#1 Resist or Serve! Yugoslavia - 1989 Something is Changing from Bad to Worse.

The collapse of Yugoslavia represents an unprecedented tragedy, the bloody and ferocious conflict which lasted years. Countries ravaged of communism yearned to be free and independent particulars; the time was an outstanding one; the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War were harbingers of changes, no one could foretell such turbulent ones. Eastern Europe awoken from a deep, dull sleep. The Balkans as one and unique region couldn’t shake off the history. Conflicts and violence oppressed too long. A bitter civil war during the Second World War destroyed the country. Approximately one million people died. Concentration camps will re-emerge fifty years later. In 1990s a quarter of million of people died during the savage ethnic fighting. The international community looked in disbelief on ongoing genocide. This war, this time of torment was not dominated by hi-tech technology, instead, people killed those they knew, befriended with, their own friends, neighbors and family members. The international effects of the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia have been substantial, wide-ranging and still omnipresent in contemporary global affairs. Millions of refugees fled for their lives.  The influx of refugees was not only an unwelcome financial burden but also sparkled unrest in countries that were forced to absorb people, who had a completely different set of values. Multi-national operations were launched in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia. In 1993 the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was set up in the Hague. It was to address a serious violations of international humanitarian law. Many historians believe it was Slobodan Milosevic who was responsible for the fighting and the onset of war. He was a preparatory of violence. His extreme form of nationalist policies fractured the years of harmony, he was responsible for bitter hatred, war crimes and economic decline. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Maldic (now both imprisoned) – were the key figures in the political and military leadership of the Bosnian Serbs, they were instrumental in preparation of the siege of Sarajevo.  General Mladic was personally responsible for massive genocide in Srebrenica, Potocari, where, more than 7.000 Bosnian men and boys were perished. The ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica fell under Mladic’s control in 1995. Bear in mind, the role of the UN during the collapse of Yugoslavia was severely criticized, mostly, for allowing the genocide flourish under their guns. The most soaring example of this neglect happened in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995, where, people who were supposed to be protected by the Dutch UN peacekeeping units – were sent to certain death.  Now the former Dutch UN peacekeeping soldiers want to sue their Own country, yet, can they do it, for the lack of their knowledge?

Notwithstanding all the circumstances ten of thousands of UN peacekeeping units were deployed to supplant the peace process; UNPROFOR in Croatia and then in Bosnia and Herzegovina. NATO took a key position in bringing a cessation to the violence in the region. In 1995 in Bosnia, in 1999 in Kosovo.

Bibliography

1. David Martin, Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailovich.
2. "Participation of Former Yugoslav States in the United Nations".
3. Allcock, John B.: Explaining Yugoslavia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000
4. Cigar, Norman, : Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of Ethnic-Cleansing. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995
5. Cohen, Lenard J.: Broken Bonds: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993
6. Fisher, Sharon: Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nationalist to Europeanist. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
7. Gutman, Roy.: A Witness to Genocide. The 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning Dispatches on the "Ethnic Cleansing" of Bosnia. New York: Macmillan, 1993
8. Hayden, Robert M.: Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000
9. Owen, David. Balkan Odyssey Harcourt (Harvest Book), 1997
10. Silber, Laura and Allan Little:Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. New York: Penguin Books, 1997