The Yugoslav Wars/Analysis: Difference between revisions
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== (What was left of) Yugoslavia ==
* [[A House Divided]]: Being part of Austria-Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Vojvodina (northern Serbia) were not only cultrually different, but economically far more advanced then the other republics who for centuries were under Ottoman rule. Especially in the late 1980s this gave Slovenes and Croats the impression that due to the centralized economy they had to feed the other republics often summerized by the saying "we earn, you spend". From the Serbian perspective Yugoslavia existed on their expense. Not only weren't Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia given any autonomy nor even an entity, but Vojvodina and Kosovo received the status of autonomous republics within Serbia who de facto had the same power just like any other six republics. Tito did this to prevent Serbs dominating Yugoslavia like they did in the Yugoslav Kingdom. Not only was it often believed that Yugoslavia could exist only on a basis of a weak Serbia, but also that Croats and Kosovo Albanians, especially the latter one, were not only pardoned but also rewarded for their crimes in [[World War II]] with an autonomous province. Speaking of [[World War II]], the atrocities the ethnic groups did towards each other created a resentment that was suppressed by Titos ironfisted policy in the name of "[[The Power of Friendship|Brotherhood and Unity]]". Instead of refurbishing the dark past, it became a taboo topic only to be ignited during the collapse of Yugoslavia. Also in the name of said Brotherhood and Unity, any form of nationalism was supressed in order to create a Yugoslav identity. What put the final nail in Yugoslavia's coffin was the constitutional reform of 1974 which granted any of the six republics the right to legally scede from Yugoslavia. Said reform also accepted the Bosnian Muslims (who were either regarded as Muslim Croats, Serbs or simply Yugoslavs) as an official ethnic group making things even more complicated than they already were. The more decentralized the government became the more the local communist parties alienated from each other making Yugoslavia a loose confederation.
* [[You Fail Economics Forever]]: The reason for this entire mess. Yugoslavia's economy was unproductive and inefficient without external life support (in fact the reason why the country prospered during the [[Cold War]] was mostly American economic aid). Once the US stopped sending money to Yugoslavia everything came crashing down and the disasterous policies of the IMF put the final nail in Yugoslavia's coffin. The reform attempts of Ante Marković came too late as the Yugoslav leadership spent too much time putting its head in the sand.
** It's a bit more complicated than that. The [
* [[Crazy Prepared]] / [[Fridge Horror]]: The Siege of Sarajevo and other great operations the JNA (and later Serb forces) pulled off were prepared long ago during Tito's days in case if an ethnic group should rebell. Yugoslavia has always seen her own population as her biggest threat.
* [[Dirty Communists]]: Averted from a Western point of view as Yugoslavia was economically, politically and culturally open to to the west. Yugoslavia was if not de jure at least de facto a NATO member as the north Atlantic alliance would have offered military assistance in case of a Soviet aggression. Played straight from a Croatian POV though.
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* [[The Federation]]: Deconstructed. Every republic and Autonomous Province had a great deal of autonomy from the central government. The constitution of 1974 gave every republic the legal right to secede form Yugoslavia which, given the borders and the ethnic composition of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and to a certain extent Macedonia, in the ensuing war was a lot easier said then done.
* [[Multinational Team]]: Brutally deconstructed. The unresolved grievances and issues the various ethnic groups had with each other were heated up during Yugoslavia's economic collapse which in the end ripped the country apart.
* [[
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: Most soldiers (especially the non-Serbs) of the JNA. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-QUZUSFz0 This video] sums it up well.
{{quote|
'''Soldier:''' No idea, the only thing I know is that they are shooting at us and nothing else.
'''Reporter:''' Do you know who is shooting at you?
'''Soldier:''' The Territorial Defence militia of course.
'''Reporter:''' Do you know why this war is waged?
'''Soldier:''' How the hell should I know...they are, like, they want to secede and we are, like, we don't let them. Really, we just want to go back to the barracks and nothing else.
'''Reporter:''' What do you think? What are you going to do now and how will this go on?
'''Soldier:''' What am I supposed to think? I'm just thinking of staying alive. }}
* [[State Sec]]: The [
* [[Vestigial Empire]]: The socialist Yugoslavia was by the late 80s and early 90s merely a shadow of its former self. Crippled and mauled by economic decline and torn apart by ethnic tensions, the local communist regimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia were toppled and replaced by right-wing ultranationalist firebrands, and it was only a matter of time until everything would burn.
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* [[Nice Guy]]
* [[Only Sane Man]]
* [[Opt Out]] / [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: By late 1991 having realised that Yugoslavia and her economy were dead at this point and that he had no chance to talk sense into the various leaders of whom all jumped on the nationalist bandwagon, Marković threw the towel and resigned from his post.
=== Veljko Kadijević ===
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=== Tropes that apply to all Serb factions ===
* [[A House Divided]]: What often bit them in the ass. The relation between Karadžić and Milošević was distanced and Belgrade's support to the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs was half-assed. Since the JNA withdrew in 1992 from Croatia and Bosnia, regular forces from Serbia proper were no longer involved. Milošević was more than happy to abandon the Krajna Serbs and in 1994 he closed the borders to the Republika Srpska and leaving them to their fate until Karadžić granted full control to Milošević.
** Many Serbian paramilitary formations had different agendas. The volunteers of Arkan and the likes were mostly marauders and brigands interested only in plunder. Rumors say that Arkan's men occasionally even pillaged fellow Serbs. The volunteers of Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party were sent to give military support to local Serbs in the Krajna and the Republika Srpska, [[Unreliable Narrator|at least according to him]].
* [[Army of Thieves and Whores]]: A lot of irregular militias. Special mention goes to Arkan's [
* [[Berserk Button]]: The assassination of Zoran Đinđić triggered a country wide manhunt in Serbia dubbed as ''Operation Sabre''. It ended with most big fish of the Serbian underworld (many who were close allies of Milošević) arrested or KIA.
* [[Big Badass Bird of Prey]]: The Serbian double headed eagle.
* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: The Serb militias and other irregulars. Their ranks ranged from patriotic men going to war to protect their fellow Serbs to psychopathic monsters who were in only for profit and the kicks.
* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]]: The Serbian army was in almost every engagement against the KLA outnumbered at least 2:1 and still the Serbs wiped the floor with them.
** The wily Albanians, on the other hand, responded by taking photos of the dead bodies and crying about "Serb atrocities" to the Western media.
** Of course, this was also in play to some degree on the strategic level, where the Serb and Montenegrin alliance was by a wide margin the strongest of the post-Yugoslav powers, only to steadily lose that advantage after subsequent poundings by the Slovenes, the Croats, the Bosniaks, and (to some degree) NATO, coupled with rampant defections after the Slovene expedition collapsed.
* [[Demonisation]]: Oh where to begin? In fact, almost 99% of English speaking fiction set during the [[Yugoslav Wars]] has them as the bad guys.
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*** A DEFINITE YMMV here. The fact is that the vast majority of, and the most systematic atrocities were carried out by Serbian forces.
** [[The Scapegoat]]: In spite of the complex nature of this conflict, the Serbs are blamed for every ill by Western media and painted as the aggressor, even though the break up of Yugoslavia was a civil war rather than a Serb [[Demonization|Nazi style conquest to expand their Lebensraum at the expense]] of the [[Designated Hero|"poor and innocent" Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians]].
** [[Villain
* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Subverted. For being the largest and most powerful force in this conflict, you may ask yourself why they didn't roll over Bosnia and Croatia. Keep in mind that the local Croatian and Bosnian Serb army and militias were badly equipped, badly trained and only had the [[We Have Reserves|advantage of numbers]] once the JNA (and thus Serbia itself) abandoned them in 1992. Generals like Mladić were mediocre at best, while most of the Serb generals of the former JNA either left when the JNA was disbanded or remained passive with the VJ in Serbia. And even those employed questionable [[Hollywood Tactics|tactics]] and methods that often led to some [
* [[The Empire]]: How they were perceived by the other factions and the majority of the outside world.
** Of course, leaving aside the [[Black and Gray Morality|ethics]] of the situation, they did fit the role on a strategic and tactical level: they had dominated the former Yugoslavia in its' dying days, and so when it devolved, they took the lion's share of the regular military and equipment while everybody else had at best remnants of the old territorial militias. This trope was even [[Invoked Trope|invoked by at least the Slovenes during their Ten Day War of independence]] [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|by drawing comparisons between the Serbian armor invading Slovenia and the Chinese tanks crushing the protests at Tianenmen Square.]] It was only later, when a combination of captured equipment and Western aid and training reached the Croats and Bosniaks that the strategic situation reversed itself.
* [[Enemy Mine]]: The only reason some of their neighbours seem to have a warm relationship is their common hatred towards the Serbs.
* [[Fighting
* [[Humiliation Conga]]: An awful lot of things went wrong for the Serbs in the last two decades. First the Serbian Krajna in Croatia falls after Operation Storm. Then comes the political suicide that was the massacre of Srebrenica which branded the Serbs as genocidal savages in the eyes of the Western world. The war in Bosnia ended with a draw after the Dayton Agreement prevented a military disaster of the VRS. While the Republika Srpska does exist within Bosnia and occupies 49% of the country, keep in mind that before the turning point in 1995 they held almost 70% of Bosnia. While in the Kosovo War the Serbian forces wiped the floor with the KLA, Serbia could not afford to continue the war with a ruined infrastructure and economy due to the NATO airstrikes for much longer. When the war ended, Belgrade lost its control over Kosovo and to rub salt in the wound most of the parliament members of the new state in Europe were former KLA members protected by the Western powers. Ouch!
* [[Kick the Son of
** [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|Some of them]] were themselves also the subject of this trope, and in turn doled it out to at least a few of their enemies who also fit it.
* [[Memetic Mutation]]: The so-called ''Dat Face Soldier'' has his origins from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCJxxI83v4 this] propaganda song.
* [[A Nazi
* [[Slave to PR]]: Something they should have kept in mind if they wished to avoid the demonisation by Western media.
* [[The Sociopath]]: An awful lot of their paramilitary formations like [
* [[Strange Salute]]: The three-Finger salute.
* [[Won the War, Lost
** Inverted with the Bosnian Serbs whose military collapse was averted by the Dayton Agreement and NATO threatening the Bosniaks to bomb them too if they don't stop.
* [[Vestigial Empire]]: Serbia and Montenegro were what was left of Yugoslavia from 1992 - 2006. The Serbs also inherited most of the JNA arsenal.
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=== Slobodan Milošević ===
* [[Acceptable Target]]: To everyone for good reasons.
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* [[Diabolical Mastermind]]: A big part of the problems that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia were caused by him.
* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: By ousting Slobo in October 2000, Serbia's problems were far from over as the economy was still in ruins and most of the mob bosses who de facto reigned Serbia along him were still in charge until 2003.
* [[Due to
* [[Evilly Affable]]: He may have been responsible for a lot of misery in Yugoslavia and he may have lived at the expense of the Serbian population that was starving under UN sanctions, yet he never lost his charisma.
* [[Evil Is Hammy]]
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* [[Tyrant Takes the Helm]]: While things wheren't sunshine and roses for Serbia since the late 1970s it was when Milošević ousted Stambolić and took power that things really started to go downhill.
* [[Villain Ball]]: He held it tightly during the Kosovo War and did things that caused him a lot of unnecessary problems.
* [[Villain
* [[Visionary Villain]]: At least how he presented himself. While officially he tried to keep as many Serbs as possible in one state, thus keeping Yugoslavia alive, Slobo was in reality a political opportunist who used the nationalist sentiment as a mean to manipulate the Serbs for his goals.
=== Borisav Jović ===
* [[Corrupt Bureaucrat]]
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* [[Only Sane Man]]
* [[The Pawn]]: What he was to Milošević [[Unreliable Narrator|according to him]].
* [[Pragmatic Villainy]]: As International Community would recognize Bosnia (and thus see Serbia as the aggressor), Jović ordered all JNA elements from Serbia to leave the country. The Bosnian Serb elements became the [
* [[The Stoic]]
* [[The Spock]]
* [[Stoic Spectacles]]
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]
=== Radovan Karadžić ===
* [[Acceptable Target]]: He was the mastermind behind several crimes against humanity.
* [[Beardness Protection Program]]: What made him [
* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: Big time!
* [[Consummate Liar]]
* [[Diabolical Mastermind]]: If Biljana Plavšić and the recorded phone calls of Ratko Mladić are to be believed, he was behind a lot of nasty things.
* [[Evil Overlord]]: How the Bosniaks see him. Many Serbs still view him as a heroic protector against Islam.
* [[Family Values Villain]]
* [[Morally
* [[Soft
* [[What an Idiot!]]<br />'''You'd expect''' that he would honor his part of the bargain, enjoy the protection of Holdbrooke and Albright and die as a free man.<br />'''Instead''' he secretly returned to the political scene of the Republika Srpska which made the deal void once the CIA intercepted one of his phone calls.
=== Vojislav Šešelj ===
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* [[Funny Moment]]: This man is a comedic gold mine especially during the trials in the ICTY mostly due to [[Refuge in Audacity]].
* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: He gives this in the ICTY during the status conferences.
* [[Hot
* [[Insufferable Genius]]
* [[Knight Templar]]
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* [[Porn Stache]]
* [[What an Idiot!]]: Being completely abandoned by Serbia since the withdrawal of the JNA in 1992 and the Republika Srpska being more than busy fighting against the ArBiH and the HVO, the Republika Srpska Krajina was left to fend for itself. Meanwhile Croatia has built a considerable army outnumbering them at least 3:1 and an invasion of the Krajina was already greenlighted by the NATO. The Contact Group (USA, France, Germany and Russia) developed the [
=== Jovica Stanišić ===
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* [[Dark Chick]]
* [[Girls Behind Bars]]: Except that she, according to an interview, was beaten up by her Muslim inmates [[Laser
* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]
* [[Iron Lady]]
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* [[A Father to His Men]]: Especially during his service in Croatia.
* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: The [
* [[The Captain]]
* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: The death of his daughter [[Sanity Slippage|turned him more and more into a shadow of his former self]].
* [[Family Values Villain]]
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]] / [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: Congrats Rale! You have captured Srebrenica and thus ended the pillage raids of Naser Orić and his goons on neighbouring Serb villages. Unfortunately your guys killed thousands of Muslim men and boys (both civilians and POWs) and gave the NATO the reason they needed to bomb the Serbs. Thus you played in the hands of Izetbegović ensured the political suicide of the Republika Srpska.
** The idea that the Srebrenica massacre was an act of revenge for Naser Oric's raids (the scale of which are usually exaggerated, and the circumstances of which are rarely taken into account by Serb nationalists) has been pretty thoroughly discredited.
* [[Sergeant Rock]]
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: What might have happened to him if you see it from a certain point of view. The capture of Mladić was one of the main conditions for Serbia to join the EU. No matter how you see it, it is still interesting that a few days after [[
* [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters]] / [[Villain
=== Milan Lukić ===
* [[Ax Crazy]]
* [[Colonel Kilgore]]
* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: How he killed the Bosniaks in Višegrad. See below.
* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: Just take a look at some [https://web.archive.org/web/20131228131314/http://milan-lukic-hag.com/images/biografija_1990.jpg pictures] [http://www.browtf.com/wp-content/uploads/art_milan.jpg of]{{Dead link}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20131228130430/http://milan-lukic-hag.com/images/biografija_milan.jpg him] while thinking about the atrocities he commited.
* [[Nightmare Fuel]]: The [
* [[The Sociopath]]
* [[Sociopathic Soldier]]
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=== Patriarch Pavle ===
* [[Hate Dumb]]: Some hate him for paying visits to Karadžić and giving him his blessing while [[Misplaced Nationalism|others]] think being the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church makes you a [[Villain
* [[The Messiah]]: He was often reffered as "The Walking Saint"
{{quote|
* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: Averted. He even condemned all the crimes that were commited by Serb forced.
{{quote|
* [[Nice Guy]]
* [[Only Sane Man]]
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=== Željko Ražnatović "Arkan" ===
* [[Animal Motif]]: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/54/Tigrovi.jpg The]{{Dead link}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20140214094516/http://www.net.hr/2008/01/22/0439007.42.jpg Tiger].
* [[Ax Crazy]]: His fanatism did make him occasionally slip into this territory.
* [[The Bully]]: How he behaved towards fellow Serb commanders. He was even notorious for humiliating Serb soldiers of the VRS.
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* [[Cunning Linguist]]: He was besides of his Serbo-Croatian mother tounge fluent in English, French and Italian which he learned through his criminal career in Western Europe. He was also familiar with German, Swedish and Dutch and also spoke some Bulgarian and Albanian too.
* [[The Dreaded]]: Many Muslims immediately left their homes when hearing about his troops approaching. [[Kill Them All|For a good reason]].
* [[Evil Overlord]]: He was before his death the undisputed overlord of the Serbian underworld and one of the most influencial persons in Serbia, second only to Milošević. He was the founder and leader of the Serbian Volunteer Guard (who later became the [
* [[Evil Power Vacuum]]: Pretty much the reason for his assassination as Milošević and his cronies wanted to take over the entire Serbian underworld.
* [[Pirate]]: Just like any other war profiteer from this period.
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* [[The Sociopath]]
* [[Sociopathic Soldier]]
* [[Soft
* [[Unholy Matrimony]]: How many saw his marriage with Ceca.
* [[Villain Recruitment Song]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhMQ-K0z9M "Arkanovi Tigrovi"]
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* [[Folk Hero]]: What he was to the few he was known to before his involvement in the assassination of Đinđić.
* [[Good
* [[Legion of Lost Souls]]: His past as a French Foreign Legionnaire earned him his nickname.
* [[Tattooed Crook]]
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=== Zoran Đinđić ===
* [[The Conscience]]
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* [[Tear Jerker]]: The death of an optimistic, idealistic and charismatic person like him who really wanted to change Serbia's situation for the better caused a lot of grief.
* [[Think Happy Thoughts]]: His life philosophy.
{{quote|
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: With him being on the idealistic side.
* [[Too Cool to Live]]
* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: How most Serbs think about him.
* [[Wide
== The Croats ==
The Croats, being the second-largest group in the Balkan area, are Catholics and traditional rivals of the Serbs (who are Eastern Orthodox) for a very long time. As cracks appeared in the Yugoslavian state, this ancestral rivarly manifested itself again.
=== Tropes that apply to all Croat factions ===
* [[A Nazi
* [[Character Development]]: Just like Serbia, Croatia's political landscape changed since the end of the war to the point of being almost unrecognizable.
** The [
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: [
* [[Demonisation]]: The Croats were demonized by Serbian propaganda during the war and the memories from the fascist NDH state during [[World War II]] and the atrocities of Ustaše being used as demonizing devices to stir up the hatred even more. In fact, Croatian forces and to a certain extend even civilians were informally designated as Ustaše.
* [[Determinator]]: Against all odds the Croats held out in [
* [[The Empire]]: How the Krajna Serbs viewed and Serb media portrayed them.
* [[Fighting
* [[Putting
* [[The Rival]]: To the Serbs.
* [[Won the War, Lost
=== Franjo Tuđman ===
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=== Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić ===
* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: Is he a [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] who stayed sane in times of insanity or just a world-class opportunist who switches allegiances and ideologies that suit him the most for his political career? Is he a man devoted to peace or only beloved when he speaks against a certain group (Serbs, Bosnian Croats)? Or all of them? It is safe to say that especially amongst the Croats Mesić is a controversial figure who sparked countless [[Flame War|Flame Wars]].
* [[Big Ol' Eyebrows]]
* [[Commander in Chief]]: [
* [[Didn't See That Coming]]: He led [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|the relief convoy]] to [
* [[Fan Dumb]]: Lots of his ardent detractors hate him for supposedly claiming he ended Yugoslavia, whilst at the same time lauding the end of Yugoslavia. Go figure. He actually said that his post on the Presiding Council as Croatia's member does not exist anymore since Croatia was no longer a member state of Yugoslavia.
* [[Forbidden Friendship]]: He was a close friend of the late colonel Gaddafi, much to the displeasure of the US and UK.
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* [[The Stool Pigeon|Whistle Blower]]: Say what you will about the man, but he was consistently the type of guy to speak up against injustice. As a young municipal judge, he denounced local officials using official vehicles for private purposes, as a president and seasoned politician he spoke up against HDZ's many crimes.
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]] / [[Et Tu, Brute?]]: How many Bosnian Croats feel about him when he turned his back on them by saying that Bosnia is their state and not Croatia. It really doesn't help though that the local Croats were put in the Federation with the Bosniaks by American pressure and that unlike the Bosnian Serbs they don't have their own entity.
* [[Wild Card]]
=== Gojko Šušak ===
* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: Is he a Croatian hero or was his betrayal of the Posavina unforgivable?
* [[Big Ol' Eyebrows]]: In terms of eyebrows Šušak is the closest thing in [[Real Life]] you'll get to [[Fist of the North Star|Kenshiro]].
* [[Canada, Eh?]]: Where he lived in exile until 1989.
* [[From Nobody to Nightmare]]: He started out as a construction worker and owner of a pizzeria before being Croatia's Minister of Defense.
* [[Red Baron]]: The Pizza Man.
* [[Villain
=== Anton Tus ===
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=== Ante Gotovina ===
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]] / [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Delivered one in a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loWGrB1InXI debriefing of Operation Storm].
=== Martin Špegelj ===
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* [[Only Sane Man]]
* [[Tear Jerker]]: His death at the hands of a Croatian assassin, who was certainly not acting alone. To add insult to injury, his murderer was pardoned by none other than Franjo Tuđman himself. The murderer then moved to Australia, where he lived in relative luxury for a decade. While the assassin was finally caught and sentenced a few years ago, Croatian courts showed very little interest in finding out who ''ordered'' the assassination - and this is despite evidence pointing to some key figures in the Croatian Democratic Union (and some of whom are still active in Croatian politics!).
* [[Wide
== The Bosniaks ==
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=== Tropes that apply to all Bosniak factions ===
* [[Won the War, Lost
* [[Zerg Rush]]: A popular tactic employed by the ArBiH.
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* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]
* [[Enemy Mine]]: He agreed to ally with the hated Croats in the struggle against the mutual enemy, the Serbs.
* [[Evil Overlord]]
* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: Manipulated the Western press to turn popular opinion against the Serbs.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?|What The Hell]] [[Designated Hero|"Hero"?]]: To ensure American military assistance by giving them a reason to intervene, he ordered the local ArBiH to pull out from Srebrenica leaving the town at the mercy of the Serbs.
=== Fikret Abdić ===
* [[A Father to His Men]]: One of the reasons he was called "Babo" ("Daddy").
* [[Et Tu, Brute?]]: How many Bosniaks felt about his betrayal.
* [[Humiliation Conga]]: After the fall of the Republika Srpska Krajna and with the military collapse of the Republika Srpska, Abdić had no means to defend Velika Kladuša against the ArBiH and the advance of Dudaković's forces brought an end to the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia. When the Serbs abandoned him Croatia granted him asylum which was revoked after Tuđman's death. Since 2002 he has been convicted by the Croatian court to 20 years prison (which 2005 was reduced to 15 years) for war crimes.
* [[Just Like Robin Hood]]: Propably the reason the Bosniaks forgave him the Agrokomerc scandal as they thought that "he may have been a thief but at least he was our thief".
* [[Les Collaborateurs]]: His short-lived and Serb-aligned [
* [[Meaningful Name]]: He got his nickname for a good reason. Being the CEO of [
* [[Only Sane Man]]: He saw no point in dragging the Bosniaks to a war against the Serbs. See [[Pragmatic Villainy]] below.
* [[Pragmatic Villainy]]: As Babo was at first of all things a business man he saw it as more practical to ally himself with the Serbs and do business with them instead of dragging his people to a bloody war.
* [[The Quisling]]: From the Bosniak point of view.
* [[What Could Have Been]]: Babo won the first presidential elections of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He gave the position to Izetbegović for reasons that are unclear even to this day. Speculations range from Izetbegović promising to rule for only one year to him threatening to kill his family.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: The Agrokomerc scandal in 1987. In short: He built his personal fiefdom in Velika Kladuša by paying with promissory notes which turned out to be useless and thus ending up stealing up to US$ 900 million from the state. He was released three years later when it became apparent that the notes weren't as useless as thought.
=== Haris Silajdžić ===
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=== Tropes that apply to all Albanian factions ===
* [[Amazon Brigade]]: Due to a lack of manpower the KLA also recruited women in their ranks. [[Cannon Fodder|Not that it helped them much]].
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* [[Designated Hero]]: The KLA and it's successor organisations.
* [[Redshirt Army]]: While the KLA and the Armed forces of Kosovo employed successful hit and run tactics against the local Serb police, they became this once they fought the Yugoslav Army.
* [[Start of Darkness]]: Contrary to popular belief, Albanians and Serbs had a relatively normal relationship until the early 20th century. When Serbia took Macedonia, Sandžak and Kosovo and occupied parts of northern Albania during the Balkan Wars, the local Albanians, who sided with the Ottomans, went on an armed resistance against the Serbs. The Serbs in return retaliated brutally. Since then Serbia made no effort to integrate her Albanian population while the Albanians showed little to no interest in being part of Serbia. After [[World War I]] the Serb dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia followed a predatory policy towards Albania attempting to annex northern Albanian territorries while encouraging Serbs to resettle Kosovo. During [[World War II]] forces of the Axis aligned Albania and militias like the Balli Kombëtar commited a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Serbs. In Tito's Yugoslavia Serb refugees were prohibited from returning to Kosovo while said region became an Autonomous Province and 1974 a de facto republic. After many years of local authorities abusing said right by allowing the development aid to be lost in the swamp of corruption and turning a blind eye on the violence towards Serbs and other ethnic minorities, Kosovo lost its privileges in 1990. As a result the Albanians created a parallel state known as the [
* [[Villain White Washing Service]]: Again the KLA by the Western media. An irredentist terrorist group who weren't any better than the IRA or the ETA, who had a good share of atrocities, who had ties to organized crime and accoring to some reports even Osama Bin Laden and whose goal was a [
* [[Villain
*** Allegedly, many NATO soldiers are dreaming of the day they can open fire on the Albanian gangsters they are meant to protect. This is what always happens when you try to solve the Balkan gang war by knocking out the largest gang; another gang will simply move in and take over.
* [[The Scrappy]]: How they were sadly treated not only by the Serbs, but by other peoples of Yugoslavia as well (though not as much as the Roma but still). The fact that Albanians aren't Slavs (and thus felt alienated to the premise of Yugoslavia herself) and that every republic was obliged to offer economic development aid to the poorer ones (especially Kosovo) might have been a factor.
* [[Western Terrorists]]: The KLA being Type III with some Type VI elements.
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* [[Not So Different]]: He isn't much different from Milošević. Read the rest of his entries.
* [[Organ Theft]]: What he and his goons are accused of.
* [[Professional Butt
* [[Villain
=== Agim Çeku ===
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* [[Game Breaker]]: The NATO.
* [[General Ripper]]: Wesley Clark. While ordering the deliberate strikes on civilian targets in Serbia during the Kosovo War was morally objectionable enough to say the least, he ordered the British and French KFOR contigent to attack the Russian forces that after the war occupied the Pristina International Airport. Fortunately the British General [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Mike Jackson]] refused to carry out the operation and thus spared us [[World War III]].
* [[Good Republic, Evil Empire]]: How they portrayed the conflict.
* [[Kangaroo Court]]: The ICTY especially to the Serbs and Croats.
* [[Police Are Useless|Peacekeepers Are Useless]]: In both Bosnia and Kosovo where the only thing they accomplished was arming and protecting local warlords while doing nothing to prevent the ethnic cleansings.
* [[Unfortunate Implications]]: The Luftwaffe's participation on the air strikes against Yugoslavia amongst the German people.
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]
* [[
* [[Won the War, Lost
{{reflist}}
[[Category:The Yugoslav Wars]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yugoslav Wars/Useful Notes, The}}
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