[R-G] Serbia's Dismemberment Continues

[Anthony Fenton]

  February 5, 2009
Not Done Yet
Serbia's Dismemberment Continues
by Nebojsa Malic
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=14192

One of the many absurdities of Imperial policy in the Balkans is the  
notion of "integrations," a cute euphemism for the expansion of EU and  
NATO southward and eastward. If Brussels and Washington are so eager  
to integrate, why have they consistently supported disintegration –  
first of Yugoslavia, then of Serbia? In 1992, the nascent EU murdered  
Yugoslavia by declaring that the country had simply ceased to exist,  
and recognizing several separatist governments as independent states  
(e.g. Croatia, Bosnia). Then it explicitly ruled out secession from  
those states, and insisted on their territorial integrity. Unless,  
that is, the state in question was Serbia – in which case secession  
was not only approved, but encouraged (Kosovo).

In February 2008, the Albanian provisional government in NATO-occupied  
Kosovo declared independence, contrary to international law. They were  
immediately recognized by the U.S. and its client regimes, and most of  
the EU. The expected resistance from Serbia failed to materialize; a  
massive media campaign that took far more money than was officially  
reported helped re-elect president Boris Tadic, a steadfast supporter  
of the Empire. By the summer of 2008, Tadic held near-absolute power  
in Serbia, through a coalition government secretly engineered after  
the general elections. Though he has continued to talk tough about  
Kosovo and defending Serbia, Tadic's regime has effected a complete  
and total capitulation to Imperial interests.

However, it appears that not even that will be enough to save Serbia  
from further dismemberment.

Never Small Enough

Several years back, one Serbian writer asked, only half in jest, "How  
small should Serbia be before it's not considered too big?" For almost  
two decades, propaganda in the West has clamored about "Greater  
Serbia," allegedly the secret goal of a conspiracy centered on  
Slobodan Milosevic. The entire case the Hague Inquisition made against  
Milosevic rested on this myth. Not surprisingly, Milosevic demolished  
it in the courtroom. Only his unexplained death before the trial's  
conclusion saved the Inquisitors from further embarrassment.

The myth of "Greater Serbia" has survived, though, along with the  
obsession with solving the "Serbian Question" by reducing Serbia to  
borders from 1878.

In April 2007, German ambassador to Belgrade Andreas Zobel tried to  
argue for an independent Kosovo by claiming that leaving it unresolved  
could open Serbia up to separatism in Vojvodina. Kosovo, Zobel argued,  
only became a part of Serbia in 1912, and Vojvodina only in 1918. If  
Serbia were destabilized, "Hungary could insist on Vojvodina," he said  
(translation here). "This is not a threat, it's an analysis," he tried  
to qualify.

Zobel was not expelled. Belgrade didn't so much as send a protest note  
to Berlin. The whole thing was shrugged off after letting some  
government and opposition officials vent in the media.

Recent events, however, compel one to wonder whether Zobel's words  
were a lapse in judgment, or a slip of the tongue, an inadvertent  
announcement of what was to come.

Statute for Statehood

Zobel was wrong in two important details. First, even though the  
government in Belgrade is about as stable and obedient as a client  
regime could be, the issue of Vojvodina was raised anyway. Secondly,  
it wasn't Hungary that raised it, but the homegrown Serbophobic  
separatists – within the president's own party, in fact.

It seems incongruous for a country dealing with a brutal land grab  
endorsed by its "partners" (EU) and "friends" (U.S.) to encourage  
separatism. Yet that is precisely what President Tadic's government  
has done, by drafting a Statute for the northern province of Vojvodina.

The current Serbian Constitution, adopted in late 2006, provides a  
somewhat ambiguous framework for local and regional autonomy. However,  
nowhere does it allow for a possibility of a pseudo-state within  
Serbian borders – yet that is precisely what this new Statute would  
establish.

 From Hapsburgs to Communism

Vojvodina and Kosovo are both a legacy of the Communist obsession with  
"Greater Serbian bourgeois imperialism" and their belief that  
effective control of Yugoslavia was only possible if Serbia were  
partitioned and weak.

Yet from its inception, Vojvodina was fundamentally Serbian in  
character. Following the Ottoman defeat at the gates of Vienna in  
1683, Serbs rebelled against Ottoman occupation and sought Austrian  
help. As the Austrian expeditionary force was defeated, however, tens  
of thousands of Serbs sought refuge across the Danube. Emperor Leopold  
issued a declaration welcoming them to the Hapsburg Empire, and  
granted them lands along the border, in exchange for military service.  
The precedent for this was the Military Frontier, already settled by  
numerous Serb refugees over the previous centuries.

The fortunes of Serbs under Austrian rule varied with political  
exigencies of the times. Whenever their arms were needed to fight off  
the Turks or suppress Hungarian revolts, they would receive charters  
of rights and privileges – which would be revoked as soon as the  
danger abated. During the revolution of 1848, the frontier Serbs  
proclaimed their duchy – Srpska Vojvodina. The following year, it was  
transformed by imperial decree into a crown province of "Serbian Duchy  
and Banat of Tamish" (Die serbische Wojwodschaft und das temeser  
Banat), ruled by the Emperor himself as the Grand Duke (Großwoiwode).  
The Duchy was abolished in 1860 and turned over to Hungary, as part of  
a process that culminated in the Ausgleich of 1867.

In 1918, much of the territory of the Duchy joined the Kingdom of  
Serbia; the border with Hungary was settled by the 1920 Treaty of  
Trianon. Following the Nazi-led invasion in 1941, the Banat region was  
administered by Germany, Backa and Baranja were annexed to Hungary,  
and Srem was given to the "Independent State of Croatia." The  
occupiers committed numerous atrocities against the local Serbs and  
Jews. With the Communist victory in 1945, local Germans were expelled  
in droves. Vojvodina was established as an autonomous province and,  
like Kosovo, gained de facto statehood with the 1974 Constitution.

A Sinister Agent

Simmering dissatisfaction with this crippling arrangement propelled to  
power a maverick Communist named Slobodan Milosevic. In 1988, the  
separatist regimes in Vojvodina and Kosovo were forced out by popular  
revolts, and in 1990 a new Serbian constitution restored Serbia's  
sovereignty over the provinces. Of course, this was described in the  
West as "stripping of autonomy" and "Serbian imperialism."

Milosevic was deposed in 2000, in a coup that presented itself as  
popular revolt, but was organized and managed by the CIA and the  
National Endowment for Democracy. Among the twenty parties cobbled  
together into the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) were several  
that advocated "greater autonomy" for Vojvodina.

Hungarian parties have taken a back seat on the autonomy bus, however.  
At the wheel is Nenad Canak, a porcine politician of Serb ancestry –  
though it may be just a matter of time before he declares himself a  
"Vojvodinian" or some such. He's a consummate rabble-rouser, styling  
himself an intrepid opponent of "fascism" (to the point of inventing  
it) and stoking the fires of hatred towards Belgrade and Serbia as  
"thems that take our money." Canak has also cynically spun tales of  
ethnic violence in Vojvodina, helping some supporters of Kosovo  
separation in Washington to blow them out of proportion.

Canak's party has in the past printed "Vojvodinian" passports (!) and  
this Christmas they published a calendar with a map of "Republic of  
Vojvodina." Both times Canak claimed that this was "just some youths  
fooling around" and that it was just an innocent marketing stunt.  
There was nothing innocent about it, though.

Even now, Canak is positioning himself as an opponent of the new  
Statute, claiming it does concede enough to his pet project. Nothing  
short of an "Independent State of Vajdasag" would.

Backdoor Secession

Canak and his minuscule party may be the extremist fringe, but like  
many other pocket parties, NGOs and "independent unions" of  
professional defenders of human rights, he enjoys disproportionate and  
favorable media coverage (most media in Serbia are pro-government, and  
almost all are foreign-funded). While Canak and other, even more  
marginal and militant separatists make noise and coerce the public  
opinion to see things their way, the government does their work  
quietly, in the mainstream. After all, it was the Democrats, not  
Canak, who wrote the new Statute – which experts and analysts already  
call a return to 1974.

Premier Serbian political analyst Slobodan Antonic published a lengthy  
investigative report in mid-December, warning that the autonomists  
were forging a "Vojvodinian" identity, "not as a sense of regional  
belonging but as a non-Serb, even anti-Serb, quasi-national identity."  
It is the same kind of incremental sundering, he says, that was used  
to manufacture a separate "Montenegrin" nation. Antonic has also  
pointed out that the work of the most militant autonomists is funded  
by U.S. taxpayers, through the National Endowment for Democracy. He  
specifically mentions the so-called "Independent union of Vojvodina  
journalists," which maintains the openly secessionist site  
autonomija.info. Sure enough, the site is headlined "Vojvodinian  
Identity" and the NED logo is prominently displayed at top right.

All too many pieces fit together entirely too neatly for this to be  
simple coincidence. It really does appear that Andreas Zobel spoke the  
truth; that the Empire is not done dismembering Serbia just yet, and  
that "Republic of Vojvodina" (or something else, since Vojvodina is  
such a Serb word) is intended to follow in the footsteps of the  
"Independent state of Kosovo."

True, this is an existential problem primarily for the remaining  
Serbian patriots. But given the present economic crisis and demands on  
U.S. taxpayers that are already spiraling out of control – a billion  
here, a trillion there, and soon we're talking about a real bailout –  
it is worth wondering if it really makes sense to bankroll another  
banana republic, another new "nation," another useless client regime  
in an already-conquered and completely irrelevant part of the world.   
Does the Obama administration have nothing better to do than build a  
sandbox for Nenad Canak and call it a state?

We'll find out soon enough.