Based on archival sources and relevant literature, this paper portrays political circumstances and security situation in Western Slavonia from 1989, that is, from collapse of the communist systems in ...Europe and destabilisation of Yugoslavia by the political leadership of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, up until August 1991 when the overt Greater-Serbian Aggression started in Western Slavonia. Democratic processes in Europe also seized western Yugoslav republics, Slovenia and Croatia. These republics advocated either the restructure of Yugoslavia as a confederal state, or their independence in case that the political agreement with other republics about common state system was not feasible. Conversely, Serbian political leadership’s goal, supported by pro-Serbian oriented leadership of the federal Yugoslav People’s Army, was to impose Yugoslavia as a centralized state under the domination of Serbs, as the most numerous Yugoslav nation. After this policy failed, Serbian leadership attempted to create Greater Serbia which would comprise all territories which Serbian leadership considered as historically and ethnically a Serbian territory. Among others, that also included Western Slavonia where a certain part of population were ethnic Serbs. Part of these Serbs, as well as ethnic Serbs in certain other parts of Croatia, supported by Belgrade, gradually commenced rebellion against the Croatian authorities. Insurgency was led by representatives of Serbian Democratic Party whose centre was in town Knin. In the first phase of destabilisation the emphasis was on the thesis that the Serbs were endangered in Western Slavonia, in order to radicalize as many as possible, which was successfully implemented, and finally led to terrorist actions culminating with the open aggression in Western Slavonia.
This Article explores the transitional, post-transitional and strategic narratives about the wars in the former Yugoslavia, more specifically in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The criminal justice narrative ...created by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) dominates the transitional narratives about the Yugoslav wars. It is not uncommon that both sides - the victims and the perpetrators - express dissatisfaction with the justice outcome depending on the verdict. Transitional narratives based on the criminal trials are expected to provide clarity on the distinction between "bad" and "good" guys; between perpetrators and victims; between the criminality of the perpetrating side and the response of the victim's side. With the passage of time, all transitional narratives will be challenged by post-transitional narratives, launched by various societal and political actors for different reasons with specific objectives behind them. For example, the ruling post-conflict elites can decide to create a post-transitional narrative in which they will try to re-interpret or counter the existing transitional narratives with the goal to exonerate the policies of the predecessor regime that led to the violence by reintroducing the "politics of the past" into the "politics of the present" in the perusal of the still to be achieved political objectives of the predecessor regime. Using the example of the ICTY genocide judgments, this Article will explore how its transitional narrative of genocide has been undermined by the post-transitional narratives launched by the Serbian post-conflict elites in the perusal of the unfulfilled strategic goals of the predecessor regimes.
The relations between Serbia and Macedonia in the period from the disintegration of SFR of Yugoslavia (1991) to 2013 became the subject of the proposed considerations. They are targeted at searching ...for an answer to the question in the title about the character of the attitude of Serbia towards its southern neighbour during the last twenty years. As an introduction the issues regarding the previous stage of the relations between Serbia and Macedonia, i.e. with the Yugoslavian period (since 1943), were briefly mentioned. Through decades, within the Yugoslavian order, the links between Serbia and Macedonia were so close that only the links that the biggest of the republics of former Yugoslavia had with its smallest member, i.e. Montenegro, seemed to be closer. The situation changed rapidly when in 1991 Macedonia decided to declare sovereignty and following the precursors of the defragmentation of SFRY – Slovenia and Croatia, it started to shape its political and economic being without ties to Yugoslavia, at that time cut and stuck in the chaos and on the verge of gory conflicts. Although, from the point of view of Belgrade, Macedonia was never officially considered an enemy, and the regime of Milosevic was mainly interested in those republics of the former SFRY, which territories were numerously inhabited by Serbs (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro), in the relations between Serbia and Macedonia cooled off and the Serbian radicals (the political camp of V. Šešelj) for some time called for “dealing with” Macedonia. On the threshold of the independence of Macedonia, it turned out that the main problems which this weak country will have to tackle in the relations with the outside world, will not be connected with Serbia but other neighbours (in the text the conflicted relations between Macedonia and Greece are mentioned, as well as the tensions between Macedonia and Albania inside Macedonia together with the background presence of the issue of Kosovo; the relation between Macedonia and Bulgaria were skipped). In the 90s of the 20th century as well as in the first 13 years of the current century, the relations between Serbia and Macedonia underwent interesting transformations. They evolved from quite hostile to fairly friendly, although occasionally various political, economic and even religious problems put a shadow on them. Especially important moments, which squeezed stigma on the transforming relation between Yugoslavia/Serbia and Macedonia, were the events happening in Kosovo and northern and western Macedonia at the turn of the 21st century, the centre of which was the Albanians. The changes on top of authorities of both countries, happening during the 20 years of censorship in 1991‑2011, were also of vital importance. The interpolitical transformations of both post‑Yugoslavian countries contributed to the gradual development of their, at first frozen, relations (in the text they are analysed since the visit of Kiro Gligorov in Belgrade in 1995 and the official establishment of diplomatic relations by Macedonia and Yugoslavia, comprised of Serbia and Montenegro in 1996 to the elections in Serbia in 2011, when the president of Serbia became T. Nikolić and the prime minister I. Dačić – the first once connected with V. Šešelj, the latter with S. Milošević – who paradoxically turned out to be an advocate of the rapprochement between Serbia and Macedonia, which was expressed by inter‑governmental connections in 2013). Another issue, pointed out in the article, is the presence in the bilateral relations between Macedonia and Serbia the problem of integration of both countries and the whole west Balkan macro region with the EU, significant since the democratization of Serbia (autumn 2000). The submitted sketch is closed with an optimistic evaluation of the present conditions and perspectives of the relations between Serbia and Macedonia. It is worth underlining that they did not deteriorate when the coalition of the nationalistic party (SNS) with the socialistic (SPS) came to power in Belgrade, although some analysts predicted – wrongly as it turned out – that this kind of reconfiguration of the political scene in Serbia would not provide the relation between Serbia and Macedonia with new, positive impulses, but only difficult challenges and trials, if not dramatic crises.
At the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia lost its geopolitical significance for the United States. The President George H.W. Bush Administration tried to support these political forces in the SFRY, ...which tended to maintain the multiethnic country, for example the new Prime Minister of Yugoslavia Ante Marković, and the leader of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov. The Americans opposed the independence aspiration of Croatians and Slovenians, because they were afraid that it would lead to the ultimate falling apart of the country, which could influence the USSR. When the EC recognized Slovenia and Croatia, the Bush Administration refrained from following European countries until April 1992, considering the consequences for Bosnia and Macedonia. The peaceful and democratic nature of Macedonia’s independence placed the republic in a good position to be recognized by the United States. But Greece led a vigorous campaign against the recognition of Macedonia and the Administration of George H.W. Bush was worried that a conflict between Greece and Macedonia could spark a regional conflict in which Greece and Turkey, two members of the NATO, could clash against each other. One influence on the decision of the Bush Administration was the Greek lobby in the United States, which actively engaged in the Macedonian case and the 1992 presidential campaign. Concurrently, without establishing official diplomatic relations with Macedonia, the Americans engaged in the works of the CSCE mission and supported the preventive deployment of “blue helmets” to appease the domestic situation and contain neighbours from aggressive steps. “The Macedonian Problem,” as the bloody war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, remained unravelled by George H.W. Bush and became a problem for his successor in the White House.
PDF
