A History of Yugoslavia, Part Five
By Russell Shortt

Marshal Tito was seen as a national hero and was elected by a referendum to lead the new independent communist state. Tito dealt with the nationalist aspirations by creating a federation of six nominally equal republics - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia while the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina were given autonomous status. At the beginning there was a general optimism regarding the future, Communist rule restored stability and relations with the West remained good, guaranteeing loans.

However, in the early 1970s ethnic tensions began to rise as a result of uneven development and a crippling national debt. The six republics and two provinces began to become more and more autonomous. Tito died in 1980 and was replaced by a fragile collective leadership that the world thought would immediately fall apart. But it didn't, it dragged on through economic stagnation for another decade. An IMF/World Bank Shock Therapy package was introduced into the country in 1990, one factor of the package was that if a business was insolvent for a 30 day period, it had to settle with its creditors either by giving them ownership of the business or by being liquidated, resulting in sacked workers without severance payments.

In less than two years, over 600,000 people were laid off and over 500,000 were not paid for sustained periods of time to help stave off impending bankruptcy. Despair abounded. Slobodan Milosevic had taken control of the Serbian Communist Party in 1987 and began reviving the vision of a 'Greater Serbia' which would consist of Serbia and the two provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina; large sections of Bosnia and Herzegovina and indicated that it would include Macedonia as well.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net

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