 |
Serbia
|
National name: Republika Srbija
President: Boris Tadic (2004)
Prime Minister: Vojislav
Koštunica (2004)
Current government officials
Land and total area: 29,913 sq mi (77,474 sq
km)
Population (2007 est): 7,269,703
(growth rate: 0.1%); birth rate: 12.1/1000; infant mortality rate:
12.3/1000; life expectancy: 75.1; density per sq mi: 243.
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Belgrade, 1,717,800 (metro. area), 1,285,200
(city proper)
Other large cities: Pristina,
204,500; Novi Sad, 191,300; Nis, 174,000
Monetary unit: Yugoslav new dinar. In
Kosovo both the euro and the Yugoslav dinar are legal
Languages:
Serbian (official); Romanian, Hungarian,
Slovak, and Croatian (all official in Vojvodina)
Ethnicity/race:
Serb 66%, Albanian 17%, Hungarian 3.5%, other
13.5% (1991)
Religions:
Serbian Orthodox, Muslim, Roman Catholic,
Protestant
Literacy rate: 96.4% (2003est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP
(2007est.): $77.28 billion; per capita $10,,400. Real growth
rate: 7.3%. Inflation: 6.8%. Unemployment: 18.8%.
Arable land: n.a. Agriculture: wheat, maize, sugar
beets, sunflower, beef, pork, milk. Labor force: 2.961
million; agriculture 30%, industry 46%, services 24% (excluding
Kosovo and Montenegro) (2002). Industries: sugar,
agricultural machinery, electrical and communication equipment,
paper and pulp, lead, transportation equipment. Natural
resources: oil, gas, coal, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc,
antimony, chromite, nickel, gold, silver, magnesium, pyrite,
limestone, marble, salt, arable land. Exports: $4.553 billion
(excluding Kosovo and Montenegro) (2005 est.): manufactured goods,
food and live animals, machinery and transport equipment.
Imports: $10.58 billion (excluding Kosovo and Montenegro)
(2005).
Communications: Telephones: main lines
in use: 2,685,400 (2004); mobile cellular: 4,729,600 (2004).
Radio broadcast stations: 153 (2001). Internet users:
1.4 million (2006).
Transportation: Railways: total: 4,135
km (2004). Highways: total: 37,937 km; paved: 23,937 km,
unpaved: 13,950 km (2002). Waterways: 587 km; primarily on
Danube and Sava rivers (2005). Airports: 25 includes airports
in Montenegro (2005).
International disputes: the final status
of the Serbian province of Kosovo remains unresolved and several
thousand peacekeepers from the UN Interim Administration Mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK) have administered the region since 1999, with Kosovar
Albanians overwhelmingly supporting and Serbian officials opposing
Kosovo independence; the international community had agreed to begin
a process to determine final status but contingency of solidifying
multi-ethnic democracy in Kosovo has not been satisfied; ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo refuse demarcation of the boundary with
Macedonia in accordance with the 2000 Macedonia-Serbia and
Montenegro delimitation agreement; Serbia and Montenegro delimited
about half of the boundary with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but sections
with Serbia along the Drina River remain in dispute.
Major sources and definitions
|
|
Geography
Serbia is largely mountainous. Its northeast section is part of the
rich, fertile Danubian Plain drained by the Danube, Tisa, Sava, and Morava
river systems. It borders Croatia on the northwest, Hungary on the north,
Romania on the northeast, Bulgaria on the east, Macedonia on the south,
and Albania, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the west.
Government
Republic. Serbia was one of six republics that made up the country of
Yugoslavia, which broke up in the 1990s. In Feb. 2003, Serbia and
Montenegro were the remaining two republics of rump Yugoslavia, forming a
loose federation. In 2006, Montenegro split from Serbia.
History
Serbs settled the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th and 7th centuries and
adopted Christianity in the 9th century. In 1166, Stefan Nemanja, a
Serbian warrior and chief, founded the first Serbian state. By the 14th
century, under the rule of Stefan Dusan, it became the most powerful state
in the Balkans. After Serbia was defeated in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389,
it was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the 19th century its
struggle against Ottoman rule intensified, and in 1878 Serbia gained
independence after Russia defeated the Ottoman Turks in the Russo-Turkish
war of 1877–1878. In the Balkan wars (1912–1913), Serbia and
other Balkan states seized hold of more former Ottoman lands on the
peninsula.
World War I began when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke
Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, which led to Austria's declaration of
war against Serbia. Within months, much of Europe was at war. In the war's
aftermath, Serbia became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and
Slovenes (1918). It included the former kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro;
Bosnia-Herzegovina; Croatia-Slavonia, a semiautonomous region of Hungary;
and Dalmatia. King Peter I of Serbia became the first monarch; his son,
Alexander I, succeeded him on Aug. 16, 1921. Croatian demands for a
federal state led Alexander to assume dictatorial powers in 1929 and to
change the country's name to Yugoslavia. Serbian dominance continued
despite his efforts, amid the resentment of other regions. A Macedonian
associated with Croatian dissidents assassinated Alexander in Marseilles,
France, on Oct. 9, 1934, and his cousin, Prince Paul, became regent for
the king's son, Prince Peter.
Paul's pro-Axis policy brought Yugoslavia to sign the Axis Pact on
March 25, 1941, and opponents overthrew the government two days later. On
April 6 the Nazis occupied the country, and the young king and his
government fled. Two guerrilla armies—the Chetniks under Draza
Mihajlovic supporting the monarchy and the Partisans under Tito (Josip
Broz) leaning toward the USSR—fought the Nazis for the duration of
the war. In 1943, Tito established a provisional government, and in 1945
he won the federal election while monarchists boycotted the vote. The
monarchy was abolished and the Communist Federal People's Republic of
Yugoslavia, with Tito as prime minister, was born. Tito ruthlessly
eliminated the opposition and broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.
Yugoslavia followed a middle road, combining orthodox Communist control of
politics and general overall economic policy with a varying degree of
freedom in the arts, travel, and individual enterprise. Tito became
president in 1953 and president-for-life under a revised constitution
adopted in 1963.
After Tito's death on May 4, 1980, a rotating presidency designed to
avoid internal dissension was put into effect, and the feared clash of
Yugoslavia's multiple nationalities and regions appeared to have been
averted. In 1989, Slobodan Milosevic became
president of the Serbian republic. His arch-nationalism and calls for
Serbian domination inflamed ethnic tensions and spurred on the breakup of
Yugoslavia. In May 1991 Croatia declared independence, and by December so
had Slovenia and Bosnia. Slovenia was able to break away with only a brief
period of fighting, but because 12% of Croatia's population was Serbian,
Serb-dominated Yugoslavia fought hard against its secession. Bosnia's
declaration of independence led to even more brutal fighting. The most
ethnically diverse of the Yugoslav republics, Bosnia was 43% Muslim, 31%
Serbian, and 17% Croatian. The largely Serbian-led Yugoslav military
pounded Bosnia, and with Yugoslavia's help, the Bosnian Serb minority took
the offensive against Bosnian Muslims. It carried out ruthless campaigns
of ethnic cleansing, which involved the expulsion or massacre of Muslims.
The war did not end until NATO stepped in, bombing Serb positions in
Bosnia in Aug. and Sept. 1995. In Nov. 1995, Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia
signed the Dayton Peace Accords, ending the four-year-long war in which
250,000 people died and another 2.7 million became refugees.
Despite entangling his country in almost continuous war for four years
and bringing it to near economic collapse, the Serbian government of
Slobodan Milosevic maintained its effective control over the remainder of
Yugoslavia. Constitutionally barred from another term as president of
Serbia, Milosevic became president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(which at this stage consisted of just Serbia and Montenegro) in July
1997.
In Feb. 1998 the Yugoslav army and Serbian police began fighting
against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, but their scorched-earth
tactics were concentrated on ethnic Albanian civilians—Muslims who
make up 90% of Kosovo's population. More than 900 Kosovars were killed in
the fighting, and the hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes
were without adequate food and shelter. Although Serbs made up only 10% of
Kosovo's population, the region figures strongly in Serbian nationalist
mythology.
NATO was reluctant to intervene because Kosovo—unlike Bosnia in
1992—was legally a province of Yugoslavia. The proof of civilian
massacres finally gave NATO the impetus to intervene for the first time
ever in the dealings of a sovereign nation with its own people. NATO's
reason for involvement in Kosovo changed from avoiding a wider Balkan war
to preventing a human rights calamity. On March 24, 1999, NATO began
launching air strikes. Weeks of daily bombings destroyed significant
Serbian military targets, yet Milosevic showed no signs of relenting. In
fact, Serbian militia stepped up civilian massacres and deportations in
Kosovo, and by the end of the conflict, the UN high commissioner for
refugees estimated that at least 850,000 people had fled Kosovo. Serbia
finally agreed to sign a UN-approved peace agreement with NATO on June 3,
ending the 11-week war.
In the Sept. 2000 federal elections, Vojislav Kostunica, a law
professor and political outsider, won the presidency, ending the
autocratic rule of Milosevic, who had dragged Yugoslavia into economic
collapse and relegated it to pariah status throughout much of the world.
In 2001, Milosevic was turned over to the United Nations International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, charged with 66
war crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity. His expensive
and lengthy trial ended without a verdict when he died in March 2006.
In March 2002, the nation agreed to form a new state, replacing
Yugoslavia with a loose federation called Serbia and Montenegro, which
went into effect in Feb. 2003. The new arrangement was made to placate
Montenegro's restive stirrings for independence and allowed Montenegro to
hold a referendum on independence after three years.
The prime minister of the Serbian state, Zoran Djindjic, a reformer who
helped bring about the fall of Milosevic, was assassinated in March 2003.
Extreme nationalists, organized crime, and Serbia's own police and
security services were implicated.
On March 17, 2004, Mitrovica, in Kosovo, experienced the worst ethnic
violence in the region since the 1999 war. At least 19 people were killed,
another 500 were injured, and about 4,000 Serbs lost their homes. NATO
sent in an extra 1,000 troops to restore order.
In June 2004, Democratic Party leader Boris Tadic was elected Serbian
president, defeating a nationalist candidate. Tadic planned to work toward
gaining EU membership for Serbia, but in 2006, the EU suspended its
membership talks with Serbia, after the country repeatedly failed to turn
over Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander wanted on genocide charges
for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims from Srebrenica.
In May 2006, Montenegro held a referendum on independence, which
narrowly passed. On June 4 the federal president of Serbia and Montenegro,
Svetozar Marovic, announced the dissolution of his office, and the
following day Serbia acknowledged the end of the union. The EU and the
United States recognized Montenegro on June 12.
In Feb. 2007, the International Court of Justice ruled that the
massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica in
1995 was genocide, but stopped short of saying the government was directly
responsible. The decision spared Serbia from having to pay war reparations
to Bosnia. The court's president, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, however,
criticized Serbia for not preventing the genocide. The court also ordered
Serbia to turn over Bosnian Serb leaders, including Ratko Mladic and
Radovan Karakzic, who are accused of orchestrating the genocide and other
crimes. In April, four Serbs–former paramilitary officers–were
found guilty by a war-crimes court of executing six Bosnian Muslims from
Srebrenica in Trnovo in 1995. The judge, however, did not link them to the
massacre in Srebrenica.
In May 2007, a Serbian court convicted 12 Serbs, including former paramilitary police officers, in the 2003 assassination of pro-reform prime minister Zoran Djindjic. The sentences ranged from 8 to 40 years.
Negotiations between the European Union, Russia, and Washington on the
future of Kosovo ended in stalemate in November 2007.
Tomislav Nikolic, of the hardline nationalist Radical Party, prevailed
over Tadic in the first round of presidential elections in January 2008,
taking 39.6% of the vote to Tadic's 35.5%. Tadic prevailed in February's
runoff election, winning 50.5% over Nikolic's 47.7%.
Kosovo's prime minister Hashim Thaci declared independence from Serbia
on Feb. 17, 2008. Serbia, as predicted, denounced the move. Serbian prime
minister Kostunica said he would never recognize the "false state." Ethnic
Albanians, who were brutalized by the Yugoslav army and Serbian police in
1998's civil war, took to the streets in jubilation. International
reaction was mixed, with the United States, France, Germany, and Britain
indicating that they planned to recognize Kosovo as the world's 195th
country. Serbia and Russia, however, called the move a violation of
international law. Albanians make up 95% of the population of Kosovo.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica dissolved government on March 8,
2008, stating that he could not govern with President Tadic, who is in
favor of gaining European Union membership and improving relations with
the United States. President Tadic called for early elections in May.
On May 11, 2008, President Tadic's coalition won parliamentary
elections with 38.7% (103 of 250 seats) of the vote. The Serbian Radical
Party earned 29.1%, the Democratic Party of Serbia 11.3%, the Socialist
Party of Serbia 7.9%, and the Liberal Democratic Party 5.2% of the
vote.
On May 14, 2008, Vojislav Kostunica joined the radical nationalist
party, led by Tomislav Nikolic, when he signed a draft agreement on new
government policies. Kostunica and Nikolic, who hope to lead the new
government together, do not support Serbia's bid for European Union
membership.
On July 7, 2008, Parliament approved a new government, which is composed of the Democratic Party, led by President Boris Tadic, and the Socialist Party, which was formerly led by Slobodan Milosevic. The Democratic Party's Mirko Cvetkovic became prime minister and Ivica Dacic, who headed the Socialist Party is deputy prime minister and interior minister. The government vowed to tame the nationalistic fervor that has raised concern internationally, particularly when Kosovo declared independence in February 2008. Cveetkovic also said Serbia will reach out to the West and join the European Union.
On October 8, 2008, in a rare move, the United Nations voted to request
that the International Court of Justice review the manner in which Kosovo
declared independence. Serbia, which initiated the request, considers
Kosovo a breakaway territory that acted illegally in declaring
independence. Most European Union members abstained from voting on the
request.
See also Montenegro.
U.S. State Dept.
Country Notes: Serbia and Montenegro
Federal Statistical Office
www.szs.sv.gov.yu/homee.htm .
See also
Yugoslavia Timeline.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Serbia from Infoplease:
- Serbia - Serbia Serbia , Serbian Srbija, officially Republic of Serbia, republic (1995 est. pop. ...
- Serbia - Serbia Profile: People and History, Government and Political Conditions, Defense, Economy, Foreign Relations, U.S.-Serbia Relations
- Serbia: meaning and definitions - Serbia: Definition and Pronunciation
- Peter I, king of Serbia - Peter I Peter I, 1844–1921, king of Serbia (1903–18) and king of the Serbs, Croats, and ...
- Alexander, prince of Serbia - Alexander Alexander (Alexander Karadjordjević), 1806–85, prince of Serbia ...
|
|
