SUMMARY
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has existed under a variety of names since it was first created in 1946, following on the Second World War. The father of the state was one Josip Broz Tito, who incorporated the territories of present-day Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia under one flag.
Between 1946 and the late 1980s Yugoslavia was a communist state in which Tito tried to balance regional inequalities and repress nationalist sentiments with a heavy hand. After Tito’s death and a period of economic decline, communist rule over Yugoslavia collapsed, and each constituent republic held multiparty elections. These elections were, in most republics, won by nationalist parties drawn up mainly along ethnic lines. This in turn led to declarations of independence by Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia in the early 1990s and the ascent to power in the central government of nationalist Serb politician Slobodan Milosevic.
To stop the disintegration of the Federal Republic the central government of Yugoslavia engaged in armed conflict with Slovenia and Croatia in 1991. Following these short conflicts the government of Yugoslavia also provided the Serbian minorities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina with secondary warring support to help them carve out separate homelands. These conflicts ended with negotiated settlements in 1995 in both cases. From this time on Yugoslavia was constituted only by the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
A few years later the Kosovo Albanian-dominated Serbian region of Kosovo also rose up in arms against the government of Yugoslavia. Armed conflict followed in 1998 and 1999. This conflict ended when NATO forces intervened on the side of the Kosovo Albanians, leading to a negotiated settlement.
At the time of the first conflicts in Yugoslavia (Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) the Yugoslav army was, in relation to the forces of its constituent republics, a powerful force. Sturdy resistance by opposing forces and the many fronts the forces had to operate on however led the government not being able to fulfil its war aims. Economic sanctions in relation to these conflicts and an economic decline in their aftermath weakened the army in the years to come, yet did not stop the government from responding forcefully against the uprising of the Kosovo Albanians. After 1995 Milosevic weakened the Yugoslav army politically, and instead invested much clout in the forces of the Interior Ministry and the security service; forces that came to be widely used in the campaign in Kosovo in cooperation with the police forces. The government of Yugoslavia also made use, in Kosovo, of Serbian paramilitary groups.
During the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s the government of Yugoslavia gave secondary warring support to the Serbian minorities in these states, and later provided them with other secondary support. In the conflict over Kosovo the government of Yugoslavia lacked any secondary support except some moral support from Russia.
The leader of Yugoslavia during these conflicts was Slobodan Milosevic, a nationalist Serbian politician who was ousted in the year 2000 by popular protests. He was replaced by Vojislav Kostunica. In 2006 the government of Yugoslavia seized to exist, as Serbia and Montenegro went their separate ways. Serbia subsequently became the successor entity of the Yugoslav federation.
The Government of Yugoslavia has been involved in the intrastate and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
