Yugoslav Wars

The causes

Yugoslavia is a federation of six republics, including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and of two autonomous provinces attached to Serbia, including Kosovo, whose population is overwhelmingly Albanian. After Tito's death in 1980, the economic crisis and the rise of nationalism fan tensions between republics and between communities. In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence; Bosnia and Herzegovina follows in 1992, without agreement from the Bosnian Serbs, who refuse to remain in a state dominated by the other communities.

The 1974 Constitution granted broad autonomy to the republics and provinces, and Kosovo, overwhelmingly populated by Albanians, obtained a status approaching that of a republic. In 1981, demonstrations by Albanian students in Pristina were suppressed, and tensions between Serbs and Albanians grew. In 1986, a memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences denounced the situation of Serbs in the federation. In April 1987, Slobodan Milošević, leader of the Serbian Communist Party, spoke at Kosovo Polje and supported the demands of the Serbs of Kosovo. In March 1989, Serbia reduced the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina.

The course of the war

In Slovenia, the federal army withdraws after about ten days of fighting. In Croatia, the fighting pits Croatian forces against Serb militias backed by the federal army, until a ceasefire in 1992. The war reaches Bosnia and Herzegovina the same year: Bosnian Serb forces, supported first by the federal army and then by Serbia, control a large part of the territory. The siege of Sarajevo, carried out by these forces, lasts nearly four years. Bosniaks, Croats and Bosnian Serbs also fight one another, and Croats and Bosniaks fight each other in 1993.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces take Srebrenica, an area the UN had declared a protected zone, and massacre a very large number of Bosniak men and boys. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague, qualifies this massacre as genocide. The Dayton Accords, signed in Paris in December 1995, end the war in Bosnia and divide the country between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska. In Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army carries out an insurgency from 1998; the Serb repression causes massive population displacements. In March 1999, NATO bombs Serbia for more than two months, then the Serbian army withdraws from Kosovo, which passes under UN administration. In October 2000, Slobodan Milošević is overthrown in Belgrade after a disputed election.

In Croatia, the war took on a particular scale: in summer 1991, the federal army and Serb forces besieged Vukovar, which fell in November after heavy destruction, and Dubrovnik endured a siege lasting several months. The Brioni Agreement, signed in July 1991, suspended for three months the implementation of Slovenian and Croatian independence, without stopping the fighting. In September, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on the whole of Yugoslavia. In January 1992, a UN plan provided for a ceasefire and the deployment of protection forces.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, an independence referendum, boycotted by a large part of the Serb population, took place in February and March 1992. Detention camps, where Bosniak and Croat civilians were held, operated in 1992 in localities such as Omarska and Trnopolje, under Serb control. Violence against civilians became widespread, notably in the east of the country. In November 1993, the old bridge of Mostar, a symbol of the city, was destroyed by artillery from Croatian forces during the war between Croats and Bosniaks.

In Kosovo, the Rambouillet negotiations, held in February and March 1999, failed, and NATO launched its strikes on 24 March without explicit authorisation from the Security Council. An alliance strike mistakenly hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. A Security Council resolution adopted in June 1999 placed Kosovo under UN interim administration, with an international peacekeeping force. Slobodan Milošević, transferred to The Hague in 2001, died in detention in 2006, before the end of his trial before the International Criminal Tribunal.

The consequences

The former Yugoslavia disappears and several states succeed it: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo, whose independence, proclaimed in 2008, is not recognized by all states. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which tries those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, closes in 2017. Population displacements and the wounds of the war weigh heavily on the region over the long term, and debates over responsibility remain heated.

The wars left lasting scars: the families of the missing, refugees and trials for war crimes continue to weigh on the region. Slovenia and Croatia joined the European Union, in 2004 for the first and in 2013 for the second. In 2007, the International Court of Justice concluded that Serbia had failed in its obligation to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica, without attributing the crime itself to it. Every 11 July, the families of the victims commemorate this massacre, while school textbooks remain a point of disagreement between the communities.

Timeline

1. 1991Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence
2. 1992Start of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and siege of Sarajevo
3. 1995Srebrenica massacre, described as genocide by international justice
4. 1995Dayton Accords: end of the war in Bosnia
5. 1999NATO air intervention in the Kosovo war
6. 2000Fall of Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade

Key figures

• Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia, then of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• Franjo Tuđman, president of Croatia, whose independence is proclaimed in 1991
• Alija Izetbegović, chairman of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war
• Radovan Karadžić, political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, convicted of genocide by the ICTY