The Yugoslavia Wars of Disintegration The various wars the took place in Yugoslavia after World War II were indeed the result of the divergent ethnicities that had all clashed in a common region. It was not anomalous that such a process of ethnic cleansing would indeed occur in the state of Yugoslavia, which contained an exceedingly diverse collection of ethnicities, which included Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Croats, Hungarians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenes. One of the primary reasons as to why such dreadful wars occurred in this area was because of a majority’s pursuit of ethnic cleansing. While all were considered to be Slavic peoples they each had a distinctive language, history, and culture which eventually lead to ignite such a horrific clash between these highly distinctive cultures. After World War II, Yugoslavia under Prime Minister Tito became a communist republic which was composed of six re Scholarships for High School Juniors publics: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Montenegro. When Prime Minister Tito died, ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia reignited. Both Slovenia and Croatia each declared there independence in 1991. Since ninety percent of Slovenia’s population was ethnic Slovenians, Slovenia was able to win over the resistance brought by the Yugoslav National Army with only a brief period of fighting. Croatia, on the other hand, had twelve percent of its population Serbian. The Croatians began fighting with the Croatian Serbs, who were backed up by Serbia-controlled Yugoslav People’s Army. The Serbs, who held about one third of the country, wanted to establish new boundaries in parts of Croatia with a majority of Serbs. In January 1992, after at least 20,000 people had died in Croatia and 400,000 people were left homeless, and after 14 cease-fires had been broken, a United Nations-sponsored truce took hold.
