| Bosnian War | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Yugoslav Wars | ||||||||||
The Executive Council Building burns after being hit by tank fire in Sarajevo; Bosanska Krupa in 1992; Bosnian refugees reunited in a military camp; Serbian T-34 tank being drawn away from the frontline near Doboj in spring of 1996; Ratko Mladić with Army of Republika Srpska officers; A Norwegian UN peacekeeper in Sarajevo during the siege in 1992 | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| Belligerents | ||||||||||
Until October 1992: Bosnia and Herzegovina Herzeg-Bosnia Croatia |
Until May 1992: Republika Srpska Serbian Krajina SFR Yugoslavia (until 27 April 1992) Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (from 27 April 1992) | |||||||||
|
October 1992–94: Bosnia and Herzegovina |
October 1992–94: Herzeg-Bosnia Croatia |
May 1992–94: Republika Srpska Serbian Krajina Western BosniaSupport: FR Yugoslavia | ||||||||
|
1994–95: Bosnia and Herzegovinab Herzeg-Bosnia Croatia Support:  NATO (bombing operations, 1995) |
1994–95: Republika Srpska Serbian Krajina Western BosniaSupport: FR Yugoslavia | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||||
|
|
Krešimir Zubak(President of Herzeg-Bosnia from 1994) Milivoj Petković(HVO Chief of Staff) ...and others |
| ||||||||
| Strength | ||||||||||
 ARBiH:110,000 troops 110,000 reserves 40 tanks 30 APCs[1] |
 HVO:45,000–50,000 troops[2][3][4] 75 tanks 50 APCs 200 artillery pieces[5]  HV:15,000 troops[6] |
1992: JNA1992–95  VRS:80,000 troops 300 tanks 700 APCs 800 artillery pieces[7]  NOZB:4,000–5,000 troops[8] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
|
30,906 soldiers killed 31,107 civilians killed[9] |
5,919 soldiers killed 2,484 civilians killed[9] |
20,775 soldiers killed 4,178 civilians killed[9] | ||||||||
| additional 5,100 killed whose ethnicity and status are unstated[10] | ||||||||||
|
a ^ From 1992 to 1994, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was not supported by the majority of Bosnian Croats and Serbs. Consequently, it represented mainly the Bosniaks. b ^ Between 1994 and 1995, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was supported and represented by both Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. This was primarily because of the Washington Agreement. | ||||||||||
The Bosnian War[a] (Serbo-Croatian: Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following several earlier violent incidents. It ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton Accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, the latter two entities being proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.[11][12]
The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44%), Orthodox Serbs (32.5%) and Catholic Croats (17%) – passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. Political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum and rejected its outcome. Anticipating the outcome of the referendum, the Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Constitution of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 28 February 1992. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence (which gained international recognition) and following the withdrawal of Alija Izetbegović from the previously signed Cutileiro Plan[13] (which proposed a division of Bosnia into ethnic cantons), the Bosnian Serbs, led by Radovan Karadžić and supported by the government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), mobilised their forces inside Bosnia and Herzegovina to secure ethnic Serb territory. The war soon spread across the country, accompanied by ethnic cleansing.
The conflict was initially between Yugoslav Army units in Bosnia which later transformed into the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) on the one side, and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), largely composed of Bosniaks, and the Croat forces in the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) on the other side. Tensions between Croats and Bosniaks increased throughout late 1992, resulting in the escalation of the Croat–Bosniak War in early 1993.[14] The Bosnian War was characterised by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing, and systematic mass rape, mainly perpetrated by Serb,[15] and to a lesser extent, Croat[16] and Bosniak[17] forces. Events such as the siege of Sarajevo and the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict. The massacre of over 8,000 Bosniak males by Serb forces in Srebrenica is the only incident in Europe to have been recognized as a genocide since World War II.[18]
The Serbs, although initially militarily superior due to the weapons and resources provided by the JNA, eventually lost momentum as the Bosniaks and Croats allied against the Republika Srpska in 1994 with the creation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Washington Agreement. Pakistan ignored the UN's ban on the supply of arms and airlifted anti-tank missiles to the Bosnian Muslims, while after the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force, targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war.[19][20] The war ended after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995. Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalised on 21 November 1995.[21]
By early 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had convicted forty-five Serbs, twelve Croats, and four Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia.[22][needs update] Estimates suggest over 100,000 people were killed during the war.[23][24][25] Over 2.2 million people were displaced,[26] making it, at the time, the most violent conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.[27][28] In addition, an estimated 12,000–50,000 women were raped, mainly carried out by Serb forces, with most of the victims being Bosniak women.[29][30]
- ^ Ramet 2010, p. 130.
- ^ Christia 2012, p. 154.
- ^ CIA 1993, p. 28.
- ^ Shrader 2003, p. 22.
- ^ Ramet 2006, p. 450.
- ^ Mulaj 2008, p. 53.
- ^ Finlan 2004, p. 21
- ^ Ramet 2006, p. 451.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
RDC 2012was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "After years of toil, book names Bosnian war dead". Reuters. 15 February 2013. Archived from the original on 21 July 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
- ^ "ICTY: Conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "ICJ: The genocide case: Bosnia v. Serbia – See Part VI – Entities involved in the events 235–241" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 March 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "From Lisbon to Dayton: International Mediation and the Bosnia Crisis" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 January 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
- ^ Christia 2012, p. 172.
- ^ Wood 2013, pp. 140, 343.
- ^ Forsythe 2009, p. 145
- ^ "Bosnia Handout". fas.org. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
- ^ "'It's getting out of hand': genocide denial outlawed in Bosnia". The Guardian. 24 July 2021. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
- ^ Cohen, Roger (31 August 1995). "Conflict in the Balkans: The overview; NATO presses Bosnia bombing, vowing to make Sarajevo safe". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 September 2018. Retrieved 5 May 2011.
- ^ Holbrooke, Richard (1999). To End a War. New York: Modern Library. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-375-75360-2. OCLC 40545454.
- ^ "Dayton Peace Accords on Bosnia". US Department of State. 30 March 1996. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2006.
- ^ Bilefsky, Dan (30 July 2008). "Karadzic Sent to Hague for Trial Despite Violent Protest by Loyalists". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 24 June 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2022.
- ^ "Bosnia war dead figure announced". BBC. 21 June 2007. Archived from the original on 9 April 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
- ^ "Bosnia's dark days – a cameraman reflects on war of 1990s". CBC. 6 April 2012. Archived from the original on 15 June 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
- ^ Logos 2019, p. 265, 412.
- ^ "Jolie highlights the continuing suffering of the displaced in Bosnia". UNHCR. 6 April 2010. Archived from the original on 29 January 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2010.
- ^ Hartmann, Florence. "Bosnia". Crimes of War. Archived from the original on 9 May 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
- ^ Harsch, Michael F. (2015). The Power of Dependence: NATO-UN Cooperation in Crisis Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-19-872231-1.
- ^ Burg & Shoup 2015, p. 222.
- ^ Crowe, David M. (2013). War Crimes, Genocide, and Justice: A Global History. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-230-62224-1. Archived from the original on 23 January 2023. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
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