Knin, Croatia

[Gnist]

I hear that Croatian generals who were fighting for independence are being trialled in den Haag court for "overbombing of Knin". Knin was never overbombed as far as I know, and it seems that the generals were simply defending Croatia. What is it about anyway?

[Marulus]

Knin was part of the occupied territories of Croatia, wherefrom all non-Serbian inhabitants were expelled, villages razed to ground, thousands of people killed, Catholic churches destroyed. All of this was done by the Serbo-Yugoslav Army. The Croatian offensive in 1995 had as its goal to liberate the occupied teritories, whereby also artillery was employed, as in every modern combat. It was the so-called operation Storm.

The Hague Tribunal is a disgrace anyway. Its processes are a farce. Even a process against Milošević was a farce although he was a true war criminal. Better no court than a "court" like that.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Gnist

Knin was never overbombed as far as I know, and it seems that the generals were simply defending Croatia. What is it about anyway?

From what I'm reading, Knin was a Serbian enclave at the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to which they had been annexed. But the Serbians had always refused to recognize any authority from Zagreb.

Before that it had been the capital of the Kingdom of Croatia (XIth century). But when the Ottomans conquered it the Croats left the town en masse, and later Serbian refugees settled in.

At the time of the bombing the population makeup was 80% Serbian. When Croatia declared its independence from the Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbs of Knin declared the independence of the Serbian Republic of Krajina from Croatia, with their capital in Knin.

The area was under UN protection but the bombings and the fear of reprisals made the Serbian population (about 250,000) flee the town. Later, Bosnian Croats and Croatian militias moved to live in there, replacing the Serbian population.

So, if the story is as I've read it, it looks to me not as a defense of Croatia but as a full-escaled ethnic cleansing.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

From what I'm reading, Knin was a Serbian enclave at the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to which they had been annexed. But the Serbians had always refused to recognize any authority from Zagreb.

Before that it had been the capital of the Kingdom of Croatia (XIth century). But when the Ottomans conquered it the Croats left the town en masse, and later Serbian refugees settled in.

At the time of the bombing the population makeup was 80% Serbian. When Croatia declared its independence from the Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbs of Knin declared the independence of the Serbian Republic of Krajina from Croatia, with their capital in Knin.

The area was under UN protection but the bombings and the fear of reprisals made the Serbian population (about 250,000) flee the town. Later, Bosnian Croats and Croatian militias moved to live in there, replacing the Serbian population.

So, if the story is as I've read it, it looks to me not as a defense of Croatia but as a full-escaled ethnic cleansing.

Last time I was in Barcelona, I saw plenty of Moroccans there. When are you going to deliver that city to Morocco? Don't attempt to prevent any moves by Barcelona's Moors aimed at achieving this goal, because that would be evil "ethnic cleansing".

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Last time I was in Barcelona, I saw plenty of Moroccans there. When are you going to deliver that city to Morocco? Don't attempt to prevent any moves by Barcelona's Moors aimed at achieving this goal, because that would be evil "ethnic cleansing".

Notice well:

".. if the story is as I've read it..."

According to which, those Serbs were the local population of Knin.

So you are saying that the Moorish immigrants in Barcelona are the local population?

[M.R.]

From what I know about Knin's history, I would say it's Croatian. Just because there were much more Serbs than Croats living there at that time doesn't make it Serbian, by that logic Albanians would rightfuly claim Kosovo as their land. But then again, I don't want to be a smart ass about this subject, I'm more or less neutral on Balkan war subject.

Serb refugees came to Slovenia too, for that I'm grateful as they fought against Ottomans, however they assimilated in Slovenian society so there were no isolated islands of Serbs back when Slovenia declared it's independence. If there were and descendants of Serb refugees would claim this or that town or city as their own, I would do the same as Croats with Knin.

[Monolith]

Knin and the surrounding regions are to Croats what Kosovo is to Serbs. It is one among the first Croat native territories, as well as the place of residence of our medieval kings and the early capital of Croatia.

As for the process against the Croatian generals, it is a disgrace. It's planned as the attempt to equalise the guilt for the war and to say that the truth is somewhere in between. The truth is not in between, and the whole situation is utterly despicable.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

So you are saying that the Moorish immigrants in Barcelona are the local population?

This is what they are:

Originally Posted by Marulus

The Serb-Vlach martolosi/akincis, auxiliary troops of the Turks, served for centuries as faithful vassals of their Ottoman masters and participated in their Turkish looting expeditios in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.

Later, they were invited by the AH monarchy, to participate in the fights against the Turks in our Military Frontier, and have settled inside the Croatian territory. Their status in the AH was regulated by the Statuta Valachorum document.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Knin was a Serbian enclave at the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to which they had been annexed.

Knin was first part of the Medieval Croatia, for some time also capital. Then it fell to Turks in the beginning of 16th century. It was during the Turkish rule that Serbs (some of them were Serbized Vlachs) came. In 1700 the Republic of Venice annexed that territory, then in 1813 Austria-Hungary. Throughout all those centuries Serbs lived along with Croats, it was never a purely Serbian area. It was only long after the Second World War that Knin became by majority Serbian, as a result of pressure. Many Serbs came to live there as state officials and personnel of the Yugoslav Army, because Knin had many barracks, it was a very fortified town. Serbs were privileged in the former Yugoslavia, because it was basically a Serb-centered country. In mixed areas the pressure of the Serb chauvinism was so strong that Croats had to move away. Still many Croats stayed in the neighbouring villages.

Then the brave Serbian warriors in uniforms of the Yugoslav army and under the command of the war hero Ratko Mladić (he was commander of Knin area until mid-1992, when he became supreme commander of the Bosnian Serbs) made the whole area purely ethnically "clean" in 1991/1992, by purging it by methods aforementioned by me in the above posts: by murder, pillage, wholesale destruction of homes and chrurches (coupled with desecrations like cutting heads off the statues of most Holy Vergin etc., some of those churches were very old and monuments of culture, so nothing especially different from what Albanians have been doing in the last years in Kosovo). Their bravery was especially exerted on elderly people who could not flee villages (many of them were massacred in most gruesome ways), on totally defenceless cities and villages which were shelled with mortars and bombed with airplanes. Croatian army did not exist at that time, it was only by tremendous and almost suprahuman efforts that Croatian areas defended themselves, with scarce weapons. Serbian army was in fact the same thing as Yugoslav army. Some army officer of non-Serbian origins abandoned it, but the weapons all remained in the possession of the Yugoslav (ie. Serbian) army.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

But the Serbians had always refused to recognize any authority from Zagreb.

The federal unit called Croatia - inside the Yugoslav federation - comprised also those areas which Serbs occupied and ethnically cleansed in 1991/1992. But that "Croatia" was not true Croatia in any sense, but only a smaller unit inside a larger statal creation imposed upon us by the international fremasonry and world powers (USA, Britain).

Originally Posted by Mynydd

At the time of the bombing the population makeup was 80% Serbian. When Croatia declared its independence from the Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbs of Knin declared the independence of the Serbian Republic of Krajina from Croatia, with their capital in Knin.

Yes, they invented a geographic notion that never existed in history. Krajina, what does that mean? In Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian it simply means "province, region" (albeit it is a little bit archaic). They had a relative majority in that area (later they "cleansed" it). It is the same case as Ulster.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

The area was under UN protection

Correct. The UN protected the area ethnically cleansed by brave Serbian warriors. None of the exiled Croatians could return in this area "under UN protection". UN in fact protected the Serb conquests. But on the other hand they did not oppose the Croatian army when it liberated the area either. UN is UN. (The fact that the area was under "UN protection" does not mean that there was no Serb-Yugoslav army any more there; on the contrary, it persisted there and it was heavily armed, it bore only different name, "Army of the Serbian Republic of Krajina").

Originally Posted by Mynydd

but the bombings and the fear of reprisals made the Serbian population (about 250,000) flee the town.

Knin is the small town with about 15 000 inhabitants. You are probably referring to the entire area of the occupied Croatian territories. Yes, they fled en masse, possibly fearing the reprisals, but also because of the propaganda they were mentally bombed with by their local politicans, according to which all Croats were bloodthirsty murderers who would kill them all.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Later, Bosnian Croats and Croatian militias moved to live in there, replacing the Serbian population.

I don't know what you are talking about. Croatia has no militias. Never had.

As for Bosnian Croats, yes, many of those expelled from the central Bosnia by the Muslim mujahedeens settled in Knin.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

So, if the story is as I've read it, it looks to me not as a defense of Croatia but as a full-escaled ethnic cleansing.

I don't know what sources you read, but it is well known who started the war, who was opposed to negotiations on a peaceful break-up of Yugoslavia.

Maybe those Serbs should have thought in 1990, when they were starting the war, with all those brave acts I referred to, maybe they should have thought about the possible consequences that a decision like that could one day bring. They sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind. "He who liveth by the sword, shall die by the sword."

If Knin is Serbian, by the same logic Kosovo is Albanian.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

So you are saying that the Moorish immigrants in Barcelona are the local population?

If some of them reside in that place, they are (locus, "place", thence localis), at least for the time being. But it does not imply that they have right to live there or that they have right to form some Barcelonian Moorish Krajina and annex it to Morocco.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Marulus

I don't know what sources you read, but it is well known who started the war, who was opposed to negotiations on a peaceful break-up of Yugoslavia.

Well, I searched through various sources both in Spanish and in English. It's "safer", if you know what I mean.

If Knin is Serbian, by the same logic Kosovo is Albanian.

After what you explained now (or Monolith's), it is logical.

However, I must say that any question related with the Balkans is often far more complex than what it appears at a first --and even at a second and third-- glance.

When I read Gnist's post I thought that it might lead to a polemical discussion. When I wrote my post I knew that it would lead to a polemical discussion.

To tell you the whole truth, although I could understand that the Serbs having lived their since the XVIth century felt a right to it (especially if the Croats had abandoned it previously), I could also see how the enclave was likely to be of a special significance to Croats similar to what Kosovo represents for Serbs.