Yugoslavia After the Fall of Communism

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Yugoslavia Background Yugoslavia was formed after the First World War and consisted of six republics (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia) and two provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo). After the Second World War Yugoslavia became communist under the leadership of Marshal Tito, who succeeded in encouraging all the different nationalities to live peacefully together. After his death in 1980 the country was ruled by a collective presidency: a different president was elected each year from a council which consisted of one representative from each of the six republics and one from each of the two provinces. Problems in Yugoslavia Even though the collective presidency seemed to work well in the beginning, in the mid-1980s things started to go wrong: ❖ The economy was in trouble: inflation at 90 per cent (1986), 13 per cent of the population unemployed. Besides there were differences between the republics; for instance, Slovenia was quite prosperous while parts of Serbia were very poor. ❖ Slobodan Milošević, who became president of Serbia in 1988, deliberately stirred up nationalist feelings to increase his popularity. He claimed that the Serbian minority in Kosovo were being terrorized by the Albanians, even though there was no evidence. This led to protests and, eventually, violence. After the first free elections in Serbia following the collapse of communism, he managed to stay in power by convincing the voters that he was a nationalist and not a communist. He wanted to keep the united federal state of Yugoslavia but intended that Serbia should be the dominant republic. ❖ By the end of 1990, free elections had been held in the other republics too and new, non-communist governments took over. Franjo Tudjman, leader of the Croatian Democratic Union and president of Croatia, stirred up Croatian nationalism and wanted to
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