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a CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE publication
December 1991
Unclassified
Editors Note:
The recent UN-brokered cease-fire in Yugoslavia provides Mr. Wm. Hamilton, a Strategic Analyst in the Analysis and Production Branch of CSIS, an appropriate opportunity to assess the bitter and complex enmities of what Churchill once called the "tormented, mishandled, shamefully cast-away people of Yugoslavia". In the second part of his paper, Mr. Hamilton points to the EC's failure to confront nationalistic violence, and predicts the best hope for, and greatest danger to, a peaceful resolution.
Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the COMMENTARY series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.
Yugoslavia seems to have lapsed into a type of atavism, at odds with the intended political direction of the new Europe. Assembled in 1918 from remnants of the dismembered Habsburg and Ottoman empires, and reconstituted in 1946 after the Nazi occupation and a bitter civil war, Yugoslavia has failed both times to unify the Slavs of Southern Europe. Two of the six republics of Yugoslavia are at war, due to nationality and religious differences, divergent histories, old enmities and economic self-interest. As a result, Europe is confronted once again by the spectre of nationalistic violence, and must develop new policies for peacekeeping, containment and collective security.
It is tempting, but inaccurate, to blame Yugoslavia's troubles solely on "ethnic disputes". The principal combatants in Yugoslavia today are of similar South Slavic ethnic origin, and their languages are derivatives of the same medieval Old Church Slavonic. In recognition of its many nationality differences, however, Yugoslavia was made a federation of six republics, each providing a homeland for the Slavic minorities identified as "Nations of Yugoslavia." Thus, Croatians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes form the majority in the separate republics named after them. The sixth recognized "nation" comprises the misleadingly named "Muslims," descended from ethnic Slavs converted to Islam within the old Ottoman empire. They do not form a majority in any of the six republics, but find a homeland in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where they are the largest minority at 44% of the population. Only in Slovenia does the population approach homogeneity; each of the other republics is a patchwork of minorities from other "nations" as well as other "nationalities".
In addition to the South Slavs, there are ten minorities registered as "Nationalities of Yugoslavia." Albanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Gypsies, Italians, Romanians, Ruthenians, Slovaks and Turks are not granted republic status, but the Serbian autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina were intended to give a measure of self-government and recognition to Albanians and Hungarians respectively. A third group of minorities is identified as "Other Nationalities and Ethnic Groups", including Austrians, Greeks, Germans, Jews, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Vlachs, and another 5% of the population prudent enough to call themselves "Yugoslavs". The immediate neighbours in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania have a paternalistic interest in the welfare of related nationalities within Yugoslavia. Elsewhere, the countries of the European Community, Eastern Europe, Turkey and the former Soviet Union are all concerned about the future spread of the nationality contagion.
Religion further complicates the nationality differences. Almost half of the Yugoslav population, mainly Serbs, belong to various branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Another quarter is Roman Catholic, mostly in the western republics of Slovenia and Croatia. Between 12% and 17% are Muslims, including Albanians, Turks and the aforementioned Slavic converts to Islam. The remainder represent a tangle of over 30 smaller denominations. Yugoslavia has so many nationality and religious differences that an extraordinary amount of tolerance would have been needed to make the country work. If it ever existed, that tolerance is gone.
Since the 7th century, the nations of Yugoslavia have had little chance to practice unity, having been fractured into separate communities by more powerful neighbours. Croatia existed for a time as an independent kingdom, but was joined to Hungary in 1102 through dynastic marriage. Slovenia was absorbed by Austria, and both Croatia and Slovenia remained part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1918, practising Roman Catholicism and using the Latin alphabet on the southern frontier of the empire, facing the Islamic Turks.
Serbia was incorporated within the Ottoman empire in 1459, but the Orthodox Church provided strong cultural continuity for Serbian nationalism. Serbia supported the allied Entente powers in the First World War against the Central Powers, and was rewarded at the end of the war by the creation of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The 1921 confirmation of Albania's pre- war boundaries, however, thwarted a Serbian ambition for independent direct access to the Adriatic Sea, an ambition as yet unfulfilled.
Bosnia-Hercegovina, sandwiched between Croatia and Serbia, is a balance of Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Nationalist uprisings there had less success than in Serbia, and were brutally suppressed in 1875. In 1908 Austria annexed the provinces from the crumbling Ottoman empire, causing the Bosnian crisis that rocked Europe. Following the creation of the "Unity or Death" secret society, otherwise known as the "Black Hand", the Serbs embarked on a terrorist campaign that led to the 1914 assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne at Sarajevo in modern Bosnia- Hercegovina, an event which helped to trigger the First World War.
Montenegro was never pacified completely by the Turks, and had its independence confirmed by the Sultan in 1799. Montenegro became a kingdom in 1910, supported Serbia in the First World War, and merged with Serbia in 1918 before the creation of the new kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. There is a kinship between Montenegrins and Serbs, and Montenegro continues to be Serbia's closest ally.
Macedonia remains a potential hotbed of historical grievances. Conquered by the Ottomans in the 14th century, it remained under Turkish control until 1878, when the Bulgarians failed to regain it from the decaying Ottoman empire. In the First Balkan War (1912), Bulgaria and Serbia, assisted by Greece and Montenegro, attacked Turkey and recovered the province of Macedonia. Bulgaria then asserted its claim to Macedonia against its former allies in the Second Balkan War of 1913, but was defeated with the help of the Romanians and Turks. An unsatisfactory peace settlement further divided the combatants, Bulgaria and Turkey supporting the Central Powers during the First World War, and Greece, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia joining the Allies. Over 70 years later, the same parties retain an interest in Macedonia.
Although the name was not adopted until 1929, the first Yugoslavia came into being after the First World War, with the creation of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, complete with a Serbian king. The idea of harnessing Slavic nationalism and providing a homeland for the disparate and fractious elements of the South Slavic people was popular at the time and consistent with the principle of self-determination. However, the intractable Macedonian question had proved insoluble at the end of the First World War, with the result that Macedonia had been partitioned between Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia. Croats for their part resented the majority Serbian domination of the national institutions, including the monarchy, so Croatian nationalists resorted to a familiar South Slavic tactic by reviving the secret organization known as the Ustase. In 1934, the Ustase hired an Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization assassin to murder King Alexander, and when Nazi Germany occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, formed a breakaway fascist Croatian state. Despite the ethnic and linguistic similarities between the South Slavs, their old enmities were not forgotten, and the first Yugoslavia foundered.
A vicious civil war ensued in Yugoslavia at the same time as a war of liberation was being fought against the Nazi occupation. A crucial decision by the Allies in 1944 to support Tito gave him the advantage over his opponents—Mihailovic (a Serb) and Pavelic (a Croat), and when Nazi Germany was defeated, they received no mercy. Mihailovic was executed, Pavelic escaped into exile, and their supporters were dealt with as the victors thought appropriate. In a wartime broadcast, Winston Churchill spoke of the "tormented, mishandled, shamefully cast-away people of Yugoslavia," 1,700,000 of whom died, often at the hands of fellow Yugoslavs. The period 1941 to 1946 was perhaps the darkest in Yugoslavia's bloody history, exploited by modern propagandists on both sides of the Serbo-Croatian quarrel, inside Yugoslavia and abroad.
Josip Broz Tito dominated Yugoslav politics until his death in 1980. On a slogan of "brotherhood and unity," he kept the second Yugoslavia united by a combination of political acumen, ruthlessness and personal stature at home and overseas. The 1974 constitution was designed to compensate for the power vacuum that could be expected after his death. A collective federal presidency was established, consisting of one representative from each of the six national republics and the two autonomous provinces. Tito was appointed "President for Life," but this position was to rotate annually thereafter amongst the members of the collective presidency.
What seemed on the surface to be a reasonable solution could not legislate away the old enmities. By far the largest "nation" in Yugoslavia, the once-powerful Serbs, resented a structure within which they were not even first among eight political equals. Furthermore, the constitution had recognized six national republics, each with its own president, and two autonomous provinces in Serbia. Almost inevitable centrifugal pressures were created thereby, because at least four of the six republics and both of the autonomous provinces had no wish to live under Serbian domination after Tito's death. During the 1980s, control at the centre weakened as each of the eight political units sought to improve its own position and economic self-interest.
Since the Second World War, Yugoslavia has made a relatively successful transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Just before the current troubles began, manufacturing and mining, for example, accounted for 44% of total output, compared to 14% for agriculture and fishing. Estimated average GNP per capita was (US) $5,434, modest by European Community standards, but good in comparison to many other non-aligned countries.
Concealed in this average, however, was a gross disparity in wealth between the eight political units comprising Yugoslavia as defined in the 1974 constitution. Slovenia enjoyed a per capita GNP of $12,618, close to that of its prosperous neighbour Austria, with Croatia a distant second at $7,179 and Vojvodina third at $6,949. At the other end of the scale, the per capita annual GNP for Kosovo was only $1,302, while those of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro were each less than $4,000. Serbia, at $4,870, was just under the Yugoslav average.
These economic disparities are comparable to the differences between the richer countries of the European Community and the poorer have-not countries if Europe but are exacerbated when confined within the borders of one country. Slovenes, furthermore, were aware that their 8% of the Yugoslav population generated 19% of the GNP, and Croats knew that they accounted for more than 25% of the GNP, much of the food production and most of the overseas trade through their ports on the Adriatic. Both nations looked forward to eventual membership in the European Community, and had no wish to continue putting more into the federation than they were taking out. Serbians on the other hand, as the leading proponents of a united Yugoslavia, were not going to permit the loss of the two strongest economies.
Recent editorial opinion has traced the beginnings of the present situation in Yugoslavia to the 25 June declaration of independence by Slovenia and Croatia. These events certainly brought matters to a head, but were the end rather than the beginning of a long decline into civil war. A major accelerator in this decline was the 1987 accession to power of Slobodan Milosevic, the current president of the Serbian republic, who has been criticised as the man who let the nationalist genie out of the bottle. Whatever his motivation, Milosevic's successful campaign to repeal the autonomous status of Kosovo and Vojvodina alarmed non-Serbian Yugoslavs, and Slovenes and Croats began to look to their own security needs. At the same time, Milosevic's bellicose statements on behalf of Serbian nationalism earned him strong Serbian support, in time for the all-party elections held throughout the republics in 1990.
In all republics, the voters returned the parties which advocated the strongest positions on behalf of their respective nationalities, regardless of the candidates' past political affiliations. Centre-right nationalist governments were elected in Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, and re-badged communists espousing nationalistic policies were confirmed in Serbia and Montenegro. Voters in Bosnia-Hercegovina also voted in a nationalist pattern, resulting in a multi-party government headed by President Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim. Maintaining the fragile balance between Croats, Muslims and Serbs, this government has tried subsequently to avoid taking sides in the wider Serbo-Croatian conflict.
Originally interested in the idea of a looser confederation, the governments of Slovenia and Croatia decided instead to proceed with plebiscites on the question of independence. In December 1990, Slovenes voted 88% in favour of a sovereign Slovenia, and in May 1991, 92% of Croats followed suit for Croatia. Both national assemblies then passed declarations of sovereignty and independence on June 25, 1991. On the same day as the plebiscite, the Croatian assembly approved a charter on the rights of the Serbian minority in Croatia, but it was already too late. Croatian Serbs, alarmed at the pace of events, had started earlier to arm themselves, with the help of the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
In the Spring of 1991, the JNA began secretly to disarm the republican militias in the non-Serbian republics. In the eyes of non-Serbians, the JNA had abandoned all pretense of objectivity, and was abusing its powers by becoming a Serbian force. Milan Kucan, President of Slovenia, discovered the disarmament operation and ordered it stopped, but Croatia lost most of its arms, and had to resort instead to the international arms market. Several nationalist genies were now out of the bottle, and running loose beyond the control of the federal government.
At a time when strong federal leadership was required, the collective federal presidency disintegrated. Federal president Stipe Mesic, and federal prime minister Ante Markovic, both Croats, were unable to moderate events, and were relegated to the sidelines. The collective presidency, nominally responsible for the JNA, ceased to meet. Branko Kostic, the Montenegrin vice-president, tried to put an air of legitimacy on the rump presidency that attempted to take over in Belgrade. This body consists of the representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Vojvodina, but is boycotted by Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Outside the boundaries of Yugoslavia, the rump presidency is recognised for what it is, a vehicle for legitimizing Serbian activities, including those of the JNA.
As events have unfolded, the JNA has not distinguished itself. The ill-conceived attempt to subdue Slovenia by force, contrary to the democratically expressed will of the Slovene population, ended in defeat. The JNA failed to disarm all the Slovene militia units; conscript soldiers from other nationalities refused to fight; and the JNA high command underestimated the determination of the Slovene resistance. At the same time, the JNA discredited itself by arming and abetting Serbian irregulars in Croatia, who promptly turned their Croatian neighbours into refugees over perhaps one-third of Croatia, thereby stiffening the resolve of an already intransigent Croatian government and population.
The intemperate statements of Blagoje Adzic, the JNA's headstrong former Chief-of-Staff and now Defence Minister, the erratic performance of the various components of the JNA, and the behaviour of the Serbian irregulars made the JNA look like an army beyond legitimate civilian control. According to the Financial Times, a document prepared by EC cease-fire monitors describes the JNA as a "cowardly army, fighting for no recognisable principle, but largely, instinctively for its own status and survival". Professor Norman Stone of Oxford University has even suggested that the Serbian commanders are candidates for a war crimes trial. On the other hand, what little restraint has been shown to date has come from the JNA, which has not used all its overwhelming firepower to maximum advantage. Had it done so, more than Dubrovnik and Vukovar would now be in ruins.
If there is a discernible Serbian strategy, it appears to be consistent with Slobodan Milosevic's supposed objective of a Greater Serbia. JNA attacks in Krajina, Slavonia and the Adriatic ports can be justified as defence of Serbian minorities in Croatia. On the other hand, Slavonia is the breadbasket of Yugoslavia, and the Adriatic ports are vital to the economic health of all the republics. Croatia claims that these economic assets would be useful to Serbia, either as additions to a Greater Serbia or as bargaining chips at some future settlement, but to the onlooker the shattered cities look like greatly devalued assets. The problem with the Serbian strategy is that it makes no concessions to the multinational composition of Yugoslavia and is of apparent benefit only to Serbs. That is why the Croats are fighting with such desperation and Serbia is becoming increasingly isolated within the federation and across Europe.
The Croatian strategy, under its hardline president Franjo Tudjman, is equally obdurate. As the series of cease-fires is broken, there is a surrealistic quality about claims from individual Serbian commanders that they are being attacked by forces that have no navy, no air force and are outmatched in armour and artillery. There are elements of truth, however, in these assertions. Having lost perhaps one-third of its territory, Croatia is stubbornly defending what is left, and trying to provoke outside intervention. The Croats have tried with some success to surround and force the surrender of some army garrisons and naval facilities. The cost has been high. The Yugoslav combined forces use their monopoly of most heavy weapons to pound selected Croatian cities, earning almost universal condemnation from outside Yugoslavia, but taking a high toll in Croatian casualties and property damage. Yugoslavs of all nationalities, however, are questioning the purpose of destroying cities, as the evidence mounts of economic deprivation to everyone. River trade along the Danube and road and rail transport between the European Community and the Balkan countries has been interrupted, and the economy has been badly damaged across what is left of the federation. The result is that Serbia may be winning most of the ground battles to date, but Croatia is winning the propaganda war. Despite international sympathy, however, the Croatian strategy of provoking outside intervention did not work until a significant part of Croatia had been lost.
The major powers have the capability but not the vital interest to stop the fighting in Yugoslavia. Of much more importance to American, and indeed to world interests, is the preservation of the developing relationships with the countries of the former USSR. Nor are the countries of the new Commonwealth of Independent States going to allow the crisis in Yugoslavia to jeopardize relations with the USA. Russia, for example, is facing similar potential problems on a grander scale, and can hardly be expected to support unilateral declarations of independence elsewhere. On the other hand, the unrepentant totalitarians in Serbia can expect no support from post-coup Moscow for old-fashioned armed suppression. Both the USA and the CIS want the Yugoslavs to negotiate some type of new relationship that would avoid the complete breakup of the federation. Given the prevailing situation in Yugoslavia, however, that seems a forlorn hope, even with outside mediation. As a result, the major responsibility for remedial action has fallen on the European Community. Results to date have not been encouraging.
Despite unanimous condemnation of events in Yugoslavia, the European Community failed to react vigorously enough to deter the combatants. From the beginning, the EC underestimated the intransigence on both sides of the Serbo-Croatian quarrel. Warnings that the EC would not recognize unilateral declarations of independence did not stop Croatia. Threats of economic sanctions and community disapproval, and the subsequent imposition of sanctions, had little effect on Serbia. The so-called Troika mission dispatched to Yugoslavia in August by the EC was headed by the EC president, Hans van den Broek. Despite this authority, and some plain talk, the Troika was dismissed almost contemptuously by Milosevic. A September visit by Lord Carrington, chairman of the EC-sponsored peace conference in The Hague, resulted in the fourteenth cease-fire, but it was broken within hours, with the usual accusations from both sides as to blame.
The EC has deployed unarmed cease-fire monitors to Yugoslavia, but is divided over the best method to interpose armed peacekeeping troops between the combatants. When hostilities began, France was the leading advocate of armed military intervention. That idea died after ominous rumblings from pre-coup Moscow, and lack of support from France's major European allies. Germany's military choices were limited by constitutional restrictions on the deployment of German forces, and by the negative images, exploited astutely by Milosevic, of German armies again on the march in Europe. Britain, with extensive experience in situations where its army was not present at the invitation of the belligerents, opposes a peacekeeping force until there is a peace to keep, and this view appears to have prevailed within the community.
The EC is also concerned about the problem of containing the war at its present limits. Within Yugoslavia itself, the populations of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia have all voted for at least the option of withdrawing from the Yugoslav federation, and in the last three cases, the Serbian minority in each republic has expressed its opposition to any separation. Since Serbia has gone to war with Slovenia and Croatia over the issue, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia fear that they may be drawn into the conflict before peacekeepers can be deployed. If that were to happen, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina would join their own kind in other republics, and Muslims would appeal for help to Islamic countries like Turkey. Furthermore, the 1.9 million Albanians in Kosovo and the 600,000 Hungarians in Vojvodina could be expected to seek some form of association with Albania and Hungary respectively. Hungary has already asked the EC to send observers to its common border with Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria has made a similar appeal. The latter believes that the Serbian minority in Macedonia could provoke the same type of Serbian intervention as occurred in Croatia, in which case the 400,000 Albanians in Macedonia would react in their own interests.
The EC has been unable to agree on effective action on Yugoslavia in part because the community has not yet resolved its collective security problem. Accustomed to 40 years of American leadership within NATO, the countries of Western Europe must decide the related questions of who leads, and what type of force is to be led. Besides, NATO is a trans-Atlantic alliance which contains four members who do not belong to the European Community, and therefore is not the most appropriate force to execute EC policy in European trouble spots like Yugoslavia. The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) contains all the countries in Europe, as well as Canada and the USA, but requires unanimous consent for action, including that of Yugoslavia. The Western European Union (WEU) was recognized as "the defence component of the European Union" by the EC heads of state at Maastricht on 10 December 1991, but needs a great deal of refurbishment before it can function effectively.
In the absence of an effective EC response to the situation in Yugoslavia, Germany supported the immediate recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, but was dissuaded initially from a unilateral recognition in the interests of community solidarity. Some of the other EC members thought recognition of the breakaway republics would only incite further violence, but a compromise was achieved whereby the EC postponed the decision on recognition until 15 January 1992. Having waited long enough, Germany then announced its own recognition. If the EC issues a collective recognition in mid-January, there is little doubt that other countries will follow, and the Yugoslav federation will be no more.
Federal Yugoslavia has failed twice, and the outlook is not encouraging. A federation composed of six nations, ten official nationalities, and ten other nationalities would have unity problems under ideal circumstances. In the present climate of bitterness, rebuilding the federation would seem to be an impossible task. Just as the tolerance of other nationalities was missing from the second Yugoslavia, the obstinate refusal of both Serbs and Croats to recognize any merit in the other's position makes an early negotiated settlement unlikely. On the positive side, interested neighbouring countries have so far refrained from intervening, although that possibility remains if the conflict can not be contained. Having demonstrated its limitations, the EC will correct the problems of peacekeeping, containment, and collective security, but not in time to help Yugoslavia.
The best hope for peace appears to lie with the United Nations rather than with the EC. Cyrus Vance, the UN special envoy, negotiated the fifteenth cease-fire, and if it or a successive cease-fire holds, the fighting may stop long enough to create the conditions needed for peacekeeping. The greatest danger to the process comes from ultra-nationalist armed minorities within minorities who no longer answer to the de facto power centres controlled by the presidents of the Serbian and Croatian republics and the JNA. If any of these dissident groups feels that peacekeeping is not in its own best interests, it will not hesitate to try to wreck the negotiating process or to prevent the deployment of peacekeeping forces. If any of these groups succeeds, the future for the citizens of Yugoslavia will be bleak.
Commentary is a regular publication of the Analysis and Production Branch of CSIS. Inquires regarding submissions may be made to the Chairman of the Editorial Board at the following address:
The views expressed herein are those of the author, who may be contacted by writing to :
CSIS P.O.Box 9732 Postal Station T Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4 FAX: (613) 842-1312
ISSN 1192-277X
Catalogue JS73-1/16
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