The Yugoslav Wars were a series of violent conflicts fought in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the second half of World War II (1943) until it was formally dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Serbia, in between 1991 and 1995 (with wars and ensuing infighting still continuing within the region). The wars were complex: they have been characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts An ethnic conflict or ethnic war is a war between ethnic groups often as a result of ethnic nationalism. They are of interest because of the apparent prevalence since the Cold War and because they frequently result in war crimes such as genocide. Academic explanations of ethnic conflict generally fall into one of three schools of thought: among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs Serbs are a native Balkan South Slavic ethnic group. Majority of Serbs live in their ancestral lands in Central Europe and the Balkans (Southeastern Europe), between the Balkan and Carpathian mountains, in the east, and the Adriatic sea, in the west. Significant percentage of Serb people live in diaspora. The total world Serbian population, (and to a lesser extent, Montenegrins Predominantly Eastern Orthodox; Muslim and Roman Catholic) on the one side and Croats Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 5 million Croats living in the southern Central Europe region, along the east bank of the Adriatic Sea and an estimated 9 million throughout the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats and Bosniaks The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in the Sandžak, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional adherence to Islam since 15th and 16th centuries, and common (and to a lesser degree, Slovenes Slovenes are a South Slavic people primarily associated with Slovenia and the Slovene language) on the other; but also between Bosniaks The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in the Sandžak, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional adherence to Islam since 15th and 16th centuries, and common and Croats Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 5 million Croats living in the southern Central Europe region, along the east bank of the Adriatic Sea and an estimated 9 million throughout the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats in Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina (pronounced /ˈbɒzni.ə hɜrtsɨˈɡoʊvɨnə/ ( listen) or /ˌhɜrtsɨɡoʊˈviːnə/; Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin: Bosna i Hercegovina; Bosnian and Serbian Cyrillic: Босна и Херцеговина) is a country in South-Eastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, (in addition to a separate conflict fought between rival Bosniak factions in Bosnia). The wars ended in various stages, mostly resulting in full international recognition of new sovereign territories, but with massive economic disruption to the successor states.

Often described as Europe's deadliest conflicts since World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland ·, they have become infamous for the war crimes War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, they involved, including mass ethnic cleansing Crime of apartheid · CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR.^[1] They were the first conflicts since World War II to be formally judged genocidal CDE · CEDAW · CERD · ILO C100 · ILO C111 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR in character and many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages,.^[2] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a body of the United Nations established to prosecute (ICTY) was established by the United Nations The United Nations Organization or simply United Nations (UN) (Arabic: الأمم المتحدة, French: Organisation des Nations Unies, Chinese: 联合国 / 聯合國, Spanish: Organización de las Naciones Unidas, Russian: Организация Объединённых Наций) Filipino: Organisasyon ng Nagkakaisang mga Bansa is an to prosecute these crimes.^[3]

Although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, it was 1990 that proved the decisive year in which war became more likely. In the midst of economic hardship, the country was facing rising nationalism amongst its various ethnic groups. At the last 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the Serbian Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav republics, and it housed the greatest concentration of-dominated assembly agreed to abolish the single-party system, however Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (sometimes transliterated as Miloshevich; Serbian pronunciation: [sloˈbodan miˈloʃevitɕ] ; Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан Милошевић; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Federal Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in, the head of the Serbian Party branch (League of Communists of Serbia) used his influence to block and vote-down all other proposals from the Croatian Socialist Republic of Croatia was a socialist state and a sovereign constituent country of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is the predecessor of the modern-day Republic of Croatia. It became part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia in 1943. In 1990 , the state was reformed as Croatia adopted a multi-party system and free and Slovene party delegates. This prompted the Croatian and Slovene delegations to walk out and thus the break-up of the party,^[4] a symbolic event representing the end of "brotherhood and unity".

The Yugoslav Wars may be considered to comprise of three separate but related wars:

• War in Slovenia (1991)
• Croatian War of Independence b The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was significant for the conflict only in 1995. In 1995, after the Washington Agreement, the state was de facto representative of the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself. Not to be confused with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which encompasses all three Bosnian ethnic groups (1991–1995)
• Bosnian War b Between 1994 and 1995, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was supported by, and was representative of, both ethnic Bosniaks and ethnic Bosnian Croats. This was primarily because of the Washington Agreement (1992–1995)

And somethimes Kosovo War The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is used to describe two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo. From early 1998 to 1999, the war was between Yugoslav police forces, Yugoslav paramilitaries, and the Yugoslav military, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel guerillas. From March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999, NATO attacked Yugoslavia, (1998-1999) as the fourth.

Terminology

The war(s) have alternatively been called:

• "War in the Balkans": largely inappropriate, partly because the war affected only the Western Balkans but also because certain areas which saw fighting (e.g. most of Slovenia Slovenia /sloʊˈviːniə/ sloh-VEE-nee-ə, officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Republika Slovenija, [reˈpublika sloˈveːnija] (help·info)), is a country in Central Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy on the west, the Adriatic Sea on the southwest, Croatia on the south and east, Hungary on, the Croatian land of Slavonia Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia. It is a fertile agricultural and forested lowland in the Pannonian Basin, bounded, in part, by the Drava river in the north, the Sava river in the south, and the Danube river in the east) are within Central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West, splitting Central Europe in half (not in the Balkans).
• The "Balkan War against Milosevic" (stresses the US participation and mission).
• "War in (the former) Yugoslavia"
• "Wars of Yugoslav Secession/Succession"
• "Third Balkan War": a short-lived term coined by British journalist Misha Glenny, alluding to the two previous Balkan Wars The term Balkan Wars refers to the two wars that took place in South-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century rule in the Balkans fought 1912–1913^[5]
• "Ten Years War": a term coined by the Italian scholar Alessandro Marzo Magno to encompass the whole 1991-2001 period.^[6]

Background

Before World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland ·, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941. It was formed in 1918 when merging the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, formed on territories of defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the formerly independent Kingdom's multi-ethnic makeup and relative political and demographic domination of the Serbs. Fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state; the Croats envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater autonomy than they had as a separate crown land under Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe. The union was a result of the Ausgleich or Compromise of 1867, under which the Austrian House of Habsburg agreed to share power with the separate Hungarian government,. Under Austria-Hungary, Croats enjoyed autonomy with free hands only in education, law, religion and 45% of taxes.^[7] The Serbs tended to view the territories as a just reward for their support of the allies in World War I World War I was a military conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 15 million people were 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 than today's Serbia, including much of Kosovo and Macedonia) 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 oppression during elections^[8] and the assassination in federal parliament of Croat political leaders, including Stjepan Radić, who opposed the Serbian monarch's absolutism Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, thus wielding political power over the sovereign state and its subject peoples. In an absolute monarchy, the transmission of power is two-fold, hereditary and marital; as absolute governor, the. 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 Albert Einstein (pronounced /ˈælbərt ˈaɪnstaɪn/; German: [ˈalbɐt ˈaɪnʃtaɪn] ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. A German-Swiss Nobel laureate, he is often regarded as the.^[9] It was in this environment of oppression that the radical insurgent group (later fascist dictatorship), the Ustaše The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, Croatian ultranationalism, and Roman Catholic Clericalist Fundamentalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border were formed.

The country's tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Japan, and Italy—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded in World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland ·, which established a puppet state The term puppet state describes a nominal sovereignty controlled effectively by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette. A puppet state has also been described as an entity which in fact lacks independence, preserves all the external spanning much of present day Croatia Croatia (pronounced /kroʊˈeɪʃə/ , kroe-AY-shə; Croatian: Hrvatska pronounced [xř̩ʋaːtskaː]), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska listen (help·info)), is a country in Central Europe and Southeastern Europe at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Adriatic Sea. Its capital and largest and Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina (pronounced /ˈbɒzni.ə hɜrtsɨˈɡoʊvɨnə/ ( listen) or /ˌhɜrtsɨɡoʊˈviːnə/; Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin: Bosna i Hercegovina; Bosnian and Serbian Cyrillic: Босна и Херцеговина) is a country in South-Eastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south,. The Axis powers installed the Ustasha The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement , members known collectively as Ustaše, but sometimes anglicised as Ustashe, Ustashas or Ustashi) was a Croatian terrorist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was blend of fascism, nazism, Croatian ultranationalism, and Roman Catholic Clericalist Fundamentalism. The Ustaše in charge of this "Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on April 10, 1941 after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. The state was technically a monarchy and Italian protectorate from the signing of the Rome agreements on May 19, 1941 until", which having resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group, such as a nation, from within, to the aid of an external enemy of Serbian expansionism, pursued a genocidal CDE · CEDAW · CERD · ILO C100 · ILO C111 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR policy against them. One third were to be killed, one third expelled, and one third converted to Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with more than a billion members. The Church's leader is the Pope who holds supreme authority in concert with the College of Bishops of which he is the head. A communion of the Western church and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic churches (called and assimilated as Croats. The same policy was applied in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both Croats and Muslims were recruited as soldiers by the SS The Schutzstaffel (German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsʃtafəl] , Protection Squadron), abbreviated SS—or with stylized "Armanen" Sig runes —was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity (primarily in the 13th Waffen Mountain Division). At the same time, former Royalist General Milan Nedić was installed by the Axis as head of the Serb puppet state. Both quislings Quisling is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. The term was most commonly used for fascist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators were confronted and eventually defeated by the communist Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon communal ownership of property-led anti-fascist Partisan The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II resistance movement engaged in the fight against Axis forces and their collaborators in Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav People's Liberation War (being part of World War II) from 1941 to 1945. The Partisans, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, were a faction that embodied movement composed of members of all ethnic groups in the area, leading to the formation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the second half of World War II (1943) until it was formally dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Serbia, in. 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 Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović 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.^[10]

Despite the federal structure of the new Yugoslavia, there was still tension between the federalists, primarily Croats and Slovenes who argued for greater autonomy, and unitarists, primarily Serbs. The 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.

Ten-Day War

The first of these conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, 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 Slovenian Territorial Defence 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.

Croatian War of Independence

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. Fighting in this region had actually begun weeks prior to the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. The move was 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". The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was ideologically unitarian, though at this stage predominantly staffed by Serbs in its officer corp, thus it also opposed Croatian independence, siding 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^{[citation needed]} 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 the 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.

Show All>>

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Fads: Answers
• Bland: Dictionary
• Fad: Videos
• Society: History: By Topic: Social History: Pop Culture: Directory
• Arts: Literature: Periods and Movements: Pulp Fiction: Directory
• Search Terms
• Fad: News
• Referrers
• Fads: News

Most Popular Pages:

• Search Terms
• Socks: Blogs
• Pierced: Answers
• Fads and Trends By Decade: Blogs
• Fads
• Eyebrows: Answers
• Calorie Diet: Answers
• Fads: Answers
• Vampire Diaries: Blogs
• Society: History: By Topic: Social History: Pop Culture: Directory

Related 'Yugoslav Wars' Searches: