>>Not my point, panta. It was Milosevic coming to power and the rise of Serb nationalism that precipitated the break, regardless of who filled which block in the organizational charts of the old Yugoslavia.<<
Mark, all I can say to you is that you shouldn't believe everything you see and hear on TV. The mainstream media has been peddling this BS claim for a very long time, without a shred of evidence. But if you are willing to dig a little deeper, you can find a fair amount of information that sheds a totally different light on this subject (supported by FACTS, not some pseudo - rationalistic analyses and unsubstantiated musings that the mustream media feeds us). As Jane pointed out, for example, the Croats were working very hard to destroy Yugoslavia long before SM's time, Kosovo Albanians too. Search the Net and you will find. It's all there at your fingertips, all you need is a little time and effort. (I'll even make it easier for you: just google avramov, rolovic and prepare to be surprised)
Just something i found when I googled ustasha + Australia:
"But when political terror arrived in Australia, it came not from the Left but the Right. On New Year's Day, 1967, an explosion ripped through the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney, the climax of a wave of attacks on Yugoslav property going back to 1963. By 1970, bombs had torn through the Melbourne consulate too - and Yugoslav clubs, businesses, churches and homes.
Those Ustasha migrants who came in here in the '50s had formed an armed militia, dedicated to liberating their Croatian homeland from Yugoslav Communism. After secret military training in Australia, the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood tried to launch an armed uprising in Yugoslavia."
http://www.abc.net.au/time/episodes/ep8a.htm
"Australia has long been the base for overseas terrorist operations. The Croatian Ustasha had been carrying out arms training and a number of bombings under what appeared to be the beneficent arm of Liberal rule at that time. Yugoslav travel agencies and consulates have been attacked and murders attempted in the Yugoslav community. In September 1972 sixteen people were injured by a bomb in a Yugoslav travel agency. Raids were mounted into Yugoslavia by commandos trained in Australia. The September, 1978 raid on an arms training camp indicates that Ustasha is still militarily active. As well, Australian Nazis possessed extensive weaponry (and undoubtedly still do) and petty harassments and announcements of death lists have occurred frequently. Bricks, guns and firebombs were all used by the Nazis to damage property, and terrorism occurred when they bombed the Communist Party headquarters in Brisbane in April 1972."
http://flag.blackened.net/noterror/cantblowup.html
"Right-wing groups have been responsible for at least as much politically motivated violence
as groups on the left. During the 1960 and 1970s the Yugoslav anti-communist Ustasha was
responsible for, or the prime suspect in, a series of bombings and terrorist incidents in
Australia. As Mack’s analysis of recorded terrorist incidents points out, Ustasha violence
accounted for fully one quarter of the incidents, and represented the only category which
persisted for the review period between 1963 and 1978 (1981: 221). Although Ustasha
violence was serious and persistent, ASIO and Special Branches were slow to treat it as a
subversive or terrorist organisation because they empathised with its anti-communist outlook.
The Ustasha groups were allowed to flourish within the Yugoslav community while bombings
and other incidents were automatically attributed to communist provocateurs (Hall 1978: 81–
82; Mack 1981: 220–21; McKnight 1994: 171–81; 246)."
http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/hcpp/mcculloch.pdf
"30 years ago I was involved with the Committee for Democracy in Australia, which was a body dealing with the Ustasha. Ustasha was a terrorist
group which I believe acted here in Australia, and ASIO knew about it and that was not made
public."
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/pjcaad/Terrorbill2002/PHmelb020502.pdf
"One, the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood, a
hit squad formed in Australia in 1961, is composed mainly of
second-generation Croatians who have maintained close ties with the old
Ustasha network.
The brotherhood has been responsible for much of the "secret war" waged
against the Yugoslavian government during the past fifteen years, including
the bombing of a Yugoslav passenger plane in 1972 that killed twenty-seven
people and the 1976 hijacking of a TWA plane in New York that resulted in the
death of a New York City policeman. And, like their older compatriots, the
new generation of Ustasha has shown itself to be willing to rely on the help
of sympathetic third parties.
Two Croatian terrorists, assisted by five conspirators on the outside,
entered the Yugoslav Embassy in Stockholm in April 1971. Their target was
Vladimir Rolovic, the Yugoslav ambassador and the man who two years earlier
had given the Australian government a report on Croatian terrorist activities
originating there. For exposing their operations, Rolovic's punishment was
death. After binding and taunting the ambassador, the Croatians killed him,
instantly becoming causes celebres in Croatian emigre circles around the
world.
In reaction to their subsequent life sentences, three other Croatians
hijacked a Swedish plane in September 1972, demanding the release of their
seven comrades. The Swedes released them and all except one, who refused to
leave the Swedish prison, were then given asylum in Spain."
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com">http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg16034.html
So I like I said, Yugoslavia's problems started a lot earlier than many who blame the Serbs for everything think...