History of Bosnia and Herzegovina

This is the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ancient history

Bosnia has been inhabited at least since Neolithic times. In the early Bronze Age, the Neolithic population was replaced by more warlike tribes known as the Illyres or Illyrians. The Illyrians spoke an Indo-European language.

In the year 168 BC the land of Illyres became the Roman province of Illyricum. In year 10, following a four-year rebellion of Illyres, Illyria was divided and the northern strip of today's Bosnia along the south side of the Sava River became part of the new province of Pannonia, while the rest of what is today Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, western Serbia became part of the Roman province of Dalmatia.

Latin-speaking settlers from all over the empire settled among the Illyrians, and Roman soldiers were encouraged to retire in the provinces of Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Dacia across the river Danube. The town of Blagaj on the Buna River is built on the site of the Roman town of Bona. Illyria and Pannonia were later included in the Western Roman Empire (following events from the years 337 and 395 when the Empire split).

The Romans lost control of Pannonia and Dalmatia in 455 to the Ostrogoths. The Ostrogoth Kingdom was defeated by Eastern Roman Empire in the 'Gothic War' from 535-553 by the Emperor Justinian, and for a time in the mid-Sixth Century the Dalmatian province became part of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Middle Ages

The Slavs, who had originated in areas spanning modern-day southern Poland, were subjugated by the Eurasian Avars in the 6th century, and together they invaded the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries, settling in what is now Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the surrounding lands. The Serbs and Croats came in a second wave. The Byzantine book "De Administrando Imperio", written by emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus around 958, describes them being invited by Emperor Heraclius to drive the Avars from Dalmatia.

In the early Middle Ages, the term Bosnia described the region of the upper Bosna river valley. Later this term spread to cover most of what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Around 925, duke Tomislav rose to prominence as the first king of Croatia, and probably took control of most of modern-day Bosnia until the 930s, when the eastern parts of modern-day Bosnia joined in the state of the Serbs under the prince Časlav Klonimirović, who had liberated the other Serb territories from Bulgarian rule and led them until his death in the 960. The territories of Bosnia dissolved into independent statelets because much of Časlav's domain came under Byzantine and Bulgarian suzerainty again. In 968, much of Bosnia was conquered by the Croatian king Mihajlo Krešimir and after the Bosnian chiefs were put down, it was incorporated into the Croatian state. It is unclear whether it remained so during the rule of Stjepan Držislav, and during the dynastic struggle that arose after his death in 997.

Around this time dates the earliest preserved mention of the name "Bosnia". The book De Administrando Imperio, Heading 32, mentions one of the territories under Serbian control as a "small region" (χοριον) of "Bosona" (Βοσωνα), in which lie the two inhabited cities, Kotor and Desnik. Though the location of Desnik is still unknown, Kotor was located to the south of present day Sarajevo (not to be confused with Kotor at the seaside).

The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja from 1172-1196 also names Bosnia, and references an earlier source from the year 753.

In 1019 the Byzantine Emperor Basil II forced Serb and Croat rulers to acknowledge Byzantine sovereignty. Croatian king Petar Krešimir IV who rose to power in the 1060s exerted influence over Bosnia.

Some time before 1077, the prince Mihajlo of the House of Vojislavljević took control of Hum (or Zahumlje, today's Herzegovina), and declared his independence from the Byzantine Empire before 1077. Mihajlo was crowned as King of Serbia by Pope Gregory VII. Mihajlo's son Konstantin Bodin conquered much of Bosnia after 1083, but his rule of Bosnia lasted only a short time, and discord among his heirs led to the breakup of the kingdom shortly after his death in 1101.

File:Kulin.jpg

The Charter of Kulin, 1189

When Croatia became part of the Hungarian kingdom in 1102, most of Bosnia became vassal to Hungary as well. Since 1137, Bela II of Hungary claimed the duchy of Rama, a region of northern Herzegovina. His title included "rex Ramae" since 1138, likely referring to all of Bosnia. However, by the 1160s the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus defeated Hungary and restored Bosnia to the Eastern Roman Empire for a time.

There are various historic documents that include unclear or conflicting information as to the ethnic identity of the inhabitants of medieval Bosnia. For example, the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja (Ljetopis popa Dukljanina), created around 1172-1196 mentions Bosnia (Bosnam) as one of the two Serbian lands, while describing the four southern Dalmatian duchies (including most of today's Herzegovina) as Croatian lands, a description rather inconsistent with other historical works from the same period. Coupled with other inaccurate or simply wrong claims in the text, it cannot be considered reliable.

After some centuries of rule by Croatia, Serb principalities, and the Byzantine Empire, an independent Bosnian state flourished in central Bosnia between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries.

Beginning with the reign of ban Borić in 1154, Bosnia was a semi-independent banovina under the sovereignty of the king of Hungary. The second ban, Kulin, issued the first written Bosnian document written in Cyrillic in 1189.

See also the list of Bans and Kings of Bosnia.

The official documents by Bosnian rulers are a source of some controversy. The Charter of Ban Matej Ninoslav (son of Radivoj) dated 1240 includes references to Srblyin and Vlach that can be interpreted in modern ways as well as vague medieval denominations. Ban Stjepan II Kotromanić used the word "Serbian" to describe his langugage in a letter of his dated 1333, and then used the word "Croatian" for the same thing in another letter of his dated 1347.

File:Rastbosne.png

Bosnia from 12th to 14th century
Legend:
Purple – Original Bosnian teritory before 1180
Pink – Bosnia during ban Kulin from 1180-1204
Peach – Bosnia during Stjepan II from 1322-1353
Orange – Bosnia during king Tvrtko I from 1353 -1391

Throughout the Middle Ages, Herzegovina was made up of separate small duchies: Zahumlje (Hum), centered around the town of Blagaj and Travunia-Konavli, centered on the town of Trebinje. These states were sometimes ruled by particularly influential dukes but never powerful enough to form a larger, independent state. Over the course of several centuries, they were under Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian rule. Their territories included modern Herzegovina and parts of Montenegro and southern Dalmatia. The name Herzegovina was adopted when Duke (Herceg) of St. Sava Stjepan Vukčić Kosača asserted its independence in 1435/1448.

The religion of the original Slavic population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was mixed: there were Catholic and Orthodox Christians, but also many were Krstjani ("Christians"), an indigenous Bosnian Church. This church was very similar to Catholicism and Orthodoxy but under a separate bishop, and it was accused by the Catholic and Orthodox authorities of being a dualist heresy and linked to the Bogomils (Patarens).

The Bosnian bans and kings were Catholics, except for the single exception of king Ostoja Kotromanić who showed some interest in the Bosnian Church. There were, however, several important noblemen who were Krstjani, such as Hrvoje Vukčić, the Radenović-Pavlovići, Sandalj Hranić, Stjepan Vukčić, Paul Klešić. It was fairly common for the Holy See to have the Bosnian rulers renounce any relation to the Bosnian Church or even perform conversions, in return for military or other support.

Bosnian Christian Hval's Miscellany, ca. 1400

By the mid-14th century, Bosnia reached a peak under ban Tvrtko Kotromanić who came into power in 1353. Tvrtko made Bosnia an independent state and is thought by many historians to have been initially crowned in Mili near today's cities of Visoko and Sarajevo.

He went on to claim not only Bosnia and Hum, but the surrounding lands as well:

in 1377 he was crowned King of Serbia and Bosnia and the Seaside and the Western Lands in a Franciscan monastery in Mile, in the city of Visoko near Sarajevo. This coronation is believed to have happened as a token of reaffirmation of his suzerainty over Serbia, and some believe he adopted the name Stephanus (Stefan/Стефан/Stjepan/Стјепан) to emulate the Nemanjić dynasty. The exact location of the coronation is disputed, as some historians claim that this actually occurred in the Serb Orthodox Mileševo monastery by the grave of Serb patron saint St. Sava.
by 1390, Tvrtko I expanded his empire to include a part of Croatia and Dalmatia, and asumed the title of King of Rascia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia and the Seaside.

Stjepan Tvrtko I's full title listed subject peoples and geographical dependencies, following the Byzantine norm. At the peak of his power, he was King of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hum, Usora, Soli, Dalmatia, Donji Kraji etc.

After the death of Tvrtko I, the power of the Bosnian state slowly faded away. The Ottoman Empire had already started its conquest of Europe and posed a major threat to the Balkans throughout the first half of the 15th century. Finally, under the king Stjepan Tomašević Bosnia officially "fell with a whisper" (šaptom pala) in 1463 and became the westernmost province of the Ottoman Empire. Herzegovina fell to the Turks in 1482. It took another century for the western parts of today's Bosnia to succumb to Ottoman attacks.

Ottoman era

The arrival of the Ottoman Turks marked a new era in Bosnian history. The Turks created the Province of Bosnia which included sanjaks of Bosnia and of Herzegovina, among others. They also introduced the so-called spahi system (actually the timar holder system) which changed the local administration and the agriculture, but was generally an arrangement similar to European feudal fiefs.

All of the Krstjani believers eventually converted to either Orthodoxy, Catholicism or Islam. There are conflicting claims on the exact ratios or whether or how much of it was voluntary or not. Since earliest Turkish defters clearly distinguish Bosnian Christians from Catholics or Orthodox, it is now general consensus that the number of Bosnian Christians in the times of Ottoman conquest did not exceed a few hundred people.

During the Ottoman period, the Christians were treated as "dhimmis" by the Ottoman authorities but were otherwise subject to the same restrictions as the Muslim subjects. Dhimmis were not required to join the army, but they paid a special tax called jizya (glavarina in Bosnia). Due to the constant border wars with the Catholic countries (Croatia, Austria, Hungary) as opposed to already occupied Orthodox countries (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece), the Catholics were looked upon slightly less favorably than the Orthodox.

During Ottoman rule many Christian children, regardless of whether Orthodox or Catholic, were separated from their families and raised to be members of the Yeni Çeri Corps (this practice was known as the devşirme system, 'devşirmek' meaning 'to gather' or 'to recruit'). While this was of course forcibly at first, later on in Ottoman history, many Christian and Muslim parents began to bribe Ottoman officials to take their children. This was because of the very high position a Janissary held the in Ottoman society. Owing to their education (for they were thought arts, science, maths, poetry, literature and many of the languages spoken in the Ottoman Empire, such as Arabic, Bosnian, Greek and Turkish), Janissaries could easily work their way up to a becoming governors or even Grand Viziers. These positions were of course more desirable than the peasant life of the Balkans.

The Turkish conquest also changed the ethnic and religious makeup of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many Catholic Bosnians retreated to Croatia, which was controlled by Austria after the Turkish conquest of most of the Kingdom of Hungary, and to Dalmatia, which was controlled by the Republic of Venice after the fall of Hungary. Orthodox Serbs and Vlachs from Herzegovina and the Belgrade pašaluk migrated into parts of Bosnia. Many Vlachs later assimilated into the local Serb, Bosniak, and Croat populations. The Ottoman period also saw the development of a Sephardic Jewish community in Bosnia, chiefly in Sarajevo. The Sephardic Jews were persecuted in and expelled from Catholic Spain at the end of the fifteenth century, and many resettled in the Ottoman Empire because of its tolerance towards other religions (especially towards People of the Book), mainly in and around Istanbul. The first synagogue was built in Sarajevo in 1581.

The Ottoman rule also saw many (architectural) investments in Bosnia and the creation and development of many (new) cities, for example Sarajevo and Mostar. This is mostly because of the high esteem the Bosniaks held in the eyes of the Sultans and the Turks. The Empire also promoted close relations between Turks and Bosniaks, and many Turks during Ottoman times felt a trust for and a kinship with the Bosniaks.

File:Bosnia 17th century.jpg

Sanjak of Bosnia in 1606

The Turks had conquered Slavonia and most of Hungary by 1541. In the next century, most of the Bosnian province wasn't a borderland and developed in relative peace. However, when the Empire lost the war of 1683-1697 to Austria, and ceded Slavonia and Hungary to Austria at the Treaty of Karlowitz, Bosnia's northern and western borders became the frontier between the Austrian and Ottoman empires.

In 1716, Austria occupied northern Bosnia and northern Serbia, but this lasted only until 1739 when they were ceded to the Ottoman Empire at the Treaty of Belgrade. The borders set then remained in place for another century and a half, though the border wars continued.

The wars between the Ottomans and Austria and Venice impoverished Bosnia, and encouraged further migration and resettlement; Muslim refugees from Hungary and Slavonia resettled in Bosnia, assimilating into the emerging Bosniak population, and many Serbs, mostly from Kosovo but also from Bosnia and Serbia, resettled across the Bosnian border in Slavonia and the Military Frontier at the invitation of the Austrian Emperor.

The Ottoman Sultans attempted to implement various economic and military reforms in the early 19th century in order to address the grave issues mostly caused by the border wars. The reforms, however, were usually met with resistance by the military captaincies of Bosnia.

The most famous of these insurrections was the 1831-1832 one, headed by captain Husein Gradaščević or Zmaj od Bosne (the Bosnian dragon), who raised a full-scale rebellion in the province, joined by thousands of native Bosnian soldiers. Despite winning several notable victories, the rebels were eventually defeated in a battle near Sarajevo in 1832. Internal discord contributed to the failure of the rebellion, because Gradaščević was not supported by much of the Herzegovinian nobility. The rebellion was extinguished by 1850, but the Empire continued to decline.

The Ottoman rule lasted for over four hundred years, until 1878.

19th and 20th century

The Ottoman Empire divided its subjects by religion, rather than nationality, but nationalist movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere in the Empire gained strength in the 19th century. Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks shared a common language, variously called Slavic, Illyrian, Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian. (See also Serbo-Croatian language.)

The Orthodox Serbs were the most nationally organized, and were encouraged by neighboring Serbia, which won autonomy within the Ottoman Empire in 1817, and later independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina's Catholics identified with the Croats from neighbouring Austro-Hungarian provinces of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. Both Serb and Croat nationalists claimed Bosnia's Slav Muslims, and some Muslims did embrace Serb identity (Osman Đikić, Šukrija Kurtović), or Croat identity (Safvet Basagic, Musa Cazim Catic, Edhem Mulabdic,..). Although Bosnia's Muslims enjoyed a privileged status under Ottoman rule relative to their Christian neighbors, many desired autonomy from the detested Ottoman governors and officials. The Ottomans didn't distinguish Muslim Bosniaks from the empire's other Muslims, and many Bosniaks continued to identify with their Turkish co-religionists, although a Bosniak national movement and identity began to develop in the late nineteenth century.

In addition to Serb, Croat, and Bosniak national movements, the Yugoslav movement, which sought to unite all the South Slav peoples, and Pan-Slavism, a movement to unite all Slavs, had adherents as well.

In 1875, a rebellion broke out among Christian peasants in Herzegovina, which spread to Bosnia and Bulgaria. Heavy-handed Ottoman suppression of the rebellion encouraged neighboring states to intervene; Serbia and Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1876, and Russia intervened the following year in support of Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria.

At the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, The Ottomans ceded Bosnia and Herzegovina to occupation and administration by Austria-Hungary, although the province still formally remained Ottoman territory. Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs violently resisted the entry of Austrian troops who, although surprised, quickly crushed the rebellion. The Austrian troops, on the other hand, were welcomed by the Catholic Croats who would thrive under the Austrian occupation.

Following the revolution of the Young Turks in 1908, Austria hurried to formally annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. This sent shock waves through the nearby nations, and the people of Montenegro and Serbia loudly protested, some even calling for war, as the prevailing opinion was that Bosnia was Serbian. Russian diplomatic intervention stopped the belligerent politicians, but not for long. The 1914 assassination in Sarajevo of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, triggered the First World War. The Yugoslav nationalist organization Mlada Bosna organized the attack, and student conspirator Gavrilo Princip fired the fatal shot.

Following the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were incorporated into the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.

After the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, Bosnia and Herzegovina were occupied by the Nazi puppet state of Croatia. Thousands of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies were killed by the Fascist Ustaša regime. Communist Partisan and royalist Chetnik rebels, aided by Britain and the US, fought the Ustaša and Nazi troops, though they also fought among themselves.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the centers of Partisan resistance, with 23 brigades of the People's Liberation Army. Conservative estimates of the wartime death count in Bosnia range around three hundred thousand individuals. Several important battles were fought on this territory, notably:

the battle on the Kozara mountain in the summer of 1942, when a large group of partisans and even more civilians were surrounded on the mountain and had to break the siege to survive
the battle on the Neretva river in early 1943, part of the Fall Weiss offensive, where the partisans again escaped an enemy blockade, by destroying and then quickly rebuilding a strategically crucial bridge over the river Neretva
the battle on the Sutjeska river, part of the Schwarz offensive, in the summer of 1943, the final assault of the fascists that attempted to crush the resistance and capture Tito, that was unsuccessful

In late 1943, the partisans started winning the war, and convening the AVNOJ conferences in the central Bosnian town of Jajce, which marked the beginning of a new Yugoslav state. On 25. November 1943 the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia with Marshall Tito on its helm held a founding conference in Jajce where Bosnia and Herzegovina was reestablished as a republic within the Yugoslavian federation in its Ottoman borders. The conference's conclusions were later confirmed by the Yugoslavian constitution.

After World War II ended, Bosnia and Herzegovina became one of the six republics of Yugoslavia in 1945, when the country was re-organized as a communist federal state under Josip Broz Tito.

Bosnia was one of the economically poorer republics of socialist Yugoslavia, but it was built up noticeably using federal funds for underdeveloped regions.

Post-Yugoslav Bosnia

Yugoslavia's unraveling was hastened by the rise of ethnic nationalism, as Bosnian Muslims looked to Alija Izetbegović, Serbs to Slobodan Milošević and Croats to Franjo Tuđman.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was the only Yugoslav Republic where there was no majority of a single ethnicity, and its capital Sarajevo was also mixed. While the ethnic communities in Sarajevo tolerated each other and mixed in day-to-day life, they frequently married within their own groups and so the ethnic communities remained to some extent separate. By the early 1990s Bosnia therefore became a particularly problematic area.

The problem was sparked when the first separate elections in the Yugoslav Republics were held: in Bosnia, this resulted in an assembly dominated by three ethnically-based parties, which had formed a loose coalition to oust the Yugoslav Communist Party. As leader of the largest party, Alija Izetbegović became President. Izetbegović had been jailed in 1983 for publishing the "Islamic Declaration" which implied Bosnia as an Islamic state, and released in 1990 when he formed a nationalist centre-right party called the 'Party of Democratic Action' (SDA) which pledged to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina as a multiethnic state. He more or less abandoned his youth ideology of an Islamic State. His banned manifesto was reprinted in 1990 in Belgrade and was used by Serbian nationalists as a tool to implicate him for nationalistic activity. Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman, each with a following among the Bosnians of their respective nationalities, met on March 25, 1991 in Karađorđevo and reportedly discussed and agreed upon a division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between their two states. The connection of Bosnian Croats with the Croats in Croatia was particularly obvious given that Tuđman's political party was the sister party of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ).

In 1991, Slovenia declared independence which caused a short conflict with the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) which tried to prevent secession. When, later that year, Croatia followed, the JNA intervened in support of the Serb majority in the Krajina which hoped at the least to separate from Croatia. While the proportion of ethnicities in different areas varied, Bosnia was quite ethnically heterogenous and it was difficult if not impossible to suggest any way of partitioning the state in order to create three separate states. The Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina provided for three constitutional nations: Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, so no major constitutional changes were to be granted short of a unanimous agreement from all three sides.

On February 29 and March 1 1992, the Bosnian government held a referendum on independence. The Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks mostly voted in favour. The Bosnian Serbs, largely against independence, boycotted the referendum claiming that it was unconstitutional: the Serb delegates in parliament had not approved it. With a 99% vote for independence on a turnout of 66% of eligible voters, the Bosniak and Croat representatives in Bosnia's parliament declared the republic's independence on April 5, 1992. The Serb delegates, having previously seceded over the violation of the Constitution, declared their own state Republika Srpska at midnight on April 7.

Under pressure from Germany, the European Union countries recognized the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina by April 7, as did the United States, and the country was admitted to the United Nations on May 22.

Bosnian War

French soldiers of the IFOR near a destroyed church on the Sarajevo-Mostar road. Many mosquees were destroyed alike.[1]

File:Serb ambitions.gif

Serb war ambitions:
Serb - red
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green
Western Bosnia - orange

File:Herceg bosna.GIF

Croatian community Herceg Bosna

File:Wance-Owen plan.GIF

Wance-Owen plan:
Serb - red
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green
Split control - white

File:Free territories.GIF

Situation in 1993:
Serb - white
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green

File:Free T2.GIF

Situation in 1994:
Serb - white
Croat - blue
Bosniak - green

Being in the middle of a wider conflict, the situation in Bosnia quickly escalated, even before the referendum results were announced.

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 (JNA) destroyed a small village of Ravno located in Herzegovina and 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.

Finally, on November 18, 1991 the Croats of Herzegovina, formed the "Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia" (Hrvatska Zajednica Herceg-Bosna) as an national supra-organization that aimed to protect their interests.

The Yugoslav People's Army was deployed around Bosnia and Herzegovina and tried to take control of all major geostrategic points as soon as the independence was declared in April 1992. The Croats organized a military formation of their own called the Croatian Defense Council (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane, HVO), the Bosniaks mostly organized into the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Bosne i Hercegovine, Armija BiH), while the Serbs participated in the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske, VRS). In some places, smaller paramilitary units were active, such as the Serb "White Eagles" (Beli Orlovi), Bosniak "Patriotic League"(Patriotska Liga) and "Green Berets" (Zelene Beretke), or Croat "Croatian Defense Forces" (Hrvatske Obrambene Snage).

The war between the three constitutive nations turned out to be probably the most chaotic and bloody war in Europe since World War II. Numerous cease-fire agreements were signed, only to be broken again when one of the sides felt it was to their advantage.

The United Nations repeatedly attempted to stop the war, but wasn't particularly successful. Cyrus Vance and David Owen drew up a much-touted peace plan during 1992 but it did not have much result.

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.

Initially it was Bosniaks and Croats together against the Serbs on the other side. The Serbs had the upper hand due to heavier weaponry (despite less manpower) and established control over most of the Serb-populated rural and urban regions excluding the larger towns of Sarajevo and Mostar. The Serb forces received the most accusations of genocide – cf. Bosnian Genocide.

Most of the capital Sarajevo was held by the Bosniaks and in order to prevent the Bosnian army from being deployed out of the town, the Bosnian Serb Army surrounded it, deploying troops and artillery in the surrounding hills. They imposed a blockade on all traffic in and out the city on May 2, 1992, starting what was to be known as the siege of Sarajevo.

The Bosnian Serbs constantly bombarded the civilians of all ethnicities in the city. They held on to a few Sarajevo suburbs (Grbavica and parts of Dobrinja), a part of which were also under control of the Bosnian government forces. The civilian death count in Sarajevo would pass 12,000 by the end of the war.

To make matters even worse, in 1993, after the failure of the so-called Vance-Owen peace plan which practically intended to divide the country into three ethnically pure parts, an armed conflict sprung between Bosniak and Croat units in a virtual territorial grab. The Croats and Bosniaks began fighting over the 30 percent of Bosnia they held. This caused the creation of even more ethnic enclaves and even further bloodshed. It was later established that Bosnian Croat military actions were directly supported by the government of Croatia which made this also an international conflict [2]. At that time about 70% of the country was in Serb control, about 20% in Croat and 10% in Bosniak (which represented 44% of population before the war).

Mostar was also surrounded for nine months, and much of its historic city was destroyed by shelling.

In an attempt to protect 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.

Eventually even NATO got involved when its jets shot down four Serb aircraft over central Bosnia on February 8 1994, in what was supposed to be a UN declared "no-fly zone"; this was the alliance's first use of force since it was founded in 1949.

In March 1994, Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia signed the Washington peace agreement, creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . This narrowed the field of warring parties down to two.

A mass killing, widely considered the largest in Europe since World War II, happened in July 1995. Reportedly in retaliation to previous incursions by Naser Orić's troops, Serb troops under general Ratko Mladić occupied the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, after which 7779 Bosniak males were killed (See the Srebrenica Massacre article for details).

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).

Civilian cars cross Neretva on a UN-built military bridge, near the destroyed bridge.

The death toll after the war was estimated at 200,000 by the Bosnian government and this figure is still quoted most often by the western media. Research done by the International Criminal Tribunal determined a more precise number of 102,000 deaths with the following breakdown: 55,261 were civilians and 47,360 were soldiers. Of the civilians, 16,700 were Bosnian Serbs while 38,000 were Bosnian Muslims or Bosnian Croats. Of the soldiers, 14,000 were Bosnian Serbs, 6000 were Bosnian Croats, and 28,000 were Bosnian Muslims. [3]

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.

Bosnia after the war

File:Fed trazeno.GIF

Settlement requested by Federation in 1995:
Federation BiH - yellow
Republika Srpska - red

Bosnia and Herzegovina after Dayton Agreement

The Dayton Agreement divides Bosnia and Herzegovina roughly equally between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska, based mostly on their wartime borders.

The third incarnation of the war in the former Yugoslavia prompted the UN to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on May 25, 1993, which started work in 1996. The warring parties committed war crimes, committed ethnic cleansing, formed internment camps often compared to concentration camps.

In 1995-1996, a NATO-led international peacekeeping force (IFOR) of 60,000 troops served in Bosnia to implement and monitor the military aspects of the agreement. The country was divided into three sectors, with the north east controlled by US lead forces, the north west by British forces, and the south (including Sarajevo, Mostar and Gorazde) French lead.

IFOR was succeeded by a smaller, NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) whose mission was to deter renewed hostilities. The United Nations' International Police Task Force in Bosnia was replaced at the end of 2002 by the European Union Police Mission, the first such police training and monitoring taskforce from the European Union.

SFOR's duties were in turn taken over by an even smaller, EU-led EUFOR at the end of 2004.

Feelings among Bosnia's three nations regarding their roles in the war are based mostly on two issues; whether the war was initiated by Serbian aggression, and whether Croat and Serbdom was or would have been infringed upon in an independent Bosnian state. Bosniaks overwhelmingly feel the war was a clear case of Serbian aggression and that the new Bosnian state was and would have been peacefully multiethnic. The vast majority of Serbs on the other hand believe that there was no aggression on their part, but rather a needed effort to protect Serbdom and the presence of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina which would have been infringed upon in a Bosnian state. Bosnian Croats mostly find themselves between these two views, believing that the war was a case of Serbian aggression but that Croatian culture and presence in the Bosnian state was and/or would have been infringed upon.

It has been argued that, throughout the conflict, the international community (especially the United Nations) has made fatal errors in evaluating the situation. This is a point of contention — opinions range from those that say they should have intervened earlier and stopped the bloodshed, to those who question whether they should have intervened at all.

The western media's reporting of the conflict pursued the doctrine of 'moral equivalence', portraying all warring sides as as bad as each other. It is technically true that war crimes were committed by all sides during the conflict (as in most wars - in World War II, for instance, the Allies' firebombing of Dresden is now regarded as an atrocity). However, much as it would be absurd to say that all sides were therefore equally tainted in World War II, neither were they in this war.

However, what is important to note is that a very large number of casualties arose from the concentration camps held mainly by the Serbs (some by the Croats in Herzegovina) which sometimes encompassed whole cities. Here, forms of torture had been implemented by the Serb nationalists "Chetniks" that were used on the mostly Muslim population of Bosnia (this has been documented even in WWII). Individuals that survived these atrocities are constantly appearing in media with stories of physical, sexual and psychological torture resembling those of the Holocaust.

Since the end of the war, Bosnia has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry has been fuelled by NATO and EU forces in Bosnia. [4] [5]

External links

General history

War and post-war history