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Bosnian Ethnic Cleansing

  • One of the mitigating factors in addition to ethnic tensions was the Nationalist leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who was pushing for what he called a “Greater Serbia”
  • Bosnian Croats and Muslims feared Milosevic would attempt to take their land if they were still under Yugoslavian control, leading them to call for Bosnian independence
  • Another key player is Radocan Karadzic, who created a renegade army within Bosnia with the support of Milosevic in Serbia
  • In 1992, under Karadzic’s leadership, Bosnian Serbs began a policy of “cleansing” large areas of Bosnia for non-Serbs and Bosnian Muslims

-(After the war, Karadzic would be convicted as a military commander of war crimes)

-Turning point in the process of the cleansing was on April 6, 1992 when the Bosnian Serbs began a siege of Sarajevo

-Muslim, Croat, and Serb residents who were opposed to a Greater Serbia were cut off from food, utilities, and communication

-For 3 years food was scarce and on average most individuals lost 40 lbs or more

-In 43 months of siege, more than 12,000 residents of Sarajevo were killed

-The Bosnian Serb nationalists began an exact program of ethnic cleansing in order to create a “pure” Serbian territory

-Entire villages were destroyed with thousands of Bosnians driven from their homes, held in detention camps, raped, tortured, deported, or killed

-Rape was seen as a purposeful military tactic to destroy the bonds of families and communities

-Over the next several years, Bosnian Serb forces targeted both Bosnian Muslim and Croatian civilians for atrocious crimes resulting in the deaths of 100,000+ people (80 percent Bosniak) by 1995

- Considered the worst act of genocide since the Nazi regime’s destruction of European Jews during WWII

-An international arms embargo act was also in effect throughout the war, preventing the Bosnian government from obtaining heavy artillery that it needed to fight the more sophisticated Serbian armies

-Although the Bosnian gov tried to defend the territory, Bosnian Serb forces were in control of nearly three-quarters of the country by the end of 1993

-Karadzic’s party had set up their own Repunlika Srpska in the east

-By 1995, only three towns in eastern Bosnia (Srebrenica, Zepa, Gorazde) remained under Bosnian government control

-U.N. declared these towns “safe havens” to be disarmed and protected by international peacekeepers

-On July 11, Bosnian Serb forces advanced on Srebrenica and overwhelmed a battalion of Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed there

-Serbian forces separated the Bosniak civilians and put women and girls on buses to be raped and sent to Bosnian-held territory

-Men and boy civilians were killed immediately or bussed to mass killing sites

-It is est that 8,000+ Bosniaks were killed by Serb forces at Srebrenica alone

-In the same month as the attack on Srebrenica, Serb forces captured Zepa that same month and exploded a bomb in a crowded Sarajevo market

-The international community finally began to respond more forcefully to the ongoing conflict and growing civilian death toll

-In August 1995, after Serbs refused to comply with a U.N. ultimate, NATO joined efforts with Bosnian and Croatian forces for 3 weeks to bomb Serb positions in a ground offensive

-Serbia’s economy was crippled by U.N. trade sanctions and having military forces under assault after three years of warfare, Milosevic agreed to enter negotiations in October

-A U.S. sponsored peace talk in Ohio in November 1995 resulted in a federalized Bosnia divided between a Croat-Bosniak federation and a Serb republic

-Bosnian Serbs and Muslims remain segregated

-Map is divided on both sides, with Sarajevo remaining neutral

-However, most schools in Sarajevo remain segregated by ethnicity

-These two sides are receiving two completely different educations, learning opposite sides of history and developing opposite perspectives

-Thus, even though the war is over tension is still present and growing

FUN

T/F: Bosnian Muslims held 3/4 of Bosnian land after 3 years of war

T/F: Milosevic wanted to create the "Great Croatia"

International Response

Understanding Key Players

Attack on Srebrenica- July 1995

The Situation Today

What is the Bosnian War?

Green area: Bosnian Muslim

Yellow area: Bosnian Serb Dominated

Ethnic Cleansing cont.

Ethnic Cleansing- Siege of Sarajevo

-International armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from April 1992 to December 1995

-The two main opposing forces were the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina

-Essentially, the Bosnian War was fought because Serbs and Croats living in Bosnia wanted to annex Bosnian territory for Serbia and Croatia respectively

-It initially came about as a result of the break up of Yugoslavia

By Kaitryn McDade, Max Lee, and Travis Crabb

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