Milosevic Behind Yugoslav Break Up, Croat Leader Says

Reuters via Yahoo ^ | 10/1/02 | Katie Nguyen

[DestroyEraseImprove]

Not a chance that we'd ever let any part go, particulary the so-called "Krajina". Croatia would be cut into two and become an unworkable place.

Croatia wouldn't be cut into two. Only if Croatia left the confederation this would have happened. So you were not out for a compromise in the first place. Then why this empty talking about a confederation? Useless as it was 12 years ago!

[kosta50]

Secession on a local level is chaos, but this is about the right to self-determination Trop. The Serbs did have that right. Again, everybody didn't go about realizing that right the right way (no pun intended :-)) but nevertheless the whole thing should have been negotiated.

Yugoslavia was dead once Slovenia was let go. That was the time to sit down and negotiate. That's water under the bridge. That's why federalization of Serbia is something that should not happen. Thats' why ethnic minorities in all those countries of ex-Yugoslavia(s) shoud have cultural but not political autonomy. The ethnic approach to statehood in that part of the world is still the old Soviet-style method, failed and defunct.

I feel sorry for those Serbs who still live in Croatia but I have to assume that they are there because they choose not to leave. I hope that's why there are there. If so, they can pursue their cultural traditions in private schools, in private organizations but never as an "inherent right" expected of the state to sponsor and promote. In the eyes of the state they should be seen and treated as Croatian citizens.

We all see bits and pieces and remember selectively different details, but when it comes down to it -- we can't make the past better; but the future is still in everyone's hands.

[kosta50]

I expect to read the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Memorandum and hope to read the RAM plan when it gets translated

Is there a link to that in the original version?

[Hoplite]

I'd love to be able to answer you, Kosta, but am rendered mute as to their contents until I read 'em.

[vooch]

A.Pole

you were correct that the HumWarriors would swallow the conspircy tale........just check out Hoplite's post above

[F-117A]

Correct. That shows how everyone was in favour of keeping communist Yugoslavia together.

11-1 against breakup is not everyone. But, the later 12-0 shows everyone FOR breaking up Yugoslavia. Your failure to grasp something that simple shows you have trouble with logic!

Thanks for confirming that!

[A. Pole]

There you go kissing NAZI butts! As if the Germans had ever something decent in their sicko minds when it comes to the balkans!

Niemiec, Chorwat - dwa bratanki.

[kosta50]

SANU Memorandum is available in English, but what is the RAM plan?

[kosta50]

drafted by the communists in a communist constitution that suppressed democracy...nice legitimacy.

The Croats, Slovenes and Kosovo's Albanians had no problem with the 1974 Constitution being a communist document because it served them well.

The Serbs had a constitutional right to secede from Croatia and from Bosnia. They were constituent people in the former Yugoslavia, and therefore had that right -- whether you agree with it or not.

The Constitution, however, also required consensual agreement for any major change in the system in order to exercise that right. There is nothing to rationalize here. These are facts.

The secessions of Slovenia and Croatia, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina were both illegal. Their recognition by Germany, then by the EU and the US was in violation of the Helsinki Accords. Internal borders could not be made into international boundaries by simple recognition. They were not protected by the Helsinki Accords. Yugoslav boundaries were. YNA tanks were not occupying Slovenia or Croatia at the time when they unilaterally seceded. They were independent only in their eyes.

Yugoslavia had every right to use whatever means necessary to stop the secession. Kosovo was under martial law, not occupation. It was and is part of Serbia and Yugoslavia legally, de jure. The situation in Kosovo is similar to the Israeli measures taken in Palestine, which is occupied, or to Northern Ireland, yet the world treats those three issues with opposite standards.

The rest is just shooting the breeze. The Serbs were screwed and they realized it too late. They were stupid and naive. Today they are beaten, largely by their own fault, but they are not defeated. Do not believe for one moment that the new order of things is the way Balkan will stay.

Gravity, critical mass, cannot be ignored. The long it is ignored, the more momentum it gathers. Serbs are not about to leave the Balkans. They will be there for a long, long time. Ten years ago, the political situation in the world was 180 degrees opposite from today. Twenty years ago no one could predict the end of the Cold War with the implosion of the USSR. Thirty years ago, the Cold War was still at its peak, Croatia was in its nationalist "spring," and Americans were dying in Vietnam.

The world looked a lot different in a relatively short time span. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now the world will be nothing like today. What we fertilize today will give results in the future. I would not be too cocky and take today for eternity. We should be thinking of coming generations.