While Europe commemorates #VEDay75, in Bosnia @Dragan_Covic & his nationalist HDZ bloc - along w/ their sister party in Croatia - want to observe a Mass marking the Bleiburg repatriations, possibly the continent’s most significant neo-fascist “holiday”. vijesti.ba/clanak/491537/…
If you’ve never heard of Bleiburg - lucky you! - the photos of the gatherings speak for themselves. There is no actual dog whistling going on here, this is straight up fascist revisionism — and @Dragan_Covic wants to be involved. vice.com/en_us/article/…
The heads of Bosnia's and Sarajevo's Jewish communities denounce @Dragan_Covic and the HDZ's push for a Mass commemorating Bleiburg: "They are commemorating the executioners of our mothers, fathers, our elders, our fellow countrymen". klix.ba/vijesti/bih/je…
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The failure of 🇧🇦 to secure a €70m development package from 🇪🇺 is not only another major blow to the political fortunes of the Troika coalition, it’s another incident which illustrates how BXL (& US) have done everything possible to knee-cap rational governance in 🇧🇦.
Long 🧵.
So, what happened? 🇧🇦 req to agree a domestic development plan for the funds, which it failed to do. Why? Because in 2016 🇪🇺 forced 🇧🇦 to adopt something called a “coordination mechanism,” which gave sub-national administrative regions equal say in 🇪🇺 processes as state govt.
Thus what was already possibly the most decentralized country in the world had one of the last vestiges of rational governance sabotaged by Brussels. Suddenly, key foreign policy Qs would be shaped by cantons & even individual municipalities not the state govt.
This July 11 is the first anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide since the passage of the eponymous UN resolution earlier this year which established a global day of commemoration.
I will explain why this is a moment of opportunity but also enormous responsibility. 🧶
We now have another opportunity to ensure global awareness & scholarship of the Srebrenica Genocide. But we also have responsibility to speak truthfully & fully; the genocide in Srebrenica was only the culmination of a broader genocide against the Bosniak community of BiH.
The genocide in Srebrenica did not begin in July 1995 but in April 1992. And Srebrenica cannot be decontextualized from the broader campaign of extermination & expulsion vs the Bosniak community by the then Serb nationalist authorities in BiH & their masters in Belgrade.
As a person who just published a book on the centrality of the genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina during the 1990s in the national consciousnesses of the contemporary Bosniak community, I'd like to offer some brief thoughts on the upcoming UNGA Srebrenica Genocide resolution.
First, let us be clear on the facts: the events in July 1995 in Srebrenica were the culmination of a nearly 4 yr long long systematic campaign of extermination, expulsion, sexual violence, detention, & torture directed at the Bosniak community by the then regime in Belgrade.
Srebrenica was a genocide but it was also only the final expression of a state-sponsored & directed program by the Milosevic regime & its Bosnian Serb proxies in the period btw 1992 and 1995, the appropriate term for which is the Bosnian Genocide or the genocide in Bosnia.
Those who do not follow Balkan politics will not grasp the full scope of this story.
It is two foreign govts covertly channeling $ to Trump in exchange for his (2nd) admin's support for potentially the wholesale redrawing of the map the southeast Europe.
First, recall Serb nationalists were from onset of Trump's 1st campaign all in on him. Like the Russians, they saw in Trump both a kindred ideological spirit but also a categorical transactionalist who was willing to put all of US foreign policy on sale. balkaninsight.com/2016/11/11/ser…
Once he took office, they began openly directing monies twd his cronies. Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik - virtually whose entire regime is now under both US & UK sanctions - hired Trump's team to lobby for him in DC... motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
Over the past few mos I've repeatedly commented on Bosnia & Herzegovina's ability to provide critically needed 155mm shells, & other munitions, for Ukraine. There is a great opportunity here for the West to shift the tide of battle vs. Russia. Let me explain the details. 🧵
BiH's remarkably robust defense industry dates to the Yugoslav period. On the eve of the SFRJ's dissolution (1990/91), BiH was by some estimates producing cc 51% of all arms & munitions in Yugoslavia, which then had the 4th largest armed forces in Europe (the JNA).
While most the relevant plants were heavily damaged during the aggression vs BiH by Serbia & Croatia (1992-95), the sector was also relatively quick to bounce back. Without getting into the weeds, suffice it to say by the mid-2010s, BiH's defense industry was on its legs again.
As Bosnian Serb extremist Dodik again insists he intends to take the RS entity out BiH (while still somehow magically respecting the Dayton Agreement) a familiar, bad faith chorus has struck up: why can Kosovo secede from Serbia but the RS not from BiH?
WARNING: VERY LONG 🧵
Let's define our terms: "can" in international relations is a Q of power, not international law (i.e. the is/ought problem, in short). The US & China can do a lot of things bc they are super powers; Burkina Faso & Honduras cannot bc they are small, poor, & weak.
Kosovo was able to declare independence in 2008 bc the balance of power, regionally & internationally, favored its ability to do so & it enjoyed (begrudging but nevertheless significant) support for the same. It failed to win UN recognition but like Taiwan...