Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477376" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Balkan Nightmares</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The ghosts of history haunt the Balkans.<br>Ancient passions, unbending hatreds<br>turmoil the region.<br>Painful tragedies of the past<br>are recycled by memories.<br>Permanent hostage of bound<br>and determined remembrance, <br>Race, religion and poverty clash <br>in violent convulsions. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ethnic warfare and ruthless fright<br>sweep across nations, <br>fuelled by explosions of grief, revenge<br>and fear.<br>They are immersed in horror, <br>terror, chaos and bloodshed, <br>the sufferings of children, <br>the sorrows of fathers, <br>and the agonies of widows. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In 1453 the Turks led by Mehmet II<br>captured Constantinople <br>and the Eastern Roman Empire<br>ceased to exist.<br>The Ottomans became the new masters<br>of the Balkan provinces, <br>ushering in long centuries <br>of rugged struggles for freedom<br>and independence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In 1697 Prince Eugene of Savoy <br>conquered Sarajevo, <br>A historic city that he left burned down<br>and plague-infected. Although by 1717 <br>the prince liberated Belgrade <br>and the Danube region from Ottoman rule, <br>he failed to retake the Bosnian capital.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the 19th century Austria-Hungary<br>annexed Bosnia, but together with Albania, <br>it remains a Muslim stronghold<br>in the heart of Europe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In one summer day in 1914<br>the driver of Archduke Franz Ferdinand<br>took a wrong turn to Franz Josef Street, <br>at the edge of the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo. <br>On an official visit, the heir presumptive <br>to the Austro-Hungarian throne was riding<br>in an open car along with his pregnant wife, <br>Sophie. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A young Serb, Gavrilo Princip, a member<br>of the secret Pan-Slavic Black Hand Society, <br>spotted them. He approached the car <br>and from a distance of five feet<br>he fired twice<br>his FN model pistol, shooting the Archduke<br>in the neck and Sophie in the abdomen. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bleeding, but still conscious, <br>he pleaded her: <br>&quot;Please, don't die. You must live<br>for the sake of our children&quot;.<br>But they both died<br>on the way to the hospital.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The assassination of the royal couple<br>was a main catalyst that precipitated <br>the outbreak of the First World War.<br>On July 28,1914, Austria-Hungary <br>declared war on Serbia.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Serbs, <br>Croats and Slovenes, <br>came to existence in the Great War. <br>However, peace did not last long.<br>When Yugoslavia refused to join <br>Hitler's New Order in Europe, <br>the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade <br>and Nazi Germany invaded the country.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Fuehrer's armies occupied Sarajevo<br>on April 16,1941.<br>Bosnia and Herzegovina<br>as well as Croatia<br>became Nazi satellite states.<br>Fascist Bosnian Muslims, <br>Croatian Ustasha, <br>Serb Chetniks clashed with each other <br>or fought against<br>Tito's anti-fascist partisans.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The fighting was bloody and brutal. <br>The occupying German forces<br>Committed dreadful atrocities. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Croatian Ustasha<br>had been especially notorious <br>for wanton acts of cruelty, <br>torturing and murdering <br>thousands of Serbs and Jews, <br>men, women and children.<br>During World War II <br>over one million Yugoslavs died.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia <br>was born out of the flames and ruins <br>of the Second World War. <br>Yet, after Tito's death <br>and the collapse of communism in the 1980s<br>the ethnic communities of the republic <br>wanted independence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Serb Communist Party leader <br>Slobodan Milosevic became a nationalist <br>and changed the Serbian constitution.<br>He annulled the autonomy <br>of the Albanian province of Kosovo<br>and introduced repressive measures <br>against ethnic Albanians.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Seeking independence, <br>Slovenia and Croatia in 1991<br>voted to secede <br>from the Yugoslav federation. <br>A year later Bosnia, too, <br>declared independence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the Yugoslav Dissolution Wars, <br>Slovenia gained sovereignty, <br>following brief skirmishes<br>with the federal Yugoslav People's Army.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In other parts <br>of the disintegrating communist republic<br>the tragedy of war struck<br>with enormous devastation, <br>enfolding as a long lasting conflict, <br>a violent catastrophe<br>that engulfed a large part of the Balkans<br>in flames. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In November 1991 Serb militias<br>supported by the Yugoslav Army<br>murdered hundreds of Croatians<br>in the Vukovar region.<br>They continued to bombard the town<br>for three months solid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In December, <br>the Serbian Autonomous Oblast declared <br>its independence under the name <br>of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.<br>It controlled one third of Croatian territory<br>and pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, <br>expelling the Croatian population<br>from the oblast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But by 1993<br>the newly created Croatian Army<br>was strong enough to start an offensive<br>against the Serbs. The conflict escalated<br>into a full scale Yugoslav civil war <br>and entered its bloodiest phase.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In August 1995 the Croatian Army<br>invaded Krajina. Within a few days<br>more than 200,000 Serbs fled their homes.<br>NATO forces intervened<br>but supported the Croats. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">They patrolled the skies and attacked <br>Serb surface-to-air missile radar sites.<br>Croatian planes raided Serbian towns <br>and army positions.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A dreadful nightmare<br>descended on the Balkans.<br>Croatian aircrafts bombed and strafed <br>Civilians, as frightened Serbs; old and young, <br>women and children, trying to reach safety, <br>had been trapped on roads <br>clogged with refugees.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Adding to the horrors, Bosnian Muslim troops <br>crossed the border into Krajina and cut off<br>the Serbian escape routes. <br>Along with the Croatian assault, <br>the Bosnian artillery pounded<br>the fleeing Serbs and burned down<br>Serbian villages.<br> <br>Meanwhile the Serbian enclaves in Bosnia<br>had striven to join a greater Serbia <br>and engaged in ethnic cleansing.<br>In July 1995 Serb forces<br>of General Ratko Mladic<br>slaughtered thousands of Bosnian Muslims <br>in Srebrenica.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wounds of the Second World War<br>had not healed yet and Yugoslavs<br>found themselves now fighting a new<br>and terrible tribal war.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They realized that peace<br>is precious and fragile, <br>that it has to be constantly nourished, <br>that it can never be taken for granted. <br>They looked back with nostalgia<br>to past days of tranquility. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not very long <br>before the troubles started <br>Yugoslavia hosted<br>the Winter Olympic games.<br>The games were held in 1984<br>in the city of Sarajevo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now, eight years later, <br>Serbian troops encircled the Bosnian capital.<br>In a siege that lasted 43 months, <br>the nationalists cut off food supplies, <br>utilities and communications. <br>Serbian snipers shot at Sarajevans <br>going to work or to shop. <br>More than 12,000 Bosnian Muslims, <br>as well as Serb and Croatian residents <br>of the city were killed in the siege, <br>among them,1,500 children.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At the same time Serb nationalists <br>throughout Bosnia shelled and burned down<br>villages and towns, deported people<br>to detention camps and terrorized<br>Bosnian Muslims and Croats.<br>They systematically raped the women, <br>tortured and executed the men.<br>They conducted a scorched earth policy, <br>destroying houses, schools, roads, <br>bridges and railways and forced millions<br>of people to flee their homes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In 1999, in the same decade<br>that the Rwandan genocide took place, <br>President Milosevic of Serbia attempted <br>another ethnic cleansing campaign<br>against the Albanian population of Kosovo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">After NATO intervened<br>and bombed Serbia in order to stop <br>the expulsion of Albanians from the province, <br>the returning Albanians attacked <br>the Serbian residents of Kosovo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now the former victims of ethnic cleansing <br>Became the perpetrators of the same crimes<br>against humanity. The Albanians drove out<br>one hundred thousand Serbs from Kosovo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Human tragedies know neither political, <br>nor ethnical, nor religious frontiers. <br>The Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians<br>involved in the conflicts <br>of the Yugoslav Dissolution Wars<br>became both aggressors and victims.<br>Many of them committed <br>heinous war crimes.<br>Civilians, especially the women<br>and the children, suffered terribly <br>on all sides.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Paul+Hartal">Paul Hartal</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477376" data-title="Balkan Nightmares de Paul Hartal" data-description="The ghosts of history haunt the Balkans.
Ancient passions, unbending hatreds
turmoil the region.
Painful tragedies of the past
are recycled by memories.
Permanent hostage of bound
and determined remembrance, 
Race, religion and poverty clash 
in v..."></div>
</div>
</div>