There is a woman who looks and holds the green covering in the picture. There are more than one green covering near her and commonly, there is a piece of paper attached on the each case. What are those? For the next picture, letters with numbers were written together side by side what are those letters and numbers from?
For the first picture, if you already looked at the first video on the main post, people were carrying exactly the same containers to the picture. Dead bodies from Bosnian Genocide are in those containers. We can assume that the woman in the picture is Muslim as she wears hijab on her. The memorial stone had a list of people who were died in Srebrenica massacre in the second picture. The list of people was founded genetically. A lot of people especially Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina were killed by Bosnian-Serbs during Bosnian Genocide. Srebrenica massacre, part of Bosnian Genocide, caused the most number of killings of people in the shortest time after World War II.
Frankly, Muslims in Bosnia are innocent people; they were fighting for their justice against Serbs. Was there any reason for them to be killed? 7,000 people were killed less than a week and most of them were non-Serbs. Karadzic was and is logical to be arrested and to be convicted. He should face his life in jail and the UN should judge for people who were killed by him and for their family.
During post-Cold War, many atrocious genocides and wars had happened in various continents due to cultural, ethnic, religious, or political disputes in the country (due to the disagreement between two or more groups) or between two neighbored countries. In Europe, a small country located in Eastern Europe called ‘Bosnia-Herzegovina’ experienced a violent mass killing in 1992 April to the end of 1995. Bosnian Genocide (also war) were encouraged to happen after several nations in Balkan states were independent from People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (former Yugoslavia) after the corruption of Soviet Union.
Josip Broz Tito(1892-1980)
When the former Yugoslavia was in control of Balkan countries under Soviet Union, Josip Broz Tito died after his long rule in 1980 and a sense of revolutionary nationalism rose in Balkan states. Countries such as Slovenia and Croatia declared independence the earliest among Balkans and had become independent in June 1991. When Bosnia tried to be independent due to the inspiration from those countries, she finally decided to have a vote for independence to all Bosnians and declared independence on March 3rd, 1992. They desired for independence, however, a little more than 30% of Bosnia-Serbians disagreed, and this was the main reason of internal dissension. The spark finally busted in April (Bosnian War) when nationalist Serbs fired on peaceful demonstrators in Sarajevo.
Bosnian Muslims was the majority of the population on Bosnia (44%), however, after the emigration of Serbs (31%) and Croats (17%) for two decades (1971~1991), more than one ethnicity existed in one nation which was one of the mainsprings of ethnic conflict later. Especially, Bosnian-Serbs wanted to dominate Bosnia with “Serbs” so when the West recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent nation in May 1992, snipers attacked Sarajevo with the support of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic; this was the starting point of ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnian Genocide.
Blue Croats, Green Muslims and Red Serbs
Slobodan Milosevic (1941-2006)
Ethnic cleansing campaign was officially reported in summer 1992. The goal of Milosevic for ethnic cleansing was to remove ALL Bosnian Muslims that lived in Bosnia systematically and make Bosnia as a country with ‘pure’ Serbs. Ethnic cleansing campaign included many forms of violence such as concentration camp, sexual assault, raping, beating, murdering, torturing, robbery, starvation and so on: brutal systems for human to use. Bosnian-Serbs and Serbia cooperated together to destroy Bosnian-Muslims with former Yugoslavian munitions and surrounded Sarajevo. Civilians who were on the street were shot and many of them (approximately a million) were forced to leave their country.
By the end of 1992, the services for water, electricity and gas were not in regular condition. Bosnian-Muslims were in shortage of food also due to the blockade of refugees of Serbs so Clinton sent aid to the cities where UN security declared to be safe in 1993 (enclaves such as Sarajevo, Goradze, Zepa, and Srebrenica called as “safe havens” and these places were protected by the international peacekeepers). Muslims (or original Bosnians) tried to defend for their land against Serbs even sometimes with the help from Croats however in the end of 1993, most of the territory (about 70%) was in control of Serbs, 20% Croats, and the other 10% to Muslims. In 1993 March, the United Nations (or UN) and European Union (EU) offered Vance-Owen peace treaty nevertheless, this didn’t worth because one party (Bosnian-Serbs Parliament) didn’t agree with the land distribution; the boarders should be drawn in Bosnia depending on the location of each ethnicity. There were more peace treaties besides Vance-Owen peace treaty for negotiations but all of them were rejected. As a matter of worse for Bosnian-Muslims, Croats had also become against them: all three parties had to fight against one another. In 1994, the situation was alleviated for Bosnian-Muslims. The fighting between Muslims and Croats stopped and France (had the most UN troops for Bosnia at that time) called NATO for air strikes to pacify the war in Bosnia against Bosnian-Serbs. The United States also helped militarily especially in 1995.
Despite the helps from the UN and the US, some of the areas that were declared as ‘safe’ areas were in danger. In spring 1995, Radovan Karadzic (the leader of Bosnian-Serbs) and Serbs planned to attack one of the safe areas (Srebrenica) in Bosnia in spite of the pressure of international community and peace treaties. Finally in July, they launched attack in safe areas and Dutch peacekeepers in there. Some women were assaulted and raped sexually and men were immediately died due to attacks. This is known as Srebrenica massacre or ‘gender’cide was a part of Bosnian genocide. From Srebrenica massacre, approximately 7,000 or more than 8,000 Muslims died from the attack from Serbs and this is considered as the massacre with the most number of killings after World War II. In the same month, Serbs also stroke Zepa which was another “safe haven”.
After a number of invasions of Serbs to Bosnia, the international community had become more considerate towards the unsolved problem in Bosnia. The UN warned Serbs but they all rejected so NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) cooperated with Bosnian-Muslim and Croat powers for three weeks to bomb three weeks and bombing expanded the genocide (August 1995). Mostly, the economy of the country in the war declines, and Serbia was in the similar situation; she struggled due to the UN trade sanctions and its military forces and ultimately Milosevic decided to join the negotiations in October. In November 1995 after all, the United States escorted the negotiation for peace in Dayton, Ohio (The Dayton Peace Accords): finally implied the end of the conflict.
Radovan Karadzic(1945-)
The number of deaths during the genocide was revealed by a number of groups after the genocide. To generalize the information, around 200,000 people were killed or injured (mostly Muslims) and more or less than 2,000,000 people had become refugees from Bosnian Genocide. Thirteen years after the genocide ended in 2008, Karadzic was arrested and currently facing the trial.
Bosnian Genocide was happened because of the conflicts from the desired independence and caused ethnic cleansing campaign for all Bosnian-Muslims. A lot of Muslims were killed or injured however, they survived from some support from the UN. The genocide lasted for more than three and a half years, and Bosnian-Muslims have a long remained opposition towards Serbs for their country.
Karadzic was arrested three years from now (2008) and he is now facing criminal charge from his crimes in Bosnian Genocide and Srebrenica massacre. In late October 2009, his first trial was set for his eleven war crimes from genocide which were totally against humanity. Many Bosnian-Muslims and Bosnian-Croats even other non-Serb civilians that lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina were killed. Due to him, more than 7,000 people were raped and killed in five days in Srebrenica massacre while he defends himself as if he didn’t planned, ordered, or committed the crimes.
In my point of view, Karadzic shouldn’t defend himself about the war crimes because all people know that he was the former president of Bosnian-Serbs and more than 30% of population in Bosnia (Bosnian-Serbs) was against the independence of Bosnia. As he was the president of Serbia, he should have been logical towards people’s view and acknowledge that the genocide and Muslims, Croats, even non-Serbs death were all because of his plan. Also, based on the response for the video, as he immigrated to Bosnia and had become the president for Bosnian-Serbs, he was responsible to declare independence with Bosnian-Croats and Bosnian-Muslims and don’t start the war or the genocide that will drown people into the disaster. I wonder and if possible, I want to ask him about why he and his Serbs immigrated to Bosnia. Didn’t they immigrate to start a new life in another country? Or, to expand Serbia as a dominant nation? If the latter question was a part of the plan, then why did they start to move to Bosnia-Herzegovina thirty years ago? Unanswered questions for me.
In this video, or a documentary, a man talked about his survival experience in Bosnian Genocide almost thirteen years after the genocide. His name is Huso Mrkulic and he is the Muslim survivor from Bosnian Genocide. He was in danger during Bosnian Genocide; he might have killed by Serbs. He talked about how cruel was the genocide with the killing of people such as children, men and women. The population of Bosnia was 4 million before the genocide and almost half of the population was killed. Although he survived, he also lost a lot of things; he lost his house, his neighbors and some of his family. He considers himself as a lucky survivor from the genocide.
Most of genocides are really cruel with an intense violence. Bosnian Genocide was also really violent among genocides. Men, women and children were systematically killed only because of their religion or race. In my opinion, Muslims don’t have their fault because they fought for their independence against Bosnian-Serbs. Also, Muslims were the group of people who lived since long time ago in Bosnia while the two other races (Serbs and Croats) started to immigrate to there not so long time ago. As there is a proverb such as: “When in Rome, do as Romans do” Serbs and sometimes Croats should have followed the law of the actual Bosnians. I also think living peacefully is logical for them in order not to collapse their economy. The cause is from them so they are responsible to clean up after.
