Carl Savich Column on Serbianna.com

Introduction: Vojvodina: The Next Kosovo?

There has been alarmist rhetoric about Vojvodina becoming the next Kosovo. In 2004, there were many manufactured propaganda incidents a la the Racak Massacre that appeared to presage another Kosovo conflict. Is there any truth to these claims? What is the history of Vojvodina? And is there a racist, ethnically-based Greater Hungary movement in Vojvodina that parallels the Greater Albania ideology in Kosovo? Is Vojvodina another Kosovo? Is Vojvodina the next Kosovo?

In his article “Vojvodina: A Hungarian View”, in the July 28, 2004 Balkanalysis, Laszly Zuldi, a Hungarian journalist from Budapest, presented the Hungarian view on Vojvodina, arguing in alarmist tones of “a time bomb” that would create “a Hungarian Kosovo”. But is this an accurate assessment of what is going on in Vojvodina? Is the Kosovo analogy, the paradigm of Vojvodina as the “Hungarian Kosovo”, an accurate one?

What happened in Kosovo? Albanian separatists/secessionists launched a US/NATO-sanctioned terrorist war to create a Greater Albania, an independent Kosova. This illegal separatist movement was based on US government and media manufactured propaganda that falsely alleged that a “genocide” was occurring in Kosovo. This lie was used to illegally bypass the UN and all customs and conventions of international law. Is this what Zuldi is predicting for Vojvodina? If we follow the Kosovo analogy, Zuldi is predicting a Kosovo-like separatist/secessionist conflict where Vojvodina would become an independent state like the proposed “Kosova”. A manufactured lie would serve as the pretext for US/EU/NATO “humanitarian intervention” to create a Greater Hungary. Like in an independent Kosova cleansed of all Serbs, Roma, and Jews, all non-Hungarians would arguably be driven out to create a Hungarian ethnic majority. The new “independent” state would be called Delvidek. Is this what Zuldi has in mind? And if so, why should the US or Hungary be supporting such a genocidal Greater Hungary? Why should anyone support such a racist and genocidal policy to create a “Hungarian Kosovo”?

Vojvodina's Freedom Bridge (Sloboda Most) in Novi Sad destroyed by NATO in 1999.

Zuldi noted that Vojvodina is “one of the most multi-ethnic regions in Europe” but he failed to mention that Serbs make up the overwhelming majority of Vojvodina at 65%. As is typical of the New World Order “democrats” and “humanitarians”, nothing is said about the “majority” population and what they think, if they are hostile to US interests. In a democracy, the majority decides, not a 15% minority, such as the Hungarian population of Vojvodina. The Hungarian minority doesn’t have the population numbers. In fact, the Hungarian population is declining. The solution for US policy is to negate the will of the majority population. This is what US policy did in the Kosovo conflict. The will of the majority population of Yugoslavia was discounted and ignored. All that mattered was the will of the Albanian minority population. But this was cleverly inverted and manipulated and convoluted by US propaganda. Instead of relying on the will of the majority of Yugoslavia population, US policy relied on the will of the “majority” Albanian population in the province of Kosovo-Metohija. This reduces democracy to the point of absurdity. It reduces democracy to meaninglessness. It also demonstrates how phony and hollow democracy truly is. “Democracy” is purely a US propaganda construct with no real world application at all. It is a nice sounding word with absolutely no practical meaning whatsoever. The Kosovo conflict demonstrated this obvious fact very clearly.

In “Analysis: Vojvodina, the Hungarian Kosovo,” UPI, October 11, 2002, Sam Vaknin argued that Vojvodina was indeed “the Hungarian Kosovo”. But isn’t this just alarmist rhetoric, and inaccurate to boot?

Vaknin focused on the issue of “autonomy”. But autonomy is a red herring. Adolf Hitler too supported the “autonomy” of Vojvodina, as did the Communist dictator Josip Broz Tito, and then NATO. Why? They all understood that “autonomy” would amputate Serbian territory and ultimately destroy Serbian territorial integrity and allow “Western” penetration of the Balkan region. The whole “autonomy” issue is a disingenuous game. It is a debate imposed on the Vojvodina issue arbitrarily and artificially. It is perceived as a way to defeat or destroy Serbia by other means, by a creeping secessionism or separatism. Autonomy is just another concept for dismemberment, secession, separatism, and “Balkanization”.

Map of Greater Hungary [ Click to Enlarge ]

Moreover, these analysts conveniently forget that the whole “autonomy” nonsense is an atavistic holdover from the Leninist / Stalinist / Titoist / Communist / Bolshevik era. The concept of “autonomy” is Leninistic and Stalinistic, a failed and discredited Communist way to solve the nationalities problem.

Zuldi noted that Serbs driven out or “ethnically cleansed” from Kosovo, the Krajina, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina, have been forced to settle in Vojvodina as displaced refugees. He refers to them euphemistically as “unhappy immigrants”. Vaknin terms this an “invasion” of Vojvodina. But did these Serbs, ethnically cleansed under the very noses of the “international community”, make a choice to settle in Vojvodina? Wasn’t the US-sponsored ethnic cleansing of the Serbian Krajina the reason for the influx or “invasion” by the “unhappy immigrants”? But who is to blame for these refugees? Is the Serbian government in Belgrade to blame or the US and NATO? Didn’t the US/NATO/EU/UN create the refugee problem in Vojvodina by allowing Albanian extremists to ethnically cleanse and force out over 200,000 Kosovo Serbs, Jews, Roma, and Sinti? Why are Zuldi and Vaknin blaming the victims? Why not blame the US/NATO/EU/UN, who are responsible for the creation of an ethnically pure Kosova?

Zuldi tries unsuccessfully to make it appear like the intolerance is one-sided, only Serbs attacking Hungarians. But then he mentioned that in June, 2004, five Hungarian youths in Vojvodina attacked and severely beat an ethnic Serb in Temerin, only because he was a Serb. It was an ethnically motivated attack, a racist hate crime by the Hungarian minority against the Serbian majority population. But, of course, it was only a retaliatory attack; the Hungarians were merely defending themselves. Zuldi is a propagandist, constructing very simplistic black and white scenarios with only the Hungarians as victims. As a fallback device, he rationalizes and justifies racist attacks by Hungarians against Serbs as retaliation and defensive in nature. But that is just a trick of the propagandist too. It is the victimization scenario. Only Hungarians are ever victims, and only Serbs are ever perpetrators or aggressors.

The US and Hungary as well as the EU seek to use the Vojvodina issue to blackmail Serbia and Montenegro. Zuldi wrote that “new EU member Hungary could make life difficult for the Serbs.” He is referring to efforts by Hungary to manipulate and extort and blackmail Serbia and Montenegro in seeking to join the EU and other European bodies. But isn’t this a reckless and arrogant foreign interference in the affairs of a sovereign state? Hungarian President Ferenc Madl and Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs even accused the Serbian government of committing “atrocities” against the Hungarian minority in 2004.

Zerstorte bridge in Vojvodina destroyed by NATO.

Zuldi neglects the fascist and Nazi history of the Greater Hungary ideology and movement. The whole “autonomy” issue in Vojvodina or Delvidek has its roots and origins during World War II and the Holocaust period. In Tanjug’s October 28, 2004 article “Szeged’s 64 Counties Leader Banned from Entering Country”, described how Laszlo Toroczkai, a journalist and youth movement leader from Szeged in southern Hungary along with Kornel Kiss and Zerg Zagyva, co-organized a rock concert with “Nazi and Greater Hungarian scenography”. The concert was held in Mali Idjos outside of Subotica on October 23. They wore black T-shirts signed Delvidek and promoted the Greater Hungary ideology. The reference to “64 counties” alludes to the counties that made up Greater Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian period, reaching 64 counties, or varmegye, castle or fortress counties, in 1876. Predictably, this neo-Nazi and neo-fascist event was censored and suppressed in the Western media. There was no analysis by IWPR or RFE/RL or ICG or the New York Times or Washington Post. This neo-Nazi resurgence in Vojvodina was “slow news” to be suppressed and covered-up.

Honved in Novi Sad during World War II, 1942-1943.

Revising World War II History

On May 7, 2004, a “memorial assembly” or “reunion” was held in Novi Sad by ethnic Hungarian veterans of the Nazi-fascist Miklos Horthy army, known as Honved, (“defender of the fatherland” in Hungarian). The Honved was originally established in1848, when it was created as the Hungarian national army. Most of the veterans were in their eighties. They had been part of the Hungarian Army during World War II that occupied Vojvodina and which participated in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

They defended their role in World War II by stating that they only guarded prison camps. They were merely Domobrane or Home Guard troops defending the Hungarian Homeland. This Nazi/fascist reunion was held in the offices of the Hungarian-language newspaper Magyar Szo. The meeting was attended by powerful Vojvodina Hungarian political leaders, Laslo Galambos, Andras Agoston, and Istan Berndahar from Budapest. There were also members of the 64 Counties or Zupanije movement, which is based in Szeged in Hungary. They called for the federalization of Vojvodina and the creation of territorial autonomy for the Hungarian population and for the immediate expulsion of 30,000 Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia. They also carried Greater Hungary propaganda leaflets with emblems of the Hungarian monarchy. There were also pan-Hungarian and Greater Hungary pamphlets and fliers which were distributed in May and June.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister (1998-2002) Viktor Orban with a map of Greater Hungary on the back of his VW.

This meeting was part of a campaign to rewrite and revise the history of World War II and the role of Hungary in that conflict. They argued that the Honved troops were merely soldiers on the wrong side of the war. The Honved were merely defending Hungarian territory, the Homeland. They argued that Hungary was not fascist under Admiral Miklos Horthy. It was only in April 19, 1944, they argued, when Germany occupied Hungary, that Hungary became a fascist or Nazi state.

They also sought to honor both the killers and victims of World War II. They proposed that there should be a monument built in Novi Sad to the Hungarians who were killed in 1944 and 1945 when the Germans were expelled by the Partisan forces. Hungarians claim that up to 70,000 Hungarians were executed in retaliation by the Partisan forces of Croat-Slovene leader Josip Broz Tito.

There was criticism for the meeting because it was funded by all the citizens of Vojvodina. In Serbia, taxpayers fund non-Serbian language newspapers from funds in the Skupstina Vojvodina. The Hungarians were thus using public funds for this Nazi/fascist reunion. The leaders of the Magyar Szo, Rudolf Mihok and Peter Kokai, were later suspended and disciplined. There were Hungarian demonstrators in front of the Magyar Szo building with maps of a Greater Hungary and the program to make Bachka into Delvidek, the Southern Region. This neo-Nazi meeting was reported in the May 14, 2004 issue of the Belgrade daily Danas, the May 14, 2004 Novi Sad newspaper Dnevnik, and in the June 3, 2004 Politika newspaper. Not surprisingly, these Nazi events in Vojvodina were carefully suppressed and censored in the Western and US media.

Media Monopoly in the Balkans

Why did the Western media ignore and suppress this Nazi/fascist meeting in Novi Sad? Where was the IWPR, usually a Balkans watchdog for alleged anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism? IWPR completely missed this neo-Nazi meeting in Vojvodina? Why? How do you miss such an important event?

Honved veterans from World War II during "reunion" in Vojvodina: Nazis/fascists or freedom fighters, defenders of the homeland?

Serbian newspapers did report on the event, but it was spin-doctored. There was no coverage whatsoever of the meeting in the Western press. One explanation for the biased media coverage is because media is German-owned in Serbia. One consequence of the illegal NATO bombing and occupation of Kosovo in 1999 and the toppling of the Milosevic regime is that the Serbian newspapers have been bought by German interests. There is German ownership of Serbian newspapers that amounts to a monopoly. The Novi Sad newspaper Dnevnik and the Belgrade-based Politika newspapers were bought by the German Bodo Hombach. Hombach paid 25 million euros in 2002 to acquire a 50% interest in the Belgrade newspaper Politika. Danas is also funded by the globalist activist George Soros to maintain a pro-interventionist position and pro-NGO line favorable to looters and raiders like Soros himself, the vanguard of the New World Order globalists. The Serbian media is thus not very independent or free, but in German hands in the person of Bodo Hombach, a quasi-governmental, quasi-political, quasi-corporate figure, or under the financial control of George Soros. This is an alarming and troubling picture of a free and independent media in post-Cold War Europe. The press is free, of course, if you own one.

Who is Bodo Homback? He was the chief of staff for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and a Minister in the German government during the Kosovo War in 1999. Hombach met with CIA director George Tenet and US officials at the time to discuss Germany’s military participation in that war. It was the first time German troops had participated in a military attack against a sovereign nation since World War II. He was appointed the managing director of the EU’s Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe after the war. From being a main instigator of the Kosovo war he became the main “peace-keeper”.

Since 2002, Hombach has been one of the four managing directors of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, or WAZ, the second largest publishing group in Germany after Axel Springer. He is also a board member of Ost-Ausschluss der Deutschen Wirtschaft, the Eastern Committee of the German Economy. Hombach has moved into the Balkans and has been buying up all the “independent media” in the Balkans countries. Why should George Soros have all the fun?

Hombach bought a 50% share in Politika, Dnevnik from Novi Sad, and Vijesti in Montenegro. He owns the two largest newspapers in Bulgaria. By the end of July, 2003, WAZ became the majority shareholder of the three largest newspapers in Macedonia, Dnevnik, Vest, and Utrinski Vesnik. The Macedonian Dnevnik newspaper was founded in 1996 with the help of 100,000 deutsche marks in credits/gifts by George Soros and funding from the US Embassy in Macedonia. WAZ owns five newspapers in Hungary, two in Romania, and one in Croatia.

Homback visited Skopje in 2003 to work out the newspaper purchases and to assure critics that he does not seek a monopoly and that he encourages an independent media and independent thinking. He has been criticized for attempting to create a media empire or media monopoly in the Balkans. He began buying up media in Germany first, then moved to Austria. In 2000, a Dusseldorf court in Germany instituted embezzlement investigation into Homback after an audit revealed that there were “shady financial dealings” in how Homback ran a German company, the Saltzgitter Handel firm.

German quasi-political/economic figure Bodo Hombach, who has bought up the media in the Balkans and created a media monopoly.

Hombach combines economics and politics into one. He was involved in the bombing of Serbia, then in the peacekeeping in Serbia, then in buying up the media in Serbia once Serbia was bombed and the civilian and economic infrastructure was detsroyed. Nice work if you can get it. You get to bomb a sovereign country in violation of all international laws and customs and in violation of the UN Charter. Then you get to be the “peace-maker” and “peace-keeper” in the country you just bombed and occupied illegally. And then you get to loot and raid all the companies in the country you just bombed. Isn’t the New World Order and the “open society” wonderful?

There is a glaring conflict of interest here. First, bomb. Then, act as peacekeeper. Then, buy up the media. Hombach has created a media monopoly in the Balkans. How is this significantly different from state-run media under Communism? Hombach has ties to the German government and to German corporate interests. One individual now runs the whole media show in the Balkans. Is this democratic? Is this what is meant by “freedom” in the New World Order? This is the absurdity of globalism in the post-Communist era of “freedom” and “democracy”. Homback was one of the key planners of the NATO bombing as chief of staff for Schroeder.

France, another NATO member, benefited from the illegal bombing as well. The French company Lafarge bought the majority share in the Beocin cement factory near Novi Sad for $51 million. This sale caused controversy because ultimately it was the citizens of Vojvodina who lost out. They were the ones who were cheated. In fact, this is worse than Communist ever was. At least under Communism the people knew that the government was in control. In the New World Order, you don’t know who is secretly pulling all the strings. Instead of “state-run media”, there is now a monopoly of the media. Which is better? In either case, a hidden persuader gets to tell you what to think. There is someone behind the scenes manipulating and brainwashing the public. Before it was Joseph Stalin and Joseph Goebbels and Josip Broz Tito. In the New World Order, it is Jamie Shea and George Soros and Bodo Hombach.

The Holocaust in Vojvodina

What is the untold story in Vojvodina that has been suppressed in the West? Sam Vaknin claimed that Vojvodina is the “erstwhile bastion of tolerant Austro-Hungarian culture”, but nothing is ever revealed of what Hungarian Nazis and fascists did there during World War II and the Holocaust. Vaknin echoed the platform of the European Vojvodina movement, which seeks to “influence publics” in Vojvodina and Serbia to “promote European values” and “civilization values” by advocating autonomy and secession/separatism. The objective is to get Vojvodina, as a new independent state or as part of Serbia, into the European Union (EU).

After Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, which included Hungary, invaded, occupied, and dismembered Yugoslavia, Vojvodina was annexed to a Greater Hungary where 4,620 Vojvodina Serbs and 3,310 Jews were killed from 1941 to 1944.

Vojvodina was made a de facto part of the new Serb-Croat-Slovene state in 1918 following a plebiscite. Vojvodina, consisting of southern Bachka, eastern Srem, and western Banat, was de jure made a part of Serbia and Yugoslavia following the Treaty of Trianon of June 4, 1920, part of the peace treaties that ended World War I. The loss of this territory created an irredentist movement in Hungary that sought to re-incorporate Vojvodina, or Delvidek in Hungarian, into Hungary. An ideology of recreating a Greater Hungary emerged after World War I.

The Rugova of Vojvodina: Separatist extremist Nenad Canak, who combines Milo Djukanovic and Ibrahim Rugova into one.

The US, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, the Principal Allied Powers, negotiated the Trianon Treaty. “The Serb-Croat-Slovene State” was regarded as an Associated Power to the Principal Powers. Hungary was regarded as the successor state to Austria-Hungary and a defeated enemy power. The borders between Hungary and Vojvodina were internationally recognized borders and could only be changed illegally by aggression and war. And this is the policy the Miklos Horthy regime decided to pursue, formally joining the Axis Powers on November 20, 1940.

The Horthy regime sought a “revision of the Trianon Treaty” during the inter-war period.

Hungary launched an anti-Serbian policy, seeking to annex Delvidek, the southern territory or South Land, to Hungary. The Serbs were blamed as “ungrateful devils” who “took Hungarian ancestral lands.” The Horthy regime encouraged and spread inflammatory anti-Serbian racist propaganda during the interwar period. The regime alleged that Serbs committed atrocities against the Hungarian population of Vojvodina in order to justify war with Yugoslavia. Pal Teleky, the Hungarian prime minister, rejected this anti-Serbian propaganda and the bogus pretext for the invasion of Yugoslavia.

By the end of 1941, the Hungarian government began a propaganda campaign which alleged that the Vojvodina Serbs sought to murder and massacre ethnic Hungarians and Germans.

From January 4 to 30, 1942, Hungarian forces killed 3,928 people in Vojvodina, consisting of 2,662 Serbs, 1,103 Jews, and 163 victims from other nationalities during the “Great Raid” or “Grand Raid” or “Razzia”.

The raid on Novi Sad began on January 21, 1942 when Hungarian troops surrounded and sealed off the city. The pretext for the raid was a small rebellion that occurred outside the city. A total curfew was imposed on Serbs and Jews. Serbs and Jews were arrested by Hungarian police forces and sent before the Board of Identification. From January 21 to 23, forty-one Serbs and Jews were killed. These murders began the “hladni dani” or “cold days” in Novi Sad, the systematic mass murders of Vojvodina Serbs and Jews.

On January 23, more than 1,300 Serbian and Jewish civilians were systematically murdered by Hungarian police forces in the streets of Novi Sad.

The most notorious atrocities and murders occurred at The Strand, Novi Sad’s beach on the Danube River. On that day the Danube River was frozen solid with a temperature of -25C. Hungarian forces brought over 1,300 Serbs, Jews, to the frozen Danube River and lined up in four rows. Hungarian forces then shot them in the back, men, women, and children. Holes in the ice were then made by the Hungarian troops with shells. The bodies were then thrown into the broken ice of the Danube River. Many of the bloated corpses washed up on the shore while other corpses flowed down the Danube River to Belgrade. Bodies continued to wash up for two weeks after the atrocity. In all, over 1,300 people were killed that day. Of those killed, 813 were Vojvodina Jews, 380 were Vojvodina Serbs, 168 children, 7 Serbian Orthodox priests, and 1 Jewish rabbi.

Vojvodina’s Nazi Past: The Untold Story

The ethnic German population of Vojvodina in the Banat was recruited into a Nazi Waffen SS Division, the 7th SS Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”, which was accused of committing the worst atrocities of any SS Division during World War II. Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler was photographed reviewing and inspection the Vojvodina Prinz Eugen Nazi SS Division. The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials held that all members of the SS were war criminals. This history has been suppressed and censored in the Western and US media. The former United Nations Secretary-General and president of Austria, Kurt Waldheim, was photographed reviewing the Vojvodina Nazi SS Division Prinz Eugen with the commander of the division, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen SS, Artur Phleps.

The Vojvodina Petrohemija complex in Pancevo bombed by NATO in 1999.

Autonomy in Vojvodina and Kosovo

Vojvodina mirrors or parallels Kosovo-Metohija. This is not by accident. Vojvodina was created as an autonomous province in Serbia in 1946 by the Communist regime precisely and purposely to amputate Serbian territory, to cut Serbia down to size. Kosovo-Metohija was likewise created as an autonomous province for the same reason. The goal of the Communist dictatorship was the same in both cases: To destroy Serbian dominance by amputating or cutting up Serbia into “autonomous” provinces. This was not done for the other republics. The two issues are intertwined. Under the 1974 Yugoslav Communist Constitution, Vojvodina and Kosovo acquired autonomy which was tantamount to republic status, having equal say with Serbia at the federal level, the tail wagging the dog.

Every sovereign country has the right to prevent this type of creeping separatism and secession.

In 2004, Vojvodina was swamped with Serbian refugees from Croatia, Krajina, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Slovenia, and Kosovo. Many of the Serbs in Vojvodina can trace their origins to refugees escaping massacres in Kosovo by Muslim Albanians and Ottoman Turks.

In the 2002 census, Vojvodina had a total population of 2,031,992, which has not changed markedly from the earlier census. The Serbian population of Vojvodina according to the 2002 census is 1,321,807. Serbs make up 65.05% of the population of Vojvodina. The Serbian population is the majority, i.e., they decide in a democracy, not the minority 15% Hungarians.

The Hungarian population of Vojvodina is 290,207, or 14.28%. There are 56,637 Slovaks, or 2.79%. There are 56,546 Croats, or 2.78%. Other ethnic groups make up 15.10% of the total population. There are six official languages: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, and Rusyn or Ruthenian. There are 26 ethnic groups in Vojvodina.

NATO and Greater Hungary and Greater Albania

The illegal NATO war and occupation of Kosovo-Metohija in 1999 is a model for Vojvodina. Under the bogus propaganda smokescreen of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide”, the US and NATO sought to create an independent state of Kosova. The same NATO paradigm applies to Vojvodina. Indeed, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Hungarian-American Coalition (HAC), a well-connected lobby group in the US, campaigned for NATO to “detach” the northern Hungarian-speaking section of Vojvodina. Like in Kosovo, with the creation of Greater Albania by NATO, Hungarian lobby groups in the US clamored for the similar creation of a Greater Hungary. Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban even stated that he had been promised that NATO would not bomb Hungarian-settled regions of Vojvodina during the illegal bombing campaign in 1999. This promise, however, was not kept. NATO targeted not only Serbian civilians, but Hungarian civilians and Albanian civilians in Kosovo. All NATO cared about was military and economic and political expansion in the Balkans. Let someone else sort out the bodies. The illegal bombing and occupation was all about power, not humanitarianism as the US propaganda so glibly claimed.

Hungary provided NATO with refueling bases and allowed NATO aircraft use of Hungarian air-space in bombing attacks against Yugoslavia. And like in 1941 with Nazi Germany, Hungary let NATO use bases in Hungary to launch attacks against Yugoslavia. Of course, Adolf Hitler, like in so many other things, got there first. NATO was using Hitler’s strategy.

NATO destroyed civilian infrastructure in both Vojvodina and Kosovo. In Vojvodina, NATO destroyed 11 and damaged 13 bridges, including the Sloboda and Zerstorte bridges. The Sloboda Most or Freedom Bridge in Novi Sad, built in 1981, was destroyed on April 4, 1999. There were vehicles and bicyclists on the bridge when NATO bombs struck. NATO was targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. It would cost 34 million euro for the bridge to be reconstructed. NATO destroyed three bridges on the Danube River. If this is not a NATO war crime, what is? The oil refinery in Novi Sad was also bombed 10 times by NATO.

Not everyone in Hungary was in lock-step with the illegal NATO policy against Yugoslavia. In the April 15, 1999 Hungarian weekly Magyar Democrate, the NATO bombing was rebuked: “The Serbs also know that Americans are the stupidest, and, therefore most conceited creatures on Earth. That is why the Serbs paint the word ‘target’ on their T-shirts in English. For Kosovo, and for just about everything one does not like, the coming age is to be blamed. The coming age is defined by American culture; it is more monstrous, more mendacious, and crueler than the most monstrous, most mendacious, and cruelest Hollywood action movie. A blockbuster.”

US lobby groups such as the Hungarian-American Coalition (HAC) and the Center for Hungarian-American Congressional Relations (CHACR), Hungarian Americans for Human Rights in Delvidek, the American Hungarian Federation, the American-Hungarian Foundation, have intensified efforts to get the US to create greater “autonomy” for the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina. In 1999, the Hungarian-American Coalition made the unfounded allegations that the Serbian government was planning to “ethnically cleanse” the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina, which mirrored the phony US propaganda line on Kosovo. US Congressman Thomas Lantos wrote a provocative letter to Serbian prime Minister Kostunica on July 9, 2004:

I am deeply troubled by the alarming escalation of anti-Hungarian, anti-Semitic, and anti-Roma violence that has taken place in Vojvodina recently. The enclosed chronology details incidents of harassment and physical violence against non-Serbs, threats against ethnic Hungarians, and pro-autonomy advocates, desecration of cemeteries, and vandalism of historic symbols.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs have accused Serbs of committing “atrocities” against Hungarians in Vojvodina. In 2004, Kovacs complained to the EU that “atrocities against non-Serb communities in Vojvodina” were occurring. He wanted the EU to intervene. Serbian Prime Minister Vojslav Kostunica criticized these actions by Kovacs, who sought to “internationalize the issue”. These were internal and domestic issues that the Serbian government was able to address and resolve. Kovacs was blowing these events out of all proportion in order to involve the EU and to get the EU to intervene in an internal issue.

The Vojvodina Petrohemija complex in Pancevo bombed by NATO in 1999.

Hungarian political leaders have used the spurious and bogus US propaganda claims of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” and “atrocities” to openly call for the creation of a Greater Hungary, just like the one Adolf Hitler created in 1941. Viktor Orban alleged that Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian government were committing “ethnic terrorism” against the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina. He claimed that Serbia’s Hungarians are “hostages”. On National Day in Hungary, Orban made a provocative and open call for “the cross-border reunification of the Hungarian nation.” This blatant advocacy of Greater Hungary was criticized by Vojvodina Hungarian leader Jozsef Kasza. Another way to create a unified Hungary is by creating “spiritual togetherness” and a “nation above borders”. One way to achieve this was by creating dual citizenship for ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina, Romania, and other countries. A referendum was held in Hungary that was defeated. Nevertheless, both in Hungary itself and in the US, the creation of a Greater Hungary is the objective of all the “autonomy” debates. The Hungarian-American Coalition even “openly advocates Hungarian nationalism”. Autonomy is a not so subtle US propaganda smokescreen meant to conceal the actual US objectives in Vojvodina. Like in Kosovo, “autonomy” is merely a code-word for separatism and secession. Conversely, one is not allowed to even mention the terms “Greater Hungary” or “Greater Albania”. They are all “myths” and the creations of “Serbian propaganda”. One is to immediately self-censor and delete them from conscious thought.

Greater Hungary or Greater Hungary Myth?

Is the US reviving the ideology of Greater Hungary of the Miklos Horthy Nazi/fascist regime? The American Hungarian Federation has openly stated that the goal in Delvidek is to obtain “re-unification” of all Hungarian lands, “unjustly dismembered” after World War I. Greater Hungary consists of Hungary proper plus Karpatalja (Transcarpathia, Ukraine), Erdely or Transylvania, Delvidek or (“Southern Plains”, Vajdasag) and Felvidek (Slovakia).

Is Vojvodina the next Kosovo? To be sure, the US would much prefer that Vojvodina becomes the next Kosovo. US and NATO military bases would be set up in Vojvodina, US economic interests would flood the “independent” Vajdasag/Delvidek, George Soros and the International Crisis Group (ICG) would bring “democracy” and “economic reforms” to Vojvodina by raiding and looting and acquiring the economic assets of the region. But how likely is there a replay of the Kosovo scenario in Vojvodina? The Hungarian population is a minority so the oppressed/repressed majority propaganda of the US government will not work. The population of Vojvodina is 65% Serbian, i.e., Serbian majority.

What about human and civil rights violations? Aren’t the Vojvodina Hungarians oppressed/repressed? The Hungarian minority has full and equal civil and human rights in Vojvodina. Hungarians have their own schools, Hungarian-language newspapers and publications, and Hungarian is an official language.

Toxic and carcinogenic vinyl-chlroide monomer gas cloud rises over Pancevo after NATO bombed Vojvodina in 1999.

What can the US do to create another bogus Kosovo scenario in Vojvodina? The US strategy will be to create greater “autonomy” for Vojvodina, even establishing a Vojvodina Republic, which will then be induced to secede by the US, much like the US policy on Montenegro and “Kosova”. This is what the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) based in Washington, DC advocates.

In 2000, the CSIS and the Hungarian American Coalition sponsored an “international conference” in Washington, DC entitled “Vojvodina: Final Piece of the Yugoslav Puzzle”. The stated purpose was “to focus American policymakers on Vojvodina.” Vojvodina “now has a historic opportunity to consider viable options for its future.” Janusz Bugajski, a former employee of the CIA’s Radio Free Europe (RFE) with extensive US government and media “contacts”, is the director of the Eastern Europe Project. Bugajski seeks to foster “democratization” in Eastern Europe, which in reality means getting NGOs in Eastern Europe, finding ways for NATO expansion, finding markets for US corporate interests, and assisting US foreign policy objectives. The CSIS refers to the Serbian province of Kosovo as “Kosova”.

The US has shown support for secessionist/separatist political leaders in Vojvodina: Nenad Canak, who leads the League of the Social Democrats of Vojvodina. Joszef Kasza, who heads the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, an ethnic Hungarian party, and Miodrag Isakov, who heads the Vojvodina Reformist Party. On February 5, 1999, Canak‘s party adopted the Vojvodina Republic resolution, proposing that Vojvodina should become a Republic of Serbia. He argued that the Autonomous Province status should be abolished. Canak called for the equality of all “ethnic communities” in Vojvodina, abolishing the concept of “ethnic minorities”. There should also be equality of all of Vojvodina’s six official languages. There should be “decentralization”. He opposed “Belgradeization” and attacked the “parasitical regime in Belgrade.” Canak has been described as an “extremist”. He called for a referendum on the status of Vojvodina and has claimed that the province is “occupied”.

Conclusion: Divide and Conquer

US policy is identical to that followed with Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro. Indeed, Nenad Canak is the mirror image of Milo Djukanovic. Divide et impera. Divide and rule.

The US “Balkanization” or dismemberment policy in the former Yugoslavia has been one of divide et impera, divide and conquer, a policy developed by the Roman Empire. The policy is to pit one people against another people, to get one religious group against another religious group, to pit one another against another nation. The Ottoman Empire used it, the Austro-Hungarian Empire used it, Nazi Germany used it, and the US and NATO used it in the 1990s during the break-up of Yugoslavia. In Kosovo, the US policy was to pit Albanian Muslims against Orthodox Serbs.

In Vojvodina, US policy is to pit Hungarians against Serbs. But is there really any ethnic animosity between Hungarians and Serbs in Vojvodina? There has always been a history of good relations between Hungarians and Serbs. US policy seeks to place a wedge or barrier between Hungarians and Serbs. This is the only way the US can gain control in Vojvodina, by sowing the seeds of ethnic, religious, and racial hatred and intolerance and enmity, just like the US did in Kosovo. Pit one people against another people. The policy worked in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. It should work in Vojvodina. The US policy is transparent. But it is hypocritical. The US should first grant “autonomy” and “independence” at home before it does so abroad. California, the largest US state, is majority Hispanic or Mexican. Why not grant Mexicans autonomy or even independence? Why not return Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, to Mexico? The US should set the example. Why isn’t Dalmatia granted autonomy and Republic status in Croatia? What about Istria, Srem, and Baranje?

An unexploded NATO shell with the statement: "Do you still wanna be a Serb now!!"

The reason is that the concept of “autonomy” is meaningless and nonsensical in the West. Why? Autonomy is a Communist and Stalinist/Leninist concept. Yugoslavia modeled its autonomy concept on the one in the USSR, developed by V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin. It is absurd that NATO, the US, and EU should be advocating this Stalinist concept. Indeed, in his self-serving memoirs, My Life, former US President Bill Clinton justified the illegal US/NATO Kosovo War in 1999 as restoring the “autonomy” that was taken away from Kosovo by Slobodan Milosevic. But Clinton shows his profound ignorance here. He doesn’t know, and his handlers have not bothered to inform him, that the “autonomy” concept is a Communistic and Leninistic/Stalinistic conception. Why even preserve this anachronistic concept? The answer is that it serves a useful function. Autonomy allows the US/EU/NATO to dismember states which it regards as hostile. It is the first and key step in secession and “Balkanization” and dismemberment. And this is why a concept derived from Lenin and Stalin is the key propaganda tenet of US propaganda and foreign policy in the Balkans. In order for it to succeed, however, one people, one region, one ethnic group, must be pitted against another. Hitler and Himmler claimed they dismembered Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France, not because doing so would advance German interests, but because they wanted to “liberate” oppressed and repressed minorities from domination. In the Baltics, Hitler and Himmler sought to liberate the Balts from Jewish domination and exploitation. They pitted Balts against Jews. In Yugoslavia, they pitted German proxies and allies, such as Croat and Albanian nationalists, against Serbs. The Nazis were “liberating” Kosovo Muslims from Serbian domination. In Croatia, Nazi Germany was creating a Croatian nation that would be independent and sovereign. To do this, Croats were pitted against Serbs. The US/NATO/EU have adopted the same modus operandi (MO) as the one established by Nazi Germany: Divide and conquer. This policy is being applied in Vojvodina.

There has never been any historical enmity or animosity between Serbs and Hungarians. There has been mutual respect and understanding between the two peoples and nations. It has been foreign powers who have created ethnic and religious enmity between Serbs and Hungarians in order to advance their own interests. The US/NATO/EU seek to divide and conquer in Vojvodina by manufacturing and creating artificial ethnic and religious enmity. It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Bosnia. It worked in Croatia. So why not apply this policy in Vojvodina? This is the real danger. The US/NATO/EU have self-interested motives in promoting secession and separatism. As they did in Kosovo, they will apply this paradigm to Vojvodina in the future as well: Divide and conquer.