The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
HUH!? What you say was ten years ago. Since then, Milo has been toppled. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I remember the great hopes in the West for Kostunica. This was the Democrat who was the first to translate important documents of American democracy into Serbian.
Turned out he was a "nationalist" and a "hardliner."
Have you been listening?
I don't think you have.
Then again, apologies in the region are hard to come by. Never an apology for the death camps in Croatia in WW2. Never an apology for Operation Storm, and in fact, when war criminals were arrested from the other side, the UN has sought to protect them (just Google Carla Del Ponte and Ramush Haradinaj). This story is a lot more complicated than you make out. You say the Serbs wanted to screw around with people without acknowledging things like Rambouillet which were clear attempts to screw around with them, nor acknowledging that the only group in the ex-Yugo prevented from seeking their own nation-state (in the Krajina, in Bosnia, in Slavonia, and now in northern Kosovo) was the Serbs.
In fact however, the current Serbian government expressed its contrition over the events surrounding Srebrenica and Croatia (in fact IIRC so did Babic - of all people)... I know not of any similar apologies from Croatia for Krajina or indeed the Bosnian Muslims regarding the actions of people such as Oric... The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
As an addition to what others wrote, I note: all you ever hear from Serbia is how the Western MSM you read present it, with neat wrapping. People should learn to apply the same scepticism to reporting as on Iraq.
Russia's been using Serbia to cause trouble in the Balkans for a hundred years
<sigh> Russia/the Soviet Union has been a rival and thus concern for Western imperiums for two centuries, and is thus subject to negative propaganda ever since. A propaganda that shuts out serious analysis of Russian moves (not to mention a denouncement of similar imperial policies by Western imperiums -- Russia never invaded the Western Balkans, but Austria-Hungary and Nazi Germany did so, as did NATO). In the current case, you completely ignore the break of international law, and its direct consequences to Russia's domestic and just-next-to-the-border concerns on territorial integrity. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Monthly Review
The breakup of Yugoslavia provided the fodder for what may have been the most misrepresented series of major events over the past twenty years. The journalistic and historical narratives that were imposed upon these wars have systematically distorted their nature, and were deeply prejudicial, downplaying the external factors that drove Yugoslavia's breakup while selectively exaggerating and misrepresenting the internal factors. Perhaps no civil wars--and Yugoslavia suffered multiple civil wars across several theaters, at least two of which remain unresolved--have ever been harvested as cynically by foreign powers to establish legal precedents and new categories of international duties and norms. Nor have any other civil wars been turned into such a proving ground for the related notions of "humanitarian intervention" and the "right [or responsibility] to protect." Yugoslavia's conflicts were not so much mediated by foreign powers as they were inflamed and exploited by them to advance policy goals. The result was a tsunami of lies and misrepresentations in whose wake the world is still reeling.
The short version is that the media version of genocidal Serbs does not hold up on closer inspection. There where atrocities and massacers, but the size of those are often exaggerated and only one sides crimes are reported.
16,000 Serb civilians killed in Bosnia 1992-95 are effectively disappeared, while the 31,000 Muslim civilians killed in the latter years are elevated to world class status as victims of genocide.
Most important there was no genocidal campaign against croats or muslems in Serbia, where you could expect it to be worst would the Serbs really be genocidal. Actually, I think lots of people of different ethnicity fled to Serbia from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Have no link for it right now though. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
askod, not UpstateNY. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by Frank Schnittger - May 27 3 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 5 22 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 23 1 comment
by Oui - May 13 65 comments
by Carrie - Apr 30 7 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 273 comments
by Oui - May 2712 comments
by Oui - May 24
by Frank Schnittger - May 231 comment
by Oui - May 1365 comments
by Oui - May 910 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 522 comments
by Oui - May 449 comments
by Oui - May 312 comments
by Oui - May 29 comments
by gmoke - May 1
by Oui - Apr 30265 comments
by Carrie - Apr 307 comments
by Oui - Apr 2644 comments
by Oui - Apr 886 comments
by Oui - Mar 19143 comments