The Yugoslav Wars were a series of armed conflicts on the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) that took place between 1991 and 2001. This article is a timeline of relevant events preceding, during, and after the wars.
1945
1948–1952
1966
1968
1971
1972
1974
May 1980
1981
1983
1986–1989
1990
January 1991
March 1991
May – June 1991
July 1991
September 1991
October 1991
October 1991-December 1991
December 1991
January 1992
February–March 1992
April 1992
May 1992
Summer 1992
December 1992
January 1993
March 1993
July 1993
September 1993
March 1994
February–October 1994
August 1994
May 1995
July 1995
August 1995
November 1995
December 1995
1996
1996 - 1998
The process of peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region began on 15 January 1996, with the adoption of the Resolution 1037 which established UNTAES.
Winter 1996/97
March 1998
March 1999
June 1999
June 1999
December 1999
October 2000
January - November 2001
June 2001
February 2002
February 2003
October 2003
March 2004
January 2006
March 2006
May 21, 2006
February 2008
July 2011 - 2013
Clashes between the Republic of Kosovo and ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo began on 25 July 2011 when the Kosovo Police crossed into the Serb-controlled municipalities of North Kosovo, to control several administrative border crossings. This was done without the Kosovo Police consulting either Serbia or Kosovo Force (KFOR)/EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo). [3]
Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992.
Alija Izetbegović was a Bosnian politician, lawyer, Islamic philosopher and author, who in 1992 became the first president of the Presidency of the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart, but the unresolved issues caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav Wars. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some years later, Kosovo.
The Death of Yugoslavia is a BBC documentary series first broadcast in September and October 1995, and returning in June 1996. It is also the title of a BBC book by Allan Little and Laura Silber that accompanies the series. It covers the collapse of Yugoslavia, the subsequent wars and the signing of the final peace accords. It uses a combination of archived footage interspersed with interviews with most of the main players in the conflict, including Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Franjo Tuđman and Alija Izetbegović, as well as members of the international political community, who were active in the various peace initiatives.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a state in Southeastern Europe, existing from 1992 to 1995. It is the direct legal predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, often referred to as Bosnian Army or Bosniak Army, was the military force of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was established by the government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 following the outbreak of the Bosnian War.
The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly referred to as Socialist Bosnia or simply Bosnia, was one of the six constituent federal states forming the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was a predecessor of the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, existing between 1945 and 1992, under a number of different formal names, including Democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina (1943–1946) and People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1946–1963).
The Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was an unrecognized geopolitical entity and quasi-state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was proclaimed on 18 November 1991 under the name Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia as a "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole" in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and abolished on 14 August 1996.
Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, under the influence of Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Serbian statesman Ilija Garašanin. Serbian nationalism was an important factor during the Balkan Wars which contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, during and after World War I when it contributed to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and again during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
On 25 March 1991, the presidents of the Yugoslav federal states SR Croatia and SR Serbia, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević, met at the Karađorđevo hunting ground in northwest Serbia. The publicized topic of their discussion was the ongoing Yugoslav crisis. Three days later all the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics met in Split. Although news of the meeting taking place was widely publicized in the Yugoslav media at the time, the meeting was overshadowed by the crisis in progress, that would lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Adil Zulfikarpašić was a Bosnian intellectual and politician who served as vice president of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War of the 1990s, under the first president of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović. After the war he retired from politics and opened the Bosniak Institute, a museum in Sarajevo focused on the Bosniak culture.
Slobodan Milošević was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician who was the president of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until his оverthrow in 2000. Formerly a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s, he led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until his death in 2006. Milošević was a follower of the Greater Serbia ideology and played a major role in the Yugoslav Wars. During his reign, numerous anti-government and anti-war protests took place, and hundreds of thousands deserted the Milošević-controlled Yugoslav People's Army, leading to mass emigration from Serbia. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Milošević was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes in connection with the Bosnian War, the Croatian War of Independence, and the Kosovo War. He became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes.
Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.
Rankovićism refers to a political ideology prevalent in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia based on the political views of the Serbian communist official and former Yugoslav Partisan leader Aleksandar Ranković.
An independence referendum was held in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 29 February and 1 March 1992, following the first free elections of 1990 and the rise of ethnic tensions that eventually led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Independence was strongly favored by Bosniak and Bosnian Croat voters while Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum or were prevented from participating by Bosnian Serb authorities.
The Leaders of the Yugoslav Wars listed below comprise the important political and military figures of the Yugoslav wars.
The siege of Mostar was fought during the Bosnian War first in 1992 and then again later in 1993 to 1994. Initially lasting between April 1992 and June 1992, it involved the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) fighting against the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. That phase ended in June 1992 after the success of Operation Jackal, launched by the Croatian Army (HV) and HVO. As a result of the first siege around 90,000 residents of Mostar fled and numerous religious buildings, cultural institutions, and bridges were damaged or destroyed.
Muhamed Filipović was a Bosnian academic, writer, essayist, theorist and philosopher. As a young man he took part in the communist takeover of power and Yugoslav Partisans in 1945. He worked as a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Sarajevo.
On 5 April 1992, in response to events all over Bosnia and Herzegovina 100,000 people of all nationalities turned out for a peace rally in Sarajevo. Serb Democratic Party (SDS) snipers in the Holiday Inn in the heart of Sarajevo opened fire on the crowd, killing six people and wounding several more. Suada Dilberović and an ethnic Croat woman Olga Sučić were in the first rows, protesting on the Vrbanja bridge at the time. The bridge on which Sučić and Dilberović were killed was later renamed in their honor. Six SDS snipers were arrested, but were exchanged when the SDS threatened to kill the commander of the Bosnian police academy who had been captured the previous day, after the Serb paramilitaries took over the academy and arrested him.