Global InformationYugoslav Wars information
| Yugoslav Wars | |||||||
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| Part of the post–Cold War era | |||||||
 Clockwise from top-left: Officers of the Slovenian National Police Force escort captured soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army back to their unit during the Slovenian War of Independence; a destroyed M-84 during the Battle of Vukovar; anti-tank missile installations of the Serbia-controlled Yugoslav People's Army during the siege of Dubrovnik; reburial of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in 2010; an armoured vehicle of the United Nations Protection Force during the siege of Sarajevo. | |||||||
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Total deaths: c. 130,000–140,000+[6][7] Displaced: c. 4,000,000+[8] | |||||||
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related[9][10][11] ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001.[A 2] The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia (now called North Macedonia). SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
During the initial stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) sought to preserve the unity of the Yugoslav nation by eradicating all republic governments. However, it increasingly came under the influence of Slobodan Milošević, whose government invoked Serbian nationalism as an ideological replacement for the weakening communist system. As a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and Macedonians, and effectively became a fighting force of only Serbs and Montenegrins.[13] According to a 1994 report by the United Nations (UN), the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia; instead, it aimed to create a "Greater Serbia" from parts of Croatia and Bosnia.[14] Other irredentist movements have also been brought into connection with the Yugoslav Wars, such as "Greater Albania" (from Kosovo, idea abandoned following international diplomacy)[15][16][17][18][19] and "Greater Croatia" (from parts of Herzegovina, abandoned in 1994 with the Washington Agreement).[20][21][22][23][24]
Often described as one of Europe's deadliest armed conflicts since World War II, the Yugoslav Wars were marked by many war crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, massacres, and mass wartime rape. The Bosnian genocide was the first European wartime event to be formally classified as genocidal in character since the military campaigns of Nazi Germany, and many of the key individuals who perpetrated it were subsequently charged with war crimes;[25] the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN in The Hague, Netherlands, to prosecute all individuals who had committed war crimes during the conflicts.[26] According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the deaths of 140,000 people,[6] while the Humanitarian Law Center estimates at least 130,000 casualties.[7] Over their decade-long duration, the conflicts resulted in major refugee and humanitarian crises.[27][28][29]
- ^ Stephen Engelberg (3 March 1991). "Belgrade Sends Troops to Croatia Town". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
- ^ Chuck Sudetic (1 April 1991). "Deadly Clash in a Yugoslav Republic". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
- ^ Dean E. Murphy (8 August 1995). "Croats Declare Victory, End Blitz". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
- ^ Chris Hedges (12 November 1995). "Serbs in Croatia Resolve Key Issue by Giving up Land". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
- ^ "Mine kills Serb police". BBC News. 14 October 2000. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014.
- ^ a b "Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia". International Center for Transitional Justice. 1 January 2009. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
- ^ a b "About us". Humanitarian Law Center. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
- ^ "Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia". ICJT.org. International Center for Transitional Justice. 1 January 2009. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2011.
- ^ Judah, Tim (17 February 2011). "Yugoslavia: 1918–2003". BBC. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
- ^ Finlan (2004), p. 8.
- ^ Naimark (2003), p. xvii.
- ^ Shaw (2013), p. 132.
- ^ Armatta, Judith (2010), Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosević, Duke University Press, p. 121
- ^ Annex IV – II. The politics of creating a Greater Serbia: nationalism, fear and repression
- ^ Janssens, Jelle (5 February 2015). State-building in Kosovo. A plural policing perspective. Maklu. p. 53. ISBN 978-90-466-0749-7. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Totten, Samuel; Bartrop, Paul R. (2008). Dictionary of Genocide. with contributions by Steven Leonard Jacobs. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-313-32967-8. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Sullivan, Colleen (14 September 2014). "Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Karon, Tony (9 March 2001). "Albanian Insurgents Keep NATO Forces Busy". TIME. Archived from the original on 26 December 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Phillips, David L. (2012). Liberating Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy and U.S. Intervention. in cooperation with the Future of Diplomacy Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The MIT Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-262-30512-9. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (29 May 2013). "Prlic et al. judgement vol.6 2013" (PDF). United Nations. p. 383. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Gow, James (2003). The Serbian Project and Its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes. C. Hurst & Co. p. 229. ISBN 978-1-85065-499-5. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ van Meurs, Wim, ed. (11 November 2013). Prospects and Risks Beyond EU Enlargement: Southeastern Europe: Weak States and Strong International Support. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 168. ISBN 978-3-663-11183-2. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Thomas, Raju G. C., ed. (2003). Yugoslavia Unraveled: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, Intervention. Lexington Books. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-7391-0757-7. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Mahmutćehajić, Rusmir (1 February 2012). Sarajevo Essays: Politics, Ideology, and Tradition. State University of New York Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-7914-8730-3. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Bosnia Genocide, United Human Rights Council, archived from the original on 22 April 2009, retrieved 13 April 2015
- ^ United Nations Security Council Resolution 827. S/RES/827(1993) 25 May 1993.
- ^ "The Balkan Refugee Crisis". Crisis Group. June 1999. Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
- ^ "Crisis in the Balkans". Chomsky.info. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
- ^ "Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Fall of Srebrenica and the Failure of UN Peacekeeping". Human Rights Watch. 15 October 1995. Archived from the original on 8 March 2022. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
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