Bosnia & Herzegovina (1992-1995)
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was long considered the most ethnically diverse country in the Western Balkans. Bosnian Muslims (Bošniaks), Bosnian Catholics (Bosnian Croats), and Bosnian Orthodox Christians (Bosnian Serbs), alongside other communities, lived together for centuries.
The country of Yugoslavia existed from 1918 to 1992, during which time there were several changes to its name and structure. After World War II, socialist Yugoslavia replaced the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with a federal structure. The term “former Yugoslavia” refers to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which existed until June 25, 1991.
During much of the second half of the 20th century, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), remained relatively stable under President Josip Broz Tito. Through authoritarian rule, Tito was able to suppress nationalist tensions while maintaining unity among its diverse groups. The ethnically diverse population of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was particularly vulnerable to rising nationalism and economic decline following Tito’s death in 1980.
Amidst the political chaos to control the SFRY that followed, Serbia’s leader Slobodan Milošević subsequently advanced a violent political project aimed at establishing an ethnically homogeneous “Greater Serbia” through force.
Beginning in 1991, Yugoslavia began to violently break apart as both Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) held its own independence referendum in spring of 1992. In response, the diminished Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), now just an alliance between Serbia and Montenegro, waged war against BiH through Bosnian Serb political and military elites.
The FRY created the Republika Srpska (RS), an unrecognized Serb-controlled geopolitical entity inside BiH. The RS enabled the Bosnian Serb elites to establish a shadow governance system within BiH, while employing systematic violence to remove Bošniaks from targeted territories. Simultaneously, Croatia pursued its own territorial ambitions by backing Bosnian Croat elites, facilitating a similar Croat-dominated quasi-state, known as Herzeg-Bosnia, that engaged in armed conflict within BiH.
The violence from 1992 to 1995, including a separate Bošniak-Croat war between late 1992 and early 1994, destabilized the newly internationally recognized country. Approximately 104,000 people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were forcibly displaced. Bosnian Serb forces operated an estimated 677 detention camps where prisoners endured starvation, torture, sexual violence, and executions under brutal conditions.
Sexual violence was also deliberately deployed as a weapon of war, and more than 30,000 women were subjected to repeated assaults in so-called rape camps. Serbian-directed forces also encircled Sarajevo, subjecting the capital to the longest siege of a city in modern warfare.
In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, which had been designated as a United Nations-protected “safe area” two years earlier in 1993. In full view of the United Nations (UN) Dutch Peacekeeping Battalion in the nearby manufacturing village of Potočari, Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladić separated Bošniak men from their families. Approximately, 25,000 women, children, and elderly people were bussed out of the enclave.
Over the next 11 days, the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) murdered approximately 8,372 Bošniak men and boys, dumping their bodies in mass graves. This crime was later legally recognized as genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war in late 1995. The agreement created two political entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), an alliance between Bošniaks and Bosnian Croats; and the Republika Srpska (RS), dominated by Bosnian Serbs. However, more than three decades later, denial and revisionist policies among Serbian political elites continue to threaten fragile peace, undermine justice, and challenge established historical facts.
The United Nations (UN) established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 while the war raged. By its dissolution in 2017, the ICTY had tried 111 cases, resulting in 90 convictions and 21 acquittals. The conflict also marked the first time mass rape was formally prosecuted as a crime against humanity by an international court.