The dissolution of Yugoslavia identifies various events which over the last 10 years of the last century led to the end of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia and the birth of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and North Macedonia.
Ennio Remondino, Rai correspondent in the Balkans, takes stock of the reasons for that war
A dissolution that caused a war, the first since 1945 in Europe, and the siege, the longest in modern history, of the city of Sarajevo with an estimate more than 12 thousand victims and over 50 thousand injured, 85 per cent of them civilians. Only at the end of 1995, with the signing of the Dayton Accords, we arrive at a solution. The overall toll of the Bosnian war, which lasted three and a half years, was 100,000 dead and 2 million refugees. “Pass it soon”, we all said. “The world cannot allow fratricidal confrontation and carnage in the middle of the old continent.” Yesterday as today. Nobody likes to “see” the worst.
The demographic structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina included a mixed population with a majority of Bosnians and minorities of Serbs and Croats. From 1991 to 1992, the multi-ethnic situation flared up. In 1991, Radovan Karadzic , the leader of the largest Serbian faction in parliament, the Serbian Democratic Party, directly warned the Bosnian parliament should he decide to independence:
“What you are doing is not good. This is the road you want to take Bosnia and Herzegovina, the same highway of hell and death that Slovenia and Croatia have followed. Do not think that you will lead Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell and that the Muslim people are in danger of extinction. Because the Muslim people cannot defend themselves if there is a war here ”. (Radovan Karadzic October 14, 1991)
MICHAEL KOOREN / AFP via Getty Images
Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Serbs in Bosnia
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has an official start date: April 6, 1992. But already on April 5, snipers, Serbs, from the Hotel Holiday Inn, target the demonstrators trying to get to the Town Hall. According to others, it all started between February 29 and March 1 when a referendum on independence is held, promoted by the Bosnian government. According to the Federal Constitutional Court of the Bosnian Serb government, the referendum was contrary to the Bosnian constitution and on this basis was largely boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs. But the official results, with a turnout of 63.4%, certified that 99.7% of the voters were in favor of independence.
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on March 3, 1992 and received international recognition on April 6, 1992 .
On the same date, the Serbs responded by declaring theRepublika Srpska and besieging Sarajevo, a siege that marks the beginning of the Bosnian war.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was subsequently admitted as a member state of the United Nations on May 22, 1992.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the most multi- ethnic republic among the six that made up Yugoslavia. Inside there coexisted Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs (Orthodox) and Croats (Catholics).
Thirty years later, Bosnia and Herzegovina is made up of two entities: the Croatian-Muslim Federation and the Serbian Republic. But in recent months the Serbs have begun to create separate institutions (army, judiciary, tax administration), and this has made the risk of a secession and a new conflict more concrete.
