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Yugoslavia Bosnia and Hercegovina
In the 1980s, the political positions of Bosnia-Hercegovina
(respectively, the northern and southern parts of a region
administered as a unit since the eighteenth century) were
consistently conservative and cool to the reforms adopted in
other republics. This political atmosphere changed dramatically
in the late 1980s. The entire political structure of BosniaHercegovina was shaken by the Agrokomerc banking scandal of 1987,
which the Yugoslav press compared to the American Watergate
scandal. Hamdija Pozderac, vice president and Bosnian
representative in the national State Presidency, was forced to
resign because of his link to Agrokomerc. A number of republiclevel officials also resigned, and more than 100 party members
were arrested. The scandal revealed corrupt financial dealings of
politicians all over Yugoslavia, but public trust was most badly
damaged in the republic where the scandal began. After wholesale
replacement of political figures, a young group of progressives,
led by President Nijaz Djurakovic, came to power in 1989.
When the new Yugoslav State Presidency was chosen in 1989,
students and progressive members of the republic's Socialist
Alliance of working People exerted pressure for popular election
of the new representative from Bosnia and Hercegovina. Although
this did not occur, pressure for democratization was a
significant new phenomenon. On national issues, BosniaHercegovina reflected its own multi-ethnic composition of Serbs,
Croats, and over 30 percent Muslims. The ethnic balance, which
had been maintained by conservative policies until the late
1980s, was threatened by intensification of nationalist movements
elsewhere in the federation. By 1990 the republic found itself
torn and manipulated by the Serb-Slovene and Serb-Croat
conflicts. The official position of Bosnia and Hercegovina in
1990 strongly supported reconciliation of ethnic differences in
the federation, while defending the ethnic individuality of the
republics against homogenization.
Data as of December 1990
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