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THE DEFENSE SPEAKS
For History and the FutureOpening defense statement at The Hague by President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic
Published in 2006 by: International Action Center
Available at: LeftBooks.comThe First Day - August 31, 2004
Germany's Role: Pages 31-36Disclaimer:
Excerpt used in conformance with the
Fair Use provisions of the U.S. Copyright
Law of 1976.Genscher stated during the signing of the treaty regarding the final status of Germany on September 12, 1990 in Moscow with the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of Germany, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States that "We do not want anything else other, than to live with all other nations in freedom, democracy and peace. State unity represents for us greater responsibility, but not aspirations for greater power."
Chancellor Kohl, on October 3, the day commemorating Germany's reunification, sent a message to all world governments, including the Yugoslav government, in which, amongst other things, he said: "In the future only peace will emanate from German territory. We are aware that the inviolability of borders and the respect for the territorial integrity of all states in Europe form the basic conditions for peace. In addition, we have moral and legal obligations, which arise from German history."
These are big words and big promises that were given to the rest of humanity - and in particular to Europe - at the moment, when the German nation was finally allowed to cast off the burden of its division, which was imposed on it precisely because of the darkest period of German history.
Yes, those were big words and promises, but at the same time they were empty words and empty promises. For how the top German leadership views the moral and legal obligations arising from German history, which they cite and what their relationship is to the inviolability of borders and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states in Europe as the basic condition for peace, could be clearly seen in practice at the same time in the case of Yugoslavia. German twentieth-century history had inflicted a cost of three million lives on the territory of this state: a death toll of 1,247,000 Serbs in the First World War and 1,700,000 Yugoslavs dead in World War II.
It was precisely in October 1990, the month of German reunification, that the security services of the Yugoslav People's Army uncovered and managed to secretly tape activities pertaining to the illegal importation of weapons to Croatia with the aim of facilitating the armed secession of Croatia. This was the actual breakup of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. The illegal importation of weapons went through Hungary, but the largest part of weapons came from the already reunited Germany, which made Chancellor Kohl's cited promise, that only peace would emanate from German territory, an irony.
Arming secessionists was not the sole or the first type of German involvement in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia; it contributed to deepening - if not to originating - the Yugoslav crisis. All of the activities of Slovenia and Croatia in the violent achievement of independence were not only supported and aided by Germany, but to a considerable degree they were encouraged by its top state leaders. The Presidency of Yugoslavia and the leaders of the Yugoslav republics gathered in Belgrade on August 20 and 21, 1991 in an effort to put an end to the conflict on the territory of Croatia, as well as to stop the attacks on the JNA. They adopted several decisions for the purpose of stabilizing the situation. A minimum program of political and economic cooperation was adopted, a commission was formed to develop agreements on the future form of the multinational state and an agreement was also reached to conduct a meeting between the leadership of the JNA and the Republic of Croatia. On August 20 there was an extraordinary ministerial session on European political cooperation, in which the ministers of foreign affairs of the member states of the European Union concluded that they welcomed the readiness of all parties to embark on negotiations about the future of Yugoslavia and they requested all sides to conduct negotiations in good will among themselves. But on that very same day Genscher held a consultative meeting with the foreign ministers of Slovenia and Croatia. On August 24, 1991 he met with Boris Frlec, a Slovene, who was the Yugoslav ambassador in Bonn, which guaranteed that the message directed at the Yugoslav authorities would also be passed on to Ljubljana and Zagreb and he told him: "If the bloodshed continues and if the policy of violence supported by the JNA is not stopped immediately, the federal government will have to seriously consider the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia within their existing borders. It will also conduct a review of these matters within the European Community."
The question arises: Was better and greater impetus and encouragement needed for those, who already proclaimed secession and who had already resorted to the use of weapons, in order to achieve it or was more encouragement needed to maintain the ceasefire? The message that came was that continued bloodshed would lead to the recognition of these states and unfortunately that is what happened.
The message produced the desired effect, because Croatian paramilitary forces broke the ceasefire that had already been agreed upon and proceeded to escalate the conflict. Finally, Lord David Owen, whose book you have included here, also speaks about Germany's readiness to support Slovenia and Croatia in their illegal secession through recognition, even at the cost of serious clashes with its partners from the European Community and the United States. He says, I remind you, that Genscher's letter to Perez de Cuellar, written in German, referred to public statements exacerbating tensions in Yugoslavia and to the Treaty of Paris, but as Perez de Cuellar reminded him in his reply, Genscher failed to mention the EC Declaration issued in Rome on November 8, 1991, which stated that the prospect of recognition of the independence of those republics desiring it can only be envisaged within the framework of an overall settlement.
Therefore, as Owen reminds us, in addition to the Declaration of the European Community of March 26, 1991, which supported the unity of Yugoslavia, the European Community on November 8, 1991 adopted a declaration calling for the attainment of "a comprehensive solution". Nevertheless, the German position finally did prevail and once the Pandora's box was opened and once the illegal secession was recognized at the cost of human lives, it was difficult to stop the bloodletting process, since matters had not been stopped in Croatia and Slovenia, again regardless of consequences. A further step was taken.
At the end of the first paragraph on page 344 of his book Lord Owen says that "the European Community's mistake over recognizing Croatia could have been overcome, if it had not been compounded by going forward regardless of the consequences with the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S., which had opposed the recognition of Croatia in December 1991, became very active in pushing for recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spring of 1992. Yet it should not have been judged inevitable, nor indeed was it logical to push ahead and recognize Bosnia and Herzegovina, an internal republic of Yugoslavia that contained three large constituent peoples with very different views on independence".
So one mistake followed the other, one impudence followed another and the cost was paid in human lives. And when human lives are the price that has to be paid, then such mistakes and impudence turn into crime. In this case it was crime against peace, precisely the kind of crime, for which this illegal institution does not have jurisdiction, none whatsoever. The U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said that during the overall process of recognition and especially the premature recognition grave mistakes were made, for which Germany bears special responsibility. Many experts are of the opinion that the problems we confront today stem from the recognition of Croatia and Bosnia.
Christopher's French colleague Roland Dumas, in a statement reported in the Deutsche Zeitung of June 21, 1993, criticized the European Community for recognizing Slovenia and Croatia, I quote, "in a hasty and precipitous manner, which paved the way for the breakup of Yugoslavia" and said, I quote: "The responsibility of Germany and the Vatican for the escalation of the crisis is obviously enormous."
Another direct participant in these events, the Dutch Prime Minister at the time, Rudd Lubbers said in 1977 that German Chancellor Kohl exerted pressure on the European Community to change its position that the independence of Croatia should not be recognized, in order to avoid further escalation of the civil war. In connection with this he said and I quote: "The Minister of Foreign Affairs Hans van den Broek and I could have stood on our heads, the other Europeans could only look around in astonishment and the Germans eagerly did the job by themselves. That was a catastrophe." The quote is from Au Courant of December 21, 1997. When all that has been written about German support for Croatian and Slovenian secessionists in their efforts to carry out their plan is considered, then those statements made by Stjepan Mesic about the role of Genscher and Pope John Paul II on the televised "Contact" program should come as no surprise. But if Germany's aggressive support for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the recognition of the secession of its breakaway republics is self-evident and widely known to the public by now, for many the question remains: What are the motives for such actions and such obstinate persistence on the part of the top leadership of recently reunited Germany? This question is answered by General Pierre-Marie Gallois, one of the world's leading experts on geopolitics and a close associate of de Gaulle. In an interview for Die Zeit on July 23, 1993 he said the following: "The breakup of this country and the linking of Croats and Slovenes to German industry led to the emancipation of these peoples, who once were associated with the Empire in the heart of Europe and then with the Third Reich. On the other hand, that meant punishment of the Serbs, who in both world wars persistently stood by the allies. Thirdly, this led to the disappearance of the last remnants of those treaties that punished Germany twice for its defeats."
Although many would look with suspicion and disapproval upon these views of the old French general and eminent anti-fascist, believing that Germany's historic ambitions are just a matter of the distant past and that the new historical circumstances, as well as the catharsis that the German nation went through are sufficient guarantees to believe in the peaceloving assurances of German politicians given during the events occasioned by the reunification of Germany, it is sufficient to be reminded of Klaus Kinkel's article entitled "German Foreign Policy in Light of the New Order", published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on March 19, 1993. In this article the task of German foreign policy is expressed as follows: "To achieve something in relation to the outside world, where in the past we have failed twice". It is quite clear, what this means. There is probably no one in the world, who does not understand, where it was that Germany failed twice in the outside world. Therefore according to the Foreign Minister of Germany himself the task of the foreign policy of this country is to use its potential to achieve, what it did not achieve through two world wars and the question that remains is whether this will be resolved by old or new means.
Kohl himself in connection with the recognition of Croatia's secession said in a television program: "There is an especially close relationship between Germans and Croats that has a great deal to do with history." This historical vertical that Kohl pointed to in German foreign policy explains the actions that Kinkel pointed to, as well. Finally, there is also a similar vertical in the actions and policy of their Croatian cronies, which sometimes strikingly reflect actions and words almost identical to the actors during the two world wars and the war against Yugoslavia during the nineties of the twentieth century. Thus during three wars the constant element of the German policy in the Balkans has been anti-Yugoslav pressure. First there were bloody efforts, in order to prevent the creation of the Yugoslav state and lateron even more bloodshed to break up the country and wipe it from the face of the earth.