ROUND TABLE

Good morning! Today is the third and final day of our discussions. While the first two days consisted of lectures from speakers from Croatia and other republics of the former Yugoslavia, today we will hear from our guests from other countries, mainly from Great Britain, Canada, the United States and Sweden. They are going to give us their viewpoints on the events in this area in the last century and a half, with emphasis on that which is occurring today.

First, I would like to try to sum up what we have heard in the last two days, that which can be described as a common denominator in the history of this area of Central Europe and the Balkan peninsula, where there have always been conflicting interests between the East and West - from the division of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire, to relations of the Frankish nation and Byzantium, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, Rome and Byzantium. The border of those two worlds was and remains the River Drina which separates the eastern and western parts of the Balkan peninsula, and Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the Middle Ages, Bulgaria, Byzantium, and Serbia in the eastern part of the Balkans, clashed with Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia in the western part; that is the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom, which since 1102 brought together Hungary, Croatia (with Slavonia and Dalmatia) and Bosnia and Herzegovina under the same crown. It needs to be stressed that at that time, Serbian control hardly ever crossed over the River Drina, and even Belgrade, Serbia’s capital today, was not in Serbian possession until the 19th century.

During the time of the Turkish conquests in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, non-Slavic Vlachs, the remaining descendants of ancient Balkan inhabitants, settled in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Croatia. In the second half of the nineteenth century, because of their common Orthodox religion, they proclaimed themselves Serbs and together with the newly-established principality, later the Kingdom of Serbia, began to work on the widening of Serbia and the formation of a Greater Serbia with the full consent of the Orthodox church. That plan was systematically enforced from the year 1844, particularly from 1918 when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed (known as Yugoslavia from 1929 onwards).

It was only in 1918 in this formally united nation that Serb control spread to the West over the River Drina, occupying parts of Central Europe. To the Serbs, this unnatural and unfortunate creation which combined the remnants of the East and West, Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam, as well as numerous languages, nations, and cultures, served as a temporary aid in the creation of a Greater Serbia. Consequently, the magnanimous idea of a unified South Slav nation deteriorated into the desire for Serbian hegemony over the other nations.

The first Yugoslavia, usually referred to as monarchist, fell apart in the war in 1941, and the second, socialist one, which originated in the same war, disappeared in the democratic processes of 1989 to 1992, as did a series of other similar nations along with communism as a system. And as World War I was utilised for the creation of the first Yugoslavia, so was World War II for the emergence of the second one. Likewise, ideologists in support of a Greater Serbia attempted to take advantage of the global-political changes in Eastern Europe for the formation of a third Yugoslavia. After the secession of Slovenia, they planned to make the border of this third Yugoslavia in western Croatia, that is, everything east of Virovitica to Karlovac, Ogulin, and Karlobag. This happens to be the exact line reached by the Turkish conquerors and to which the Vlachs came to along with the Turks when they served as Austrian border guards of the “Vojna krajina” (Croatian military border) from the end of the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries.

That did not happen, however, mainly because of the resistance of the Croatian nation, who even then, as opposed to the Serbs, did not lose their country to Turkish conquerors. That resistance was also joined by the other former Yugoslav nations (Slovenians, Albanians, Croatians and Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as national minorities). Although they were against the break-up of Yugoslavia at first, western democracies later supported the liberation war of non-Serb nations and recognised the newly-formed countries such as Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. It all began in Kosovo in the year 1989 where Serbia along with Milosevia celebrated the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, its biggest defeat in history. As things stand now, it looks as if the southern Balkan crisis will also end in Kosovo, where Milosevia openly announced his aggression.

The United Nations and Western powers could have helped to avoid this terrible war and the great number of both human and material casualties, but as we heard in earlier expositions, there were few, if any, that had the will to do so. At that time, the international community encouraged the aggressor, and gave false hope to the nations under attack, or to the victims of aggression actually. That’s how it was until the year 1995 when the victims of war took their lives into their own hands, mainly the Croatians and Bosniacs, and defeated with armed force the Serb para-state formations on their own soil.

And today, instead of openly acknowledging who the aggressor is, and who the victim is, attempts to make Milosevia and Serbia peacemakers are being made so as to allegedly bring back peace to the region of the former Yugoslavia. In that way, Serbia, although the aggressor and the only communist nation in Europe, would be rewarded. Since it was not able to hold on to one-third of Croatia, that is, the so-called Krajina, it will get 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now there is talk of a Bosniac-Croatian federation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its confederative link with the Republic of Croatia. On the other hand, the part belonging to the Serb entity endeavours to be confederatively associated with Serbia. Experience has shown that each of the three entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina longs for its mother country. The Serb population is retreating towards the east, along the River Drina and the Serbian-Montenegrin border, while the Bosniacs have held on to the central parts, and the Croatians have turned toward the West and the border with Croatia. Perhaps in this way it would be possible for some kind of joint life for a longer amount of time, but it would not be based on the wishes of politicians, but on the reality in the field.

We are hopeful that democratic forces will be victorious in Serbia, which will strive to arrange a better life for themselves and for its children, as well as establish good relations with all their neighbouring countries. At this moment, it is most important that all the republics of the former Yugoslavia be recognised as independent nations. That pertains to Montenegro as well, which cannot defend itself. In that way, the sources of instability would be prevented for a greater length of time. Even the Albanians cannot reconcile with their situation in the unified Serbia or the so-called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. And the name of that nation was fabricated with the purpose of being associated with the Federal Republic of Germany, but in essence, is very far from that. Bosnia and Herzegovina could be one nation, as was mentioned by Dr. Doris Pack. It would be similar to Switzerland where every nation would have its rights. Only then could a joint life be established, but only in a state which would be built on federal democratic elements and principles.