The Yugoslav Wars were ethnic conflicts fought from 1991 to 1999 on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The wars accompanied the breakup of the country, where its constituent republics declared independence, but the issues of ethnic minorities in the new countries (chiefly Serbs in central parts and Albanians in the southeast) were left unresolved after those republics were recognized internationally. The wars are generally considered to be a series of largely separate but related military conflicts occurring and affecting most of the former Yugoslav republics: War in Slovenia (1991) Croatian War of Independence (1991--1995) Bosnian War (1992--1995) Kosovo War (1998--1999), including the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The wars mostly resulted in peace accords, involving full international recognition of new states, but with massive economic damage in the region. Initially the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) sought to preserve the unity of the whole of Yugoslavia by crushing the secessionist governments; however the JNA increasingly came under the influence of the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević that evoked Serbian nationalist rhetoric and was willing to support the Yugoslav state insofar as using it to preserve the unity of Serbs in one state; as a result the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and ethnic Macedonians, and effectively became a Serb army. According to the 1994 United Nations report, the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia, but to create a "Greater Serbia" from parts of Croatia and Bosnia. Often described as Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II, the conflicts have become infamous for the war crimes involved, including ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and rape. These were the first conflicts since World War II to be formally judged genocidal in character and many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN to prosecute these crimes. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the deaths of 140,000 people. The Humanitarian Law Center writes that in the conflicts in former Yugoslav republics at least 130,000 people lost their lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: Jugoslavija, Југославија) was a country in Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. It came into existence after World War I in 1918[ii] under the name of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (itself formed from territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) with the formerly independent Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Montenegro. The Serbian royal House of Karađorđević became the Yugoslav royal dynasty. Yugoslavia gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris.[3] The country was named after the South Slavic peoples and constituted their first union, following centuries in which the territories had been part of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929, it was invaded by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance. In 1944, the king recognised it as the legitimate government, but in November 1945 the monarchy was abolished. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. It acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. Leader of the Partisans Josip Broz Tito ruled the country as the president until his death in 1980. In 1963, the country was renamed again to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The constituent six Socialist Republics and two Socialist Autonomous Provinces that made up the country were SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR Slovenia, and SR Serbia (including the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, which after 1974 were largely equal to the other members of the federation).[4][5] After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics' borders, at first into five countries, leading to the Yugoslav Wars. After the breakup, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro formed a reduced federation, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), which aspired to the status of sole legal successor to the SFRY, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. Eventually, Serbia and Montenegro accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession.[6] Serbia and Montenegro themselves broke up in 2006 and became independent states, while Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia

• published: 14 Aug 2014
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