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Warren Christopher

Bill Clinton

Dayton Accords

Europe and North America

Kosovo conflict

United Nations

The 1990s in America

Bosnia conflict

by Michael Haas

The Event Ethnosectarian civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Date March 1, 1992-December 14, 1995

Place Bosnia and Herzegovina, a province of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until 1992

The conflict marked the first appearance of genocidal aggression in Europe since the days of Nazi Germany (1933-1945) in which the United States made a decisive response, albeit after most of the violence had occurred.

At the start of the conflict in Bosnia, the country was divided among Muslims (43.7 percent), Croats (17.3 percent), and Serbs (32.4 percent). Born of Croatian and Slovenian parents, Yugoslavia’s Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) had a multiethnic vision for his country. After his death, ethnic rivalries increased, prompting delegates in the national parliament from Serbia and allied provinces in 1989 to weaken the autonomy of the provinces. In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, whereupon talk of Bosnia’s secession increased. Fearing war, in September of 1991 a European Community peace conference asked Lord Peter Carrington and Portugal’s Ambassador José Cutileiro to draw up a power-sharing peace plan, which was ultimately rejected by the Bosnian state. The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, authorized an arms embargo of all parties in Yugoslavia.

Refugee women from the Bosnian village of Srnice hold photos of their dead or missing husbands after the Srebrenica massacre in July, 1995.

ph_Bosnia.jpg

(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On October 4, 1991, Serb delegates withdrew from the Bosnian parliament to form a separate legislature on October 24. In November, some Croats declared the existence of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia (later the Croatian Republic Herzeg-Bosnia), but Bosnian Serbs in a referendum insisted on remaining within Yugoslavia. On January 9, 1992, the Serb assembly proclaimed the independence of Bosnia, specifying certain areas of Bosnia to have seceded; the constitution for the new state, the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was proclaimed on February 28. On February 29 and March 1, Bosnia’s legislature sponsored a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia. In part because Serbs boycotted the referendum, 98 percent of the voters approved an independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was declared on March 5.

Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb members of the Yugoslav army and paramilitary allies organized an army with backing from the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government. Croatia also agreed to support the Bosnian Croat state. The Bosnian Serb Republic then proclaimed independence on April 7, shortening its name to Republika Srpska (or Serb Republic) on August 12. Only the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was accorded international recognition, however.

The Conflict Erupts into War

Serbs claim that the first war victim was a groom in a wedding procession who was shot on March 1, 1992. Bosniaks claim that a Serb sniper killed a peace marcher on April 5.

Militarily superior to the other forces, the army of the Republika Srpska proceeded to remove non-Serbs from territories that had been declared under its authority. Similarly, the Croatian republic sought to Croatize certain areas within Bosnia. The result was a campaign of "ethnic cleansing," whereby minorities were either rounded up and placed in detention camps or killed. Srpskan forces also mounted a forty-four-month siege of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, to force the Bosnian state to recognize the Republika Srpska.

Role of the United States

In June, 1992, the United States backed a Security Council resolution to redeploy a U.N. Protection Force from Croatia in order to secure the Sarajevo airport and to facilitate civilian relief by the Red Cross and other agencies. In April, 1993, the mandate was extended to protect various “safe havens”—that is, cities where all parties were to refrain from military attacks and to establish no-fly zones over Bosnia.

The United States then secured North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approval to shoot down four Serbian aircraft on February 28, 1994, violating the no-fly zone, yet Srpskan forces continued to engage in ethnic cleansing. Accordingly, the Security Council approved the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a war crimes court. Nevertheless, Srpskan forces defied both the United Nations and the ICTY by slaughtering eight thousand Bosniak males in Srebrenica during July, 1995.

Peace Plans

Several peace plans emerged during the conflict. In January, 1993, U.N. special envoy and former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance and European Community representative Lord David Owen offered a peace agreement, but the Republika Srpska rejected the plan on May 5. A plan by U.N. mediators Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg of August, 1993, was rejected by the Bosniak government. Croats and Bosniaks even fought several skirmishes over their respective division of the spoils under the Vance-Owen plan from June, 1993, to February, 1994, when Washington succeeded in having them agree to form an alliance against the Republika Srpska. In 1994, the Republika Srpska turned down a peace plan advanced by a Contact Group (France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and the United States).

In August, 1995, airplanes under NATO command started bombing Srpskan military positions in concert with a Croatian military advance on the ground. Contact Group pressure, including military threats from the United States, then brought Serbian president Slobodan Milošević and others to a peace conference at Dayton, Ohio, where the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was signed on November 21 after intense negotiations led by U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher. The agreement was formally adopted at Paris on December 14.

Impact

Although several persons have been tried and convicted of war crimes in Bosnia by the ICTY, the court failed to deter similar crimes in Kosovo, a Yugoslav province, and in Rwanda. The Dayton Agreement, which has worked well, later provided a model for handling Kosovo.

Further Reading

1 

Burg, Steven L., and Paul S. Shoup. The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. An award-winning scholarly work that examines the conflict and international efforts to establish peace.

2 

Hayden, Robert M. “Bosnia: The Contradictions of ’Democracy’ Without Consent,” East European Constitutional Review 7 (Spring, 1998): 47-51. The author argues that the peace agreement ratifies ethnic cleansing and, in effect, provides for a weak central government that is actually two separate states.

3 

Mousavizadeh, Nader, ed. The Black Book of Bosnia: The Consequences of Appeasement. New York: Basic Books, 1996. A detailed study of the causes of the war, how the war was fought, and the aftermath; identifies where the international community failed to act in time to head off the tragedy.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Haas, Michael. "Bosnia Conflict." The 1990s in America, edited by Milton Berman, Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1990_1072.
APA 7th
Haas, M. (2009). Bosnia conflict. In M. Berman (Ed.), The 1990s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Haas, Michael. "Bosnia Conflict." Edited by Milton Berman. The 1990s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.