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Yugoslavia at a Crossroad
Slovenia and Croatia's June 25 unilateral declarations of independence, although a major disappointment. can hardly be described as a bolt from the blue. Slovenians in particular have been steadily laying the groundwork to that end ever since a centre-right coalition of nationalists took power in last year's local, multi-party elections. The new leadership in Ljubljana followed it up with a referendum last December which authorised it to negotiate a loose confederation with the five other republics of the Yugoslav federation by June 26. or get out altogether. Its decision to declare UDI, along with Croatia, has cast a dark shadow over the future of Yugoslavia and raised the spectre of ethnic and political turbulence in the Balkans once more, threatening the new era of peace and stability in Europe.
Things have not really worked out for Yugoslavia since the death of Josip Broz Tito in 1980. Without the powerful gel of the late marshal's dictatorial yet magnetic leadership, the six republics of the federation have shown themselves to be too easily prone to the ethnic Jealousy and rivalry that characterised their relationship in the violent pre-1918 days when the Balkans were a happy hunting ground for every imperial beast under the sun. It is a supreme irony that after four and a half decades of benevolent socialism. Yugoslavia's various nationalities seem bent on reverting back to those days of bitterness, this time draped in the popular but provocative colours of nationalism. And this is happening at a time when Western Europe, whose model-society the self-proclaimed democrats of Slovenia and Croatia claim to admire, is gradually shedding old-fashioned nationalism in favour of a new federalism.
Yugoslavia is now at a crossroad, the most crucial Juncture in its history since the Slavic peoples of south-east Europe were united within one boundary in 1918. One path leads nowhere but civil war — and Slovenia's rejection of talks with Belgrade is a sure, sorry nudge in that direction; the other leads to accommodation, understanding and preservation of Yugoslav unity. Belgrade's call for a moratorium on the use of force is a welcome indication that federal authorities are more interested in negotiations than battles, while the actions undertaken by the militaiy were perhaps unavoidable as no state should be expected to accept establishment of "border" checkposts within its territory by unauthorised militia forces.
Both the Slovenian and Croatian leaderships can claim to have a powerful argument in favour of their UDIs — public consent as expressed in their respective referendums. While we uphold the principle of every nation's right to self-determination, we still have to ask if secession is the only or even the best option available to Slovenia and Croatia, particularly within the unique Yugoslav context. There is little doubt that if current fissiparous tendencies in the region, in Yugoslavia as well as the Soviet Union, continue unabated, they will contribute nothing towards future stability and harmony in Europe. Disintegration of Yugoslavia will cause animosity and tension to rise and sow the seeds of greater conflicts in the future. It will be a tragically ironic process by which the Balkans will re-Balkanise themselves with all the uncertainties that accompany it.
On the other hand, all six constituent republics of Yugoslavia have a lot to gain by staying within the union. But the federal authorities as well as leaders of Serbia need to recognise that for the union to remain viable, much greater degree of political and economic autonomy has to be accorded to the republics. A fully-fledged democratic federation of equal republics is surely the way forward for Yugoslavia, rather than secession or central control. Instead of pursuing UDIs and civil war rhetoric, all republics should enter into meaningful negotiation, with unity in diversity as their ultimate goal, for the sake of prosperity of their peoples as well as peace in Europe.