UNINTENDED CONFESSION FROM SERBIA IN THE STUDY ABOUT WARS IN BOSNIA AND CROATIA

National Congress of The Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina ONLINE NEWSLETTER, International, No. 968 July 1, 2017 CONTENT 1. Did the Army That Gave Birth to Yugoslavia Also Destroy It? 2. UNINTENDED CONFESSION FROM SERBIA IN THE STUDY "Dossier about Yugoslav People’s Army in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina" ──────────── 1. Did the Army That Gave Birth to Yugoslavia Also Destroy It? Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 28, 2018 15:48 GMT -Balkans Without Borders- Gordana Knezevic The conclusions of a new study (titled "Dosije JNA u ratovima u Hrvtskoj i BiH" - Dossier about Yugoslav Peoples Army in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, M. B.) out of Belgrade on the role of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in the Balkan wars of the 1990s include one finding that might shock some readers. The Humanitarian Law Center in the Serbian capital appears to be saying that the army that gave birth to Yugoslavia eventually also destroyed it. The study covers the decade, from the early 1980s to 1992, leading up to the collapse of the Yugoslav federation and analyzes the transformation of the JNA from an armed force that was as ethnically mixed as the country it was meant to protect, to one that was effectively an ethnic Serb army. The roots of the JNA lay in the antifascist resistance to the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia (1941-45). The leader of that resistance movement, and later president of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, was of Croat-Slovene parentage, and the partisan forces that liberated the country in 1945 reflected its ethnic diversity -- including Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, Macedonians, and others. The JNA in the postwar decades was equally mixed and was seen as a bedrock of national unity -- not only in the sense that the army was the country's first line of defense, but also in that it was an institution that instilled the values of togetherness and coexistence. But his comprehensive new study appears to show that the JNA was not simply a bystander or victim of the breakup of Yugoslavia but was instrumental in its collapse and actively placed itself on the side of ethnic Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia, preparing the ground for, or committing atrocities against, ethnic Croats and Muslims. Speaking to RFE/RL's Belgrade bureau, the Humanitarian Law Center's Nemanja Stjepanovic said the roughly 100-page study was published in order to preserve the accounts of perpetrators and victims of war crimes, as well as to show how the JNA transformed itself into a Serb army and chose sides in the conflict. That alleged transformation, which the study says began in the late 1980s, made it possible for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to take control of the JNA and use it for political ends. The report arguably marks the first comprehensive study to conclude -- based on documentary evidence -- that the Bosnian Serb Army that seemingly emerged out of nowhere in 1992 was a creation of the JNA, to the extent that units of the JNA simply changed their name and insignia without changing the command structure, equipment supply, or financing. The ostensible purpose of this JNA-backed Bosnian Serb Army was to defend ethnic Serbs in Bosnia. But in the course of this act of "self-defense," numerous crimes were committed, some directly by the JNA and others with its assistance, according to Stjepanovic, one of the co-authors of the study. Among other things, Stjepanovic noted that the JNA handed over prisoners of war and captured civilians of other ethnicities to Serb forces (often former JNA units) without regard to their fate. Dejan Jovic, political science professor at both Zagreb and Belgrade universities, said he believes that all of the former Yugoslav states are guilty of the "selective interpretation" of events of the 1990s, based on the "obscuring or twisting of facts." Jovic, therefore, highlights the importance of the international tribunal in The Hague, which has brought to light numerous documents that would otherwise have been inaccessible to the public. The JNA is an especially difficult research subject, Jovic said, because it followed its own rules and documents are hard to come by.. However, Jovic insisted that this new study has shattered the image of the JNA as a force of integration and a “guardian of Yugoslavia.” Indeed, one of the study's key conclusions is that the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the JNA’s transformation from a "Yugoslav" to a "Serb" army were concurrent, intertwined processes. Military service was compulsory in Yugoslavia, so nearly every adult male citizen had experienced being part of the JNA, and many developed a bond with the national army. What few could have imagined is that the JNA's guns would be turned on Yugoslav cities, but that is precisely what happened. In 1991, it was the JNA that essentially reduced the Croatian city of Vukovar to rubble, followed by the shelling of Dubrovnik, Karlovac, and others. The following year, it was Sarajevo's turn -- initially fired upon by the JNA before a Yugoslav army morphed into a Bosnian Serb one. The JNA's role as detailed in the newly published "dossier" recalls my own experience of the start of the war in Sarajevo. In late April 1992, the JNA was shooting at targets throughout the city, including the TV transmitter on Hum Hill that was visible from my balcony. Because it was shaped like a needle, it was not an easy target. Shells were landing all over the place, missing Hum and hitting nearby buildings. Then came a telephone call. It was from Belgrade’s Radio Politika, which wanted to know what was happening in Sarajevo. At first, I was happy that someone in Belgrade wanted to know what was going on. Breathlessly, I reported on the army's movements and the shelling of the Hum transmitter. A very polite reporter at the other end then asked me if I could repeat what I had just described -- the shelling, the destruction -- and mention all of the locations in the city that were being hit, but that I should avoid mentioning the Yugoslav Army. Radio Politika wanted me to say that I did not know who was doing the shooting. I told the Belgrade reporter: 'I'm sorry, but I can see the red stars on the Yugoslav Army tanks with my own eyes.' The journalist on the Belgrade end apologized, saying he simply couldn't broadcast a report in which the army is blamed for shooting at civilian targets. That was the end of our conversation. I never got another call from a Belgrade-based radio station. In 1992, it didn't take a Serb nationalist to be incredulous that the JNA, which was meant to protect us all, might be shelling its own people. The truth took a while to sink in, even for those who were the JNA's targets or unintended victims in the early days of the war. That's what makes these new findings by the Belgrade Humanitarian Law Center even more significant. ──────────── 2. UNINTENDED CONFESSION FROM SERBIA IN THE STUDY "Dossier about Yugoslav People’s Army in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina" Muhamed Borogovac This study is a significant step forward but only as a Serbian confession that Serbia committed agression on Croatia and Bosnia, because the "findings" of the study were well known, even obvious, to the rest of the world, so that no study of this sort needed to be conducted outside Serbia. It was well known to Serbs too that Serbia was in command of the Jugoslav People's Army. For example, when Gordana Knazevic reported that JNA was bombing civilian houses in Sarajevo, then Belgrade’s Radio Politika refused to broadcast that report in order to hide Serbian aggression, because at that time Politika and everybody else knew that Serbian government is in command of JNA. The truth is that Serbs hijacked JNA long before "late eighties" as the study claims, even long before Tito died. In fact, that process started during WWII when Tito gave amnesty to Serbian Chetniks, who had collaborated with the Nazis, committed atrocities and fought against Tito's Partisans. But near the end of the war, after amnesty, large numbers of them joined the victorious Partisans. By the time I served in the Yugoslav Army, in 1977-1978, it was under absolute control of Serbs. At least 80% of professional cadre were Serbs, even in Dalmatia, where I served. The hegemony of the Serbs in all joint institutions of the Yugoslav federation before 1972, not only in the Army, was the reason why Tito changed Yugoslav Constitution in 1972 and then amanded in 1974. Besides giving more power to Yugoslav Republics (states), he also created the "Territorial Defense" forces under the command of the republics. In that way Tito enabled the other Yugoslav republics to be able to protect themselves from the growing Serbian nationalist power. I wrote about that in my book "War in Bosnia" https://www.amazon.com/War-Bosnia-How-Succeed-Genocide/dp/1524560111 Here is one intercept about the Territorial Defense, quote from p. 28. 3.2 The Yugoslav People’s Army and the Territorial Defense It is very close to the truth when stating that of all the “federal” institutions in Yugoslavia, (after 1974) only the army was totally under a single control and not divided and influenced by the state lines. Besides the federal army in Yugoslavia, there was also the territorial defense, which somewhat resembled the American National Guard. Every republic (state) had control over its own territorial defense. Since the territorial defense had its own arsenal, it would be reasonable to say that such territorial defense units were, in fact, the state’s army. The weapons for those territorial units were purchased by the local companies and the republic governments. With the development and maintenance of such units, Tito’s goal of a true people’s army and the defense was realized. Although Tito justified the concept of the Territorial Defense by stating that such an all-inclusive force was needed to fend off an external attack, he had a different goal in mind. He was more concerned with the Serbian expansionism within Yugoslavia. By creating the Territorial Defense, Tito enabled every republic to protect itself from the Yugoslav People’s Army, which was controlled by the Serbs. The concept of such territorial defense was totally successful in Slovenia and completely useless in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Unfortunately, Alija Izetbegovic did not offer any resistance to the Serbian disarming of the Bosnian Territorial Defense forces. The Bosniaks surrendered all their weapons to the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) a short time before the Serbs committed the latest genocide against the Bosnian people. For example, many of us still remember when the Serbs hauled away some fifty truckloads of weapons from the old center of Sarajevo at the beginning of the war. .... - end of quote. Recall that I wrote that book in Bosnian during the Bosnian war in 1994 and 1995, therefore the conclusion of the "Dossier" that Serbia controlled JNA was obvious at least 20+ years earlier. There is another important omission of the "Dossier". Namely, authors correctly noted that "the Bosnian Serb Army that seemingly emerged out of nowhere in 1992 was a creation of the JNA, to the extent that units of the JNA simply changed their name and insignia without changing the command structure, equipment supply, or financing." However, they did not explain the most important fact: How and why it happened? Why it was preferable to Serbs to formally convert Serbian army, called JNA into the Army of Bosnian Serbs? Here is the explanation from the above cited "War in Bosnia", p. 65: Soon after B&H was recognized as an independent country on April 7, 1992, the Security Council had proclaimed Serbia and Montenegro as the aggressor on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then on April 30, President George Bush gave an ultimatum to the JNA, to withdraw from Bosnia by May 15, 1992. Even the sixth American fleet entered the Adriatic Sea preparing for intervention. But right after the ultimatum was issued, Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic quickly went to Macedonia, where he started negotiations with JNA generals, including the Chief of Staff, General Blagoje Adžic. During those meetings, he reached some sort of agreement with the generals, of which the only result was the tying of President Bush’s hands. Namely, Alija Izetbegovic accepted that the JNA could stay in Bosnia, if JNA withdrew in the "Serbian territories" in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As according to R B&H Constitution there were no exclusively ethnic territories, that meant that they were free to take whatever territory they could and call it a Serbian territory in Bosnia. How could anybody, including NATO, take any military actions against the Serbs if the Serbs and the Bosnians had reached an agreement? President Bush immediately realized what kind of politician Izetbegovic was, and he tried to distance himself from B&H and its problems. Bush understood that Izetbegovic would take the path of compromise with the Serbs and that the legally simple situation in which there was a clearly defined victim and the aggressor would bog down in a tangled knot of agreements, which neither the lawyers nor the politicians would be able to untangle. - end of quote. Even though there are omissions of the "Dossier", such as the two mentioned above, this study is significant, it confirms, probably unintentionally, one important fact. Namely, it is now clear, even according to Serbs, that there were now "civil war" in Bosnia, and that there were no "Bosnian Serb Army". The terms "Bosnian civil war" and "Bosnian Serb Army" serves only for cover up of the blatant aggression and land-grab of Serbia from Bosnia. Unfortunately, that terminology is still in use, including the worlds "most credible" media such as for example BBC and Reuters. That way, those media sided with the aggressors, who also committed genocide in Bosnia. They still use Serbian terminology from the time of the Bosnian war, e.g. they use ethnic names for Serbs and Croats and religious name for Bosniaks. They should say: Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, of Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims, not Serbs, Croats and Muslims? That BBC-Reuters terminology is even in contrast to the current Bosnian constitution, the Dayton constitution. In addition, the above testimonial of Gordana Knezevic that she was advised to say that she does not know who is bombing civilian buildings in Sarajevo explains the level of fabrication of the facts of Serbian media. Unfortunately, those media were more trusted than Bosnian media. The final product is the success of the genocide, the recognition of the Serbian Republic on the ethnically cleansed 49% territory of Bosnia.