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| 1. BACKGROUND |
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| As Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992,
I was a witness to the tragic breakup of that country. There were a number of reasons why
Yugoslavia was torn apart but one of the primary causes of the tragedy were the failure of
western diplomacy. This is not to say that the Yugoslavs themselves were blameless-not at
all-but, nevertheless, western intervention exacerbated the problem and precipitated much
of the ensuing bloodshed. |
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| It is said that History never
repeats itself, but western interference in the Balkans has repeatedly proven to be
disastrous. Lacking adequate knowledge of the region, and ignoring the history and
aspirations of the people living there, western governments have historically tried to
resolve Balkan problems by pursuing their own narrow foreign policy objectives, which have
little or no relevance to the issues on the ground. This was true in the past and remains
true today. |
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| As far back as 1878 after the
Russian armies supported by Serbia and Montenegro had defeated the Ottoman Turks, the
western powers fearing that Russian Pan-Slav dominance would upset the balance of power in
the region decided to intervene. Their objective was to revise the treaty of San Stefano,
which had ended the Russian-Turkish war and in effect brought to and end Ottoman power in
the Balkans. |
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| The instrument of western intervention was the Congress
of Berlin, which was convened in June 1878. Otto Von Bismark, the German chancellor was
the chairman. The British Prime Minister, Disraeli, along with his Foreign Secretary, Lord
Salisbury, attended. The Congress achieved its objective, the San Stefano treaty was
undone and Russian influence in the Balkans was neutralized. |
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 Balkan 1900 |
| One of the means of doing this was to decide
that Bosnia- Hercegovina, formerly a province of the Turkish Empire, was to be occupied
and administered by Austria-Hungary. The Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Andrassy,
predicted an easy occupation-"a company of soldiers and a brass band,’’
would be all that was necessary. It took three months of heavy fighting and over 200,000
troops to occupy the major towns but resistance was never over come in the mountains and
countryside. The Austrian-Hungarian incursion into Bosnia-Hercegovina ended with the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The cataclysm of the Great
War of 1914-1918 followed. |
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| Less than 25 years later,
Germany’s unprovoked invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 heralded another western
intervention in that troubled nation. The German Wermacht was never able to conquer
Yugoslavia but the Second World War inflicted a terrible and indelible legacy on the
country that was later to be paid for in the bloodshed and violence of the 1990’s. |
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