The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

Chapter 1
The Break up of Yugoslavia

The break up of the Yugoslavian country which happened between 1991 and 1995 refers
to a series of conflict and political unstability in the breaking up of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The SFRY was a country that occupied a strip of land stretching from
present day central Europe all the way to the Balkans – a region with a history of ethnic conflict1.
SFRY consisted of six regional republic and two autonomous province that was roughly divided
on ethnic lines and disintegrated in the 1990s into several dfferent states. The states that divided
themselves from Yugoslavia are : Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia,
Monetenegro, Serbia and two autonomous provinces within serbi ,Kosovo and Vojvodina.

There are three main reasons why the break of Yugoslavia occoured. Besides being in the
Balkan Region which is notorious for its ethnic clashes, the reason are because of the economic
collapse and the international climate, Structural problems and nationalism crisis.

1.1 Economical Problems

Yugoslavia was a region with a strong industrial power and economic success. Twenty
years before the 1980s, Yugoslavia had a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth of average 6.1
percent2. Yugoslavia had free medical care, the literacy ratr was 91 perfent and Yugoslavia’s
citizen life expectency was 72 year old. Yugoslavia was a unique state straddling both the east
and west. Moreover its president Josip Broz Tito was one of the founders of the third world or
the group of 77. This organization acted as an alternative to the two super powers (United States
and the Sovyet Union). Moreover, the location of Yugoslavia made it a buffer state (the border)
between liberal west and the comunist east. The location of Yugoslavia also prevented the east
(Sovyet Union) from getting hold of the mediteranian sea.

1 www-VL, 2008, History of Yugoslavia, http://vlib.iue.it/history/europe/yugoslavia.html,

25/04/2011

2 Making the history of 1989,2011, GDP in Yugoslavia 1980-

1989,http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/671 25/04/2011

1| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

After the death of Tito, with the rise of president Mikhail Gorbachev and USSR’s
Glasnost and prestroika policy, the west felt that Yugoslavia was no longer a pivitol of strategic
importance. The disintegrating of the Sovyet Union in the late 1980’s bpught up Yugoslavias
inner contradictions, economic inefficiencies such as the lack of productivity fuelled by the
countrys leaders decision to enforce a full employment policy and ethno religeion tensions which
surfaced within the regions of Yugoslavia. This led to Yugoslavia forcing to take loans from
from both superpowers(this was possible because Yugoslavia had non alligment status).

The 1973 oil crisis that was coupled with western trade barriers, dramatically hinderd
thirty years og Yugoslavia’s economic growth. Thus making Yugoslavia stand in a very difficult
position. In order to counter attact this problem, Yugoslavia was forced to take a number of
international loans from IMF (internatoinal Monetery Fund) , and unfortunatly Yugoslavia was
unable to pay back the loans from the IMF this making it fall into heavy IMF debts. As a
condition of receiving the loans from IMF, Yugoslavia had to allow “Market Liberalization”. By
1981 Yugaslavia had a debt of $19.9 billion in foreign loans3. Another concern due to leadership
decision was the high number of unemployment, 1 million by 1980. This problem was then made
far worse by the lack of unproductiveness from the southern part of the country which add
heavilly in yugoslavias monetery debt. The unproductiveness of the south made the Serbia
Croation and Sloveniam rulling class iritated, the minoritues were seen as to benefit from the
goverments legeslations. By 1979 till 1985 Yugoslavia’s earnings fell by 25 percent.

1.2 Structural Problems

The Yugoslavia that Tito created was characterised as by constant reforms to resolves
national key problems. The Federal system, due to increasing national tensions and the comunist
party’s wish to support “National self determination” began to loosen ots control and was slowly
going awol. This resulted in the creating of Kosovo(an area with a large number of Albanian
Population), an autonomous region of Serbia that was legislated bu the 1974 constitution4. This

3 Project Censored,2011, 20.IMF and world banks contributeed to economic tensions in the
Balkans http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-imf-and-world-bank-
contributed-to-economic-tensions-in-the-balkans/ 25/04/2011

4Global Prespective,2011, Kosovo within Yugoslavia,

http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/kosovo/KVtopic4.htm, 25/04/2011

2| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

constitution also broke down power between the capital and the (also) newly created autonomous
region of Vojvodina (an area of yugoslavia with a large number of ethnic minorities). A majority
of Serbs see the formation of Kosovo as the “Cradle of the nation” and would not accept the
posibility of losing it to the majority of Albanian Population.

The lossening of the Federation made Yugoslavia and de facto confedracy, placing
pressure upon the legitimacy of the regime and engendering resentment in the richer repubulics.
Slovenia and croatia the most developed republics were constantlyh frustrated by there inability
to lift their standard of living as the had to subsidizes the poorer republics in what they described
as an economic black hole. Tito’s death created more problems in an effort to ensure his legacy,
Tito’s 1974 constitution estabilished a year-long presidence that was a rotation basis from the
eight states in Yugoslavia. The short terms were highly inafrctive, it left a power vaccum which
was left open for the most of 1980s, with only Slobodan Milosevic taking power in 1989.

1.3 Nationalism

The 600th aniversery of serbia’s historic defeat at kosovo Poljein 1989, Milosevic gave a
speech to 200.000 which empasized about the great historical past. At the Yugoslav conference
in 1989 talks broke between leader of the eight states, this led to the agreement an agreement on
how to deal with the rotating presidency. Moreover many members were no longger willing to
rescue what they saw as a sunken ship5. Croatia and Slovenia decided to declare independence
anf the 10 day war soon broke out in Slovenia in 1991. The Slovenian were victoroius and this
led the break up of Yugoslavia.

Chapter 2

5 Neal,C; Century of Genoside, 2011, Nationalism and the Breakup of Former Yugoslavia,
http://www.centuryofgenocide.com/exhibition/page47/page39/page39.html, 25/04/2011

3| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

Atrocities in the Break up of Yugoslavia

2.1 Ten day war

The ten day war or also called the Slovenian Independence war was a military conflict
between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav Peoples army. After the death of
Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito in 1980, Underlying Political, ethincal and economic
tension started to surface between the eight states in Yugoslavia. On 23 December 1990,
Slovenia held a referendum which passed with 95% votes in favour of Slovenia’s Indepedence6 .
Immedietly after the Slovenian elections, the Yugoslav’s Peoples army (JNA) announced a new
defence doctrine that woud apply acriss the country. The Tito era doctrine of General People’s
Defence, In which each state maintained a teritoriaal defence force, was replaced by a central
defence force with the head office in Belgrade.

The Slovenian government resisted this movement and succesfully ensured that the
majority of equipment from the former Slovenian Territorial Defence did not get confescated bu
the Yugoslav peoples army. At the same time the slovenia government set up a secreat
alternative command structure know as the Manoeuvre Structures of National
Protection7(Manevrska stuktura narodne zascite or MSNZ). When th Yugoslav peoples army
tried to take control of the Slovenian Teritorial Defence, the Defnce command structure was
simply replaced by the MSNZ. Between may and october 1990, some 21.000 Slovenian
Teritorial Defence and police personal was secreatly mobilised onton the MSNZ structure of
command, which the federal government was unaware of.

On the morning of June 26 1991, the Yugoslav peoples army’s 13th corps left their
barracks in Rijeka, Croatia to move towards Slovenia’s Border with Italy. The movement led to a
stron g reaction by the slovenians who organised barricades and demostrations against the
Yugoslav’s army’s movement. By this time the slovenisn government had alreddy put in action a
plan to seize the country’s borders and the international airport at Brink. The border crossings

6 Ljubljna- life.com,2011,Slovenian war of Independence, http://www.ljubljana-

life.com/ljubljana/ten-day-war, 04/05/2011

7 Union of Veterans of the war of slovenia,2008, Local organisations flags,

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/si_zvvs.html, 04/05/2011

4| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

were a major source of revenue. This meant that the Yugoslav peoples army would have to fire
the first shots.

The heaviest fighting of the war took place during 2nd of July, which proved a major
setback for the Yugoslav Army. The Yugoslav’s tank collum in the Krakovski forest came under
sustaind attack by the Slovenian Defence Army forcing the Yugoslav to Surrender. The
Slovenians mounted succesfull attacks on border crossings at Sentilij, Gornja Radgona, Ferneciti
and Gorjansko, Capturing and taking the Yusloav Army by Surprise.

The ten Day war was formally ended with the Briorini Accord, Signed on the Croation
Briorini Islands. Slovenia and Croati’s Independence was agree to by the Yugoslavians. The
terms wew distinctly favourable to Slovenia.

2.1 Crotian war of Independence

The second conflict that happened in the course of the Yugoslav war was the croatian war
of independence. This war began when serbs in Croatia who were opposed to the Croatiann
Independence announced their secession from croatia. The fighting in this region had begun
weeks prior to the ten day war in Slovenia. The movee was triggered by a provision in the new
croation Constiitution that replaced the explicit reference to Serbs in Crotia as a “constiturnt
nation” with a generic reference to all nations, and was interpreted by serns as beong reclassified
as a “national minority”8.

The Yugoslav Peoples army was ideologically unitarian, though it was mainly staffed by
by serbs in the higher ranks, thus it also disagreed on croatia’s independence, which made the
Yugoslav army side with the croatian serb rebels. The croatian serbs rebels had support and
acceses to thesupplies of the Yusolav army so they were no affected by any misshappenings that
happened to the croatian government and army. The border regions faced direct attacks from
forces from Serbiand Montenegro. The attacks distroyed on of UNESCO world Heritage site,
Dubrovnik. This attack was condemend and critized by the international media.

8 BBC.com/news,2011,Croatia timeline A chronology of key events,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1097156.stm , 04/05/2011

5| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

2.2 Bosnian War

The Bosnian war took place in Bosnia Herzegovina between April 1992 and decembeer
1995. The war involved several sides. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and those self proclaimed Bosnian Serbs and Bosnia Croat within
Bosnia Herzegovina, Republik Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia9. The war came about as the result of
the break up of Yugoslavia.Following the Slovenia and Croation seperations from the Socialist
Republic O Yugoslavia in 1991.

The Multi Ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was mainly inhabited by
mainly muslim Bosniaks (44%), Orthodox Serbs (31%) and catholic croats (17%), passed a
refferendum for independece on Febuary 29, 1992 .This referendum was rejected byt the Bosian
Serbs Political representatives in Sarajevo. Thr Bosnias Serbs boicoted the referendum and
estabilshed their own republic of Srpska. Following the decleration of indepedence, Bosnian
Serbs supported the Serbian Government of Slobodan Milosovic and the Yugoslav peoples army.

The Bosnian War was basically a territorial conflict between the Army of The Republic
of Bosnia And Herzegovina which was largely though not exclusively composed of Bosniaks,
and Bosnian Croats forces and Bosnian Serb forces in the Republic of Srpska.

2.3 Kosovo war

The Kosovo war happened from early 1998 to 1999, the war hppened between the army
of FR Yugislavia and the Kosovo Liberation Army10. From mid march 1999 to early june 1999
NATO attacked Yugoslavia and the ethnic Alabanian Millitant continued battle with Yugoslav
forces. The war in Kosovo wa believed to be the first humanitarian war. It was the centre of
news headlines and gained massive amount of coverage and attentions from the worlds news.

After the break out of the Kosovo war, NATO came along and played a crutial part in the
Kosovo war. By March 1999, Nato started its Military Campaign “operation Allied Force in
Kosovo”. Nato’s bombing campaign lasted from March 1999 to June 1999. In the short time
9 Republic of Sprska.com,2011, Republic of Sprska, http://republicofsrpska.com/, 04/05/2011

10 Global security.org,2011, Kosovo Liberation Army, http://republicofsrpska.com/,

04/05/2011

6| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

NATO took pary in theKosovo war, it had bought with it up to 1000 aircraft which operated
from air bases mainly in the Adriatic and in Italy. The use of Tomahawk cruise missles was
extensively used fired from aircraft, ships and submarines. All NATO members where involved
in the Kosovo war with the exception of Greece. Over the 10 weeks of the conflict, NATO
aorcraft flew 38000 combat mission11. This was also the first time that the German Airforce
(Luftwaffe) participated in a conflict sine world war II.

The NATO operations over Kosovo was summed up as “Serbs out, peace keepers,
Refugees back” by its spoke person. In other words, Yugoslav troops would have to leave
Kosovo and be replaced by international peace keepers to ensure the Albanian Refugees could
Return to their Homes. The NATO Campaign was initially design to destroy Yugoslavia’ s air
defence and high value military equipment12. Unfortunatly this wan;t the case, with bad weather
hindering early on the the campaign, and NATO’s underestimaited Milosovic’s will to surrender,
thing took the turn for worse for NATO.

On the grounf, the ethnic cleansing by the serbs was stepped up and within a week of the
war starting more than 300.000 Kosovo Albanians had fleed into the neibouring countries of
Macedonia and Albania. By april the UN reported more than 850.000 people, mostly Albanians
had fleed their home. NATO millitary operations switched increasingly to attacking Yugoslav
units on the ground, hitting targets as small as individual tanks and artilarry pieces as well as
continuing with its strategic bombardment.

At the start of May, A NATO aircraft attacked an Albanian refugee convoy believing tha
it was a Yugoslavian Military convoy. NATO admitted to it’s mistakes five days later, but the
serbs accused NATO of deliberatly attacking the Refugees. On 7 May, thing to a turn for the
worst as NATO’s bomb hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three chinese journalist and
made the chinese government very angry. NATO claimend that they were firing at Yugoslav
position. The United states and NATO later appologized for the bombing, sayin g that it occurred
because of an outdated map provided by the CIA13.

11 NATO,1999, Nato’s role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo,

http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm, 04/05/20011

12 Ibid

13 Wsws.org,1999, Fresh evidence that NATO’s bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade

was deliberate, http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec1999/chin-d01.shtml, 04/05/2011

7| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

Chapter 3

Aftermath

By June 1999 after NATO’s 10 week campaign on Kosovo had ceased, an exodus of
200.000 serbs and non albanians left in the wake of revenge attack from Kosovo Albanians who
was previously attack by the serbs. The interv ention of NATO in the Kosovo war help to speed

8| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

up the result but the civilian casualties (colateral damge) caused by NATO was in excuseable.
Human rights watched claimend that NATO killed a minimum of 500 civilian while NATO itself
admitted to killing more or less 1500 civilians during its 10 week campaing between the month
of May and June of 1999.

The folowing year on October 2000 Slobodan Milosevis was voted out of office and
Vojislav Kostunica became new president of Yugoslavia. Milosevis was then put on trial in The
Hague on charges of war crimes in Kosovo, to which charges of violating the laws of custums of
war and grave breaches of the Geneva comvention I croatia and Bosnia and Genoside in Bosnia
were latter added. Defiant Milosevic did not recognize the court and represented himself.

By febuary 2003 Yugoslavia consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro becomes Serbia
and Montenegro. The following year sah the peak of anti Serbian Violence in Kosovo which led
to the burning of hundreds oaf ancient orthodox-christian Serbian monasteries.

I n 2006 Slobodan Milosevic dies in his prison cell int the hague ending the proceding
with no verdict reaced yet, this was then followed by the independece of montenegro in may
2006. The referrendum for montenegro which took palce on 21st may 2006 had a turnout of
86.5% . 55.5% voted in favour of breaking up with the state union of serbia while 44.5% voted
against. This option was favoured by the coalition government. (DPS and SDP)14

Kosovo finally declaed its independence from Serbia to the world on Febuary 17th 2008.
Kosovo’s Independence from Serbia was recognised by 75 United Nation among them it was
recognised by four of former Yugoslavia’s states.

Reference

• http://vlib.iue.it/history/europe/yugoslavia.html
• http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/671
• http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-imf-and-world-bank-contributed-
to-economic-tensions-in-the-balkans/
• http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/kosovo/KVtopic4.htm
• http://www.centuryofgenocide.com/exhibition/page47/page39/page39.html

14 BBC.com/news,2006,Milosevic found dead in his cell,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4796470.stm, 04/05/2011

9| Page
 The conflict leading to the break up of Yugoslavia 2011

• http://www.ljubljana-life.com/ljubljana/ten-day-war
• http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/si_zvvs.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1097156.stm
• http://republicofsrpska.com/
• http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm
• http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec1999/chin-d01.shtml
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4796470.stm,

10 | P a g e