BELGRADE, Sept 16 (Hina) - Pupils of the final classes at Serbia's elementary schools, will study history from textbooks which make no mention of names of leading protagonists in the break-up of the former Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRY). There is even no mention of Slobodan Milosevic, a former Serbian and Yugoslav President currently kept at prison at The Hague as an indictee of the UN war crimes tribunal, which holds him responsible for war atrocities in Kosovo, and who is likely to be indicted of war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
BELGRADE, Sept 16 (Hina) - Pupils of the final classes at Serbia's
elementary schools, will study history from textbooks which make no
mention of names of leading protagonists in the break-up of the
former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). There is
even no mention of Slobodan Milosevic, a former Serbian and
Yugoslav President currently kept at prison at The Hague as an
indictee of the UN war crimes tribunal, which holds him responsible
for war atrocities in Kosovo, and who is likely to be indicted of war
crimes in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.#L#
The authors of these textbooks, to be fair, have refrained from
ideological comment. However, this version of Serbian history is
also cleansed from attempts to pin the responsibility to anybody.
This version of the recent history treats the relations among
peoples in the area of the former Yugoslavia in a more tolerant
manner.
During the Second World War those who fought against the occupying
forces were "the Partisans, at whose helm was Josip Broz Tito, and
the Chetniks led by the Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic, a lieutenant of
the Army of the Yugoslav Kingdom", read the textbooks for the eight
form of the elementary education.
The last person to be named in those books is Josip Broz.
A shorter chapter on "contemporary problems of Yugoslavia" teaches
Serbian pupils that after Josip Broz's death "one of the biggest
problems in the country was nationalism."
Although this chapter mentions all the recent wars on the territory
of the ex-SFRY - starting from the war in Slovenia to that one in
Kosovo - no statesman of the current countries in the region is
mentioned.
The authors write that "the opposing views of the (then) Yugoslav
republics on all crucial issues for the survival of the Yugoslav
state (federation) were becoming more and more apparent, and
eventually armed conflicts broke out on its territory. Those
conflicts assumed the greatest proportions in Croatia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. Believing that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(Serbia/Montenegro) is responsible for the conflicts, the UN
Security Council decided, on 30 May 1992, to punish it (FRY)
imposing sanctions, i.e. special economic and political measures,
on it. The war caused huge destruction and suffering, several
hundred thousand people had to flee their homes," the schoolbooks
read.
Regarding the Dayton peace accords, students can read that
signatories to this document, drawn up during the negotiations held
in Dayton, U.S., in December 1995, were "the presidents of Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia," but once again there is no name.
The students are taught that the September 2000 general elections
in Yugoslavia and the December 2000 elections in Serbia led to the
change in authorities and changes in the internal and foreign
policies. In October that year, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
was re-admitted into important international organisations, and
the international community lifted the sanctions, according to
those books. This part fails to mention who won and who lost those
ballot. There is no mention of the coalition DOS that gained the
vote.
The new authorities in Serbia seem to have opted for an unusual kind
of catharsis - to erase names and negative phenomena.
(hina) ms