There was plenty of hate and ethnic tension between Serbs and Croats in Croatia long before the war started and Milosevic was in power. The Croat diaspora in Australia, Canada, US, and other places committed a string of terrorist attacks and activity for the cause of independent Croatia in the decades before the '90s wars. They were vehemently anti-Yugoslavia. These people started coming back to Croatia and Bosnia a couple years before the war started and caused problems. This is from a story about descendents of Serbs from Montengro in Juneau, Alaska. They mention travelling back to Yugoslavia and noticing the signs of ethnic tension and hate back in
1985 Croatia:
http://www.juneauempire.com/Archive/November98/111598/stories/111598/serbs.html In 1985, the last time the Dapceviches visited Yugoslavia, they saw a portent of the ethnic wars to come - a sign outside a Croatian restaurant that said ``No Serbs Allowed.''
``The place was beginning to fall apart,'' said Natalie Dapcevich Alton...
I don't doubt that there was a lot of ethnic tension prior to Milosevic. I know the history of the Balkan wars. My point is that Milosevic was the first major communist leader to light the fuze of nationalism in the powderkeg of ethnic rivalries and greivences.