Serbia should expell western ngo's meddling in it's affiars.

[Crvena zvezda]

Ten inconvenient truths about Serbia

19 August 2007
William Montgomery

1. The overwhelming majority of Serbian people have a totally different perception of events in the region over the past twenty years than the rest of the world. While this same "disease" is prevalent everywhere in the former Yugoslavia, it has remained stronger - and a more important factor - in Serbia than almost anywhere else.


Demanding better economy, not more democracy? Belgrade, October 5, 2000 (FoNet)It is rare to find any Serb, for example, who does not totally blame the Kosovo Albanians for all the troubles there. The same is true for the overall breakup of the former Yugoslavia, whereby all the responsibility lies elsewhere.

2. The widespread strength of this emotion discourages any politician or political party from saying or doing anything, which runs counter to it. Virtually none of the governments, which have come to power since the fall of Milošević, has really worked systematically at uprooting nationalism and looking more realistically at the past.

The end result has been to lock into place, even for new generations, a vision of Serbia as an innocent victim of malevolent outside forces and bearing no responsibility for the ills, which have befallen it. This in turn has permitted extreme nationalist parties such as the Radicals and Socialists first to survive the overthrow of Milošević and now to thrive.

3. The West viewed the downfall of Milošević as repudiation by the Serbian people of the actions he and his government took during the decade of the 1990s. In fact, that was not principally the case. Even though Milošević had significant political opposition throughout his career from ordinary people who opposed his policies and openly demonstrated against them, he lost the election of Sept 2000 because the Serbian people were tired of their dire economic position and saw DOS (the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) as the way to obtain Western assistance and support.

This misunderstanding of the basic cause of his defeat had significant consequences, as our policies and requests of the new Serbian government were based on the false premise that the Serbian people had repudiated nationalism. A classic example was a list of about six suggested actions, which the U.S. administration prepared and delivered to the new Serbian government in the immediate aftermath of Milošević's downfall. From the U.S. perspective, each suggestion was logical, easy to do, and would demonstrate Serbia's commitment to democratic change.

But each one of the items in fact was a landmine in the Serbian political landscape (such as freeing all the Albanian "political prisoners.") We couldn't understand why the new Government was delaying action on our suggestions and they in turn could not understand how we could be asking them to take such difficult measures exactly when they were trying to consolidate their power.

4. While both Slovenia and Croatia had significant opportunities for growth and advancement following the break-up of Yugoslavia (due to tourism and a historical background more conducive to Western democratic processes and market economies), the fact is that if Serbia would have played its cards correctly, it could have remained the most dominant country in the region.

It had the bulk of the military weaponry and officer corps, control of a respected international airline with a long tradition of service, significant Western support and sympathy, by far the largest population and land area of all the Republics, and significant influence, through its Diaspora, in most other Republics. If a peaceful transition had taken place, Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia would all now be in the European Union.

Serbia had every potential to become the "hub" of this region. Instead it is still fighting to return to the per capita GNP, which it enjoyed prior to the breakup.

5. The parties making up the current coalition government continue to see each other as the real "enemies" and not the parties of the Radicals and Socialists. They spend far more time plotting how to make each other look bad than in combating the real threat to their political future.

To this very day, even in light of incontrovertible evidence in elections, polls, and any other measure of public opinion that the strength and popularity of the Radicals and Socialists continues to rise to dangerous levels, no party openly confronts their extremist policies and the damage that they are doing to Serbia's international image.

6. The percentage of Serbs that have actually ever visited Kosovo or even want to do so is much smaller than one would imagine. Most Serbs are focused on their severe economic problems and are just trying to keep their heads above water. It is a trap, however, to believe (as too many American officials seem to do), that this means Kosovo is not really important to them. It has been ingrained in generations of Serbs that Kosovo is the cradle of the Serbian civilization.

But even more than that, it is now being seen as a concrete example of how the International Community ignores international law to suit its own purposes and demonstrates its prejudice against Serbia and overall hypocrisy. It is precisely this ongoing drama which is preventing Serbia from coming to terms with its past. In fact, it is helping to ratify all the outstanding prejudices and extremist views of the nationalists.

7. Serbia remains a country of great contrasts. At the present time, Belgrade is the most dynamic city in the entire region. Moreover, the privatization, which took place in Serbia, has been the most successful perhaps in all of the countries undergoing democratic transition. While like everywhere, the quality of individual government Ministers has varied widely, Serbia has had more than its share of outstanding ones. The annual economic growth rate is impressive.

At the same time, large parts of the country (Šumadija, southern Serbia for example) have seen almost none of the benefits of this growth and are locked in a perilous economic situation. There is a growing gap between a large body of relatively impoverished people (including pensioners, unemployed and people in the economically-depressed regions) and a smaller percentage of people who are economically well off. Corruption is also blatant and debilitating at almost all levels.

8. Advocates of the use of economic sanctions on a country might well point to Milošević's downfall and claim that economic sanctions were a significant factor in bringing it about. Most democrats in Serbia would claim exactly the opposite, that sanctions actually helped Milošević to stay in power.

What is certain is that the sanctions did catastrophic damage to the social fabric of Serbia; to the healthcare system; and to the educational system. To this day, none of the three have recovered and the people of Serbia are suffering greatly as a result. This is also a significant factor in the popularity of the Radicals and Socialists.

9. There is a familiar saying used for years during the Balkan Wars "Why should I be a minority in your country when you could be one in mine?" It is an interesting fact that on the one hand, Serbs have demonstrated time and time again a fierce resistance to becoming minorities anywhere (Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo all being good examples). At the same time, Serbia itself is extremely multi-ethnic and multi-religious.

The contrast is striking. The only explanation I have is that the minorities in Serbia have accepted that they have very limited political power or influence and the Serbs, as a people, find that extremely difficult to do.

10. Recent efforts by the West to bring significant political and economic benefits to Serbia are in one way, long overdue. Most should have come immediately after the downfall of Milošević. The conditionality imposed instead made it far harder for democratic governments to function and contributed to the resurgence of nationalism. However, the West should be aware that absolutely nothing that is being done now would ease the Serbian posture towards Kosovo.

Moreover, these steps are viewed with a certain degree of cynicism. At the same time, the Serbian government needs to understand that EU membership remains uncertain and far away at best. There really will be no shortcuts to that process, regardless of what some EU politicians may claim.

This is a criticism I found of Serbia mader by a Westerner (an American) with links to George Soros associated NGO "International crisis Group." A group that is not a NGO (non-governmental organization), but a near-governmental organization since most of it's budghest is government funded and of it's private donations most are from people close to U.S. political circles. Any ways, these idiots should be expelled from Serbia for meddling in our affairs and spreading their propaganda. This is one piece of propaganda i found him publishing on the B92 (most liberal and pro-western media in Serbia) web site. So here is my rebute to it (I actually did on the B92 website but it was deleted):

1. The so-called "disease" is the fact that people are not willing to accept claims the west is trying to push as fact down are throats when there is alot of evidence to discredit claims made against us. These include so-called "Milosevic was a nationalist", concentration camps in bosnia, 200,000 dead in Bosnia, Srebrenica massacre, Kosovo genocide and other claims made by the west. The simple fact is may be the fact that the west is trying to force lies upon us there is direct evidence to show that the west claims are lies or great exagerrations. May be the west should instead of trying to force Serbia to accept often ridiculous and fictional claims as truth, may be it should try to get Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia to set up a truth & reconcilliation commission to establish what the truth is to not allow people to make arbitraty claims about what happenned kind of like what was done in Africa after apartheird.

2. So. Basically what your saying is that instead of being objective and not accepting western claims that have clear evidence that they are lies, the serbs should instead do as the west says in order to fit in. So basically what this person is saying is that Serbia and Serbs should become conformists, something which is against the so-called democratic principle and the ideas of liberty and more importantly is in direct contradiction to our history (we were alweays confrontation to outside powers).

The truth is that since the October 5th revolution, the democrats showed their true selves. They were nothing but a coalition of parties that agreed on nothing and had one thing in common they were western stooges and did not adopt policies the serbian people wanted. The fact is that after October 5, the democrats let the people down and helped cause the following to Serbia -- the growth of our oligarchs, the deterioration of our societies morals, disintegrating our state further, having an often disastrous economic policies, and also more importantly at times calling for privatization of public utilities, adopting something of a "third tier health care" system that has made are health care go from bad to worst, not to mention what they've done to education and of course not creating jobs or keeping several easy promises. Basically, the democrats are a mild continuation of the Milosevic regime. While at the same time the so-called nationalist "socialists" and "radicals" re-invented themselves to varying degrees as supporters of multi-ethniticity, supporters of keeping a social safety net, opponents to making us have the health care and education systems of latin american countries. Not only that but one also forgets that many of the so-called democrats were nationalists less then 8 years ago and that many of them currently have more "natioanlist" views then many of the functionaries of the so-called nationalist parties.

The truth is that Serbia's political system is a mess and the nationalists will rise in popularity as the the western backed parties are doing nothing but destroyuing our state.

Furthermore. It seem's that the western backed parties are more like the enemies of the west. It is they who actually limit democracy here. When Bogoljub Karic (arguably Serbia's Berlusconi) became a realt threat to several parties in parliament (actually all government parties at the time), they made trumped up charges against him and sent him into exile. Yet, he seemed to be the only politican in Serbia that actually seemed concerned for Serbia who was a non-nationalist.

3. Wrong. The west was entirely caught off guard by Milosevic's fall. since 1991 there have been many, almosy anbnual attempts, by Serbs to get rid of Milosevic. They all failed as Milosevic had the backing off the west. In fact the west even before the election themselves said Milosevic would remain in power. When the change happenned Serbia was in a situation where Milosevic could have come back to power especially since at the time only the Federal Government changed not the more important republican government. Not only that but most of those initial conditions (except co-operation with the hague were met with in a few months). Not only that but with in three weeks of coming to power the so-called "Albanian political prisoners" were released even though many of them were and have been confirmed by independent sources ofg having been involved in war crimes. Also, even if Serbia did not make change fast enough why should we make changes requested by the same people who 18 months ago were bombing us in an illegal war.

4. This is actually the only point this man makes that makes sense. But even then this would have been detrimental to Serbia. Serbia's ideal strategy shouldn't have been what the west wanted instead it should have done the following:
- After in early 1992 the FRY (Serbia-Montenegro union)was confirmed Serbia should have done the following. In these steps in this order:
1. Insisted George Soros did not give FYROM loans that helped it stay independent after WWII.
2. Recognized the indepndence of all 4 other republics.
3. Told the west that they would give Kosovo wide ranging autonomy on the condition that the anmount of autonomy Kosovo gets be the amount Serb areas of bosnia and crioatia get.

Second. Considering all the talk of Serbia becoming a "hub" of South Eastern Serbia I shouldn't really care of what could have been but what could be. This man criticizes Serbs for glorifying the past yet he seem's to want us to look to what could have been nor what will be or could be.

Third. This isn't really a problem in Serbia. This is more of a problem iof decisions made by leadership in Serbia that was incompetent and to a large extent in power due to the wests assistance.

5. May be the west shouldn't have given financing to so many parties. May be it's the fact that the west encourages through talk of "Eu membership" and tolerates what these parties do that allows them to fight between each other. May be if the west clearly condemned all their illegal actions, particularly those of G-17+ and DSS and if the west condemned their persecution of Karic may be then they wouldn't fight. furthermore, there is no chance of the radicals or socialist coming to power. One the DSS would never go into coalition with them, furthermore if the radicals actually could get in power the constitutional court would block them. Also, the Socuialists are too small and isolated and hated to be part of government. May be the west should stop doing what it's doing and then our image improves.

6. Actually. That's mainly because we haven't been able to visit since 1999. And not only that there has been ethnic trouble there since 1981.

Somehow the west expects Serbia to give up it's cradle of civilization while it does nothing to get Israel to give up theirs. so basically the west is nothing but hypocrites.

His last comment is true. The kosovo situation exactly shows that the how the International Community ignores international law to suit its own purposes and demonstrates its prejudice against Serbia (and other states) and overall hypocrisy. We are not coming to terms with are past just because of this buty it is because the west is pushing us to disintegrate our state and to do what it wants. The fact is that until the west realizes that no matter how much they push Serbia around it will always cause problems for the west until it stops, there is no point for Serbia to come to terms with it's past becuase it will mean slavery to the west if the west imposes their neo-imperialism on us. There's a popular slogan in Serbia "Better War, then Slavery."

7. Actually that's a situation in almost all countries in transition. It is like this in Russia, all ex-USSR states (except the Baltics), of poland, of Romania, of Bulgaria and of all ex-YU states except Slovenia. And again most of these problems exist because the western supported parties blatantly refuse to deal with them. One reason for the radicals and Bogoljub Karic having had alot of support is that they seem genuinely concerned with dealing with these problems (and in Karic's case he actually mentioned solutions).

8. I agree mostly with this. Sanctions did not work, Milosevic fell out of power because in 2000 the west was sure he would remain in power and saw no reason to help their stooge like they did in 1991-1998. Furthermore, I'd say that under the western back parties the social fabric, the health care and educational systems have deteriorated more then under Milosevic. So basically the people the west supports in Serbia are more incompetent then Milosevic was.

9. Wrong. The Yugoslav constitution said that each nation had a right to session. Serbs viewed that this meant the large areas of Bosnia and Croatia populated by Serbs would have the right to secede from those republics when those republics seeked independence. Furthermore, Serbia is not a multiculutral place, Serbia is largely homogenous with small pockets where you find large non-Serb minorities (large pcoket if you count Albanians in Kosovo). The simple fact is that without Kosovo no body can claim Serbia is multi-ethnic as some 85%+ of the population is Serbian and outside of Vojvodina it is some 90%+.

10. I agree. But I don't care about the EU, Serbia outside the EU is better. Serbia should try to adopt a system of neutrality and seek to have good relations with the EU, all states in europe and the world.