On November 12

On this day in ...
... 1920 (90 years ago today), at a town near Genoa, the Treaty of Rapallo was signed (right) by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Italy. (ohoto credit) By the terms of the treaty a number of territories, containing populations of varying ethnicities, were annexed to Italy. An independent state known as Fiume also was established; later it became part of Yugoslavia.

(Prior November 12 posts are here, here, and here.)

Not so fast toward the EU?

'Our children must not be burdened by policies of the 1990s.'

So said Serbian President Boris Tadić a few days ago, while laying a wreath near Vukovar, Croatia, where Serb forces executed more than 200 hospital patients as part of a 3-month siege in which more than 1,000 Croats were killed, 5,000 civilians seized, and 22,000 non-Serbs expelled. (credit for Reuters photo)
Tadić said he had come

to pay respect to the victims, to say words of apology, to show regret and create a possibility for Serbia and Croatia to turn a new page.

Part of that post-atonement chapter, Serbia hopes, is European Union membership, so that Serbia no doubt welcomed subsequent EU and the U.S. State Department comments heralding the visit as a welcome step toward reconciliation.
But the move brings to mind the objection that Serge Brammertz (below right), Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, raised regarding any plan to allow EU admission while ICTY indictees like former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić remain at large. As we've posted, Brammertz has said:

Be sure to ask countries to support the tribunal. There is a tendency to think, 'Let's move on. Let's take the countries into the international community. We are saying, 'There can be no compromise. There can be no alternative to bringing the fugitives to justice.'

On May 22

On this day in ...

... 1992, the General Assembly resolutions admitted 3 new U.N. member states, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia. All formerly had been part of the state then known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but broke off, following armed conflicts of varying length and brutality, in the aftermath of the 1980 death of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who'd ruled the SFRY with an iron hand since 1953. (map credit)

... 1762, the empires of Sweden and Prussia concluded the Treaty of Hamburg, bringing an end to conflict between the 2 countries during the Seven Years War (1756-63) and returning to the territorial status quo as it had existed between those countries before that war began. The alliance was desired by Prussia after it had broken off relations with the Russian empire.

(Prior May 22 posts are here and here.)

On January 2, ...

... 1890, encouraged by his wife, Caroline Scott Harrison, President Benjamin Harrison hired Alice B. Sanger as a stenographer, making her the 1st woman to work for pay at the White House as anything other than a domestic servant. Sanger went on to work for 40 years at the U.S. Postal Service in Washington.

... 1993 (15 years ago today), leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats -- the 3 factions at war for nearly a year in the former Yugoslavia -- met in Geneva at the instance of U.N. special envoys Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen. The talks would fail, and peace accords would not be signed for another 3 years.

On December 14, ...

... 1985, Wilma Mankiller (left) became the 1st woman Chief of a major Native American tribe, receiving 56% of the votes cast for leader of the Cherokee Nation. She had learned skills in organizing for the rights of women and others in San Francisco, where she was "a shy housewife and mother in her 20s," named Mrs. Hugo Olaya, before becoming politicized when she joined the occupation of Alcatraz. She then moved back to Oklahoma to apply her skills on behalf of her people. Reelected Chief once, Mankiller resigned in 1995 because of ill health.

... 1995, 3 years of bloodshed in the onetime Yugoslavia province, Bosnia-Herzegovina, ended when leaders of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia signed the Dayton Accords at a ceremony in Paris. The peace accords, which were negotiated at a U.S. military base in Ohio, established Bosnia as an independent state.