-Caveat Lector-
Since the collapse of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the mid-1980's,
great confusion has emerged over what to call the rump states which have
emerged from the chaos.
Slovenia and Croatia are pretty obvious. Aside from them, however, the picture
is muddled. "Bosnia" is what historians call "Bosnia-Herzegovina," or is that
"Herzegovna?" But then part of Bosnia calls itself "Republika Srpska" (Serb
Republic), which is separate from the Republic of Serbia, which is actually
most of what's left of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The people of Yugoslavia, as it is now, are mostly (about 80 percent) Serbs.
This includes Montenegro, which would be independent except it has the only
remaining seaport for Yugoslavia, so the Serbs--excuse me, the Yugoslavs (or
is that Yugoslavians?)--aren't about to give it up. Serbia also includes, of
course, Kosovo, which is mostly "ethnic Albanian" (read "Muslim"), and which
was essentially autonomous until 1987, when Yugoslav President Milosevic
decided that only Serbs were competent to govern a province of Serbia.
Kosovo borders Albania (duh!) and "Macedonia," which is not the same thing as
the Macedonia or Macedon that gave birth to Alexander the Great. *That*
Macedonia is the northern part of Greece. The Former Yugoslavian Republic of
Macedonia, to give it its formally negotiated name, was known as "South
Serbia" until Marshal Tito came to power in 1945, whereupon he renamed the
province; historically, that region was mostly part of Thrace and Illyria.
Yugoslavia itself didn't exist before 1919, when it was created to reward
Serbia for being on the winning side in World War One. Croatia, Slovenia, and
Bosnia-Herzegovina were carved off the carcass of the old Austro-Hungarian
Empire; Montenegro and South Serbia were plucked from the Ottoman (Turkish)
Empire.
During World War Two, Croatia declared its "independence" as a German vassal
state under the vicious rule of the Ustacha; when Croatia again declared
independence forty-five years later, it was once again under the (still
vicious) rule of the Ustacha.
The Yugoslavian resistance to the German occupation was split between the
royalist Chetniks and Tito's Communists. Needless to say, the U.S. and British
supported the Chetniks; the Soviet Union supported Tito. Tito won out, and the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia became the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito went on
to position himself as a "non-aligned" leader, ideologically a pragmatic
socialist but also a firm Serbian nationalist. His intention seems to have
been to expand to control all of the Balkans, from the Danube to the Aegean
and the Black Sea, in a kind of Greater Serbia. In the event, what he
succeeded in doing was to create a highly cohesive and at least superficially
successful third way between Soviet Marxism-Leninism and Western Democratic
Capitalism. Yugoslavia *was* united, as long as Tito ruled in Belgrade.
When Tito died, an attempt was made to continue the federal model by rotating
the state presidency among the premiers of the several republics. That worked
fine, until 1991, when Franjo Tudjman of Croatia rebelled at having Serbia's
Slobodan Milosevic take the presidency. Croatia declared its independence,
followed immediately by Slovenia; West Germany recognized the new governments,
and the remainder of the West followed suit in short order. From that point
Yugoslavia descended into brutal civil war, with nationalist rhetoric and
personal ambition fueling the worst acts of genocide since the "killing
fields" of Cambodia in the 1970's.
There were, and are, no good guys in this civil war. Each ethnic group has
been responsible for unspeakable atrocities against the others. The rulers and
commanders of the various nations and would-be nations, almost without
exception, have been little more than criminal gang leaders. To compare
*anyone* in "Yugoslavia" to Lincoln or any other major Western leader is
absurd. Ultimately, there are two possible ways to approach the Balkans war:
either seal off the borders of all of the combatants, a complete cordon
sanitaire that allows nothing in or out, and let them duke it out until one
kills the other off; or accept that the international community has a
responsibility in fact to act as the world's policeman, and must therefore
move into the Yugoslav territories in force, disarm everyone, and basically
govern them until such time as the locals are finally capable of doing it
themselves without coming to blows. Short of that, whoever tries to act as
peacemaker in the Balkans, be it the U.S., NATO, the European Union, or the
U.N., is doomed to failure.
MHO.
Bob
=================================
Robert F. Tatman
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