Timeline Yugoslavia
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1892 May 7, Josip
Broz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia (1943-80), was born.
(HN, 5/7/98)
1903 Jun 11, King Alexander and
Queen Draga of Belgrade were assassinated by members of the Serbia army.
(HN, 6/11/98)
1912 A small Balkan War broke out
and was quelled by the major powers. Albanian nationalism spurred
repeated revolts against Turkish dominion and resulted in the First
Balkan War in which the Turks were driven out of much of the Balkan
Peninsula.
(V.D.-H.K.p.290)(Compuserve Online, Grolier’s Amer.
Acad. Enc./ Albania)
1913 May 30, Conclusion of the
First Balkan War.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1915 Oct 9, Belgrade,
Serbia, surrendered to Central leaders.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1917 Jul 20, The Pact of
Corfu was signed between the Serbs, Croats & Slovenes to form
Yugoslavia. [see Dec 1, 1918]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917yugoslavia1.html)
1918 Oct 29-1918 Oct 31, The
Kingdom of Greater Serbia was proclaimed at Sarajevo in Bosnia bringing
that state into what was later called Yugoslavia. [see Dec 1]
(BWH, 1988)
1918 Nov 1, Yugoslav battleship
Viribus Unitis was sunk by Italians.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1918 Nov 7, The Yugoslav
National Conference at Geneva decided on the union of Croatia and
Slovenia with Serbia and Montenegro. [see Dec 1]
(BWH, 1988)
1918 Nov 24, Another proclamation
took place of the United Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
[see Dec 1]
(BWH, 1988)
1918 Nov 26, Montenegro deposed
its king who opposed union and voted to join the new Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes. [see Dec 1]
(BWH, 1988)
1918 Dec 1, The Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes [later in 1929 to be called Yugoslavia] was
proclaimed by Alexander Karadjordjevic, the son of King Peter of
Serbia. It included the previously independent kingdoms of Serbia and
Macedonia, the Hungarian-controlled regions of Croatia and Slovenia,
the Austrian province of Dalmatia, Carniola and parts of Styria,
Carinthia and Istria. King Alexander I renamed the Balkan state called
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to Yugoslavia in 1929.
(AP, 10/3/97)(HNQ,
3/26/99)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/1900/)
1918 Dec, Albanian leaders met at
Durrës to discuss Albania's interests at the Paris Peace
Conference. When World War I ended the Italian armies occupied most of
Albania, and Serbian, Greek and French armies occupied the remainder.
Italian and Yugoslav powers began a struggle for dominance over
Albanians.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1918 Kosovo became part of the
newly created Yugoslavia and was dominated by a Serbian monarchy until
WW II.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)
1919 Oct 3, The Serbian, Croatian
& Slavic (Yugoslavia) parliament agreed on an 8 hr work day.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1921 Nov, Yugoslav troops invaded
Albania; The League of Nations commission forced Yugoslav withdrawal
and reaffirmed Albania's 1913 borders.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1923 Jun 27, Yugoslav Premier
Nikola Pachitch was wounded by Serb attackers in Belgrade.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1923 Sep 10, In response to a
dispute with Yugoslavia, Mussolini mobilized Italian troops on Serb
front.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1925 Mar 30, Stalin supported
rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1927 Oct 28, Josip Broz (Tito)
began a 7 months jail sentence in Croatia.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1928 Oct 6, In Yugoslavia Josip
Broz (Tito) was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1929 Oct 3, The Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes formally changed its name to the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. It included the regions of Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Macedonia. King Alexander I renamed
the Balkan state called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
Yugoslavia. The Kingdom had been formed on December 1, 1918 and was
ruled by the Serbian Karageorgevic dynasty. It included the previously
independent kingdoms of Serbia and Macedonia, the Hungarian-controlled
regions of Croatia and Slovenia, the Austrian province of Dalmatia,
Carniola and parts of Styria, Carinthia and Istria.
(AP, 10/3/97)(HN, 10/3/98)(HNQ, 3/26/99)(LCTH,
10/3/99)
1934 Mar 12, Josip Broz (Tito of
Yugoslavia) was freed from jail.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1934 Oct 9, In Marseilles, a
Macedonian revolutionary associated with Croat terrorists in Hungary
assassinated King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister
Louis Barthou. The two had been on a tour of European capitals in quest
of an alliance against Nazi Germany. The assassinations brought the
threat of war between Yugoslavia and Hungary, but confrontation was
prevented by the League of Nations. 2 newsreel cameramen captured the
assassination on film
(HN, 10/9/98)(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A8)
c1934 In Yugoslavia after the
assassination of King Alexander Father Momcilo Djujic met with Kosta
Pecanac, president of the Chetnik movement and went on to form 11
Chetnik bands in his native Tromedja region.
(SFC, 9/14/99, p.A23)
1939-1945 During WW II Dr. Drachkovitch (1922-1996)
fought the Nazis in Yugoslavia as part of the Chetnik resistance
movement. He came to the US in 1958 and became a leading Serbian
intellectual figure and Hoover Institute scholar.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A20)
1940 Rebecca West authored “Black
Lamb and Grey Falcon,” an account of her travels in Yugoslavia
beginning in 1936.
(West, BLGC, single volume 1943 ed.)
1941 Mar 20, Nazi German-Yugoslav
pact was drawn.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1941 Mar 25, Yugoslavia joined the
Axis powers.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1941 Mar 26, In Yugoslavia the
pro-Axis Prince Paul was toppled in a palace revolution in Belgrade and
Prince Peter was put in as head of state.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)
1941 Mar 27, Hitler signed
Directive 27 for an assault on Yugoslavia.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1941 Apr 6, German Foreign
Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop gave orders for the attack on
Yugoslavia to roll forward. Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb
Belgrade prior to the final drive into the capital. From August 6 to
10, more than 500 bombing sorties were flown against Belgrade,
inflicting more than 17,500 fatalities. Most of the government
officials fled, and the Yugoslav army began to collapse. German
Luftwaffe Marshall Alexander Lohr commanded a surprise air attack on
Belgrade and 17,000 died. Lohr was later tried and executed for the
bombings.
(www.thehistorynet.com/wwii/blbelgradebybluff/)(SFC,
4/8/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A21)
1941 Apr 6, German troops invaded
Yugoslavia and Greece. Italian and Albanian forces attacked and jointly
occupied Yugoslavia. Germany, with support of Italy and other allies
defeated Greece and Yugoslavia.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A20)(www,
Albania, 1998)
1941 Apr 13, German troops
captured Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1941 Apr 17, Yugoslavia
surrendered to Germany ending 11 days of futile resistance against the
invading German Wehrmacht. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and
soldiers were taken prisoner. Italian and Albanian forces attacked and
jointly occupied Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A20)(AP, 4/17/97)(MC, 4/17/02)
1941 Jul 4, Politburo of Yugoslav
communist party reorganized.
(Maggio)
1941 Oct, Josip Broz Tito,
Yugoslav communist leader, directed the organizing of Albanian
communists.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1941 Nov 1, Chetniks attacked
Tito's partisans in Uzice, Yugoslavia.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1941 British writer Rebecca West,
pen name for Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983), authored “Black Lamb
and Grey Falcon,” on the history and culture of Yugoslavia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West)
1941-1942 Some 97% of the Gottscheers were moved
north within Slovenia from the area of Kocevje to Rann (later Brezice).
Their peak population numbered some 25,000. They were driven out of
their new homes by Yugoslav partisans after which they wound up in
Austria and then dispersed around the world.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.A12)
1942 Jun, In Yugoslavia Momcilo
Djujic (d.1999 at 92), warrior-priest, was conferred the title of
"vojvoda" by Gen'l. Dragoljub "Draza" Mihailovic, commander of the
royalist Chetniks, for bravery and devotion to the Orthodox Church and
the exiled monarchy.
(SFC, 9/14/99, p.A23)
1942 Robert St. John (1902-2003),
American war journalist, authored “From the Land of Silent People,” an
account of his war experiences in the Balkans.
(SFC, 2/10/03, p.B5)
1943 Nov 29, In Yugoslavia
partisan Tito formed a temporary government in Jajce, Bosnia.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1943 Fitzroy Maclean parachuted
into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Brigadier commanding the British
Military Mission to the Tito partisans. He later wrote his memoir:
"Eastern Approaches" that described his 2-years there.
(SFC, 4/2/99, p.A20)
1943-1947 Thousands of Italians were killed by
Yugoslav partisans in and around the Istrian peninsula, which had
fallen to Italy after the 1st world war. Mussolini’s fascists had
brutally Italianized the peninsula prior to the arrival of the
partisans.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.48)
1944 May 25, In Yugoslavia
partisan leader Tito escaped the Germans surrounding Bosnia.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1944 Aug 12, British Prime
Minister Churchill and Yugoslav partisan leader Tito met in Naples.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1944 Oct 20, The Yugoslav cities
of Belgrade and Dubrovnik were liberated during World War II. Russian
and Yugoslavian troops were freed.
(AP, 10/20/97)(MC, 10/20/01)
1945 Mar 7, In Yugoslavia the
Communist government of Tito formed.
(MC, 3/7/02)(AP, 10/20/02)
1945 May 2, German Army in Italy
surrendered.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1945 May 2, Yugoslav troops
occupied Trieste.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1945 May-Jun, Some 40,000
anti-Soviet Cossacks, who had surrendered to the British in Austria,
were turned over to the Red Army. Some 30,000 Yugoslavs were handed
over to Tito under the pretense that they were being sent to Italy. The
Yugoslavs (mostly Croatian soldiers) were locked into trains and taken
to Slovenia, where they were shot and buried in mass graves.
(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A16)(SFC, 6/17/99, p.C3)
1945 Dec 22, The U.S. recognized
Tito's government in Yugoslavia.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1945 Kosovo became part of the
post-war Communist Yugoslavia under Tito.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)
1945 An uprising in Kosovo,
Yugoslavia, was put down by Tito’s Communists.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A8)
1945 Some 13,000 pro-Nazi soldiers
and civilians were executed as the WWIII ended. In 2009 Croatia asked
that charges be brought against Simo Dubajic (86), a former major in
the Yugoslav army, on suspicion of ordering the executions.
(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A2)
1946 Feb. 1, Yugoslavia declared
itself a republic.
(G&M, 2/1/96, p.A-2)
1946 Apr 18, US recognized Tito's
Yugoslavia govt.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1946 Jul 17, Dragoljub "Draza"
Mihailovic (53), Yugoslav general, Chetnik leader, and Nazi
collaborator, was executed.
(MC, 7/17/02)
1946 Jul, Albania signed a treaty
of friendship with Yugoslavia; Yugoslav advisors and grain began
pouring into Albania.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1948 Mar 25, The Italians banned a
compromise with Yugoslavia and demanded the return of Trieste.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1948 Jun, Cominform expelled
Yugoslavia; Albanian leaders launched an anti-Yugoslav propaganda
campaign, cut economic ties, and forced Yugoslav advisors to leave.
Later on the treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia was abrogated; Hoxha
began purging high-ranking party members accused of "Titoism"; Soviet
Union began economic aid to Albania.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1948 Albanian Communist Party
leaders voted to merge Albanian and Yugoslav economies and militaries.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1949 Jun-1949 Jul, Tito concluded
a treaty with the Western powers after Yugoslavia’s economic relations
with the Soviet Union and satellite countries were broken off.
(WUD, 1994, p.1684)
1949 The Yugoslav Republic
received a $20 million US loan.
(SFC, 4/24/99, p.A10)
1950-1959 In Yugoslavia Tito’s security chief,
Alexander Rankovic, a Serb, repressed Kosovo separatism.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)
1951 Nov 14, United States and
Yugoslavia signed a military aid pact.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1952 Dec 17, Yugoslavia broke
relations with the Vatican.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1953 Jan 14, Josip Broz Tito was
elected president of Yugoslavia by the country's Parliament.
(AP, 1/14/98)
1953 Feb 28, Greece, Turkey and
Yugoslavia signed a 5-year defense pact in Ankara.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1953 Dec 5, Italy and Yugoslavia
agreed to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1955 May 26, Khrushchev arrived in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1961 Ivo Andric of Yugoslavia won
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1961 The Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) was founded in Belgrade by Third World leaders such as India's
Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser and Indonesia's Achmad
Sukarno, under the aegis of Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, to try to
avoid alignment with either the United States or the Soviet Union.
(Reuters, 9/10/06)
1963 Apr 7, Yugoslavia
proclaimed itself a Socialist republic.
(HN, 4/7/97)
1963 Jul 26, Skopje, Yugoslavia,
was destroyed by earthquake and over 1,000 were killed.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1963 Dr. Ivo John Lederer (d.1998
at 68) authored “Yugoslavia at the Peace Conference.” He was the
founder and director of the Center for Russian and East European
Studies at Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.D4)
1967 In Marburg, Germany, a
disease believed to be caused from African monkeys infected 31 people
in a laboratory. The virus came to be called the Marburg virus. Seven
people died in Germany and Yugoslavia from the virus. It was traced to
infected vervet monkeys from Uganda cut up for polio research.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.D2)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.40)
1968 In Yugoslavia Tito purged
Serbian novelist Dobrica Cosic (b.1921) for nationalism. Cosic
developed a complex and paradoxical theory of Serbian national
persecution that later evolved into the Greater Serbian program of
Slobodan Milosevic. Cosic later became the first president of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992 to 1993).
(WSJ, 5/7/99,
p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobrica_%C4%86osi%C4%87)
1970 Nov 3, King Peter II of
Yugoslavia died in a hospital in Denver, Colorado. He had been forced
into exile three weeks after his country was invaded by Nazi Germany.
He was buried in the Liberty Easter Serbian Orthodox Monastery in
Liberty, Illinois. He was the 1st European king or queen to die and be
buried in the US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_II_of_Yugoslavia)
1972 Jun 5, Yugoslav president
Tito (1892-1980) visited the USSR and received the Order of Lenin, the
highest national order of the USSR.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito)
1973 Dec 2, Monica Seles, tennis
star (US Open 1992), was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Seles)
1974 Aug 30, In Yugoslavia an
express train, traveling from Belgrade to Germany, ran full speed into
a Zagreb, Croatia, rail yard killing 152.
(www.cmj.hr/2001/42/6/12.htm)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)
1974 In Yugoslavia under Tito a
decentralized federal system allowed the Kosovo region to develop its
own security, judiciary, defense, foreign relations and social control.
Mahmut Bakalli drafted a constitution that gave the region a status
equivalent in most respects to the other republics of Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)(SFC, 11/11/98, p.A16)(www,
Albania, 1998)(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A13)
1979 Jun 20, Nikola Kavaja (d.2008
at 77) hijacked a US passenger jet with the intention of crashing it
into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters in Belgrade. He abandoned
his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he was not sure of
the exact location of the downtown party office and did not want
innocent civilians to die if the jet missed the target.
(AP,
11/12/08)(www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12kavaja.html)
1980 May 4,
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (b.1892), Communist dictator of Yugoslavia
(1943-1980), died three days before his 88th birthday. He was a Croat
and tried to spread the Serbs out over the six Yugoslav republics so
that they would not dominate the country. His policy was considered a
major cause of the Bosnian war in the '90s.
(AP,
5/4/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito)(WSJ, 8/8/95, p.
A-10)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1981 Mar 26, Police and Albanian
demonstrators battled in Kosovo.
(www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8454/8454.ch01.html)
1981 Mar, Kosovar Albanian
students organized protests seeking that Kosovo become a Republic
within Yugoslavia. The protests were harshly contained by the
centralist Yugoslav and Serbian governments.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs_in_Kosovo)
1981 Apr 5, It was reported that
Yugoslav authorities appeared to be sending extra militia units to the
southern province of Kosovo after nationalist demonstrations in which
35 people were injured and scores arrested.
(http://tinyurl.com/2n6atk)
1981 Dec 1, 180 people were killed
when a chartered Yugoslav DC-9 jetliner slammed into a mountain while
approaching Ajaccio Airport in Corsica.
(AP, 12/1/01)
1984 Feb 8, Winter Olympics opened
in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
(HN, 2/7/97)
1988 Oct 9, Yugoslav President
Raif Dizdarevic warned citizens in a national radio and television
address that continued nationalist and economic unrest could lead to a
state of emergency.
(AP, 10/9/98)
1988 In Slovenia journalists of
the weekly magazine Mladina ran news stories about secret arms deals
between Yugoslavia and Ethiopia as well as political corruption.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A8)
1989 Iraq sent 19 Soviet-built
MiG-21s and MiG-23s for maintenance to a plant in Zagreb, Croatia,
which was part Yugoslavia. They were moved to Serbia in 1991 and got
stuck there because of an embargo. Over the following years most were
cannibalized, abandoned and rendered useless.
(AP, 8/31/09)
1990 Feb 25, Enver Hadri, a human
rights leader, was allegedly shot in the head by Veselin Vukotic and
two other men while he was stopped at a traffic light in Brussels,
Belgium. Hadri had papers on him incriminating former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic in assassinations. All three gunmen were
believed to be hitmen working for the Yugoslav secret service. Veselin
was arrested in Spain in 2006.
(AP, 2/27/06)
1990 Dec 23, Slovenians voted
overwhelmingly in favor of independence and their republic’s secession
from Yugoslavia.
(AP, 12/23/00)(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3407.htm)
1991 Mar 19, Ending several days
of ominous silence, the Yugoslav army declares it will not permit
Yugoslavia to dissolve into civil war.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1991 Jun 21, US Secretary of State
James Baker visited Yugoslavia, where he pleaded for a peaceful
solution to multi-ethnic conflicts that were threatening to erupt into
civil war.
(AP, 6/21/01)
1991 Jun 24, Croatia and Slovenia
voted to declare independence unless some new agreement was reached
among the Yugoslav republics.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1991 Jun 25, In Yugoslavia the
Proclamation of Independence was read to the people of Ljubljana,
Slovenia.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C6)
1991 Jun 25, The civil war in
Yugoslavia began when Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed independence from
Yugoslavia. Croatia voted to declare independence with Franjo Tudjman
as president. Following months of unsuccessful talks among Yugoslavia’s
six republics about the future of the federation, the western republics
of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. Entities of
Yugoslavia began to split off leaving Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)(AP,
6/25/01)(www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0857636.html)
1991 Jun 27, Yugoslav army tanks
and helicopters attacked Slovenia. Fighting broke out between Serbian
and Croatian militias. The Slovene militia trapped an armored column
and captured 2,000 soldiers. The prisoners were released and an
agreement was reached for Slovenia to control its own borders after a
90 day period of int’l. observation.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1991 Sep 21, Yugoslav army tanks
and artillery began an invasion of eastern Croatia. The Croats said
that some 600 soldiers and 1200 civilians perished in the 3-month
bombardment of Vukovar by rebel Serbs.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14) (SFC,
6/28/97, p.A10)
1991 Sep 25, The UN Security
Council unanimously passed Resolution 713 that imposed a worldwide arms
embargo against Yugoslavia and all its warring factions.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP,
9/20/01)
1991 Sep, The Croat militia unit
Autumn Rains arrived in Gospic. When front-line fighting ended early
this month, the unit turned its attention to the 9,000 Serbs who lived
in the area. Miro Bajramovic in 1997 admitted that the unit tortured
prisoners and he killed 72 people. He said that he acted on the orders
of interior minister Ivan Vekic.
{Croatia, Serbia, Yugoslavia}
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10,12)
1991 Oct 8, Slovenia and Croatia
began operating independently from Yugoslavia. Slovenia took over its
own borders and began printing its own money.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Croatia)(http://tinyurl.com/p5rhu)(SFC,
5/26/96, T-5)
1991 Nov 23, Yugoslavia's rival
leaders agreed to a new cease-fire, the 14th of the Balkan civil war.
(AP, 11/23/01)
1991 Nov 27, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution paving the way for the
establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping operation in war-ravaged
Yugoslavia.
(AP, 11/27/01)
1991 Dec 6, Gen. Pavle Strugar led
the Yugoslav attack on Dubrovnik. At least 43 civilians were killed in
the attack. Serbs had opened bombardment of the Croatian port of
Dubrovnik in early October. In 2001 Strugar (68) turned himself into
the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. In 2005 Strugar was convicted of
two counts of willful destruction of Dubrovnik and attacking civilians.
In 2008 appeals judges added two more convictions for unjustified
devastation of the town and attacking civilian sites. They also cut his
original sentence from eight years to seven and a half years because of
his deteriorating health.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B1)(AP,
7/17/08)
1991 Dec, Hungarian officials
discovered 11 tons of rocket launchers and automatic weapons being
loaded on trucks headed for Croatia in violation of a UN arms embargo.
They had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka. In
Chile Col. Gerardo Huber, who directed purchases at the army's weapons
manufacturer, turned up dead shortly after testifying in a military
investigation. His head had been blown apart by a blast from a machine
gun. In 2009 former Chilean Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force
Gen. Vicente Rodriguez were sentenced to prison for shipping arms to
Croatia at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia. 11
people were sentenced by a military court in June, 2009, for their
roles in the deal. In October, 2009, retired Gen. Victor Lizarraga and
retired Col. Manuel Provis got 10 and eight years, respectively, for
conspiracy and homicide. Gen. Carlos Krum and Col. Julio Munoz, also
both retired, got nearly 2 years for conspiracy and murder,
respectively. The identity of the gunman in Huber's murder remained
unknown.
(AP, 6/10/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
1991 Macedonia gained independence
from the former Yugoslavia. Its president was Kiro Glogorov. A quarter
to a third of the population is Albanian. Its population is about 2
mil. Its capital is Skopje.
(www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mk.html)
1991 Entities of Yugoslavia began
to split off leaving Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A16)
1991 Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic,
and Veselin Sljivan-Canin, officers in the Yugoslav National Army,
ordered the massacre of 261 Croats taken out of a Vukovar hospital.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A15)
1991 Stipe Mesic of Croatia was
the last leader of the collective Yugoslav presidency before the
country splintered.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
1991-1995 Yugoslavia was put under a UN arms embargo.
(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A6)
1992 Jan 15, The Yugoslav
federation, founded in 1918, effectively collapsed as the European
Community recognized the republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
(AP, 1/15/98)
1992 Apr 27, The Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the Republic of Serbia and
its lone ally, Montenegro.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1992 May 3, Yugoslav Army seized
Bosnian Pres. Alija Izetbegovic on his return from peace talks in
Lisbon. He was released the next day.
(www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html)
1992 May 30, President Bush
ordered the seizure of Yugoslav government assets in the United States
after the United Nations imposed sanctions in an effort to force
Yugoslavia to observe a cease-fire in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1992 May, Ilija Jurisic, a Bosnian
security officer, ordered an attack on a Yugoslav army convoy that
killed at least 50 soldiers. In 2009 Jurisic was found guilty of
ordering the attack against the Serb-led army convoy consisting of
dozens of army trucks carrying some 100 soldiers withdrawing from the
predominantly Muslim Bosnian town of Tuzla. The Serbian court sentenced
him to 12 years in prison.
{Bosnia, Serbia, Yugoslavia}
(AP, 9/28/09)
1992 Jul 7, Group of Seven leaders
meeting in Munich, Germany, condemned the carnage in former Yugoslavia
and warned Serb-led troops that U.N. military force would be used if
needed to keep relief operations going.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1992 Jul, Yugoslavia was suspended
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for
fomenting war in Bosnia.
(SFC, 3/28/98,
p.A8)(www.hrw.org/wr2k1/europe/yugoslavia3.html)
1992 Sep 22, The U.N. General
Assembly voted to expel Yugoslavia.
(AP, 9/22/97)
1992 Nov 5, Bobby Fischer beat
Boris Spassky to win Chess title in Belgrade. Fischer received $3.5
million for his win, but violated UN sanctions and an embargo on doing
business in Yugoslavia. In 2004 he was arrested in Japan for traveling
on a revoked USD passport.
(www.ishipress.com/bobby-in.htm)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A2)
1992 Nov 16, United Nations
Security Council voted to authorize a naval blockade on the Danube
River and the Adriatic coast to tighten economic sanctions on
Yugoslavia.
(AP, 11/1697)
1992 Dec 20, Serbia held
elections. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic won re-election. He
defeated the American entrepreneur Milan Panic in elections that were
"decidedly unfair."
(http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/election_watch/v004/)
1992 Dec 26, Milan Panic conceded
defeat to Slobodan Milosevic almost a week after Yugoslavia's
presidential election.
(AP, 12/26/97)
1992 Yugoslavia under Milosevic
began stashing funds in front companies. Some $658 million was put into
8 front companies in Cyprus alone.
(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A6)
1993 Feb
22, The UN passed Resolution 808 that established the Hague Int'l. War
Crimes Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious
Violations of International Humanitarian Law committed in the Territory
of the Former Yugoslavia since 1 January 1991.
(www.helsinki.org.yu/pubs_text.php?lang=en&idteksta=417)
1993 May 25, The International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by
Resolution 827 of the UN Security Council. Judges were elected on 15
September 1993 and on 15 August 1994 the Prosecutor was appointed.
(SFC, 5/8/96,
p.A-11)(www.un.org/icty/glance-e/index.htm)
1994 Istria was the first region
of the former Yugoslavia to be officially designated as a "Region of
Europe". The Istria of 2005, alternatively called Istra and Istrija, is
politically divided into three separate countries: Croatia, Slovenia
and Italy.
(www.istrians.com/istria/maps/)
1995 The film “Underground” was
made by Yugoslavian director Emir Kusturica. It won a the Palme d’Or at
Cannes. It covered 50 years of social chaos in Yugoslavia from the
bombing of Belgrade by the Nazis to the fall of Communism.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, DB p.11)(SFC, 3/14/98, p.B3)
1998 Milovan Djilas, Yugoslav
author and politician: "The strongest are those who renounce their own
times and become a living part of those yet to come. The strongest, and
the rarest."
(AP, 10/18/98)
1999 Mar 24, In Serbia NATO forces
sent a broad wave of air attacks against Yugoslav forces in an attempt
to halt the Serbian offensive in Kosovo. Cruise missiles and planes
targeted military sites near Belgrade and some 40 sites in total.
Initial reports said 10 people were killed and 38 wounded in the
bombing. The airstrikes marked the first time in its 50-year existence
that NATO had ever attacked a sovereign country. NATO’s 78-day bombing
ended on June 10.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/25/99, p.A1)(SFC,
3/26/99, p.A6)(AP, 3/24/00)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.51)
1999 Apr 23, NATO forces bombed
Nis and a broad swath of Yugoslavia on the 31st day of attacks. 16
civilians were killed and 16 others injured during the attack on the
headquarters and studios of Radio Television Serbia in central
Belgrade. In 2009 Amnesty International demanded that NATO be held
accountable for civilian casualties in the bombing.
(SFC, 4/24/99, p.A11)(AP, 4/23/09)
1999 May 28, In Yugoslavia Viktor
Chernomyrdin declared the Yugoslav president key to a Kosovo peace plan
despite complications caused by his indictment for war crimes. It was
reported that Pres. Milosevic had agreed to the general principles of a
peace settlement following a nine hour long discussion with the Russian
envoy.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.A8)(AP, 5/28/00)
1999 Jun 9, Yugoslav and Western
generals signed a military agreement to end the 78-day NATO air war
against Yugoslavia based on a demonstrable withdrawal of Yugoslav
forces from Kosovo and a complete pullout in 11 days.
(SFC, 6/10/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/6/00, p.A19)
2001 Feb 22, A UN tribunal on
Yugoslav War Crimes found 3 Bosnian Serbs guilty of crimes against
humanity for the rape, torture and enslavement of Muslim women in Foca
between 1992-1993. The landmark case established rape and sexual
enslavement as a crime against humanity. They were sentenced to 28, 20
and 12 years, respectively.
(SFC, 2/23/01, p.A1)(AP, 11/1/07)
2001 Nov 23, In Belgium the UN war
crimes tribunal announced that Slobodan Milosevic, former Yugoslav
president, would stand trial on charges of genocide in the 1992-1995
war in Bosnia. Milosevic died in March 2006 while his trial was in
progress.
(SFC, 11/24/01, p.A11)(AP, 11/23/06)
[see Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia for continuity]
2002 Mar 14, Yugoslavia was
declared dead as Serbia and Montenegro agreed to rename their
federation: “Serbia and Montenegro.”
(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A6)
2002 May 21, The Bush
administration announced that it would resume economic aid to
Yugoslavia because it had met requirements to cooperate with the war
crimes tribunal in The Hague.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A15)
2002 Oct 3, The United States
forgave two-thirds of Yugoslavia's debt on in a sign of improving
relations with the country's reformist leadership.
(AP, 10/3/02)
2003 Jan 29, Montenegro lawmakers
voted to abolish Yugoslavia and replace it with a loose union of
semi-independent states called Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A8)
2003 Feb 4, Yugoslavia’s
parliament transformed the federation into a loose union between
Montenegro and Serbia and retired the name “Yugoslavia.”
(WSJ, 2/5/03, p.A1)
2006 Mar 11, In the Netherlands
former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (b.1941), the so-called
"butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes after orchestrating
a decade of bloodshed during his country's breakup, was found dead in
his prison cell. Milosevic spent nearly five years at a UN detention
facility in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2008 Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss
prosecutor, authored (with Chuck Sudetic) “Madame Prosecutor:
Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of
Impunity.” It covered her 8 years chasing Balkan war criminals. In 2009
this Italian edition was made available in English.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.88)
2009 Feb 11, Judges at the
Yugoslav war crimes tribunal voted to suspend the trial of
ultranationalist Serb leader Vojislav Seselj after the prosecution said
its case was being undermined by witness intimidation. The decision
came after 71 prosecution witnesses had already been heard and with
only a handful still to testify.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 26, At The Hague UN
judges in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Serb
President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror by
Serb forces against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. The court convicted five
other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22
years. The marathon trial started July 10, 2006.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Mar 17, In the Netherlands
the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reduced the jail
sentence of Bosnian Serb leader Momcilo Krajisnik from 27 to 20 years,
quashing some convictions from a 2006 judgment.
(AP, 3/17/09)
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Subject = Yugoslavia
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