The Balkans Watch Ukraine, But See Themselves

The Balkans Watch Ukraine, But See Themselves

5.3.14  Analysts for Change  

RFERL

In Belgrade, protesters backed Russia's military intervention in Ukraine: "Crimea is Russia, Kosovo is Serbia."

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By Gojko Veselinovic and Ivana Bilic

March 05, 2014

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- International news rarely makes an impact in the Balkans, which has spent the past two decades immersed in its own roiling headlines of war, recovery, poverty, and resentment.

But that has changed with the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, whose complicated struggle for multiethnic balance and postimperial autonomy from Russia strikes all too close to home.

In every corner of the Balkans, from newly independent Kosovo to politically torpid Bosnia-Herzegovina, people are watching events in Ukraine from their personal vantage point as survivors, or victims, of the Yugoslav collapse. Some applaud Euromaidan for taking down a corrupt regime, others lament the potential economic fallout. But no one's opinion seems indivisible from their own experience.

In Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnia's Serb-majority Republika Srpska -- which has frequently threatened secession in favor of joining Serbia proper -- many residents are eager to defend Russia's military buildup in Crimea, saying the territory's ethnic Russians risk retribution from Ukraine's new pro-Western government.

MORE SEE:  http://www.analystsforchange.org/2014/03/the-balkans-watch-ukraine-but-see.html