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The Roots Of War Essay, Research Paper

The Roots of War

Turn on the news or pick up a newspaper and no doubtedly you will find a reference to Bosnia. You can read the happenings of the day and then ponder what is going on. From these events one can draw many conclusions and still be left with a sense of confusion. The problem with the analysis of the events is that the average individual has little if any reference to the history of the region. A true anaylisis of the events must start with the knowledge of not only the current events but also the history of the cultures, political makeup and turmoil of the region. What this paper is intended to accomplish is to give the reader a sense of why Yugoslavia splintered, why the groups attempted to extinguish members of the other nationalities, and why peace has become so hard to bring about and maintain.

The Balkans has long been a hot bed for civil and political unrest. The region has seen many wars and disputes over nationalities, religion, and land, dating back for hundreds of years. The rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire, the infusion of Catholicism and Muslim beliefs, two world wars, communism and capitalism have been introduced, and several attempts at unifying the region as one nation-state have all been underlying factors in the area (Lawday 34). Still one thing remains the same; the region is still without peace. The fighting that has accrued in the 1990’s is not something that is new or unique to the times. In fact the civil war was nothing more than the wick on the powder keg finally burning to the end.

The first attempt at unifying these groups in 1918 brought with it many different ideas from the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The Croats, bad experiences with limited autonomy under imperial rule led them to desire a confederate state of Yugoslavia. The Serbs viewed this a chance to reinstate what they believed to be the legitimate heir of Czar Dusan’s empire from medieval times (Remington 366). A confederation of sorts was born, but in 1929 King Alexander Karadjordjevic disbanded parliament and established a Serbian dictatorship (Remington 366). King Alexander viewed this as a necessity due to the fact the three-tiered parliament of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes could not come to agreement. The Croatian took this dissolution as an imposition of rule by the Serbs and assassinated King Alexander in 1934. Never the less the monarchy continued to rule for seven more years.

Hitler invaded the Yugoslav State in 1941 and drove out the monarchy setting up a token Kingdom of Croatia, run by Croatian Fascists. This leadership did not last long as Josip Broz Tito, with the help of the Soviet Union, drove the Nazis out of the region in 1945 (Walt 134). At the end of WWII the lands of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia were united under one Yugoslavia and ruled by Tito.

The name Yugoslavia itself means Land of the Southern Slavs (Lawday 34). This unification was thought to be one that would bring a never-ending peace, what was not taken into account was the fact that the single unifying factor of these people was they were all Slavs only in origin. They did not have any religious, historical, or language commonalties.

Tito used these differences in pitting the ethnic factions against one another to enhance his Communist rule. Tito accomplished this by reminding the Serbs of the massacres of Serbs during WWII by Croat Fascist. At the same time Tito, a Croat himself, pointed out the killings of Croats by Serbian Nationalist in WWII. What this effectively did was accomplish Tito’s main political theory of ruling Yugoslavia: a weak Serbia equals a strong Yugoslavia (Lawday 35). Tito broke ties with the Soviet Union in 1948, but continued the communist rule. He was subsequently elected as president for like in 1958 and ruled until his death in 1980 (Walt 134). Tito’s death left behind a legacy of ethnic hatred in wounds that had been left open to seethe since WWII. What Tito’s death failed to leave behind was a strong political institution to stabilize Yugoslavia. His death further proved that Yugoslavia was not a strong nation comprised of various peoples with ethnic diversity living together in peace, but rather an artificial creation built out of convenience and comprised of mortal enemies (Weisberger 18).

Yugoslavia inherited a bloody past of nationalist and communalist hatred (Remington 367). The Serbs in Bosnia as well as the Serbian minority had instilled the hatred in memories of the genocidal treatment during WWII. The Croats feared the Serbs would attempt to regain an autocratic rule over the region. The Croats felt a need to empower themselves to prevent such a rule. There was also a third group vying for power in the region. This came from the Ethnic Muslims in the middle land of Bosnia. The Bosnia’s felt the pressure form both the Croats and the Serbs who would eventually claim the lands of the Muslims as their own.

Yugoslavia was on a course for an inevitable split, but some how survived until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By this time Yugoslavia’s part communist, part capitalist economy was in shambles The richer Croatia and Slovenia in the north wished to rebuild ties to the Western world, while Serbia in the south was attempting to rebuild through the East.

Throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s Tito’s successors took turns rotating in and out of power. All had to wrestle with the problems of nationalistic interests and economic differences throughout the region. Ethnic leader began to arise, bringing with them the promise of strong ethnic freedom and revitalization (Remington367).

Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbain party boss was the first of such to rise. He used his grand charismatic ability to build a vision of a return for Serbia to its place of power and gave hopes for the safety

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