yugoslavias implosion

the first ethnic Albanian demonstrations in 1968, and the 1974 Constitution
shaped the developments of the 1980s. In 1977, a campaign
was launched in Serbia to amend the 1974 Constitution, and the Blue
Book analyzing the position of Serbia and its autonomous provinces
was circulated. Dragoslav Marković, a chief advocate of amending
the Constitution, declared that “Serb nationalism has for a number
of years fed on the unresolved constitutional question of Serbia following
the adoption of the 1974 Constitution, on its disjunction and
trinomy, on the burning problem of the Serbs and Montenegrins in
Kosovo, and on Albanian separatism.” 55
It turned out, however, that altering the constitutional status
of the provinces was not so much a step toward recentralizing
Yugoslavia as a means of destabilizing Yugoslavia. After Tito’s
death, General Nikola Ljubičić (also President of Serbia from 1982
to 1984) took over the helm of Serbia after serving as the head of the
ypa for thirteen years. His position that “Yugoslavia will be defended
by the Serbs and the [ypa]” betrayed the belief that Yugoslavia was
a Serbian state and the ypa was its army. In the absence of a unifying
leader and ideology, the government relied more and more
on the Army, which had played a key role in crushing reform-oriented
movements during the 1970s. The Albanian demonstrations
in Kosovo in 1981 were used as a pretext for raising the Serbian
national issue and for fomenting Serbian nationalist euphoria. The
ypa pushed its way onto the political stage and virtually occupied
Kosovo.
The question of Tito’s successor had been raised during discussions
of constitutional amendments. One idea that was floated in the
mid-1970s was a collective presidency to take over the role of president
of the republic after Tito’s death. In fact, Tito himself had proposed
the idea, stressing the need for the state leadership to consist
55 Mirko Đekić, Upotreba Srbije: Optužbe i Priznanja Draže Markovića (The Utilization of
Serbia: The Accusations and Admissions of Draža Marković), Beseda, Belgrade, 1990 .
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