CNAB condemns Serbian attempt to rehabilitate Nazi collaborator Draza Mihailovic

[My apologies for not blogging last week; I realize that my review of Glenny is getting dragged out.
Please see this press release from the Congress of North American Bosniaks regarding recent moves in Serbia to rehabilitate Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic. I do hope to return to regular blogging/reviewing soon.]

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) strongly condemns all efforts by the government of the Republic of Serbia to rehabilitate Chetnik general and convicted war criminal Dragoljub “Draza” Mihailovic.
In the Second World War, General Mihailovic was the leader of the Chetnik Detachment of the Yugoslav Army – commonly referred to as the Ravna Gora Chetniks. The Chetniks were a Serbian fascist and ultra-nationalist military organization that collaborated with the Nazis and targeted Yugoslav Partisans and non-Serbs living in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina for extermination. Under Mihailovic’s command, the Chetniks collaborated with the Axis powers and committed horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity against Bosniak and Croat civilians living in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Chetniks murdered an estimated 60,000 civilians and burned several hundred small Bosnian towns and villages to the ground in an attempt to terrorize the civilian population and ethnically cleanse Bosniaks and Croats from their homes in order to form an ethnically pure greater Serbian state. After the war, the Yugoslav authorities apprehended General Mihailovic; following a trial he was convicted of treason and war crimes and was executed.
The fascist Chetnik ideology resurfaced in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war and genocide as Serb forces committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against Bosniak civilians in a renewed effort to form an ethnically cleansed greater Serbian state. This virulent and destructive fascist ideology is still alive and enjoys considerable support among far-right Serbian organizations operating in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It presents a clear danger to Bosniak and Croat civilians living in Bosnia-Herzegovina and to peace and stability in the Balkans.
Rehabilitating Mihailovic would signal that the Serbian government condones the fascist Chetnik ideology that has resulted in the deaths and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians and that it approves of the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed by troops under Mihailovic’s command. It would be a grave insult to victims of fascism as well as to survivors and all those who fought fascism, including Serbians, in Yugoslavia during the Second Word War. It would further tarnish Serbia’s international standing as a country that celebrates war criminals and creates instability and tensions in South-Eastern Europe. It could also signal a resurgence in far-right movements in Serbia that could in turn embolden similar movements in other European countries, leading to future rehabilitation attempts of NAZI and fascist war criminals in other European countries.
We ask that non-governmental human rights organizations in the US, Europe, and particularly in Serbia join us in condemning attempts by Serbian authorities to rehabilitate fascist war criminals and revise history in favor of fascism in the Balkans and the rest of Europe.

"The Fall of Yugoslavia" by Misha Glenny [5]

Chapter 3: June-July 1991: State of Independence

This chapter starts off with a trio of vignettes which serve both to illustrate the sad sense of impending doom which hung over Yugoslavia (and of which the rest of the world remained ignorant), and of the fragile beauty of daily life which was about to be desecrated by war.

First Glenny goes to Prague, for the Conference on European Confederation which he describes as "a sop to Eastern European countries." While there, he speaks with the former Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Mate Babic, who turns out to be an astute witness to Franjo Tudjman's governing style. The most interesting observation is this:

"Although he was distinctly no friend of Milosevic, Mate Babic admitted frankly that Serbia had gone further down the road to privitization than Croatia. Tudjman, he insisted, was consciously blocking Croatia's progress in this direction. Let it be remembered that according to President Tudjman, Croatia's moral superiority over Serbia lay in its fervent commitment to free-market economics."

And let it also be remembered that, according to left-wing apologists for the Milosevic regime, Yugoslavia was allegedly destroyed partly because he was courageously defending the socialism of Yugoslavia against the forces of Western neo-liberalism and their capitalist lackeys such as Tudjman.

Glenny also meets Srdja Popovic, a distinguished Serbian liberal journalist from Belgrade, who predicts that war will break out when the republics begin declaring independence.

Then he makes his way from depressing, doom-ridden Belgrade to Prishtina, where he meets Veton Surroi, who proves to be a charming observer himself. The account of this visit largely serves the purpose of allowing Glenny to deal with the subject of Kosovo on the eve of the wars which would, for a few years anyway, push this occupied colony out of sight and out of mind. Glenny does seem to "get it" in Kosovo; he regards it as being an occupied territory, and he notes that few if any Serbs from Serbia have ever been there. He realizes that the presence of the state there is one of racist occupation, and that the Albanians are the victims of oppression. He also feels genuine pity for the Kosovar Serbs, whom he realizes are pawns of the Milosevic regime, which needs them in a perpetual state of fear and insecurity in order to justify the crackdown. Glenny essentially concedes the right of self-determination of the Albanian majority and the case for independence.

Finally, he visits Macedonia, where he dwells a little on the state of the Albanian minority there and the larger issue of Albanian nationalism; he ends up in Skopje as the guest of Macedonian journalist Sasho Ordanoski. They avoid politics, meet a lot of people, and have a wonderful night. It's a lovely scene, one which makes you ache knowing of the deluge which is to come.

And it comes...

"The Fall of Yugoslavia" by Misha Glenny [4]

Chapter 2: Belgrade, March 1991: Dress Rehearsal--Serb Eat Serb

The first several pages of this chapter are a well-written summary of Milosevic's rise to power--the betrayal of Stambolic, the utilization of nationalist sentiment, the exploitation of Kosovo, the manipulation of the mass media and the popular masses--a story which is surely all-too familiar to regular readers.

Glenny also shows that while Milosevic was using the rising nationalist tide for leverage in his political machinations within the Yugoslav Federation, he was hardly a committed nationalist (Milosevic, it's safe to say, never believed in much of anything other than getting power and holding on to it), nor was he able to resist calls for multiparty elections. He managed to win these, but not by an overwhelming majority and even this victory was accomplished through some degree of fraud. The opposition--which was divided, and heavily dominated by nationalists, to the point where even liberal parties had to make accommodations to nationalist sentiment--led by Vuk Drashkovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement--organized a massive demonstration in Belgrade.

Glenny draws a brief sketch of the Serb/Yugoslav capital; a vibrant and cosmopolitan (if architecturally unimpressive) city being slowly swamped with ugly nationalism. This was the setting for Milosevic's sudden, draconian crackdown, in which many people were hurt, violence and vandalism were rampant, and many were arrested, including Drashkovic and many other prominent opposition figures. The fighting was intense, as these protesters were largely committed nationalists rather than liberal-minded peaceful types.

This only spread the discontent; to sum matters up, the protest spread but became more peaceful and settled as thousands of mostly students took over public spaces and for a time seemed to gain the upper hand; the police slunk away, and most of their well-articulated demands were met. One demand was not met, however--Milosevic did not step down. Rather, he stayed out of the public eye and offered up plenty of disposable sacrificial lambs to sate the demands of the public.

And then, ultimately, the opposition sputtered, gave up the streets, and went home feeling that they had won. But Milosevic was still in power; and what's more, he was able to use the mess that was Yugoslavia's constitution to his own benefit, as the man who had and would again use the legalisms of the Yugoslav Federation for his own ends bluntly announced that Serbia would no longer be bound by the Yugoslav Presidency, and that the Serbian Territorial Militias would be mobilized.

All the while, behind closed doors the alliance between the Serbian leadership and the Yugoslav Army was cemented. The last chance for peace--namely, by getting rid of Milosevic--had been squandered.

***********

I apologize if the review of this chapter seems rather perfunctory, but the events here are all pretty well known by now, as I noted already. There is also less personal color here, as Glenny was mostly just observing events and learning about them second-hand. His description of being in the middle of the attempt by the students to cross the bridge over the Sava against police barricades, and of being subjected to tear gas, is effective, but other than than any more detail would simply be rehashing the same cynical schemes we all already know all too much about.

It is worth noting that while Glenny acknowledges the depth of nationalist sentiment among the larger Serb population, he doesn't examine it as deeply as I wish he had. We will see if this becomes problematic in later chapters.

Serbia Arrests Ratko Mladic

I was getting ready to post another story, when I saw that this news story had broke:

Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia, president says

Not much to say, we'll see how it goes from here, but this is undoubtably great news.

"Bosnia and Beyond" by Jeanne Haskin [3]

Chapter 4

This is a perfunctory synopsis of the War in Croatia.

Chatper 5

This is a perfunctory account of the outbreak of war in Bosnia; there is nothing surprising or new for any reader with even a cursory knowledge of events; except for the author's unsubstantiated claim that "the West had given up on the idea of retaining Milosevic as their man due to his refusal to enact further [economic] reform." There are no notes, citations, or evidence presented; she merely states that this is "[m]y own analysis" and leaves it at that. Her only "evidence" is that the West supported independence for Bosnia without being willing to take further measures to allow the country to defend itself. Of such reverse-reasoning are conspiracy theories made.

One other odd choice in this chapter--the author quotes Danielle Sremac, points out that her arguments amount to little more than a defense of the actions of the Bosnian Serb leadership--and then states that "Sremac's defense of the Bosnian Serbs is something to which I will give voice throughout the account of the war"! Why she feels the need to balance her account with a contrary and dubious interpretation is not explained.

Chapter 6

An account of the early phase of the war; the seige of Sarajevo and how it served to distract international attention from the massive campaign of genocide throughout the country; the public relations/propogranda campaign by the Bosnian Serb leadership and their allies/enablers (Sremac and Lewis MacKenzie here) to cloud the issue of guilt and responsibility by claiming that the Bosnian government was responsible for attacking its own people; concentration camps throughout the country; etc.

Haskin continues to quote Sremac; mostly she rebuts Sremac's assertions but sometimes concedes a point. For example, she notes that there were Croat- and Muslim-operated concentration camps, and that the Bosnian government forces sometimes committed atrocities; yet she does so in context of accepting that Sremac's "report" that the numbers of non-Serbs held was wildly inflated and the numbers of Serbs held highly underreported. Either those accounts were accurate (as accurate as they could be during wartime), or they were not; instead, Haskin gives Sremac's contrary account plenty of room (she quotes Sremac at length), and then without considering the specifics of her claims, goes on to state that there were reports of atrocities committed by Croat and Muslim forces, so therefore "this does not mean that Sremac's report is invalid." That's quite a leap, and completely ignores the context in which Sremac's "report" was given. Haskin, in short, completely avoids making critical judgements about the relative reliability and honesty of conflicting sources; a serious flaw in a book which relies on secondary sources.

Oddly, despite her decision to include the revisionist accounts by Sremac and to give space to Lewis MacKenzie's statements (even though she acknowledges that he was later a secretly paid spokesman for the Serb nationalist cause), she does not bring up the Living Marxism smear against Ed Vulliamy's reporting on the concentration camps. Given her odd editorial choice to give Sremac equal time, this came as something of a relief.

"Bosnia and Beyond" by Jeanne Haskin [2]

I'm going to preface this post with two short apologies:

1) Sorry it took me over a week from the first post to continue this review; and

2) Sorry I selected this book without knowing more about it. Haskin does not seem to have anything particularly original to add to the debate on Bosnia. This is not necessarily a bad thing--I don't I have much to add to the debate on Bosnia, either, but I'm an amateur blogger. I freely admit to being a non-specialist and a non-speaker/reader of Serbo-Croat who relies entirely on secondary sources in English for his information. As such, I try to focus more on book reviews and historiography rather than any pretense to original research or analysis. Of course, this requires that I exercise some judgement and a willingness to make critical evaluations of the sources I rely on.

I am not convinced that Haskin is sufficiently aware that she works under the same limitations I do. This book is little more than a summary of other works, seemingly shoehorned into an ideologically pre-determined conceptual framework. A quick visit to the website of the publisher, Algora Publishing, reinforces that perception.

I will stick with this review, if only to give Haskin the chance to redeem herself, but so far I am not impressed.

Part 1
Chapter One: The Pre-War Situation

This chapter explicitly rehashes the argument made by Susan Woodward and Michael Chossudovsky--that the breakup of Yugoslavia was a direct result of a Western-imposed financial crisis at the end of the Cold War. The argument here is nuanced to the extent that she doesn't believe that the West intended to destroy Yugoslavia, but rather merely intended to overthrow the Communist government. The theory here is that disparities between the different republics created fault lines that nationalists were able to exploit; Milosevic most adroitly.

Her 'evidence' is slim, and the weakness of her book is evident within the first few pages; she states her positions briefly, includes a handful of footnotes from the same few sources, and considers her case made. If this were merely an aside to the larger issues to come, the reader could forgive her--but the premise of the entire book is that the West, particularly the United States, were primarily responsible for the breakup of the country and therefore bear a great deal of the blame for the violence which followed. Because of that, it is important that the author should establish this crucial point as best she can before moving on. She fails to do so.

Chapter 2

And yet--often is seems that Haskin's heart is in the right place. Although she accepts one of the key premises of Balkan revisionism, she seems not to have followed Woodward and Chossudovsky into the arms of Johnstone, Parenti, and company.

In this chapter, she briefly summarizes some of the context for the rise of nationalism in post-Tito Yugoslavia; specifically among Serbs and Croats. Nothing here will surprise any readers of this blog, but frankly they will surprise a reader who has just finished Chapter 1 and thinks he or she knows where Haskin is going.

Chapter 3

This chapter briefly summarizes the preparation for war among Serb nationalists, within the Milosevic regime and its proxies, to a lesser extent among nationalist Croats and the Tudjman regime, and the lack of preparation by Izetbegovic and the nascent Bosnian state. Again, there is nothing new here.

One interesting note: While Haskin accepts Woodward's thesis that Western-imposed economic hardship was the primary cause of the eventual breakdown of the Yugoslav state, she explicitly rejects Woodward's claim that the RAM--the Serb paramilitary forces created either by Milosevic or his allies--was created to defend against Western aggression. While I suppose it is good that she rejects Woodward's ridiculous claim, it is curious that she doesn't recognize that this is a warning sign that Woodward's thesis is an ideologically driven project to make the facts fit the theory rather than the other way around. Haskin picks and chooses which trees she likes without any awareness that someone is trying to get her lost in a forest.

***********

I will probably continue to review Part 1 in a perfunctory manner; Part 2 might merit slightly more measured consideration and attention.

"Bosnia and Beyond" by Jeanne Haskin [1]

I realize that this blog has been semi-dormant for the past several weeks; I will make an effort to get things moving again. Beginning with a review of Bosnia and Beyond: The "Quiet" Revolution that Wouldn't Go Quietly by Jeanne M. Haskin, a book which seems to straddle between different competing Western narratives about the Bosnian war. After paging through it, I've decided simply to read it a chapter at a time and report what I find as I go. I am doing this after sitting on a copy for a couple of weeks, unable to decide whether or not the book warranted a full review. Ultimately, I decided that it's been so long since I've blogged at all, I needed to just jump head first into the book and hope the review ends up being worth the trouble, regardless of whether or not the book is worth the trouble of reviewing. So I'm blogging without a net, so to speak.


I checked it out without knowing anything about it; I do not promise anything other than a straightforward accounting of the text as I go through it on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Introduction

This book consists of many short chapters divided into very short sections. It seems that many of the section titles are quite self-explanatory, which makes it pretty easy for the curious reader to quicly ascertain where the author is coming from. Although the confusion doesn't quite end there, as we shall see.

The breakup of the country is placed at the feet of the West, who had imposed draconian financial restructuring terms on the country at the end of the Cold War; this argument is a familiar refrain of left-wing revisionists; Haskin even goes as far as to say that the rise of nationalist political factions (and the dearth of moderate non-nationalist political) leadership was a direct result of the "economic and political climate that the West had contrived to achieve"; a claim which goes even further than such revisionists as Diana Johnstone, who at least acknowledges the indigenous origins of the post-Tito political culture.

Yet at the same time, Haskin bluntly states that there was a genocide against the Muslims of Bosnia, carried out by the Serb leadership, and that the international community essentially tolerated it because with the exception of the United States, they either supported the incorporation of Bosnia into a Serb-dominated rump Yugoslavia, they simply preferred the Serb leadership, or they were anti-Muslim. You would never hear any of this from Diana Johnstone or any of her fellow revisionists, to put it mildly.

The book is in two parts--Part One argues that the international community established the terms by which the country was pulled apart, and then managed the destruction of the country in such a way that the Muslims of Bosnia were used as sacrificial lambs in order to create a postwar order in accordance with the new international consensus. Part Two focuses on what might have been done to prevent or stop the genocide in Bosnia, and what lessons we can learn to stop future genocide.

This could be interesting.

Press Release: BAACBH Condemns the Arrest of General Divjak

[It seems that the government in Belgrade is still playing this tired game; apparently the government there still feels that there is political traction is these stunts. Thanks to the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina for this press release.]

General Jovan Divjak, former Deputy Commander of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), was detained on March 3, 2011, by the Austrian authorities on an international arrest warrant issued by the government of Serbia. General Divjak was arrested at the Vienna International Airport at approximately 8:00 pm local time. The Austrian judicial authorities have indicated that they intend to keep General Divjak detained for two weeks until a determination is made regarding Serbia's extradition request.

The Serbian government issued a warrant for Mr. Divjak's arrest on the grounds that he was involved in war crimes during the siege of Sarajevo which lasted from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996. Specifically, Mr. Divjak is accused of war crimes during an incident that occurred on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo on May 3, 1992.

Mr. Divjak's arrest is not an isolated case and is part of a continued pattern by the government of Serbia to intimidate all those who stood in defense of BiH. Last year, on March 1, 2010, the Serbian government issued a similar arrest warrant for Mr. Ejup Ganic, the former member of the wartime presidency of the Republic of BiH. Mr. Ganic was arrested on March 1, 2010, at London's Heathrow Airport for the alleged crimes committed during the same Dobrovoljacka Street incident. Four months after the arrest, Mr. Ganic was released because there was no evidence against him, proving that Serbia's arrest warrant was politically motivated.

BAACBH strongly condemns the arrest of General Jovan Divjak and believes that once again, Serbia's action is an assault on Bosnia's inherent and inalienable right to defend its population against the Serbian aggression. It is an assault on the reconciliation process, and it is an attempt to undermine the atrocities committed in BiH from 1992 to 1995 by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) and Serbian paramilitary troops under Belgrade's command. Serbia has demonstrated by this politicized action that it does not respect Bosnia's sovereignty and that it is not yet prepared to be a trusted neighbor in the Balkans.

BAACBH urges for the appropriate authorities to swiftly carry out the necessary investigation so that General Jovan Divjak is released.

"Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" by Silber and Little [18]

Chapter 29: Pax Americana

This penultimate chapter detals the negotiations which led to the peace treaty that ended the wars both in Bosnia and between Croatia and Serbia, and established the Dayton Agreement which divided Bosnia into the Republika Srpska and the Bosnian-Croat Federation. Milosevic embraced his new-found role as a respectable "peacemaker" even as he continued to show contempt for his kin in Bosnia and Croatia whom he had once presumed to speak for.

The negotiations were tangled and contentious, and ably summarized in this chapter. The end result was the Dayton agreement, and hastily called elections, in which the three nationalist parties dominated and the ethnic cleansing of the country, to which the United States and the Western powers were now a party to, became further institutionalized. The leadership of the three nationalities were still determined to look for an advantage at the expense of the other two, and although the war was over it was a peace that was accomplished at the expense of mulit-ethnic Bosnia.

"Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" by Silber and Little [14]

Chapter 21: Last-Chance Cafe The Rise and Fall of the Vance-Owen Plan January-May 1993

The Vance-Owen plan had many flaws, and I am not here to defend it. However, it did have two advantages which should be taken into consideration:

1) Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen seemed to recognize a harsh, infuriating, and disheartening reality--the West had no interest in a truly just or lasting solution for Bosnia. The nature of their plan may very well have been simply a concession to the political realities they were laboring under.

2) Unlike the Dayton agreement which would come a few years later, the Vance-Owen plan actually took the territorial integrity of Bosnia seriously. For all the faults of the central concept of partitioning Bosnia by ethnic cantons, the Vance-Owen plan at least scattered the Serb-assigned cantons so that they could not form a unified whole; unlike the de facto ethnic partition of the Dayton constitution, Vance-Owen undermined the geopolitical viability of Republika Srpska.

The plan famously divided Bosnia into 10 cantons--3 for the Bosniaks, three for the Serbs, two for the Croats, one for the Bosniaks and Croats to share, and Sarajevo as a "special status" canton. The Vance-Owen plan essentially signalled that while the West deplored the tactics of the Serb nationalists, the leaders of the "international community" accepted the premise that Bosnians would not be considered as individual citizens but as aggregate ethnic entities. The Vance-Owen plan itself would perish, but it defined how the West would deal with Bosnia from 1993 until the present day.

The chapter details the political "rise and fall" of the Plan, which was eventually rejected by the Bosnian Serb parliament* against the wishes of Milosevic--the break between him and the Bosnian Serb leadership was now open and would ultimately provide the diplomatic room for the West to apply some pressure between the government of Serbia and the Serb rebel government in Bosnia.

*My failure to capitalize "parliament" is deliberate; whenever possible, I seek to avoid giving the appearance of legitimacy to any of the institutions of the illegal Bosnian Serb Republic of 1992-1995.

Chapter 22: Beware Your Friend a Hundred-fold The Muslim-Croat Conflict 1992-1994

The Muslim-Croat War of 1993 (the dating here is an acknowledgement that the seeds of the conflict dated back to the beginning of the Bosnian war) is often treated as an unfortunate sideshow to the larger conflict. In some ways this is accurate--the group which had the most to gain were the nationalist Serbs, who were delighted to see their mutual foes turn on each other, simultaneously strengthening the hand of nationalist Croats who wished to see an ethnic partition of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia while further isolating the Muslims even further. Those who criticize the Vance-Owen plan for its pessimistic vision need to remember that in the Spring of 1993, the Muslims of Bosnia very much looked to be on the verge of being wiped off the map.

They weren't, of course, but the price was steep; many Muslims would embrace a hardline, more explicitly Islamic approach as Muslims in general came to realize that they were truly on their own. Ultimately, too few Bosnian Croats were radicalized enough for the HVO to have its way, and of course Tudjman would soon realize he had more to lose by continuing to support radical nationalists while courting international favor. In the end, the conflict mostly served to hasten and intensify the ethnic division, radicalization, and mutual suspician that the Serb nationalist project had put into motion.

New Article from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting

I am pleased to pass along this new article from The Institute for War & Peace Reporting. It is an interview with Merdijana Sadovic, IWPR's international justice/ICTY programme manager. In this interview Merdijana consider's Serbia's commitment to the Hague tribunal and its hopes for EU accession. It is a balanced and fair-minded examination of the relative willingness within the Serbian government to ultimately arrest Mladic and turn him over.

Is Serbia Serious About Arresting Mladic?

New Article from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting

I am happy to direct my reader's attention to the following article from The Institute for War & Peace Reporting:

New Mladic Arrest Bid a "Media Show"

"Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" by Silber and Little [5]

Chapter 6: "A Croatian Rifle on a Croatian Shoulder"

While Serbian nationalism had been unleashed and harnessed by Milosevic, in Croatia the two-decades long crackdown on expressions of Croatian nationalism still held sway; it took time for nationalist dissidents like Franjo Tudjman to test the waters and see how far they could push the envelope. The growth of the HDZ was greatly helped by Tudjman's relative freedom of movement--his Partisan past allowed him better treatment in prison after the crackdown, but also he was allowed a passport, which enabled to him to travel and network with the widely-dispersed Croatian emigre population, who would provide key support in the HDZs rise to power.

Tudjman was (unlike Milosevic) a genuine nationalist, and once he and the other members of the HDZ leadership found that they would be able to meet and campaign openly, he quickly became adept at using mass rallies and ostentatious displays of populist support. When the elections in Croatia were held, this support (combined with the British-style election rules) resulted in an electoral victory which gave the HDZ uncontested status as the ruling party (it's winning margin over the reformed Communists was not all that great, but the system was set up to reward the first-place party disproportionately).

This was all being watched by the Slovenes--who had a head start on multiparty elections and were working towards them carefully; ultimately, Kucan would win the Presidency and immediately quit his membership in the (renamed) former Communist Party--and the Serbs. In Serbia, the Milosevic regime played to very real fears among Croatias' Serbian minority that the Ustashe regime was being resurrected. Tudjman and his party did little to assuage such fears, and sometimes even exacerbated them.

The Army was also watching; the threats to take action to defend the integrity of Socialist Yugoslavia were repeated, and Kucan and Tudjman needed to consider how genuine the threat from General Kadijevic and others really were.

*************

And so Part One, "Laying the Charge", comes to an end. One theme which has been contstant through all six chapters is this--the breakdown of Yugoslavia happened along genuine, pre-existing fault lines of nationalism, national grievances, economic disparities, social unrest, and political dysfunction. All of this is true. But Yugoslavia did not fall apart 'naturally' or without further stress; it was not preordained to break apart violently once the ghost of Tito's iron fist had finally faded away. It took deliberate actions by political and cultural elites to align Yugoslavia's weakened fissures against the hard edges of intolerance, fear, insecurity, and paranoia. These actions were taken by real individuals, and their actions and words have been recorded and witnessed. The tragedy which is about to follow was not organic, it was not the inevitable product of deep-seated, almost animalistic impulses. Rational, powerful, calculating people made deliberate choices to exploit Yugoslavia's weaknesses for short-term political gain.

In Part Two, we will see many of these same actors apply the violent pressure to Yugoslavia, so that the breakup they placed into motion did, finally, become inevitable.

"Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" by Silber and Little [4]

Chapter 5: Tsar Lazar's Choice

The new Yugoslave Prime Minister, Ante Markovic, believed that liberal economic reforms were the key to stabilizing, indeed saving, federal Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, by the time he took power, the Federal institutions were too weak to force the Republics into compliance, and the three most powerful republics--Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia--were against him.

In the meantime, Milosevic fully embraced Serb nationalism as a political tool by leading and speaking at the huge commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo Polje. The unprecedented public display of the bones of Prince Lazar, and the move to transport those bones to Serb Orthodox monasteries around Yugoslavia was a provocative move to symbolically lay claim to "Serb lands." Milosevic, as President of Serbia, was flexing his political muscle in full view of his rivals.

Slovenia saw the writing on the wall, and moved to take action to protect itself from the moves towards centralization under Serb domination. Proposed constitutional changes (some of which was premised on selectively chosen economic grievances) would have made Slovenia virtually a sovereign nation, although the Slovenes answered Serb complaints by pointing out that Serbia, too, had altered its Constitution without input from the other republics. The Slovenes understood that Milosevic had figured out how to use the structure of the Federal government against itself, and felt they had no choice in order to protect Slovenian interests.

The Slovenes were able to go ahead with their plans when the constitutional court argued that it could not rule on proposed changes; and then again when the JNA surprised everybody by refusing to take action against Slovenia, which disappointed Milosevic.

Serbia responded by attempting to stage a Serb rally in Ljubljana, and then by pushing for a Serb boycott of doing business with Slovenia. The break was nearly complete.

This all culminated in the Fourteenth (and final) Extraordinary Party Congress, during which every single amendment proposed by Slovenian delegates--no matter what the content--was voted down by solid majorities from Serbia and Montenegro. It became clear to the Slovenes that they were not only to be humiliated but completely emasculated; eventually, they chose to walk out of the Congress to the cheers of Serb and Montenegrin delegates. Milosevic's attempt to carry on without them was foiled, however, because the Croatian delegation also walked out, a contigency Milosevic had not counted on. Without a quorum, the Congress was suspended, never to be reassembled. Yugoslavia as a functioning state was nearly finished.

Serbs Honor Srebrenica Victims With Shoe Memorial

It is vital that we acknowledge the voices in Serbia who value their common humanity more than demagogic posturing and nationalist myth-making:

Radio Free Europe Story on Srebrenica Memorial in Belgrade

I suspect that there are many other Serbs who know, at some level, that such gestures are necessary, and it will take the courage and integrity of such groups to open up a greater public space for dialogue on the legacy of the wars of the 1990s. Especially given the intimidating presence of ultra-nationalist thugs in the immediate area.

Credit must also be given to civic authorities in Belgrade, who from the sound of it made sure there was a sizable police presence on the scene to protect the free speech rights of the Women in Black and sympathetic supporters from jackbooted intimidation.

Does the Country Claim the Person, or Does the Person Claim the Country

A recent article from the Southeast Europe Times raises some interesting issues:

Honouring Mesa Selimovic

While countries argue over who gets to claim Selimovic, the man himself seemed to understand that national identification was a choice, not something decided by blood. Whether he was Bosnian or Serbian, he realized he was free from the constraints of tribal identity. His "blood" was not his destiny.

He also seemed to understand that identity is a complex thing; something facsists and extreme nationalists (as well as relgious fundamentalists and all other zealots) are incapable of grasping. He was able to embrace a Serbian identity without renouncing his former Bosnian identity.

The idea that the individual is free to reinvent him or herself, and to adopt and claim new identities, is fundamental to genuine freedom. Too many writers in the Balkans preached that ethnicity is destiny; how refreshing to celebrate one who knew better.

Open Letter on the Arrest of Ejup Ganic from Professor Francis A. Boyle

The arrest of Ejup Ganic by the British government is all political. TheBritish have always detested and hated Ganic because he was the oneBosnian war-time leader who had the guts to stand up against thempublicly, so this is now the British payback against Ganic, Bosnia andthe Bosnians. Indeed, it was Ganic who personally helped me get thelegal authorization from President Izetbegovic to sue Britain at theWorld Court for aiding and abetting genocide against Bosnia, asexplained in the attached Note. This British persecution of Ejup Ganicis simply a continuation of the genocidal policies that PerfidiousAlbion has always pursued against Bosnia and the Bosnians.

Professor Francis A. Boyle

General Agent for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina withExtraordinary and Plenipotentiary Powers before the International Courtof Justice (1993-1994)

How to Tell That A Book Has An Ideological Axe to Grind

In the spirit of "I don't need to eat the whole fish to know it's rotten", I will not be launching a comprehensive, chapter-by-chapter review of Shadows on the Mountain: The Allies, the Resistance, and the Rivalries That Doomed WWII Yugoslavia by Marcia Christoff Kurapovna. The book is concerned with the rescue of 500 American airment by Chetnik forces near the end of World War II, but while this incident is often used as propaganday by Serbian nationalists and their allies, Kurapovna has gone one better and written an entire book centered on that rescue. However, she seems to engage in quite a bit of questionable revisionism and out-and-out one-sided propagandizing in her efforts to not only put the rescue in "context" but to give it a significance that it does not warrant.

The subtitle of the book hints at what this context is--she argues that the Allies wrongly betrayed Mihailovic and the Chetniks (who at least once she claims were fighting for "Western values"), were duped into supporting the Partisans, and therefore "doomed" Yugoslavia.

Needless to say, it takes a lot of creative use of selectively chosen facts to make this argument; but while Kurapovna's footnote-laden book certainly manages to avoid the bombast of more obviously biased works, her agenda is clear. One can learn this with a cursory read through, but one can save even more time by restricting oneself to the mercifully brief Preface. There is enough coded language and unexamined inferences in these first four pages to alert the reader.

Echoing Diana Johnstone's disclaimer near the beginning of Fool's Cruade, she immediately begins with the "I'm only pro-Serb in the sense that the big bad Western media is anti-Serb" rhetoric, Kurapovna immediately plays to the nationalist mythological motifs of Serbia's specialness and it's sense of martyrdom. She is not subtle. The third sentence reads:

"Yet anyone writing about Serbia must remain constantly on the defensive--to respond to usually knee-jerk, ill-informed hostility toward the country and to the questionable tallying of its various abuses and atrocities as recorded by less than scrupulous international media."

The contradiction between the book's ostensible concern with the fate of Yugoslavia versus the singular concern with Serbia in the Preface is quite telling. Considering that the book goes on to portray Serbia as surrounded by enemies , one wonders what sort of Yugoslavia would have been possible under the royalist Chetniks and the Nedic government.

To date, this book has received very little traction. Rather than give it any more attention, I am merely greatful that the propagandists for the other side are often so clumsy.

Greek journalist sued for writing about the presence of Greek paramilitaries in Bosnia

With the kind permission of Daniel Toljaga, I am republishing the following interview which was originally posted on the official website of The Congress of North American Bosniaks. Thanks to Daniel for permission to republish his excellent--if disturbing--interview. This story merits continued scrutiny.

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On 27 July 2009 Mr. Stavros Vitalis, representing the Panhellenic Macedonian Front, filed a libel suit against the acclaimed journalist Mr. Takis Michas, best known for his authorship of the book “Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic’s Serbia.” He is suing the journalist for describing- in the daily “Eleftherotypia” - Greek mercenaries as “paramilitaries who took part in the slaughter in Srebrenica.”

Mr. Vitalis is one of the leading Greek volunteers who have admitted taking part in the Srebrenica genocide. But, that’s not how he sees it.

In a statement distributed to the media, he claimed that the Greek volunteers who fought in Bosnia under the command of General Mladic were there in order to help the Serbs “who were being slaughtered by international gangs that were also stealing their houses, their country and their dignity.”

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Mr. Michas, thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview. To begin with, what is the Panhellenic Macedonian Front that has filed this suit against you through its representative Mr. Vitalis?

TAKIS MICHAS: It is a Greek nationalist political organization which also includes socialists and conservative former politicians. Up until now its central campaign theme has been its advocacy of the view that Macedonia along with everything related to it (history, symbols, etc.) is exclusively Greek.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: What exactly does Mr. Vitalis hope to achieve with this lawsuit?

TAKIS MICHAS: Bearing in mind that Karadzic’s trial will also be taking place next year, what they will be hoping is to create an alternative debate in which the substance of what happened at Srebrenica will be called into question. In other words, while the world is trying the war crimes perpetrated at Srebrenica, in Greece they will be putting the critics of the war crimes at Srebrenica on trial!

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Do you have any comments about the lawsuit and the press statements Mr. Vitalis has made?

TAKIS MICHAS: Yes. First of all Mr. Vitalis explicitly admits that Greeks (i.e. himself) took part in the planning and execution of the Serb “re-occupation” (as he calls it) of Srebrenica. As he says in his press statement “I was present with a group of senior Serb officers in all the operations for the re-occupation of Srebrenica by the Serbs”.

Secondly, Mr Vitalis admits that the recruitment of Greek volunteers for the war against the legitimate government of Bosnia took place with the implicit approval of the leading Greek politicians Andreas Papandreou and (to a lesser extent) Constantine Mitsotakis. As he puts it:

“The whole of Greece knows that the Greek volunteers had the broad support of Greek society as a whole as well as the support of politicians, mainly belonging to PASOK, because of the warm friendship between Andreas Papandreou and Radovan Karadzic. They also enjoyed the support of New Democracy, through the friendly diplomatic initiatives of Constantine Mitsotakis.”

This reinforces the point I have repeatedly made, namely that Greek support for the Serb war effort was not only moral, economic, diplomatic and political but also military.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Was Mr. Vitalis present during and after the fall of Srebrenica when Greek paramilitaries hoisted the Greek flag over the town?

TAKIS MICHAS: Well in his own statement he said that together with high ranking Serb officers he took part in all the operations that dealt with the “reoccupation” (as he calls it) of Srebrenica. Now as to whether he was physically present in the hoisting of the flag this is something that only Mr. Mladic knows (and perhaps Mr. Karadzic)!

DANIEL TOLJAGA: It is interesting that he publicly admitted being present himself “in all the military operations” related to the “re-occupation” of Srebrenica. Do you have any idea why Mr. Vitalis has not been investigated for possible war crimes?

TAKIS MICHAS: Because, as I have shown in my book, in Greece Serb actions during the war in Bosnia are not regarded as “crimes” but as “heroic deeds”. This applies to Srebrenica as well. No Greek government has made any statement at any time during the last 15 years explicitly condemning the killings at Srebrenica - this is a unique state of affairs for a European country.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: In the words of U.N. Judge Theodor Meron, who served as the President of the ICTY, Serbs - and I quote - “targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica.” In your opinion, is Mr. Vitalis fully aware that the military operations he took part in resulted in the summary killings of more than 8,000 and the ethnic cleansing of approximately 30,000 people in July 1995? Is he aware that he took part in genocide?

TAKIS MICHAS: According to his own admissions, yes. However, just like Holocaust deniers, these people refuse to accept that mass killings took place in Srebrenica.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Your book revealed for the first time the presence of Greek paramilitaries in Bosnia. Why has Mr. Vitalis waited so many years since the publication of your book to file a suit?

TAKIS MICHAS: This is an interesting question. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that as I have hinted in other articles I am now in possession of confidential diplomatic documents that show the Greek authorities for the first time admitting the presence of Greek paramilitaries in Bosnia. Possibly they think that by putting pressure on me now they will prevent me publishing these documents. But this of course is only one explanation. There may be others.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Mr. Vitalis has claimed that the operations of the Greek volunteers “were widely endorsed by Greek society because of the warm friendship that existed between Andreas Papandreou and Radovan Karadzic.” To what extent did this friendship suggest that the government may have been involved?

TAKIS MICHAS: Obviously it involves government in the sense of knowing, tolerating and endorsing the open recruitment of Greek citizens with the aim of fighting against the legally recognized government of Bosnia. It certainly implicates the government of PASOK under Andreas Papandreou.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: I remember, and you also referred to this in your book, that leading Greek judges had publicly refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Considering that your right to a fair trial may be seriously impaired by the extreme ultranationalist atmosphere in Greece and the fact that Mr. Vitalis has announced that he plans to call leading Greek nationalist politicians as witnesses, I would like to know whether you intend to seek support from prominent international organizations that specialize in the protection of journalistic freedom?

TAKIS MICHAS: I will certainly be trying to spread the word. Judging from the lawsuit they have filed against me, I guess that from now on they will also be making the glorification of the Serb war effort in Bosnia one of their campaign themes.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Are you worried about the forthcoming trial?

TAKIS MICHAS: In any other European country this lawsuit would have been thrown out of court. But as I have said repeatedly Greece is not a normal European country. Given the spirit of extreme nationalism that permeates the country and the fact that Karadzic and Mladic are venerated as saints by the majority of the public and the political class, I have every reason to feel worried.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Thank you for taking part in this interview. We will be keeping a close eye on the progress of your case.

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"Why Yugoslavia Still Matters" by John Feffer

Big thanks to Roger Lippman for bringing this article from the Foreign Policy in Focus website.

Also, see the debate between Feffer and Bosnian revision Edward Hermann here.