Bosnian War 1992-1995

The remains of a Muslim mosque in Bosnia after Serb forces took the area. (Gale Kirking)

Unable to come to any agreement with Serbia on the future of any even-handed Yugoslav Federation, in 1992 the Muslim-dominated government of Bosnia-Hercegovina elected to secede as well. In Bosnia, the ethnic geograpgy was even more complicated than in Croatia, where the different groups generally lived in their own areas. In Bosnia, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians all lived amongst each other. And also unlike Croatia, the Bosnias Muslims lacked a well-trained and armed fighting force. The Bosnian Serbs counted on the might of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav Army, and undertook to grab all of Bosnia for a Greater Serbia, forcing out all the Muslims and Croats in the process. To help his case, Milosevic made dire warnings of Islamic Fundamentalism, claiming that the Bosnian Muslims were planning a genocide on all of the Bosnian Serbs. The Yugoslav Army, which by now was effectively the Serbian Army, immediatley began aiding the Bosnian Serb paramilitary groups in attacking the civilian populations of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

Lacking an army to repel the advance of a highly mechanized and well-trained military machine, Bosnian civilians were slaughtered by the thousands. Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, was put under seige and thousands of Bosnians became forced refugees. Those who elected to stay were under constant threat of artillery bombardment, sniper fire and serious food shortages. Unlucky ones were packed into concentration camps. An international arms embargo prevented guns from going to either side, but in practice this only hurt the Bosnians, who had little arms to begin with. Ethnic cleansing, systematic rape and merciless seiges of Bosnian towns soon began making headlines in the Western press. But the UN was slow to act to prevent further atrocities and was powerless to separate the combatants.

To make matters worse for the Bosnian Muslims, elements of the Croat Army and Bosnian Croats attacked in Central Bosnia in an attempt to win territory for Croatia, who had just lost 1/3 of its country during the 1991 war with Serbia.

 

Sarajevo victim of mortar fire. (Associated Press)

Beset on numerous fronts and lacking the means to defend themselves, the Bosnian Muslims watched the Serbs take over 70% of their country.

The UN Role and Dayton

As news of the atrocities leaked out, the UN motivated finally to send in troops to attempt to bring order to the chaos. But in this mission they failed utterly. Lacking both the strength to take on the Serb military or the resolve to get involved in the confusion, the UN force simply sat by and was ignored by both groups once it was obvious they weren't going to actually do anything.

The military situation did not help the UN's mission. The Bosnians wanted their country back and to exact revenge for the Serbian atrocities. The Serbs wanted to exterminate them as a population and claim the land for a Greater Serbia. There was no middle ground in Bosnia.

The situation ground on until in February 1995 a Serbian artillery shell landed in a crowded Sarajevo marketplace, killing some 70 civilians. The event struck a chord and the Americans finally began drawing up plans for a NATO bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs, who by this time had completely surrounded Sarajevo and were picking off civilians in the streets.

Meanwhile the UN had established "Safe Areas" for Muslim holdouts in the midst of Bosnian Serb territory. The areas were Muslim towns already under seige and the idea was that the UN would protect these areas from the Bosnian Serb military. The tactic worked for a short time, but the UN was not prepared to fight head to head against the Serbs. While NATO debated bombing strategies and targets, the Serbs attacked and took a UN safe area called Srebrenica. They expelled the women and children, then rounded up 7000 men and massacred them, dumping the bodies in vast mass graves in the countryside. A month later another safe area called Zepa was taken but before Srebrenica could be repeated, another Serb artillery shell landed in a Sarajevo market and killed more innocents. This finally emboldened NATO to begin its bombing campaign of the Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo and the safe areas. Peace talks between the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic came to nothing, as he refused to give up any of the Bosnian territory he'd gained in the war. The bombing continued, and the force of world opinion gradually turned against the Serbs.

Eventually the bombing put the Serbs on the defensive. And UN sanctions imposed on Serbia since 1992 were not making things any easier for Milosevic. He withdrew his support for the Bosnian Serbs, who were then forced to accept the Dayton Peace Accords.

Sensing a weakening of the Serbs, the Croatian Army went on a lightning offensive and in a few weeks had taken back most of the land it lost in 1992. The action resulted in the exodus of 200,000 Serbs from Croatia, who became refugees and further taxed the resources of the debilitated Serb economy.

Serb forces in Western Bosnia collapsed and Croats/Muslims took their places. The Dayton Peace Accords were signed on 11/21/95 and split Bosnia into a Serb section and a Muslim section, each with its own governing structure and army. The slaughter had finally come to an end, but little had been resolved to settle the regional and ethnic differences of the sides.