Bosnian War

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Bosnian War/War in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Part of the Yugoslav Wars
The parliament building burns after being hit by artillery fire in Sarajevo May 1992.; Ratko Mladić with Bosnian Serb soldiers; a Norwegian UN soldier in Sarajevo. Photos by Mikhail Evstafiev
Date April 1, 1992 – December 14, 1995 Location Bosnia and Herzegovina Result Dayton Accords
Belligerents
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia  Croatia	Republika Srpska  Yugoslavia
Commanders
Alija Izetbegović (President of Bosnia and Herzegovina) Sefer Halilović (Army chief of staff 1992-1993) Rasim Delić (Army chief of Staff 1993-1995)	Franjo Tuđman (President of Croatia) Mate Boban (President of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia) Milivoj Petković (HVO Chief of staff) Dario Kordić (political leader of Croats in Central Bosnia)	Slobodan Milošević(President of Serbia) (1989-1997) Radovan Karadžić (President of the Republika Srpska) Ratko Mladić (Commander of the Army of Republika Srpska)
Strength
~100 tanks 250,000 infantry	~200 tanks ~70,000 infantry	750 tanks 120,000 infantry
Casualties and losses
31,270 soldiers killed 32,723 civilians killed	6,439 soldiers killed 1,899 civilians killed	20,649 soldiers killed 3,555 civilians killed

The War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly known as the Bosnian War, was an international armed conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995. The war involved several sides. According to numerous ICTY judgments the conflict involved Bosnia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro) ^[1] as well as Croatia.^[2] According to ICJ judgment, Serbia gave military and financial support to Serb forces which consisted of the Yugoslav People's Army (later Army of Serbia and Montenegro), the Army of Republika Srpska, the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of the Interior of Republika Srpska and Serb Territorial Defense Forces. Croatia gave military support to Croat forces of self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia. Bosnian government forces were led by the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[3] These factions changed objectives and allegiances several times at various stages of the war.

Because the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a consequence of the instability in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia, and due to the involvement of neighboring countries Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro, there was long-standing debate as to whether the conflict was a civil war or a war of aggression. Most Bosniaks and many Croats claimed that the war was a war of Serbian and Croatian aggression, while Serbs often considered it a civil war. A trial took place before the International Court of Justice, following a 1993 suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia and Montenegro alleging genocide (see Bosnian genocide case at the International Court of Justice). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling of 26 February 2007 effectively determined the war's nature to be international, though exonerating Serbia of responsibility for the genocide committed by Serb forces of Republika Srpska. The ICJ concluded, however, that Serbia failed to prevent genocide committed by Serb forces and failed to punish those who carried out the genocide, especially general Ratko Mladić, and bring them to justice.

Despite the evidence of widespread killings, the siege of towns, mass rape, ethnic cleansing and torture in camps and detention centers conducted by different Serb forces including JNA (VJ), especially in Prijedor, Zvornik, Banja Luka and Foča, the judges ruled that the criteria for genocide with the specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy Bosnian Muslims were met only in Srebrenica or Eastern Bosnia in 1995.^[4] The court concluded that the crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war, may amount to crimes against humanity according to the international law, but that these acts did not, in themselves, constitute genocide per se.^[5] The Court further decided that, following Montenegro's declaration of independence in May 2006, Serbia was the only respondent party in the case, but that "any responsibility for past events involved at the relevant time the composite State of Serbia and Montenegro".^[6]

The involvement of NATO, during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force against the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska internationalized the conflict, but only in its final stages.

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.^[7] Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalized on 21 December 1995. The accords are known as the Dayton Agreement.

While wartime figures were propagandized to reflect current political interests of involved parties, the most recent research places the number of victims at around 100,000–110,000 killed (civilians and military), and 1.8 million displaced (see Casualties).^[8][9][10] Recent research have shown that most of the 97,207 documented casualties (soldiers and civilians) during Bosnian War were Bosniaks (65%), with Serbs in second (25%) and Croats (8%) in third place.^[11] However, 83 percent of civilian victims were Bosniaks, 10 percent were Serbs and more than 5 percent were Croats, followed by a small number of others such as Albanians or Romani people. The percentage of Bosniak victims would be higher had survivors of Srebrenica not reported 1,800 of their loved-ones as soldiers to access social services and other government benefits. The total figure of dead could rise by a maximum of another 10,000 for the entire country due to ongoing research. ^{[12] [13] [14] [15]}

According to a detailed 1995 report about the war made by the Central Intelligence Agency, 90% of the war crimes of the Bosnian War were committed by Serbs.^[16]

[edit] Breakup of Yugoslavia

Main article: Breakup of Yugoslavia

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. In 1989 Slobodan Milošević became President of Serbia (later indicted by the ICTY of the war crimes including genocide in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo). 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, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a lesser extent in Slovenia and Macedonia.

In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution which allowed the Serbian republic's government 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 on 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 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.

[edit] Karađorđevo agreement

Main article: Karađorđevo agreement

Secret discussions between Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević on the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia were held as early as March 1991 known as Karađorđevo agreement. Following the declaration of independence of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbs attacked different parts of the country. The state administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina effectively ceased to function having lost control over the entire territory. The Serbs wanted all lands where Serbs had a majority, eastern and western Bosnia. The Croats and their leader Franjo Tuđman also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian. The policies of the Republic of Croatia and its leader Franjo Tuđman towards Bosnia and Herzegovina were never totally transparent and always included Franjo Tuđman’s ultimate aim of expanding Croatia’s borders. Bosnian Muslims, the only ethnic group loyal to the Bosnian government, were an easy target, because the Bosnian government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for the war.^[17]

[edit] The pre-war situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ethnic map based on the 1991 census. The different colors show absolute majority in every settlement:      Serbs      Bosniaks      Croats      others      unknown or uninhabited      no majority

The distribution of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991 by municipalities. Bosnian Serbs are shown in red, Bosniaks in green, and Bosnian Croats in blue. The post-Dayton Inter-Entity Boundary Line is shown in white.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has historically been a multi-ethnic state. In 1990, its population included approximately 43% of Bosniaks, 31% of Serbs, and 17% of Croats.

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.^{[citation needed]}.

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 Serb and the prime minister a Croat.

[edit] Establishment of the "Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina"

The Serb members of parliament, consisting mainly of the Serb Democratic Party members, but also including some other party representatives (which would form the "Independent Members of Parliament Caucus"), abandoned the central parliament in Sarajevo, and formed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on October 24, 1991, which marked the end of the tri-ethnic coalition that governed after the elections in 1990. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on January 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.

[edit] Establishment of the "Croat Community of Herzeg-Bosnia"

The objectives of nationalists from Croatia were shared by Croat nationalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ^[18] The ruling party in the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), organized and controlled the branch of the party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the latter part of 1991, the more extreme elements of the party, under the leadership of Mate Boban, Dario Kordić, Jadranko Prlić, Ignac Koštroman and local leaders such as Anto Valenta^[18], and with the support of Franjo Tuđman and Gojko Šušak, had taken effective control of the party. On November 18, 1991, the party branch in Bosnia and Herzegovina, proclaimed the existence of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia, as a separate "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole," on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ^[19]

[edit] 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 67% and the vote was 99.43% in favor of independence. ^[20] Independence was declared on March 5, 1992 by the parliament. The referendum were utilized by the Serb political leadership as a reason to start road blockades in protest.

[edit] Cutileiro-Carrington Plan

The Carrington-Cutileiro plan, named for its creators Lord Peter Carrington and Portuguese Ambassador José Cutileiro, resulted from the EEC-hosted 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 President Alija Izetbegović decided not to accept ethnic division of the country and withdrew his consent.

[edit] Arms embargo

On September 25, 1991 the United Nations Security Council passed UNSC Resolution 713 imposing an arms embargo on all of former Yugoslavia. The embargo hurt the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina the most because Serbia inherited the lion's share of the former JNA arsenal and the Croatian army could smuggle weapons through its coast. Over 55% of the armories and barracks of the former Yugoslavia were located in Bosnia owing to its mountainous terrain, in anticipation of a guerrilla war, but many of those factories were under Serbian control (such as the UNIS PRETIS factory in Vogošća), and others were inoperable due to a lack of electricity and raw materials. The Bosnian government lobbied to have the embargo lifted but that was opposed by the United Kingdom, France and Russia. US proposals to pursue this policy were known as lift and strike. The US congress passed two resolutions calling for the embargo to be lifted but both were vetoed by President Bill Clinton for fear of creating a rift between the US and the aforementioned countries. Nonetheless, the United States used both "black" C-130 transports and back channels including Islamist groups to smuggle weapons to the Bosnian government forces via Croatia. ^[21]

[edit] The war

[edit] General information

Alija Izetbegović during his visit to the United States in 1997.

The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officially left Bosnia and Herzegovina on May 12, 1992 shortly 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 self-proclaimed Herzeg-Bosnia. The Bosniaks mostly organized into the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Republike Bosne i Hercegovine, Armija RBiH). This army had a number of non-Bosniaks (around 25%), especially in the 1st Corps in Sarajevo. The deputy commander of the Bosnian Army's Headquarters, was general Jovan Divjak, the highest ranking ethnic Serb in the Bosnian Army. General Stjepan Šiber, an ethnic Croat was the second deputy commander. President Izetbegović also appointed colonel Blaž Kraljević, commander of the Croatian Defence Forces in Herzegovina, to be a member of Bosnian Army's Headquarters, seven days before his assassination, in order to assemble multi-ethnic pro-Bosnian defence front.^[22]

Various paramilitary units were operating in Bosnian war: the Serb "White Eagles" (Beli Orlovi), Arkan's "Tigers", "Serbian Volunteer 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 volunteers from Serbia and Croatia, and were supported by nationalist 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 stronger 5th Corps was positioned in the western Bosanska Krajina pocket which cooperated with the HVO units in and around the city of Bihac. The Serbs received support from Christian Slavic fighters from countries including Russia. Greek volunteers are also reported to have taken part in the Srebrenica Massacre, with the Greek flag being hoisted in Srebrenica when the town fell to the Serbs.^[23]

Russian soldier and politician Dmitry Rogozin discussing the role of Russian volunteers with Bosnian Serb Army leader Ratko Mladić in besieged Sarajevo, January 1996

The Bosniaks received support from Islamic groups commonly known as "holy warriors" (Mujahideen). There were also several hundred Iranian Revolutionary Guards assisting the Bosnian government during the war.^[24]

Initially the Serb forces attacked the non-Serb civilian population in Eastern Bosnia. Once towns and villages were securely in their hands, the Serb forces - military, police, the paramilitaries and, sometimes, even Serb villagers – applied the same pattern: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down, Bosniak civilians were rounded up or captured, and sometimes beaten or killed in the process. Men and women were separated, with many of the men detained in the camps. The women were kept in various detention centres where they had to live in intolerably unhygienic conditions, where they were mistreated in many ways including being raped repeatedly. Serb soldiers or policemen would come to these detention centres, select one or more women, take them out and rape them.^[25] 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. In the 44 months of the siege, the terror against Sarajevo and its residents varied in its intensity, but the purpose remained the same: to inflict the greatest possible suffering on the civilians in order to force the Bosnian authorities to accept the Serb demands.^[26] The Army of Republika Srpska surrounded it (alternatively, the Serb forces situated themselves in the areas surrounding Sarajevo the so-called Ring around Sarajevo), deploying troops and artillery in the surrounding hills in what would become the longest siege in the history of modern warfare lasting 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.

[edit] Chronology

[edit] 1992

fronts of bosnian war

The first casualty in Bosnia is a point of contention between Serbs and Bosniaks. Serbs consider Nikola Gardović, a groom's father who was killed at a Serb wedding procession on the second day of the referendum, on March 1, 1992 in Sarajevo's old town Baščaršija, to be the first victim of the war. Bosniaks and Croats meanwhile consider the first casualties of the war before the independence to be Croat civilians massacred by the Yugoslav People's Army (later transformed in Army of Republika Srpska and Army of Serbia and Montenegro) in Ravno village located in Herzegovina on September 30, 1991 during the course of its siege of the city of Dubrovnik (which was on the territory of Croatia itself). Bosniaks also consider the first individual casualty of the war after the independence of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be Suada Dilberović, who was shot during a peace march by unidentified gunmen on April 5 from a Serb sniper nest in a Holiday Inn hotel.

On September 19, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) moved some extra troops to the area around the city of Mostar, which was publicly protested by the local government. On October 13, 1991 future president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić expressed his view about future of Bosnia and Bosnian Muslims: "In just a couple of days, Sarajevo will be gone and there will be five hundred thousand dead, in one month Muslims will be annihilated in Bosnia and Herzegovina". ^[27]

fall of posavina

Vedran Smailovic playing in the destroyed building of the National Library in Sarajevo, 1992. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Manjača camp detainees in 1992

During the months of March-April-May 1992 fierce attacks raged in eastern Bosnia as well as the northwestern part of the country. In March attacks by the SDS leaders, together with field officers of the Second Military Command of former JNA, were conducted in eastern part of the country with the objective to take strategically relevant positions and carry out a communication and information blockade. Attacks carried out resulted in a large number of dead and wounded civilians.^[28]

JNA under control of Serbia 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 forces. Attacks also included areas of mixed ethnic composition. Doboj, Foča, Rogatica, Vlasenica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kljuc, Brcko, Derventa, Modrica, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Brod, Bosanski Novi,Glamoc, Bosanski Petrovac, Cajnice, Bijeljina, Višegrad, 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.

Gornji Vakuf and Novi Travnik were initially attacked by Croats on June 20, 1992, but the attack failed. The Graz agreement caused deep division inside the Croat community and strengthened the separation group, which led to the conflict with Bosniaks. One of the primary pro-union Croat leaders, Blaž Kraljević (leader of the HOS armed group) was killed by HVO soldiers in August 1992, which severely weakened the moderate group who hoped to keep the Bosniak-Croat alliance alive^[29].

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

[edit] 1993

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 voted to reject the Vance-Owen plan. 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. The peace plan was one of the factors leading to the escalation of the conflict, as Lord Owen avoided moderate Croat authorities (pro-unified Bosnia) and negotiated directly with more extreme elements (which were for separation).^[30]

Map of Bosniak-Croat conflict; green Bosniaks, blue croats

Much of 1993 was dominated by the Croat-Bosniak war that became more serious in October 1992 when Croat forces attacked Bosniak civilian population in Prozor burning their homes and killing civilians. On January 1993 Croat forces attacked Gornji Vakuf again in order to connect Herzegovina with Central Bosnia.

The Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosniak civilians planned by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership from May 1992 to March 1993 and erupting the following April, was meant to implement objectives set forth by Croat nationalists in November of 1991.^[18] The Lašva Valley's Bosniaks were subjected to persecution on political, racial and religious grounds^[31], deliberately discriminated against in the context of a widespread attack on the region's civilian population^[32] and suffered mass murder, rape, imprisonment in camps, as well as the destruction of cultural sites and private property. This was often followed by anti-Bosniak propaganda, particularly in the municipalities of Vitez, Busovača, Novi Travnik and Kiseljak.

The Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia took control of many municipal governments and services in Herzegovina as well, removing or marginalising local Bosniak leaders. Herzeg-Bosnia took control of the media and imposed Croatian ideas and propaganda. Croatian symbols and currency were introduced, and Croatian curricula and the Croatian language were introduced in schools. Many Bosniaks and Serbs were removed from positions in government and private business; humanitarian aid was managed and distributed to the Bosniaks' and Serbs' disadvantage; and Bosniaks in general were increasingly harassed. Many of them were deported into concentration camps: Heliodrom, Dretelj, Gabela, Vojno and Šunje.

The Croat-Bosniak alliance held in some areas of Bosnia, notably Bihać pocket (northwest Bosnia) and the Bosanska Posavina (north), where both were heavily outmatched by Serb forces. This conflict caused the creation of more ethnic enclaves and further bloodshed.

Mostar was also surrounded by the Croat forces for nine months, and much of its historic city was severely destroyed in shelling including the famous Stari Most bridge.

Bosnian Army launched an operation known as Neretva 93 against the Croatian Defence Council and Croatian Army in September 1993 in order to end the siege of Mostar and to recapture areas of Herzegovina, which were included in self-proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia. The operation was stopped by Bosnian authorities after it received the information about the incidents against Croat civilians and POWs in villages of Grabovica and Uzdol.

The Croat leadership (Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić) is presently on trial at the ICTY on charges including crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war. Dario Kordić, political leader of Croats in Central Bosnia was convicted of the crimes against humanity in Central Bosnia i.e. ethnic cleansing and sentenced to 25 years in prison. ^[33] Bosnian commander Sefer Halilović was charged with one count of violation of the laws and customs of war on the basis of superior criminal responsibility of the incidents during Neretva 93 and found not guilty.

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 Sarajevo, Goražde, Srebrenica, Tuzla, Žepa and Bihać.

[edit] 1994

In 1994, NATO became actively involved, when its jets shot down four Serb aircraft over central Bosnia on February 28 1994 violating the UN no-fly zone.

The Croat-Bosniak war officially ended on February 23, 1994 when the Commander of HVO, general Ante Roso and commander of Bosnian Army, general Rasim Delić, signed a ceasefire agreement in Zagreb. In March 1994 a peace agreement mediated by the USA between the warring Croats (represented by Republic of Croatia) and Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was signed in Washington and Vienna which is known as the Washington Agreement. Under the agreement, the combined territory held by the Croat and Bosnian government forces was divided into ten autonomous cantons, establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This effectively ended the war between Croats and Bosniaks, and narrowed the warring parties down to two.

[edit] 1995

The war continued through most of 1995.

In July 1995. Serb troops under general Ratko Mladić, occupied the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia where around 8,000 men were killed (most women were expelled to Bosniak-held territory and some of them were killed and raped).^[34] The ICTY ruled this event as genocide in the case Prosecutor vs. Krstić.

Standing, from left to right: Felipe Gonzalez, Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Helmut Kohl, John Major, Viktor Chernomyrdin. Seated from left to right: Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tuđman, Alija Izetbegovic signing the final peace agreement in Paris on December 14, 1995.

In line with the Croat-Bosniak agreement, Croatian forces operated in western Bosnia (Operation Summer '95) and in early August launched Operation Storm, taking over the Serb Krajina in Croatia. With this, the Bosniak-Croat alliance gained the initiative in the war, taking much of western Bosnia from the Serbs in several operations, including: Mistral and Sana. These forces now came to threaten the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka with direct ground attack.

The second Markale massacre occurred and NATO responded by opening wide air strikes against Bosnian Serb infrastructure and units in September.

Military actions in western bosnia which caused end of Bosnian war; blue Croats, green Bosniaks, red Serbs, light green West Bosnia

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 of the peace agreement was signed December 14, 1995 in Paris.

[edit] Casualties

The death toll after the war was originally estimated at around 200,000 by the Bosnian government. They also recorded around 1,326,000 refugees and exiles.

Research done by Tibeau and Bijak in 2004 determined a 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.^[35]

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.^[36] As of October 2006 the count of the number of casualties has reached 97,884.^[37] Further research is ongoing.

On June 21 2007, the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo published the most extensive research on Bosnia-Herzegovina's war casualties titled: The Bosnian Book of the Dead - a database that reveals 97,207 names of Bosnia and Herzegovina's citizens killed and missing during the 1992-1995 war. An international team of experts evaluated the findings before they were released. More than 240,000 pieces of data have been collected, processed, checked, compared and evaluated by international team of experts in order to get the final number of more than 97,000 of names of victims, belonging to all nationalities. Of the 97,207 documented casualties in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 83 percent of civilian victims were Bosniaks, 10 percent of civilian victims were Serbs and more than 5 percent of civilian victims were Croats, followed by a small number of others such as Albanians or Romani people. The percentage of Bosniak victims would be higher had survivors of Srebrenica not reported their loved-ones as 'soldiers' to access social services and other government benefits. The total figure of dead could rise by a maximum of another 10,000 for the entire country due to ongoing research. ^{[38] [39]}

Large discrepancies 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 casualties, 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 is 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 casualties on the part of International Troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some 320 soldiers of UNPROFOR were killed during this conflict in Bosnia.

[edit] War Crimes

[edit] 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. According to numerous ICTY verdicts, Serb^[40] and Croat^[33] forces performed ethnic cleansing of their territories planned by their political leadership in order to create ethnically pure states (Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia). Furthermore, Serb forces committed genocide in Srebrenica at the end of the war.^[41]

Based on the evidence of numerous HVO attacks, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the Kordić and Čerkez case that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley in Central Bosnia. Dario Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan. ^[42]

[edit] Mass rape

Main article: Mass rape in the Bosnian War

During the Bosnian war, Serb forces conducted sexual abuse strategy on Bosnian Muslim girls and women which will later be known as mass rape phenomenon. Between 20,000 and 44,000 women were systematically raped by the Serb forces.^[43] Mass rapes were mostly done in Eastern Bosnia (during Foča massacres), and in Grbavica during the Siege of Sarajevo. Women and girls were kept in various detention centres where they had to live in intolerably unhygienic conditions and were mistreated in many ways including being repeatedly raped. Serb soldiers or policemen would come to these detention centres, select one or more women, take them out and rape them. All this was done in full view, in complete knowledge and sometimes with the direct involvement of the Serb local authorities, particularly the police forces. The head of Foča police forces, Dragan Gagović, was personally identified as one of the men who came to these detention centres to take women out and rape them. There were numerous rape camps in Foča. “Karaman’s house” was one of the most notable rape camps. While kept in this house, the girls were constantly raped. Among the women held in "Karaman's house" there were minors as young as 15 years of age. ^[25][44]

Muslim women were specifically targeted as the rapes against them were one of the many ways in which the Serbs could assert their superiority and victory over the Bosniaks. For instance, the girls and women, who were selected by convicted war criminal Dragoljub Kunarac or by his men, were systematically taken to the soldiers’ base, a house located in Osmana Đikić street no 16. There, the girls and women, who Kunarac knew were civilians, were raped by his men or by the convicted himself. Some of the girls were just 14. Serb soldiers demonstrated a total disregard for Bosniak in general, and Bosniak women in particular. Serb soldiers removed many Muslim girls from various detention centres and kept some of them for various periods of time for him or his soldiers to rape.^[25]

The other example includes Radomir Kovač,convicted also by ICTY. While four girls were kept in his apartment, the convicted Radomir Kovač abused them and raped three of them many times, thereby perpetuating the attack upon the Bosnian Muslim civilian population. Kovač would also invite his friends to his apartment, and he sometimes allowed them to rape one of the girls. Kovač also sold three of the girls. Prior to their being sold, Kovač had given two of these girls, to other Serb soldiers who abused them for more than three weeks before taking them back to Kovač, who proceeded to sell one and give the other away to acquaintances of his.^[25]

The events inspired the Golden Bear winner at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in 2006, called Grbavica.

[edit] Genocide

Main article: Bosnian genocide

A trial took place before the International Court of Justice, following a 1993 suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia and Montenegro alleging genocide (see Bosnian genocide case at the International Court of Justice). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling of 26 February 2007 determined that Serbia had no responsibility for the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica massacre in 1995. The ICJ concluded, however, that Serbia failed to act to prevent the Srebrenica massacre and failed to punish those believed to be responsible, especially general Ratko Mladić. Finally, the court concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to find that there had been a wider genocide committed against the Bosniak population, as alleged by the Bosnian government.

[edit] In popular culture

The Bosnian War has been depicted in a number of films including Hollywood movies such as The Hunting Party, about an attempt at catching the accused war criminal and fugitive Radovan Karadžić, Behind Enemy Lines and Savior, a number of British movies such as Welcome to Sarajevo, which is about the life of Sarajevo citizens during the siege and an award-winning British television drama, Warriors, aired on BBC One in 1999 about the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing. The Polish film "Demony wojny" ("Demons of War", 1998), set during the Bosnian conflict, portrays a Polish group of IFOR soldiers who accidentally come to help a pair of journalist tracked by a local warlord whose crimes they had taped. Bosnian director Danis Tanović's No Man's Land won the Best Foreign Language Film awards at the 2001 Academy Awards and the 2002 Golden Globes. Grbavica, about the life of a single mother in contemporary Sarajevo in the aftermath of systematic rape of Bosniak women by Serbian troops during the war, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Documentaries include Bernard-Henri Lévy's Bosna! about Bosnian resistance against well equipped Serbian troops at the beginning of the war, Slovenian documentary Tunel upanja (A Tunnel of Hope) about the Sarajevo Tunnel constructed by the besieged citizens of Sarajevo in order to link the city of Sarajevo, which was entirely cut-off by Serbian forces, with the Bosnian government territory and British documentary A Cry from the Grave about the Srebrenica massacre, as well as BBC's lengthy series "The Death of Yugoslavia", documenting the outbreak of the war from the earliest roots of the conflict, in the 1980s. A number of Western films made the Bosnian conflict the background of their stories - some of those include "Avenger", based on Frederick Forsyth's novel in which a mercenary tracks down a Serbian warlord responsible for war crimes, and "The Peacemaker", in which a Serbian activist emotionally devastated by the losses of war plots to take revenge on the United Nations by exploding a nuclear bomb in New York.

Plays about the war include Necessary Targets, written by Eve Ensler.

In the video game Grand Theft Auto 4, the protagonist Niko Belić is a Bosnian Serb veteran of the Bosnian War.

Dampyr is an Italian comic book, created by Mauro Boselli and Maurizio Colombo and published in Italy by Sergio Bonelli Editore about Harlan Draka, half human, half vampire, who wages war on the multifaceted forces of Evil. The first two episodes are located in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. The war in Eastern Bosnia is a subject of Joe Sacco's comic book Safe Area Goražde.

[edit] Galleries

[edit] Gallery of maps

Former Yugoslavia during war	Ethnic Composition of towns/regional centers in 1991	Ethnic composition in 1991	Ethnic composition in 1991 by municipalities
Estimated ethnic composition in 2005	The front lines in 1993, while HVO (blue) was still allied with the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) (green)	The front lines in 1994, at the end of the Bosniak-Croat war and after the signing of the Washington Agreement	The front lines in 1995, before Operation Storm
			The front lines in 1995, before the Dayton Agreement
Territories controlled by ABiH during the war	Territories controlled by HVO/Croatian Army during the war	Territories controlled by BSA during the war	Animation of the various republics control

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

• Howard, Les "Winter Warriors - Across Bosnia with the PBI", ISBN 978-1846240775 Critical account of a Peacekeeper's contribution to the end of the war
• Gutman, Roy, A Witness to Genocide: The 1993 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dispatches on the "Ethnic Cleansing" of Bosnia, ISBN 978-0020329954
• Macqueen, Angus; Mitchell, Paul, The Death of Yugoslavia, [11]
• Hoare, Marko Attila, How Bosnia Armed Saqi Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0863563676
• Cigar, Norman, Genocide in Bosnia: The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing, Texas A&M University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-1585440047
• Shrader, Charles R. The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia Texas A&M University Press, 2003 ISBN 1-58544-261-5
• Simms, Brendan. Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia. Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0-14-028983-6
• Raguz, Vitomir Miles. Who Saved Bosnia Naklada Stih, 2005 ISBN 953-6959-28-3
• Beloff, Nora. Yugoslavia: An Avoidable War. New European Publications, 1997. ISBN 1-872410-08-1
• Loyd, Anthony. "My War Gone By, I Miss It So." Penguin, 1999. ISBN 0-14-029854-1
• Maas, Peter. Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. Vintage Books, 1996. ISBN 0-679-76389-9
• Dr. R. Craig Nation. "War in the Balkans 1991-2002." Strategic Studies Institute, 2002, ISBN 1-58487-134-2 [12]
• Srebrenica, Potocari, [13]

[edit] See also

• Croat-Bosniak war
• Cvetković-Maček Agreement
• 1991 Bosnia and Herzegovina Population Census
• Bosnian Genocide
• Command responsibility
• High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Keraterm camp
• Manjača camp
• Markale massacres
• Mass rapes in the Bosnian War
• Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Mujahideen in the Bosnian war
• Omarska camp
• Operation Deliberate Force
• Peace plans offered before and during the Bosnian War
• Religious war
• Serb propaganda
• Siege of Sarajevo
• Srebrenica massacre
• Trnopolje camp
• The role of foreign fighters in the Bosnian war
• Mrkonjić Grad incident (June 1995)
• Banja Luka incident
• Operation Bøllebank
• Operation Amanda
• Operation Sana
• Role of Serb media in the 1991-1999 wars in the former Yugoslavia

[edit] External links

• Summary of the ICTY verdicts related to the conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• Summary of the ICTY verdicts related to the conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatia
• List of people missing from the war
• Stanislav Galic judgement
• Research and Documentation Center Sarajevo
• Srebrenica 1994
• The Death of Yugoslavia Part I (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian)
• The Death of Yugoslavia Part II (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian)
• UN report on prison camps during the war
• Open UN document on Serb attrocities towards non-Serbs
• Guardian Unlimited special report on Serb soldier crimes (Guardian Unlimited)
• Genocide in Yugoslavia
• Serbian War Crime Testimonies
• hWeb - Convoy to Sarajevo, a personal account of relief work during Bosnian War
• Interview with Haris Silajdzic
• WAR IN THE BALKANS, 1991-2002 - 4. The Land of Hate: Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-95, R. Craig Nation (2003)

[edit] Related films

• Warriors at the Internet Movie Database
• The Death of Yugoslavia at the Internet Movie Database - Part III. The Struggle for Bosnia.

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