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| 1991, Feb. 20 |
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| Slovenia voted for secession from Yugoslavia. | 1 |
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| March 9 |
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| Severe political crisis ensued after the suppression in Belgrade of an anticommunist demonstration. Slobodan Milosevic, hard-line leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and president of Serbia, began to try to undermine the power of the Collective State Presidency by influencing representatives to resign. Presidents from Montenegro and Vojvodina, an autonomous Serbian province, withdrew from the collective because of its problems. Milosevic implied that military intervention was the only thing that could save the Yugoslav federation. | 2 |
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| March 28 |
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| The presidents of Yugoslavia's six constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro) began a series of meetings to negotiate Yugoslavia's future. | 3 |
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| April 1 |
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| The self-proclaimed Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina, made up of municipalities in Croatia with a majority Serb population, seceded unilaterally from Croatia and decided to become part of Serbia. The Serbian Assembly did not endorse this move. | 4 |
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| April 16 |
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| Nearly 700,000 textile, leather, and metallurgical workers went on strike in Serbia for guaranteed minimum wages. The government agreed within hours, and the strike was called off after 24 hours. | 5 |
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| May |
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| Ethnic Serbs living in Croatia voted overwhelmingly for union with Serbia. | 6 |
| Civil war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia: the deteriorating federal-republic relations were exacerbated in May 1991 when Serbia and Montenegro failed to endorse Stjepan Mesic, a Croat, as head of the Collective State Presidency. Yugoslavia slid into civil war when Croatia and Slovenia declared independence on June 25, 1991, and the federal government refused to recognize them. Fighting began in Croatia and Slovenia between the Serbian-dominated federal army and the republics, and between ethnic groups. Although a cease-fire was declared in Slovenia in July, fighting continued in Croatia, where Serbian soldiers backed by the federal army had taken almost one-third of Croatian territory by Sept. 1991. In the ensuing months and years, several attempts by the European Community to broker a peace failed. | 7 |
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| May 9 |
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| The Collective State Presidency gave the Yugoslav National Army greater power within Croatia because of the intensified fighting between Serbs and Croats within the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina. | 8 |
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| Aug. 13 |
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| A Serbian Autonomous Region of Western Slavonia was established. | 9 |
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| Sept |
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| Croatia lost almost one-third of its territory to Serbian nationalist forces as the civil war escalated. The Yugoslav National Army now openly identified itself with the Serbian nationalists, but was growing weaker because non-Serbs refused to join. | 10 |
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| Oct. 22 |
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| Kosovo, a province of Serbia, passed a referendum for sovereignty with 87 percent voter turnout and 99 percent of voters in favor of the referendum. | 11 |
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| Nov. 27 |
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| The UN Security Council began preparing to deploy peacekeeping troops as requested by both Serbia and Croatia. | 12 |
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