Chronicles 31

The Vukovar Tragedy 1991:
In the net of Propaganda Lies and
Armed Power of YPA - Vol. I

Prepared and edited by Sonja Biserko

The book reflects the Helsinki Committee's continued endeavor to document the real causes of ex-Yugoslavia's disintegration. The material and documentation compiled in two volumes throw light on the pre-war political and social context. This edition is, therefore, a valuable source of information for the researchers dealing with contemporary history of the Balkan region.

"When it became clear that Yugoslavia cannot survive or, as historian Milorad Ekmecic put it, when 'the civil war dispersed the Yugoslav idea for which the Serbs had fought the longest and with the biggest tenacity,' Serb intellectuals launched another goal - the unity of the Serbian people. Dignitaries of the Serbian Orthodox Church sided it as well. According to Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic, 'Serbia, Montenegro... Eastern Herzegovina, a considerable part of Bosnia and Bosnian Krajina, and Srpska Krajina would make the bone marrow of those united lands, the bone marrow that takes form anew despite difficulties.'

"Croatia was the only serious opponent of the Greater Serbia project. Enabling Slovenia to step out of the SFRY was nothing but a prelude to the showdown with Croatia. Milosevic defined Slovenia's departure as 'narrowing the front of the resistance.' The short war in Slovenia was just a simulation and served to compromise Federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic. The war in Croatia was prepared simultaneously. The initial plan was to keep the entire Croatia in a future Yugoslavia. However, the plan was soon abandoned and replaced by the RAM plan that was disclosed at the closed governmental session of September 18, 1991 when Prime Minister Markovic firstly referred to it. The Vreme weekly confirmed that the RAM was 'not a fiction but a blueprint for Serbia's borders in the West, a frame for some new Yugoslavia in which all Serbs, together with their territories, would live in a single country," says, among other things, the lengthy introduction to this two-volume edition.

The book on the Vukovar tragedy is the fifth edition in the series publicized under the project "Coming to Grips with Serbia's Prevalent Ideological Matrix" the realization of which was supported by the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The edition is available in Serbian only.