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LOCATION :
Southeastern Europe,
between Macedonia and Hungary
GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES :
44
00 N, 21 00 E
The
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918; its name
was changed to Yugoslavia in 1929. Various paramilitary bands
resisted Nazi Germany's occupation and division of Yugoslavia from
1941 to 1945, but fought each other and ethnic opponents as much as
the invaders. The military and political movement headed by Josip
TITO (Partisans) took full control of Yugoslavia when German and
Croatian separatist forces were defeated in 1945. Although
Communist, TITO's new government and his successors (he died in
1980) managed to steer their own path between the Warsaw Pact
nations and the West for the next four and a half decades. In 1989,
Slobodan MILOSEVIC became president of the Serbian Republic and his
ultranationalist calls for Serbian domination led to the violent
breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. In 1991, Croatia,
Slovenia, and Macedonia declared independence, followed by Bosnia in
1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a
new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in April 1992 and under
MILOSEVIC's leadership, Serbia led various military campaigns to
unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia."
These actions led to Yugoslavia being ousted from the UN in 1992,
but Serbia continued its - ultimately unsuccessful - campaign until
signing the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. MILOSEVIC kept tight
control over Serbia and eventually became president of the FRY in
1997. In 1998, a small-scale ethnic Albanian insurgency in the
formerly autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo provoked a Serbian
counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in massacres and massive
expulsions of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo by FRY forces and
Serb paramilitaries. The MILOSEVIC government's rejection of a
proposed international settlement led to NATO's bombing of Serbia in
the spring of 1999 and to the eventual withdrawal of Serbian
military and police forces from Kosovo in June 1999. UNSC Resolution
1244 in June 1999 authorized the stationing of a NATO-led force (KFOR)
in Kosovo to provide a safe and secure environment for the region's
ethnic communities, created a UN Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
to foster self-governing institutions, and reserved the issue of
Kosovo's final status for an unspecified date in the future. In
2001, UNMIK promulgated a constitutional framework that allowed
Kosovo to establish institutions of self-government and led to
Kosovo's first parliamentary election. FRY elections in September
2000 led to the ouster of MILOSEVIC and installed Vojislav KOSTUNICA
as president. A broad coalition of democratic reformist parties
known as DOS (the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) was subsequently
elected to parliament in December 2000 and took control of the
government. The arrest of MILOSEVIC by DOS in 2001 allowed for his
subsequent transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia in The Hague to be tried for crimes against
humanity. (MILOSEVIC died at The Hague in March 2006 before the
completion of his trial.) In 2001, the country's suspension from the
UN was lifted, and it was once more accepted into UN organizations.
In 2003, the FRY became Serbia and Montenegro, a loose federation of
the two republics with a federal level parliament. Violent rioting
in Kosovo in 2004 caused the international community to open
negotiations on the future status of Kosovo in January 2006. In May
2006, Montenegro invoked its right under the Constitutional Charter
of Serbia and Montenegro to hold a referendum on independence from
the state union. The referendum was successful, and Montenegro
declared itself an independent nation on 3 June 2006. Two days
later, Serbia declared that it was the successor state to the union
of Serbia and Montenegro. In October 2006, the Serbian parliament
unanimously approved - and a referendum confirmed - a new
constitution for the country.
Population is 10,150,265 (July 2007
est.), Serb 82.9%, Hungarian 3.9%, Romany (Gypsy) 1.4%, Yugoslavs
1.1%, Bosniaks 1.8%, Montenegrin 0.9% and other 8% (2002 census).
Capital is Belgrade and their official Language
Serbian.
People Groups :
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