My reading of this text, in a way,
‘bookends’ my knowledge and study of South East Europe. It was my original
viewing of the series The Death of Yugoslavia that drew my attention to the
region two decades ago. So in this book I was seeking to find a deeper portrayal of events by the authors.
This text does not seek a theoretical
understanding of the conflict, and it only fleetingly calls upon historical or
anthropological perspectives on why events may have unfolded as they did. This
is rather different to the TV show, whose audience included those not familiar
in the history of the region, so could have led one to believe that their
analysis of events was the classic ‘ancient hatreds’ paradigm. The start of the
book clearly indicates this as not being so. Instead, the book walks the reader
through a series of key events that the authors see as being essential to fueling the
subsequent wars and ethnic cleansing.
Echoing the same timeline as the
TV show, you get further insight to some of the events and key players in the
drama that was taking place in the 1980s and 1990s. It cleverly portrays the
balance between the agency of individuals and those of institutions, which led to
the Yugoslav state’s collapse.
Symbolic individuals are familiar; Milosevic, Tudjman, Izetbegovic, Kucan – all heads of the republics/states they sought, and eventually came, to control. However, the spotlight also moves onto other individuals who were
aggressors, and even those trying to calm the rising ethnic tensions. Borisav
Jovic was Milosevic’s right hand man. Holding various functions at the Serbian
and Federal level, Jovic was one of the key disciples of Milosevic’s attempts
initially to centralize power in the Yugoslav state, then into the goal of
uniting all Serbs. Milan Babic and Milan Martic are two individuals in Knin who
took on the Serb Nationalist mantle once independence was sought by Croatia.
What began as the Croatian states’ attempts to impose law and order, soon
escalated to Serbian defense of their villages and towns, drawing battle lines
in the process. The Croat Josip
Reihl-Kir, regional police chief in eastern Croatia, continuously tried to halt
small skirmishes between Serb militia and Croat police from developing into a
civil war, all the while facing pressure from above in the form of the hawkish
HDZ officials.
Aside from individuals, the portrayal of
institutions and forces as agents in the descent to state collapse and war are
superbly woven into the story. As mentioned, the contest between centrifugal and
centripetal forces for power in the Yugoslav state began in earnest once Tito
died; although under him they had precedent. The multi-member presidency
effectively reified the implication that republics were now the keepers of
their resident nations, with a couple of notable and dangerous exceptions to that logic.
Economic decline and social strife fuelled this polarized debate – symbolized
by the western republics of one side, and the eastern on the other, or richer
versus the poorer states. However two institutions kept them together, the
League of Communists and the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA). ‘Brotherhood and
Unity’ was still the central plank to their worldview. Any violation to the
sovereignty and territoriality of Yugoslavia was verboten. It was the former that was to go first.
At the seminal, and what was to be the
final, conference of the League of Communists in January 1990 (I have covered
this in a past blog piece), it was Kucan as head of the
Slovene delegation that led the walkout that saw the end of the League of
Communists. The centripetal forces had
won. The JNA on the other hand clung on, even after the loss of Slovenia and
Croatia. However, by that time, its Serb contingent moved from working under
the JNA banner in Croatia then Bosnia to local Serb units. The detail of the
movements on the ground are vividly portrayed, with lines of communication –
either between Croatian Police forces and the leadership in Zagreb, or the Serb
militias and the ‘Yugoslav’ leadership in Belgrade – explained concisely.
Further on, the details of the war and
sieges on the ground, and the pathetic response by world community, is
despairing. Hindsight only makes you question why the EC and UN did not do
more. Initially wanting to keep Yugoslavia intact, splits developed in the international
community that led to different directions and approaches on how to stop conflict emerging.
Within Yugoslavia, the tussle of whether 'self-determination' should be exclusive to the republics or the nations fed into the splits in the
international community. The price paid was ethnic cleansing.
What gives this book its power is the
knowledge garnered from the active participants. Although written in 1996, and
with the participants possibly not giving a full and frank account, the authors weaved a compelling account from numerous actors and actions of institutions, to describe the events and processes that took hold
of the former Yugoslavia from the early 1980s. How it slowly describes the
ethnic untangling of peoples is a daunting prospect for us in communities that
are ever becoming more multi cultural. However, the book doesn’t give, nor does
it need to, an account of how to stop this. Instead this book is more a warning,
a warning to those who seek political power by manipulating institutions,
individuals and the masses, through tools of fear and hatred, in order to put
into practice a narrow nationalist agenda.
