goslavia, which they succeeded in doing.rnThe abandonment of Mihailovic was a hard blow to Americansrnof Serbian descent, one which they could not understand,rnespecially given the known antidemocratic position of internationalrncommunism. In fact, they were not told until the 1960’srnthat in March 1948 President Truman had posthumouslyrnawarded Mihailovic the Legion of Merit, but at the insistencernof the State Department it was kept secret, on the grounds thatrnthe news might injure our relations with communist dictatorrnJosip Broz Tito.rnWhen after the war, the Yugoslav communists, under Tito’srnleadership, organized the new Yugoslavia on the pattern of thernSoviet Union, the Serbs were punished by scattering a third ofrnthem among other ethnic units, called republics. AmericanrnSerbs could only say, “We told you so.” While Tito’s regime includedrnSerbian communists, who remained loyal to the partyrnleader, Tito (Croat-Slovene) and his close associates fromrnSlovenia and Croatia were firmly in control. After the breakuprnof Yugoslavia in 1992, Americans of Serbian ancestry foundrnthemselves pilloried when they spoke up in defense of their kinrnin areas of the country where civil war raged. By that time, thernCroats and Slovenes had astutely engaged public relations firmsrnfor “spin control,” publicizing the notion that their secessionsrnwere justified as opposition to the desire of the Serbs to dominaternthem: a clearly spurious charge, but one which the Americanrnmedia spread widely and the public swallowed uncritically.rnThis helps to explain the West’s hasty recognition of thernsecessionist republics and the push to accept them as newrnmembers of the United Nations.rnNeither the media, nor the supposedly independent journalists,rnand certainly no important political leaders, took note ofrnthe fact that the Western actions totally ignored the interests ofrnour once much-touted allies, the Serbs. And those same greatrnpowers seemingly took no note of how their future interests inrnthe Balkans would be affected by the role that the Serbs wouldrneventually play.rnAmericans of Serbian ancestry have been deeply concernedrnabout the widespread satanization of Serbs and Serbia byrnthe politicians and by the media and have asked themselvesrnwhat the Serbs have done to deserve the vilification. They believernthe Serbs have acted in the time-honored tradition ofrnfighting for their rights, a concept occupying a high place in thernpyramid of American political iconography. In this case, however,rnthe Serbs’ determination to fight for their rights met withrnthe equal determination of the West to force them to accept arndetestable outcome in the wake of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.rnThe Serbs, the only group among the South Slavs who werernallies of France, Britain, Russia, and the United States in twornwodd wars, expected understanding if not support. Moreover,rnthese countries, as well as Yugoslavia, were signatories of thernHelsinki Accords, which proclaimed that changing internationallyrnrecognized boundaries by force was unacceptable. Butrnthese countries forgot their obligations, and joined Germany,rnSerbia’s enemy in two wodd wars, in aiding and abetting the secessionistrnrepublics, first of all Slovenia and Croatia, in changingrnYugoslavia’s boundaries by armed force. And there is no indicationrnthat these same powers were aware that they werernviolating the Montevideo Convention of 1932, which stipulatedrnthe conditions for recognizing new states, conditions thatrnCroatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina did not meet.rnWhile there were few Serbs in Slovenia, there were nearlyrnthree-quarters of a million in Croatia and about 1.5 million inrnBosnia-Herzegovina, which followed Slovenia and Croatia inrnseceding. These Serbs, constituting about one-third of the Ser-rnM O V I N G ?rnL ET US KNOWrnBEFORE YOU GO!rnTo assure uninterrupted delivery of CHRONICLESrnplease notify us in advance. Send change of addressrnon this form with the mailing label from your latestrnissue of CHRONICLES to:rnSubscription Department, CHRONICLESrnP.O. Box 800, Mount Morris, Illinois 61054rnNEW ADDRESSrn24/CHRONICLESrnrnrn