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Background Report on
Serbia
© 2000 Dianne Durante
1. Maps
2. Terms
2.1 Political and geographical
2.2 Philosophical
3. Serbia: summary of the current situation (early December 2000)
4.1 Geographical situation
4.2 Population
5.1 Middle Ages to 1918
5.2 Formation of Yugoslavia to end of World War II, 1918-1945
5.3 Communist Yugoslavia, 1946-1990
6.1 Slobodan Milosevic (part 1)
6.2 War with Croatia, 1992
6.3 War with Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia, 1992-1995
6.4 Slobodan Milosevic (part 2)
6.5 Kosovo
6.5.1 History of Kosovo
6.5.2 War with Kosovo, 1998-1999
7.1 September 2000 elections for
president of
7.2 Political and economic status, October - November 2000
7.3 Kosovo, November 2000
7.4 December 2000 elections for
president of
7.4.1 Kostunica and the
Democratic Opposition of
7.4.2 Slobodan Milosevic and the Socialists
7.5 Future problems
8. Conclusion: the fundamental problem of the Balkans
9. Bibliography
10. Chronology
1. MAPS
Back to Table of Contents
Several useful maps of the area can be found on the CIA Factbook site:
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (listed under "Serbia and Montenegro") at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sr.html
Kosovo at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference/JPEG%20versions/802690.jpg
The Central Balkans at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference/JPEG%20versions/802689.jpg
2.
TERMS
Back to Table of Contents
2.1
Political
Kingdom
of Yugoslavia: Yugoslavia from its formation in 1918
until World War II.
Communist
Yugoslavia: Yugoslavia from the end of World War II
(1945) until its disintegration in the early 1990s.
Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia: formed in 1992 from the remains of
Communist Yugoslavia; includes Montenegro, Serbia, and Serbia's 2 provinces,
Vojvodina and Kosovo. Also referred to as "Serbia and Montenegro"
or "rump Yugoslavia."
Serb:
an ethnic term with religious implications, as well as a name for the
citizens of Serbia. A Serb is of Slav descent, speaks Serbo-Croatian, writes
it with the Cyrillic alphabet and is of the Orthodox faith. An "ethnic
Serb" is one who lives outside Serbia, just as an ethnic Albanian is of
Albanian descent and usually Muslim but lives outside Albania. In Yugoslavia,
ethnicity takes precedence over the country one lives in.
NOTE: Names such as Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina are convenient for locating these areas on a map, but do not indicate age-old boundaries or areas where exclusive ethnic groups have always resided. Fluctuating borders and mass migrations have been common in the Balkans for thousands of years.
2.2 Philosophical
terms
Several philosophical terms are used in the following report, with quite specific meanings based on Ayn Rand's theory of politics.
Collectivism: as opposed to individualism, the idea that the collective is the important unit in human affairs; that the group is an organic whole, without which the individuals within it are powerless or worthless. Collectivism comes in many guises, depending on the size of the collective.
Racism: the variety of collectivism that asserts that man's ideas are determined in the same way that his physical characteristics are, by his genes.
Nationalism: the variety of collectivism that considers the nation, a given country with particular boundaries, to take precedence over the individual. "My country right or wrong" is a form of nationalism. So was Hitler's Germany, where the national anthem began, "Deutschland über Alles" - Germany above all else.
Tribalism: similar to nationalism, but with even smaller groups: usually ethnic groups with common racial background, specific traditions and often a common religion.
Individualism: the theory that the important unit in human affairs is the individual rather than the group; that each man is an end in himself. What he shares with his neighbors (if he shares anything) is the civilization or culture based on items that are the result of human free will and rational thought, not genetics or geography. "The acceptance of the achievements of an individual by other individuals does not represent "ethnicity": it represents a cultural division of labor in a free market: it represents a conscious, individual choice on the part of all the men involved; the achievements my by scientific or technological or industrial or intellectual or esthetic - and the sum of such accepted achievements constitutes a free, civilized nation's culture. Tradition has nothing to do with it; tradition is being challenged and blasted daily in a free, civilized society . . ." (Ayn Rand, "Global Balkanization" [see full citation at end of this section], p. 119).
More briefly: If you do as your neighbors do, right or wrong, that's tribalism. If you do as others of your race do, right or wrong, that's racism. If it's your country, right or wrong, that's nationalism. All those are forms of collectivism; and the only alternative is individualism.
Further reading: Ayn Rand, "Global Balkanization," Voice of Reason (paperback), pp. 115-29. Ayn Rand, "Racism," Virtue of Selfishness (paperback), pp. 126-34. Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels (hardcover), pp. 31-33 on nationalism and racism. Both available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
3. THE SITUATION
(early December 2000) Back to Table
of Contents
Yugoslavia is in the news these days for two reasons: the upcoming elections and the unrest in Kosovo, still officially a province of Serbia. The important questions for understanding this situation are:
1. Why are there more elections coming in late December, when Yugoslavia just had elections in September? The short answer is: those were for president and Parliament of Yugoslavia; these are for president and Parliament of Serbia. Why Serbia is so important within Yugoslavia is a result of its history; see section 5.
2. If Slobodan Milosevic is such an evil man (which is now widely accepted, although in 1995 it was not at all obvious), how did he come to wield such power in Yugoslavia for 13 years? Any why is he running yet again for office, rather than exiled in disgrace? Milosevic's career and the principles on which he operates are the subject of section 6.1-6.5 and 7.4.2.
3. Why is Kosovo the scene of such fierce battles? Over 800,000 Kosovar Albanians were chased out of Kosovo by the Serbs in 1999; when NATO forces moved in, over 200,000 Serbs were in turn chased out. Why can't the Albanians and Serbs live in peace? Short answer: the history of the region and the attitudes developed over the centuries have resulted in a deep hatred between those two tribes, which would probably cause wars even without being incited by Milosevic. The question of Kosovo is discussed in sections 6.5 and 7.3.
4. Perhaps more important than any of the above: why should you care? Mostly because Serbia is a powderkeg sitting at a strategic point in Europe. In a world increasingly divided by racism, tribalism and nationalism, everybody seems to have a finger in the Yugoslav pie: Russia with Serbia, Arabs with the Muslims in Bosnia and Albania, Europeans in every country. A world war once started there, and could again.
As it happens, I don't believe the United States should intervene in every area of the world where people are killing each other. I do believe that if American troops are sent to such areas, it behooves the American people to find out what our legitimate interests there are, and whether the troops have a specific mission and a good chance of accomplishing it. One of my most appalling findings in the course of researching this report was that the 10,000 to 12,000 American troops in Yugoslavia have no chance of improving the situation in the long term, and, worse yet, that the sort of assistance which would change the situation has not been sent or even identified. (See section 8.)
Daily news reports in the press and on TV don't give enough information to make this sort of judgement about American interests and the role of American troops: all you get from them is soundbites, photos, and, if you're lucky, a bare minimum of background information to set the context. To understand a country's problems and its importance in current events, you need to know, at minimum: the basics of the country's history; the present government (who runs it and on what principles, explicit or implicit); and the attitude or sense of life of the people in the country (what's important to them, what they're willing to fight and die for). Then you can apply your own principles of proper government to decide what ought to be done about the situation.
4 GEOGRAPHY AND
POPULATION Back to Table of Contents
4.1 Geography
Serbia is slightly larger than Maine, with a
population of 9,981,929 (July 2000 estimate). Its capital is Belgrade, on the
beautiful blue Danube. Boundaries: Serbia's autonomous province of Vojvodina
on the north, Romania and Bulgaria on the east, Macedonia and Serbia's
autonomous province of Kosovo on the south, Montenegro and Croatia on the
west. Serbia has access to the Adriatic Sea only through tiny Montenegro, its
partner in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
4.2 Population
During the 6th century AD, amid the chaos and
confusion following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, a mass of
people poured into the Balkans from the north. Later they were so often
captured and sold to other Europeans that the word "slave" in English,
and its equivalent in German, French, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, came from
their name: the Slavs. The western Balkans (present-day Croatia, Serbia,
Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia and Bulgaria) were
settled by a sub-group known as the Southern Slavs.
The Serbian language is Serbo-Croatian, whose
spoken form is very similar in Serbia and neighboring Croatia. Serbs,
however, write it in the Cyrillic alphabet (also used for writing Russian),
while Croats use the Latin alphabet. In addition, Serbs belong to the
Orthodox Church, which is more closely linked to the Russian church than to
the Catholic church of the West. For these reasons, the Serbs have
traditionally looked to the East for allies, especially to Russia.
5. HISTORY, MIDDLE
AGES TO 1980 Back to Table
of Contents
5.1 Middle Ages to 1918
Throughout their history in the Balkan
Peninsula, the Serbs have been at war. First it was with the Bulgars, then
the Hungarians, then the Byzantine Empire, whom the rulers of Serbia swore
allegiance until the 11th century.
Under the independent Nemanjic dynasty
(12th-14th c.), in 1219, the Serbian Orthodox Church became autocephalous -
i.e., it was no longer subject to outside Church authorities. The greatest
Nemanjic ruler was Dusan (1331-1355), who ruled over the Serbian Empire at
its zenith: Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria and northern Greece.
This medieval kingdom, when the King of Serbia was more powerful than any
other European ruler and seemed capable even of capturing Constantinople, is
still nostalgically regarded by Serbs as their golden age.
It was a short age. In 1389, at the Battle of
Kosovo (the "Battle of the Field of Blackbirds"), the Serbian
Prince Lazar and his troops were defeated and slaughtered by the Ottoman
Turks. The story of this battle, preserved in folklore and poetry, is a
crucial element of Serbian heritage. As it is retold, its moral is that death
is preferable to compromise with the enemy. That unyielding attitude is still
influential in Serbian behavior today. (For more on the Battle of Kosovo, see
6.5.1.)
After the Ottoman conquest, migrating Serbs
were welcomed in neighboring Hungary as fighters against the Turks. When the
Turks defeated the Hungarians in 1526 at Mohacs, however, the Serbs became
second-class citizens and slaves. Despite numerous uprisings, they remained
Turkish subjects until the 19th century.
The centuries of Turkish domination were an
devastating period in Serbian history. For one thing, Serbia was cut off from
Europe during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, with all that implies in
terms of philosophy, politics, science, technology and the arts. Also, the
rule of the Ottoman Turks was characterized by a physical cruelty (beheadings
and impalement were common) that is still often imitated by warring ethnic
groups in the Balkans.
During the Turkish occupation, the Serbian
Orthodox Church was the only institution that maintained authority over all
Serbia's former empire. Religion remains an integral part of national
identity for Serbs. Hence, although Serbs and Croats are all South Slavs,
Orthodox Serbs feel no comradeship with Roman Catholic Croats, and express a
violent abhorrence for Slavs who are Muslims (e.g., many Bosnians), whom they
regard as descendants of the Turks who enslaved the Serbs 600 years ago.
Two figures crucial to later Serbian history
appeared in the mid-19th century, while Serbia was still under Turkish rule:
a poet and a politician. The poet was Peter II Petrovic-Njegos, prince-bishop
of Montenegro. His lengthy 1847 epic The
Mountain Wreath described one of the legendary heroes of the Battle of
Kosovo, who killed the Turkish sultan. Njegos demanded the resurrection of
the "Kosovo spirit" to free the Serbs from their Turkish overlords,
and urged that those who had converted to Islam and refused to reconvert to
Orthodoxy should be exterminated, their villages burned. The Mountain Wreath inspired generations
of Serbs and Montenegrins with nationalist fervor, and is still read and
memorized today by Serb schoolchildren. (See also 8.)
The politician was Ilija Garsanin (1812-74),
who first spelled out plans for a Greater Serbia in his Nacertanije, composed in the 1840s or 1850s, but not made public
until 1906. Starting with the premise that the natural development of the
Serbian Empire had been abruptly cut off by the Turks, he argued:
"Our present
will not be without a tie to our past, but it will bring into being a
connected, coherent, and congruous whole, and for this Serbdom, its
nationality and its political existence as a state, stands under the
protection of sacred historic right. Our aspiration cannot be accused of
being something new, unfounded, out of revolution and rebellion, but everyone
must admit that it is politically necessary, that it is founded upon the
distant past, and that it has its root in the past political and national
life of the Serbs, a root which is only bringing forth new branches and
beginning to flourish anew" (quoted in Judah, p. 58).
This has all the elements that were later to
recur in Milosevic's rhetoric: the appeal to a long-distant past to justify
present expansion, the idea that ethnicity is more important than present
borders, the idea that Serbia is merely being resurrected - taking back what
is rightfully hers - rather than taking over someone else's territory.
By the late 19th c., the slow decline of the
Ottoman Empire ("the sick man of Europe") was considered a serious
threat to European stability. At the 1878 Congress of Berlin, diplomats from Russia,
Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire decreed
the fate of the Turkish possessions in the Balkans. Serbia, declared
independent by the Congress, was at long last free of Turkish rule.
Turkish power continued to decline, and the
Balkans, disintegrating into a horde of warring tribes, became the scene of
extreme violence. In the 1912-13 Balkan Wars the Serbs, in alliance with the
Bulgars, Montenegrins and Greeks, declared war on Turkey. Serbia almost
doubled in size, adding to its territory a substantial portion of Macedonia
(which it felt entitled to by virtue of the fact that Serbia had briefly
ruled there in the 14th c.) and also Kosovo, by then predominantly Albanian.
(See 6.5.1.) The Balkan Wars, like the wars of the 1990s, involved ethnic
cleansing with hundreds of thousands fleeing their homes, civilian massacres,
and the destruction of whole towns and villages.
In 1914, on the 525th anniversary of the
Battle of Kosovo, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo (Bosnia). Princip was a Bosnian Serb, but
Serbian complicity in the assassination was never proven. Nevertheless,
Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, setting off World War I as Russia and France
came to the aid of their ally Serbia, Germany to the aid of its ally
Austria-Hungary, and so on. The Serbian king, government officials, the army
and thousands of citizens fled west through Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania to
the Adriatic coast.
5.2 Formation of
Yugoslavia to the end of World War II, 1918-1945
In 1918 the National Council of Slovenes,
Croats and Serbs proclaimed union and invited Serbia (which controlled Kosovo
and part of Macedonia) to join them. Soon after, Vojvodina and Montenegro
signed on. Now all the Southern Slavs except the Bulgarians were, for the
first time, united in a single state. In recognition of Serbia's struggle on
behalf of the Allies in World War I and the numerical superiority of the
Serbs (about 40% of the new nation's population), the regent for Serbia's
king was asked to become ruler of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes, known after 1929 as Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Thus, on the basis of the tribal relationship
of the Slavs dating back 1,500 years, a nation was cobbled together from a
conglomeration of independent states and subject territories that had quite
different histories and allegiances. Lacking unifying political ideas,
religion, language, government, or history, the new nation was fragmented
from the start. Serbs demanded a strong central government under their
control. Croats wanted a weaker, federal system. Discontent festered in
Macedonia and Montenegro as well, often leading to violence and murder:
during a 1928 meeting of Parliament, a Montenegrin deputy shot three Croatian
members dead. The King tried to contain the situation by declaring himself a
dictator, but unrest simmered through the 1930s.
At the beginning of World War II Germany
invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia. Croatia was set up as a puppet state
ruled by the fascist Ustashe, who committed atrocities against Jews, gypsies
and Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. Most notoriously the Ustashe slaughtered
tens of thousands following forced conversions to Catholicism, "so they
could go to heaven." The violence of the Serbian resistance movement,
led by the royalist Chetniks, was directed at least as much against Croats
and Communist Partisans as against Nazis. Leadership of the resistance was
eventually taken over by the Communist Partisans. Claiming to represent unity
of all Yugoslavs against invaders and traitors, they provided the only
alternative to the murderous Chetniks and Ustashe. By the end of the war the
Communist Party had considerable popular support, and succeeded in gaining
control of the Yugoslav government when the war ended.
QUESTION FOR
DISCUSSION: Numbers never lie, they say. Is that true? Some Croatians claim
that the Ustashe killed a mere 30,000 Serbs; some Serbs claim the number was
over a million. It is a fact that a certain number of people died, exactly
that number and no less, but it is also true that the murderers were not
keeping meticulous records, and no disinterested observers were present. The
widely disparate numbers are estimates, part of the ongoing propaganda war
between the Serbs and Croats, who despise each other. Numbers are often taken
out of context, used without necessary qualifications, or just plain
fabricated for propaganda purposes. Can you think of cases in US history or
politics where each side twisted numbers to suit its own needs? (Hint:
Florida.)
5.3 Communist
Yugoslavia, 1946-1990
The leader of Communist Yugoslavia from 1945
until his death in 1980 was Josip Broz, known by his World-War-II nom de
guerre, "Tito." He came to power largely by default: Stalin had
executed the entire leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1937. In
1948 Stalin accused Tito of heretical beliefs, and Yugoslavia was cut off
from all aid by the USSR and its allies. Tito turned to the West for
assistance. Viewing Tito as a bulwark between Russia and the Mediterranean,
the US began lavishing foreign aid on Yugoslavia.
Communist Yugoslavia, also known as the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or SFRY, officially had 2 alphabets
(Latin and Cyrillic), 3 religions (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim),
4 languages (Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Macedonian, Albanian), 6 republics
(Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia,
plus Serbia's 2 autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina), and 7 major
nationalities, including Albanians and Hungarians. Of these Serbs were by far
the largest group, at about 40%. To keep the Serbs from becoming too
powerful, Tito (himself a Croat) made Vojvodina and Kosovo "autonomous
provinces" of Serbia, still related to it but with some independence.
"Ethnic diversity" was encouraged in
Communist Yugoslavia, e.g., minorities were guaranteed the use of their
native language in local government and elementary schools. When assorted
ethnic groups demanded independence under Tito, he squelched them with a
"return to Leninism" - party purges - and threats of military
force. Some credit Tito's taboo on nationalism with keeping Yugoslavia united
for 40 years. But while he did forcibly suppress ethnic groups who desired
independence, his policy of encouraging ethnic diversity was essentially an
affirmation of tribalism: the idea that racial heritage and traditions matter
more than common political beliefs. Tribalism was bound to erupt again once
the lid was less securely fastened on the pressure cooker.
After Tito's death in 1980 a collective
presidency was established, with leadership rotating between representatives
of the 6 republics, 2 autonomous provinces and the League of Communists. This
system started to unravel when various ethnic groups once again began
demanding autonomy in the early 1990s, and it is at this stage that Slobodan
Milosevic began to play an important role.
6. RECENT HISTORY, 1990-1999 Back to Table
of Contents
6.1 Slobodan
Milosevic (part 1)
While Communism was collapsing elsewhere in
Eastern Europe, Slobodan Milosevic, a Communist-trained bureaucrat, seized
power in Yugoslavia and held it for 13 years. Most of the hundreds of
thousands of deaths and atrocities that occurred in 1990s Yugoslavia can be
rung up to the account of the "Butcher of the Balkans," who often
started wars just to distract those under his rule from his increasing
unpopularity. Judging from his actions and his few public speeches, Milosevic
himself has no ideology at all. He lusts after political power and will use
any means at hand to gain and keep it.
QUESTION FOR
DISCUSSION: Is that description of Milosevic objective reporting, or merely
an emotional assessment? Does objectivity in reports such as this one mean
simply repeating facts that everyone accepts? Does it mean
"fairness" - presenting a few pro-Milosevic quotes as well as
anti-Milosevic information?
No. Being objective
requires two things: that you recognize that something exists outside you,
which you can know; and that you can learn about that outside world by
collecting information with your senses and thinking about it in a rational,
logical manner. Objective reporting about someone like Milosevic means
gathering facts about his actions, including the fact that he incited three
wars (in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo) resulting in 200,000 deaths and 4 million
refugees. Then you consider the effects of his actions, and evaluate them
(and him, after you've learned enough) as good or evil. In this case, if you
consider human life and happiness good things, Milosevic is evil.
For more on
objectivity, see Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism:
The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (hardcover) Ch. 4, pp. 110-151. Available from
the
Ayn Rand Bookstore.
By 1986, six years after Tito's death,
Milosevic apparently realized that he could not replace Tito as master of all
Yugoslavia. He resolved instead to rule the Serbs. The base of his power is
usually referred to as "nationalism," but nationalism is too
civilized a term. What he promoted was, more precisely, tribalism: an
assertion of the innate superiority of the Serbian people and religion. (See
2.2.) Milosevic promoted the idea (initially spouted by a few Serb
intellectuals) that Serbs in Communist Yugoslavia were oppressed. He
advocated Garasanin's 19th-century notion of a "Greater Serbia," in
which all Serbs could live together. (See 5.1.) He arranged for the bones of
Prince Lazar, the Serbian leader defeated at the Battle of Kosovo, to be sent
on a grand tour throughout Serbia. Tribalist sentiments, repressed under
Tito, started to surge. By the 1980s, hundreds of thousands could be relied
on to demonstrate in favor of Greater Serbia.
In 1987 Milosevic was sent to Serbia's
autonomous province of Kosovo, just south of the Serbian republic, to mediate
a minor dispute between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Breaking Tito's taboo on
tribalism, he became a hero to the Serbs when he asserted, "No one will
ever dare beat you again!" By late 1987, he had been elected president
of Serbia.
1988 saw the bizarre, Milosevic-sponsored
"Yogurt Revolution" in Vojvodina, Serbia's other autonomous
province. Serbs hurled containers of yogurt at the Vojvodina party leadership
to humiliate them and drive them out of power, ensuring that Vojvodina would
not declare independence. Vojvodina then became the first site of the now
notorious "ethnic cleansing," a new name for an old Balkan
practice. (See 5.1, on the Balkan Wars.) It involved driving as many non-Serbs
as possible from their homes, burning their empty houses to prevent their
return, and murdering those who would not or could not leave. By 1989 the
population of Vojvodina was 55% Serbs, 24% Hungarians and 8% Croatians.
The 1990 election was the only one at which
Milosevic was elected president of Yugoslavia by a free popular vote. Even
there he meddled, assigning his agents to run ostensibly opposing parties in
order to weaken the genuine opposition.
Milosevic's popularity didn't last long. When protesters
demanded freedom of the press and an independent judiciary in 1991, Milosevic
dispatched riot police with water guns to disperse them. Opposition leaders
were subject to arrest and torture.
By this time Communist Yugoslavia was
disintegrating. When Slovenia seceded from Communist Yugoslavia in June 1991,
Milosevic let it go with only a token, 10-day war: Slovenia had only a small
Serb minority. When Croatia seceded in the same year, however, he encouraged
Serbs living in Croatia to rebel against Croatian rule, supplying weapons and
troops in the vicious war that followed. (See 6.3.) The following year, with
the Croatian war temporarily settled, Milosevic began encouraging and
supporting Bosnian Serbs who had declared themselves independent from
predominantly Muslim Bosnia, after Bosnia declared its own independence. (See
6.4.)
On April 11, 1992, Serbia, with its two
provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo) and tiny Montenegro, declared its own
independence, under the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). By the end
of 1992, the FRY controlled 70% of Bosnia and about 25% of Croatia - its
maximum extent.
6.2 War with
Croatia, 1991-1992
As soon as Croatia declared its independence
from Communist Yugoslavia, in June 1991, Serbs in the Krajina declared their
independence from Croatia. Back in the late 17th c. the Austrians established
a long, narrow military zone, the Krajina, to serve as a buffer between
Austrian Croatia and the Turks in modern Bosnia. Tens of thousands of Serbs
moved to the Krajina, including 30,000 from Kosovo alone. For 400 years the
Krajina region kept a substantial, very concentrated population of Serbs, who
resolutely thought of themselves as Serbs rather than residents of Croatia.
The war between Serbia and Croatia for control
of the Krajina was brutal but brief. By the terms of the UN cease-fire in
January 1992, some 350,000 Krajina Serbs were placed under Croat rule. Given
the hatred of Croats and Serbs for each other - memories of World War II were
still vivid (see 5.2) - it remained an explosive situation.
Three years later, US-trained Croatian troops
dashed past UN peacekeepers to seize the Serb-held territory of Western
Slavonia (north of Bosnia), burning and massacring as they went. Then the
Croats turned to the Krajina, which the Serb army (at Milosevic's orders)
promptly evacuated, followed by about 170,000 Serb refugees. The few
remaining Serbs were slaughtered by the Croats. When asked what should be
done with the refugees, Milosevic, whose agents had organized the Krajina
revolt in 1991, said, "Send them to Kosovo. We need more Serbs in
Kosovo, don't we?" (See 6.5.)
QUESTIONS FOR
DISCUSSION: Should the Krajina Serbs have had the right to
secede from Croatia, or the Bosnian Serbs from Bosnia? More broadly, does an ethnic
group that is an isolated minority in the territory of a different ethnic
group have a right to form its own state, or does the territorial integrity
of the existing state take precedence? What is a legitimate basis for seeking
independence: ethnic differences, ideological disputes, the protection of
individual rights? (Hint: the answer depends on what unit you consider most
important: a nation, an ethnic group, or individuals. See 2.2.) How is the
situation in Kosovo different from the situation in the American colonies in
1776, or from the situation in the South just before the Civil War?
6.3 War with
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia, 1992-1995
Bosnia declared its independence of Communist
Yugoslavia in March 1992. Spurred on by Milosevic's rhetoric, Bosnian Serbs
refused to be ruled by Muslims, and beginning in 1992 besieged the Muslim
section of Sarajevo for 1,395 days, the longest siege in modern history. Much
of the city was destroyed and remains in ruins. The stadium for the 1984
Olympics is a mass graveyard.
Elsewhere in Serb-controlled Bosnia, Milosevic
sent in paramilitary troops to begin ethnic cleansing of the area. At one
Muslim village after another, they would threaten or murder leading citizens,
watch as the rest of the population fled in panic, and then burn the village
and kill whoever was left. The death toll in Bosnia is estimated at 200,000,
with another 20,000 still missing. Even today, mass graves are still being
found. Some 700,000 refugees were created, more than Europe had seen since
World War II.
Bosnian Croats began as allies of the Muslims
against the Serbs, whom both groups hate. Eventually, however, Bosnian Croats
decided to try to add Croatian-dominated Bosnian territory to a "Greater
Croatia." After a 9-month siege of Muslims in Mostar, a cease-fire
between Muslims and Bosnian Croats was signed in late February 1994, and
Bosnian Muslims and Croats formed an independent country.
In August 1994, for propaganda reasons (he was
steadily losing support in Serbia because of Serbia's involvement in the
Bosnian war), Milosevic began to blame the Bosnian Serb leadership for the
war, and successfully presented himself to western leaders as a peacemaker.
After the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica of over 7,000 Muslims who had already
surrendered to the Serbs (the worst massacre since World War II), the West
launched NATO air-strikes against Bosnian Serbs. These strikes destroyed much
of Bosnia's military potential and infrastructure.
Bosnian Serbs were finally pressured into allowing
Milosevic to negotiate on their behalf. In November 1995, in Dayton Ohio, an
agreement was worked out whereby Bosnia would continue to exist as a single
state, but with separately governed enclaves for Muslims and Croats (51%) and
Serbs (49%). At the last minute Milosevic gave the Muslims complete control
of Sarajevo, the one sophisticated urban center where Croats, Serbs and
Muslims had earlier lived in reasonable harmony. Thirty thousand peacekeeping
troops (including 5,000 or 6,000 Americans) were to be sent to Bosnia for 12
months, until the country stabilized.
Five years later, they are still there. The
Bosnian media, controlled by rival ethnic groups, still routinely broadcasts inflammatory
stories, such as accounts of Muslims feeding kidnapped Serbian children to
the lions at the zoo. Peace is far, far away from Bosnia.
6.4 Slobodan
Milosevic (part 2)
The December 1992 elections were the first serious challenge to Milosevic's power. Since Serbia's economy was by this time in a shambles and he had involved the nation in two brutal wars, he had no popular support. He became president of Serbia by prohibiting opposition access to the media, purging voter rolls of his opponents, and stuffing ballot boxes.
A few years later Milosevic even loosed
against protesting Serbs in Serbia the murderous paramilitary gangs that had
been operating in Bosnia. The paramilitary units, under Milosevic's direct
command, were usually given untraceable verbal orders, but a swaggering few
boasted of who their boss was.
In 1995 Milosevic, having passed himself off
to Western leaders as a peacemaker, had a prominent role in the Dayton
Agreement settling the war in Bosnia (see 6.3), but he remained unpopular
among Serbs.
To win the 1996 election for president of
Yugoslavia he applied the same techniques as he had in 1992, but in the face
of riots finally conceded defeat. Soon thereafter the opposing coalition fell
apart, and Milosevic managed to have himself elected president by the
parliament while the opposition was boycotting the session.
Once the Croatian and Bosnian wars were
settled in 1995, Serbia was briefly at peace - until 1998, when Kosovo, its
second autonomous province, began to demand independence. (See 6.5.2.) Such
were the atrocities committed as the Serbs began ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
that in 1999, the United Nations war crimes tribunal issued a warrant for
Milosevic's arrest, for actions he incited in Croatia and Bosnia as well as Kosovo.
Aside from making him the first sitting head of state to be accused of war
crimes, this meant Milosevic had an even larger stake in remaining in power
in Serbia: he could not now retire comfortably to a nice villa on the
Riviera.
6.5 Kosovo
6.5.1 History of
Kosovo
Serbian insistence on holding on to Kosovo,
now a mere autonomous province of Serbia, is incomprehensible unless you
understand the area's history. Kosovo was part of Serbia as early as the
Nemanjic dynasty (12th-14th c.). The seat of the independent Serbian Orthodox
Church was at Pec, in Kosovo. Serbs call Kosovo the heart of Serbia,
regardless of its official status.
The most oft-recounted event in Serbian
history took place there: the Battle of Kosovo. (See also 5.1.) On June 27, 1389,
Prince Lazar, leader of the Serbs, was about to fight the invading Turks. A
messenger from God appeared to ask Lazar if he'd prefer an earthly or a
heavenly kingdom. Choose the former, and he would win the battle. Choose the
latter, and he would die. Lazar chose the heavenly kingdom. The next day, he
and thousands of his followers perished on the battlefield, where the Turks
left their bodies to be devoured by carrion birds. That's why the Battle of
Kosovo is also known as the Battle of the Field of Blackbirds.
During the Turkish occupation many Serbs fled
Kosovo, and its fertile valleys were gradually taken over by Muslim Albanians
immigrating from the west. Although the Albanians descend from the ancient
Illyrians, who came to the Balkans a thousand years before the Slavs, Serbs
regard them first and foremost as descendants of the hated Turks.
When Serbia was declared independent in 1878
(see 5.1), Kosovo was no longer part of Serbia's territory. Ever since, there
has been a vicious struggle for possession of Kosovo. In the 1912-13 Balkan
Wars the Serbs snatched it from Albania, burning villages and massacring
thousands of ethnic Albanians. During World War I the Serbs were driven out
by the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans. Upon their return, more slaughter
ensued. Kosovo was assigned to the Serbs at the Paris Peace Conference ending
the war. By 1921, the Serbian government (now part of the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes) was encouraging Serbs to move to Kosovo, so that by
World War II the percentage of ethnic Albanians had dropped from 64 to 50%.
In World War II the Kosovar Albanians, allied with the Nazis, massacred
thousands of Serbs and drove some 10,000 families to Serbia.
Hoping to reconcile the ethnic Albanians and
the Serbs, Tito granted political autonomy within the Republic of Serbia to
the ethnic Albanians, who were by then once more a majority in Kosovo - and,
with a high birth rate, were becoming even more numerous. Ethnic Albanians
had the right to their own schools, language, culture, university and
parliament. Serbs (in both Serbia and Kosovo) were incensed. Why, they said,
should foreigners who had lived in Kosovo a mere 300 years control the
province? The myths surrounding the Battle of Kosovo explicitly rejected
compromise, and embraced death and sacrifice. So did the modern Serbs.
Kosovo is now 90% ethnic Albanian. In 1981,
the year after Tito's death, Kosovar Albanians demanded independence from
Serbia and republic status within Yugoslavia. Although their demands were forcibly
crushed, there was relatively little interethnic violence from then until
1987. In that year, Slobodan Milosevic, in a speech on the anniversary of the
Battle of Kosovo, told a crowd of Serbs, "No one will ever dare beat you
again!" From that point on, tribalism became the focal point of Serbs
and Kosovar Albanians, and a source of explosive conflict. (See 6.1.)
6.5.2 War with
Kosovo, 1999
The movement for the independence of Kosovo began
to gather momentum after the Dayton Agreement of November 1995, which
established a new government for Bosnia-Hercegovina but did not mention
Kosovo. In 1997 the Kosovo Liberation Army first went public, and by 1998 it
controlled about 40% of Kosovo. Despite its lack of a strong central
organization, and the fact that it committed atrocities just as appalling as
those of the Serb-controlled police, the KLA quickly became Kosovo's dominant
political voice. Serbs and ethnic Albanians began ethnic cleansing of the
territories each controlled. Some 800,000 Albanians were driven out of
Kosovo, another 400,000 to 600,000 were driven to the mountains, and about
10,000 were killed.
By March 1999 international indignation over
Kosovo was so intense that NATO began 78 days of air-strikes against Serbia.
At first NATO struck military targets; when that had little effect, it also
struck bridges, power stations, and factories. Milosevic initially responded
with yet more ethnic cleansing, but in June 1999 finally signed a cease-fire.
Serbia agreed to withdraw all military and police forces from Kosovo (except
for a few thousand guarding Serbia's most sacred historical sites), and
substantial autonomy was restored to the province, "pending a final
settlement" (UN Security Council Resolution 1244). In addition, 48,000
peacekeepers (including 5,500 Americans) were sent by NATO, under UN control,
at a cost of some $50 billion for the first year. The Russians (long-time
allies of the Serbs) insisted on being part of the peacekeeping force, but
refused to operate under NATO's aegis; they moved into Pristina (the capital
of Kosovo) just before NATO forces could take up position there.
7. SERBIA IN THE
YEAR 2000
Back to Table of Contents
7.1 September 2000
elections for president of Yugoslavia
In the September 2000 elections, Milosevic ran
for president of Yugoslavia against Vojislav Kostunica, a 56-year-old law
professor described in the US media as a "rabid Serb nationalist"-
his views on Kosovo and Bosnia were even more extreme than those once
professed by Milosevic. Kostunica is also very anti-American, and refused to
take any campaign money from the Clinton administration. (The Administration
contributed about $25 million to various parties in the anti-Milosevic
coalition.)
On election day in September 2000, Milosevic's
minions engaged in business as usual: a threatening police presence at the
polls, voters forced to cast their ballots publicly, names of opposition
voters removed from the rolls, and some polling places left opened. According
to the official tally (i.e., as counted by Milosevic's party), Kostunica
received 48.22% of the votes, Milosevic only 40.3% (later counts said 30%),
and a run-off election was set for October 8. Based on their exit polls,
however, Kostunica's supporters claimed that he won at least 54% - the
required absolute majority. After massive demonstrations, including a mob
setting fire to and looting the House of Parliament in Belgrade, Milosevic
finally conceded defeat in early October. He vowed, however, to remain in
Yugoslavia and to fight for his political party, the Socialists.
Although the Socialists were defeated in the
local elections as well as the Yugoslav presidential election, Milosevic's
previous supporters continued to hold key positions in the army, police,
secret police and media, and to control key factories and industries.
7.2 Economic and
political status, October - November 2000
Kostunica has moved rapidly to form ties with
the West, signing a pact with the European Union, rejoining the UN, and
becoming a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
He has stated his aim of changing Yugoslavia from a socialist to a capitalist
economy, which after 50 years of Communist rule will certainly be no easy
task.
In 1989 Yugoslavia was the wealthiest nation
in the Communist world. When Communist Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s,
Serbia lost her most reliable trading partners. In the course of 3 major wars
and months of NATO bombings, much of Serbia's industrial capacity and
transportation infrastructure were destroyed. Massive numbers of refugees
remain, and hundreds of thousands of talented Serbs have fled the country. By
1998, the economy was operating at about half its 1989 level.
Serbia's economy is now in tatters. Average
per capita income is about $40 per month. Unemployment is over 50%. The
economy is shrinking at about 7% per year, and inflation in October alone was
27%. The pension system is bankrupt, and there are severe shortages of fuel,
basic foods, and medicine.
Yugoslavia's government has asked for half a
billion dollars in foreign aid just to get through the winter of 2000-2001,
and more enormous infusions of capital will be required for reconstruction.
Kostunica's government has plans to privatize electric, oil and gas companies
and several major factories. The changeover to a market economy will probably
create further unemployment, in the short run: because Communists guaranteed
jobs to everyone, many factories are grossly overstaffed, and cannot be run
efficiently without dismissing some workers.
7.3
Kosovo, November 2000
In November, the newly formed Presevo Medvedja
and Bujanovac Liberation Army (known by its Albanian initials, UCPMB) began
capturing territory in the Presevo Valley. The Presevo Valley is on the
Serbian side of the 3-mile buffer zone between Serbia and Kosovo, but most of
its 100,000 inhabitants are ethnic Albanians. The UCPMB wants the Presevo
Valley united with Kosovo, in hopes that it will eventually become independent
along with Kosovo. As few as 200 or as many as 1,000 militant Albanians may
be involved in the fighting, using mortars, rocket launchers and heavy
machine guns. So far half a dozen people have died.
Although the Kosovo Liberation Army has
officially been disbanded, the UCPMB is operating on similar principles, and
certainly has some support from within Kosovo, even though all officials deny
it.
Only lightly armed Serbian police are allowed
in the buffer zone, but the Serbs have moved troops, artillery and tanks to
the Serbian side of the zone, and retook one village in Serbia proper by
force.
In all likelihood, the events in the Presevo
Valley are a deliberate test of Kostunica's leadership. If he stands by while
the militants take over a part of Serbia, he will be viewed as weak. If he
moves in troops and artillery, he will risk the wrath with the UN and NATO.
QUESTION: Is the
problem of independence for Kosovo likely to fizzle out and go away? No.
Serbs and Albanians still both believe, on purely tribalist grounds, that
Kosovo should belong to them. They still have no grounds for rational
discussion. As long as that doesn't change, there cannot be peace in the
area. Given the fact that Kosovo garnered much more autonomy by fighting
Serbia, it will certainly be tempting for parts of Serbia proper that are
inhabited largely by ethnic Albanians to fight for their independence, as
well.
7.4 December 2000
elections for president of Serbia
The Serbian Parliament dissolved after Kostunica's election, and a temporary government was put in place, with elections scheduled for December 23. Since Serbia's population comprises 95% of that of Yugoslavia, these elections are at least as important, perhaps even more so, than the ones for Yugoslav president and Parliament held in September. (See 1.) The Serbian Parliament can impose income and other taxes, and controls essential expenditures for such items as pensions (the equivalent of Social Security), water, health services, roads, sewerage, and police (regular and secret).
7.4.1. Kostunica and
the Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition
With elections less than a month away, the 18-party Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition that ran Kostunica for president of Yugoslavia has yet to announce a candidate for president of Serbia - probably due to disputes within the coalition.
On one side is Kostunica, who controls only a small party in the coalition but has great popular support. Kostunica - quiet, professorial, legally trained - wants to wait until after the December elections to proceed with major reforms. He points out that by law the president of Yugoslavia does not have control over internal Serbian affairs.
On the other side is Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, influential in the DOS coalition, but with little popular support. Djindjic is described in the New York Times (12/3/00) as elegant and entrepreneurial, with good organizational skills: unfortunately, no specific examples are given, so we don't know at this point what that means. (Milosevic, for instance, had undeniable organizational skills, but they came from his training as a Communist bureaucrat.) Djindjic had a brief moment in the spotlight in 1996, when he was part of the coalition that defeated Milosevic in the polls, but then collapsed and allowed Milosevic to become president of Yugoslavia by default.
Because he's the next most recognizable figure in the parties opposing Milosevic, Djindjic would seem most likely to be nominated to run for president of Serbia - except that he has serious disagreements with Kostunica. Djindjic wants change immediately, especially the removal of Radomir Markovic as head of the secret police and General Nebojsa Pavkovic as army chief of staff. Both were Milosevic supporters, although both swore allegiance to Kostunica's government in October. The new head of the secret police will control the files accumulated under Milosevic - undoubtedly a great deal of sensitive information on prominent citizens. Neither Kostunica nor Djindjic seems to trust the other enough to let a man favored by the other have control of such files.
The DOS has agreed (as of 12/16/00) that Djindjic will be appointed prime minister if, as expected, the DOS wins a majority in December. Djindjic would then be responsible for appointing the heads of the ministries of finance, states issues, crime, culture, and (most importantly) the interior, which controls the secret police and their files.
Some Serbs think Kostunica and Djindjic are fighting not
about political principles (e.g., what government body has the right to make
reforms, and when) but about power: appointing loyal followers to important
positions.
7.4.2 Slobodan
Milosevic and the Socialists
After his concession speech to Kostunica on October 6, 2000, Milosevic remained out of sight for nearly two months. In late November he reappeared at the Socialist Party convention, where he was nominated as their candidate for president of Serbia by an 86.5% majority. The Socialist Party, formed by Milosevic from the ruins of the League of Communists, has about 700,000 members and is estimated to have the support of 10-15% of Serbs. In a further sign that Milosevic's power is eroding, several top officials of the Socialist Party and close associates of Milosevic did not attend the convention. On the other hand, because Milosevic was in office for so long, many of his associates and appointees remain in positions of power in the government and industry, so among an influential elite, he's still got power.
Milosevic has not changed tactics in the past two months: he is using communist and socialist rhetoric, blaming the West for all the troubles of Yugoslavia. He denounced Kostunica's election a "coup," asserting that it is part of a Western plot to break up what is left of Yugoslavia. The Hague tribunal, which indicted him and four close aides for war crimes, he has labeled "the new Gestapo."
5.5 Future problems
If Milosevic were elected president of Serbia,
Kostunica's moves toward liberalization and a market economy would abruptly
end. Given that Milosevic's low popularity rating, and the fact that he is no
longer in a position to tamper with the election results, it's more likely
that Milosevic's Socialist Party will merely keep enough parliamentary seats
to be a disruptive influence.
If Zoran Djindjic becomes prime minister of
Serbia, it's likely that he and Kostunica will squabble over policy and
power, weakening the coalition and allowing the Socialists and others to gain
power. If the economy continues to decline, and Serbs blame the ruling party
rather than decades of communist mismanagement, even more power may slip away
from Kostunica. Remember that Serbs lived under Communist rule for 50 years.
They have come to expect full employment, pensions and healthcare, even if
overall their standard of living has been far below that of their capitalist
neighbors.
With respect to foreign affairs in Serbia, it
is important to remember that no one in Serbia has renounced tribalism: they've
only renounced Milosevic. Kostunica was described in the American press in
September 2000 as a rabid nationalist. Djindjic has vowed to send Serbian
troops to the Presevo Valley immediately after the December 23 elections, if
NATO-led peacekeepers have not curbed rebel activity there.
Outside Serbia proper, Kosovo is the most
potentially dangerous problem in the near future. No longer fully integrated
into Serbia, Kosovo contains an overwhelming majority of ethnic Albanians who
still want independence. Serbia has such strong historical and emotional ties
to Kosovo that it will certainly not allow Kosovo to secede peacefully.
Before his election, Kostunica even said that Milosevic was weak in allowing
the Kosovo settlement agreement to be written as it was. Kosovo will erupt
into violence again, probably as soon as NATO peacekeeping forces depart,
possibly earlier if either the Serbs or the Kosovar Albanians feel powerful
enough.
Then there is the question of Montenegro,
Serbia's partner in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Historically
Montenegro has strong ties with Serbia, since it was part of Dusan's medieval
empire (see 5.1) and many Serbs fled to its remote mountains after the
Turkish conquest. Montenegro has been
unhappy with Serbia's leadership for years, going so far as to boycott
Yugoslav elections several times while Milosevic was in power. Now that he's
out, the West has been urging Montenegro to remain part of Yugoslavia: that
will ensure the existence of a Yugoslavia in which Serbia can retain Kosovo
as a province. The Montenegrins are less than enthusiastic. Montenegrin
President Milo Djukanovic recently went so far as to declare that Yugoslavia
no longer exists. Kostunica replied (peevishly) that it must, having just
been readmitted to the United Nations.
If Yugoslavia does fall apart, not only will
Kosovo and Montenegro become independent, but, mostly likely, the
Albanian-dominated part of Macedonia (just south of Kosovo) will try to join
Kosovo, and the Serbian-dominated part of Bosnia will try to join Serbia.
QUESTION: Is it
always undesirable to have more countries rather than fewer? Not necessarily.
The problem is not the number of nations or their miles of boundary, but the
guiding philosophy of the states. If each nation respects the other's rights
and territory, 10 nations is no worse than two. But if each one operates on
tribalist principles, believing it should govern all the territory that its
people have ever inhabited or inhabit presently, then peace will never last. If
tribalist premises continue, then Kosovo, for example, will be eternally
disputed between the Serbs and the Albanians, even if every single Serb or
ethnic Albanian in the region is massacred or driven out.
8. CONCLUSION: The fundamental
problem in the Balkans
What then is the cause of the battles in the Balkans, and what is the solution?
Former Communist Yugoslavia, an area about the size of Oregon, saw some 200,000 deaths in the 1990s and the creation of about 4 million refugees. The ongoing bloody battles and atrocities in the area seem at first to be of bewildering complexity: Muslims against Croats, Kosovar Albanians against Kosovar Serbs, Serbs against Croats, Bosnian Croats against Bosnian Serbs.
The complexity can, however, be easily understood as an illustration of a single philosophical idea: collectivism. Collectivism is the theory that a man's most important characteristic is the group (the collective) that he belongs to: a given race, economic class, nation, ethnic group, etc. It assumes that each individual man is merely a part of this larger entity, and cannot exist without it. It assumes that he should be judged not by his thoughts and actions as an individual, but by his value to the group.
Modern collectivism is exacerbated by the fact that those living in Yugoslavia have very long memories. Three hundred years is but a moment in Balkan history, as we have seen in the Serbs' reaction to Albanian "newcomers" in Kosovo. (See 6.5.) Ethnic and religious rules and standards, preserved in folklore and in poems such as Njegos' Mountain Wreath (see 5.1), begin to indoctrinate each new generation as soon as children are old enough to listen to bedtime stories. Americans are raised on individualist ideas such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Serbian children are taught that it is good to sacrifice and if necessary die for their ethnic group, that compromise is evil, that loyalty to one's tribe comes above all, and more concretely that it's acceptable to slaughter your enemies and burn their homes.
In reading about Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and other Balkan countries, it's crucial to remember that collectivist mindset. These people are not fighting over whether to keep or reject the Communist economic system. They are not fighting to keep or reject totalitarian government. They do not care about wealth, health, or a long happy life. They are just dissatisfied - or rabid with anger - at the thought of being ruled by someone who is not a member of their ethnic group, or at the thought of such a "foreigner" controlling territory that once (even if hundreds of years ago) belonged to their people.
Why does collectivism have such disastrous effects? By denying the importance of man's mind, collectivism eliminates the mind as a way of dealing with one's fellow men. Within the ethnic group, men do not operate by principles, but simply obey the rules. "An eye for an eye." "Pray 5 times a day." "Keep the race pure." In dealing with outsiders, the collectivist's only recourse is brute force. One cannot, after all, persuade a person to become a Slav or an Albanian. If he happens to be in the territory claimed by one's own group, the only choices are to kill him or force him out. Trotsky observed pithily, "Stalin seeks to strike, not at the ideas of his opponent, but at his skull." (Quoted in P. Johnson, Modern Times, pb, p. 373). This modus operandi has been accepted for centuries in the Balkans. Ayn described it in more detail: "There is no surer way to infect mankind with hatred - brute, blind, virulent hatred - than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes. If a man believes that his own character is determined at birth in some unknown, ineffable way, and that the characteristics of all strangers are determined in the same way - then no communication, no understanding, no persuasion is possible among them, only mutual fear, suspicion and hatred." ("Global Balkanization," The Voice of Reason, p. 128; available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore..)
What is the cure for collectivism? The recognition that man's distinguishing characteristic and means of survival is his mind, with the political corollary of that idea, respect for individual rights. These are not ideas of which those living in Yugoslavia have any experience whatsoever. When Enlightenment philosophers were advocating individual rights, and those rights were being implemented in Europe and - most successfully - in the United States, Yugoslavia (in its parts and later as a whole) languished under the rule of Turks, Austro-Hungarian monarchs and Communists, all of whom stressed ethnicity in order to keep their subjects divided and easier to rule.
Will deposing Slobodan Milosevic from power in Yugoslavia stop the killing there? No. It may abate for a while, due to exhaustion and lack of resources, but the basic problem - collectivist thought in assorted guises - remains. A particularly chilling illustration of that is the fact that Kostunica, the current president of Yugoslavia, is a rabid Serbian nationalist who thinks Milosevic was too mild-mannered in his negotiations over Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo. (See 5.1.)
What then is the proper policy toward the former Yugoslavia?
Western policy to date has been to restrain the many groups demanding independence, for fear that acknowledging their independence might encourage other secessionist movements, and further fragment the Balkans. Maintaining the territorial status quo has not stopped the killing. The West has withdrawn foreign loans and subsidies. That has not stopped the killing. It has inflicted major damage through air-strikes. That has not stopped the killing. It has sent peacekeeping troops, which not only failed to stop the killing, but have become targets themselves.
Peace in the Balkans can only come by teaching the warring tribes there why recognition of and respect for individual rights are an absolute necessity. This would take decades, and it is a battle to be waged by teachers with textbooks, not soldiers with machine guns. Unfortunately so few Westerners correctly identify the problem and its solution that this long-term cure is unlikely to happen.
Sources on
collectivism:
Ayn Rand, "Global Balkanization," Voice of Reason (paperback), pp. 115-29; especially p. 118 on ethnicity, p. 124 on religion and p. 127 on ethnicity and hatred. Available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
Ayn Rand, "Racism," Virtue of Selfishness (paperback), pp. 126-34; especially p. 126 for the definition of racism, pp. 127-8 on force and statism, and pp. 128-9 on the antidote. Available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
Ayn Rand, "The Missing Link," The Ayn Rand Letter (reprint), pp. 195-204; especially p. 199 on the non-conceptual mentality and p. 200 on loyalty to group. Available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
9.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Back to Table of Contents
Books
Alcock, John B., Marko Milivojevic and John J.
Horton, eds.
Conflict
in the Former Yugoslavia: An Encyclopedia. Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO, 1998. Useful entries on places and
people, plus a detailed chronological table for 1986-1997. Good for fleshing
out details.
Doder, Dusko, and Louise Branson.
Milosevic:
Portrait of a Tyrant. New
York: Simon & Schuster (Free Press), 1999. More or less chronological
account of Milosevic's life and rule, with minimal background on Communist
Yugoslavia and earlier periods. Dense and sometimes choppy.
Judah, Tim.
The
Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. 2nd ed. New
Haven & London: Yale Univ. Press (Nota Bene), 2000. An excellent and
detailed work, relating Serbia's past to its present. If you want to read
only one book on this list, this should be the one.
Kaplan, Robert D.
Balkan
Ghosts: A Journey Through History . New York: Random House
(Vintage), 1993. ISBN 0-679-74981-0. An evocative history of the Balkans
since the early 20th century: not the place to go for a chronological
account, but riveting reading. This is apparently the only book Clinton read
about the Balkans.
Stanley, David.
Lonely
Planet: Eastern Europe on a Shoestring. 2nd ed. Hawthorn, Vic,
Australia: Lonely Planet, 1991. One of the few books giving basic travel
information on the region, but certainly outdated, given the events of the
past decade.
Winchester, Simon.
The
Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkans. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Chronicles a trip from Vienna to Istanbul, via Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia,
Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Bulgaria. Not a chronological
sequence, but an interesting look at the area, especially after reading Doder
& Branson.
Online information
CIA World Factbook
for statistics on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia,
Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
<www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html>
The New York Times,
for the September 2000 elections.
10. CHRONOLOGY
Back to Table of Contents
5th-6th c. AD Southern Slavs migrated to the western Balkans
10th-11th c. Serbia swore allegiance to the Byzantine Empire
1331-1355 Reign of King Dusan; greatest extent of Serbian Empire
1389 Battle of Kosovo (Battle of the Field of Blackbirds); Serbs conquered by the Turks
1526 Turks defeated Hungarians at Mohacs; most Serbs enslaved to Turks for next 3 centuries
1878 At Congress of Berlin, European powers and the Ottoman Empire declare Serbia independent
1912-1913 Balkan Wars: Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece against Turks; Serbia acquired Kosovo and much of Macedonia
1914 World War I begins, with assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by a Bosnian Serb in Sarajevo (Bosnia)
1918 Formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (known after 1929 as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia); included Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Vojvodina and Kosovo
1941 Yugoslavia dismembered in World War II
1945 Yugoslavia reunited as a Communist country under the leadership of Joseph Broz Tito
1948 Tito broke with the USSR
1980 Death of Tito
1987 Milosevic first elected to national office (president of Serbia)
1988 "Yogurt Revolution" in Serbia's autonomous province of Vojvodina; first use of ethnic cleansing under that name
1991 Slovenia declared independence of Yugoslavia
1991 Croatia declared independence of Yugoslavia; war with Serbia 1991-92 and again 1995
1991 Macedonia declared independence of Yugoslavia
1992 Bosnia declared independence of Yugoslavia; war with Serbia 1992-95
1992 Montenegro and Serbia, with Serbia's autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
1995 Dayton Agreement ended Bosnian War
1998 Kosovo attempted to declare independence; war with Serbia 1998-99
1999 NATO air strikes against Serbia for actions in Kosovo; cease-fire put NATO / UN peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, and eliminated all but a few Serbian police from the province
2000 (Sept.) Milosevic defeated by Kostunica in elections for president of Yugoslavia; conceded defeat 10/6, after riots in which House of Parliament in Belgrade was looted and burned
2000 (Dec.) Elections for president and parliament of Serbia
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