The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result
of a series of political upheavals and conflicts
during the early 1990s.
After a period of political crisis in the
1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart,
but the unresolved issues caused bitter inter-ethnic
Yugoslav wars.
The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina
and neighboring parts of Croatia.
After the Allied victory in World War II,
Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six
republics, with borders drawn along ethnic
and historical lines: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and
Slovenia.
In addition, two autonomous provinces were
established within Serbia: Vojvodina and Kosovo.
Each of the republics had its own branch of
the League of Communists of Yugoslavia party
and a ruling elite, and any tensions were
solved on the federal level.
The Yugoslav model of state organization,
as well as a "middle way" between planned
and liberal economy, had been a relative success,
and the country experienced a period of strong
economic growth and relative political stability
up to the 1980s, under the rule of president-for-life
Josip Broz Tito.
After his death in 1980, the weakened system
of federal government was left unable to cope
with rising economic and political challenges.
In the 1980s, Albanians of Kosovo started
to demand that their autonomous province be
granted the status of a constituent republic,
starting with the 1981 protests.
Ethnic tensions between Albanians and Kosovo
Serbs remained high over the whole decade,
which resulted in the growth across Yugoslavia
of Serb opposition to the high autonomy of
provinces and ineffective system of consensus
at the federal level, which were seen as an
obstacle for Serb interests.
In 1987, Slobodan Milošević came to power
in Serbia, and through a series of populist
moves acquired de facto control over Kosovo,
Vojvodina and Montenegro, garnering a high
level of support among Serbs for his centralist
policies.
Milošević was met with opposition by party
leaders of the western republics of Slovenia
and Croatia, who also advocated greater democratization
of the country in line with the Revolutions
of 1989 in Eastern Europe.
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved
in January 1990 along federal lines.
Republican communist organizations became
the separate socialist parties.
During 1990, the socialists (former communists)
lost power to ethnic separatist parties in
the first multi-party elections held across
the country, except in Serbia and Montenegro,
where they were won by Milošević and his
allies.
Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly
heated.
Between June 1991 and April 1992, four republics
declared independence (only Serbia and Montenegro
remained federated), but the status of ethnic
Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and that
of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained
unsolved.
After a string of inter-ethnic incidents,
the Yugoslav Wars ensued, first in Croatia
and then, most severely, in multi-ethnic Bosnia
and Herzegovina; the wars left long-term economic
and political damage in the region.
== Background ==
Yugoslavia occupied a significant portion
of the Balkan peninsula, including a strip
of land on the east coast of the Adriatic
Sea, stretching southward from the Bay of
Trieste in Central Europe to the mouth of
Bojana as well as Lake Prespa inland, and
eastward as far as the Iron Gates on the Danube
and Midžor in the Balkan Mountains, thus
including a large part of Southeast Europe,
a region with a history of ethnic conflict.
The important elements that fostered the discord
involved contemporary and historical factors,
including the formation of the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia, the first breakup and subsequent
inter-ethnic and political wars and genocide
during World War II, ideas of Greater Serbia,
Greater Croatia, Greater Albania, and conflicting
views about Pan-Slavism, and the unilateral
recognition by a newly reunited Germany of
the breakaway republics.
Before World War II, major tensions arose
from the first, monarchist Yugoslavia's multi-ethnic
make-up and relative political and demographic
domination of the Serbs.
Fundamental to the tensions were the different
concepts of the new state.
The Croats and Slovenes envisaged a federal
model where they would enjoy greater autonomy
than they had as a separate crown land under
Austria-Hungary.
Under Austria-Hungary, both Slovenes and Croats
enjoyed autonomy with free hands only in education,
law, religion, and 45% of taxes.
The Serbs tended to view the territories as
a just reward for their support of the allies
in World War I and the new state as an extension
of the Kingdom of Serbia.Tensions between
the Croats and Serbs often erupted into open
conflict, with the Serb-dominated security
structure exercising oppression during elections
and the assassination in national parliament
of Croat political leaders, including Stjepan
Radić, who opposed the Serbian monarch's
absolutism.
The assassination and human rights abuses
were subject of concern for the Human Rights
League and precipitated voices of protest
from intellectuals, including Albert Einstein.
It was in this environment of oppression that
the radical insurgent group (later fascist
dictatorship), the Ustaše were formed.
During World War II, the country's tensions
were exploited by the occupying Axis forces
which established a Croat puppet state spanning
much of present-day Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The Axis powers installed the Ustaše as the
leaders of the Independent State of Croatia.
The Ustaše resolved that the Serbian minority
were a fifth column of Serbian expansionism,
and pursued a policy of persecution against
the Serbs.
The policy dictated that one-third of the
Serbian minority were to be killed, one-third
expelled, and one-third converted to Catholicism
and assimilated as Croats.
Conversely, the Chetniks pursued their own
campaign of persecution against non-Serbs
in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia
and Sandžak per the Moljević plan ("On Our
State and Its Borders") and the orders issues
by Draža Mihailović which included "[t]he
cleansing of all nation understandings and
fighting".
Both Croats and Muslims were recruited as
soldiers by the SS (primarily in the 13th
Waffen Mountain Division).
At the same time, former royalist, General
Milan Nedić, was installed by the Axis as
head of the puppet government and local Serbs
were recruited into the Gestapo and the Serbian
Volunteer Corps, which was linked to the German
Waffen-SS.
Both quislings were confronted and eventually
defeated by the communist-led, anti-fascist
Partisan movement composed of members of all
ethnic groups in the area, leading to the
formation of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia.
The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of
victims in Yugoslavia during World War II
was 1,704,000.
Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by
historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub
Kočović showed that the actual number of
dead was about 1 million.
Of that number, 330,000 to 390,000 ethnic
Serbs perished from all causes in Croatia
and Bosnia.
These same historians also established the
deaths of 192,000 to 207,000 ethnic Croats
and 86,000 to 103,000 Muslims from all affiliations
and causes throughout Yugoslavia.Yugoslavia
was in its heyday a regional industrial power
and an economic success.
From 1960 to 1980, annual gross domestic product
(GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical
care was free, literacy was 91 percent, and
life expectancy was 72 years.Yugoslavia was
a unique state, straddling both the East and
West.
Moreover, its president, Josip Broz Tito,
was one of the fundamental founders of the
"third world" or "group of 77" which acted
as an alternative to the superpowers.
More importantly, Yugoslavia acted as a buffer
state between the West and the Soviet Union
and also prevented the Soviets from getting
a toehold on the Mediterranean Sea.
The central government's control began to
be loosened due to increasing nationalist
grievances and the Communist's Party's wish
to support "national self determination".
This resulted in Kosovo being turned into
an autonomous region of Serbia, legislated
by the 1974 constitution.
This constitution broke down powers between
the capital and the autonomous regions in
Vojvodina (an area of Yugoslavia with a large
number of ethnic minorities) and Kosovo (with
a large ethnic-Albanian population).
Despite the federal structure of the new Yugoslavia,
there was still tension between the federalists,
primarily Croats and Slovenes who argued for
greater autonomy, and unitarists, primarily
Serbs.
The struggle would occur in cycles of protests
for greater individual and national rights
(such as the Croatian Spring) and subsequent
repression.
The 1974 constitution was an attempt to short-circuit
this pattern by entrenching the federal model
and formalizing national rights.
The loosened control basically turned Yugoslavia
into a de facto confederacy, which also placed
pressure on the legitimacy of the regime within
the federation.
Since the late 1970s a widening gap of economic
resources between the developed and underdeveloped
regions of Yugoslavia severely deteriorated
the federation's unity.
The most developed republics, Croatia and
Slovenia, rejected attempts to limit their
autonomy as provided in the 1974 Constitution.
Public opinion in Slovenia in 1987 saw better
economic opportunity in independence from
Yugoslavia than within it.
There were also places that saw no economic
benefit from being in Yugoslavia; for example,
the autonomous province of Kosovo was poorly
developed, and per capita GDP fell from 47
percent of the Yugoslav average in the immediate
post-war period to 27 percent by the 1980s.
It highlighted the vast differences in the
quality of life in the different republics.
Economic growth was curbed due to Western
trade barriers combined with the 1973 oil
crisis.
Yugoslavia subsequently fell into heavy IMF
debt due to the large number of International
Monetary Fund (IMF) loans taken out by the
regime.
As a condition of receiving loans, the IMF
demanded the "market liberalization" of Yugoslavia.
By 1981, Yugoslavia had incurred $19.9 billion
in foreign debt.
Another concern was the unemployment rate,
at 1 million by 1980.
This problem was compounded by the general
"unproductiveness of the South," which not
only added to Yugoslavia's economic woes,
but also irritated Slovenia and Croatia further.
== Causes ==
=== Structural problems ===
The SFR Yugoslavia was a conglomeration of
eight federated entities, roughly divided
along ethnic lines, including six republics—
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia,
Macedonia,
Montenegro,
Serbia and
Slovenia—and two autonomous provinces within
Serbia,
Vojvodina and
Kosovo.With the 1974 Constitution, the office
of President of Yugoslavia was replaced with
the Yugoslav Presidency, an eight-member collective
head-of-state composed of representatives
from six republics and, controversially, two
autonomous provinces of the Socialist Republic
of Serbia, SAP Kosovo and SAP Vojvodina.
Since the SFR Yugoslav federation was formed
in 1945, the constituent Socialist Republic
of Serbia (SR Serbia) included the two autonomous
provinces of SAP Kosovo and SAP Vojvodina.
With the 1974 constitution, the influence
of the central government of SR Serbia over
the provinces was greatly reduced, which gave
them long-sought autonomy.
The government of SR Serbia was restricted
in making and carrying out decisions that
would apply to the provinces.
The provinces had a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency,
which was not always cast in favor of SR Serbia.
In Serbia, there was great resentment towards
these developments, which the nationalist
elements of the public saw as the "division
of Serbia".
The 1974 constitution not only exacerbated
Serbian fears of a "weak Serbia, for a strong
Yugoslavia" but also hit at the heart of Serbian
national sentiment.
A majority of Serbs see Kosovo as the "cradle
of the nation", and would not accept the possibility
of losing it to the majority Albanian population.
In an effort to ensure his legacy, Tito's
1974 constitution established a system of
year-long presidencies, on a rotation basis
out of the eight leaders of the republics
and autonomous provinces.
Tito's death would show that such short terms
were highly ineffective.
Essentially it left a power vacuum which was
left open for most of the 1980s.
=== Death of Tito and the weakening of Communism
===
On 4 May 1980, Tito's death was announced
through state broadcasts across Yugoslavia.
His death removed what many international
political observers saw as Yugoslavia's main
unifying force, and subsequently ethnic tension
started to grow in Yugoslavia.
The crisis that emerged in Yugoslavia was
connected with the weakening of the Communist
states in Eastern Europe towards the end of
the Cold War, as symbolized by the fall of
the Berlin Wall in 1989.
In Yugoslavia, the national communist party,
officially called the League of Communists
of Yugoslavia, had lost its ideological potency.In
1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and
Arts (SANU) contributed significantly to the
rise of nationalist sentiments, as it drafted
the controversial SANU Memorandum protesting
against the weakening of the Serbian central
government.
The problems in the Serbian autonomous province
of SAP Kosovo between ethnic Serbs and Albanians
grew exponentially.
This, coupled with economic problems in Kosovo
and Serbia as a whole, led to even greater
Serbian resentment of the 1974 Constitution.
Kosovo Albanians started to demand that Kosovo
be granted the status of a constituent republic
beginning in the early 1980s, particularly
with the 1981 protests in Kosovo.
This was seen by the Serbian public as a devastating
blow to Serb pride because of the historic
links that Serbians held with Kosovo.
It was viewed that that secession would be
devastating to Kosovar Serbs.
This, eventually, led to the repression of
the Albanian majority in Kosovo.The more prosperous
republics of SR Slovenia and SR Croatia wanted
to move towards decentralization and democracy.
=== Economic collapse and the international
climate ===
During the years of Tito's presidency, his
policy was to push for rapid economic growth.
Indeed, growth was high in the 1970s.
However, the over-expansion of economic growth
caused inflation and pushed Yugoslavia into
economic recession.A major problem for Yugoslavia
was the heavy debts contacted in the 1970s,
which proved to be difficult to repay in the
1980s.
Yugoslavia's debt load, initially estimated
at a sum equal to $6 billion U.S dollars,
instead turned to be equal to sum equivalent
to $21 billion U.S. dollars, which was a colossal
sum for a poor country.
The Reagan administration in a Secret Sensitive
1984 National Security Decision Directive
NSDD 133 expressed concern that Yugoslavia's
debt load might cause the country to align
with the Soviet bloc.
The 1980s were a time of economic austerity
as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed
stringent conditions on Yugoslavia, which
caused much resentment at the Communist elites
who had so mismanaged the economy by recklessly
borrowing of money abroad.
The policies of austerity also led to the
uncovering of much corruption by the elites,
most notably with the "Agrokomerc affair"
of 1987, when the Agrokomerc enterprise of
Bosnia turned out to the center of a vast
nexus of corruption running all across Yugoslavia
and that the managers of Agrokomerc had issued
promissory notes equivalent to $500 US dollars
without collateral, forcing the state to assume
responsibility for their debts when Agrokomerc
finally collapsed.
The rampant corruption in Yugoslavia, of which
the "Agrokomerc affair" was merely the most
dramatic example of, did much to discredit
the Communist system, as it turned out the
elites were living luxurious lifestyles well
beyond the means of ordinary people with money
stolen from the public purse, at a time of
austerity.
The problems imposed by heavy indebtedness
and corruption had by the mid 1980s increasingly
started to corrode the legitimacy of the Communist
system as ordinary people started to lose
faith in the competence and honesty of the
elites.A major strike wave in 1987-88 as workers
demanded higher wages to compensate for inflation
as the IMF mandated the end of various subsidies
were accompanied by denunciations of the entire
system as corrupt.
Finally, the politics of austerity brought
to the fore tensions between the well off
"have" republics like Slovenia and Croatia
vs the poorer "have not" republics like Serbia.
Both Croatia and Slovenia felt that they were
paying too much money into the federal budget
to support the "have not" republics like Serbia
while Serbia wanted Croatia and Slovenia to
pay more money into the federal budget to
support them at a time of austerity.
Increasingly, demands were voiced in Serbia
for more centralisation in order to force
Croatia and Slovenia to pay more into the
federal budget, demands that were completely
rejected in the "have" republics.The relaxation
of tensions with the Soviet Union after Mikhail
Gorbachev became leader in 1985 meant that
western nations were not longer willing to
be generous with restructuring Yugoslavia's
debts as the example of a communist country
outside of the Soviet bloc was not longer
needed by the West as a way of destabilising
the Soviet bloc.
The external status quo, which the Communist
Party had depended upon to remain viable was
thus beginning to disappear.
Furthermore, the failure of communism all
over Central and Eastern Europe once again
brought Yugoslavia's inner contradictions,
economic inefficiencies (such as chronic lack
of productivity, fuelled by the country's
leaderships' decision to enforce a policy
of full employment), and ethno-religious tensions
to the surface.
Yugoslavia's non-aligned status resulted in
access to loans from both superpower blocs.
This contact with the United States and the
West opened up Yugoslavia's markets sooner
than the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.
The 1980s were a decade of Western economic
ministrations.
A decade of frugality resulted in growing
frustration and resentment against both the
Serbian 'ruling class,' and the minorities
who were seen to benefit from government legislation.
Real earnings in Yugoslavia fell by 25% from
1979 to 1985.
By 1988 emigrant remittances to Yugoslavia
totalled over $4.5 billion (USD), and
by 1989 remittances were $6.2 billion (USD),making
up over 19% of the world's total.
== Rise of nationalism in Serbia (1987–89)
==
=== Slobodan Milošević ===
In 1987, Serbian communist official Slobodan
Milošević was sent to bring calm to an ethnically-driven
protest by Serbs against the Albanian administration
of SAP Kosovo.
Milošević had been, up to this point, a
hard-line communist who had decried all forms
of nationalism as treachery, such as condemning
the SANU Memorandum as "nothing else but the
darkest nationalism".
However, Kosovo's autonomy had always been
an unpopular policy in Serbia and he took
advantage of the situation and made a departure
from traditional communist neutrality on the
issue of Kosovo.
Milošević assured Serbs that their mistreatment
by ethnic Albanians would be stopped.
He then began a campaign against the ruling
communist elite of SR Serbia, demanding reductions
in the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
These actions made him popular amongst Serbs
and aided his rise to power in Serbia.
Milošević and his allies took on an aggressive
nationalist agenda of reviving SR Serbia within
Yugoslavia, promising reforms and protection
of all Serbs.
The ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia was the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ),
a composite political party made-up of eight
Leagues of Communists from the six republics
and two autonomous provinces.
The League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) governed
SR Serbia.
Riding the wave of nationalist sentiment and
his new popularity gained in Kosovo, Slobodan
Milošević (Chairman of the League of Communists
of Serbia (SKS) since May 1986) became the
most powerful politician in Serbia by defeating
his former mentor President of Serbia Ivan
Stambolic at the 8th Session of the League
of Communists of Serbia on 22 September 1987.
In a 1988 Belgrade rally, Milošević made
clear his perception of the situation facing
SR Serbia in Yugoslavia, saying:
At home and abroad, Serbia's enemies are massing
against us.
We say to them "We are not afraid.
We will not flinch from battle".
On another occasion, he privately stated:
We Serbs will act in the interest of Serbia
whether we do it in compliance with the constitution
or not, whether we do it in compliance in
the law or not, whether we do it in compliance
with party statutes or not.
=== Anti-bureaucratic revolution ===
The Anti-bureaucratic revolution was a series
of protests in Serbia and Montenegro orchestrated
by Milošević to put his supporters in SAP
Vojvodina, SAP Kosovo, and the Socialist Republic
of Montenegro (SR Montenegro) to power as
he sought to oust his rivals.
The government of Montenegro survived a coup
d'état in October 1988, but not a second
one in January 1989.In addition to Serbia
itself, Milošević could now install representatives
of the two provinces and SR Montenegro in
the Yugoslav Presidency Council.
The very instrument that reduced Serbian influence
before was now used to increase it: in the
eight member Presidency, Milošević could
count on a minimum of four votes – SR Montenegro
(following local events), his own through
SR Serbia, and now SAP Vojvodina and SAP Kosovo
as well.
In a series of rallies, called "Rallies of
Truth", Milošević's supporters succeeded
in overthrowing local governments and replacing
them with his allies.
As a result of these events, in February 1989
the ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organized
the 1989 Kosovo miners' strike, demanding
the preservation of the, now endangered, autonomy.
This contributed to ethnic conflict between
the Albanians and the Serb population of the
province.
At 77% of the population of Kosovo in the
1980s, ethnic-Albanians were the majority.
In June 1989, the 600th anniversary of Serbia's
historic defeat at the field of Kosovo, Slobodan
Milošević gave the Gazimestan speech to
200,000 Serbs, with a Serb nationalist theme
which deliberately evoked medieval Serbian
history.
Milošević's answer to the incompetence of
the federal system was to centralise the government.
Considering Slovenia and Croatia were looking
farther ahead to independence, this was considered
unacceptable.
=== Repercussions ===
Meanwhile, the Socialist Republic of Croatia
(SR Croatia) and the Socialist Republic of
Slovenia (SR Slovenia), supported the Albanian
miners and their struggle for recognition.
Media in SR Slovenia published articles comparing
Milošević to Italian fascist dictator Benito
Mussolini.
Milošević contended that such criticism
was unfounded and amounted to "spreading fear
of Serbia".
Milošević's state-run media claimed in response
that Milan Kučan, head of the League of Communists
of Slovenia, was endorsing Kosovo and Slovene
separatism.
Initial strikes in Kosovo turned into widespread
demonstrations calling for Kosovo to be made
the seventh republic.
This angered Serbia's leadership which proceeded
to use police force, and later the federal
army (the Yugoslav People's Army JNA) by order
of the Serbian-controlled Presidency.
In February 1989 ethnic Albanian Azem Vllasi,
SAP Kosovo's representative on the Presidency,
was forced to resign and was replaced by an
ally of Milošević.
Albanian protesters demanded that Vllasi be
returned to office, and Vllasi's support for
the demonstrations caused Milošević and
his allies to respond stating this was a "counter-revolution
against Serbia and Yugoslavia", and demanded
that the federal Yugoslav government put down
the striking Albanians by force.
Milošević's aim was aided when a huge protest
was formed outside of the Yugoslav parliament
in Belgrade by Serb supporters of Milošević
who demanded that the Yugoslav military forces
make their presence stronger in Kosovo to
protect the Serbs there and put down the strike.
On 27 February, SR Slovene representative
in the collective presidency of Yugoslavia,
Milan Kučan, opposed the demands of the Serbs
and left Belgrade for SR Slovenia where he
attended a meeting in the Cankar Hall in Ljubljana,
co-organized with the democratic opposition
forces, publicly endorsing the efforts of
Albanian protesters who demanded that Vllasi
be released.
In the 1995 BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia,
Kučan claimed that in 1989, he was concerned
that with the successes of Milošević's anti-bureaucratic
revolution in Serbia's provinces as well as
Montenegro, that his small republic would
be the next target for a political coup by
Milošević's supporters if the coup in Kosovo
went unimpeded.
Serbian state-run television denounced Kučan
as a separatist, a traitor, and an endorser
of Albanian separatism.
Serb protests continued in Belgrade demanding
action in Kosovo.
Milošević instructed communist representative
Petar Gračanin to make sure the protest continued
while he discussed matters at the council
of the League of Communists, as a means to
induce the other members to realize that enormous
support was on his side in putting down the
Albanian strike in Kosovo.
Serbian parliament speaker Borisav Jović,
a strong ally of Milošević, met with the
current President of the Yugoslav Presidency,
Bosnian representative Raif Dizdarević, and
demanded that the federal government concede
to Serbian demands.
Dizdarević argued with Jović saying that
"You [Serbian politicians] organized the demonstrations,
you control it", Jović refused to take responsibility
for the actions of the protesters.
Dizdarević then decided to attempt to bring
calm to the situation himself by talking with
the protesters, by making an impassioned speech
for unity of Yugoslavia saying:
Our fathers died to create Yugoslavia.
We will not go down the road to national conflict.
We will take the path of Brotherhood and Unity.
This statement received polite applause, but
the protest continued.
Later Jović spoke to the crowds with enthusiasm
and told them that Milošević was going to
arrive to support their protest.
When Milošević arrived, he spoke to the
protesters and jubilantly told them that the
people of Serbia were winning their fight
against the old party bureaucrats.
Then a shout to be from the crowd yelled "arrest
Vllasi'".
Milošević pretended not to hear the demand
correctly but declared to the crowd that anyone
conspiring against the unity of Yugoslavia
would be arrested and punished and the next
day, with the party council pushed to submission
to Serbia, Yugoslav army forces poured into
Kosovo and Vllasi was arrested.
In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened
after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian
constitution that allowed the Serbian republic's
government to re-assert effective power over
the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Up until that time, a number of political
decisions were legislated from within these
provinces, and they had a vote on the Yugoslav
federal presidency level (six members from
the republics and two members from the autonomous
provinces).A group of Kosovo Serb supporters
of Milošević who helped bring down Vllasi
declared that they were going to Slovenia
to hold "the Rally of Truth" which would decry
Milan Kučan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and
demand his ousting.
However, the attempt to replay the anti-bureaucratic
revolution in Ljubljana in December 1989 failed:
the Serb protesters who were to go by train
to Slovenia, were stopped when the police
of SR Croatia blocked all transit through
its territory in coordination with the Slovene
police forces.In the Presidency of Yugoslavia,
Serbia's Borisav Jović (at the time the President
of the Presidency), Montenegro's Nenad Bućin,
Vojvodina's Jugoslav Kostić and Kosovo's
Riza Sapunxhiu, started to form a voting bloc.
== Final political crisis (1990–92) ==
=== Party crisis ===
In January 1990, the extraordinary 14th Congress
of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
was convened.
The combined Yugoslav ruling party, the League
of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ), was in
crisis.
Most of the Congress was spent with the Serbian
and Slovene delegations arguing over the future
of the League of Communists and Yugoslavia.
SR Croatia's actions in preventing Serb protesters
from reaching Slovenia played its part.
The Serbian delegation, led by Milošević,
insisted on a policy of "one person, one vote"
in the party membership, which would empower
the largest party ethnic group, the Serbs.
In turn, the Croats and Slovenes sought to
reform Yugoslavia by delegating even more
power to six republics, but were voted down
continuously in every motion in an attempt
to force the party to adopt the new voting
system.
As a result, the Croatian delegation, led
by Chairman Ivica Račan, and Slovene delegation
left the Congress on 23 January 1990, effectively
dissolving the all-Yugoslav party.
This in turn, along with external pressure,
caused the adoption of multi-party systems
in all republics.
=== Multi-party elections ===
When the individual republics organized their
multi-party elections in 1990, the ex-communists
mostly failed to win re-election, while most
of the elected governments took on nationalist
platforms, promising to protect their separate
nationalist interests.
In multi-party parliamentary elections nationalists
defeated re-branded former Communist parties
in Slovenia on 8 April 1990, in Croatia on
22 April and 2 May 1990, in Macedonia 11 and
25 November and 9 December 1990, and in Bosnia
and Herzegovina on 18 and 25 November 1990.
In multi-party parliamentary elections, re-branded
former communist parties were victorious in
Montenegro on 9 and 16 December 1990, and
in Serbia on 9 and 23 December 1990.
In addition Serbia re-elected Slobodan Milošević
as President.
Serbia and Montenegro now increasingly favored
a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
=== Ethnic tensions in Croatia ===
In Croatia, the nationalist Croatian Democratic
Union (HDZ) was elected to power, led by controversial
nationalist Franjo Tuđman, under the promise
of "protecting Croatia from Milošević",
publicly advocating for Croatian sovereignty.
Croatian Serbs, for their part, were wary
of Tuđman's nationalist government and in
1990, Serb nationalists in the southern Croatian
town of Knin organized and formed a separatist
entity known as the SAO Krajina, which demanded
to remain in union with the rest of the Serb
populations if Croatia decided to secede.
The government of Serbia endorsed the Croatian
Serbs' rebellion, claiming that for Serbs,
rule under Tuđman's government would be equivalent
to the World War II fascist Independent State
of Croatia (NDH) which committed genocide
against Serbs during World War II.
Milošević used this to rally Serbs against
the Croatian government and Serbian newspapers
joined in the warmongering.
Serbia had by now printed $1.8 billion worth
of new money without any backing of the Yugoslav
central bank.Croatian Serbs in Knin, under
the leadership of local Knin police inspector
Milan Martić, began to try to gain access
to weapons so that the Croatian Serbs could
mount a successful revolt against the Croatian
government.
Croatian Serb politicians including the Mayor
of Knin met with Borisav Jović, the head
of the Yugoslav Presidency in August 1990,
and urged him to push the council to take
action to prevent Croatia from separating
from Yugoslavia, as they claimed that the
Serb population would be in danger in Croatia
led by Tuđman and his nationalist government.
At the meeting, army official Petar Gračanin
told the Croatian Serb politicians how to
organize their rebellion, telling them to
put up barricades, as well as assemble weapons
of any sort in which he said "If you can't
get anything else, use hunting rifles".
Initially the revolt became known as the "Log
Revolution" as Serbs blockaded roadways to
Knin with cut-down trees and prevented Croats
from entering Knin or the Croatian coastal
region of Dalmatia.
The BBC documentary "The Death of Yugoslavia"
revealed that at the time, Croatian TV dismissed
the "Log Revolution" as the work of drunken
Serbs, trying to diminish the serious dispute.
However the blockade was damaging to Croatian
tourism.
The Croatian government refused to negotiate
with the Serb separatists and decided to stop
the rebellion by force, and sent in armed
special forces by helicopters to put down
the rebellion.
The pilots claimed they were bringing "equipment"
to Knin, but the federal Yugoslav Air Force
intervened and sent fighter jets to intercept
them and demanded that the helicopters return
to their base or they would be fired upon,
in which the Croatian forces obliged and returned
to their base in Zagreb.
To the Croatian government, this action by
the Yugoslav Air Force revealed to them that
the Yugoslav People's Army was increasingly
under Serbian control.
The SAO Krajina was officially declared as
a separate entity on 21 December 1990, by
the Serbian National Council headed by Milan
Babić.
In August 1990 the Croatian Parliament replaced
its representative Stipe Šuvar with Stjepan
Mesić in the wake of the Log Revolution.
Mesić was only seated in October 1990 because
of protests from the Serbian side, and then
joined Macedonia's Vasil Tupurkovski, Slovenia's
Janez Drnovšek and Bosnia and Herzegovina's
Bogić Bogićević in opposing the demands
to proclaim a general state of emergency,
which would have allowed the Yugoslav People's
Army to impose martial law.Following the first
multi-party election results, the republics
of Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia proposed
transforming Yugoslavia into a loose federation
of six republics in the autumn of 1990, however
Milošević rejected all such proposals, arguing
that like Slovenians and Croats, the Serbs
also had a right to self-determination.
Serbian politicians were alarmed by a change
of phrasing in the Christmas Constitution
of Croatia that changed the status of ethnic
Serbs of Croatia, from an explicitly mentioned
nation (narod) to a nation listed together
with minorities (narodi i manjine).
=== Independence of Slovenia and Croatia ===
In the Slovenian independence referendum,
1990, held on 23 December 1990, a vast majority
of residents voted for independence.
88.5% of all electors (94.8% of those participating)
voted for independence – which was declared
on 25 June 1991.In January 1991, the KOS (Kontraobaveštajna
služba, Yugoslav counter-intelligence service)
displayed a video of a secret meeting (the
"Špegelj Tapes") that they purported had
happened some time in 1990 between the Croatian
Defence Minister, Martin Špegelj, and two
other men, in which Špegelj announced that
they were at war with the army and gave instructions
about arms smuggling as well as methods of
dealing with the Yugoslav Army's officers
stationed in Croatian cities.
The Army subsequently wanted to indict Špegelj
for treason and illegal importation of arms,
mainly from Hungary.
The discovery of Croatian arms smuggling combined
with the crisis in Knin, the election of independence-leaning
governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,
Macedonia and Slovenia, and Slovenes demanding
independence in the referendum on the issue
suggested that Yugoslavia faced the imminent
threat of disintegration.
On 1 March 1991, the Pakrac clash ensued,
and the Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska
Narodna Armija, JNA) was deployed to the scene.
On 9 March 1991, the March 1991 protests in
Belgrade were suppressed with the help of
the Army.
On 12 March 1991, the leadership of the Army
met with the Presidency in an attempt to convince
them to declare a state of emergency which
would allow for the pan-Yugoslav army to take
control of the country.
Yugoslav army chief Veljko Kadijević declared
that there was a conspiracy to destroy the
country, saying:
An insidious plan has been drawn up to destroy
Yugoslavia.
Stage one is civil war.
Stage two is foreign intervention.
Then puppet regimes will be set up throughout
Yugoslavia.
This statement effectively implied that the
new independence-advocating governments of
the republics were seen by Serbs as tools
of the West.
Croatian delegate Stjepan Mesić responded
angrily to the proposal, accusing Jović and
Kadijević of attempting to use the army to
create a Greater Serbia and declared "That
means war!".
Jović and Kadijević then called upon the
delegates of each republic to vote on whether
to allow martial law, and warned them that
Yugoslavia would likely fall apart if martial
law was not introduced.
In the meeting, a vote was taken on a proposal
to enact martial law to allow for military
action to end the crisis in Croatia by providing
protection for the Serbs.
The proposal was rejected as the Bosnian delegate
Bogić Bogićević voted against it, believing
that there was still the possibility of diplomacy
being able to solve the crisis.
The Yugoslav Presidency crisis reached an
impasse when Sapunxhiu 'defected' his faction
in the second vote on martial law in March
1991.
Jović briefly resigned from the presidency
in protest, but soon returned.
On 16 May 1991, the Serbian parliament replaced
Kosovo's Riza Sapunxhiu with Sejdo Bajramović,
and Vojvodina's Nenad Bućin with Jugoslav
Kostić.
This effectively deadlocked the Presidency,
because Milošević's Serbian faction had
secured four out of eight federal presidency
votes and it was able to block any unfavorable
decisions at the federal level, in turn causing
objections from other republics and calls
for reform of the Yugoslav Federation.After
Jović's term as head of the collective presidency
expired, he blocked his successor, Mesić,
from taking the position, giving the position
instead to Branko Kostić, a member of the
pro-Milošević government in Montenegro.
In the Croatian independence referendum held
on 2 May 1991, 93.24% voted for independence.
On 19 May 1991, the second round of the referendum
on the structure of the Yugoslav federation
was held in Croatia.
The phrasing of the question did not explicitly
inquire as to whether one was in favor of
secession or not.
The referendum asked the voter if he or she
was in favor of Croatia being "able to enter
into an alliance of sovereign states with
other republics (in accordance with the proposal
of the republics of Croatia and Slovenia for
solving the state crisis in the SFRY)?".
83.56% of the voters turned out, with Croatian
Serbs largely boycotting the referendum.
Of these, 94.17% (78.69% of the total voting
population) voted "in favor" of the proposal,
while 1.2% of those who voted were "opposed".
Finally, the independence of Croatia was declared
on 25 June 1991.
== The beginning of the Yugoslav Wars ==
=== War in Slovenia ===
Both Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence
on 25 June 1991.
On the morning of 26 June, units of the Yugoslav
People's Army's 13th Corps left their barracks
in Rijeka, Croatia, to move towards Slovenia's
borders with Italy.
The move immediately led to a strong reaction
from local Slovenians, who organized spontaneous
barricades and demonstrations against the
YPA's actions.
There was, as yet, no fighting, and both sides
appeared to have an unofficial policy of not
being the first to open fire.
By this time, the Slovenian government had
already put into action its plan to seize
control of both the international Ljubljana
Airport and Slovenia's border posts on borders
with Italy, Austria and Hungary.
The personnel manning the border posts were,
in most cases, already Slovenians, so the
Slovenian take-over mostly simply amounted
to changing of uniforms and insignia, without
any fighting.
By taking control of the borders, the Slovenians
were able to establish defensive positions
against an expected YPA attack.
This meant that the YPA would have to fire
the first shot.
It was fired on 27 June at 14:30 in Divača
by an officer of the YPA.On 7 July 1991, whilst
supportive of their respective rights to national
self-determination, the European Community
pressured Slovenia and Croatia to place a
three-month moratorium on their independence
with the Brijuni Agreement (recognized by
representatives of all republics).
During these three months, the Yugoslav Army
completed its pull-out from Slovenia.
Negotiations to restore the Yugoslav federation
with diplomat Lord Carrington and members
of the European Community were all but ended.
Carrington's plan realized that Yugoslavia
was in a state of dissolution and decided
that each republic must accept the inevitable
independence of the others, along with a promise
to Serbian President Milošević that the
European Union would ensure that Serbs outside
of Serbia would be protected.
In the event, Lord Carrington's opinions were
rendered moot following newly reunited Germany's
Christmas Eve 1991 recognition of Slovenia
and Croatia.
Except for secret negotiations between foreign
ministers Genscher (Germany) and Mock (Austria),
the unilateral recognition came as an unwelcome
surprise to most EU governments and the United
States, with whom there was no prior consultation.
International organizations, including the
UN, were nonplussed.
While Yugoslavia was already in a shambles,
it's likely that German recognition of the
breakaway republics—and Austrian partial
mobilization on the border—made things a
good deal worse for the decomposing multinational
state.
US President George H.W. Bush was the only
major power representative to voice an objection.
The extent of Vatican influence in this episode
has been explored by scholars familiar with
the details, but the historical record remains
disputed.
Milošević refused to agree to the plan,
as he claimed that the European Community
had no right to dissolve Yugoslavia and that
the plan was not in the interests of Serbs
as it would divide the Serb people into four
republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Croatia).
Carrington responded by putting the issue
to a vote in which all the other republics,
including Montenegro under Momir Bulatović,
initially agreed to the plan that would dissolve
Yugoslavia.
However, after intense pressure from Serbia
on Montenegro's President, Montenegro changed
its position to oppose the dissolution of
Yugoslavia.
=== War in Croatia ===
With the Plitvice Lakes incident of late March/early
April 1991, the Croatian War of Independence
broke out between the Croatian government
and the rebel ethnic Serbs of the SAO Krajina
(heavily backed by the by-now Serb-controlled
Yugoslav People's Army).
On 1 April 1991, the SAO Krajina declared
that it would secede from Croatia.
Immediately after Croatia's declaration of
independence, Croatian Serbs also formed the
SAO Western Slavonia and the SAO of Eastern
Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srijem.
These three regions would combine into the
Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) on 19 December
1991.
The other significant Serb-dominated entities
in eastern Croatia announced that they too
would join SAO Krajina.
Zagreb had by this time discontinued submitting
tax money to Belgrade, and the Croatian Serb
entities in turn halted paying taxes to Zagreb.
In some places, the Yugoslav Army acted as
a buffer zone, in others it aided Serbs in
their confrontation with the new Croatian
army and police forces.The influence of xenophobia
and ethnic hatred in the collapse of Yugoslavia
became clear during the war in Croatia.
Propaganda by Croatian and Serbian sides spread
fear, claiming that the other side would engage
in oppression against them and would exaggerate
death tolls to increase support from their
populations.
In the beginning months of the war, the Serb-dominated
Yugoslav army and navy deliberately shelled
civilian areas of Split and Dubrovnik, a UNESCO
world heritage site, as well as nearby Croat
villages.
Yugoslav media claimed that the actions were
done due to what they claimed was a presence
of fascist Ustaše forces and international
terrorists in the city.UN investigations found
that no such forces were in Dubrovnik at the
time.
Croatian military presence increased later
on.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanović,
at the time an ally of Milošević, appealed
to Montenegrin nationalism, promising that
the capture of Dubrovnik would allow the expansion
of Montenegro into the city which he claimed
was historically part of Montenegro, and denounced
the present borders of Montenegro as being
"drawn by the old and poorly educated Bolshevik
cartographers".At the same time, the Serbian
government contradicted its Montenegrin allies
by claims by the Serbian Prime Minister Dragutin
Zelenović contended that Dubrovnik was historically
Serbian, not Montenegrin.
The international media gave immense attention
to bombardment of Dubrovnik and claimed this
was evidence of Milosevic pursuing the creation
of a Greater Serbia as Yugoslavia collapsed,
presumably with the aid of the subordinate
Montenegrin leadership of Bulatović and Serb
nationalists in Montenegro to foster Montenegrin
support for the retaking of Dubrovnik.In Vukovar,
ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs exploded
into violence when the Yugoslav army entered
the town.
The Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries
devastated the town in urban warfare and the
destruction of Croatian property.
Serb paramilitaries committed atrocities against
Croats, killing over 200, and displacing others
to add to those who fled the town in the Vukovar
massacre.
== Independence of the Republic of Macedonia
and Bosnia and Herzegovina ==
=== 
Bosnia and Herzegovina ===
With Bosnia's demographic structure comprising
a mixed population of a majority of Bosniaks,
and minorities of Serbs and Croats, the ownership
of large areas of Bosnia was in dispute.
From 1991 to 1992, the situation in the multiethnic
Bosnia and Herzegovina grew tense.
Its parliament was fragmented on ethnic lines
into a plurality Bosniak faction and minority
Serb and Croat factions.
In 1991, Radovan Karadžić, the leader of
the largest Serb faction in the parliament,
the Serb Democratic Party, gave a grave and
direct warning to the Bosnian parliament should
it decide to separate, saying:
This, what you are doing, is not good.
This is the path that you want to take Bosnia
and Herzegovina on, the same highway of hell
and death that Slovenia and Croatia went on.
Don't think that you won't take Bosnia and
Herzegovina into hell, and the Muslim people
maybe into extinction.
Because the Muslim people cannot defend themselves
if there is war here.
In the meantime, behind the scenes, negotiations
began between Milošević and Tuđman to divide
Bosnia and Herzegovina into Serb and Croat
administered territories to attempt to avert
war between Bosnian Croats and Serbs.
Bosnian Serbs held the November 1991 referendum
which resulted in an overwhelming vote in
favor of staying in a common state with Serbia
and Montenegro.
In public, pro-state media in Serbia claimed
to Bosnians that Bosnia and Herzegovina could
be included a new voluntary union within a
new Yugoslavia based on democratic government,
but this was not taken seriously by Bosnia
and Herzegovina's government.On 9 January
1992, the Bosnian Serb assembly proclaimed
a separate Republic of the Serb people of
Bosnia and Herzegovina (the soon-to-be Republic
of Srpska), and proceeded to form Serbian
autonomous regions (SARs) throughout the state.
The Serbian referendum on remaining in Yugoslavia
and the creation of Serbian autonomous regions
(SARs) were proclaimed unconstitutional by
the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The independence referendum sponsored by the
Bosnian government was held on 29 February
and 1 March 1992.
That referendum was in turn declared contrary
to the Bosnian and federal constitution by
the federal Constitution Court and the newly
established Bosnian Serb government; it was
also largely boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs.
According to the official results, the turnout
was 63.4%, and 99.7% of the voters voted for
independence.
It was unclear what the two-thirds majority
requirement actually meant and whether it
was satisfied.
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence
on 3 March 1992 and received international
recognition the following month on 6 April
1992.
On the same date, the Serbs responded by declaring
the independence of the Republika Srpska and
laying siege to Sarajevo which marked the
start of the Bosnian War.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was
subsequently admitted as a member State of
the United Nations on 22 May 1992.
=== Macedonia ===
In the Macedonian independence referendum
held on 8 September 1991, 95.26% voted for
independence.
It was declared on 25 September 1991.
Five hundred US soldiers were then deployed
under the UN banner to monitor Macedonia's
northern borders with the Republic of Serbia,
Yugoslavia.
However, given that Belgrade's authorities
had neither intervened to prevent Macedonia's
departure, nor protested nor acted against
the arrival of the UN troops, the indications
were in place that once Belgrade was to form
its new country (to be the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia from April 1992), it would recognise
the Republic of Macedonia and develop diplomatic
relations with it.
As such, it became the only former republic
to gain sovereignty without resistance from
the Belgrade-based Yugoslav authorities and
Army.
In addition, Macedonia's first president,
Kiro Gligorov, did indeed maintain good relations
with Belgrade as well as the other former
republics and there have to date been no problems
between Macedonian and Serbian border police
despite the fact that small pockets of Kosovo
and the Preševo valley complete the northern
reaches of the historical region known as
Macedonia, which would otherwise have created
a border dispute (see also IMORO).
The Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia,
the last major conflict being between Albanian
nationalists and the government of Republic
of Macedonia, reduced in violence after 2001.
== International recognition of the breakup
==
In November 1991, the Arbitration Commission
of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, led
by Robert Badinter, concluded at the request
of Lord Carrington that the SFR Yugoslavia
was in the process of dissolution, that the
Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia did
not have a right to self-determination in
the form of new states, and that the borders
between the republics were to be recognized
as international borders.
As a result of the conflict, the United Nations
Security Council unanimously adopted UN Security
Council Resolution 721 on 27 November 1991,
which paved the way to the establishment of
peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia.In January
1992, Croatia and Yugoslavia signed an armistice
under UN supervision, while negotiations continued
between Serb and Croat leaderships over the
partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina.On
15 January 1992, the independence of Croatia
and Slovenia was recognized around the world.
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia would later
be admitted as member states of the United
Nations on 22 May 1992.
Macedonia was admitted as a member state of
the United Nations on 8 April 1993.
== Aftermath in Serbia and Montenegro ==
The independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina
proved to be the final blow to the pan-Yugoslav
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
On 28 April 1992, the Serb-dominated Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was formed as
a rump state, consisting only of the former
Socialist Republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
Its government claimed continuity to the former
country, however, the international community
refused to recognize it as such.
The stance of the international community
was that Yugoslavia had dissolved into its
separate states.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was prevented
by a UN resolution on 22 September 1992 from
continuing to occupy the United Nations seat
as successor state to SFRY.
This question was important for claims on
SFRY's international assets, including embassies
in many countries.
Only in 1996 had the FRY abandoned its claim
to continuity from the SFRY.
The FRY was dominated by Slobodan Milošević
and his political allies.
The five years of disintegration and war in
the 1990s led to a boycott and embargo of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose
economy collapsed as a result.
The war in the western parts of former Yugoslavia
ended in 1995 with US-sponsored peace talks
in Dayton, Ohio, which resulted in the Dayton
Agreement.
The Kosovo War started in 1996 and ended with
the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
Slobodan Milošević was overthrown in 2000.
FR Yugoslavia was renamed on 4 February 2003
as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was
itself unstable, and finally broke up in 2006,
with Kosovo declaring its independence from
Serbia in 2008.
In a referendum held in Montenegro on 21 May
2006 independence was backed by 55.5% of voters,
and independence was declared on 3 June 2006.
Serbia inherited the State Union's UN membership.Kosovo
had been administered by the UN since the
Kosovo war; however, on 17 February 2008,
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia as
the Republic of Kosovo.
On one side, The United States, the United
Kingdom and much of the EU recognized this
act of self determination, with the United
States sending people to help assist Kosovo.
On the other hand, Serbia and some of the
international community—most notably Russia,
Spain and China—have not recognised Kosovo's
declaration of independence.
As of July 2015, Kosovo is recognised by 56%
of the United Nations.
== See also ==
Balkanization
Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Timeline of the breakup of Yugoslavia
== References ==
== Sources ==
BooksBrown, Cynthia; Karim, Farhad (1995).
Playing the "Communal Card": Communal Violence
and Human Rights.
New York City: Human Rights Watch.
ISBN 978-1-56432-152-7.
Denitch, Bogdan Denis (1996).
Ethnic nationalism: The tragic death of Yugoslavia.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
ISBN 9780816629473.
Djokić, Dejan (2003).
Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918-1992.
C. Hurst & Co.
Publishers.
ISBN 978-1-85065-663-0.
Frucht, Richard C. (2005).
Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People,
Lands, and Culture.
ABC-CLIO.
ISBN 978-1-57607-800-6.
Ingrao, Charles; Emmert, Thomas A., eds. (2003).
Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A
Scholars' Initiative (2nd ed.).
Purdue University Press.
ISBN 978-1-55753-617-4.
Jović, Dejan (2009).
Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away.
Purdue University Press.
ISBN 978-1-55753-495-8.
Lukic, Reneo; Lynch, Allen (1996).
Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The
Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet
Union.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-829200-7.
Mesić, Stjepan (2004).
The Demise of Yugoslavia: A Political Memoir.
Central European University Press.
ISBN 978-963-9241-81-7.
Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006).
The Three Yugoslavias: State-building and
Legitimation, 1918-2005.
Indiana University Press.
ISBN 0-253-34656-8.
Rogel, Carole (2004).
The Breakup of Yugoslavia and Its Aftermath.
Greenwood Publishing Group.
ISBN 0-313-32357-7.
Retrieved 22 April 2012.
Trbovich, Ana S. (2008).
A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration.
Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-533343-5.
Wachtel, Andrew (1998).
Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature
and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia.
Stanford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-8047-3181-2.
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Video on the Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia
from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs
Digital Archives
