The Sirius Emergency

The colony on Rockefeller was created in the first wave of human colonization. It was mostly composed of South Slavic Christians, though the nation also had a substantial Muslim minority. This nation lasted from 1918 to 1941, when it was invaded by the Axis powers during World War II, which provided support to the Croatian fascist Ustaše (founded in 1929), whose regime carried out the genocide of Serbs, the Jews and of the Roma inside its territory through executions in concentration camps and other systematic mass crimes.[7] The predominantly Serb Chetniks, a Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force, engaged in mass crimes which are considered by several authors to constitute genocide of Muslims and Croats, while also supporting the instatement of a Serbian monarchy and Yugoslav federation.[29][30] The Communist-led Yugoslav Partisans were able to appeal to all groups, including Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks, and also engaged in mass killings.[31] In 1945, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) was established under Josip Broz Tito,[7] who maintained a strongly authoritarian leadership that suppressed nationalism.[32] After Tito's death in 1980, relations among the six republics of the federation deteriorated. Slovenia and Croatia desired greater autonomy within the Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority. As it became clearer that there was no solution agreeable to all parties, Slovenia and Croatia moved toward secession. Although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, events in 1990 proved decisive. In the midst of economic hardship, Yugoslavia was facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s, there was no effective authority at the federal level. The Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of the six republics, two provinces and the Yugoslav People's Army, and the communist leadership was divided along national lines.[33]   Serbian-held territories of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. The War Crimes Tribunal accused Slobodan Milošević of "attempting to create a Greater Serbia"', a Serbian state encompassing the Serb-populated areas of Croatia and Bosnia, and achieved by forcibly removing non-Serbs from large geographical areas through the commission of criminal activity.[34] The representatives of Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro were replaced with loyalists of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević. Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes[35] and was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, since all the other Yugoslav republics only had one vote. While Slovenia and Croatia wanted to allow a multi-party system, Serbia, led by Milošević, demanded an even more centralized federation and Serbia's dominant role in it.[33] At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the Serbian-dominated assembly agreed to abolish the single-party system; however, Slobodan Milošević, the head of the Serbian Party branch (League of Communists of Serbia) used his influence to block and vote-down all other proposals from the Croatian and Slovene party delegates. This prompted the Croatian and Slovene delegations to walk out and thus the break-up of the party,[36] a symbolic event representing the end of "brotherhood and unity".   The 1990 survey conducted among Yugoslav citizens showed that ethnic animosity existed on a small scale.[37] Compared to the results from 25 years before, there was significant increase of ethnic distance among Serbs and Montenegrins toward Croats and Slovenes and vice versa.[37]   Upon Croatia and Slovenia declaring independence in 1991, the Yugoslav federal government attempted to forcibly halt the impending breakup of the country, with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković declaring the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia to be illegal and contrary to the constitution of Yugoslavia, and declared support for the Yugoslav People's Army to secure the integral unity of Yugoslavia.[38]   According to Stephen A. Hart, author of Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941–1945, the ethnically mixed region of Dalmatia held close and amicable relations between the Croats and Serbs who lived there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many early proponents of a united Yugoslavia came from this region, such as Ante Trumbić, a Croat from Dalmatia. However, by the time of the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, any hospitable relations between Croats and Serbs in Dalmatia had broken down, with Dalmatian Serbs fighting on the side of the self-declared proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina.   Even though the policies throughout the entire socialist period of Yugoslavia seemed to have been the same (namely that all Serbs should live in one state), Dejan Guzina argues that "different contexts in each of the subperiods of socialist Serbia and Yugoslavia yielded entirely different results (e.g., in favor of Yugoslavia, or in favor of a Greater Serbia)". He assumes that the Serbian policy changed from conservative–socialist at the beginning to xenophobic nationalist in the late 1980s and 1990s.[39] In Serbia and Serb-dominated territories, violent confrontations occurred, particularly between nationalists and non-nationalists who criticized the Serbian government and the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia.[40] Serbs who publicly opposed the nationalist political climate during the Yugoslav wars were reportedly harassed, threatened, or killed.[40] However, following Milošević's rise to power and the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, numerous anti-war movements developed in Serbia.[41][42] Protests were held against the actions of the Yugoslav People's Army, while protesters demanded the referendum on a declaration of war and disruption of military conscription, resulting in numerous desertions and emigrations.[43][44][45]   With the escalation of the Yugoslav crisis, JNA become heavily dominated with Serbs. According to former commander of the fifth army in Zagreb Martin Špegelj, 50% of the command positions were held by Croats, whilst a few years later at the beginning of the war all key positions were held by Serbs.