"HIT ..." a Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Travel Page by Amelei

I hope the people inflicting suffering on these nations have nightmares for the rest of their lives and beg forgiveness to every village, every woman and chid that was raped and murdered, every man that was butchered because he was Muslim or belonged to ths belief or that. I hope that they will stop at every home along their way, fall on their hands and knees and feel for one moment the torment an suffering that they have caused.

I hope in my Bosnia pages i can bring some light to this beautiful country. We cannot, however be devoid of the awful truths. I will touch on all that i know and have seen. May this country finally heal amongst its ashes, regain its interety and grow into it's former self, a country of interwoveness and splendor.

My heart goes out to the children and families of al those who have gone before us. Love light and blessings to all

Yugoslavia consisted of six republics and two regions. Today Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia are independent nations. Serbia and Montenegro comprise the rump Yugoslavia.

World War II to 1991
armed groups claiming allegiance to various ethnic factions fought both against each other and against the Nazi occupiers. By 1945, almost 1 million Yugoslavs had lost their lives, most of them at the hands of other Yugoslavs. Croatian fascists (Ustashe) were the most notorious for killing Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and political opponents, but Serb Chetniks were also responsible for many mass killings. The Communist-led Partisans fought against both groups and were victorious (with Allied support) at the war's end. The Partisan leader, Josip Broz (Tito), ruled the country as a one-party socialist state.

After Tito's death in 1980, the nation slid into economic and political decline as a collective leadership began to squabble over power With the final collapse of Communism in the 1980s, the restive population began seeking solutions to provide economic and political stability.Unfortunately, the solution promoted by Serb and Croat extremists in this time of crisis was ethnic nationalism. Serbia's Communist Party leader, Slobodan Milosevic, began pandering to Serb nationalism, and quickly became the unchallenged ruler of Serbia. Through his control of the party and media, he was able to become the most powerful figure in Yugoslavia, but despite his appeals to Serb national sentiment, his principal concern was with preserving his own control.

When the war began in Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, many Croats and Bosnians thought the Yugoslav National Army would protect them. They soon learned that the national army --the fourth largest in Europe --was clearly in the hands of Milosevic and being used to create Greater Serbia.

Fierce propaganda from Serbia, depicting Muslims as extremist fundamentalists, caused many Bosnian Serbs to support Milosevic's plan for ethnic cleansing as a means of creating Greater Serbia. Since the Bosnian Serbs did not inhabit a single specific territory in Bosnia and lived alongside Muslim and Croat neighbors, the stage was set for war throughout the country.

On April 6, 1992, the Bosnian Serbs took Sarajevo. Muslim, Croat, and Serb residents opposed to a Greater Serbia were cut off from food, utilities, and communication. Through three long and cold winters, Sarajevans dodged sniper fire as they collected firewood and tried to get to their jobs. Food was scarce and the average weight loss per person was more than 30 pounds. More than 12,000 residents were killed, 1,500 of them children.

Throughout Bosnia, Bosnian Serb nationalists and the JNA began a systematic policy of "ethnic cleansing" (a polite term for genocide) to establish a "pure" Serb republic. Entire villages were destroyed. Thousands were expelled from their homes, held in detention camps, raped, tortured, deported, or summarily executed. Rape was a military tactic to destroy the bonds of families and communities.

More than 200,000 Bosnians out of a population of 4.4 million were killed. Some 200,000 were injured, 50,000 of them children. Millions of people were deported or forced to flee their homes. Sixty percent of all houses in Bosnia, half of the schools, and a third of the hospitals were damaged or destroyed. Power plants, roads, water systems, bridges, and railways were ruined. Throughout these horrors, the international community failed to respond.

Key Players in the Conflict

Serbia: President Slobodan Milosevic's nationalist aims for a Greater Serbia started the machinery of war in 1986. Now based in Belgrade, he still controls the fourth largest army in Europe, the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). He has thus far evaded charges of war crimes and continues to exert considerable influence in the region. He was the Serb representative at Dayton and has since distanced himself from the Bosnian Serb leadership.

Bosnian Serbs: In 1991, prior to the war, Radovan Karadzic (a former psychiatrist) created a renegade army within Bosnia with the support of Milosevic in Belgrade. In 1992, under his leadership, Bosnian Serb nationalists began a systematic policy of "cleansing" large areas of Bosnia of non-Serbs. Both Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, have been indicted for war crimes, including genocide, by a UN war crimes tribunal. Both remain at large and continue to wield power in Republika Srpska.

Croatia: President Franjo Tudjman, headquartered in Zagreb, leads the Croatian army and has close ties to the Bosnian Croat army, the HVO. The HVO lost significant territory to the Serb-controlled Yugoslav National Army, but supported Bosnian Croats as they captured swaths of territory in Herzegovina, the southwestern region of Bosnia around the city of Mostar where many Bosnian Croats reside. Tudjman continues to exert influence in the area controlled by the HVO, most of which remains "cleansed" of all Muslim and Serb inhabitants. Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims formally allied in 1994 in an uneasy federation that was brokered by the United States.

Bosnia: President Alija Izetbegovic, head of the Muslim-dominated Party of Democratic Action (SDA), is based in Sarajevo. Bosnia was attacked by the Yugoslav National Army, Bosnian Serb nationalists, and Bosnian Croat nationalists.. The siege of Sarajevo lasted 43 months. An international arms embargo was in effect throughout the war, preventing the Bosnian government from obtaining the heavy artillery and arms that it needed to fight the more sophisticated arsenals of the Serbian and Croatian armies.

The Role of the UN
The failure of the UN to stop the killing in Bosnia seriously compromised its credibility as it neared its 50th anniversary in 1995. The UN already had UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) troops in Sarajevo at the outset of war because it was their base of operation for the UN mission in Croatia. The UN hoped that their presence would discourage the spread of the conflict from Croatia to Bosnia. But when Sarajevo came under attack by Serb artillery in April 1992, the UN forces pulled out to avoid casualties, leaving behind only a small and lightly armed contingent of "peacekeepers" to discourage attacks by Serbian nationalists. There was clearly no peace to keep. As the situation deteriorated, creating a humanitarian nightmare, the UN struck a deal with the Serbs to control the Sarajevo airport. In reality, the Serbs only allowed the UN to use the airport under de facto Serb control. During the next three years the airport was the scene of hundreds of casualties. UN humanitarian flights were repeatedly fired upon and Bosnian civilians were killed by sniper fire as they attempted to escape across the tarmac. All aid flights and personnel transports had to be approved by Serb liaison officers stationed at the airport. In one of the most flagrant failures of the UN to provide protection, the Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister was shot point-blank by Serb nationalists in 1992 while riding in a UN armored personnel carrier at the airport.

UN personnel were well aware of massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed by the Bosnian Serb nationalists, yet did nothing. The world learned of the atrocities through the courageous efforts of print and TV journalists who visited Serb-run camps and reported on appalling conditions and treatment of Croat and Muslim detainees.