The Balkans is where three worlds collide: Orthodox Christian/Slavic (Serbia-Russia), Roman Catholic/western (Croatia-Austria) and Islamic (Ottoman and remnants -- note: most Muslims in former Yugoslavia are slavs).

Back to world war II: Hitler allied with the Croat Utascha, fighting the Serbs for control of Yugoslavia. Serbs were murdered, tortured, and exterminated by Croats. It was brutal. The Serb Chetniks did come back, but they didn’t forget. That built on the distrust coming from world war I -- the Serbs wanting a southern slavic state, with Orthodox Christianity uniting it; the Croats and many Bosnians aligned with the Austrians, and Muslim descendents of slavs converted by Ottomans. Those problems have not gone away.

So after WWII Yugoslavia looked like it could degenerate into fights between different groups. What saved it then, ironically, was Communism. Communism Tito style. For all its faults, Communism had one thing going for it when it comes to a country like Yugoslavia or even the Soviet Union: it denied the legitimacy of ethnic differences and, theoretically, nationalism. Everything was material, everything was class based. Culture and ethnic identity was not a legitimate means of division, and in fact one created to try to allow those in power to manipulate those below. Tito emerged to promote a Communist regime which, he said, was needed to put aside the petty ethnic difficulties which could tear Yugoslavia apart.

Though Tito was a committed Communist, he was not a Stalinist, and indeed broke from Stalin early on. He had not succumbed to Hitler, he wouldn’t succumb to Stalin! Other Communist parties in Eastern Europe were controlled by Moscow, via training during the war of a generation of future leaders, and a vacuum left by Nazi control and killings. Not so in Yugoslavia.

Tito’s tactics: 1) share power, with Belgrade dominant, but a real voice for federal states; 2) make all ethnic pride and displays of nationalism illegal; 3) mix populations, especially in capital cities; and 4) build Yugoslav nationalism.

Worked for years. Yugoslavia did well economically, even exported autos to the US -- Germans took vacations along the coast, esp. Croatia (reinforcing links from the past, some claimed), and the anti-Stalinist tone of the Tito regime brought Yugoslavia closer to the West and NATO. In sum: the most successful communist state on both political and economic terms. Tito died in 1981, and from then on tensions increased, but it wasn’t until the end of the cold war that things started to fall apart.

1984 Sarajevo Olympics: Truly, a success story! Reporters talked of how a multiethnic state had overcome huge differences to create peaceful cooperation. Yugoslavia was a model of how divisions can be overcome. Unfortunately, the model was to disintegrate.

1989 was the beginning of the end: fall of Communism discredited even anti-Stalinist Yugoslav communism, and took away the rationalization for anti-ethnic unity. A few factors came into play:

1) Economic problems: Slovenia and Croatia were closer to the West, and western investors were hoping to increase links. The rest of Yugoslavia was in a non-competitive situation. Not only that, but with rest of East European market gone (or competition now coming from the West) Yugoslav factories had to look westward in order to try to survive.

2) Taxation without real representation. Serbs and other groups had in general lived off transfers from these more wealthy northern states, and as standards of living dropped, more money was transferred. But things got even worse.

3) Serb nationalism: Slobodan Milosevic: Serb Communist leader who realized that as people like Ceaucesceau were being executed, his stay in power was likely to be short if he retained Tito’s dream. Instead: reintroduced Serb nationalism. Started early: speech at Kosovo where he vowed never to give up the place that symbolized Serb nationalism -- where the original slavs were defeated by the Ottomans. The Serbs were complaining that the Albanian police and court system discriminated against them, and many Serbs were fleeing Kosovo for that reason. Beatings by police of Serbs became more common. Kosovo had been given autonomy by Tito in 1974 in order to appease ethnic Albanian desires for more say, but it was only by the late eighties that the Albanians used this authority in a really discriminating manner. The Serb response was to rescind autonomy. This not only upset ethnic Albanians, but also showed the northern regions that Serb nationalism was growing.

4) Croatian and Slovenian nationalism. Slovenia: near Austria, never felt like they should be in Yugoslavia. Wanted union with Austria first, but settled for independence. Tourist trade, strong economy, wanted out of the union. Croatia: larger issue, due to size, their coastline, and the past. Followed Slovenia with demands, originally economic, but Croatians pushed:

Led by Franjo Tudjman,

-- Laws banning the Cyrillic alphabet

-- Firing of Serbs

-- Reestablishment of Croatian nationalism, including symbols which many Serbs associated with the Utasha

June 25, 1991: independence declared by both Croatia and Slovenia. They were sick of waiting, wanting public support in their own countries, amd riding a wave of nationalism. They realized the West did not want to help them peacefully become independent, but would try to keep Yugoslavia together. Western policy was markedly pro-Serb.

Belgrade rejected declaration of independence by the two breakaway states, and decided to intervene when Slovenia tries to use its own borders on Austria and assert independence.

War 1: Yugoslavia vs. Slovenia. June 1991. Croatians allow Yugoslav Federal army to cross its land, and even some Croatians continue to serve. Despite that, Slovenia succeeds. Reason: Slovenia was rather irrelevant to Serb interests, not worth the animosity of the West over that issue.

Serbs: decide to draw line with Croatia

Croats: decide Serbs don’t mean it -- if they can’t keep Slovenia in, how can they keep Croatia in?

West: general positive reaction to and sympathy for the Serbs. The Serbs had held back in Slovenia and accepted defeat. Some (esp. In Germany) strongly condemned Serbia, using cold war terms at times, for their actions. But that was a minority view in the West.

By July, peace was back.

August: tenuous and uncertain. Skirmishes on the countryside got worse, esp. in the Krajina region of Croatia. The Serb villagers remembered the old Utascha, and thought that the attempt by Croatia to form an independent state would endanger them, especially given Tudjman’s anti-Serb laws and rhetoric. They vowed not to be part of a Croat state, and called on the Yugoslav federal government to intervene against Croatians, who illegally are trying to create a separate country, and allegedly engaged in human rights violations against Serbs. Croat response: We’re simply extending our sovereign control to even Serb villages in Croatia.

War II: Late August: Federal army starts breaking up conflicts between Croatian forces and Serb villages. Often even handed, but more and more often, siding with the villagers, condemning attempts by Croatia to establish sovereign control. September - November: Real civil war. Serb policy pretty clear: Slovenia was let go because few Serbs lived there. But many Serbs live in Croatia, esp. The Krajina regions, and the far east. Serb intervention to maintain sanctity of Yugoslavia was focused on areas with a high Serb population.

The Serbs expected western support -- they wanted one Yugoslavia, and presumably the West would support Serb attempts to limit amount that withdrew. The Yugoslavs could point to mistreatment of Serb minorities, etc.

Thus: EC thought they could work this out. Idea: Milosevic was the one who wanted to keep the Status Quo, and his actions in Slovenia had proven him limited in his militarism to keep Yugoslavia together. The reasoned that he was pushed into action by nationalists (and his own rhetoric), and looking for a way out. They noted that Yugoslavia wanted to be in the EC, and couldn’t if this continued (and if they joined, then to some extent that would relieve the problems), and needed economic aid.

EC: engineered over a dozen truces, each one broken -- mostly by the Serbs (though in some cases it was unclear, and it seemed that a minor break by the other side was taken by the Serbs as a reason to simply ditch the truce). Milosevic didn’t keep his promises, and that combined with brutality to slowly convince the Europeans to move from support for the Serbs, to disgust with both, to being more and more opposed to the Serbs. Human rights concerns were paramount in that regard.

By November 1991: Serbia had become in most eyes the villain (though many still thought they were forced into it by unjust Croat actions, and a Yugoslavia together would have been superior). Still, most Europeans did not really see the Croats in a more positive light than the Serbs -- Tudjman was just as villainous in their eyes - and they were loathe to follow German policy preferences here. But it was harder to hold Germany back.

Germany: became active. Helmut Kohl promised Tudjman that the Germans would recognize Croatia and Slovenia "by Christmas." German opinion strongly anti-Serb, and human rights violations, breaking truces, and anti-German propaganda (Kohl as Hitler, Croatia as a fascist puppet to the fourth Reich, etc.) added to it.

Pushed Europe to an agreement: Recognition of Slovenia and Croatia if they meet certain criteria, including treatment of minorities, agreement to human rights concerns, and a commitment to democracy. Result: a settlement. Serbia realized it had to give up the war, but by that time it had most of the territory it wanted. Upset at recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, but peace left 30% of Croatia in Serb hands -- not really a peace, but a truce. Still, this one held, at least for a while.

In late January 1992 the first wave of the Balkan wars of the 90s, the wars with Slovenia and Croatia was over.

Now attention would head to the south, to Bosnia-Herzegovina, a peaceful multiethnic state whose capital Sarajevo had hosted the winter Olympics, and who thought they were above the hostility that took place in the north. They were wrong.

Balkan War III: Bosnia.

Problem: the independence of Croatia and Slovenia left the Bosnians wondering what to do. Their ethnic mix: 40% Muslim, 30% Serb, 20% Croat, 10% other, left no clear answer. As long as Yugoslavia had existed, Serb control was balanced by Slovene and esp. Croat influence, which aided Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats in keeping Serb dominance at bay. Now they were part of a rump Yugoslavia defined increasingly by Serb nationalism. In 1992 they voted to leave Yugoslavia, but it was a decision the Bosnian Serbs never accepted. Instead, they waged a war to try to, if not keep Bosnia in Yugoslavia, at least keep Serb portions out of the new Bosnia.

Here it was a Bosnian civil war that even Serbia ended up staying out of, though they did aid the Bosnian Serbs with supplies and even people. Ultimately, the Bosnian Serbs became much more brutal than the Yugoslav army; their goal was a greater Serbia, which required ethnic cleansing of large areas of Bosnia. They wanted to kick Muslims out of the sections of Bosnia near the Serb border in order to use self-determination to declare it a Serb state. That "cleansing" started as simply removing people from villages and sending them West; soon it became brutal, with rape as a weapon (both sides used this, and the women would suffer -- stories of babies being killed on birth if it was suspected the woman had been impregnated by the other side, or women committing suicide rather than dishonoring the family by giving birth to one of "them"). Some massacres found all young Muslims being killed, the idea was destroy anyone who would try for revenge. It was uneven, but the Bosnian Serbs ran one of the most brutal wars in recent history. The UN set up safe havens inside Bosnian Serb territory where Muslims were to go for protection. By 1995 victory for the Bosnian Serbs appeared likely, but they worried as arms from the mid east were building up the military of the Bosnian Muslims. They decided they needed to finish the job.

They almost succeeded, as they threatened retaliation on humanitarian and UN workers if NATO were to strike. When they tried to hit Moslem safe havens to "finish the job,", the US demanded a NATO response. It hurt the Bosnian Serbs bad, and they soon retreated. In all of this, the Croats saw an opportunity, and broke the 1992 truce to take back much of Serb held Croatia, it was a big loss for the Serbs. (Note: 500,000 or so ethnic Serbs were "cleansed" from Croatia during this, and many of them are still refugees in Serbia; to the Serbs the West’s ignoring this ethnic cleansing while condemning those in Bosnia or later Kosovo represents a double standard).

Ironically, the partner for the West in all of this was Slobodan Milosevic, who wanted closer relations with the EU and was accused by the Bosnian Serbs of turning his back on them in order to placate the West. Without Milosevic’s cooperation, the Bosnian war might have continued. The Dayton Peace Accords were signed in order to end the fighting, creating a partitioned state, with Bosnia officially one country, but with large areas autonomous for the Serbs. It was and remains a tense partition, the hope is that the two sides will cool down and learn to co-exist. Whether that will ultimately succeed depends on where Serbia/Yugoslavia goes in the future, and the prospects for peace in the rest of the region.

Kosovo is where it started: in 1389 the Ottoman Turks beat the Kingdom of Serbia in the battel of Kosovo to extend the Ottoman Empire. Kosovo became a mystical place for the Serbs after that, a place they vowed to recapture and never again surrender. Kosovo is where the first disputes arose after WWII, with Tito granting the enclave autonomy within Serbia. When the Cold War was ending, it was the taking away of that autonomous status by the nationalist Milosevic regime that symbolized new Serb nationalism and spurred Croatia and Slovenia towards independence. But the question still remains: is Kosovo where the fighting will end?

Actors: Yugoslavia -- Kosovo is a part of Serbia, which made it a much different circumstance than Bosnia or Croatia. The KLA (UCK): Kosovo Liberation Army, a terrorist organization demanding Kosovar independence and self-determination: Kosovo’s population is 90% Albanian. Albania: a non-slavic Muslim ethnic group (the Albanians) were given their own state after WWI between Yugoslavia and Greece. They had been extremely isolated in the Cold War, a very poor country. Ethnic Albanians are spread between Albania and Serbia, as well as Macedonia.

1) both sides no desire for peace without getting their goals; KLA started uprising, helped by weapons sent from Albanians after Albania fell apart in 1997 (for awhile they drifted into anarchy as citizens raided government armories and stole perhaps as many as a million weapons, many of which got to the KLA). Hope: a Greater Albania. Tactics: terrorist, including killing, kidnapping, raping, and other acts against Serbs. Serbs in Kosovo cried out for assistance.

Serb response: massive! They wanted to crush the KLA, and used tactics that destroyed villages with KLA strongholds, creating human rights violations and refugees.

SERBIA: Milosevic was relying on the far right, especially a radical nationalist named Seselj, who has since condemned Milosevic for giving in, and the military, would not accept a result that was not from the UN, and did not see that Serb had sovereign rights to protect its territory from a terrorist insurgency. If Milosevic gave in to a bad deal from their stand point, he’d have been out of power.

KLA: they had gone against Rugova (the pacifist Kosovar President who wanted a peaceful effort to gain independence) and did not want a negotiated settlement short of true independence.

Result: NATO brokered a deal in Feb 1999 at Rambouillet France which no one wanted. The Serbs rejected it (one source says NATO purposefully made it something the Serbs couldn’t accept because they thought Serbia needed some bombs to convince it to go along -- IF that is true, NATO messed up in a big way, it would be one of the most arrogant mistakes in recent history...but I’m not ready to say I trust that source completely without more info, a former state department official in *Nation* magazine). KLA rejected it. But then in high level negotiations the KLA decided to sign on, even though many think they did just because they knew the Serbs wouldn’t, and that would cause NATO to join the war on their side.

Serb perspective: They are protecting their sovereignty against a terrorist insurgency, and now the terrorists bring in NATO. It’s an aggressive war of conquest from the outside!

Albanian perspective: Kosovar Albanians brutalized by Serb tactics, and leaning away from Rugova to the KLA. NATO starts bombing on March 24th: their hope -- two or three days of bombing would make the Serbs give in, just like in Bosnia. But the situation was all different:

-- In Bosnia Milosevic had turned against the Bosnian Serbs

-- In Bosnia there were two strong ground forces fighting

-- in Bosnia it wasn’t Serbia proper, esp. Not a place as important as Kosovo, which was under fire.

NATO misjudged, and instead of Serbs giving in, the Serb paramilitaries and others went crazy, starting mass ethnic cleansing and emptying all of Kosovo, much more than before.

Oops. NATO wanted to AVOID that -- one reason to get involved was to stop human rights abuses before they started. Instead, they helped initiate it, it seems. Not only that, but the air war went on for 77 days. It did little damage to the Serb military in Kosovo (much less than original NATO estimates, as they were tricky...maybe only 13 tanks were destroyed! More tractors were destroyed than tanks!) It did nothing to slow or stop the human rights abuses. But they did bomb Serbia proper. At first, Serbs rallied around Milosevic, but later they grew tired of war. But they blamed NATO first, even those who didn’t like Milosevic (which were and are many).

Why did the Serbs quit? Russia basically came down on the side of the West, though determined to make the West pay for needing their help. NATO promised a compromise to, but then reneged, but without Russian support the Serbs really had no alternative. The public was also weary of war, they never stopped hating NATO, but realized that, gee, if you’re getting beaten up and there is no chance to come back you may as well give in. But its unclear what will happen. Over 50,000 peacekeepers have been sent to the region, and now:

* the KLA and Albanians then did to the Serbs what the Serbs were doing earlier to them. Typical of the Balkans: Today’s victims are tomorrow’s perpetrators.

* Serbs are still able to some day go back, they claim.  The UN has put forth a plan, however, that leads ultimately to Kosovar independence.  Kosovo declared independence in February 2008, and has been recognized by the US and some European states.  Serbia, Russia and China refuse to accept this (and can block Kosovar entry into the UN).   So the issue is still contentious, a decade later.

War V: Macedonia – the success story?. The US has had peacekeepers in Macedonia since 1992, and hope to prevent a spread of the war that could theoretically bring in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria (though that seems less likely now). Macedonia is a divided society, with 80% Macedonians, 20% Muslims. In mid-2001 a war was brewing as the ethnic Albanians wanted to split from Macedonia. However, this time the West intervened early and used its presence in Kosovo to exert pressure and force a compromise. At this time that compromise is holding, though there are still worries that violence could erupt.