What led up to the Bosnian War?

Chloe · #1 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:00 PM

Was it a racially motivated war or a religious motivated war or economical war?

saltwn · #2 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:21 PM

Melosavich started replacing everyone (even postal workers) with his political/ethnic choices and further unrest and ethnic cleansing lead to us getting involved. The destabilization of the region came as with many other places after the break up of the old Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia was a false "country". We drew a line around a bunch of ethnic regions and pronounced it a country. Like Saddam and other dictators the USSR held things in check. After their reign was over, mini Hitlers started emerging as we (the west) tried to stop gap what we could.
Ultimately one could say The Black Hand of the Serbs (that org that killed the Prince of Austria sparking WWI) started the ball rolling; WWII (at least on the German/Italian fronts) was a direct result of WWI; Bosnia's meltdown was contained during the cold war. Then unrest broke out as people vied for power.
It is very complicated and a good understanding only comes from reading a history of it. I am writing from memory of stuff I read during the crises.

Chloe · #3 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Behind the Civil War
The nationalities living in the Balkan mountain area can unite–and they proved it. These peoples created a powerful multinational guerrilla movement during World War 2 to defeat the German Nazis and Italian fascists who occupied the region for three years. The peoples of Yugoslavia pinned down many divisions of Nazi troops–and ultimately freed themselves, guns in hand, in a communist-led resistance war. Modern Yugoslavia was build out of that unity–bringing together six nations and several other significant nationalities.

There was no reason why a new, progressive, multinational unity could not have been built. The key would have been uniting on the basis of the interests of the masses of people–along the road of socialism and proletarian internationalism.

But there was, unfortunately, never any real socialist transformation in Yugoslavia. The leaders of the new Yugoslavia, headed by Josef Broz Tito, betrayed the revolution and took the capitalist road–straight into the embrace of U.S. imperialism. This laid the seeds for the wars of today.

The Titoites broke the Yugoslav economy into small independent units. In agriculture, early experiments in collectivization were reversed–by 1957 virtually all the farms were in private hands. Nationalized industry was “privatized.” Individual factories were officially operating under “workers’ self-management.” But the policy was set by directors, and the real control was exercised by the market mechanism of capitalism. Without socialist planning, profit decided where investments flowed, what was produced, and who got to work. In reality “worker self-management” meant that wages were tied to factory profits–they were a form of piecework. Factories, industries and whole regions were competing with each other and profit was in command. And, more importantly, the proletariat did not have state power. It was impossible for them to revolutionize society.

The World’s First Experience with “Capitalist Roaders in Power”
By 1948 Tito was sharply criticized by the world communist movement, then led by Joseph Stalin. Meanwhile Tito was praised and supported by the imperialists–who were waging all kinds of warfare against revolutionary and socialist forces around the world. Tito claimed that he would walk a “non-aligned” path between East and West. But in fact, his Yugoslavia quickly became dependent on the imperialists–politically, economically and militarily–tied to the world capitalist market while he huddled under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.”

For the first time in history a victorious armed movement led by supposed communists had come to power, but it set up a capitalist society. This was the first experience with “revisionism in power”–meaning a capitalist ruling class that claimed to be leading a socialist society.

The development of Yugoslavia was closely studied by revolutionaries like Mao Tsetung. In 1955, Khrushchev, a top leader in the Soviet Union, visited Yugoslavia and praised Tito. Within a year, Khrushchev himself had seized complete power in the Soviet Union and took it too down the capitalist road.

In 1963 under Mao’s leadership, the Chinese Communist Party sent an open letter called–Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country?–to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In that polemic, Mao’s forces wrote: “The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia will make all Marxist-Leninists see better and enable people to realize more keenly the necessity and urgency of combating modern revisionism. So long as imperialism exists, there is apparently no ground for saying that the danger of the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries has been eliminated.”

How Capitalism Caused the Balkan Wars Kasama

Chloe · #4 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

Melosavich started replacing everyone (even postal workers) with his political/ethnic choices and further unrest and ethnic cleansing lead to us getting involved. The destabilization of the region came as with many other places after the break up of the old Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia was a false "country". We drew a line around a bunch of ethnic regions and pronounced it a country. Like Saddam and other dictators the USSR held things in check. After their reign was over, mini Hitlers started emerging as we (the west) tried to stop gap what we could.
Ultimately one could say The Black Hand of the Serbs (that org that killed the Prince of Austria sparking WWI) started the ball rolling; WWII (at least on the German/Italian fronts) was a direct result of WWI; Bosnia's meltdown was contained during the cold war. Then unrest broke out as people vied for power.
It is very complicated and a good understanding only comes from reading a history of it. I am writing from memory of stuff I read during the crises.

We were on the Muslims side right?

Chloe · #5 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:27 PM

Quote:

In 1990, the US threatened to cut off aid if Yugoslavia did not hold elections, but insisted that elections be held only in the republics, not at the federal level. In 1991, the European Community organized a conference on Yugoslavia, which called for its division into "sovereign and independent republics," at which point Yugoslavian representatives were barred from attending any more of the conference meetings.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has most recently called attention to itself by financing political groups that fomented military coups against elected governments in Haiti and Venezuela, was also involved in the Yugoslavian civil war and the ensuing conflict. Allan Weinstein, one of the NED's founders, was candid about the mission of the NED, which is funded directly by the US federal government. "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA," Weinstein said in 1991.

According to research conducted by William Blum, a scholar of US interventions abroad, the NED described the mandate of its 1997-98 programs as aiming to "identify barriers to private sector development at the local and federal levels in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to push for legislative change...[and] to develop strategies for private sector growth."

Starting in 1988, the NED provided millions of dollars to "independent media", "opposition political parties", and "pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations", "student groups", "labour unions" and "think tanks" throughout the former Yugoslavia. According to testimony in Senate hearings, in the two years leading up to the Kosovo crisis, the US government provided $16.5 million for democracy promotion in Serbia alone, mostly through the NED. Proportional to population, and not accounting for lower pay scales, the equivalent amount of funding for Canadian media and political groupings would be roughly $46 million.

A Milosevic-headed Serbian government did eventually pass legislation that decreed that media could face steep fines for circulating false information, forcing US-sponsored newspapers and radio stations to move to Montenegro. The US, however, has even less tolerance for outside funding of its democracy. Senator John Kerry, for example, found himself the subject of a firestorm of media criticism when his 2004 presidential campaign accepted a $2,000 cheque from a private citizen of South Korea (not a government group). Kerry sent the cheque back and vowed to do more thorough "background checks" on campaign donors.

The Canada Elections Act prohibits any groups that receives money from a foreign source from using it for "election advertising purposes". Canada also maintains extensive regulations preventing foreign ownership of the media.

Are critics like Parenti and Blum right? How does their evidence stack up to that provided by Canadian media? This is difficult to say, because almost all news media in Canada and the US have ignored the role of the West in the demise of Yugoslavia and the United States' subsequent well-financed political interventions.

"In the eyes of the global media," writes University of Ottawa economist Michel Chossudovsky, "Western powers bear no responsibility for the impoverishment and destruction of a nation of 24 million people." Instead, the prevailing view continues to be that the US, Canada, and other NATO powers acted benevolently to end the conflict.

The Origins of the War in the Balkans

Chloe · #6 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:27 PM

Quote:

The former Yugoslavia consisted of six republics and two autonomous regions. Today Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia are independent nations. Serbia and Montenegro comprise the rump Yugoslavia.

Bosnia-Herzegovina
(prewar population 4.4 million): Bosnia has the most complex mix of religious traditions among the former Yugoslav republics: 44% Bosniaks (Muslims), 31% Bosnian Serb (Eastern Orthodox), and 17% Bosnian Croat (Roman Catholics). BosniaÃs Muslims are Slavs who converted to Islam in the 14th and 15th centuries after the Ottoman Empire conquered the region. From World War I until the end of the Cold War, Bosnia was part of the newly created country of Yugoslavia. Bosnia declared independence in March 1992.

Serbia (including Kosovo and Vojvodina) (prewar population 9,800,000): This republic is the largest and most populous. 66% are ethnic Serb of traditionally Eastern Orthodox religion. Until 1989, Serbia also had two œautonomous regions,” Kosovo and Vojvodina. Kosovo, bordering Albania, was the historic seat of a traditional Serbian kingdom and the site of the famous Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when the Serbs were conquered by Ottoman forces. Today KosovoÃs population is 90% ethnic Albanian, most of them Muslims. The Albanians are a pre-Slavic ethnic group speaking a distinct language unrelated to the various forms of Serbo-Croatian spoken throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Croatia (prewar population 4.8 million): In the second largest republic of former Yugoslavia, 79% of its residents were ethnic Croatian and 12% ethnic Serb, who were concentrated in the Krajina region, which closely follows CroatiaÃs border with Bosnia. Most Croatians are Roman Catholic. Croatia
declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991. During the summer of 1995, Croatian forces reclaimed the Krajina and drove more than 200,000 Serbs to exile in Serbia.

Montenegro (prewar population 584,000): This was the only republic not conquered by the Ottoman Empire or other outside powers. Mostly Serb Orthodox, Montenegro and Serbia now comprise what is left of Yugoslavia.

Macedonia (population 2,000,000): Macedonia is home to Macedonian Slavs (66%) who are mostly Orthodox Christians with some Muslims, Albanians (25%“35%) who are mostly Muslim, and a host of smaller minorities (Turks, Gypsies, Vlachs). Macedonia became the only former Yugoslav republic to make a nonviolent transition to independence in 1992. The Albanian population has long demanded some degree of cultural autonomy and, until the current crisis, most Macedonian Albanians have attempted to go about this by working within the existing power structures.

Slovenia (prewar population 1,892,000): The smallest in land mass but the wealthiest of the former republics, Slovenia is also the closest to western Europe, sharing a border with Austria. Its population is almost entirely composed of ethnic Slovenes, who have their own distinctive Slavic language and traditions. Slovenia declared its independence at the same time as Croatia, in June 1991.

History of the War in Bosnia

Chloe · #7 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:31 PM

I was curious about it because I was looking at the National Geographic website and they had pictures of Croatia and it is so pretty, so I started looking up Bosnia, and also I remembered my cousin telling me that our ancestors came to America during the Ottoman Empire my ancestors were from Germany, Prussia, Austria, & Hungary. I started wondering if those areas were close to the Bosnia stuff going on. I then wondered if the stuff going on there has been a long history like the Gaza strip stuff.

Rush L · #8 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 10:46 PM

The war is Bosnia was a result of the break up of Yugoslavia. The government of Yugoslavia held the states that were independent minded nations together.

Serbia meant to keep Yugoslavia together after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence and moved through Bosnia to attack Croatia.

The Bosnian were situated in a position between the parties of a conflict and harbored ideas of independence of their own. Bosnia had a small number of ethnic Serbs that were still very loyal to the homeland. Between the Serbs sniping at the Bosnians and the Bosnian sniping on the convoys of Serbian troops and supplies it got ugly.

The Serb Croat conflict ended with the dissolution of Yugoslavia and Croat independence, as both nations were well armed and supplied. Croatia by the west and Serbia by Russia and Belarus.

As to the Bosnians, there fate was much worse off. One of the major failing of the Clinton admin was to successfully block arms being sold to the Bosnian militants while failing to control the aggressor army, the Serbs. Serbia fed by Russia could continue to arm and field a Serbian militia inside of Bosnia using Serbs native to the territory, while the Bosnians had no weapons to defend there land or lives.

Some of the underlying issues to the conflict were religious in nature, The Serbs were Orthodox, Croatia is a Catholic nation and the Bosnians were Muslim converts from the days of the Ottoman rule. Geo politically the Croats aligned themselves more with the modern west/NATO, Serbia obviously with the former USSR, and the Bosnians last alliance before becoming Yugoslavia was with the Nazis in WWII.

Chloe · #9 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rush L

The war is Bosnia was a result of the break up of Yugoslavia. The government of Yugoslavia held the states that were independent minded nations together.

Serbia meant to keep Yugoslavia together after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence and moved through Bosnia to attack Croatia.

The Bosnian were situated in a position between the parties of a conflict and harbored ideas of independence of their own. Bosnia had a small number of ethnic Serbs that were still very loyal to the homeland. Between the Serbs sniping at the Bosnians and the Bosnian sniping on the convoys of Serbian troops and supplies it got ugly.

The Serb Croat conflict ended with the dissolution of Yugoslavia and Croat independence, as both nations were well armed and supplied. Croatia by the west and Serbia by Russia and Belarus.

As to the Bosnians, there fate was much worse off. One of the major failing of the Clinton admin was to successfully block arms being sold to the Bosnian militants while failing to control the aggressor army, the Serbs. Serbia fed by Russia could continue to arm and field a Serbian militia inside of Bosnia using Serbs native to the territory, while the Bosnians had no weapons to defend there land or lives.

Some of the underlying issues to the conflict were religious in nature, The Serbs were Orthodox, Croatia is a Catholic nation and the Bosnians were Muslim converts from the days of the Ottoman rule. Geo politically the Croats aligned themselves more with the modern west/NATO, Serbia obviously with the former USSR, and the Bosnians last alliance before becoming Yugoslavia was with the Nazis in WWII.

So we helped the Bosnians the Muslims, and the Russians helped the Serbs the Catholics, When we intervened the slaughter stopped towards the Bosnian Muslims and then we left and turned it over to Europe ?

Chloe · #10 (**permalink**) 11-15-2010, 11:16 PM

So my ancestors were close to where those areas are it looks like.

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