Ethnic Cleansing in the Former Yugoslavia

Background
Yugoslavia had essentially been a federation of six republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia; formed after World War I in an effort to unify all the Slavs. The borders dividing the republics had been drawn by the great European powers in old treaties, giving way to later disputes. Bosnia and Herzegovina was created as an ethnically mixed state, with no clear majority between Muslims and Serbs, and Croats within its borders. All the ethnic groups followed different religions and cultures, and tension and hatred brewed among the federation for decades, but had been suppressed under the rule of dictator Josip Broz Tito and his communist regime. After the dissolution of the USSR, Yugoslavia was left with an unstable government to hold them together, as individual groups came to power. The republics wanted their independence from the federation, but the most dominant group, the Serbians, wanted to keep the republic together and control the government and gain power. The subject of Bosnia-Herzegovina was especially questionable, as the population of Muslims and Serbs gean to pull apart and opposing leaders ruptured the borders. The Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) wanted desperately to seize this opportunity for independence, the Serbians chose violence in an attempt to discourage them from seceding from the federation.

Declaring Independence
With the different ethnicities declaring their independence Yugoslavia was bound to fall apart. Tension developed between neighboring territories as they fought for their sovereignty. Chaos emerged from the different groups and the fighting began. The different ethnicities couldn’t be satisfied living as one country mainly because of conflicting and competing nationalisms. This can be blamed on the structure of the unified state.

On June 25, 1991 Slovenia was the first to break free from Yugoslavia by declaring its independence and taking over border posts. Unlike the other ethnicities Slovenia left without much trouble. It became a successful republic and was recognized as an independent state by the United Nations and European Community in 1992.

The situation was unfortunately very different for Croatia. In 1990, Croatia elected nationalist Franjo Tudjman as its leader in a non-communist government. They declared their independence the same day as Slovenia and fighting broke out immediately between the JNA, Serbs, and Croat forces. The Serb forces used their military superiority to claim large chunks of Croatia including Krajina, Western Slavonia, Zadar, and Knin. The most damage occurred in Knin; a major transport hub. The European Community had made an attempt to negotiate peace, but due to its failure The United Nations had to issue a truce between the two sides. This truce was a failure and left many Croatians as refugees. There were also reports of homes being burned, looted, and many other horrible crimes against civilians. Another Croatian effort was made for their freedom in 1995 when Croatian forces launched a massive offensive attack against the Krajina Serbs. This led to 14,000 Serb Civilians being killed and about 30,000 Serb refugees. This attack focused on killing civilians, burning Serb homes, looting Serb property, and killing the elderly.

The wars that occurred in Bosnia-Hercegovina are most famous and recognizable for brutality and horrific campaigns. Bosnia was full of many different ethnicities including Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. All of these ethnicities held and equal amount of Bosnia which led to many problems when Slobodan Milosevic came to power. Milosevic talked of a “Greater Serbia” which included much of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Milosevic’s famous line was, "Where ever there is a Serb, there is Serbia." The main problem in Bosnia was that there was no clear division between ethnicities. No single group held absolute majority over the country. In order to define different communities, some regions would have to be ethnically cleansed.

In March 1992 Bosnia declared its Independence from Yugoslavia. This immediately sparked the Bosnian Serbs to create the Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) with the idea of creating an ethnically pure Serbian enclave in northern and eastern Bosnia. The Croats followed their footsteps with the founding of the Croatian Community. Fighting grew between Muslim forces and Bosnian Croat forces until 1994 when they agreed to a cease-fire and founded the joint Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. These two groups teamed up to fight against the Serb forces.

The heaviest fighting in the entire war was between the Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. The Serbs wanted an ethnically pure Republika Srpska but large Muslim minorities made it difficult. To solve this problem, the leader of the Republika Srpska, General Ratko Mladic, began a policy of ethnic cleansing against Muslims in “Serb lands”. They sent Muslims to concentration camps where massive counts of rape and sexual assault against Muslim women and girls and massive executions of Muslim men and boys occurred. In July of 1995 more than 7000 Muslims were killed by Serb forces under the command of Mladic in Srebrenica where looting, torture, and relocation occurred. The brutality was shocking to the West.

What Went Wrong?
As Yugoslavia began to crumble apart, lines were drawn and standards were set by ultra-nationalist leaders for the new republics. The conflicts were embodied by the fact that although the ethnic groups wanted independence, they were so interspersed all throughout the federation that it was impossible to draw new lines and create independent republics without running into opposing groups. In Croatia in 1990, the anti-communist Franjo Tudjman, who had fought with the partisans against the Nazis during World War II, came to power and created the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, taking Croatian nationalism to the extremeties. In turn, in Serbia came under the rule of Slobodan Milošević, who favored Yugoslav unity. In general, Slovenia and Croatia elected leaders oriented towards independence, and Serbia and Montenegro elected leaders oriented towards keeping Yugoslavia unified.

In Croatia, there was growing advocacy for "Croatian state and historical rights," leading to the stripping of national and constitutional rights of the Serbs in Croatia and demoting them to a national minority. In response, the Serbs created autonomous areas in Croatia like Krajina. As conflicts escalated, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), dominated by the Serbs, declared a state of a emergency that would allow the army to take control of the country, but naturally, there was opposition in the voting, and the anti-Serbs refused to comply. Croatia began smuggling in arms (due to the arms embargo placed on Yugoslavia) , mainly from Hungary, and plotting against the JNA, who had announced their seccession from Croatia. The Croatian Serb rebels had the upper hand, as they had the support of the JNA.

Massacres broke out between the ethnic Croatians and the ethnic Serbs in 1991, and reached Bosnia in 1992, when the siege of Sarajevo broke out. In Sarajevo, there was bitter fighting between the Bosnian government who strived for independence, and the JNA and Bosnian Serbs. The Bosnian government demanded the JNA leave their territory, but the Serbs surrounded the Bosnians and began a siege. The Serbs were better armed, but the Bosnians within the city outnumbered the Serbs. The warring went literally neighborhood-by-neighborhood, with Serb snipers taking out the Bosnians rapid-fire, and destroyed hundreds of buildings with tanks and heavy arms. Bosnians were massacred by mortar shells, the vast majority of them civilians, while Serbs were shot and killed by the Bosnians, and talks of genocidal actions against the Serbs in Sarajevo have been disputed.

In addition, the Srebrenica Massacre of approximately 8,000 Bosniak males took place in July 1995, by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS); the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. In a confirmed act of genocide, the VRS targeted to eliminate the 40,000 Bosniaks living in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, and subsequently stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, regardless of age or civilian status; of their worldly rights, belongings, and even identificiation, and murdered them simply on the basis of their religion.

Quite obviously, the whole of Yugoslavia had serious issues in regards to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Though not nearly taken to the catastophic extent of the Holocaust, serious measures were taken against civilians of all ethnicities, but mainly the Serbs and the JNA versus Slonevia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Croatia, in efforts to drive out the Serbs, they stripped them of their rights, clearly not seeing them as equal persons and subjecting them to exile and unjustified punishment. Throughout the federation, there were no fair trials or questions asked, people were just forced out of their homes or killed either by the enemy, or their own people, should they not comply to their people's demands against the enemy. The clashing of nationalisms among nations led to no agreement towards freedom of nationality, religion, or conscience; if you were a Serb, you were an enemy of everyone else, if you were a Bosniak, you were ardently prejudiced against the Serbs with deep, prominent hatred. There was undoubtedly large amounts of discrimination occurring, which easily led to killings, and no protection for civilians. Though no formal laws were issued against the opposing ethnic groups like in the Nuremberg Laws, the leaders of the republics commanded their people against the opposing peoples, and nationalists executed the non-believers in the name of their leaders, anyways.

The Height and End of Ethnic Cleansing in Yugoslavia
The end of the ethnic cleansing of Yugoslavia was signaled by the United Nations. The UN Protective Force (UNPROFOR) had entered the conflict as a supervisor to maintain the cease-fire between the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. However, the UNPROFOR was forbidden to contribute to the violence, meaning they were forbidden to fire a shot. They were forced to stand by as thousands of Muslim civilians were slaughtered by the Serbs. Therefore, the UN tried to place an arms embargo on those involved with the conflict, meaning the Serbs and Muslims mostly. However, this allowed the well-armed Serbs to fight even better against the poor-armed Muslims. This led to Serbia taking two-thirds of the Bosnian territory. Fortunatly, major events led to the decline of Serbian power. In 1994, Croatia and the Muslims of Yugoslavia allied themselves against Serbia. This tipped the scale against the Serbs. To aid his troops that were desperatly needed in Serbia, the Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic cut aid to his forces in Bosnia, leading to the weakening Serbian hold on Bosnia. As the Serbs continued to lose power and territory, there were many peace attempts. Serbia and Croatia ended up coming to the agreement that Bosnia was to be divided up between the two nations of Serbia and Croatia. This was formally settled when the Dayton Peace Accords were written in 1995. This document gave Croatia 51% of the Bosnian land and Serbia 49%. the Croatian half became a Muslim-Croatian federation, while the Serbian side became the Serbian Republika Srpska. However, each new state gave no true independence to Bosnians. Serbia and Croatia forced the inhabitants of their states to act and live as if they were Serbians or Croatians. While the killing and fighting was stopped in the former Yugoslavia, there has been no true peace between the ethnic groups living there. As for the leaders of the ethnic groups, none were persecuted for their actions in the war. While there is an ongoing Criminal Tribune taking place, no judgements have been made. In fact, Milosevic was never justified for his crimes against the Muslim population and died in March, 2006 without punishment in his cell in the Netherlands. All indictments were finished in 2004, and all trials are said to be completed by 2009 or 2010. The maximum sentence is going to be life imprisonment for those found guilty of the crimes against them.




by Theo Koboski, Steve Loukellis, Tori Safner, Susan Orsini
Period 5