yugoslavias implosion

into the dramatic events that shook up the federal administration
in the late 1980s. I was also deeply involved in the creation of the
first anti-war movement in Yugoslavia, the European Movement in
Yugoslavia, the Forum for International Relations, and the Helsinki
Human Rights Committee (hchr) in Serbia. Like hundreds of thousands
of citizens of the former Yugoslavia, I have witnessed around
me and personally suffered terrible family losses and misfortunes
caused by the wars of the 1990s.
Eventually, I began intensive research into the collapse of Yugoslavia.
My evolved understanding of the Serbian response to the
challenge of the Yugoslav transformation has been based on that
research and on conversations with fellow researchers, political analysts,
scholars, politicians, both at home and abroad, including in
Washington, d.c., where I was a fellow at the United States Institute
of Peace. As the president of the hhrc, a human rights defender, a
political columnist, and the editor of numerous publications, I continue
to observe and analyze political developments, while striving
to persuade the public and policymakers to uphold human rights
and establish a free, democratic, and multiethnic society, at peace
with itself and its neighbors. All of these elements have led me to the
conviction—shared by the majority of serious political analysts and
researchers in the region and beyond—that nationalistic ideologies
lay at the very root of Yugoslavia’s horrific end.
The collapse of communism and the political confusion that
accompanied its aftermath presented the Serbian nationalists with a
singular opportunity to capitalize on the impending break-up of the
federal state and retailor the country in accordance with the centuries-old
Greater Serbia program. Serbian political elites considered
the historical moment propitious for translating their idea into
reality because of the political vacuum created by the collapse of the
social system, the Serbian domination over the army, the mobilization
potential of the Kosovo myth, and the conviction that Russia,
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IntroduCtIon