From: dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DIMITRIOS KOUVATSOS)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Are the Serbs the ONLY bad guys???
Date: 13 Aug 92 05:12:36 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <11AUG199217564706@tacos.caltech.edu>, msv@tacos.caltech.edu (MSV) wr
ites:
>Before I start, let me say OUTRIGHT that I do NOT support aggression in the
>Balkans by the Serbs or anyone else, and I am saddened and sickened
>by what I see happening in that beautiful part of the world.

I certainly concur on that.

>However, I am also very skeptical about all the bad press the Serbs are
>getting. The Serbs are NOT the only guilty ones in this drama.  The ethnic
>tensions in the Balkans are the result of centuries of history, animosity,
>and atrocity on ALL sides; the Serbs are neither better nor worse than
>the Croats, Slovenes, Skopjans, Albanians, Muslim Slavs, etc. etc. etc.
>So why are they getting blamed for everything?  Of course, one reason is
>that they appear to be the best-armed, and they appear to have the upper hand;
>so the losing sides in this multifaceted war will naturally look like
>victims and receive sympathy (which they certainly deserve).
>
>But that is not the only reason why Serbs are getting blamed.  We all know
>that Germany has a very soft spot for Croatia, based at least in part on the
>fact that Croatians collaborated with the Nazis in WW2.  With all due
>respect to the German people, is this a good reason for Croatia to be
>the new darling of the western world?  Just because it collaborated with the
>Nazis?  And of course there is also the fact that Croats are catholics and
>Serbs are Orthodox--hence the almost automatic and influential
>support of Italy and the pope.  So, much of the "civilized" world sides
>with Croatia against the Serbs, and by extension with the Bosnian moslems
>because they too are opposed to the Serbs.

On that matter, it is well known that Tito, who was a Croat, had the maxim "a
strong Yugoslavia needs a weak Serbia" - and did his best to weaken Serbia,
even to the point of artificially drawing boundaries to leave substantial
Serbian populations outside Serbia. The bastard was a master of drawing
artificial borders for political purposes, as he also proved with his
invention of a "republic of Macedonia" out of the Serbian Vardarska Banovina
province, with the aim of usurping the real Macedonia (in Greece). The Serbs
are certainly overacting and their policy of creating pure Serbian areas by
forcing moslems and Croats out of parts of B&H must be condemned. But to want
to protect their populations outside Serbia and not to trust moslem or Croat
rule over them is certainly reasonable.

Moslem president of B&H Izbetkovitz has repeatedly stated that Islam is
incompatible with non-islamic social structures, that the separation of
church and state is rubbish and that their state must be based on the tenets
of Islam - no a model of tolerance. These guys want to create a small Iran
right next to the heart of Europe! Should the West assist in that endeavor?
And can the Serbs or the Croats - who have also seized parts of B&H without
anybody noticing, so busy are all with blaming only the Serbs - trust their
populations in B&H to islamic rule? As for the Serbocroat conflict, it is
also a notorious fact of WWII that hundreds of thousands of Serbs were
exterminated by the Croats, who had allied themselves with Nazi Germany.
Actually, Croatia for decades after WWII remained a land more famous for its
Nazis than for its Democrats. Deservedly, since in WWII it was the only
European country with probably more Nazis per capita than Nazi Germany
itself. No wonder Serbs don't trust their populations to Croatian rule, either.

>No thinking and feeling human can be pleased to see pictures of starving
>Bosnian moslems in Serbian-run detention camps.  But what about the rights
>of the Serbs?  Most Serbs living today grew up under the assumption that
>they would live with their fellow Serbs in the same country--that country
>happened to be Yugoslavia.  Now that Yugoslavia no longer exists as such,
>who is to say that the old internal boundaries drawn by the Communists
>should be regarded as sacrosanct?
>
>Face facts: there are no good guys and bad guys here.
>There are only warring tribes.

Trouble is, the Croats are under the protection of Germany, that 20th century
glorious model of humanism and respect for human rights, so they' ve got to be
the good guys. That leaves the Serbs playing the bad and the ugly. Certainly
aided by the idiocy of Milosevic - Serbs must certainly find more competent
and truly democratic leaders, the old communist elite has remained for too
long.

-- 
------------------------    "This is the greatest planet on the face of
+= Dimitris Kouvatsos *=     the earth"
<dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
------------------------           -- Vice President J. Danforth Quayle