Yugoslavia and Political Assassinations is the first book in English to analyse how and why the Yugoslav State Security Service carried out multiple targeted assassinations, over the country's forty-six years of existence, under the pretext of protecting the Yugoslav communist party-state. Offering a detailed history of the programme, from the inception of the State Security Service to the recent trials of individuals involved, it draws on Christian Axboe Nielsen's unique wealth of experience and research as an academic and as an expert witness in numerous criminal trials. The result is a ground-breaking contribution to the history of targeted assassinations, communist history, state security services and related criminal trials.

Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism During the Cold War examines one of the most active but least remembered groups of terrorists of the Cold War: radical anti-Yugoslav Croatian separatists. Operating in countries as widely dispersed as Sweden, Australia, Argentina, West Germany, and the United States, Croatian extremists were responsible for scores of bombings, numerous attempted and successful assassinations, two guerilla incursions into socialist Yugoslavia, and two airplane hijackings during the height of the Cold War. In Australia alone, Croatian separatists carried out no less than sixty-five significant acts of violence in one ten-year period. Diaspora Croats developed one of the most far-reaching terrorist networks of the Cold War and, in total, committed on average one act of terror every five weeks worldwide between 1962 and 1980. Tokić focuses on the social and political factors that radicalized certain segments of the Croatian diaspora population during the Cold War and the conditions that led them to embrace terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression. At its core, this book is concerned with the discourses and practices of radicalization—the ways in which both individuals and groups who engage in terrorism construct a particular image of the world to justify their actions. Drawing on exhaustive evidence from seventeen archives in ten countries on three continents—including diplomatic communiqués, political pamphlets and manifestos, manuals on bomb-making, transcripts of police interrogations of terror suspects, and personal letters among terrorists—Tokić tells the comprehensive story of one of the Cold War’s most compelling global political movements.

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Yugoslavia was arguably one of the most unusual geopolitical creations of the 20th century. The Yugoslav state had never existed in any historical sense, and the ties that bound together its constituent peoples were tenuous at best. Although nominally all "Slavs," the country was an amalgamation of languages, alphabets, cultures, religions and traditions, which ensured its short existence was littered with splits, conflicts, and shocking violence. In a sense, it's somewhat surprising that it lasted as long as it did. In the wake of World War I, as the political boundaries of Europe and the Middle East were redrawn, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, initially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, came into existence with a monarch as its head of state. Confirmed at the 1919 Versailles Conference, the "first" Yugoslavia was a particularly fragile enterprise, and there was almost constant tension between the majority Serbs and the other Yugoslav nationalities, especially the Croats. As a result, the Kingdom was a land of political assassinations, underground terrorist organizations, and ethnic animosities. In 1929, King Alexander I suspended democracy and ruled as a dictator until he himself was assassinated in 1934. During his reign, Tito managed to quash the intense national feelings of the diverse groups making up the Yugoslavian population, and he did so through several methods. He managed to successfully play the two superpower rivals, the United States and Soviet Union, off against each other during the Cold War, and in doing so, he maintained a considerable amount of independence from both, even as he additionally received foreign aid to keep his regime afloat. All the while he remained defiant, once penning a legendary letter to Joseph Stalin warning the Soviet dictator, "To Joseph Stalin: Stop sending people to kill me! We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle... If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send a very fast working one to Moscow and I certainly won't have to send another." Internal issues plagued the country in its final years and Tito had tinkered with Yugoslavia's constitution on several occasions. His final attempt, in 1974, saw the partial separation of Kosovo - crucial in the Serb national story - from the rest of Serbia. A number of reasons led to the rising Serb nationalist sentiment after Tito's death, but Kosovo was a central aspect. Yugoslavia required far-sighted, magnanimous leaders to avoid internecine disputes, but none were available, or at least in positions of power in the 1980s. In Croatia, Franjo Tudjman - a long time Croat nationalist - emerged as the republic's leader, and Slobodan Milosevic rose to prominence in the middle of the decade and, despite apparently being a career communist, positioned himself as "defender of the Serbs." He began ousting his rivals and installing sympathetic underlings into leadership positions in Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, essentially giving him a majority bloc at the federal level. Depending on the source, many authors have focused on different catalysts for Yugoslavia's demise, but Vesna Drapac may have succinctly summed the situation up when he wrote that by the end, the state "lacked a reason to exist." There is certainly something in this sentiment, but the disintegration came at an enormous cost. The Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The History of the Yugoslav Wars and the Political Problems that Led to Yugoslavia's Demise examines how the multicultural nation broke apart in the 1980s and 1990s. Along with pictures of important people and places, you will learn about the Yugoslave Wars like never before.

And conclusions -- Pre-twentieth century democide -- 1. The megamurderers. Japan's savage military ; The Khmer Rouge Hell State ; Turkey's ethnic purges ; The Vietnamese War state ; Poland's ethnic cleansing ; The Pakistani cutthroat state ; Tito's slaughterhouse ; Orwellian North Korea ; Barbarous Mexico ; Feudal Russia -- 2. The centi-kilo and lesser murderers. Death by American bombing ; The horde of centi-kilo murderers ; The crown of lesser murderers -- 3. Statistics of democide, power, and social field. The social field of democide ; Democracy, power, and democide ; Social diversity, power, and democide ; Culture and democide ; The socio-economic and geographic context of democide ; War, rebellion, and democide ; The social field and democide ; Democide through the years.

Kosovo in the 1990s

Rwanda and Bosnia both experienced mass violence in the early 1990s. Less than ten years later, Rwandans surprisingly elected the world's highest level of women to parliament. In Bosnia, women launched thousands of community organizations that became spaces for informal political participation. The political mobilization of women in both countries complicates the popular image of women as merely the victims and spoils of war. Through a close examination of these cases, Marie E. Berry unpacks the puzzling relationship between war and women's political mobilization. Drawing from over 260 interviews with women in both countries, she argues that war can reconfigure gendered power relations by precipitating demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. In the aftermath, however, many of the gains women made were set back. This book offers an entirely new view of women and war and includes concrete suggestions for policy makers, development organizations, and activists supporting women's rights.

The war in Kosovo was a turning point: NATO deployed its armed forces in war for the first time, and placed the controversial doctrine of 'humanitarian intervention' squarely in the world's eye. It was an armed intervention for the purpose of implementing Security Council resolutions-but without Security Council authorization.This report tries to answer a number of burning questions, such as why the international community was unable to act earlier and prevent the escalation of the conflict, as well as focusing on the capacity of the United Nations to act as global peacekeeper.The Commission recommends a new status for Kosovo, 'conditional independence', with the goal of lasting peace and security for Kosovo-and for the Balkan region in general. But many of the conslusions may be beneficially applied to conflicts the world-over.