Bosnia & Herzegovina: Post Yugoslavia Breakup

By: Michelle

Wiciak

“The more we learn the more we realize how little we know.” said by R.Fuller

In response to the quote

I decided to put this quote in my presentation because about 53% of our class have never heard of Bosnia. So that means about 47% heard about Bosnia. So the 47% have heard about Bosnia, many of that percent may not know the history of their independence and from that date. On their independence day, where they were declared a separate country from Yugoslavia, they were brought into war. War that they are still recovering from today. War with massacres, a genocide, and snipers. Now that you think about the quote, the more you learn, the more you think about how little you know.

Quick Bosnian Vocabulary That You Might Need

Sarajevo- The largest city in Bosnia and Bosnia’s Capital.

Bosniaks- Muslims that live in Bosnia.

Serbs- People who are of Serbian ethnicity; Orthodox

Croats- South Slavic people who are Catholic.

JNA- Yugoslav People’s Army

Bosnian Serb Forces/Army- Also known as Army of Republika Srpska.

RS (Republika Srpska)- Translated as a Serb republic, it is one of two divisions in Bosnia.

What really happened to Yugoslavia?

After the death of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia until he died in 1980, and the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia’s order and peace started to turn into madness and chaos. Throughout Yugoslavia, there were many ethnicities and they were clashing with each other. Yugoslavia started to break off in 1991,with Slovenia and Croatia the first to break off.

Bosnia Breaking Off From Yugoslavia

In February 1992, Bosnia demanded independence from Yugoslavia, so they made a referendum. A month later, many Bosnian Serbs boycotted to get their independence. The turnout in the independence referendum in February was 63.7% and 99.4% voted for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on that note. After that many escalating tensions and military incidents happened and open warfare began in Sarajevo on April 6.

Start of War

It all started when a groom's father got killed at a Serb wedding procession on the first day of the referendum, March 1, 1992. The Bosniaks claim that this was one of a number of political killings in the first part of that year.On April 5 massive anti-war marches took place in the city. The largest group of protesters went to the parliament building. There the Serb gunmen shot at the crowd from the Serbian Democratic Party headquarters. This killed two people and they were considered to be the first causalities of the war in Bosnia and the Siege of Sarajevo.

Siege of Sarajevo

The siege of Sarajevo was a fight for the city by the Serbian Army and the Bosnian government. It is the longest siege in modern history warfare, lasting for nearly four years. It started April 5,1992 and lasted until February 29,1996. The snipers, who were Serbs, pretty much took over the city. Some of the more dangerous streets became known as “sniper alleys” due to that they were very dangerous. About 12,000 people were killed and the 50,000 were wounded during the siege.

Bosnian Genocide

This was a genocide taken place in Srebrenica in 1995 that the Bosnian Serb Army was in charge of. One part of the genocide was the Srebrenica Massacre, which you will learn about later on. Ratko Mladic was the general of this army and was in charge. Many Bosniaks died, and only the Srebrenica Massacre has been found an act of this genocide.

The Markale Massacres

These were two massacres by the Bosnian Serb Army during the Siege of Sarajevo located at the marketplace, which is the center of Sarajevo. The first massacre occurred on February 5, 1994. 68 people were killed and 144 more were wounded. The second massacre happened on August 28, 1995. In this massacre a mortar shell killed 37 people and wounded 90 others.

The Srebenica Massacre

This massacre, which is also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the largest mass killing since the Holocaust on European grounds. Under the command of General Ratko Mladić, about 8,000 Bosnian Muslims (also known as Bosniaks) both men and boys died that July 1995. This happened by these events. The UN called Srebrenica a safe place and that all Bosnian Muslims could stay. Then on April 18,1993 the first set of the Serb army came. They forced the Bosnian Muslims out, and separated the genders. The men and boys would be taken to be tortured and killed. The women went along with the Bosnian government. There were reports that the women got raped, tortured, beaten, or starved.

The End of the War

After NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) responded by having air strikes against the Bosnian Serb Army after the second Markale Massacre, the international community pressured Milosevic ( the president of Serbia at that time who was representing Karadzic who was absent at the meeting) and others to the negotiation table. Finally the war ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement signed on November 21, 1995. The final version was signed on the 14th of December in Paris. In the end there were 97,207 documented casualties, both civilians and soldiers, that were killed in the Bosnian war. 65% of them were Bosniaks, 25% of them were Serbs, 8% of them were Croats, and the remaining 2% were other nationalities around Bosnia such as Albanians or Romani people.

Today…Today Bosnia is being repaired. Sarajevo is mostly all repaired, but the ghost of the Bosnian War still roams the street. The ghost isn’t the only thing that still roams freely that reminds people of the war and the chaos and destruction caused in Bosnia. Currently, the Bosnian government is searching for General Ratko Mladić and former president Radovan Karadžić. Many are upset because the Bosnian police don’t do enough to find these murderers when they were responsible with the genocide and war. It was said that the Serbian army hid the General under a secret cove and treated him like a guest. He has been considered a hero in Serbia and most people praise him. It has now been rumored that he is either dead or has failing health because he might have had a third stroke or he is hiding in Russia. It is said that the former president is also hiding in Russia. Many people want to find them, and in 2006 it was demanded that Serbia should hand over the General. The U.S. is giving a 5 million dollar reward for the arrest of the two.

WANTED!

REWARD:FIVE MILLION DOLLARS

Survey Results

Question Asked: Say this happened in the United States: The President and the General made a war between 3 ethnicities in the country. They were the criminals of innocent destroying, massacres, a major genocide, and many innocent civilians dying. They ran away and were never caught. Would you want the U.S. government, police, and/or CIA to do everything in their power to find these men and make them be punished for their crimes?

Also today there is a city called Mostar, which acts the United States when we segregated the whites and blacks. One part of Mostar is taken up by Bosniaks and the other part is taken up by Croats. The two sections are separated by the old bridge, which is how the city got its name ( The bridge is called Stari Most in Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian). Sadly, during the war the bridge was bombed, but they rebuilt it. The city today has two different sides of sidewalks to walk on, even two different sports teams for every sport. The Bosniaks and the Croats both go to separate schools. In between the two different sections, there is a land claimed by neither side. Like in Sarajevo, this is the most dangerous place of the war. When a local youth group in Mostar put up a statue of Bruce Lee, their idol and their role model, the two groups joined together to watch this. They still are segregated, but at least they came to enjoy something with one another with peace.

Video of Bosnian Scenery

Fictional Video of Sniper Alley

Explanation of the Two Clips

The two clips are from the movie “ The Peacemaker”. A Bosnian man, Dusan Gavrich, is angry at the UN. He becomes a terrorist and comes to bomb the UN Building in New York. The first clip is Bosnia. It shows the Olympic sign on the wall because Sarajevo held the 1984 winter Olympics. Most of the remains were mostly destroyed by the war. The second clip resembles Sniper Alley in Sarajevo. Dusan’s daughter and wife are killed in this event. The U.N. will not help him, and that is why he is outraged.

Quote from Dusan Gavrich

“I am a Serb, I am a Croat, I am a Muslim. You will look at what I have done and say, Of course - why not - they are all animals. They have slaughtered each other for centuries. But the truth is, I'm not a monster. I'm a human man - I'm just like you, whether you like it or not. For years, we have tried to live together, until a war was waged on us, on all of us: a war waged by our own leaders. And who supplied the Serb cluster bombs, the Croatian tanks, the Muslim artillery shells that killed our sons and daughters? It was the governments of the West who drew the boundaries of our countries - sometimes in ink, sometimes in blood - the blood of our people. And now you dispatch your peacekeepers to write our destiny again. We can never accept this peace that leaves us with nothing but pain, pain the peacemakers must be made to feel. Their wives, their children, their houses and churches. So now you know, now you must understand. Leave us to find our own destiny. May God have mercy on us all. “

Explanation of the Quote

The first sentence is the three different ethnicities fighting in Bosnia. He talks about how they never really got along. They tried to live in peace until the war came into effect. Then he talks about the UN supplying weapons so the three different ethnicities can fight. The United States government put the boundaries of the ex-country of Yugoslavia. The government wrote in documents and let the people of Bosnia die. The government sent the UN to discover peace, but they don’t help, they just make things worse by destroying lives and others. Lastly, Dusan states to let them find their own peace.

He actually makes sense because its in the three ethnicities to find peace, and not others. The UN can’t just force peace, the groups have to find it on their own. To be a country, they must act on their own. Of course they should have help, but don’t let other countries decide for them. This can speak for any country in the world, such as Iraq.

Slideshow of pictures