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The problem with Milosevic
The problem with Milosevic is that he is right. Standing in the dock at his trial in The Hague, Milosevic correctly charged that Germany led a plot that tore Yugoslavia apart and sent it spiraling into the abyss of horrendous war.
Germany did it by recognizing the Yugoslav province of Croatia as an independent nation, something it hadn't been for hundreds of years, unless you count 1941-44 when Hitler declared it to be a loyal and sovereign fascist state.
Less than eleven years ago the rest of the world was vehemently opposed to Germany's outrageous plot. Indeed, one after another European nation and even the United States warned gravely that granting independence to Croatia would lead to all-out civil war throughout Yugoslavia.
But Germany's leaders were adamant. Kohl was chancellor in those days, head of a rightwing government that was riding high after defying Europe by annexing East Germany only a year earlier. Kohl's ministers included members of groups that sought to expand Germany's borders still further to include parts of Poland and the Czech Republic. Croatia, run by a neo-fascist named Tudjman, would be Germany's first outpost in eastern Europe.
Showdown time came in December 1991 as Europe's leaders met to negotiate the Treaty of Maastricht -- the pact which would lead the way to today's European Union and single currency. All the nations present in Maastricht except Germany wanted only to hammer out the treaty. But German foreign minister Genscher resorted to blackmail, warning that the whole Treaty was off unless Europe guaranteed it would recognize Croatian independence.
By then, Tudjman's troops, guided by German military and intelligence "advisers," were already fighting against soldiers of the Yugoslav central government. Yet it was a civil war -- an internal dispute -- which meant other nations could not intervene. Germany's demand backed by Genscher's threat would change all that. Only days after Europe caved in and recognized Croatia as an independent state, Kohl and Genscher proclaimed that the strife was now an international conflict, opening the door to foreign intervention.
Interestingly, the Yugoslav central government, including Milosevic, had been treated as a key ally of the west until Germany played its new eastern front gambit. But then Kohl took matters a step further, demanding western support for Croatia against Serb dominated Yugoslavia.
Of course, the predictions that recognition of Croatia would lead to all out civil war came true. The province of Bosnia-Herzegovina was next to go to war. Then came Kosovo. Germany had set an insidious domino policy into play and the results were deadly.
By all accounts, Milosevic was a callous, power hungry ultra-nationalist, a villain rather than a hero, but most of all he was an unwitting pawn in a series of aggressive betrayals by Germany, followed by Europe and the United States.
- 19 February 2002
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