Bosnian War 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

As Bosnia pursued the path of its neighbors: Croatia and Slovenia by declaring independence from the former Yugoslavia, which was becoming very unstable and impoverished, the Serbians were determined to stop them, and they did so by beginning a three-year war that would stain the peaceful hills of Bosnia with blood. Yugoslavia, a communist country, which spanned from Slovenia in the north to Macedonia in the south, had been rapidly declining economically. In 1990, Croatia and Slovenia held successful votes for independence from Yugoslavia, and in December of 1991 they were officially declared separate nations. Bosnia declared itself a separate nation on March 3, 1992 after the results of their referendum for independence. About a month later, on April 7, 1992, the United States and the European

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 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.

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.

After Bosnia-Herzegovina became independent, Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic set up his own government. Known as the “Serbian National Assembly” (“Bosnian Genocide” par. 3), this government was loyal to Yugoslavia. Backed by the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Karadzic had a vision of both “Bosnia and Croatia becoming part of a larger Serbian state. In 1992,

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

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

Kosovo used to be part of Yugoslavia, but it was an autonomous province within Serbian borders. It had its own governing body, which could make its own decisions, but there was still tension between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians. After the break up of Yugoslavia, Albanians of Kosovo wanted independence, but Slobodan Milošević took away their autonomy, which led Albanian separatists to declare Kosovo independent, but it was not officially recognized (Chronology of Events