Tito's martial beatdowns

As usual a current hot topic leads me down other paths. In this case European criticism of Israeli aggression .
It's Sunday morning and I usually insert cds of music from the late 60's and early 70's into the stereo.
My appetite to understand totalitarianism was voracious  when I was ten-years old in 1969.  For some reason I focused on Marshall Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia, looking for some rationalization for the  repression of free speech, the encouragement of kids' spying on their parents, etc.  The books at the Erdman Avenue library(Baltimore City) gave me plenty of history and few answers.

This morning I started thinking about one of many hypocritical acts by Tito. The state maintenance of his lavish estate on Brijuni Islands.

Yugoslavia maintained friendly ties with the Arab states and criticized Israeli aggression in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.

Some things change, some don't.

8/6/14

Headline from  2/6/68:

Israel Says Marshal Tito’s Interference is Hampering Peace Efforts

8/15/14

Looking back: Tito was in line with Russia's pro Arab policy

9/24/14

how commies deal with success ?
Time magazine didn't have that headline on  March 15, 1963 but printed this:

Through all the years of Marshal Tito's Communist rule, a special niche has been provided for the small private businessman who was somehow able to supply products and services the state-controlled organization could not match. But a year or so ago, the profits of the barbers, blacksmiths, pastrymakers, cobblers and tailors began to get out of hand; they bought cars and rented summer homes on fashionable lakesides. Last May Tito's regime decided to wipe them out. Taxes on private business were raised sevenfold.

10/12/14

Isn't this a common theme among dictators:

 Tito was among the more conservative Yugoslav communists when it came to tolerance of free expression of ideas and artistic creativity. Yet he was interested in attracting famous intellectuals and artists who would support the communist regime and exalt him personally.

Foreign Affairs article on Tito

11/1/14

Only 100 years ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/yugoslavia_01.shtml

Two small Serbian and Montenegrin states had already emerged and become independent - having shaken off the Ottoman Turkish yoke - but the rest of what was to become Yugoslavia was still part of either the Ottoman or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

12/10/14

joyvanka broz, tito's second wife,   was put under house arrest for a long time. Upon the death of her husband, and all the assets were nationalized you're never safe under communism

1/4/15

Funny thing about capitalism: Tito's son  Miso, a retired Croatian diplomat, has registered several trademarks of his father's name.

1/17/15

Tito took  advantage of the modification of travel restrictions so Yugoslavians could attend The Paris Exposition in 1937   to recruit soldiers to support the Loyalists in Spain fighting against Franco.

2/3/15

Update on what was Yugoslavia: link

The International Court of Justice has ruled that Serbia and Croatia did not commit acts of genocide against each other during the Croatian war of secession from Yugoslavia.

3/4/15

This slipped by me years ago:  Nato air strikes against Yugoslavia in March 1999, the first attack on a sovereign European country in the alliance's history.

4/25/15

I can't get enough of commie hypocrisy so I'm going back to 1961 Time magazine snapshot

Among traveling statesmen, Africa is the favorite new tourist spot. The latest is Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito, who last week was winding up a vast swing around Africa's west coast.
For almost two months, his yacht, the Caleb (Seagull), had hopped from port to port because Tito is afraid of airplanes.

5/26/15

Found this from 2014 and scratched my head
 A plan by the Croatian government to sell off an island Goli Otok used as a prison by Tito’s Yugoslavian Communist regime has sparked protests from former inmates, who want it turned into a memorial site.

5/31/15

Stev Sherez dropped this opinion in the middle of Eleven Days, his tale of a London murder detectives: Bill Clinton's clampdown in Bosnia in the late 90's basically shifted one link in the opium smuggling  route from the Serbs to the Albanians..ottoman heroin

6/6/15

I don't pay much attention to the Pope but found this noteworthy. link

Pope Francis is celebrating Mass in front of tens of thousands of Catholics at a stadium in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

7/1/15

Are the Albanian drug smuggling routes being used to move  ISIS recruits?

Ten people, including Italians, Albanians and a Canadian suspected of supporting Islamic State were arrested in an operation in Italy and Albania, Italian police said.

link

7/24/15

Unity is tough: link

Anger boiled over Saturday at a massive commemoration of the slaughter of Bosnia Muslims at Srebrenica 20 years ago as people pelted Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic with stones, water bottles and other objects.

8/7/15

It took  the book, The Empty Mirror,a murder mystery set in 1898 Vienna by J Sydney Jones to remind me of the historical links between Vienna , Bosnia, via the Austrian Hungarian Empire.

9/21/15

More Austro-Hungarian news.  link

Croatia 'forcing' Hungary to take migrants

11/20/15

More twists in Serbian war crimes trials: mladic

Former Bosnian Serb army commander General Ratko Mladic slammed the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as a “satanic court” and refused to testify as a defence witness for his former political master, Radovan Karadzic.

12/11/15

Residuals  of war:  Balkan states awash with illegal weapons left over from the conflicts that raged there in the 1990s.

2/11/16

A tourist attraction: Slovenian town of Zalec to build beer fountain 
link

3/31/16

 Stunned

Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj has been found not guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

4/11/16

What will it take for Croatia to allow Serbia to open chapter 23 in the country's EU accession negotiations?

4/16/16

Yes neo-Nazis are repulsive but "containing" their chanting or sentiments is a Hitleresque tactic.  croatia

Croatian Jews have held their own Holocaust commemoration at a World War Two death camp, in protest at what they say is government inaction in the face of surging neo-Nazi sentiment.

5/7/16

Completely forgot this one:  May 7 , 1999 NATO planes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. link

"Although NATO and American officials offered no explanation for how NATO could have hit the embassy, NATO did target the Hotel Yugoslavia, which is close by. The officials said that this hotel has been taken over as a headquarters and barracks for the special paramilitary police, headed by Zeljko Raznjatovic, who is known as Arkan."

5/20/16

Will PETA protest?  US Navy dolphins have been flown out to Croatia to comb its coastline for unexploded mines and bombs left over from a string of wars .

6/12/16

On 25 June, the country at the Adriatic sea will mark the 25th anniversary of its independence.
Now for the bad news: the country's political elite remains  focused on itself and is heading for collapse
Also young, highly-trained employees are leaving the country

7/1/16

Impact of Brexit:  Great Britain pushed the promise of EU eastern expansion during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Does it's EU exit make the Balkan region more likely to turn to Russia?

7/14/16

Hungary deploys army to push migrants back to Serbia
The Hungarian government has called a referendum for 2 October to oppose refugee redistribution quotas proposed by the European Commission and a yes vote may lead to an exit from the EU.

7/23/16

This story grabbed my attention:
 A Croatian court on Friday annulled a 1946 verdict against Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac  who had been convicted by the former communist authorities of collaborating with the pro-Nazi puppet regime during World War II.
Serbs and Jews consider Stepinac a Nazi sympathizer while the Catholic Church wants to nominate him for sainthood. story

7/24/16

historical reminder: July 23, 1914: the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Serbia delivered an ultimatum:  Serbia  must take steps to wipe out terrorist organizations within its borders, suppress anti-Austrian propaganda and accept an independent investigation by the Austro-Hungarian government into Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, or face military action. Few days later and WW1 was on.

8/12/16

Just three days after #hillaryClinton received the 1/24/11 e-mail from #Soros the EU ended up sending Soros’ suggested nominee Lajcak to mediate the civil unrest in Albania, the BBC reported. . I guess Soros, a one percenter, had investments in the region.

9/9/16

I wonder how far this goes. 64% of Serbians polled (BLIC newspaper) vote for Monarchy over Republic. Crown Prince Alexander II of Serbia, the head of the Royal Family in Serbia, would be the likely ruler if this ever came to a real vote.

9/13/16

Is the EU "cracking up?" Hungary has sealed its borders with Serbia and Croatia and built a 175km (110-mile) razor-wire fence to stop people crossing on their way to Austria. Luxembourg FM Jean Asselborn has called for Hungary to be suspended or expelled from the European Union because of its "massive violation" of EU fundamental values.

"Hungary is not far away from issuing orders to open fire on refugees," he suggested.

9/27/16

Welcoming migrants to Europe  continues to backfire.

"Hungary and Slovakia are suing the European Commission at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), calling its quota scheme for distributing refugees illegal."

 Czech Republic and Hungary want  a "joint European army".

#VisegradGroup =Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak leaders coordinating their foreign policy 

10/18/16

News I missed from August: Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar #Vucic has hailed US VPJoe #Biden, who is visiting Belgrade, as friend of his country. Then Sen Biden was one of the most vocal supporters of the NATO bombing of Belgrade back in 1999.

10/29/16

98 years ago:  Oct 29-1918 , The Kingdom of Greater Serbia was proclaimed at Sarajevo in Bosnia bringing that state into what was later called Yugoslavia and a few days later 11/1/18  Yugoslav battleship Viribus Unitis was sunk by Italians.

11/17/16

Who says reading detective stories doesn't stimulate curiousity? I've read about thirty pages of Lie in the Dark (welcome to Sarajevo) by #danFesperman, and am growing more intrigued  by the city of Sarajevo.  The influences of Vienna, and the Ottoman Empire linger. 
At 10:00 a.m. on January 1, 1885,  Sarajevo was the first city in the Balkans and Central Europe to have a tram, pulled by horses.

12/3/16

I needed a scorecard to keep track of the Croats, Serbs etc and why they killed each other in  Small boat of sorrow, second novel in the Petric series.  How Tito managed to "contain" the ethnics of Yugoslavia group is astounding and ugly. The Croatian/Nazi/Vatican WW2 chain was an eye opener.

1/16/17

Catching up with the Birth of Yugoslavia and all the shenanigans of Italy during and after WW1. #dalmatia

2/19/17

#Cannabis is illegal and flourishing in #Albania where its often planted on "wild" plots of land and areas that are hard to reach. Some cannabis farmers have  developed irrigation systems and protect their fields with weapons.

3/1/17

Not something you read everyday: #VojislavCarkic,an Orthodox priest and onetime solder in the Serbian army, says he's 'still in a good mood to kill people.

3/7/17

This shouldn't cost me cyber pals  (LOL) , but I found it curious in our hyper-sensitive world of ethnic and racial politics. Crossword puzzle clue:  " #Tito was one ". I'm thinking dictator or soldier, but its only four letters so I'm thinking it can't be #Slav- it was.

4/29/17

The tribes of the former Yugoslavia are stirred up again . This time it's Macedonia which is about 25% #Albanian. Is that bastard #Soros stirring the tension there too.

5/3/17

A court in Colmar, France has rejected Serbia's attempt to extradite #RamushHaradinaj , the Albanian former leader of the #KLA   They want to put him on trial on suspicion that he committed criminal offenses of war crimes against civilians in Kosovo and Metohija in 1998 and 1999.  Haradinaj better get  more bodyguards , particularly if he makes it back to Kosovo.

6/15/17

never too late:  #JosipManolic, the ninety-six year old  former Yugoslavia's top spy and ex-Croatian prime minister ,married a sixty year old woman.

6/28/17

#Rama and his Albania's Socialist Party  gained a parliamentary majority in Sunday's election, which could lead to a quicker entry into the #EU - primarily a reform of the country's corrupt judicial system.  #Albania is one of Europe's poorest countries.

7/10/17

#hungary : Orban called Soros a “billionaire speculator,” an expression that also has anti-Semitic overtones accordong to Jewish community leader #AndrasHeisler
Really? I guess there's no end to listing code words. Is there a list of words Orban could have used?

7/12/17

#Romania, Serbia's neighbor, is closer to purchasing #Patriot missile defense systems.

7/30/17

Apparently sharing saints hasn't caused an international incident: 
On July 29, St. Olaf's Day is celebrated in Norway, Sweden, at Fars' Sacrifices, as well as in parts of the UK.
#Serbian Orthodox Church celebrates St. Olaf on Aug 11.

8/2/17

#pence #NATO focus on Montenegro and other former Yugoslavian states has Moscow screaming "anti-Russian" hysteria.

9/7/17

#Bulgarian government had taken in only about 50 migrants from 2015-17 and does not see immigration as a possible solution to its dwindling population.

9/8/17

The EU dismissed the migrant quota challenge by #Slovakia and #Hungary eacerbating the east-west tension. #orban Hungary's leader, says his country won't become an "immigrant" country.

9/26/17

Bunkers commissioned by Albanian communist leader #EnverHoxha between 1975 and 1983 are now being used as indoor farming areas, cinemas, exhibition halls and workshops. Turning a minus into a plus.

10/14/17

#OttomanEmpire anybody? On October 11 #Ergodan received a warm welcome as he visited a predominantly Muslim region in southwestern Serbia. #turkey is trying to bolster relations with some Balkan states.

dec 3 2017

Miss this anniversary:  On Nov 29 1943 partisan resistance in #Yugoslavia abolished the monarchy and declared a federal republic,  and two years later assembled for a constitution.

dec 12, 2017

About two thousand people attended a packed ceremony in the Croatian capital of #Zagreb on Monday to commemorate Bosnian Croat general #SlobodanPraljak, who drank poison and killed himself in front of live cameras as a UN court convicted him of war crimes on November 29. How he got the poison- no answer?

dec 28, 2017

#ergodan has found a buddy in Serbia which extradited Kurdish politician #CevdetAyaz to Turkey despite a warning from the UN Committee against Torture.

Jan 16, 2018

Stating the obvious- this ain't good: A prominent Kosovo Serb politician, #OliverIvanovic,  who was facing a retrial for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians committed in 1999, was murdered  outside his party offices in the Serb-run north of #Mitrovica.

Jan 30, 2018

If you dig concrete, #MOMA in #newyork  will pay tribute to the former country of #Yugoslavia and its modernist post-war architecture, in an exhibition beginning in June 2018.

March 15, 2018

Did Italy  switch sides in WW1 to acquire  the city of #Trieste . It could have fit in geographically with the newly forming Yugoslavia.

March 22,2018

Why would conservative groups and the local Catholic Church in #croatia  be against ratification of  a European treaty designed to combat violence against women? They object to the treaty’s definition of gender which they say paves the way for introducing transsexual or transgender as separate categories. #bulgaria and #slovokia have rejected the treaty?

march 31, 2018

#ergodan obsession with #gulen reeks havoc in #kosovo. Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj dismissed the country’s interior minister and the secret service chief  because he was not told six Turkish nationals were deported to Turkey.

may 3, 2018

#Hungary just  says NO  to a new wave of migration that can be triggered by the declaration adopted in Marrakech during the Rabat process. Hungarian FM  #Szijarto slammed the declaration for portraying migration as "a phenomenon that is necessarily only good and favourable and which obviously contributes to the global development"

may 20, 2018

#ergodan , who portrays himself as the protector of Balkan Muslims,  is set to appear at a large rally in #Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.  While he has many supporters here, he has many detractors. I smell violence!

may 27, 2018

Nicolae #Ceausescu, the former  #Commie President of #romania, banned citizens from playing Scrabble in the 1980s because it "overly intellectual” and a “subversive evil”. I can't decide which of the reasons is more ludicrous.

june 4, 2018

The anti-immigration wave continues : The anti-immigrant #SDS party of veteran right-wing leader Janez Jansa  secured 25% of the vote totals  in winning #Slovenia 's parliamentary election, but now faces a difficult task in courting a coalition partner to govern.

June 21, 2018

This will rock the #EU and the anti-Populist Pope. #orban  gets his wish as the Hungarian Parliament passes the  "Stop Soros law" -Anyone "facilitating illegal immigration" will face a year in jail.

june 24, 2018

Does #merkel wants to use an old Balkan trail in @albania as a way out her "migrant" problem?  Beware of Germans bearing gifts.  #albania is not in the EU but has a pending application.

june 29

#Bulgarian center-right #Borissov  government survived a #Socialist -led no-confidence vote in parliament. I suspect  the Left isn't too happy with patrols of its border with Turkey to keep migrants out.

7/9/18

#croatia won a soccer shootout over #russia to advance to the Final 4 of the #worldcup. Croatia has been a popular tourist destination with Russian travelers but those  drop  numbers have dropped since the 2014  Ukrainian crisis

7/11/18

In order to preserve a shaky coalition , #Babis, the #Czech PM, may have signed his political death wish by  agreeing  to the Czech Communist party demand to tax the compensation that the country's churches receive for property seized by the former Communist regime.

7/29/18

Dragoslav #Ognjanovic, Serbian lawyer who defended #Milosevic,  was killed in Belgrade, but it's more likely tied to his work for Serbia's leading underworld figures. Serbian and Montenegrin organized crime networks have been engaged in a turf war  and only four of 83 gang-related murders have been solved in Serbia and Montenegro.

9/9/18

Trying to keep the players in this long running  battle straight in the latest #Kosovo - Serbian tension -more at blog.
#Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after the end of the 1998-1999 .
Kosovo #Albanians, including 200 Kosovo war veterans,  blocked Serbian President Vucic access  to Banje, a Kosova village a big #Serbian population.
Kosovo Presdident Thacic hopes to mend ties with Serbia

9/29/18

Disturbing trend on the Left in their review of right leaning  "populists". In the USA Trump foes chat about invoking the 25 th Amendment. In Poland #lechwalesa made these comments: 

 "These people who came to power by coincidence are unsuited for the job; they have not been medically vetted and they suffer from complexes and are narrow-minded."
As if the Left is filled with sane, tolerant folks.

10/28/18

The Republic of #Yugoslavia purchased a mansion on 854 Fifth Avenue in NYC on the Upper East Side  for $300,000 in 1946, and it is now owned by the successor states: Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. It is is  #Serbia 's Permanent Mission to the UN and  could sell for 50 million if the five countries can agree on sales terms.

12/20/18

Hundreds of people  gathered in Montenegro’s capital of Podgorica (once known as Titograd) for the unveiling of a monument to  #Tito, the late dictator of Yugoslavia, marking the anniversary of the city’s liberation at the end of WW2 from the Nazi occupiers by Tito’s anti-fascists.

12/23/18 

Prime Minister #EdiRama of Albania expelled the Iranian ambassador citing national security concerns.  Iran has been linked to the assassination of Kurds and MEK members throughout Europe.

2/6/19

West Germany awarded #Tito its Grand Cross Order of Merit, its highest accolade for a foreign head of state, in 1974, and now former Croatian exiles are petitioning  Merkel's government alleging that  Tito ordered his secret service to assassinate Croatian political opponents who were seeking exile in #WestGermany. So no one suspected Tito at the time???

3/13/19

 #AmnestyInternational claims  the EU is complicit with Croatian border force in migrant  abuse in part because it allows border control over compliance with international law. Imagine wanting to protect your border?

3/25/19

  Romanian PM #VioricaDancila announced that her country would recognize #Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv.

4/30/19

  #Kosovo parliament voted 0n 4/26/19 to transform the existing Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into an army. Serbia and Russia are pissed. Is it 1999 all over again?

 5/5/19 

#NorthernMacedonia, a Balkan state that emerged from Yugoslavia's breakup thirty years ago, has a Presidential election today . Since working out the deal with Greece and adding Northern to its name, it has also removed the name Alexander the Great  from its international airport and a major highway.

5/14/19

 “We are here with a mission, to liberate Albania from crime and corruption,"- that's the motto of folks tossing petrol bombs  Prime Minister #EdiRama ’s office in Tirana,  #Albania.   Maybe they need to re-consider their motto?

6/19/19

 EU delayed the start of formal accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia until October. Germany needs to parliamentary approval, and France and the Netherlands are resisting new members.

8/1/19

 Residue from the The Austro-Hungarian Empire:  Transylvania, Romania has a large ethnic Hungarian population and there have been tensions sometimes between ethnic Hungarians and Romanians. Yesterday Pope Francis ask them to take a chill pill.
Ethnic Hungarians are  mostly Catholic in #Romania, a predominantly Orthodox Christian nation.

8/28/19

 Red Star Belgrade soccer fans parked a decommissioned T-55 army tank outside their stadium ahead of Tuesday's Champions League play-off second leg against Swiss side Young Boys.
Some folks in neighboring #Croatia, viewed the tank as a symbol of the assault by #Serb forces on the city of Vukovar at the start of Croatia's independence war in the 1990s.

10/3/19

#vladedivac 's induction into into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame  was a reminder that Yugoslavia won the Silver Medal at the 1988 Olympics and gold at the 1991 EuroBasket before  civil war split the Yugoslavian team in pieces.

11/8/19

#Erdogan was met by angry protests during a visit to #Budapest  yesterday for talks with Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán . They are buddies, in part because Turkey has helped contain the flow of Middle East migrants to Europe, but #Orban , as well as other world leaders, have underestimated  the animus about Turkey's recent attacks on the Kurds in Syria.

11/14/19

 Has #Macron finally made a correct assessment? He claims #Bosnia and #Herzegovina as a "ticking time-bomb" due to the "problem of returning jihadists".

12/29/19

 Religious institutions will have to prove they held rights to their property before 1918, when Montenegro lost its independence and joined the country that eventually became Yugoslavia.The Serbian Orthodox church views this new law  as a means for government confiscation. Montenegro split from Serbia in 2006.

2/4/20

#Kurti ,the new Kosovo PM , once led violent street riots against Serbia's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in the 1990s . Now he'll be trying to work out deals with bordering Serbia which doesn't recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

2/5

 Irena Andrassy, the Croatian ambassador to the EU, made the declaration, "thank you, goodbye, and good riddance"  to her British counterpart Tim Barrow. Were official final words of the European Union to the UK, a joke lost in translation and/or sincerity via jest?

2/18

 Serbia and Kosovo on Friday signed U.S.-brokered deals on restoring railway and highway links which includes develop railway and motorway connections between Belgrade and Pristina.

2/21

Have the Dayton Accords reached an expiration date? #Dodik , one of three top officials in Bosnia, renewed his calls for secession of Bosnian Serb lands so they can join neighboring Serbia.

4/1/20

  Did Ian Fleming use his knowledge of  #DuskoPopov , a Serbian double agent during WW2,  to create the 007 character? Popov was born to a Serb family in Titel, Austria-Hungary in 1912. Titel is now a part of Serbia.

5/7/20

Back to Orban/Soros:  Freedom House  claims Hungary is no longer a democracy and government spokesman #ZoltanKovacs tweets: "With their Soros funding they've declined, becoming the fist of the party that is the Soros network. Anyone who doesn't conform to their liberal view, gets downgraded."

6/26/20

I'm not sure what to make of the timing of this. #Thaci , the President of Kosovo and a former KLA soldier, learned he was indicted by The Hague for war crimes, while he was on a plane to Washington, D.C., for a Saturday June 27th meeting with Serbian counterpart  Vucic at the White House.

7/6/20

 After yesterday's election results, the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party will likely need the Homeland Movement  to consolidate a majority, which some view as   "Orbanising" in Croatia.

7/9/20

A wooden sculpture of  First Lady Melania Trump, that some say resembled a Smurfs character, was set on fire near her hometown in Slovenia. Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia during Melania's childhood.

A A Croatian  former Communist authorities of collaborating with the pro-Nazi puppet regime during World War II, and who is today a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church.