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YUGOSLAV SUCCESSION |
1. Introduction
2. Background and overviews of the wars
3. The war in Croatia
- consequences of the war in Croatia
4. War in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- consequences of the Bosnian war
I INTRODUCTION
Yugoslav Succession, Wars of, armed conflict within the former Yugoslavia, fought between June 1991 and December 1995. Centered in the republics of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the conflict involved three ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. It resulted in thouands of casualties and massive material damage, particularly within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conflict has been called the wars of succession because the fighting sought to determine what kind of country, or countries, would succeed, or replace, the disintegrating Yugoslavia.
II BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW OF THE WARS
The former country of Yugoslavia was a federation consisting of six republics-Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (often referred to as just Bosnia), Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. Josip Broz Tito headed the country's Communist government from 1945 until his death in 1980. Under his rule, tensions among the country's various ethnic groups were kept largely in check. After Tito died, a rotating presidency took effect, with a representative from each of the major ethnic groups taking turns as head of government. However, the leaders of several republics-especially Slovenia and Croatia-began pushing for greater decentralization and autonomy. Conversely, the republic of Serbia, under the leadership of Slobodan Miloševiæ, campaigned for greater centralization and direct control by the Serb-dominated federal government. Ethnic nationalism grew as a major force as groups within the various republics tried to assert their identity and self-determination, and shrewd politicians exploited ethnic differences in order to gain or hold on to their power and privileges. The more extremist leaders also claimed territories inhabited by different ethnic groups as their exclusive homeland. Serious economic problems fueled competition for scarce resources and increased social and ethnic tensions throughout the federation. All six Yugoslav republics held multiparty elections during 1990. In all of the republics except for Serbia and Montenegro, newly formed nationalist parties, which were both anti-Communist and opposed to the continuation of the Yugoslav federation, scored major victories.
The wars in Yugoslavia began in the summer of 1991 after Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence. In July of that year, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which consisted mainly of Serbs, intervened in Slovenia with the intention of removing the Slovenian government and disarming its defense forces; Slovenian troops repelled the Yugoslav forces after ten days. Further negotiations failed to resolve the dispute, and in October Slovenia gained international recognition as an independent state. Macedonia (now known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) was able to secede from Yugoslavia without armed conflict in November 1991.
The government of Croatia declared independence for the republic in June 1991; however, Croatia had a sizable minority of ethnic Serbs who did not want to secede from Serb-controlled Yugoslavia and rebelled against the declaration. Armed units of ethnic Serbs were given active support by the government of Serbia, and by the end of 1991 Serbian nationalists had carved out their own separate quasi-state, encompassing more than one-quarter of Croatian territory. In September 1991 the United Nations (UN) imposed a mandatory arms embargo, prohibiting the shipment of all weapons and military equipment to any of the republics or former republics of Yugoslavia. The UN also placed troops in the Serb-controlled area of Croatia but failed to return the occupied lands to Croatian control. During 1995 the Croatian army retook most of the occupied territory, and Serbian residents fled to neighboring Bosnia and Serbia. Only the regions of eastern Slavonia and Baranja remained under Serbian control. These regions were returned to Croatian control in January 1998, after a two-year transition period under the administration of a UN-mandated international force.
The war in Bosnia began in the spring of 1992, when the new government declared independence from Yugoslavia. Serbian nationalists within Bosnia violently occupied more than 60 percent of Bosnian territory; thousands of Muslims and Croats were murdered or expelled from their homes. A UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) failed to restore the country's unity or properly protect its inhabitants and was withdrawn at the end of 1995. In November 1995 the Dayton peace accord was initialed by the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia at the United States Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio; the accord was signed in Paris the following month. According to the terms of the agreement, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force was placed in Bosnia, and Bosnia's three ethnic groups agreed to re-create a single Bosnian state consisting of two largely autonomous entities, a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serbian republic.
III THE WAR IN CROATIA
Elections were held in Croatia in April and May of 1990 and were won by the Croatian Democratic Union (CDU); General Franjo Tudjman, the leader of the CDU, was elected president. Following the election, relations between the Croatian government and the Serbian minority in Croatia deteriorated. Serbian nationalists protested the Croatian government's decision to reintroduce its traditional state insignia, claiming that this suggested a revival of the World War II Fascist regime that had massacred tens of thousands of Serbs. The Serbs also protested the government's decision to make the Latin alphabet, used by Croats, the republic's official script and to remove all signs bearing the Cyrillic alphabet, used by Serbs. Serbian leaders also protested the removal of Serbs from positions of authority within the Croatian security forces and governmental bureaucracy and claimed that the new Croatian constitution failed to protect minority rights. The Serbian government in Belgrade became involved in the dispute, accusing the Croatian government of intimidation and discrimination against the Serbian minority.
Of the approximately 600,000 Serbs living in Croatia in the early 1990s (representing approximately 12 percent of the population), about one-third were concentrated in northeastern Croatia in the regions of eastern Slavonia and Baranja, on the Serbian border, and western Slavonia and Krajina on the Bosnian border. Serbs formed clear majorities in a dozen districts in Krajina and Slavonia, although the majority were settled in Zagreb, Rijeka, and other large cities.
In the summer of 1990, the Croatian government began to establish a Croatian National Guard composed entirely of ethnic Croats to take over the functions of the republican police force and the territorial defense forces. However, Serbian police in Krajina refused to disarm and began a rebellion against the Croatian state. In July Serbian separatists created the Serbian National Council, which declared the autonomy of Krajina, eastern and western Slavonia, and Baranja in September 1990. This move was declared invalid by the Croatian government in Zagreb. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army began to actively support and arm the rebel Serbs in Krajina, who rapidly mobilized a force of several thousand fighters and prepared for war.
In December 1990 the Serbian National Council announced the creation of the Serbian Autonomous Region (SAR) of Krajina. It included all territories in which Serbs represented a majority, as well as neighboring districts where no single ethnic group predominated. The rebel Serbian government refused to recognize the authority of the Croatian government in the area and pledged allegiance to Yugoslavia. Serb-Croat conflicts escalated, and in February 1991 the Serbian National Council declared the independence of Krajina from Croatia and named the city of Knin as its capital. The Serbs also established two additional SARs; one in eastern Slavonia and Baranja, and one in western Slavonia.
In May 1991 the majority of Croatian citizens voted in a national referendum in favor of independence from Yugoslavia. In June Croatia declared its independence after talks between Zagreb and Belgrade broke down on the creation of a looser Yugoslav federation. Under the direction of the Miloševiæ government in Serbia, the Yugoslav army intervened immediately, providing direct assistance to Serbian rebels in Croatia who opposed independence. Serbia wanted to achieve one of two objectives: either to force Croatia to remain within Yugoslavia or to carve away about one-third of Croatia's territory and establish a Greater Serbia.
Serbian guerrillas in the Krajina region, with direct military assistance from the Yugoslav army, launched offensives against Croatian forces and drove Croatian residents out of the self-declared Serbian state. During the summer and fall of 1991, Serbian insurgents fought against the poorly armed Croatian National Guard and gained control of more than one-quarter of Croatian territory. By December 1991 more than 5000 deaths had been reported from the fighting, many thousands of others had been injured, and more than 250,000 refugees had fled or had been expelled from the conflict zones.
In January 1992 Croatia was officially recognized by the international community as an independent state. In the same month, a UN-sponsored cease-fire came into effect, and in February a UN peacekeeping force (the United Nations Protection Force, or UNPROFOR) was placed in the disputed lands occupied by Serbs. According to the so-called Vance-Owen plan issued by the UN in October 1992, the Yugoslav army was to withdraw from Croatia; militia forces were to be disarmed; Croatian authority was to be restored in the Krajina region, with broad autonomy for the Serbs; and all refugees were to return to their homes.
The Croatian government feared that UNPROFOR would serve to legitimize Serbian control over Krajina. In August 1992 new elections were held in Croatia, and again the CDU gained a majority of parliamentary seats, with Franjo Tudjman reelected president. The new government in Zagreb built up its military forces in preparation for a new round of fighting, accusing UNPROFOR of failing to restore Croatian authority in the occupied territories. By mid-1993 it had become clear that the Vance-Owen plan had failed. Negotiations continued, however, and in January 1994 Croatia and Serbia signed a bilateral accord, pledging to restore communication and transportation links between the two republics. Nevertheless, Serbs continued to occupy Croatian territory, and relations between the two groups remained tense.
In May 1995 the Croatian army launched a new offensive against the Serbian separatists and recaptured the enclave of western Slavonia. Tensions increased, and in August 1995 the Croatian army launched a major attack on the Krajina region. The Yugoslav army did not intervene, and the Croats recaptured the entire region. Tens of thousands of Serbian refugees fled the area. Only eastern Slavonia and Baranja remained under Serbian control.
Throughout the conflict, President Tudjman was accused of imposing an authoritarian regime by placing restrictions on the mass media and giving the CDU a dominant position in all major political, economic, social, and cultural institutions. Croatian leaders stated that, under wartime conditions, such measures were necessary in order to protect the state. The Croatian government was also opposed to giving any autonomy to the Serbian minority, claiming that this would simply divide the country and lead to partition. The ruling CDU won another round of legislative elections in October 1995 but with a smaller mandate. The opposition coalition won in local elections in Zagreb and accused Tudjman of creating a personality cult and a dictatorial system.
The issue of eastern Slavonia and Baranja remained unresolved. Under an agreement parallel to the Dayton peace accord signed by the Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian governments in December 1995, eastern Slavonia and Baranja were to remain under UN protection for one year, after which the Croatian government could reassert its control after a new round of negotiations with Serbian leaders. More than two years passed before eastern Slavonia and Baranja were finally turned over to Croatia in January 1998.
A Consequences of the Croatian War
The war in Croatia resulted in more than 5000 deaths and thousands of injuries. More than 250,000 people became refugees as a result of the fighting; some had fled their homes while others were forcibly expelled. Much of the housing and infrastructure in Serb-occupied areas within Croatia were badly damaged, and destruction of communications systems left parts of the country largely cut off from the outside world. Croatia's tourist trade along the Dalmatian coast suffered during the war and the years immediately following it. Before eastern Slavonia and Baranja were returned to Croatian control in 1998, Croatia also lost the portion of its agricultural land that was located in those regions, as well as its access to the Danube River.
IV THE WAR IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
The situation in Bosnia, the central republic in Yugoslavia, was the most complicated of all the former Yugoslav republics. None of the republic's three major ethnic groups (Muslims, Serbs, and Croats) represented an absolute majority of the population. At the time of the 1991 census, Muslims were the largest group, representing 43 percent of the total population; they were followed by Serbs (32 percent) and Croats (17 percent). As the federation of Yugoslavia unraveled, politics in Bosnia began to polarize the republic's inhabitants along ethnic lines. After the Communist Party's monopoly on power was eliminated in February 1990, the Bosnian assembly legalized the creation of rival political parties and made preparations for the republic's first multiparty elections.
The elections, held in late 1990, were designed to balance the representation of Bosnia's Muslim, Serb, and Croat communities within the government. Each ethnic group formed its own party to participate: The Muslims created the Party of Democratic Action (PDA), the Serbs formed the Serbian Democratic Party (SDP), and the Croats established the Croatian Democratic Union (CDU). Other parties with reformist or liberal platforms gained only a small following. After the election, the three ethnically based parties formed a coalition government under the presidency of Alija Izetbegoviæ, a longtime anti-Communist and Muslim activist.
As neighboring Croatia pressed for independence from Yugoslavia, the republic of Bosnia found itself caught in the middle. Leaders of the three ethnic groups were increasingly pressured to side with either Serbia or Croatia. Serb leaders feared an emerging Croat-Muslim alliance that would exclude Serbs from the government and move Bosnia toward union with Croatia. Meanwhile, Muslim and Croatian leaders grew anxious that Serbian activists were plotting with the government in Belgrade to engineer a crisis in Bosnia in order to separate large areas of Bosnian territory and incorporate them into a Greater Serbia.
As armed warfare broke out in Croatia in mid-1991, tensions escalated among leaders of Bosnia's three major ethnic groups. Serbian nationalists made a series of preplanned moves to increase their control over Bosnian territory. They created a Serbian National Council as a separate organ of power and declared a Serbian Autonomous Region (SAR) of Bosnian Krajina, consisting of 14 districts in western Bosnia in which Serbs formed an absolute majority of the population, or at least were the largest ethnic group. The Bosnian government accused the nationalist Serbs of separatism. In September 1991 Serb leaders announced the formation of the SAR of Eastern and Old Herzegovina, encompassing eight districts in southeastern Bosnia inhabited primarily by Serbs. Three more autonomous regions were established in northern Bosnia, northeastern Bosnia, and in the Mount Romanija region east of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.
In the autonomous regions Serb radicals began to establish armed units in order to ensure self-determination. All five autonomous regions recognized the authority of the self-proclaimed Assembly of the Serbian People and condemned the Bosnian government in Sarajevo. The Serbs also threatened a civil war if the Bosnian government moved toward independent statehood. Meanwhile, the Miloševiæ government in Serbia accused the Bosnian Muslim leaders of planning to create a separate Islamic state. The charge was denied by President Izetbegoviæ, who asserted that Bosnia had a tradition of religious tolerance and ethnic diversity.
Conflicts continued to escalate between Muslim and Serb leaders, particularly regarding Bosnia's status. In October 1991 the Bosnian legislature adopted a memorandum on Bosnia's sovereignty and neutrality under the sponsorship of the PDA and the CDU. Serbian leaders in the SDP declared the vote illegal and claimed it would leave Bosnia's 1.5 million Serbs in the position of a minority. The SDP deputies withdrew from the assembly in protest over the sovereignty decision. In November 1991 they organized a referendum among Bosnian Serbs, who voted overwhelmingly to keep Bosnia within Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile, Croatian nationalists in western Herzegovina, where Croats formed the majority of the population, had begun to form their own autonomous region, claiming they did not want to live in a Bosnian state if a large Serbian state were to be established. In November 1991 a Croat community called Herzeg-Bosnia was created; it included 30 districts in western Herzegovina and central Bosnia. Two more Croatian autonomous areas were established at the same time in the Sava River valley (Posavina) and in central Bosnia. The central Bosnian zone merged with Herzeg-Bosnia, while the Posavina area maintained some measure of autonomy.
After the European Union (EU) agreed to recognize the independence of Yugoslav republics that had met some basic conditions, including a commitment to human rights, the Bosnian government decided to press for independence. It feared that without such a step, Serbian and Croatian nationalists would divide up the republic between them. A referendum on independence was held in March 1992; the vast majority of Muslims and Croats voted in favor of independence, while most Serbs boycotted the vote. Bosnia and Herzegovina was officially recognized as an independent state in April 1992. In response, Serbian separatists declared their own Serbian republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the stage was set for war.
Despite EU-sponsored talks designed to avoid conflict, the three sides could not agree on an acceptable constitution or territorial division. While Serbian nationalists wanted their own small state within Bosnia, as did some Croatian leaders, the Bosnian Muslims argued against any regional divisions based on ethnicity because the three populations were so intermingled. Tensions increased when reports surfaced that presidents Miloševiæ and Tudjman had held secret meetings to divide Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia.
In April 1992 armed conflicts began. The war was launched by Radovan Karadziæ, president of the Bosnian Serb Republic, and Serbian military leader Ratko Mladic. The Bosnian Serbs obtained military equipment and troops from the Yugoslav army and confiscated arms stocks from Bosnia's Territorial Defense Force. The Bosnian government was caught unprepared, and its forces were poorly armed. While the Serbian side could field about 60,000 well-armed troops and 10,000 paramilitary soldiers, the Bosnians had a poorly organized militia of about 50,000. Croatian nationalists, assisted directly by Croatia, assembled a force of some 40,000 soldiers. The Serbs had two objectives: to expand and link up the territories they controlled in western and eastern Bosnia and to eliminate the non-Serb population in this area.
With military and economic assistance from Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs launched a campaign against non-Serbian civilians, particularly Muslims. First they cleared Muslim populations from the Drina River valley in eastern Bosnia and laid siege to the capital city of Sarajevo; then, in July, they began an offensive around the Muslim-dominated city of Gorazde. Described by many international observers as "ethnic cleansing," the Serbian campaign was designed to create an ethnically pure Serb state within Bosnia. Reports of rape, torture, and mass murder became widespread, and tens of thousands of prisoners were placed in concentration camps, where many died of starvation or were executed. The systematic nature of the campaign indicated that it had been planned at the highest political levels in Belgrade. By the end of 1992, Serbian forces had gained control of more than 60 percent of Bosnian territory, and more than 1 million people had been displaced by the fighting.
Serbian successes encouraged the radical Croats led by Mate Boban to carve out their own separate state in western Herzegovina and central Bosnia in July 1992. They created a parallel administration and security system in Herzeg-Bosnia, with its capital in Mostar. However, moderate Croats continued to participate in the Bosnian government, and even the Croatian nationalists provided some measure of support to Bosnian Muslim forces in their struggle against the Serbs.
In June 1992 a United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) mounted a humanitarian operation in Bosnia, initially with 7000 troops; the mission was confined to providing relief supplies to the civilian population. In October 1992 the UN issued the Vance-Owen plan, which called for decentralizing Bosnia into nine autonomous cantons, three for each nationality, in addition to a united Sarajevo, which would have special status. However, the Serbs refused to surrender one-quarter of their land as required by the plan, and as a result the question of territory could not be settled. The UN was unable to decide on a military response to the Serbs' noncompliance and did not lift the international arms embargo on the Bosnian forces.
While the Serbs continued their ethnic cleansing operations in eastern and northern Bosnia, a new conflict erupted in May 1993 between Croats and Muslims in central Bosnia. The Croat-Muslim war lasted for ten months and was associated with brutal ethnic cleansing, which resulted in thousands of casualties. In June 1993 the UN declared six so-called safe areas primarily for Bosnian Muslims; they consisted of the cities of Sarajevo, Bihaæ, Tuzla, Gorazde, Srebrenica, and Zepa. The fighting did not stop, however. In late 1993 the UN established an international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, to indict, try, and sentence suspects accused of crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia.
The Muslim-Croat war was settled by the Washington Agreement, which was sponsored by the United States and signed by Muslim and Croatian leaders in March 1994. The agreement called for a cease-fire and provided for the establishment of a Muslim-Croat federation called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The cease-fire went into effect, but little progress was made in creating a single political and economic structure uniting Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The Croatian community of Herzeg-Bosnia continued to function and maintained its own government and military. Although moderate Croats participated in the Bosnian government, as did some moderate Serbs, the government in Sarajevo became increasingly Muslim dominated.
The UNPROFOR mission in Bosnia, which consisted of some 24,000 troops by 1994, faced serious limitations. The UN was unwilling to defend the six safe areas adequately against Serbian attacks. In addition, Serbian militia continued to obstruct UN convoys bringing food to the Bosnian population. With assistance from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a "no-fly zone" was effectively imposed over Bosnia, but NATO complained that UN commanders were unwilling to respond forcefully to Serbian violations of the safe areas.
In January 1995 a workable cease-fire was arranged in Bosnia with the assistance of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter; however, the UN was unable to conclude an acceptable political settlement. The cease-fire broke down again in May 1995, and fighting erupted in Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia. When the Serbs ignored a UN ultimatum to silence their heavy weapons, NATO planes began to bomb Serbian ammunition depots. Serbian troops seized more than 300 UN soldiers and held them hostage. Ministers from the NATO countries agreed to establish a Rapid Reaction Force to bolster the UN mission and provide protection against future hostage taking. The Serbs released the UN hostages, fearing further NATO attacks.
Events moved quickly during the summer of 1995. Serbian forces overran the safe havens of Srebrenica and Zepa and allegedly massacred thousands of Muslim civilians. NATO mounted a major air-strike campaign against Serbian positions in an effort to prevent further attacks. Meanwhile, Bosnian government forces, working in cooperation with Bosnian Croat units, overran large areas of western Bosnia, and the Serbs suffered their first major defeat of the war. The Bosnian government also eliminated a Muslim rebellion in western Bosnia led by Fikret Abdiæ, a Muslim who was collaborating with Serbian forces. By late summer, the Muslim-Croat federation controlled more than 50 percent of the country's territory.
As pressures mounted on the Serbs, the United States became more directly involved in the Bosnian conflict. In August 1995 U.S. assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrook began a major campaign to forge a peace settlement between the warring parties. Following lengthy negotiations, Bosnian president Alija Izetbegoviæ, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, and Serbian president Slobodan Miloševiæ initialed a comprehensive agreement at the U.S. Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995; the agreement was signed in Paris the following month.
The Dayton accord was intended to guarantee a lasting peace in Bosnia and to reconstruct the country as a single state consisting of two entities: the Muslim-Croat federation, with 51 percent of the territory, and the Serb Republic, with 49 percent of the territory. The UN force was withdrawn, and a NATO Implementation Force (I-FOR) consisting of 60,000 troops, including approximately 20,000 U.S. soldiers and significant numbers of British and French troops, was placed in Bosnia to ensure the peace; the NATO troops were stationed primarily along the demarcation line between the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic. As the NATO troops arrived in January 1996, the two sides began to separate their forces in the combat zones.
In general, all three sides complied with the main military provisions of the Dayton accord by withdrawing their weapons and troops from the zones of separation, releasing the majority of prisoners of war, and disclosing the size of their forces to arms control negotiators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Meanwhile, the UN began taking steps to lift the economic and military embargoes that had been imposed on the republics of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Enforcing the political and humanitarian provisions of the Dayton accord proved more difficult, however. Serbian and Croatian nationalists resisted the integration of ethnically divided communities in Sarajevo, Mostar, and elsewhere. They also hindered the return of refugees to their homes.
The Dayton agreement called for elections to posts in Bosnia's central government, the Muslim-Croat federation, and the Serb Republic, to be held in September 1996 under OSCE supervision. However, some observers feared that given the strength of nationalist parties in Bosnia and the structure of the country's political system, the elections could effectively consolidate the partition of the republic along ethnic lines. The elections took place as scheduled with precisely that result. Muslim, Croat, and Serb nationalist parties in the republic scored major victories, each capturing about 80 percent of the vote of their ethnic constituencies.
A Consequences of the Bosnian War
As a result of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, between 100,000 and 250,000 people were reported killed and about 200,000 were wounded; the overwhelming majority of casualties were Muslims. An estimated 2.3 million people were displaced by the fighting to areas within and outside the country. The distribution of the country's three major ethnic groups became more concentrated; only a few thousand Muslims and Croats were left in the Serb Republic and a few thousand Muslims and Serbs in the Croatian community of Herzeg-Bosnia. Fewer than 100,000 Serbs remained in the Muslim-Croat federation, most of whom were concentrated in Sarajevo and other large cities.
The Bosnian economy was devastated. About 45 percent of all industrial plants were destroyed, and those that survived operated at about 6 percent of their prewar capacity. About one-quarter of the prewar working population was employed as of late 1995. Domestic food production satisfied less than 35 percent of the country's needs, and as a result the country was heavily dependent on foreign food aid. Bosnia's infrastructure was severely damaged by the war, including energy distribution, roads, railways, and telecommunications. Nearly one-half of the country's school buildings were badly damaged or destroyed, as were about one-third of all health care facilities and about 70 percent of homes. Between the beginning and the end of the war, Bosnia's infant mortality rate approximately doubled. In early 1996 some sources estimated that Bosnia would need about $5 billion in foreign aid over the next few years in order to reconstruct itself. However, at that time the international commitment was falling far short of that target.
In early 1996 the war crimes tribunal, known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), became more active. More than 50 Bosnians, the majority of whom were Serbs, were indicted by the ICTY for massacring civilians during the war. They included Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadziæ and military commander Ratko Mladic. Karadziæ and Mladic were excluded from the Dayton accord by Serbian president Miloševiæ. Both men were removed from their posts in 1996, after the ICTY issued international warrants for their arrest. However, the NATO forces did not intervene to apprehend them and deliver them to the war crimes tribunal. In 1997 and early 1998 NATO troops seized a handful of suspects, and more than a dozen other indicted suspects surrendered voluntarily to the tribunal.
After the war, the people of Bosnia faced the challenge of reconciling communities that had been divided by the war and re-creating the country as a single state. In December 1996 the NATO troops in Bosnia departed and were replaced by a smaller, 31,000-member NATO force. The new force was to be responsible for deterring new hostilities and providing a safe environment for civilian peace efforts. It was initially expected to remain in Bosnia until June 1998; however, in February 1998 NATO leaders decided to keep the force in Bosnia past the June deadline.
Contributed By:
Janusz Bugajski
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