"Croatia obstructing returns"

The Law on Agricultural Land raises the same questions, as its application entails further confiscation of Serb property, the deletion of Serbs’ names from land and electoral registers and legalizing the results of ethnic cleansing, it was stated at the press conference.
--
Disgusting! There was a time when a condition for Croatia's EU entry meant resolving these issues but that was conveniently dropped. I wonder why?

No morals, no values and no ethics it seems.

There should be no entry to the EU for Croatia until there is a much more substantial return of refugees - particularly to Krajina. This was a very bad ethnic cleansing which is still a matter of pride for many Croats. They still glory in a crime - and I see no place for that attitude within the EU.

It is not well known that many innocent and decent Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia very early on in the conflict. This (in my experience) includes professional people who were born in Zagreb and worked as engineers - people who were not anything to do with the violence but who were deeply hurt by the hatred they experienced while being forced from their homes. Croatia was born out of that kind of fascism - and that shame has not yet been properly faced.

I question attitudes within Croatia - currently these matters remain largely unanswered. Croatia should not join the EU until there is at least a feeling that the fascist past has been properly addressed.

Well considering that most EU nations enthusiastically destroyed so many civilian targets in Serbia in 1999, such as school and hospitals, and seeing that most EU countries recognize Kosovo breaking off... then the only logical thing is for Croatia to join this organization.

I believe if any property taken away illegally from citizens in breakaway countries should be returned to them. Even if they are no longer welcomed there or decide not to live there they should have the right to sell their property and move on with their lives, And not be cheated out of their hard work and investments and become homeless.It seems to me that Serbs have suffered enough and have been robbed of a lot of property why should they tolerate this and just forget about it. Nobody likes to have their home taken away and fall on the governments back .

The Balkans is often a source of hyperboli and this article is no exception. People there are paranoid and quick to resort to theories of victimisation and conspiracy.

What happened in Croatia in the early 1990's was a power shift - those in power (predominantly Yugoslav oriented communists) lost power to Croatia-oriented communists (like Tudjman) who replaced the existing cadre with their own cronies. This meant that the hard core card carrying communists lost their privelages and it just so happens that alot of them were Croatian Serbs. In the west we would call this a change in administration and readily accept it - the only difference being that in places like the US, UK and Australia, their is a degree of meritocracy behind appointments. But as happens when their is a loss of a gravy train, the losers are quick to cry foul.

With regard to police positions - a conflict with Federal institutions was envisaged as possible (even military conflict), so it was important that police units were loyal to the republic (more critical given that territorials had been disarmed by the JNA). Refusal by any police unit to swear loyalty to the republic made it untenable to maintain them in those critical positions.

Moving on to operation storm, putting aside any opportunism displayed in property destruction post the operation, it is hard to ignore the fact that most Serbs fled, ordered out by their own leadership, but also prejudiced by their own refusal to live in any Croat state. One should note the observation by Ivo Goldstein, the Jewish Croatian historian, that because Croatian Serbs wanted an exclusively Serb Greater Serb state, the concept of multiethnic states or minroities co-existing with majority communities was beyond their comprehension and thus it was inconcievable that they would live in any Croat state.

It could be observed that the treatment of Croatian Serbs has been largely benign but credible given international comparisons or any precedent in the region - one only has to look to the treatment of the VolksDeutch by Serb partisans post WWII to or Srebrenica for a more recent example.

In this case the Croatian governement ultimately had to move forward and make decisions re property status otherwise economic reintegration in the region would have been held up as well as the wider regional economic development. Note that we are talking privatisation of state owned property - the notion of property rights of individuals is misleading and confers a status that was a rarety for the communist countries. One need not look far to see that there are many more Croats than Serbs that are unhappy with the privatisation processes.

It would be nice if B2 considers taking the historical documents and realizes that prior to operation Storm Croatian Serbs were ordered to leave Croatia by their local leaders.This is the historical fact and these Serbs moved on their own prior to Croatian forces came to the area of so called Krajina.To try to blame Croatian forces for exodus of Krajina Serbs is not fair and not true.Their local leaders ordered Serbs from Krajina to move,and they followed their leaders. The question is how many non Serb population returned to etnicaly "cleansed" Republika Srbska?
If B2 is to be trusted then they could write down the percentage of returned Serbs to Croatia and on the other hand returned Croats or Bosniaks to Republika Srbska.It is not a brain surgery to put down the facts in numbers or percentages of exiled population.

So, if I understand correctly: simply because the Serbia populations of Croatia, namely the region of Krajina, were encouraged to leave a WAR ZONE by their leaders, and flee to the safe havens of refugee camps in Serbia, that Croatian military actions should not be held accountable? This is what I understood Mark and Vlado. How interesting a point you have. It would seem that you would have prefered that these civilians stay and fight and get assistance from their leader's and leader's backers as were the cases in Vukovar and the whole of the Slaviona region. But, not to be a total prat, when the Serbian's in Croatia, namely the Slavonia region fought back they were demonized.
As for the non serbs that have or haven't returned to the Bosnia sub entity known as Republica Srpska, can we as the opposite question? How many Serbs have returned to the Bosnian Federation? How many Serbs live in refugee camps to this very day within Serbia?
At the end of the day this was a WAR. I have yet to read about friendly peaceful wars where nobody gets killed, no civilians are displaced, not refugees are created. If you have found one please by all means teach the world to sing.
Furthermore, when you are insiunating that B92 is not being impartial, let it be remembered that there are, and never were and impartial news outlets regarding the recent wars of the Balkans. The western median demoized all Serbians with the same brush, yet never once mentioned any stories of opposite flavouring. Please, let us be reasonable thinking adults. Of course atrocities accoured at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries throughout the Blakans. These haters have been imprisoned; somehwere near 100 so far, yet less than 5 of all other paramilitaries' atroticous demons have been imprisoned. This seems like a staggering imbalance. We cannot truely compare this to WWII, since to my knowledge the German population didn't cry foul against the Jews. This is more comparable to the Isreal/Palestine conflict. Both sides are wrong, yet one is supported by the West and is thusly written up as being right in all western biased media, and the other side is written up as being right in all the non-western biased media.

At the end of the day, regardless of why these people left, the deserve the fairness that the west so often talks about. All of the peoples of the Balkan, all tremendous nationalistic (or patriotic depending on which side you subsribe to) idiots who have had this nationalism rooted so deeply within their souls, by the countless misuses of the West and East and anywhere else, have this right to live, work and die in dignity.
The biggest challange is dealing with the false face of democracy. There are no democractic governments that actually care about the populations they supposedly work for, only goverments that care about the moeny that can be made.

Hi Jazzy Jeff, the significance of the ordering out of the civilians is it makes blaming the Croatian military for the exodus uncredible because of the circular argument involved -> the Serb leaders ordered the people out because of the impending Croat military operation - but the Croat military operation would not have taken place had it not been the Serb military operation which looked to consolidate control over the disputed territory.

You have overlooked a fundamental point in your argument for moral equivalence and that is the degree of moral and criminal culpability. More specifically the state of Serbia (or better put the Serbian political elite) carries a greater culpability than any of the other players in the former Yugoslavia because it had a huge political sway of many of the combatants early on in the conflict, had most of the military might and financed, cooridnated or implemented most of the military operations. Indeed, an international court held the state of Serbia guilty of failing to stop genocide w.r.t Srebrenica.

The problem with the equivalence argument is it requires an unreasonable standard for the moral higher ground thus rendering everyone guilty. By what standard is a combantant considered a "bad guy" or a "good guy". War is war as you say - but it's not just how the war is carried out but the reason for the war. In regard to the Yugoslav conflict, the equivalence argument is an extension of the "no winner no losers" policy favored by the Nordic countries and espoused by Carl Bildt - a share the blame group therapy session policy view for rehabilitation of the region. However it isn't working because it ignores the primary causes of the conflict and that is the politics of Serbian expansionism.

The Croatian military action in 1995 had the aims of relieving the siege of Bihac and thus avoid a potential repeat of Srebrenica, but also the reintegration of the Serb held areas which was economically crippling the country. Note that the operation was prompted by a change in the regional balance which would thwart eventual reintegration of the UN zones. Even in the ICTY trial of Gotovina et al, there is no question mark over the legitimacy of the operation, just over the methods employed and even then it appears to be a weak case.

In considering moral culpability for the conflict, one may factor in
(i) who was attacking who;
(ii) for what purpose;
(iii) and resulting quantum of suffering and damage (deaths; permanently disabled; psychological injury; economic and property damage).

Re (i), Serbian dominated JNA forces attacked Croatia as evidenced by the tanks rolling down from Belgrade with floral tributes on their way to vukovar.

Re (ii), the purpose was to expand territory controlled by the Serbian elite in the Jugoslav communist party and obtain key economic resources (oil & tourism). The pretext of protecting the Serb minority was shown to be a ruse by the attack on Dubrovnik and the focus on the Eastern Slavonia oil fields which were majority Croat populated.

Re (iii), approx 14,000 people died, much of Croatia's infrastructure was destroyed or pilaged (refer to parts of Dubrovnik airport facilities that were removed and taken to Montenegro), not to mention of significant loss of it's knowledge and labour potential (here I am referring to the Serb minority that left). By virtue of the theatre of war occuring within Croatia, Serbia was unscathed by that war. If we look to another measure, the number of war crimes, a CIA analysis found that 90% of war crimes were committed by Serb forces - this correlates to a degree with the ICTY convictions.

The notion that it was about 100 paramilitaries that commited attrocities is flawed - it was a Serb dominated JNA and it integrated components in the VRS and VRSK that did most of the damage. From Vukovar to Dubrovnik, it was the JNA that left a scarred landscape. There is even the bizzare case of a JNA Navy destroyer bombing the very city (Split I believe) it was named after!

The unfortunate reality is that Milosevic is not as culpable as that - he was only an opportunist, a career politician that took advantage of the main undercurrent of the then society and political class and that is Greater Serb nationalism. Unfortunately this point has not be addressed nor openly discussed and thus remains a running sore in the relations between Serbia and the rest of the region. It is the reason that Serbia has lost Kosovo.

Mark, I thank you for you elloqunalty state point. There is much honesty and truth in it. However, I did notice that you're viewing the whole conflicts of the Blakans in the 1990s within its own time vaccum, so to say. What I found most disheartening is the total disregard for historical references in everything involving these wars. The attitudes of the West maintained a "look to the future, forget the past" attitude throughout, and continue to do so. This is where I think much of the misunderstanding lies. Of course, I would agree that very few if any wars are truely just with respect to the populous and their needs etc. Most wars are fought over territorial/economic motivations. As that was true in the former Jugoslavia for the most part, there was also the catalyst of historical conflicts and unresolved issues. Under General Tito's control all parties of Jugoslavia had to play nice with eachother, all the atrocities of the past were not dealt with but swept under the rug; here I'm specifically refering to the Ustashe regime of WWII. This regime, as blood thirsty or more so, than the Serb retaliatory regime (as it was generally felt as an agreesive defense policy -- have strong control over the area before the Ustashe regime reinstates itself and brutally murders the populations). The Croatian party of the 1990s reinstated the WWII nazi symbol, which they still carry on their national flag. This would be like Germany placing the swastika back on their flag.

An you mentioned Kosovo. Well there is an example of a successful self evacuation policy. Much like the Serbian leaders in the Krajina region had their nationals leave for safety, so did the Kosovar leaders. However the difference is that the Serb nationals that fled Croatia did not get the chance to return (other than proper lip service) and that the K-Albanians were given the land. The dynamics of the mass migrations is rather easy to follow. 1/2 million or so Serbs were evacuated from Croatia, with the perception that return was not possible. These peoples went to Serbia and many other countries throughout the world. The principled notion was that since Croatia gets a relatively ethnically pure country then so should everyone else. Not that this notion is correct, but it is what it is.
And I do beleive that you are mistaken in your demographics of the Slavonia region. This, by its name is a Serbian region, but also by the poulation base prior to 1990s. Infact it was a primarily mixed region that kept fairly seperated within itself. Vukovar was predominatly Serbian, Osiek and Vinkovci were predominently Croatia and the sprinkling of villages in the region were prediminantly Serbian. It was a perfect storm situation, when one considers the history of the area.
What has always been a sore point with me was the lack of attempt to understand the undercurrents and see what the motivation for the peoples and paramilitiaries was. It is generally clear why a Proper military does anything (WWII Germans -- kill the jews, 2003/4 Iraq -- reclaim the oil) Governments are rarely good, but why did the people fight their former neighbours, their old friends whom they had visit and who visited them? Families that were mixed fought eachother.
The punishments have been handed down to the people, because the political elite will always stay fat and wealthy, but the people who were scared, who were backed into their proverbial corners, the people who had nothing left to lose but their lives have been punished the most and they continue to be punished. The elite tapped into this fear, on both side, all three sides, all four, five, six sides.
It is fair to say that the JNA caused some of the heaviest phyiscal damage to infrstructures and such things, while the West's attitude has caused the most damage to the Serbian population, the innocent peoples who just wanted to protect what was thiers as did every other civilian. The other countries of the former Jugoslavia have been given assistance to repair their infrastructues, while Serbia still houses the largest refugee population in the region and still has not been repayed properly for the non-militarty targeted damage done by the NATO bombing campaign.
As i said, war is war, its messy and ugly, but when it is hypocratically orchestrated then I feel my peoples have done a grave wrong to all of the peoples in the Balkans. Unless the EU can reign in these hatreds, deal with the history fairly, it won't be more than 1 or 2 generations before it flairs up again. My understanding of the history in the region is that there hasn't been a 3 consecutive generations in the Balkans without a wr of some sort. Belgrade has been burned to the ground and risen from the ashes countless times. This is what we, the West forget. Churchill knew better and said it would best to let these peoples figure it out themselves, for without honest reflection the problem will never go away unless it can be held down tight for 3,4,5 generations; enough time for the wounds to heal and memories to fade.

Mark, thank you again for you honest and candid commenting. I feel that we generally agree, but have a few subtle points to share with eachother in hopes of exposing a different view point.
May you have a merry Christmas (I guess had at this point) and a happy new year.

The Law on Agricultural Land raises the same questions, as its application entails further confiscation of Serb property, the deletion of Serbs’ names from land and electoral registers and legalizing the results of ethnic cleansing, it was stated at the press conference.
--
Disgusting! There was a time when a condition for Croatia's EU entry meant resolving these issues but that was conveniently dropped. I wonder why?

No morals, no values and no ethics it seems.

There should be no entry to the EU for Croatia until there is a much more substantial return of refugees - particularly to Krajina. This was a very bad ethnic cleansing which is still a matter of pride for many Croats. They still glory in a crime - and I see no place for that attitude within the EU.

It is not well known that many innocent and decent Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia very early on in the conflict. This (in my experience) includes professional people who were born in Zagreb and worked as engineers - people who were not anything to do with the violence but who were deeply hurt by the hatred they experienced while being forced from their homes. Croatia was born out of that kind of fascism - and that shame has not yet been properly faced.

I question attitudes within Croatia - currently these matters remain largely unanswered. Croatia should not join the EU until there is at least a feeling that the fascist past has been properly addressed.

Well considering that most EU nations enthusiastically destroyed so many civilian targets in Serbia in 1999, such as school and hospitals, and seeing that most EU countries recognize Kosovo breaking off... then the only logical thing is for Croatia to join this organization.

I believe if any property taken away illegally from citizens in breakaway countries should be returned to them. Even if they are no longer welcomed there or decide not to live there they should have the right to sell their property and move on with their lives, And not be cheated out of their hard work and investments and become homeless.It seems to me that Serbs have suffered enough and have been robbed of a lot of property why should they tolerate this and just forget about it. Nobody likes to have their home taken away and fall on the governments back .

The Balkans is often a source of hyperboli and this article is no exception. People there are paranoid and quick to resort to theories of victimisation and conspiracy.

What happened in Croatia in the early 1990's was a power shift - those in power (predominantly Yugoslav oriented communists) lost power to Croatia-oriented communists (like Tudjman) who replaced the existing cadre with their own cronies. This meant that the hard core card carrying communists lost their privelages and it just so happens that alot of them were Croatian Serbs. In the west we would call this a change in administration and readily accept it - the only difference being that in places like the US, UK and Australia, their is a degree of meritocracy behind appointments. But as happens when their is a loss of a gravy train, the losers are quick to cry foul.

With regard to police positions - a conflict with Federal institutions was envisaged as possible (even military conflict), so it was important that police units were loyal to the republic (more critical given that territorials had been disarmed by the JNA). Refusal by any police unit to swear loyalty to the republic made it untenable to maintain them in those critical positions.

Moving on to operation storm, putting aside any opportunism displayed in property destruction post the operation, it is hard to ignore the fact that most Serbs fled, ordered out by their own leadership, but also prejudiced by their own refusal to live in any Croat state. One should note the observation by Ivo Goldstein, the Jewish Croatian historian, that because Croatian Serbs wanted an exclusively Serb Greater Serb state, the concept of multiethnic states or minroities co-existing with majority communities was beyond their comprehension and thus it was inconcievable that they would live in any Croat state.

It could be observed that the treatment of Croatian Serbs has been largely benign but credible given international comparisons or any precedent in the region - one only has to look to the treatment of the VolksDeutch by Serb partisans post WWII to or Srebrenica for a more recent example.

In this case the Croatian governement ultimately had to move forward and make decisions re property status otherwise economic reintegration in the region would have been held up as well as the wider regional economic development. Note that we are talking privatisation of state owned property - the notion of property rights of individuals is misleading and confers a status that was a rarety for the communist countries. One need not look far to see that there are many more Croats than Serbs that are unhappy with the privatisation processes.

It would be nice if B2 considers taking the historical documents and realizes that prior to operation Storm Croatian Serbs were ordered to leave Croatia by their local leaders.This is the historical fact and these Serbs moved on their own prior to Croatian forces came to the area of so called Krajina.To try to blame Croatian forces for exodus of Krajina Serbs is not fair and not true.Their local leaders ordered Serbs from Krajina to move,and they followed their leaders. The question is how many non Serb population returned to etnicaly "cleansed" Republika Srbska?
If B2 is to be trusted then they could write down the percentage of returned Serbs to Croatia and on the other hand returned Croats or Bosniaks to Republika Srbska.It is not a brain surgery to put down the facts in numbers or percentages of exiled population.

So, if I understand correctly: simply because the Serbia populations of Croatia, namely the region of Krajina, were encouraged to leave a WAR ZONE by their leaders, and flee to the safe havens of refugee camps in Serbia, that Croatian military actions should not be held accountable? This is what I understood Mark and Vlado. How interesting a point you have. It would seem that you would have prefered that these civilians stay and fight and get assistance from their leader's and leader's backers as were the cases in Vukovar and the whole of the Slaviona region. But, not to be a total prat, when the Serbian's in Croatia, namely the Slavonia region fought back they were demonized.
As for the non serbs that have or haven't returned to the Bosnia sub entity known as Republica Srpska, can we as the opposite question? How many Serbs have returned to the Bosnian Federation? How many Serbs live in refugee camps to this very day within Serbia?
At the end of the day this was a WAR. I have yet to read about friendly peaceful wars where nobody gets killed, no civilians are displaced, not refugees are created. If you have found one please by all means teach the world to sing.
Furthermore, when you are insiunating that B92 is not being impartial, let it be remembered that there are, and never were and impartial news outlets regarding the recent wars of the Balkans. The western median demoized all Serbians with the same brush, yet never once mentioned any stories of opposite flavouring. Please, let us be reasonable thinking adults. Of course atrocities accoured at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries throughout the Blakans. These haters have been imprisoned; somehwere near 100 so far, yet less than 5 of all other paramilitaries' atroticous demons have been imprisoned. This seems like a staggering imbalance. We cannot truely compare this to WWII, since to my knowledge the German population didn't cry foul against the Jews. This is more comparable to the Isreal/Palestine conflict. Both sides are wrong, yet one is supported by the West and is thusly written up as being right in all western biased media, and the other side is written up as being right in all the non-western biased media.

At the end of the day, regardless of why these people left, the deserve the fairness that the west so often talks about. All of the peoples of the Balkan, all tremendous nationalistic (or patriotic depending on which side you subsribe to) idiots who have had this nationalism rooted so deeply within their souls, by the countless misuses of the West and East and anywhere else, have this right to live, work and die in dignity.
The biggest challange is dealing with the false face of democracy. There are no democractic governments that actually care about the populations they supposedly work for, only goverments that care about the moeny that can be made.

Hi Jazzy Jeff, the significance of the ordering out of the civilians is it makes blaming the Croatian military for the exodus uncredible because of the circular argument involved -> the Serb leaders ordered the people out because of the impending Croat military operation - but the Croat military operation would not have taken place had it not been the Serb military operation which looked to consolidate control over the disputed territory.

You have overlooked a fundamental point in your argument for moral equivalence and that is the degree of moral and criminal culpability. More specifically the state of Serbia (or better put the Serbian political elite) carries a greater culpability than any of the other players in the former Yugoslavia because it had a huge political sway of many of the combatants early on in the conflict, had most of the military might and financed, cooridnated or implemented most of the military operations. Indeed, an international court held the state of Serbia guilty of failing to stop genocide w.r.t Srebrenica.

The problem with the equivalence argument is it requires an unreasonable standard for the moral higher ground thus rendering everyone guilty. By what standard is a combantant considered a "bad guy" or a "good guy". War is war as you say - but it's not just how the war is carried out but the reason for the war. In regard to the Yugoslav conflict, the equivalence argument is an extension of the "no winner no losers" policy favored by the Nordic countries and espoused by Carl Bildt - a share the blame group therapy session policy view for rehabilitation of the region. However it isn't working because it ignores the primary causes of the conflict and that is the politics of Serbian expansionism.

The Croatian military action in 1995 had the aims of relieving the siege of Bihac and thus avoid a potential repeat of Srebrenica, but also the reintegration of the Serb held areas which was economically crippling the country. Note that the operation was prompted by a change in the regional balance which would thwart eventual reintegration of the UN zones. Even in the ICTY trial of Gotovina et al, there is no question mark over the legitimacy of the operation, just over the methods employed and even then it appears to be a weak case.

In considering moral culpability for the conflict, one may factor in
(i) who was attacking who;
(ii) for what purpose;
(iii) and resulting quantum of suffering and damage (deaths; permanently disabled; psychological injury; economic and property damage).

Re (i), Serbian dominated JNA forces attacked Croatia as evidenced by the tanks rolling down from Belgrade with floral tributes on their way to vukovar.

Re (ii), the purpose was to expand territory controlled by the Serbian elite in the Jugoslav communist party and obtain key economic resources (oil & tourism). The pretext of protecting the Serb minority was shown to be a ruse by the attack on Dubrovnik and the focus on the Eastern Slavonia oil fields which were majority Croat populated.

Re (iii), approx 14,000 people died, much of Croatia's infrastructure was destroyed or pilaged (refer to parts of Dubrovnik airport facilities that were removed and taken to Montenegro), not to mention of significant loss of it's knowledge and labour potential (here I am referring to the Serb minority that left). By virtue of the theatre of war occuring within Croatia, Serbia was unscathed by that war. If we look to another measure, the number of war crimes, a CIA analysis found that 90% of war crimes were committed by Serb forces - this correlates to a degree with the ICTY convictions.

The notion that it was about 100 paramilitaries that commited attrocities is flawed - it was a Serb dominated JNA and it integrated components in the VRS and VRSK that did most of the damage. From Vukovar to Dubrovnik, it was the JNA that left a scarred landscape. There is even the bizzare case of a JNA Navy destroyer bombing the very city (Split I believe) it was named after!

The unfortunate reality is that Milosevic is not as culpable as that - he was only an opportunist, a career politician that took advantage of the main undercurrent of the then society and political class and that is Greater Serb nationalism. Unfortunately this point has not be addressed nor openly discussed and thus remains a running sore in the relations between Serbia and the rest of the region. It is the reason that Serbia has lost Kosovo.

Mark, I thank you for you elloqunalty state point. There is much honesty and truth in it. However, I did notice that you're viewing the whole conflicts of the Blakans in the 1990s within its own time vaccum, so to say. What I found most disheartening is the total disregard for historical references in everything involving these wars. The attitudes of the West maintained a "look to the future, forget the past" attitude throughout, and continue to do so. This is where I think much of the misunderstanding lies. Of course, I would agree that very few if any wars are truely just with respect to the populous and their needs etc. Most wars are fought over territorial/economic motivations. As that was true in the former Jugoslavia for the most part, there was also the catalyst of historical conflicts and unresolved issues. Under General Tito's control all parties of Jugoslavia had to play nice with eachother, all the atrocities of the past were not dealt with but swept under the rug; here I'm specifically refering to the Ustashe regime of WWII. This regime, as blood thirsty or more so, than the Serb retaliatory regime (as it was generally felt as an agreesive defense policy -- have strong control over the area before the Ustashe regime reinstates itself and brutally murders the populations). The Croatian party of the 1990s reinstated the WWII nazi symbol, which they still carry on their national flag. This would be like Germany placing the swastika back on their flag.

An you mentioned Kosovo. Well there is an example of a successful self evacuation policy. Much like the Serbian leaders in the Krajina region had their nationals leave for safety, so did the Kosovar leaders. However the difference is that the Serb nationals that fled Croatia did not get the chance to return (other than proper lip service) and that the K-Albanians were given the land. The dynamics of the mass migrations is rather easy to follow. 1/2 million or so Serbs were evacuated from Croatia, with the perception that return was not possible. These peoples went to Serbia and many other countries throughout the world. The principled notion was that since Croatia gets a relatively ethnically pure country then so should everyone else. Not that this notion is correct, but it is what it is.
And I do beleive that you are mistaken in your demographics of the Slavonia region. This, by its name is a Serbian region, but also by the poulation base prior to 1990s. Infact it was a primarily mixed region that kept fairly seperated within itself. Vukovar was predominatly Serbian, Osiek and Vinkovci were predominently Croatia and the sprinkling of villages in the region were prediminantly Serbian. It was a perfect storm situation, when one considers the history of the area.
What has always been a sore point with me was the lack of attempt to understand the undercurrents and see what the motivation for the peoples and paramilitiaries was. It is generally clear why a Proper military does anything (WWII Germans -- kill the jews, 2003/4 Iraq -- reclaim the oil) Governments are rarely good, but why did the people fight their former neighbours, their old friends whom they had visit and who visited them? Families that were mixed fought eachother.
The punishments have been handed down to the people, because the political elite will always stay fat and wealthy, but the people who were scared, who were backed into their proverbial corners, the people who had nothing left to lose but their lives have been punished the most and they continue to be punished. The elite tapped into this fear, on both side, all three sides, all four, five, six sides.
It is fair to say that the JNA caused some of the heaviest phyiscal damage to infrstructures and such things, while the West's attitude has caused the most damage to the Serbian population, the innocent peoples who just wanted to protect what was thiers as did every other civilian. The other countries of the former Jugoslavia have been given assistance to repair their infrastructues, while Serbia still houses the largest refugee population in the region and still has not been repayed properly for the non-militarty targeted damage done by the NATO bombing campaign.
As i said, war is war, its messy and ugly, but when it is hypocratically orchestrated then I feel my peoples have done a grave wrong to all of the peoples in the Balkans. Unless the EU can reign in these hatreds, deal with the history fairly, it won't be more than 1 or 2 generations before it flairs up again. My understanding of the history in the region is that there hasn't been a 3 consecutive generations in the Balkans without a wr of some sort. Belgrade has been burned to the ground and risen from the ashes countless times. This is what we, the West forget. Churchill knew better and said it would best to let these peoples figure it out themselves, for without honest reflection the problem will never go away unless it can be held down tight for 3,4,5 generations; enough time for the wounds to heal and memories to fade.

Mark, thank you again for you honest and candid commenting. I feel that we generally agree, but have a few subtle points to share with eachother in hopes of exposing a different view point.
May you have a merry Christmas (I guess had at this point) and a happy new year.