From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Yugoslav wars were a series of violent conflicts in the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2000. They comprised five successive wars affecting all of the six former Yugoslav republics:
- Slovenian War (1991) — a short 10-day war.
- Croatian War (1991–1995)
- Bosnian War (1992–1995)
- Kosovo War (1999)
- Macedonian War (2000)
The wars in Slovenia and Croatia were initially fought in the name of forcibly keeping Yugoslavia united. They soon became overtly nationalist in character, with a clash between "Greater Serbian" and "Greater Croatian" ideologies personified by Presidents Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman of Serbia and Croatia respectively. The Serb-Croat conflict was greatly complicated in Bosnia by the presence of the large Muslim (Bosniak) population, which caused it to develop into a three-way conflict that was by far the bloodiest of the Yugoslav wars. In both Kosovo and Macedonia, the conflicts were typified by racial and political tension between Slav governments and Albanian national minorities which sought autonomy or independence. The Yugoslav wars were eventually ended by the military defeat of Serbia/Yugoslavia in Slovenia, Croatia and Kosovo, and by international negotiations in Bosnia and Macedonia.
