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Yugoslav wars
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The Yugoslav Wars were a series of violent conflicts in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) that took place between 1991 and 2001. For the most part (excepting the 1991 War in Slovenia), the conflict has in common a drive towards the establishment of various "ethnically clean" Serbian areas within SFR Yugoslavia, and their eventual preferred union with Serbia proper, thus creating an enlarged state populated by a vast majority of ethnic Serbs.
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The Yugoslav Wars were a series of violent conflicts in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) that took place between 1991 and 2001. For the most part (excepting the 1991 War in Slovenia), the conflict has in common a drive towards the establishment of various "ethnically clean" Serbian areas within SFR Yugoslavia, and their eventual preferred union with Serbia proper, thus creating an enlarged state populated by a vast majority of ethnic Serbs. The ideal of a "Greater Serbia" was the perceived goal and primary motivation for many of the Serbian fighters and volunteers that engaged in the conflict, especially for the members of Serbian paramilitary units involved in the fighting. The Croatian and Bosnian sides in particular claimed that the establishment of such a state was the end ambition of the Serbian leadership, and included this claim in their respective wartime campaigns.
The Yugoslav wars comprise of two sets of successive wars affecting all of the six former Yugoslav republics. Alternative terms in use include the "War in the Balkans", or "War in (the former) Yugoslavia", "Wars of Yugoslav Secession", and the "Third Balkan War" (a short-lived term coined by British journalist Misha Glenny, alluding to the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913). They were characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats, Bosnians or Albanians on the other; but also between Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia. The conflict had its roots in various underlying political, economic and cultural problems, as well as long-standing ethnic and religious tensions.
The civil wars ended with much of the former Yugoslavia reduced to poverty, massive economic disruption and persistent instability across the territories where the worst fighting occurred. The wars were the bloodiest conflicts on European soil since the end of World War II. They were also the first conflicts since World War II to have been formally judged genocidal in character and many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the United Nations to prosecute these crimes.
The Yugoslav civil wars can be split in three groups of several distinct conflicts:
Background
Before World War II, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavia's multi-ethnic makeup and relative political and demographic domination of the Serbs. Fundamental to the tensions was the different conceptions of the new state, for the Croats envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater autonomy than they had as a separate crown land under Austria-Hungary. Under Austria-Hungary, 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 Serbian Kingdom. The Serbs sacrificed their own state (which was in that time a little bit larger as today's Serbia, including much of Kosovo and Makedonia) in order to realize the ideal of a "South Slav state". Tensions between the two ethnic groups often erupted into open conflict, with the Serb dominated security structure exercising repression during elections and the assassination in federal parliament of Croat political leaders, including Stjepan Radic, 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 repression that the radical insurgent group (later fascist dictatorship) Ustasha were formed.
The country's tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces in World War II, which established a puppet-state spanning much of present day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Axis powers installed in charge of this "Independent State of Croatia" the Ustasha, which having resolved that the Serbian minority were a Trojan horse of Serbian expansionism, pursued a genocidal policy against them. One third were to be killed, one third expelled, and one third converted to Catholicism and assimilated as Croats. The same policy was applied in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. 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 Nedic was installed by the Axis as head of the Serb puppet state. 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 is 1,704,000. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavic and Bogoljub Kocovic showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million. Of that number, the Ustaše killed 330,000–390,000 ethnic Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.
Despite the federal structure of the new Yugoslavia, there was still the tension between the federalists, primarily Croats and Slovenes who argued for greater autonomy, and unitarists, primarily Serbs. The to and fro of 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.
SFR Yugoslav dissolution wars (1991-1995)
In the years leading up to the Yugoslav wars, relations among the republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been deteriorating. Slovenia and Croatia desired greater autonomy within a Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority. As it became clearer that there was no solution agreeable to all parties, Slovenia and Croatia moved toward secession. By that time there was no effective authority at the federal level. Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of all 6 republics and 2 provinces and JNA (Yugoslav People's Army). Communist leadership was divided along national lines. The final breakdown occurred at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party when Croat and Slovenian delegates left in protest because the pro-integration majority in the Congress rejected their proposed amendments.
The first of these conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War or "The War" in Slovenia, was initiated by the secession of Slovenia from the federation on 25 June 1991. The federal government ordered the federal Yugoslav People's Army to secure border crossings in Slovenia. Slovenian police and Territorial Defense blockaded barracks and roads, leading to standoffs and limited skirmishes around the republic. After several dozen deaths, the limited conflict was stopped through negotiation at Brioni on 9 July 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia agreed to a three-month moratorium on secession. The Federal army completely withdrew from Slovenia by 26 October 1991.
The second in this series of conflicts, the Croatian War of Independence, began when Serbs in Croatia who were opposed to Croatian independence announced their secession from Croatia. The move was in part triggered by a provision in the new Croatian Constitution that replaced the explicit reference to Serbs in Croatia as a "constituent nation" with a generic reference to all other nations, and was interpreted by Serbs as being reclassified as a "national minority". This was coupled with a history of distrust between the two ethnic groups dating back to at least both World Wars and the inter-war period. The federally-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was ideologically unitarist, and predominantly staffed by Serbs in its officer corp, thus it also opposed Croatian independence and sided with the Croatian Serb rebels. Since the JNA had disarmed the Territorial Units of the two northernmost republics, the fledgling Croatian state had to form its military from scratch and was further hindered by an arms embargo imposed by the U.N. on the whole of Yugoslavia. The Croatian Serb rebels were unaffected by said embargo as they had the support of and access to supplies of the JNA. The border regions faced direct attacks from forces within Serbia and Montenegro, and saw the destruction of Vukovar and the shelling of UNESCO world heritage site Dubrovnik. Meanwhile, control over central Croatia was seized by Croatian Serb forces in conjunction with the JNA Corpus from Bosnia & Herzegovina, under the leadership of Ratko Mladic. These attacks were marked by the killings of captured soldiers and heavy civilian casualties (Ovcara; Škabrnja), and were the subject of war crimes indictments by the ICTY for elements of the Serb political & military leadership. In January 1992, the Vance peace plan proclaimed UN controlled (UNPA) zones for Serbs in territory claimed by the rebel Serbs as the Republic of Serbian Krajina and brought an end to major military operations, though sporadic artillery attacks on Croatian cities and occasional intrusions of Croatian forces into UNPA zones continued until 1995.
In 1992, the conflict engulfed Bosnia. It was predominantly a territorial conflict between local Bosniaks (a.k.a. Bosnian Muslims) and Croats backed by Zagreb on one side, and Serbs backed by the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbia on the other. The Yugoslav armed forces which had disintegrated into a largely Serb-dominated military force opposed the Bosniak-majority led government's agenda for independence and along with other armed nationalist Serb militant forces, attempted to prevent Bosnian citizens from voting in the 1992 referendum on independence to prevent Bosnia from legally being able to secede. This did not succeed in persuading people not to vote and instead the intimidating atmosphere combined with a Serb boycott of the vote resulted in a resounding 99% vote in support for independence. In June 19, 1992 Croat-Bosniak war broke out. The Bosnia conflict, typified by the siege of Sarajevo & Srebrenica, was by far the bloodiest and most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. Bosnia's Serb faction led by ultra-nationalist Radovan Karadzic promised independence for all Serb areas of Bosnia from the majority-Bosniak government of Bosnia. To link the disjointed parts of territories populated by Serbs and areas claimed by Serbs, Karadzic pursued an agenda of systematic ethnic cleansing primarily against Bosniaks through genocide and forced removal of Bosniak populations. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States reported in April 1995 that 90 percent of all the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars up to that point had been committed by Serb militants. Most of these atrocities occurred in Bosnia.
The fighting in Croatia ended sometime in the summer of 1995, after the Croatian Army launched two rapid military operations, codenamed Operation Flash and Operation Storm, in which it managed to reclaim all of its territory except the UNPA Sector East bordering Serbia. Most of the Serbian population in these areas became refugees, and has been the subject of war crimes indictments by the ICTY for elements of the Croat military leadership. The remaining Sector East came under UN administration (UNTAES), and was reintegrated to Croatia in 1998.
In 1994 the U.S. brokered peace between Croatian forces and the Bosniak Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the successful Flash and Storm operations, the Croatian Army and the combined Bosniak & Croat forces of Bosnian & Herzegovina, worked together in an operation codenamed Operation Maestral to push back Bosnian Serb military gains. Together with NATO air strikes on the Bosnian Serbs, the successes on the ground put pressure on the Serbs to come to the negotiating table. Pressure was put on all sides to stick to the cease-fire and finally negotiate an end to the war in Bosnia. The war ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement on the 14 December 1995, with the formation of Republika Srpska as an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina being the resolution for Bosnian Serb demands.
Conflicts in Albanian-populated areas (1996-2002)
In Kosovo, Macedonia, and southern Central Serbia, the conflicts were typified by ethnic and political tension between the Serbian and Macedonian governments and Albanian national minorities which sought autonomy, as was the case in the Republic of Macedonia, or independence, as was the case in Kosovo.
The conflict in Kosovo (1996-1999) became a full-scale war in 1999, while the Macedonia conflict (2001-2002) and Southern Serbia conflict (2001) were characterized by armed clashes between state security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
The war in Kosovo ended with NATO intervention against Serbian forces in 1999, with a mainly bombing but partly ground-based campaign under the command of Gen. Wesley Clark. The NATO intervention is often counted as yet another separate war.
The military conflicts in southern Serbia and in Republic of Macedonia ended with internationally-overseen peace agreements between the insurgents and the government. Kosovo was placed under the governmental control of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and the military protection of KFOR.
Rioting and unrest in Kosovo broke out in 2004, with minor unrest in 2008 upon Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia.
- See also: Serbian-Albanian conflict
War rape
Evidence of the magnitude of rape in Bosnia prompted the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to deal openly with these abuses. Reports of sexual violence during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and Kosovo War (1996-1999) have been described as "especially alarming". Since the entry of the NATO-led Kosovo Force, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women by ethnic Albanians, sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, have also been documented.
It has been estimated that during the Bosnian War between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped. The majority of the rape victims were Muslim women raped by Serbian soldiers. Although men also became victim of sexual violence, war rape was disproportionately directed against women who were (gang) raped in the streets, in their homes and/or in front of family members. Sexual violence occurred in a multiple ways, including rape with objects, such as broken glass bottles, guns and truncheons. War rape occurred as a matter of official orders as part of ethnic cleansing, to displace the targeted ethnic group out of the region.
During the Bosnian War the existence of deliberately created "rape camps" was reported. The reported aim of these camps was to impregnate the Muslim and Croatian women held captive. It has been reported that often women were kept in confinement until the late stage of their pregnancy. This occurred in the context of a patrilineal society, in which children inherit their father's ethnicity, hence the "rape camps" aimed at the birth of a new generation of Serb children. According to the Women's Group Tresnjevka more than 35,000 women and children were held in such Serb-run "rape camps".
During the Kosovo War thousands of Kosovo Albanian women and girls became victims of sexual violence. War rape was used as a weapon of war and an instrument of systematic ethnic cleansing; rape was used to terrorise the civilian population, extort money from families, and force people to flee their homes. According to a 2000 Human Rights Watch report war rape in the Kosovo War can generally be subdivided into three categories: rapes in women's homes, rapes during fighting, and rapes in detention. The majority of the perpetrators were Serbian paramilitaries, but they also included Serbian special police or Yugoslav army soldiers. Most rapes were gang rapes involving at least two perpetrators. Rapes occurred frequently in the presence, and with the acquiescence, of military officers. Soldiers, police, and paramilitaries often raped their victims in the full view of numerous witnesses.
Conflict and persecution between peoples of the same ethnicity
In Serbia and Serb territories, violent confrontations occurred particularly between nationalist Serbs towards non-nationalist Serbs who had criticized the Serbian government and the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia. Serbs who publicly opposed the nationalist political climate during the Yugoslav wars were reported to have been harassed, threatened, or killed.
A brief timeline of the Yugoslav Wars
1968
- Students in Kosovo demand greater rights for the Albanian minority during the worldwide May 1968 protests.
1971
- Demonstrations in Croatia, known as the Croatian spring, are condemned by the communist government. Many participants were later convicted as nationalists, including Stipe Mesic and Franjo Tudman. Government crisis follows.
1974
- A new SFRY constitution is proclaimed, granting more power to federal units, and more power to autonomous provinces Kosovo and Vojvodina of Serbia, giving them all a single vote in all relevant decisions in the federal government, which is now headed by the joint Presidency with a rotating President. Muslims were recognized as a constituent nation of Yugoslavia, becoming the primary ethnic group of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1980
- Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito dies.
1981
- Economic crisis in Yugoslavia has begun. Albanian nationalist demonstrate in Kosovo, demanding federal unit status.
1986-1989
- The controversial Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts claims Serbia has a weak position in Yugoslavia.
- Slobodan Miloševic rises to power in Serbia, promising to defend and promote the interests of Serbs across Yugoslavia and challenge politicians who were deemed to be repressing the interests of Serbs. Antibureaucratic revolution demonstrations overthrow Communist party leadership and bring pro-Miloševic governments to power in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro. The other republics' leaderships oppose Miloševic's coups.
1990
- The League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolves on republican and ethnic lines at its 14th Congress with Slovene and Croatian delegations leaving amid claims that Miloševic is usurping power.
- The first democratic elections are held in socialist Yugoslavia. Nationalist parties win the majority in almost all republics.
- Student protests in Belgrade against Miloševic end with police crackdown: one student is killed.
- Croatian Serbs start a rebellion against the newly elected Croatian government led by Franjo Tudman, severing land ties between Dalmatia and remainder of Croatia.
- Albanian miners go on strike in Kosovo, which Miloševic ends with a police and army crackdown.
- Constitutional changes in Serbia revoke some of the powers granted to Kosovo and Vojvodina, effectively giving Serbia 3 out of 8 votes in the federal council. Along with allied Montenegro, this gives extreme power to the Serbian elite. With these votes, Serbian representatives attempt to institute martial law to stop democratic changes - their attempt fails as Bosnia's representative (an ethnic Serb) votes against in the crucial last vote.
1991
- Slovenia and Croatia declare independence in June, Macedonia in September. War in Slovenia lasts ten days.
- The Yugoslav army leaves Slovenia, but supports rebel Serb forces in Croatia. The Croatian War of Independence begins in Croatia.
- Cities of Vukovar, Dubrovnik and Osijek are devastated by bombardments and shelling. Flood of refugees from the war zones and ethnic cleansing overwhelm entire Croatia. Countries of Europe are slow in accepting refugees.
- Macedonia declares independence in September.
1992
- Vance peace plan signed, creating 4 UNPA zones for Serbs and ending large scale fighting in Croatia. Serb areas in Croatia declare independence, but are recognized only by FR Yugoslavia.
- Bosnia declares independence. Bosnian war begins.
- Federal Republic of Yugoslavia proclaimed, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, the only two remaining republics.
- United Nations impose sanctions against FR Yugoslavia and accepts Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia as members. FR Yugoslavia claims being sole legal heir to SFRY, which is disputed by other republics. UN envoys agree that Yugoslavia had 'dissolved into constituent republics'.
- Approx. 600.000 non-serbian refugees.
1993
- Bosniak-Croat conflict begins in Bosnia.
- Fighting begins in the Bihac region between Bosnian Government and Bosniaks loyal to Fikret Abdic, supported by Serbs.
- F.R. Yugoslavia, due to sanctions and isolation, is hit with, by that time, never seen hyperinflation of 3,6 million percent a year of Yugoslav dinar. This amount of inflation exceeds that experienced in the Great Depression of 1929.
- The Stari Most (The Old Bridge) in Mostar, built in 1566, was destroyed by Bosnian Croat forces. It was rebuilt in 2003.
- The Republic of Macedonia is accepted by the UN, but under the provisional name "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
1994
- Peace treaty between Bosniaks and Croats arbitrated by the United States, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina formed.
- F.R. Yugoslavia stabilizes economy structure with Economic Implementation Framework.
1995
- Srebrenica massacre reported, 8,000 Bosniaks killed.
- Croatia launches Operation Flash and Operation Storm, reclaiming all UNPA zones except Eastern Slavonia, and resulting in exodus of 250,000 Serbs from the zones. War in Croatia ends.
- NATO launches a series of air strikes on Bosnian Serb artillery and other military targets.
- Dayton Agreement signed in Paris. War in Bosnia and Herzegovina ends. Aftermath of war is over 100,000 killed and missing and 2,5 million people internally displaced among the former republics. Serb defeat in Croatia and West Bosnia allows Croatian and Bosniak refugees to return to their homes, but many refugees of all nationalities are still displaced today.
- After signing the Dayton Agreement, Yugoslavia is granted with looser sanctions, still affecting much of its economy (trade, tourism, industrial production and exports of final products), but allowing for its citizens to exit Yugoslavia, for a limited time.
1996
- FR Yugoslavia recognizes Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
- Following a fraud in local elections, hundreds of thousands of Serbs demonstrate in Belgrade against Miloševic regime for three months.
1998
- Fighting breaks out between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
- Eastern Slavonia peacefully reintegrated into Croatia, following a gradual three-year handover of power.
1999
- NATO starts a military campaign in Kosovo and bombards Serbia in Operation Allied Force.
- Following Miloševic signing of an agreement, control of Kosovo is handed to the United Nations, but still remains a part of Yugoslavia's federation. Fresh fighting erupts between Albanians and Yugoslav security forces in Albanian populated areas outside of Kosovo, with the intent of joining three municipalities to Kosovo.
- Franjo Tudman dies. Shortly after that, his party loses the elections.
2000
- Slobodan Miloševic is voted out of office, and Vojislav Koštunica becomes the new president of Yugoslavia.
- With Miloševic ousted and a new democratic government in place, FR Yugoslavia comes out of isolation. The political and economic sanctions are suspended in total, and FRY is reinstated in many political and economic organizations, as well as becoming a candidate for other collaborative efforts like the European union.
2001
- The Conflict in Southern Serbia ends with the Albanians surrendering their bid to attach the regions to Kosovo, and making this the only conflict into which Miloševic led his nation where they would emerge victorious (despite Miloševic himself having been internally ousted by the end). Relatively few casualties were reported in this war. However, as the battles in southern Serbia were being phased out, they were only to be replaced by more sinister fighting south of the border in the Republic of Macedonia where ethnic Albanians and Macedonian security forces would wage war on each other between January and November. The fighting ended following internationally sponsored peace talks which set the framework for amendments to the Macedonian constitution which would benefit its significant Albanian population.
- In June, Miloševic was handed over by Yugoslav authorities to UN personnel, and subsequently transfered to the Hague to stand trial.
2002
- Miloševic is put on trial in The Hague on charges of war crimes in Kosovo.
2003
- FR Yugoslavia is reorganized into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
- Alija Izetbegovic dies.
2004
- Slovenia joins the European Union and NATO.
2006
- Death of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo Albanian leader in Priština
- Montenegro helds referendum on independence and dissolves the union with Serbia.
- Death of Slobodan Miloševic in The Hague prison.
2007
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) finds Serbia not guilty of committing genocide in Bosnia, but finds that it failed to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica and orders it to hand over war criminals who are suspected to hide inside its borders.
2008
- Kosovo declares independence on 17 February 2008. The UN is still divided over the recognition of the state.
- Radovan Karadžic captured in Belgrade, 21 July 2008.
- Majority of the UN states backed a Serbian judicial initiative on Kosovo aimed at determining whether the secession was legal.
See also
External links
- Bora Radovic: .
- Wiebes, Cees. Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995, Publisher: Lit Verlag, 2003
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- Dr. R. Craig Nation.
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Strategic Studies Institute, 2002, ISBN 1-58487-134-2
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