Bosnia-Herzegovina is a mountainous country that was part of the former Yugoslavia. Geographically Bosnia-Herzegovina is located in Southeastern Europe, within the Balkan Peninsula. Bosnia-Herzegovina shares borders with Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. Only the southern tip of Bosnia-Herzegovina has access to water, the Adriatic Sea. Otherwise the rest of the country is landlocked. Its capital, Sarajevo, is located in the eastern part of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Background Info
3. A map of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The map shows the present-day countries and their borders.
It all started after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Countries within Europe began to reunite or permanently separate. The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a multi-diverse and multicultural nation located within the Balkan Peninsula, and it had great support of the communist and totalitarian government of the Soviet Union. Tension would rise in the future, and in the end an explosion of war and murder would ravish Bosnia-Herzegovina. The belief that was most disgusting was the Serbian population’s idea similar to the former Nazi Germany’s idea of an “Aryan race.” Serbia wanted an-all powerful Serbian controlled government. After the rest of the territories within Yugoslavia heard about this, then the regions of Slovenia and Croatia declared their secession and declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. This caused war within the the nations and the ethnic groups. Finally, it was Bosnia’s turn to declare independence. After losing Slovenia and Croatia, in April of 1992 Bosnia-Herzegovina got independence from Yugoslavia. The ethnic groups of Bosnia-Herzegovina fought over politics and freedom. Bosnia consisted of three major ethnic groups within its borders. The groups consisted of the Bosniaks which were Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serbs who were predominantly Eastern Orthodox, and the Roman Catholic Croatian minority. The Bosnian Serbs were the ones who did not want to leave Yugoslavia because of high Serbian ethnic population within the country. Shockingly to the outside world,the Bosnian Serbs bombed and attacked Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, just days after its independence. This would lead to a graphic three year war within a new territorial country known as the Bosnian War.
Bosnian Genocide
4. The bombing of the Sarajevo Parliament Building in 1992.
Imagine another genocide just like the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking. The Bosnian Genocide would begin in April 1992. The main purpose of the Bosnian Genocide was for the Bosnian Serb’s to take control of the Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was like a game of ghost in the graveyard in Sarajevo, when the Bosnian Serbs attacked. The Bosnian Serbs, with the help of the Yugoslavian Army, targeted the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats civilians by hiding around the city and within the hills. The Bosnian Serbs used snipers to shoot down any Bosniak or Bosnian Croats in the streets when coming into range as they tried to get supplies for their survival. After Sarajevo was taken over, the Bosniaks and Croats were under the Serb’s control. Like a repetition of the Holocaust, the Serbs just like the Nazis, rounded-up and deported the Bosniak and Croats people to concentration camps,and or to mass execution sites. Just after the Siege of Sarajevo about 600 children were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serb and Yugoslavian armies. The techniques were graphic and inhuman in every possible way. The Serbs used a method called “ethnic cleansing,” which is similar to genocide, but it sort of isn’t. Ethnic cleansing revolved more around the removal of a certain groups of people from a certain geographical location. Throughout the genocide the Serbs used methods of genocidal rape on women and young girls and mass executions on men and boys in order to add fear and terror into them. Two long and excruciating years, 1993 and 1994, go by with little to nothing done to stop the Bosnian Serbs from destroying the Bosniak population through the years. Finally in 1995 the Bosnian war and genocide would end. Just before the end of the war and genocide, the Bosnian Serbs would invade murder thousands within one massacre.
Srebrenica Massacre, 1995
Outside of the town of Srebrenica, in southeast Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbians lead out attacks against three of the safe havens created by the United Nations. In the safe havens, more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, and 20-50,000 women and girls would be raped and slaughtered from the Serbs after getting past the Dutch United Nation soldiers assigned to protect Srebrenica. According to Indira Ahmetovic, a survivor of Srebrenica, she was 8 years old when the war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She lost both of her parents to the genocide. Some of the most painful memories were when she held her dead mother's head in her hands, and losing her father to the death marches. Indira was sent to Tuzla, one of the United Nation's "Safe Havens," by bus with her brother and grandmother.
Human Rights Violations Applied
Article One: We are all born free and equal The Bosnian Serbs oppress the people who are considered non-Serbian, Bosniaks and Bosnian Croatians. Article Two: Don't Discriminate The Bosnian Serbs separate and dehumanize the Bosniak and Bosnian Croatian civilians. They separate them due to their ancestry and religious views. Article Three: Right to life This right is broken by killing Bosniak and Bosnian Croatian civilians. Article Four: No Slavery Bosniaks and Bosnian Croatian civilians would be deported to concentration and labor camps. Where they would work or just wait until they would die. Article Five: No Torture The Bosnian Serbs broke this right by using forms of torture of rape, mass executions, starvation, and concentration camps. To men, the Bosnian Serbs would gather and deport them to mass graves. Where the Bosnian Serbs would massively execute the men. To women, the Bosnian Serbs would rape the women. So then the babies, of the raped women, would be counted as Serbs. Article Thirty: No one may take these rights This right is violated because of the Bosnian Serbs taking away the human rights of the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croatian civilians.