|> Despite much guesswork as to their origins, it
|> is a fact that most of them are muslimized Slavs, once christians
There are no christian signs on mediavel tombs (stecci) and other
remainings in Bosnia, no monasteries fortunately, and no chatolic
churches, from that period. Only Mosques, which you so viciously are
destroying, to forge the history, like you are doing now.
|> who changed their faith in order to avoid being second-class
|> citizens in the Ottoman Empire, and to avoid paying taxes reserved
|> for all non-muslims.
Ottoman Empire collected taxes in a form of 10% of the crop. How much
are you paying to Milosevic now?
|>
|> 32.
|> The Bosnian problem all too often disregards the following,
|> easily verifiable facts:
|>
|> a) Ethnic Serbs represent 39% of the total population;
1991 census shows: 43.7 Muslims, 31.3 serbs, and 17.1 Croats
out of 4.5 milion.
|>
|> b) Ethnic Serbs own as private property some 60% of the land in
|> Bosnia-Herzegovina (according to official land books and
|> registers and census data, 1981/1991) This raises an
1991 census shows that:
53.26% (out of 51,197 sq. km. of Bosnian land) is state owned.
Out of remaining 46.74%:
6.08 % are owned by Bosnian Croats
20.92 % by Bosnian Muslims
19.51 % by Bosnian Serbs
Ovo su vitacho tapije.
[the rest is trashed - izmetnuto]
After this brute force forged history, and resourting to the paid
serbian propagandist Nora Beloff, Vitaco, I tend to agree with Davorin:
you are nothing but the linguistic whore.
Faruk
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| This is my opinion |
| and not of my company |
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