cqgr the troubled balkans - sage publicationsthe troubled balkans the issues b alkanize (verb): to...

The Troubled BalkansCAN THE VOLATILE REGION FIND PEACE?

Twenty years after Yugoslavia’s bloody breakup, the patchwork of nations known as the Western Balkans

faces rampant organized crime and corruption, chronically high unemployment and simmering ethnic

tension. The region lags far behind its Eastern European neighbors — economically and democratically

— and poses a potential trouble spot for the rest of Europe. Still, the picture isn’t all bleak. Croatia is

about to join the European Union, and several other nations have membership applications pending. By contrast,

Bosnia and Kosovo, where savage sectarian fighting occurred in the 1990s — including mass killings of civilians —

are struggling to establish themselves as

functional, independent states. Meanwhile,

Serbia, after years of steady progress, re-

cently elected an ultra-nationalist presi-

dent, triggering renewed concerns over its

future role in the region.

Two young women in Potocari, Bosnia, mourn over oneof 613 coffins containing newly identified remains ofvictims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. In Europe’s only genocide since World War II, Serbs

slaughtered up to 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boyswho had sought refuge at a U.N.-protected enclave.The coffins were interred during a mass burial on

July 10, 2011, the 16th anniversary of the genocide.

AUG. 21, 2012 VOLUME 6, NUMBER 16 PAGES 377-400 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM

PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, AN IMPRINT OF SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. WWW.CQPRESS.COM

378 CQ Global Researcher

THE TROUBLED BALKANS

THE ISSUES

379 • Is another Balkan warlikely?• Will membership in theEuropean Union (EU) solvethe Balkans’ problems?• Should NATO keeptroops in the Balkans?

BACKGROUND

388 Historic HegemonyThe region became balkan-ized under Turkish andAustrian rule.

389 Yugoslavia’s RiseThe country stagnatedafter Tito.

391 Breakup and RecoveryWars of independenceroiled the region in the1990s.

CURRENT SITUATION

392 Euro CrisisThe crisis has slowedBalkan recovery.

394 Healing Old WoundsSerbia cooperated with theYugoslav war crimes tribunal.

OUTLOOK

395 Stable Borders?EU membership couldhelp unify the Balkans.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

380 Turbulent Balkans SeekEU MembershipOutside powers repeatedlyconquered the region.

381 Western Balkans at aGlanceSerbia has the largest popula-tion; Montenegro the smallest.

383 War Wounds Still Raw inBosnia“We have stopped the warbut not the conflict.”

384 Corruption and DemocracyRankingsSlovenia is the most democraticand the least corrupt.

387 ChronologyKey events since 1389.

388 Ethnic Tensions ThreatenKosovo’s UnityWill the “youngest country inthe world” backslide?

390 Most Balkan Nations Not in EU, NATOSlovenia was first to join European Union.

393 At IssueShould all EU countries recognize Kosovo’s indepen-dence?

400 Voices from AbroadHeadlines and editorials fromaround the world.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

397 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

398 BibliographySelected sources used.

399 The Next StepAdditional articles.

399 Citing CQ Global ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

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Aug. 21, 2012Volume 6, Number 16

Aug. 21, 2012 379www.globalresearcher.com

The Troubled Balkans

THE ISSUESB alkanize (verb): To

divide (a region orterritory) into small,

often hostile units.Few, if any, regions of the

world have the dubious honorof inspiring a word, let alonea word with such negativeconnotations.But the troubled history

of the Balkans, a mountain-ous region in southeasternEurope, cried out for its ownword. How else to describethe countless conflicts overthe centuries that have frag-mented religious and ethnicgroups in the region.Indeed, as Britain’s wartime

leader Winston Churchillonce quipped, “The Balkansproduce more history thanthey can consume.” 1

The Western Balkans —a region with 26 million in-habitants encompassing Al-bania and the seven coun-tries that emerged from theashes of Yugoslavia — hasbeen perennially plagued byconflict, largely stemmingfrom its polyglot mix of re-ligious and ethnic populations.Today, after numerous wars in the

1990s, the region is more fragmentedand ethnically segregated than ever,even as the patchwork of small newnations tries to forge democracies andstable governments out of the chaos.The site of the continent’s only genocidesince World War II — in the Bosniancity of Srbrenica — the region con-tinues to suffer from simmering post-war ethnic tensions. Rampant orga-nized crime, political corruption anda dismal economy are also hamper-ing the region’s efforts to join theEuropean Union (EU) and the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).Nevertheless, under pressure from thetwo bodies, the countries have madesignificant strides in building theirdemocracies and closing the painfulchapter of their recent past.Ethnic and religious tensions have

been perhaps the biggest hurdle forthe former Yugoslav republics. Kosovois populated predominantly with SunniMuslim Albanians. The other six coun-tries are made up mostly of Slavic pop-ulations who speak similar languagesand are Orthodox Christians and RomanCatholics. During mass expulsions inthe 1990s — dubbed “ethnic cleans-

ing” — minorities fled theirhomes for safer locales. 2 Asa result, the Balkan countriestoday are more ethnicallyhomogenous and segregatedthan before the wars. Bosniais perhaps the most extremecase: Its “Bosniaks” — orMuslims — are concentratedin certain areas, while the Serbsand Croats, who make upabout a third and a seventhof the population, respective-ly, live in other areas.The region’s geography ex-

plains why it has remained“politically fragmented andeconomically marginalized,”says Davor Kunc, a Croatianexpert on European Union(EU) and international affairswho is working at the WorldBank on sustainable develop-ment issues. “Southeast Europeis easy to get into, so it hasbeen conquered by manypowers,” he explains. Butmountains and non-navigablerivers make it difficult to movearound within the region, hesays, making it difficult forthe various ethnic communi-ties to integrate.In addition, the region

lacks natural resources, ex-cept for Kosovo, which has significantmineral and coal deposits. Unem-ployment has been a chronic prob-lem, with levels as high as 50 percentin places. Organized crime, however,has flourished, especially since theend of the Yugoslav wars of the1990s, developing a lucrative trade indrugs, sex trafficking and counterfeitgoods.“We half-jokingly, half-seriously, say

that the best regional cooperation isbetween criminalized groups,” says IvanVejvoda, a Serbian who is vice presidentfor programs at the German MarshallFund of the United States. Among the

BY BRIAN BEARY

AFP/Getty Images/Elvis Barukcic

More than 11,500 empty red chairs, representing the victims —mostly civilians — of the infamous siege of Sarajevo, fill the city’smain avenue during a 20th anniversary memorial on April 6,

2012. Beginning in 1992, thousands of Serbian troops, many ofthem snipers, encircled and blockaded the city for 44 months,shooting at anything that moved. The siege highlighted the

impotence of U.N. peacekeepers stationed in the city at the timeand led to a more decisive international intervention in Kosovo in 1999.


gangs, he says, “There is no ethnic prob-lem between Serbs, Albanians, Croats,Montenegrins, Slovenians, Bulgarians andRomanians. Their interest is profit.”“Being involved in organized crime

is socially acceptable here,” says Igor

Alexandrovski, a corporate lawyer inthe Macedonian capital, Skopje. “Yousee their leaders in restaurants, drivingtheir BMWs and Mercedes. You don’tavoid them on the street. They lendmoney to people.”

He believes Yugoslavia’s violent,chaotic breakup, coupled with theregion’s chronic economic weak-nesses, enabled organized crime togain a foothold. Moreover, the various


HUNGARYAUSTRIA

ITALY

AdriaticSea

ROMANIA

ALBANIA

MACEDONIA

GREECE

SERBIA

CROATIA

Zagreb

Sarajevo

Ljubljana

BOSNIA ANDHERZEGOVINA

Member

Admission approved for 2013

Candidate

Potential candidate

EU Membership Status

MONTENEGROKOSOVO

SLOVENIA

Podgorica

Belgrade

Danube

Pristina

Skopje

Tirana

Turbulent Balkans Seek EU MembershipThe Western Balkans, made up of Albania and the seven countries that comprised Yugoslavia until 1991, is a region in southeastern Europe that for centuries was conquered by competing outside powers. In the 1990s bloody wars of independence broke out in the ethnically and religiously diverse area, punctuated in Bosnia by Europe’s only genocide since World War II. Slovenia is the only country in the region to have joined the European Union (EU); the rest are at various stages in the membership application process.

Map by Lewis Agrell

Western Balkan Nations and Their EU Membership Status

BULGARIA

Continued on p. 382


Western Balkans at a GlanceIn the 1990s and 2000s, the former Yugoslavia broke into seven tiny countries — Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Each varies in its ethnic and religious composition. War-torn Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovinia are predominantly Muslim, while Orthodox Christians predominate in Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Croatia and Slovenia are mostly Catholic. Serbia is the most populous, while Montenegro has the smallest population. Slovenia is the most prosperous, with a per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) of nearly $29,000. Kosovo, despite having energy and minerals, is the poorest.

Sources: United Nations Population Division, European Commission, International Monetary Fund, CIA World Factbook, Minority Rights Group

Socio-Economic Indictors for Former Yugoslav Republics

Area (1000s of Major GDP per Population square miles) ethnic Major capita UnemploymentCountry (millions) (relative size) groups religions (2011) rate

Bosnia and 3.8 19,767 (W. Va.) 48% Bosniak, 40% Muslim, $8,133 27.6% Herzegovina 37.1% Serb, 31% Orthodox 14.3% Croat Christian, 15% Catholic

Croatia 4.4 21,851 (W. Va.) 89.6% Croat, 87.8% Catholic, $18,192 13.2% 4.5% Serb others include Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Christian

Kosovo 2.2 4,203 (Dela.) 92% Albanian, 90% Muslim, $5,823 n/a others are 6% Orthodox mostly Serb Christian

Macedonia 2.1 9,928 (Vt.) 64.2% Macedonian, 64.7% Orthodox $10,367 31.2% 25.2% Albanian, Christian, 33.3% others include Turks, Muslim, Christians Roma and Serbs and others

Montenegro 0.62 5,333 (Conn.) 43% Montenegrin, 74.2% Orthodox $10,642 23.7% 32% Serb, others Christian, 17.7% include Bosniaks Muslim, others and Albanians include Catholics and atheists

Serbia 7.3 29,913 (S.C.) 82.9% Serb, others 85% Orthodox $10,642 23.7% include Hungarians, Christian, Roma, Yugoslavs, 5.5% Catholic, Bosniaks and others include Montenegrins Protestants and Muslims

Slovenia 2.1 7,827 (N.J.) 83.1% Slovenian, 57.8% Catholic, $28,642 8.1% others include Serbs, others include Croats and Bosniaks Muslims, Orthodox Christians, others


trade embargoes imposed by the in-ternational community on the regionin the 1990s — designed to halt thefighting and to punish the perpetra-tors of gross human rights violationsand atrocities — fostered the growthof a thriving black market. Mon-tenegro, with its long Adriatic coast,has emerged as a major conduit forsmuggling. 3

The Balkans’ newest country, Koso-vo, declared its independence fromSerbia in 2008. About half of the world’scountries, including the United Statesand 22 of the 27 EU member states,have recognized Kosovo’s indepen-dence. The rest — led by China, Rus-sia and Serbia, which still bitterly re-sents the secession — have not. 4

Opponents of Kosovo’s independence— which include five EU members(Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia andSpain) — fear that recognizing a non-consensual secession could set a dan-gerous precedent that might encour-age separatism within their own borders.While about 90 percent of Kosovo’sinhabitants are Albanian Muslims, aSerb enclave in the north refuses tointegrate into the new state. NATOmaintains 5,500 troops in Kosovo tomaintain security and public orderacross the country.Meanwhile, although attracting less

international attention than Kosovo,Macedonia has had its own problemsgaining international acceptance. Sinceit became independent in the early1990s, neighboring Greece has mount-ed a relentless campaign to preventthe country from calling itself “Mace-donia.” Greece’s largest and second-most populous region is called Mace-donia, and Macedonia was a powerfulkingdom in ancient Greece, the homeof Alexander the Great.Athens imposed a trade embargo

on Macedonia from 2002 to 2005 be-cause it objected to the Macedonianflag — a star with 16 points, a reveredicon of Greek culture — ultimately

forcing Macedonia to change its flagto a sun with eight rays. Greece alsohas successfully stalled Macedonia’s bidto join the EU and NATO, using itsown membership in the two organi-zations to block the admission.Understandably, Greece’s resistance

creates enormous resentment amongMacedonians, who see their neighborsCroatia, Albania and Serbia overtakingthem in the race to be admitted to theEU. Macedonia also has its own inter-ethnic tensions between the Macedon-ian majority and the Albanian minori-ty — which makes up about 25 percentof the population — although so far alarge-scale conflict has been avoided.All Western Balkan nations want to

join the EU, although so far only Slove-nia has been admitted (in 2004), andCroatia is scheduled to join next year.Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbiaare vying to be the next to join, whileBosnia and Kosovo are farthest awayfrom admission. The multi-stage, pro-longed process of joining the unionis forcing the Balkans to enact majorreforms, such as consolidating fledg-ling democracies and establishing in-dependent judiciaries.But even before the Balkan nations

have been admitted to the EU, the unionand NATO together are providing se-curity in Bosnia and Kosovo, after em-barrassingly failing to do so in the 1990s.The EU has a peacekeeping mission inBosnia and a mission to help establishlegal institutions in Kosovo. NATO hasa peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. Allseven Balkan states are either membersof NATO or candidates for admission,with the notable exception of Serbia,which still resents NATO’s bombingcampaigns in Serbia during the Bosn-ian and Kosovo wars.Despite the ongoing ethnic tensions

and economic challenges, the Balka-ns are on the right track, says AkanIsmaili, the Kosovar ambassador to theUnited States. “People outside re-member us because of the wars. Butif you travel here, you see that peo-

ple’s minds have changed a lot sincethen. Today, we are all about integra-tion into the EU and NATO, whereas20 years ago the big theme was in-dependence.”He stresses, however, that “this is a

different kind of integration than Yu-goslavia. It has a democratic foundationso we are not returning to our past.”As the international community won-

ders if the Balkans can move on fromits painful past, here are some of thekey questions being asked:

Is another Balkan war likely?While achieving political goals through

war is almost universally decried today,recent history showed war to be an ef-fective political tool in the Balkans, ac-cording to David Kanin, a professor ofEuropean studies at The Johns HopkinsSchool of Advanced International Stud-ies (SAIS), in Washington.“As Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s,

virtually all of the solutions were mil-itary ones,” he says. 5

Ajla Delkic, executive director ofthe U.S.-based Advisory Council forBosnia and Herzegovina, says it is verylikely that Bosnian Muslims and Croatswill go to war if the Republika Srpska,the autonomous Serb entity withinBosnia, attempts to secede. “No coun-try will accept giving up its territory,and the U.S. and EU support the ter-ritorial integrity of Bosnia as a single,sovereign state,” she says.However, Obrad Kesic, a Serbian-

American analyst of Balkan politicswho works for TSM Global Consul-tants in Washington, thinks the prob-ability of an all-out war is low, but thata lower-scale conflict is possible. Hecites three flashpoints: the municipalityof Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, wherethere have been skirmishes betweenNATO troops and Serbs; the city ofMostar in Bosnia, where a tense stand-off persists between Croats and Bosni-aks; and the majority-Albanian regionsof Macedonia, where tensions between


Continued on p. 384

Continued from p. 380


“History can repeat itself if we are not aware of it,”U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, told anApril conference in Washington assessing how far

Bosnia and Herzegovina has come toward reconciliation sinceits war of independence ended 17 years ago. If you stop pay-ing attention to history, she continued, “things do not neces-sarily move forward. They can start to roll back.” 1

Her warning was timely, given how the fractured nature ofBosnian society increasingly hampers the country’s economicdevelopment and integration into the European Union (EU)and NATO. Johnson’s interest in Bosnia was sparked by hertravels there in the 1990s as a member of the delegation ledby U.S. President Bill Clinton, when she encouraged womento take part in the peace negotiations.Political power in Bosnia is concentrated in two ethnically

based regional governments: the Bosniak-Croat Federation, madeup of Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats, and Republika Srpskacomposed of Orthodox Christian Serbs. This arrangement — en-shrined in a peace treaty brokered with U.S. help in Dayton,Ohio, in November 1995 — created a weak central government.It also allows only self-identified Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats tobecome president, a provision the European Court of HumanRights says excludes Jews, Roma and other minorities. 2

Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, which endured a notorious 44-monthsiege (1992-1995) that killed more than 11,500 and wounded tensof thousands, today is overwhelmingly populated by Bosniaks.Before the war, it had been more ethnically mixed.Although this ethnic segregation pattern is repeated across

the country, some are fighting it. 3 “We challenge this notionthat we should identify ourselves in ethnic terms,” says DarkoBrkan, a native of Sarajevo who founded the nongovernmen-tal organization Why Not, which advocates for a non-ethnic-based identity. However, Brkan, of mostly Croat ancestry butwho calls himself “a Bosnian citizen not a Croat,” concedesthat not all his peers feel the same way. “We have extremes,”he says. “There is one part of our youth that is very militantand another part that is very pacifist. When a society has beenravaged by war, you get these extremes. We have stopped thewar but not the conflict.”Bitter disagreements over what happened during the war

continue to plague the nation, particularly over the murder bySerbs of 7,000-8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the town ofSrebrenica in July 1995. The International Court of Justice in2007 classified the killings as genocide, but many Serbs strong-ly refute that assertion. 4

Obrad Kesic, a Serbian-American analyst of Balkan politicsand senior partner with TSM Global Consultants in Washing-ton, D.C., says the incident did not amount to genocide be-cause the victims were mostly Bosniak soldiers fleeing a Serb

ambush. “Bosniaks cling to the genocide claim because it isthe last clear-cut case where they can point to themselves asthe war’s main victims,” he argues.Kesic says the dispute over what happened in Srebrenica is

a symptom of a larger problem: “Everybody is in denial abouteach others’ victimhood,” he says.But Klara Bilgin, a Bulgarian political science professor current-

ly serving as a senior fellow at Rethink Institute, a Washington-based research organization focused on dispute resolution, viewsevents differently. “Serbs have yet to have a moment of catharsiswhere they accept guilt for their atrocities,” she says. “For this tohappen, it will require political leadership.”Edina Bećirević, co-founder of the Center for Justice and

Reconciliation, a nongovernmental organization in Sarajevo, notesthat even where there is consensus about an atrocity havingoccurred, reactions to it vary greatly. Referring to mass rapesand murders of Bosniaks that took place in the town of Viseg-rad, she says “some of the locals are proud of the crimes com-mitted in their name, while Serbs who helped save Bosnian Mus-lims have to hide their actions.” 5

Ajla Delkic, executive director of the Advisory Council forBosnia and Herzegovina, an advocacy group for Bosnian Amer-icans, cannot forget what happened to her family in their home-town of Prijedor, where Serbs sent Croats, Bosniaks, Roma andSerbs who disagreed with the Serbian leadership’s policies toconcentration camps. “My father, uncles and aunt were in camps,and my uncle was brutally murdered,” says Delkic, who cameto the United States as a refugee in 1993.“When Bosnia declared independence, we were immedi-

ately attacked by Serb paramilitary forces. This war was an ag-gression committed against people who believed in a united,multiethnic and democratic Bosnia — it was not a civil war,”she says.

— Brian Beary

1 “Bosnia: 20 years on,” Bosnian Advisory Council conference, April 26, 2012.2 Douglas Davidson, “The Purpose of Constitutional Reform in Bosnia andHerzegovina,” German Marshall Fund of the United States, Aug. 10, 2010,www.gmfus.org/wp-content/files_mf//galleries/ct_publication_attachments/Davidson_Bosnia_ConstitutionalReform_Final0809.pdf. Also see Lenaic Vaudin,d’Imecourt, “Sarajevo receives accession road map,” Europolitics, June 28, 2012.3 Sylvia Poggioli, “Two Decades After Siege, Sarajevo Still A City Divided,”NPR, April 5, 2012, www.npr.org/2012/04/05/150009152/two-decades-after-siege-sarajevo-still-a-city-divided.4 Ivan Vejvoda, “Fifteen Years After Srebrenica, Serbia Comes to Terms Withits Past,” German Marshall Fund of the United States, July 16, 2010, http://blog.gmfus.org/2010/07/fifteen-years-after-srebrenica-serbia-comes-to-terms-with-its-past/.5 Becirevic was speaking at an event entitled “Bosnia: 20 years on,” orga-nized by the Bosnian Advisory Council and hosted by the U.S. Congressat Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., April 26, 2012.

War Wounds Still Raw in Bosnia“We have stopped the war but not the conflict.”


the Macedonian and Albanian commu-nities are on the rise.“If our young people had more eco-

nomic opportunities, they would haveless time to cause such problems,” saidMacedonian Defense Minister FatmirBesimi. 6

“Another war is not likely, but a con-flict is possible,” says Robert Hand, a pol-icy adviser specializing in the Balkansfor the Helsinki Commission, a groupof U.S. senators and representatives thatmonitors the work of the Organizationfor Security and Co-operation in Eu-rope (OSCE), an intergovernmental or-ganization that promotes regional se-curity. “Kosovo would be leading thelist, although I am a little concernedabout Bosnia, too.”The local elections in Bosnia

scheduled for October will be tense,he predicts, because Srebrenica andPrijedor, two towns in Republika

Srpska where notorious war crimeswere committed in the 1990s, may seea shift in political leadership. Popu-lated overwhelmingly by Serbs who“cleansed” these formerly ethnicallymixed areas of their Bosniak and Croatpopulations during the war, some non-Serbs plan to use Bosnia’s liberal rulesfor attaining residency to register tovote there in an effort to replace theSerb-dominated local government.In Macedonia, Hand says, a 2001

agreement granting Albanians greatercultural and linguistic rights has beencriticized for causing the Macedoniansand Albanians to drift further apart.Meanwhile, Macedonia is increasinglyfrustrated over Greece’s efforts to thwartMacedonia’s EU and NATO member-ship bids, and there has been back-sliding on media freedoms.“I am seriously concerned about the

situation in Macedonia,” says ZhikicaPagovski, a master’s degree student in

international relations at American Uni-versity in Washington, whose researchfocuses on preventive diplomacy in theBalkans. Pagovski says the region is be-coming more radicalized due to the eco-nomic crisis and the slow progress to-ward integration into the EU and NATO.But Croatian EU expert Kunc cites

the peaceful resolution of a territorial dis-pute between Croatia and Slovenia as asign that the region will not resort to vi-olence. “Slovenia was blocking Croatia’sEU membership application because itwanted a sliver of Croatian territorialwaters that could give it access to theopen sea,” he explains. But despite hav-ing strong legal arguments in their favor,the Croats chose not to fight the issueout through the courts in order to keeptheir EU bid on track. Instead, Croatiaaccepted an ad hoc arbitration processwith Slovenia that could eventuallyforce Croatia to cede territory.Kunc rejects the oft-voiced mantra

about the perennially fighting Balkans,saying “conflict tends to happen onlywhen there is a major shift in theworld political order,” as happened be-fore the 1878 Berlin Congress and dur-ing World War I, World War II and atthe end of the Cold War in the 1990s.Kosovo’s Ambassador Ismaili is

equally confident that the Balkans’worst days are over, in part becauseof the international attention the re-gion is getting. “The situation today isvery different from 1990, when Yu-goslavia was being largely ignored,”says Ismaili. “Today the EU and U.S.are very present and can prevent thesituation from deteriorating.”Pierre Mirel, a director in the Eu-

ropean Commission’s department thatoversees EU expansion, voices a sim-ilar sentiment. He is surprised that thespecter of war would even be raised.“Clearly, the answer is no,” he says.“Kosovo’s independence in 2008 wasa turning point,” he explains, “becausefor the first time Serbia did not re-spond with violence, turning insteadto the courts.”


Corruption and Democracy RankingsTwenty years after Yugoslavia began to break into seven independent nations, the Western Balkans still struggle to institute democracy and combat corruption. Slovenia — the region’s only member of the European Union — is the most democratic and the least corrupt. The others are working toward EU membership.

Sources: “Corruption Perceptions Index 2011,” Transparency International, 2011, cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/; “Nations in Transit 2012,” Freedom House, 2012, www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/Þles/2012 NIT Tables.pdf

Corruption and Democracy Rankings ofFormer Yugoslav Republics

Transparency International Freedom House corruption ranking (among democracy ranking 183 countries, with 1 being the (1 to 7, with 1 being the Country least corrupt) most democratic)

Bosnia and 91 4.36 HerzegovinaCroatia 66 3.61Kosovo 112 5.18Macedonia 69 3.89Montenegro 66 3.82Serbia 86 3.64Slovenia 35 1.89



He insists that despite the tensions inKosovo, the country must not be parti-tioned, because “it could give ideas toothers to claim independence,” such asBosnia’s Serbs or Macedonia’s Albanians.Jelko Kacin, a member of the Eu-

ropean Parliament who was Slovenia’sminister for information when Yu-goslavia broke up, says, “There is nochance of military conflict in theBalkans.” However, he adds, there mightbe social turmoil due to the econom-ic crisis. He dismisses speculation thatKosovo might be partitioned, notingthat the Serb minority in southern Koso-vo has integrated into the political es-tablishment there — a fact that is oftenoverlooked because of the sharp focuson tensions in northern Kosovo.

Will EU membership solve theBalkans’ problems?All seven Yugoslav successor states

are now either EU members or can-didates, and opinion polls show thatthe overwhelming majority of the peo-ple of the Balkans favor membership.Not surprisingly, their expectations ofwhat EU membership will mean areextremely high.“The prospect of both EU and NATO

integration has been the driving forcefor reforms in our region,” says Mace-donia’s ambassador to the United States,Zoran Jolevski. It has also madeBalkan nations talk to each otherabout economic cooperation — some-thing they had not done since thewars, he adds.Slovenia’s ambassador in Washing-

ton, Roman Kirn, agrees. “The EU wasthe inspiration for our change in theearly 1990s. Societies need encour-agement to change.” Explaining Slove-nia’s decision to leave one multina-tional union, Yugoslavia, only to rapidlyjoin another, the EU, Kirn says: “TheEU embraces only democratic statesand assures one’s political and cultur-al identity. In Yugoslavia, securing ourlanguage and economic freedoms wasmuch more challenging.”

Macedonian Defense Minister Besimistresses the EU’s economic benefits.“We can be more stable and secureby joining, which will make it easierfor us to attract foreign investors togrow our economy,” he says. 7

Moreover, says Slovenian Europeanparliament member Kacin, joining theEU creates a positive “domino effect”among other EU candidates. For ex-ample, Montenegro’s EU accession talks,which were opened in June 2012, willtackle tough, long-term problems suchas organized crime, minority rights andfreedom of the media. Such problemsare endemic throughout the region, soMontenegro’s Balkan neighbors canlearn from the Montenegrin EU ad-missions process, he adds.Macedonian lawyer Alexandrovski

believes EU membership will help hiscountry make serious inroads into fight-ing organized crime. “It will give ourpolice and judiciary the tools theyneed to reform, although this will re-quire personnel changes too,” he says.Kosovo’s ambassador Ismaili says “yes,absolutely,” EU membership will solvethe Balkans’ problems. “When everyBalkan country is inside the EU, thechapter of war will close.”Likewise, the European Commis-

sion’s Mirel in Brussels is “very opti-mistic” about what EU membershipcan achieve. He notes that when Hun-gary and Romania joined the EU in2004 and 2007, respectively, long-standing tensions between the twocountries, created by demands forgreater rights for the more than onemillion ethnic Hungarians living in Ro-mania, dissipated. Once the two coun-tries became part the EU there wasfreedom of movement between coun-tries and border controls were even-tually abolished, so the positioning ofthose borders became less politicallysensitive.Nevertheless, says Mirel, “it will take

longer to ease tensions in the Balkansbecause of the wars they fought inthe 1990s.”

Moreover, some issues cannot besolved with EU membership, says Croa-tian Kunc. “The EU is good at insti-tutional reform but is not efficient attackling political questions,” he says.Similarly, says the Helsinki Com-

mission’s Hand, there are limits towhat EU membership can achieve. “Theprospects of membership are so dis-tant for some of these countries thatit does not encourage their politiciansto make reforms,” he says. For exam-ple, “Bosnia is wondering if the EUreally wants them.” Many Bosniaks be-lieve the EU secretly wants to blockBosnia’s membership because of itslarge Muslim population.But Mirel calls that accusation “very

unfair. The same conditions apply toall countries who want to join. Thereis no intention to make the EU a Chris-tian club.”Meanwhile, Serbian-American Kesic

strongly rejects the view of the EU asa kind of panacea. “The Balkans’ prob-lems do not get solved by the EU.They just get tied to the EU’s biggerproblems, such as debt.” He claimsBalkan leaders “tell the EU and U.S.what they want to hear, but they arenot really committed to principles likecivil rights, freedom and democracy.”He also worries about “the culture

of dependence that is emergingamong Balkan political elites. They telltheir voters that everything is decid-ed in Brussels and Washington, so itis like governing without accountabil-ity,” says Kesic. “Thousands of lawsfrom Brussels are just rubberstampedby national parliaments without anysubstantive transformation. It is a rit-ual for them.”Kesic likens Balkans’ strong sup-

port for joining the EU to blind pas-sion. “The EU is like a religion. TheBalkan peoples are the converts, andconverts are always the most ferventbelievers,” he says. “They think thereis no alternative. The EU and U.S.have told them this, and they believeit now.”


Should NATO keep troops in theBalkans?Just as there is solid support for

EU membership among the Balkanpeople, NATO is a welcome and nec-essary presence for most. NATO peace-keepers first arrived in the Balkans inthe 1990s to stop the slaughter inBosnia and Kosovo.

Hand, the U.S. Congress’ HelsinkiCommission representative, says “it isabsolutely essential” to keep NATOtroops in northern Kosovo, given thecontinuing problems there. He evensuggests that NATO troops might beredeployed to Bosnia if things take aturn for the worse there.NATO handed over control of its

Bosnian peacekeeping mission to theEU in December 2004, but Hand isnot convinced that the 1,200-strong EUforce, known as EUFOR Althea, couldcope if a major conflict erupted.“If Republika Srpska tried to take

over Brcko [the independently ad-ministered locality that splits Republi-

ka Srpska in two halves] wouldEUFOR stop them? I am not so sure,”he says. He believes the United States’dominant position within the NATOforce gives the latter more credibilitythan the EU force has on its own.Professor Kanin at SAIS agrees, as-

serting that the United States is moretrusted than the EU because European

governments have a tendency to pickdifferent sides in Balkan conflicts. 8Kanin’scolleague, senior fellow Michael Haltzelat SAIS’ Center for Transatlantic Relations,adds, “There are certain spots that arevery dear in Americans’ hearts. West Berlinis one. Bosnia is another. I am not surethat the EU feels the same about it.” 9

Many Balkan leaders share this per-spective. For instance, Slovenian Am-bassador Kirn contrasts how well Eu-rope recovered after World War II,when the U.S. played a big role in pro-moting European integration, with howpoorly it did after World War I, whenthe United States largely withdrew afterthe war.

“NATO’s presence in Kosovo has areassuring effect on our neighbors likeMacedonia, Croatia and Montenegro,because they feel there will be nospillover of conflicts, and this allowsthem to focus more on economic con-cerns like attracting investors,” saysKosovo Ambassador Ismaili, who ranhis own telecommunications companyin Kosovo before being appointed am-bassador. “Investment works [based] onrisk aversion, and a huge risk is re-moved by NATO’s presence.”For now, NATO is needed in Koso-

vo, but if the Serbian government wereto crack down on the organized crimegangs that hold sway in northern Koso-vo, that need would disappear, saysSlovenian European parliament memberKacin. “Serbia is the key player,” hesays. “Once Serbia accepts that a newcountry has been born in Kosovo, itwill create reconciliation in the region.”Others, such as Mirel at the EU

Commission, believe that instead ofkeeping NATO troops in the regionall Balkan countries should join NATO.To date, Slovenia and Croatia havejoined NATO — along with Albania— while all of the others, except Ser-bia, would like to follow suit.The Serbs are still licking their

wounds from the NATO airstrikes ofthe 1990s and, in particular, fromNATO’s decisive role in effectivelywrenching Kosovo from Serbia’s grasp.“If NATO becomes part of a state-

building process the way it is in Koso-vo, then that is a problem because it isnot neutral; it is a political player,” saysSerbian-American Kesic. He argues thatby enabling Kosovo’s independence,NATO violated U.N. Security Council Res-olution 1244, which requires that NATObe neutral on the status of Kosovo.The same argument holds true in

Bosnia, he says, where he complainsthat NATO has tried to enforce the in-tegration of minority communities intothe school system. “This task shouldhave been left up to local officials and


Continued on p. 388

A supporter celebrates the victory of Serbian hard-line nationalist Tomislav Nikolic, whodefeated the moderate, pro-European Union (EU) incumbent Boris Tadic on May 20, 2012.

Nikolic vowed to pursue his predecessor’s goal of Serbian membership in the EU, but some question whether the new president, who is pro-Russian, will follow through.

AFP/Getty Images/Andrej Isakovic


Chronology1000 B.C.-1914Western Balkans is settled byvarious peoples and ruled bysuccessive empires — Roman,Byzantine, Ottoman and Aus-tro-Hungarian — creating anethnically and religiously di-verse region.

1389Turks defeat Serbs at the Battle ofKosovo, ushering in five centuriesof Ottoman domination.

1830Ottoman Empire goes into decline;Serbia becomes autonomous.

1850Scholars agree on Serbo-Croat as acommon language, part of a Slaviccultural renaissance.

1878Wars of independence furtherweaken Ottoman influence; Austriaoccupies Bosnia.

1914Serbian nationalist assassinatesArchduke Franz Ferdinand, heir tothe Hapsburg throne, in Sarajevo,Bosnia, sparking World War I.

•

1918-1987Yugoslavia is formed, com-prised mostly of south Slavs.During World War II it is par-titioned by the Axis powers.

1918Kingdom of Serbs, Croats andSlovenes is created. It is renamedYugoslavia in 1929.

1937Josip Broz (“Tito”) becomes headof Yugoslavia’s Communist Party.

1941Germany conquers and partitionsYugoslavia, allowing Croats to formtheir own pro-Nazi puppet state.

1946Federal Republic of Yugoslavia isestablished, with Tito as leader.

1948Yugoslavia splits with other Sovietbloc communist states, pursues in-dependent foreign policy.

1974New constitution gives morepower to Yugoslavia’s republics,but Tito retains primary authority.

1980Tito dies without a strong succes-sor; country starts to disintegrate.

1987Slobodan Milošević emerges as theleader of Serbia after giving a populistspeech in Kosovo, a mostly Albanianprovince in the Serb republic.

•

1989-2013Nationalism rises across East-ern Europe and the Balkans asthe Soviet Union collapses. . . .Yugoslavia splinters into sevenindependent states after war andethnic cleansing. NATO and theEU intervene to restore peace.

1989Pro-democracy movements sweepacross former Soviet bloc countries.

1990Nationalists win first multiparty elec-tions in Yugoslavia’s republics.

1991Croatia, Slovenia and Macedoniadeclare independence. Slovenia

secedes with little bloodshed;Croatia fights four-year war ofindependence.

1992Bosnia declares independence, butminority Serb and Croat popula-tions form separatist enclaves; warensues.

July 1995Bosnian Serb forces kill up to8,000 Muslim boys and men mennear Srebrenica — later classifiedas genocide by the InternationalCourt of Justice. NATO intensifiesairstrikes against Serbs.

1999Milošević launches campaign toremove all ethnic Albanians fromKosovo; NATO bombs Serbia.

2004Slovenia becomes first former Yugoslav republic to join the European Union (EU).

2006Montenegro secedes from Serbia &Montenegro (a loose union theyformed in 2003).

2008Kosovo declares independence fromSerbia, which refuses to recognize it.

2012Despite EU debt crisis, WesternBalkans — including Serbia — con-tinue efforts to join union. . . . Warcrimes trial of Bosnian Serb leaderRatko Mladic begins in The Hague.(Milošević died in the Hague in2006 during his trial; Bosnian Serbleader Radovan Karadžić’s trial isongoing). Hard-line nationalistTomislav Nikolic is elected presidentof Serbia.

2013Croatia due to join EU.


police. The military is a crude instru-ment and should not be used for statebuilding,” he says.

BACKGROUNDHistoric Hegemony

Except for the Albanians, whose an-cestors are believed to have been

native to the region the longest, mostof the inhabitants of the WesternBalkans descended from Slavic tribeswho migrated there from the east inaround the 6th century A.D.

During the first millennium theBalkans came under two major influ-ences: the Roman Empire and theConstantinople-based Byzantine Em-pire, with the river Drina as the di-viding line between the two. One ofthe Slavic tribes, the Croats, lived inLatin-controlled territories and conse-quently converted to Roman Catholi-cism, while another, the Serbs, livedin Byzantine domains and convertedto Orthodox Christianity. 10

The Byzantine Empire was gradu-ally subsumed by the Ottoman Turks,who established an empire that hadextended into the Balkans by the 1300s.The Turks introduced Islam to the re-gion. A pivotal moment in Balkan his-tory occurred on June 28, 1389, whenthe Serbs, who had been expanding

their own empire since the 1200s,were defeated by the Turks at the Bat-tle of Kosovo, ushering in five cen-turies of Turkish domination.Meanwhile, the Austrian Hapsburg

dynasty was expanding into Croat andSlovene lands. The Hungarians alsowere a strong presence, often vyingwith the Austrians for supremacy, es-pecially in Croatia.Ottoman and Hapsburg rule involved

multiple and often-shifting alliances,creating a patchwork of ethnic groups.For example, shortly after 1578, theAustrians persuaded Serb refugees flee-ing the Turks to move to Krajina in Croa-tia to act as a buffer against Ottomanexpansion. The Austrians also persuad-ed some Germans and Hungarians tomove to Serbian lands.


Reporting from Kosovo, Russian journalist Olga Khrustalevaapplauded signs that the country was coming back tolife more than a decade after violently splitting from Ser-

bia. The capital, Pristina, is “an eclectic mixture of East andWest,” she wrote, “where traditional Albanian and Ottomanhouses stand next to fancy hotels.” Kosovo today is over-whelmingly populated by ethnic Albanians who converted toIslam during Ottoman Turkish rule.“One of its main post-conflict attractions is a sculpture of two-

meter-high letters spelling out the English word ‘newborn,’ ” shesaid. Although initially painted white, it is now covered in col-orful graffiti and has “become the symbol of ‘the youngestcountry in the world,’ as Kosovars call their homeland.” 1 *However, Pristina’s Orthodox Christian Serb minority, which

once held political sway, is now miniscule, having fled duringthe 1999 war to escape reprisals for the part they played intrying to purge Kosovo of its Muslim Albanian majority.Andrijana Vojnović, a Serb who is executive director of the Djind-

jic Fund, a nongovernmental organization in the Serbian capital ofBelgrade that promotes European values, says, “I am 31 years oldand have never been to Kosovo. Neither have most Serbs my age.”Neighboring Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s indepen-

dence, which it declared in 2008, and Serbia still claims to have

legal sovereignty over its former province. Most educated andyounger Serbs, however, are more interested in human rights,economic development and membership in the European Unionthan in retaking Kosovo, Vojnovic says. “Personally, I respecttheir desire for independence,” she says. “It is more the oldergeneration that believes Kosovo belongs to us.”The roughly 40,000 ethnic Serbs living in Mitrovica, a self-

imposed enclave in northern Kosovo, are the most passionatelyopposed to Kosovo’s independence. “War criminals take ad-vantage of the situation, and Serbia continues to finance ille-gal structures there,” said Jakup Krasniqi, president of the Koso-vo parliament, describing the “barricaded life” the Serbs inKosovo have created for themselves. 2 In 2011, violent clasheserupted between the Serbs and NATO peacekeepers who triedto remove a roadblock the Serbs had erected to physically sep-arate their enclave from the rest of Kosovo.Thousands of Serbs live elsewhere in Kosovo, particularly

in Serb-majority municipalities throughout southern Kosovo. Un-like the northerners who have refused to vote or field candi-dates in Kosovo’s elections, many southerners do vote and alsohold government positions. 3 The Kosovo constitution guaran-tees that the Serb minority will not endure the kinds of dis-crimination that Kosovo Albanians suffered under Serb rule.The Kosovo government even allowed Kosovo Serbs to vote in

elections in neighboring Serbia in May, and invited election orga-nizers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation inEurope to set up polling booths to enable the voting to occur. 4

Ethnic Tensions Threaten Kosovo’s UnityWill the ‘youngest country in the world’ backslide?


* South Sudan, which became a country in 2011, is now the world’syoungest country.


Under Ottoman rule, many Bosni-ans converted to Islam, since theywere allowed to keep their lands ifthey converted. Montenegro, with sup-port from Russia, managed to resistOttoman domination and was ruledby its own prince-bishops.Both the Hapsburgs and Ottomans

fell into decline in the 1800s, havingfailed to keep up with modernizingtrends. The conquered Slavs began toreassert their identity. By 1830 the Serbs,backed by Russia, which sought morepower in the region, had succeededin establishing an autonomous princi-pality. The Ottoman supremacy wasfurther weakened in 1878, when Serbsand Montenegrins successfully revolt-ed, winning full independence. In theensuing territorial carve-up by Europe’s

leading powers, Austria-Hungary wasallowed to occupy Bosnia and laterannexed it in 1908.Meanwhile, a Slavic cultural renais-

sance was taking root, with Serb andCroat scholars, for instance, agreeingin 1850 on a dialect that would formthe basis of a common language,called Serbo-Croat. 11

In the early 1900s, both the Al-banian and the Slavic Balkan nationsmade a final push to purge theirhomelands of Turkish influence, caus-ing millions of Muslims, including manyBosniaks, to flee eastward to modern-day Turkey. Albanians, who had con-verted to Islam during Ottoman rule,began asserting their independence aswell. This created conflict with theirOrthodox Christian neighbors, the Serbs,

who occupied Kosovo in 1912, mas-sacring some 20,000 Albanians. 12

A watershed moment in Balkan — andindeed world — history occurred on June28, 1914, when a Bosnian Serb, Gavri-lo Princip, assassinated the heir to theAustro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdi-nand, who was visiting the Bosnian cap-ital, Sarajevo. Because of the intricateweb of military alliances European pow-ers had woven during the precedingdecades, the assassination plunged thecontinent — and eventually the wholeworld — into World War I (1914-18).

Yugoslavia’s Rise

When Europe’s borders were re-drawn after World War I, a new

With 91 countries now recognizing Kosovo’s independence,many say Kosovo’s biggest challenge today is more economicthan political. The country is one of the poorest in Europe,with an estimated 40 percent of its workforce unemployed.However, Akan Ismaili, Kosovo’s ambassador to the United

States, claims the picture is not as bleak as it seems. He jokesthat “people in Kosovo tell me — ‘I cannot afford to work for200 euros a month’ — because they would stop getting re-mittances” from the large Kosovar diaspora, which sends moneyback from countries like the United States, United Kingdomand Germany. “The World Bank does not factor in our infor-mal social networks in its reports. No one here is dying ofhunger or because it is too cold in winter,” he says.Even as Kosovo’s leaders focus on attracting more foreign in-

vestment to help expand the economy, the country’s painful pastcould be resurrected. Referring to atrocities perpetrated in the 1990s,a recent report from Amnesty International noted that “hundredsof crimes under international law remain unresolved,” includingmassacres committed both by Serb forces on villagers in Kosovo,and by the Kosovo Liberation Army on the Serbs. 5

This being the Balkans, the chances that Kosovo could back-slide cannot be excluded, despite its leaders’ best intentions.

— Brian Beary

1 Olga Khrustaleva, “Art and Identity in Kosovo,” The Moscow News, Feb. 28,2012, http://themoscownews.com/blogs/20120228/189496475.html.

2 Krasniqi was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studiesin Washington, D.C., on June 20, 2012.3 Stefan Lehne, “Kosovo and Serbia: Toward a Normal Relationship,” CarnegieEndowment for International Peace, March 2012, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Kosovo_and_Serbia.pdf.4 From presentation by Ed Joseph, deputy head of the OSCE Mission toKosovo, at The Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced InternationalStudies in Washington, D.C., May 25, 2012.5 “Time for EU Kosovo mission to focus on war crimes,” press release,Amnesty International, April 24, 2012.

Kosovo Serb civilians shake hands with NATO peacekeepers innorthern Kosovo on July 31, 2011. About 90 percent of Kosovo’sinhabitants are Albanian Muslims. Serbs living in Mitrovica, a self-imposed Serb enclave in the north, refuse to integrate into the newstate. In 2011, violent clashes erupted between Serbs and NATOsecurity forces after the troops tried to remove a Serb roadblockseparating the enclave from the rest of Kosovo. The conflict was

resolved, but tensions remain high in the region.

AFP/Getty Images/STR


country made up predominantly ofsouth Slavic peoples was cobbled to-gether from the ruins of the Ottomanand Austro-Hungarian Empires. Initiallycalled the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatsand Slovenes, it was rechristened Yu-goslavia in 1929. 13 A Serbian dynasty,the Karadjordjevics, became the rul-ing monarchy, creating tension amongnon-Serbs.During World War II (1939-45) Yu-

goslavia began to fall apart after theAxis powers, Germany and Italy, in-vaded in April 1941. Croats were al-lowed to form their own state calledthe Independent State of Croatia, which

was essentially a Nazi puppet regimerun by the fascist Ustase Party, led bynationalist politician Ante Pavelic. Ini-tially, many Croats welcomed their in-dependence but grew discontentedafter Italy began seizing large swathesof territory. The Ustase government col-lapsed in 1945, and its supporters,who had massacred many Serbs whilein power, suffered massive reprisals.Elsewhere in wartime Yugoslavia,

the Serbs repressed a separatist insur-gency mounted by ethnic Albanians inmodern-day Kosovo — a region thatAlbania, Germany, Italy and Serbia werevying to control. In total throughout

Yugoslavia, about a million Yugoslavswere killed during World War II, most-ly at the hands of fellow Yugoslavs, withSerbs suffering the most losses. 14

Communist resistance to the Nazishad been led by Josip Broz, a half-Slovenian, half-Croat known as Tito. 15

After the war, as communists were as-cending to power across Eastern Eu-rope, the anti-communist Western pow-ers backed Tito to be Yugoslavia’s leaderbecause he had split with the com-munist Soviet Union — the West’s arch-rival. Tito’s feud with the Soviets hadbegun in 1947, after he tried to posi-tion himself as a pan-Balkan leader,advocating a Balkan federation thatwould include its neighbor Bulgaria.Tito conceived of such a federation asan alternative to Soviet domination inthe Balkans.But his plan failed and Tito became

persona non grata among Eastern Eu-rope’s other communist leaders, whobacked the Soviets. Meanwhile, theSoviets moved quickly to tighten theirgrip over Eastern Europe, a phenom-enon Churchill famously likened to an“Iron Curtain” descending across thecontinent.Tito’s newly reconstituted Yugoslavia

of 1946 comprised the same territoryas the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that ex-isted before the war, but it was nolonger a monarchy but a communiststate — and one that he ruled with aniron fist. To prevent Serbia from be-coming overly-dominant, he took steps— such as carving a new republic,Macedonia, out of Serb territory andgiving autonomy to the Serb provincesof Kosovo and Vojvodina, where manyethnic Albanians and Hungarians lived.The six constituent republics and twoautonomous provinces of Yugoslaviasaw their powers enhanced in 1974 ina decentralizing constitutional revamp.Although Tito repressed ethnic na-

tionalism, he remained popular as thecountry urbanized and living standardsimproved. Citizens were allowed totravel to capitalist countries in the


Most Balkan Nations Not in EU, NATOSlovenia in 2004 became the Þrst former Yugoslav country to join the European Union (EU). Croatia is slated to join in July 2013. They, along with Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, are the only Balkan countries that have joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Serbia and Montenegro are strong candidates for EU membership, while Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina face domestic and international political hurdles against joining.

* Macedonia is the name of Greece’s largest region.

** The Þve are Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Spain.

Sources: European Union, europa.eu; North Atlantic Treaty Organization, www.nato.int

EU and NATO Membership Status

EU NATO

Slovenia Joined, May 2004 Joined, March 2004

Croatia Due to join in July 2013 after signing Joined, April 2009 treaty to join in November 2011

Montenegro Candidate since December 2010. Candidate Began membership talks in July 2012.

Serbia Candidate since March 2012. Not interested in joining

Macedonia Candidate since December 2005; Candidate. Was due to membership stalled due to Greece’s join in 2009, but Greece refusal to allow the country to vetoed the application call itself “Macedonia” * over name dispute.

Bosnia and Potential candidate. Inter-ethnic Candidate Herzegovina divisions have blocked talks.

Kosovo Potential candidate but membership Not yet a candidate must be approved unanimously, and 5 of 27 EU countries** do not recognize Kosovo as an independent country.


West, where they could work andbring back consumer goods — a priv-ilege their communist neighbors be-hind the Iron Curtain did not have.During the Tito era, each Yugoslav

republic tended to specialize in a par-ticular economic activity. Croatia, with itslong coastline, relied heavily on tourism;Serbia developed a car manufacturingindustry; Bosnia a coal industry; Mace-donians specialized in food productionand Slovenia produced household con-sumer goods. The economy, however,was heavily dependent on Western aidand remittances from Yugoslav émigrés.By the early 1980s, it was stagnating,with rising unemployment and debt lev-els and a growing gap between the rich-er and poorer regions. 16

During the Cold War, Tito createda diplomatic niche for himself by lead-ing the “nonaligned movement,” whichbrought together countries that chosenot to side with either the United Statesor the Soviets. By the late 1970s, hewas signing cooperation agreementswith the European Community (the EU’sforerunner), and Yugoslavia was posi-tioned to become the first Eastern Eu-ropean country to join that organiza-tion. But, despite his considerablepolitical skills, Tito failed to provide fora successor. After he died in May 1980,the system he had carefully construct-ed slowly fell apart. 17

Breakup and Recovery

By the late 1980s, nationalist politi-cians were ascending to power in

Yugoslavia. In the constituent Yugoslavrepublic of Serbia, Communist Partychief Slobodan Milošević rode a waveof nationalism that began to surge afterSerbian academics published a paperarguing that Serbs had been perennialvictims throughout history. 18 A defin-ing moment for Milošević was a visitto Kosovo in April 1987, when he tolda group of protesting Serbs “no oneshould dare to beat you.” 19

In the Slovenian republic, authori-ties in Belgrade arrested nationalistdissidents in 1988, but that only fur-ther strengthened Slovenians’ determi-nation to leave Yugoslavia. 20

Further afield, the increased politi-cal freedom Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-bachev began introducing in the So-

viet Union in 1985 culminated inpopular revolutions in 1989 in Poland,Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia and Romania. The fallof the Berlin Wall in November 1989was an iconic moment in the seismicpolitical tumult that was demolishingEurope’s communist regimes.Meanwhile, in Yugoslavia ethnic na-

tionalism was fast replacing commu-nism as the dominant political force.In the Yugoslav republic of Croatia, theparty of longtime nationalist Franjo Tudj-man won a majority in the republic’sfirst multiparty elections in 1990.In Bosnia, Yugoslavia’s most multi-

ethnic republic, Bosniaks watched thissurge in nationalism with alarm, es-pecially after Milošević and Tudjmanmade it clear they wanted to carve up

Bosnia’s territory between them. Yu-goslavia’s last prime minister, CroatianAnte Marković, tried to keep the coun-try together by pushing through de-mocratic and free-market reforms, buthis message of reason over national-ism fell largely on deaf ears.Western powers wanted to keep

Yugoslavia united, but they were toobusy dealing with the fallout from thecollapse of communism in Eastern Eu-rope, reunification of Germany in 1990and dissolution of the Soviet Union in1991 to devote sufficient attention tothe Balkans. U.S. Secretary of StateJames A. Baker was reputed to havesaid about Yugoslavia’s breakup, “wedo not have a dog in this fight.” 21

In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatiadeclared their independence; Macedo-nia followed suit in September. In De-cember, Germany’s foreign minister,Hans-Dietrich Genscher, successfullypressured his EU colleagues into rec-ognizing Slovenia and Croatia. 22 Bosnia’ssecession followed in early 1992, but itwas complicated by the Bosnian Serbs,who proclaimed their own independent

Macedonian demonstrators wave banners and national flags during a rally in front of theGreek Liaison Office in Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, on April 9, 2010. Greece has been

blocking Macedonia’s application to join the European Union, demanding that the countrychange its name. Macedonia is the name of Greece’s largest and second-most-populous

region and was the name of a powerful kingdom in ancient Greece that was the home of Alexander the Great.

AFP/Getty Images/Robert Atanasovski



enclave — Republika Srpska — aroundthe same time.Unlike the relatively peaceful dis-

solution of Europe’s other two multi-ethnic communist states — the Sovi-et Union and Czechoslovakia —Yugoslavia’s breakup was brutal, bloodyand prolonged. Ethnic cleansing be-came its hallmark. The two bloodiestconflicts were the wars of indepen-dence in Bosnia (1992-95) and Croatia(1991-95) against the Serb-dominatedstate of Yugoslavia. The Serbs expelledhundreds of thousands of non-Serbsfrom areas they controlled, while Serbswho lived in vulnerable enclaves —notably in Krajina, Croatia — them-selves fled to Serb-controlled areas. 23

By 1995, Croatia had consolidated con-trol of its territory and the Serbs’ shareof Croatia’s population had declinedfrom 12.6 percent to 4.5 percent. 24

The worst atrocities occurred in Bosnia,where about 100,000 people were killed,with Bosnian Muslims bearing the bruntof the violence. 25 In Bosnia, mass rapeof women became a weapon of war,torture was widespread, thousands wereimprisoned in concentration camps,hundreds of thousands were forcibly ex-pelled from their homes, religious siteswere desecrated and whole villageswere razed to rubble. In sharp contrast,Slovenia, more homogenous and remotefrom Serbia, emerged as an independentcountry relatively unscathed by war, whileMacedonia also managed to avoid amajor conflict. 26

Europe’s single worst atrocity sincethe Nazi era occurred in Bosnia inJuly 1995, when U.N.-mandated Dutchpeacekeepers in the town of Srebrenicabecame overwhelmed by BosnianSerb soldiers bent on killing Bosniaks.The Serbs gunned down between 7,000and 8,000 Bosniak men and boys overfive days, as they tried to flee to Bosnian-government-held territories. 27

Other dark chapters in the Bosnianwar (1992-95) included the infamoussiege of Sarajevo, when thousands ofSerbian troops surrounded the city

and prevented food or supplies fromentering for nearly four years. Morethan 11,500 people, mostly civilians,were killed, many by sharpshooters.Bosnia’s Croat minority also destroyeda world-famous bridge in the religiouslymixed city of Mostar. 28 Constructedby the Ottoman Turks in 1566, thebridge had become a symbol of Bosnia’sreligious tolerance and pluralism. 29

The Bosnia war set some importantpost-Cold War precedents, enshriningpatterns of behavior that would be re-peated in subsequent conflicts, suchas an initial failure of the internationalcommunity to respond, followed bya belated U.S.-led NATO air campaignto stop the war. For instance, whena violent conflict between Albaniansand Serbs began to escalate in Koso-vo in the late 1990s, NATO inter-vened in order to prevent Bosnian-style atrocities. NATO bombed Serbiarelentlessly for three months in early1999 after Milošević tried to purgeKosovo of its Albanian population.Eventually the Serb leader withdrewhis troops from Kosovo.Kosovo Albanian refugees quickly

returned home, and a NATO forcemoved in to restore law and order.Kosovo’s split from Serbia was furthercemented in February 2008, when itdeclared independence. 30

Likewise, Montenegro had secededfrom Serbia in 2006. Although it had beena close Serbian ally in the past, by theearly 2000s the two had grown apart. Un-like other secessions, Serbia chose to allowMontenegro to go without a battle.With the wars over, Western Balkan

nations focused on integrating into theEU and NATO. The EU confirmed itssupport for all Western Balkans nationsjoining the organization at summits inZagreb, Croatia, in 2000 and Thessa-loniki, Greece, in 2003.However, it also imposed strict con-

ditions on starting membership talks,such as handing over indicted war crim-inals to a special tribunal in The Hagueestablished by the United Nations in

the early 1990s to punish the perpe-trators of Yugoslav war crimes. 31

In July 2008, Radovan Karadžić, thepolitical leader of the Bosnian Serbsduring the Bosnian war, was arrestedin Serbia and extradited to The Hague,charged with war crimes committedagainst Bosnian Muslims and Croats.In May 2011 the Belgrade authoritiesdid the same with the Bosnian Serbmilitary leader, Ratko Mladić. 32

Slovenia was the first former Yu-goslav republic to be admitted to theEU, in 2004, while Croatia signed atreaty in November 2011 agreeing tojoin. It will become the 28th memberof the EU in July 2013.But in northern Kosovo, ethnic ten-

sions flared again in 2011 after KosovoAlbanians tried to enforce a trade boy-cott against Serbian goods, and Koso-vo’s Serbs reacted by erecting roadblocksto prevent the free movement of peo-ple and goods between northern andsouthern Kosovo. The flare-up ultimate-ly was resolved, however, when talksbetween Kosovo and Serbia led to anEU-brokered agreement in February 2012,under which the two sides also reacheda compromise on how Kosovo couldrepresent itself in regional forums. 33

Meanwhile, the EU commissioneda feasibility study on a future stabi-lization and association agreement withKosovo — the first step toward even-tual membership.

CURRENTSITUATION

Euro Crisis

In mid-2012, the hottest issue in theBalkans is the worsening economicsituation, which has been exacerbat-ed by the ongoing EU debt crisis. 34

Continued on p. 394

no


At Issue:Should all EU countries recognize Kosovo’s independence?yes

yesULRIKE LUNACEKMEMBER, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT(GREEN PARTY, AUSTRIA) EU RAPPORTEUR ON KOSOVO

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2012

w ould you want your country’s athletes to have toparticipate in the Olympics under the flag of anothercountry? Would you want your football, basketball or

swimming team not to be able to compete in European orworld championships? I imagine not. But for Kosovo citizens,that is a day-to-day-reality.But there are two other, more significant, reasons why the

five recalcitrant European Union (EU) member states who donot recognize Kosovo — Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakiaand Spain — should reconsider their position.First, to complete the European peace project, conceived in

response to the horrors of World War II, all the WesternBalkans must become part of the EU and fulfill the Union’seligibility requirements on human rights, democracy and amarket economy — the so-called Copenhagen criteria. Thefuture of independent Kosovo lies in the EU. But up untilnow not even a contractual relationship has been possible be-tween the EU and Kosovo because of the five members whostill view Kosovo as part of Serbia. The biggest EU civilianmission, EULEX, tasked with strengthening the rule of law inKosovo, is not allowed to consider Kosovo as an independentstate. Thus, the EU Delegation in Kosovo must be called “EU-Office.” While these may seem like minor symbolic details,they waste EU citizens’ time and money.Secondly, the International Court of Justice ruled in July

2010 that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in2008 did not violate international law, arguing that due toSlobodan Milošević’s oppression and massive violence, KosovoAlbanians had a right to self-determination.I tell representatives of the five countries that do not recog-

nize Kosovo that nonrecognition is based on fear that theirown ethnic minorities might want independence. Such a feardiscredits your own democratic governments. None of you hasever massacred or deported your ethnic minorities as theMilošević regime did to its Kosovo Albanian citizens.Daring leaders are needed — in Serbia and in Kosovo and

in the five countries that do not recognize Kosovo. Theyshould end this sad story of nonrecognition so Kosovo canstart working at more important things, such as rule of law,social justice, human rights — especially women’s and minori-ties’ rights — press freedom, economic development, statebuilding and protection of the environment. If not, then werisk losing not only Kosovo and its citizens but also our ownEuropean peace project.no

MLADEN MRDALJPHD CANDIDATE AND LECTURERDEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCENORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2012

t he norms evolving within Europe since World War II havedelegitimized violence. Nobody expects civil wars in Belgium,Scotland, Spain or Northern Ireland anymore. Outside of

Europe, however, the Cold War legitimized violence as the SuperPowers disregarded international law. Realism favors a simplisticnarrative advocating “good vs. evil,” nationalism, religious funda-mentalism and hard power. Thus, the European Union’s (EU) maindiplomatic tool — “soft power” — becomes much less important,unlike its dependence on NATO’s security framework.The recognition of Kosovo Albanians’ violent secession funda-

mentally disturbed the international system. The InternationalCourt of Justice elegantly evaded answering whether Kosovo isindependent or not, even after it was recognized by the powerfulWestern countries. It simply ruled that international law containsno “prohibition on declarations of independence.” Brazil, Russia,India, China and South Africa, as well as five EU members andmore than half of the U.N.’s members see unilateral declarationsof independence as a dangerous precedent. Palestinians, Kurds,Bosnian Christians, Turkish Cypriots, Macedonian Albanians andGeorgia’s northern provinces want independence, too.Without respect for international laws and norms, the Balkans

will continue to simmer. Kosovo is in limbo. It is a failed entityrun by impotent EU officials. Powerful local clans bridge orga-nized crime and politics. Kosovo cannot join major internationalorganizations. The remaining non-Albanians in Kosovo are op-pressed, and ancient Serbian Christian holy sites are in jeopardy.Unconditional U.S. backing for Kosovo has hushed moderate Al-banian voices. The Serbian political elite who are offering “all butindependence” is reluctantly accepting Russian and Chinese sup-port. The conflict remains frozen, as it is difficult to threaten Serbia.Serbia has remained a functional democracy for 12 years afterSlobodan Milošević left office; it is an EU membership candidateand has offered peaceful solutions under different governments.The EU must counterbalance inconsistent U.S. foreign policy,

which foments anti-Western coalitions in the developing world.The EU must apply similar standards to similar situations: Serbiaand Cyprus have exactly the same problem, but the EU grantedfull membership to Cyprus, while excluding their separatists. Thisapproach helped negotiations immensely, even though full settle-ment has yet to be reached. Kosovo is a much smaller conflict.Serbia offers Kosovo autonomy that amounts to “all but indepen-dence.” Without unified Western backing, the Albanians wouldhave to moderate their position. The alternative is a frozen con-flict and promotion of realpolitik, against the EU’s best interests.


For example, the crisis threatens tobankrupt Croatia, which already hadhigh debt levels due to its war of in-dependence. Now Croatia faces capi-tal flight, as Italian and Austrian banksthat bought Croatian banks pull fundsback to their home countries.With EU leaders engaged in

seemingly endless emergency sum-mits to save the EU single curren-cy, the euro, the Western Balkans

has dropped down their priority listsignificantly. “We have less time andmoney for this region, so we expectmore of the countries there,” notedMiroslav Lajčák, managing directorof the European External Action Ser-vice, the EU’s diplomatic corps. How-ever, “our policy goal of enlargingthe union to take in the WesternBalkan countries has never been inquestion,” he added. 35

That Greece is at the center of thedebt crisis is hampering Macedonia’sEU hopes, because the massive eco-nomic suffering in that country is mak-ing the Greeks less inclined to com-promise in their name dispute withMacedonia. In June elections, the farright Golden Dawn party made sig-nificant advances, securing 18 seats inparliament, further diminishing the like-lihood of a rapid resolution of the dis-pute. Furthermore, if Greece is forced

out of the eurozone because of itshigh debt, it could hurt the EU’s rep-utation in the Balkans. Should Greecebe forced out of the EU entirely, itwould be the first time a member leftthe union.In June 2012, Greece ordered its

customs agents to start putting stick-ers over the license plates of cars en-tering from Macedonia. The purposeof Greece’s action was to replace the

‘MK’ (Macedonia) country designationwith a ‘FYROM’ (Former Yugoslav Re-public of Macedonia) designation. 36

Macedonian Ambassador Jolevski,the government’s chief negotiator intalks with Greece on the name issue,slams Athens for escalating the dis-pute, saying it violates an agreementthe two sides signed in the 1990s.Inside Macedonia, things are improving

for the Albanian minority, says lawyerAlexandrovski. “You see Albanian-language universities opening up andAlbanians getting more jobs in the ad-ministration,” he notes. AmbassadorJolevski says the government is mak-ing progress in increasing the percentageof ethnic Albanians employed as civilservants in the Macedonian administra-tion from 8 percent to 25 percent —which is the Albanians’ share of theoverall population.The EU Commission’s Mirel says the

economic crisis “has not affected thestrong support for EU membershipamong the Balkans’ citizens.” EU citi-zens, he says, may be less supportiveoverall of EU integration and enlarge-ment, but they harbor no specific hos-tility toward Balkan enlargement as somedo toward Turkey joining the union.“The Western Balkans nations are

closer to us geographically, so EU cit-izens have different ties to them, plusthey are smaller countries than Turkey,”Mirel says. Moreover, because of theirrecent wars, the Balkans need the sta-bility membership in the EU provides,he says.

Healing Old Wounds

Serbia’s relations with the EU are im-proving. In March, the EU agreedto open membership negotiations withthe country blamed for most of thewar crimes perpetrated during the 1990swars — a decision made in part to re-ward Belgrade for handing over in-dicted war criminals Mladić and GoranHadžić to the tribunal in The Hague.



Former soldiers from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia pose in front of the war-ravaged NationalLibrary building in Sarajevo on April 14, 2012. Once bitter foes, the veterans have beenmaking sporadic contact through a mediator in an effort to prevent a repeat of the

brutal Balkan wars of the 1990s. Meanwhile, on May 16 former Bosnian Serb army chiefRatko Mladić went on trial in The Hague for his role in the massacre of thousands of

Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica during the Bosnian conflict.

AFP/Getty Images/Elvis Barukcic


Mladić’s trial, which began in May,is spotlighting his role in the massacreof thousands of Bosniak men in Sre-brenica. Mladić “ordered the killing ofmy husband, my son, my two broth-ers, and my brother-in-law,” chargesKada Hotic, who traveled to The Haguefrom Srebrenica to witness the trial.“Now that I look him in the face, Iwant revenge.” 37

At the trial’s opening, prosecutorsshowed video footage depictingMladić “barking orders, prisoners lin-ing up, bodies piled up and womenand children climbing onto buses fordeportation,” according to The NewYork Times.While the U.S. and European gov-

ernments strongly support such trials,Serbian-American analyst Kesic feels thatthey only reopen old wounds. “The tri-als foster a sense of victimhood for eachnation and make everyone outside ofthe Balkans afraid of the region,” hesays. The trials have given the Serbs “asiege mentality now” and made themless willing to compromise on issuessuch as the return of refugees.The improvement in EU-Serb rela-

tions suffered a setback in May, how-ever, when hard-line nationalist Tomis-lav Nikolic narrowly defeated the moremoderate, pro-EU incumbent, BorisTadic in the presidential election. Theweak Serbian economy, with unem-ployment at 24 percent, is thought tohave been a factor in Nikolic’s win.Some question whether Serbia will

continue down the path to EU mem-bership, given that Nikolic is known tobe more pro-Russian than Tadic was andis a former ally of Slobodan Milošević,who died in 2006 at the Hague in themidst of his own war crimes trial. 38 In-deed, shortly after his election, Nikolicproclaimed that “there was no genocidein Srebrenica,” incurring strong con-demnation from Western leaders, al-though he did admit that Serbs hadcommitted “grave war crimes” there. 39

Tadic had visited Srebrenica and apol-ogized for the massacre.

Economically, according to Kesic, aperfect storm of factors has conspiredto put severe stress on Serbia, includ-ing a drop in remittances from emi-grants and the drying up of foreign in-vestment — both due to the globalfinancial crisis — and the inability toraise additional revenue by privatizingstate assets. After rushing to privatizestate-owned companies after indepen-dence, Serbia and its neighbors arenow renationalizing some entities thatturned into costly financial flops.“With a quarter of our population

unemployed, people have becomehopeless,” Kesic says, in contrast to theoptimism they felt in the early 2000safter the wars ended and the EU mem-bership process was commencing.Montenegro’s finance minister,

Milorad Katnić, says his government isfocused primarily on the economy.“There are huge differences in wealthbetween the north and south of ourcountry,” he laments. “We need betterconnectivity of infrastructure” betweenthe two halves and more exploitationof the north’s resources including coaland hydro-energy. 40

Macedonia, meanwhile, has seen arise in radical Islam in some of thecountry’s Muslim population, says Amer-ican University’s Pagovski. After fiveMacedonians were brutally murderedin April, the government arrested 20ethnic Albanians for the crime, alleg-ing that the killings were done in thename of Islam to foment fear amongthe public. 41

Meanwhile, in Bosnia all eyes areturning toward the 2013 census, thefirst since the 1990s war. The censusshould chart precisely what popula-tion shifts have occurred as a resultof the ethnic-cleansing sweeps of theearly 1990s. According to Hand at theHelsinki Commission, “it will be in-teresting to see if the census is usedto reinforce ethnic divisions or ifBosnians will use it as an opportuni-ty to stop identifying themselves in eth-nic terms.”

Darko Brkan, a Bosnian whofounded the Sarajevo-based non-governmental organization Why Not— which advocates for a non-ethnic-based identity — has mounted a cam-paign to persuade Bosnians to write“citizen” on the census form, insteadof selecting an ethnic category. Hehopes if enough people do this it willhelp to force Bosnia’s political systemto become less ethno-centric.“The only thing the leaders of the

three official constituent peoples —Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks — havenever disagreed on is supremacy ofethnicity as the basis of our politicalsystem,” he complains.

OUTLOOKStable Borders?

For outsiders, the big questions re-main whether the Western Balkans

could slip back into the kind of bloodyconflict the world witnessed in the 1990s. Croatian Kunc thinks that is unlike-

ly. “Southeast Europe has traditionallybeen controlled by outside powersthat create the basic political frame-work and security architecture,” he says.“In the past, it was the Ottoman andHapsburg empires, then Paris and Lon-don after World War I, followed byWashington and Moscow during theCold War. Today, it is the EU and U.S.that are playing this role.”Kunc believes that “once this new

security architecture is in place, thingswill settle down.” But, he concludes,“the peace will last only as long asthe security cap of the current super-visory powers — the EU and U.S. —holds.” In other words, should the EUand U.S. dominance in the region cometo an end, another shakeup wouldoccur, he believes.


His view is broadly shared by PhilipH. Gordon, U.S. assistant secretary ofState at the Bureau of European andEurasian Affairs, who predicted thatwhen the Balkan states join the EU,“borders will become less important.Just as between France and Germanyit was once critically important whichside of the border you lived on andwhat your ethnicity was, today in theEU there is nothing at that border.” 42

Gordon added that the United Statesdid not want to see any more borderchanges in the Balkans and firmly op-poses secession by the Serbs in Koso-vo and Bosnia. “That would open aPandora’s box that could never beclosed,” he said, adding that “there isno way to start redrawing the bordersthat stops in a stable place.”But Kesic, the Serbian-American an-

alyst, says it will be very difficult forthe Balkans to put the wars behindthem, because no clear-cut victor hasemerged. He contrasts the situationwith “most other conflicts where youhave a winner and a loser, like WorldWar II or post-apartheid South Africa,where you can have a reconciliationbased on a new reality.”In their acclaimed book, Yugoslavia:

Death of a Nation, Laura Silber andAllan Little — two journalists based inthe Balkans in the 1990s — suggest-ed that the wars would continue tocast a long shadow over the region.The lesson learned from the conflict,

they noted, was that “victory, in theformer Yugoslavia, will fall not to thejust, but to the strong.” 43

But Slovenian parliament memberKacin has a brighter prognosis. Hefeels Serbia will ultimately choose tobecome fully integrated into the EU— and eventually into NATO. Kacinsays the recent election of nationalistNikolic as Serbian president makes itcritical that Serbians install a stronggovernment capable of leading thecountry into successful negotiations onEU membership.The EU Commission’s Mirel agrees

that all Balkan states will, at differentpaces, beat a path to Brussels. Mirelpredicts that after Croatia joins in 2013,Montenegro will join next, followedby Serbia and then Macedonia, al-though he concedes the name disputebetween Greece and Macedonia is “veryfrustrating.” As for the two states farthestfrom membership, Mirel says Bosnia willjoin if it can reform its constitutionalframework and become “more func-tional,” and there “is no legal imped-iment” to Kosovo joining, even thoughfive EU countries still don’t recognizeits independence.The long preoccupation with polit-

ical issues in the Western Balkans hasmeant that economic concerns havebeen neglected, even as the Balkanshave slipped further behind the restof Europe in living standards, includ-ing the 10 ex-communist states that

joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. Thechallenge in the coming decade willbe for the Western Balkans to movebeyond ethnic and territorial disputesand focus on fostering prosperity.“I would like to see the region focus

more on functional cooperation — thingslike tourism promotion and education-al exchanges,” says American Universi-ty’s Pagovski, the Macedonian student.“I have traveled to almost all Europeancountries, and yet I have never beento Montenegro, Albania or Croatia. Mineis a typical story for the region.”

Notes

1 “Arrest and revival: The capture of RatkoMladic may revive European enlargement,”The Economist, June 2, 2011, www.economist.com/node/18774412.2 For background, see Sarah Glazer, “Stop-ping Genocide,” CQ Researcher, Aug. 27,2004, pp. 685-708; and Jina Moore, “TruthCommissions,” CQ Global Researcher, Jan. 1,2001, pp. 1-24.3 Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia:Death of a Nation (1997).4 For background, see Brian Beary, “SeparatistMovements,” CQ Global Researcher, April 1, 2008,pp. 85-114.5 Kanin was speaking at a talk entitled “Koso-vo: Does an Asterisk Make a Difference?” atThe Johns Hopkins University’s School of Ad-vanced International Studies, Washington, D.C.,on April 4, 2012.6 Besimi was speaking on Macedonia atGeorgetown University, Washington, D.C., onApril 16, 2012.7 Ibid.8 Kanin, op. cit.9 Haltzel was speaking at a talk entitled “ANew Approach to Constitutional Reform inBosnia and Herzegovina” at The Johns HopkinsUniversity’s School of Advanced InternationalStudies, Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2012.10 Leslie Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History(2004), pp. 1-20.11 Ibid.12 Benson, op. cit., p. 19.13 Brad Blitz (ed.), War And Change in theBalkans (2006), pp. 13-29.14 Benson, op. cit., p. 73.


About the Author

Brian Beary, a freelance Irish journalist based in Washington,specializes in European Union (EU) affairs and is the U.S. corre-spondent for the daily newspaper, Europolitics. Originally fromDublin, he worked in the European Parliament for Irish MEPPat “The Cope” Gallagher in 2000 and at the EU Commission’sEurobarometer unit on public opinion analysis. Beary also writesfor the Washington-based European Institute and The Globalist.His most recent report for CQ Global Researcher was “Futureof the EU.” He also authored the 2011 CQ Press book, Sepa-ratist Movements, A Global Reference.


15 Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 28.16 Dejan Jovic, “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia:A Critical Review of Explanatory Approaches,”European Journal of Social Theory 4(1): 101-120, 2001.17 Blitz, op. cit., p. 24.18 Silber and Little, op. cit.19 Ibid., p. 38.20 Ibid., p. 48.21 Blitz, op. cit., p. 101.22 Ibid., p. 63.23 Ibid., p. 130.24 Ibid., p. 245.25 Research and Documentation Center, Sara-jevo: www.idc.org.ba/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=35&Itemid=126&lang=bs.26 Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 156. For ad-ditional background, see Jina Moore, “Con-fronting Rape as a Weapon of War,” CQ Glob-al Researcher, May 1, 2010, pp. 105-130.27 Blitz, op. cit., p. 132.28 John F. Burns, “A Siege by Any Other NameWould Be as Painful,” The New York Times,Aug. 17, 1993, www.nytimes.com/1993/08/17/world/a-siege-by-any-other-name-would-be-as-painful.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.29 Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 291.30 Blitz, op. cit., pp. 143-155.31 Danijela Bozovic, Marko Vujacic, and NikolaM. Zivkovic, “The Future of the European UnionEnlargement: the case of the Western Balkans,”Center for European Policy/Union of Euro-pean Federalists Serbia, 2010, www.uef.rs/materijal/dokumenta/UEF%20Serbia_Future%20of%20the%20European%20Union%20Enlargement_the%20Case%20of%20Western%20Balkans.pdf.32 Ivan Vejvoda, “Fifteen Years After Srebrenica,Serbia Comes to Terms With its Past,” GermanMarshall Fund of the United States, July 16,2010, http://blog.gmfus.org/2010/07/fifteen-years-after-srebrenica-serbia-comes-to-terms-with-its-past/.33 Stefan Lehne, “Kosovo and Serbia: Toward aNormal Relationship,” Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, March 2012, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Kosovo_and_Serbia.pdf.34 For background, see Sarah Glazer, “Futureof the Euro,” CQ Global Researcher, May 17,2011, pp. 237-262; and Brian Beary, “Futureof the EU,” CQ Global Researcher, April 17,2012, pp. 181-204.35 Lajčák was speaking at a conference onthe Western Balkans, organized by the Cen-ter for Strategic and International Studies,Washington, D.C., on Nov. 22, 2011.

36 Coilin O’Connor, “License to Bicker: Mace-donian Number Plates Raise Greek Ire,” RadioFree Europe/Radio Liberty, June 26, 2012, www.rferl.org/content/macedonian-number-plates-raise-greek-ire/24626570.html.37 Alan Cowell and Marlise Simons, “Geno-cide case against Mladic laid out; Victims’ kinface Bosnian Serbs’ ex-commander,” The NewYork Times, May 17, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/world/europe/in-trial-of-ratko-mladic-details-of-srebrenica-massacre.html.38 Dan Bilefsky, “Nationalist Wins Serbian Pres-idency, Clouding Ties to the West,” The NewYork Times, May 20, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/world/europe/serbian-presidential-elections.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all.39 “Srebrenica ‘not genocide’ — Serbia’s Presi-

dent Nikolic,” BBC News, June 1, 2012, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18301196.40 Milorad Katnić, “Emerging From the GlobalEconomic Crisis: A View From the Balkans,”presented at The Johns Hopkins University’sSchool of Advanced International Studies,Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2012.41 “20 Albanian Islamic Radicals Arrested forSmilkovci Murders,” Macedonian InternationalNews Agency, May 1, 2012, http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/20906/2/.42 Gordon was testifying at a hearing entitled“The State of Affairs in the Balkans,” Commit-tee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Repre-sentatives, Nov. 15, 2011.43 Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 372.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONBosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1634 Eye St.,N.W., Washington, DC 20006; 202-347-6742; www.baacbh.org. Advances the interestsof Bosnian-Americans to the U.S. public and policymakers.

Center for Justice and Reconciliation, Avde Jabucice 34, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosniaand Herzegovina; www.cjr.ba. Established in 2005 by local experts and journalists;works with media outlets to promote peace, reconciliation and transitional justicein Bosnia.

Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies,The Johns Hopkins University, 1717 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., #525, Washington,DC 20036; 202-663-5880; http://transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu. Closely monitors develop-ments in the Western Balkans from a U.S. and EU foreign policy viewpoint.

European Commission, Directorate General for Enlargement, Rue de la Loi 200,1049 Brussels, Belgium; +32 2 299 9696; www.ec.europa.eu/enlargement. Overseesthe Western Balkans’ applications to join the EU.

German Marshall Fund of the United States, 1744 R St., N.W., Washington, DC20009; 202-683-2650; www.gmfus.org. Set up by the German government after WorldWar II to promote transatlantic relations; promotes stability in the Western Balkans.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Wallnerstrasse 6, 1010Vienna, Austria; +43 1 514 360; www.osce.org. An intergovernmental organizationwith 56 member countries; promotes regional security and has a strong presencein the Western Balkans.

Post-Conflict Research Centre, Zagrebacka 69, 71000, Sarajevo, Bosnia andHerzegovina; +387 033 810 861; www.p-crc.org. A nongovernmental organizationthat promotes peace and reconciliation in Bosnia.

U.S. Helsinki Commission, 234 Ford House Office Building, 3rd and D Streets,S.W., Washington, DC 20515; 202-225-1901; www.csce.gov. An independent agencyof the U.S. government focused on promoting human rights and democracy. TheWestern Balkans is a priority.

Zoran Djindjic Fund, Zmaja od Nocaia 12/IV, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; +381 11 2623 056; www.fond-djindjic.org. A nonprofit organization that promotes Europeanvalues in Serbia.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Books

Benson, Leslie, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, PalgraveMacMillan, 2004.A senior lecturer in politics and sociology at University Col-lege Northampton in the United Kingdom provides an overviewof the development and disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Blitz, Brad, (ed.), War and Change in the Balkans, Cam-bridge, 2006.Several authors examine how Yugoslavia disintegrated, the dif-ference between its constituent republics and how the interna-tional community has responded to them.

Djokic, Dejan and James Ker-Lindsay, eds., New Perspec-tives on Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies, Rout-ledge, 2010.A senior lecturer of history at Goldsmiths College, Universityof London (Djokic), and a senior research fellow in politics atthe London School of Economics (Ker-Lindsay) examine therise and fall of Yugoslavia.

Glaurdić, Josip, The Hour of Europe: Western Powers andthe Breakup of Yugoslavia, Yale University Press, 2011.A junior research fellow in politics at the University ofCambridge studies how Western powers dealt with thebreakup of Yugoslavia.

Silber, Laura, and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of aNation, Penguin Books, 1997.Two journalists based in the Balkans in the 1990s provide acomprehensive and gripping narrative of Yugoslavia’s breakup.

Articles

Jovik, Dejan, “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia: A CriticalReview of Explanatory Approaches,” European Journal ofSocial Theory 4(1): 101-120, 2001.A politics lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotlandsummarizes the various arguments used to explain why Yugoslaviafell apart.

Kanin, David B., “Salience and emotion” TransConflict,May 10, 2012, www.transconflict.com/2012/05/salience-and-emotion-105.An adjunct professor of international relations at The JohnsHopkins University in Washington suggests how to solvecontemporary challenges facing the Western Balkans.

Kenney, George D., “As Bosnian Genocide Continues, theBush Administration Looks Away,” The Washington Post,Sept. 5, 1992, http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/1992/

09/05/as-bosnian-genocide-continues-the-bush-administration-looks-away/.The former U.S. State Department chief of Yugoslav affairsexplains why he resigned from his post in the early 1990s,citing the government’s policy of appeasement in the faceof Serb aggression.

Poggioli, Sylvia, “Two Decades After Siege, Sarajevo StillA City Divided,” National Public Radio, April 5, 2012,www.npr.org/2012/04/05/150009152/two-decades-after-siege-sarajevo-still-a-city-divided.NPR’s senior European correspondent, who covered theYugoslav wars, reports on life today in Bosnia’s capital,Sarajevo, 20 years after the city’s 44-month siege in whichthousands were killed.

Radovanovic, Radul, “Bosnians mark anniversary with massburial; Massacre victims moved to graves near Srebrenica,”The Associated Press, July 12, 2011, http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-12/news/29765826_1_srebrenica-massacre-government-territory-serb-forces.A reporter describes the 16th anniversary commemorationsof the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, where Serb forces killedsome 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

Vejvoda, Ivan, “Finishing unfinished business in theBalkans,” German Marshall Fund of the United States,June 3, 2011, http://blog.gmfus.org/2011/06/finishing-unfinished-business-in-the-balkans/.The vice president of programs at the German Marshall Fundgives his thoughts on the trials in The Hague of indicted Serbianwar criminals Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić.

Reports and Studies

Bozovic, Danijela, Marko Vujacic and Nikola M. Zivkovic,“The Future of the European Union Enlargement: the caseof the Western Balkans,” Center for European Policy/Union of European Federalists Serbia, 2010, www.uef.rs/materijal/dokumenta/UEF%20Serbia_Future%20of%20the%20European%20Union%20Enlargement_the%20Case%20of%20Western%20Balkans.pdf.Two pro-European Union think tanks analyze the WesternBalkans’ ongoing efforts to join the union.

Lehne, Stefan, “Kosovo and Serbia: Toward a Normal Re-lationship,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,March 2012, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Kosovo_and_Serbia.pdf.A visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels suggestshow relations between Serbia and Kosovo can be normal-ized.

Selected Sources


Bibliography

Bosnia

Hunt, Swanee G., and Wesley K. Clark, “Bosnia Still NeedsFixing,” The New York Times, May 4, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/dayton-ended-the-killing-but-bosnia-still-needs-fixing.html.The compromises made by the international community tohalt the killing in Bosnia now seem inadequate and mustbe fixed, say a former U.S. ambassador to Austria (Hunt)and the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (Clark).

Landay, Jonathan S., “Bosnia Splinters in War’s Wake,”Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2012, p. A18.Nationalist leaders and ethnically segregated schools in Bosniaare reigniting hatreds that triggered a bloody conflict in 1992.

Vullimay, Ed, “How Bosnia’s Pioneering Footballers AreSucceeding Where the Politicians Failed,” The Guardian(England), Nov. 6, 2011.Bosnia’s national soccer team — composed of a multiethnicgroup of players — has helped ease tensions.

European Union (EU) Integration

“Kosovo Pundits Say Lack of EU Prospects SeriousThreat to Stability in Balkans,” Koha Ditore (Kosovo),June 17, 2012.Experts say nationalistic tendencies in the Balkans likelywill remain until countries are admitted into the EU.

Castle, Stephen, “Serbia, Once Outcast, Is Candidate toJoin E.U.,” The New York Times, March 2, 2012, p. A8,www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/world/europe/serbia-is-candidate-for-european-union.html.European Union leaders have agreed that Serbia has madeenough progress since the Balkan wars of the 1990s to be-come a candidate for EU membership.

Creighton, Lucinda, “Time for EU to Make Good on ItsPromise to Balkans,” Irish Independent, July 23, 2012,www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lucinda-creighton-time-for-eu-to-make-good-on-its-promise-to-balkans-3175614.html.The challenges facing the Balkan nations are similar tothose other countries faced when they joined the EU.

Kosovo

“Kosovo Sentences Ethnic Albanian for War Crime,” DPANews Agency (Germany), Oct. 14, 2011.A Kosovo court has sentenced a former ethnic Albanianfighter to five years in prison for a war crime committedduring the 1999 conflict between Yugoslav government forcesand Albanian separatists.

“Serbs’ Rights in Kosovo Continue to Be Violated —Senior Russian Diplomat,” Interfax News Agency (Russia),Feb. 28, 2012.Kosovars violate the human rights of ethnic Serbs, chargesRussian human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov.

Carvajal, Doreen, “In Kosovo, Smuggling Fosters UnusualEthnic Cooperation,” The New York Times, Oct. 24, 2011,p. A6, www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/world/europe/in-balkans-smuggling-forges-a-rare-unity.html?pagewanted=all.Observers say a lucrative oil-smuggling operation in Kosovohas led to a rare easing of ethnic tensions along the smugglingroutes.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Geitner, Paul, “NATO Chief Sees Parallels Between Syriaand Balkans,” The New York Times, June 12, 2012.NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says theconflict between the Syrian government and rebel fighters coulddegenerate into a war similar to the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Palokaj, Augustin, “NATO Has Not Finished Yet Its Job inKosova and Balkans,”Koha Ditore (Kosovo), May 21, 2012.NATO still has much work to do before Kosovo and otherBalkan nations are secure.

Srbinovski, Aleksandar, “Great Powers Exercising NervesOver Balkans,”Nova Makedonija (Macedonia), Feb. 28, 2012.Macedonia is considering a military alliance with Russiarather than NATO in order to avoid pressure to change itsname. Greece insists Macedonia change its name, which isalso the name of a region in Greece, before it joins NATO.

Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

CITING CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER

Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography

include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats

vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

MLA STYLEFlamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re-

searcher 1 Apr. 2007: 1-24.

APA STYLEFlamini, R. (2007, April 1). Nuclear proliferation. CQ Global

Researcher, 1, 1-24.

CHICAGO STYLEFlamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Researcher,

April 1, 2007, 1-24.

www.globalresearcher.com Aug. 21, 2012 399

The Next Step:

Voices From Abroad:

AHMET DAVUTOGLUForeign Minister, Turkey

Cultures that bind“Nobody can think about

expelling the population orexiling individuals. The coun-tries of the Balkans regionare not only neighbours wholive next door to one an-other: They are families withclose social and cultural links.This region is like a soup[that] will be tasty only ifone adds salt and all theother ingredients. If any ofthose ingredients is missing,the soup will be bland; thisis the essence of the im-portance of ownership.”

Dnevni Avaz (Bosnia andHerzegovina), August 2011

ZELJKO KOMSICPresidency chairman

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The U.S. is aware“Our current political sit-

uation is connected only withthe struggle to keep variouskinds of power, and it hasnothing to do with any kindof rights, or threats to anyethnic group in Bosnia-Herzegovina. One thing iscertain, the United States isaware of the chaos thatwould emerge in the region,and further, in case of thethreat for the territorial in-tegrity of Bosnia-Herzegovinaand of the risks that comewith such a situation.”

Nezavisne (Bosnia and Herze-govina), December 2011

PREDRAG SIMICProfessor of political

science, Belgrade University, Serbia

An Albanian Benelux“The idea about a Nordic

[-style] community in theBalkans has been in evi-dence since the fall of theBerlin Wall. What grates onone about this new idea isthat this would not be aBalkan Benelux but an Al-banian one, as it would ex-clude Serbia and compriseAlbania and neighbouringterritories with sizeable Al-banian populations.”

Vecernje Novosti (Serbia) June 2012

BLAGOJA MARKOVSKIRetired colonel, Macedonia

A potential arms race“Changing the military

presence from a predomi-nantly U.S. one into a pre-dominantly Russian one —if it happens at all — willnot have an impact on thesecurity of countries in the[Balkan] region. The only fearthat this move may incite isthat the neighboring coun-tries may start the armamentrace anew, placing them-selves at the intersection ofthe two global super pow-ers, namely, of the UnitedStates and Russia.”

Nova Makedonija (Macedonia)February 2012

ERNST REICHELGerman Ambassador

Kosovo

Falling dominos“Should Kosovo’s borders Bu

lgaria/Christo Komarnitski

fragile is the peace andprosperity we take for grant-ed in Western Europe.”

Irish Independent, June 2012

NIGEL CASEYU.K. Ambassador to

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Politicians bear the re-sponsibility“The primary responsibili-

ty for passing the political de-cisions in this country [Bosniaand Herzegovina] is on itselected politicians, and not onthe international community.It is, certainly, time for the do-mestic leaders to reach anagreement, which is necessaryfor Bosnia-Herzegovina, soas to move forward on theEuropean integration pathand to have the totally nor-malized relation with the restof the world.”

Dnevni List (Bosnia andHerzegovina), September 2011

change based on the ethniccriterion, a domino effect inthe Western Balkans wouldbe created. When there is adomino effect, this chainprocess will not end with-out violence and suffering.Therefore, the internationalcommunity is united in op-posing the ideas to changethe borders in the Balkanson an ethnic basis.”

Koha Ditore (Kosovo) June 2012

LUCINDA CREIGHTONMinister of State for

European Affairs, Ireland

The fragile Balkan peace“The history, the culture

and fragmentation of theBalkans reflects the veryessence of Europe. It is arich and vibrant tapestry ofculture, language and eth-nic diversity, while also pro-viding us with an uncom-fortable reminder of how

cqgr the troubled balkans - sage publicationsthe troubled balkans the issues b alkanize (verb): to...

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