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Yugoslavia INTERNAL SECURITY
The internal security situation in Yugoslavia threatened
national security in 1990. Internal ethnic tensions were a
potential hindrance to defense against external threats. As was
demonstrated in World War II, such discord could be exploited by
an aggressor to overcome the Yugoslav armed forces and occupy the
country. Even without external pressures, open civil war among
different nationalities seemed a real possibility in 1990. Ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo, Croats, and Slovenes felt that internal
security provisions were applied against them with unwarranted
severity. After the fall of East European communist regimes in
1989, the internal forces aroused by such suspicions and
resentments overshadowed any external threat to national
security.
Although ordinary crime was an increasing problem in Yugoslav
society of the 1980s, political crime or dissidence was more
widely publicized. Dissident activities ranged from peaceful
protest and publication to the sensational politically motivated
violence, assassination, and terrorism that had marked the
country's history
(see
The Public and Political Decision Making
, ch. 4). In the 1980s, nationalism was the force behind the most
visible dissident activity. Deemed a threat to the unity of the
Yugoslav federation, the advocacy of nationalism was officially
considered criminal. Military courts exercised jurisdiction in
all cases of dissidence, because all forms of such activity were
considered a threat to national security. In the 1980s, civilian
internal security forces proved unable to manage large-scale
political unrest effectively; they depended increasingly on YPA
intervention in internal security matters.
Data as of December 1990
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