Archive : ISG Pamphlets : War in the Balkans

The Murder of Bosnia - Part One

Geoff Ryan

Up to the Second World War

It incorporated the previously independent Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, the former Austrian controlled territories of Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Dalmatia, the Hungarian ruled Vojvodina and Croatia-Slavonia and part of Macedonia, [1] which achieved independence from Turkey in 1912 but was immediately annexed by Serbia. As the original name implies the first Yugoslavia only recognised the existence of three Yugoslav nations: Macedonians and Montenegrins were classed as Serbs whilst Muslims were ’nationally uncommitted’. The many non-South Slav nationalities had no rights at all.

The first Yugoslavia rapidly became a state dominated by the Serbian monarchy in which all nations and nationalities were expected to assume a ’Yugoslav’ identity. The history of the first Yugoslavia reveals some of the important themes that were to tear Yugoslavia apart in the late 1980s, not least because in both cases the dominant currents were nationalist: centralised state versus federalism, the creation of a single ’Yugoslav’ identity or recognition of different nationalities.

Just as in the 1980s the opposing camps were virtually the same: Serbs favoured a strong, unitary state and the development of a ’Yugoslav’ nationality — which means a Serb dominated state in which ’Yugoslav’ nationality is synonymous with Serb hegemony. This concept was summed up in the 1980s by Slobodan Milosevic in his oft repeated slogan "Strong Serbia, strong Yugoslavia". The order of the words is by no means accidental. The alternative to these conceptions was led by Croats and, to some extent Slovenes and Macedonians, who argued for a federation which recognised national rights and provided for autonomy.

In both the first and the second Yugoslavia there were Serbs who favoured federalism and Croats or Slovenes who supported a unitary state. Nevertheless, the dominant trend has been for Serb nationalists to see Yugoslavia as a centralised state under Serbian hegemony. Within this state all nations lose their identity in a common ’Yugoslav’ consciousness [which means, in this context, that all nations dissolve into the Serb nation] and for Croat, Slovene, Muslim etc nationalists to argue for a federal structure which recognises national rights and autonomy.

Croatia was finally granted some autonomy in 1939: significantly the Croat leader Macek did not argue for the extension of autonomy to other nations or nationalities. Indeed the 1939 Sporazum (agreement) between Macek and Serbian Prime Minister Cvetkovic divided up Bosnia-Hercegovina between Serbia and Croatia. Echoes are found in the secret negotiations between current Croatian President Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic, or their henchmen Mate Boban and Radovan Karadzic, to carve up Bosnia.

The Second World War

Much of the rhetoric used by both Serb and Croat nationalists today dates from events during the Second World War.

The first Yugoslavia collapsed following the fascist invasion in 1941. In Croatia, following the German invasion, the Nazis created the so-called Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska (NDH, Independent Croatian State) headed by the puppet Ustase regime of Ante Pavelic . The NDH was neither independent nor purely Croatian since it encompassed virtually the whole of Bosnia and contained many non-Croats. The Kosova [2] region (and parts of Montenegro and Macedonia) were controlled by the Italian Army and were formally incorporated into Albania (also under Italian domination), whilst other parts were occupied by the armies of Bulgaria and Hungary. Slovenia was divided between Italy and Germany , as was Croatia, and Serbia was primarily under German occupation, though the government was nominally in the hands of Serbian General Nedic. The result was to pit each national or ethnic group against the others (with the exception of Slovenia where the national homogeneity made the conflict a war between pro and anti-fascist forces from the beginning).

No-one knows exactly how many Yugoslavs died, though slightly over one million is probably the most accurate estimate. [3] The Ustase forces in the NDH carried out a policy of expelling, converting to Roman Catholicism [4] or murdering the Serb population — supposedly in equal proportions, though the evidence tends to suggest that physical extermination was more frequently used than either expulsions or conversions. Jews, Romanies, Muslims and anti-fascist Croats were also massacred, though some Muslim units fought alongside the Ustase.

However, contrary to Serbian nationalist myths the Ustase did not have a monopoly on extermination. Similar barbarism was carried out by all nationalist forces: the Cetniks, the collaborationist government of Milan Nedic in Serbia, the Slovene and Croatian Domobranci, the Albanian Balli Kombeter and others.

The majority of Jews, for example were not murdered in the Ustase concentration camp at Jasenovac: more were killed by Nedic’s regime in Serbia than in the whole of the NDH.

Nor were the vast majority of Serb deaths at the hands of the Ustase, as Serbian nationalists would have us believe. Just over half of all Serb deaths occurred on the territory of the NDH. These include large numbers of Cetniks killed by the Partisans (the majority of whom were Serbs) and Serb Partisans killed by Cetniks. Proportionately the greatest number of deaths was suffered by the Slav Muslims.

None of this is to deny that the Ustase committed atrocities or that the Serbs suffered large losses. Nor is it to welcome the destruction of the Jasenovac memorial by Croat nationalists during the recent war in Croatia. Jasenovac was, in its own way, as important a memorial to capitalist barbarism as Auschwitz. Nor do we deny Tudjman’s anti-Semitism and his attempts to minimise the atrocities committed in the NDH. It is, however, to reject the claims by Serb nationalists that only the Ustase were guilty of atrocities and the portrayal of all Croats as Ustase, a stock-in-trade of Milosevic. [5]

Geoff Ryan

NOTES

[1] Macedonians are a distinct Slav nation, though this is disputed by Greater Serbian nationalists and the governments of Greece and Bulgaria. The part of Macedonia formerly inside Yugoslavia is sometimes referred to as Vardar Macedonia. Macedonia in Greece and Bulgaria is referred to as Aegean Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia respectively. It was only in Tito’s Yugoslavia that the Macedonians were recognised as a nation. In Greece and Bulgaria they continue to be seen as Greeks or Bulgarians.

[2] I have used the Albanian form Kosova throughout, rather than the more common Serbo-Croat Kosovo.

[3] See the figures given by Bogolub Kocevic (quoted in B. Magas, The Destruction of Yugoslavia, p314) and 3.Vladimir Zerjavic (quoted in S. Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962-1991, p255). Whilst there are some differences in their figures they are remarkably similar estimates. Kocevic is a Serb and Zerjavic a Croat.

[4] Sections of the Roman Catholic Church actively supported the Ustase. Archbishop Saric of Sarajevo for example was an Ustase member whilst Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb was able to see the hand of God at work in the N.D.H. Franciscan friars served in the Ustase government and staffed the concentrations camps at Gospic and Jasenovac. Contrary to Serbian chauvinists, however, not all Catholic clergy supported Pavelic and the hands of the Serbian Orthodox clergy were not exactly clean.

[5] In fact the majority of Serbs in the N.D.H. rejected the Cetniks precisely because of their anti-Croat actions. The overwhelming majority of Serbs supported the Partisans, though inside the N.D.H. the majority of Partisans were Croats.

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