The state known to millions of people around the world as Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia – does not exist anymore. Yugoslavia burned out in a terrible fire which no one could have extinguished. On its ground, at the ashes of common state, seven new countries emerged. Among them is Bosnia and Herzegovina which revived its statehood. I am coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina and I will tell you today about difficult faith of my people who survived an exterminating war.

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SPIRIT OF CHANGE ENCOMPASSES YUGOSLAVIA: Spirit of change in Yugoslavia was already felt in the second half of eighties of the last century when louder and louder requests for introduction of multiparty system were heard and when independence of republics was asked for. Bearers of these activities were opposition leaders, who were interned, imprisoned and removed from the political life. Parole coined in agitprop offices of the League of Communism of Yugoslavia “after Tito - Tito!” was actually the last scream of desperate. It was visible that Yugoslavia was slowly going down and that inevitable death was approaching.

At the parliamentary elections held in nineties of the previous century in all Yugoslavian republics, except Serbia and Montenegro, nationalist parties, openly lobbying for division of Yugoslavia, won.^[1]

Sarajevo war 1992

That lead to a short war between Yugoslavian People’s Army and Territorial Defense of Slovenia and proclamation of Slovenian independence and then the war transferred to Croatia where Serbs wanted to annex the biggest part of the country and to add it to rump Yugoslavia. In that country, sides at war were the army of newly formed state Croatia and Serbs who had weapons and logistic support by Yugoslavian People’s Army and who aligned with minority of Croatian Serbs in this new war. ^[2]

The situation was the worst in Bosnia and Herzegovina because this Yugoslavian republic was mixed the most. There were Muslims living there, as the most numerous ethnic group which will change its name to Bosniaks together with Serbs and Croats.

SARAJEVO 1992: Serb snipers shot on people

In the first multiparty elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina held on November 18 1990, nationalistic parties won and they took the right of exclusive representation of people. For Serbs it was a Serbian Democratic Party^[3] , for Croats it was Croatian Democratic Union^[4] and for Muslims it was a Party of Democratic Action.

That was a time of nationalistic euphoria of all three peoples. The entire country was in turmoil. Nobody was satisfied and everybody asked for redefinition of relations in Yugoslavia. Everybody had their own reasons and those reasons didn’t match. Belgrade advocated for strengthening of Unitarian concept of community, while Ljubljana and Zagreb request loosening of ties, and the independence requests were louder and louder. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was especially fragile in these political relations due to the complex national situation, still wasn’t decided.

At the meetings of the presidents of Yugoslavian republics, Alija Izetbegović advocated for a whole citizen’s republic Bosnia and Herzegovina, neither Islamic nor socialist, no matter whether would such community stayed in the Yugoslavian federation or it would have gone out of it. The attempt to save Yugoslavia by negotiations of the presidents of republics in the beginning of 1991 was not fruitful due to completely opposite viewpoints but also because of characters of Serbian and Croatian presidents Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman, respectively.


At the beginning Alija Izebegović was in favor of Bosnia and Herzegovina to stay in Yugoslavia, of course providing that it embraces democratic relations.

Izetbegović told me later that he was emotionally tied to Yugoslavia, and as a Muslim he felt that it break down was not good for us. Muslim mostly lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but there were some in Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia. He estimated that by breakdown of Yugoslavian community, Muslim community would be parceled and divided in small pieces.

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FOOTNOTE:

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^1] Regular federal elections set for 1990 were never held before the country dissolved. Over the course of 1990 each constituent republic adopted democratic constitutions which allowed for political parties other than the League of Communists, and subsequently held multi-party elections. Due to the complicated political system, a new democratic electoral system could not be agreed upon by the Presidency (representing the republics, some of which were openly campaigning for independence and whose interest in Yugoslav reform was moot), the Executive Council (which had dissenting internal opinion about reform), and the Assembly itself which was made up of the old communist cadre.
With the fall of communism, a multi-party system was reintroduced in 1990. These were held in each of the constituent republics:
1990 Bosnian general election (18 November and 2 December)
1990 Croatian parliamentary election (22 April and 6 May)
1990 Macedonian parliamentary election (11 and 25 November)
1990 Montenegrin municipal elections
1990 Montenegrin general election (9 December)
1990 Serbian general election (9 and 23 December)
1990 Slovenian parliamentary election (8 and 12 April)
Serbia and Montenegro remained together after the breakup of Yugoslavia and kept its name until 2003, with the last remnant of Yugoslavia ending upon Montenegro's independence in 2006.

^2] The Yugoslav People's Army was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its antecedents from 1945 to 1992.
The origins of the JNA started during the Yugoslav Partisans of World War II. As a predecessor of the JNA, the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (NOVJ) was formed as a part of the anti-fascist People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia in the Bosnian town of Rudo on 22 December 1941.
In January 1990, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was effectively dissolved as a national organization following its 14th Congress where the Serbian and Slovene delegations engaged in a public confrontation. The Yugoslav People's Army was left without an ideological support mechanism. 99% of the officers of the Army were members of the communist party.
The dissolution of Yugoslavia began when independent, non-communist governments were established in the Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia.
In March 1991, Yugoslav defense minister General Veljko Kadijević organized a meeting at the military complex in Topčider, Belgrade. Present at this meeting were all 6 presidents of the Yugoslav republics, presidents of the autonomous republics, the Yugoslav president and all top military officers. Kadijević claimed that there were numerous paramilitary organizations in Yugoslavia sponsored by foreign and domestic enemies of the state. Kadijević proposed a declaration of martial law. A subsequent vote was held on Kadijević's recommendation of martial law, and the proposal (suggestion) was rejected.
In April 1991, the government of Croatia formed the Croatian National Guard (ZNG), which the Yugoslav People's Army considered to be a paramilitary organization.
On 25 June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. On the same day, Slovenian Territorial Defence units captured Yugoslav control posts on the borders with Italy, Hungary and Austria. Slovene forces also established border control posts on their border with Croatia.
As a result of these actions, on 27 June 1991 the Yugoslav People's Army attacked Slovenia, with its top commanders citing the constitutional obligation to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.
The war ended quickly.
On 27 June 1991, war in Croatia began. The Yugoslav People's Army and the Serbians were on one side and Croatian military units on the other. On 14–15 September, Croatia launched the Battle of the Barracks, besieging over 20 Yugoslav People's Army barracks and depots, leaving Yugoslav soldiers without food, water or electricity for weeks. JNA lost the battle for Croatia.
Macedonia declared independence on 8 September 1991, but the Yugoslav People's Army did not militarily respond.
The Yugoslav People's Army left Macedonia in March 1992. Around the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence following a referendum and the Bosnian War started soon thereafter.
The Yugoslav People's Army became an aggressor military force.
Bosnian Serb forces, aided by the Yugoslav People’s Army and fighting for a separate Serb state, appropriated most of this weaponry. Elsewhere the Croatian Defense Council, aided by Zagreb, and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed, but cooperation between them soon broke down. The Dayton Accords provided for the state to retain two separate armies, one from the Republika Srpska and the other from the Federation. At the urging of international actors eager to facilitate Bosnia and Herzegovina’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, the army was unified in 2003. Policing, however, remains decentralized.

^3] The Serb Democratic Party (or СДС/SDS) is a Serb political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The party is under sanctions from the United States for "failing to arrest and turn over war crimes suspects to an international tribunal." The sanctions prohibit any transfer of funds and material from the United States to the SDS and vice versa.
Radovan Karadžić founded the Serb Democratic Party in 1990. The party aimed at unifying the Bosnian Serb community.
Throughout September 1991, the SDS began to establish various "Serb Autonomous Regions" throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Bosnian parliament voted on sovereignty on 15 October 1991, a separate Serb Assembly was founded on 24 October 1991 in Banja Luka, in order to exclusively represent the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following month, Bosnian Serbs held a referendum which resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor of staying in a federal state with Serbia and Montenegro, as part of Yugoslavia. In December 1991, a top-secret document entitled ‘For the organization and activity of organs of the Serbs people in Bosnia-Herzegovina in extraordinary circumstances’ was drawn up by the SDS leadership. This was a centralized program for the takeover of each municipality in the country, through the creation of shadow governments and para-governmental structures through various "crisis headquarters", and by preparing loyal Serbs for the takeover in co-ordination with the Yugoslav People's Army
Historically, the party had a strong ultranationalist,separatist and Islamophobic ideology. Recently, the party switched from far-right and adopted more moderate conservative views.

^4] The Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a Christian democratic, nationalist political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina, representing the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP). Its headquarters is in Mostar.
The party was formed on 18 August 1990, with the first party convention held in Sarajevo. It has participated in all multiparty elections held in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1991. It regularly won the support of the Croat electorate up to 2000 and took part in forming the government. It returned to power in 2002, where it remained until 2010. Since 2014, the party has once again been in power.