Yugoslavia - What Really Happened

[Mari]

Sounds like all "Illyrians" of pure genetic stock (determined by DNA tests of course) should, on confirmation of said purity, be immediately elevated to global philosopher kings and queens and thenceforth lead the world into a new era of peace and glory.

Exactly! No need to wait for space brothers - there are Illyrians for the rescue! You’re welcome!

 

[Z...]

Alternatively, you could all just become Jewish. They seem to have a similar self-image.

Wait until you see the evidence that offshoot of neolithic Vinca culture which precluded the Illyrian culture gave birth to Minoan culture while Etruscans are directly related to Illyrians.
So the parts of Italy, Sardinia and whole Greece should be included in that map.
Not to mention the Ireland and all Celtic lands since Keltoi are known to have been hanging with us.

 

[Z...]

Exactly! No need to wait for space brothers - there are Illyrians for the rescue! You’re welcome!

The future is open. Just wait and see

 

[Corvus]

There seems to be an argument that "Illyrian people" (who spoke "Illyrian") extend from Bohemia all the way over to the Black sea and down to the borders of Greece. So y'all should just unite under the Ilyrian identity and invade Western Europe. As long as you don't support Israel and transgenderism, we'll totally welcome you!

View attachment 97390

It is better idea for all Slavs to unite and invade the West, but not happening because not so agressive as germans and anglosaxons

 

[Revolucionar]

For the record, I don't subscribe to the idea that Serbia was all good or the victim and all others were tools of NATO.

Thanks for clarifying your position. The problem was that Sott and the forum keep referring to the same type of information that whitewashes Serbian misdeeds and lays the blame elsewhere. I understand that this sort of material was given so much air time to serve as a counterweight to the established narrative of Serbs are the worst and everyone else is the victim. I wouldn't have a problem with absolving Serbia if it were the truth, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

I subscribe to the idea that since Serbia was the largest and most populated republic in the SFRY and had the Yugoslav capital in Belgrade, it naturally sought to call the shots after the breakup and during the war.

My reading of the history tells me that Serbia didn't want to lose the industrial base and strategic areas held by Croatia and Slovenia which were the two richest republics.

They were also driven by the nationalist notion born in the 19th century that all Serbs should live in one country. Part of that was also saying that the vast majority of Croats were, in fact, Catholicized Serbs. Bosniaks were Islamicized Serbs. Milosevic came to power on this sort of nationalistic platform, initially focused against the Albanians. That was the beginning of ethnic tension coming to the fore in Yugoslavia, although it simmered under the surface from the outset due to the ill-conceived policy of "Brotherhood and Unity" which sought to erase the differences between the ethnic groups and the republics. The Russians did this in a much better way and they're still around with many more ethnicities as part of the Russian nation. Not to mention that the USSR fell apart without a bullet fired.

My thoughts on NATO is that it opportunistically entered and perpetuated the war for the purpose of seizing as much control of the area as possible. Of course in most situations where ethnic groups/former nations states are vying for independence, there will always be some level of conflict.

NATO does what NATO does. Although, NATO wasn't really involved until later on. There were UN peacekeepers around, though.
The West certainly capitalized on the conflict, but ultimately it was up to Serbia and Croatia to figure it out. Unfortunately, Milosevic didn't want to change the constitution to a confederate system and instead started to rile up the Croatian Serbs to give himself a pretext to invade.

I think however, that if NATO and the West in general had stayed out of the conflict, it would have been far better for all concerned. That might be naive, but we'll never know I suppose.

I can't prove this and maybe I will find some hard evidence for it at some point, but looking at Milosevic's decisions and relations with the West throughout his tenure I see a lot of Zelensky in there. My gut tells me that Milosevic didn't want peace because he was told by the West that they would support him, or not get in his way, just like Zelensky stopped the negotiations after BoJo came to town.
I think that the West calculated that Serbia could easily subjugate the rest and create a large vassal state that the West could control. The problem was that there was a huge lack of pro war sentiment in Serbia and they didn't have enough people to shoot the guns. On paper, the JNA should have steamrolled over Croatia and it would have ended there without a wider war, but after some initial successes, the war machine started to grind down as the Croatian forces started to get more organized and filled up with volunteers while taking over materiel from the JNAs barracks inside Croatian territory and smuggling in weapons around the western imposed embargo.
Once the West realized what was happening and the public sentiment had time to turn against the Serbian invasion, the West started to intervene and hold negotiations for ceasefires, ultimately turning against Milosevic and after the war ended in Croatia and Bosnia even going so far as to bomb Serbia.
That's my current working theory. I'm pretty sure that it's at least somewhat true as it fits the modus operandi of the west to a T which we can see in full evidence today with Zelensky who'll definitely be thrown under the bus by the west sooner or later.

So yeah, if they hadn't meddled, none of it may have happened and I could have been writing this today from the Croatian Confederate Republic, part of a new Yugoslavia. We'll never know.

 

[Arlind]

So y'all should just unite under the Ilyrian identity and invade Western Europe.

Yeah right.. like the Gauls' ad-hoc 'unifications', as in, fight each other - unite - find out their allegiances are all materialistic and to get one over the other, kill each other again - unite - fold to military and strategic prowess - hole-up - condemn their people to dying of thirst and hunger - then finally fold like they should have done early on to save the eradication of large groups of them (Trump would've seen that as a great waste of human potential).

So unless we find a Caesar with ideals, a heart and an otherworldy vision, it's a pretty pointless 'waste of human potential'.

Speaking of Gauls, Greek mythology does put them as 'brothers' to Illyrians (of all shades, slavs too) and Goidellic-Britonic Celts. Sons of the 'sea nymph' Galatea and one-eyed Polyphemus 'the space Rock'
Those pescy Etruscans and Pelasgians (or their ancestors can't remember but that would put them about 4 trillion years ago) where known as the mysterious Sea People, maritimers of some sort following the floods of whenever. I love mythology.

Not to mention the Ireland and all Celtic lands since Keltoi are known to have been hanging with us.

 

[Corvus]

How can we safely conclude that? What's the evidence? I don't see how his alleged betrayal of Vukovar proves anything (not betrayed, but a strategic military decision to not attempt to break the siege). He was flirting. Not the same as being one. He took their money because Croatia had no other way of funding the defence of the country as it wasn't getting any funding from the west and was also under an arms embargo set in place by the west.

I would say you are dellusional, subjective or ill informed, but you from region Dalmatia so no wonder. Vukovar was left to fall so Croatia would get international recognition. No way of founding but Americans and CIA training Croatian army and planning all army operations like Bljesak and Oluja? UN humanitarian help coming with food cans full of bullets? Only look public speeches from Tudman and you see he was deranged pathological that made the worst robbery of Croatia and said that people can eat grass if not having something to eat, and most responsible for today sotuation of apathy, despair and economic destruction, so no need to tell anymore about him.

This was not the case in 1990s Croatia. Even though Milosevic would have you believe otherwise, there was nothing at that time that was a serious indication that Croatia would infinge upon Croatian Serbs human and civil rights.

From my experience and from experience of others that were from mixed marriage and Croat Serbs. As a kid in 1 st grade of primary school I was called names like chetnik which means serbian nationalist paramilitary forces that did crimes( because of generalisations and ethnic peopaganda hate), isolated and marginalised because my late father was Serb. In sport I was blocked because of it and even if I was among top best in the world at a young age, our trainer who was Serb and among best judges in world was suspended as a judge and trainer. In our club there were also Albanians and said that that kind of injustice is hard to believe. Even today I am blocked in my career despite having higher rank but to no avail like I have no rank and work ona he street, and I would say it is not in small measure because of my heritage.

There was also newspaper article where there was written that club was creating first class "chetniks" in sport. Sister as a child was threatened they are going to slit her throat. Our dog was killed. Late father was arrested and was pissed on, once one Croat soldier when drunk and my father working at reception of hostel where they were staying wanted to kill him based on his surname. All serb police officers where suspended and relieved of duty,( and not just there but everywhere) there was database with names who was serb. Our neighbours wanted to expel us from our home by force and threatend us, throwed stones. Late mother having traumas for all her life and living in fear for father. And bare in mind this was close to capital city. And there are many other similar and much worse stories like wealthier families killed and their homes looted, bodies burried. On front thwy were blowing houses, looting, killing and raping so no wonder Serb people run, and if you did not know there is audio recording of president Tudman talking like yeah for public we are for human rights, we are not cleansing them, etc... but in reality show them the way out. Serb paramilitaries like chetniks did the same to Croats and also Muslims in Bosnia, heared stories first hand of families and children being slaughtered. Tipical psychopaths that murder helpless people, wars are magnet for them. So yeah, never forget always remember in which kind of world you live and are sourranded with wich kind of organic creatures in human forms that are influenced by psychos and yesterday you were helping them build a house and today you are worst enemy. It all changes very easily and masks fall off quickly when things get real like in corona time. But I am grateful for experience because I am more objective and much stronger person because of it, if it were not that I would probably end up like you.

Was Croatia supposed to throw away all of its history because a military junta of Nazi puppet terrorists took over the government and commited attrocities for a few years.

Like my father dad that fought in partisans said Croats never had "I", always fighting for someone else, being under German Austrian influence in 1 and 2 world war and now US vasals. I think this is some kind of national collective karma. They run to west to gain state and "independence", and now the situation is worse by day, no economy, all destroyed by corrupt politicians under orders from west, living off debt and little longer of tourism because no production, the highest rate of cancer because all that junk and gmo food they can not sell and are forbbiden to sell is exported here, most young went to work in west because of bad economy and get fed of corruption and no chance for normal living and starting family, most are older citizens in pension with which they can not afford survival so they search in dumpster bins for food, more amd more migrants to be used as cheap labor, 150 000 working now and 180 000 want to work, planning to have them half a million by 2030 in the population of 3,8 million so yeah in 5 10 years will become minority in our country, luckily we are not going to stick long enough to see it, but hey those Serbs are guilty and do not forget they attacked us. Sad thing is people are gathering in ten thousands when there is football game but when there is need to protest for better life 10 come and others are at caffes laughing at them. Apathy rules here.

There was no good reason for the Serbian government to foment an ethnic uprising and then proceed to attack Croatia. Especially if we take into account the fact that Croatia was pushing for a change in the constitution to make it a Confederacy and keep Yugoslavia together in a different, more equitable form.

Nobody attacked Croatia, Croatia Serbs rebeled here because they knew what is in store for them like for Russians in Ukraine. And when it comes to history they not only run from Ottomans but most were granted special status, autonomy by Habsburgs to occuppy border with Ottomans to protect it from their raids, that is their area was called Military border and were directly under crown and it s protection and were protecting borders from Ottomans.

The image of the kuna was used on old coinage since around the 13th century. Again, Croatia is supposed to completely eradicate its history to wash itself of the crimes of a minority during WW2?

And when it comes to history I studied it and there one known Croatian historian said about the greates Croat king Tomislav that maybe he did not even exist because in anals he had stronger army then Byzantium that was the strongest force in Europe at that time so take it with a grain of salt, shades of King David and Salomon in Jewish history maybe?

For the record, I don't subscribe to the idea that Serbia was all good or the victim and all others were tools of NATO. I subscribe to the idea that since Serbia was the largest and most populated republic in the SFRY and had the Yugoslav capital in Belgrade, it naturally sought to call the shots after the breakup and during the war. My thoughts on NATO is that it opportunistically entered and perpetuated the war for the purpose of seizing as much control of the area as possible. Of course in most situations where ethnic groups/former nations states are vying for independence, there will always be some level of conflict. I think however, that if NATO and the West in general had stayed out of the conflict, it would have been far better for all concerned. That might be naive, but we'll never know I suppose.

Nato planned it in Washington few years prior to war. At least Serbs hold their ground and did not sellout to West.

And when it comes to Albanians they had greatest autonomy under Yugoslavia and better life then now. But where are they now? Mostly in Switzerland, Germany, England, driving and having expensive cars and houses from drug money and crimes, running crime networks there, living in their tribal units. There are also lot of them in Greece my greek friend told me, 2 million of them, and getting state jobs already like police and military to the suprise and enthusiasam of native people. Like one american snajper in Kosovo after war said that he did not see worse people, probably saw KLA crimes through the scope.

 

[Corvus]

And to add no Serbs were not going to be given autonomy, it was just a play. In one village close to Vukovar where it all started, police was sent to negotiate with serbs, but prior that those from tudman party attacked them with rpg s unknown to policemen that were ambushed so it was all used as propaganda to start war. Why did also tudman sent helicopters with special police to disarm serbs at the start of war? Was it a good move in that kind of situation or premediated my naive friend? And that case of croat policeman that negotiated peace deals with serbs from village to village but was killed by men from tudman ruling party. Why was that so? It is same in Ukraine now and on that I can only say Slava Rossia

 

[Arlind]

So yeah, if they hadn't meddled, none of it may have happened and I could have been writing this today from the Croatian Confederate Republic, part of a new Yugoslavia. We'll never know.

Thank you for all of the above and interesting takes on the conflicts/ low-level geopolitics in the region. It is very well laid out and (to me) comes accross as fairly emotional attachments-free. A valuable perspective, I think. I have only been able to see it from a narrow perspective so far and distillations like yours make for a better grasping of the subjects. Ofc more perspectives are needed, including the Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegran sides but this does put the thread back on track, to serve however little of a purpose in clearing the fog of the that period/ those conflicts.

 

[Nević Nenad]

Thanks for clarifying your position. The problem was that Sott and the forum keep referring to the same type of information that whitewashes Serbian misdeeds and lays the blame elsewhere. I understand that this sort of material was given so much air time to serve as a counterweight to the established narrative of Serbs are the worst and everyone else is the victim. I wouldn't have a problem with absolving Serbia if it were the truth, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

My reading of the history tells me that Serbia didn't want to lose the industrial base and strategic areas held by Croatia and Slovenia which were the two richest republics.

They were also driven by the nationalist notion born in the 19th century that all Serbs should live in one country. Part of that was also saying that the vast majority of Croats were, in fact, Catholicized Serbs. Bosniaks were Islamicized Serbs. Milosevic came to power on this sort of nationalistic platform, initially focused against the Albanians. That was the beginning of ethnic tension coming to the fore in Yugoslavia, although it simmered under the surface from the outset due to the ill-conceived policy of "Brotherhood and Unity" which sought to erase the differences between the ethnic groups and the republics. The Russians did this in a much better way and they're still around with many more ethnicities as part of the Russian nation. Not to mention that the USSR fell apart without a bullet fired.

NATO does what NATO does. Although, NATO wasn't really involved until later on. There were UN peacekeepers around, though.
The West certainly capitalized on the conflict, but ultimately it was up to Serbia and Croatia to figure it out. Unfortunately, Milosevic didn't want to change the constitution to a confederate system and instead started to rile up the Croatian Serbs to give himself a pretext to invade.

I can't prove this and maybe I will find some hard evidence for it at some point, but looking at Milosevic's decisions and relations with the West throughout his tenure I see a lot of Zelensky in there. My gut tells me that Milosevic didn't want peace because he was told by the West that they would support him, or not get in his way, just like Zelensky stopped the negotiations after BoJo came to town.
I think that the West calculated that Serbia could easily subjugate the rest and create a large vassal state that the West could control. The problem was that there was a huge lack of pro war sentiment in Serbia and they didn't have enough people to shoot the guns. On paper, the JNA should have steamrolled over Croatia and it would have ended there without a wider war, but after some initial successes, the war machine started to grind down as the Croatian forces started to get more organized and filled up with volunteers while taking over materiel from the JNAs barracks inside Croatian territory and smuggling in weapons around the western imposed embargo.
Once the West realized what was happening and the public sentiment had time to turn against the Serbian invasion, the West started to intervene and hold negotiations for ceasefires, ultimately turning against Milosevic and after the war ended in Croatia and Bosnia even going so far as to bomb Serbia.
That's my current working theory. I'm pretty sure that it's at least somewhat true as it fits the modus operandi of the west to a T which we can see in full evidence today with Zelensky who'll definitely be thrown under the bus by the west sooner or later.

So yeah, if they hadn't meddled, none of it may have happened and I could have been writing this today from the Croatian Confederate Republic, part of a new Yugoslavia. We'll never know.

Revolucionar, why are you so itched by Serbs, Serbia, all of that? What's going on?

 

[Anthony]

Thanks for clarifying your position. The problem was that Sott and the forum keep referring to the same type of information that whitewashes Serbian misdeeds and lays the blame elsewhere. I understand that this sort of material was given so much air time to serve as a counterweight to the established narrative of Serbs are the worst and everyone else is the victim. I wouldn't have a problem with absolving Serbia if it were the truth, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

My reading of the history tells me that Serbia didn't want to lose the industrial base and strategic areas held by Croatia and Slovenia which were the two richest republics.

They were also driven by the nationalist notion born in the 19th century that all Serbs should live in one country. Part of that was also saying that the vast majority of Croats were, in fact, Catholicized Serbs. Bosniaks were Islamicized Serbs. Milosevic came to power on this sort of nationalistic platform, initially focused against the Albanians. That was the beginning of ethnic tension coming to the fore in Yugoslavia, although it simmered under the surface from the outset due to the ill-conceived policy of "Brotherhood and Unity" which sought to erase the differences between the ethnic groups and the republics. The Russians did this in a much better way and they're still around with many more ethnicities as part of the Russian nation. Not to mention that the USSR fell apart without a bullet fired.

From what I've gathered it did indeed simmer under the surface well before. One of the contributing factors (not the only one of course) being that Yugoslavia received the IMF shock doctrine treatment during the 80's, if not a bit earlier. As we know, in a deteriorating economic situation, the people will be more likely to buy into the propaganda of opportunistic elites who provide simple solutions to complex problems, such as blaming other nationalities.

NATO does what NATO does. Although, NATO wasn't really involved until later on. There were UN peacekeepers around, though.
The West certainly capitalized on the conflict, but ultimately it was up to Serbia and Croatia to figure it out. Unfortunately, Milosevic didn't want to change the constitution to a confederate system and instead started to rile up the Croatian Serbs to give himself a pretext to invade.

I can't prove this and maybe I will find some hard evidence for it at some point, but looking at Milosevic's decisions and relations with the West throughout his tenure I see a lot of Zelensky in there. My gut tells me that Milosevic didn't want peace because he was told by the West that they would support him, or not get in his way, just like Zelensky stopped the negotiations after BoJo came to town.
I think that the West calculated that Serbia could easily subjugate the rest and create a large vassal state that the West could control. The problem was that there was a huge lack of pro war sentiment in Serbia and they didn't have enough people to shoot the guns. On paper, the JNA should have steamrolled over Croatia and it would have ended there without a wider war, but after some initial successes, the war machine started to grind down as the Croatian forces started to get more organized and filled up with volunteers while taking over materiel from the JNAs barracks inside Croatian territory and smuggling in weapons around the western imposed embargo.
Once the West realized what was happening and the public sentiment had time to turn against the Serbian invasion, the West started to intervene and hold negotiations for ceasefires, ultimately turning against Milosevic and after the war ended in Croatia and Bosnia even going so far as to bomb Serbia.
That's my current working theory. I'm pretty sure that it's at least somewhat true as it fits the modus operandi of the west to a T which we can see in full evidence today with Zelensky who'll definitely be thrown under the bus by the west sooner or later.

So yeah, if they hadn't meddled, none of it may have happened and I could have been writing this today from the Croatian Confederate Republic, part of a new Yugoslavia. We'll never know.

From Diana Johnstone's book:

Milošević had come to power with the support of Western banks and the U.S. government precisely because he was an economic liberal and political conservative who might have the authority to implement the reforms they wanted.

I think they turned on him the moment they noticed that he wasn't going to play along with the plans they had for the region - fragmentation and then unification into the Western Borg. For all the faults of Milošević, I think that Zelensky is in a category of his own.

Also from Johnstone's book:

What was really wrong with Milošević was a mixture of optimism and ambiguity not uncommon among ambitious politicians. He was often described as better at tactics than at strategy. His claim to be able to resolve the problem of Kosovo was based on illusion. He continued to preach unity, but offered no program for achieving it. He was never able to resolve the Kosovo problem as he promised, in the interests of all the people who live there. The problem was no doubt much more difficult than he realized. Whether he or anyone else could have solved it is a matter of speculation. In his ten years in office, first as president of Serbia and then as president of Yugoslavia, Milošević also failed to solve the grave economic problems he set out to solve in the first place. As a former banker, Milošević persistently gave priority to the economy. Far from being a useful distraction, the wars of Yugoslav disintegration and the international sanctions that followed were insurmountable obstacles to any coherent economic policy. Economic troubles were a prime cause of the clash of nationalisms, which in turn made problems even more intractable.

 

[Revolucionar]

As a kid in 1 st grade of primary school I was called names like chetnik

I'm sorry you had this experience. What year was this? I suspect ot was after '91.

On front thwy were blowing houses, looting, killing and raping so no wonder Serb people run, and if you did not know there is audio recording of president Tudman talking like yeah for public we are for human rights, we are not cleansing them, etc... but in reality show them the way out. Serb paramilitaries like chetniks did the same to Croats and also Muslims in Bosnia, heared stories first hand of families and children being slaughtered. Tipical psychopaths that murder helpless people, wars are magnet for them.

Agreed, there were psychos on the front on both sides. That's war unfortunately. Croatia threw many of these in prison, including some high ranking officers. How many Serbian war criminals were processed by Serbia?

Nobody attacked Croatia, Croatia Serbs rebeled here

The JNA didn't invade Croatia then?

And when it comes to history I studied it and there one known Croatian historian said about the greates Croat king Tomislav that maybe he did not even exist

What does this have to do with anything? Besides, even if Tomislav was mythical, his successors were very much historical. Do you subscribe to the Serbian notion that the Kingdom of Croatia didn't exist?

And to add no Serbs were not going to be given autonomy, it was just a play. In one village close to Vukovar where it all started

It didn't start in Vukovar and Vukovar was not a part of the Serbian Autonomic Oblast.

 

[Revolucionar]

Thank you for all of the above and interesting takes on the conflicts/ low-level geopolitics in the region. It is very well laid out and (to me) comes accross as fairly emotional attachments-free. A valuable perspective, I think. I have only been able to see it from a narrow perspective so far and distillations like yours make for a better grasping of the subjects. Ofc more perspectives are needed, including the Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegran sides but this does put the thread back on track, to serve however little of a purpose in clearing the fog of the that period/ those conflicts.

It might be helpful for you to do the same, including doing some emotionally detached research instead of raging at everyone and being hotheaded.

 

[Revolucionar]

Revolucionar, why are you so itched by Serbs, Serbia, all of that? What's going on?

I'm not. I'm itched, if you will, by the whitewashing of Serbia's responsibility for the war. Just sharing some facts and my own current ideas as a counterbalance to the established wisdom about the conflict here on the forum. You're welcome to give your perspective on the history of the conflict.

 

[Joe]

Wait until you see the evidence that offshoot of neolithic Vinca culture which precluded the Illyrian culture gave birth to Minoan culture while Etruscans are directly related to Illyrians.
So the parts of Italy, Sardinia and whole Greece should be included in that map.
Not to mention the Ireland and all Celtic lands since Keltoi are known to have been hanging with us.

Oh wow. Well let me be the first to bow down and pay homage to my Illyrian masters!

Anyway, would it be fair to say that the wrangling and jostling over national identities mythos and territory in the Balkans is at least partly a function of the 'erasure' of that identity during Commie rule and, since the fall of the SU and independence, the diverse peoples of the area set out to rediscover and reassert those identities. National identity and the history associated with it being a pretty important part of personal identity for a lot of people.

And the animosity towards the Serbs from some quarters a result of them being viewed as more or less a 'quisling' of the Soviets at the time (the capital of Yugoslavia being in Belgrade and the Serbs representing the largest population and territory). And that that continues until today vis a vis Russia, with a certain amount of animosity towards Russia and the associated support for the West, hence statues of Tony Blair in Kosovo?