By: Ivan Klemenčič
Yugoslavia was an artificial Versailles and an artificial communist formation at the junction of three civilisations, the Western Christian, the Orthodox, and Islam. Therefore, it could not continue to exist and was definitively destroyed by Serbian imperialism, which could not be talked or written about.
Developmental backward Serbia, more than 500years underTurkish rule and long without European culture, was among the victors of WW1. In 1918, the non-European, backward, poor, and autocratic Orthodox state accepted the two most developed nations, Slovenia and Croatia into the Kingdom of Serbia, that had been members of the Western Christian civilisation from Central Europe, as a war trophy. Aware of their higher level of development as a result of having been under the rule of the Habsburg Monarchy, Serbia sought to overpower them politically and nationally
Slovenia’s experience with Serbia in the two countries named Yugoslavia is devastating: economic exploitation and national oppression, the “6 January” Dictatorship since 1929, and only 30 years ago, the Serbian military aggression to occupy Slovenia, and before that an attempt to overthrow its government with the “yoghurt revolution”. If anyone, Serbia is Slovenia’s biggest enemy.
This has not prevented the Slovenian Communists or their legitimate successors to this day from wanting to cooperate in a friendly manner with this autocratic and still poor country. Poor? In Serbia, with three and a half times more inhabitants than in Slovenia (two million versus seven), the gross domestic product in absolute terms in 2018 was even lower than in Slovenia! (42.2 billion versus 45.8 billion euros; the lowest pension is 85 euros and the average is 225 euros per month). In Serbian Yugoslavia, Slovenia, with eight percent of the population, contributed as much as a quarter of the money to the total treasury, which is about three times more than the average per capita.
Milosevic’s third Balkan war was the fourth Serbian war
In the first Balkan war (1912-1913), Serbia occupied Kosovo, Metohija, and Albania, but had to leave the latter at the request of the superpowers. In the Second Balkan War (1913), the war for prey, it had a military initiative. The conflict with Bulgaria (first attacked in 1885) was followed by the attack and occupation of Macedonia, which was declared “Southern Serbia”, although no Serbs live there. It occupied its only ally, Montenegro, in 1918, and in January of the following year, it bloodily suppressed the anti-Serb uprising there. When the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established, the Serbian state declared Montenegrins as Serbs. Montenegro was deprived of statehood and the status of a kingdom, hence known only as the Kingdom of SHS. As early as 1908, a bomb attack was organised in Cetinje to remove members of the Petrovič- Njegoš dynasty and join Montenegro to Serbia.
Before the Third Balkan War (1991-1999), the then Serbian leader and Balkan executioner, Slobodan Miloševič – who came to power with the great support of the Serbian people on 8 May 1989 – announced a “modern federation”. It would have been anything but that. If the first Yugoslavia was a prison of nations and the second communist Yugoslavia was a prison of nations to the power of ten, then Milosevic’s “modern federation” would have been a prison of nations to the power of 100. It would be the death of nations.
Wars for Serbislavia, if not, then for Greater Serbia
In the Third Balkan War, Serbia attacked four entities of Yugoslavia, three republics, and a province: Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991-1995), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), and Kosovo (1996-1999). Milosevic engaged a pro-Serbian and Serbianised YPA for the conflict, organised for his imperialist plan for the Serbian occupation of the entire former Yugoslavia.
In the end, the international community saw it, albeit belatedly. US President Bill Clinton and NATO engaged in the bombing of Serbia (from 24 March to 10 July 1999) to finally cease Serbian imperialist claims. That same year, US President Bill Clinton praised the crowded Congress Square in Ljubljana: “You yourself resisted Milosevic eight years ago when he attacked your country militarily.”
This was followed by the indictment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity. In May 1999, he was accused of starting four wars, the first again against Slovenia.
Milosevic was stopped by Slovenia. And other topics.
Under the leadership of Demos Minister of Defence, Janez Janša, the Slovene Democrats were ready to defend Slovenia with the newly formed Territorial Defence after its one-year preparations. In just ten days of war from June 26 1991, the attacker was convincingly defeated. After the Slovenian military victory over the Serbian aggressor, Miloševič was forced to significantly alter his war tactics and reduce the previous maximum plan of Serbislavia to another Serbian dream, Greater Serbia. But even nine years of Serbian aggression in the next three wars ended in a defeat after NATO intervened.
Not all topics could be addressed in this context. Let us just mention the anti-Slovenian rally in Belgrade and the prevention of the Serbian rally in Ljubljana; Serbian invasion in the Yugoslav monetary system ($1.4 billion appropriation); Hans-Dietrich Genscher recognising Milosevic’s tactics towards Slovenia; Jacques Chirac and Vaclav Havel condemning four wars, and Havel deploring NATO’s late intervention in Paris Le Monde; plans to bomb Ljubljana and the Krško Nuclear Power Plant – once Ljubljana was saved from destruction by the Federal Prime Minister Ante Markovič; misleading information that Miloševič allegedly “allowed” Slovenia to leave Yugoslavia (to which the reactions of three leading Slovenian politicians); the statement of the then Minister of Defence, Janez Janša, about the Serbian preparation for the second phase of the aggression against Slovenia by recruiting 200,000 reservists for the single-ethnic army and recruiting the Serbian Territorial Defence; the horrific face of war: 140,000 dead, a million displaced, the huge economic damage; after Milosevic’s meteoric rise, death in The Hague prison (1 March 2006); why no peace agreement was reached between the defeated Serbia and Slovenia and why no payment of war damage in the amount of 3 billion dollars was demanded in the negotiations in Brioni, as well as why, after the Serbian economic blockade of Slovenia and the confiscation of Slovenian property in Serbia, a compensation of one billion dollars was not demanded.