As well, I don't believe Bosnia should have been split up as envisioned by Izebetgovic/Tudjman/Milosevic early on. The Vance Owen plan seemed to present a perfectly functional framework for gov't, one that worked elswehere, and without 100,000 deaths that ensued, the people would have been much more capable of getting along in a power-sharing gov't. In both these cases we see that the principle of self-determination was not used to further the cause of Democracy, or to prevent violence, but it actually caused violence precisely because the right of self-determination was given to select groups of people, while it was refused for others, and not only that, the West acquiesced as discriminatory laws were passed by the very people they had given the right of self-determination to.
There have to be real standards that have an ethical logic to them, or otherwise powerful actors will always have the option of mucking things up.
Citizens take up arms when they feel threatened and when they feel incited to violence. I tend to resent the fact that sometimes democratic principles are swept under the rug when principles of self-determination are espoused, and that's precisely one of the triggers for violence. And I'm also disappointed when organs and entities such as the EU look askance at those very same principles when they have every right to apply them, as they should have in Cyprus before the referendum.
Cyprus and Croatia are in my mind nations where two sets of peoples could have easily co-existed in one unified nation, had the west simply insisted on the adoption of democratic principles. I believe the Serbs would have no cause for separation in the Krajina had the West simply insisted that the Croats repeal the discriminatory laws they passed on the birth of the new republic.
