Picture from Bosnian genocide. (2016, May 09)
1992
Feb 29-March 1: Bosnia's Muslims and Croats vote for independence in referendum boycotted by Serbs. April 6: European Union recognizes Bosnia's independence. War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 percent of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims and Croats to carve out a Serb Republic. May: U.N. sanctions imposed on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. 1993 January: Bosnia peace efforts fail, war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, previously allied against Serbs. April: Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia are declared three of six U.N. "safe areas". The United Nations Protection Force UNPROFOR deploys troops and Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) attacks stop. But the town remains isolated and only a few humanitarian convoys reach it in the following two years. 1994 March: U.S.-brokered agreement ends Muslim-Croat war and creates a Muslim-Croat federation. 1995 March: Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic orders that Srebrenica and Zepa be entirely cut off and aid convoys be stopped from reaching the towns. July 9: Karadzic issues a new order to conquer Srebrenica. July 11: Bosnian Serbs troops, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, capture the eastern enclave and U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslim males in the following week. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Karadzic and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo. August: NATO starts air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops. |
Bosnian-Serbian Genocide
In 1922 when Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, there were many different types of people living in Bosnian territory. A lot of the Bosnian Serbs were strongly against the idea of their independence, and boycotted the vote. Immediately after, the new country was attacked by Serbia. Similar to the holocaust, up to 100,000 people were murdered due to their religion and culture. The Serbs, mainly orthodox Christians, goal was to rid the territory of Bosnian Muslims also called Bosniaks and take over their territory. This group was almost half, 44% of their entire population. Serbs wanted to take over and had an advantage due to their army being led by Serbs themselves. In 1994 Croatia and Bosnia teamed up to fight them but were lesser in army strength.
In July 1995 a whole 8,000 Muslims were killed at once due to Serb forces invading the town of Srebrencia and killing brutally. This genocide is considered the second largest massacre in Europe after the Holocaust. By the end of that year, Serbs occupied roughly 70% of the country. In 1995 the Dayton peace agreement was reached by the Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian presidents, marking the wars official end and the split of Bosnia and Herzegovina. November 21: Following NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agree to a U.S.-brokered peace deal in Dayton, Ohio.
December 14: The three leaders sign the Dayton peace accords in Paris, paving the way for the arrival of a 66,000-strong NATO peacekeeping Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia. The international community establishes a permanent presence in the country through the office of an international peace overseer. 1996 July: West forces Karadzic to quit as Bosnian Serb president. September: Nationalist parties win first post-war election, confirming Bosnia's ethnic division. 1997 Having lost power, Karadzic goes underground. 2002 February 12: Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial charged with 66 counts of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. 2003 December: Ex-NATO commander tells the court Milosevic knew Bosnian Serbs planned to massacre Muslims in Bosnia in 1995. 2004 June 11: In a belated abandonment of its endless denials and under strong international pressure, the Bosnian Serb government make a landmark admission -- that Serbs indeed massacred thousands of Muslims at in Srebrenica, on Karadzic's orders. 2006 March 11: Milosevic is found dead in his cell in The Hague. 2008 July 21: Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men for planning and ordering genocide, is arrested. |