Nationalist feelings are let loose in Yugoslavia. Especially in Kosovo Serb nationalist are pressing the central authority. Milosevic starts out in Tito's spirit trying to deal with the problems without acknowledging the Kosovo-serbs claim that the troubles are ethnic related, but soon finds that he can build his power base faster by supporting the Serb nationalists and play this against the sitting president of the Yugoslav federation. Rumours of attacks on Serbs in Kosovo increases ethnic frictions. The rethoric between Milosevic in Belgrade and the regional authorities in Kosovo, Croatia and Slovenia gets harsher. Croatia tries to strenghten its independence in the federation. Episodes of violence between Croats and Serbs leads to a state of emergency.