The Bosnian War
By Parley P Johnson
APA format
Bosnia Herzegovina
Bosnia is located in what was once the country of Yugoslavia. The landscape is very scenic and majestic; the national parks and country side is a beautiful. Bosnia was a melting pot of ideologies both political and religious. The location and political role played a key in its direction. The political situation is also unique; it has a very close three way split between Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The population was 44% Muslim, 31%, the third largest was the Croats, and lastly at 8 % was all others. The Serbs are Orthodox Christians and support Serbia Bosnia’s neighbor to the east The Croats were Catholic and Bosnia neighbor to the north. The Capital Sarajevo
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The ethnic divide has grown and is shaping the future of the conflict. War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. The U.N. issues sanctions on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. The U.N. is trying to defuse the conflict before it get wholly out of control. Bosnia peace efforts fail, and all-out war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, who were previously allied against Serbs, Muslims and Croats. In order to spare the civilian population the UN creates safe zones, place where everyone is safe and the combatants should not attack. They are Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia. According to, Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup Armonk, “The US understood that by 1994 recognized the need for a military-strategic balance between Croatia and Serbia, the partitioning of Bosnia, and denying a military victory for the …show more content…
The rise of nationalist groups, in the void of a strong central government, the nationalists were able to gain ground and push for their own agenda.
The massacre at Srebrenica was one of the worst crimes in the Bosnia War. According to a New York Times article, After the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, which proved key in ending the war? The world had had enough, the Balkans conflict, Bosnia War, the breakup of Yugoslavia. NATO and the US would come to end the conflict.
The outcry of the world was loud and clear. The hind sight is clear that the world acted to slow to prevent the ethnic cleansing that took place. The difficulty lay in how to accomplish the mission with so many players, each having its own agenda. The United Nations and The United States granted recognition to Bosnia in April 1992; this however was not enough to stop the coming
Bosnian Genocide was a terrible act of murder which started when Muslims and Croats voted for independence in referendum that was boycotted by Serbs In 1992.When the European Union recognized Bosnian’s independence the war broke out and Serb’s occupied the country.
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.
The Bosnian-Herzegovina genocide or “ethnic cleansing” went on from April 1992 to December 1995 around the end of the Second World War. When Bosnia became its own independent nation on April 5th 1922 it wanted to “cleanse” its country of any non Serbian residents. The killing of Bosnian Muslims during this time was stated by international tribunals to be an ethnic cleansing however the events that took place in July 1995 in Srebrenica was so horrific it was deemed a genocide. The United Nations should have intervened a lot sooner than they did and should have sent more than just peace keepers to protect the human beings that were being slaughtered.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched a bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serb army; more than two hundred thousand people had died and 2.3 million people had lost their homes. After these deaths, in October 1995 (Document J), a cease-fire had come along with a formal peace agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio in December 1995. Although hundreds of people were killed, the signing and creation of this peace treaty will be a stand to nations all throughout the world to show there is always the possibility for a rainbow to appear after a chaotic storm. This peace agreement not only ended the war, it also served to build a democratic, multi-ethnic state to prevent further acts of genocide from occurring as well as working their best to end more acts from taking
The phrase became traditional in the follow-up of Serbian assaults on ethnic Bosnians during the Bosnian War. The crusade of the Bosnian War in 1992 lead the bigotry to a global dispute, as the Croats enforced ethnic cleansing protocols against the Muslim Bosnians. A number of genocides in 1994 and 1995 supported the continued entanglement of NATO air strikes in both applying a no fly zone and establishing the Serbian air force. United Nations arbitrators on the ground missed the opportunity to fix up the situation earlier. A heavy occupation force enforcing the end of the conflict brought 60,000 troops to the area. These crisis represents a criterion within the discussion about military force to avert a massive ethnic cleansing.
Twenty years after the largest mass murder on European soil since the Third Reich, one question still remains unanswered. How did this happen when the eyes of the world were watching? Why were death squads able to, unchecked, massacre more than 8,000 men and boys in a UN protected “safe zone”? According to eyewitness accounts of survivors, “They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity” (International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia). The sole male survivor in his entire family, Mevludin Oric recounted how he lay for hours under the corpse of his nephew pretending to be dead while death squads searched the killing fields. “I closed my eyes...And for a few seconds before the expected shot, I wonder what it is like in heaven, or in hell.”(NBC)
On April 6,1992 the Bosnian War began,leading to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbian forces invaded Bosnia,throwing many people out of their homes and displacing them throughout the country. The actions of the soldiers traumatized the people of Bosnia in numerous ways, causing peril throughout the country.
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
A genocide is a intended killing upon a large group of people, especially upon a certain ethnic group. The genocide in Bosnia, also known as The Bosnian War started in 1992 after Bosnian government declared independence from Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs did not like the idea of a free nation with majority of the citizens being Muslim. Serbs killed approximately 100,000 croats and muslims. The Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina is similar to the Holocaust because both involved the murders of certain cultures. This was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust (Bosnia-Herzegovina).
In his “Safe Area Gorazde” Joe Sacco describes his experience visiting a Muslim enclave during the Bosnian War of 1991-1995. Tragically, this work is based on testimonies of residents of Gorazde, allegedly a UN-protected area where Bosnian Muslims are able to take refuge to avoid the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Serbian army. Gorazde is anything but protected which Sacco demonstrates throughout the book by ridiculing the UN and the US who are able to and responsible for protecting the residents of such enclaves, but instead turn a blind eye to what was going on. “…the U.N. extended safe area status to other Bosnian enclaves, including Gorazde. But the U.N. had yet to work out what the concept
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
Known as Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, the Yugoslav Wars (also known as the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, the Yugoslav Civil War, or the War in the Balkans) were a series of wars fought in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Though the entire conflict can be divided up into four distinct wars, they are related due to their common origin and the presence of the same ethnoreligious groups in the multiple wars. These wars have become notorious due to the atrocious war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides.
This could have been one of the reasons why there was a large amount of humanitarian intervention in Bosnia. (Snow, 2008) The United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United States (US) all made multiple attempts at intervention in Bosnia. A large number of them were not completely successful. The war ended when with a peace agreement mediated by the US.
The land of Kosovo has been plagued with tension for hundreds of years being claimed by several surrounding countries. The two biggest contenders, Albanians in Kosovo and Serbia have been fighting for the land, which culminated in a full war from 1998-1999. The war brought international attention to the war crimes committed by both sides, and proved that the two countries had years to go before coming to a solution. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) led by Kosovo Albanians, and the Serbian militia led by President Slobodan Milošević committed heinous crimes against their enemies. Crimes range from ethnic cleansing to rape and destruction of whole villages. The violence created a serious refugee problem that is still relevant today.
As one of the most troubled region of the Balkans in Central Europe, the Balkans were affected by strife and hostility. The problems in the Balkans not only affected the people living in this region, but also other large European powers that fueled many of the major conflicts and events of Europe at the time. The First Balkan War and its profound effects on European history will be discussed, while also exploring the future conflicts in both the Balkans and the rest of Europe.