National Pressure and the Breakup of Nations as a Social Problem

Peace and unrests are considered as one of the major causes of the collapse of empires and states across the globe. Civilians end up losing lives and resources as an impact of these fights. These social issues arise from the neighboring states or states within the countries themselves.

History of various states show that failure to control these issues result in worse problems and challenges than what these nations anticipated.

Yugoslavia is no longer a state since, after several shocks from the local and international sources, the country crumpled leading to its current state.

This paper attempts to assess how certain elements can threaten the existence of states if appropriate steps and actions are not taken to prevent destruction in these states. One of the most affected groups, when social justices are violated, are the civilians.

The government should consider the impact of its actions against this group to avoid committing international illegalities or going against the international standards of humanity. Albanians were the most affected groups since they were forcefully pushed out of their localities.

The success of a state does not depend on the achievement of a leader but rather the nature of decisions made during their rule (Axelrod and Robert, 33).

Milosevic was a successful leader in his primary and secondary education. He succeeded in all areas as he developed his political skills while still in primary school.

He published several political journals that surprised many of his teachers since none of his peers could argue with the same perspective. Well, this progress was inconsistent with the position of his family since they were among the most prominent families in Serbia.

His father was also a hero of the World War II. His close family members were also prominent in the society.

For instance, his uncle was an outspoken politician of the postwar period. Having this knowledge and the extensive studies in law, Milosevic still experienced one of the most challenging terms in his leadership.

Yugoslavia experienced a series of challenges that threatened its existence and the peace of the people in and around it. Some of this pressure originated from the citizens who were not happy with the current state of affairs and as a result demanded new changes through protests.

In 1987, there was a rise in tension as more states continued to complain of mistreatments from the Albanian majority. At one time, Milosevic visited a state that was highly agitated by these challenges and decided to take their outcry to the streets (Djilas 81).

When these protestors learned that Milosevic was in a building near them, they stormed the building out of excitement. The Police began to beat them and push them away from the building.

When he learned that protestors were being beaten, for this reason, he joined them and shouted, "No one has the right to beat you." (Djilas 99).

These are simple words that made him famous and later allowed him to gain popularity across the nation of Serbia. At this point, he was serving all citizens equally and only later did he start to separate the Yugoslavians on an ethnic basis.

Yugoslavia was already collapsing by the time Milosevic was taking over the leadership of this country. The Yugoslavian federation party was also in pieces since there were vast disagreements among the Serbia’s communists. The party members had different thoughts regarding their country.

The pressure was mounting in other surrounding states. However, peace was restored in the autonomous Kosovo state after Milosevic, and other socialists’ protests and demonstrating were beginning to spread in other states.

At this time, Milosevic was serving as the ‘man of the people’ in the Serbian leadership since he was the most outspoken Serbian champion of their rights. He also formed links with other Serbians living outside the Serbian nation.

First, this breakaway was coupled with dynamics that disoriented the functions of government and the leadership of the country. Attention was wholly turned to Milosevic who was only passively involved in the leadership of the Serbian country. He was keeping a low profile after he was accused of several acts of inhumanity.

He delegated most his administrative duties to militias who were then fighting in Croatia and Bosnia. Milosevic was trying to enlarge the Serbian country since he was fighting his neighboring states to expand his territories.

However, he lost the international aid that he was receiving from other nations who thought that he was ruthless and his ideas were malicious and destructive (Gottlieb, Szasz and Barnett 34-5932-34-5932).

The pressure was shifting from the local citizens to international sources. Pressure from other nations and organizations were increasing in larger magnitudes. The UN was the first international body to impose sanctions on the Serbian nation.

The interventions of this body were productive since after understanding that was reached in an air base in Ohio, peace began to return to Serbia as Milosevic attempted to regain his reputation (Flere and Sergej, 82).

The international communities were alienating themselves from him since they considered Milosevic as the main cause of the crimes committed by the militias.

Civilians are the most common victims of the social issues in a country. The American based organization, NATO, claimed that the impact of Yugoslavian war was, destructive beyond expected ("NATO and institutional theories of International Relations").

Some of these effects were marked by a series of military success and the other political failures. At one time, the Chinese embassy in Serbia was a victim of these destructive fatal miscalculations (Axelrod and Robert, 41).

Civilians were killed in these attacks as the Milosevic government continued to fight other states in the name of "ethnic cleansing."

His army was evicting people from these regions and more so people of a certain ethnic composition.

Other international bodies such as NATO were also causing harm to civilians in an attempt to rescue people from the Milosevic poor decisions. NATO carried out several bombings as an attempt to lure these militias to stop their operations against the civilians.

Most of these bombings took place in Kosovo where protests first were begun. Lives were lost from the military attacks and the NATO bombings. Civilians were also displaced from their homes in large numbers.

It is the role of international humanitarian bodies to protect the lives of civilians once they are risked by the actions of a state or any other external force. Clinton was the U.S president during these political shocks experienced in Serbia.

He was at the forefront of protecting Albanians in Kosovar where they were evicted and some killed by the Serbian militias (Schimmelfennig and Frank, 22-40).

These activities took place during the Cold War era when nations were engaging geopolitical tensions of war after the world war. Clinton devised a new method to fight these crimes by taking advantage of this cold war.

NATO was one of the organizations that saved the lives of these people. Its actions were praised by other organizations such as the United Nations since the Serbian government resisted other organizations that attempted to stop its progress (Schimmelfennig and Frank, 22-40).

The war against the Yugoslavian government was meant to discourage the country from infringing the rights of people. First, the international community claimed that this government violated several human rights.

Forced eviction and killers were among the worst crimes this government was accused of.

The Serbian government treated Albanians in a way that was considered as against humanity and standards of quality life.

Secondly, misuse of the sovereign power by a state was considered as a first class violation of the normal prescription against the people.

These international bodies argued that this government used its power to violate the role of government in protecting the lives of the people.

Unfortunately, the Serbian government may go unpunished by the international law since NATO acted without informing the United Nations (Gottlieb, Szasz and Barnett 34-5932-34-5932).

Clearly, conflict is a normal part of human nature. How it is handled is a major determinant of a lot of things or could also lead to further conflicts. There have been conflicts in many countries over power and territory. For instance, the tension between Pakistan and India has persisted for many years and is similar to that witnessed in Yugoslavia.

It is therefore clear that ethnically based conflicts and wars should be solved carefully or else they result in adverse effects. Some of these effects include loss of lives and displacement of people from their areas of residence as was witnessed by Albanians in Serbia.

Failure of negotiations meant to bring peace which included the 1993 United Nations plan to divide Bosnia into ten partially independent regions and the proposal by the Norwegian foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg which called for division of the country into three independent states, is the reason why NATO intervened (Kecmanovic, 998).

There have been debates on whether the Serbian government should be charged with genocide according to the international law. I think the Serbian government played a huge role in allowing the multi-ethnic conflicts to persist, hence the genocide.

This is because despite his attempts to alienate himself from the war, Milosevic was interested in expanding the boundaries of Serbia and hence did not try to stop the fighting.

On the other hand, various parties in the case of Yugoslavia disagree that the government is responsible for the killings and losses caused by the war. They argue that the genocide actually never happened.

According to this group of people, bombings by NATO during its intervention were illegal and caused a much more severe damage than anticipated.

It is also argued that NATOs activities were a violation of the sovereignty of Yugoslavia. However, if this intervention did not occur, the war would persist for a much longer period and result to a big catastrophe since all attempted negotiations were futile (Bogic and Marija, 58).

If earlier interventions had been successful, then Yugoslavia would not have broken up as a nation and the casualties would have been less severe.

In conclusion, the multi-ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia had consequences. Intervention was necessary or else the war would lead to further distractions.

This war was a violation of human rights. Milosevic, the state leader at the time was determined to acquire a larger territory under his authority thus encouraging further fighting.

NATO intervened in order to end the war and protect human rights. The war was a clear violation of the customs of war defined by the international customary law. It led to crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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