Peaceful Yugoslavian Break up
- Thread starter Luath
- Start date
If the Germans hadn't pulled out of the 10 billion D-mark aid package at the last minute over a Maastricht Treaty kerfuffle, then Ante Markovic and his reformist, Yugoslavist social democrats would not have been discredited. It's possible that you could have kept Bosnia in Yugoslavia, or maybe moved towards some sort of extremely decentralized Yugoslav Confederation, where the only powers of the central government would be defence, foreign relations and communications. It would take some serious heavy lifting on the part of the Americans and EEC with aid money and arm-twisting, but it could end up looking okay at the end.
You're going to make us guess as to which country this is?
There is no many countries which fit that description.
Germans had their own worries at the time. Reintegration of Germany was just beginning. And let's face it, nobody cared enough. Which I totally understand. 'What is it to us, if some people in a far off country, we don't know anything about, choose to fight each other and why should we spill our blood and treasure over it?' To echo Neville Chembarlain words. I guess many people thought like that.
That's true, and I totally understand. That being said, in the grand scheme of things, 10 billion Deutschmarks is not a gigantic sum (of which they were only paying 1/3). I personally ascribe malicious ulterior motives to them, as seen by their later smuggling of heavy weaponry to the Croats and Slovenia, but hey.
Without such a strong nationalistic move by the serbs the croatian secessionist leadership in the late '80 and early '90 would be led by moderate civil nationalists/patriots such as Savka Dabčević Kučar, Dražen Budiša and Vlado Gotovac. Even in OTL they managed to gather as much as 1/5 of support.
Croatia giving up Krajina is as likely as France giving up Marseille to Algeirs when french become a minority there. At the same time Croat held areas in Herzegovina amounts for less than a 1/3 of Croats in BiH.
In 1991. BiH is not dividable along the ethnic lines without major population transfers or ethnic cleansing.
Croatia giving up Krajina is as likely as France giving up Marseille to Algeirs when french become a minority there. At the same time Croat held areas in Herzegovina amounts for less than a 1/3 of Croats in BiH.
In 1991. BiH is not dividable along the ethnic lines without major population transfers or ethnic cleansing.
Angel Heart
Banned
I'm sure you are in a better position to know.
They were the only realistic options at the time as all of them just gave what the public wanted to hear.
You're going to make us guess as to which country this is?
My bet is on Ukraine.
abc123
Banned
Thats right. Or like Kosovo for Serbia, its simply impossible to give that territory away and stay in power...
About BiH, maybe it isnt possible to divide her on ethnic lines ( at least so that you can satisfy all sides ), but you could transform her into federation of 3 nations, without territorial continuity, it is possible...
Angel Heart
Banned
The Serb nationalism was a symptom, not the disease. Avoiding the dismemberment of Serbia and introducing an economic system that actually works and isn't dependent on American development aid would be a good solution.
Though personally I think that the sole concept of Yugoslavia should have been put ad acta after World War II.
Under the serbs I was thinking of the SANU members and the communist political elite that decided to ride the wave.
The problem is that for most parts ethnic areas don't conform to borders, except in Slovenia. You had significant Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia, you had Croat minority in Bosnia as well. Albanian minorities in Macedonia, smaller ones in Serbia and Montenegro and majority in Kosovo tied into Greater Albania idea as well.
So if you get break up along republican lines minorities will find themselves in the wrong side of the border, making them p/o and wanting to join their country. Population or territorail transfers are problematic because you can't do it on billateral basis. Serbia can't give anything to Croatia that would make up for loss of serbian populated parts. And if you think about Croatia getting Croat parts of Bosnia in exchange you need to bring in Bosniac government which will not go for it since they'll loose territory to Serbia and Croatia and get nothing in return. You can't get a solution that will satisfy everybody or even one with which nobody is too angry.
Kosovo and Macedonia problem could be solved with increased autonomy.
I guess one option would be after WW2 to draw adinistrative borders more along ethnic lines. So you get about same sized Croatia but with different borders, bigger Serbia, smaller Bosnia and Kosovo extended into parts of Macedonia but OTL northern parts are Serbian.
So if you get break up along republican lines minorities will find themselves in the wrong side of the border, making them p/o and wanting to join their country. Population or territorail transfers are problematic because you can't do it on billateral basis. Serbia can't give anything to Croatia that would make up for loss of serbian populated parts. And if you think about Croatia getting Croat parts of Bosnia in exchange you need to bring in Bosniac government which will not go for it since they'll loose territory to Serbia and Croatia and get nothing in return. You can't get a solution that will satisfy everybody or even one with which nobody is too angry.
Kosovo and Macedonia problem could be solved with increased autonomy.
I guess one option would be after WW2 to draw adinistrative borders more along ethnic lines. So you get about same sized Croatia but with different borders, bigger Serbia, smaller Bosnia and Kosovo extended into parts of Macedonia but OTL northern parts are Serbian.
Except that the problem is produced where it wasn't one to begin with. People could live (and do live) in the countries as minorities and if no nationalistic claims were raised, there would be little or no problems about this at all. There were no real feelings of animosity towards the other nationalities pre-80s.
Suddenly in the '80s everyone got paranoid and thought everyone else was out to get them. I suppose deteriorating economic situation had a lot to do with that. And also cleverly placed propaganda on all sides.
Suddenly in the '80s everyone got paranoid and thought everyone else was out to get them. I suppose deteriorating economic situation had a lot to do with that. And also cleverly placed propaganda on all sides.
My impression is that such a "reasonable leadership" in Serbia/Croatia doesn't necessarily need to consist of purely democratic/pacifistic angels. The proposal I edged out still entails a Greater Serbia and an independant and expanded Croatia. The victims would be the weakest fraction: Muslim Bosniaks, who, though, would after a peaceful separation of Croatia not be in a position to fight for their independance.
So Belgrade could declare that "our Serbs brothers in Croatia and Bosnia have been liberated and united with the homeland" while Zagred could point out that "while we lost some hilly backwaters whose inhabitants would only be a headache anyways we have won a desperately needed hinterland for the economically important Dalmatian Coast".
And I also understand that the escalation in Yugoslavia had a lot to do with a failure to understand the delicacy of the post-Communist transition of this country in the West (also in the FRG). We Germans transferred billions into the GDR and to Russia/the Soviet Union (actually to the USA as well during the Kuwait war).... being Santa Claus to Yugoslavia wouldn't have hurt us.
The comparison you use is IMHO a bit imbalanced and rather suits the Kosovo, where the demographic trends shifted considerably during the latter half of the 20th century (in favour of the Albanians).
If I am not completely misinformed, we speak about traditionally Serb resp. Croat areas here.
I agree that giving up the whole area of the 1991-95 Serb Republic in Croatia (an entity with only a 52%-share of Serbian inhabitants) would have been unimaginable for Croats and geographically hardly feasible. How about such a line, though? (see below)
There is no perfect division there, neither in Croatia if you want to get Serbian majority-areas out. BUT the chances for such a new order to allow minorities to live as a diaspora are better if they are carved out before battles are fought, civilians murdered and thousands expelled. Remember, all the ethnicities speak variants of the same language and also do not differ racially. "Only" the religious, historical and cultural background differ.
Actually, these should be favourable circumstances, because IMHO, the worst divides would be language (for practical reasons) and race (for reason of visibility). If all Constitutions of the follow-up states include a definition of minority-rights (rights of passage, free speech, free use of language, free religious choice, quoroms in elections, mutual acceptance of school/professional/university-degrees), the majority of people belonging to a minorty should at least find it acceptable to live where they used to although the state is not the one they might dream of.
Of course, for everything we talk about here, a time-window which rapidly closes the more acts of violence occur, or perhaps once they do...
The way they were OTL, Yugoslavia was bound to fail, and it shouldn't have come into existence at all. Perhaps an expanded Serbia as a result of a WW1-compromise-peace would have been a better solution (with Croatia/Slovenia being part of a confederalized Danubia). I am not informed enough if a thoroughly federalized SHS-kingdom might have worked post-1918 or if the players back then wouldn't have acted against each other under all circumstances. Are there chances that a different Constitution in Tito-times would have worked better after his death? AFAIK, whoever calls for a "more federal" Yugoslavia doesn't see that post-1980-YU already was legally very federalized, even the armed forces (its Constitution included the right to secede! Imagine that in the US constitution!). To me it seems, that only the One-Party-System held it together. Once the Party dissolves or its dominance crumbles, nothing was left to bind the republics together.
IIRC Serbs in Croatia are there after having been pushed by the Turks.
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What about changing Hörnla's proposal but keeping its premise? (i.e. Croats and Serbs come to an agreement and screw the Muslims - it almost happened IOTL anyway):
- Croats keeps a semi-autonomous Krajina and get contiguous Croat-majority areas of BiH.
- Serbs get the rest of BiH. The Republic of BiH gets abolished and gerrymandered into Serb and non-Serb more-or-less autonomous units.
Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia each get ~100-200k inhabitants of the other country's ethnicity so its a M.A.D.-like situation.
Croatia keeps its territorial integrity and something extra. Serbia gets the bulk of BiH and a headache. It proceeds with the "easy" task of indoctrinating Serbs and Muslims that Bosnian Muslims really descend from Serbs that had converted to Islam.
There is an unfortunate tendency among many people in the Balkans to regard as traditional group only those who arrived first and anyone who arrived second - even if that was more than a thousand years ago - as someone who doesn't really belong there. There are for example many Greeks and Albanians who think that the Slavic peoples of the Balkans are not native because they only arrived in the 7th century.