 Welcome, welcome to Eat NATO for Breakfast Episode 10. It's a pleasure to be here. This is our half-way mark to the 20 breakfasts we have. And we felt we wanted to talk a little bit about history today. In past episodes, we already had friends like Vijay Prashat or Kate Hudson explaining to us the origins of NATO and how NATO expanded. And we try to understand why, for example, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO, instead of dissolving itself, continued and even expanded. Today, the war in Ukraine is described as the worst in Europe since World War II. Let's forget Yugoslavia, which is, in fact, the first European crime to be formally classified as a genocidal in character since World War II. Can the lessons of the 10-year conflict in Yugoslavia be applied to today? What have we learned about NATO's role in the breakup of these multi-ethnic states about our own governments, about media coverage, about the economic conditions? Do we remember? Remembering is not only an exercise in nostalgia and not a memory test either, but knowledge to understand today and also to imagine the future. That's why we are here with Marko Sirabusa. He is a member of the editorial board of Meridiano 13. The link will be in the chat, so you can check it out, to discuss with us the Balkan War, the other worst war since World War II on European soil. So today, we'll go back to the 90s. Hi, Marko. Hi, Marko and Nora. Nice to see you. How do you feel about booming back the 90s? In Berlin, the 90s was all about a grand illusion of freedom, especially in East Berlin. The old order had sort of withered away and disappeared or was not legitimate anymore. And the new one had not really settled in. So it was all about this transition in the region from East to West. And if we look at the region, it was probably, even though it was traumatic for many people, one of the mildest transitions, especially if we think about how the breakup of some of the former socialist countries happened in other places. OK. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. So yes, you talked about the 90s. I was born in July 1989. So a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. And I grew up in the 19s. So for me, it's like a blast from the past. The fall of the Berlin Wall and this integration of the Soviet Union had eluded many people, convinced that a period of peace would come. The 19s were instead the decade of wars, from both one to the most violent and bloody ones in the Balkans between 1991 and the beginning of 2000. In 1991, during the second NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, I was a child. But I remember well the war in Kosovo and the NATO bombings against Serbia, Montenegro. Because of the active participation of the Italian government led by Massimo Dalema, the leader of left Democrats. Maybe you can remember. So I remember the same rhetoric today about the need for military intervention. But the context was a little different. We will talk about this in Italy. But I also believe also in other European countries in these days, it has been heard that the war in Ukraine is the first in Europe after the Second World War. It's not too, of course. But just in these days, the media have recalled the war in Yugoslavia for because of the 30th anniversary of the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. Just near the fifth of April in 1992, the siege started. And these days, media, not all media, but some media in Italy remember these events. But in newspaper or in TG show, talk show, you can hear the war in Ukraine is the first after the Second World War. But it's not true. The 90s, but I remember making placards and joining with my parents to peace and anti-NATO demonstrations in Madrid. Also, as you know, I really like basketball. And I remember watching the One's Brothers documentary that tells the story of the Yugoslavian basketball team that it was amazing. And how also this all intertwines with the friendship between the stars, Vlad Divat from Serbia and Drasen Petrovic from Croatia with the historical background of the war and also how divisions came around. Yugoslavia was one of the best world teams. It's sad, in fact, that Petrovic died before they can fix things between them. But this also made me think about how nationalist divisions came to be and also never forget that the documentary was done in the US. I am sure that all of this is connected with what we are going to talk about today with Marco Wright, Francine. Yeah, for sure. Thank you for the movie recommendation. I think we should all check it out. And yes, for sure, we will definitely get into these very, very important topics because I think they're all relevant today again or they have continued to be relevant in many conflicts. Before we start, let's just remind everyone briefly that this show, the Eat NATO for Breakfast show is part of the Peace Summit, No to NATO, international process towards the Madrid NATO Summit in June. The summit itself will be June 29, 30th, the NATO Summit and the Peace Summit will take place on the weekend before so we hope to see you all in Madrid. Please keep an eye on the website, sign the declaration, go to the art tab and share the poster and comic call and for sure share all the other Eat NATO for Breakfast episodes with your friends and comrades. Links to that will all be in the chat and let's get started. Marco, you've already made, I think, sufficient jokes about all being too young and not really a member and et cetera, et cetera. Let's assume or let's hope for a moment that there's at least some young people watching the show today. So can you give us like a short rundown of actually what unfolded in the events in the Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 90s? Because again, even if we see in the media now a commemoration of the siege of Sarajevo that may be very out of context for people. So please give us a bit of a, you know, like what was Yugoslavia, what was happening in the early 90s, how did we get here in sort of a, before we dig deeper into the analysis, sort of a factual rundown of one to three this and this and this took place. Thank you. Yes, to understand what happened in those years in Yugoslavia, we need to put the words in the right context. Since 1948, after the Second World War, from the split between Tito and Stalin and the exclusion of Yugoslavia from coming for the relation between Yugoslavia and Soviet Union have often been conflicting. But this did not mean an alliance with the West. Given good relation, Yugoslavia had good relation with some countries of the Western bloc, but this not mean a real alliance. Tito and after the Second World War, Tito and the Yugoslav Communist Party managed to maintain stability, a certain stability among the various components of the socialist federal Republic of Yugoslavia. So the federation was made up of six republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, and two autonomous regions in Serbia, Kosovo in the South and Vojvodina in the North. Even from an economic point of view, the international relation, point of view, the country, Yugoslavia enjoyed a good economic well-being and enjoy sound credibility at the international level, playing the role of buffer state between the two blocs. Thanks to Tito, of course, together with the Egyptian President Nasser and the Indian President Nehru, the non-alien movement was created in 1961, and Tito was the first secretary, and the first time it was in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia. So Yugoslavia was an important player during the Cold War. After the death of Tito or after Tito's death in May 1980, things changed considerably. Ethnic nationalist tensions became more and more evident and the economic crisis of the second half of the 70s that put the country in serious difficulty. So the Hades were there for a period of the national claims of the Republic, and especially the richer ones, the richer ones Slovenia and Croatia that demanded the evergreen economic autonomy. The victory of the first openly post-communist parties in the election of 1991 was the preview to the clash. This was followed by the declaration of independence of Slovenia and Croatia, which was supported above all by Germany and Vatican. Vatican because Croatia is the Catholic country in the Balkan and Vatican has a good relation with the government, with the first government after the independence. Serbia led by Milosevic intent on avoiding the dismemberment of the federation that corresponded with war. First in Croatia and then in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that period, so two opposite phenomena were displaying in Europe. On the one hand, there is integration of a multi-ethnic state, the socialist state like Yugoslavia. On the other hand, the birth of an international but neoliberal organization was the European Union that was born thanks to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. When the war started in Yugoslavia, European Union was born. In November 1991, before the Maastricht Treaty, the European foreign minister decided to impose an oil embargo on Yugoslavia and the suspension of commercial relation and above all the possibility to recognize the independence of rebel republics. So this is a first lesson that we can learn today. By looking at those events, the sanctions, the energy embargo, the disruption trade that now several countries propose today against Putin and Russia don't facilitate the achievement of peace. But on the contrary, further fuel tensions between the war in parties. This is, I think this is an important lesson. So at the early stage of the war in 1992, the USA President Bill Clinton was very skeptical of direct USA and NATO intervention. But the situation changed radically after the 5th of February in 1994, when Serbian troops were accused of having bombed the Marcal market in Sarajevo. Casing the 68th death. So the city Sarajevo, as we said before, had already been under siege for two years and would have been until 1996, a terrible siege that caused over 11,000 deaths and which remains today the longest in modern history. So faced with this massacre, NATO decided to launch an ultimatum to Belgrade imposing a no-flight zone on Bosnia and Zagovina. The criminal action carried out in Srebrenica in July 1994, where Bosnian Serbs troops killed over 8,000 Muslims with the passive complicit of the Dutch United Nations forces, prompted President Clinton to intervene directly in the conflict with the NATO-led operation, the Liberat Force. This was an important moment in the conflict. What happened in Bucza, for example, in Ukraine in these days is something similar. So the Western media and especially NATO will use these tragedies of war. It's not good, of course, but it's the normality of war. NATO and Western media use just by these, the daily intervention to the public opinion, presenting as a humanitarian intervention, no? But we know very well that NATO interventions have never had anything humanitarian. On that occasion, however, the participation of NATO prompted Milosevic to participate in the peace negotiation in Dayton, in the United States, which ended with the signing of an peace agreement between Serbs, Croats, and Bosnia, and which designed the current Bosnian institutional system. But if the first NATO intervention in the Balkans in 1994 had also been formally supported by a united nation to hand a war that had been going on for four years, much more problematic was the second military intervention of the Atlantic aliens, which took place in 1999 during the war in Kosovo, the second part of the Yugoslav wars. With the motivation to save the Kosovo population from ethnic leasing perpetrated by Serbia, which opposed Kosovo demands for independence, NATO launched without any formal authorization from the United Nations Security Council for the first time, a new military operation against Serbia, the so-called Operation Allied Force. In just two months from March to June, the Serbian industrial and infrastructure system were practically destroyed. The targets of military operation by NATO were, in fact, not only military targets, but also civil targets, like, for example, the chemical industries in Pangevo, as suburbs of Belgrade, the automotive industries like Zastava, power plants, or the main connecting arteries, such roads and bridges. In Belgrade, a lot of bridges were destroyed by NATO. And there were, of course, numerous mistakes committed by NATO in this operation, which resulted in hundreds of civil and deaths between 1,000 and 5,000 people. Like, for example, the Nato bombing of the Kosovo village of Coriza, which caused six civil and death. So, to explain the Yugoslav war is very complicated because there are a lot of things, ethnic problems, religions, problems, geopolitical problems, of course. So, I give now just a context, no? But maybe then we can talk about some questions. Marco, you made a very good general overview. I think you touched some of the key issues that, I don't know, we should all be aware that when we are talking today, we have also to figure out the connections. And as you were saying, try to learn what's going on using this memory to locate ourselves today. You were talking about sanctions, about no-fly zones, about somehow the president of the U.S. saying stuff, NATO talking about humanitarian interventions, media strategy. So, it sounds very, very important to look this very carefully. I want to ask you on another sense because also Yugoslavia was also a place of reference of the non-aligned movement in the moment where we are like in the end of the Cold War and everything is, it looks for a long time divided in two. Suddenly, also a country like Yugoslavia is important showing out, fighting against this Cold War mentality, right? In fact, the first and last summit of the non-aligned movement was in Belgrade. So, is something connected with this? Was this position of a non-aligned country important to attack Yugoslavia? Because, in fact, ethnic and religious conflicts were at the heart of the problem. At least the media showed that it was at the center and we learned also through the media how different all Yugoslavian people were. But we can also think regarding Ukraine about a nationalist rhetoric that eroded also this common Yugoslav identity and fueled fear and mistrust among different ethnic groups. So, in your opinion, how this happened and are there any lessons on what solutions or how to resolve these ethnic religious situations to figure out peace? Because I don't know, this experience, in fact, built the common term that we use in a lot of, you know, your political understandings of vulcanization of a country, right? When we talk about Sudan and South Sudan, we talk about, we make this reference or, I don't know, the issue in Rwanda as well, you know, these divisions. So, set up this Vulcan war, a very important moment in history regarding how to solve these kind of issues as well. What do you think? Yes, as always, the war and so also the Yugoslav war has not solved any problems, but radar has created new ones as have been sent by the continuous clashes, fortunately only rhetorical at the moment in Bosnia and Zagovina. One of the most important challenge today, for example, for all the Balkan countries, concerned the young people and immigration, no? Since 1991, for example, Bosnia and Zagovina has lost about 500,000 people out of total population of four million, so almost 20% of population. A similar phenomenon will concern Croatia and Serbia and other countries in the Balkan. So, how was this possible, the disintegration of Yugoslavia? Because Yugoslavia, I said, was a multi-acting state, a peaceful state with good weight in the international relation. So, how was this possible? The Hades, after the Tito's deaths, three elements merged with each other, creating a bomb ready to explode. The economic crisis identity issues, such as religion or past relations between the peoples of federation, so the so-called ethnic issues, and the definitive generational change of state management in Yugoslavia. So, in that period, the country opened up more and more quickly to market economy and also making agreements with the international monetary fund. So, the economic hardship were exploited by national, post-communist, and nationalist elites, which through the hostile narrative towards the neighboring peoples, towards other countries, towards the old comrades. In, for example, in 1991 in Yugoslavia, the 17% of marriages were mixed marriages between Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. So, and 5% of populations he claimed to be of Yugoslav nationality. So, how was it possible to destroy these? The fourth lies, as always, with the nationalists ruling classes. The crisis of Yugoslav socialism in the 18th opened the doors to economic reforms. And this allowed the national executives to create close alliance with private investors and thus creating a clientelist system. Nothing very different from what's happening in Russia with oligarchy or in our democracy, of course, but in other forms. The economic interests were accompanied by political claims that tended to impose the domination of once-owned people over others. And so, we had the Serbian elite were interested in creating greater Serbia, where, including all the territories where Serbian citizens were present. In Croatia, Franjo Tujman, the first president of the independent nation and a declared fascist, wanted to retrace the path of the Croatian independent state, a collaboration state born during the Second World War and led by the fascist Ustasa movement. So, when phenomena such as the economic crisis, the loss of a certain about the future, at the end of solidarity between peoples, when these phenomena are governed by nationalist force, the clash between nation is certain. There is no solution. And that's what happened in the Balkans in 19th. As definitely with the hands of the Soviet Union, which was supposed to bring peace and prosperity to the countries of Eastern Europe, the peace of Dayton in 1995 was also presented as the beginning of a new era or new peace era. But in reality today, Bosnia Herzegovina is one of the poorest countries in Europe where the heteronationalist parties born in the 19th are still in power. The same thing happens in Kosovo, where there is now a left nationalist party in government. But for example, Albin Kurti, the prime minister, Bennett serves in Kosovo from being able to vote in the Serbian election last week, last Sunday. The situation in Serbia is not so different. So the ethnic clashes, the ethnic issues are linked with the economic situation of the country and with the interest of the elite, the governments. In Yugoslavia, people lived together, Serbs, Croatian, Bosnian, other people, other ethnic groups. For since the Second World War to 19th, Yugoslavia never used force against another country or Tito, for example, with the non-aliened movement to try to find a solution for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. So it's not where, Yugoslavia was not a military country, but people lived together in peace. When the nationalists forced to go on the first election after the economic crisis, this completely changed. Thank you, Marco. Yeah, explaining these conflicts, which then escalate into war is often quite complex. Again, this ethnic strife and the difficulties you've explained or you've shown some examples of where things went well and where things went not so well. But I think sometimes we are, when we are trying to understand these conflicts, we are sometimes not so clear on what is actually sort of hidden behind the official or obvious or also sort of the psychological, this is just how humans work, explanation. And sometimes we forget about the geopolitical interests because they're hard to grasp and it also sounds kind of cruel to think of this in all only these utilitarian terms. But for example, if you look at NATO and Kosovo, like Kosovo, oh, and this is a good moment, this is a good moment, we have a map. We have a map for everyone who was too young to notice. This is what Yugoslavia looked like in the beginning and there you can see how bit by bit things well, disintegrate quite frankly. Yeah, so I think that was very, that's helpful, have a brief map to see how the country dissolves. So Kosovo belonged to Yugoslavia, linearly, politically, and historically, but NATO's role was to promote Kosovo's independence. Let's not forget, Kosovo is a strategic point of the first order since it's territory, from this territory, it's possible to act on the Middle East, the Caucasus, Iran, and now also, for example, on Moscow. And Kosovo actually has, houses now, one of the biggest military bases of the United States, it's called Camp Bonstil, for people who want to look it up. And so some people claim that Kosovo in fact owes its existence as an independent country to the need for the United States to have this military base in this area. And other economic and political interests of the US and in the past, we looked at how NATO and US interests are somewhat aligned and NATO is a tool for US interests. So other economic and political interests of the US in the Balkans, we find evidence of that, for example, in the Washington Post that noted giving, sorry for the phone, given the increasingly fragile situation in the Middle East, we need new bases and airspace and we need the right to protect our own interests. Well, this is shortly before the Iraq war, so thinking about these interests is often made very difficult for us and is not helped by our local media. Instead, very often, we are given a very simple explanation, for example, one very important and a common tool is sort of the personification of politics, where we suddenly find, as we do in Ukraine right now, where we've been told that Putin is the devil, Putin is evil, there's a lot of, I'm in Germany, so there's a lot of talk of Putin being Hitler, Putin being like Hitler, et cetera, et cetera, or like Stalin, like it doesn't matter. Either of the big evil categories of history, Putin is being compared to this. Now, and that of course helps because you can't negotiate with a crazy person. So we have sort of taken negotiations off the table. The Miloslav War, who mentioned it already, had its own evil actor, Slobodan Milosevic, he was called the butcher of Sarajevo, and he was brought to trial in the Hague. And the five year trial ended without a verdict because he died in his prison cell. Under, I think, unclear circumstances, I'm not gonna go into these details because I don't think that this is important for the process. This is just, I would like to, I would like for you, Marco, to maybe talk a little bit about this parallel, not so much to compare Putin to Slobodan Milosevic, which is not important, but this media process of this personification, of this simplistic explanation and idea that also of course touches us emotionally. Like if this evil person didn't exist, then these conflicts wouldn't exist, et cetera, et cetera. So I would like, it's possible for you to talk a little bit about at least the parallels in media coverage and how this process often plays out. Thanks. Yes, yes. Last week, if I don't make mistake, Biden called Putin the butcher of Ukraine, a butcher, but I remember that Biflinton made the same thing with Milosevic. So, but I think that this is the common element to whole wars, especially one in Yugoslavia and the current one in Ukraine. The media, often in Italy, often linked to the war industry. For example, La Repubblica, one of the main newspaper is linked with the industrial military system. And so the media tend to simplify the discourse of the war and blame only one side. So in 19th was Milosevic and Milosevic, Milosevic before in 19th, Putin now. By raising the force of our governments, their incapacities, their wrong choices. So the devil for media in the Western countries, the devil is always the other. The crimes of our side are hidden. We don't talk about these. For example, the newspaper don't talk about the crimes committed by Croatian or Bosnian troops. Not because we have to do a parallel between Serbian troops and Croatian troops, but this is necessary to understand the situation, the context, the war also. So in media, I remember that, for example, in the first part of the war in Yugoslavia, media in Italy covered the war thanks to journalists that went in Yugoslavia, but at that time, social media didn't exist. So now the role of the media is completely changed the respect 30 years ago. But for example, I remember that the second in the intervention of NATO in 1999 was criticized by the media in Italy. Okay, non-official media, but other media criticized this intervention because it was presented as humanitarian, but it says nothing humanitarian, provoked from 1,000 to 5,000 civilian deaths. And a strong movement was born in that period against the war. So the media was forced to talk about the movement against the war and to present the war in another perspective. Today is a little bit different because of social media. So now there are a lot of journalists in Ukraine that made the live Facebook or talk about the war from Ukraine. And sometimes now there is a more spectral characterization of the war. Now we can watch on TV in every moment in Italy every day in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night. We can watch the destruction, the death, the butchery, genocides, I don't know if it will be a genocide. So the role of the media is completely different. And now it's good that it's a good thing, of course, that now there are so live Facebook or live information, but we need to pay attention because sometimes these information are used to create a new narrative. Not always, it's not always the real narrative about the war. So it's very complicated. I don't know if there is a solution or of course every news have to be checked. But today is more complicated to understand the truth, to discover the truth. Because Putin said that in Buzha the disaster of Buzha was made by Ukrainian forces and Ukrainian forces say that it was made by Putin. The only certainty is that people die during the war. So the goal of the media is to cover this war but showing the reality if they can. They can. Yeah, I think you're right. Also like this polarization of information is not only that. Now we have a censorship that makes very difficult to understand what's going on, as well as in fact the role of journalism in war times is totally different. Like we don't have people on the ground that we can also talk. So it's everything very confusing. But since we are also past 35 minutes of the show, we just want to talk about, to reflect on two issues that we can also reflect connecting with Ukraine. On the one hand, the NATO expansion. If you check out the history, the discussions of expanding NATO at the time were really interesting. In the discussions in the US Senate, in fact, the Clinton administration states that NATO, that is a military alliance, was the preferred means for extending democracy of the US in Central Europe. In a way, in a moment, as you were saying, of the building of the European Union project, it was very clear that it was no interest of saying, let's the European deal with European problems, in the 90s. But also what they were understanding is that NATO was already a key part of their strategy to build in their own terms and undivided democratic, peaceful Europe for the first time in history. So those words, I think are the same ones that they are using now, talking about defending democratic values, et cetera, right? So in 1999, did something begin? Because on one hand, we have the first time, as you were saying, that the NATO acts without the support of the UN. That's something that maybe we are seeing in more moments of history. And on the other hand, it was also the moment of the expansion. In fact, in the midst of the war, in the Balkans, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined. So it's not also a part of this role of NATO expanding East and also the UN being less and less important in the international arena? Yes. So NATO was founded after the Second World War and the hand of the Cold War with the destruction of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in 1991, should have eliminated the reason for the existence of NATO. But in the last few years, the Holland Alliance has not disappeared, but has even expanded, passing from 14 members in 99 to the current 30. The large amount was supported by an increasingly aggressive military policy inaugurated in Bosnia with the deliberate force operation in 1995 against Bosnian Serb troops. A few years later, in March 1999, the Alliance expanded its border with the accession of three former communist countries, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. But obviously, all of these was not a coincidence. With the accession of the former communist countries, the NATO wanted to launch a message, message concerning the impossibility for Russia to return to accept its influence in these countries. And for the message was clear, join us towards the ex-communist countries, join us and we will protect you from Russia. But this is, let us remember that Moscow was and still is an important ally of Serbia, for example. So while on the one hand, NATO included Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary in its fair of influence, on the other hand, it was willing to use force against its enemies who were considered with rational lies. And this is what happened in Serbia, for example, no? I said that the second military intervention in 1999 was made without the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council. From that moment, the authorization were often expressed in an extensive manner, often using the concept of humanitarian war. We can remember the NATO bombing of Libya during 2011, for example, no? NATO's progressive involvement in conflicts on a global level has weakened the United Nations. We see it even today, in the war in Ukraine, for example, the United Nations has particularly not intervened in any way, except with long and inconclusive discussions. So it can be said without the doubt that today the real habitat of conflict is not a political organization like the United Nations, which includes all the countries of the world, not only Western countries. But the real habitat now is a military alliance of more developing countries such as NATO. So I think the consequences are evident to more. Yeah. I think it's very important to talk about consequences. We sadly run out of time, but I think that during the weekend, we can do something useful regarding the NATO for professional review. That is, let's think together in our homes, what did the war solve? And as you were saying before at the beginning, when you were making all this, you know, chronology, are they any better? So I think that should be not only our questions for ourselves, but for our governments and for also international organizations, the European Union, NATO, the UN, because that's something that Yugoslavia experience points out very importantly. But friends, if you want to know more about the Yugoslavia war, because I think there are a lot of reflections we can do from there, subscribe to Meridiano Trecer, where Marco Sirabusa writes and read the newsletter called 30 Years After the Siege of Sarajevo. We are going to paste the link, so follow them, and also continue learning. Sorry, Nora, in the first newsletter, there is an article about NATO and the role of NATO in the Ukrainian war. Amazing, that's for tomorrow, because today in the evening, you should be all together going to the event, Peace in Ukraine, at 6 p.m. CET time. It's going to be an important rally with a lot of friends talking, important things, like V.J. Prasad, like Kate Hudson, like Medea Benhamin, like Noam Chonsky. So you have a lot of things to do about peace this weekend. We hope you will be following all of this. But before saying goodbye, we want to inform you about a very important episode and a very special episode next week, because you are going to see Isabel Van Brabrandt being your host. So, Francesca and myself, we will be watching and having breakfast, but as viewers, as you are now, and we are going to talk with Jasper Tiggs from Viva Salud, that is an organization from Belgium, and we are going to talk about another key issue that all of you were demanding, that is the role of war, the role of NATO, and also the ecological impact of war. So don't miss it, see you next week, and let's think together if the war solves anything. Thank you very much. Thank you, bye.