|
Facts about the bosnian warThe beginning of the Bosnian War began at the end of the Second World War, the Balkan states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia became a part of the Federal’s Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia. After the death of Yugoslavia’s long-time leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, growing nationalism in the different republics and threatened to split their union apart. This process intensified after the mid-1980s with the rise of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who helped foment discontent between Serbians in Bosnia and Croatia and their Croatian, Bosniak and Albanian neighbors. In 1991, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Croatia declared their independence; during the war in Croatia that followed the Serb majority Yugoslav National Army supported Serbian Separatists there in their brutal clashes with Croatian Forces.
In Bosnia, Muslims represented the majority by 1971. More Serbs and Croats emigrated over the next 2 decades, and in 1991 Bosnia’s population of around 4 million people was 44 percent Bosniak, 31 percent Serbs, and 17 percent Croats. When an election was held in the late 1990’s resulted in a collation government split between parties representing the three ethnicities and led by Bosniak Alija Izetbegovic. As tensions started to ride inside and outside the country, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his Serbian democratic party withdrew from the government and set up their own “Serbian National Assembly” On March 3, 1992, after a referendum vote (which Karadzic's party blocked in many Serb-populated areas), President Izetbegovic proclaimed Bosnia's independence.
Far from wanting independence for Bosnia, Bosnian Serbs wanted to be part of a Serb dominated State in the Balkans – the “greater Serbia” that Serbian separatists had long envisioned. In early May of 1992, two days after the United States and the European Community recognized Bosnia’s Independence, Bosnian Serb Forces (with backing of Milosevic) and the Yugoslav Army launched their offensive with a bombardment of Bosnia’s Capital, Sarajevo. They attacked Bosniak dominated towns in eastern Bosnia, forcibly expelling Bosniak civilians from the region in a brutal process that later was identified as “ethnic cleansing”.
Though Bosnian government forces tried to defend the territory (sometimes with the help of the Croatian Army) Bosnian Serb forces were in control of nearly 75% of the country by the end of 1993, and Karadzic’s party had set up the Republika Srpska in the east. Most Bosnian Croats had left the country, while a significant Bosniak population remained in only small towns. Several peace proposals were made between a Croatian-Bosniak federation and Bosnian Serbs failed when the Serbs refused to give up any territory. The United Nations (U.N.) refused to intervene in any conflict in Bosnia, but a campaign spearheaded by its high Commissioner for Refugees provided humanitarian aid to many displaced, malnourished and injured victims. By the summer of ’95, three towns in eatern Bosnia – Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde – remained under control of the Bosnian government. The U.N. had declared these enclaves “safe havens” in 1993, to be disarmed and protected by international peacekeeping forces. On july 11th, however, Bosnian Serb forces also separated Bosniak families sending the woman and girls on buses to Bosnian-held territory. Some of the woman were sexually assaulted or raped, while the men and boys who remained behind were either killed immediately or sent to mass killing camps. |