yugoslavias implosion

The wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo ended
only with international intervention. Croatia was recognized as a
state only after Vukovar, Dubrovnik, and other Croatian towns had
been devastated, and the so-called Serbian Republic of Krajina had
been established. The war in Bosnia ended after the largest massacre
in Europe since World War II, the slaughter of about eight thousand
civilians in Srebrenica. The Dayton Accords acknowledged the ethnic
division resulting from the genocidal policy against the Bosniak people.
Nato intervention halted Milošević’s attempt to create a similar
situation in Kosovo, which would have undermined the stability of
the Balkans as a whole.
Serbia’s policy of war produced staggering consequences
throughout the region. The outcome of the “all Serbs in one state”
agenda was devastating, not only for others in the region but also
for Serbs themselves. Although the loss in human life may never be
accurately established, there is general agreement that about 100,000
casaualities is the minimal figure, while some estimates put the
number of dead at more then 215,000. The numbers of refugees and
displaced persons in Croatia in 1991 totaled more than 500,000; in Bosnia-Herzegovina
in 1995 the comparable number was almost 2.5 million.
In Serbia, many people belonging to national minorities were
driven out of the country: some 60,000 Croats, 50,000 Hungarians, and
300,000 Albanians. They were joined by 300,000 other Serbian citizens,
mostly young people, who emigrated either for economic reasons or
to avoid being called up to active duty. Although most of the 800,000
Albanians expelled from Kosovo during the nato intervention
returned, many stayed abroad. Some 4.4 million people, or 20 percent
of the population of the former Yugoslavia, were resettled by war.
The indirect economic damage inflicted on the region as a whole
base of support for themselves than with forming a nation-state . Toni Kuzmančič “The
Disintegration of Yugoslavia and Succession: Populism, Rather Than Nationalism,” collection
of papers “The Violent Break-up of Yugoslavia: Causes, Dynamics and Consequences,”
edited by Miroslav Hadžić, Center for Civil-Military Relations, Belgrade, 2004 .
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