Words that should be used by Milosevic
By Geoffrey Wasteneys
February 20, 2002
I believe that Milosevic is doing a good job and I am sure the Nato
powers will regret that they put him on trial.
Had I been Milosevic, however, I should have said "Gentlemen (and
Ladies) what would YOU have done if you were the President of a country,
racked by Civil War that outside forces had clearly instigated and in
which it was Serbians that, on every hand, stood to lose. In 1921 it was
Serbians who gave up their name and National identity to join with those
other South Slavs who had fought against them in the armies of Austria.
In the 1939/45 War these traitors returned to German allegiance and made
use of that circumstance to massacre some hundreds of thousands of
Serbians (and Jews) for the crime of having a different religious
opinion.
King Alexander had done his best to unify Yugoslavia by altering the
previous boundaries. Marshal; Tito, born a Croat and a Roman Catholic
had created deliberately a number of enclaves with each a Serbian
minority and the break up of Yugoslavia meant that these minorities
would be physically and politically separated from the other Serbians.
If a minority of Croats in Yugoslavia were to be permitted to separate
surely the same right belonged to a minority of Serbians in Croatia. In
Bosnia.
Would you have stood idly by while the Serbians in Krajina and East and
West Slavonia were to be denied the right of Yugoslavian citizenship
while those special rights that they had enjoyed in Croatia for 400
years had been callously withdrawn? When the regime of President Tudjman
had restored the symbols of the Ustashe regime of Pavelic at whose hands
so many Serbians and Jews had perished in Jasenovac concentration camp
in 1943/45?
The Parliament of Yugoslavia, by majority vote had denied the right of
secession to Slovenia and Croatia. The unwarranted intervention of the
European Community had recognized them as separate nations (a status
that they were to enjoy for the first time in their whole history while
Serbia had a long and honourable history of independence). The effect of
the recognition of these two new States was to, not only destroy a
Nation that had been created in 1920 in response to the policies of U.S.
President Woodrow Wilson, but to further weaken Serbia by the detachment
of a large number of its citizens, first in Croatia and subsequently in
Bosnia.
It will go on record that it was the action of Slovenes, Croats and
Bosnian Muslims that brought about a state of anarchy in which dreadful
things are certain to be done. It is equally true that the first acts of
aggression were in each case, by Slovenes, Croats and Bosnian Muslims
and against Serbians. Had I failed to take action to protect the
interest of my fellow countrymen in this appalling situation I would
have encountered and deserved the censure of all Serbians and the world.
How curious that in 1995 my services were eagerly sought to bring about
the Dayton Accord and my photograph was published in Time magazine,
citing me as "Man of the Year", but scarcely a few months later I became
the target on invective from the U.S. State Department.
How did it come about that I was censured for the actions of the JNA in
Bosnia and called upon to withdraw it and its armaments to Serbia, but
only a short time later the New army of Croatia equipped by Germany and
trained by former U.S. Generals was operating openly in Bosnia.?
Why has the figure of 7,000 dead Muslims at Srebenica became a
constantly quoted statistic when it is clear that there is no
substantiation for that figure? Why is it that the world Press has drawn
no attention to the actions of the Croat REGULAR ARMY at Mostar where
the deaths of Muslims were greater than at Srebenica? Why has so much
nonsense been written about damage at Dubrovnik art the hands of
Serbians when eyewitnesses tell an entirely different story?
In 1989 when I made that oft repeated statement" you shall not be beaten
anymore" it was in the context of life in Kosovo for Serbians under the
constitution provided by Marshall Tito that made it a Semi-independent
Republic in Yugoslavia. His objective had been to form an anti-cominform
Bloc made up of Yugoslavia and Albania in order to promote his own style
on mild communism, bereft of collectivization of agriculture. He was
unable to get an agreement with Hoxa, but in furtherance of his original
objective, had refused to allow Serbians who had been ejected from
Kosovo by the Germans and Italians, to return. A substantial amount of
Yugoslavian tax money was devoted to Kosovo and, among other matters it
financed the construction of the largest University in Yugoslavia at
Pristina, with a student body of 40,000. Teaching was in Albanian and
both text books and teachers were brought from there.
The result was a wave of Albanian nationalism and a great influx of
illegal immigrants from Albania that was accelerated by the financial
crisis in that country related to the pyramid scandal. The Serbian
population, amounting to less than 400,000 suffered from deliberate
discrimination and it was evident that the objective was to drive them
out of the lands that held all the principal historic structures in
Serbia; churches, monasteries and similar structures.in Kosovo were, in
fact, as sacred to Serbians as the Holy Land to the Jews. This was of no
account to Tito whose background was wholly in Roman Catholic Croatia.
Serbian parents stated that their daughters were sexually molested on
their way to and from school. The explanation was given that Muslims are
strictly forbidden from sexual relations, out of marriage, with true
believers. In consequence they turned to Christian women for relief from
concupicence. It was obvious that protection was imperative for the
Serbians. The solution was to return the constitution that made Kosovo
an integral part of Yugoslavia.
It should be noted that developments in Kosovo were the key that turned
in the lock of Yugoslavian unity. Slovenia and Croatia, both with
substantially higher national income per capita than Serbia (and vastly
higher than for Kosovo and Bosnia) objected strongly to the divergence
of tax revenues to Kosovo It was, in great part, to avoid this financial
drain that they concluded to separate. When they did so they explained
their action as in order to avoid the impact of "Greater Serbia". This
suggested that Milosevic was intending to carry out a similar changes in
the constitutions of their States. In fact, all that took place was a
return to Serbia of what had always been an integral part of its
territory and its area of first settlement.
I would suggest that the Court review the history of Albania and the
known character of Albanians with their historic blood feuds and
traditional association with smuggling and violence. The Encyclopedia
Britannica once described them as "persons who are most liked by those
that have never met them".
The result of the constitutional change was to displace certain Albanian
public servants that refused to comply with new regulations. Serbians,
once more secured protection from Serbian police officers. The Albanian
response was to refuse to pay taxes, or for electricity and to avoid the
licensing of vehicles.
The burgeoning Albanian population of Kosovo is partly due to the
highest net reproduction rate in Europe, partly to uncontrolled
immigration from Albania. It should be noted that about 20% of The
Albanians are Christian, both Roman Catholic and Orthodox. Good
relations were current between many Albanians and Serbians. The presence
of a small but well organized group of extreme nationalists was the
source of most problems.
In essence, The Government of Yugoslavia was not attempting to drive
Albanians out of Serbia, but rather to prevent the Serbians from being
ejected against their will. Subsequent developments have shown that the
threat was very real. I wonder how the Justices would react if a similar
adverse development took place in their own Nation?
A Civil War is the worst of wars, but it becomes far worse when outside
parties intervene, generally in pursuit of their own objectives.
Written by
Geoffrey Wasteneys
259 Faircrest Road
Ottawa, Ontario
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