These are (very) short excerpts from Dr. Raju G. C. Thomas' article entitled:

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Nationalism, Secession and Conflict:
Legacies from the Former Yugoslavia

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This paper was presented at the First Annual Association for Study of Nationalities Convention, Columbia University, New York City, April 26-28, 1996

Professor Raju G. C. Thomas teaches Political Science at Marquette University. He has published extensively in professional journals and is the author of several books on global politics.

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Between 1991 and 1994, Yugoslavia disintegrated swiftly and painfully...

...Although the Yugoslav problem began as one of the right of national self-determination among its several internal "nations," subsequently, it became a conflict of contested boundaries among newly created states and of new disgruntled and/or fearful minorities within these states. Thus, the creation of new states out of old multiethnic states generate newer problems of self-determination and soveregnty, and of newly contested boundaries and dissident minorities....

The problem posed by the disintegration of Yugoslavia was that its former internal boundaries which posed no restriction on the movement of the ethnic groups, have suddenly become international frontiers creating and trapping new minorities within new states who do not wish to be part of these states. Thus, for example, Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia, who thought they were citizens of Yugoslavia, suddenly found that the old state had simply vanished from right under their feet. They had become citizens of new states to which thay do not wish to belong. Serbs did not choose to migrate to the new Croatia and Bosnia. They were already there as part of the old Yugoslavia. Attempts now to remain together are being resisted by the new states of Croatia and Bosnia and by the International community...

...From the standpoint of equity and fairness, two related questions can be asked. If the principle of national self-determination with the meaning of "the right to secede from a state" could be granted to Slovenians, Croatians, Bosnian Muslims and Macedonians, then why cannot the same principle be granted to the serbs of the newly recognized states of Croatia and Bosnia? And if the Serbs demand this right, then why should not the Albanians of Kosovo demand the same right? If national self-determination extending the right to secede is the new overriding norm of the world politics today, then it surely must also be granted to new minorities created by state sucessionists. Or, some logical explanation must be provided as to why the principle of the right to secede was applied selectively to Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia but not to other ethnic groups demanding secession elsewhere in the world. Domestic political disputes, minority ethnic grievances, and armed secessionist struggles have been far more intense and prolonged elsewhere than in the former Yugoslavia.

From a global-comparative perspective it is difficult to justify Slovenia and Croatia being allowed to "jump the queue" ahead of other self-proclaimed nations demanding the right to secession and international recognition...

...What was different about the former Yugoslavia was the Germany, Austria, and the Vatican pushed the European Union to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia; and then the United States pushed the rest of the world to recognize the independence of Bosnia. The criteria of recognition here was selective and arbitrary...

...In Yugoslavia, a sovereign multi-ethnic independent state that had existed for over 70 years was abruptly taken apart through the Western policy of diplomatic recognition. Serbs, who had lived together since 1918, were separated suddenly into three different states against their wishes. Thus, the Serbian struggle to remain united within the old state of Yugoslavia does not quite fit the term "aggression" or "irredentism" in the usual sense...

...In retrospect - Yugoslavia's territorial integrity and sovereignty should have been preserved. It is one thing to encroach upon the soverereignty of an existing state where there are massive human rights violations taking place, but it is quite another to do so in anticipation of such alleged violations. There were no mass killings taking place in Yugoslavia before the unilateral declarations of independence by Slovenia and Croatia and their subsequent recognitions by Germany and the Vatican followed by the rest of the Europe and the United States. There were no mass killings taking place in Bosnia before the recognition of Bosnia. Preserving the old Yugoslav state may have proved to be the least of all evils. Problems began when recognition or pressures to recognize occured. The former Yugoslavia had committed no "aggression" on neighboring states such as Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria or Rumania. Surely then. the real aggression in Yugoslavia began with the Western recognition of Slovenia and Croatia. The territorial integrity of a state [Yugoslavia] that was voluntarily created and which had existed since December 1918 was swept aside. In 1991, new state recognition policy proved to be an inventive method of destroying long-standing sovereign independent states. When several rich and powerful states decide to take a sovereign independent state apart through the policy of recognition, how is this state supposed to defend itself? There can be no deterrence or defense against this form of destruction....

Disintegration and war in the former Yugoslavia was caused mainly by the hasty and reckless Western policy of recognizing new states who wished to secede from an existing long-standing state. Indeed, the Western powers dismembered Yugoslavia through a new method of aggression: diplomatic recognition...

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