Germany, Balkan puzzle & Ghosts of Yugoslavia

The influx of the Balkan refugees is the price Germany is paying for its covert geopolitical adventures in the Balkans.So around 40% of refugees infiltrating into Germany are from the Balkans! For the reader’s convenience sake let me clarify a bit more on the national identities of these Balkan refugees. A major chunk of these Balkan refugees are from Kosovo, Bosnia, Albania, & Montenegro, with few ones from Romania & Bulgaria.

While the mainstream media has insofar focused purely on the economic and financial motivations of these refugees, history has been conveniently ignored by the media & the German bureaucrats.

Ghosts of Yugoslavia

Many of these Balkan refugees sneaking prominently into Germany were once part of a multi-cultural & multi-ethnic state known as Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia housed Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Kosovars, & Bosnians. However, since the formation of the Yugoslavian state (Under King Alexander in 1918) the Croats, particularly, had ambitions of carving out an independent state for themselves. The assasination of the Pro-British King Alexander by a Ustase rebel (a facist Croation rebel group) in 1938 provided an opportune opening for the Nazi Germany.

The Ustase facists’ need for an independent state was duly understood, recognized and exploited by Adolf Hitler in 1941 more so as invading Yugoslavia was critical in order to integrate Balkan states into Nazi Germany. In the same year Nazi forces invaded Yugoslavia and divided the nation. The Nazi sympathizers in Croatia, Ustase rebels took control of Croatia under the auspices of Adolf Hitler and exterminated millions of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies.

However, post the Nazi defeat in WWII Yugoslavia regrouped and the facist Ustase rebels were executed. Interestingly, from the late 1960s the Yugoslavia state achieved politico-economic stability under the leadership of WWII veteran Josip Tito. The stability lost its strength soon after Josip Tito’s sudden demise in the 1980s.
The geopolitical events in the late 80s like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR reinvigorated Germany’s geopolitical ambitions! Similar to the 1941 support for Croatia’s independence the now united Germany backed Croatia’s seperatist movement. In addition to this the call for an independent Kosovo by the Albanian majority muslims in Kosovo led to the brutal and inhumane US-NATO bombings over Serbia.

The US-NATO bombings for whom Germany gathered support by rather coercing the European Community member states elevated the stature of the US and Germany as the liberators in Croatia, Slovenia and the muslim majority Bosnia and Kosovo. However, in reality only Croatia, and Slovenia had the caliber to function as an independent nation state. The rest like Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo couldn’t exploit the fruits of independence contratry to the German and American anticipation. The result was creation of new failed states on the doorstep of Medditerrainean Europe!

Counting the Geopolitical Costs

The infamous US-NATO bombings duly supported by Germany decimated the civil and industrial infrastructure in the former Yugoslavian states. While Croatia and Slovenia progressed hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Kosovars risked everything to cross into Germany. Post war Germany was seen as a liberator of sorts by the Bosnian and Albanian Kosovars. As was historically evident in the US after WWII and India after the 1971 East Pakistan war the Jews and the Bangladeshi refugees flocked in great numbers (10 million in India’s case) to the liberator nations, respectively.

The question here, thus, is who should count the cost of geopolitical games? While Germany succeeded in changing the dynamics of the Balkan region by dissolving the Yugoslavian state why shouldn’t Germany feel accountable to the refugee crisis? Even as Germany generously accepts the Middle Eastern refugees why such intense disregard for the Balkan refugees?

Of course, there may not be an ongoing civil war in the Balkans but the scars of the 1999 Balkan war is still perceptible on not just the memories and pysche of the Balkan people but the economy and the future of the region as a whole. Should we really let the poor Balkan states endure the costs of Germany’s geopolitical games?