Breakup of Yugoslavia Following the breaking down of the U.S.S.R, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia broke up into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Montenegro. Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia claimed independence in 1991, Bosnia in 1992. This left Serbia and Montenegro in a Yugoslav federation, and it resulted in bloody conflicts. The UN sent military forces to the area in 1992, NATO did the same in 1993.[1] The U.S. got directly involved via economic sanctions, and contributed to the peace agreement in 1995.[2] In 1998 followed another bloody conflict as Kosovo, a province of Serbia, wanted greater autonomy. A peace agreement was reached in June 1999. In 2003, Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro claimed independence in 2006. [2] In 2008 Kosovo independence in 2008. References - ↑ "Krigene i Eksjugoslavien 1991-1999". Nationalmuseet (in Danish). Retrieved 2024-01-21. - 1 2 "Yugoslavia - Federalism, Breakup, Nations | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-01-21. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart in the early 1990s. Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav Wars from 1991 to 2001 which primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some years later, Kosovo. Following the Allied victory in World War II, Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six republics, with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated. Between June 1991 and April 1992, four constituent republics declared independence while Montenegro and Serbia remained federated. Germany took the initiative and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, but the status of ethnic Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and that of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained unsolved. After a string of inter-ethnic incidents, the Yugoslav Wars ensued, with the most severe conflicts being in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The wars left economic and political damage in the region that is still felt decades later. Yugoslavia subsequently fell into heavy IMF debt due to the large number of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans taken out by the regime. As a condition of receiving loans, the IMF demanded the "market liberalisation" of Yugoslavia. By 1981, Yugoslavia had incurred $19.9 billion in foreign debt. Another concern was the level of unemployment, at 1 million by 1980. This problem was compounded by the general "unproductiveness of the South", which not only added to Yugoslavia's economic woes, but also irritated Slovenia and Croatia further. At 77% of the population of Kosovo in the 1980s, ethnic-Albanians were the majority. In June 1989, the 600th anniversary of Serbia's historic defeat at the field of Kosovo, Slobodan Milošević gave the Gazimestan speech to 200,000 Serbs, with a Serb nationalist theme which deliberately evoked medieval Serbian history. Milošević's answer to the incompetence of the federal system was to centralise the government. Considering Slovenia and Croatia were looking farther ahead to independence, this was considered unacceptable. In August 1990, in the wake of the Log Revolution, the Croatian Parliament replaced its representative in the Yugoslav Presidency, Stipe Šuvar, with Stjepan Mesić. Mesić was not seated in October 1990 because of protests from the Serbian side, and then joined Macedonia's Vasil Tupurkovski, Slovenia's Janez Drnovšek and Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bogić Bogićević in opposing demands to proclaim a general state of emergency, which would have allowed the Yugoslav People's Army to impose martial law. Following the first multi-party election results, in the autumn of 1990 the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia proposed transforming Yugoslavia into a loose federation of six republics. The discovery of Croatian arms smuggling combined with the crisis in Knin, the election of independence-leaning governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, and Slovenes demanding independence in the referendum on the issue suggested that Yugoslavia faced the imminent threat of disintegration. On 1 March 1991, the Pakrac clash ensued, and the JNA was deployed to the scene. On 9 March 1991, protests in Belgrade were suppressed with the help of the Army. On 12 March 1991, the leadership of the Army met with the Presidency in an attempt to convince them to declare a state of emergency which would allow for the pan-Yugoslav army to take control of the country. The Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries devastated the town in urban warfare and the destruction of Croatian property. Serb paramilitaries committed atrocities against Croats, killing over 200, and displacing others to add to those who fled the town in the Vukovar massacre. == Independence of the Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina == === Bosnia and Herzegovina === From 1991 to 1992, the situation in multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina grew tense due to its mixed demographic structure, which included a plurality of Bosniaks This ethnic divide led to the parliament being fragmented along ethnic lines and put the ownership of large areas of the country in dispute. In October 1991, Radovan Karadžić, the leader of the largest Serb faction in the parliament, the Serb Democratic Party, gave a grave and direct warning to the People's Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina should it decide to separate, saying: This, what you are doing, is not good. This is the path that you want to take Bosnia and Herzegovina on, the same highway of hell and death that Slovenia and Croatia went on. Don't think that you won't take Bosnia and Herzegovina into hell, and the Muslim people maybe into extinction.