Essay on The Bosnian War: the Fight for Independence

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.

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

BOOM, Boom, boom! Loud, long, lethal shots that reverberated through the dark valley, that was filled with the blood of innocent humans. There, the brutally murdered, bloody bodies decorated the city with death. The Serbians, the Bosnians’ neighbors to the east, did not approve of the Bosnians’ nearly unanimous vote for independence. They were entitled to their opinion, however their retaliation was inhumane and unnecessary. They initiated a disastrous civil war, which was the cause of extensive death and the humiliation of many Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). The Bosnian Genocide had a devastating background, mortifying massacres, and an aftermath that can still be felt today.

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.

In simpler words, we people are evil and automatically judge others by their characteristics with absolutely no mercy. Of course not everyone goes as far as performing mass killings, but people do evaluate others on the most minute and basic features a person obtains. Classifying others by their appearance is what eventually leads to massacres and ‘ethnic cleansing.’ ‘Ethnic cleansing’ is a softer term used in replacement of ‘eliminating a portion of an ethnic group to get others to evacuate.’ Bosnia is one country guilty of committing this act. “(...) genocidal acts were used to attempt to instill the fear and devastation necessary to get the Muslims to leave their land and take refuge elsewhere, but that complete extermination was never the goal,” said by Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. Another wicked performance of genocide was the ‘Tutsis in Rwanda’ debacle. The Tutsis is one of the many ethnic groups that are located in Rwanda. Basically, if you were just chilling like a villain and a government official thought you were Tutsi, you would need to present an identification card representing you as a Tutsi or not. If you were Tutsi or regretfully not carrying your card, you were generally killed on the spot. Overall, people are cruel and brutal for killing numerous people based on their ethnicity, but

Bosnia breaking away from Yugoslavia is the catalyst for this genocide. When they broke away, the Serbs living in Bosnia didn’t have the population power, political power, or religious power. They figured that if they just took out all of the Bosniaks, (who had the majority power at the time), then they would be better off. So, that’s what they did. They began their extermination process in early May of 1992 by attacking a Bosniak-dominated town.

They occur and we neglect to notice the unearned inequity. Even though genocide is difficult encounter as actuality it is. The Bosnian genocide was a heartbreaking event that caused misery and loss of lives to 100,000 with 80,000 being of the Bosnian culture (Bosnia-Herzegovina). March 1, 1992-December 14, 1995 35 dreadful months for the Bosnians. If you think of all the terrifying things done to them they would sometimes rather be dead than alive. Could imagine being in so much agony you would wish you were dead. The perpetrators, the Serbians were making an effort to exterminate the Bosnians. They were stopped by the Bosnians who fought for their lives. This would be recognized as genocide because it shares several characteristics with

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 Albanians were the majority and the Serbians being the minority. In this situation, the Serbians oppressed the Albanians. In retaliation, the Albanians formed a terrorist group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which was a terrorist group that fought for the rights of the Albanians. The various actions taken by the KLA caused NATO involvement. Their involvement required a series of air raids and bombings to flush the Serbian people out of Kosovo. However, the story gets much deeper than that.

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.

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.

It is very difficult to point out a single major reason that affected the collapse of Yugoslavia because there were so many, that’s why different people have different opinions towards this issue as for what reason might have had the most influence. Explanations for Yugoslavias’ disintegration start from cultural reasons, continuing to religious and then oppressed rights between the different groups within the nation and so on.