The Death of Yugoslavia is the first account to go behind the public face of battle and into the closed worlds of the key players in the war. Laura Silber, Balkans correspondent for the Financial Times, and Allan Little, award-winning BBC journalist, plot the road to war and the war itself. They pinpoint the key events that occurred in the capitals of Belgrade and Zagreb, and in villages ravaged by 'ethnic cleansing', and draw on eye-witness testimony, scrupulous research and hundreds of interviews to give unprecedented access to the facts behind the media stories. Challenging the received wisdom that the war occurred as a spontaneous and inevitable eruption of ethnic hatreds, the authors expose, step-by-step, a plan to divide the country by force of arms.
Could anything have been done to prevent this terrible tragedy? What will be its lasting effects? The authors consider these questions and assess the present situation and its implications for future international relations.
Part 1 Laying the charge: "this is our land" - the stirring of Serb
nationalism; "no one should dare to beat you" - the rise of Slobodan
Milosevic, April 1987-December 1987; "no way back" - the Slovene spring,
1988; "comrade Slobodan, think hard" - Milosevic's anti-bureaucratic
revolution, July 1988-March 1989; Tsar Lazar's choice - March 1989-January
1990; "a Croatian rifle on a Croatian shoulder" - the awakening of Croatia,
1989-1990. Part 2 Lighting the fuse: "the remnants of a slaughtered people" -
the Knin rebellion, January-August 1990; "you've chosen war" - the arming of
Slovenia and Croatia, April 1990-January 1991; "if we don't know how to work,
at least we know how to fight" - the decisive month, March 1991; the descent
into war - Croatia and the Serbs, February-June 1991; conversations of the
deaf - the last chance squandered, May-June
1991. The explosion of war: "the
hour of Europe has dawned - Slovenia's phoney war, June-July 1991; "an
undeclared and dirty war" - the JNA in Croatia, July-December 1991;
Yugoslavia a la carte - Lord Carrington's plan, September 1991-January
1992.
Part 4 Bosnia: before the deluge - July 1990-March 1992; the gates of hell -
the outbreak of war in Bosnia, 1-10 April 1992; the President is kidnapped -
May 2-3 1992; the cleansing - the summer of 1992; "we are the winners" - the
London Conference, May-December 1992; the hottest corner - the fall of
Srebrenica and UN Safe Areas, April 1993; last-chance cafe - the rise and
fall of the Vance-Owen Plan, January-May 1993; beware your friend a
hundred-fold - the Muslim-Croat conflict, 1992-1994; the HMS Invisible -
talks at sea, summer 1993; a question of control - the market square bomb and
the NATO ultimatum, February 1994; gaining moral ground - the Washington
Agreement, February 1994; to the Mogadishu line - the battle of Gorazde,
April 1994; "a dagger in the back" - the Serbian split, June 1994.
