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Index of Lectures on The Balkans in
the Age of Nationalism by Steven W Sowards
Lecture 25:
The Yugoslav Civil War
[Once again, this is a lecture that was written in December 1995, and therefore
reflects the time of its composition. Except for minor editing and final summary remarks,
I have left it as it stands; readers are urged to seek more recent sources that reflect
information that has come to light since that time.]
Lecture 24 mentioned Yugoslavia only in passing, because it’s fate has been so
complex and dramatic that it is best dealt with on its own. The same influences were at
work here as in the rest of Eastern Europe in the period before, during and after 1989:
that is, the presence or absence of real alternatives to Communism, or the shape of those
alternatives, heavily influenced events once Communist control slipped away. It is too
soon to attempt valid "history" for the recent events in Yugoslavia, but a first
step toward understanding can still be a description of the forces and trends that led to
the collapse of the country into separate states. A second step can be an analysis
that separates the events of the recent civil war into seven stages, with some indication
of why each took its own specific course.
NATIONALIST FORCES
Lecture 24 mentioned the revived nationalist feelings which came to the surface in
Croatia in 1971. Far from being an isolated matter, such pre-Communist survivals proved to
be at work all over the Yugoslav state, and emerged once Tito's hand was gone after his
death in 1980.
In Yugoslavia, the result of 1989 has not been the creation of progressive,
Western-oriented reform regimes (except in Slovenia) but instead the revival of regimes
(often led by former Communists) that are old-fashioned in the sense that they are
pursuing traditional nationalist agendas, often at the cost of suppressing democratic
practices and human rights.
Tensions built up slowly before and during the year of revolution in 1989. Old issues
such as federalism had no more been resolved in socialist than in royal Yugoslavia; there
were North-South tensions based on cultural and economic factors, and the overall economy
was stagnant. The death of President Tito in 1980 emphasized the departure from leadership
of a generation united by the Partisan effort in World War II, leaders who believed in the
benefits of unified socialist endeavor, and preferred it to regional rivalry and ethnic
competition. By the 1980s, Communist leadership was subject to question, opening the way
for alternative political and economic forms.
Yugoslavia's awkward constitutional arrangements were one factor leading to trouble. As
a concession to critics of the Serbian centralism of the 1930s, post-1945 Yugoslavia had
six republics (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro) in a
federal relationship, plus two autonomous regions within Serbia (each of them intended to
safeguard minority rights, for Albanians in Kosovo, and Hungarians in Vojvodina).
In the face of small-scale dissent and criticism in 1966, Yugoslavia reached a turning
point: the regime had to decide to what extent it would suppress or tolerate its
opponents. Tito opted for grudging toleration of dissent, but anti-regime critics failed
to adopt that same toleration for themselves, as they played up inter-ethnic suspicion and
jealousy. Efforts to accomodate federal and regional interests by changes in the
constitution also backfired. Through a series of constitutional amendments in 1974, the
eight republics and autonomous regions gained important powers to veto legislation. Prior
to his death, President Tito also instituted a system by which the office of president was
intended to rotate in turn among representatives of each of the regions. These steps had
the effect of granting powerful political authority to regional political figures, and
weakening the center of the federal political system.
CROATIAN DISSENT
In Croatia, the period after 1966 saw revived discussion of Croatian nationalism. This
movement began among students, but by 1971 figures inside the Communist Party were
circulating proposals for the secession of Croatia. At this point Tito stepped in:
offending organizations were suppressed and several people went to jail. One of them was
Franjo Tudjman, the future President of Croatia: aged 49 in 1971, he was a Partisan
veteran, a Communist and a general, who had left the Party in the 1960s to become an
academic and a Croatian nationalist. Among his publications were indictments of human
rights violations by the party and the state, but his writings also included defenses of
the wartime Ustashe fascist regime.
These political and intellectual currents combined with socio-economic dissatisfaction
in the northern half of the country. Economic decentralization led Slovenes and Croatians
to oppose centralized economic planning, especially expensive efforts to build factories
in Yugoslavia's backward southern regions. The northern regions prefered to reinvest the
profits of their superior industries closer to home. Croatians and Slovenes felt that they
paid the country's bills, thanks to Adriatic tourism and industries producing goods for
export, and opposed subsidizing unprofitable factories in Serbia and Macedonia. Under the
decentralized constitutional system in place after 1974, the various regions in fact
became economic rivals rather than partners.
SERBIAN DISSENT
Not only did Croatian separatism flourish, but Great Serb nationalism reemerged.
Although the other nationalities believed they were hobbled by too much Serb influence,
Serbs often asserted that the Yugoslav system placed them at a disadvantage. Laws
preserving the rights of ethnic minorities--such as Albanians and Magyars--tended to apply
primarily to areas within Serbia, while Serbs who lived as minorities outside the Serbian
republic proper enjoyed no special rights. Serbs also tended to believe that the losses
sustained by Serbs in the Balkan Wars and two World Wars entitled them to assistance from
their wealthier neighbors.
Tensions were particularly strong in Kosovo, an autonomous region with mythic
importance for Serbs but a majority Albanian population. In 1981, protests about bad
conditions at the Albanian University in Kosovo led to a brutal crackdown against ethnic
Albanians by the Serbian-led police.
Situations of this kind fueled Serbian radicalism among intellectuals. In 1985, the
Serbian Academy of Sciences wrote a memorandum which strongly criticized Tito and the
Communist state for anti-Serb policies, noting that 30 years of Communism had left Serbia
poorer than the north. The report also condemned "genocidal" anti-Serb policies
in Kosovo, where the 10 percent Serb minority was said to be oppressed by the Albanian
majority. The Academy offered the idea of a Serb state as a solution.
The idea of a Serb state soon was adopted by Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic was a
product of the Yugoslav Communist system: a party official, trained in the law, head of a
large state-owned gas company. In 1986, at age 45, he became head of the Serbian Communist
Party at at time when it was under serious attack by a new democratic opposition. By
making a patriotic, pro-Serbian speech on the battle site of Kosovo in 1987, Milosevic
deprived the opposition of nationalism as a tool, and made it his own. With massive
popular support, he cracked down on the media and dissent outside the local Party, then
purged the Party of reform-oriented rivals. By using mass rallies that verged on mob
scenes, he coerced the Party apparatus in Montenegro and Voyvodina into installing his
allies as leaders, then curtailed autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina.
When the period of "revolution" came in 1989, Milosevic took advantage of it
to rename the Serbian Communist Party and convert it into a nationalist organization. At
the same time, his use of state power prevented real alternative forces from becoming
viable options in Serbia. His centralist and pro-Serb agenda meanwhile persuaded reformers
in Slovenia and Croatia that it would be dangerous to remain part of a Yugoslav state that
might be dominated by Milosevic and a Serb majority. This was the position at the
beginning of 1990, with new leadership in place across Yugoslavia, and the country
beginning to slide into disunity and war.
SEVEN PERIODS OF THE YUGOSLAV CRISIS
Much reporting of events in Yugoslavia and Bosnia falls into the "senseless
violence" school of journalism. In fact, most of the events during the fighting
represented logical (if violent and brutal) steps toward coherent goals. The war can be
divided into seven periods, each of which followed its own characteristic pattern.
Period One (January to July, 1990): In this period, all the ethnic elements in
the country began to explore new possibilities, often contradictory.
After the revolutions of 1989 swept Eastern Europe, a sense of new possibility entered
Yugoslav political life. All elements felt confident that they could throw off unwanted
features of Communism, but the definition of what was to be lost varied from place to
place.
In January 1990 the League of Communists (the Yugoslav Communist Party) split along
ethnic lines, and ceased to be a unifying national force. In that same month, violent
riots in Kosovo reached new levels, with several dozen people killed. The JNA (the
Serb-officered Yugoslav National Army) intervened to restore order. Because this episode
led to fears that the JNA would become a tool of Serbian interests, the effect was to move
the other nationalities farther toward secession.
In the spring of 1990, Slovenes and Croats took concrete steps toward setting up new
forms of political power. In April, there were free elections in the two northern
provinces. In Slovenia, a Center-Right coalition won and began work on a new constitution
which claimed the right to secede from the federal state. In Croatia, Franjo Tudjman's
Croatian Democratic Union, a conservative nationalist party, took the largest share of
seats in the April election. In Serbia, on the other hand, the results of a June 1990
referendum favored keeping a single-party state and curbing ethnic autonomy in Kosovo and
Vojvodina, the very policies that were fueling Slovene and Croat efforts to distance
themselves from Serbia.
In the first period, the ability of the nationalities to pursue their own goals in the
aftermath of the 1989 revolution led to a growing distance between the factions.
Period Two (August 1990 to May 1991): In this period the contradictions between
contrasting intentions moved from tension to violence.
In August 1990, minority Serbs in the Serb-majority Krajina district of Croatia (a
"frontier" area on the border with Bosnia) began to agitate for autonomy.
They argued that if Croatia could leave Yugoslavia, they in turn could leave
Croatia. To prevent Croatian interference in a planned referendum, local Serb militias
made up of trained army reservists set up roadblocks to isolate the Krajina region. In
Serbia, Milosevic announced that if Yugoslavia broke apart, there would have to be border
changes that would unite all ethnic Serbs in a single political entity. Serbia also
cracked down on Albanian agitation.
Such steps alarmed Slovenes and Croats, and propelled them toward independence. The two
republics organized local militia and armed their police, despite warnings from the JNA
and anxiety among Croatia's Serbs, who recalled the use of local police by the Ustashe to
round up Serbs in 1941. In March 1991, Serbs in Croatia proclaimed an autonomous Krajina,
which was recognized by Milosevic. In clashes over control of local police stations, the
first people were killed in that area.
In the second period, the incompatibility between Serb and Slovene-Croatian wishes
became clear, and led to violence for the first time outside Kosovo.
Period Three (May 1991 to February 1992): This was the period when true open
warfare began, as the Serbs resisted the Slovene and Croatian independence movements.
In May 1991, a Croat was due to become the new Yugoslav president under the scheme of
rotation, but Serbia refused to accept the change. This act set aside the last chance for
a solution through constitutional means. In June, both Slovenia and Croatia proclaimed
their independence. Debates over the "legality" of such moves played out against
a background in which all sides chose to ignore inconvenient parts of the old
constitution.
To frustrate Slovene independence, the JNA seized the customs posts on the borders of
Slovenia. After fighting between Slovene militia and the JNA, there was a stalemate. JNA
units were blockaded in their barracks, too powerful for the Slovene forces to attack, but
without access to the gasoline they needed to move. Perhaps because there were so few
Serbs in Slovenia, Serbia conducted a policy toward that state that was very different
from that adopted toward Croatia. Under a negotiated settlement, the JNA units (consisting
by now of Serbs alone) withdrew and allowed the Slovenes to secede.
In Croatia the war escalated instead. Fighting began with guerilla warfare in Krajina
between the new Croatian armed forces, local Serb militia, and elements of the JNA
stationed there. In August 1991, Serbian regular army units began campaigns to control two
strategic areas: Vukovar and Dubrovnik. At Vukovar in Eastern Slavonia, artillery fire
drove Croatians out of the city, which was of strategic importance as a gateway to Serb
areas in the western parts of Bosnia and in Krajina beyond, and as a source of oil. Two
recurring patterns in Serbian strategy can be seen here for the first time: the use of
terror to drive away local populations ("ethnic cleansing"), and a Serbian
reliance on heavy weapons to attack urban areas, because of a shortage of infantry. The
second Serbian offensive took place on the Dalmatian coast, where Serb forces failed to
take Dubrovnik from Croatia. Dubrovnik is important as a major source of tourist revenue,
and is also the place where roads from the interior reach the Adriatic Sea.
During this same period, member states of the European Economic Community (led by
Germany) recognized Slovene and Croat independence. The world international community
became involved for the first time as well, with UN authorization for 14,000 peacekeepers
and an economic embargo against the rump of Yugoslavia: Serbia and Montenegro.
By the end of the third period, the principal forces in the civil war were present,
including the UN, the Croats, and the Serbs, while the Muslim government of Bosnia was
about to make its appearance.
Period Four (March 1992 to December 1992): In this period the arena of
open war shifted from Croatia to Bosnia, where the province split along ethnic lines.
In early March 1992, a majority of Bosnians voted for independence in a plebiscite, but
split along ethnic lines, with many Serbs opposing such a step. Immediately after the
voting, Serbian local militia set up roadblocks that isolated Bosnia's major cities from
surrounding, Serbian-dominated rural areas. Many Serbs left cities like Sarajevo, and a
Bosnian Serb parliament was set up.
In April 1992, Bosnian Serb forces began a methodical effort to seize control as much
territory as possible, especially in the eastern part of Bosnia, as a step toward a
possible union with Serbia. Self-proclaimed "Chetnik" gangs that included
criminal elements, backed by JNA units, used terror tactics to drive Muslim villagers out
of their villages, so that many arrived as refugees in larger cities like Zepa,
Srebrenica, Tuzla and Sarajevo. Serb units seized roads and began a siege of Sarajevo,
shelling the city and using snipers to kill civilians.
This was the period in which "ethnic cleansing" became general, including the
extensive use of rape and the creation of concentration camps to hold Muslim men, where
many were murdered. While incidents of terror by all ethnicities have been reported in
Bosnia, by all reliable accounts Serbs were the chief offenders. The persistence of these
reports led to escalating commitment by the UN, culminating in pledges to use force and
the enlistment of NATO forces as an instrument of force.
Meanwhile, Serbian goals became clear on the ground. By the end of the summer of 1992,
two-thirds of Bosnia was in Serb hands: the eastern zone near Serbia proper, a thin
corridor running east-west, and land on both sides of the Bosnian-Croatian border in the
Krajina area. At this time, Croatian forces also attacked and seized Muslim districts in
Bosnia, leaving very little except some larger cities in Muslim government hands.
While the Serbian Milosevic regime supported much of Bosnian Serb policy, it did not
control it. The Bosnian Serbs had a parliament of their own, and new leaders like Premier
Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic. In 1992 Milosevic had to defeat domestic
challenges from the left and right. Some potential rivals--extremist Chetnik
politicians--were mysteriously murdered. In the presidential election, Milosevic defeated
Milan Panic, a US citizen, who campagined on a peace platform and served as Serbian prime
minister for a time, before his defeat in the election. Thereafter, Milosevic was firmly
in control of Serbian politics in the rump state of Yugoslavia, but increasingly hampered
by an international economic blockade and ensuing inflation.
By the end of the fourth period, the Serbs of Bosnia had made notable gains in
territory, and the issue became whether they would keep them, in the face of Croatian,
Muslim and UN opposition.
Period Five (January 1993 to January 1994): During this year, all sides in
Bosnia pursued a dual strategy, balancing fighting with negotiations on the world stage to
seek maximum advantage.
Peace talks began in Geneva, Switzerland, based on the Anglo-American Vance-Owen plan
to partition Bosnia, separate the ethnic factions, and so end the fighting. Because it
pragmatically accepted the results of Serbian aggression, the Vance-Owen plan was widely
criticized and was unacceptable to the Bosnian Muslim government. After assuming office in
January 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton distanced itself from the plan.
By this time, the Serbs (who made up less than 40 percent of the population) controlled
some 70 percent of the land area of Bosnia. With some difficulty, Karadzic was able to
persuade the Bosnian Serb Parliament to accept several partition plans that gave Serbs
between 50 and 52 percent of the country. Pressure from rump Yugoslavia played a role:
Milosevic wanted to end the crisis, to end sanctions and curb an annual inflation rate
which soon reached 2 million percent.
The Bosnian Muslim government, on the other hand, resisted a settlement while it
pursued international favor in the media, with some success, as Western reporters
uniformly condemned Serbian excesses. The Bosnians also gained increased UN aid. The UN
agreed to send provide food to refugees in six cities and designated them as
"safe" zones not to be attacked by Serbs: those cities were Sarajevo, Tuzla,
Bihac, Zepa, Srebrenica and Gorazde. The Bosnian Muslims lobbied against an arms embargo
against all sides which prevented them from buying heavy weapons to offset Serb access to
JNA arsenals, although some weapons were smuggled into the country.
This fifth period of stalemate was the calm before the storm: the next two periods were
unexpectedly volatile, given the apparent lack of progress at this time.
Period Six (February 1994 to June 1995): Beginning early in 1994, the stalemate
began to destabilize.
In March 1994, Croatian and Muslim Bosnians agreed on guidelines for a federated
Bosnia. This freed both sides to face the Serbs: the Muslims in Bosnia, the Croatians in
Bosnia and in Krajina, which remained in revolt against the Zagreb government. Later in
the year, allied Muslim and Croat forces began small but significant joint operations
against Bosnian Serb areas.
There were also substantial changes in the role of the Great Powers and the UN,
although the first stages were marked by inconsistency and disunity. In February 1994, one
of the most prominent attacks on civilians during the war enraged Western observers, when
a Serb mortar shell killed 68 people in a Sarajevo market place. The US, the European
Union and NATO demanded that the Serbs remove artillery from around Sarajevo, or face
retaliatory air strikes. The Serbs largely complied, but shelling of other "safe
areas" continued and was not punished.
France and the US quarreled: the US wanted to put more pressure on the Serbs, but
France was unwilling to place at risk its peacekeepers who were on the ground. Civilian
representatives of the UN vetoed some air attacks ordered by their own commanders; when
some air strikes took place in May 1994, the Serbs responded by taking UN peacekeepers
hostage. In the fact of threats, the UN caved in completely.
Generally, this sixth period discredited the UN, and the result was new initiatives by
both the Serbs and their enemies in Croatia and at NATO. Out of public view, both sides
prepared to take much more active roles.
Period Seven (July to November 1995): The summer of 1995 saw the climax of the
civil war in Bosnia, as both sides explored their options now that the UN had lost any
authority to control events.
In July 1995, Serbian forces defied the UN and suddenly overran two of the "safe
areas" in eastern Bosnia: Srebrenica and Zepa. Some of the worst "ethnic
cleansing" of the war took place at this time: up to 8,000 Muslims were massacred
under the direct supervision of Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commanding general.
It is likely that the ineffective record of UN and Western action during 1994 led the
Bosnian Serbs to expect no Western response, but the opposite happened. Karadzic and
Mladic were indicted as war criminals by a UN tribunal, and Britain, France and the US
began plans for a military reaction to future attacks on "safe areas."
Peacekeepers in exposed areas were withdrawn, additional forces arrived, and the UN's
civilian representatives lost the right to veto the use of force.
It also appears that the Western states gave Croatia the green light to take back
control of Krajina. When Serb forces from Bosnia and Krajina attacked the Bihac "safe
area", they were counterattacked by joint Bosnian Muslim and Croat forces and those
of the Croatian government. Within a few days, the Serbs lost all of Krajina and much of
Western Bosnia: 130,000 refugees fled from lands that had been occupied by Serbs for
hundreds of years. When angry Serbs shelled Sarajevo again, killing 37 people in one
incident, NATO reacted with an unprecedented wave of air strikes against the Bosnian Serb
infrastructure. The Muslim and Croat advance appears to have stopped only because the West
told them to do so: by then, the Croat-Muslim federation was in control of just over half
of Bosnia. Milosevic failed to intervene, and the Bosnian Serbs found themselves alone and
vulnerable.
For the first time, all sides now simultaneously believed that no further advantage lay
in store for them through more fighting, and for that reason were willing to talk. After a
hiatus of 18 months, peace talks resumed and led to a treaty signed in November 1995,
whihc was to be enforced by 60,000 NATO troops. If this does mark the end of the war, it
will have ended with some 250,000 people killed out of a prewar Bosnia population of 4.4
million, over half of whom have become refugees.
[In the intervening two years, there has been no significant outbreak of warfare.
While the future relationship between the various ethnicities remained clouded, the
period of open warfare, atrocity against civilians, and deep international crisis has at
least ended.]
This lecture is a portion of a larger Web site, Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern
Balkan History (The Balkans in the Age of Nationalism); click here to return to the Table of Contents page.
This page created on 27 November 1996; last modified 7 April 1999.
URL=http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect25.htm
Copyright 1996 by Steven W. Sowards |
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein