Question:
What was the Yugoslavia war in the 1990s all about?
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
What was the Yugoslavia war in the 1990s all about?
Six answers:
2007-04-17 08:31:48 UTC
I gave thumbs down to the first three answers here because of some serious faults in their story:



a) First, cwfraggl, tells that: “up comes some Croatians. who say "you are living on our land in our home" technically they do have a claim.”



Technically speaking, Republic of Croatia was Federal Republic constituted by Croats, Serbs and minorities. This means that Serbs were as constituent in Croatia as Croats, despite how that sounds. When Croats declared their country independent, they threw Serbs into the status of minority.



b) Geoff says: “Eventually, the UN and NATO stepped in to stop the killing and calm things down and Bosnia-Herzegovina is now also recognized as a sovereign nation.



Similar processes had happened in an area of Serbia called Macedonia, and the US stationed troops there to prevent the so-called Macedonians from being invaded by the Serbs”



No.



NATO was the cause of the Bosnian part of the civil war, and the biggest cause of all the escalation which led to so many deaths, after their involvement starting with Bosnia. I explain this further after. Macedonia was a Republic as much as Serbia was, and it gained independence peacefully. The reason why US troops got stationed there had nothing to do with some Serb idea of conquering Macedonia…



c) Thedoppe…’s answer is completely unreasonable throughout and there is no need to bother with his view other than amuse.



The answer to your question is a very complicated one:



Atrocities:



a)The Slovenian militia attacked the Yugoslav military posts and several young men serving the regular army were unnecessarily killed. There is an Austrian documented film showing how some were killed having their hands up. Even today, there are some unsolved issues in Slovenia; concerning minorities in Slovenia not given the Slovenian citizenship (some 20,000 people). Imagine, the Slovenian supreme justice ruled the order for these people to be given citizenship, but can’t be passed into action…, speaking about a country which belongs to EU…



b)There was ethnic cleansing in Croatia upon Serbs, and great many atrocities committed from the top commanding Croat line.



c)In Bosnia, there were atrocities on all three sides. The reason you hear of only the Serb side having committed, is because of the media manipulation and the fact that the Serbs had a weapon supremacy.



d)In Kosovo, the Yugoslav army fought against independence fighters supported by the Albanian minority masses and against the NATO at same time, and there were atrocities committed upon Albanians during this “killing field.”



Side to blame:



This depends what you mean by that. This is how I see it:



a)Germany launched a political pressure upon other European countries for Croatia to gain independence, which escalated the conflict where 30,000 people were killed.



b)The Badenter’s Group, which was sent by Europe to legally define the situation in Yugoslavia before things escalated, gave political instead of legal conclusions. The consequence was the escalation of conflict in Croatia. This is what I call legal atrocity…



c)NATO and Middle East countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia) pushed the Bosnian Muslims into civil war promising a country run by the Muslims.



d)Many UN personnel was taking the Muslim side (read: American-Middle East side), instead of a neutral, which escalated the Bosnian civil war in which 120,000 people were killed. Blame NATO for this corrupting of everything and anything they can.



e)The media manipulation, run by corrupted and biased journalists and agencies, specially the CNN one, escalated the conflict in which the Serbs were satanized. (CNN should be rather seen as weapon of mass destruction than news agency.) It is said that the media manipulation against Serbs was the biggest in history. When you have one side always being accused and the other stimulated to proceed with the war, then the consequences are as catastrophic as they were. There were several events in Bosnia in which there is a probability that the Muslims killed their own people to take attention away from some other event and have Serbs accused and some "global" action done against them...



f)NATO bypassed UN Security Council when attacking Serbia. Prior to that was the Racak event, which was an orchestration made by USA to blame Serbia and launch the attack.



g)When you have a side in the conflict as is the NATO, which does not accord with UN, and which is immune in Hague, then it is clear who is the “most to blame.” We all know how NATO breathes and what has always been their primary motive…



h)Around 1965 Tito decided that Yugoslavia was not to continue existing after his death… He is to blame because he destroyed his opposition while creating a time bomb to the events that followed.



What they wanted:



a)Croatia wanted independence and getting cleansed from Serbs. They had this plan ever since 1918… From the 20%, Serbs fell to 4.5%.



b)Slovenia had a good market in Yugoslavia for their industry, but the political situation with the Serbs was not going well to them, so they turned toward Europe.



c)Serbia wanted to maintain political control in Yugoslavia. Central control from Belgrade was their legacy given by Tito, an ill one…



d)Muslims in Bosnia were offered independence support at a critical moment of them deciding the fate of Bosnia. They refused a confederation agreement which they agreed to a day before…



e)Albanians in Serbia wanted independence.



f)Germany wanted to help their historical ally Croatia, and to destroy Serbs who ****** them up twice in history before that. I will add here that the German forces in Kosovo were destroying Serb corpses dug out. Same thing they did in Afghanistan some months ago.



g)USA wanted to destroy the influence of Serbia in the region and make ground for their base as tactical action for the strategic goal against their mortal enemy Russia…



h)The rest; wanted money into their bloody pockets. Money coming from interest groups like military lobby in USA, heroin channels, etc. Corruption and fear; Germany and USA.



Underline of history before the conflict:



Before WW1 there has evolved certain animosity between Serbs and Croats in the Austria Hungary held territory. This animosity is of historical and religion background.

Serbia was the winner in WW1 and it integrated Slovenia and Croatia into the kingdom.



During WW2, Croatia proclaimed itself independent; German ally (Germany-Austria-Croatia-Vatican), under which some 700,00 Serbs, Jews and other minorities were killed by the Ustasha regime. Serbs were also killed by Albanians in Kosovo. The communists under Tito came out triumphant and formed a new Yugoslavia. Some 1,800,000 people were killed during WW2 in Yugoslavia.



Tito was a mild dictator in Yugoslavia. The nationalist and other historical issues were suppressed for the sake of his ruling. Serbs who were the dominant nation due to dispersion, history and number, were “kept under control.” Albanians in Kosovo, under Tito, started pushing Kosovo’s independence. Croatia was awaiting their historical chance too.



After the death of Tito, Yugoslavia was marching toward Europe as an apparently healthy nation, but it was slowly decomposing. Even in 1991 there was chance to remain together and enter EU…



What I have told you is not enough, but I hope it gives you streams to follow toward the ocean of truth.
Bojana
2007-04-18 05:14:50 UTC
It was all about some stupid people who ruined life to thousands of people
schoberg
2016-09-05 18:16:18 UTC
No Man's Land Pretty Village, Pretty Flame 10 Minutes (brief) Savrseni krug =The ultimate circle non balkan films Harrison's Flowers Welcome to Sarajevo Demons of War Shot Through the Heart Savior
2007-04-16 10:41:32 UTC
It was all about the money. Some corrupt politicians and their cronies made money on the black market (during the sanctions selling cigarettes and oil), while others who were less sophisticated made money on the looting, some stole their neighbors lands, the sadists killed because that what the sadists do, and the perverts raped, and if I may sound less poetic, historical buildings were razed to the ground, libraries lost precious books, museums were looted. It was all a "anything goes criminal free fall" . All under the pretext of nationalistic war.



When communism collapsed throught-out eastern Europe, the loose Confideration of Yugoslavia begun to change also. There were six republics and two autonomous regions in this union. Serbia being the largest of them (popullation, and land mass) had two pieces of territory severed into those automonous provinces this was done as a checks and balance ploy by the legendary partisan leader Josip Broz Tito to curb Serbian power. These regions being Kosovo and Vojvodina were territories stolen from Albania and Hungary in the first place but were once a part of the kingdom of Yugoslavia which was Serb dominated. These regions were still officially under the Serb territory but were given special status within Yugoslavia. The Kosovar popullation was always Albanian in majority and always seen the Yugoslav/Serbs as occupiers and colonilist and always had rebellions brewing.



In the late 80's as communism begun coming unglued Slododan Milosevic a Serb became the Yugoslav strong man and he changed the Yugoslav federal government and begun championing Serb control over these two autonomous regions, and advocated a strict socialist policy. All these backward changes while the Berlin wall was coming down, and Causescu and his wife were being executed in public. The other four out the remaining five republics Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia all having their own respective ethnic groups in majority saw him as a threat and were swept away by the wind of changes going through Europe. All four of them held referendums and all voted for independence from Yugoslavia. the Serb leadership was furious and tried to keep Yugoslavia in tact by send tanks first to Slovenia. When it really had no legal grounds to be there (The internalional community recognized all four of the republics), the Serbs switched tactics and insighted ethnic divisions in Croatia and Bosnia because there was large Serbian popullations in these newly formed countries. Serbia also begun arming these renegade Serbs and sending in paramilitaries that were made up of criminals freshly released from jail. The Croats fared a little better because they were a larger group and had a lot of European supporters, also they had a very advanced economy compared to the other republics(second only to Slovenia's), so they were able to aquire arms and fought the Serbs to a stale mate and eventually regained all their lost territories. The Bosnians on the other were weaker and smaller, and to add injury to assault they were Moslems (the Serbs viewed them as Ottoman lap dogs, and traitors for embracing Islam) and they took the brunt of the punishment. So you had a large group that retained all the weapons of Yugoslavia, attacking a small unarmed group and as most of us saw in our television screens all the heinous crimes that were commited as an end result to all this. Macedonia not having a large Serbian popullation and being closely related to the Serbs was left unmolested.



The war came to close after several tens of thousand people were killed, many more displaced, and billions of dollars in structural damages was done. The Hague court got filled to the brim with war criminals. Milosevic out manuevered all his opponents and managed to stay in power in Serbia despite tough sanctions through control of the media. When the Albanians in Kosovo grew tired of their Gandhi-like leader Ibrahim Rrugova they organized a rebel group called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and begun attacking Serbia police in the province. Milosevic sent his forces south to crush the rebellion and somewhere down the line he decided that a final solution is needed and thought it be best if he just emptied out the entire province of it's Albanian element by evicting Albanians from ther homes and drive them out to the Albanian border. NATO and the UN wanted to avoid another Bosnia so they stepped in with airstrikes. They drove the Serb police and army out of Kosovo. Now 8 years latter the Serbs want to come back and the Albanians are say "Hell No". We all are waiting for the outcome of this one what will it be.



In short this was basically the retrogression of Yugoslavia or should I say the retrogression of Serbia.



AEIOU - "Racak orchestrated by the US". You see it this flawed way of thinking that has gotten you Serbs in trouble. Why don't you say" Racak was done by some rogue Serbian elements" intead of trying to fabricate a blatant lie such as what you said and cast the blame on some else and make excuses for the criminals Milisovic utilized to do these dirty deeds in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Croatia. Whom ever murders little children, elderly people, and unarmed civilians are satanic sons of hell. The United States is not known to go and kill the inncocent in this fashion. I saw pictures of Racak it was just plain carnage and overkill it was not set up as theatricks to attack and demonize Serbia as you claim. It was done out of pure hatred.
cwfraggle
2007-04-15 20:55:36 UTC
in a nut shell it was like this. many many many moons ago that area belonged to the roman empire, which later fell to Constantine and his little group, which later was invaded by the Turks. and it went back and forth between Muslim and non Muslim for several decades. so here is a group of people who are living in a house lets say Serbians, up comes some Croatians. who say "you are living on our land in our home" technically they do have a claim. but the Serbians can claim the same thing that it is their home. sooo, there is a huge issue about who owns what and who is in the right and who is in the wrong. that issue is what the fight is all about.

as far as who started it all that is really cloudy, because it has been going on for so long. in fact WWI started when a prince was killed in Sarajevo. said prince was involved in negotiations as to who claimed what.

essentially it is an ongoing thing that has gone on since people have lived there
Geoff
2007-04-15 21:55:56 UTC
To understand what was going on in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, you need to have a little background.



During the decline of the Roman Empire, there were a large number of Slavic-speaking tribes that moved into large areas of Eastern Europe, stretching from the modern borders of Greece up as far north as the Baltic Sea and further east.



The Slavs that settled in Illyria (what would much later become Yugoslavia) were right on the border between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. They eventually converted to Christianity and became better integrated with the people already there.



Some (mostly in what would become Slovenia and Croatia) were drawn more to the Western Empire. They tended to become Roman Catholics, and eventually wrote their language with Latin letters.



Others (mostly in what would become Serbia) were drawn more to the Eastern Empire. They tended to become Orthodox Christians, and eventually wrote their language with a modified version of the Greek alphabet called Cyrillic.



So that is one big divide. Flash forward a number of centuries. The Byzantine Empire (the remains of the Roman Empire centered on Constantinople) fell to the Ottoman Turks, who were Muslim, in the late 15th century. Through the 16th century, the Turks conquered the Balkans and Hungary and even besieged Vienna for a time. Eventually they were pushed out of Hungary but were still rulers of much of the Balkans into the 19th century.



In that time, many Slavs converted to Islam. So this introduced a third religious and cultural element to the region.



Flash forward again to the 19th century. Turkey's military power is now on the wane, and other nations, like the Austrian Empire, are pushing back the Turks are reacquiring territories they had lost back in the 15th century.



But Austria (and Europe in general) is also experiencing a new phenomenon, called nationalism, which appeals to ethnic pride and unites people who had similar languages and ethnic backgrounds in a struggle for self-determination.



Nationalism helped unite countries that were dominated by a single ethnic group, like Germany and Italy (which united many small countries into single nations at this time) and France and England, but it was a disaster to the Austrian Empire, which was mostly ruled by ethnic Germans from Vienna, but contained Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats and others within their borders.



As Turkey continued to fall apart, and independent kingdom of Serbia was established, which consisted of Serbian Slavs who had liberated themselves from the Turks. Their nationalist identity was bound up in their Orthodox religion, but also in their language (very similar to the language spoken by Croats and people in Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Slavic identity. The idea was that all of the Southern Slavs (Yugo = Southern) should be united into a single country, with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia being taken from Austria and united under the Serbian (or Yugoslavian) King.



This takes us up to the beginning of the First World War. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne. In response to nationalist uprisings in Hungary, the Austrians had set up a dual-monarchy, granting the Hungarians considerable autonomy while keeping them within the Empire. Franz Ferdinand wished to extend this model to the southern Slavs within the Empire.



This solution did not satisfy the radical Slav nationalists: they wanted total independence. But they worried that this solution might satisfy the majority of Slavs just like it did in Hungary. So Gavril Prinzip, one of the radicals and a Serb, assassinated the Archduke in Sarajevo, setting in motion the Great War.



At the end of the war, the Austrians (along with the Germans and Turks) had lost, and one of the principles the United States pushed at the treaties that ended the war was the idea of self determination (something that still guides our foreign policy to some degree). So the Serbs got their way and the kingdom of Yugoslavia was born.



However, there were still all of these cultural and religious divides under the surface and the nation never really gelled together terribly well. During WWII, many Croats supported the Nazis when they invaded, and many Serbs were involved in the resistance.



After the war, the country was held together mostly because the Cold War suppressed all of these tensions. For many decades, Tito, the communist leader of Yugoslavia, was able to hold the nation together largely through force and terror.



Once the Iron Curtain fell, all these tensions came back to the fore. The Serbs wanted to keep Yugoslavia together, because they dominated the country. They couldn't stop Slovenia from declaring independence, but they tried to stop Croatia which led to the first part of the Yugoslav war.



Eventually, the Serbs saw that they just did not have the resources to keep fighting against the Croatians. However, when Bosnia-Herzegovina also tried to declare independence, that's when the worst part of the conflict began.



Bosnia-Herzegovina was where the three main groups of Croats, Serbs and Muslims met. They were literally living side-by-side, sometimes intermarried. As nationalist feelings grew and grew, tensions between the communities grew to a boiling point. When Bosnia decided the secede, the Serbs in Bosnia quite reasonably objected--they wanted to remain part of the same country as the other Serbs.



So you had all three groups fighting each other, each trying to get the others to leave the territory. In the end, the horrible process of "ethnic cleansing" was invoked: if the other groups wouldn't leave, they were killed: men, women and children. Atrocities were committed on all sides, which only led to more and more atrocities.



Eventually, the UN and NATO stepped in to stop the killing and calm things down and Bosnia-Herzegovina is now also recognized as a sovereign nation.



Similar processes had happened in an area of Serbia called Macedonia, and the US stationed troops there to prevent the so-called Macedonians from being invaded by the Serbs (so-called because the Greeks objected to a Slavic country using the Greek name Macedonia, arguing that they might have designs on Greek territory--to this day the nation is called the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in the UN and the issue has still not been settled).



Likewise, ethnic Albanians in the region of Kosovo also sought independence. The US, NATO and the UN with help from the Russians (who were and are close to the Serbs) stepped in again in order to secure the peace and the status of Kosovo is still being determined.



Finally, Montenegro, a small nation that had been its own kingdom prior to WWI, held a referendum on independence from Serbia last year. That referendum passed, and it became only part of the former Yugoslavia to secede peacefully.



I apologize for the length of the answer, but as you can see this is a very complicated issue, with very intense feelings on all sides and plenty of blame to go around.



Hope this helps!


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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