BALKANS: Forget the Bombing, Come Over

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Nov 29 2006 (IPS) - Three Balkans nations, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro, have been invited to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme by leaders gathered at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Riga, Latvia.

The NATO leaders said in a final document that “taking into account the long-term stability in the Western Balkans, and acknowledging the progress made so far by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia”, the leaders have decided to invite these countries to join the PfP.

The programme provides for NATO assistance in modernising armies and carrying out defence reforms. Set up in 1994, the PfP is aimed at establishing trust between the Western military alliance and former Eastern European countries. It is also a step towards full NATO membership.

Top Serbian politicians welcomed the decision as proof of the country’s re-integration into the international family after years of isolation.

“This is excellent news,” Serbian President Boris Tadic said in a statement carried by all radio and TV stations. “Excellent news for our citizens, army and state. Our efforts in reforms were rewarded by this, presenting Serbia as a more secure place.”

Assistant Defence Minister Snezana Markovic told Belgrade media that the PfP membership move was historic. “This proves that reforms of the military have been successful in recent years and that the army of Serbia can no longer be treated as a factor that wants to turn back time,” she added.

Since 2000, the Serbian army has been going through a process of painful transformation from the armed tool of a communist regime into a small and modern force.

But through all the welcome, no leader has said that Serbia is the only country bombed by NATO that will sooner or later become a member of its PfP programme.

In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia for 11 weeks, due to the repressive politics of then president Slobodan Milosevic against the ethnic Albanian minority in Kosovo.

NATO aircraft undertook more than 38,000 combat missions against targets in Serbia, using sophisticated weapons, and also cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons.

The death toll in Serbia was at least 2,000. Its infrastructure, like major bridges over the Danube river and the north-south highway were heavily damaged. Downtown ruins in Belgrade still remind many of the NATO’ agenda at the time.

But analysts welcomed the NATO invitation as a step forward, pointing out that not so long ago two of the nations invited to the PfP were mutual enemies.

“This is definitely a step in the right direction for the region and its stability,” military analyst Aleksandar Radic told IPS. “Not long ago, Serbia was at war with its ex-Yugoslav brethren.”

Under Milosevic Serbia was involved in a bloody war with Bosnia. The war that ended 11 years ago took at least 100,000 lives of non-Serbs.

The hangover of those times continued to stand in Serbia’s way diplomatically. NATO had earlier demanded that Serbia show full cooperation in arresting Serb war criminals still at large before receiving any invitation for the PfP.

“Brussels is obviously of the opinion that it is less damaging to accept Serbia into the PfP than to leave the Balkans as a black hole in the process of finalising stability and security in the region,” Radic said.

This was also a political message of support by NATO for pro-democracy parties that aim to win the decisive parliamentary elections in Serbia Jan. 21, he said. The elections are expected to be a final showdown between the present pro-reform ruling parties and the ultranationalist parties that led Serbia into the wars of the 1990s.

Ultranationalists still have at least 30-35 percent support in Serbia’s 6.5 million electorate. Many pro-West Serbs believe that the ultranationalists could pull the country back into the kind of isolation of the 1990s.

Leaders in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro also welcomed the NATO invitation. Foreign Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina Mladen Ivanic told Sarajevo media this was “a reward for everything positive achieved in the country.” Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic welcomed the move similarly.