8 - Ruin and Recovery (after 1990)

Summary

The final chapter traces Yugoslavias violent disintegration and Serbias post-Yugoslav destiny. In 1990 Milošević and his Socialists (the renamed Communists) won in multi-party elections, but the following year Yugoslavia disinegrated. A short 1991 war in Slovenia was followed by more brutal and prolonged Croatian and Bosnian conflicts, characterized by ethnic cleansing and, in the case of Bosnia, genocidal violence. Serbs were the principal perpetrators but also the victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo and of international sanctions, which cripled the countrys economy and society. The 1999 Kosovo war led to a NATO military intervention against Belgrade. The following year Milošević lost elections and was forced to step down. Supported by the West, Kosovo declared independence in 2008, two years after Montenegro left a union with Serbia. The difficult transition to democracy of the post-Milošević era was halted by a return to populism, like elsewhere in the world. Serbias future will be shaped by the legacies of the historical developments discussed in this book. It will also depend on a world that emerges out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.