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yugoslavias implosion

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280<br />

ChApter 4<br />

Phase 3: Executing the project, which started in 1989 with the<br />

onslaught on Vojvodina, the legalization of the populist movement,<br />

and the announcement, at a rally in Kosovo, of a war to reestablish<br />

hegemony over Yugoslavia in a crusade for a Greater Serbia.<br />

Phase 4: Persevering with the process—in spite of the defeats sustained<br />

in the 1990s—by seeking to incorporate Republika Srpska (rs)<br />

into Serbia. Efforts to realize this ambition will continue until the<br />

international community helps Bosnia to become a functional state,<br />

which necessitates a revision of the Dayton Accords and the elimination<br />

of the ethnic principle as the key principle for building the Bosnian<br />

state.<br />

Serbia’s warlike project had the backing of the Yugoslav People’s<br />

Army (ypa) and the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministartsvo<br />

unutrašnjih poslova, mup); the secret services in both the<br />

ypa and the mup played a crucial role in preparations for war. Yet for<br />

all its military superiority, Serbia failed to crush the resistance of the<br />

other Yugoslav peoples, who proved to be more resolute opponents<br />

than Serbia had anticipated and whose commitment to the cause of<br />

their independence and liberation from Serbian aspirations earned<br />

them international sympathy. Because the international community<br />

was reluctant to see Yugoslavia dissolve, Serbia succeeded for a<br />

time in being seen as the country’s defender. As evidence of Serbia’s<br />

culpability in the break-up of Yugoslavia grew stronger, so did Serbian<br />

efforts to hold the secessionist republics of Slovenia and Croatia<br />

responsible for Yugoslavia’s fate. At the same time, Serbs also grew<br />

yet more convinced that they were the victims of a worldwide conspiracy<br />

against Serbia.<br />

The project itself and the ideology behind it is still firmly rooted<br />

in Serbia’s elites. The Hague Tribunal has not concerned itself with<br />

the role of academics, the Serbian Orthodox Church (spc), the writers’<br />

and journalists’ associations, or the cultural elites. Because their<br />

actions have not been condemned on moral grounds, either in Serbia

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