What really went on? Why?
"The dynamics of Yugoslav disintegration were set in motion, not by the expansionist instincts of the Serbian masses, but by the Western powers, who began competing with each other legally to recognise and give support to one ethnic group against another in the early 1990s. German and EU recognition of Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 was followed by US recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992. Granting diplomatic recognition to secessionist groups arbitrarily elevated the wishes of one group of Yugoslavs over those, including the large Serbian minorities scattered throughout the former Yugoslavia, who wanted to remain part of the federation. Thus the stage was set for inter-communal conflict."
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"In addition, analysis of Milosevic’s politics yields little evidence of expansionist megalomania. For example, at the key stage of the conflict, Milosevic, isolated and under pressure, was the one most keen to reach a compromise - while the Bosnian Muslim government under Alija Izetbegovic, emboldened by Western backing, broke off various deals. Anyone who bothers to go through Milosevic’s tedious speeches, often cited as instrumental in stoking Serbian nationalism (12), will find them littered with invocations of multi-ethnic harmony. Far from being a messianic demagogue, he was a notoriously wooden orator, more at home with backroom intrigue and opportunism than with mass politics. While Milosevic’s rule in Serbia was sometimes violent and often authoritarian, he was democratically elected, with his powerbase residing among pensioners, the poor working class and the peasantry, who supported his half-hearted upkeep of old-style socialist economic policies, and were stirred by his rhetoric of defending Tito’s Yugoslavia, by defending the interests of the Serbian minorities outside Serbia."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/248/"The vast majority of what passes for analysis of the Yugoslav break-up and wars, and later events such as the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is marked by a blatant disregard for either evidence or accuracy. In stark contrast, John Laughland’s excellent book on the ICTY and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic is a powerful critique based upon a detailed analysis of both the procedures and rules governing the ICTY in general, and Milosevic’s trial in particular."
"In order to prosecute Milosevic, the ICTY relied upon a legal principle which it had invented on the hoof, that of ‘joint criminal enterprise’. This concept does not appear in the ICTY statute nor anywhere else, nor even in the original ‘indictments’ of Milosevic. As I have argued previously on spiked, this novel principle essentially allows the ICTY to convict someone in the absence of any evidence whatsoever (2). Although the prosecution had originally issued three ‘indictments’ of Milosevic (regarding Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo), this was then changed into a sort of ‘super’ indictment. Here, the prosecution attempted to make the political case that Milosevic had orchestrated a vast ‘joint criminal enterprise’, beginning in Croatia and concluding in Kosovo, to create a ‘Greater Serbia’. In keeping with the general ad hoc procedures of the ICTY, this idea of ‘Greater Serbia’ had not featured in the original separate indictments."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/printable/3469/Justice or expediency, and expedient for who?
Additional reading:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/issues/C43/