Yugoslav Wars

[DOOM]

I remember that the revolutionary left was kind of split when it came to the Yugoslav Wars and the responsibility for them. Many leftists in Ex-Yugoslavia believe that the western countries plotted against Yugoslavia and therefore supported the nationalist movements firmly. The infamous Antideutsche movement however supported Milosevic (former serb leader) and his war against german imperialism (yeah). Other groups were rather pacifistic and demanded immediate peace.
So what do you think?
Maybe I'll post some background informations, if someone's interested.

[Atsumari]

Any leftist who supports Milosevic has proven themselves not to be a humanist or even a sincere communist/anarchist, but rather an anti-imperialist just because. Any good person should never endorse racist ethnic nationalism

[Rosa Partizan]

very interesting topic. A German anti-imp newspaper called Junge Welt is still celebrating Milosevic as kind of a tragic hero resisting imperialist powers. Biazed, I think I showed you the articles some weeks ago? Not sure anymore...after Tito's death, this country was doomed.

[DOOM]

I believe that the war wasn't created by the western countries. Nationalist tensions always existed throughout Yugoslavia's history. After the large economic crisis in the 1970s, separatistic ideas started to rise again and with Tito's death 1980 the republic went into a deep political crisis. In 1990 the Slovenian and Croat representatives left parliament after a dispute with Serbs and announced that they'll proclaim the independence.
The Yugoslav army (by the beginning of the war, it was an almost exclusively serbian army) started to attack Croatia and Slovenia. In 1992, the multiethnic republic Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed their independence after the bosnian serbs boycotted the referendum. Bosnia got attacked by serbian separatists (Vojska republike srpske) and the yugoslav army.
What followed was the most brutal war Europe has faced after WW II. So everyone who supported Milosevic clearly didn't see the facts.

[Rosa Partizan]

I believe that the war wasn't created by the western countries. Nationalist tensions always existed throughout Yugoslavia's history. After the large economic crisis in the 1970s, separatistic ideas started to rise again and with Tito's death 1980 the republic went into a deep political crisis. In 1991 the Slovenian and Croat representatives left parliament after a dispute with Serbs and announced that they'll proclaim the independence.
The Yugoslav army (by the beginning of the war, it was an almost exclusively serbian army) started to attack Croatia and Slovenia. In 1992, the multiethnic republic Bosnia and Heregowina proclaimed their independence after the bosnian serbs boycotted the referendum. Bosnia got attacked by serbian separatists (Vojska republike srpske) and the yugoslav army.
What followed was the most brutal war Europe has faced after WW II.

yes, the yugoslav idea turned into a "Great Serbia" one. But how could a true yugoslav agree to a federation of countries with only one country determinating and deciding and giving a shit about the non-serbs? I've met a decent amount of Serbs who were like, well yeah, fuck yeah Yugoslavia, when all they meant was "...as long as we're on top".

[PhoenixAsh]

Hmmm...I was involved through my father with the defense team behind Milosovic....or rather he was...and I met some very interesting people...including Slobo.

I am thoroughly convinced Europe exploited and assisted nationalist movements to power and help set the stage for war as an active policy in order to counter act Yugoslav/Serbian influence in the region...which was gravitating towards Russia and away from Europe and NATO and which impacted the wider region and prevented the economic and political expansion of both the EU and NATO.

I also think the Yugoslav Tribunal is a complete sham and an exponent of imperialism justifying and vilifying Serbians in order to justify an illegal war and is not ruled by legal justice but by political account settling. As such I think the indictment against Milosovic were trumped and could not be proven except by circumstantial evidence.

Do I support Milosovic and his politics? No definitely not.

[Atsumari]

Hmmm...I was involved through my father with the defense team behind Milosovic.

I am thoroughly convinced Europe exploited and assisted nationalist movements to power and help set the stage for war as an active policy in order to counter act Yugoslav/Serbian influence in the region...which was gravitating towards Russia and away from Europe and NATO and which impacted the wider region and prevented the economic and political expansion of both the EU and NATO.

I also think the Yugoslav Tribunal is a complete sham and an exponent of imperialism justifying and vilifying Serbians in order to justify an illegal war and is not ruled by legal justice but by political account settling. As such I think the indictment against Milosovic were trumped and could not be proven except by circumstantial evidence.

Do I support Milosovic and his politics? No definitely not.
Give some sources rather than suspicions. The big bad West is not the cause of everything evil.

Of course I could be wrong about this specific situation, but I have seen this excuse used way too many times

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

I believe that the war wasn't created by the western countries. Nationalist tensions always existed throughout Yugoslavia's history. After the large economic crisis in the 1970s, separatistic ideas started to rise again and with Tito's death 1980 the republic went into a deep political crisis. In 1991 the Slovenian and Croat representatives left parliament after a dispute with Serbs and announced that they'll proclaim the independence.
The Yugoslav army (by the beginning of the war, it was an almost exclusively serbian army) started to attack Croatia and Slovenia. In 1992, the multiethnic republic Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed their independence after the bosnian serbs boycotted the referendum. Bosnia got attacked by serbian separatists (Vojska republike srpske) and the yugoslav army.
What followed was the most brutal war Europe has faced after WW II. So everyone who supported Milosevic clearly didn't see the facts.

You're forgetting the sizable minority of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia who had no intention of losing their jobs and being massacred - which is what happened in "free, democratic" Croatia and parts of Bosnia. Yeah, Milosevic was a nationalist bastard. But so were the Croatian and Bosnian leadership.

[Durruti's friend]

In 1991 the Slovenian and Croat representatives left parliament after a dispute with Serbs and announced that they'll proclaim the independence.
The Croatian and Slovene party delegates left the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the SKJ in 1990, independence was proclaimed in 1991. Just mentioning it to put the dates in order :)

And that Congress was basically a botched Milošević's attempt to promote Serbian interests (or rather the interests of the Serbian national-bourgeoisie) in decaying Yugoslavia with help from his puppet regimes in Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro.


yes, the yugoslav idea turned into a "Great Serbia" one. But how could a true yugoslav agree to a federation of countries with only one country determinating and deciding and giving a shit about the non-serbs? I've met a decent amount of Serbs who were like, well yeah, fuck yeah Yugoslavia, when all they meant was "...as long as we're on top".
Nah that's not quite true. The point is that Slovenia and Croatia, Yugoslav leading economic powers, had to give some of their national GDP for the industrialization of poorer regions, like Kosovo or southern Serbia. That caused nationalist protests in Croatia in 1971, which were crushed.

"The top nation" thing is a common nationalist myth in ex-Yugoslavia, equally distributed among Serbs as well as Croats.


I am thoroughly convinced Europe exploited and assisted nationalist movements to power and help set the stage for war as an active policy in order to counter act Yugoslav/Serbian influence in the region...which was gravitating towards Russia and away from Europe and NATO and which impacted the wider region and prevented the economic and political expansion of both the EU and NATO.
That is true for the 1999 bombing of the FRY, but in the early 90s Russia didn't offer any help to Serbia - quite to the contrary, Yeltsin had authorized the arms trade with Croatia. Also, the USA didn't want to sell weapons to the newly formed Slovene and Croatian republics and was for some time even sympathetic towards Milošević.

My point is - no one should view Milošević as anything other than a bourgeois dictator fighting to spread the control of "his" national ruling class.

As to the OP himself, I think the Yugoslav wars were a great thing for the national bourgeoisie of all the ex-Yugoslav republics, since it destroyed the strong workers' movement with nationalist hysteria and created a good environment for a new round of primitive accumulation of capital for the new capitalist class, this time without giving lip-service to the working class.

[Rosa Partizan]

You're forgetting the sizable minority of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia who had no intention of losing their jobs and being massacred - which is what happened in "free, democratic" Croatia and parts of Bosnia. Yeah, Milosevic was a nationalist bastard. But so were the Croatian and Bosnian leadership.

could you show me any examples of Bosniak massacres on serbian civilists, except the ones the Mujahideen commited? In no way I am denying massacres on Serbs, fuck no. However, Bosniaks had _by far_ the most civilian casualties. So how could you compare the Bosniak regime to the Serbian one? The aggression began clearly from one side.

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

During the 1990s, Milosevic became your typical anti-imperialist martyr fighting against foreign intrusions. To this day, "anti-imps" continually lament over how the West f***ed over Serbia and far-right Serbians lament over how Republika Srpska and the FRY were the last frontier against Islam in Europe. Nevertheless, he was no socialist and was as communist as Tito's market socialism; during the 1990s, he adopted state capitalism. Overall, the Yugoslav Wars were a huge cluster**** and everyone wanted to get involved. You put Afghan mujahideen, Iranian-trained Bosniak mujahideen, Albanians, Serbian far-right nationalists, former YPA soldiers, Croatian nationalists, Slovene nationalists, and Bosniak nationalists in the same room and you get 1990s Yugoslavia.

[bropasaran]

"DM: Last month marked the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Yugoslavia. Why did NATO wage that war or I should say why did the United States wage that war?

NC: Actually, we have for the first time a very authoratative comment on that from the highest level of Clinton administration, which is something that one could have surmised before, but now it is asserted. This is from Strobe Talbott who was in charge of the…he ran the Pentagon/State Department intelligence Joint Committee on the diplomacy during the whole affair including the bombing, so that's very top of Clinton administration; he just wrote the forward to a book by his Director of Communications, John Norris, and in the forward he says if you really want to understand what the thinking was of the top of Clinton administration this is the book you should read and take a look on John Norris's book and what he says is that the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neoliberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated. That's from the highest level."

From "On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Danilo Mandic"

There's the whole interview on YouTube and transcript on Chomsky site, with a lot of stuff about Yugoslav wars.

There's also a movie on YouTube called Weight of Chains which has some very interesting details about break up of Yugoslavia and NATO involvment there.

[ckaihatsu]

The Emergence of the New Left Party in Slovenia: Initiative for Democratic Socialism

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/964.php

[DOOM]

During the 1990s, Milosevic became your typical anti-imperialist martyr fighting against foreign intrusions. To this day, "anti-imps" continually lament over how the West f***ed over Serbia and far-right Serbians lament over how Republika Srpska and the FRY were the last frontier against Islam in Europe. Nevertheless, he was no socialist and was as communist as Tito's market socialism; during the 1990s, he adopted state capitalism. Overall, the Yugoslav Wars were a huge cluster**** and everyone wanted to get involved. You put Afghan mujahideen, Iranian-trained Bosniak mujahideen, Albanians, Serbian far-right nationalists, former YPA soldiers, Croatian nationalists, Slovene nationalists, and Bosniak nationalists in the same room and you get 1990s Yugoslavia.

So much fucking this.

[PhoenixAsh]

Give some sources rather than suspicions. The big bad West is not the cause of everything evil.

Of course I could be wrong about this specific situation, but I have seen this excuse used way too many times

Really? You want me to repost just about every newspaper article that has been written about the Wests involvement in the support for the break up of Yugoslavia and the unilateral recognition of independence of the states?

[DOOM]

Really? You want me to repost just about every newspaper article that has been written about the Wests involvement in the support for the break up of Yugoslavia and the unilateral recognition of independence of the states?

And what about the Wests desperate attempts to keep yugoslavia united?

[PhoenixAsh]

That is true for the 1999 bombing of the FRY, but in the early 90s Russia didn't offer any help to Serbia - quite to the contrary, Yeltsin had authorized the arms trade with Croatia. Also, the USA didn't want to sell weapons to the newly formed Slovene and Croatian republics and was for some time even sympathetic towards Milošević.

My point is - no one should view Milošević as anything other than a bourgeois dictator fighting to spread the control of "his" national ruling class.



Right. Russian imports into Serbia against EU and NATO sanctions were the only thing that made the Serbian economy going during the 90-93 period. And of course there was the pan-slavic notion espoused withing both Serbia and Russia which eventually gained headway during the 94-95 bombings which led to an all Russian UN force outside NATO control and the unilateral abandonment of any form of sanctions against Serbia by Russia.

[PhoenixAsh]

And what about the Wests desperate attempts to keep yugoslavia united?

Yes by asking a complete surrender of any and all sovereign economic and military rights. That was hardly acceptable...and pure unadulterated imperialism in the guise of "keeping the peace"...and the west knew even before they suggested it that any such attempts would be doomed to failure. This was later even admitted by several western diplomats as planned failure.

Of course this was after the unilateral recognition of independence of the former German collaborating state of Croatia.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Yeah Western attempts to intervene on behalf of their own interests should be criticized - but so should the attempt to take over the state and territory of Yugoslavia by reactionary Chetnik fascists. If there was one thing which Tito did marginally more competently than those who followed him it was keeping the Serb and Croat chauvinists from monopolizing the state.

I also find it interesting that Islamophobia is so roundly condemned in the West by Leftists, but suddenly when you have Muslims fighting against a FORMER "socialist" Republic suddenly some people speak as if those fighting the Muslims are the last bastion against oriental savagery. Of course there were creepy Islamic fanatics among the Bosniak rebels but they weren't the ones primarily responsible for pushing nationalist narratives in the first place.

[Durruti's friend]

Right. Russian imports into Serbia against EU and NATO sanctions were the only thing that made the Serbian economy going during the 90-93 period.
Yeah, you're correct there, Russia did help Serbia a lot. I don't know why I wrote that part. I guess what I wanted to say was that Russia didn't have a particular "pet-state" in 1991, when Yugoslavia dissolved, but had turned completely to Serbia after the western states (mostly Germany) started helping out Croatia.


And of course there was the pan-slavic notion espoused withing both Serbia and Russia which eventually gained headway during the 94-95 bombings which led to an all Russian UN force outside NATO control and the unilateral abandonment of any form of sanctions against Serbia by Russia.
I don't really think "pan-slavism" has anything to do with that. It was easier for the Serbian ruling class to sell Russian imperialism as "Slavic brotherhood" to the people but that's it. Russia had only geo-political interests in helping Milošević; there's no room for idealism in the that game.


Of course this was after the unilateral recognition of independence of the former German collaborating state of Croatia.
Serbia was also a German puppet state in WWII, what's your point?

I don't understand why any revolutionary leftist would support any side in the Yugoslav conflict. Support for Milošević was probably the most rotten form of anti-imperialism, as there was nothing progressive about his regime. (That's not to say there was something progressive in other ex-yu states, but I've never heard of anti-imps defending anyone other than Milošević's Serbia.)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

As I recall it, the WRP and their satellites, and Thornett's club for angry ex-WRP members, supported Izetbegović, and for a while even Tuđman, which is an accomplishment in itself.

Milošević himself was a political chameleon of the worst sort, shifting from anti-nationalism to nationalism, from support for further capitalist reform to some watered-down public ownership, from presenting himself as the protector of Serbs anywhere to the beleaguered moderate peacemaker hampered by the "intransigent" Karađić and so on. I don't see why anyone would support him, or any of the other Balkan warlords and petty nationalist leaders.

[Ismail]

As a footnote, the Albanian position throughout 1990 remained basically the same as it did in Hoxha's time: support for Kosovo becoming a republic within Yugoslavia alongside the republics of Serbia, Croatia, etc.

In August 1990 Ramiz Alia said in a speech to Party of Labour of Albania's Politburo that: "Kosova's freedoms and rights can only come through the struggle of the people of Kosova. They cannot be achieved except by them, and should not be expected as a gift from anyone else." (Kola, The Search for Greater Albania, 2003, pp. 191-192.)

And in his September 1990 speech to the United Nations, "The Albanians in Yugoslavia... are demanding no more rights than the Serbs, the Slovenians, the Croatians, or the Macedonians. However, they will not accept anything less. They want to be equal subjects with all the other nations Yugoslavia is composed of. The Albanians are demanding recognition of their right to self-determination. They want to live in a Yugoslav federation or confederation if the other nations stand for these forms of government...

As far as Albania is concerned, it is for relations of good neighbourliness with Yugoslavia, for a broader and all-round co-operation with it. We will strive in this direction in the future, too, and wish that reason and wisdom prevail in the settlement of the Kosova problem, so that Serbia does not turn it into a conflict that would pose a threat to peace and security not only in Yugoslavia but also in the Balkans and beyond." (Alia, Albania - An Active Participant in World Democratic Processes, 1990, pp. 14-16.)

[PhoenixAsh]

Yeah, you're correct there, Russia did help Serbia a lot. I don't know why I wrote that part. I guess what I wanted to say was that Russia didn't have a particular "pet-state" in 1991, when Yugoslavia dissolved, but had turned completely to Serbia after the western states (mostly Germany) started helping out Croatia.

Yugoslavia and Russia were both disintegrating around the same time. Russia was just recovering from theirs. So the initial support was indeed, mostly economic and not so much political. So your assertion was more or less valid.



I don't really think "pan-slavism" has anything to do with that. It was easier for the Serbian ruling class to sell Russian imperialism as "Slavic brotherhood" to the people but that's it. Russia had only geo-political interests in helping Milošević; there's no room for idealism in the that game.

This is true for the government but it did play a large role in the opposition pushing for an increasingly more active role in the conflict within Russia.




Serbia was also a German puppet state in WWII, what's your point?

There is a slight difference between the position of Croatia and the position of Serbia within the Third Reich. Especially the position of the Serbs themselves was noticeably different from that of the Croats.

Serbia was an occupied region while Croatia was considered a semi-protectorate. Serbs were prosecuted and exterminated because of their ethnicity. Croats were the main culprits and if they were prosecuted it was because of political ideology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_persecution_of_Serbs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_the_Military_Commander_in_Serbia

[Durruti's friend]

This is true for the government but it did play a large role in the opposition pushing for an increasingly more active role in the conflict within Russia.
Ergo, populism.


There is a slight difference between the position of Croatia and the position of Serbia within the Third Reich. Especially the position of the Serbs themselves was noticeably different from that of the Croats.

Serbia was an occupied region while Croatia was considered a semi-protectorate. Serbs were prosecuted and exterminated because of their ethnicity. Croats were the main culprits and if they were prosecuted it was because of political ideology. Croatia was de iure an independent state, but it was constantly occupied by German and Italian forces. It even had an Italian noble for king until 1943. Serbia was officially an occupied territory, but it also had a collaborationist government with some authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_National_Salvation).

As for the second part of your statement, yes, there was a genocide over Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, which is a big part of the reason why the Partisan movement became so strong in that part of Yugoslavia. But Serbs weren't targeted because of their ethnicity in Serbia, where a lot of them actively assisted in the Holocaust and Porajmos, with Belgrade being the first Judenrein city in Europe. Not to mention the Chetniks who operated in Bosnia and first conducted mass murder over the local Muslim and Croat population, but later became buddy-buddy with the Ustashe and other fascists.

What I want to say is that it's:
a) Ridiculous to blame a whole nation for anything done, well, ever.
b) To make criticisms of 1990s Croatia or any other ex-yu state based on WWII and not on what happened during the war itself.

Fuck, I never expected this sort of ustaša-četnik argument would start on a non-balkan forum.

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Article from Leftcom on why workers should oppose both sides in the Yugoslav Wars from 1996: http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/1996-01-01/about-the-bosnia-s-wars-and-peace

They present a clearly unbiased side in the conflict, grilling both the NATO imperialists and the Serbian nationalist-capitalists.