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Could a Confederation have Saved Yugoslavia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Slobodan Antonić
Slobodan Antonić*
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Studies, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
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Extract

Today, after the signing of the peace agreement in Paris, when the end of the Yugoslav war is in sight, one frequently hears the questions: Could the war have been avoided and could a confederation have saved Yugoslavia? Namely, in late 1990 and early 1991, the republics now outside Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia) proposed that Yugoslavia be reorganised as a confederation which would, as they claimed, have fulfilled their main political aspirations. The Serbian side refused resolutely, and, soon afterwards, war started in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, which was actually their war of liberation. Now, when the republics in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia are internationally recognised, when they have largely recognised each other and when we are witnessing the restoration of economic and other relations between the peoples who shared a common state for seventy-three years, we may justifiably ask: Would it not have been better if the Serbian side had accepted a confederation and, thus, preserved some kind of Yugoslavia, than, by its persistent refusal, have lead the secessionist republics to take up arms?

Information

Type
Part II: The Politics of Disintegration
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 25 , Issue 3: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia: Inevitable or Avoidable? , September 1997, pp. 469 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

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