An amazing video of the Battle of Vukovar

[passive]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7FQfY3BZq4

The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of the Croatian city of Vukovar by a multitude of Serbian forces during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991.

During the three-month siege, the old city of Vukovar, located on the border of Croatia and Serbia on the Danube river, witnessed the most horrific devastation in its history, as well as numerous tales of human ingenuity and endurance. The city was almost completely destroyed when it was finally occupied by the Serbian forces, and its Croat inhabitants exiled or killed.

[Vojvodina]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7FQfY3BZq4

The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of the Croatian city of Vukovar by a multitude of Serbian forces during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991.

During the three-month siege, the old city of Vukovar, located on the border of Croatia and Serbia on the Danube river, witnessed the most horrific devastation in its history, as well as numerous tales of human ingenuity and endurance. The city was almost completely destroyed when it was finally occupied by the Serbian forces, and its Croat inhabitants exiled or killed.

My family fought in Vukovar and witnessed much of the destruction. That was really a test for the JNA. Shame we lost Krajina by the end of the war.

[..Jovan..]

Shame we lost Krajina by the end of the war.
:doh:
You see people lost lives and homes and lots of other things and all you can think about is how your fellow nationalists didn't get their greater Serbia.

[Bunjevac]

:doh:
You see people lost lives and homes and lots of other things and all you can think about is how your fellow nationalists didn't get their greater Serbia.

Of course the Serbs lost the war. The nationalists had the stupidest strategy to achieve victory. The attack on Vukovar (and attacks on other cities) was meant to be a scare tactic and in the end turned out to be nothing but a huge loss of life (for both sides) for a location where a lot less battling was needed.

If Serbs wanted to achieve a greater Serbia they could of achieved in different ways. The leaders of the early 1990s were idiots as much as the current leaders are.

[Knez_Nenad_Of_Serbia]

Agreed Bunjevac. Getting the entire world to bomb us wasnt the right either. The 1990 politicians didnt even TRY to gain support with other countries while the Bosniaks and Croats were sucking up to the US> In turn, we got horribly bombed and they got ground, air and intelligence support and a huge supply of cash and arms. Thus, we lost. We could have obtained RS and SAO Kraijna much easier and with much less bloodshed if we didnt have incompitent and communist morons. We could have easily garned support for our cause in America but our leaders failed. Hell, our leaders didnt even turn to help to our allies like Russia or Belarus.

[RoboCop]

Belarus????:D :D :D :D

[Balozi]

in fact, that's what i was thinking too, when i read it :P

:?

[..Jovan..]

Hell, our leaders didnt even turn to help to our allies like Russia or Belarus.
Did you ever think your brethens don't want to have the same problem as you guys so maybe that is why they didn't get in involved?

[..Jovan..]

The 1990 politicians didnt even TRY to gain support with other countries while the Bosniaks and Croats were sucking up to the US>
So what Bosnia and Croatia were just going to let Serbian forces act their aggression on the people? hmmm

[Bunjevac]

Did you ever think your brethens don't want to have the same problem as you guys so maybe that is why they didn't get in involved?

Yes. Knez Nenad seems to be a bit too idiolistic. Russia would only help us if it served their interest and although it is likely would of served their interests, Russia's economic and political situation at the time made them helping Serbs a near impossibility. Regarding Belarus, it is hard to believe that they could provide any meaningful assistance.

[Bunjevac]

Agreed Bunjevac. Getting the entire world to bomb us wasnt the right either. The 1990 politicians didnt even TRY to gain support with other countries while the Bosniaks and Croats were sucking up to the US> In turn, we got horribly bombed and they got ground, air and intelligence support and a huge supply of cash and arms. Thus, we lost. We could have obtained RS and SAO Kraijna much easier and with much less bloodshed if we didnt have incompitent and communist morons. We could have easily garned support for our cause in America but our leaders failed. Hell, our leaders didnt even turn to help to our allies like Russia or Belarus.

I am refering to the fact that Serb policy was stupid and contradictory. One thing nationalists constantly said was that Bosniaks were Serbs whose ancestors were concerted to Islam and at the same time most nationalists advocated ethnically cleansing them if not exterminating them. If these nationalists thought rationally they would of done the following:
- Declared that the Serbian nation is not religously based and that people of Muslim faith are just as part of the nation as those who are Orthodox are.
- The Serbs could have passed a constitution recognizing not only Serbs and Montenegrins as nations of the FRY but also Muslims. Since obviously Muslims in Bosnia would have a better opinion of Serbia if Serbia treated Muslims in Sandzak with dignity (which the Serbian state still largely doesn't do).

You don't really expect any country to support a Greater Serbia if it calls for groups to be forcibully converted or ethnically cleansed.

Also regarding the Krajina. The best option regarding the Krajina was for it to accept a Z-4 plan and in order to guarantee this plans acceptance Serbia should of restored Kosovo's high level autonomy in the early 1990s when RSK existed. Obviously Serbs would not obtain support for RSK independence and would recieve no support for Z-4 autonomy if they put double standards. But no the so-called "Chetniks", "patriots", "nationaluists" were to idiotic to think rationally.

[..Jovan..]

Bunjevac all i have to say is...:clap: :clap:

[..Jovan..]

You don't really expect any country to support a Greater Serbia if it calls for groups to be forcibully converted or ethnically cleansed.
.
yes but you see Nenad thinks because some of those Muslims in Bosnia today are Serbian converts, 500 years later he still thinks they are SerbsO.o. Ignoring the fact that many Bosniaks were Bogomils and some were Croats.

[Knez_Nenad_Of_Serbia]

I only said Belarus because they were illegaly smuggling arms and aid to Serbia during the bombing and Lukashenko visited Serbia during the war. Anyways, Bunjevac, your plan is too idealistic.

1) The Muslims, regardless of whether we gave them "rights" (which according to you, were and lol, still are non-existant) dint want to be apart of Serbia/Yugoslavia (with the exception of Abdic's province of Velika Kladusa) because without the Crats and Slovenes acting as a balance, they thought that Yugoslavia would ebcome too Serb dominated. Thus, regardless of whther we treated them like fellow Serbs, they didnt want to be supposedly "dominated" in Yugoslavia. Thsu they separated and thus, instead of re-created Yugoslavia, most Serbs abonded that idea quicly and realized that only way the coudl save a slight remnant iof Serbia was to get Orthodox Serbs like in other breakaway republics to join up with Serbia.

2) I agree with you that it was stupid for our leaders to call for the extermination of Muslims because it ruined our international reputation which again comes back to my first point about our leaders not trying to garner support with America and west for our cause. The Balkan wars were pure media wars. The Bosniaks and Croats reacted much better to the situation than we did and they immediately portaryd themselves as the victims. Thus, America intervened against us and in the end, their intervention was why we lost.

3) Your plan could infact infuriate some Muslims (especially the more nationalist ones) because they could see this as an act of "assimilation" and accuse the government of Serbia in trying to "assimilate" Muslims into Serbdom.

[Bunjevac]

I only said Belarus because they were illegaly smuggling arms and aid to Serbia during the bombing and Lukashenko visited Serbia during the war. Anyways, Bunjevac, your plan is too idealistic.

1) The Muslims, regardless of whether we gave them "rights" (which according to you, were and lol, still are non-existant) dint want to be apart of Serbia/Yugoslavia (with the exception of Abdic's province of Velika Kladusa) because without the Crats and Slovenes acting as a balance, they thought that Yugoslavia would ebcome too Serb dominated. Thus, regardless of whther we treated them like fellow Serbs, they didnt want to be supposedly "dominated" in Yugoslavia. Thsu they separated and thus, instead of re-created Yugoslavia, most Serbs abonded that idea quicly and realized that only way the coudl save a slight remnant iof Serbia was to get Orthodox Serbs like in other breakaway republics to join up with Serbia.

2) I agree with you that it was stupid for our leaders to call for the extermination of Muslims because it ruined our international reputation which again comes back to my first point about our leaders not trying to garner support with America and west for our cause. The Balkan wars were pure media wars. The Bosniaks and Croats reacted much better to the situation than we did and they immediately portaryd themselves as the victims. Thus, America intervened against us and in the end, their intervention was why we lost.

3) Your plan could infact infuriate some Muslims (especially the more nationalist ones) because they could see this as an act of "assimilation" and accuse the government of Serbia in trying to "assimilate" Muslims into Serbdom.

Prior to the atrocities in Croatia in the summer of 1991, most Muslims and most inhabitants of Bosnia (high 70%, Croats becing the exceptions) wanted to live in Yugoslavia. Abdic's province of Velika Kladusa was only partly pro-Serb since the Bosnian government had a presence throughout the war and it was only supported in around half of Cazinska Krajina's career, second Serbs violated the terms of the agreement with Abdic, Abdic often collaborated with Croats and Abdic was only doing it to earn money for his Agrokomerc company.

Third, actually at the June meeting of the Yugoslav presidency (after Croatia's vote on independence and after Slovenia's 6-months earlier) Izbetgovic and Glirov (the Macedonian president) proposed a solution to the Yugoslav constiutional crisis under which Croatia and Slovenia would obtain independence, Bosniaks would have 1 seat guaranteed in Croatia's two houses of parliaments, Krajina would have wide ranging autonomy in Croatia while the 4 other republics would form a new mini-Yugoslavia consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia which would give all nationalities (specifically mentioning Croats in Vojvodina and Bosnia) the same rights as the nations of the mini-Yugoslavia. Under this plan Vojvodina would have a low level of autonomy, as would Raska, Bosnia would be cantonized while Kosovo would recieve a high level of autonomy.

It seems that this fact shows that Muslims wanted to live with Serbs, because like most people in the former Yugoslavia (including Serbs) they wanted preace. What prevented the proposal, Serbs who used the votes of Montenegro, Kosovo, Vojvodina (illegally controlled since the bureucratic revolution) to reject it. Why did the Serbs respond in such a way even though it allowed Serbia to be in a union with territories it's nationalists desired, because glirov and izbetgovic wanted the Serbs to make two upper houses (one with population representation, the other with republican and provincial representation) and certain clauses to prevent Serbian domination regarding representation, guaranteed minority representation, checks and balances, and a system of checks and balances. The Serbs refused their proposal which likely would of prevented bloodshed in Yugoslavia due to their desire for a highly centralized state.

It should be noted the Serbs proposed the Belgrade Initiativwe. Which largely copied the above stated plan but it was more centralized and it was too little too late sicne the atrocities already started. Serbia could have obtained nationalists claimed if they were not so supportive a centralized state and were willing to make concessions to Bosnians and Macedonians.

[hungarian_joker]

Hell, our leaders didnt even turn to help to our allies like Russia or Belarus.

It would have been interesting what would have happened if Russia took sides. I see 2 possibilities:

A. It would have developed into a new world war. (Remember, the root causes of WW1 were the break up of the Austro Hungarian empire).

B. Most likely, the West would have ignored break-away regions of Yugoslavia, since if Russia takes sides with Serbia, the West has to remember that at the end of the cold war, Russia still had thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at the Western hemisphere. That's the reason, why the free world didn't do anything about Chechnia or other places in the Caucasus.

Considering these two possibilities, it's a blessing that Russia didn't intervene.

As for Belarus, that is so absurd that I don't even want to comment on that.

[..Jovan..]

2) I agree with you that it was stupid for our leaders to call for the extermination of Muslims because it ruined our international reputation which again comes back to my first point about our leaders not trying to garner support with America and west for our cause. The Balkan wars were pure media wars. The Bosniaks and Croats reacted much better to the situation than we did and they immediately portaryd themselves as the victims. Thus, America intervened against us and in the end, their intervention was why we lost.
Oh I see because Serbs were the real victims that were killing innocent people so they could have their greater Serbia. Croats and Bosniaks were the victims it was Serbia who caused all these wars. When you say 'we' you are talking about like you were in the war, no Nenad you seem all talk to me;).

[Bunjevac]

It would have been interesting what would have happened if Russia took sides. I see 2 possibilities:

A. It would have developed into a new world war. (Remember, the root causes of WW1 were the break up of the Austro Hungarian empire).

B. Most likely, the West would have ignored break-away regions of Yugoslavia, since if Russia takes sides with Serbia, the West has to remember that at the end of the cold war, Russia still had thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at the Western hemisphere. That's the reason, why the free world didn't do anything about Chechnia or other places in the Caucasus.

Considering these two possibilities, it's a blessing that Russia didn't intervene.

As for Belarus, that is so absurd that I don't even want to comment on that.

Belarus can not help us. They are hundreds of miles a way, with only 10 million people and they are not in any way a powerful player in world affair.

Russia could have helped but couldn't for several reasons. Most Russian politicians were pro-Serb but most knew Russia's economic and political situation prevented Russia from doing anything. Second, I doubt Yeltsin would approve of helping Serbs because he wanted western money and because Milosevic supported the 91 coup against Gorbachev and 93 coup against Yeltsin. Had Russian nationalists or communists been in power then they would of helped Serbia and possibly caused a world wide crisis.

[Bunjevac]

Oh I see because Serbs were the real victims that were killing innocent people so they could have their greater Serbia. Croats and Bosniaks were the victims it was Serbia who caused all these wars. When you say 'we' you are talking about like you were in the war, no Nenad you seem all talk to me;).

In many ways it was a media war, but of course the media would go against the Serbs if one looks at the unnecessary force used in Vukovar and other places, the shelling of Dubrovnikand the contradictory logic and illogical thought serbs used. If Serbs leading the war were rational at the time Serbia would be in a better position know then before. If they thought logically they would have accepted the Glirov-Izbetgovic proposal and the war in croatia would not of been so violent.

[Balozi]

plz dont go off topic :P

[Bunjevac]

plz dont go off topic :P

Sorry. It's just that Knez Nenad's arguments often require individuals to go off topic.