Interestingly, the term “ethnic cleansing” has its origins in the balkans: https://www.liquisearch.com/ethnic_cleansing/origins_of_the_term
In the 1980-1990s Serbian politicians used the term as a way to deny genocide because genocide has a legal basis where as “cleansing” does not. Of course they did not want to be found criminally responsible.
My assumption is smaller countries are weaker and easier to dominate.
Communists/anti-imperialists across the world, and especially in the west, wish so much to believe a fantasy of the Yugoslav wars where the communist Serbs were defeated by NATO.
The reality is after the death of Tito in 1980 nationalism was bubbling up among the different states and by 1991 communism was dead in Yugoslavia. Talks of separatism was happening with every ethnic group in the 1980s but for Belgrade the rhetoric had become that of Greater Serbia. You will not find a single speech or letter from Milosevic in the 90s that even remotely resembles socialist values. In fact you will not find Serbian soldiers with socialist/communist values, no “brotherhood and Unity” or celebration of Tito. It was purely nationalism and fascism, Chetnik, orthodox and even monarchist symbols were displayed. There was no hammer and sickle or red star.
If you wish to understand what happened, you will have to look into the history of WWI & WWII in the region. I don’t have time to go into depth but here is a short article that slightly touches on it: https://detsvenskahatet.aftonbladet.se/chapter/del-4/
If you’re asking if the Srebrenica Massacre happened? Yes, it absolutely did. 8000 unarmed Muslim Bosnian men were rounded up and killed by Serbian forces (with the help of the UN). There is an abundance of evidence: photos, videos, mass graves and witnesses.
Here is a video which shows one of the killings part of the Srebrenica massacre (warning graphic): https://youtu.be/lwi7w6lIjys
In the video, a Serbian Orthodox priest is seen blessing members of the Scorpions unit before they go on to kill the Muslim men, he says: “give strength to the most faithful Serbian army to fight and to win against the enemy of the Serbian people.”
The victims were identified as: Safet Fejzić (17), Azmir Alispahić (17), Sidik Salkić (36), Smail Ibrahimović (35), Dino Salihović (18) and Juso Delić (25).
This is also a good documentary about it: https://youtu.be/Vj9hPamC04U
Bonus, the human Safari of Sarajevo. How wealthy foreigners paid to sniper civilians in Sarajevo: https://youtu.be/6-9nZkdaNrQ
I can understand wanting to side against NATO in every conflict, they were not there in good faith (never are really). I also believe that there was outside interference to stoke the flames of nationalism in Yugoslavia, after all a strong united balkan nation threatened the economic interests of Western Europe and the USA. But it didn’t take a lot of effort for the whole thing to crumble, it fell faster and easier than any other “target” like Libya or Syria. The USSR, Czechoslovakia divided and Germany reunified without war. China, Vietnam, Cuba and even Venezuela are still kickin. The balkan rabid fascists couldn’t wait to slaughter the “other” for revenge for something that happened 50yrs ago which was revenge for something that happened 30yrs ago which was revenge for etc. etc… Out of all the communist countries I find Yugoslavia the most disappointing.
So you would rather assist with war crimes/genocide than live in poverty? I would rather serve crack than serve the empire.
It sounds like you and your friend are neurodivergent.