The Death of Yugoslavia
The Death of Yugoslavia is a BAFTA-award winning BBC documentary series first broadcast in 1995. It covers the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. It is notable in its combination of never-before-seen archive footage interspersed with interviews of most of the main players in the conflict, including Slobodan Milošević, the then President of Serbia. Norma Percy won the 1996 BAFTA TV Award for 'Best Factual Series' for the documentary. However, it has been argued that it presents a potentially slightly biased point-of-view; for instance during the trial of Milošević before the ICTY in The Hague, Judge Bonomy called the nature of much of the commentary "tendentious" (partisan).
Episodes
Nationalist feelings are let loose in Yugoslavia. Especially in Kosovo Serb nationalist are pressing the central authority. Milosevic starts out in Tito's spirit trying to deal with the problems without acknowledging the Kosovo-serbs claim that the troubles are ethnic related, but soon finds that he can build his power base faster by supporting the Serb nationalists and play this against the sitting president of the Yugoslav federation. Rumours of attacks on Serbs in Kosovo increases ethnic frictions. The rethoric between Milosevic in Belgrade and the regional authorities in Kosovo, Croatia and Slovenia gets harsher.
Croatia tries to strenghten its independence in the federation. Episodes of violence between Croats and Serbs leads to a state of emergency. The US ambassador puts some pressure on to stop the use of military forces in Croatia. President Tudjman of Croatia and the Serbian leaders he fought against chart how the Serb rebellion which began in Croatia in 1990 led to war in Yugoslavia.
June 25 1991 Croatia and Slovenia declares their independence. The European Community tries to intervene. Serbian militia groups take control of a series of towns and villages. Internal conflict in Croatia. The extreme nationalists wants conflict and contributes to the violence. Mladic goes to Croatia. Lord Carrington is the EC envoy. His proposal is independence for the republics. This threatens Milosevic power base and Serbia puts pressure on Montenegro to reject the proposal, and negotiations fail. The war starts.
Bosnian Serbs wants to stop all claims for an independent Bosnian state. Sarajevo is controlled by different militias. The Bosnian Serbs takes control of the hills around the city. Franjo Tudjman, the Croatian president proposes a divided Bosnia, in three parts. The Bosnian Serbs under Karadzic takes control of large parts of the country. Croatian militias takes control of some parts. Ethnic cleansing begins in Bosnia. Lord Carrington proposes a partition of Bosnia. Negotiations fail. Karadzics militia bombs Sarajevo from the hills.
The episode starts with Lord Owen coming to Sarajevo in december 1992 saying to the media: "Don't, don't, don't live under this dream that the west is going to come here and solve this problem. Don't dream dreams" Srebrenica had become a refuge for thousands of muslims driven from their homes in other parts of Bosnia. The city was surrounded by Bosnian Serbs and in effect became a huge prison camp. They tried to starve the population by stopping supplies coming into the city. UN General Morillon sets up a base in Srebrenica. Srebrenica is declared a safe area. Concentration camps are set up in different areas of the Bosnia. Outside Yugoslavia people discuss whether what is going on in Bosnia is in fact ethnic cleansing and whether the rest of the world has any responsibility to act. The US gets involved, so does the Russians. US first holds back and Europe needs to act alone, but initiatives are made to engage NATO. The Vance-Owen plan (named after its principal negotiators, former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance and former British foreign minister David Owen) is put forward to the parties in the conflict. This is a new attempt to divide the country between the Bosnian Serbs, The Bosnian Croats and the rest of the Bosnians (muslims). A lot of pressure is put on the parties to accept the plan and only Karadzic holds back. In the end he signs the treaty but it has to be ratified by his co-leaders in the Republika Srpska, which is was not. The episode ends with American NATO military jets bomb the Bosnia Serb positions around Sarajevo.
In 1995 Srebrenica is under siege for the third year in a row. The international community is talking about what to do. Holbrooke becomes the envoy from the USA. In august 1995 Bosnian Serbs are bombing Sarajevo, and The USA bombs Bosnian Serb positions around the city. The U.S. government reversed its policies to secure a peace agreement in Bosnia. Bill Clinton calls the parties to Dayton to reach an agreement, which is reached in November 1995 between Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovitch, the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
