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The Bosnian War is the common name for an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 6 April 1992 to 14 September 1995. The war lasted little more than three years and resulted in roughly 200,000 people killed and 2 million more displaced, according to original estimates. More recent reports place the figures at 105,000 killed, over 40,000 raped, and 1.8 million displaced. The war was caused by a complex combination of political, social, and security crises that followed the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism in former Yugoslavia. The war officially ended with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Paris on September 21, 1995.
Political situation before the war
| War Sides |
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Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Serbia and Montenegro (Republika Srpska, Republika Srpska Krajina)
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Croatia (Herceg-Bosna)
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Western Bosnia
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| UNPROFOR |
| NATO |
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is closely related to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist system, which in turn was part of the wider changes that were taking place following the end of the Cold War. In the case of Yugoslavia, the national Communist party was losing its ideological potency under the onslaught of nationalist and separatist ideologies towards the end of 1988 and start of 1989. This change was particularly noticeable in Serbia and Croatia, somewhat less so in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a still lesser extent in Slovenia and Macedonia.
This process accelerated with the entrance of Slobodan Milošević onto the political scene in Serbia, a man who began his political path by responding to the awakening of nationalistic ideology and positioning himself as a moral leader of the Serbs in Kosovo by 1989. Milosevic’s political aims were to consolidate his own power and assert domination over the Yugoslavian Federation, including the domination of Serbia as its most populous republic, thus cementing a firm control of Serbian politics.
In order to achieve his goal, Milosevic choreographed several processes which led to the installment of his political cabinet primarily in Vojvodina and Montenegro. The crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the overturning of the government of Kosovo which had Albanian majority. Following these processes, Milosevic firmly held control over nearly half of Yugoslavia, and with additional votes he easily influenced future decisions of federal government. This situation led to reactions of other republics beginning with Slovenia.
At the 14th Congress of the Communist party, held on 20 January 1990, Milosevic for the first time applied his dominance by obstructing many constitutional amendments that the Slovenian delegation was proposing in an attempt to re-establish the balance of power in the Federation. Congress ended with the Slovenian and Croatian delegations abandoning the meeting, which could be characterized as the beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
The crisis turned acute as nationalistic elements attained power in order to counter the politics of Milosevic, among whom the Croatian Franjo Tudjman was most prominent. Slovenia and Croatia shortly after began the process towards independence, which led to armed conflict. Armed conflict was especially prevalent in Croatia, an area that had a substantial Serb population.
Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serb - red
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green
Split control - white
The first casualty in Bosnia is a point of contention between Serbs and Bosniaks. Serbs claim this was Nikola Gardović, a groom's father who was killed at a Serb wedding procession on the first day of the referendum, on February 29, 1992 in Sarajevo's old town Baščaršija. Bosniaks meanwhile consider the first casualty of the war to be Suada Dilberović, who was shot during a peace march by unidentified gunmen on April 5.
Note that this was not actually the start of the war-related activities on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On September 30, 1991, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) destroyed a small village of Ravno located in Herzegovina and inhabited by Croats during the course of its siege of the city of Dubrovnik (which was on the territory of Croatia itself). On September 19, the JNA moved some extra troops to the area around the city of Mostar, which was publicly protested by the local government.
Fearing that the Serbs are preparing the occupation of whole Bosnia and Herzegovina (so-called "Greater Serbia") on November 18, 1991 the Croats of Herzegovina, formed the "Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia" (Hrvatska Zajednica Herceg-Bosna) as an national supra-organization that aimed to protect their interests.
The Yugoslav People's Army was deployed around Bosnia and Herzegovina and tried to take control of all major geostrategic points as soon as the independence was declared in April 1992. The Croats organized a military formation of their own called the Croatian Defense Council (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane, HVO), the Bosniaks mostly organized into the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Bosne i Hercegovine, Armija BiH), while the Serbs participated in the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske, VRS). In some places, smaller paramilitary units were active, such as the Serb "White Eagles" (Beli Orlovi), Bosniak "Patriotic League"(Patriotska Liga) and "Green Berets" (Zelene Beretke), or Croat "Croatian Defense Forces" (Hrvatske Obrambene Snage).
The war between the three constitutive nations turned out to be probably the most chaotic and bloody war in Europe since World War II. Numerous cease-fire agreements were signed, only to be broken again when one of the sides felt it was to their advantage. The United Nations repeatedly but unsuccessfully attempted to stop the war and the much-touted Vance-Owen Peace Plan made little impact.
In June 1992, the United Nations Protection Force which had originally been deployed in Croatia, had its mandate extended into Bosnia and Herzegovina, initially to protect the Sarajevo International Airport. In September, the role of the UNPROFOR was expanded in order to protect humanitarian aid and assist in the delivery of the relief in the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as aid in the protection of civilian refugees when required by the Red Cross.
Initially it was Bosniaks and Croats together against the Serbs on the other side. The Serbs had the upper hand due to heavier weaponry (despite less manpower) and established control over most of the Serb-populated rural and urban regions excluding the larger towns of Sarajevo and Mostar. The Serb forces received the most accusations of genocide – cf. Bosnian Genocide.
Most of the capital Sarajevo was held by the Bosniaks and in order to prevent the Bosnian army from being deployed out of the town, the Bosnian Serb Army surrounded it (alternatively, the Bosnian Serb Army situated itself in the ares surrounding Sarajevo which were all mainly populated by Serbs -- the so-called Ring around Sarajevo had very little non-Serb population, adding further to the confusion stemming from the attempts to give a clear-cut picture of the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina), deploying troops and artillery in the surrounding hills. They imposed a blockade on all traffic in and out the city on May 2, 1992, starting what was to be known as the siege of Sarajevo.
The Bosnian Serbs constantly bombarded the civilians of all ethnicities in the city. They held on to a few Sarajevo suburbs (Grbavica and parts of Dobrinja), a part of which were also under control of the Bosnian government forces. The civilian death count in Sarajevo would pass 12,000 by the end of the war.
To make matters even worse, in 1993, after the failure of the so-called Vance-Owen peace plan which practically intended to divide the country into three ethnically pure parts, an armed conflict sprung between Bosniak and Croat units in a virtual territorial grab. The Croats and Bosniaks began fighting over the 30 percent of Bosnia they held. This caused the creation of even more ethnic enclaves and even further bloodshed. It was later established that Bosnian Croat military actions were directly supported by the government of Croatia which made this also an international conflict . At that time about 70% of the country was in Serb control, about 20% in Croat and 10% in Bosniak (which represented 44% of population before the war).
Mostar was also surrounded by the Croat forces from three sides for nine months, and much of its historic city was destroyed by deliberate shelling by the Croats including the famous Old Bridge.
In an attempt to protect civilians, UNPROFOR's role was further extended in 1993 to protect the "safe havens" that it had declared around a number of towns including Sarajevo, Goražde and Srebrenica.
Eventually even NATO got involved when its jets shot down four Serb aircraft over central Bosnia on February 8 1994, in what was supposed to be a UN declared "no-fly zone"; this was the alliance's first use of force since it was founded in 1949.
In March 1994, Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia signed the Washington peace agreement, creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . This narrowed the field of warring parties down to two.
A mass killing, widely considered the largest in Europe since World War II, happened in July 1995. Serb troops under general Ratko Mladić occupied the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, after which 7779 Bosniak males were killed (See the Srebrenica Massacre article for details).
The war continued through most of 1995, and with Croatia taking over the Serb Krajina in early August, the Bosniak-Croat alliance gained the initiative in the war, taking much of western Bosnia from the Serbs. At that point, the international community pressured Milošević, Tuđman and Izetbegović to the negotiation table and finally the war ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement signed on November 21, 1995 (the final version was signed December 14, 1995 in Paris). Æ
Casualties
| Total 93,837 |
Bosniaks | 63,687 | 67.9% |
| Serbs | 24,216 | 25.8% | |
| Croats | 5,057 | 5.4% | |
| other | 877 | 0.9% | |
| Total civilians 34,610 |
Bosniaks | 30,514 | 88.2% |
| Croats | 2,076 | 5.9% | |
| Serbs | 1,973 | 5.7% | |
| others | 47 | 0.2% | |
| Total soldiers 54,223 |
Bosniaks | 30,173 | 55.6% |
| Serbs | 21,399 | 39.5% | |
| Croats | 2,619 | 4.8% | |
| others | 32 | 0.1% | |
| unconfirmed | 4,000 |
The death toll after the war was originally estimated at 200,000 by the Bosnian government. This figure is still quoted most often by the Western media.
The United Nations' agencies had previously estimated 278,000 dead and missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They also recorded around 1,325,000 refugees and exiles.
Research done by the International Criminal Tribunal in 2004 determined a more precise number of 102,000 deaths and estimated the following breakdown: 55,261 were civilians and 47,360 were soldiers. Of the civilians, 1,973 were Bosnian Serbs while 30,514 were Bosnian Muslims and 1,973 Bosnian Croats. Of the soldiers, 21,399 were Bosnian Serbs, 2,619 were Bosnian Croats, and 30,173 were Bosnian Muslims.
The most recent figures come from the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo, which was working closely with the aforementioned ICTY. The table to the right demonstrates their numbers as they were released in December 2005 with about 95% of the research complete.
Gallery
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Civilian cars cross the Neretva on a UN pontoon bridge built beside the destroyed bridge
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French soldiers of the IFOR near a destroyed church on the Sarajevo-Mostar road. Many mosques were also destroyed
See also
- High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
- The Banja-Luka babies tragedy
- Operation Deliberate Force
- Siege of Sarajevo
- Srebrenica massacre
- Bosnian Genocide
- Markale
- Omarska camp
- Manjača camp
- Trnopolje camp