Many conflicts occurred that were both influencing, and a part, of the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In many situations, psychological phenomena such as the bystander effect, foot in the door effect, and obedience to authority, resulted in the deaths of many. The bystander effect, for one, was ever-present in Yugoslav society. As discussed in Section 3, Tito held a prejudice against Croats, and this bias was present in many government actions. This, however, was never questioned outside of Croatia itself, and shows that those who weren’t being persecuted allowed the Croats to take the fall for fascism throughout World War II. Tito’s bias was never curbed, and the bystander effect in this way was a direct influence on the war that occurred …show more content…
This was present in the Bosnian Genocide that occurred as Bosnia attempted to secede from Yugoslavia. That genocide was also exemplary of the foot in the door effect. This is because the Serbs in Bosnia were attempting to slowly but surely not only prevent Bosnia from seceding, but also wished to annex them. The first action taken was simple, but foreshadowed what was to come. The Serbian Democratic Party withdrew from government in Bosnia and set up its own “Serbian National Assembly.” Just two years later, and only two days after Bosnia was officially recognized by the United Nations, Serbia started their attack in May of 1992. They bombed the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, and forced all Bosniak civilians from the cities and into the countryside. These actions were characteristic of an ethnic cleansing, yet neither NATO nor the UN took action. By the time any significant action was taken, it was already the summer of 1995, and Bosniaks had been fighting in the streets, sent to concentration camps, and in some cases, systematically raped. Amid all of this, the only international support received was by the United Nations Protection Force, who was only permitted to feed civilians in war zones. The international community watched on as a genocide occurred, and only took action once some 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in the attack on Srebrenica, and when Bosnian Serbs exploded in a bomb in a crowded, public