Yugoslavia Breaks UpDuring the Second World War, Josip Broz Tito was a communist leader of rebels that kicked the Nazis out of what would became the People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito focused on a unified Yugoslavia that was made up of the Balkan states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia. Balkan states never really wanted to be united, so after Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito death in 1980, the Yugoslavian people began to want to split apart. In the mid-1980s Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic used this uneasiness to rise in power. As the Soviet Union fails, Yugoslavia begins to destabilize both socially and economically. The people wanted the communists out, and independence from Yugoslavia. In 1991, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. In March of 1992 President Izetbegovic proclaimed Bosnia’s independence. Bosnia's large Muslim population was in strong support of independence, but the Serb population violently apposed.
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The Nazis Handy Work
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During World War II Yugoslavia fell, rather embarrassingly, to Hitler's Third Reich. The Nazis did what they did every the occupied, they began to roundup Jews and anyone considered "undesirable". These death camps were run by Croats, and along with Hitler's "undesirables" the Croats also killed Serbs. This, among other things, help to fuel the tench between ethnic groups.
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