Bosnian War

From New World Encyclopedia
Revision as of 21:26, 13 July 2006 by Ravil Kayumov (talk | contribs) (dates)

Template:History of Bosnia and Herzegovina The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (also referred to as: Bosnian Conflict, Aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bosnian Civil War) was an armed conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995. The war involved several ethnically defined factions within Bosnia and Herzegovina, each of which claimed to represent one of the country's constitutive peoples: Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serbs), Herzeg-Bosnia (Bosnian Croats), the remnants of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (predominantly Bosniaks) and the lesser faction in Western Bosnia (Bosniaks or Muslims by nationality). These factions changed their objectives and allegiances several times at various stages of the war. (See: Parties Involved)

Since the war in Bosnia is a consequence of events in the wider region of former Yugoslavia, and due to the involvement of neighboring countries Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro, there is an ongoing debate about whether the conflict was a civil war or an aggression. Bosniaks typically claim that the war was an aggression from Serbia, while Serbs hold the view that it was a civil war involving only Bosnia's constituent nations. The involvement of NATO, during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force against the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska make this war an internationalized conflict.

A trial is ongoing before the International Court of Justice, following a suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia for genocide (see Bosnian genocide case at the International Court of Justice).

The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995 [1]. The peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalized on 21 December 1995. The accords are known as the Dayton Agreement.

The most recent research places the number of victims at around 100,000–110,000 killed (civilians and military)[2] [3] [4], and 1.8 million displaced.

Political situation before the war

Dissolution of Yugoslavia

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist system at the end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, the national Communist party, officially called Alliance or League of Communists of Yugoslavia, was losing its ideological potency, while the nationalist and separatist ideologies were on the rise in the late 1980s. This was particularly noticeable in Serbia and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a lesser extent in Slovenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

File:Ethnic composition in yugoslavia.jpg
Ethnic Composition of Yugoslavia in 1991

In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution. This allowed the Serbian republic's government to re-assert effective power over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Until that this point, their decision making was independent. Each also had a vote on the Yugoslav federal level Template:Citationneeded. Serbia, under president Slobodan Milošević, thus gained control over three out of eight votes in the Yugoslav presidency. With additional votes from Montenegro and, occasionally, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia was thus able to heavily influence decisions of the federal government. This situation led to objections in other republics and calls for reform of the Yugoslav Federation.

At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, on 20 January 1990, the delegations of the republics could not agree on the main issues in the Yugoslav federation. As a result, the Slovenian and Croatian delegates left the Congress. The Slovenian delegation, headed by Milan Kučan demanded democratic changes and a looser federation, while the Serbian delegation, headed by Milošević, blanketly opposed this. This is considered the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia.

Moreover, nationalist parties attained power in other republics. Among them, the Croatian Franjo Tuđman's Croatian Democratic Union was the most prominent. On December 22, 1990, the Parliament of Croatia adopted the new Constitution, taking away some of the rights from the Serbs granted by the previous Socialist constitution. This created ground for nationalist action among the indigenous Serbs of Croatia. Furthermore, Slovenia and Croatia shortly after began the process towards independence, which led to a short armed conflict in Slovenia, and all-out war in Croatia, in the areas that had a substantial Serb population.

The pre-war Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

File:Bih Stan 1991.GIF
The distribution of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991. Bosnian Serbs are shown in red, Bosniaks/Bosnian Muslims in green, and Bosnian Croats in blue. The post-Dayton Inter-Entity Boundary Line is shown in white.
File:Ethnic relations 1991.GIF
The distribution of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991 by municipalities. Bosnian Serbs are shown in red, Bosniaks/Bosnian Muslims in green, and Bosnian Croats in blue. The post-Dayton Inter-Entity Boundary Line is shown in white.

On the first multi-party elections that took place in November 1990 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the three largest ethnic parties in the country won: the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, the Serbian Democratic Party and the Croatian Democratic Union.

After the elections, they formed a coalition government. The primary motivation behind this union was to maintain an atmosphere of harmony and tolerance and further their common goal to rule as a democratic alternative to the Socialist government that preceded them Template:Citationneeded.

Parties divided the power along the ethnic lines so that the President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a Bosniak, president of the Parliament was a Bosnian Serb and the prime minister a Croat.

Independence referendum in Bosnia and Herzegovina

After Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina organized a referendum on independence as well. The decision of the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on holding the referendum was taken after the majority of Serb members had left the assembly in protest.

These Bosnian Serb assembly members invited the Serb population to boycott the referendum held on February 29 and March 1 1992. The turnout in the referendum was 64-67% and the vote was 99.43% in favor of independence. Independence was declared on March 5 1992 by the parliament. The referendum and the murder of a member of a wedding procession on the day before the referendum was utilized by the Serb political leadership as a reason to start road blockades in protest.

Establishment of the "Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina"

The Bosnian Serb members of parliament, consisiting mainly of the Serb Democratic Party members, including some other party representatives (which would form the "Independent Members of Parliament Caucus"), abandoned the Bosnian parliament, and formed the Assembly of Serbian People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on October 24, 1991, which marked the end of the tri-ethnic coaltion that governed after the elections in 1990. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 9, 1992, which became Republika Srpska in August 1992. The official aim of this act, stated in the original text of the Constitution of Republika Srpska, later amended, was to preserve the Yugoslav federation.

Establishment of the "Croat Community of Herzeg-Bosnia"

On November 18, 1991 the Croats of Herzegovina, formed the "Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia" (Hrvatska Zajednica Herceg-Bosna) as means of "self-organization" of the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (On 28 August 1993, the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia declared itself the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, after the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic entities in the talks in Geneva, in the midst of the war between Croats and Bosniaks.)

Cutileiro-Carrington Plan

The Carrington-Cutileiro peace plan, named for its creators Lord Peter Carrington and Portuguese Ambassador José Cutileiro, resulted from the EU-hosted peace conference held in September 1991 in an attempt to prevent Bosnia and Herzegovina sliding into war. It proposed ethnic power-sharing on all administrative levels and the devolution of central government to local ethnic communities. However, all Bosnia and Herzegovina's districts would be classified as Bosniak, Serb or Croat under the plan, even where ethnic majority was not evident. Initially the plan was accepted by all three sides but eventually Alija Izetbegović (Bosnian Muslim leader and President of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the majority Bosniak-Muslim Party of Democratic Action) withdrew his consent.

The War

General Information

Parties involved
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH)
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (MUP BiH)
Territorial Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina (TO)
Hrvatske obrambene snage (HOS)
Hrvatsko vijeće obrane (HVO) [1992-1993;1994-1995]
Croatian Army (HV) [1992-1993;1994-1995]
Paramilitary units: Green Berets, Patriotic League
Republika Srpska
Army of Republika Srpska (VRS)
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA)
Paramilitary units: Arkan’s Tigers, White Eagles, Scorpions
Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia
Hrvatsko vijeće obrane (HVO) [1993-1994]
Croatian Army (HV) [1993-1994]
Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia
Paramilitary units: Abdić's Volunteers
UNPROFOR (Peacekeeping forces)
NATO

The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officially left Bosnia and Herzegovina briefly after independence was declared in April 1992. However, most of the command chain, weaponry, and higher ranked military personnel, including general Ratko Mladić, remained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Army of Republika Srpska. The Croats organized a defensive military formation of their own called the Croatian Defense Council (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane, HVO) as the armed forces of the Herzeg-Bosnia, the Bosniaks mostly organized into the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Republike Bosne i Hercegovine, later Armija BiH). This army had a number of non-Bosniaks, especially in the 1st Corps in Sarajevo that was commanded by general Jovan Divjak; the Army of Republika Srpska had a Bosniak company called Mesa Selimovic, operating in the Derventa area.

Various paramilitary units were operating in Bosnian war: the Serb "White Eagles" (Beli Orlovi), Arkan's "Tigers", "Serbian Voluntary Guard" (Srpska Dobrovoljačka Garda), Bosniak "Patriotic League" (Patriotska Liga) and "Green Berets" (Zelene Beretke), and Croatian "Croatian Defense Forces" (Hrvatske Obrambene Snage), etc. The Serb and Croat paramilitaries involved a lot of volunteers from Serbia and Croatia, and were supported by right-wing political parties in those countries. Allegations exist about the involvement of the Serbian and Croatian secret police in the conflict. Forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were divided in 5 corps'. 1st Corps operated at the region of Sarajevo and Gorazde while a more stronger 5th Corps held out in western Bosanska Krajina pocket which cooperated with the HVO units in and around the city of Bihac. From late 1993 3rd Corps saw the influx of volunteers from the Islamic countries (Afghanistan, Algeria)etc. forming the core of, amongst others, the 7th Muslim Victorious Brigade, operating in the Zenica and Zavidovici area. [5]

Initially it was Bosniak and Croat forces together against the Serb forces. The Serbs had the upper hand due to heavier weaponry (despite less manpower) that was given to them by the Yugoslav People's Army and established control over most areas where Serbs had relative majority but also in areas where they were a significant minority in both rural and urban regions excluding the larger towns of Sarajevo and Mostar. The Serb military and political leaders, from ICTY received the most accusations of war crimes many of which have been confirmed after the war in ICTY trials.

Most of the capital Sarajevo was predominantly held by the Bosniaks although the official Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina government continued to function in its relative multiethnic capacity. While Serb objective was to prevent the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina alleged deployed out of the town, the Army of Republika Srpska surrounded it (alternatively, the Bosnian Serb Army situated itself in the areas surrounding Sarajevo which were all mainly populated by Serbs – the so-called Ring around Sarajevo), deploying troops and artillery in the surrounding hills what would become the longest siege in the history of modern warfare that lasted nearly 4 years. See Siege of Sarajevo.

Numerous cease-fire agreements were signed, and breached 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.

Chronology

1992

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 destroyed a small village of Ravno located in Herzegovina, 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.

During the months of April-May 1992 fierce fighting raged in eastern Bosnia as well as the northwestern part of the country. The Bosnian Serb Army was able to take over 70% of the country during these months. Much of this is due to the fact that they were much better armed and organized than the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat armies. When the Serb military established control over an area it took control of its non-Serb population and destroyed its cultural, historical and religious objects. Fighting broke out in areas of mixed ethnic composition. Doboj, Foca, Rogatica, Vlasenica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kljuc, Brcko, Derventa, Modrica, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Brod, Bosanski Novi,Glamoc, Bosanski Petrovac, Bijeljina, Visegrad, and parts of Sarajevo are all areas where Serbs established control and expelled Bosniaks and Croats. Also areas in which were more ethnically homogeneous and were spared from major fighting such as Banja Luka, Bosanska Dubica, Bosanska Gradiska, Bileca, Gacko, Han Pijesak, Kalinovik, Nevesinje, Trebinje, Rudo saw their non-Serb populations expelled. Similarly, the regions of central Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo, Zenica, Maglaj, Zavidovici, Bugojno, Mostar, Konjic, etc.) saw the flight of its Serb population, migrating to the Serb-held areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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.

In October of 1992 the Serbs captured the city of Jajce and expelled the Croat and Bosniak population. The fall of the city was largely due to a lack of Bosnaiak-Croat cooperation and rising tensions, especially over the past four months.

1993

Unbalanced scales.svg
The neutrality of this article or section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
File:Map of Vance-Owen peace plan.png
Vance-Owen Peace Plan
Serb - red
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green
Split control - white

On January 8, 1993 the Serbs killed the deputy prime minister of Bosnia Hakija Turajlić after stopping the UN convoy which was taking him from the airport. On May 15-16 96% of Serbs vote to reject the Vance-Owen plan.

Much of the year was dominatd by the Croat-Bosniak war which erupted in March of 1993, although there were several incidents in 1992 such as the June 20, 1992 Croatian Defence Council attacks on Gornji Vakuf, and Novi Travnik and the October 23, 1992 attack and on Prozor after which the Croats expelled the Bosniaks from the city..

After the failure of the Vance-Owen peace plan, which practically intended to divide the country into three ethnic parts, an armed conflict sprung between Bosniaks and Croats over the 30 percent of Bosnia they held. This caused the creation of more ethnic enclaves and further bloodshed.

Mostar was also surrounded by the Croat forces from three sides for nine months, and much of its historic city was destroyed by shelling by the Croats including the famous Stari Most.

In an attempt to protect the 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.

1994

In 1994, NATO got involved when its jets shot down four Serb aircraft over central Bosnia on February 8 1994 for violating the UN no-fly zone.

In March 1994, Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia signed the Washington peace agreement, establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This effectively ended the war between Croats and Bosniaks, and narrowed the warring parties down to two.

1995

File:BosniaPeace.jpg
Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević signing the peace agreement.

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).

A mass killing, 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, in which thousands were killed (See the Srebrenica Massacre article for details). The ICTY ruled this event as genocide in the case Prosecutor vs. Krstić.

Arms distribution in 1995[2]
Arms ARBiH VRS HVO
Infantry Template:Highlight4|50,000 Template:Highlight3|??? Template:Highlight1|???
Artillery Template:Highlight4|450 Template:Highlight3|1,600-1,800 Template:Highlight1|???
Tanks Template:Highlight4|50 Template:Highlight3|400-450 Template:Highlight1|???
Aircrafts Template:Highlight4|0 Template:Highlight3|??? Template:Highlight1|???

Casualties

The death toll after the war was originally estimated at around 200,000 by the Bosnian government. This figure is still often quoted 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.

Today, it is generally estimated that around 100,000 Bosnians and Herzegovinians - Bosniak/Muslim, Serb and Croat - were killed in the war.

Research done by the International Criminal Tribunal in 2004 by Tibeau and Bijak 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, 16,700 were Serbs while 38,000 were Bosniaks and Croats. Of the soldiers, 14,000 were Serbs, 6,000 were Croats, and 28,000 were Bosniaks. [3]

Another research was conducted by the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Center (RDC) that was based on creating lists and databases, rather than providing estimates. ICTY's Demographic Unit in the Hague, provide a similar total death toll, but a somewhat different ethnic distribution. [4][5][6]. As of April 2006 the number of casulties has reached 96,802.[7] Further research is ongoing.

Large discrepencies in all these estimates are generally due to the inconsistent definitions of who can be considered victims of the war. Some research calculated only direct casualties of the military activity while other also calculated indirect casulties, such as those who died from harsh living conditions, hunger, cold, illnesses or other accidents indirectly caused by the war conditions. Original higher numbers were also used as many victims were listed twice or three times both in civilian and military columns as little or no communication and systematic coordination of these lists could take place in wartime conditions. Manipulation with numbers are today most often used by historical revisionist to change the character and the scope of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, most of above independent studies have not been accredited by either government involved in the conflict and there are no single official results that are acceptable to all sides.

It should not be discounted that there were also significant casulties on the part of International Troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some 320 soldiers of UNPROFOR were killed during this conflict in Bosnia.

Casulty figures according to the Demographic Unit at the ICTY
Total
102,622
Bosniaks & Croats c. 72,000
Serbs c. 30,700
Total civilians
55,261
Bosniaks & Croats c. 38,000
Serbs c. 16,700
Total soldiers
47,360
Bosniaks c. 28,000
Serbs c. 14,000
Croats c. 6,000
Casulty figures according to RDC ( as reported in March 2006)
Total
96,175
Bosniaks 63,994 66.5%
Serbs 24,206 25.2%
Croats 7,338 7.6%
other 637 0.7%
Total civilians
38,645
Bosniaks 32,723 84.7%
Croats 1,899 4.9%
Serbs 3,555 9.2%
others 466 1.2%
Total soldiers
57,529
Bosniaks 31,270 54.4%
Serbs 20,649 35.9%
Croats 5,439 9.5%
others 171 0.3%
unconfirmed 4,000






















Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing was a common phenomenon in the war. This typically entailed intimidation, forced expulsion and/or killing of the undesired ethnic group as well as the destruction or removal of the physical vestiges of the ethnic group, such as places of worship, cemeteries and cultural and historical buildings. Widescale rapes were also employed as a tactic in ethnic cleansing. Serbs were ethinically cleansed from most of Croatia during and after the Croatian War. The Bosnian Serbs expelled the Muslim population from northern and eastern Bosnia to create a 300 km corridor between Serb ethnic areas in the west of Bosnia and Serbia proper. Villages were terrorised, looted and often razed to prevent their inhabitants from returning. By the war's end, all sides had used the tactic to meet their ends. Approximately half of Bosnia's 4,4 million inhabitants were displaced during the war (though not necessarily all of them by 'ethnic cleansing'), including Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.[8]

Galleries

Gallery of maps

Gallery of Military Insiginia

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  1. Dayton Peace Accords on Bosnia. US Department of State (1996-03-30). Retrieved 2006-03-19.
  2. "War-related Deaths in the 1992–1995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results", European Journal of Population, June, 2005.
  3. "Research halves Bosnia war death toll to 100,000", Reuters, November 23, 2005.
  4. "Review of European Security Issues", U.S. Department of State, 28 April 2006.
  5. Article in the Sarajevo "Dani" weekly about the formation of Islamist brigades of the Bosniak Army [1]

Further reading

  • Simms, Brendan. Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia. Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0140289836
  • Beloff, Nora. Yugoslavia: An Avoidable War. New European Publications, 1997. ISBN 1872410081
  • Loyd, Anthony. "My War Gone By, I Miss It So." Penguin, 1999. ISBN 0140298541
  • Maas, Peter. Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. Vintage Books, 1996. ISBN 0679763899
  • Dr. R. Craig Nation. "War in the Balkans 1991-2002." Strategic Studies Institute, 2002, ISBN 1-58487-134-2 [9]

See also

  • Peace plans offered before and during the Bosnian War
  • High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Operation Deliberate Force
  • Siege of Sarajevo
  • Srebrenica massacre
  • Bosnian Genocide
  • Omarska camp
  • Keraterm camp
  • Manjača camp
  • Markale massacres
  • Trnopolje camp

External links

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.