Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War

I

Introduction

Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War, conflict from 1991 to 1995 that represented a clash of states amid the dissolution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). One state, Serbia, attempted to create the borders of a new federal state for Serbs, which was intended to incorporate territory taken from two of the others, Bosnia (see Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Croatia, where there were large ethnic Serb communities. This state project was countered by the two states from which Serbia sought to carve territory, both of which, along with two other states (Slovenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) sought to maintain their territorial integrity and to establish their independence (although Croatia, with territory under Serb control, also made an attempt to seize territory from Bosnia in the course of the conflict).

II

Background

The SFRY was a Communist nation established by Josip Broz Tito after World War II comprising six formally sovereign states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Serbia had two autonomous regions within it, Kosovo and Vojvodina. These federated states had a complex spread of ethnic communities across them, with only Slovenia and the province of Kosovo (inhabited by ethnic Albanians) more ethnically homogeneous. The major groups, so-called “state-forming peoples”, were the Serbs (in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Macedonia); the Croats (in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia); the Muslims, also latterly called “Bosniaks” (in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia); the Slovenes (in Slovenia); the Montenegrins (in Montenegro); and the Macedonians (in Macedonia). In addition, there were many other ethnic communities, of which the most significant were Albanians (in Serbia—primarily in Kosovo; Macedonia; and Montenegro) and Hungarians (in Serbia—primarily in Vojvodina; Slovenia; and Croatia).

The SFRY’s state structure was intended to resolve the nationalist problems, above all between Serbs and Croats, that had thwarted the first attempt to unite the South Slavs, Royal Yugoslavia, after World War I. Tensions then had led to a bloody intra-Yugoslav war (1941-1945). By the beginning of the 1990s, polarized views had emerged of what the future role of the federation should be. With little genuine support for the federation in any of the states, it effectively ceased to function. In this context the inter-communal fabric of this set of states had begun to disintegrate while, in June 1991, two of the states, Slovenia and Croatia, declared that the federation no longer operated and that they were independent states. Macedonia did likewise in September 1991, as did Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1992.

III

Armed Conflict

Following the declarations of independence at the end of June 1991, a major armed conflict ensued. Coercive terror was the central characteristic of the conflict, which had three theatres: Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. The conflict in Slovenia lasted only ten days and was generally free of terrorization. The same was not true in Croatia and Bosnia, both of which were subject to the Serbian attempt, dominated by the Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, to establish new borders. This entailed the killing, terrorization, and forcible expulsion of non-Serbs in order to create a set of contiguous territories with new boundaries reserved only for Serbs. The euphemistic though shocking label given by some to this process was “ethnic cleansing”.

As the SFRY dissolved and conflict broke out, the overwhelming balance of power lay with the Serbian side. A major factor in this was the role of the federal armed force, the Yugoslav People’s Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija or JNA). This force was predominantly Serb (60 per cent of the officer corps), and as a result all but a few elements joined with the Serbian side. In Croatia and Bosnia, Serbian forces had far greater firepower, above all in terms of heavy artillery, tanks, and air power. These forces complemented smaller local Serb groups and special paramilitary groups organized by the Serbian security service.

Because of their superiority, Serbian forces were able to take control of more than a quarter of Croatian territory in 1991, and in 1992 around two thirds of Bosnia, laying siege to the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. However, the Serbian side lacked manpower to complement its armoury and so became overstretched in its efforts to control territory as the conflict developed and the armies of Bosnia and particularly Croatia became stronger. During 1993, although putative allies, Croatian forces and the predominantly Muslim Bosnian army fought with each other for more than nine months for territory in Bosnia. Croatian forces initially had the advantage, but as the year progressed, they were beaten back. By the beginning of 1994, United States diplomacy had managed to align these forces again, although difficulties remained.

By the summer of 1995, Serbian overstretch and the greater strength of Croatian and Bosnian forces meant that the balance of power had shifted. Through offensives in May and August 1995, they retook control of almost all Serbian-controlled land in Croatia and expelled the historical ethnic Serb communities, just as ethnic Croats had been expelled at the beginning of the war; joint Croatian-Bosnian operations in May, August, and September ejected Serbian forces from large areas of western Bosnia, as well as the ethnic Serb communities, as had happened to Muslims and Croats in the early phases of hostilities.

IV

“Ethnic Cleansing”

There were two rationales given for so-called “ethnic cleansing”. One was ethno-nationalist ideology (see Ethnic Conflict). The other was the strategic imperative of ensuring that the territories of a new entity would be free from political disruption, guerrilla warfare, or terrorism: by removing a population, the basis for resistance was also removed. Ethnic cleansing did not rely on direct combat with opponents, but on the demonstrative capacity of the violence that could be brought to bear and the example that was set by partial elimination of a population to induce mass migration. The intended result of this was a contiguous set of ethnically pure territories. In the first months of the conflict in Bosnia over 100,000 people were killed and up to 3 million were forced to leave their homes, or were put under pressure to leave. Similar tactics, albeit on a significantly lesser scale, featured in the Croat and Bosnian governments’ operations, and Muslim paramilitary ones, in the war in Bosnia.

The most blatant act of atrocity in the four years of conflict occurred near Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia towards the end of the war. In July 1995 the Bosnian Serb army, dominated by the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić, overcame the Srebrenica “safe area” (see below), expelling over 40,000 Muslims, most of them already refugees, and murdering thousands of men of military age. Several thousand were ambushed as they tried to escape from the town, while international estimates of 5,000 to 8,000 others were taken to sites outside Srebrenica and shot.