The Hague University of Applied Sciences Peace Building after Conflict

Final Paper Re-sit Why the European efforts to stop the conflict in Bosnia did no good?

Evgeni Hristov ICM 2C Student number: 10017291

Table of contents:
Introduction page 3 Why I have decided to raise the question? page 4 History of the conflict - page 5 How the conflict coulve been settled better? page 6 How the situation can be improved? page 7 Short summary page 7 Bibliography page 8

Introduction
The war in Bosnia, the longest part of the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia is one of these events that can be argued whether they are the end of an era or the begging of another. For three years on the Balkans, and in Europe itself there was a war that killed 145 000 people, injured 174 000, and 2.5 million people were forced to leave their homes. Only in the Bosnians capital Sarajevo for the three years of siege, 10 000 people were killed. Throughout its history, the country has always been a place where Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Islam have been maintaining its fragile existence. Bosnia is the key place where these three communities the Serbian Orthodox, the Croatian Catholics, and the Bosnian Muslims collided.

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(wikipedia, 2009) (BBC, 2011)

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Why I have decided to raise the question?

The decision to write the paper on Bosnians war has been based on my interest in the Bosnian war itself and everything that has happened on the Balkans after the civil wars in former Yugoslavia. I come from Bulgaria and even though we are a neighboring country of Serbia, and Macedonia, and a former communistic republic, closely related to the soviet union and Yugoslavia, I didnt know much about the conflicts there, before I started doing research for my Peace Building paper. The only thing I remember about the civil wars in the republics that were part of former Yugoslavia is that, on the Bulgarian National TV, in the central news they showed footage of some Serbian soldiers ripping off the head of an Albanian person which was really shocking and I still remember it even though I was really young. I thought that my limited knowledge on the issue is because I was too young to remember I was born in the year of 1990, but I also asked my parents what they remember and know about it and the biggest surprise came when it turned that they dont know much. What my father, who has a big interest in history basically told me was They were fighting thats what I know, check Wikipedia, or try to find some book on the issue That was a big surprise because I was expecting to get some more information especially from him, who was in the age of 40 when the first conflicts occurred. Then I started questioning myself why dont they know much about it, what were they doing back then, and thats how I came up with my central research question Why European efforts to stop the conflict in Bosnia did no good. For me it is also very interesting how the Islam, the Catholicism, and The Orthodox religions were peacefully being part of one society and then they started fighting with each other. In doing desk research for this paper I have also analyzed some documentary movies about the Bosnian War, the most touching one for me2 is the BBC documentary Srebrenica - A Cry from the Grave about the massacre in Srebrenica. Even now after I have done all this research on the topic I still cant believe that this conflict was happening only 200 kilometres from Sofia and nobody from my country did something to help solving the issue. That lead me thinking why didnt we get involved on time to prevent the genocide, what did we do? What about the rest of Europe if we, in Bulgaria were just ignoring the war when it was only 200 kilometres away, what about the rest of Europe?

(BBC, 2011)
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History of the conflict

After the elections in 1990, the power goes to the nationalists in Croatia and Slovenia, and together with Makdedoniya they declare independence in 1991, enjoying international recognition. Alija Izetbegovic, the Bosnian leader of the polyethnic government is also making efforts to declare independence and only one year later Bosnia is recognized by the United States, and the European Union in 1992. The Bosnian Serbs remain dissatisfied with the fact. They see themselves and the land they inhabit as part of "Great Serbia" of Milosevic. The Yugoslav Army (mainly Serb) has just completed their one year bloody conflict with Croatia in an attempt to protect its minorities there and now their main target becomes Bosnia. By the end of 1993, the Serbs (led by Radovan Karadzic) established their republic "Republika Srpska" in the eastern parts of Bosnia, and their army (led by Ratko Mladic) controls almost three quarters of the country. Sarajevo soon becames a place, where Serbian snipers continued firing at helpless citizens on the streets, including over 3500 children. Bosnian Muslims became a subjected of great atrocities, killings, and rape. The Sebs have also created camps for boys and men like the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Serbs forcibly displace families from their homes, using the rape as a weapon against women and girls. One of the biggest tragedies of the war in Bosnia is the Srebrenica massacre, where more than 8000 Bosnians, mainly man and boys are killed in July 1995. Theodor Meron, the presiding judge of the Appeals Chamber, stated: By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity. On 26 September 1995 an agreement between for a peace accord was reached in New York between the foreign ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and the FRY, which is the official end of the biggest genocide Europe has seen since WW2.

(Richards, 2003)(wikipedia, 2009)

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How the conflict could have been settled better?

During the conflict, Bosnia has been divided into three camps fighting with each other and seeking to preserve and expand territories. Deepening the crisis in May June 1992 intensified the global diplomacy there has been a growing concern that the Serbs and the Croats will divide the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina on behalf of the Muslims. This lead to an series of agreements for stopping the ceasefire but none of them were successful this has reinforced the belief of the diplomatic circles that more radical measure needs to be taken to stop the conflict. Later under the pressure of the public opinion in the United States and Western Europe in the spring of 1992, the world diplomacy agrees that the conflict is a consequence of military actions against Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the republic, and on the 11th of May there is a special declaration adopted, where it was stated that the ones to blame for the conflict are mainly the federal authorities in Belgrade but still there has been a big confusion of what exactly needs to be done for building peace in the country. In my opinion the biggest mistake of the western world was that they didnt notice the warning signals for the crisis. There were some social indicators for mounting demographic pressures that werent taken into a consideration such as the crises in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 and the beginning of 1992 and these pro-drums were totally ignored by the peace keepers. There were also some political indicators for a conflict after Alija Izetbegovic declared that Bosnia wants to declare independency from Yugoslavia, the Serbs were dissatisfied with this fact, and that is when the conflict started. Another problem faced by the politicians and experts in Washington and in the European capitals is that they werent sure of what exactly should have been done and whether it is necessary to use military forces to stop the war after it started they didnt know how to deal with the situation. The conflict could have been settled better if the western world have noticed the warning signals for the coming crises earlier, it they have taken quick and right decisions, and if they have used military force on time to stop the Serbian invasion. Why the European efforts to stop the conflict in Bosnia did no good? First of all they didnt hear the pro-drums, the warming signals of the conflict. They werent also sure what the situation in the conflict zone is, because of misleading information mainly spread by the Serbs. That is why they didnt send the peacebuilding, and military support on time. All these series of mistakes contributed to worsen the conflict.
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(Lejla Mazlic, 2010)(wikipedia, 2009)

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How to improve the situation?

Only 17 years ago Bosnia and Herzegovina was involved in one of the biggest conflicts in the modern history of Europe. Everyone there still remembers what happened in the early 90sThe country needs to go trough a lot of reforms in order to recover after the war and accomplish stability. In todays Bosnia there is an escalation of attacks on human rights defenders and other cases of violence. There is also a big question on whether there is a real freedom of the media all these are bringing into question the achieved level of democracy. On all this issues Bosnia and Herzegovina has to improve its human rights situation. They have accomplished all the 8 steps for building peace after the war but they still have a long way before they can be considered as a stable democratic country. As a starting point, in Bosnia there should be a change of the current electoral system in order to secure the conformity of upcoming elections, a stronger focus on economic reforms and investments that would lead to greater prosperity and closer EU integration is also required. In order to provide more legal certainty, constitutional reforms are also necessary to be taken. The current dominance of ethnic and collective representation has to be balanced with the guarantee of individual rights of the citizens. The European Union has had a key role in developing democracy and the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A key objective of the EU now in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to assist the country in becoming a stable, viable, peaceful and multiethnic.

Summary
Bosnia was a hard lesson for the other Balkan countries with their own potential Bosnia. It showed that ethnic and minority relations still need to be improved and analysed, it showed how fragile they are and how easy to break, especially when they are not guaranteed by democratic political structures to protect them. The war killed 145 000 people and is considered to be the worst conflict after World War 2. When the conflict started many mistakes were made by the western world, which contribued to worsen the conflict. Many reforms still need to be taken in order to build a strong democratic society and the rule of law.
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(Lejla Mazlic, 2010)

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Bibliography
wikipedia. (2009, 19 01). Bosnian War. Retrieved 06 13, 2012 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War BBC (Director). (2011). Srebrenica - A Cry from the Grave [Motion Picture]. Lejla Mazlic, F. I. (2010, 02 26). Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo. Retrieved 06 21, 2012 from Humanrightshouse: http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/13509.html Richards, R. M. (2003). Remember Sarajevo. New York: Roger Richards. Tabeau, Ewa; Bijak, Jakub (2005). "War-related Deaths in the 19921995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results". European Journal of Population (Springer Netherlands) Klip, Andr; Sluiter, Gran (2005). Annotated leading cases of international criminal tribunals: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 2001