The Balkans: The powder keg of Europe

There are so many peoples, ethnic groups, different beliefs and historic affiliations in southeastern Europe who cannot get along peacefully since old times. The most bellicose is Serbia.

It was sandwiched between Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire until the 1800s when it came under the political and economic control of Austria. The Serbs rebelled against martial law. On July 28, 1914 a Bosnian Serb student assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia and within six days European powers declared war on each other. It was not the reason but the spark in the powder -keg that led to the outbreak of World War I.

After the collapse of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, King Peter of Serbia founded the Kingdom of Serbia uniting the southern Slavs, the Serbs, the Croats, and the Slovenes in 1918. In 1929 the state was named Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

During World War II, Germany and Italy invaded the state. After their defeat in 1945, several puppet regimes of the Soviets ruled. Eventually Josip Broz Tito held Yugoslavia together until his death in 1980. He convinced three more states to join: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia.

I think it was the happiest time for the South Slavs. They intermarried, spoke the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian and worked hard inside and outside the country. Many worked in Germany known and referred to only as Yugoslavs. In summer 1987 I passed my vacations in Sibenic of Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. Family houses and enterprises were sprouting everywhere and the port was buzzing with activity. Tourists spent lots of money.

In 1987 Slobodan Milosevic rose to power. He promoted populist Serb-nationalist views. The results were the Yugoslav Wars from 1990 to 1999. The Balkans plunged into chaos.

At that time also people from all over Europe flocked to Yugoslavia, but not for leisure but for humanitarian assistance. My friend, Andreas, told me some heart-rending story: A teenage couple trod on a mine. Andi, a volunteer Red Cross car driver took them first to Switzerland. A team of doctors accepted to fashion the girl artificial limbs while a German hospital treated the boy the same way.

Milosevic first subjugated Serbia’s semi-autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. The five constituent republics split apart, but Milosevic forced them under his Greater Serbia dream. Violence, mass rape, concentration camps, desertions from the armies, murder, abduction, and prosecution were common features. But in order to save the Serbs’ honor I also mention anti-war resistance groups.

Much ink flowed into reports and books on the wars. I only mention the horrible massacre of Srebrenica where 8,372 Bosnian Muslims were killed. American troops put an end to the slaughter. The bombing by NATO of Belgrad ended the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo by Serbs in 1999.

Following Milosevic’s arrest on April 1, 2001 by Yugoslav authorities, the United States pressured the government to extradite him to the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal or lose financial aid from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. After many debates Prime Minister Zoran Dindic eventually ordered the extradition. On June 28, Milosevic was flown from a US base in Bosnia to The Hague in the Netherlands.

Charges were filed against him for violating the laws of war and grave breach of the Geneva Convention, genocide in Bosnia, and crimes against humanity.

Milosevic died in 2006 in prison before the trial could be concluded. Russia granted his wife and children asylum.

His supporters see in him the “Guarantor of Peace in the Balkans” while westerners call him “The Butcher of the Balkans”.

Serbian president since 2017, Alexandar Vucic practices a seesaw policy between Europe and Russia. The country has been granted EU candidate status, but it is far from meeting the criteria for membership which are respect for liberty, democracy, human rights, rule of law, freedom of media, and absence of corruption. EU is committed to integrate all the West Balkan states in the lap of the union in order to keep them out of Russia’s orbit. The apple of discord is Kosovo that Vucic is adamant to keep within Serbia. The EU granted Kosovo ‘potential candidate status’.

Recently Vucic made a surprisingly strong statement in support of Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War: “Crimea is Ukraine. Donbas is Ukraine”. Putin must be fuming with rage.

Strained relations between the two Balkan states Greece and Türkiye recently culminated over territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea. There still is powder in the keg.