Military operations were legitimate, ex-Croat president says

“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate"

Its odd I don't remember him saying this about the JNA at the time...

"“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate"

REALLY??
So then why does Croatia support the succession of Kosovo?
This is not just a case of stupidity and hypocrisy, This is also criminal!

"If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate" the former Croat president was quoted as saying.

Interesting opinion. Anyone said Ko*o*o?

Hey, Stjepan just not in your backyard?

Mesić, hummmm...does hypocrit come to mind?

The jNA was the personal tool of Serbia at that time because the confederation of Yugoslavia who constitutionally legally allowed each republics to leave, stopped to exist and just became a tool of Greater Serbia.

Let me enlighten you enlightenment.

"The jNA was the personal tool of Serbia at that time because the confederation of Yugoslavia who constitutionally legally allowed each republics to leave..."

Not so. Yugoslavia was not confederation, but federation, state union not union of the states.
Yu - constitution never allowed each republic to leave, but constituent nations - not to Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia...but to Slovens, Croats, Serbs....on their ethnic territory.

Yugoslavia was made up of "narodi i narodnosti" meaning "constituent nations and national minorities".
"Narodi" (Constituent nations) were ethnic groups authentic to Yugoslavia, such as Croats or Serbs, while "narodnosti" (national minorities) had their "domicile state" elsewhere - like Italians in Istria (Italy), Albanians in Kosovo (Albania) or Hungarians (Hungary).

Basic difference in rights between constituent nations and national minorities was that first group had "right to self-determination including separation" (pravo na samoopredjeljenje do odcjepljenja) while "narodnosti" did not have this right.

But, pay attention here - this right was given to nations not to republics!

Think about it - on Nov 29th 1943 AVNOJ conference in Jajce decided that Yugoslavia will have six republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia.
However, early coat-of-arms of Yugoslavia had five torches, here is a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_Arms_of_SFR_Yugoslavia_-_1943-1963.svg

Five torches, six republics - why?
Torches represent constituent nations - Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrines and Macedonians.

Bosnian Muslims were originally regarded as either ethnic Croats or Serbs of islamic faith.
Later they, too were recognized as constituent nation, resulting in coat-of-arms having six torches, that still represented sovereign nations, not republics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emblem_of_SFR_Yugoslavia.svg

This is nothing new in international law and is written in Montevideo Agreement, Helsinki Final Act, and numerous other international laws, agreements and treaties...

As for national minorities, they never had right to self-determination, and that's not something new either.

One of the first such cases was Aaland Island, still today part of Finland but populated with Swede population ( 96 % ).
League of Nations (equivalent of UN today) deliberated on the issue of Swede self-determination and reached the conclusion in 1921.

http://www.kulturstiftelsen.ax/traktater/eng_fr/1921a_en.htm

"1. The sovereignty of the Aaland Islands is recognised to belong to Finland;"

and parts like

"3. The new guarantees to be inserted in the autonomy law should specially aim at the preservation of the Swedish language in the schools,..."

In lengthy explanation League of Nation concluded that Swedes "have exercised their right to self-determination by very existence of state of Sweden and Swede population outside this state is to be considered a national minority. Their right of self-determination is considered "consumed". Giving national minorities would create dangerous precedent that would allow for shift of borders between many countries, and great instability in the world, further more considering greater mobility in today's world (this is in 1921) when populations are migrating more then in the past. Precedent would form basis of nearly constant border changes..."

Same applies to let's say South Tyrol, that is German-speaking, but part of Italy.

Document was later taken as basis for most international laws in regard to this issue. It also provided basis for rights of national minorities - such as OSCE minority rules that stipulated that minorities have right to preserve their language and heritage, including right to elementary education in their own language.
This, mind you, is observed in Serbia, for example, where Bulgarians have elementary education in Bulgarian, and Hungarians in Hungarian, (Albanians I will not mention, because they had Universities in their own language...).
OSCE rules were not observed in Croatia, for example, that banned Cyrillic and use of Serbian worlds....even if we take it that Serbs were minority, which in Yugoslavia they were not, just like Croats were not.

Internal borders are considered administrative borders and find me a single international law that states that those cannot be changed.

Example, Tibetans, according to Helsinki Final Act don't have state of Tibet, and thus should be considered constituent nation in China - with right to self-determination!
Should China try to divide Tibet between nearby Chinese - majority provinces to make them a minority in each one - this should not matter in the end as Tibetans would be entitled to form their own state on their "ethnic territory". Administrative borders don't matter.

If there is a rule of law, that is...

On the other hand, Albanians with existence of Albania would not have such right, as their right would be "consumed". Outside Albania they would be minority, without right to self-determination....

So, enlighten yourself.
Just so that you know. But, don't worry. International laws don't really matter, it's just on the paper. Law without law enforcement is nothing. But with "rouge states" like China, USA, most of EU...
Who can make them respect the law?

“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate..."

-- I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this line of logic that not only justifies Milosevic's crackdown in Kosovo in 1999 but also the JNA's crackdown in Croatia in 1992 was completely lost on him.

Has Mesic made public statements about his position on Kosovo? It seems to me that he would be most unwise to go on the record as supporting Albanian secession.

Personally, I find it more interesting that this article discusses his comments on Bosnia. He seems to be lending support to the rumor that Milosevic and Tudjman had a plan to carve up ex-Yu all along.

Zoran, sj, Aleks...what say you?

Interesting summary, Sreten, worth a read! Thumbs up!

"If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity."

WHY?

Sreten's comment so far deserves to be regarded as the best comment written on B92 ever.
Thank you, Sreten.

"Personally, I find it more interesting that this article discusses his comments on Bosnia. He seems to be lending support to the rumor that Milosevic and Tudjman had a plan to carve up ex-Yu all along."
(Nenad, 10 July 2011 19:47)

A rumor, a lie. Everybody knows that it was THE WEST that had plans to split up ex-Yu ;-)

You could read a lot into Mesices statement, but for once I can see the human side of him. Memories can be painfull and sometimes refuse to go away.

Ataman,

You're very kind in your remarks about Sreten's post, and while I do agree that he makes good points about international law and the failure of many countries to abide by said law, he fails to explain for us why official JNA policy differed with regard to Slovenia (barely engaged by the JNA), Croatia (heavily engaged by the JNA), Bosnia (briefly engaged by the JNA) and Macedonia (not engaged by the JNA at all).

The jNA was the personal tool of Serbia at that time because the confederation of Yugoslavia who constitutionally legally allowed each republics to leave, stopped to exist and just became a tool of Greater Serbia.

“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate"

Its odd I don't remember him saying this about the JNA at the time...

"“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate"

REALLY??
So then why does Croatia support the succession of Kosovo?
This is not just a case of stupidity and hypocrisy, This is also criminal!

Hey, Stjepan just not in your backyard?

Mesić, hummmm...does hypocrit come to mind?

Has Mesic made public statements about his position on Kosovo? It seems to me that he would be most unwise to go on the record as supporting Albanian secession.

Personally, I find it more interesting that this article discusses his comments on Bosnia. He seems to be lending support to the rumor that Milosevic and Tudjman had a plan to carve up ex-Yu all along.

Zoran, sj, Aleks...what say you?

"If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate" the former Croat president was quoted as saying.

Interesting opinion. Anyone said Ko*o*o?

Let me enlighten you enlightenment.

"The jNA was the personal tool of Serbia at that time because the confederation of Yugoslavia who constitutionally legally allowed each republics to leave..."

Not so. Yugoslavia was not confederation, but federation, state union not union of the states.
Yu - constitution never allowed each republic to leave, but constituent nations - not to Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia...but to Slovens, Croats, Serbs....on their ethnic territory.

Yugoslavia was made up of "narodi i narodnosti" meaning "constituent nations and national minorities".
"Narodi" (Constituent nations) were ethnic groups authentic to Yugoslavia, such as Croats or Serbs, while "narodnosti" (national minorities) had their "domicile state" elsewhere - like Italians in Istria (Italy), Albanians in Kosovo (Albania) or Hungarians (Hungary).

Basic difference in rights between constituent nations and national minorities was that first group had "right to self-determination including separation" (pravo na samoopredjeljenje do odcjepljenja) while "narodnosti" did not have this right.

But, pay attention here - this right was given to nations not to republics!

Think about it - on Nov 29th 1943 AVNOJ conference in Jajce decided that Yugoslavia will have six republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia.
However, early coat-of-arms of Yugoslavia had five torches, here is a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_Arms_of_SFR_Yugoslavia_-_1943-1963.svg

Five torches, six republics - why?
Torches represent constituent nations - Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrines and Macedonians.

Bosnian Muslims were originally regarded as either ethnic Croats or Serbs of islamic faith.
Later they, too were recognized as constituent nation, resulting in coat-of-arms having six torches, that still represented sovereign nations, not republics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emblem_of_SFR_Yugoslavia.svg

This is nothing new in international law and is written in Montevideo Agreement, Helsinki Final Act, and numerous other international laws, agreements and treaties...

As for national minorities, they never had right to self-determination, and that's not something new either.

One of the first such cases was Aaland Island, still today part of Finland but populated with Swede population ( 96 % ).
League of Nations (equivalent of UN today) deliberated on the issue of Swede self-determination and reached the conclusion in 1921.

http://www.kulturstiftelsen.ax/traktater/eng_fr/1921a_en.htm

"1. The sovereignty of the Aaland Islands is recognised to belong to Finland;"

and parts like

"3. The new guarantees to be inserted in the autonomy law should specially aim at the preservation of the Swedish language in the schools,..."

In lengthy explanation League of Nation concluded that Swedes "have exercised their right to self-determination by very existence of state of Sweden and Swede population outside this state is to be considered a national minority. Their right of self-determination is considered "consumed". Giving national minorities would create dangerous precedent that would allow for shift of borders between many countries, and great instability in the world, further more considering greater mobility in today's world (this is in 1921) when populations are migrating more then in the past. Precedent would form basis of nearly constant border changes..."

Same applies to let's say South Tyrol, that is German-speaking, but part of Italy.

Document was later taken as basis for most international laws in regard to this issue. It also provided basis for rights of national minorities - such as OSCE minority rules that stipulated that minorities have right to preserve their language and heritage, including right to elementary education in their own language.
This, mind you, is observed in Serbia, for example, where Bulgarians have elementary education in Bulgarian, and Hungarians in Hungarian, (Albanians I will not mention, because they had Universities in their own language...).
OSCE rules were not observed in Croatia, for example, that banned Cyrillic and use of Serbian worlds....even if we take it that Serbs were minority, which in Yugoslavia they were not, just like Croats were not.

Internal borders are considered administrative borders and find me a single international law that states that those cannot be changed.

Example, Tibetans, according to Helsinki Final Act don't have state of Tibet, and thus should be considered constituent nation in China - with right to self-determination!
Should China try to divide Tibet between nearby Chinese - majority provinces to make them a minority in each one - this should not matter in the end as Tibetans would be entitled to form their own state on their "ethnic territory". Administrative borders don't matter.

If there is a rule of law, that is...

On the other hand, Albanians with existence of Albania would not have such right, as their right would be "consumed". Outside Albania they would be minority, without right to self-determination....

So, enlighten yourself.
Just so that you know. But, don't worry. International laws don't really matter, it's just on the paper. Law without law enforcement is nothing. But with "rouge states" like China, USA, most of EU...
Who can make them respect the law?

“If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity. This is why the military operation was legitimate..."

-- I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this line of logic that not only justifies Milosevic's crackdown in Kosovo in 1999 but also the JNA's crackdown in Croatia in 1992 was completely lost on him.

"If someone declares independence on a country’s territory you have to defend territorial integrity."

WHY?

"Personally, I find it more interesting that this article discusses his comments on Bosnia. He seems to be lending support to the rumor that Milosevic and Tudjman had a plan to carve up ex-Yu all along."
(Nenad, 10 July 2011 19:47)

A rumor, a lie. Everybody knows that it was THE WEST that had plans to split up ex-Yu ;-)

Interesting summary, Sreten, worth a read! Thumbs up!

Sreten's comment so far deserves to be regarded as the best comment written on B92 ever.
Thank you, Sreten.

You could read a lot into Mesices statement, but for once I can see the human side of him. Memories can be painfull and sometimes refuse to go away.

Ataman,

You're very kind in your remarks about Sreten's post, and while I do agree that he makes good points about international law and the failure of many countries to abide by said law, he fails to explain for us why official JNA policy differed with regard to Slovenia (barely engaged by the JNA), Croatia (heavily engaged by the JNA), Bosnia (briefly engaged by the JNA) and Macedonia (not engaged by the JNA at all).