Yugoslavia

One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after …

…occupied more than 70 percent of Bosnia. Many of its cities were in ruins, among them Sarajevo, the capital. The United Nations imposed economic sanctions but obtained no peace settlement. Croatia and Serbia had determined to divide Bosina between them, leaving small enclaves for Muslims to inhabit. In Serbia itself the sanctions had created havoc. Hyperinflation was running at the unparalled percentage rare of quadrillions per year, posing a threat to the survival of the state.