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set some sort of priority on their objectives.

On June 21, 1991, Slovenia declared independence. Slovenia?s

discontent with the rest of the Yugoslav federation can be traced back

to the 1970?s when during the oil crisis that took the entire world by

storm, Slovenians returned home from their then non-existent Western

European jobs. Slovenia?s per capita income was twice that of the

rest of Yugoslavia with zero unemployment making the republic a

popular place for migrant Serbs and Albanians from Kosovo. This

migration in the 1970?s was not welcomed because after Tito?s death,

Serbs throughout the Federation attempted to usurped the educational

institutions of Slovenia and to institute a single, unified ?Yugoslav?

curriculum. The Slovenes saw this as an attempt to eliminate their

national identity and because of this rejected it flatly.

As a result of the attempts of the communists in Yugoslavia to

reform the education system of Slovenia, the republic?s government

undertook a massive campaign, mostly television advertising, to raise

national awareness of the issues and to attempt to build support for a

nationalist movement. It worked. Throughout Slovenia, one could find

tee-shirts with ?Slovenia my Homeland? silk screened on them. The

campaign for national pride had worked.

The Yugoslav communists attempted a media campaign as well and

had the economy not taken a nose-dive in the mid 1980?s they might

have been successful. However, the Slovene media touted the economic

recession as the fault of the other, poorer republics. The

politicians argued that Slovenia was suffering not because of the

recession but because they had to subsidize the other, less developed

republics. What arose from this stage of the game was the beginnings

of an intense nationalism would later propel Slovenia out of the

Yugoslav federation and into an independence movement.

As a result of this tension between what apparently had become

Milosevic (in control of Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro)

and Kucan of Slovenia, the Slovene people made their way toward

independence. It started with the youth movement. Mladina, a Slovene

political weekly, began and ran stories about the JNA, Yugoslavia,

Milosevic, and others who were basically labeled enemies of the

Slovene people. A new artist movement caught the attention of many in

Europe through art, literature and music. This movement began with a

group of teenagers looking for an alternative to mandatory military

service and ended with an alternative to continued federation with

Yugoslavia.

On May 31, 1988, the attacks that the JNA had received from

Mladina were avenged with the arrest of Janez Jasna, the military

correspondent for Mladina and a candidate for the presidency of

Slovenia?s Youth Organization. The charge was leaking military

secrets. Later, three other people were indicated in this conspiracy

when documents were discovered in the offices of Mladina. These

documents were believed to be the plans for a takeover of Slovenia by

the JNA although the JNA and the Yugoslav government never confirmed

the suspicions. The people of Slovenia and its leadership viewed this

attack on Mladina and its youth as an attack on Slovenian sovereignty.

With Kosovo now under the control of Serbia, the time had come

to turn the attention of the JNA and the government towards Slovenia

which was, at this time, still teetering on the issue of independence.

In typical fashion, Milosevic turned his propaganda machine on the

Slovenes blaming them for everything from the price of clothing in

Serbia to the price of tea in China. At approximately the same time,

Milosevic attempted to cripple the economy of Slovenia by boycotting

Slovenian goods and services in Serbia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. What

Milosevic managed to do was not to punish Slovenes for their

insurrection but instead punish the Serbs who were dependent on

Slovene goods and services. The economy of Serbia was in a downward

spiral. Hopeful to raise a billion dollars in investments, Milosevic

asked Serbs from all over the globe to contribute to his

reconstruction and revitalization fund. Out of the billion dollars

that he was expecting and counting on, Milosevic managed to get a

whopping twenty-five million dollars… hardly enough to solve the

economic woes that inflation, poor quality, and over employment were

causing (Bennett, 108).

Obviously, Milosevic was killing himself and Serbia with these

sanctions and other economic activities. In his zeal for a

nationalist movement, Milosevic managed to forget that one needs an

economy for a nation to exist and he was systematically destroying

his. In Kosovo alone, police operations costs amounted to about half

of all of Yugoslavia?s military budget and Milosevic?s refusal to let

anyone outside of Serbia to handle the situation further crippled any

hope for a unified Yugoslavia. Serbia?s actions in Kosovo were one of

the key factors in Slovenia, and shortly thereafter, Croatia?s

decision to leave Yugoslavia. Had Serbia not treated the people of

Kosovo as second class citizens within a now, new Greater Serbia, the

Slovenes and the Croats would not have feared them as much. As it

stood, however, the Serbs had seemingly made it clear that no

Yugoslavia would exist

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