A copy of the presentation by Ambassador James Bissett at the international
conference to mark the 200th anniversary of "Karadjordje's Revolution"in
Chicago and Ottawa. Boba =========
TWO HUNDRED YEARS LATER By James Bissett February , 2004
There are certain events in the history of a nation that become embedded in
the collective psyche of the people. These are usually happenings of heroic
dimensions that help over the years to define a nation and its people.
Serbia has more than its share of these defining moments but 1804 stands out
as one of the most noteworthy. It is therefore important and fitting that
Serbians remember what happened in 1804. Unless there is contemplation of
the past there can be little hope of surviving the future.
In 1804 the Serbs who followed Karadjordje did so despite the realization
that the uprising had little likelihood of succeeding. Yet they were full of
purpose and hope. They were, moreover, prepared to risk all, including their
lives, to obtain freedom and break the chains of Turkish tyranny.
Two hundred years after this heroic Serbian uprising I would like to be able
to say that Serbia today was enjoying political stability, economic
prosperity and that the nation was regarded as a respected member of the
international community. Alas, this is not the case.
The reality is that on the bicentenary of the Serbian uprising - the
uprising that launched the nation on the road to independence and put an end
to Turkish oppression in the Balkans - we find that Serbia is in a desperate
condition.
It is a country facing political paralysis and economic dislocation. Its
population is demoralized and disillusioned. There is high unemployment and
a deteriorating standard of living. There is the grave risk of losing
Kosovo. In addition, thousands of the country's brightest and best have left
and are living now in Chicago, Toronto or Sydney.
Serbia has not recovered from the shameful NATO bombing campaign launched
against it in the spring of 1999. The bombing that continued for 78 days and
nights destroyed much of the country's infrastructure and crippled an
economy already on the verge of collapse because of Milosevic mismanagement
and seven years of United Nations sanctions.
The need to provide shelter and subsistence to the half million refugees
ethnically cleansed from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo has added to the burden
of the stricken nation. Little international financial assistance has been
forthcoming and what has been promised has been tied to conditions that any
self- respecting nation would find difficult to accept.
Next month the United States Congress will vote on a 100 million dollar aid
package for Serbia but it will be conditional on Serbia cooperating with the
Hague Tribunal. The latest strident and emotional charges by the chief
prosecutor of the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, that
Belgrade is harboring Radovan Karadicz seems timed to ensure that the vote
will be negative. This should tell us something about Del Ponte's function
as an apologist for United States policy in the former Yugoslavia and her
role as a salaried supporter of George Soros' crusade against Serbia.
In some respects Carla Del Ponte has done more damage to Serbia than was
done by the NATO bombing. She has obviously a pathological hatred of Serbia
and Serbians and is determined to classify them all as war criminals and
murderers. Frustrated by Milosevic's ability to point out inconsistencies
and outright fabrications by the prosecution during his trial she seems set
on adding more and more Serbs to the list brought before her kangaroo court.
It was not by accident that she waited until the deaths of Tudjman and
Izetbegovic before hinting that given time they too might have been brought
before her court.
She single handedly guaranteed a heavy Serbian vote for the Serbian Radical
party by indicting four Serbian Generals before her court on the eve of the
Serbian election. Her removal from the court would be a blessing for Serbia
and would permit the country to get on with its recovery. Unfortunately, she
will continue to operate like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland with her
demands of, 'off with their heads," and "first the sentence-then the
verdict!"
She is scarily reminiscence of Hitler's favoured prosecutor, Roland
Fiesler, who presided over the trials of those Germans who were involved in
the July 20 plot against Adolf Hitler. Fiesler took sadistic satisfaction in
humiliating his victims before condemning them.
More serious than the physical damage caused by the illegal NATO attack has
been the psychological damage done to the Serbian people. They have been
portrayed by the Western media as barbarians guilty of mass rape and murder.
There has been little attempt by Western Governments to set the record
straight on these lies because to do so would call into question their own
role in the tragedy that swept through the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.
Unfortunately, the once proud Serbia that had shared with Greece the honour
of being the most democratic and freedom loving country of the Balkans is
now looked upon by many as an international pariah whose leaders and people
are guilty of crimes against humanity.
This was the little country with a population of four and one half million
people that in the First World War defied the Austrian- Hungarian and German
empires. This was the Serbia that at horrendous sacrifice refused to
abandon the allied cause and continued to fight with courage and
effectiveness until the end of the war.
This was the Serbia that refused to make a deal with Hitler in 1941 despite
being hopelessly surrounded by Axis countries. Yet it stood by its
traditional allies, Britain and France, and did so in the clear knowledge
that defiance meant destruction, occupation and the subsequent decimation of
its population.
The price that Serbia paid for their brave demonstration of loyalty to their
friends was genocide at the hands of the Ustashi, Nazi and Muslim fascists
and a savage civil war between communist partisans and anti-communist
forces. The nation was torn apart, suffered over a million dead and was
totally devastated by the war - a war that led to the dictatorship -
benevolent or otherwise of Josep Broz Tito.
Serbia like many other small nations has found itself throughout its history
used as a pawn in the power struggles of great nations. Its geographical
location in the Balkans on the religious and cultural divide - between Roman
Catholic and Orthodox, between East and West, between Hapsburg and Ottoman,
between conflicting ideologies - has inevitably entangled it in great power
rivalry.
Sometimes the intervention by the great powers in Serbian affairs has been
beneficial, but more often intervention has spelled tragedy and despair for
the Serbia people. Above all the involvement of the great powers has never
been motivated by concern for Serbian interests but only for the benefit and
interest of the intervening state.
In the nineteenth century, Russia was willing to help Serbia in its efforts
to win freedom from Turkish domination but only when it served Russian
interests. During Tito's regime the United States was forthcoming with
assistance and support but only after Tito's break with Stalin. When the
Soviet Union self-destructed, United States interest in Yugoslavia came to a
sudden and abrupt halt.
Ironically, it was the end of the Cold War that also hastened the down fall
of the Yugoslav Federation and helped to bring about the events that
subsequently overwhelmed Serbia.
The dismantling of Marxist ideology that preceded the break up of the Soviet
Union forced the socialist leaders of Eastern Europe to find other means of
retaining the support of their people. In Yugoslavia the leaders of the
Republics turned to religious and ethnic nationalism.
Moreover, the collapse of the USSR meant that Yugoslavia no longer enjoyed
its privileged position as a buffer between the world's two super powers.
The United States quickly acted to remove Yugoslavia from the list of
countries eligible for financial credits. Yugoslavia suddenly found itself
in the position of being just another unimportant Balkan country. It then
became vulnerable to the separatist movements that had been awaiting their
moment to be launched.
It is too early for historians to ascertain whether it was inevitable that
Yugoslavia would break apart after the death of Tito and the end of the Cold
War. What can be stated with certainty is that intervention by the Western
democracies played a leading role in the break up and by their actions
guaranteed that the break up would be accompanied by bloodshed.
Once again outside intervention in Balkan affairs resulted in disaster and
wreckage for the people living there. As if it were not enough to have
endured the Ottoman Turks, the Austrian - Hungarian Hapsburgs, the German
Nazis and then the communists- the people of Serbia were once again held
hostage to the manipulation by outside powers. Sadly, this time, the powers
were the democratic countries of Western Europe and North America.
As the Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia I was a first hand witness to the
events that led to the break up of the nation. I also was a witness to the
duplicity, the lies, the misinformation and hypocrisy that characterized the
behaviour of the intervening powers. This subversion of the truth and
hypocrisy continues today.
There are few people in the United States or Canada who do not believe that
everything that went wrong in Yugoslav was the responsibility of Slobodan
Milosevic and Serbia, that it was Milosevic's dream of a 'Greater Serbia"
that started the violence and the ethnic cleansing. They also believe the
lie that it was Serbian genocide in Kosovo that forced NATO to intervene in
a humanitarian effort to save the Albanian Kosovars.
These untruths are repeated almost automatically in the daily media whenever
the bombing of Yugoslavia is mentioned or whenever there is reference to the
Hague war crimes tribunal. Over time lies if repeated often enough take on
the cloak of truth. They become accepted as unquestionable and those who
challenge them are looked upon as eccentric or as someone who has an axe to
grind.
The reality is that Germany and Austria must accept much of the
responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia. Germany gave active
encouragement to Croatia to secede and this included the provision of arms,
finances and later active diplomatic support for recognition.
But it was the United States that should be held primarily responsible for
the civil war in Bosnia. It was through the intervention of the United
States that Alia Izetbegovic was persuaded to renege on the agreement he had
signed in Lisbon with his Serbian and Croatian counterparts that stood a
good chance of preventing the subsequent bloodshed in that Republic. Again
it was the United States that encouraged and supported the terrorist KLA to
use violence and take up arms in open rebellion in Kosovo.
At the beginning of the Yugoslav breakup, the United States did make a half
hearted but belated diplomatic effort to keep the nation united. When it
became apparent that Germany was determined to force premature recognition
of Croatia and Slovenia, the United States deferred and chose not to become
actively engaged in the dispute. It was, after all, a European problem to be
resolved to be solved by Europeans.
Nevertheless, as the fighting spread and it became evident that the
European Community was powerless to bring the conflict to a peaceful end,
the United States decided once more to become engaged in Yugoslavia. A
decision was made to intervene in Bosnia. It was not because the United
States was particularly concerned about the issues on the ground. After all,
few Americans understood the difference between Serb, Croat or Muslim
peoples. Indeed few would have been able to find Bosnia on a map.
The reason the Americans decided to intervene was because they suddenly
discovered that arising out of the Yugoslav turmoil there was an opportunity
of pursuing two short term United States foreign policy objectives .
The first of these occasions was the opportunity presented in Bosnia of
displaying to the Islamic world that the United States was not anti-Muslim.
This was particularly important following the first Iraq war. It was thought
that by throwing US support behind Alia Izetbegovic and promising him US
recognition for Bosnian statehood that US relations with the Muslim world
would be strengthened. Izetbegovic's dream of becoming the leader of the
first Muslim state in Europe since the Ottoman Empire was to be realized.
The certainty that this policy would cause a civil war in Bosnia and lead to
the death and displacement of many thousands was of little importance.
Similarly, the possibility that in the long term United States intervention
on the Muslim side would create a potential base for Islamist terrorists in
the Balkans was obviously not considered.
The second opportunity for the United States was offered later by the
deteriorating situation in Kosovo. By intervening on the side of the
Albanians the USA was able to reassert its primacy over NATO and to
revitalize a dormant institution that had lost its reason for existence
after the Warsaw Pact armies had gone home.
Like many features of US foreign policy since the end of the cold war the
decisions to intervene in Bosnia and to back the terrorist KLA in Kosovo and
later in Macedonia have been disastrously wrong headed and strategically
unsound.
Curiously, few people in the Western democratic countries were concerned
about the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia. Even those who acknowledged that
the bombing was a violation of the UN Charter and international law seemed
to hold their noses and suggest that since the intervention prevented
genocide and ethnic cleansing it was justified.
There was nothing like the current out cry over the invasion of Iraq that
was also done without United Nations authority. The demands to have proof of
the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq contrasted sharply with
the almost blind acceptance of allegations of human rights violations in
Kosovo. No one asked for proof of genocide in Kosovo before the bombing
started. When no evidence was found of mass graves in Kosovo where was the
demand for accountability on the part of those who made those false charges?
The Canadian Prime Minister willingly had Canadian forces participate in the
bombing of Yugoslavia but refused to participate with the USA's war in Iraq
on the grounds that it was done without UN approval. Robin Cooke, the
British Foreign Minister, who was an ardent proponent of the Yugoslav
bombing, actually resigned in protest over the war in Iraq. President George
Bush has received scathing domestic and international criticism over Iraq,
yet former President Clinton was looked upon as a hero for leading the
attack against Yugoslavia.
I would like to be able to say that as a result of all the lies and
misinformation about the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and about Kosovo
that we have learned a lesson. It would be nice to believe that as a result
of Kosovo, our democratic electorate and media have become more
discriminating and more demanding of our political leaders in matters
affecting foreign policy.
Could it be that the Kosovo experience has made the leaders of the European
Community more skeptical of United States intelligence reports about weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq? Could this be the underlying reason why France
and Germany did not support the United States war against Saddam Hussein?
Did the Western democracies learn something from the bitterness of the
Yugoslavian debacle? I think not - but I will leave it to the historians and
others to provide the answers to those questions.
I conclude this presentation not necessarily on a note of optimism but
rather on one of hope. The events of 9-11 confronted the United States with
its own mortality. It should now be obvious to every American that small
democratic countries such as Serbia are not a threat to their existence.
That threat comes from elsewhere. It comes from extremist Islamists and
their ability to smuggle nuclear devices and other weapons of mass
destruction into the United States and cause a horrific catastrophe - a
catastrophe that could spell the end of civilization as we know it. After
9-11 it has become evident that so soon after the end of the cold war we all
again live in perilous times.
It is my hope therefore that in formulating its foreign policy the United
States will realize that awesome military and technological power does not
protect it from suicidal fanatics who are desperate to fulfill their
fantasies of martyrdom. America must rely on reliable friends and allies who
share a long history of individual freedom and a love of liberty. In the
Balkans that tradition is not to be found among the Albanians in Kosovo or
the Muslims in Bosnia. It is to be found in Serbia. And it is to found there
because the spirit of the Karadjordje continues to live in the hearts of the
Serbian people.
James Bissett Feb/04
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
