Bosnia Genocide Research Paper

After the First World War country was united with other Slav territories to form Yugoslavia. At the time, the population of Bosnia consisted of over 1,300,000 Serbs which were Orthodox Catholic Christians, million Muslim Bosnians and around 700,000 of Croats. They all were strong attached to this land by the historical and local claims. After the death of Josip Broz Tito, elections in 1990 brought nationalists to power in Slovenia, Macedonia and Croatia, which declared independence in 1991 and were recognised internationally. The Leader of Bosnia’s, Alija Izetbegovic called for independence too, and the country was recognised as independent by the USA and the EU in 1992. However, Bosnia’s Serbs weren’t happy because they wanted to be part of “Greater Serbia”. a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist responded to Bosnian’s declaration of independence by attacking and bombarding the capital city, Sarajevo. Serbs shot down civilians in the streets, including over 3,500 children.

Serbians held an “ethnic cleansing” for anyone who was non-Serbian. Most non-Serbians did not correspond with the political and religious background which led to war and the Bosnian Genocide(”Bosnian” 1). The two genocides were both influential in making the world come together and work for the better good, yet they do differ in how they were conducted. Although the genocides of the Jewish ethnicity and Bosnian Muslims have comparisons, there are many differences in the processes on how and why people were killed.

One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after the war controlled them for 45 years. When the Communist system failed, the old rivalries reasserted themselves; and in the early 1990s the nation was rent by secessionist movements and civil war. Within several years these conflicts

The Serbs then dominated Yugoslavia so they then decided to try and expand by setting up Serbian regions in Bosnia. The Bosnian government did not allow that, thus leading to armed conflicts between the Serbs and the non-Serbs. Another major difference was the fact that Hitler started the mass murder within his own country and expanded outward through Imperialism, Bosnia however did not. When the Serbs got control of Yugoslavia they became more of a nation banded together than the Croats and the Slovenes were, so what started off as a war became blown up into a mass-murdering spree.

Also, during this time “Ethnic Fault Lines” were created resulting in stronger violence along these areas. Reference the attached map of Yugoslavia in the Cited Sources section to view the map of ethnic majorities within the Yugoslavian region. This is a perfect example of how all the ethnicities were spread out across the region and not simply contained to one area allowing for the violent ethnic fault lines. Along with the historical perspective of ethnic tensions causing nationalism in Yugoslavia, new evidence from historians have shown that the Bosnian Civil War was not a one-time deal in the area. This had been considered a very active region, in the case of violence, during the 20th century making some historians to think that this conflict was bound to happen as it had occurred various other times in the past. Historically, another reason for the ethnic tensions occurred due to the fall of Communism. Although this is somewhat indirect, different ethnicities side with different governmental views causing deeper tensions to rise after the vacuum of the major world power in the Eastern Europe region. As stated earlier, Slobodan Milosevic believed he could push his agenda without any international policing of his actions due to the recent fall of communism and power vacuum. On this note, governmental influences are also another way that nationalism caused the Bosnian Civil War.

The Bosnian, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina land was involved in an ethical war where ethnic cleansing was seen as a way to solidify the breaks in that region (“Bosnian Genocide”). The trigger of this ethnic war was the break-up of Yugoslavia from one country to three (Bosnia, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina) in 1990 (“Bosnian Genocide”). This rupture of Yugoslavia resulted in the massive dispute between Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians (Bennett). Not long after the war began, the Serbs began executing the Bosnian Muslims through ethnic cleansing, in order to fill the fissure that was created in 1990. The mass execution lasted three years and nine months, and did not end until the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in 1995 (Bennett); by that time, an unforgettable 70,000 Bosnian citizens were executed by the Serbs (Perl 71). If NATO had intervened sooner, perhaps thousands of lives could have been saved and this haunting genocide may have had less of an impact on the world.

Genocide, the planned murder of an entire nation, race, or ethnic group. From March 1, 1992 to December 14, 1995 that exact thing was happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Disagreement between the three main ethic groups (The Serbs, Croats, and the Muslims) proceeded in a genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia. Bosnia is one of several small countries that appeared from the break up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after WW1 by the western allies. In April 1992 the government of the Yugoslavia republic of Bosnia stated its independence from Yugoslavia. Over the next several years, Bosnian Serbs commanded Yugoslavia army and targeted Bosniak (Bosnian Muslims) and Croatian civilians for terrible crimes resulting in the deaths of about 400,000 people. In other words, America should have helped in the Bosnia genocide.

It all began with a new president, Slobodan Milosevic (a Serbian who turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain his power) being elected. He ignited long-standing tensions between the Serbs and the Muslims. When Slovenia and Croatia both declared

Throughout the years there has unfortunately been several instances of genocide and one of the most horrifying and tragic genocides was with the Nazi Holocaust that took place from 1938 until 1945. Another one of the horrifying genocides in history was the Bosnia-Herzegovina genocide that took place from 1992 until 1995. A genocide is essentially a systematic murder. Genocide is basically an attempted murder on individuals based on social or political reasons. Bosnia-Herzegovina was responsible for 200,000 deaths and the Nazi Holocaust was responsible for 6,000,000 deaths! Just because the amount of deaths between the two are drastically different does not mean that they did not both do a tremendous amount of damage and take a great deal of

Nobody chose for it to come to this point, yes there could have been better ways to deal with the disagreement or there were ways to end the genocide before the Bosnians had to rise above. It wasn't fair that the Bosnians just wanted power in their country but they could have confronted the subject differently than just trying to overthrow the already set people in charge. Everyone likes power, but when is it enough to where you should give it up or you have gone too far. If you believe that the way to deal with disagreements is to turn to genocide you shouldn't be in charge at that point you’re over using your power for evil things. In my opinion and beliefs I think that the Bosnians could have waited a little bit to demand power because the cold war. The Serbians could have also given up power because the economy wasn't that good for them and they were just in the cold war which made the Bosnians angered because the Serbians got them in the cold war. It doesn't do much justice for the Serbians saying as they got them involved in the cold war, refused to give up after power, and the genocide was began against the Bosnians. Not only were the Bosnians killed but they were beat, killed, raped and humiliated. They didn't always do a “quick death” they wanted the Bosnians suffering to last (Bosnian Genocide). We notice the genocide but we

Bosnia-Herzegovina was made up of three main ethnic groups, Bosniak Muslim, Serb, and Croat (Bosnia-Herzegovina). Before Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia had a history of political, economic, and cultural conflict. Towards the end of World War II, Tito, a communist, ran Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia’s government fell apart and each nation had its own self-rule to be apart of the

Zvornik and the later genocide around Srebrenica.” Since the returnees were harassed, making the society multiethnic was very difficult. Also since the local security took part in the attacks and genocide, it was hard to unify the country because they supported the ethnic cleansing. The returnees not being able to return to their homes added to Bosnia being ethnically fractured after the war. As expressed by McMahon and Western, “In ethnically fractured postwar Bosnia, however, such decentralization further weakened efforts to build a coherent state.” The ethnic decentralization made it difficult to unify Bosnia since the power was scattered. This split the government along with society, which kept the country fragmented.

Yugoslavia was the only Eastern European country which manages to not fall under the Soviet occupation. The main reasons of this fact are that Yugoslavia was not liberated by the Red Army, but from the Yugoslav partisans. This army was led by communists. In 1945 the leader of the Communist Resistance, Josip Broz Tito, took the control of the country. Tito was not a soviet trained Stalinist; instead he was an independent national leader who did not accept to do as the Moscow wish. Tito was one of the most significant causes why Yugoslavia achieved to maintain her independence from the Soviet Union. Firstly, the relations between Moscow and Belgrade seemed good. Yugoslavia also joined the first Cominform in 1947, which it was held in Belgrade.

The Bosnian War was an international arms conflict that involved 2 main sides, the Republika Srpska, and Herzeg-Bosnia. The Republika Srpska would show very little sympathy towards the Non-Serb population of cities they would occupy. 1995 of the Bosnian War reached its most violent climax, Bosnian Serb Forces in occupied Srebrenica began an ethnic cleansing of the Non-Serb population, and massacred more than 8000 people. Many generals and other people of high class within the Republika Srpska were tried for their actions, but none confessed and denied everything, this is what makes the following person so significant. Dragan Obrenovic, who was the only person who admit guilt for the Genocide and it taking place. The accused, Dragan

Furthermore, these wars cannot be fully understood without a basic knowledge of the former Yugoslavia. Formally known as the Soviet Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it was a federation that was comprised of six socialist republics: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Additionally, two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, were established in Serbia. Many different ethnic groups called Yugoslavia home, namely the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks, Albanians, and Montenegrins. However, the presence of large ethnic minorities across republic lines made things complicated, especially with the advent of rising nationalism among these different peoples. The borders of the republics had originally been of little significance; Josip Tito, the beloved leader of the Communist Party in Yugoslavia, decided the borders with little opposition from anyone, as the federation was supposed to be a centralized “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Only with later decentralization and democratization would any concern for the individual republics and nationalities be voiced and nationalism become an issue. Tito’s death in 1980 seemed to suddenly remind all the Yugoslav peoples that they had in fact retained their separate ethnic identities and that the ethnic identity of Tito’s successor would certainly affect them, whether positively or negatively, and inter-republic relations began deteriorating quickly. Tito and his communist