Serbs On Croatia example essay topic

The conflict in the Balkans is interesting because for years, reporters and politicians have touted it as being the result of ancient ethnic hatred. 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 was given to the province by the federal government was mismanaged.

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.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Sr. 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. 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. The State Department catalogued massive human rights violations by the Serbian leadership in Kosovo yet the Bush Sr. Administration did nothing.

Little was said about what was going on in the region and the American press because of the instability in the former Soviet Union said even less. 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. 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 twenty-five million dollars.

That is 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. On June 27, 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. 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 Ku can of Slovenia, the Slovene people made their way toward independence. 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 Kri jina region of southern Croatia to defend the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Ottomans to the south. By the time that Croatia declared it's independence, however, Serbs had lived in those regions for generations and came to think of it as their homeland. The Croats, however, failed to recognize the Serbs and give them citizenship in the new Croatian State.

Serbs on Croatia had considered themselves equal to Croats living next door yet it appeared that every chance Franco Tudjman got, he took the opportunity to elevate the Croat while lowing the status of the Serb. The Croat flag was altered so that the checkerboard, a long time symbol of Croats and, unfortunately, of the Ustasha, was emblazoned onto the flag. The Ustasha was a World War II government composed of members of the Fascist Croat Ustasha political movement, headed by Ante Pavelic, was proclaimed a protectorate of Italy in May 1941, and was in fact supported throughout World War II by both Italian and German occupation forces. Allied forces leader Allen Dulles' wartime OSS Mission in Bern, Switzerland did attempt to monitor the activities of the Ustasha. Aware the Ustasha were persecuting the Jews, Serbs, and Sint i-Romani, Dulles sought to maintain contact with anti-Fascist elements in Croatian territory. British intelligence sought for a time to maintain contact with high-ranking officials of the puppet Croatian government, but the contact ended after Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic recognized that the Allies intended to support the Partisans. (web) Serb travel had been restricted, Serb participation in government was becoming limited and the military began taking strategic positions with Serb majority areas.

Clearly, with so many tanks, guns, and soldiers, the stage was set for armed conflict. The armed conflict in these Serb pockets of population came to a head in Knin, where Croats were a minority while Serbs maintained a majority. Milosevic saw these Serbs as an opportunity to, if not save Yugoslavia as it was, then to at least expand what remained of Yugoslavia as much as possible. Milosevic, with the help of Jovan Raskovic, began to stir trouble in the city of Knin. They reminded the Serbs living in Croatia of the atrocities that the Ustasha inflicted upon the Serbs who had lived there during the Second World War and that the same thing was happening again to the Serbs at the hands of Croat fascists. Serb media told tales of the new nationalist regime in Croatia coming to wipe out anything not Croat.

Theoretically, the Croats should have been able to quell the rebellion. This was not the case because when the Croatian police sent three helicopters to the area to take control and stop the protests, they were met with two MiG aircraft from the JNA and threatened to be shot down if they failed to turn around (Bennett, 129-131). Obviously, at this point, the situation is getting tenuous enough for the international community to take an interest in what is going on. Two, armed aircraft from the Yugoslav Army confronted three helicopters from Croatia. By this time, the international community had recognized the independence of Slovenia and Croatia upon the lead from Germany but they were still allowing the remainder of Yugoslavia, essentially the Serbs, to engage in warfare with Croatia.

So, why didn't the United States intervene at this point? Several answers are viable. The first and foremost reason for a lack of intervention has to do with our newly emerging relationship with Russia. Russians had been closely aligned with Serbs during World War II and this relationship continues onward even until today. Telling the Serbs that the United States was going to enter Yugoslavia and stop the violence was to say that the United States was going to go into Yugoslavia and crush the Serbs, who controlled the government and the JNA.

We were trying desperately to form close, personal ties with Russia to support their efforts toward a market economy and democracy to prevent the Russian government and their nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands. To offend the Serbs, and thus the Russians, would have been political suicide. Second, what exactly did Yugoslavia mean to the United States? As stated above, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Cold War was over.

We no longer needed to nurture ties between Eastern European states in order to head off the spread of Communism. Yugoslavia didn't have an impressive economy where American business interested could invest and reap massive dividends. Much like most of the Eastern and especially Southeastern European nations, the economy was lackluster and uninviting to foreign investment. The third reason that the United States chose not to interfere and perhaps the most important is that intervening would imply a long-term commitment of men, equipment, and supplies. The recent Gulf War had devoured many of the resources that would have been needed to complete an operation in Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, the terrain of the area was as inhospitable as Viet Nam's was in the 1960's and 1970's. Engaging the military in an operation in Yugoslavia would offer the same challenges that Vietnam offered. There was no popular support for either side of the conflict in the United States. What monetary or economic gain could be made by intervention? The fighting was primarily in Croatia, not in Greece, not in Hungary, and not in Italy. Perhaps the Executive branch of the United States considered this to be a rather internal problem and not the concern of the international community.

Germany didn't help matters either by jumping the gun and recognizing Croatia before it met the standards set by the European Community. Under the EC plan, Croatia would have to make a constitutional provision recognizing Serbs living in Croatia as citizens of Croatia and protecting them with equal status. Germany, eager to stop the armed conflicts within Croatia, officially recognized Croatia's independence and thus, forced the rest of the EC to do so as well The third phase of the disintegration of Yugoslavia is marked by a decidedly different approach to the Balkans by the international community. The European Community, lead almost unwillingly by Germany, offers to recognize Croatia and Slovenia as independent in January of 1992. By March of 1992, Bosnia itself had attained the standards that the EC set for recognition of independence. Sixty-four percent of the population voted in a referendum for independence while most of the Serbs abstained.

By this time as well, it had become apparent that Milosevic and Rado van Karadzic had planned to take over about two-thirds of Bosnia. The United States and other allies considered rec.