By Laia Rodríguez Budí
The case of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) clearly reflects the process through which a multinational state can violently collapse and “fragment into ethnically homogeneous entities” (the process known as Balkanization due to the socio-political conditions of the region that we will study).
We will start our historical review on the fall of Yugoslavia by analyzing the causes that weakened the state and stimulated the rivalries between nations. First of all, the death of the Marshal Josip Broz “Tito”, creator of modern Yugoslavia, founder of the Non-Aligned Movement and the first communist leader to break away from the Soviet bloc, on 5. May 1980. After that, tensions between ethnic groups re-emerged since nationalist groups were reborn, often aggressive and discriminatory. That is the second source of political instability in the country. Thirdly, the Yugoslav socialist market economy experienced a huge recession and inflation, causing public dissatisfaction. At an international scale, the fall of Berlin wall and the subsequent crisis in the USSR, which lead the federation into the dissolution, also questioned the role of a socialist Yugoslavia in a world increasingly dominated by unipolarity. Lastly, there were different interests in the international community regarding the future of Yugoslavia and the ethnic group which should drive the country. These extreme factors made visible the weakness of this state.
According to Rotberg, “Weak states typically have inner religious, ethnic or linguistic tensions that have not yet become extremely violent”. If we regard the Yugoslav issue from this perspective, its historical multiculturality revealed that it was a permanent weak state.
In 1990, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia renounces to the monopoly of the communist party as sole in the system. In the elections that took place the same year, the parties with nationalist discourses in the different federations experimented a substantial growth. It is the case of Franjo Tudjman’s HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) and Slobodan Milošević’s Socialist Party in Serbia.
After several purges in the Serbian media and its own political party, Milošević urged Serbians and Montenegrins to “strengthen Yugoslavia by strengthening Serbia” and, thus, discriminating Bosniaks, Croatians, Slovenians, Macedonians and Albanese and other ethnic minorities coexisting in the region until the date. This ethnic differentiation, accompanied with the abolition of the autonomic administrations in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro attempted against the neutrality of the federal institutions and human and civil rights. Milošević proposed the creation of an ethnic homogeneous Yugoslavia ruled by Serbs. These facts were just another indicator that the state was failing.
But the key point for considering that Yugoslavia was a failed state took place a couple of years later, after the violent response of the Serbian faction against the referendum of self-determination and proclamation of independence made by Slovenia and Croatia. In that point, the politicization of the military (controlled by the Serbian faction as the headquarters were set in Belgrade) also manifested the political and social split.
Yugoslavia’s entrance to a civil war accomplishes most of the characteristics of the civil wars of weak states described by Rotberg: “The civil wars characteristic of failed states have roots in ethnic, religious, linguistic or other problems (like fear of other that triggers ethnic problems, or avarice when it comes to sources of wealth like petroleum or diamonds)”. This fact, combined with the losing of territory and the rise of paramilitary groups and militias show the unavoidable failure of the Yugoslav government headed by Slobodan Milošević.
During the so-called Yugoslav Wars of Secession (in Serbia) or Great Serbia Aggression (in Bosnia and Croatia), which lasted from 1991 to 1995 in Croatia, from 1992 to 1995 in Bosnia and from 1998 to 1999 in Kosovo, the former Yugoslavia definitely collapsed. The order was re-established as soon as the independent republics gained an own strong government and thus, they were accepted in the international community as independent former Yugoslav entities.
The peace process in the former Yugoslavia was slow and difficult. In this section, we will analyze some of the solutions proposed over the years, its strengths and weaknesses.
The Carrington-Cutileiro plan (1992) was an attempt to avoid Bosnia and Herzegovina to enter into a civil war. It was based on power-sharing in all administrative levels and devolution of central government to local ethnic communities. Therefore, it divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into multiple districts according to major ethnic groups. It was not able to be installed since it did not benefit Bosnian Serbs, which were willing to expand into the heart of the country.
Otherwise, the Vance-Owen plan was drafted in 1993. It was the first proposal of peace since the war had broken out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It proposed the division of the country into 10 different autonomous regions, segregated according to ethnic groups. It also failed due to the fact that the Parliament of the Bosnian Serbs (also known as Republika Srpska, in that point working as an independent and not internationally recognized entity) rejected it, as it had done with the Carrington-Cutileiro plan. It is important to remark that these 2 plans proposed a division according to majorities, but they did not take into consideration that there existed regions in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a high number of mixed ethnicities or, simply, people who considered themselves as Yugoslavs.
The Dayton Agreement put an end to the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was signed on November 21, 1995. It divided the country in 2 autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which binds together the municipalities with a predominant majority of Croatians and Muslim Bosnians (Bosniaks) and the Republika Srpska (“Serbian Republic” in Serbo-Croatian), which binds together all the municipalities with Serb majority or that had been invaded and repopulated by this ethnic group during the war. Nonetheless, even if this treaty succeeded in putting an end to the armed conflict, the conflict in Bosnia and the whole region is still alive: communities are segregated and violence amongst religious or ethnic groups still takes place. The Dayton Agreement, as well as the other proposals for peace, urged to separate the rival communities instead of collaborating towards the construction of a common future, which was the ruined goal of the former Yugoslavia. The popular socialist slogan “Bratstvo i jedinstvo” (which means “Brotherhood and Unity” in Serbo-Croatian), coined by Marshall Tito, sums up its vision about multiculturality.
To sum up, our group considers that the Yugoslav Wars of Secession did not put an end to all the problems that the region is facing. Still nowadays, the remainders of the war are present everywhere: in the relationship between social groups, in the destroyed and abandoned places all around the former socialist republic as well as in the complex territorial divisions, ruined economies in the most cases and lack of infrastructures. All in all, the result of the 3rd Balkan War can be summed up in the following sentence: the future of a collapsed state crystallized into seven fragile and mostly failed independent republics.
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