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The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia respectively.
The war came about as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multiethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44 percent), Orthodox Serbs (31 percent) and Catholic Croats (17 percent), passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. This was rejected by Bosnian Serb political representatives, who had boycotted the referendum and established their own republic. Following the declaration of independence, Bosnian Serb forces, supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) attacked the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to secure Serbian territory and war soon broke out across Bosnia, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the Bosniak population, especially in Eastern Bosnia.
It was principally a territorial conflict, initially between the Serb forces mostly organized in the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) on the one side, and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) which was largely composed of Bosniaks, and the Croat forces in the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) on the other side. The Croats also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian. The Serb and Croat political leadership agreed on a partition of Bosnia with the Karađorđevo and Graz agreements, resulting in the Croats forces turning on the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croat-Bosniak war. The war was characterized by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing, systematic mass rape and genocide mostly led by the Serb forces. Events such as the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre would become iconic of the conflict.
The Serbs, although initially superior due to the vast amount of weapons and resources provided by the JNA eventually lost momentum as Bosniaks and Croats allied themselves against Republika Srpska in 1994 with the creation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Washington agreement. After the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force against the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war. 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. Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalized on 21 December 1995. The accords are known as the Dayton Agreement. A 1995 report by the Central Intelligence Agency found Serbian forces responsible for 90 per cent of the war crimes committed during the conflict. As of early 2008 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had convicted 45 Serbs, 12 Croats and 4 Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia. The most recent research places the number of killed people at around 100,000–110,000 and the number displaced at over 2.2 million, making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.
== Breakup of Yugoslavia ==
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic 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 nationalism, after violence in Kosovo, experienced a renaissance in 1980s. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was centralization of Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia saw federalization and decentralization of the state.
In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution that allowed the government of the Serbian republic to impose effective power over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Until that point, their decision-making had been independent. Each also had a vote at the Yugoslav federal level. Serbia, under President Slobodan Milošević, thus gained control over three out of eight votes in the Yugoslav presidency. With additional votes from Montenegro, 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, opposed it. 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 22 December 1990, the Parliament of Croatia adopted the new Constitution, taking away some of the rights of the Serbs granted by the previous Socialist constitution. This created grounds for nationalist action among the indigenous Serbs of Croatia. Closely following the adoption of the new constitution, Slovenia and Croatia began the process towards independence. On 25 June 1991, both Slovenia and Croatia declared independence which led to the short armed conflict in Slovenia called the Ten-Day War, and all-out war in Croatia in the Croatian War of Independence in areas with substantial Serb populations. The Croatian War of Independence would result in U.N. Security Council Resolution 743 on 21 February 1992, creating the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in accordance with the Secretary-General's report S/23592 of 15 February 1992.
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Last Update: 2013-02-04 12:01:13 PST
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Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War
Peter Maass
Vintage, 1997-02-25, 320 Pages (Paperback)
Languages: English
Product Dimensions: 5 inches x 1 inches x 8 inches
Weight: 1 pounds
EAN: 9780679763895
ISBN: 0679763899
Number of Items: 1
ASIN:0679763899
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The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina : Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention
Steven L. Burg, Paul S. Shoup
M.E. Sharpe, New edition, 2000-03, 520 Pages (Paperback)
Languages: English
Product Dimensions: 6 inches x 1 inches x 9 inches
Weight: 2 pounds
EAN: 9781563243097
ISBN: 1563243091
Number of Items: 1
ASIN:1563243091
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The Notice
Sean Chandler
2012-01-08, 224 Pages (Kindle Edition)
Languages: English
Format: Kindle eBook
Number of Items: 1
ASIN:B006VDU1YA
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My War Gone By, I Miss It So
Anthony Loyd
Penguin Books, Reprint, 2001-02-01, 336 Pages (Paperback)
Languages: English
Product Dimensions: 5 inches x 1 inches x 8 inches
Weight: 1 pounds
EAN: 9780140298543
ISBN: 0140298541
Number of Items: 1
ASIN:0140298541
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