Bosnia, 20 years ago, when Sarajevo bled and the world watched...

Cimmerianbloke

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I chose the topic title in order to be provocative. Some of you might have been too young to remember what it was like to see the images of the conflict getting more and more accurate (photojournalism and permanent cover really boomed during the 1st Gulf war, and the proximity of Sarajevo made it easily accessible to a lot of foreign journalists, thus further enhancing the journalism cover to unprecedented heigths).

An interesting photo book will be published later this year, with the peculiarity to have been selected by journalists who covered the conflict. You can have a look at some pictures here:

http://lightbox.time.com/2012/04/05/bosnia/#1

and here:

http://www.lemonde.fr/international...a-guerre-n-est-pas-terminee_1679338_3210.html


I'd like you to share how you lived the daily coverage and the memories linked to that period. In my case, I remember how Europe was trying to save the face, and above all, all the mediatic coverage about François Miterrand (then French president) visiting Sarajevo in a strategic self-promotion stunt.

I have a very deep interest for that conflict, because it showed how Europe, regardless of the speeches and bureaucracy shrouding Brussels, has been powerless and unable to act as one on a genocide perpetrated a stone's throw away. I was also very shocked to learn that one of the Serbian warlord, Arkan, has been jailed in several European countries throughout the 70es and 80es and always managed to set himself free. Above all, I think of that conflict as a warning that multiculturalism has limits and that those limits are dangerously close to start some major upheaval within the EU.
 
@Cimmerianbloke
I am trying to catch a point. What should "world" done in the case of Sarajevo, and what is "world" anyway in your words? Are you proposing some kind of interventionism of "morally superior WORLD" in all other conflicts? We watched that movie already a few years after Sarajevo, in Kosovo when morally superior Klinton and Bler destroyed one whole european country and killed more than 1000 civilians in just few months? I suppose that is your idea of solving problems. Actually, it is just other name for old-new imperialism. We could saw the same thing in Lybia few months ago and we are watching that in Syria now. There was no problem in Syria while your "world" hasn't decide to interfere there.
 
It's rather hilarious to watch Serbs (and Russians at some degree) tryin' to blame everyone else for the wars in the Balkans in the '90's but themselves.

If Serbian Government and Serbs loved so much their country at that time, and if they valued life so much, then they shouldn't have aimed to kill everyone else who was of different ethnicity, religion or both.

As far as I'm aware, were the Serbian troops, army and paramilitary troops that invaded Kosovo and started killing, slaughtering and raping. Not the other way around.

Maybe your idea was that your (well not yours exactly) troops could kill whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted and this people you killed should just sit and wait for their death, but this isn't a game and everyone would like to live another day, may him be Kosovo Albanian, Croatian, Bosnian or Serb.

So to end, if the Serbs wanted to live and see their country prosper, they shouldn't have followed a fool like Millosheviç propaganda blindfolded but as Newton 2nd Law states "For each and every action, there's and equal and opposite reaction", which in this case for all the innocent victims in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo the equal "reaction" was the death of 1000 Serb civilians and the destruction of a country in contrast to tens of thousands of dead civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo and the destruction of 3 countries and the only one to blame is Millosheviç and everyone who followed his crazy idea.

For Gods sake, is like saying that is the Allies fault for bombing Germany (no offense to all Germans) to stop Hitler and his crazy ideas. (Hitler=Millosheviç in this case)


PS: The only reason why the "world" hasn't interfered in Syria is cause your country (Russia) and China are not allowing it cause one day they might ​resort to such measures and they wouldn't sign in the UN to attack themselves, would they?
 
Iapodos, I invite you to read my first post carefully, and you might notice I never intended to blame or be judgemental towards any of the sides involved. I only want to see if the rest of the world was shown on a daily basis the development of the war. Up to that point, my generation audiovisual experience of war was grainy black and white footage from WWII, and for those interested in conflicts, the limited colour footage made during the Vietnam war, that was later going to produce a huge American propagandist movie genre (Rambo, Missing in Action,...). It might be normal for the new generations to watch live footage of operations or troops posting their daily life on youtube, but it was not like that back in the 80es and 90es, and although the first Gulf war was a cornerstone for TV propaganda with live coverage and carefully selected images of allied planes patrolling the Iraqi airspace, the Sarajevo siege was the first siege we could live from the inside at the time of the news.
As for the world's intervention, that is absolutely not my concern, nor I am interested to discuss American and British involvement. Geopolitics is too complicated, let alone the Balkan area, to be reduced to "the bad Serbs against the innocent muslims against the good Croats". I also believe the La Haye international war crimes tribunal is a farce in the ex-Yougoslav case, as the EU pressured Serbian authorities to deliver the warlords making their list as a condition for accession to EU membership. I invite you to open a thread to discuss the war itself, I'll be happy to participate and have several points of view.
You ask me what is the solution in "my world"... I think if the western world promotes "the right of self-determination of peoples", the west should also respect the right of people to defend their territorial rights and go to war. The case of Syria and Libya are of the same calibre: the western world has been hypocrit and still is, their interests are not directly threatened but it is important to find a balance in the region, and a couple of Islamic regimes in that zone will dangerously tilt the balance. I do not believe any conflict is a power struggle of Good vs Evil, but in the case of Kosovo, a redefinition of the borders with relocation of populations (like the German expulsions from modern Polish and Czech territories after WWII) would have saved many lives and spared us the Bosnian wars tragedy. Last thing, I do not consider myself a moral authority on any ground, and you should realise that when governments decide to get involved in a conflict, it is very often against their own population's will.
 
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Serbian nation has to grow up and face what they did. Unfortunately neither bombing or tribunals will help the Serb nation to move one step up on the ladder which is usually considered as "growing up". We grow by learning from our mistakes.
For me, I know that today I would not be writing these lines if it were not for Blair first and then Clinton. I was during the war in Prishtina, and I know what happened. I had relatives all around Kosovo, and we know what happened.But even before that, I felt in my skin what Milloshevic and his Co. were. So unfortunately, the military intervention (this time) by NATO in Kosovo enabled me to be alive today. I have my opinion about everything else that is going on in the world, but for me (and all the Kosovar Albanians) they were the saviors and this is a fact. So yes, nobody is perfect, but humans sometimes (even politicians) make the right decisions.
 
The case of ex-Yugoslavia is created not in 1990's but in 1945 when the W war 2 was over,
in Γιαλτα (i think it is Υalta Я́лта) island or something like spelling,

in the meeting, we have many dramas of the Balkans to be arranged,

example is the Greek civil war, the Chausesku in Romania the Hodza in Albania the Zivkov in Bulgaria, abd the creation of a 'federal' country the ex-Yugoslavia, which was doomed from the beggining and Tito forced to be more

the one who we must blaime is Franklin Roosevelt, and J Stalin who did not give the correct attention after 1945 in Balkans,
pushed civil wars, and 'strong' dictators, and multinational countries like Yugoslavia

the ones who must send in Den Haag Court of Justice are the bellow and their allies the dictators of the Balkans


Yalta_Conference_(Churchill%2C_Roosevelt%2C_Stalin)_(B%26W).jpg




Division and stupid sterile nationalism in Balkans is the butter upon their bread

remember the ones who help you today help another yesterday and will another one tomorrow to destroy you. Basic law of divide and conquer.


their modern agents Today are destroying EU,
Goldman Sachs is not E corporation-Bank, yet Dragi Papademos and Monti are their agents,
 
Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us Yetos, but I must say that I completely agree with Cimmerianbloke and Endri. And as I said, we were hunted by Serbs and were saved by NATO that was put into motion by Blair and Clinton, something that they were not ready to do for Bosnia, unfortunately. So, we were lucky since they had learned the lesson from Bosnian war.

We all have to learn from the history, but we cannot blame only the past. Putting the blame on others and never face the mistakes, and in this case atrocities committed, just because you felt like you could do that and nobody could stop you, because you consider yourselves 'European' country, will keep you in the same level of consciousness and never learn and move on.

Times are changing and with them are the people and the nations as well, which affects the politics on the geopolitical level. So, if we do not get sober (face the reality) and keep up the pace with the change that is needed life is not going to be easy. We either adapt or we die, that is the harsh law of the evolution, and evolution is a never ending story whether we like it or not.
 
I have a very deep interest for that conflict, because it showed how Europe, regardless of the speeches and bureaucracy shrouding Brussels, has been powerless and unable to act as one on a genocide perpetrated a stone's throw away. I was also very shocked to learn that one of the Serbian warlord, Arkan, has been jailed in several European countries throughout the 70es and 80es and always managed to set himself free. Above all, I think of that conflict as a warning that multiculturalism has limits and that those limits are dangerously close to start some major upheaval within the EU.

I also read somewhere that the pre-Milosevic government granted amnesty to ordinary murderers before the war started, desperately hoping to ease certain tensions (don't remember exactly what kind of tensions, but it was a very late desperate act). Many of these criminals became war lords.

Regarding the "strategy" of EU leaders and media, they simply blame the serbs. But in reality, if one party is bad, it doesn't mean that the others are good. Serbs had many victims too (90000 dead in total, from bosnian source). For me thats a surprisingly high number. Of course, this is no excuse for serb atrocities.
 
90000 dead in total, from bosnian source

Maybe I should add that there are also much different figures. For instance, the norwegian government sponsored in 2005 an investigation that came up with 100000 dead in total. In this study, 66% were supposed to be muslim, 26% serbian and 8% croatian. The bosnian study estimated rather 200000-250000 total victims. The absolute numbers differ much, but the relations remain more-or less the same I think.
Actually I didn't want to start discussions about victim numbers, but still need to be accurate.
 

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