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Serbia and Montenegro is a territory of southeastern
Europe, which included two republics united in one
nation - Serbia and Montenegro (ex-Yugoslav Federation)
- until June 2006, when they became independent.
Located on the Balkan peninsula, when together Serbia
and Montenegro bordered Hungary to the north, Romania to
the northeast, Bulgaria to the east, Macedonia and
Albania to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
to the west, having a narrow coastal strip in the
Adriatic Sea to the west. As a result of its
geographical location, this Balkan territory has, over
the centuries, been subject to the vicissitudes of
fluctuating balances of power between powers such as
Austria-Hungary and the Turkish and Ottoman empires,
which now subjected it in whole or in part, now afforded
the opportunity to assert itself as an independent
political unit.
In the twentieth century, this was the name that took
on three distinct political entities, a fact once again
symptomatic of a troubled historical existence. Thus,
after a conflict in the territory in 1912-1913 and the
First World War in 1914-1918, a monarchical regime was
instituted that would last until April 1941, when the
Axis powers invaded the country and destroyed the
structure until then adopted. Once the invading forces
were expelled in 1945, Marshal Josip Broz Tito imposed
other forms of socio-political organization, making
Yugoslavia a federative state with a socialist
orientation in which six republics (Serbia, Montenegro,
Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Bosnia) were
distinguished. -Herzegovina) and that occupied
substantially the same territory as in the previous
phase.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the policy
adopted by Tito was the affirmation of his own communist
practice, autonomous from the Soviet influence, which,
moreover, Tito would reject when he broke with Stalin as
early as 1948. On the other hand, the Yugoslav position
of neutrality, in a political scenario of opposition
from large blocs struggling for world supremacy, has
earned the country considerable international
prestige. Tito's Yugoslavia led, alongside Nasser's
Egypt and Nehru's India, the Non-Aligned Movement, which
was a stronghold of tolerance and the search for peace
in this Cold War era.
After Tito's death, verified in 1980, a set of
disruptive forces and circumstances - the marked
socio-economic asymmetries between the regions of the
country, the fall of the various European communist
regimes, the upsurge of ethnic tensions and nationalisms
- began to manifest itself , intensifying over the 1980s
and giving rise, already in the 1990s, to several
independence, such as Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Serbia and Montenegro
formed Yugoslavia (Yugoslav Federation). In 1992 a
bloody war broke out in the territory, the outlines of
which are still difficult to determine globally but
which are believed to have caused more than 250 000
deaths.
In 1999, the massive expulsion and violence against
ethnic Albanian citizens from the autonomous republic of
Kosovo sparked an international response that included
the bombing of Serbia and the establishment of NATO and
Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo. President Slobodan
Milosevic, accused in an international war crimes
tribunal, ruled the country during this period under
strong opposition from different sections of the
population and under international accusation of being
one of Europe's last dictators.
The early elections of September 24, 2000 were won by
the opposition, led by Vojislav Kostunica, but the
electoral commission (controlled by Milosevic) marked a
second round of the elections. Displeased, the
opposition, which claimed victory on the first round,
appealed to the population for a campaign of civil
disobedience that would force Milosevic to accept defeat
and corresponding renunciation of power. This campaign
meant that Kostunica's victory was officially
recognized.
The two republics - Serbia and Montenegro - agreed on
March 14, 2002 to change the name of the Yugoslav
Federation to the State of Serbia and Montenegro. In the
same agreement, which entered into force in February
2003, it was established that after three years, if both
republics so desired, they could become independent
states. In May 2006, the Republic of Montenegro held a
referendum, the result of which demonstrated the general
desire for independence, which was declared on June 3 of
the same year. Two days later, Serbia followed in the
footsteps of Montenegro, declaring its independence and,
consequently, recognizing that of Montenegro.
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