From: ar3@cove.cis.ufl.edu (Aleksander Rapisavljevic)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.europe.misc
Subject: Re: Who are the "warring parties"? (was Croatian dreams)
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:03:47 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

Josip Loncaric writes:
>By this logic, every conflict that ever was had both parties equally
>responsible.  This is false reasoning.  Milosevic sent Serbs on a
>war path, and all non-Serbs sought to defend themselves.  There is a
>world of difference between the two approaches.  Besides, the conflict
>is not about "hatred and provocative moves", but about Milosevic's power.

Ana M. Shane writes:
>While I agree completely with your analysis of the Milosevic's politics,
>I also think that the extremist nationalistic elements on the part of
>the Croatian and Bosnian governments pushed as hard toward the war
>path ....


Respected Ana,

 I admire your pacifistic views and agree with several other points
you made in completing Mr. Loncaric's writing, but let me give you
some justification to why you can not equate Croatian leaders 
to Miloshevic in their intentions to provoke war:

   At the time Tudjman won the elections in Croatia the Serbian
lead federal government managed to completely disarm Croatian
teritorial defence forces, simply by passing the required law
and peacfuly emptying Croatian military warehouses.
   At that same period Tudjman was left with police force
developed by former Croatian comunist party which  consisted
of extremely large percentage of Serbian policemen. Thorough
reorganization and rearming of the police was something that
could not be done in few weeks.
   If you compare with military assets Miloshevic had at his
disposal:  fully trained airforce, navy and army with modern weapons
aquired through financial power of all six republics over last
45 years, I hope you can realize that Tudjman was in no position
to ask for war with Serbia.
   On the other hand, these same reasons explain why Serbian
leadership pushed for war as hard as it did: "Lets destroy Croatia
before it can become a threat". The fact that Croatia lost 30% of 
the territory is commonly interpretated as a defeat, in fact it is
a pure miracle  they retained other 70%. This can be attributed
to extraordinary effort and courage of Croatian people in their
patriotic war, as well as to the lack of moral among Serbian recruits and
officers to wage an offensive war. Croatian government itself did
a pretty poor job in the defence effort. Although Tudjman was widely
known for his harsh rethoric, he diverted attempts by his military
commanders to overrun voulnerable Serbian military barracs in
Croatia, just to avoid  provoking Serbian military might.

Again, think WHO had the MEANS for war in ex-yugo,   
and you will get an answer WHO  WANTED the war.

              | had military means | wanted the war |
----------------------------------------------------
 Croat leaders|    FALSE           |    FALSE       |
----------------------------------------------------
 Serb leaders |    TRUE            |    TRUE        |
----------------------------------------------------

Following the same logic I believe that Croatia will be interested
to strike back on Serbia in couple of years from now when it will
finally posses a well trained and equiped military and when
Serbia is sufficiently weakened by war in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The money from Croatian coastal turism can readily provide such
power in few years.  That will really be a test if Tudjman 
is as bad as Miloshevic, by which I am reflecting not only to
the currently occupied land in Croatia but to a possible partial
occupation of areas in Vojvodina (Serbia) as well, where by the way
a substantial Croatian and Hungarian minority live nowdays
(in a way it would be just).


Aleksander Radisavljevic  
Xref: sparky alt.politics.europe.misc:210 soc.culture.yugoslavia:10065