In this paper, I am going to explore the history of the conflict in the Balkans from the time shortly after Josip Tito passed away until just before the Dayton Accords. Additionally, I am going to pause every so often to show that at each of the three distinct points of the conflict, the international community and the United States had it within their power to stop the violence. The three distinct phases are Kosovo, secession, and Bosnia and at each point, the lack of action or overreaction of the international community failed to solve the problems that these institutions had within their power to res

The Serbs in Croatia reacted to their treatment by holding a referendum which was declared null and void by Tudjman. However, Serb areas voted to leave Croatia. Theoretically, the Croats should have been able to quell the rebellion. This was not the case because when the Croatian police sent three helicopters to the area to take control and stop the protests, they were met with two MiG aircraft from the JNA and threatened to be shot down if they failed to turn around (Bennett, 129-131).

Another significant problem with this particular province was that while the Serbs claimed the province as the "Cradle of Serbian Empire" because of a legendary battle and defeat that happened at Kosovo in 1389, the Albanians constituted approximately eighty percent of the population of Kosovo. In reality, Kosovo could be claimed more by the Albanian majority than by the Serb minority. Many of the valiant warriors who fought and died at the Battle of Kosovo were in fact Albanian warriors, a fact seldom acknowledged by the Serb leadership. Furthermore, historical evidence suggests that Illyrians, the ancestors of Albanians, formed their first communities in Kosovo. The "Serb Empire" was not as grand and powerful as modern Serbia would contend. Relations between Albanians and Serbs were good in the Middle Ages because of the many reasons that tensions exist today between nation states i.e. customs, trade, immigration, and so on (Samary, 36). Kosovo, by nearly all accounts!

Annual human rights reports submitted to the White House by the Department of State read like a prison record when it came to Serbian abuses of the people of Kosovo. Unfortunately, Congress was not in agreement with how to treat the reports of the abuses in Kosovo. The Bush administration was more interested in keeping Yugoslavia together and concerned more about the breakup of the Soviet Union and the potential tragedy that such a thing might cause. Therefore, Kosovo, in the words of Warren Zimmerman, "remained a part of Serbia, albeit a much-abused one (Zimmerman, 3)."

It is suggested that this particular time in the history of Yugoslavia is when the disintegration of Yugoslavia occurred. Tito had died less than a year before the incident in Kosovo and the Yugoslav Army (JNA) was pointing their weapons at fellow Yugoslavians. For the first time in Tito's Yugoslavia, the federal government had sided with one ethnic group over another and because of this change in policy toward Kosovo, Serbia was able to acquire control once more over the province with the help of the JNA. Sixteen hundred Albanian college students, secondary school students, and adults were taken into custody and handed a heavy prison sentence (Bennett, 90).

On March 11, 1981, the students of Pristina University, in Kosovo, organized a protest against the deplorable living conditions on the campus. At the protest, they voiced their malcontent with the poverty and unemployment if life in Kosovo. They then marched to the provincial League of Communists only to have the demonstration halted by the police. The leadership of the League of Communists demanded that the leaders of the protests be brought into custody fearing that if the leadership of the protests remained, the protests would continue. The police complied and in a moment of solidarity with the student leaders, students poured into the streets demanding that their classmates be released from custody. The unrest was escalated by excessive police brutality and on April 3, 1981, Belgrade imposed martial law (Bennett, 89).

Alija Izetbegovic, the president of Bosnia and a Muslim, seemed to be for the plan at the summit but once he returned home, quickly changed his mind. Several factors contributed to this change of heart. Izetbegovic knew that if the west did not intervene militarily, Serbs would surely take over the country and the Muslim population would be decimated. Furthermore, if he agreed to a partition of Bosn

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sarajevo Finally, Yugoslavia JNA, League Communists, Slovenia Croatia, Albanians Kosovo, JNA Yugoslav, Kosovo Albanian, Accords Additionally, Albanian Muslims, Serb Croat, international community, human rights, croatia slovenia, serbs living, white house, bush administration, armed conflict, united yugoslavia, soviet union, breakup soviet union, kosovo albanian, serbs living croatia, human rights violations, world war ii, free market economy,
Approximate Word count = 4815
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page double spaced)