Nationalism in the Balkan Peninsula
1981-Today
By 1992, nationalism became more important than communism in politics. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence thereby renewing the conflict with Serbia. Bosnia also declared independence and had a Muslim government. Extremist Serbs drove Muslims from their homes in <I>ethnic cleansing operations. In 1993, Bosnian Serbs controlled 70% of Bosnia and captured the Bosnian government. Meanwhile, a separate war was being waged between the predominately Muslim government army and Bosnian Croats in central Bosnia. United Nations peacekeepers were not able to contain the violence. Figure 5 shows the increasing ethnic diversity in present-day Bosnia circa 1981.
Figure 5: Ethnic groups in Yugoslavia pie graph circa 1981 (Other includes these ethnicities: Hungarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Yugoslavs).
Pressure by the United States government to end the war led to the Dayton Agreement in 1995, which created the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim (Bosnjak)-Croat Federation. The agreement was not able to prevent human rights violations on all sides. A NATO-led peacekeeping force was present and was criticized for its extensive power in the region. Croatia reclaimed the territory formerly captured by the Serbs, which resulted in the exodus of 200,000 Serbs from Croatia.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, supported by the majority ethnic Albanians, challenged Serbian rule in 1998. International pressure on the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, did not prevent escalations of violence. NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia, beginning in 1999, focused on military and infrastructure targets in Kosovo and Serbia. Tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees reported the atrocities of the Serb forces. NATO countries wanted to return these refugees to their homes. Montenegro halted relations with Serbia.
Yugoslavia officially dissolved and became the smaller state of Serbia and Montenegro, although Montenegrins wanted full independence. Slobodan Milosevic was handed over to a United Nations war crimes tribunal and put on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. Kosovo became a United Nations protectorate. The Balkan region remains volatile today, although recent violence has been quelled through diplomatic means. Figure 6 is a recent map of the Balkan Peninsula.
Figure 6: Map of the Balkans circa 1913
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/
Source: BBC Education http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/