Who is to be blamed for the Yugoslav wars?

[Communix]

I'm curious about what foreign comrades know about Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars.
Do people here generally have a basic knowledge on the issue?
How much of a role did , in your opinion, foreign (Western) powers play in all that?
Which "side" is the "most responsible" according to you (assuming there is such a side of course)?

Thanks for your responses.

[ridethejetski]

The wars of the 1990s are way to complicated to simply blame one group.

You can heap blame on the National Elites in all the republics for fostering and manipulating nationalism in their ethnic fiefdoms. Or you can blame Tito's decentralisation for creating the possibility of this. Serbs became increasingly nationalist in the late 1980s. But then Croatia had seen a rise of nationalism also since the Croatian Spring of '71 and the Serbo-Croat language dispute a few years prior. Slovenia walked out the a congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party, signally the end of the unifying political force amongst the republics in Yugoslavia, although Milosovic had through manipulation and coercion ensured that Slovenia was consistently voted down in the congress, and so the Slovenes left through frustration.

In terms of causing the start of the initial break up, Western powers played little role. It mostly took them by surprise i think. Although Germany could be blamed for precipitating the decline by recognising the states that succeeded from Yugoslavia. The role of the West came mostly after the break up began, however.