Essay, Research Paper
The conflict in the Balkans is interesting because for years,
reporters and politicians have touted it as being the result of
ancient ethnic hatred but that isn?t the case. The people of the
region lived together peacefully for centuries and any conflicts that
have arose among people were based not on ethnic origin but other
things like class, ruling party, etc. In fact, any problems that have
arose in the former Yugoslavia have more to do with the issues raised
by nationalism that developed during World War II and not centuries of
three different peoples living together.
This paper will explore the history of the conflict in the
Balkans from the time shortly after Josip Tito passed away until just
before the Dayton Accords. Additionally, it will be shown that at
each of the three distinct points of the conflict, the international
community and the United States had it within their power to stop the
violence. The three distinct phases are Kosovo, secession, and Bosnia
and at each point, the lack of action or overreaction of the
international community failed to solve the problem.
The first phase of Yugoslavian disintegration can be
attributed to the conditions of the people living in Kosovo, an
autonomous province of Yugoslavia. In 1981, the socioeconomic
conditions in Kosovo were far worse than those in the other republics
of Yugoslavia. Poverty was rampant and unemployment was around twenty
percent as compared to about two percent in Slovenia that same year.
The standard of living in Kosovo was deplorable and whatever aid that
was given to the province by the federal government was mismanaged
(Samary, 65).
Another significant problem with this particular province was
that while the Serbs claimed the province as the ?Cradle of Serbian
Empire? because of a legendary battle and defeat that happened at
Kosovo in 1389, the Albanians constituted approximately eighty percent
of the population of Kosovo. In reality, Kosovo could be claimed more
by the Albanian majority than by the Serb minority. Many of the
valiant warriors who fought and died at the Battle of Kosovo were in
fact Albanian warriors, a fact seldom acknowledged by the Serb
leadership. Furthermore, historical evidence suggests that Illyrians,
the ancestors of Albanians, formed their first communities in Kosovo.
The ?Serb Empire? was not as grand and powerful as modern Serbia
would contend. Relations between Albanians and Serbs were good in the
Middle Ages because of the many reasons that tensions exist today
between nation states i.e. customs, trade, immigration, and so on
(Samary, 36). Kosovo, by nearly all accounts but the Serb
interpretation of the Battle of Kosovo, is an Albanian area.
Albanians were given majority rule of Kosovo in the 1960?s by
Tito in order to act as a hegemon to the power of Serbia. Under
independent rule, the region was able to make available an Albanian
curriculum and Albanian culture grew in importance. Economically,
however, Kosovo was still suffering since whatever gains the economy
made were outdone by the gains in population made by the Albanian
Muslims who averaged six to eight children per family. The power in
Kosovo was vested in a small group of elite Albanians who did well at
advancing national identity and improving education and other public
works but who were poor at managing and maintaining a functional
economy. Whenever federal funds were given to the province, those
elites at the top either wasted the money on grandiose projects and
ornate buildings or on their new and privileged lifestyles (Bennett,
88)
On March 11, 1981, the students of Pristina University, in
Kosovo, organized a protest against the deplorable living conditions
on the campus. At the protest, they voiced their malcontent with the
poverty and unemployment if life in Kosovo. They then marched to the
provincial League of Communists only to have the demonstration halted
by the police. The leadership of the League of Communists demanded
that the leaders of the protests be brought into custody fearing that
if the leadership of the protests remained, the protests would
continue. The police complied and in a moment of solidarity with the
student leaders, students poured into the streets demanding that their
classmates be released from custody. The unrest was escalated by
excessive police brutality and on April 3, 1981, Belgrade imposed
martial law (Bennett, 89).
It is suggested that this particular time in the history of
Yugoslavia is when the disintegration of Yugoslavia occurred. Tito
had died less than a year before the incident in Kosovo and the
Yugoslav Army (JNA) was pointing their weapons at fellow Yugoslavians.
For the first time in Tito?s Yugoslavia, the federal government had
sided with one ethnic group over another and because of this change in
policy toward Kosovo, Serbia was able to acquire control once more
over the province with the help of the JNA. Sixteen hundred Albanian
college students, secondary school students, and adults were taken
into custody and handed a heavy prison sentence (Bennett, 90).
In the late 1980?s, Slobodan Milosevic came to power in
Serbia. His first actions were directed against Kosovo Albanian
dominance in the province. He removed virtually all of the Albanian?s
rights, their leadership role in government, their party, and their
parliament. He further removed their control of their
Albanian-language library and the administration of their school
system. This was the classic case of human rights violations.
Milosevic took away their right to govern themselves and as a result,
he gained the attention of the United States Congress. A pro-Albanian
coalition formed among those who had ethnic Albanian constituents
(Alphonse D?Amato), of those who habitually cultivated the support of
ethnic groups (Bob Dole), and of those who saw Kosovo as a human
rights problem (Representative Tom Lantos).
Annual human rights reports submitted to the White House by
the Department of State read like a prison record when it came to
Serbian abuses of the people of Kosovo. Unfortunately, Congress was
not in agreement with how to treat the reports of the abuses in
Kosovo. The Bush administration was more interested in keeping
Yugoslavia together and concerned more about the breakup of the Soviet
Union and the potential tragedy that such a thing might cause.
Therefore, Kosovo, in the words of Warren Zimmerman, ?remained a part
of Serbia, albeit a much-abused one (Zimmerman, 3).?
In my estimation, the problems of Kosovo were not viewed as
important or of any interest to the national security or economic
prosperity of the United States therefore no action was needed. I
disagree with the stand that the Bush administration took on Kosovo.
The State Department catalogued massive human rights violations by the
Serbian leadership in Kosovo yet the Bush Administration did nothing.
Little was said about what was going on in the region and even less
was said by the American press because of the instability in the
former Soviet Union.
Up until this point, the official party line in Washington, DC
was that the Bush administration would continue to support a united,
territorially strong, and independent Yugoslavia. It would seem that
history had yet another crossroads in Yugoslavia. The strategic
importance of Yugoslavia was lost with the breakup of the Soviet
Union. The movement towards more democratic government was creating
an air of instability and uncertainty in the region. Finally, the
inter-ethnic conflicts between Serbs and Croats, people of Kosovo and
Serbs, Slovenes and the rest of Yugoslavia added to the unstableness
of the situation (Zimmerman, 4).
While the political unity of Yugoslavia was paramount for the
White House any financial aid that would be given to Eastern Europe
would be based on that particular nation?s ability to move toward
democracy and a free market economy. Because of this commitment to a
movement toward democracy, the United States eagerly awaited the
results of the election in 1990. These elections, however, brought
into power nationalists of many colors. In Slovenia and Croatia, the
election brought to power two leaders who advocated the secession of
their respective republics from federal Yugoslavia. Additionally, the
reelection of Milosevic in Serbia aroused fears that Yugoslavia would
be dominated by a Greater Serbia. The future of Yugoslavia was
uncertain and finally became an issue of importance in the State
Department and the White House.
Yugoslavia?s existence itself was at stake and the State
Department had to ask itself two questions. One, what are the chances
that Yugoslavia will disintegrate? Two, what will disintegration
mean? The Central Intelligence Agency was the first to predict the
breakup of Yugoslavia in September of 1990. This breakup, as examined
by experts in the embassy in Belgrade and in Washington, was certainly
seen as potentially violent and leading to war. The State Department
did make attempts to alert the Western Allies in NATO of the potential
for armed conflict but it fell upon deaf ears (Zimmerman, 5).
One of the fundamental problems with United States policy in
Yugoslavia was that democracy and unity seemed to contradict each
other. A democratic movement in Croatia and Slovenia elected
separatist governments. The United States wanted a united Yugoslavia
but Croatia and Slovenia were flirting with independence and if the
rest of Yugoslavia were to order the JNA into those republics to quell
the violence, would the United States support this action. Clearly,
the objective of keeping a united Yugoslavia would be obtained but
human rights violations as well as continuing armed conflict in
defense of the separatist governments meant that peace in the Balkans
would be lost.
At this point, the United States should have chose either
unity or democracy. Clearly, both were not what Yugoslavia was headed
for. A united Yugoslavia meant a strong central government controlled
from Belgrade while a free and democratic Yugoslavia meant the
potential for disintegration. By the end of 1991, United States
policy shifted toward support for democratization and a free market
economy and away from its former support of continues unity. On May
23, 1991, Secretary of State, James Baker, issued a statement of five
principles of interest in Yugoslavia by the united states. First was
democracy and last was unity. Finally, the United States had actually
set some sort of priority on their objectives.
On June 21, 1991, Slovenia declared independence. Slovenia?s
discontent with the rest of the Yugoslav federation can be traced back
to the 1970?s when during the oil crisis that took the entire world by
storm, Slovenians returned home from their then non-existent Western
European jobs. Slovenia?s per capita income was twice that of the
rest of Yugoslavia with zero unemployment making the republic a
popular place for migrant Serbs and Albanians from Kosovo. This
migration in the 1970?s was not welcomed because after Tito?s death,
Serbs throughout the Federation attempted to usurped the educational
institutions of Slovenia and to institute a single, unified ?Yugoslav?
curriculum. The Slovenes saw this as an attempt to eliminate their
national identity and because of this rejected it flatly.
As a result of the attempts of the communists in Yugoslavia to
reform the education system of Slovenia, the republic?s government
undertook a massive campaign, mostly television advertising, to raise
national awareness of the issues and to attempt to build support for a
nationalist movement. It worked. Throughout Slovenia, one could find
tee-shirts with ?Slovenia my Homeland? silk screened on them. The
campaign for national pride had worked.
The Yugoslav communists attempted a media campaign as well and
had the economy not taken a nose-dive in the mid 1980?s they might
have been successful. However, the Slovene media touted the economic
recession as the fault of the other, poorer republics. The
politicians argued that Slovenia was suffering not because of the
recession but because they had to subsidize the other, less developed
republics. What arose from this stage of the game was the beginnings
of an intense nationalism would later propel Slovenia out of the
Yugoslav federation and into an independence movement.
As a result of this tension between what apparently had become
Milosevic (in control of Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro)
and Kucan of Slovenia, the Slovene people made their way toward
independence. It started with the youth movement. Mladina, a Slovene
political weekly, began and ran stories about the JNA, Yugoslavia,
Milosevic, and others who were basically labeled enemies of the
Slovene people. A new artist movement caught the attention of many in
Europe through art, literature and music. This movement began with a
group of teenagers looking for an alternative to mandatory military
service and ended with an alternative to continued federation with
Yugoslavia.
On May 31, 1988, the attacks that the JNA had received from
Mladina were avenged with the arrest of Janez Jasna, the military
correspondent for Mladina and a candidate for the presidency of
Slovenia?s Youth Organization. The charge was leaking military
secrets. Later, three other people were indicated in this conspiracy
when documents were discovered in the offices of Mladina. These
documents were believed to be the plans for a takeover of Slovenia by
the JNA although the JNA and the Yugoslav government never confirmed
the suspicions. The people of Slovenia and its leadership viewed this
attack on Mladina and its youth as an attack on Slovenian sovereignty.
With Kosovo now under the control of Serbia, the time had come
to turn the attention of the JNA and the government towards Slovenia
which was, at this time, still teetering on the issue of independence.
In typical fashion, Milosevic turned his propaganda machine on the
Slovenes blaming them for everything from the price of clothing in
Serbia to the price of tea in China. At approximately the same time,
Milosevic attempted to cripple the economy of Slovenia by boycotting
Slovenian goods and services in Serbia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. What
Milosevic managed to do was not to punish Slovenes for their
insurrection but instead punish the Serbs who were dependent on
Slovene goods and services. The economy of Serbia was in a downward
spiral. Hopeful to raise a billion dollars in investments, Milosevic
asked Serbs from all over the globe to contribute to his
reconstruction and revitalization fund. Out of the billion dollars
that he was expecting and counting on, Milosevic managed to get a
whopping twenty-five million dollars… hardly enough to solve the
economic woes that inflation, poor quality, and over employment were
causing (Bennett, 108).
Obviously, Milosevic was killing himself and Serbia with these
sanctions and other economic activities. In his zeal for a
nationalist movement, Milosevic managed to forget that one needs an
economy for a nation to exist and he was systematically destroying
his. In Kosovo alone, police operations costs amounted to about half
of all of Yugoslavia?s military budget and Milosevic?s refusal to let
anyone outside of Serbia to handle the situation further crippled any
hope for a unified Yugoslavia. Serbia?s actions in Kosovo were one of
the key factors in Slovenia, and shortly thereafter, Croatia?s
decision to leave Yugoslavia. Had Serbia not treated the people of
Kosovo as second class citizens within a now, new Greater Serbia, the
Slovenes and the Croats would not have feared them as much. As it
stood, however, the Serbs had seemingly made it clear that no
Yugoslavia would exist without a Serb holding the reigns.
Therefore, Slovenia and Croatia seceded from the federal
government. Slovenia was scheduled to declare independence on June
26, 1991 but late in the afternoon on the previous day, Croatia
declared independence from federal Yugoslavia. Croatia had seceded
without tackling one, very critical question. What was the status of
Serbs living in Croatia. Throughout history, Serbs had been moved
into the Krijina region of southern Croatia to defend the
Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Ottomans to the south. By the