In 1946 Marshal Josip Broz Tito became the head of government in Yugoslavia, which had become a federated republic at the beginning of the year. Marshal Tito was then named president of the country on January 13, 1953. Earlier, in 1948, fearing Tito's growing power, Stalin ousted Yugoslavia from the communist camp.
In the 1980s:
Upon the death of Tito on May 4, 1980, the ethnically diverse federation of Yugoslavia began to suffer a decentralized system. Some measures of self-government were gained for Yugoslavia's six constituent republics -– Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia – and for the Serbian province of Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian. This development stirred resentment among Serbs.
In 1987, Slobodan Milosevic used the resultant resentment and encouraged nationalism when he promised the Serbs they would reclaim Kosovo. In September, Milosevic became leader of the powerful (formerly Communist) Serbian Socialist Party.
In March, 1989, the Serbian National Assembly ratified constitutional changes in March that returned Kosovo's judiciary and police to Serbian control. The ratification resulted in rioting within Kosovo, which killed more than 20 people.
The following May, Milosevic was named president of Serbia, the largest of Yugoslavia's six republics (Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia). In November, the Berlin Wall fell and communism in Europe fell. The later dissolution of the Soviet Union sparked nationalism in Yugoslavia's republics.
In the 1990s:
During a party congress, Communists from Slovenia walked out to protest actions of the party representing Serbia, led by Slobodan Milosevic. The action led to the collapse of the party's hold on power and highlighted its inability to stem the increased fighting among ethnic groups.
In 1991 Slovenia and Croatia and, later, the Muslim government of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs, however (the Christian segment of Bosnia) threatened violence if the government split from the Yugoslavian federation.
Fighting was occurring in Croatia by 1992 and spread to Bosnia, where the republic's Serbs attacked Muslim towns and declared their own independent republic. The war included Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats and became one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history since WWII.
In 1994 the Bosnian Muslims and Croats declared a cease-fire. Though originally allied against the Serbs in the Bosnian conflict, both sides began fighting each other in April, 1993, as each began staking its own area of control anticipation of a three-way partition of Bosnia, as was being proposed by international mediators.
In August of 1995 areas in Bosnia that had been declared safe by the United Nations fell to Serb forces. NATO followed with a month-long bombing campaign against Bosnian-Serb forces. The following November, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A., the presidents of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia signed a U.S.-sponsored peace settlement for Bosnia. This settlement ended the war and created two autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and the Bosnian Serb Republic.
In an effort to prosecute Balkan war crimes, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague handed down its first sentence in 1996 to a Croat foot soldier guilty of helping execute more than 1,000 Muslim civilians in Bosnia.
In 1997 ten Bosnian Croats indicted on war crimes charges surrendered to the war crimes tribunal. The group included Bosnian Croat political leader Dario Kordic, 37, one of Bosnia's most notorious war crimes suspects.
Then in February, 1998 Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched a Serb offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists fighting for an autonomous Kosovo province.
After unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a peace accord with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in March, 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia. The was NATO's first attack against a soveriegn nation since its creation 50 years earlier.
The next month, ending a three-day summit meeting shadowed by the war in the Balkans, NATO leaders vowed to lead a major reconstruction effort to help restore stability to southeastern Europe once the Kosovo conflict is resolved.
_________________________ L.T., taken from material copyrighted in 1999 by The Washington Post.
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