1: Why was Serbia the only republic within the SFRY to be subdivided with the autonomous regions (of varying degrees) in 1964(?) and 1972 revisions of the SFRY consitution?
2: Why are the Serbs such a small minority in Kosovo?
3: Why did the IMF demand that the SFRY stop subisdizing Kosovo with loaned money in 1986 and why does anyone rarely highlight the extreme North-South economic disparities within the history of SFRY and the important role this played in lead up to conflict?
4: Out of which of the former leaders of the various parts of the SFRY was not imprisoned by Tito for formeting separatism and rewriting what happend in World War II.
5: What particular personalities and past events would make the Serbs of Bosnia extremely reluctant to trust their slavic brothers?
6: How is it that under the classic UN rules on the indicitment of 'war criminals' where such cases are to be based on specific 'incidents', are not Mladic & Karadzic expressly accused of the various market massacres in 1992, 1994 and 1995 when there were thorough investigations and reports (still classified) made?
7: How is it that a supposedly 'besieged' city of one of a number of parties that is subject to a total arms embargo is able to launch a 200,000 man offensive in the Spring 1995?
8: How can the Serbs be responsible for genocide when their main ally in Bosnia was Fikret Abdic, (winner of the SDA elections for president in 1992 who ceded his place to Izetbegovic) who with tens of thousands of Bosnian Moslems fought with the Bosnian Serbs against the Bosnian Moslem government forces of Alija Izetbegovic and suffered no harm at the Serbs hands? (FYI, at the end of 1995, when elections were initially announced, the Bosnian Moslem 'government' declared the still very popular Fikret Abidic (a guest of the Croatian government) a war criminal which was given substance by the ICTY in the Hague and therefore diqualified him for running for the new joint presidency. He has now been deported by the Croatian government and is 'safe' in a jail in Sarajevo).
9: How is it that much of the testimony written about by peacekeepers and generals about the war conflicts with the spoon-fed percieved wisdom?
I'm sure that you know at least some of the answers to these questions but anyone who does not condemn the Serbs are irretrivably evil is put in the same catagory. Sources of information from the Serbs is immediately dismissed and have to scrabble around for non-Serb sources whilst the other parties have faced no such restrictions.
Some journalists (of which I know a few) have had their reports butchered by their 'editors' to the point that there is little resemblence or objectivity as it was originally written, have had their reports completely suppressed (still happening), threatend with death if they continued to report, are accused of being pro-Serb because they try to retain a semblance of objectivity have found that employment was much harder to comeby and worst of all, when are sucessful in publishing something that challenges precieved wisdom are immediately accuse of being Serb, related to, or having Serb contacts. Even the BBC managed to loose a fist thick document heavily detailing camps run by Croat and Moslem forces that was sent to them mid-war.
I also know personally of non-Albanians who were burnt out of their homes and intimidated into leaving Kosovo as far back as the 1960s. I won't even go into the media's socialist realist views of the SFRY's past.
Valuable sources of information, namely former militayr serving officers have their testimonies dismissed out of hand because they drank slivovitz with Senoir Serb officers. Such people ignore the fact that they did exactly the same with generals on the other sides. The concept of 'intelligence gathering' on the parties and the necessary evils and political limits in operating in the zone of civil conflict is not even comprehended.
None of this is an excuse for war crimes that were committed, but it's not a crime to challenge vague stories that are born amidst a war in such huge quantities of mis-information and propaganda.
Regs
VRN