Yugoslavia - in memoriam

[Simonov]

in memory of all the people killed during Yugoslav conflict. i hope some that all wounds will heal and we can all get along as before...

i would like to know what foreigners know and think about this war?

some facts:

The Yugoslav Wars were a series of violent conflicts in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) that took place between 1991 and 2001. They comprised two sets of successive wars affecting all of the six former Yugoslav republics.

they were characterised by bitter ethnic conflicts between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats, Bosniaks or Albanians on the other; but also between Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia. The conflict had its roots in various underlying political, economic and cultural problems, as well as long-standing ethnic and religious tensions.

The civil wars ended with much of the former Yugoslavia reduced to poverty, massive economic disruption and persistent instability across the territories where the worst fighting occurred. The wars were the bloodiest conflicts on European soil since the end of World War II. They were also the first conflicts since World War II to have been formally judged genocidal in character and many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes.

this beautiful song by Tatu inspired me to make this thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Git1piHts

YUGOSLAVIA
Composed by A. Voitinsky

In the evening carried over the Danube
White flowers, white flowers, white flowers...

And my memory asks for a melody
From long ago, long ago, long ago...

But like a flock of lost birds,
Our song's simple words disperse...

You're heading into fire, Yugoslavia!
Without me! Without me! Without me!

For the downpour of lead during that night,
For the reason that I'm not by your side,
Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

For the death during the spring rain
For that I never came to your rescue
Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

Like a confused dark-eyed girl,
You stand on the other side.
But to reach over to that side
I cannot, I cannot, I cannot...

In the evening carried over the Danube
White flowers, white flowers, white flowers

And my memory asks for a melody
From long ago, long ago, long ago...

For that night during the downpour of lead
For that I wasn't there by your side,
Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

For the death during the spring rain
For that I never came to your rescue
Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

may this catastrophe never again happen.

[DAZMCFC]

i do know that my money was on Yugoslavia to win Euro 92`, then Denmark replaced them and won it. Red Star Belgrade were shit hot when they won the Europen cup.

on a serious note a lot of shit happened in that war. correct me if i`m wrong but Yugoslavia is made up of Bosnia, Herzagovia, Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia.

[mandalorian2298]

i do know that my money was on Yugoslavia to win Euro 92`, then Denmark replaced them and won it. Red Star Belgrade were shit hot when they won the Europen cup.

on a serious note a lot of shit happened in that war. correct me if i`m wrong but Yugoslavia is made up of Bosnia, Herzagovia, Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia.

Tsk, tsk, I can't believe that a English football fan already forgot Macedonia.

You also forgot Montenegro (and 'Bosnia and Herzegovina' is actualy one country.)

[Simonov]

on a serious note a lot of shit happened in that war. correct me if i`m wrong but Yugoslavia is made up of Bosnia and Herzegovia, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia.

was made out of this countries. you left out macedonia and montenegro.

[Simonov]

Tsk, tsk, I can't believe that a English football fan already forgot Macedonia.

lol. it seems that ex-yu republics are kicking england's ass in football.

[mandalorian2298]

Tsk, tsk, I can't believe that a English football fan already forgot Macedonia.

lol. it seems that ex-yu republics are kicking england's ass in football.

Yeah. They may have invented football, but we learned how to train moles.

[btownmeggy]

Oh, truly sorrowful. My heart aches.

My brother used to be an Eastern Europe specialist and was part of the UN and later NATO troops is Bosnia in the early 90s, and ended up staying there for some years, when I was still rather young person. I watched the bombings on TV and saw the newspaper pictures of refugees, but didn't really understand what was happening. (Still today, I consider this intervention certainly the noblest foreign intervention that the US has participated in. I yearn for the days of Clinton, when the US military was used in multilateral efforts to SAVE lives for humanitarian, not economic or even particularly ideological, purposes. Not that the US was without fault in their approach to conflict, but they could do much worse, much worse.)

I guess I first became cognizant about why and how conflicts happening from the songs "War Child" and "Bosnia" by the Cranberries (a band from Ireland who was rather popular back in those days). I shed my first tear for the suffering.

I have a friend today who is from Bosnia, but has lived here for several years. Last month, she was in Bosnia for a few weeks. She felt so at ease, at such unity with the people around her. When she got home, she broke up with her fiance, an American, because she realized that the war had impacted her life in such a complete and essential way, that she couldn't imagine spending her life with someone who hadn't experienced it, someone with whom she didn't feel the natural connection that she felt with her countrymen.

[duday53]

My granpa is from yugoslavian...he moved out of there areound WW2 though.

[Simonov]

I watched the bombings on TV and saw the newspaper pictures of refugees, but didn't really understand what was happening.

neither did i, i was 5 when war started and living near slovenian border far away from war zones. i remember constant air raids and that we had to hide under the benches in school when air raid alert was sounded. i also remember that many refugees came from occupied parts of country and bosnia - a lot of them settled here and are living here even now.

one of my best friends in elementary was a serb, only later i realized why some of the other children used to bully him while left me alone. i was raised in a way not to judge people by nationalities - but by the fact are they good people.

i hope some that all wounds will heal and we can all get along as before...

remember this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3gYhTYaMHA

[Bijo]

Well I am from Croatia and my father, my 3 uncles fought in that war, my father almost had cancer from radiation, my 1 uncle has psycho problems because serbs kept him in war camp(like germans did with jews) and now he is sometime good, but he has some time when he thinks we are serbs and we're gonna kill him....
my other uncle almost got killed in that war, he is 100 % infirm person, he can walk but slowly on one leg, he can use his hand, but only one, and now when i hear yugoslavia, serbia, my eyes got red, my heart burns, so don't open this thread anymore, don't talk about it if you don't know what really happened,

this is the real fact, after 10 years you will all know this, after the judging to all generals, : Yugoslavia was formed of South Slavenian nations and it's names comes from it Yugo=South , slavia=Slavenian,
These nations were united: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia.

Serbia wanted always our sea, they wanted it because it is a pearl they didnt have, they also wanted yugoslavia to be "big serbia", so they had some plans and they took money from all other countries (croatia mainly because we were richest, slovenia, macedonia, b&h.... and they used that money not to invest in all countries , they invested only in serbia, and that's why Croatia didn't want this yugoslavia anymore, and we seperated and said that we are free country, we are not yugoslavia anymore, in same time as we did it, slovenia did it... also after some time macedonia,
serbia couldn't deal with it, they wanted big serbia, not so small serbia with less money, so they attacked with their president Milosevic who was found quilty on Den Haag just before he died there, they attacked women and children, just to clear Croatia from the map, these UN didnt do nothing, they are didnt help us even they saw we are under attacked, what did they do, just saying it to news how many dead today and such things, f*ck the UN, when it was necessary then they didnt help us,

one more thing USA, america, they sold us both weapons, Croatia and Serbia, that was economical boost for them, so they wanted this war to last as much longer, to keep money coming.... so they are for me like iraq, like they now attack each country to get oil, WE ALL KNOW THAT and we cannot do nothing, why they attack only countries where is oil no1., ....

after five years of war, we managed to win somehow, we planned two actions, and actually did it, i remember my dad crying because of it when he came home and say to us, it's all over, we won, cetniks are falling back to serbia, now we can live!
I spent 2 years in France because of that, because of what are wars?!??! now tell me why the f*ck serbia attacked us and b&h???
so please close this thread and never open again because of my family first and those who have died!

[Simonov]

i'm very sorry for what has happened to your family bijo. male members of my family and close friends also went to defend our homeland but fortunately noone was hurt seriously.

i understand your anger, used to have similar reaction to mention of serbia. but now i feel sorry for them - for all normal people stuck in that country. you should try to forgive them also, but we'll never forget what they did here. not all serbs are bad i know many of them who fought on our side during the war and saw how terribly wrong serbian politics were.

what most saddens me now is that many serbs still haven't dealt with wrongness of what they did, it's shameful that chetniks are gathering on Ravna Gora still dreaming of Greater Serbia and that strongest political option there are radicals.

i understand also reason why you hate name of yugoslavia also - YNA failed us terribly when sided with serbs when war began, instead of ensuring peaceful secession. but you must admit yugoslavia wasn't all that bad in the beginning - all those people living in peace together.

you're right about UN and States - they came too late when we have practically liberated ourselves but even then didn't make a lot to prevent conflicts in Bosnia. it was a simple parade before the eyes of the world - but when bullets started pouring they usually disappeared.

i'm little puzzled though why you're offended by this thread and want it closed. it think world needs to know what happened. i wished not to glorify former state but to remind people of agony of it's breakup and that world should never again allow this to happen. this thread is actually dedicated to people like those from your family - mainly croats and bosnians who were either killed or had their lives strongly shaken by this war but also all the innocent serbs who got caught in the middle of this conflict and were damaged as well.

[DAZMCFC]

i do know that my money was on Yugoslavia to win Euro 92`, then Denmark replaced them and won it. Red Star Belgrade were shit hot when they won the Europen cup.

on a serious note a lot of shit happened in that war. correct me if i`m wrong but Yugoslavia is made up of Bosnia, Herzagovia, Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia.

Tsk, tsk, I can't believe that a English football fan already forgot Macedonia.

You also forgot Montenegro (and 'Bosnia and Herzegovina' is actualy one country.)

Mandy, i support Scotland. so i forgot about Macedonia drawing 2-2 against England. is that when David James dropped it in the net from a corner.

[mandalorian2298]

i do know that my money was on Yugoslavia to win Euro 92`, then Denmark replaced them and won it. Red Star Belgrade were shit hot when they won the Europen cup.

on a serious note a lot of shit happened in that war. correct me if i`m wrong but Yugoslavia is made up of Bosnia, Herzagovia, Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia.

Tsk, tsk, I can't believe that a English football fan already forgot Macedonia.

You also forgot Montenegro (and 'Bosnia and Herzegovina' is actualy one country.)

Mandy, i support Scotland. so i forgot about Macedonia drawing 2-2 against England. is that when David James dropped it in the net from a corner.

If you support Scotland, doesn't that mean that you trow a little celebration every time that England does badly? I don't realy remember the games, I just remember that Macedonia gave England a hard time.

[btownmeggy]

you're right about UN and States - they came too late when we have practically liberated ourselves but even then didn't make a lot to prevent conflicts in Bosnia. it was a simple parade before the eyes of the world - but when bullets started pouring they usually disappeared.

According to my understanding, the first major violent conflicts began in the Summer of 1991. The UN first sent troops in January 1992, after an arms embargo had already been going on for some months. Major violence continued, in some part of former Yugoslavia, for 10 years after that, with either the UN or NATO maintaining a constant presence.

I think what you perceive as the UN's inaction is based on the nature of the UN military mandate. UN troops are STRONGLY encouraged to NEVER participate in violence. Their primary concern is protecting humanitarian safe zones. They can only use force when those safe zones are threatened. The UN was not there to fight a way, but to ensure that refugees got medical care, food, and blankets.

NATO's faults were perhaps more damnable. NATO was somewhat lost after the fall of the Soviet Union (and still is) as to what's their global responsibility. Many of their military actions were ineffective, often constrained by politics in individual NATO countries.

[Bijo]

you know, i also have 2 friends which are serbian, in my city, they fought on our side, that's the kind of serbs i dont hate, and this new-born in serbia who dont know anything about this shit war,

UN didnt do that job btw, they didnt do enough to secure that because here are made some etnical killing, and also children and wimin.

I just don't want this thread anymore because 100 % after 2-3 more posts there are gonna be 10 serbs offending everyone else and it will be disaster for me looking them insulting our sacred love and courage to defend our country....

Also Croatia kicked England but , 2:0 for those who had forget it, but we still have a lot of work to do because qualification is always what we pass, but when championship comes... we suck , always some unlucky shit, and also Macedonia is very good team, we won 2:1 but very hardly, they were leading 1:0, but Srna, the Shakthtar player managed to be man of the match and score 1 goal, and to assist one in 90+' mins to eduardo,

this team of Croatia reminds on famous Croatian team 96' on Euro and 98' on world cup(3rd both times), we were very unlucky against France, you know, lilian Thuram scored both goals and his first offical goals in his whole career in win against croatia in semi-finals 2:1.... so we can really call it unlucky, but this new generation is very similiar to that, they all play in good teams in europe i will now say in which...

GKs : Stipe Pletikosa ( Shakhtar Donetsk, Ukraine), Vedran Runje( Lens, France), Mario Galinovic ( Panathinaikos, Greece)

Defenders: Vedran Corluka ( Manchester City, England), Josip Simunic ( Hertha Berlin, Germany), Igor Tudor( Hajduk Split, Croatia), Dario Simic(Milan, Italy), Robert Kovac( Borrusia Dortmund, Germany), Goran Sablic ( Hajduk Split, Croatia), Dino Drpic ( Dinamo Zagreb, Croatia)

Midfielders: Niko Kovac -captain (Red Bull Salzburg, Austria), Jerko Leko ( Monaco, France), Ognjen Vukojevic( Dinamo Zagreb, Croatia), Darijo Srna ( Shakhtar Donetsk, Ukraine), Niko Kranjcar ( Portsmouth, England), Luka Modric( Dinamo Zagreb, Croatia), Ivan Rakitic (Schalke 04, Germany)

Attackers: Eduardo ( Arsenal, England), Mladen Petric (Borussia Dortmund, Germany), Igor Budan(Parma, Italy), Ivica Olic( HSV, Germany),