Serb Republic marks 20th anniversary

Happy 20'th to Republika Srpska! Soon RS will be celebrating independence day.
Cheers!!

The sadistic evil empire decides to celebrate 20 years. Lets take a quick look at RS over the last 20 years. The mass murder of the Bosnian people, destruction of every Bosnian town, siege of Sarajevo that lasted longer than the siege of Stalingrad,Srebrenica where anywhere between 15,000-30,000 civilans were thrown into rat infested pits. Do I need to continue...with this terrible reminder of what RS accomplished. By Tadic attending such a circus just proves that the dream of a G.Serbia is still alive and well for all those sick Serbs who can'taccept BiH as their true homeland.

"Srebrenica where anywhere between 15,000-30,000 civilans were thrown into rat infested pits"

Bam Bam, why are you so modest?
Are you sure it wasn't 150 000 - 300 000, or maybe 1.5 -3 million muslims threwn into rat infested pits?

I have heard from safe Bosnian exile sources that works for a NGO in San Fransico (Frisco) that claims that it was actually about 15-30 million Bosnian muslims that were killed, in Srebrenica alone!

Congrats Republika Srpska!
You have fought so hard to not be ruled by the other entity that you are worth all the freedom the citizens in RS deserve.

A happy 20th to Repulic of Srbska! May the coming years bring complete independence and freedom for its people.

The RS must thank Alija Izebegovic and his plan to islamicize the whole of Bosnia.

If it were not for Izetbegovic and Cengic, Bosnia wouldn't have been consumed by civil war and would have been a functional state, a mini-Yugoslavia if you will, but Sarajevo with the help of its wise western allies though that if they could successfully break up the big Yugoslavia, ten they could do the same for Bosnia. Everyone paid the price. Now Sarajevo is a hotbed of fundamentalism sponsored by some of the nastiest regimes on earth and the Federation is an economic basket case that is incapable of providing a future for its citizens. And they did it all to themselves. Rather than blaming their own politicians or their western allies, they feed of the myth that it is the fault of the Serbs because they wouldn't accept living as third class citizens in a state run by sharia law...

The Muslim part of Bosnia should shut up and realize that they got away with genocide themselves. This whole genocide thing is a bunch of BS. If Serbs truly wanted to exterminate the Muslims, it would have been easy. They had Sarajevo surrounded and could have shelled hospitals until the hospitals were leveled, they could have gone from town to town and gathered up all the women and children and systematically murdered them. Yet, none of this occurred. Instead, you had pockets of bad guys killing others, primarily soldiers. Even in Srebrenica, whom were the victims but men and boys? There is this attempt to paint Serbs like Nazis. Let's get the facts straight here. From all reasonable and respected international sources, about 100,000 people died in the war in Bosnia, with about 60% being soldiers. Serbs didn't have extermination camps with ovens and gas chambers. Serbs didn't murder 6 million Jews. What happened in WWII with the Nazis was genocide. What happened in Bosnia was not, at least to the truly intelligent individual. Indeed, Nasir Oric was the one killing women and children and he's a Bosniak hero. So, for this anniversary, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY RS!

A happy 20th to Repulic of Srbska!

Sarajevo wasnt cleansed of Serbs it was divided its why we have a East Sarajevo based on the dreams of Radovan Karadzic. 20 years of pride based on genocide, division and mass rape.

It's not strictly related, but why did the Bosnian Serbs lay siege to Sarajevo? What was the objective?
(Andy UK, 9 January 2012 13:43)

At that time Sarajevo, that had a 45% Serbian population before the war, was completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims, and a Muslim paramilitary HQ was set up from where actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs. Many Serbian families had to flee. Therefore the Serbian Army had to shell Sarajevo in order to destroy the Muslim HQs. There was a 10 day warning to civilians, but Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay.

The fact is if it wasn't for Republika Srpska then during the war masses of the Serbian population in Bosnia would have been slaughtered. Many thanks to Karadzic for creating this state and Mladic for successfully defending it, happy 20th anniversary.

oh wow, so , the RS can celebrate but Kosova can't. Now, i know that you are a fool and the biggest bigot on this planet.
(ardi asllani, 9 January 2012 18:54)

Consider the source. Coming from you, I will take that as a compliment. Kosova are Gusii people of western Kenya, and they can celebrate all they want:
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Kosovo/kosova.html
http://www.kenyabook.com/kisii.html
I fail to see what Kenya has to do with this.
Cheers!!

Happy Birthday RS!

Congratulations on 20 years of Republika Srpska! The Bosnian Serbs rightfully have their own nation. They deserve the ability to choose whether they want to be part of Bosnia or not.

Sarajevo used to rather multi-ethnic before the war. In the four municipalities, Serbs made up 10-35% of the population and Croats made up 2-9%. Yugoslavs accounted for 6-16%. Nowadays, Bosniaks make up by some estimates 77% of the population and over 90% by other estimates. Regardless, the Bosniaks are now the vast majority of residents. In the war, the Serbs wanted neighbourhoods that were mainly Serb to become part of Republika Srpska as opposed to staying in Bosnia. But they failed to hold these areas and so only got the much smaller East Sarajevo area. They likely would have wanted a good portion of Novo Sarajevo and Novi Grad Sarajevo.

Happy 20'th to Republika Srpska! Soon RS will be celebrating independence day.
Cheers!!
(Dragan, 9 January 2012 14:33)

oh wow, so , the RS can celebrate but Kosova can't. Now, i know that you are a fool and the biggest bigot on this planet.

By far this is the worst thing that someone thinks need to celebrate or congratulate!!! Ethnic cleansing, rape, torture, disgrace and disgust, murder and humiliation in grand scale. What an ethnic group did to another, just because they were able to. RS might become independent I don't know. I don't care! Every square of its territory is been bloodied. Bosnian Muslim civilians payeed the highest price. It's pity brothers its pity! Nothing to celebrate! Nothing to be proud!

It makes me wonder what sort of a species we, humans, are?! So lethal to our own kind!! Why do we have to be so cruel to each other?

There are other ways we can sort things out, there are other ways.

It's not strictly related, but why did the Bosnian Serbs lay siege to Sarajevo? What was the objective?

How would Bosnia have looked had Izetbegovic decided against war?

Presumably, he'd been informed of the Karadjordjevo agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman that was made in March 1991. And I have little doubt that his intelligence services were well aware of all the pre-war planning and coordination taking place between Milosevic, Karadzic, Stanisic, Babic and Bulatovic, to name a few. Belgrade started pulling all the political strings amongst ethnic Serbs across former YU around 1988. We had the Yogurt Revolution in Vojvodina in autumn 1988, followed shortly thereafter by the overthrow of the governments of Kosovo and Montenegro. Two political units with voting rights at the federal level (Kosovo and Vojvodina) were quickly abolished and absorbed, for all intents and purposes, into Serbia proper and another, Montenegro, became a rubber stamp for Belgrade.

So what, do you imagine, did Izetbegovic see for himself and his supporters -- some of whom had undoubtedly been key in helping him to prevail in a power struggle with Fikret Abdic, and were now looking to him to protect the status quo in Sarajevo -- in a rump FRY dominated by Milosevic? Furthermore, what did Muslims in general see for themselves? Would they be run out of town by Seselj's thugs like the Croats in Vojvodina and other non-Serbs in places like Eastern Slavonija? Would they be forced to resettle in places like Novi Pazar? And what would stop Bosnian soldiers from going to war with Bosnian Croats in places like Brcko, Tuzla and Mostar? Their cousins were already at it in Croatia. And what would happen to Muslims then? Would Milosevic simply allow them to sit the fighting out? And what would become of their homes in those regions over which ethnic Serbs and Croats would fight?

Bosnia was a republic that wished to secede from YU, just like Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia had done the year before. Of those three, only Croatia had been seriously challenged by the JNA. Izetbegovic knew things would get bloody in Bosnia, but would justification could Milosevic make for war there? Serbs already had a much larger homeland next door, and had really only gone to war with Croatia when YU collapsed. And make no mistake -- the West knew very well what Belgrade was up to and had reasons of their own not to allow the Serbs to succeed. Izetbegovic knew this and gambled correctly. Washington intervened and the Greater Serbia project was a total failure. RS was allowed to exist as a means to a quick settlement at Dayton and because it helped to stabilize the overall military situation in the region. Just try to picture the blood bath that would have ensued had the Muslim-Croat alliance been permitted to run roughshod over the rest of Bosnia in autumn 1995.

I've said before, but I wonder whether things would have been so bad if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992.
(Andy UK, 9 January 2012 15:25)

It always was my point that if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992 things could have been much better.

IMHO Izetbegovic was a strange politician, who wanted to build a country with 1/2 unloyal citizens.

(Nenad, 9 January 2012 22:30)


Had Izetbegovic remained with Yugoslavia then nothing would have happened. In fact in about 20 years the Bosniaks would have outnumbered the Serbs simply through births and they could have taken over then without a shot being fired. But Izzy was stupid to say the least.

Washington only intervened because their German cousins made a dog’s breakfast of breaking up Yugo. The dumb Americans only saw the removal of the last bastion of Communism – this is a fact while the Germans were more cunning in that they wanted a group of small nations all dependent on them in the Adriatic.

“Just try to picture the blood bath that would have ensued had the Muslim-Croat alliance been permitted to run roughshod over the rest of Bosnia in autumn 1995”.

The Serbs surrounded Bosniaks and Croat forces and held 80% of all territory and that BS about being allowed to run roughshod is just that because they only moved into places that were given to them as part of the Dayton Agreement (you do recall that it was signed in 1995). On top of that your Croats were too busy burning alive and killing Bosniaks in central Bosnia but ended up blaming Milosevic for that one too.

This bit about “being allowed to run roughshod” is Croat mythology as they could not defeat the Serbs at any point in any of the wars. I have much more respect for the Bosniaks as they are good fighters who managed to turn things around after being stabbed in the back by the Croats. One interesting point, during the conflict between allies if the Serbs did not allow the Croats to cross their territory there would be 20,000 less today.

I watched a documentary about the so called Bihac breakout in 1995. The western journalists could not understand why after all that time there was movement out of Bihac, but it never went further than the agreed lines.

At that time Sarajevo, that had a 45% Serbian population before the war, was completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims, and a Muslim paramilitary HQ was set up from where actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs. Many Serbian families had to flee. Therefore the Serbian Army had to shell Sarajevo in order to destroy the Muslim HQs. There was a 10 day warning to civilians, but Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay.
(Adam, 9 January 2012 14:19)

Adam - that's a bit confusing as you say that Sarajevo was "completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims" but also that "actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs" and that "Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay".

I'm not trying to catch you out. The Serb side is rarely heard in the UK.

It always seemed to me that Izetbegovic took Bosnia to war through his own selfishness, stupidity and propaganda. The Serbs were more than valid in their resistance to that, but Karadzic and his henchmen also used propaganda and fear to launch accelerate it into a bloodbath. The politicians on both sides caused misery and death of the ordinary people.

I've said before, but I wonder whether things would have been so bad if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992.

Edits:

"And what would stop Bosnian soldiers from going to war with Bosnian Croats in places like Brcko, Tuzla and Mostar?"

This should obviously say “BOSNIAN SERB soldiers”.

"Izetbegovic knew things would get bloody in Bosnia, but would justification could Milosevic make for war there?"

This should say “WHAT justification could Milosevic make ”.

“Had Izetbegovic remained with Yugoslavia then nothing would have happened. In fact in about 20 years the Bosniaks would have outnumbered the Serbs simply through births and they could have taken over then without a shot being fired. But Izzy was stupid to say the least.”

This was about power for Izetbegovic, Ganic, et al. They had their fiefdom in Sarajevo that they weren’t just going to hand that over to Milosevic and Karadzic. I can only hope that the Muslims would have been smart enough to share power with the Bosnian Serbs and Croats peacefully if given the chance, but I think they knew very well that they were never going to get that chance. Again, a plan was hatched a year earlier between Milosevic and Tudjman to divide Bosnia between them.

“Washington only intervened because their German cousins made a dog’s breakfast of breaking up Yugo. The dumb Americans only saw the removal of the last bastion of Communism – this is a fact while the Germans were more cunning in that they wanted a group of small nations all dependent on them in the Adriatic.”
This is probably what the Milosevic-controlled media was spewing throughout the conflict period, and we all know that Milosevic was a completely honest man. How many DMs did your relatives unwittingly hand over to Borka Vucic, who was making all those secret trips to the offshore banks in Cyprus so that Sloba could fund his wars?

“The Serbs surrounded Bosniaks and Croat forces and held 80% of all territory and that BS about being allowed to run roughshod is just that because they only moved into places that were given to them as part of the Dayton Agreement (you do recall that it was signed in 1995). On top of that your Croats were too busy burning alive and killing Bosniaks in central Bosnia but ended up blaming Milosevic for that one too. “

I believe that at the height of their military success – probably around 1993 – Bosnian Serbs held roughly 70% of territory. They were no doubt helped by the year-long war between Muslims and Croats that began in autumn 1992 and finished in late 1993 or early 1994. It was well-known to Washington what the Croats were doing in places like the Lasva Valley. You seem to imply that such crimes were still being committed by Croats against Muslims in 1995 but I think you are mistaken. The Washington Accords pushed the two sides back into alliance in March 1994 – albeit grudgingly – and that alliance generally held and actually strengthened in summer 1995.

In any case, no matter how horrific, in the big scheme of things, Croat war crimes scattered across rural Western Hercegovina paled in comparison to the all-out siege of a cosmopolitan city like Sarajevo. I’m certain Clinton and Major were no fans of Tudjman and his henchmen, but in the Western view, the Serbs were still the primary instigator/aggressor in BiH and their track record dating back several years – I’m referring mainly to their “battlefield accomplishments” in Croatia, but also the political maneuverings of Milosevic going back to his overthrow of Stambolic in 1987 – did little to alleviate their culpability when compared to that of Croats and Muslims (and, of course, they, too, were culpable).

I agree that the ground work (quite literally) for peace had already been laid before the Dayton negotiations in November 1995 and that some of the military events in BiH in summer/fall 1995 were likely proof of this. But look what Milosevic had to sacrifice in the end: all of the military gains in Croatia and, in terms of square km, more than a third of what he’d gained at one time in BiH. You could argue that he lost even more there because he didn’t get Sarajevo, but Banja Luka. I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again: Mladic once called RS a territory “not even fit for snakes”.

Why was it that Milosevic had to give up so much? If Serbs truly possessed the military strength to hold the gains, why not keep them? Serb forces were obviously in retreat starting with Operation Flash in Western Slavonija in May 1995. That trend spread to western BiH in August and ceased only because a plan already existed to halt the conflict there. The West wanted a military balance between Milosevic and Tudjman and a war-weary Milosevic to guarantee a peaceful split of BiH in exchange for the removal of crippling sanctions on FRY and the omission of Kosovo status negotiations at Dayton (Rugova had been pushing hard for inclusion). Clinton could then sell a major foreign policy victory to American voters – won, in part, on the back of NATO intervention, which was a side message to Russia that the West ruled Europe.

And by the way, the only reason Serbs made so many gains early on was that they were able to hoard the best assets left over from the JNA, and because there was never a serious coalition of non-Serb parties to challenge them. Slovenes and Croats weren’t going to fight for Yugoslavia and Croats weren’t seriously interested in helping Muslims in BiH. They joined with Muslims in alliances when it suited their own interests, but they were always essentially enemies (we see evidence in the ongoing bickering between the two sides in BiH today). Macedonians never really had to worry about the consequences of leaving, I guess, and Montenegrins – back then – were as Serbian as Serbs. Albanians were in an even worse position than Muslims, because they’d been completely dispossessed in the 1980s.

I think a lot in the West don't even know that Muslims and Croats fought each other. Westeren press should pay much more attention to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia.
All three sides committed awful crimes.

But now, here we are: Bosnia is a dysfunctional state. What is the solution?

I think there should really be a CROAT entitiy. And then much more powers should be delegated the the entities. The federal level should only do the really necessary things.
What do others think?

Greetings from Western Europe. Hope Bosnia will join EU soon (with highly autonomous entities that do most of the cooperation with Brussels directly themselves).

The sadistic evil empire decides to celebrate 20 years. Lets take a quick look at RS over the last 20 years. The mass murder of the Bosnian people, destruction of every Bosnian town, siege of Sarajevo that lasted longer than the siege of Stalingrad,Srebrenica where anywhere between 15,000-30,000 civilans were thrown into rat infested pits. Do I need to continue...with this terrible reminder of what RS accomplished. By Tadic attending such a circus just proves that the dream of a G.Serbia is still alive and well for all those sick Serbs who can'taccept BiH as their true homeland.

A happy 20th to Repulic of Srbska! May the coming years bring complete independence and freedom for its people.

Congrats Republika Srpska!
You have fought so hard to not be ruled by the other entity that you are worth all the freedom the citizens in RS deserve.

The Muslim part of Bosnia should shut up and realize that they got away with genocide themselves. This whole genocide thing is a bunch of BS. If Serbs truly wanted to exterminate the Muslims, it would have been easy. They had Sarajevo surrounded and could have shelled hospitals until the hospitals were leveled, they could have gone from town to town and gathered up all the women and children and systematically murdered them. Yet, none of this occurred. Instead, you had pockets of bad guys killing others, primarily soldiers. Even in Srebrenica, whom were the victims but men and boys? There is this attempt to paint Serbs like Nazis. Let's get the facts straight here. From all reasonable and respected international sources, about 100,000 people died in the war in Bosnia, with about 60% being soldiers. Serbs didn't have extermination camps with ovens and gas chambers. Serbs didn't murder 6 million Jews. What happened in WWII with the Nazis was genocide. What happened in Bosnia was not, at least to the truly intelligent individual. Indeed, Nasir Oric was the one killing women and children and he's a Bosniak hero. So, for this anniversary, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY RS!

A happy 20th to Repulic of Srbska!

The fact is if it wasn't for Republika Srpska then during the war masses of the Serbian population in Bosnia would have been slaughtered. Many thanks to Karadzic for creating this state and Mladic for successfully defending it, happy 20th anniversary.

Happy Birthday RS!

"Srebrenica where anywhere between 15,000-30,000 civilans were thrown into rat infested pits"

Bam Bam, why are you so modest?
Are you sure it wasn't 150 000 - 300 000, or maybe 1.5 -3 million muslims threwn into rat infested pits?

I have heard from safe Bosnian exile sources that works for a NGO in San Fransico (Frisco) that claims that it was actually about 15-30 million Bosnian muslims that were killed, in Srebrenica alone!

Happy 20'th to Republika Srpska! Soon RS will be celebrating independence day.
Cheers!!

It's not strictly related, but why did the Bosnian Serbs lay siege to Sarajevo? What was the objective?
(Andy UK, 9 January 2012 13:43)

At that time Sarajevo, that had a 45% Serbian population before the war, was completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims, and a Muslim paramilitary HQ was set up from where actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs. Many Serbian families had to flee. Therefore the Serbian Army had to shell Sarajevo in order to destroy the Muslim HQs. There was a 10 day warning to civilians, but Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay.

The RS must thank Alija Izebegovic and his plan to islamicize the whole of Bosnia.

If it were not for Izetbegovic and Cengic, Bosnia wouldn't have been consumed by civil war and would have been a functional state, a mini-Yugoslavia if you will, but Sarajevo with the help of its wise western allies though that if they could successfully break up the big Yugoslavia, ten they could do the same for Bosnia. Everyone paid the price. Now Sarajevo is a hotbed of fundamentalism sponsored by some of the nastiest regimes on earth and the Federation is an economic basket case that is incapable of providing a future for its citizens. And they did it all to themselves. Rather than blaming their own politicians or their western allies, they feed of the myth that it is the fault of the Serbs because they wouldn't accept living as third class citizens in a state run by sharia law...

Sarajevo wasnt cleansed of Serbs it was divided its why we have a East Sarajevo based on the dreams of Radovan Karadzic. 20 years of pride based on genocide, division and mass rape.

Congratulations on 20 years of Republika Srpska! The Bosnian Serbs rightfully have their own nation. They deserve the ability to choose whether they want to be part of Bosnia or not.

Sarajevo used to rather multi-ethnic before the war. In the four municipalities, Serbs made up 10-35% of the population and Croats made up 2-9%. Yugoslavs accounted for 6-16%. Nowadays, Bosniaks make up by some estimates 77% of the population and over 90% by other estimates. Regardless, the Bosniaks are now the vast majority of residents. In the war, the Serbs wanted neighbourhoods that were mainly Serb to become part of Republika Srpska as opposed to staying in Bosnia. But they failed to hold these areas and so only got the much smaller East Sarajevo area. They likely would have wanted a good portion of Novo Sarajevo and Novi Grad Sarajevo.

Happy 20'th to Republika Srpska! Soon RS will be celebrating independence day.
Cheers!!
(Dragan, 9 January 2012 14:33)

oh wow, so , the RS can celebrate but Kosova can't. Now, i know that you are a fool and the biggest bigot on this planet.

At that time Sarajevo, that had a 45% Serbian population before the war, was completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims, and a Muslim paramilitary HQ was set up from where actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs. Many Serbian families had to flee. Therefore the Serbian Army had to shell Sarajevo in order to destroy the Muslim HQs. There was a 10 day warning to civilians, but Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay.
(Adam, 9 January 2012 14:19)

Adam - that's a bit confusing as you say that Sarajevo was "completely ethnically clensed by Muslim paramilitary forces of all non-Muslims" but also that "actions were planned for further fighting against the Serbs" and that "Danish authorities in Sarajevo recommended that civilians stould stay".

I'm not trying to catch you out. The Serb side is rarely heard in the UK.

It always seemed to me that Izetbegovic took Bosnia to war through his own selfishness, stupidity and propaganda. The Serbs were more than valid in their resistance to that, but Karadzic and his henchmen also used propaganda and fear to launch accelerate it into a bloodbath. The politicians on both sides caused misery and death of the ordinary people.

I've said before, but I wonder whether things would have been so bad if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992.

I've said before, but I wonder whether things would have been so bad if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992.
(Andy UK, 9 January 2012 15:25)

It always was my point that if Izetbegovic hadn't backed out of the Cutileiro before the war in 1992 things could have been much better.

IMHO Izetbegovic was a strange politician, who wanted to build a country with 1/2 unloyal citizens.

oh wow, so , the RS can celebrate but Kosova can't. Now, i know that you are a fool and the biggest bigot on this planet.
(ardi asllani, 9 January 2012 18:54)

Consider the source. Coming from you, I will take that as a compliment. Kosova are Gusii people of western Kenya, and they can celebrate all they want:
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Kosovo/kosova.html
http://www.kenyabook.com/kisii.html
I fail to see what Kenya has to do with this.
Cheers!!

It's not strictly related, but why did the Bosnian Serbs lay siege to Sarajevo? What was the objective?

How would Bosnia have looked had Izetbegovic decided against war?

Presumably, he'd been informed of the Karadjordjevo agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman that was made in March 1991. And I have little doubt that his intelligence services were well aware of all the pre-war planning and coordination taking place between Milosevic, Karadzic, Stanisic, Babic and Bulatovic, to name a few. Belgrade started pulling all the political strings amongst ethnic Serbs across former YU around 1988. We had the Yogurt Revolution in Vojvodina in autumn 1988, followed shortly thereafter by the overthrow of the governments of Kosovo and Montenegro. Two political units with voting rights at the federal level (Kosovo and Vojvodina) were quickly abolished and absorbed, for all intents and purposes, into Serbia proper and another, Montenegro, became a rubber stamp for Belgrade.

So what, do you imagine, did Izetbegovic see for himself and his supporters -- some of whom had undoubtedly been key in helping him to prevail in a power struggle with Fikret Abdic, and were now looking to him to protect the status quo in Sarajevo -- in a rump FRY dominated by Milosevic? Furthermore, what did Muslims in general see for themselves? Would they be run out of town by Seselj's thugs like the Croats in Vojvodina and other non-Serbs in places like Eastern Slavonija? Would they be forced to resettle in places like Novi Pazar? And what would stop Bosnian soldiers from going to war with Bosnian Croats in places like Brcko, Tuzla and Mostar? Their cousins were already at it in Croatia. And what would happen to Muslims then? Would Milosevic simply allow them to sit the fighting out? And what would become of their homes in those regions over which ethnic Serbs and Croats would fight?

Bosnia was a republic that wished to secede from YU, just like Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia had done the year before. Of those three, only Croatia had been seriously challenged by the JNA. Izetbegovic knew things would get bloody in Bosnia, but would justification could Milosevic make for war there? Serbs already had a much larger homeland next door, and had really only gone to war with Croatia when YU collapsed. And make no mistake -- the West knew very well what Belgrade was up to and had reasons of their own not to allow the Serbs to succeed. Izetbegovic knew this and gambled correctly. Washington intervened and the Greater Serbia project was a total failure. RS was allowed to exist as a means to a quick settlement at Dayton and because it helped to stabilize the overall military situation in the region. Just try to picture the blood bath that would have ensued had the Muslim-Croat alliance been permitted to run roughshod over the rest of Bosnia in autumn 1995.

By far this is the worst thing that someone thinks need to celebrate or congratulate!!! Ethnic cleansing, rape, torture, disgrace and disgust, murder and humiliation in grand scale. What an ethnic group did to another, just because they were able to. RS might become independent I don't know. I don't care! Every square of its territory is been bloodied. Bosnian Muslim civilians payeed the highest price. It's pity brothers its pity! Nothing to celebrate! Nothing to be proud!

It makes me wonder what sort of a species we, humans, are?! So lethal to our own kind!! Why do we have to be so cruel to each other?

There are other ways we can sort things out, there are other ways.

(Nenad, 9 January 2012 22:30)


Had Izetbegovic remained with Yugoslavia then nothing would have happened. In fact in about 20 years the Bosniaks would have outnumbered the Serbs simply through births and they could have taken over then without a shot being fired. But Izzy was stupid to say the least.

Washington only intervened because their German cousins made a dog’s breakfast of breaking up Yugo. The dumb Americans only saw the removal of the last bastion of Communism – this is a fact while the Germans were more cunning in that they wanted a group of small nations all dependent on them in the Adriatic.

“Just try to picture the blood bath that would have ensued had the Muslim-Croat alliance been permitted to run roughshod over the rest of Bosnia in autumn 1995”.

The Serbs surrounded Bosniaks and Croat forces and held 80% of all territory and that BS about being allowed to run roughshod is just that because they only moved into places that were given to them as part of the Dayton Agreement (you do recall that it was signed in 1995). On top of that your Croats were too busy burning alive and killing Bosniaks in central Bosnia but ended up blaming Milosevic for that one too.

This bit about “being allowed to run roughshod” is Croat mythology as they could not defeat the Serbs at any point in any of the wars. I have much more respect for the Bosniaks as they are good fighters who managed to turn things around after being stabbed in the back by the Croats. One interesting point, during the conflict between allies if the Serbs did not allow the Croats to cross their territory there would be 20,000 less today.

I watched a documentary about the so called Bihac breakout in 1995. The western journalists could not understand why after all that time there was movement out of Bihac, but it never went further than the agreed lines.

“Had Izetbegovic remained with Yugoslavia then nothing would have happened. In fact in about 20 years the Bosniaks would have outnumbered the Serbs simply through births and they could have taken over then without a shot being fired. But Izzy was stupid to say the least.”

This was about power for Izetbegovic, Ganic, et al. They had their fiefdom in Sarajevo that they weren’t just going to hand that over to Milosevic and Karadzic. I can only hope that the Muslims would have been smart enough to share power with the Bosnian Serbs and Croats peacefully if given the chance, but I think they knew very well that they were never going to get that chance. Again, a plan was hatched a year earlier between Milosevic and Tudjman to divide Bosnia between them.

“Washington only intervened because their German cousins made a dog’s breakfast of breaking up Yugo. The dumb Americans only saw the removal of the last bastion of Communism – this is a fact while the Germans were more cunning in that they wanted a group of small nations all dependent on them in the Adriatic.”
This is probably what the Milosevic-controlled media was spewing throughout the conflict period, and we all know that Milosevic was a completely honest man. How many DMs did your relatives unwittingly hand over to Borka Vucic, who was making all those secret trips to the offshore banks in Cyprus so that Sloba could fund his wars?

“The Serbs surrounded Bosniaks and Croat forces and held 80% of all territory and that BS about being allowed to run roughshod is just that because they only moved into places that were given to them as part of the Dayton Agreement (you do recall that it was signed in 1995). On top of that your Croats were too busy burning alive and killing Bosniaks in central Bosnia but ended up blaming Milosevic for that one too. “

I believe that at the height of their military success – probably around 1993 – Bosnian Serbs held roughly 70% of territory. They were no doubt helped by the year-long war between Muslims and Croats that began in autumn 1992 and finished in late 1993 or early 1994. It was well-known to Washington what the Croats were doing in places like the Lasva Valley. You seem to imply that such crimes were still being committed by Croats against Muslims in 1995 but I think you are mistaken. The Washington Accords pushed the two sides back into alliance in March 1994 – albeit grudgingly – and that alliance generally held and actually strengthened in summer 1995.

In any case, no matter how horrific, in the big scheme of things, Croat war crimes scattered across rural Western Hercegovina paled in comparison to the all-out siege of a cosmopolitan city like Sarajevo. I’m certain Clinton and Major were no fans of Tudjman and his henchmen, but in the Western view, the Serbs were still the primary instigator/aggressor in BiH and their track record dating back several years – I’m referring mainly to their “battlefield accomplishments” in Croatia, but also the political maneuverings of Milosevic going back to his overthrow of Stambolic in 1987 – did little to alleviate their culpability when compared to that of Croats and Muslims (and, of course, they, too, were culpable).

I agree that the ground work (quite literally) for peace had already been laid before the Dayton negotiations in November 1995 and that some of the military events in BiH in summer/fall 1995 were likely proof of this. But look what Milosevic had to sacrifice in the end: all of the military gains in Croatia and, in terms of square km, more than a third of what he’d gained at one time in BiH. You could argue that he lost even more there because he didn’t get Sarajevo, but Banja Luka. I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again: Mladic once called RS a territory “not even fit for snakes”.

Why was it that Milosevic had to give up so much? If Serbs truly possessed the military strength to hold the gains, why not keep them? Serb forces were obviously in retreat starting with Operation Flash in Western Slavonija in May 1995. That trend spread to western BiH in August and ceased only because a plan already existed to halt the conflict there. The West wanted a military balance between Milosevic and Tudjman and a war-weary Milosevic to guarantee a peaceful split of BiH in exchange for the removal of crippling sanctions on FRY and the omission of Kosovo status negotiations at Dayton (Rugova had been pushing hard for inclusion). Clinton could then sell a major foreign policy victory to American voters – won, in part, on the back of NATO intervention, which was a side message to Russia that the West ruled Europe.

And by the way, the only reason Serbs made so many gains early on was that they were able to hoard the best assets left over from the JNA, and because there was never a serious coalition of non-Serb parties to challenge them. Slovenes and Croats weren’t going to fight for Yugoslavia and Croats weren’t seriously interested in helping Muslims in BiH. They joined with Muslims in alliances when it suited their own interests, but they were always essentially enemies (we see evidence in the ongoing bickering between the two sides in BiH today). Macedonians never really had to worry about the consequences of leaving, I guess, and Montenegrins – back then – were as Serbian as Serbs. Albanians were in an even worse position than Muslims, because they’d been completely dispossessed in the 1980s.

Edits:

"And what would stop Bosnian soldiers from going to war with Bosnian Croats in places like Brcko, Tuzla and Mostar?"

This should obviously say “BOSNIAN SERB soldiers”.

"Izetbegovic knew things would get bloody in Bosnia, but would justification could Milosevic make for war there?"

This should say “WHAT justification could Milosevic make ”.

I think a lot in the West don't even know that Muslims and Croats fought each other. Westeren press should pay much more attention to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia.
All three sides committed awful crimes.

But now, here we are: Bosnia is a dysfunctional state. What is the solution?

I think there should really be a CROAT entitiy. And then much more powers should be delegated the the entities. The federal level should only do the really necessary things.
What do others think?

Greetings from Western Europe. Hope Bosnia will join EU soon (with highly autonomous entities that do most of the cooperation with Brussels directly themselves).