Re: Milosevich the nationalist? hardly

["A.R.Raju" <adimari@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We would be interested for a detailed  write-up on the real happenings in
Bosnia  and Serbia.  Its historic background, factual position  number of
people who lost their lives and the stand taken by various groups and
international community.

 We want to incorporate  that in our forthcoming document.

Raju Adimari
India Reforms Foundation
New Delhi


----- Original Message -----
From: <Borba100@xxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 10:54 AM
Subject: Milosevich the nationalist? hardly


> In a message dated 08/31/2000 6:25:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Lou
forwards
> a letter from Anthony who writes:
>
> <<  In power he [Milosevic] did more to build the petty nationalisms
>  of Craotia, Slovenia, et. al than any of their petty nationlist leaders
>  could ever have done.  >>
>
> This is simply untrue.  My question is, is it the media demonization of
the
> Serbs that makes leftists feel they have the right to talk without
providing
> evidence?  In other words,  have some people so absorbed Serb-baiting
> assumptions, that this kind of fallacy can just be stated without
requirement
> of fact?
>
> I've been doing research, mainly Lexis, on 1990-1992 and the more I read
the
> more obvious it is that a) Milosevich did not take a nationalist line.He
was
> a Yugoslavist, as opposed, say, to his opponent Vuk Draskovic.  He never
> called for Serbia to expand - he called for holding Yugoslavia together,
> quite a different matter.  Moreover, at the risk of sounding like a broken
> record, Serbia itself as largely not ethnically Serbian.  . B) If
Milosevbich
> is to be faulted, it is for being soft on secessionism - a little of US
Grant
> would have gone a long way.  And wrong on Western reliability. For
example,
> in late 1991, when the West was trying to station UN troops inside the
> Krajina, claimed by Kosovo but administratively semi-independent under
Tito
> and historically ruled by "Independent Croatia" only under Fascism - when
it
> was proposed to a) disarm the Krajina Serbs and b) install blue helmets
> INSIDE Krajina and c) make Krajina Serbs adopt the laws of Croatia (which
had
> already expelled and beaten/murdered thousands of Serbs and whose laws
> reduced Serbs to second class status) - when this was proposed Milosevich
> said do it, the UN would be fair, and publicly attacked Babic, leader of
the
> Krajina Serbs for opposing same.  Babic said, put these troops between us
and
> Croatia, that's OK; but if these UN troops are stationed inside Krajina,
if
> the Yugoslav Army is withdrawn, and if we are disarmed (as the plan called
> for) we will be destroyed in a few years.  The Army was withdraw from
Krajina
> (by the Great Nationalist Milosevich) the Krajina Serbs were disarmed and
the
> Blue Helmets were stationed in Krajina and the ENTIRE population of
Krajina
> was expelled in August 1995 by the Croatian Army under US leadership, with
US
> planes providing air support, strafing civilians, and so on.
>
> That was in '95, but already in the spring (I think) of '92 the Croatian
Army
> made its first big attack on the Krajina Serbs - and the Blue Helmets did
> nothing. The Western media disregarded this attack.
>
> The notion of "Serbian expansion" is based on the ludicrous - for
instance,
> we are told that the Serbs "occupied" 1/3 of Croatia  (i.e., Krajina,
where
> they lived, and which was not part of Croatia historically). Similarly,
the
> Western media said the Serbs "seized" 60% of Bosnia whereas in fact they,
> being peasants, occupied land in disproportion to numbers - as peasants
> usually do. (As opposed to Bosnia's city dwellers, who were
> disproportionately Muslim because Muslims, the elite under Ottoman rule,
> owned and managed in disproportionate numbers...)
>
> Jared