The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

first free elections in June 1990. However, the Croatian Democratic
Community (HDZ) won.
Instead of a programme, the HDZ made great promises, wanted to lead
Croatia into the EU, and bring about a level of prosperity similar to that of
Switzerland. Its chairman, Franjo Tudjman, also called on all Croatians in
the Diaspora for help. They gave him money, and hoped for political careers
in their own new state. Tudjman rallied people around him who
strengthened him, but at the same time aroused fears of Croatian extrem -
ism harking back to the time of Ante Paveli and his “Independent State
of Croatia”. Mass dismissals of Serbs and their family members made
this fear grow. Although the HDZ hadn’t openly proclaimed the smashing
of Yugoslavia and the foundation of an independent state, the rhetoric of
its chairman showed that this was obviously his primary objective.
In Macedonia too, the opposition won in November 1990, but as in Slovenia,
the people voted for the old, experienced president.
In the elections in November 1990 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the citizens
voted only for their national parties: Croats for the HDZ, Serbs for the Serbian
Democratic Party, and Muslims for the Party of the Democratic Alter -
na tive. Only in Serbia and Montenegro did the Communists win the
elec tions in December 1990, as carriers of the Greater Serbian movement.
It was impossible to hold elections at the federal Yugoslav level, for Serbia
and Slovenia prevent it with their vetoes. Prime Minister Markovic´
thereupon founded a federal party, the League of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia.
But this idea failed; it was already too late.
After the transition of power in 1990, the process of the decomposition
of Yugoslavia continued and was radicalized. Virtually all Serbs considered
the elections in Slovenia as the Slovenian secession from Yugoslavia
and those in Croatia as the triumph of the Ustaša. The results were used
as a message and a call to the masses to continue the national struggle,
even with weapons. The Serbian leadership and the Yugoslav People’s
Army accelerated their preparations for war, and the new governments
in Slovenia and Croatia accelerated their secession and their autonomy.
Everyone rushed to accomplish his own goal.
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