Bosnia and Kosovo
Bosnia and Kosovo
The dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s marked the return of genocide to Europe after almost half a century.
European states and the world observed ineffectually as Bosnia-Herzegovina descended into genocidal conflict.
Serbs committed the most systematic atrocities against Muslims, but clashes between Croats and Serbs, and between Muslims and Croats, also resulted in many deaths.
Kosovo, a Serb province with an ethnic-Albanian majority, was another area of tension, which erupted into mass violence in Spring 1999.
Origins and Onset
Yugoslavia was created from the disintegrated Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Fragile federations are prone to violence during crises.
During World War II, Yugoslavia was divided by Nazi invasion and intercommunal conflict, becoming a destructive theater of the war.
Under German occupation in Serbia and the Ustashe government in Croatia, Yugoslavia's Jewish population was exterminated.
Hundreds of thousands of Croatian Serbs were killed by the Ustashe, especially at the Jasenovac death camp.
Muslims in Bosnia collaborated with the Nazis, leading to enduring enmity from the Serb population.
Serbs were divided between the Chetniks, who supported the royalist regime, and the partisans led by Tito.
Chetnik massacres led to a murderous response from Tito's forces.
After seizing power in Belgrade, Tito's forces killed tens of thousands of Chetniks and political opponents in 1945-46.
Tito's socialist state was liberal compared to other Central and Eastern European countries.
Yugoslavs had freedom of movement, with millions working overseas, and the country was known for ethnic pluralism.
Tito ensured no ethnic group dominated the federation and banned ethnic political mobilization.
State authorities worked to defuse ethnic tensions and create a Yugoslav identity.
After Tito's death in May 1980, the multinational federation unraveled due to economic strife.
The weak collective leadership struggled with the rise of ethnonationalist politicians like Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia and Franjo Tudjman in Croatia.
Tudjman led the HDZ, reviving Ustashe symbolism and rhetoric, and allowed harassment and violence against Serbs in the Krajina region.
Milosevic exploited Yugoslav upheavals by rousing nationalist passions for personal power and sowed the seeds for genocide.
In April 1987, during a visit to Kosovo, Milosevic told Serbs, "No one should dare to beat you."
In September 1987, Milosevic ousted his mentor, Ivan Stambolic, and took over the presidency.
In 1989, Serbs initiated repression in Kosovo, ending the province's autonomy, dismissing Kosovars from their jobs, and turning Kosovo into a militia camp.
Over a hundred Kosovars were killed in the repression, leading to the unraveling of Yugoslavia.
After the Kosovo crackdown, no ethnic group felt safe in a Serb-dominated federation.
War and Independence
In 1991-92, Yugoslavia descended into open war.
Croatia and Slovenia declared independence on June 25, 1991.
After a brief war, the Yugoslav Army (JNA) withdrew from Slovenia.
Croatia was more complicated due to sizable Serb populations in Krajina and Eastern Slavonia.
Milosevic sought to secure territories with strong Serb representation for his "Greater Serbia."
In December 1991, the Krajina Serbs declared independence from Croatia.
The world's attention was drawn to the artillery bombardment of Dubrovnik and the JNA assault on Vukovar, followed by the genocidal massacre of Croatian soldiers in their hospital beds.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided among Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. Seceding was hard because it would result in Bosnian Serbs seceding in turn. Remaining in the federation meant enduring Serb domination.
In February 1992, the Muslim-dominated federation declared its independence from Yugoslavia.
Bosnian War
Populations sought safety in ethnic exclusivity, fueled by leaders like Milosevic and Tudjman.
Bosnia became the most brutal battlefield of the Balkan wars.
Serb gunners launched a siege and artillery bombardment of Sarajevo and waged urbicide targeting cultural repositories.
The attacks on Sarajevo distracted from greater killings elsewhere in Bosnia.
The Yugoslav army left its weapons to Bosnian Serbs, who now had an 80,000-man army.
Bosnian Muslims, with limited resources, were rolled over by Serb forces.
From early 1993, Muslims fought their Croatian former allies as well.
Muslims generated a strident Muslim nationalism, but it never matched Serb nationalism in destructiveness.
A United Nations report ascribed 90 percent of atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina to Serbs.
Concentration Camps and Ethnic Cleansing
In August 1992, Western reporters revealed Serb-run concentration camps in Bosnia, such as Omarska.
At Omarska, prisoners were subjected to constant beatings, and many died.
Images reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps sparked international outrage.
Combined with mass executions and rape, the camps led to the term "genocide" being used in the Balkans context.
The strategy of "ethnic cleansing" aimed to ensure military victory and expel target populations.
The goal was to render the territory ethnically pure by instilling hatred and fear.
Gendercide and Genocide in Bosnia
Civilians, overwhelmingly men of "battle age," were killed.
The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina vividly demonstrated gendercide.
Serb forces followed a pattern:
Concentration: Surround the area, warn resident Serbs, and intimidate the target population.
Decapitation: Execute political leaders and those capable of succeeding them.
Separation: Divide women, children, and old men from men of "fighting age."
Evacuation: Transport women, children, and old men to the border.
Liquidation: Execute "fighting age" men.
The Srebrenica slaughter of July 1995 was the most destructive instance of gendercidal killing in the Balkans.
In one village, about 180 men were killed, and the women took care of the bodies.
In another, the army came in and started shooting at the men.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) noted that of the thousands of Bosnians still registered as missing, 92% are men and 8% are women.
With community males murdered or incarcerated, Serb soldiers and paramilitaries committed atrocities against remaining community members.
Women, especially younger ones, were subjected to rape and sexual assault.
The term "genocidal rape" was coined, stressing sexual assaults' centrality to ethnic cleansing.
Men and adolescent boys were also sexually assaulted and tortured in detention facilities.
International Dimension
Germany's push for Croatian and Slovenian independence spurred Yugoslavia's dissolution.
Foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher pressed the European Union to support the dissolution.
Lord Carrington advocated for guaranteeing minority rights in return for recognition.
UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar warned that recognizing Croatia would unleash a terrible war.
German/EU recognition was granted in May 1992, spurring genocide in Bosnia.
The United States vacillated on the independence issue.
The besieging of Srebrenica and other Muslim-majority cities prompted a US-led response to establish "safe areas" under UN protection.
When Srebrenica fell to the Serbs, it was "protected" by fewer than 400 Dutch peacekeepers with limited authority to use force.
Genocidal massacres of Bosnian Muslim men and boys ensued.
There was suspicion that the US and EU were not unhappy to see the "safe areas" fall to the Serbs.
The US and EU turned a blind eye to Croatia's rearmament, and the US allowed Iran and other Moslem countries to expand covert arms supplies to the Bosnians.
A month after Srebrenica fell, the Croatians combined with Muslim forces to launch Operation Storm against the Serb-held Krajina region.
Milosevic abandoned the Bosnian Serbs and sought to secure the lifting of economic sanctions.
The Croatian-Muslim offensive overran Krajina, resulting in up to 200,000 Serbs fleeing to Serb-populated regions of Bosnia.
The Krajina resulted in Europe's largest refugee population but was supported by the West, especially the US.
The Clinton government invited the warring parties to talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and they resulted in the signing of the Dayton Accords in November 1995.
60,000 NATO peacekeepers oversaw the agreement.
An estimated 102,000 people died in the Bosnian war and genocide, about 50 percent of them Muslim and 30 percent Serbs.
Srebrenica
In July 1995, Srebrenica, a Bosnian-Muslim city, had been a conflict point of the war.
In April 1993, the United Nations oversaw the evacuation of children, women, and the elderly, while accepting Serb demands that no males of "battle age" be allowed to leave and declared Srebrenica a UN-protected "safe haven."
On July 6 1995, the Bosnian Serbs implemented their "endgame."
Serb General Ratko Mladic promised "There will be blood up to your knees."
Peacekeepers watched without firing as the Serbs overcame resistance and rounded up the population.
Thousands of "battle-age" men fled through the hills.
The children and women were allowed to flee in buses to safety.
The captured males were trucked off to be slaughtered.
Kosovo, 1998-99
To counter the Serb police state imposed in 1989, a parallel political structure arose in Kosovar Albanian communities, led by Ibrahim Rugova.
After a decade of apartheid, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) launched attacks in 1997.
Guerrilla war through 1998 and into 1999 resulted in the Serb killing of hundreds of ethnic-Albanian civilians, and the internal displacement of 200,000 more.
Milosevic began to plot a resolution of the Kosovo quandary intending to cleanse the Serb homeland of Albanian interlopers.
US General Wesley Clark witnessed Milosevic rage against Kosovar Albanians saying, "In 1946, in Drenica, we killed them all."
On March 19, 1999, the Serbs launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The campaign reached its peak after March 24, when NATO began bombing Serb positions.
The bombing may have prompted an escalation of the Serb campaign.