-Caveat Lector-
> < Slobo inherited a lot of problems. >>
>
> What he really inherited was a country on the verge of an old fashioned
> American style success.
The problems to which I refer include having had a number of people who were guest
workers in Western Europe, much like the Turks were, who sent a portion of their
earnings back to Yugoslavia and helped bolster their economy. When the recessions
hit in the late 70-ies or early 80ies, this source of revenue dried up. On top of
the exportation of labour (and resultant importation of revenue), the larger issue
of actual goods exportation for revenue also dwindled. Subsequent to this series of
events, the economy faltered, "requiring" the IMF to step in and "restructure" the
economy. Thus, down the slippery slope of foreign intervention. Then the central
government tried to keep the whole thing going by taking the taxation from the more
productive (i.e., wealthier) states and supporting the least capable (i.e.,
Kosovaria). This upset the productive states and then they decided they didn't want
to be part of the union no mo'. Somewhere in all of this we see Slobo arriving on
the scene. Then we have the separatist causes of Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and
others. Et cetera, et cetera.
A good source for material on this is *Balkan Tragedy*, by Susan L. Woodward.
There are many good charts in the book, among them rates of unemployment from 1979
to 1991 (13.9% to 16.5%, respectively, the largest jump occurring between 1981 to
1986, Reaganomics years); Croatia had about 6%, Slovenia about 2%, Kosovaria 39% to
59% (!), and Bosnia between 17% and 22% (all numbers approximate as I'm reading off
the charts). The others hover in the late teens for percentage except Macedonia
which is in the upper 20%. Find the Albanian concentration. This is to point out
their resistance to the government.
Inflation for the whole of the country went from near 0% to around 200% in 1988 then
to 1200 (twelve hundred)% in 1989 then back down to a balmy 100+%. I think Slobo's
real rise to power came along around 1989-90. GDP went from + 5% in 1979 down to +/-
0% until 1989 then plummeted to -15% in 1991. More resistance to Belgrade?
This was about the time the separatist movements cranked up. And Slobo was the
President of Serbia. The end result was due to an overdependence on the West for
revenue (Yugoslavia had always been able to trade with the West) then an
overdependence on rescues. Thus, the squeeze play resulting in the 1999 "war".
A little something on Slobo from
http://suc.org/politics/papers/history/vujacic.html
}}>Begin
SERBIAN NATIONALISM, SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
AND THE ORIGINS OF THE YUGOSLAV WAR
Dr. Veljko Vujacic
The Harriman Review, Vol.8, No.4, December 1995
Much of the current Yugoslav crisis has revolved around the mysterious figure of
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic has been blamed for fanning the
flames of Serbian nationalism, destroying the Yugoslav state, provoking civil war by
organizing hate campaigns in the state-controlled media (especially television),
arming "rebel Serbs" in the Krajna (Croatia), "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, and
plotting to create "Greater Serbia." He has been called a "Communist apparatchik," a
"ruthless nationalist populist," a "Balkan butcher," a "fascist," and "the most
odious statesman in Europe since World War II." Probably no other president of a
European country has been so vilified in the postwar Western press.
In December 1992, Lawrence Eagleburger, an erstwhile acquaintance of Mr. Milosevic
(at the time of his ambassadorship in Belgrade) declared the Serbian President a
"war criminal." Eagleburger made this statement on the very eve of the fateful
election which pitted the Californian-Serbian businessman Milan Panic against
Milosevic. Intentionally or unintentionally, the statement fortified Milosevic's
image as a "national hero" reelection (remember the re-election of Kurt Waldheim?)
and weakened the chances of Mr. Panic whom the regime desperately attempted to
portray as a CIA agent bent on destroying Serbia.
It is all the more ironic, in view of all this, that Milosevic has recently become
"our man in Belgrade." The current American negotiator in the Balkans, Richard
Holbroke, is full of praise for Milosevic the peace-broker, undoubtedly because of
his willingness to give up the Krajina region to Croatia and cede a huge territory
in Western Bosnia to the Croat-Muslim federation. For better or for worse, Milosevic
is still the man in charge of Serbia and the one who has greater leverage on Bosnian
Serbs than any other Serbian politician in his place could possibly have. Moreover,
it is almost certain that no other major Serbian politician could watch the stream
of more than 250,000 Serbian refugees escaping the combined attack of Croatian and
Bosnian forces in Krajina and Western Bosnia with the same august and cynical
indifference as Milosevic. For all these reasons, and in a truly ironic twist,
current American Realpolitik views the Serbian President as "the hope of the West "
in the troubled Balkans, the man who can "deliver."
>>slip<<
Veljko Vujacic is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College and Academy
Scholar at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
End<{{
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