Just to warn you, this is looong post Today is 16 years from beginning of NATO aggression against Serbia that happened March 24. 1999. Imperialist soldiers killed people 11 weeks, 78 day, official numbers are about 2500 dead people. They bombarded infrastructure like bridges, companies, TV, schools, hospitals, monuments, villages Serbian government said that material damage was 100 billion dollars, economists from G17 said it was 30 billion dollars. Serbia was already in poverty because of economic embargo from 1992, war made people poor too. NATO stopped their crimes against civilians on June 10 after agreement made in Kumanovo (Macedonia). Agreement meant that Serbian military and police had to go out from Kosovo and NATO/KFOR should come there. 37000 NATO soldiers came to Kosovo from Macedonia, from 36 countries but mostly from Germany, Italy, France and the USA. Today there are still about 5000 soldiers. The youngest victim of bombarding was Bojana Toović (photo above), 11 months old baby, and Rakić Milica (3th photo above), 3 years old, in the city of Novi Pazar died Marko Simić 2 years old. In Vladičin Han, bomb killed secondary school kids Milan Ignjatović and Gordana Nikolić. Beside them, NATO bombarded bridges when people where on the bridge, on Varvarin bridge died Sanja Milenković (15 years old) and they bombed also bridge when train was going over it. Many times whole families died, children and parents. On May 7th 1999, NATO dropped a cluster bombs over the city of Ni, 13 people were killed, among them 26 year old pregnant girl, and 18 people were heavily wounded. When NATO bombarded Radio Television of Serbia, 16 workers died. Noam Chomsky has compared the terrorist attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo to NATOs 1999 airstrike on the Serbian broadcaster RTS. Madeleine Albright called victims collateral damage, after war, she makes business, she tried in Kosovo too. She was the US state secretary in the time of Clinton who ordered bombarding too (together with Tony Blair and then commandeer of NATO for Europe Wesley Clark). Western media made also war propaganda against Serbs, it was done also by Charli Hebdo from France. Today Blair make business with help of corruption, he is using his political connections to secure contract for Saudis in Britain, Clark serves as the co-chairman of Growth Energy, an ethanol lobbying group and is on the board of directors of BNK Petroleum (! war for oil !). It was revealed that Madeleine investment firm, Albright Capital Management, was bidding in the proposed privatization of Kosovos state-owned telecom and postal company, Post and Telecom of Kosovo. In an article published by the New York-based magazine Bloomberg Businessweek, it was estimated that the deal could be as large as 600 million. The sale process has been clouded by corruption allegations, legal challenges, and the death of the state privatization agencys chief, Dino Asanaj. In June, his body was found in his apartment in Kosovos capital city of Pritina, with 11 stab wounds. Authorities say he committed suicide. Later she withdrawn her bid, but I didnt investigate more where she invested money. In any case, war is business, she helped to Albanian leaders to trade heroin and weapons and to make independent Kosovo, later American politicians got privileges from Albanian politicians, there are others, not only Albright. UNHCR reported that since KFOR came to Kosovo, 230 000 non-Albanians escaped from Kosovo, mostly Serbs and Gypsies and about 800 000 Albanians came back to Kosovo. In the same period, Albanians say that more than 500 people were killed and 200 kidnapped while Serbs say more than 1500 non-Albanians were kidnapped. From 2009 to 2013, UNHCR organized 2500 refugees to come back to Kosovo, and they said 200 000 people are still refugees, people from Kosovo living outside of Kosovo, they are mostly Serbs. NATO made attacks from warships in Adriatic sea, from 4 airbases in Italy and some bombardiers came from the EU and the US. Italy and Germany made war against Serbia before 60 years and they did it again many years later, their colonial aims are not changed last 100 years. The same rich pigs that financed Mussolini and Hitler and helped them gain the power, are still billionaires and they still finance present political parties in those countries (therefore there is still fascism against immigrants in Europe, making them illegal, politicians produced slaves for riches). I must remember readers that Europe and USA supported Albanians who used weapons to shoot Serbian police and military in Kosovo. If I do it in the EU/US, they will say I am terrorist, but they helped to Albanians to do the same, to produce conflict in Kosovo and to misuse Albanians to dethrone Miloević. They could not expand profit for western capitalists into Serbia because Miloević opposed them, the same as leaders in Iran, Iraq, Libya. Even Miloević made privatization from socialism to capitalism, for me it is historical and criminal process, but he privatized everything for himself and his friends, not for western riches. He was typical example of former communist who became new capitalists, but such people wanted to keep everything in their hands, they bankrupted and bought many state owned companies, in that way they stole it from workers, but they represented it like patriotic privatization. For workers it was the same, workers created factories and infrastructure and then (foreign or domestic) thieves stole it from them. Workers just lost jobs through privatization which includes reorganization of companies. Despite the fact Serbian politicians were thieves in that period, and some of them sent police and soldiers to kill and expel Albanians (don't forget they shot cops and military), nobody can justify bombarding of Serbs to change government, many Serbs protested against war and against Miloević, imperialism find always some excuses about human rights, they dont care for Albanians, they just used anybody against Miloević. There is no justification for killing civilians in Serbia and other countries too. It is clear that West Europe and America developed conflict and misused Albanians against Miloević, without West Europe, nobody in Yugoslavia could separate country and nobody in Kosovo could finance and make fight for independence of Kosovo. Albanians were mostly financed by Americans, Croats were financed by Germany, Germany also sent them weapons. After destroying of communist Yugoslavia where they could not make profit, western riches wanted to destroy Serbia where they could not make profit because of Miloević. Just because Miloević was not good for western billionaires, they wanted to position government in Serbia that is good for them and therefore people died. I didnt support Miloević when I was young, I was protesting against him while toadies in west Europe were good for government to get nice job, when I came to the West I saw they are the same as those who supported Miloević. Money money patriots. Now when I got experience with west Europe, I dont support that Serbia become member of EU, now I am older and I can see that every war is business and Miloević spoke the truth about west Europe (they spy us, they hate us, they don't want to give us jobs, etc, it is the truth, racism is very developed in the West and they continue their colonial politics the same as before 100 years). Now I can say that Miloević was the thief, but one thief is much smaller criminal for society than those who use bombs to kill thousands of innocent people, even Al Capone is small baby comparing with western politicians. Imperialist politicians are worse than any Miloević, they make business possibilities for riches who finance them. Therefore, millions of people die every year all over the world (after Serbia, they bombarded Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and they plan to do the same with Russia, Venezuela and Iran). Only western toadies who profit from government support wars, mostly they are working for secret service, I believe that only rebels in the west can protest against imperialism, against robbing other countries. Anti war groups are the most active and the best organized in Britain although in 2003, massive protests happened in all over Europe, against war in Iraq. There are many western people who are against NATO and against wars, but they are spied and arrested. Media reported on march 22/23, 2003, about 150,000 protesters in Barcelona (other sources say 1,000,000); more than 100,000 (other sources: up to 500,000) protesters in London; some 100,000 protesters in Paris; at least 150,000 protesters altogether in many German cities; between 35,000 and 90,000 in Lisbon; around 40,000 in Bern, the largest protest in Switzerland for decades; 10,000 to 20,000 in Greece, Denmark and Finland. 250,000 protesters demonstrated in New York City according to the German Spiegel Online magazine. People should remember that poverty also bring many diseases and people die earlier, even just embargo against Serbia, Iran, Russia, is hostile behavior and people are dead because of embargo, if you dont know, 750 000 people died in Iraq in the time of embargo, before war. Western economic embargo was crime against Serbs, against Iraqis, it is still crime against Iranians, Russians. For American politicians, war is business and why to make any deal? Private military industry is very strong in America, they need one more war. Besides, when they destroy bridges and other things, Serbia must borrow money from the west to build it again, after war. Thats how they in-debt some country, after making us poor with bombarding of our infrastructure. Workers and companies became cheaper due to destroyed economy and due to bombs, western riches can some and buy everything for small money. War is business and war open new business possibilities for western riches. Even worse, western governments have today their government in Serbia that even cooperate with NATO and Tony Blair, it means they corrupted politicians in Serbia to buy weapons from America under excuse of modernization of Serbian army. [video=youtube;Bkztr16IHeM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkztr16IHeM[/video] [video=youtube;gelCe981y0I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gelCe981y0I[/video] pictures galleries: http://www.pogledi.rs/nato-zlocini-1999-godine-2/ http://www.pogledi.rs/nato-bombardovanje-1999-godine/
Yes, because Slobodan Milošević and his Serbian thugs were just cuddly (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)cats. And they were not really trying to create lebensraum and conducting a genocide to achieve it, were they?
the problem is that the states and countries were not nationalized in the 90s. That means, that there were no clear cut borders where you could argue for a border. There were Serbians living outside of what is today Serbian territory for many centuries and they saw no reason to leave their country and move to Serbia. The distinction between the groups is also not based on a language at times. Serbian and Croatian are very similar, and in reality mostly two different accents. However the cultural differences are quite large. Serbians are Serbian Orthodox in faith, Croatians primarily Roman Catholic. To top it off older borders between the two countries were disputed for hundreds of years between Austria and the Ottoman Empire. The two didn't even use the same alphabet. So independent of where you made the border, you drew it wrong, because you'd always exclude Serbians from Serbian territory and include people into Serbian territory who considered themselves not Serbians (i.e. Kosovo). And if you are a minority (independent of the country) you wish to have more say in your countries politics. A task impossible usually, because minorities tend to get ignored or even abused. Either way, the problem in this case was that Slobodan Milošević was in power, and the people who suffered were the civilians first, and not he himself. I don't know if there is a right decision to be made in these cases because war so often seemed unavoidable. The more I read about the topic, the more I understand both sides.
Actually, most of the states did indeed declare their independence and nationality in the 1990's (Macedonia, Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992). The problem was that one of the new countries wanted to try and control all of the others, and used fear and ethnic cleansing against minorities (especially the Muslim populations) to try to prevent them from doing that. Why people try to ignore or justify atrocities and war crimes on such things as "no clear cut borders" is pretty damned troubling. Are you somehow trying to excuse those actions, simply because you say there were no clear cut borders? Well, the borders that most of the new countries tried to establish are actually rather ancient, and existed long before WWI when the polyglot nation of Yugoslavia was created in the first place (primarily Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia). And in the 1940's these were broken up into the Socialist Republics as follows: Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Socialist Republic of Croatia Socialist Republic of Macedonia Socialist Republic of Montenegro Socialist Republic of Serbia Socialist Republic of Slovenia So even trying to make the claim that there were "no clear cut borders" is patently false and untrue. It would be like if Canada broke up, and Montreal and Quebec and Ontario all went to war and tried to take each other over. Or in the US if Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas all went to war, trying to annex parts of the other states, with the claim there were no borders before the break-up. Try learning history, it is a fascinating thing. And prevents people from making such silly claims.
I have a masters degree in history and focused on that region during my studies. It is nice that you know these fundamentals but unfortunately the situation is way more complex. The borders prior to 1800 don't matter because they were primarily drawn for administration reasons. After 1800 have the idea of nationalism evolving out of France. People were not connected based on nationalism, they were connected because of their estate of the realm. This idea, that in Slovenia should be full of Slovene people and Croatia full of Croatian people etc. evolved after that. At that time Croatian was whomever lived within the administration of a duke or some other secular leader. If you look at the situation before WW1 you have minorities all over the place. It wasn't ethnically "clean". The region looked like a swiss-cheese and there were pockets of Germans, Slovenes, Croats, Italians, Hungarians, Bosnians, Muslims, Serbians, Macedonians, etc. throughout. The border didn't therefore apply anymore because people who lived on Croatian territory for centuries, were now Serbians and felt a connection to their people rather than their estate of the realm. A fine example is Nicola Tesla, who was born in Croatia prior to WW1, hence Austria-Hungary actually, studied in Graz and went to live in Budapest before going to New York. From an upbringing clearly someone who fits into the "Austrian" category rather than the "Ottoman" one. His father was an orthodox priest and therefore the claim for his nationality is now claimed by 3 countries. Croatia (because he was born there), Serbia (because of his religious and cultural heritage) and USA (because he became a citizen and had all his success in the US). He is a famous example of the problem. I don't think he even visited Serbia, yet the claim is there due to the heritage. You have thousands of people who fit into that category, who had been living for years in one country or region, but their "people" had a country of their own elsewhere. You were now pressured by the surrounding community with restrictions to rights (for example) to leave the country you and your family had been living in for centuries and ordered to go "home". This nationalistic development was totally new for a region who was a mixture between the peoples. There was no clear cut majority. The biggest group in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovens were the Serbs with roughly 44% of the population if memory serves me right. But if you truly want to go through all of that I would have to write quite a few posts to explain how complex the situation was by the 90s and how inadequate the previous borders were and why they couldn't be used. This fundamental problem had evolved for centuries and a diplomatic solution to the problem seemed unlikely because of the development of nationalism. The differences were so huge and people were reluctant to leave their home and move to another country just to be among "their own people". Forceful resolvent of these issues were a part of WW1 and especially WW2.
You missed the point completely. If you don't understand what the problems are here, you ought to read up on it a little bit more...
I was protesting agaisnt Milosevic many years, so, I can say, Milosevic ordered bombarding of villages in Kosovo where UCK (albanian guerrila that shot military and cops) had many members. of course, I never saw it with my eyes, I just say what I heard it is happening. if I make presumption it was true, than milosevic did what america does in afghanistan. but I would not say it is genocide. and if they make court process against milosevic, they should do the same against bush and obama.
@ mihapiha, you are correct but you also miss the point: there would be no raise of nationalism and separation of yugoslavia, it means borders would not be problem IF west europe and america didn't want to destroy communist country to expand market for capitalists, it means without support from capitalist countries, croats and muslim and albanians would never get idea to separate or even they could not separate. don't forget that croatia got weapons from germany, through hungary. in other case, how you think ordinary people could stand up against yugoslav army? they got support from germany and other western countries, the same as rebels in libya.
Holy run-on-sentence Batman! Wow, really? Seems to me that once Marshall Tito died the nation pretty much imploded all on it's own. Yugoslavia was an artificially created country, held together by the iron will and charisma of Tito, and the cracks started shortly after he died. Mostly because Serbia wanted not only to become separate, but become the successor of the Tito regime. Maybe this thread should be moved to the Conspiracy Theory section, because that is all you are (badly) presenting here. The US caused the break-up and civil wars and genocide of the wars in former Yugoslavia. That is hilarious.
Nationalism far exceeds the geopolitical problems you mention here. You see, economically the might of Yugoslavia was located primarily in Croatia and Slovenia. Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were economically quite dependent on the northern territories of the country. Incidentally, the country was build as a federation, hence Slovene and Croatians had because of their Austro-Hungarian heritage an intellectual elite far superior to Serbia's. Many of the leading generals and admirals where therefore Croatian or Slovene in their heritage. The nationalistic ideologies came into action whenever you tried to find a reason for these areas to work together. They didn't have a common language, a common history or even a common culture. So the three biggest reasons to work together didn't exist. What they connected in, was in the personification of Tito. As soon as he died, they lost the connection point and the reasons to work together where questioned. First by Slovenia and Croatia, who questioned why they should finance southern regions of a territory, who happened not to have a catholic heritage like them and who happened to not even use the Latin alphabet. Croatia, or more specific Zagreb (capital city) had been trying to fight for independence from Hungary for centuries, and now they wished independence from Belgrade. These ideas were firmly established long before US companies saw a reason to intervene in these areas. Remember that Croats and Serbs saw each other as enemies for the better part for the last few centuries.
I am little late with answer but your patriotism is not reason to call everything conspiracy theory. politics is not white and black and surely there is realization of interests, I think you never read anything about history and politics and you are limited with your nationalism. therefore you believe that america is not supporting this or that side in some war and people make wars totally without influence of america. that's fairy tail, story for children. america would not be called power if it is not mixed in everything, in cold war, in destroying communist country, and why communism is problem if not because of expanding market (profit possibilities) for billionaires who finance politicians. oh, yeah, they finance politicians for fun, not for realization of their own interests. you make a lot of mistakes here. 1) Tito created economy depending each from others, it means if car was produced in Serbia, parts were produced in other republics too, so, they had to cooperate together to finalize product. I am agreed only that slovenia was richer than other republics, I am not agreed that other republics depended from northern ones. slovenia had developed chemical industry and producing shampoos, cream for hands and such things while macedonia supplied mountain slovenia with agricultural products. it means, every republic had its own specifications but they depended each from others because one republic alone could not produce everything they needed. 2) tito united croatia and serbia after WWII in which they were enemies, but he did it with persecuting nationalists and many escaped to america and australia, etc, they didn't stay in yugoslavia to be able to separate country. they had to escape or they were killed after WWII by partisans. so, there were NO nationalists inside of yugoslavia to produce problems. so, during yugoslavia, republic worked together very fine, without problem. problem arised in 1989 when berlin wall felt down and soviet union was destroyed, then fake communists started with separation of yugoslavia, for the simple reason: why to be chef in republic when I can be chef in the state, local political elites didn't want to have yugoslavian above their head, they wanted to be head. Stpe Mesic was last president of yugoslavia and he is even today full of hate for serbs, it means he was fake communists, to get money and career, later he turned into public nationalist, even today he is in HDZ, extreme nationalist party in croatia. 3) many generals in the army where from all republics so I can not say who had more generals, croats or serbs or somebody else. 4) questions about finances is old story, it is from 1989, not before it, the same case is with catalonia and spain, or basque and spain, always the same story about who finance whom? it is manipulative question for the aim of separation (by basque) or for the aim of hegemony (by spain). 5) This is totally wrong: They didn't have a common language, a common history or even a common culture. Croats and Serbs have minimum 90% the same language, 10% is difference like between English in the UK and English in Australia. Montenegro and Serbia and Bosnia have 98% the same language and history and culture. Despite of that, as you see, Montenegro became independent and president is chief in his house, without anybody above his head, he doesn't need to make deal with anybody. That's the reason of local elites to separate from yugoslavia, they wanted to be heads in their country. Now they say they have Montenegro language, I don't have any problem with that, but it is 98% the same language just ebcause of extreme nationalism awaken for the need of separation, they speak they have their own language. If you ask me, I speak Serbo-Croatian, we are south slavic and we are the same people, just divided during history, divided by church fight for power, and divided by local elites who wanted to be big boss in their house (like when two brothers separate house to be chief in their own house). so, we are south Slavic, we speak the same language with max 10% difference, without church and local elites, we would be brothers. and of course, without western mixing to destroy communist country, yugoslavia would be still there and we would not have war and economic collapse. because of war and extreme nationalism, every republic is now state and they say they have their own language. that's daily politics, it is not reality.
And you with your entire 14 posts in here entitles you to proclaim that I am a "Nationalist" who has never studied history or politics? Please, can I stop laughing now? You do not know me at all, and this trollish response of attacking anybody that does not agree with you is noted. As far as I am concerned, this discussion is over. If you can not respond rationally and logically to the points I bring up without resorting purely to attacks, we have not a damned thing to say to each other. And yes, conspiracy theory fodder. I have seen enough trolls and conspiracy theorists in here to recognize them in moments. ANd you seem like both at once. Have a good day.
