Yugoslav Truth

Slobodan Milosevic is dead

2006-03-11T14:27:00.000Z

Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his cell in the Hague. He was a great man, and deserves to be mourned like the death of Martin Luther King or Ghandi would be mourned today.

According to the current media ‘obituaries’, Slobodan Milosevic was a nationalist who caused the destruction of Yugoslavia for his own cynical aims: the creation of a Greater Serbia and solidifying of his dictatorial position. This is sheer nonsense.

Slobodan Milosevic was a committed socialist and Yugoslav. He wanted a Yugoslavia where every nation, every republic, would be equal and free in a federal state. He believed, as every single one of his speeches makes absolutely clear, in national equality. Nationality and ‘race’ mattered not one bit to him: as he said on 25 April 1987, ““We neither wish nor can we classify people into Serbs and Albanians”. In the 1980s he and his wife, Mira Markovic, even prodded their daughter together with a young Belgrade ethnic Turk, who they hoped to be their future son-in-law.

In Serbia while he was in power policies of national equality were consistently implemented. This explains why some of his top allies and colleagues, who are also bizarrely accused of being part of his criminal conspiracies to cleanse non-Serbs, were non-Serbs – Frenki Simatovic, leading intelligence chief in Serbia, was a Croat, Mihalj Kertes, Milosevic’s key ally in Vojvodina who later became his Interior Minister, was a Hungarian, as was Geza Farkas, the man he appointed chief of military intelligence in May 1999, when NATO attacked.

Milosevic, and his allies and colleagues, did everything they could to prevent the destruction of Yugoslavia. The cause of the break-up was not Milosevic, who strove for Yugoslavia’s preservation, but the nationalists and separatists in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. They have themselves admitted this fact openly. Stipe Mesic, current Croatian president and the last President of Yugoslavia, for example, told the Croatian Assembly in December 1991 that “My task is done. Yugoslavia is no more”. Mesic later explained on a TV discussion with other key separatist figures in November 1995 how he completed his task: "I wanted to convey the idea of the break-up of Yugoslavia to those who had the greatest influence on its fate, to Genscher and the Pope. In fact, I had three meetings with Genscher. He enabled a contact with the Holy See. The Pope and Genscher agreed with the total break-up of SFRY."

Franjo Tudjman, Croatia’s nationalist president, has been just as explicit about the real cause of the war in Croatia. He said openly at a rally in Ban Jelacic Square on 24 May 1992 that "There would have been no war had not Croatia wanted it. But we thought that it was only by war that we could win the independence of Croatia. That's why we had a policy of negotiations behind which we were setting up military units. Had this not been so, we would not have reached our goal."

Likewise, Bosnian Muslim nationalist leader Alija Izetbegovic announced openly in spring 1991 that “I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina. But for that peace I would not sacrifice sovereignty” – which is exactly what he did a year later, illegally declaring Bosnia independence despite Serb opposition.

Milosevic did everything he could to prevent war erupting in Croatia and Bosnia, and, once it had erupted, to bring those conflicts to an end. The view of his role in the West is practically the opposite of the reality.

Neither was Slobodan Milosevic a dictator. In the late 1980s, as he rose to power, Western ambassadors saw him as a Balkan Gorbachev, as he advocated the most wide-ranging free market economic and democratic reforms that Yugoslavia had ever seen. His time as a banker in New York had obviously had an effect on his political views, and he looked back on those years fondly, keeping a photo of himself with Rockefeller on his bedside table (the evil Commie!). In 1989-90 he then introduced multi-party democracy in Serbia as Communism and Socialism – even the highly liberal form that existed in Yugoslavia – crumbled across the globe.

The people in power in Serbia today were the ‘opposition’ of the 1990s, and characterise Milosevic as a dictator. This claim is a lie that the ‘opposition’ branded around due to their failure to win elections. Whereas Slobodan Milosevic ran on a ticket of social democracy and opposition to nationalism in Serbia’s multi-party elections of December 1990, current Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic ran a nationalist and extremist campaign. The Serbian electorate rejected Draskovic’s visions of bloodshed, and so he attempted to overthrow the government by provoking riots.

Whereas Milosevic urged peace in Croatia, Draskovic urged the Serbian government to cease its non-involvement, create its own Serb army, and declare war on the Croatian nation as a whole. Whereas Milosevic’s government arrested illegal paramilitaries, Draskovic organised them, in allies with various criminals and ex-criminals, and sent them off to commit atrocities in Croatia.

And yet now, absurdly, we have to listen to the Western media condemn Milosevic as a warmongering nationalist, and ask Draskovic for his opinion (righteous condemnation) of the evil man.

Milosevic’s death is a tragedy. It is also directly the result of the persecution that the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia carried out against him. The Tribunal constantly denied him the medical treatment he needed, and overruled his doctors’ advice that he needed rest. Most recently, his doctors had declared that he needed at least six weeks of rest, and treatment in a Moscow medical facility. Russia and Milosevic himself assured the court that he would return. But the court refused the recommendation, denying him even the recommended six weeks rest. So, assuming his death was of natural causes, these causes were not that ‘natural’ after all.

The June 1989 Gazimestan nationalist celebration myth - busted!

2006-02-25T21:10:00.000Z

The regularly repeated myth that 'The 28 June 1989 celebration in Gazimestan of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo was nationalist', has now been busted. Click here to read the about the real nature of this celebration.

For the rest of the 'Destruction of Yugoslavia: Myth and Fact' page, click here.

For my recently posted page of excerts from speeches of Milosevic, showing his consistent and stringent opposition to nationalism, click here, and here for my recent post showing much-demonised General Ratko Mladic's opposition to ethnic cleansing.

Myth: The 28 June 1989 celebration in Gazimestan of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo was nationalist.

2006-02-25T20:54:00.000Z

FACT: The 28 June 1989 celebration in Gazimestan of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo has been granted great importance in the distorted, anti-Serb official history of the break-up of Yugoslavia. According to this official history, the celebration was a Milosevic-organised nationalist event, which threatened and inspired fear within the hearts of the other peoples of Yugoslavia. Nothing could be further from the truth: the event was simply the celebration of an historic anniversary, and it carried the message of multinational peace and harmony, and brotherhood and unity amongst peoples.

28 June is St Vitus day for Serbs, when they remember the Battle of Kosovo against the Ottoman Empire, which took place on 28 June 1389. According to Serbian national mythology, this defeat led to the destruction of their medieval state and their subjugation under Turkish rule. The Serbian Prince Lazar was said to have had a dream the day before the battle in which a falcon offered him the choice of achieving either a heavenly or an earthy kingdom, and he chose the former, and fought and lost the battle. Prince Lazar was reputed to have said that “It is better to die a heroic death, than live with shame. It is better to die of sword in battle, than bow to our enemies.”

This tale, embedded in the Serbian collective memory, has inspired ideals of national self-sacrifice amongst the Serbs for centuries. This mythology is not ‘nationalist’. St Vitus day is not about saying that Kosovo belongs to Serbs and not Albanians, it is simply a national anniversary, which carries the message of unity and self-sacrifice. As the most famous Yugoslav dissident, Milovan Djilas, said “If there had been no battle at Kosovo, the Serbs would have invented it for its suffering and heroism”.

Much of this mythology is historically inaccurate, as most nations’ founding myths are. Historians – many of them Serb – have discovered that the Battle was in fact more of a tie than a defeat, and that the medieval Serb state actually survived for another seventy years before finally falling to the Turks. This is often pointed out in the West as if it exposes the Serbs or Milosevic in some way, ignoring the fact that no-one in 1989 attempted to claim this national mythology as historical fact. Slobodan Milosevic himself, in his speech at Gazimestan on the day, said that “Today, it is difficult to say what is the historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and what is legend… [I]t is difficult to say today whether the Battle of Kosovo was a defeat or a victory for the Serbian people, whether thanks to it we fell into slavery or we survived in this slavery. The answers to those questions will be constantly sought by science and the people.”

As 28 June 1989 was the 600th anniversary of this famous Battle – and such a milestone anniversary does not crop up every day – large celebrations were organised for the event. The bones of Prince Lazar were also taken on a tour of Yugoslavia, which began on 28 June 1988 and ended in September the following year. Note that in June 1988 Kosovo was ruled by people such as Azem Vllasi and Kaqusha Jasari, celebrated in the West as Albanian resisters of Milosevic and his supposed evil nationalism, and they raised no objection to the beginning of preparations for these celebrations.

This is because there was nothing abnormal or nationalist about celebrating this event. Socialist Yugoslavia may have been tough on nationalism, but the Communists did not simply erase the history of the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia, and such milestone anniversaries were always celebrated. In 1976-7, for example, there were a number of celebrations in Bosnia and Serbia of the centenary of the Serb uprising in Bosnia, organised in co-operation with the Serbian Orthodox Church, while in November 1987 the centenary of the death of Vuk Karadzic, founder of the Serbian language, was celebrated in Serbia.

Rather than deny such national anniversaries, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia organised them as celebrations not of national exclusivity but of brotherhood and unity, multiethnic and multinational co-existence and harmony, that existed (in theory, at least) in Yugoslavia at the time. At the aforementioned November 1987 celebration, therefore, alongside Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and Serbian Party President Slobodan Milosevic in the front row sat Lazar Mojsov, the ethnic Macedonian President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and Sinan Hasani, the ethnic Albanian representative of Kosovo on that body, amongst others.

The celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the Kosovo Battle were organised on similar lines. They were officially organised not by a Serb body, but by the multinational Presidency of Yugoslavia, and the events’ organising committee went to great lengths to stress the fact that in the Battle of Kosovo not just Serbs but Albanians, Hungarians, Croats and Bulgarians had fought on the European side. The main celebration at Gazimestan on 28 June was attended by the presidents of each and every one of the republics and autonomous provinces of Yugoslavia, not just Serbia (Janez Stanovnik, the President of Slovenia, recieved the loudest applause, presumanly because the audience thought his attendance was a stand against previous Slovene support for Albanian nationalists), alongside key federal government leaders such as Prime Minister Ante Markovic (a Croat), Foreign Minister Budimir Loncar (a Croat), Defence Minister Veljo Kadijevic (a Yugoslav), his Deputy Stane Brovet (a Slovene), and Interior Minister Petar Gracinin (a Serb). The then President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Janez Drvonesk (a Slovene), and all its other members, also attended. So did a number of members of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, including its then President Milan Pancevski (a Macedonian). The composition of the representatives attending was as multinational as Yugoslavia itself.

As this was a Serbian national anniversary, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia, was obviously the main speaker. But he did not use his speech to the million odd people – primarily Serbs – that had gathered that day in Gazimestan to whip up nationalism. On the contrary, he gave one of his typical pro-Yugoslav speeches in favour of brotherhood and unity amongst peoples, and explicitly warned of the dangers of nationalism. He emphasized, for example, that “Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.” His speech, available to read here, ended with a line that succinctly summarises the whole message of the celebrations – “Long live peace and brotherhood among peoples!”.

What Slobo said

2006-02-24T14:27:00.000Z

I have compiled a page of quotes of Slobodan Milosevic, which show his consistent opposition to nationalism and stringent belief in national equality. The page is available here. I shall hopefully soon also add more to the 'Destruction of Yugoslavia: Myths and Facts' page.

The quotes I have included show that Milosevic fought for national equality and rights for all in Kosovo and was in no way anti-Albanian, that Milosevic was an adament opponent of nationalism and frequently condemned it, and that Milosevic believed in the preservation of Yugoslavia as a community of equals. There are also a few quotes relating to Bosnia and the beginning of the civil war there.

I have highlighted in bold several things that Milosevic said that have been taken out of context, misrepresented, and quoted as words of nationalism, extremism, war-mongering, etc. By reading them within their context one can see that he was in fact arguing for the complete opposite.

Opponent of ethnic cleansing: General Ratko Mladic

2006-02-24T14:23:00.000Z

On 12th May 1992, as the Bosnian civil war was just beginning, the Bosnian Serb Assembly voted to create a Bosnian Serb army, and appointed General Ratko Mladic, then Commander of the Yugoslav People's Army district covering Bosnia, as its head. At that time the Assembly was full of discussion about what the goals of the Serbs should be in the coming conflict, and it was on that same day that Radovan Karadzic, President of the Serb Democratic Party, presented their six strategic goals to the Assembly. On this matter, Mladic had this to say:

"People and peoples are not pawns, nor are they keys in one's pocket that can be shifted from here and there. It is something easily said but difficult to achieve. We cannot cleanse, nor can we have a sieve to sift so that the only Serbs would stay, or that the Serbs would fall through and the rest leave… People, that would be genocide… We cannot wage war on all fronts nor against peoples. I would like to suggest that we adopt such a wisdom that we will not go to war but that if we are attacked, we will defend ourselves, and we don't want a war against the Muslims as a people or against the Croats as a people but against those who started that war and who pitted these people against us.”

Does this sound like something that a genocidal monster who, as the BBC puts it, "came to symbolise the Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing of Croats and Muslims", would say?

NOTE: A proper article will come soon, I have posted this because of Mladic's current reappearance in the news.

The wise words of Slobodan Milosevic

2006-02-24T14:14:00.000Z

The following quotes of Slobodan Milosevic show his consistent opposition to nationalism and discrimination, and his belief that equality amongst nations and nationalities was the basis for peace and harmony in Yugoslavia (highlightened in bold are words that are frequently quoted out of context to make him look nationalist; seen in their proper context one can see this was not the case):

“The situation in Kosovo will improve only if the Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians and all the others who live and work in Kosovo strengthen their ranks and enhance brotherhood and unity. Any basis for action which excludes brotherhood and unity but proceeds from intra-national intolerance and hatred is not right and we shall do everything to prevent it.” - 20 April 1987

“We neither wish nor we can classify people into Serbs and Albanians, but we should distinguish among the honest and progressive people fighting for brotherhood and unity and national equality on the one hand and nationalists and counter-revolutionaries on the other hand. If we do not create and strengthen that front, Comrades, then there will be no Kosovo, no Serbia, and no Yugoslavia either.” - 25 April 1987

“Enver Hoxha, through his policy, excluded the Albanian people as an underdeveloped society from Europe and thereby deprived them of taking part in the dynamic life of the present-day world, and this portion of the Albanian people [in Kosovo], here and now, are aspiring towards Europe and a modern society and they should not be stopped along that path. Nationalism always means isolation from others, closing in upon oneself within one's own framework. It means lagging behind in development, because without progress and cooperation on an all Yugoslav level and broader afield, there can be no progress. Every nation and nationality which isolates itself is behaving irresponsibly towards its own development. That is why it is we communists in the first place who must do everything to eliminate the consequences of a nationalist and separatist behaviour on the part of the counter-revolutionary forces in Kosovo and also elsewhere in the country.” - 25 April 1987

“Today it is the Serbs and Montenegrins that suffer most from that [lawlessness], but tomorrow this could be the Albanians, too, and that is why, unless law and order is introduced and respected in the broader social and historical sense, this will be the interest of all of the inhabitants of Kosovo. It is a very urgent matter which we must see to together in Kosovo.” - 25 April 1987

“The Serbs and Montenegrins alone cannot win the battle against these shameful phenomena [attacks on Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo]. Regardless of the extent of the support from the republican and Yugoslav leaderships, the position of the Serbian and Montenegrin people in Kosovo must be considerably and positively changed precisely by the Albanians in Kosovo. Honest progressive people, young people and, it goes without saying, Albanian communists, must be the first, the most persistent and successful fighters against their nationalism.This, comrades, applies not only to the Albanian nationality, but also to the Serbian, Montenegrin and any other nation in the world. It is just and moral that every nation and its most progressive people should be the first to fight against their own nationalism, against all those ugly and inhuman acts which insult and humiliate other peoples. Ultimately, these ugly and inhuman phenomena also insult and humiliate the nation whose members commit them. Albanian mothers and fathers should care more about the security of the Serbian and Montenegrin children in Kosovo than the police. In the places where the police and army take matters into their own hands freedom ceases both for those who are right and those who are wrong for everyone.” - 28 April 1987

“Any kind of flirting with nationalism or yielding to it, cannot contribute, but on the contrary can only halt, impede, slowdown and ruin a successful political development which the League of Communists has taken to be the goal. That is Tito’s brotherhood and unity which is the only basis that can secure Yugoslavia’s survival.” – 4 June 1987

“Serbian nationalism today is not only intolerance and hared of another nation or nations, but is itself a serpent deep in the bosom of the Serbian people… Serbian nationalists would do the greatest harm to the Serbian people today by which they offer as being allegedly the best thing, namely isolating the Serbian people… No one can label us Serbian nationalists because we want to, and really will, resolve the problem of Kosovo in the interests of all the people who live there.” – 24 September 1987

“The problem of Kosovo can be resolved only by strengthening the united front of Serbs, Albanians, Montenegrins, Muslims and all other nations and nationalities living in Kosovo.” - 2 November 1988

”Albanian, Serbian and Montenegrins children live there together. Why then should not their parents elect representatives who will enable their children to grow up in peace and joy at least to the extent that children in other parts of Yugoslavia and in Europe are allowed to?” – 2 November 1988

“Nobody should be surprised that all Serbia rose up last summer because of Kosovo. Kosovo is the very centre of its history, its culture, and its memory. All people have a love which burns in their hearts for ever. For a Serb that love is Kosovo. That is why Kosovo will remain in Serbia. That will not be at the expense of Albanians. I can tell the Albanians in Kosovo that nobody has ever found it difficult to live in Serbia because he is not Serbian. Serbia has always been open to everybody to the homeless, to the poor and the rich alike, to the happy and the desperate, to those who were only passing through and to those who wanted to stay. The only people Serbia did not want were evil and bad people, even if they were Serbs.

All Albanians in Kosovo who trust other people and who respect the other people living in Kosovo and Serbia are in their own country. I ask them now to rally against the evil and hatred of their own chauvinists, because they bring evil not only to Serbs and Montenegrins, but also to their own Albanian people.” - 19 November 1989

”Now let us remind the Yugoslav peoples, the working class, young people and communists that half a century ago even Spain was not far away. Many people then went to fight on its barricades against terror and hatred. Terror and hatred run riot in Kosovo today, and Kosovo is in our country of Yugoslavia. In the fight against evil in Kosovo, it is not necessary to sacrifice lives, as was done in Spain. One need only make an oath, which we Yugoslavs already gave each other in 1941, that in unity and brotherhood we shall share everything, both the good and the bad, as well as victory, injustice, and poverty, that we shall build a new better world.” - 19 November 1989

“Nowhere in Serbia with the exception of Kosovo, and one can see the end there too, do the working people and citizens divide themselves along ethnic lines. This is particularly obvious in multi-national Vojvodina, in Belgrade where members of all Yugoslav peoples and nationalities live, and in all other communities in Serbia where citizens of various nationalities live… Yugoslavia is a federal community of all peoples and nationalities that live in it. This means that they are all equal and that they have an equal position in the economic, political and cultural life of the country in which they live.” – 30 January 1989

“I am convinced, that in the fight for justice, equality, socialism and Yugoslavia, every Yugoslav, regardless of his nationality, in every one of our republics all our peoples and nationalities will be protected.” – 28 February 1989

“Having hailed the new Constitution, we can now roll up our sleeves, remembering the past is nice - but the present is in front of us, the future is knocking on our door. Serbia does not live for yesterday, but for today and tomorrow. I want to tell this to everybody inside and outside Serbia. Intoxicated with its victory, Serbia will not stand still. On the contrary, Serbia has begun great reforms with the support of all of its citizens and Serbia needs all of them to the same extent, regardless of their education, social origin, nationality and religion. They are all equally important and they all belong to Serbia to the same extent.” – 22 May 1989

“Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.

Socialism in particular, being a progressive and just democratic society, should not allow people to be divided in the national and religious respect. The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and other nations, are in their own republic.

After all, our entire country should be set up on the basis of such principles. Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it.” – 28 June 1989

“Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery, and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were present here in the field of Kosovo in the days past. Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the 21st century. For this battle, we certainly need heroism, of course of a somewhat different kind, but that courage without which nothing serious and great can be achieved remains unchanged and remains urgently necessary.” – 28 June 1989

“We have been witnessing daily an increasing expansion of bullying and primitive and chauvinist moves by the representatives of some political parties [Serb nationalist opposition parties, led by Draskovic, Seselj, etc]. Although their so-called parties have not even been constituted yet, nor registered, they are already threatening the communists and other nations and nationalities. These threats constitute their complete political programme and their complete political promotion. The state of Serbia will not let anyone carry out these ravages on its territory from Dragas to Horgos, nor will we sit back and do nothing if confronted with any kind of violence against those parts of the Serbian people living outside Serbia… The Serbian people, as no other nation in the world, knows that if there is a thing to which an end has to be put, it is fratricidal war, and a war in general. Other nations are also fed up with mutual extinction and waging wars. So, I am convinced that all Serbian citizens, all normal people in our republic and our country, are equally concerned to shield themselves and their children from conflicts, hatred and bloodshed… The foundation of new parties in Serbia should be a step towards further democratization, a step in Serbia's interests, and not a step towards conflicts and to its detriment” – 10 May 1990

“We are convinced that the idea of Yugoslavism as an expression of the strivings of all our peoples through centuries has not lost its sense, but that it should be built now on new democratic foundations within a federation in which we all together and on an equal footing will implement the joint interests, retaining the right to an independent organization of the republics.We believe that through our efforts, and the efforts of other republics and peoples who want Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav federation in its existing or somewhat changed form will successfully weather the crisis, and that the Yugoslav peoples will stay together. Anyhow, these peoples are mixed in this territory to such an extent that divisions make no sense.” – 25 June 1990

“Nationalism and discrimination belong to the Middle Ages. The future must be built on the basis of the policy of national equality and nothing else. Serbia is strongly in favour of this and of peace since no one wants to die.” – 19 March 1991

“If the human rights of Albanians really were threatened in Kosovo-Metohija, we certainly would not hesitate to protect them. We are proud that Serbia is not conducting a nationalist policy and that no one in Serbia is discriminated against for being a Slovene, Croat, or a member of another people or national minority. No one in Serbia is or will be a second-class citizen, apart from Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo-Metohija if we accept the ultimatums and pressures that we have been subjected to.” – 30 May 1991

"We can be a happy, good and successful country if we overcome this crisis of nationalism and nationalist confrontations." - 7 August 1991

“The Muslims [of Bosnia] are not a factor of instability although political adventurism by certain SDA [Party of Democratic Action, the party headed by Alija Izetbegovic that lead the Muslims] leaders could create that impression. However, it would be unfair to the Muslims and, I believe, to most SDA members if we were to entertain suspicions with regard to them only because of the senseless actions by individual extremists within their ranks. Everyone has extremists. Serbs have them too. If by some fortuitous chance they were in power in Serbia, Serbia would have been in black a long time ago. We must take into account the fact that extremism on one side gives rise to extremism on the other side, and if they should escape control and grow strong the conflicts would escalate''. - 29 December 1991

''It is my personal opinion that for the Serbian and Muslim peoples in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and this means in Yugoslavia too, to live together and on an equal footing is in the interests of both nations. I believe that Serbian nationals in Bosnia-Hercegovina by and large express these sentiments.” - 29 December 1991

“Bosnia- Hercegovina is made up of three equal nations, three constituent, three constitution-making nations. By definition, Bosnia-Hercegovina has been such a state from its very creation. If Bosnia- Hercegovina were an island in the ocean, if it did not have Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, or any other country around it, this principle of equal treatment of interests of all three nations would still have to be applied.

Therefore, I would like to remind you that from the very beginning we have been striving for the crisis in Bosnia-Hercegovina and relations in it to be regulated on the basis of consensus and equality of all three nations. We even said before all this that to help such a process and such a principled approach we would respect any solution that these three peoples reached on an equal footing. This is the beginning and the end. I do not see any other solution. I do not seen any other solution to this agony in Bosnia-Hercegovina other than for hostilities to stop immediately and for the conference that was in fact based on this principle of equality and consensus of the three constituent nations to resume immediately.” – 28 May 1992

“Always, not now or a year ago, but much earlier, we made the Serbian stance on this issue [Bosnia] very clear, namely, that we do not have any territorial pretensions. This is on the record and in the last two years, before all these clashes started, nobody who is honourable could say that we were striving for the creation of a Greater Serbia or something similar. I am glad that we have now started to join forces in our efforts to stop all these bloody events, and everything that is absolutely bad, and this unjust war… Only insane people can believe that such a sort of ethnic cleansing could be something good. This is a crime that cannot be accepted or justified, regardless of the side.” – 28 August 1992

“You [Kosovo Serbs] must do everything to develop unity, but not only within the Serbian nation but unity, understanding, and love with all those who live in Kosovo. We know that there are many Albanians in Kosovo who do not approve of the separatist policy of their nationalist leaders. They are under pressure, intimidated, and blackmailed, but we shall not respond with the like. We must respond by offering our hand, living with them in equality, and not permitting that a single Albanian child, woman, or man be discriminated against in Kosovo in any way. We must, for the sake of all Serbian citizens, insist on the policy of brotherhood, unity, and ethnic equality in Kosovo.” – December 17, 1992

“For this country, and not only in Kosovo and Metohija but for the entire country, there is no other way, no other policy but a policy of national equality. We will stick to the policy of national equality, and every citizen will be equal to us regardless of his nationality, his religion, profession, or political inclinations, since this is the state of all the citizens of Serbia, and it must remain so [loud cheering]. Only like that can it be successful.

We cannot forget the cruelty that one part of the Serb population in Kosovo was exposed to in the early 1980’s, when the great exodus took place from this region, but just so that it does not happen again, we have to remember that such cruelty should not be repeated again against anyone, not against the Serbs, not against the Albanians, not against the Turks, not against the Muslims, or any other nationality that lives in this region. The Serb people, being the largest and most populous in Serbia and the Balkans, have the greatest responsibility to take in and protect those who are weaker. This has always been the tradition of the Serb people. They have to, and I know that they want to offer the hand of cooperation, of understanding, equality, and coexistence to everyone. I am convinced that not a long time will pass before Kosovo and the south of Serbia generally, becomes exactly such a region of mutual understanding, cooperation, and coexistence in progress and prosperity.

This is why I want to say again: For this country there is no other policy but a policy of national equality.” – 20 July 1995

New articles soon

2006-02-20T16:05:00.000Z

I hope to write up some new "Myth and Fact" articles soon, relating to the question of Kosovo, the rise of Milosevic and the Serb constitutional changes of 1989 that have been so unjustly vilified in the West.

One thing I will refute is the 'official line' on the June 1989 celebrations at Gazimestan, which asserts that this was a Serb nationalist celebration organised by Milosevic. In fact it was simply the celebration of an historic anniversary and was not at all nationalist or threatening, but was multi-ethnic and multi-national and carried the message of national equality. The website Emperor's Clothes has already shown this by analysing the speech that Milosevic made at the event, but I will look at other aspects of the celebration to prove this even further.

Another thing I may do a "Myth and Fact" on is the question of democratic and economic reform of Yugoslavia. According to anti-Milosevic propaganda, he was a conservative neo-Stalinist hardliner, while the Slovene and other separatists were democrats and market reformers. I will show the truth, which is that Serbia was the centre of democratic dissidence in Yugoslavia, that the Serbian party and state were the most liberal and reformist for most of the 1980s, and that Milosevic was an advocate of bold economic and political reform in the direction of free-market multi-party democracy. The real conflict in Yugoslavia was not between democrats (Slovenes) and conservatives (Serbs), but between those who advocated the dissolution of Yugoslavia and those who advocated its continued existence.

I'm also thinking about compiling a page of quotes of Milosevic throughout his career to show his consistent advocacy of multi-ethnic co-existence and tolerance. Refuting the idea that Draskovic and co were a "democratic opposition" to the evil Bolshevik Milosevic (Serbia under Milosevic was in fact a democracy, if not a perfect one, and the "democratic opposition" were largely a bunch of vile nationalist thugs and war-mongering opportunists) is also an option.

As is pretty clear, I've got a lot of ideas. I've done the research really, it's just a matter of writing it up. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have one or two articles up. Given the current context of Kosovo status talks, I may also write an article showing why there isn't a single valid, let alone just, argument for granting independence to Kosovo.

A new myth busted!

2006-02-12T15:41:00.000Z

I have written and posted a new 'Myth and Fact' in the "The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Myth and Fact" series. The myth that I bust is that, as the Hague Prosecution’s Indictment of Slobodan Milosevic puts it, “On 17 November 1988, high-ranking Kosovo Albanian political figures were dismissed from their positions within the provincial leadership and were replaced by appointees loyal to Slobodan Milosevic”.

The explanation busting the myth is very extensive and covers lots of ground. If you want to understand what was really going on in 1988-9 in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia regarding Kosovo, then you should definately read this one.

Click here to read Myth: In November 1988 Slobodan Milosevic had the popularly elected Albanian leaders of Kosovo removed and replaced with his hand-picked puppets.

Myth: In November 1988 Slobodan Milosevic had the popularly elected Albanian leaders of Kosovo removed and replaced with his hand-picked puppets.

2006-02-12T15:33:00.000Z

“On 17 November 1988, high-ranking Kosovo Albanian political figures were dismissed from their positions within the provincial leadership and were replaced by appointees loyal to Slobodan Milosevic” - Point 9 of the Hague Prosecution’s Indictment of Slobodan Milosevic

FACT: In November 1988 a part of the leadership of the Provincial League of Communists (LC) of Kosovo, acknowledging their failure in implementing the agreed policy of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) on Kosovo, resigned. The Kosovo LC accepted these resignations, and then elected successors, who were long-standing ethnic Albanian political leaders, not puppets of Milosevic.

EXPLANATION: Ever since the 1981 Albanian nationalist riots in Kosovo, the problem of Albanian nationalism and pressures on Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo had come to prominence, and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) had periodically announced new sets of measures, from the purging of Albanian nationalism from school textbooks to the banning of inter-ethnic land sales, which were designed to stabilise and resolve the crisis. Again and again the ethnic Albanian leaders of Kosovo’s party and state bodies had promised to implement these measures, but again and again the LCY found that they had failed, with emigration under pressure of Serbs and Montenegrins and Albanian nationalist agitation continuing unabated.

Azem Vllasi, the ethnic Albanian President of the Kosovo LC from May 1986 to May 1988, had promised to implement the party’s latest package of June 1987, as had his successor, Kaqusha Jashari. But both had taken a militant, nationalist-leaning line, and on 30 July 1988 the Presidium of the Central Committee (CC) of the LCY assessed that its program for dealing with the Kosovo problem had not been implemented, and attacked Kosovo’s Provincial LC leadership for not having worked hard enough for its implementation.

The LCY did not, however, explicitly state yet who was responsible for this failure, and whether changes in the leadership of Kosovo were necessary. The day before the LCY’s assessment, though, the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia had voted to, along with the Federal Government, “take steps to establish the personal and joint responsibility of those who fail to carry out tasks embodied in the Yugoslav program on Kosovo”, with measures employed against those responsible including “recalls and removals from office”. Serbian party officials led by party president Slobodan Milosevic therefore insisted that those in the Kosovo leadership who they considered responsible, in the first place Vllasi and Jashari, should resign, and new leaders be elected who would implement LCY policy and have the confidence of all the nations and nationalities of Kosovo.

Others in the party, including – crucially – the then LCY President, the ethnic Croat Stipe Suvar, an opponent of Slobodan Milosevic and fierce critic of the Serbian and Montenegrin Kosovo demonstrations that Milosevic defended, shared this view. Soon the rest of the party did too, leading the LCY Presidium, in a joint session with the leadership of the Kosovo Provincial LC on 11 October 1988, to vote to find the Kosovo party leadership primarily responsible for “the open emergence of counter-revolution” in Kosovo and its seclusion from the rest of Serbia, declaring that the communists of Kosovo had “for years drawn closer to nationalist positions and had lost the ability to mount resistance against them”. Finally, at the 17th Session of the CC of the LCY, held on 17-20 October 1988, the report of the LCY President Stipe Suvar, which the CC voted to adopt, explicitly stated that “personnel changes" in the leadership of Kosovo were necessary; the CC openly condemned its Kosovo members, Vllasi and Jashari; and a working group was established to establish the “responsibility” of Kosovo party officials for failure to implement LCY policy.

The Kosovo party leadership, including Jashari and Vllasi, accepted this assessment. At a 2 November 1988 joint meeting of the Presidiums of the Kosovo and Serbia LCs to discuss its implementation, Jashari explicitly declared, in line with these conclusions, that “in a short period of time further cadre changes should be carried out in the [Kosovo] Presidium, not under pressure…. But because we can find people who will be able to mobilise all the nations and nationalities in Kosovo”. Vllasi similarly stated that they would establish responsibility, a process that would resemble “eating humble pie”, but one that they would “not [run] away from”, insisting that “there is no-one amongst us who departs from LC policy”.

Other Kosovo figures spoke along similar lines, with some ethnic Serb members of the Provincial Presidium in particular speaking self-critically. Members of the two Presidiums disagreed over the extent of the coming self-criticism and cadre changes, whether individual or collective responsibility for the failure should be established, and how long the process would take, with some from Serbia accusing their Kosovo counter-parts of procrastination and a “flight from responsibility”, but the meeting ended with the adoption by both of a joint conclusion. That conclusion stated that:

“The Presidium of the Serbian LC Central Committee and the Presidium of the Kosovo LC Provincial Committee are of the view that, before any cadre renewal is undertaken, it is necessary in as short a period of time as possible to establish the degree of individual responsibility in the Presidium and the Provincial Committee of the Kosovo LC for failure to implement the conclusions of the ninth session of the LCY Central Committee on Kosovo. In the process of ideo-political and work differentiation the Presidium and the Provincial Committee of the Kosovo LC should rid themselves of those individuals who no longer enjoy the confidence of either the people or the LC membership. Both their departure and the appointment of new cadres who will be prepared and competent to fight for the implementation of LCY policy will have a considerable positive effect on the political mood and future actions.”

The Kosovo party leadership thus completely accepted the need for changes in its composition, as the LCY Presidium had stated. So too did the rest of Yugoslavia, with the LCY Presidium reiterating once again on 9 November 1988 that the Kosovo Provincial party leadership had not been carrying out the decisions of the LCY, and could not successfully execute its tasks in its present composition.

It seemed to some, however, that the Kosovo LC was procrastinating over the issue, leading Milosevic to reiterate his demand once again on 14 November that Jashari “immediately” relinquish her functions as she was “incapable” of filling them, and state that Serbia expected the Kosovo leadership to implement the conclusions of the 17th Session immediately and “without procrastination or playing for time”.

Finally, on 17 November 1988, a month after the 17th Session, the shake-up came. Two Albanians and two Serbs announced their resignations from the Kosovo LC Provincial Committee, which then voted to accept them. Jashari then tended her own resignation as Provincial LC President, as did the party secretary Vojislav Zajic, an ethnic Serb. Remzi Kolgeci, a member of the Presidium and the President of the Presidency of Kosovo since May 1988, became acting President of the Kosovo LC, which then voted to remove Azem Vllasi from its ranks on the grounds that he was also Kosovo’s representative on the CC of LCY, and could not occupy both posts simultaneously.

These cadre changes of November 1988, as can clearly be seen, were voluntary, accepted by the Kosovo leadership and those involved, and supported, and deemed necessary, by the rest of Yugoslavia. They were not, however, accepted by all Albanians in Kosovo, and when the resignations were announced several thousand Albanian miners and students descended on the party headquarters in Pristina to demand their rejection.

The Provincial Committee, however, rejected their demands, and voted on 18 November to accept the resignations, with its acting President Remzi Kolgeci appealing to the demonstrators to disperse to their homes, and the Federal Presidency demanding that they cease, warning that they were causing anxiety amongst the other nations and nationalities of Kosovo and deepening national divisions.

The protestors soon dispersed, but would return later after the work of cadre changing was completed in late January 1989. The Kosovo LC then elected new officials to the posts of those who had resigned. Rrahman Morina, then Kosovo’s Provincial Interior Minister, was elected the new LC President, and Tomislav Sekulic, an ethnic Serb who supported brotherhood and unity and opposed what he called “drunken Serbism”, was chosen as the new party secretary. Vllasi, meanwhile, was removed from the CC of the LCY, and Ali Shukrija elected to take his place.

The ethnic Albanian Trepca miners who protested in February 1989, threatening to blow themselves up if their demands were not met, demanded, amongst other things, the resignations of Morina, Shukrija and Husamedin Azemi, the president of the Pristina LC. These three have thus been portrayed in the West as, as Noel Malcolm puts it, "Milosevic's placemen", despite the utter falseness of this characterisation.

All new party officials were elected in exactly the same manner as those they replaced, and had hardly come from nowhere. Morina had been Provincial Interior Minister for a good while now, under both Vllasi and Jashari; Azemi had already been a member of the Provincial LC Presidium prior to the November shake-up and only incurred the miners’ wrath due to his characterisation of their earlier protests as nationalist in character; and Ali Shukrija had formerly been Prime Minister and President of Kosovo, and was perhaps the most important Albanian politician active in politics at the time.

Nor were these the only Albanian politicians to support the course that Kosovo took in 1988-9. Both the President of the Provincial Presidency, Remzi Kolgeci, and the Provincial Prime Minister, Nazmi Mustafa, for example, like most Albanian politicians in Kosovo, retained their absolutely key posts and supported the direction Kosovo took. So did Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian representative on the Federal Presidency, Sinan Hasani, who had, just two years earlier, been the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia and thus its nominal head-of-state.

These men were not Serb puppets, and it is false to suppose that the Serbs even desired pro-Serb puppets. At the aforementioned 2 November 1988 meeting Jashari had spoken of the need to bring into the leadership people who would “be able to mobilise all the nations and nationalities in Kosovo”, and this was precisely what party leaders in Serbia had been suggesting. As Slobodan Milosevic explained at that same meeting,

“The problem of Kosovo can be resolved only by strengthening the united front of Serbs, Albanians, Montenegrins, Muslims and all other nations and nationalities living in Kosovo. In their leaderships they therefore need people who will enable them to live in peace, with mutual respect and in brotherhood.

Kosovo does not need in its leadership Albanians who would apparently side with Serbs and Montenegrins but would be considered ''traitors'' by other Albanians. Nor do we need Serbs and Montenegrins who would, as revenge, blame all the Albanians for what the chauvinists in their ranks have been doing.

Individuals must be brought into the Kosovo leadership who will be on the side of all the people living there and who will protect all of them from the misery and the disgraceful happenings there which will continue to happen if the idea of an ethnically pure Kosovo is allowed to be realized.

Albanian, Serbian and Montenegrins children live there together. Why then should not their parents elect representatives who will enable their children to grow up in peace and joy at least to the extent that children in other parts of Yugoslavia and in Europe are allowed to?”

Back with a lot of new stuff!

2005-09-23T17:07:00.000+01:00

My last post on here was sometime in May or June. I said then the site would resume in July. It's been a little longer than that, but the site is finally back. I've uploaded some "Myths and Facts" about Yugoslavia, below. They largely concern the myths surrounding Serbia's 1989 constitutional amendments - ones dealing with Croatia and Bosnia, and the rest of the Kosovo issue, will hopefully follow in the coming weeks and months. Not all the posted "Myths" are answered, just those with links (others are nearly finished or not yet written up). I decided to upload it all even though the overall project is yet to be completed. Because of that, if you don't already know basically what is claimed to have happened in the former Yugoslavia then you may find this a little too complex and detailed - in the future I aim to add in little summaries of what is said and what really happened to make it easier to understand.

Anyway, regardless of all that, I hope you find the posts useful and informative.

The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Myth and Fact

2005-09-23T17:02:00.000+01:00

Below is a work-in-progress expose of the anti-Milosevic and anti-Serb myths surrounding the destruction of Yugoslavia, which are repeatedly endlessly in the West. If you have come to this page believing Milosevic to be the fascist-style nationalist he is portrayed as in the West, then please begin by reading these excerts from his speeches.

Persecution of Non-Albanians in Kosovo

MYTH: Protests by Kosovo Serbs and Montenegrins in the 1980s against persecution by Kosovo Albanians were nationalist and orchestrated by Milosevic.
MYTH: Serbs, Montenegrins and other non-Albanians were not really being persecuted in Kosovo, that was just Serb nationalist propaganda.

Milosevic’s Rise to Power

MYTH: Starting in April 1987, Milosevic rose to power by exploiting a wave of anti-Albanian Serbian nationalism.
MYTH: Milosevic’s famous words, “Nobody must beat you”, were a nationalist rallying cry.
MYTH: Milosevic staged the events that allegedly prompted him to say “Nobody must beat you”.
MYTH: In the so-called “Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution” Milosevic overthrew the governments of Vojvodina and Montenegro, replacing them with his puppets.
MYTH: In November 1988 Slobodan Milosevic had the popularly elected Albanian leaders of Kosovo removed and replaced with his hand-picked puppets.
MYTH: The 28 June 1989 celebration in Gazimestan of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo was nationalist.

The 1974 Constitution

MYTH: Serbs only objected to the 1974 constitution because it gave the provinces real autonomy, and they wanted a centralised state that they would dominate.
MYTH: Only Milosevic and Serb nationalists objected to the 1974 constitution and sought change.

The 1989 Amendments to Serbia’s Constitution

MYTH: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution abolished Kosovo’s autonomy.
MYTH: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution affected in a negative way the rights of the Albanians of Kosovo.
MYTH: Those Albanians that supported the amendments and opposed separatism were Serb puppets, genuine Albanian leaders were opposed. (This Myth is already busted within this Myth)
MYTH: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution were not approved by the necessary two-thirds majority in Kosovo’s Assembly.
MYTH: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution were illegal.
MYTH: Milosevic passed the constitutional amendments unilaterally, without the agreement of the rest of Yugoslavia.
MYTH: Despite abolishing the autonomy of the (previously) autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, Milosevic kept their places on the Presidency of Yugoslavia in order to create a “Serbian bloc” of votes that he controlled, with which to dominate Yugoslavia.

The Federal Government of Yugoslavia

MYTH: The Federal Government of Yugoslavia was Serb-dominated.

The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA)

MYTH: The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) was Serb-dominated.
MYTH: Through the course of Yugoslavia’s break-up non-Serbs were gradually purged from the JNA, and it became a Greater Serbian army.

The “War” in Slovenia

MYTH: The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) attacked Slovenia in June 1991.
MYTH: Slovene armed forces were the legal forces of the Slovene state.
MYTH: It was the Serbs that ordered the JNA to move against Slovenia.

Myth: Milosevic controlled a "Serb bloc" on the Yugoslav Presidency, which he aimed to use to dominate Yugoslavia.

2005-09-23T16:52:00.000+01:00

MYTH (in full): Despite abolishing the autonomy of the (previously) autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, Milosevic kept their places on the Presidency of Yugoslavia in order to create a “Serbian bloc” of votes that he controlled, with which to dominate Yugoslavia.

FACT: As already explained, the autonomy of neither Kosovo nor Vojvodina was abolished by the 1989 constitutional amendments. It was therefore perfectly natural that they keep their own independent federal representatives, which the Federal Constitution said that they should have. The representatives of Kosovo and Vojvodina continued to be elected by the Kosovo and Vojovodina assemblies respectively, and were not appointed by Milosevic, who had no control over who they were or what they did.

Kosovo’s representative on the Presidency, for example, continued to be Sinan Hasani (who had previously been President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia) for a few months, and then in May 1989 the Kosovo Assembly elected a new representative, Riza Sapundzija (another ethnic Albanian), (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm) the highest ranking Kosovo economist. (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8454/8454.ch01.html) Riza Sapundzija answered to the Kosovo Assembly, not Milosevic, and the same applied to Vojvodina’s representative. The representative of Vojvodina was certainly a Serb, as the majority of Vojvodina’s population was Serbian, but it is an absolutely racist assumption to assume that as a Serb he must have been a puppet of Milosevic. Vojvodina’s rulers and representatives throughout the 1980s had been Serbs, but had opposed the constitutional change that Milosevic had supported whereas many prominent Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, and others had supported them, and in 1990-1 Bosnia’s representative to the Yugoslav Presidency, Bogic Bogicevic, was also a Serb, but, like all representatives, he obeyed the government that chose him, not the President of Serbia.

Montenegro’s representative on the Presidency, Nenad Bucin (until March 1991), is also alleged to have been part of this “Serbian bloc” controlled by Milosevic, again with no validity. Nenad Bucin was a liberal reformer who advocated participation in government by non-communists, and had been democratically elected to his position by a referendum of the Montenegrin populace in 1989. (http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/yugoslavia/yugoslavia152.html) He answered to the Montenegrin Assembly and government, and how exactly Milosevic could have “controlled” him is beyond me. That Montenegro often had similar positions to Serbia is hardly surprising, given their shared support for the preservation of Yugoslavia, and does not make them puppets of Milosevic, any more than the Macedonian government was a puppet of Milosevic when it made a joint statement with Serbia in July 1990 declaring support for the preservation of federal Yugoslavia. (Balkan Tragedy, p.447, note 29)

The claim of Milosevic’s detractors that he created and controlled a “Serbian bloc” on the Yugoslav Presidency, and Croatia, Slovenia and the others had to secede to escape domination by this “Serbian bloc”, is therefore without any basis. Serbia had just one representative on the Presidency of Yugoslavia, out of a total of eight, and could not have dominated Yugoslavia even if it had wanted to.

Myth: Milosevic passed the constitutional amendments unilaterally, without the agreement of the rest of Yugoslavia.

2005-09-23T16:47:00.000+01:00

FACT: The whole of Yugoslavia supported and agreed to the amendments to Serbia’s constitution. In October 1988 the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), which included prominent leaders of all the republics and provinces, had declared its support for the amendments that had been formulated by Serbia’s Constitutional Commission, with even Slovenia, ruled by the secessionist-leaning Milan Kucan, agreeing to the amendments then. (Balkan Tragedy, p.94) Yugoslavia in its entirety supported the amendments and, as a conclusion adopted at a joint session of the Federal Assembly on March 1st 1989 said, “[considered] that the amendments on the constitution of Serbia adopted by the Serbian Assembly [secured] the necessary unity of all socialist self-management forces in the Republic of Serbia and [were] in line with the positions of the 13th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia”. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-18.htm) The 13th Congress of the LCY, which took place in 1986, had come out firmly in favour of amending the 1974 constitution, including allowing Serbia to amend its constitution to sort out its problematic relationship with the autonomous provinces, (http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/yugoslavia/yugoslavia132.html) and the LCY, including its Croatian (and anti-Milosevic) President, Stipe Suvar, firmly supported the amendments. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm)

Myth: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution were illegal.

2005-09-23T16:46:00.000+01:00

FACT: The 1989 amendments were perfectly legal, and consistent with both the constitution of Serbia and the constitution of Yugoslavia. Changes to Serbia’s constitution required the agreement of both autonomous provinces, and this was received in late March - on March 21st 1989 the Assembly of Vojvodina agreed, and the Assembly of Kosovo followed on March 23rd, with an overwhelming vote (by 175 out of 187 delegates present) in favour. The amendments were then passed on March 28th by the Assembly of Serbia. The correct constitutional practice was followed to the letter.

On June 27th 1990 the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, after a request by an Albanian academic and lawyer, decided to initiate a procedure to assess the constitutionality of the consent given on March 23rd 1989 to amendments to Serbia’s constitution, and a month later, on 27th July 1990, a draft decision was formed annulling the consent to the amendments. (http://www.alb-net.com/old-alb-net/more.htm) Some of Serbia and Milosevic’s detractors, including Mr. Nice, Milosevic’s prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal, claim that this shows that the consent to the amendments, and the amendments, were illegal.

There are a number of fatal flaws with this argument, however. For one thing, this decision was just a draft, and was never accepted or signed, so Kosovo’s Constitutional Court never actually declared the consent to the amendments illegal. Secondly, and more importantly, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo did not have the right to assess the constitutionality of changes to the constitution of the Republic of Serbia, which belonged to the Constitutional Courts of Serbia and Yugoslavia. The Constitutional Courts of Yugoslavia could not assess the legality of actions, only the legality of legal documents - in this case, the constitution of Serbia - and the Constitutional Court of Kosovo could not assess the legality of the constitution of a higher territorial unit, Serbia. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-18.htm) So the decision, even if it had been accepted, wouldn’t have had any legal validity.

The Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia, which had an equal representation of all the Republics and Autonomous Provinces, in fact reviewed the legality of all the constitutions of the constituent units of Yugoslavia in 1989-90, and found almost all of them - including Serbia’s - to contain minor contraventions with the federal constitution, but found everything in the Serbian constitution relating to the provinces, that had been changed by the amendments earlier in the year, to be perfectly legal and consistent with the federal constitution. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-18.htm)

Myth: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution were not approved by the necessary two-thirds majority in Kosovo’s Assembly.

2005-09-23T16:45:00.000+01:00

FACT: On March 23rd 1989 the Assembly of Kosovo met to discuss the proposed amendments to Serbia’s constitution. After a long debate, in which dozens of delegates took the floor to express their misgivings, or, more often, their support, the matter was put to the vote, and out of 187 delegates present (3 were absent), 175 voted in favour, 2 abstained, and just 10 voted against. The Assembly of Kosovo represented the ethnic make up of the population, so over 70% of its delegates were ethnic Albanians, and it overwhelmingly approved the amendments to Serbia’s constitution.

During the testimony of Vukasin Jokanovic, the Kosovo Assembly’s then President, on Wednesday 1st December 2004 at the Hague Tribunal, video clips and photos of the March 23rd Assembly session were shown, proving that this amount voted in favour. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm)

Myth: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution affected in a negative way the rights of the Albanians of Kosovo.

2005-09-23T16:44:00.000+01:00

FACT: The Albanians of Kosovo continued to have exactly the same cultural and national rights after the amendments to the constitution of Serbia as before. The amendments, as the (Albanian-dominated) Provincial Committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo concluded on February 28th 1989, “[did] not jeopardise the autonomy of the provinces or the equality among peoples and minorities” (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm) Amendment 27, for example, explicitly stated that “the languages of nationalities shall be in equal official and public use in the territories of the Autonomous Provinces”, (http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/050120IT.htm) and Kosovo Albanians continued to have full cultural autonomy and rights as a nationality of Yugoslavia.

The idea that these amendments were anti-Albanian or negatively affected Albanian rights does not even make sense. One of the members of the Constitutional Commission that prepared the amendments, Professor Surija Popovci, was a Kosovo Albanian, and he appeared on television prior to the 23rd March session of the Kosovo Assembly, which overwhelmingly agreed to the amendments, to declare his support for them (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2002-02-19.htm). Prominent Albanian leaders such as Sinan Hasani, then Kosovo’s representative on the Presidency of Yugoslavia and a former President and Vice-President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and the Albanian leaders of the Kosovo Communist Party and government, also all supported the amendments. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm) Is this at all consistent with the notion that they rescinded or restricted the rights of the Albanian people?

Serbia's Constitutional Amendments and the Autonomous Provinces

2005-09-23T16:39:00.000+01:00

Below is a detailed explanation of what the five amendments to Serbia's constitution that pertained to the autonomous provinces were actually about, and what they changed:

Amendment 29 concerned the mechanism for ensuring that the provincial constitutions were in line with the republican constitution, which they legally had to be. Under the 1974 constitution the provinces had the power to amend and change their constitutions without Serbia having any say, but there was no mechanism for ensuring that these constitutions did not illegally violate the republican constitution. Under Article 402 of the 1974 constitution the Constitutional Court of Serbia was supposed to inform the Assembly of Serbia, which was then to inform the provincial assemblies, if it found the provincial constitutions to contravene the republican constitution. Under the 1974 constitution, however, the provincial assemblies were then to decide for themselves whether to eliminate what was unconstitutional and illegal in their constitutions, and Article 402 said nothing about what would happen if the unconstitutional provisions remained. The new Amendment 29 filled that hole - if the provincial assemblies did not remove any contraventions within a year of being informed of them, then the contravening provisions automatically ceased to be applied. The provinces were thus given a one year tolerance of unconstitutionality in their constitutions.

According to Article 300 of the 1974 constitution of Serbia, there were certain areas where laws were supposed to be passed and applied uniformly for the whole of the Republic of Serbia. The separatist-leaning provincial governments had often sabotaged laws that pertained to the whole of the Republic by simply not implementing them, however, and under the 1974 constitution there was no way of making them apply or enforce the republic-wide laws that that very constitution said they were supposed to. Amendment 31 therefore gave republican bodies certain authority in the provinces for enforcing laws that applied to the whole of the republic. The provinces still retained full authority and autonomy regarding the passing of their own laws, and their autonomy was in no way affected there, the republican bodies just received the authority necessary to ensure that laws that applied to the whole of the republic were actually implemented by the provincial governments, and not ignored or sabotaged.

What it was that was regulated uniformly throughout the whole of the republic of Serbia was explained in Amendment 33: the equal use of languages, protection against pollution of the land, social policy and laws (relating to marriage and so on), property rights, and a number of other things which naturally have to be uniform across a state. What Amendment 33 specified as uniform across the republic was in fact the same as what had been specified as uniform across the republic in the 1974 constitution, only now, with Amendment 31, such uniform regulations would actually be implemented.

Amendment 43 restored an important state function to Serbia - that of protecting the constitutional order in times of crisis. The Presidency of Serbia was now to be in charge of state security when the constitutional order was threatened, and Amendment 43 regulated what the Presidency could do in terms of protecting the state order in times of crisis, including, if deemed necessary, empowering republican organs to take over the management of crucial areas across the whole of the republic. Article 296 of the 1974 constitution had said that in the area of national defence when there was an emergency the republican authorities could communicate directly with municipal authorities, bypassing the provincial organs (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-02.htm), but under that constitution Serbia had basically lost all its state powers regarding national defence and security. This was shown most dramatically in 1981, when Kosovo erupted in Albanian separatist riots, threatening the security and constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia, but the police forces of said Republic had to wait for days for permission to enter Kosovo and restore order. Amendment 43 made sure that such a bizarre and dangerous situation would not be repeated, by restoring to Serbia the essential state function of safeguarding national defence and security - matters which are clearly of absolute importance to the whole of the Republic - in times of crisis. The provinces, lest there be any confusion, still had absolute autonomy in this area in normal times, retaining their own autonomous and independent police and internal security forces, but now when the constitutional order and security of the Republic was threatened the Republic could respond as a unified whole.

Amendment 47 dealt with another important matter: how the constitution of Serbia could be changed. Under the 1974 constitution a paradoxical situation had been created whereby the Republic of Serbia had no say over what went on its autonomous provinces, and said provinces could change their constitutions at will, but those provinces effectively had a veto power over changes to the constitution of the Republic of Serbia. The lower territorial unit had more powers here than the higher territorial unit - the tail was wagging the dog. This was clearly a paradoxical situation, and Amendment 47 set out to fix it in a fair and just manner. The effective veto power of the provinces was substituted for a complex procedure for changing the constitution of Serbia. If consensus was not achieved between the republican and provincial assemblies over amendments to the republican constitution, then the matter would be postponed for six months, during which the Assembly of Serbia could not effect change. If consensus was still not reached after that period, and one or more of the provinces still objected, then the changes could be effected only through a democratic referendum. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm) The provinces thus still retained major power regarding changes to the republican constitution, just losing the power of total veto. Point 2 of Amendment 47, it should also be noted, explicitly stated that "Changes to the constitution of Serbia cannot alter the position, rights, and duties of the autonomous provinces established by the constitution of the SFRY”, so Serbia could in no way abolish their autonomy now they had lost veto power.

Myth: The 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution abolished Kosovo’s autonomy.

2005-09-23T16:38:00.000+01:00

FACT: On 28th March 1989 the Serbian parliament passed forty-one amendments to its constitution. The main reason for these amendments was to bring the Serbian constitution in line with the federal constitution, which had been changed the previous November, and just five of the said amendments - amendments 29, 31, 33, 43 and 47 - actually had anything to do with the autonomous provinces of Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina. All these amendments did was rectify the unworkable and contradictory situation created by the 1974 constitution, which had denied Serbia existence as a functioning state, and the autonomy of Kosovo (or Vojvodina, Serbia’s other autonomous province) was in no way abolished or “revoked” by them.

These five amendments restored to Serbia certain state powers in the spheres of national defence and internal affairs when the constitutional order was threatened; ensured that laws that pertained to the whole of the Republic of Serbia were actually implemented, and not sabotaged by provincial governments; made sure that provincial constitutions could not be in illegal contravention with the republican constitution; and substituted the provinces’ effective veto power over changes to the republican constitution with a complex mechanism, whereby if consensus over change was not achieved after six months, then the change could only be effected through referendum. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-18.htm (Page 35174 onwards)) Kosovo’s autonomy was barely affected by the amendments, which just restored some essential state functions to Serbia, let alone abolished. As Stipe Suvar, the Croatian head of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (and opponent of Slobodan Milosevic), said at the time, “the amendments relate to five or six issues, and it is quite normal that Serbia receives competence over them as a state… that is, unless we allow two provinces to grow into states and become states." (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm)

Kosovo continued to have its own Assembly, Executive Council, Constitutional Court, police force, and all the autonomous rights and powers it had had before. Its direct relationship with the federation, and position as a constituent unit of the federation, was also completely unchanged, and Kosovo continued to function as an autonomous province and constituent unit of the Yugoslav federation. Immediately after Kosovo’s Assembly approved the amendments in March 1989 it returned to regular issues, such as its own economic policy, and the Assembly, and all of Kosovo’s autonomous institutions, continued to function exactly as they had before. On May 5th 1989, for example, Kosovo’s Assembly re-elected its then President, Vukasin Jokanovic, elected a new representative on the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Riza Sapundzija, and held multi-candidate elections for the Presidency of Kosovo. Later in 1989 there were even new elections for the Assembly, in which approximately two-thirds of Kosovo’s citizens voted, and this new Assembly continued to function as usual, electing, for example, a new President of the Assembly, Djordje Bozovic. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm)

Myth: Only Milosevic and Serb nationalists objected to the 1974 constitution and sought change.

2005-09-23T16:36:00.000+01:00

FACT: The leaders of the Republic of Serbia had been objecting to the 1974 constitution, and its creation of essentially independent quasi-republics out of Serbian territory, practically since it had been issued. The “Blue Book” prepared by Serbia’s leadership in 1976-7, for example, warned that the 1974 constitution was splitting Serbia into three separate states, that the economic unity of Serbia was being destroyed by the provinces’ uncoordinated and independent economic policies, and that the question would begin to arise as to whether the Serbian people was “on an equal footing with the other peoples of Yugoslavia [and were] exercising their historical right to a national state within the Yugoslav federation”. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-18.htm) The “Blue Book” was suppressed, but Serbian leaders brought up the matter again in the 1980s. Ivan Stambolic, elected leader of the Serbian party in 1984, for example, campaigned for amendments to Serbia’s constitution, which the other republics eventually agreed to in 1986. It was in fact Ivan Stambolic, Milosevic’s immediate predecessor, that set up the Constitutional Commission that formed the amendments that were passed in 1989, and he presided over its first meeting in 1986. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2004-12-01.htm)

Objections to Serbia’s status under the 1974 constitution were nothing new, then, and not only had Serbia sought amendments for some time before Milosevic, but the constitutional amendments that were passed in 1989 can actually be directly attributed to Milosevic’s predecessor, Ivan Stambolic. Milosevic therefore cannot be blamed - as he is - for the alleged negative consequences of the 1989 constitutional amendments. The idea that the 1989 amendments to Serbia’s constitution were motivated by nationalism, or that Milosevic was a nationalist for wanting them effected, also no longer makes sense, as Ivan Stambolic and Dragoslav Markovic (who prepared the “Blue Book”), were both prominent liberals (and are still lauded in the West as such), and later opposed Milosevic, even accusing him of nationalism. It was also not just Serbs that saw the necessity of constitutional amendments - see “MYTH: Milosevic passed the constitutional amendments unilaterally, without the agreement of the rest of Yugoslavia".

Myth: Milosevic staged the events that allegedly prompted him to say “Nobody must beat you”.

2005-09-23T16:34:00.000+01:00

FACT: Milosevic’s detractors claim that the events which prompted Milosevic to say “Nobody must beat you” were all stage-managed by Milosevic. They claim that the Serbs, as part of Milosevic’s elaborate plan, deliberately attacked the police in order to get them to “beat” them, thus enabling Milosevic to say his famous and allegedly combative and threatening words, “Nobody must beat you”.

The only source for this reading of events are comments that Solevic, an organiser of Kosovo Serb rallies who was present then, is said to have made to the BBC for their “Death of Yugoslavia” documentary. This documentary presented him as saying that two trailers full of stones had deliberately been parked near the Cultural Centre, which the Serb protestors threw at the police in order to provoke an aggressive response. There is quite a major problem with this single piece of evidence, however - Solevic never said what the documentary claimed, and his words were misrepresented by the BBC. (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-02-08.htm, http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-02-09.htm)

Solevic had in fact explicitly said that the stones were there to “broaden the pavement”, and “wasn’t for the police”. He did indeed describe the Serb citizens reaching the stones and throwing them at the police, but only after they had been attacked, at which point they “started fleeing”, came across the stones, and threw them at the pursuing police. The claim that the Serbs provoked the police with the stones therefore only makes sense if you completely reverse the chronology of events. The Federal Secretariat of the Interior actually established a commission to look into what happened at this meeting, and found that the police had acted coercively and unlawfully, and concluded that the behaviour of the gathered citizens “cannot be assessed as negative or extremist. There was no significant violation of law and order." (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-25.htm)

The idea that the citizens knew of the stones’ presence, and that Solevic had planned their retreat to them, is also contradicted by what he actually said: “We didn’t know what was going on. Our people started fleeing”. Solevic’s words also refute the idea that Milosevic had planned this - he describes Milosevic being informed of the events as passing on a “hot potato” which Milosevic couldn’t “pass… to anybody else”. The sole piece of “evidence” for the claim that the events of April 24th 1989, therefore, is actually solid proof that that claim is not true.

In fact, even if we put aside Solevic’s actual account of the events, and the Federal investigation into the matter, the idea that the whole thing was staged still makes no sense. Milosevic is alleged to have prepared all these events in order to enable him to respond with “Nobody must beat you”, and rally the crowd with nationalism. But Milosevic’s “Nobody must beat you” was said to a small group of people within earshot, who had come up to him and said to him “We are being beaten, President. The police is beating us” (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-02-08.htm) - it was only a little later that loudspeakers were rigged up on the window to enable Milosevic to address the whole crowd. Why, if he had engineered all this havoc in order to say those words, did Milosevic just address them to a handful of people nearby, and not to the whole crowd? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

And then there is what Milosevic said to the whole crowd once the loudspeakers were set up. Having allegedly engineered the perfect moment for a combative and nationalist speech, did Milosevic then make such a speech? No, he just calmed the people down, saying that “we have to work to hear out all your delegates… allow us to hold a meeting, not a rally. There will be no use from any rallies.” (http://www.milosevic-trial.org/trial/2005-01-25.htm) After those words, order was restored completely, the citizens gathered outside gradually dispersed, and the meeting inside proceeded (for another thirteen hours). Once again, the facts are inconsistent with the anti-Milosevic propaganda.

Myth: It was the Serbs that ordered the JNA to move against Slovenia.

2005-09-23T16:31:00.000+01:00

FACT: The decision to resume control over the border postings that Slovenia had illegally taken control of was taken and implemented by people of all the different Yugoslav nations, not the Serbs, and the most important figures involved were, in fact, Croat and Slovene. The border postings issue was discussed in the Federal Presidency in June 1991, but the so-called “Serb bloc” (the representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina and Kosovo) - amongst others - did not favour resuming control over the border through use of the police or army. The representative of Serbia, Borislav Jovic, was somewhat resigned to the inevitability of Slovene secession, given its near unanimous support in that republic, and, though condemning their unilateral separatist acts, did not back the idea of re-taking control over the border. But his views were ignored, and when the Presidency was out of session the Federal Prime Minister, Ante Markovic (a Croat), signed an order empowering the Defence Minister (Kadijevic, a Yugoslav) and the Interior Minister (Petar Gracanin, a Serb) to “deploy the frontier units of the JNA with the aim of safeguarding the state frontiers at the border-crossings” (Destruction, p.154-5) in a joint action with the Federal Police. Gracanin then told the commander of the Fifth Military District (which covered Slovenia, most of Croatia, and part of Bosnia) to provide troops and transport to accompany federal police units, first to barracks in Slovenia, and then to the border posts to which they assigned. (Destruction, p.35) That commander was Konrad Kolsek, a Slovene, who then spent the night with his Deputy, General Andrija Raseta (a Serb), planning the details of the operation (the Chief of Staff of the Fifth Military District, meanwhile, was a Macedonian). The commander of the 13th (Riejaka) Crops of the JNA, which Slovene Defence Minister Janez Jansa warned the Slovene leadership when the operation began “was on its way”, was headed by another Slovene, Marijan Cad.

The Serbs therefore had nothing to do with the ‘war’ in Slovenia - the order to take over the border crossings was issued by a Croat without the agreement or even knowledge of Milosevic or the so-called “Serb bloc”, and was implemented by a Slovene JNA Commander. In fact, at the time the Slovenes did not even claim that it was the Serbs that had attacked them - Slovene President MIlan Kucan accused Markovic to his face of having attacked Slovenia, while Milosevic, far from creating this ‘war’ in Slovenia, told Markovic that he had needlessly started a war over customs revenues. Markovic tried to explicate himself from this mess by claiming that the JNA had acted autonomously and not under his instructions, but the record, including the order with his signature published in the Federal Gazette, speaks for itself.

Myth: Slovene armed forces were the legal forces of the Slovene state.

2005-09-23T16:29:00.000+01:00

FACT: Slovenia did not and could not legally have its own army, and the force it used to attack the JNA was an illegal separatist army. This illegal army was based on a legal institution, the Territorial Defence of Slovenia (TO), which existed in each Republic. The Territorial Defence, however, was legally subordinated to the JNA, and an integral part of it, not a separate Republican army, as it is sometimes portrayed. The commanders of each of the TOs were supposed to be appointed by the JNA, but in September 1990 Slovenia adopted an illegal amendment declaring its authority over the TO, and then in October 1990 illegally dismissed its then head because he supported Yugoslavia. They then set about building up the TO forces into a new republican army, and arming them with illegally smuggled arms. The Federal Government, headed by the Croat Ante Markovic, warned Slovenia not to do this, and demanded that they reverse this process and restore the JNA's legal authority over the TO, but to no avail. The Slovene separatists were bent on unilateral and armed secession, regardless of what the other peoples of Yugoslavia thought. This they eventually achieved in June 1991, when they used these illegal forces to attack the JNA, the only legal armed forces of Yugoslavia.

Myth: The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) attacked Slovenia in June 1991.

2005-09-23T16:27:00.000+01:00

FACT: In June 1991 Slovenia illegally declared itself an independent state, and, despite promising not to to the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, proceeded to illegally take over its border posts. In response to this illegal and unilateral action, the JNA was ordered to assist the Federal police in peacefully resuming control over the borders of Yugoslavia in the Slovene federal unit, which is what it attempted to do. Just 2,000 unarmed troops were moved from their barracks in Slovenia to assist the police in this limited operation. The order to take over the border posts was published openly in the Federal Gazette a day before it went into operation, and the Slovene President, Milan Kucan, was directly informed by the JNA of what they were going to do, including the lines of their planned troop movements. Kucan even requested privately to the Commander of the Fifth Military District of the JNA, which included Slovenia, that they not do the operation on the day of their independence celebrations (which the JNA did not). The JNA was not expecting any violence at all in carrying out this policing action. But the Slovene separatists were planning otherwise. As soon as the JNA moved, Kucan gave the order for the Slovenes’ illegally armed and formed separatist forces to attack the JNA. JNA barracks were surrounded, roadblocks set up to block the JNA’s path, and armed attacks launched on the largely unarmed JNA conscripts. The Slovene propaganda machine, meanwhile, sent out the message that the plucky little democratic Slovene nation was being attacked by the JNA-Communist aggressor, a story which the media instantly picked up. In this so-called “JNA aggression”, forty-four JNA soldiers were killed and a hundred and eighty-seven wounded, “of whom the vast majority were conscripts, still in their teens”. Slovene casualties were in single figures. (Destruction, p.166)

Myth: The Federal Government of Yugoslavia was Serb-Dominated

2005-09-23T16:23:00.000+01:00

FACT: To justify their illegal secession from Yugoslavia, Croatian and Slovenian separatists claimed that Yugoslavia was “Serb-dominated”, and their propaganda portrayed themselves as small nations escaping the oppressive grip of a dominant nation, the Serbs. The reality was that the Federal Government of Yugoslavia was always multi-ethnic and multi-national, and, if anything, Serbs were under-represented in the Yugoslav leadership. This was true at the time of the break-up, and throughout the existence of the second Yugoslavia. The Prime Minister of Yugoslavia at the time of its destruction, from January 1989 to his resignation on 20th December 1991, was Ante Markovic, a Croat who had formerly led Croatia. His two Deputy Prime Ministers were Zivko Pregl, a Slovene, and Aleksander Mitrovic, a Serb. His Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Federal Customs and Finance - Bodimar Loncar, Zvonko Poscic and Branko Zekan - were all Croats (a Serb was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs), while his Minister of Justice was a Macedonian, Vlado Kambovski. A Serb, Peter Gracanin, was Minister of Internal Affairs, while the head of the Federal Internal Security Service, and Gracanin’s under-secretary, was a Croat, Zdravko Mustac. The Federal Defence Minister was a Yugoslav from Croatia, Kadijevic, and his two deputies were a Slovene, Stane Brovet, and a Croat, Josip Greguric. The Federal Minister for Trade and Industry, Nazmi Mustafa, was an Albanian.

The Federal Government of Yugoslavia was clearly therefore not “Serb-dominated” - out of the key federal positions listed, six were held by Croats, three by Serbs, two by Slovenes, one by a Yugoslav, one by a Macedonian and one by an Albanian. One might even say that it was actually the Serbs that had grounds to complain about the distribution of posts in the Federal Government - the 1980s had seen three Croat Federal Prime Ministers in succession, while each time Serbs had had to make do with having one of the two Deputy Prime Ministers and some ministerial posts, even though the Serbs were the largest nation of Yugoslavia, with 36.2% of the population, and the Croats just second largest, with 19.7% of the population.

Who led the "Serb-dominated" JNA

2005-09-23T16:13:00.000+01:00

In Yugoslavia’s final years the Federal Defence Minister was Kadijevic, a self-declared Yugoslav from Croatia of a mixed marriage (his father was a Serb, his mother a Croat, and he was married to a Croat), and his Deputies were Admiral Stane Brovet, a Slovene, and Josip Gregoric, a Croat. The Chief of Staff of the JNA was General Blagoje Adzic, a Serb from Bosnia, and his five deputies consisted of one Serb, two Croats, one Slovene and one Montenegrin. The JNA was organisationally divided into three military districts, as well as an additional navy district and air force and air defence fields, and, in fact, most of the top positions were held by Croats at the time. The commander of the First Military District of the JNA (the largest, based in Belgrade) was Anton Lukezic, a Croat, who was succeeded after his retirement by Aleksandar Spirkovski, a Macedonian, while the District’s Chief of Staff was Andrija Silic, a Croat. The commander of the Third Military District (based in Skopje) was Zivota Avramovic, a Serb, and the commander of the Fifth Military District (based in Zagreb) was Martin Spegelj, a Croat, and then, after he retired in spring 1990, Konrad Kolsek, a Slovene. The navy was headed by Admiral Bozidar Grubisic, a Croat, while both the commander of the air force and air defence, Anton Tus, and his deputy, Zvonko Jurjevic, were Croats. The chief of the JNA’s counter-intelligence service (KOS), meanwhile, was a Serb, General Vasiljevic, but his Deputy was General Simo Tumanov, a Macedonian, and Slovenes and Croats held other top positions in the JNA’s security organs (http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/030630ED.htm). The head of the internal communist organisation of the army until its dissolution in January 1991, which was a very powerful organisation and contained almost all JNA members, was Admiral Petar Simic, yet another Croat. (http://www.un.org/icty/transe14-1/980505it.htm)

How anyone could possibly call this “Serb-domination” is beyond me - out of the 21 persons in top JNA positions mentioned above 10 were Croats, 4 Serbs, 3 Slovenes, 2 Macedonians, 1 Montenegrin and 1 a Yugoslav.

Myth: The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was Serb-dominated

2005-09-23T15:59:00.000+01:00

FACT: The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) was a multi-ethnic and multi-national army of all the peoples of Yugoslavia, and was in no way “Serb-dominated”. It is certainly true that Serbs and Montenegrins (particularly the latter) were over-represented in the lower and middle ranks of the JNA officer corps - they formed 54.3% and 5.2% of such officers respectively in 1990, greater than the Serb 36.2% and the Montenegrin 2.3% of the population of Yugoslavia. It is also true that Croats and Slovenes were underrepresented in those ranks, making up 12.5% and just 2.3% of such officers despite their 19.7% and 7.5% of the population. But this was the result of various historic, cultural and economic factors (link forthcoming), not discrimination or favouring of Serbs. Similar factors, rather than any discrimination, also explain why Macedonians were over-represented in those ranks (being 7.3% of such officers but just 5.8% of the population), why it was in fact largely Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia, not Serbia, that were over-represented in the military, and why Croats and Slovenes were hugely over-represented proportionate to their population in the navy and air force.

This slight disproportion was also confined only to the lower and middle ranks of the professional JNA. JNA regular soldiers were conscripted from all over Yugoslavia and reflected almost exactly the national make-up of Yugoslavia. The JNA was also constitutionally bound to the concept of “brotherhood and unity”, and of reaching as far as was possible national parity in its ranks, which meant that, to even out the national balance, non-Serbs were more likely to be promoted to higher ranks than Serbs. Thus, if one takes officers of all ranks in the JNA military in 1990, one finds that 42.63% were Serbs, 14.21% were Croats and 6.4% were Slovenes, (The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia: Nationalism and War in the Balkans, by Aleksander Pavkovic, p.132) even though Serbs were 54.3%, Croats 12.5% and Slovenes just 2.3% of the lower and middle ranking officers respectively. “Brotherhood and unity” reached its peak in the top ranks - in late 1990, the High Command of the JNA was only 33% Serb and Montenegrin, but 38% Croat, 8.3% Slovene and 8.3% Macedonian. (The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia: Nationalism and War in the Balkans, by Aleksander Pavkovic, p.131) If one takes even a brief look at the nationality of those holding the top positions in the JNA in Yugoslavia’s final years, one can see that this alleged “Serb-domination” is ficticious - far from “dominating” the JNA, Serbs were actually under-represented in the top ranks of this thoroughly multi-ethnic and multi-national army.

Dormant until July

2005-04-20T22:52:00.000+01:00

I will not be able to post any more articles until about July, I am afraid. Please bookmark this site and come back then, if you are interested in the sort of things my articles deal with (the break up of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed).

The purpose of this site is basically to give a non-nationalist and neutral account of what really happened. In my experience, anyone who wants to find the truth tends only to have on offer anti-Serb Western narratives and articles, and pro-Serb nationalist articles, both of which are biased. This site is therefore intended to fill that gap, showing that the Serbs were not the evil demons they were made out to be, and explained what really happened, but also not unfairly demonising the other nations and political leaders.

My sources are basically Western books, such as 'Slobodan Milosevic and the Break Up of Yugoslavia' by Louis Sell, 'Balkan Tragedy' by Susan Woodward, 'The Death of Yugoslavia' by (can't remember), and so on, along with information revealed at Hague trial proceedings (in that witnesses of the other side admit the information, or something like that - not just taking at face value claims by people).

I hope you like the articles currently available. When I return in a few months I will also deal with Kosovo and whether its autonomy was really revoked, Milosevic's rise to power, the Sandzak under Milosevic, the position of the Bosnian Croats, and many other issues. If you're interested, bookmark the site and return then.

Karadzic and the "Highway to Hell"

2005-04-20T22:17:00.000+01:00

The title of the "Bosnia's Highway to Hell" series referred clearly to Karadzic's speak on October 14th 1991, when the Muslim-Croat alliance in the Bosnian parliament was attempting to pass a declaration on the sovereignty and independence of Bosnia. Although I refered to this speech, I did not really explain it, which I feel I should, as it is claimed to be a threatening, genocidal speech. Propagandists quote the end of the speech to try to show this, which went as follows:

"Do not think that you will not lead Bosnia-Herzegovina to hell. And do not think that you will not perhaps lead the Muslim people into annihilation because the Muslim people cannot defend themselves if there is war. How will you prevent everyone from being killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina?"

Taken by itself, this does indeed appear like some sort of threat of genocide. But if we look at the whole speech, we can clearly see that this is not the case, as Karadzic explicitly said so himself. The whole speech (or, at least, more of it) reads as follows:

"I'm asking you once again, I'm not threatening, but asking you to take seriously the interpretation of the political will of the Serbian people who are represented here by the Serbian Democratic Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement and a couple of Serbs from other parties. I ask you to take seriously the fact that what you are doing is not good. Is this the road under which you want to direct Bosnia-Herzegovina? The same highway to hell and suffering that Slovenia and Croatia are travelling? Do not think that you will not lead Bosnia-Herzegovina to hell. And do not think that you will not perhaps lead the Muslim people into annihilation because the Muslim people cannot defend themselves if there is war. How will you prevent everyone from being killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina?"

So Kardazic explicitly said "I'm not threatening, but asking you". So you can understand the speech properly, I will now explain the context.

The Serbs were adamently opposed to this unilateral declaration of a sovereign and independent Bosnia, as they wanted to remain in Yugoslavia, not live in an independent and unitary Bosnian state. Izetbegovic had earlier attempted to pass a similar declaration in spring 1991, but backed down due to Serb opposition (I incorrectly stated in Part One that the Croats had opposed it then - they had not, the matter was simply shelved for the time being). This time, however, Izetbegovic was not leaving this controversial and potentially extremely dangerous declaration to the side - he was trying to push it through.

According to the constitutional amendments passed in 1990 by the Bosnian League of Communists, in which they made the transition to democracy, in Bosnia a 'Chamber of National Equality' was supposed to be created. This was expected to consist of 20 members from each of the three nations (Muslim, Serb, and Croat), and would protect national equality. If in regular parliament 20 MPs called for an item to be removed because it conflicted with the principle of national equality, it would immediately be removed, and referred to this Chamber of Nationial Equality. It would then be sent back to parliament for consideration only if there was consensus in that Chamber, ensuring that nothing could be passed (or declared) that one of the nations was adamently against, preventing out-voting of the nations.

However, Izetbegovic and his party refused to have this body constituted. Despite this, the formula essentially worked. Although the Chamber was never constituted, in general whenever 20 MPs called for an item to be removed because it violated national equality, it was done so. It thus worked rather effectively.

So, when on 14 October 1991 this SDA-proposed declaration was being debated, (far more than 20) Serb MPs complained that this violated national equality, as the Serbs were completely opposed, and asked for its removal. However, this time the principle was not accepted. The Serbs' objection was simply ignored, and they continued discussing and preparing the declaration. It was then that Karadzic made his famous speech.

The excert quoted earlier makes clear exactly what he was saying. He was practically begging them to take seriously Serb opposition, and not continue on this attempt to out-vote them and take Bosnia out of Yugoslavia against their will. He asked them whether this path, the path that Slovenia and Croatia went along, is really the path they wanted to take. He was trying to get them to take seriously the fact that this was not good. We can clearly see, then, that the part about the Muslims disappearing was not a threat, as he explicitly said, it was a warning, in the poetic, passionate language typical of Karadzic, of what hell this would lead Bosnia into, and what a catastrophe it would be for the Muslims.

Karadzic was trying desperately to stop Izetbegovic sacrificing peace in Bosnia for sovereignty, as he had explicitly said he was prepared to do earlier 1991. (Serb leaders made similar desperate attempts in early April, when Izetbegovic mobilised the territorial defence for war against the Yugoslav People's Army and the Bosnian Serbs. They called up Izetbegovic in shock, asking them whether it was really true he had orded mobilisation, saying that this would cause a war. Izetbegovic, however, refused to recall the mobilisation, and war ensued.)

So that basically explains that famous speech of Karadzic, which my Bosnia articles alluded to but did not really explain.

As I stated at the end of the Sandzak article, I am too busy to really make any more posts until July. It just occurred to me that I needed to explain this, but, unfortunately, I cannot spend more time on this.

The Hissing Snake of Sandzak Separatism

2005-04-18T00:18:00.000+01:00

The Sandzak is an area in Serbia and Montenegro that is inhabited by a significant Muslim minority (who formed a slight majority of 54% in the Sandzak according to the 1991 census), and, from Yugoslavia’s gradual death to this day, it has been a hotbed of Muslim nationalism and separatism. The purpose of this article is to show that this movement was extremist, nationalist, and separatist, not an innocent campaign for autonomy, as it is portrayed in the few Western publications that actually mention it.

The Muslim nationalist and separatist movement in the Sandzak first appeared when the Yugoslav political system turned to democracy in 1990. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Muslim nationalist party led by Alija Izetbegovic (elected President of Bosnia in late 1990) to represent the Muslims of Yugoslavia, in particular Bosnia, began to organise the local Muslims, forming a branch for the region in June 1990. Sulejman Ugljanin, vice-president of the SDA for all of Yugoslavia, was elected president of this Sandzak branch, which immediately began campaigning on the national question. As early as June 1990 Izetbegovic said that if Serbia and Montenegro unified in a future federation or confederation then the Muslims would demand cultural and political autonomy for the Sandzak, and as the Yugoslav crisis escalated so did the platform.

Originally Izetbegovic and the SDA were, in public at least, in favour of the preservation of Yugoslavia, and Izetbegovic even attended the launch of the Bosnian branch of the Serb Democratic Party, headed by Radovan Karadzic, and spoke of the spoke of the need for a healthy Yugoslav federation. Izetbegovic was definitely not, however, prepared to have Bosnia stay in Yugoslavia if Croatia and Slovenia left - in August 1990 at a rally at Foca he stated this openly, proclaiming that the Muslims would then ‘defend Bosnia’ with arms if necessary. Thus, as Croatia and Slovenia moved further towards independence and secession, so did Bosnia, pushed along by the Muslim-Croat (SDA-HDZ) alliance, alongside which SDA nationalist and separatist demands in the Sandzak intensified.

In March 1991, for example, the SDA threatened to declare ‘autonomy’ for the Sandzak if any other Yugoslav republic seceded or if they deemed it necessary to protect the Muslims (giving plenty of scope for action), and in May 1991 a Muslim National Council was formed to represent the Muslims of the Sandzak, with Ugljanin at its head. Then in October, after the Muslim-Croat alliance in the Bosnian parliament illegally adopted a declaration on the sovereignty and independence of Bosnia, the Sandzak SDA organised a referendum on ‘autonomy’, which it claimed 98.9% of voters approved, and in January 1992 the Muslim National Council voted to demand ‘special status’ for the area.

If this separatist movement is ever mentioned in Western publications, these moves are usually portrayed as a pretty much innocent move on the part of a minority to attain autonomy, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The goal was not ‘autonomy’, but full separation from Serbia and Montenegro, and hopefully unification with Izetbegovic’s independent Bosnia.

The SDA-organised October referendum was on “full political and territorial autonomy [i.e. only very weak, if any, ties with Serbia, Montenegro, and Yugoslavia] with the right to join one of the other republics [i.e. Bosnia]”, and the January vote was in favour of the ‘special status’ that the EC was proposing for Kosovo (which would have given Kosovo the all-but-formal republic status and independence that the 1974 constitution had given it), and the right to secede and unite with other republics (i.e. Bosnia). The goal was thus not innocent and mild autonomy, but complete separation and unification with Muslim Bosnia.

A major problem for the SDA in demanding this was that the whole basis for their claim that Bosnian Serbs could not remain in Yugoslavia and had to be in the independent Bosnia the Muslim-Croat alliance had proclaimed was the principle of inalterability of borders. To get around this blatant hypocrisy, when the Muslim National Council met in August 1992 in Novi Pazar they declared two possible options for the Sandzak. The first was that if Serbia and Montenegro asked separately for international recognition as states, then they would demand the so-called ‘special status’ (practically complete separation and independence) they spoke of, but with respect for the principle of inalterability of borders. The second option was that if Serbia and Montenegro asked for recognition as a single state, then they would demand that the Sandzak become a sovereign territory. Given that Montenegrin separatism was practically non-existent at this stage, and therefore if Serbia and Montenegro ever asked for recognition, they would ask for it as a single state, Yugoslavia, the first option clearly represented a mere tactical ploy. This is evident from SDA public statements, for example Izetbegovic’s demands in 1993 that Sandzak be joined with Bosnia, and Ugljanin’s November 1993 statement to the same effect: that “Sandzak must join Bosnia”.

The Muslim National Council’s ‘Memorandum on Establishing Special Status for Sandzak‘, adopted in June 1993, shows us exactly what the more moderate option for Sandzak, instead of full-blown unification with Bosnia, was- and ‘autonomy’ it is not. According to the Memorandum, “Sandzak’s authorities” would have state authority and state powers in all areas except environmental protection, roads, railways and electrics, which would belong to Yugoslavia. Ties with Yugoslavia would be extremely weak, even formally. Sandzak would have a Constitution, a legislative assembly, and a government, headed by a governor. It would have its own independent police and judiciary, along with control over taxes, legislature, education, culture, the exploitation of natural resources, banks, and so on. Sandzak would even have the right to enter into international relations with other states (once again, i.e. Bosnia) in the economic, cultural and education fields (along with a few others).

The position the SDA was formally demanding for the Sandzak would thus have exceeded even that of Kosovo and Vojvodina under the 1974 constitution, which had effectively divided Serbia into three separate and basically independent states. Not surprisingly, the Yugoslav authorities refused to accept the document, and insisted that the Muslims in the region had the same rights as the citizens of other nationalities, and could exercise the protection and development of cultural, religious, and other forms of ethnic particularities within the framework of existing institutions. Soon after its publication the Memorandum was also banned by the courts, “because it gives rise to hatred and entices national and religious intolerance”.

As one can guess from the previous paragraph, the Yugoslav, Serbian and Montenegrin authorities reacted calmly and reasonably to the separatist threat in the Sandzak, just like they did in Kosovo, and did not over-react with mass repression or threats, sparking, or giving the excuse for, a mass revolt or armed campaign. On the eve of the referendum, for example, the Vice-President of the Serbian government went to Sandzak to try to calm the situation, condemning the referendum as “a biased political act devised by a group of SDA extremists”, and the government of the Republic of Serbia appealed “to the Muslims to circumvent the manipulation of [their] religious and national feelings solely aimed at the disintegration of the Republic of Serbia and to condemn the attempt to disturb inter-national relations”. And, unlike, for example, the Croatian government in August 1990 when the Serbs held a plebiscite on what genuinely was only autonomy, the Serbian government, despite declaring the referendum illegal, did not try to use force to prevent it. I will go into more detail on the equal rights of the Muslims with Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) in the 1990s later, and for now it suffices to know that the Serbian and Montenegrin authorities were moderate. The same cannot be said for the SDA.

We have seen already that the demands of the SDA were separatist, at a minimum demanding almost complete independence for the Sandzak, and seeing unification with Bosnia as the ultimately desirable goal. On top of this, however, the Sandzak SDA was also radical and extremist, and well before Yugoslavia disintegrated.

As early as July 1990, Ugljanin threatened that “if Serbia continues implementing its [non-existent] anti-Albanian and [non-existent] anti-Muslim policy, a common Croatian-Muslim front will be opened soon”, and in November 1990, almost a year before Bosnia declared sovereignty, he spoke of “Sandzak [becoming] a new, Muslim autonomous region in Serbia that will even secede”. In June 1991 he explained their policy perfectly clearly: “In the event of disintegration of Yugoslavia, our attitude is clear and we will not abandon it. Sandzak will be at least an autonomous area, as in 1945 [see later]. We have no reason to hide that our final objective is a republic”. And then, in October, the SDA denounced the authorities as “fascists”, and proclaimed that “no one can stop the Muslims from fulfilling their historical ambitions”. Extremist and fear-mongering propaganda claims that Serbia was conducting a genocide against the Muslims in the Sandzak were also repeatedly voiced over the following decade, all without basis (see later).

Ugljanin’s public statements also clearly reveal him to be an extremist. In February 1992, for example, Ugljanin ranted that “if the plot of Europe and America against the Muslim people continues [author’s note: what the hell is he on about? Europe and America recognised and supported the Muslim-Croatian alliance’s illegal move to independence in Bosnia, and prompted them to hold a referendum, riding rough-shed over the national rights of the Serbs. Only a lunatic - Ugljanin - could consider them anti-Muslim], the war in Sandzak is inevitable”. Ugljanin must have enjoyed threatening war because he did it an awful lot, and later in 1992 announced that “if anyone attacks Kosovo, the Muslims will defend the Albanians” (at the time he was trying to form a separatist alliance with the Albanian separatists in Kosovo). He also infamously said that “the Muslims are well-armed, they just lack tanks”. He wasn’t bluffing, either - the Patriotic League, a Muslim paramilitary organisation created in early 1991, was active and organised in the Sandzak.

The Muslim separatist campaign in the Sandzak, then, was clearly extremist in nature. It also had an Islamic element to it. The SDA displayed religious flags at their rallies (alongside Turkish ones), and, according to Adil Zulfikarpasic, a founder of the SDA who split from it in September 1990 to form a secular party, imams and religious officials practically took over the party. He has described a 1990 rally in Novi Pazar (in the Sandzak) as being conducted in a “pro-fascist” way, with hundreds of religious flags, and SDA guards everywhere. The SDA’s Islamic element had a lot of influence on the movement in the Sandzak, and Ugljinan said in October 1991 that following the establishment of Sandzak as a republic a referendum would be held on whether the new state would be secular or Islamic.

Quite understandably, the 45% of the population of the Sandzak that was Serb or Montenegrin, and the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Yugoslav authorities, opposed this extremist separatist movement. They were right to do so, and there is no real basis for providing a ‘special status’ for the Sandzak, even if this really were only autonomy and not separatism.

The argument has been made many times that as the Serbian and Montenegrin governments supported the right of the Serbs of Croatia to self-determination or autonomy, it was hypocritical to deny these rights to the Muslims of the Sandzak, as the Muslims were also a nation of Yugoslavia. This argument has no validity. The Muslims in the Sandzak, unlike the Serbs in Croatia, did not have the status of a ‘constituent nation’ in Serbia or Montenegro, making up as they did only about 3% of the population of Serbia as a whole, for example. Serb moves in Croatia, unlike Muslim moves in the Sandzak, were also fundamentally reactive.

The Serbs in Croatia were reacting against the election of a radical nationalist, Franjo Tudjman, and the nationalist atmosphere that that created; their removal from the constitution; the purges of them from their jobs; Croatia’s illegal arming and attempts to secure control over Serb areas by force; Croatia’s moves towards secession from Yugoslavia; and so on.

The Muslims did not face that in the Sandzak - Serbia was not seceding from Yugoslavia; Slobodan Milosevic, a socialist, did not implement any discriminatory policies against the Muslims; and the ruling Socialist Party, far from looking upon Muslims hostilely like the Croatian Democratic Union did the Serbs, actually in 1990-1991 expected the Muslims as a whole (including the Bosnian Muslims) to remain in Yugoslavia, and spoke frequently of equality with them.

Serb moves in Croatia were also very moderate, and then radicalised by Croatia’s violent response and secession from Yugoslavia. Sandzak Muslim moves, as we have seen, were not.

Most importantly, the Serbs in Croatia were demanding (when Croatia seceded) the right to self-determination (the right to remain in Yugoslavia) for the areas in which they were the majority, and it was exactly those areas that they controlled during the war years. The SDA in the Sandzak, however, was demanding sovereignty or secession for what they claimed was an historic region, the Sandzak, despite the fact that in two-thirds of this region Serbs and Montenegrins were the majority, and two-thirds of the land in the Sandzak was owned by Serbs and Montenegrins.

These two facts alone are reason enough why the Sandzak should not have had a ‘special status’. A special status for a hypothetical region (Sandzak was and is partly in Serbia and partly in Montenegro, and is not administratively a region) can hardly be justified when the majority of the population in two-thirds of that region are adamantly against it.

Faced with the two options of the Muslims accepting equal minority status in Serbia and Montenegro, a minority status which they had had lived with for over seven decades, and the Serb and Montenegrin population of the Sandzak, which is a part of Serbia and Montenegro and which they are the majority population in two-thirds of, having to, against their will, be reduced from part of the majority population in their homelands to a minority in a possibly Islamic Sandzak or Greater Bosnia, any reasonable person would say that the former clearly makes sense, and the later would be ludicrously unjust. This is made doubly true by the fact that in the Sandzak the Serbs and Montenegrin populations were and are not the ones raising the national question, making nationalist demands, or mistreating the other nation. And that it is exactly why the Serbian and Montenegrin governments were right to reject separatist ‘special status’ of some form for the area, and why that does not represent any injustice or unfairness towards the Muslims.

The Muslim campaign in the Sandzak, as I hope this article will have shown, was not an innocent campaign of a minority for equality, greater rights, or local self-government and autonomy, it was an extremist, nationalist and Islamist-leaning separatist movement, for whose demands there was no just or rational basis.

In a follow-up article, I will look at several other issues relating to Sandzak separatism, some of which I briefly referred to here. I will look at the recent history of the Sandzak to show resolutely that there is no basis for ‘special status’ for the Sandzak. I will also explain what happened in the 1990s, showing that the behaviour of the authorities (particularly the so-called “Milosevic regime”) was not anti-Muslim, despite the separatist campaign. And, finally, I hope to look at separatism in the Sandzak since the fall of Milosevic.

Unfortunately, due to general busy-ness, I will not be able to post any more articles until July. I will then hopefully do the follow-up article to this, finish the “Bosnia’s Highway to Hell” series, look at whether Kosovo’s autonomy really was unilaterally revoked, and many other issues. If you found any of the articles thus far posted interesting or informative, please bookmark the site and come back in a few months time.

Sandzak article coming soon

2005-04-14T15:49:00.000+01:00

I will shortly post an article on separatism in the Sandzak, an area in Serbia and Montenegro with significant Muslim population. It will look at the Muslim separatist campaign in the Sandzak from 1990 onwards, showing that it was an extremist nationalist and separatist movement, not an innocent attempt to get autonomy or minority rights. It will also show that there is no historical or political basis for "autonomy" for the Sandzak, and that the response of the governments of Serbia and Montenegro, in particular the so-called "Milosevic regime", were absolutely just, and, unlike other cases in the region, not at all nationalist or oppressive.

John Paul II and the Break-Up of Yugoslavia

2005-04-05T14:49:00.000+01:00

Three days ago, on Saturday 2nd April 2005, Pope John Paul II died, and the papers are currently awash with eulogies to him (alongside, in some, not-that-subtle attacks on his views on abortion and contraception). The Pope’s opposition to the war on Iraq has been greatly appreciated by some, and Justin Raimondo of AntiWar.com has reposted an article in which he calls him a peacemaker. Not one paper in Britain, to the best of my knowledge, has, however, mentioned Pope John Paul II’s well-documented role in the break-up of Yugoslavia.

On Wednesday, 21 May 2003, at the Hague Tribunal Slobodan Milosevic cross-examined Prosecution witness Milan Kucan, the former Communist that led Slovenia’s illegal and violent secession from Yugoslavia, and his cross-examination revealed some interesting facts about this role. Milosevic brought up a 8th November 1995 Konakt discussion programme on NTV private television station in which Kucan participated together with Stipe Mesic, Tomac and Spegelj. Stipe Mesic was a Croatian nationalist leader who was Croatian Prime Minister in 1990, and subsequently Croatia’s representative on the Yugoslav federal presidency and the last President of Yugoslavia. The others mentioned were other nationalists and separatists - Spegelj was a former JNA general that Tudjman appointed Defence Minister, and who organised Croatian separatist armed forces. Below are some revealing excerpts that shed light on Pope John Paul II’s direct role in the break-up of Yugoslavia:

Milosevic: Do you please remember your involvement on NTV television, one of those private TV stations in 1995, in November, together with Mesic, Tomac, Spegelj in a live programme? Do you remember that programme that you were a participant of?

Kucan: I would have to look at the footage. I would have to look at the footage; we had many such programmes, I don't know exactly which you're thinking about.

M: Very well. Do you remember, I'm referring to the programme aired on the 8th of November, on the NTV private TV station in which you participated together with Stipe Mesic who at the time headed the party of Croatian Independent Democrats, and also participating were Spegelj, Tomac and others. It was a Kontakt programme. Spectators called in and you had a lot of discussion. I'm sure you didn't have many programmes with the same participants, especially on that date and that year, so surely you remember that programme.

K: Your Honours, I do remember the programme but I don't remember the date, and of course I don't have such a memory to recollect both the programmes and the dates, but I do remember participating in the programme.

M: Very well. That's fine. Now, do you remember that in that programme Mesic - you were present - declared, Mesic declared, that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Hans Dietrich Genscher, and the Pope John Paul II, by direct agreement and support designed to break up the former Yugoslavia and had practically contributed most to that actually happening? Do you remember the positions he took and the explanations he gave along those lines?

K: Those were the stance of Mr. Mesic.

So here we have it, straight from the horse’s (Mesic’s) mouth, that Pope John Paul II, by ‘direct agreement’ with Genscher of Germany, designed to break up Yugoslavia and contributed most to that happening. Interesting, no? Milosevic backed up this evidence with a direct quotation from Mesic, who explained exactly what he did when President of Yugoslavia:

"I wanted to convey the idea of the break-up of Yugoslavia to those who had the greatest influence on its fate, to Genscher and the Pope. In fact, I had three meetings with Genscher. He enabled a contact with the Holy See. The Pope and Genscher agreed with the total break-up of SFRY."

The Vatican then fervently lobbied for international recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, and the rest is history.

Pope John Paul II has been rightly praised for acknowledging and apologising for past Catholic persecution of Jews. Perhaps one day a future Pope will apologise for his role in breaking up a European country, Yugoslavia, and for all the bloodshed and ethnic cleansing that that caused.

A Self-Hating Genocidal Maniac?

2005-03-31T10:04:00.000+01:00

I will finish Part Three of 'Bosnia's Highway to Hell', which will look at the Bosnian Croats, some time over the next week or so. Right now though, I'll just take a quick look at what exactly Milosevic has been accused of regarding Bosnia. The Indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia and Yugoslavia, regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina, says the following:

“Slobodan Milosevic participated in the joint criminal enterprise as set out below. The purpose of this joint criminal enterprise was the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, from large areas of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the commission of crimes which are in violation of Articles 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Statute of the Tribunal. The joint criminal enterprise was in existence from the 1st of August, 1991 and continued until at least 31 December 1995. The individuals participating in the joint criminal enterprise included Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik, Biljana Plavsic, General Ratko Mladic, Borislav Jovic, Branko Kostic, Veljko Kadijevic, Blagoje Adzic, Milan Martic, Jovica Stanisic, Franko Simatovic, also known as "Frenki," Radovan Stojicic, also known as "Badza," Vojislav Seselj, Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as "Arkan," and other known and unknown participants.”

So Milosevic, with all these other people presuambly as his willing associates and collaborators, organised the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. As can be seen, they’ve accused some of the most important and high-ranking figures of the time of being in on this conspiracy - Bosnian Serb leaders, Serbian members of the Yugoslav Presidency, Yugoslav People’s Army Generals, Serbian State Security Service officials, and so on. Out of all of these major figures, one really catches my eye - Franko Simatovic. Franko Simatovic was head of the Intelligence Administration of the State Security Service of Serbia, and is alleged to have helped form the “parallel structure” in the Krajina (the Serb-inhabited area in Croatia) that controlled the Krajina Serbs, incited them to revolt, armed them, and so on. Take a quick glance at the testimony of Milan Babic and you’ll hear all about the conspiratorial antics of Mr. Simatovic - according to the indictment and the Hague prosecution, he plotted to create an ethnically pure ‘Greater Serbia’, and to cleanse all Croats from the Krajina. Franko Simatovic, according to the indictment and the Hague prosecution, helped organise a genocide against the Croatian population of the Krajina. There’s just one problem with this theory.

Franko Simatovic is a Croat.

Bosnia's Highway to Hell - Part Two

2005-03-27T13:28:00.000+01:00

Below is Part Two of "Bosnia's Highway to Hell". It looks at the attempts that were made to avert civil war in Bosnia and solve the crisis peacefully, attempts which were torpedoed everytime by Izetbegovic, leader of the Bosnian Muslims. Part Three, which will look at the disingenous position of the Bosnian Croats, will follow shortly.

Bosnia's Highway to Hell: Part Two

The cause of the civil war in Bosnia was the fact that all three nations - Muslim, Serb and Croat - had different, contrary views on the organisation and status of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Muslims above all wanted a unitary Bosnian state in its then borders, the Serbs wished to remain in Yugoslavia, and the Croats wanted to leave Yugoslavia and perhaps unite with Croatia (see Part Three, shortly to come, for an explanation of the Croat position). Clearly the only way to resolve these fundamental differences was through a process of negotiation, but, instead of this, Izetbegovic torpedoed attempts to resolve the crisis peacefully and instead unilaterally and illegally launched into secession.

One attempt to solve the status of Bosnia was the Serb-Muslim ‘historic agreement’, made public in August 1991. This agreement, between the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and the Muslim Bosniak Organisation, exchanged the maintenance of Bosnia in Yugoslavia (the Serbs’ wish) for the preservation of its territorial integrity (the Muslims’ wish). This agreement has often been attacked on the basis that the Muslim Bosniak Organisation, led by Zukfikarpasic, was very small, receiving hardly any votes in the November 1990 elections, but this criticism is not entirely valid. Zulfikarpasic was no minor figure, and was an important Bosnian Muslim exile leader and bankroller of the Party of Democratic Action (the main Muslim party), until he split with it shortly before the election, claiming it was too Islamist.

The Serb-Muslim ‘historic agreement’ was a part of the Belgrade initiative for preserving Yugoslavia, which had been launched on August 12 1991, and it seemed at first that Izetbegovic might support it, until he rejected it a few days after its announcement. Rumours also abound that Izetbegovic or Fikret Abdic, the most popular Muslim leader, may initially have supported it, but Izetbegovic and the SDA resoundingly rejected it.

The SDA justified their rejection by claiming that the agreement would mean Bosnia being in a Yugoslavia in which “the Serbs would be number one, and the Muslims number two”. This is often reported and accepted at face value when the Belgrade Initiative is ever mentioned in Western publications, but there is no real truth to it. In terms of population percentages, the Muslims would of course have been a minority compared with the Serbs, but this is largely irrelevant, as all the federalist proposals on organising Yugoslavia (from Milosevic and Serbia primarily) included a second federal chamber in which the republics would have had equal representation, regardless of population percentages, and in which consensus would have been required. Bosnia would thus have had veto power, and so could not have been dominated.

In fact, the Belgrade initiative committed its organisers to preserving Yugoslavia on the basis of, amongst other things, “the Izetbegovic-Gligorov Platform”. This was an initiative on preserving Yugoslavia launched by Izetbegovic in May-June 1991 jointly with Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov, according to which Serbia and Montenegro would be a federal core, Bosnia and Macedonia would have some more autonomy but remain in federal Yugoslavia, and Slovenia and Croatia would have effective independence. Far from being some kind of “Serboslavia”, then, the Belgrade initiative was actually a repetition of a proposal Izetbegovic himself had earlier made.

Furthermore, at this point Macedonia was yet to hold a referendum on independence, and was still led by former communist Kiro Gligorov, who had favoured the maintenance of some form of Yugoslavia, and it was entirely possible that Macedonia might have joined the Belgrade initiative, as it was invited to do so. Had it done so, this would have meant that in the new Yugoslavia the Serb states (Serbia and Montenegro) would not even have had a majority. And, to top it all off, the Belgrade Initiative said that the position of President of Yugoslavia would rotate between the republics in alphabetical order, meaning that had he accepted it, Izetbegovic would in fact have been President of Yugoslavia. Would any “Serboslavia”, or state in which “the Serbs [were] number one, and the Muslims number two”, have had Izetbegovic as its President? I don’t think so.

There was thus no real legitimate reason for Izetbegovic to reject the Belgrade Initiative, and it is likely that the majority of Muslims would have accepted it, given their strong attachment to Yugoslavia - opinion polls of Bosnians in May and June 1990, and again in November 1991, all showed overwhelming majorities (in a range of 70 to 90 percent) in favour of the preservation of Yugoslavia. The only problem with the Belgrade Initiative was, of course, that the Bosnian Croats wanted above all to leave Yugoslavia, especially now that Croatia had left. The Belgrade Initiative stated that “whatever the situation of the Republic of Croatia, inside or outside Yugoslavia, the Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina constitute a nation with equal rights”, and were called to join the agreement. Whether an arrangement satisfactory to the Bosnian Croats could have been worked out is an open question, but a question that would probably have been much easier to solve than the organisation of an independent Bosnia.

The next attempt to prevent conflict was on January 25 1992, when the Bosnian assembly, in which the Serb deputies were still participating, debated the holding of a referendum on independence (this had already been discussed in Part One, but is being repeated so you don’t have to refer back to it).

The debate centred on whether an agreement on regional structures among the three national groups in Bosnia should precede or follow the referendum. In this and all other future negotiations, the Bosnian Serbs were prepared to give up their wish to remain in Yugoslavia for a cantonal organisation of independent Bosnia. If Bosnia were split into numerous different cantons, each essentially assigned to one of the three national groups, then the equal political power of the three nations would be assured, regardless of the overall percentages of the population. The Serbs were thus prepared to accept living in an independent Bosnia in such an arrangement, as it would ensure they would not be an out-voted minority.

Hasan Cengic, SDA vice president, agreed with Karadzic that a proposal for regionalisation should be worked out before the referendum - “Never were we closer to an agreement as at this time”, Karadzic said to the applause of delegates. Karadzic then suggested that the commitment to regionalisation be incorporated into a constitutional amendment before the referendum was held, but before the agreement could be clinched, Izetbegovic shot it down. The Serb delegates then withdrew from the assembly in response, followed by the Muslim and Croat deputies adopting the decision to hold a referendum.

Izetbegovic thus shot down an agreement that would have prevented the Bosnian civil war - according to which the Bosnian Serbs would have accepted living in an independent, regionalised Bosnian state - and instead pushed Bosnia further on the highway to hell by adopting yet another illegal and unilateral decision.

The last major attempt to prevent civil war from breaking out in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the Cutilero plan of February-March 1992. Negotiated by EC representative Jose Cutilero of Portugal, this plan, agreed to by all three national groups on March 18, created a set of ‘constitutional principles’ as a basis for future discussion. The plan envisioned the cantonisation of Bosnia, and a Bosnia of three recognised and equal constituent nations. The Serbs, accepting it, once more showed their willingness to compromise by giving up their fundamental desire to remain in Yugoslavia. The Serb cantons of the Cutilero plan were also not all connected in one unit, meaning that the Serbs could not simply disingenuously accept it and then secede to form their own, independent state, or re-unite with Yugoslavia. Given that both the Serbs and Croats - who together formed half the population of Bosnia - favoured a cantonal arrangement for Bosnia, the only way for Izetbegovic to fulfil his goal of an independent Bosnia was to accept this.

Within a week, however, Izetbegovic reneged, and withdrew from the agreement. He was followed shortly after by Croat leader Mate Boban, who saw an opportunity to get more territory for the Croat cantons in a new round of negotiations, being unhappy at the number of Croats in central Bosnia who would be outside Croat-dominated cantons. In the end, the Cutilero plan closely resembled future peace proposals and the eventual Dayton Peace accords, even more fairly, in fact, as it accurately represented the ethnic makeup of Bosnia. And, in the opinion of anti-Serb ex-State Department official Louis Sell, author of "Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia", the Cutilero plan would have established “a more effective centralised government and probably resulted in less of an ethnically divided state than the accord agreed to at Dayton”. Had Izetbegovic not reneged, then, there would have no civil war and mutual ethnic cleansing, and a more united Bosnia than he eventually achieved anyway.

As we have seen, on three separate occasions Izetbegovic torpedoed attempts to reach a peaceful agreement on Bosnia’s status and organisation, and thus prevent civil war. The Bosnian Serbs were prepared to make serious compromises in order to preserve the peace and prevent civil war, but Izetbegovic stubbornly held to his ultimate goal, a unitary and independent Bosnia, despite the fact that the opposition of both Serbs and Croats would mean that he would never be able to achieve this peacefully. Ultimately, had Izetbegovic not torpedoed these plans, the result would have been a Bosnia more united and less ethnically divided than that established at Dayton in 1995, and, even more importantly, no civil war would have occurred.

Bosnia's Highway to Hell - Part One

2005-03-25T22:46:00.000Z

Here is Part One of "Bosnia's Highway to Hell". According to the official Western narrative, the civil war in Bosnia was the result of 'Serbian aggression' to create an ethnically pure 'Greater Serbia'. This article explains the real cause of the civil war in Bosnia - unilateral and illegal acts by the secessionist Muslim-Croat alliance, and their violations of the national rights of the Bosnian Serbs.

Bosnia's Highway to Hell - Part One

Alija Izetbegovic, leader of the Bosnian Muslim ‘Party of Democratic Action’ (SDA), announced to the Bosnian parliament in February 1991 that “I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina, but for that peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina I would not sacrifice sovereignty”, and sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina was precisely what he did. On October 15 1991 Muslim and Croat deputies in the Bosnian assembly illegally passed a declaration on the sovereignty and independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, despite the adamant opposition of the Serbs. Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian parliamentary speaker at the time and a Serb, had attempted to prevent this unilateral declaration from being passed by bringing the session to a close, which he legally could. After he did so, however, the assembly was illegally reconvened by the Croat deputy speaker, and the Muslim and Croat deputies, who together formed a majority (forming 44% and 17% of the population respectively), rejecting both the Belgrade initiative (see later) and a compromise proposed by non-national parties, passed the declaration.

The Bosnian constitution stipulated that two of the national groups could not simply outvote the third like this, consensus being required for important decisions, making it completely illegal and illegitimate. The Bosnian assembly also did not have the legal power to declare sovereignty (although the Yugoslav Constitutional Court was no longer functioning at this point and hence did not rule on this case, it had judged all other declarations of sovereignty, from Slovenia’s to Macedonia’s, to be illegal and unconstitutional).

It was unilateral secessionist acts like this, that violated the national rights of the Bosnian Serbs, which led to the Bosnian Serbs exercising their own right to self-determination, and ultimately caused the civil war in Bosnia. The illegal secessionist moves put Bosnia, just as Serb leader Radovan Karadzic warned at the time of declaration, on “the same highway to hell and suffering that Slovenia and Croatia [were] travelling”.

In February and March 1991 Izetbegovic had unsuccessfully attempted to pass a similar declaration on sovereignty (unsuccessfully because the Croats, too, opposed it at that time), and throughout 1991 Serb municipalities had formed regional associations. In August, Izetbegovic rejected the Serb-Muslim ‘historic agreement’ whereby Bosnia would remain in Yugoslavia (see later), and announced a referendum on the future of Bosnia within Yugoslavia, and the following month Serb associations began to unite into autonomous regional bodies. The seeds were already being sewn, and the October 15 declaration hugely accelerated this path to disintegration and conflict.

Rightly declaring the Muslim-Croat alliance an anti-constitutional act that violated the parity principle of consensus of the three-nation, power-sharing coalition, the Serbian parties - the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), their smaller rival, the Serbian Movement for Renewal (SPO), and a few other minor groupings such as the Reformist Party - walked out of the assembly at the time of the vote on the declaration. A few days later they formed their own ‘Assembly of the Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina' to represent the Bosnian Serbs - continuing to serve in the Bosnian assembly, too, though - and announced a plebiscite, for November 9-10, on remaining in Yugoslavia.

The Muslim-Croat alliance in the Bosnian assembly, meanwhile, continued on the path it set out on, creating a new coat of arms and flag for Bosnia, and, on October 27, informing the federal parliament that Bosnia was a sovereign state. The Serb plebiscite, on the other hand, showed an overwhelming majority - 98% of 85% of Serb voters - in favour of remaining in Yugoslavia, and on November 21 the Serb Assembly proclaimed as integral parts of Yugoslavia all areas in which pro-Yugoslav Serbs were in the majority. The two sides headed off on their different paths - the Muslim-Croat alliance to secession, and the Serbs to forming their own state, which would remain in Yugoslavia, in response - paths which would soon collide. The Bosnian Presidency, despite the absence of the SDS and the opposition of the two Serb presidency members (Biljana Plavsic and Nikola Koljevic), requested recognition from the EC on December 20, a request which the SDS responded to by declaring their intention to create a Serbian republic within Bosnia. This, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina -which they said would be a federal unit of Yugoslavia - was then declared on January 9 1992. It was said to be the result of “illegitimate and illegal decisions of the Muslim-Croatian coalition”, and a response to Muslim-Croatian demands for international recognition of an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina. Karadzic emphasised at the time that they would only begin to build the institutions of the republic if “the Croats or Muslims try to separate from Yugoslavia or if they are recognised” - it was a defensive measure.

Izetbegovic had already announced his intention to hold a referendum on independence, and, with the EC now asking him to hold a referendum if he wanted recognition, on January 25 1992 the Bosnian assembly, in which the Serb deputies were still participating, debated the holding of such a referendum. The debate centred on whether an agreement on regional structures among the three national groups in Bosnia should precede or follow the referendum. In this and all other future negotiations, the Bosnian Serbs were prepared to give up their wish to remain in Yugoslavia for a cantonal organisation of independent Bosnia. If Bosnia were split into numerous different cantons, each essentially assigned to one of the three national groups, then the equal political power of the three nations would be assured, regardless of the overall percentages of the population. The Serbs were thus prepared to accept living in an independent Bosnia in such an arrangement, as it would ensure they would not be an out-voted minority.

Hasan Cengic, SDA vice president, agreed with Karadzic that a proposal for regionalisation should be worked out before the referendum - “Never were we closer to an agreement as at this time”, Karadzic said to the applause of delegates. Karadzic then suggested that the commitment to regionalisation be incorporated into a constitutional amendment before the referendum was held, but before the agreement could be clinched, Izetbegovic shot it down. The Serb delegates then withdrew from the assembly in response, followed by the Muslim and Croat deputies adopting the decision to hold a referendum.

Izetbegovic thus shot down an agreement that would have prevented the Bosnian civil war - according to which the Bosnian Serbs would have accepted living in an independent, regionalised Bosnian state - and instead pushed Bosnia further on the highway to hell by adopting yet another illegal and unilateral decision.

The other issue about the referendum was whether it would be one of citizens or nations. Karadzic proposed that the referendum be one of nations, which, as consensus of the three nations was required, obviously made sense. Izetbegovic, however, was insistent that it be a referendum of citizens, which would mean that the Muslim-Croat alliance could simply outvote the Serbs. The SDA proposed a ‘compromise’ - a referendum of both citizens and nations - which Karadzic refused, as a referendum of citizens was irrelevant, it being the views of the three nations which mattered, but would be used by the secessionists to legitimise their secession against the wishes of the Serbs. Eventually Izetbegovic got his way, and the referendum, held on February 29 - March 1, was one of citizens alone.

The Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted the referendum, which 63.4% of Bosnians voted in, 99.7% of whom voted for independence. The referendum did not achieve a two-thirds majority in favour of independence, and, although this was not strictly necessary as it was not a legislative referendum, it is indicative of on what thin ice the secessionists were on. More importantly, there was not consensus between the three nations, as the Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted it. Despite this, on March 3 Izetbegovic declared Bosnia an independent state.

The EC Badinter commission had said that a vote on independence would only be valid if respectable numbers from all three communities approved, but, despite this, and the fact that the Bosnian government did not have authority over Serb-inhabited territory which it claimed as part of its state, on April 6 the EC recognised Bosnian independence. The EC even ignored the fact that Izetbegovic was, at this point, not the legal president of Bosnia - the Bosnian Presidency was supposed to revolve on an annual basis, meaning a Croat or Serb should have been president then.

Civil war then began. On April 4 the Bosnian Presidency ordered the general mobilisation of territorial defence forces (which Serb municipalities ignored), prompting the resignation of the two Serb members of the Bosnian Presidency. The independence of the Republic of Serbia of Bosnia-Herzegovina was subsequently declared, and on April 8 the remaining members of the Bosnian Presidency declared a state of war-danger.

As can clearly be seen, it was the unilateral, illegal, and unconstitutional acts of the Muslim-Croat coalition - the declaration of sovereignty and the referendum on independence - that set Bosnia on the path of civil war - the “highway to hell”.

In Part Two, I shall look at the attempts to avoid civil war that Izetbegovic torpedoed - the Belgrade initiative/Serb-Muslim ‘historic agreement’, and the February-March 1992 Cutilero plan - and, in Part Three, the disingenuous position of the Bosnian Croats. Part Two will hopefully be written over the next few days.

Welcome - article shortly to come

2005-03-24T20:15:00.000Z

I've just set up this blog, the aim of which is to tell the truth about how Yugoslavia broke up, and the wars that followed. In the West Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, and the Serbs in general, are blamed for Yugoslavia's break-up, which was allegedly caused by their desire for a 'Greater Serbia'. I hope to show the falsehood of this, and explain what really happened.

I also hope to show the contradictions in this official Western narrative. I will give one glaring example that stands out. The 1988 'Yoghurt Revolution' in Vojvodina, then an autonomous province of Serbia, was, according to the Western narrative, organised by Milosevic and his minions and nationalist in nature - but Mihalj Kertes, the trade union leader that sparked the revolution, was an ethnic Hungarian! Kertes even used to point this fact out when arguing that nobody had any reason to fear Milosevic. He subsequently became a leader of Vojvodina, and then the Interior Minister of the Republic of Serbia. And, as Serbia's Interior Minister, Kertes - a Hungarian - has been fingered out and accused of organising ethnic cleansing to create an ethnically pure Serbian state in Croatia and even Vojvodina!

Now is it just me, or is this clearly a load of contradictory nonsense? Why on earth would a Hungarian want to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia? Using Western sources, I hope to point out cases like that where the official narrative clearly makes no sense.

In my experience there are not many sites on the internet that are really attempting to point out the flaws, contradictions and lies in the official Western narrative. Those that are seem to me to be extremely ideological in nature - for example, Serbian nationalist, or far left or hard right - and hence not entirely unbiased.

My postings here will hopefully be as unbiased and neutral as possible - I aim to get to the truth, not spread propaganda or nationalist pseudo-history. To emphasise this point, I would like to point out that the sources I will be using most will be reliable Western history and current affairs books, which often let slip significant facts.

My first proper post will be on the secession of Bosnia from Yugoslavia, and I intend to post it shortly. It will show, amongst other things, that:

1) Bosnia's secession was completely illegal, and violated the national rights of the Bosnian Serbs

2) The Bosnian Serbs' responses were justified and understandable

3) The Bosnian civil war could have been avoided, and very nearly was on a number of occassions, but Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic torpedoed these attempts to resolve the crisis peacefully

4) The Bosnian Muslims and Croats were voting 'yes' to completely different concepts in the referendum on independence, so it was not even a case of the majority being in favour of one thing and the minority (the Serbs) being in favour of something else - all three nations held different and contrary views

I will hopefully finish it either today or tommorrow.