A country of rich ethnic heritage, ruled over time by the Roman Empire, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians. The area was originally settled by the Illyrians, and later the Slavs. Throughout the middle ages, they were to adopt different religions and political allegiances. From the patchwork of different tribes that migrated into and influenced the region, three had by modern times attained the greatest influence: the Orthodox Serbian peoples, the Catholic Croatians, and Bosnian Muslims. None these groups claim a clear majority in modern Bosnia.
After the collapse of communism, nationalist politics unleashed the darkest terror to engulf a European country since WWII. The modern Yugoslavian traditions of tolerance and mixed marriages gave way to greed for power and war crimes of the worst sort.
The 1992 descent into nationalist war resulted in expulsions, concentration camp detentions, and the destruction of religious and cultural heritage, policies commonly known as ethnic cleansing. The disturbances over a quarter of a million dead.
On the surface, modern Yugoslavia was relatively peaceful.
After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav army, which had been largely been controlled by Serbs, levied attacks against those seeking independence. The newly proclaimed Republic of the Serbian Peoples of Bosnia used the heavy weaponry of the Yugoslav army to establish dominance. A shortage of manpower led to reliance on paramilitary gangs, foreign mercenaries, and convicted criminals in the struggle for power. The most extreme elements of society took control and terror became the order of the day.
The Serb-led SDS forces and VJ army of the new rump Yugoslavia mobilized offenses on Sarajevo, Mostar, and the corridor stretching from Zagreb to Belgrade.
The media was used tactically as a means to provoke conflict, turning the dividing lines of politics into battle lines that forced people to choose sides.
After a referendum in which a clear majority voted for a Bosnia united with Serb, Catholic and Muslim peoples, the party of Radovan Karadzic, the SDS, began its sabotage. Sarajevo, once a symbol of tolerance and multiethnicity became the playground of saboteurs.
Under siege for four years, the multi-ethnic population of Sarajevo was forced to bury victims of sniper fire and shelling in parks within the city. Casualties in Sarajevo reached above 10,000.
After two years of war, the terrors in Bosnia provoked a public outcry and international reaction. The United Nations and NATO made plans for intervention. The United Nations Security Council created The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, commonly known as the Hague Tribunal. The Hague Tribunal is prosecuting war criminals for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war.
The war crimes tribunal was created in a vacuum with only the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials as historical precedent.
60 miles south of Sarajevo in the historic town of Mostar, the war was heated and intense. Initially, the Serb-led VJ forces surrounded the city from all sides, forcing the largely Muslim and Croat population to form a common defense.
Alleged sinister backroom negotiations between Serb President Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to partition Bosnia left Bosnian Muslims surrounded on all sides by expansionist nationalist regimes. Ethnic cleansing was conducted to destroy the idea of a multiethnic Bosnia
The Serb forces agreed to withdraw from Mostar, leaving behind them brutal infighting between Croat's and Muslims. Croatian forces levied assaults on Mostar's Muslim population in an effort to create an ethnically pure Croatian mini-state, Herceg-Bosna. The front line carved a divide through the heart of the city, a divide that remains in place today.
Unlike the Nuremberg trials, where a system of victors justice arose, in Bosnia there were no clear winners or losers. Investigating the truth would inevitably cause further conflict.
Even more than the clear duality of good and evil in the "final solution" for the jews in WW2, the extremely complicated web of lies, disinformation, and half truths need to be untangled to get a clear picture of where responsibilities lie. Blaming the other side is a common tactic in the process of denial for war crimes.
If more crimes were committed against the Muslim populace, this does not affect the severity of crimes committed on behalf of the Bosnian defense. The altered psychology of a war without rules infected all sides of the conflict. The result was rapes and pillaging by those who could not maintain a bare minimum of respect for civilians.
30 miles north of Mostar, the Bosnian forces mounted a fierce resistance against the Serbian army, expelling and detaining civilian Serbs in the famous Muslim and Croat controlled Celebici prison camp.
While there is as of yet no evidence of WWII-style mass killings in the Muslim-controlled detention camps, rapes and fatal tortures were common, even where former neighbors are concerned . .
The ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian War caused massive population displacements. As Serb refugees were streaming in from Croatia, Serb forces were mobilizing against Muslims. As people were shuffled around like pawns in a giant chess game with no rules, all sides in the conflict became defenders and aggressors. To determine who was responsible in all this mess is very difficult. One thing is clear, the most widespread human rights abuses in Europe since WWII occurred in the midst of this confusion.
Srebenica, a town where Serb forces exterminated a village of ten thousand people under the nose of the United Nations, is the most well-known case of war crimes atrocities committed in Bosnia. The consequences of ethnic cleansing in Northwestern Bosnia have received far less publicity. Unlike Srebenica, the ethnic cleansing in the areas of Prijedor and Sanski Most involved concentration camp detentions and piecemeal mass killings that claimed over 20,000 civilians over a two year period. Early in the war, the local Serb leader Radislav Brdanin, declared that 2% was the acceptable limit of non-Serbs in the newly formed Bosnian Serb republic. Brdanin is now in the custody of the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. After moderates were purged from the Serb leadership, SDS forces began seizing control of towns and expelling Muslims. The town of Kozarac, previously 90% Muslim, was destroyed within months. Certain homes were spared from the devastation with Serb insignia, "Serb House, do not touch."
Muslims were forced to wear white armbands and signs were posted "Dogs and Muslims not allowed," recalling the horrors of WWII. Men and women were rounded up and taken to the Omarska and Keraterm camps. Women were raped, men were beaten, and tens of thousands of people were exterminated and placed in mass graves.
In Sanski Most, a well-to-do agrarian village in Western Bosnia, the aggression was directed at Muslims and Catholics. Every mosque and catholic church in the town were destroyed, with only the orthodox church spared. When Bosnian forces reclaimed the town, they left the Serb church standing as a symbol of continuing tolerance despite the attempted genocide by Serb forces.
Whether or not the war crimes prosecutions make a difference to the Bosnian people is largely a personal question for Bosnians. Although the work of reconstruction is still at its early stages, the strong presence of the international community allows for civil approaches to healing the problems of post-war Bosnia.