7. Sarajevo to Belgrade
Over more beautiful mountains into a rich plain full of agribusiness, Serbia, the prosperous, the powerful (compared to Bosnia), and the villain of everybody's piece so far. Right to a lecture by a Serb, Zoran Janjetovic, who has written a book published in English as Between Hitler and Tito.
He puts the Montenegrins in their place right off. "The Montenegrin identity, separate from the Serbian identity, was invented by the communist state. They are really Serbs." I see an ugly Serb rising but no, he gives a full and fairly balanced history of the Serbs and their region, with judicious credit given. "The first two centuries of Ottoman rule were a big improvement over life under Serbian lords."
Identity is a big thing. (We can imagine. Say that a foreign national is really Serb and you have an excuse for fighting for your intervention.) And it makes for competition. "Bulgarians claim Macedonians are really Bulgarians. Serbs say they're Serbian." Oi.
On the controversial issues he tilts toward Serbia. On the assassination of the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand that "some say started World War I" he says that "always there are officers who think you can do everything by saber." Serb officers "found some teenagers and there you have Gavrilo Princip killing Franz Ferdinand." But "the Serbian government had nothing to do with that." (Misha Glenny, I believe, says otherwise.) "Still," he adds, "you don't have to have a world war over a crown prince."
"Everybody who opposed the communists was done away with in the first days of their rule." Tito, a master player, kept Yugoslavia independent and well supplied by "milking two cows (US and USSR) at the same time."
Tito dies in 1980, then we get to the hot period, the nineties. Autonomous and semi-autonomous provinces had already developed a lot of ethnic and national pride. "They were bombs ready to explode. Politicians took advantage." Boom. Milosevic said he wanted to preserve Serbians from the many enemies who had victimized them. "He used the state media to work up the people." (When I later asked if there were any independent media he said, "Yes, two, a TV station and a radio station, but the people preferred the state media." The people. Not forced. People loving the message.)
"It was easy for Milosevic to sell his message that the Serbs 'needed protection'" because "refugees from the Ustashe (Croat) were streaming in." The media played up the refugee pictures.
The tension in the room increased as we approached our own time. What's the situation now? "Many people still believe that the Serbs are victims. The fact that more Serbs are prosecuted for war crimes in international courts just demonstrates to them that everybody has it in for them. They believe that the Serbs did not commit more and worse war crimes than the others."
After taking a question by Carol Cohen about education in Serbia he had to answer the question that I think all Americans would want to ask and I had a chance to: "My most vivid memory, from television pictures, is of Serb soldiers sniping at women and children on the streets of Sarajevo. I think many of us were wondering, What kind of upbringing did those soldiers have that would let them do that?"
"That's a good question," he said, "but it's one for psychologists." Then he went on to say that the emphasis in the schools had been on "national brotherhood and unity." That "may have been harmless among educated people in Belgrade but if you're from a village next to a village whose people have killed your people it's going to be different."
He tried to fill in the buildup of animosity. People had nothing good to say about nearby people. "They buy your cheap fruit and sell you expensive juice." But he himself, I think, found the extension into savagery puzzling.
Joe Tudisco wanted to know about the situation in the schools now. "What values are stressed? Brotherhood and unity still?" The answer wasn't clear.
And that's what we learned from the great Balkan Monster.
I did learn later that the prosperity I saw was an illusion. Unemployment is at an official 27% (probably 40%) and many unemployed are going to Europe.
And here's something to add to Mohammed's answer yesterday about what keeps Bosnia afloat: "More than 60% of the GDP of Bosnia-Herzegovina is spent on administration."
You should know that many of those sniping attacks were staged for the camera - and they weren't Serbs doing it. UN personnel who lived in Sarajevo during the war have testified that Muslim forces did use buildings in the infamous Sniper's Alley. And one of the only few times that the UN (French Marines) went on a thorough investigation to trace some harassing fire, they found, much to their surprise that it was Muslims sniping from the former Parliamentary building. It was their surprise because everyone automatically assumed it was the Serbs, so the Muslim forces took advantage of that and they did their killings for PR purposes.
ReplyDeleteThat is in fact what Canadian soldier James R. Davis writes in his book "Sharp End: A Canadian Soldier's Story". Canadian soldiers witnessed a shelling which killed Sarajevo children right below the windows of their building and the observer reports came back that no shelling had been done by the Serbs and they traced it to Muslim positions.
Now Sarajevo, which had 30% Serbian population pre-war, is down to a few percent at most. Over 150,000 Serbs are gone from there. Meanwhile the population as a whole is greater than before the war.
The Muslims had the largest forces within Bosnia: 200,000. The Serb forces have been given as low as 30,000. In Sarajevo the Muslims had 40,000 and most of the damage was along the front lines (which actually ran through the city, nearby to the infamous Holiday Inn) where the two forces met - this was said by a former UN soldier (I believe from New Zealand) in the transcripts of the ICTY.
And the Serbian held section of Sarajevo (which was the suburbs and had Serbian civilians living there) ended up more damaged than the Muslim-controlled section. This was written by Nejbosa Malic (contributor to AntiWar.com) who was a Serbian kid trapped on the Muslim side throughout the war.