Bosnian Genocide

           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 3^rd, 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.

References:

http://selenasol.com/selena/struggle/bosnia_timeline.html

             http://www.history.com/topics/bosnian-genocide

           http://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Bosnia.shtml

           http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/srebrenica_massacre.html#Spring_1995

           http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/bosnia.htm

           http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-many-people-died-in-bosnian-war.html
and all imges from http://www.google.com/