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Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
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The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the end of World War II (1945) until it was formally dissolved in 1992 (de facto dissolved in 1991 with no leaders representing it) amid the Yugoslav wars. It was a communist state that comprised the area of the present-day independent states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and the self declared, partially recognised Kosovo. In 1992, the two remaining states still committed to a union, Serbia and Montenegro, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which had not been recognized as the successor of the SFRY by international leaders.
Formed from the remains of the pre-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the country was proclaimed in 1943 and named Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. In 1946, it became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and in 1963 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality during the Cold War and became one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Rising ethnic nationalism in the 1980s to the 1990s in the SFRY initiated dissidency among the multiple ethnicities, which led to the country collapsing on ethnic lines which were followed by wars fraught with ethnic discrimination and human rights violations.
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Timeline
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1945 Josip Broz Tito forms a government in Yugoslavia
1945 World War II: Troops of Yugoslav 4th Army together with Slovene 9th Corpus NOV enter Trieste.
1945 World War II: Yugoslav Army capitulates to the New Zealand Army, in Trieste and hands over the city.
1945 Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste, leaving the New Zealand Army in control.
1945 The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is declared (this day was celebrated as Republic Day until 1990s). Marshal Tito is named president.
1946 Female suffrage in Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia, Argentina and Canadian province of Quebec. First female police officers in Korea and Japan.
1946 Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).
, elected President of Argentina in February 1946]]
1947 Paris peace treaties signed between the World War II Allies and Italy, Hungary, Romaniam Bulgaria and Finland: Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia
1948 Cominform Resolution marks the beginning of the Informbiro period in Yugoslavia and Soviet/Yugoslav split.
1953 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugoslavia
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Encyclopedia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the end of World War II (1945) until it was formally dissolved in 1992 (de facto dissolved in 1991 with no leaders representing it) amid the Yugoslav wars. It was a communist state that comprised the area of the present-day independent states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and the self declared, partially recognised Kosovo. In 1992, the two remaining states still committed to a union, Serbia and Montenegro, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which had not been recognized as the successor of the SFRY by international leaders.
Formed from the remains of the pre-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the country was proclaimed in 1943 and named Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. In 1946, it became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and in 1963 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality during the Cold War and became one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Rising ethnic nationalism in the 1980s to the 1990s in the SFRY initiated dissidency among the multiple ethnicities, which led to the country collapsing on ethnic lines which were followed by wars fraught with ethnic discrimination and human rights violations. The collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed have left tense relations between the succeeding states and significant degrees of xenophobia exist particularly between ethnic groups which fought each other in the Yugoslav Wars.
TerritoryLike the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that preceded it, the SFRY bordered Italy and Austria to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, Albania to the southwest, and the Adriatic Sea to the west.
The most significant change to the borders of the SFRY occurred in 1954, when the adjacent Free Territory of Trieste was dissolved by the Treaty of Osimo. The Yugoslav Zone B, which covered 515.5 km˛, became part of the SFRY. Zone B was already occupied by the Yugoslav National Army.
From 1991 to 1992, the SFRY's territory disintegrated as the independent states of Slovenia, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia and lastly Bosnia and Herzegovina separated from it, though the Yugoslav military controlled parts of Croatia and Bosnia prior to the state's dissolution. By 1992, only the republics of Serbia and Montenegro remained committed to union, and formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1992.
HistoryFoundationDemocratic Federal Yugoslavia was constituted at the AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia) conference of the Communist Yugoslav Partisans in Jajce, Bosnia-Herzegovina while negotiations with the royal government in exile continued as Yugoslavia was occupied in World War II by the Axis Powers. The Yugoslav Partisans by this time had survived and continued to put heavy resistance to the fascist occupying forces through guerrilla warfare. After the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the partisans gained control of the entire country. On November 29, 1945 the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a federal state during the first meeting of democratically established and Communist-led Parliament in Belgrade. On January 31, 1946, the new constitution of FPR Yugoslavia selected the six constituent republics. The first prime minister was Josip Broz Tito and the president was Ivan Ribar. In 1953, Tito was elected as president and later, in 1974, named "President for life."
At this time Tito's closest associates were Edvard Kardelj, Aleksandar Rankovic and Milovan Đilas.
Pro Soviet Phase
At the outset of its creation and the Cold War, Yugoslavia's Communist regime allied with the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and early on in the Cold War shot down two American airplanes flying over Yugoslav airspace on August 9 and August 19 of 1946. These were the first aerial shootdowns of western aircraft during the Cold War and caused deep distrust of Tito in the United States and even calls for military intervention against Yugoslavia. However, despite an early alliance of the Yugoslav communists with the Soviet Union, Stalin distrusted Tito and the two leaders did not agree with each others' methods. Yugoslavia, unlike its neighbouring communist states, had been formed by internal revolution and its people saw Tito as its natural leader and hero, which frustrated Stalin, who had wanted the Soviet Union to dominate all of Eastern Europe. Frustration between Tito and Stalin grew after Tito refused to link Yugoslavia's economy with that of the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe. The relations between Tito and Stalin came to an end after it was discovered that Soviet propaganda film makers were making a production about the resistance in Yugoslavia, and that the script claimed that Tito had a minimal role in the war. But the situation over the film making was made worse when it was discovered that these film makers were actually Soviet spies; this infuriated Tito. In 1948, a crisis between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union erupted as a final warning was made by Stalin, demanding that Yugoslavia immediately join a federation with the Soviet satellite state of Bulgaria. Tito refused to abandon his country's independence, and Stalin followed the decision by throwing out Tito and the Yugoslav Communists from the Cominform. This ended all remaining ties between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
Land Reform was introduced in which many gained land. Less popular was the compulsory purchase of 80% of the harvest at fixed prices. The interests of the peasants were defended in the assembly by Dragoljub Jovanovic - until he was arrested.
After the breakaway from the Soviet UnionAfter the breakaway from the Soviet sphere, Yugoslavia formed its own form of communism, informally called "Titoism". Under Titoist communism, some degree of free market enterprise was allowed internally in what was called Market Socialism. Also, Yugoslavia refused to take part in the communist Warsaw Pact and instead took a neutral stance in the Cold War and became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement along with countries like India, Egypt and Indonesia, and pursued one of its central-left influences that promoted a non-confrontational policy towards the U.S.
The break did not mean an immediate end to repression. Indeed it was the cause of a new wave of repression against those accused of sympathy for Stalin. Sent to the island Goli Otok(Bare Island), where they were subjected to a program of reeducation.
Yugoslavia's economy became relatively self-sufficient under Market Socialism. The communist government allowed the private automobile company Zastava to continue, it produced the internationally popular Zastava Koral car, popularly known as the "Yugo". By the early 1960s, Yugoslavia's economy was booming and observers noticed that the Yugoslav people had far greater liberties than the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact states.
Under Tito, the motto and political concept of "Brotherhood and Unity", involved to prevent ethnic tensions as a key aspect of the state. The concept of Brotherhood and Unity was that the Yugoslav "South Slav" people were ethnically the same and had only been divided in the past by religious differences imposed by foreign occupiers. The Yugoslav people had been torn apart by the ethnic tensions during the era of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in World War II. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been a Serb hegemonic state with the Serbian monarchy leading it. Some Croatian and Muslim politicians had claimed that the state was trying to assimilate them, others felt that the country was being run for the benefit of its Serbian majority - and as such, they opposed the state sometimes violently - which resulted in the assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia. In World War II, Yugoslavia was destroyed when Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and other Axis powers occupied the country. The Nazis and Italian Fascists endorsed the creation of the Ustashe regime of the Independent State of Croatia which killed thousands of Serbs. Also, ethnic Albanian fascist recruits from Kosovo aided Italian forces from Albania (then an Italian protectorate) in taking over the region from Yugoslavia and persecuting Serbs there. In response, Serb nationalists wanted revenge on Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians for the losses suffered by the Serb people during the war. With all these tensions, Tito's plan of Brotherhood and Unity was to ensure that no single ethnic group could ever be in the position to dominate Yugoslavia and that forcing the necessity of cooperation of the different peoples would reduce the ethnic tensions. The other side of "Brotherhood and Unity" was less idealistic, in that the communist regime refused to negotiate or accept the demands of the popular voices of any nationality who complained of their peoples' status. The usual response to such demands was arrest or execution.
In 1971, large numbers of Croatians took part in protests known as the Croatian Spring, against the Yugoslav government in which they condemned what they perceived as Serb hegemony in the SFRY's power structure. Tito, whose home constituent republic was Croatia, responded with a dual action approach, Yugoslav authorities arrested large numbers of the Croatian protestors who were accused of evoking ethnic nationalism, while at the same time Tito began an agenda to initiate some of those reforms in order to avert a similar crisis from happening again. Ustase-sympathizers outside Yugoslavia tried through terrorism and guerrilla actions create a separatist momentum, but they were largely unsuccessful, sometimes even getting the antipathy of fellow Roman Catholic Yugoslavs.
In 1974, a new federal constitution was ratified that gave more autonomy to the individual republics, thereby basically fulfilling the main goals of the 1971 Croatian Spring movement. One of the provisions of the new constitution was that each republic officially had the option to declare independence from the federation, subject to certain constitutional regulations. The other more controversial measure was the internal division of Serbia, by awarding a similar status to two autonomous provinces within it, Kosovo, a largely ethnic Albanian populated region of Serbia, and Vojvodina, a region with large numbers of ethnic minorities behind the majority Serbs, such as Hungarians. These reforms satisfied most of the republics, especially Croatia as well as the Albanians of Kosovo and the minorities of Vojvodina. But the 1974 constitution deeply aggravated Serbian communist officials and Serbs themselves who distrusted the motives of the proponents of the reforms. Many Serbs saw the reforms as concessions to Croatian and Albanian nationalists, as no similar autonomous provinces were made to represent the large numbers of Serbs of Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serb nationalists were frustrated over Tito's support of the recognition of Montenegrins and Macedonians as an independent nationalities, as Serbian nationalists had claimed that there was no ethnic or cultural difference separating these two nations from the Serbs that could verify that such nationalities truly existed.
Post-Tito Yugoslavia and the Dissolution of the State
On May 5, 1980, Tito died and his death was announced through state broadcasts across Yugoslavia. While it had been known for some time that Tito had been increasingly getting ill, his death came as a shock to the country. This was because Tito was looked upon as the country's hero in World War II and had been the country's dominant figure and identity for years, his loss marked a significant alteration, and it was reported that many Yugoslavs openly mourned his death. In the Split soccer stadium, where Serb and Croat teams playing against each other in a match both stopped upon hearing of Tito's passing and tearfully sung the hymn "Comrade Tito We Swear to You, from Your Path We Will not Depart"
Tito's funeral was a national spectacle in Yugoslavia as the coffin was taken across Yugoslavia by train before being laid down in Belgrade, thousands of people went to see the traveling of the coffin throughout Yugoslavia until it reached Belgrade." Some of the attendance for the traveling of the coffin and funeral was state organized by the League of Communists but much was true spontaneous outpouring of grief.
After Tito's death in 1980, a new collective presidency of the communist leadership from each republic was adopted.
At the time of Tito's death the Federal government was headed by Veselin Đuranovic (who had held the post since 1977). He had come into conflict with the leaders of the Republics arguing that Yugoslavia needed to economize due the growing problem of foreign debt. Đuranovic argued that a devaluation was needed which Tito refuse to contenance for reasons of national prestige.
Post-Tito Yugoslavia faced significant fiscal debt in the 1980s, but its good relations with the United States led to an American-led group of organizations called the "Friends of Yugoslavia" to endorse and achieve significant debt relief for Yugoslavia in 1983 and 1984, though economic problems would continue until the state's dissolution in the 1990s.
Yugoslavia was the host nation of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. The 1984 Olympics were remembered internationally as the first Olympic games to have disabled skiing as a demonstration sport. For Yugoslavia, the games demonstrated the continued Tito's vision of Brotherhood and unity as the multiple nationalities of Yugoslavia remained united in one team, and Yugoslavia became the second communist state to hold the Olympic Games (The Soviet Union held them in 1980). However Yugoslavia's games were participated in by western countries while the Soviet Union's Olympics were boycotted by the west.
In the late 1980s, the Yugoslav government began to make a course away from communism as it attempted to transform to a market economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Ante Markovic who advocated "shock therapy" tactics to privatize sections of the Yugoslav economy. Markovic was popular as he was seen as the most capable politician to be able to transform the country to a liberalized democratic federation. However his work was left incomplete as Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s.
Dissolution of the SFRY
1980-1989After Tito's death, ethnic nationalism began to rise again in Yugoslavia, especially in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and Serbs. This, coupled with economic problems in Kosovo and Serbia as a whole, led to Serbian resentment of the 1974 constitutional reforms. In the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians demanded that their autonomous province be granted the status of a constituent republic, which would give Kosovo the right to secede from Yugoslavia. For Serbs, Kosovo being a constituent republic rather than being part of Serbia would be devastating to the cultural and historic links with Serbs held with Kosovo, especially if it chose to secede. In 1987, Serbian communist official Slobodan Miloševic was sent to bring calm to an ethnically-driven protest by Serbs against the Albanian Kosovo administration. Miloševic in the past was a hardline Communist official who had decried all forms of nationalism as treachery, such as condemning the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts which he called "nothing else but the darkest nationalism". However Kosovo's autonomy had always been an unpopular policy in Serbia and Miloševic took advantage of the situation and took a departure from traditional communist neutrality on the issue of Kosovo. Miloševic assured Serbs that alleged mistreatment by ethnic Albanians would be stopped. Miloševic then began a campaign against the communist elite of Serbia and of Yugoslavia demanding reductions in the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. These actions made Miloševic popular amongst Serbs and aided his rise to power in Serbia. Miloševic and his allies took on an aggressive nationalist agenda of reviving Serbia within Yugoslavia, promising reforms and protection of Serbia and all Serbs. In a rally in Belgrade in 1988, Miloševic made clear his perceptions of the situation facing 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'." Slobodan Miloševic, Belgrade, November 19, 1988.
On another occasion, Miloševic privately said:
“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.” Slobodan Miloševic
Through a series of revolts in Serbia and Montenegro, called the "Anti-bureaucratic revolution", Miloševic and his political allies in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and the Socialist Republic of Montenegro came to power. The Socialist Republic of Slovenia under Milan Kucan strongly opposed the anti-bureaucratic revolution and in 1988 began a media campaign deriding the revolution, state-run newspapers in Slovenia published articles comparing Miloševic to Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Miloševic contended that such criticism was unfounded and amounted to “spreading fear of Serbia”. Miloševic's state-run media in response claimed that Kucan was endorsing Kosovo and Slovene separatism.
1989In February 1989, with the forced abdication of Kosovo's Albanian representative Azem Vllasi who was replaced by an ally of Miloševic, Albanian protestors demanded that Vllasi be returned to office, Vllasi endorsed their support of him which caused Miloševic and his supporters to respond that this was a counter-revolution against Serbia and Yugoslavia and demanded that the federal Yugoslav government put down the striking Albanians by force. Miloševic's aim was aided when a huge protest was formed outside of the Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade by Serb supporters of Miloševic who demanded that the Yugoslav military forces enter Kosovo to protect the Serbs there and put down the strike. On February 27, Slovenian Communist leader of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia, Milan Kucan, opposed the demands of the Serbs and left Belgrade for Slovenia where he publicly endorsed the efforts of Albanian protestors who demanded that Vllasi be released.. In the 1995 BBC documentary Death of Yugoslavia, Kucan claimed that in 1989, he was concerned that with the successes of Miloševic'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 Miloševic's supporters if the coup in Kosovo went unimpeded. Serbian state-run television denounced Kucan as a separatist, a traitor, and an endorser of Kosovo separatism.
Serb protests continued in Belgrade demanding action in Kosovo. Miloševic instructed communist representative Petar Gracanin to make sure the protest continued while he discussed matters at the Communist Party council, 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 Jovic, a strong ally of Miloševic met with the head of Yugoslavia's collective presidency, Bosnian representative Raif Dizdarevic, and demanded that the federal government concede to Serbian demands. Dizdarevic argued with Jovic saying that "You (Serbian politicians) organized the demo, you control it", Jovic refused to take responsibility for the actions of the protesters. Dizdarevic 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." Raif Dizdarevic, Belgrade, 1989.
To this statement, he gained polite applause, but the protest continued. Later Jovic spoke to the crowds with enthusiasm and told them that Miloševic was going to arrive to support their protest. When Miloševic 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 said "Arrest Vllasi". Miloševic 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.
Following the arrest of Vllasi, the group of Kosovo Serb supporters of Miloševic who helped bring down Vllasi declared that they were going to Slovenia to hold "the Rally of Truth" which would decry Kucan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and demand his ousting. The Serb protesters were to go by train to Slovenia, but this was stopped when Croatia blocked all transit through its territory and stopped the protesters from reaching Slovenia.
1990The prevention by Croatia of allowing Serb protestors from reaching Slovenia fomented a crisis in the League of Communists congress in 1990. Serbia under Miloševic pushed harder for Serb rights and demanded a one-member-one-vote system in the Congress, which would give numerical majority of votes to the Serbs. Slovenia and Croatia explicitedly opposed the move, but Serbian and Montenegrin members of the congress in turn voted down every proposed reform by Slovenia, in an attempt to force the party to adopt the new voting system. The Slovenian and Croatian delegates refused and declared their abdication from the League of Communists. Afterwards the League of Communists collapsed and multi-party systems were adopted in all the republics.
When the individual republics organized their multi-party elections after 1990, the Communist Parties mostly failed to win re-election, and most of the elected governments took on nationalist platforms, promising to protect their people both within and outside of Yugoslavia. In Croatia, controversial nationalist Franjo Tudman was elected to power, promising to protect Croatia from Miloševic. Tudman was controversial due to a number of books he wrote in which he claimed the number of Jews and Serbs killed in World War II was lower than others had claimed.
Croatian Serbs were weary of Tudman's nationalist government and in 1990, Serb nationalists in Knin organized and formed a separatist regime in Krajina which wanted to remain in union with Serbia if Croatia decided to secede. The Serbian government endorsed the Croatian Serbs' rebellion, claiming that for Serbs, rule under Tudman's government would be equivalent to the fascist Independent State of Croatia which committed genocide against Serbs during World War II. Milosevic used this to rally Serbs against the Croatian government and Serbian newspapers has started to write how two million Serbs were ready to go to Croatia to fight . Croatian Serbs in Knin under the guidance of their police inspector Milan Martic began to attempt to gain access to weapons so that the Croatian Serbs could mount a successful revolt against Tudjman's government. Croatian Serb politicians including the Mayor of Knin met with Borisav Jovic, the head of the Yugoslav State Council 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 Tudman and his nationalist government. At the meeting, army official Petar Gracanin 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 "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 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 government was supporting the Serb rebels.
In a December 1990 referendum in Slovenia, a vast majority of residents voted for independence and Serbia has printed $1.8 billion worth of new money without any backing of Yugoslav central bank . With this events beginning stage was set for the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
1991By early 1991, with the crisis in Knin, the election of independence-leaning governments in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia; Slovenes demanding independence in the referendum on the issue; the discovery of Croatian arms smuggling; and the apparent course towards independence by Croatia, Yugoslavia faced the iminent threat of distintigration. Jovic called an emergency meeting of the State Council in which Jovic and Yugoslav army chief Veljko Kadijevic declared that there was a conspiracy of the west 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." Veljko Kadijevic, March 12, 1991
This statement was effectively saying that the new independence-advocating governments of the republics were tools of the west which needed to be removed. Croatian delegate Stjepan Mesic responded angrily to the proposal, accusing Jovic and Kadijevic of attempting to use the army to create a Greater Serbia and declared "That means war!" Jovic and Kadijevic 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 by one vote, as the Bosnian Serb delegate voted against it, believing that there was still the possibility of diplomacy being able to solve the crisis. The state council was abandoned shortly afterwards. After Jovic's term as head of the collective presidency expired, he blocked his successor, Mesic, from taking the position, and giving the position instead to Branko Kostic, a member of the pro-Milosevic government in Montenegro.
In May 1991, a referendum for independence was held in Croatia, in which a majority of Croatians supported independence from Yugoslavia, though Serbs largely boycotted the vote. Both Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence on June 25th 1991. A short period of violence occurred in Slovenia, which ended with Yugoslavia accepting Slovenia's independence. In Croatia, however, its independence was not accepted, as Serbs had boycotted the referendum and wished to stay within Yugoslavia, and war broke out between Croatia and Yugoslavia. Also, negotiations to restore the Yugoslav federation were all but ended during discussions with diplomat Lord Peter Carington and members of the European Community. Carington'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 Miloševic that the E.U. would insure that Serbs outside of Serbia would be protected. Miloševic 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 & Herzegovina, and Croatia). Carington responded by putting the issue to a vote in which all the other republics, including Montenegro under Momir Bulatovic, 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.
The influence of xenophobia and ethnic hatred in the collapse of Yugoslavia became clear during Croatia's war for secession from Yugoslavia. Propaganda by Croat and Serb sides spread fear of both sides, 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 Dubrovnik, a United Nations world heritage site, as well as nearby Croat villages.. In state propaganda, Yugoslav media claimed that the actions were done due to what they claimed was a presence of fascist Ustase 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 Dukanovic, at the time an ally of Miloševic, 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 Zelenovic declared 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 aide of the subordinate Montenegrin leadership of Bulatovic 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 which with urban warfare and the destruction of Croatian property. Serb paramilitaries committed atrocities against Croats, killing over 200 Croats, and displacing others who fled the town in what became known as the Vukovar massacre. In response to the atrocities in Vukovar, Croats committed a revenge attack on Serbs during Gospic massacre. The atrocities by both sides would continue for many years.
From 1991 to 1992 the situation in the multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina grew tense. Its parliament was fragmented on ethnic lines into a majority Bosniak faction and minority Serb and Croat factions. In 1991, the controversial nationalist leader Radovan Karadžic of the largest Serb faction in the parliament, the Serb Democratic Party gave a grave and direct warning to Bosnia's Bosniak president on the fate of Bosnia and its Bosniaks 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." -Radovan Karadžic, speaking at the Bosnian parliament, October 14, 1991. (The term "Muslim people" refers to the people now known as Bosniaks.)
In 1991, behind the scenes negotiations began between Milosevic and Tudjman to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina into Serb and Croat administered territories to attempt to avert war between Croats and Serbs. Tudjman was criticized by Bosnian Croats and Croatian nationalists for negotiating with Milosevic.
1992In January 1992, Croatia and Yugoslavia signed an armistice under UN supervision. Negotiations continued between Serb and Croat leaderships over the partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 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. The final blow to the SFRY came in 1992, with the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina unilaterally separated from Yugoslavia after a referendum on independence, again in spite of Serb boycotts of the vote. After the separation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the SFRY was abolished after Serbia and Montenegro agreed to create a new Yugoslav state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro, and upon multiparty democratic government, thereby ending the former communist Yugoslav state completely. Many in the west saw the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the influence of Milosevic as not being the legitimate successor of the SFRY, but rather as being a Greater Serbia, as indicated by Milosevic's dominance in affairs of the FRY when he was Serbian President until 1997, and by the FRY's hypocritical call for Serb self-determination in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina and their right to remain in Yugoslavia, while at the same time Milosevic denied the right to self-determination for Albanians in Kosovo which was claimed by Serbia as its own province. War between the rival ethnic factions of the former SFRY would continue throughout the 1990s, with the last major conflict being between Albanian nationalists and the government of Republic of Macedonia reduced in violence after 2001.
Constitution
The defining document of the state was the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was amended in 1963 and 1974.
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia won the first elections, and remained in power throughout the state's existence. It was composed of individual communist parties from each constituent republic. The party would reform its political positions through party congresses in which delegates from each republic were represented and voted on changes to party policy, the last of which was held in 1990.
Yugoslavia's parliament was known as the Federal Assembly which was housed in the building which currently houses Serbia's parliament. The Federal Assembly was completely composed of Communist members.
The primary political leader of the state was Josip Broz Tito, but there were several other important politicians, particularly after Tito's death: see the list of leaders of communist Yugoslavia. In 1974, Tito was proclaimed President-for-life of Yugoslavia. After Tito's death in 1980, the single position of president was divided into a collective Presidency, where representatives of each republic would essentially form a committee where the concerns of each republic would be addressed and from it, collective federal policy goals and objectives would be implemented. The head of the collective presidency was rotated between representatives of the different republics. The head of the collective presidency was considered the head of state of Yugoslavia. The collective presidency was ended in 1991, as Yugoslavia fell apart.
In 1974, major reforms to Yugoslavia's constitution occurred. Among the changes were the right of any republic to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia as well as the controversial internal division of Serbia, which created two autonomous provinces within it, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Each of these autonomous provinces had voting power equal to that of the republics, but unlike the republics, the autonomous provinces could not unilaterally separate from Yugoslavia.
Foreign relationsUnder Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a policy of neutrality in the Cold War. It developed close relations with developing countries (see Non-Aligned Movement) as well as maintaining cordial relations with the United States and Western European countries. Stalin considered Tito a traitor and openly offered condemnation towards him. In 1968, following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, Tito added an additional defense line to Yugoslavia's borders with the Warsaw Pact countries.
On January 1, 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements.
In the same year Tito became active in promoting a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. His plan called for Arab countries to recognize the State of Israel in exchange for Israel returning territories it had gained. The Arab countries rejected his land for peace concept.
In 1967, Tito offered Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek to fly to | |
