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| The war in Bosnia - Help Bosnia now |
On 25 June 1991, both Slovenia and Croatia declared independence which led to a short armed conflict in Slovenia called the Ten-Day War, and an all-out war in Croatia in the Croatian War of Independence in areas with substantial Serb populations. On 15 October 1991, the parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo passed a "Memorandum on the Sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina" by a simple majority. On 25 January 1992, an hour after the session of parliament was adjourned, the parliament called for a referendum on independence on 29 February and 1 March. Independence was declared on 5 March 1992 by the parliament. The Serb political leadership used the referendums as a pretext to set up roadblocks in protest.
Then the bad thing happens. On 25 September 1991, the UN imposed an arms embargo on all of the former-Yugoslavia. The embargo really only had impact on Bosnian army, because Serbs inherited the Yugoslav People Army's arsenal and the Croatian Army could smuggle weapons through its coast. Over 55% of the armories and barracks of the former Yugoslavia were located in Bosnia owing to its mountainous terrain, in anticipation of a guerrilla war, but many of those factories were under Serb control (such as the UNIS PRETIS factory in Vogošća), and others were inoperable due to a lack of electricity and raw materials. The Bosnian government lobbied to have the embargo lifted but that was opposed by the United Kingdom, France and Russia. US proposals to pursue this policy were known as lift and strike. The US congress passed two resolutions calling for the embargo to be lifted but both were vetoed by President Bill Clinton for fear of creating a rift between the US and the aforementioned countries. Nonetheless, the United States used both C-130 transports and back channels including Islamist groups to smuggle weapons to Bosnian-Muslim forces via Croatia.
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| The war in Bosnia - Welcome to Sarajevo |
The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officially left Bosnia and Herzegovina on 12 May 1992 shortly after independence was declared in April 1992. However, most of the command chain, weaponry, and higher-ranked military personnel, including general Ratko Mladić, remained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) as the armed forces of the newly created Bosnian Serb republic. The Croats organized a defensive military formation of their own called the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) as the armed forces of Herzeg-Bosnia. The Bosniaks mostly organized into the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) as the armed forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Initially, 25% of the ARBiH was composed of non-Bosniaks, especially in the 1st Corps in Sarajevo. Sefer Halilović, the Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Territorial Defense, claimed in June 1992 that his forces were 70% Muslim, 18% Croat and 12% Serb. The percentage of Serb and Croat soldiers in the Bosnian army was particularly high in cities such as Sarajevo, Mostar and Tuzla.The deputy commander of our army's headquarters, was general Jovan Divjak, the highest-ranking ethnic Serb in the Bosnian Army. General Stjepan Šiber, an ethnic Croat was the second deputy commander. President Izetbegović also appointed colonel Blaž Kraljević, commander of the Croatian Defence Forces in Herzegovina, to be a member of Bosnian Army's Headquarters. Different nationalities in the same army during the war may seem strange to some, but all of them were fighting for something they love and cherish in their heart , and they couldn't let anybody take that away from them no matter what was their nationality.
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| The war in Bosnia - Welcome to hell |
The first victim of the Serbian aggression were the Croats, who similarly to the present destiny of Kosovo Albanians, were removed from 30% of the Croatian territory. That territory was not only occupied by the Yugoslav army and the local Serbs and ethnically cleansed of Croats, but in addition Serbs from other parts of Croatia or Bosnia were persuaded to resettle into abandoned Croatian homes in the cleansed territory for the Greater Serbia. Such behavior escalated national animosities as the aggression spread on and on. In Bosnia and Herzegovina 70% of the territory was ethnically cleansed from Croats and Bosniaks and only with the Dayton Agreement and NATO intervention the war in Bosnia was stopped and the Serbs forced to restrict their control to Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) encompassing 49% of Bosnian territory.
The Dayton Peace Accords, signed on December 14, 1995, by Presidents Milosevic, Izetbegovic, and Tudjman, affirmed Sarajevo as the capital of Bosnia but carved Bosnia into two autonomous and ethnically based entities, separated by a demilitarized zone. The Serbs, in control of the Republika Srpska, were rewarded for their unbridled aggression and genocide with 49% of the territory of Bosnia. We were granted the remaining 51% of the country, called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an uneasy alliance of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Each entity has its own government, military, and police. A central government handles our banking and foreign policy.
Today Sarajevo is alive & buzzing, and we are notably friendly and hospitable, well most of us are , but that's the case in the whole world. A lot of past still haunts those who live here but we, Bosnians, are proof that you can get over the absolute worst that can happen. It will never be cleared or explained why the absolute worst happens, and why innocent people have to suffer the lasting consequences of something they didn’t create.
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| War, who needs this ? |
