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Detail­ing impor­tant but (in the U.S.) largely unrec­og­nized aspects of the Balkans war, this pro­gram doc­u­ments the early his­tory of that con­flict, with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on America’s involve­ment. Dri­ven by a geopo­lit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tive gen­er­ated by Ger­many and the Vat­i­can, the United States treated Yugoslavia as the last bas­tion of hard-line, Soviet-style com­mu­nism in Europe.

Fol­low­ing diplo­matic recog­ni­tion of the Croa­t­ian and Sloven­ian inde­pen­dence by Ger­many, the EU and the Vat­i­can, the United States lent polit­i­cal, eco­nomic and mil­i­tary sup­port to the forces work­ing to break-up Yugoslavia. Indeed (as seen in FTRs 48, 147), the U.S. had been deeply involved with Croa­t­ian fas­cist ele­ments since the con­clu­sion of World War II.

Hav­ing been armed by Ger­many, Croa­t­ian armed forces began attack­ing Serbs liv­ing in the newly inde­pen­dent Croa­tia. When the Yugosla­vian National Army (JNA) inter­vened to pre­vent the slaugh­ter of 5,000 Serbs at Vuko­var, they were branded aggres­sors. Pun­ish­ing eco­nomic mea­sures were taken to pres­sure the Serbs, exac­er­bat­ing their already pre­car­i­ous eco­nomic situation.

A sim­i­lar pat­tern man­i­fested itself in Bosnia. The Mus­lim forces of Alija Izetbe­govic attacked Bosn­ian Serbs, who, like their Croa­t­ian coun­ter­parts, had exer­cised the right to self gov­er­nance read­ily accorded the Croats and Bosn­ian Mus­lims by the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity. This exer­cise was branded aggres­sion, Mus­lim eth­nic cleans­ing of Serbs was ignored, JNA attempts to pro­tect the Bosn­ian Serbs were met with vig­or­ous cen­sure and the with­drawal of the JNA from Bosnia was ignored.

It should be noted that Bosn­ian Croats had seceded, as had the Serbs, but were not pun­ished for their acts. Like­wise, when the Croa­t­ian Army inter­vened in Bosnia, they were not threat­ened with mil­i­tary retal­i­a­tion. On the other hand, the Serbs were threat­ened with NATO air strikes. A Bosn­ian no-fly zone was selec­tively enforced. This selec­tive enforce­ment effec­tively pre­vented the Serbs from uti­liz­ing their supe­rior air power against the Bosn­ian Mus­lim forces, while allow­ing Bosn­ian Mus­lim air units to oper­ate against the Serbs.

The pro­gram high­lights three major attempts by the United States to con­trol Yugoslavia. The first entailed the use of Milan Panic, a Serbian-American mil­lion­aire busi­ness­man. Eager to improve rela­tions with the U.S., the Yugoslavs wel­comed Panic’s entry into Yugosla­vian pol­i­tics. It should be noted that Panic was a United States cit­i­zen. When Panic became Prime Min­is­ter of Yugoslavia, it was ille­gal under U.S. Law. Panic used his posi­tion as Prime Min­is­ter to attempt to under­mine Pres­i­dent Slo­bo­dan Milosevic.

Fol­low­ing defeat in an attempt to unseat Milo­se­vic, After the Yugosla­vian Par­lia­ment returned a vote of no con­fi­dence in him, Panic resigned as Prime Min­is­ter and returned to the U.S. Fol­low­ing the Panic gam­bit, then Sec­re­tary of State War­ren Christo­pher attempted to pres­sure Yugoslavia on behalf of the Bosn­ian Mus­lims, hold­ing the puni­tive sword of NATO air strikes over the heads of the Serbs. The third U.S. attempt to con­trol the Serbs saw a con­tin­gent of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary offi­cers travel to Bel­grade as part of a U.S. pol­icy group, that pro­ceeded to attempt to dic­tate pol­icy to the Yugosla­vian leadership.

Bluntly warn­ing of the lethal con­se­quences of refus­ing to acqui­esce to U.S. demands, the con­tin­gent left the Serbs unconvinced.

The Amer­i­can response to Ser­bian intran­si­gence was to coor­di­nate a joint Croat-Bosnian Mus­lim offen­sive against the Serbs, with sig­nif­i­cant Amer­i­can back­ing (includ­ing NATO air strikes.) It should be noted that U.N. peace­keep­ing forces point­edly ignored signs of a Mus­lim mil­i­tary buildup. The Bosn­ian Mus­lims then pre­cip­i­tated the offen­sive by killing two U.N. peace­keep­ers. The killing was then blamed on the Serbs. (Recorded on 5/16/99.)