Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001): breakup, conflicts and aftermath

The Yugoslav wars were caused by a complex mixture of ethnic, religious and severe economic problems that Yugoslavia had been facing since the 1980s. A major economic cause of the strife between the republics was the distribution of financial resources between them (similar to the German Länderfinanzausgleich). In view of the decreasing funds available due to hyperinflation, Croatia and Slovenia, as the wealthier republics, claimed a larger share of the funds generated by them, while the poorer countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia with its two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina demanded a larger share for themselves as compensation for the poor economic situation. This conflict could not be resolved politically, partly because of the lack of a clearly established system of government after Tito's death in 1980.

In this already heated atmosphere, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts published the SANU Memorandum in 1986, attacking the political system of Yugoslavia and speaking of systematic discrimination against the Serbian people. It spoke of a "genocide" against the Serbs in Kosovo. This memorandum strengthened the increasingly rising nationalism within the Albanian and Serbian ethnic groups, which also increased within the other Yugoslav peoples. On the Serbian side, the policies of Slobodan Milošević, who had been head of the Belgrade regional group since 1984 and party secretary of the Union of Communists of Serbia since September 1987, were particularly instrumental in exacerbating nationalist tensions. These were given a further boost when, in 1989, an amendment to the Serbian constitution initiated under Milošević effectively abolished the autonomous rights of the Serbian provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, which had been practically extended to republic status since the constitutional amendments of 1967 and 1974. This secured their votes in the collective state presidency for Serbia and restored the influence of the Serbian government over its provinces, which had been largely eliminated since 1967/1974. In the preceding decades, on the other hand, Serbia's role under Tito had been deliberately weakened through the votes of these provinces in order to prevent a dominance of the Serbian population at the political level within the Yugoslav Federal Republic that corresponded to the actual population proportions in Yugoslavia. This strengthening of Serbian positions within Yugoslavia occurred within the framework of the so-called Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution. The political leadership of the regions was replaced by Milošević's henchmen. The political climate was also fuelled by nationalist, anti-Serb and anti-Semitic statements by the future Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, who emphasised that he was proud and happy not to be married to a Serb or a Jew. In Croatia, the public display of Ustasha symbols, discrimination against Serbs, especially in the workplace, the brutal actions of the police, the trivialization of Serb victims in World War II, and finally a rampant "Serbophobia" aggravated the situation. Instead of calming the situation, however, both Croatian and Serbian politicians stirred up and fanned national emotions.

The reform proposals on how to deal with the crisis moved between two poles, marked by the Slovenian and Croatian party leadership and the Serbian. While the former focused on political and economic liberalization and the transformation of the federal state into a confederation, the Serbian leadership under Slobodan Milošević proposed constitutional changes to strengthen the centre. On 28 December 1990, the Serbian parliament decided in a secret vote to put new money of 18.243 billion dinars (the equivalent of US$1.4 billion at the time) into circulation through an uncovered, illegal bond issue without the knowledge of the federal government. The governments of Slovenia and Croatia condemned this measure as "open robbery" .

In the wake of the political upheavals in the other socialist states of Eastern Europe in 1989/90, new parties were also formed in Yugoslavia, and the first free elections were held in 1990 in some of the republics, which in Croatia and Slovenia were won by a majority of nationalist parties striving for state independence. After referendums in Slovenia and Croatia (the Krajina Serbs, however, boycotted the referendum) voted by large majorities in favour of secession from the state of Yugoslavia, first Slovenia and then Croatia proclaimed their independence on 25 June 1991, which was regarded by parts of the Yugoslav leadership as a breach of the constitution. This was possible because of unclear wording in the 1974 constitution, which enshrined the right of self-determination for the peoples of Yugoslavia, but did not even consider modalities for individual republics to withdraw from the federation. The Yugoslav leadership, under the decisive influence of Milošević, tried to prevent independence with the help of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). Thus, the first battles between the Yugoslav army and the Slovenian armed forces took place in Slovenia in June 1991. The other conflicts present in Yugoslavia developed into open warfare. Especially in the republics with ethnically largely heterogeneous populations (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia), the fighting was fierce and prolonged. In Bosnia alone, this war claimed around 100,000 lives. There were mass exoduses, expulsions and destruction. Since the JNA, nominally the fourth largest army in Europe at the time, was Yugoslav-oriented, the republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina had to improvise their own armies of police and territorial defence. The commander-in-chief of the JNA was Veljko Kadijević. The Territorial Defence was an institution existing parallel to the army, which, with an organisational form similar to the fire brigade, was to organise the defence quickly and unbureaucratically in the event of an attack until the arrival of the army and was under the command of the municipal administration. The weapons of the Croatian Territorial Defence were confiscated by the JNA as early as May 1990, those of the Bosnian a little later. Only the police retained their light armament. However, the Croatian Army was gradually strengthened and upgraded since 1990. In 1991, most Western states were still determined to preserve Yugoslavia as a state, but over time came to the realization that this was no longer feasible. The Badinter Commission, set up by the EU in 1992, concluded that the borders of the former constituent republics of Yugoslavia should be regarded as the inter-state borders of the now sovereign successor states.

Communist takeover

Bleiburg Massacre

The remnants of the various troops (and the civilians associated with them) who were not on the side of the partisans and had fled to Allied-controlled Austria were sent back to Yugoslavia by the thousands after the end of the Second World War by British officers under an agreement with Yugoslavia and massacred within hours of their arrival. In total, up to several hundred thousand people were killed in 1945/46 in mass shootings, "death marches" and in Tito's prison camps, according to various estimates.

These events, as well as some of the war crimes perpetrated by Yugoslavs against Yugoslavs during World War II, were largely hushed up publicly in the years that followed. Actual or perceived political opponents of the communist government were further targeted through intimidation, forced labor, arbitrary arrests, and punishments. Leaders and active members of religious communities were also subjected to intense pressure in the early years. Muslim believers considered potential opponents were sometimes killed without investigation or trial.

Resistance of the "Young Muslims

The student organization Mladi Muslimani (Engl. "Young Muslims"), which had links to associations from Islamic states, resisted the campaign against Islam in 1949, whereupon it was accused of a pro-Islamic revolt. Four members were sentenced to death, several hundred to imprisonment.

Autonomy efforts of the 1960s

Croatia

In 1967, Croatian linguists and various student organizations called for the reintroduction of the Croatian language and demanded that the term Serbo-Croatian be abolished in Croatia.

Franjo Tuđman was expelled from the Communist Party because of his political theses, which claimed an oppression of Croats by Serbs and which were already called Croatian nationalist at that time.

Thousands of Croatian students and intellectuals, among them the later President of Croatia Stipe Mesić, demonstrated during the Croatian Spring for more sovereignty of the Croatian people within Yugoslavia and at the same time demanded that a larger part of the capital generated in Croatia be used for investments in Croatia (e.g. motorways and other infrastructural projects). President Josip Broz Tito, after mass arrests, succeeded in putting down this political - in his view separatist and nationalist - movement. Among the main defendants arrested for "counter-revolutionary activities" after the end of the Croatian anti-communist movement were both Franjo Tuđman and Stipe Mesić.

Macedonia

Also in 1967 the Macedonian Orthodox Church had declared itself autocephalous (independent) against the will of the Serbian Patriarchate. The independent Macedonian Church has not yet been recognized by the other Orthodox Churches either - including the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1974 Constitution

Initiated by the Central Committee of the BdKJ, the Federal Assembly adopted a new constitution in 1974, which gave the individual republics a greater degree of autonomy. The Republic of Serbia was divided into three parts with the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. One reason for this was the autonomy aspirations of Albanians and Hungarians, who at that time made up three quarters (according to the 1971 census: 73.7%) and about one fifth (according to the 1981 census: 16.9%) of the population there respectively.

After Tito's death

On 4 May 1980, Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito died at the age of 87. A collective state presidency with an annually rotating presidency from the respective republics or autonomous provinces took over the government in Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav secret service UDBA had dozens of exiled Croats and exiled Albanians murdered in the 1970s and 1980s. Exiled Croats carried out violent reprisals against Yugoslav institutions and civilians at home and abroad.

Unrest in Kosovo

Many Kosovo Albanians were not satisfied with the economic development in Kosovo, where a far-reaching Albanianization of institutions and public life had taken place since the constitutional amendments of 1967 and 1974, and in 1981 they demonstrated against their economic situation, with some of the demonstrators calling for republic status for Kosovo with the slogan "Kosova Republika! This was refused by all the constituent republics as well as by the Yugoslav federal government, the protests were put down and a state of emergency was imposed on the region. Numerous people were killed in the process. Albanian activists were sentenced to several years in prison for counter-revolutionary activities.

Lawsuit against Muslim intellectuals

In Bosnia, a court case was held in 1983 against 13 Muslim activists for "hostile and counter-revolutionary acts on Muslim nationalist grounds". The main defendant was Alija Izetbegović, who had written his Islamic Declaration 13 years earlier. The defendants, some of whom had belonged to the "Young Muslims" at the end of World War II, were accused of reviving the aims of a "terrorist" organization. Izetbegović was simultaneously accused of advocating the introduction of a Western-style parliamentary democracy. The court sentenced him to 14 years in prison, which was reduced to 11 years after appeal. To calm the tense situation in Kosovo, Alija Izetbegović was released from prison early in 1988.

SANU Memorandum

Serbian intellectuals called for an end to so-called "discriminations against the Serbian people" and a revision of the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution in the 1986 SANU Memorandum, which alleged, among other things, a genocide of the Serbian people in Kosovo and a conspiracy by Croatia and Slovenia against Serbia. The Memorandum was almost unanimously condemned by politicians in Yugoslavia (including those in Serbia).

Nevertheless, Sinan Hasani, a Kosovo Albanian, was routinely elected Yugoslav head of state.

Rise of Slobodan Milošević

In April 1987, the head of the Serbian Communist Party, Slobodan Milošević, toured Kosovo and listened to the concerns of Serbs and Montenegrins at various events in the presence of the media. The Orthodox population reported massive economic, political and psychological pressure from the Albanians. After a speech at the Kosovo Polje House of Culture, an incited Serb crowd provoked the police, who were mostly Kosovo Albanians, by throwing stones. Police then cracked down on the Serb nationalists with batons. When Milošević stepped in front of the building, people shouted "They are beating us!". Milošević replied, "No one is allowed to beat you!" ("niko ne sme da vas bije"). In the coming months, Milošević forged closer ties with the Orthodox Church and used his contacts with the media to wage an increasingly nationalist, pro-Yugoslav campaign.

In September 1987, Slobodan Milošević was able to assert himself against Serbian President Ivan Stambolić - his former mentor - and assumed sole decision-making power over the Serbian CP. In 1989, he also became president of the constituent republic of Serbia. In October 1988, as part of the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution, he arranged for the governments of Vojvodina and Montenegro to be replaced by his henchmen.

1989 to 1990

Serbia and Kosovo

In March 1989, the Parliament of the SR Serbia adopted a constitutional amendment. This reversed and effectively abolished the autonomy of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo and the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, which had been extended almost to republic status since the constitutional amendments of 1967 and 1974. As a result, unrest broke out in Kosovo and a state of emergency was finally declared. Subsequently, Albanians were ousted from almost all areas of public life and replaced by Serbs.

On "Vidovdan" (St Vitus Day, 28 June 1989), a rally attended by probably over a million people (mainly Serbs, Kosovo Serbs and Montenegrins) took place in Gazimestan on the Field of Blackbirds. The Field of Blackbirds speech delivered on this occasion by Slobodan Milošević had a strong nationalist tinge. Milošević's statement, often interpreted as a prelude to war, caused particular offence (here in a translation by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung): "[... Today] we are once again in wars and are confronted with new battles. These are not armed battles, although they cannot be ruled out. […]“

Domestically, the situation in Serbia worsened. The media were brought into line, critical journalists were dismissed. Opposition figures had to fear smear campaigns. The ultra-national "Chetnik movement" under Vojislav Šešelj was registered as a party.

In January 1990, people demonstrated for democracy in various cities in Kosovo. Clashes with security forces occurred in which several people were injured and killed. In February, Yugoslav army units were deployed in Kosovo.

Slovenia

Many Slovenes and Croats felt threatened by the Serbian claim to power. The desire to leave the Yugoslav state grew among them. Slovenia discussed the "asymmetrical federation" - not every republic should be integrated into the Yugoslav federation in the same way -, was the first constituent republic to abolish the party monopoly and to hold free elections.

The democratization process increasingly came into conflict with the centrally organized, traditionally communist authorities. In the course of 1989, various events occurred that worsened relations with Serbia (e.g., in February, an event denouncing the situation of Albanians in Kosovo; in the summer, the trial of editors of the youth magazine Mladina for publishing army documents describing planned activities in the event of mass demonstrations). In September and October, a new Slovenian constitution was drafted and adopted, in which Slovenia gave itself legislative sovereignty and explicitly declared the right to secession. When Slovenian police banned a planned "Meeting of Fraternity and Unity" in Ljubljana in December 1989, Serbia responded by boycotting Slovenian products and breaking off scientific and cultural contacts.

Croatia

As early as 1989, large-scale Serb demonstrations were held in Croatia, chanting the slogan "Ovo je Srbija" ("This is Serbia"), which was generally met with rejection in Croatia. In the nationalistically very tense situation, Franjo Tuđman, with the opposition party HDZ founded in February 1990, explicitly referred to Ante Starčević, the ideologist of a Greater Croatia, and declared that he saw in the "Independent Croatian State" of the fascist Ustasha an expression of the "old and never fulfilled longing of the Croatian people for an independent state". Similar to Slovenian politicians, leading Croatian politicians also became increasingly hostile to Serbian policy in Kosovo during this phase.

From mid-1990 onwards, the ethnically divergent development in Yugoslavia also progressively affected Croatia, where Franjo Tuđman of the HDZ was celebrated with Catholic-Christian pathos as the new leader of the Croats on Palm Sunday 1990. After his election victory in 1990, Tuđman questioned the current borders in Yugoslavia in favor of Croatia. The new Croatian government took an emphatically nationalistic stance, celebrating its inauguration on 25 July as the fulfilment of the "Croatian people's thousand-year-old dream" of a state of their own and flying the flag that had just been declared the new national flag with the checkerboard emblem (Šahovnica), which was identified especially by Serb citizens with the historical fascist Croatian state and the Ustasha.

Serbs in Croatia reacted to the Croatian change of power and the public return to the fascist Croatian state with protest actions. Thousands of Croatian Serbs protested at weekly meetings of the SDS led by Jovan Rašković. The demand of the mayor of Knin, Milan Babić, for a municipal administrative unit of the predominantly Serb-populated Croatian areas was declared a resolution by local SDS leaders at Vidovdan 1990. Also on Vidovdan 1990, an HDZ draft of a new Croatian constitution was published, declaring firstly Croatia's breakaway from communism and secondly the downgrading of Serbs from a state people to a minority. Triggered by an order of the Croatian government to rename the militia with the name redarstvo used in the fascist Ustasha regime and to replace the star insignia on police caps with what many Serbs saw as the checkerboard emblem corresponding to the Nazi swastika, Serb policemen on the territory of southern Croatian Krajina (later the Republic of Serbian Krajina) refused allegiance to the newly elected government, and in mid-August began the so-called Tree Tribe Revolution..., which in turn was accentuated by "Ovo je Srbija" and further swelled dissent in Croatia.

Economic crisis

Hyperinflation exacerbated the economic problems in 1989. The state bankruptcy could only be averted by an intervention of the International Monetary Fund. In December 1989, the dinar, which by then was circulating in thick bundles as worthless paper money (on December 19, 1989, one still got 70,000 dinars for 1 DM (the equivalent of 0.51 euros)), was pegged to the German mark at a fixed ratio of 7:1, and four zeros were deleted.

The economic downturn continued in 1990. Inflation was brought down to just under double digits. But the fixed, artificially high exchange rate to the German mark shook the hitherto largely stable economies in the SR Slovenia and the SR Croatia, which had hitherto been very export-oriented and able to generate substantial foreign exchange earnings from tourism.

In 1990 the republics of Slovenia and Croatia began to stop paying their full taxes and customs duties to the federal treasury, and then stopped their payments altogether, including those to the republics' equalization fund. Savers, who had always invested most of their savings in foreign currency accounts, increasingly lost confidence in the ailing system from mid-1990 onwards. More and more savers withdrew their foreign currency deposits from the banks or entrusted them to speculative companies such as the newly founded private bank Jugoskandik in Serbia. In October 1990, the equivalent of over 3 billion dollars flowed out. To avert national bankruptcy, the government under Prime Minister Ante Marković had no choice but to freeze all foreign currency accounts. This effectively expropriated all savers who had not yet had their deposits paid out.

On December 28, 1990, the Serbian Parliament decided in a secret vote to put into circulation the equivalent of $1.4 billion in new money through an illegal borrowing from the National Bank of Yugoslavia to pay overdue salaries. The Yugoslav prime minister was not informed of this until January 4, anonymously. In 2003, as a witness in the ICTY trial against Milošević, he described this incident as "daylight robbery, pure and simple".

Political transformation

Federal level

On 22 January 1990, the delegates of the Slovenian and Croatian Communists walked out of the extraordinary party congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia when their reform plans were rejected. The Congress adjourned without ever resuming its work. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia gradually broke apart.

Slovenia and Croatia subsequently presented a draft constitution for a transformation of the Yugoslav federation into the looser form of a confederation.

Slovenia and Croatia

In April 1990, the first democratic elections were held in the republics of Slovenia and Croatia.

In Slovenia, the reform communist Milan Kučan was elected President of the Republic. The government was formed by the opposition alliance "Demos". In July it declared Slovenia's sovereignty and announced its intention to seek a Yugoslav confederation with other republics. This was met with strong protests from Belgrade. Another point of conflict was the Slovenian government's determination to limit the service of its recruits only to the home region. A start was made on setting up a Slovenian militia of its own.

In Croatia, the nationalist Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), headed by Franjo Tuđman, emerged victorious from the elections. (The Communists had expected a relative majority victory for themselves and had supported an electoral system that significantly favoured a government with a relative majority rather than an absolute one). The Serbian Party received about 12% of the vote, which corresponds to the proportion of the Serbian population in Croatia.

The Croatian parliament introduced Croatian as an official language and restricted the administrative use of the Cyrillic script. In the Serb-populated areas, attempts were made to replace the Cyrillic-lettered place-name signs with those using Latin script. The number of Serbs in the police and in leading positions in the economic sphere was to be reduced to 12% in proportion to their share of the population. On the other hand, the Serbs were offered cultural autonomy and their own administration of the areas they inhabited. The Serb members of parliament were also promised the post of deputy speaker of parliament and their representation in some important bodies. However, these offers fell flat in the face of conspicuous "Croatianization" measures. In a planned revision of the constitution, the Serbian part of the population was downgraded to a "minority", which resulted in the loss of some civic rights. Protests began among the Serbs of Croatia, with logistical and ideological support from Belgrade. Ideologically, the main claim was that the Croatian government was planning a genocide of Serbs similar to World War II. Violent riots and road blockades occurred, which became known as the "tree trunk revolution" (balvan revolucija).

Slovenia and Croatia announced their independence for June 1991 if there was no political reorganisation of Yugoslavia by then. In Slovenia, 88.5% voted in a referendum on 23 December in favour of Slovenia's state sovereignty and a definitive exit in that event.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian Alija Izetbegović became president. In the same year he had a new edition of the "Islamic Declaration" printed.