In 1929, the oblasts were replaced with four Banovinas of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but all of them also included regions outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 1992, negotiations continued between Serb and Croat leaderships over the partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[5]
Franjo Tuđman argued that Bosnia-Herzegovina should form part of the federal Croatian unit because it was linked historically to Croatia.[6] Tuđman did not take a separate Bosnia seriously as shown by his comments to a television crew,[when?] saying "Bosnia was a creation of the Ottoman invasion [...] Until then it was part of Croatia, or it was a kingdom of Bosnia, but a Catholic kingdom, linked to Croatia."[7] In 1981 Tuđman stated that a federal Bosnia-Herzegovina "was more often a source of new divisions between the Serb and Croat population than their bridge".[8] Moreover, Tuđman observed that from an ethnic and linguistic viewpoint most Bosniaks were of Croatian origin.[6] He argued that a Bosniak identity could only benefit the Serbs and hence advance the timing of Bosnia's "reasonable territorial division".[8]
According to Warren Zimmermann, the last US ambassador to Yugoslavia, Tuđman claimed that Bosnia and Herzegovina should be divided between the Croats and the Serbs. "Tuđman admitted that he discussed these fantasies with Milošević, the Yugoslav Army leadership and the Bosnian Serbs," wrote Zimmermann, "and they agreed that the only solution is to divide up Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia".[9][10][pageneeded] Zimmermann also testified about Tuđman's fears of an "Islamic fundamentalist state", referring to Izetbegović as a "fundamentalist front man for Turkey" and accused them of "conspiring to create a Greater Bosnia" by "flooding Bosnia with 500,000 Turks."[11]
Mario Nobilo, a senior advisor to Tuđman, is reported by Tim Judah to have informed him directly that talks took place "to resolve the Yugoslav conflict by carving up the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and creating an Islamic buffer-state between them".[12]
Testimonies of other American and British politicians such as Ambassador Herbert Okun (a US veteran diplomat) suggested that the meeting was about the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[13]Paddy Ashdown also claimed that the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia was a goal of Tuđman's.[14][15] Ashdown's testimony at the ICTY that Tuđman told him that he agreed on a partition of Bosnia with Milošević, drawing a map of Bosnia showing the proposed demarcation line at a meeting in London on 6 May 1995, was accepted into the trial judgement for Kordić & Čerkez.[16][17]
Stjepan Mesić held Milošević responsible for "creating a Greater Serbia on the ruins of the Former Yugoslavia".[18][19] Mesić revealed thousands of documents and audio tapes recorded by Tuđman about his plans during a case against Croat leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina for war crimes committed against Bosniaks.[20][21] The tapes reveal that Tuđman and Milošević ignored pledges to respect Bosnia's sovereignty, even after signing the Dayton accord.[20][21] In one conversation Tuđman told an official: "Let's make a deal with the Serbs. Neither history nor emotion in the Balkans will permit multinationalism. We have to give up on the illusion of the last eight years... Dayton isn't working. Nobody - except diplomats and petty officials - believes in a sovereign Bosnia and the Dayton accords."[21] In another he is heard telling a Bosnian Croat ally, "You should give no indication that we wish the three-way division of Bosnia."[20] The tapes also reveal Tuđman's involvement in atrocities against the Bosniaks in Bosnia, including the Croatian president covering up war crimes at Ahmići where more than a hundred Bosniak men, women and children were terrorised, and then shot or burned to death.[20][21] When asked if "Tuđman's view was that Bosnia was a mistake and that it was a mistake to make it as a republic after the Second World War and that it should be annexed to Croatia", Mesić responded "Those were his ideas, that Bosnia was supposed to belong to Croatia on the basis of a decision that should have been adopted by AVNOJ."[22]
The Yugoslav Wars resulted in at least 97,000 deaths of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,[23] and more than 1.5 million expelled.[24] A country where previously no region could be described as purely Bosniak, Serb or Croat shifted to a partitioning into multiple ethnically homogeneous nations.[24][25][verification needed]
The policies of Tuđman and Croatia towards Bosnia and Herzegovina were never completely transparent, but always included his ultimate aim of expanding Croatia's borders.[26] In the Tihomir Blaškić verdict, the Trial Chamber found that "Croatia, and more specifically former President Tuđman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."[6]
Bosnian Serb involvement
Serbian Autonomous Provinces from 1991-92, created in rebellion against the government of Bosnia and HerzegovinaRadovan Karadžić, the first president of Republika Srpska.
The Amended Consolidated Indictment, [...] alleges that, between 1 July 1991 and 30 December 1992, in order to secure control of various municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina which had been proclaimed part of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian Serb leadership, including Momčilo Krajišnik, Biljana Plavšić and Radovan Karadžić, pursued a course of conduct involving the creation of impossible conditions of life, persecution and terror tactics in order to encourage non-Serbs to leave the area, deportation of those reluctant to leave, and the liquidation of others. From late March 1992, Bosnian Serb forces seized physical control of many of the municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina which had been proclaimed part of the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina".
The Chamber finds that a joint criminal enterprise existed throughout the territories of the Bosnian-Serb Republic. There was a centrally-based core component of the group, which included Mr Krajišnik, Radovan Karadžić, and other Bosnian-Serb leaders. The rank and file of the joint criminal enterprise was based in the regions and municipalities of the Bosnian-Serb Republic, and maintained close links with the leadership in the Bosnian-Serb capital of Pale. [...] The common objective of the joint criminal enterprise was to ethnically recompose the territories targeted by the Bosnian-Serb leadership by drastically reducing the proportion of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats through expulsion. The Chamber finds that the crimes of deportation and forced transfer were the original crimes of this common objective. Mr Krajišnik gave the go-ahead for the expulsion programme to commence during a session of the Bosnian-Serb Assembly when he called for [and I quote], "implementing what we have agreed upon, the ethnic division on the ground".
The Trial Chamber found that the strategic plan of the Bosnian Serb leadership consisted of "a plan to link Serb-populated areas in BiH together, to gain control over these areas and to create a separate Bosnian Serb state, from which most non-Serbs would be permanently removed".[29] It also found that media in certain areas focused only on SDS policy and reports from Belgrade became more prominent, including the presentation of extremist views and promotion of the concept of a Greater Serbia, just as in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina the concept of a Greater Croatia was openly advocated.[30]
On 13 October 1997, Croatian weekly Feral Tribune published a document drafted by the Bosnian HDZ in 1991 and signed by its leading members Mate Boban, Vladimir Šoljić, Božo Raić, Ivan Bender, Pero Marković, Dario Kordić and others. It stated, among other things, that "[...] the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina must finally undertake a decisive and active policy that should bring about the realisation of our centuries-old dream: a common Croatian state."[35][36]
Based on the evidence of Croat attacks against Bosniaks, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the Kordić and Čerkez case that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley.[36] Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan. Further concluding that the Croatian Army was involved in the campaign, the ICTY defined the events as an international conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.[37] Kordić along with commander Mario Čerkez were sentenced to 25 and 15 years respectively.[38]
In the Tihomir Blaškić verdict, of March 2000, the Trial Chamber concluded "[...] that Croatia, and more specifically former President Tudjman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."[6]
Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić, and Berislav Pušić were all charged with conducting a joint criminal enterprise with a purpose of politically and military subjugating, permanently removing and ethnically cleansing Bosniaks and other non-Croats from certain areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina in an effort to join these areas as part of a Greater Croatia.[39] The amended indictment (Prlic et al. case) by the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) states that at a meeting with his closest advisers and a group of Croat nationalists from BiH, Tuđman declared that "It is time that we take the opportunity to gather the Croatian people inside the widest possible borders." pointing out the opportunity to expand Croatia's border at the expense of BiH territory.[40][41][42] The indictment regards not just Tuđman, but also other key figures from the Republic of Croatia including former Minister of Defence Gojko Šušak and senior General Janko Bobetko as participants.[43] The amended indictment goes further to say:[40][41]
[...] to about April 1994 and thereafter, various persons established and participated in a joint criminal enterprise to politically and militarily subjugate, permanently remove and ethnically cleanseBosnian Muslims and other non-Croats who lived in areas on the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were claimed to be part of the Croatian Community and later Republic of Herceg-Bosna; and to join these areas as part of a 'Greater Croatia' whether in the short term or over time and whether as part of the Republic of Croatia or in close association with it. [...] The territorial ambition of the joint criminal enterprise was to establish a Croatian territory with the borders of the Croatian Banovina, a territorial entity that existed from 1939 to 1941.
The Prosecution submitted that part of the Greater Croatia-Herceg-Bosna program had at least three important goals.[40][41]
First, it was clear to probably anyone who looked at it with any sort of intellectual objectivity that some municipalities and areas claimed by Herceg-Bosna were more Croat than others and with some of the areas on the fringes more toward the east, more towards Central Bosnia not having a strong Croat majority or even plurality. [...] As a second reason, as a matter of political, military, and economic practicalities and part of the ultimate what I will call horse trading with the Serbs and the Muslims, Tudjman and the Herceg-Bosna leaders recognised that they might have to give up or trade away some of the areas furthest from the core Banovina territory. [...] Third and equally important and as already mentioned, relocating Croats from other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and moving them into houses and flats which had been seized from or abandoned by Muslim families or Muslim families which have been expelled would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the Muslims to return to those areas, their houses having been taken over by Croats.
Milorad Dodik, the president of the Republika Srpska
Secessionist rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina made a comeback after 2006, with the coming to power of the SNSD party in Republika Srpska, headed by Milorad Dodik,[44] notwithstanding international experts such as James Ker-Lindsay had defined it as a "hollow threat" and an unfeasible plan.[45]
On 25 April 2015 the ruling SNSD party adopted a declaration entitled "Republika Srpska — free and independent — future and responsibility", stating its intention to organize a referendum on the independence of the Republika Srpska in case competences are not returned from the State to the Entities by 2017. The declaration also suggests that RS authorities might decide "by law which decisions made by the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities shall be applicable on the territory of Republika Srpska".[46]
RS president Milorad Dodik reiterated to the press the commitment to an independence referendum in the coming years if his demands are not met.[47][48] His stated political goal is to scale back the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the letter of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, undoing the developments of the last twenty years including the Court of BiH and BiH Prosecutor's Office, as well as tweak such letter by getting rid of international judges sitting in the BiH Constitutional Court.[49]
Two documents of unknown origin appeared on various internet forums, with several sources claiming that they had been drafted by the government of Slovenia, which carried proposals for the redrawing of borders in Southeastern Europe. The first non-paper called for the "peaceful dissolution" of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the annexation of Republika Srpska and great parts of Herzegovina and Central Bosnia into a Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia, leaving a small Bosniak state in what is central and western Bosnia, as well as the unification of Albania and Kosovo. The story about the first non-paper was first published by Bosnian web portalpoliticki.ba on 12 April 2021. The existence of the first non-paper was initially disputed, with Albanian prime minister Edi Rama being one of the few to claim to have been shown it. The Slovenian website Necenzurirano published the alleged non-paper on 15 April 2021.
The first non-paper's plans and ideas were heavily criticized and reacted to by many political leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, North Macedonia, as well as by politicians from the European Union and Russia. A second non-paper, which first appeared in Kosovo's Albanian-language media in April 2021, proposed that Serbia recognize Kosovo's independence by February 2022 and that Serb-majority North Kosovo be granted autonomy in return for Serbia's recognition.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of earlier violent incidents. The war ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, the latter two entities being proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.
The Bosnian genocide refers to either the Srebrenica massacre or the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25000–30000 Bosniak civilians by VRS units under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
Greater Croatia is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the territorial scope of the Croatian people, emphasising the ethnicity of those Croats living outside Croatia. In the political sense, though, the term refers to an irredentist belief in the equivalence between the territorial scope of the Croatian people and that of the Croatian state.
The Republika Srpska was a self-proclaimed statelet in Southeastern Europe under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War. It claimed to be a sovereign state, though this claim was only partially recognized by the Bosnian government in the Geneva agreement, the United Nations, and FR Yugoslavia. For the first six months of its existence, it was known as the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mate Boban was a Bosnian Croat politician and one of the founders of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, an unrecognized entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was the first president of Herzeg-Bosnia from 1991 until 1994. From 1992 to 1994, Boban was the President of the Croatian Democratic Union. He died in 1997 due to a stroke.
The Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was an unrecognized geopolitical entity and quasi-state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was proclaimed on 18 November 1991 under the name Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia as a "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole" in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and abolished on 14 August 1996.
The Ahmići massacre was the mass murder of approximately 120 Bosniak civilians by members of the Croatian Defence Council in April 1993, during the Croat–Bosniak War. The massacre was the culmination of the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing committed by the political and military leadership of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia. It was the largest massacre committed during the conflict between Bosnian Croats and the Bosniak-dominated Bosnian government.
The Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing, also known as the Lašva Valley case, refers to numerous war crimes committed during the Bosnian war by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership on Bosniak or Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Lašva Valley region of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The campaign, planned from May 1992 to March 1993 and erupting the following April, was meant to implement objectives set forth by Croat nationalists in November 1991. The Lašva Valley's Bosniaks were subjected to persecution on political, and religious grounds, deliberately discriminated against in the context of a widespread attack on the region's civilian population and suffered mass murder, rape and wartime sexual violence, imprisonment in camps, as well as the destruction of religious and cultural sites and private property. This was often followed by anti-Bosniak propaganda, particularly in the municipalities of Vitez, Busovača, Novi Travnik and Kiseljak.
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, that lasted from 18 October 1992 to 23 February 1994. It is often referred to as a "war within a war" because it was part of the larger Bosnian War. In the beginning, the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) fought together in an alliance against the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). By the end of 1992, however, tensions between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats increased. The first armed incidents between them occurred in October 1992 in central Bosnia. The military alliance continued until early 1993, when it mostly fell apart and the two former allies engaged in open conflict.
The Graz agreement was a proposed agreement made between the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and the Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban on 6 May 1992 in the city of Graz, Austria. The agreement publicly declared the territorial division between Republika Srpska and the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and called for an end of conflicts between Serbs and Croats. The largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks, did not take part in the agreement and were purposefully not invited to the negotiations.
On 25 March 1991, the presidents of the Yugoslav federal states SR Croatia and SR Serbia, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević, met at the Karađorđevo hunting ground in northwest Serbia. The publicized topic of their discussion was the ongoing Yugoslav crisis. Three days later all the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics met in Split. Although news of the meeting taking place was widely publicized in the Yugoslav media at the time, the meeting was overshadowed by the crisis in progress, that would lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Nikola Koljević was a Bosnian Serb politician, university professor, translator and an essayist, one of the foremost Yugoslavian Shakespeare scholars. In 2016, he was posthumously declared by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to have been part of a criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War.
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, that lasted from 19 June 1992 – 23 February 1994. The Croat-Bosniak War is often referred to as a "war within a war" because it was part of the larger Bosnian War.
The Duša killings refers to the shelling of the village of Duša, Gornji Vakuf by the Croatian Defence Council on 18 January 1993, in which 7 Bosniak civilians were killed. Bosniak homes were burnt down after the HVO took control of the village.
Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.
The Bijeljina massacre involved the killing of civilians by Serb paramilitary groups in Bijeljina on 1–2 April 1992 in the run-up to the Bosnian War. The majority of those killed were Bosniaks. Members of other ethnicities were also killed, such as Serbs deemed disloyal by the local authorities. The killings were committed by a local paramilitary group known as Mirko's Chetniks and by the Serb Volunteer Guard, a Serbia-based paramilitary group led by Željko "Arkan" Ražnatović. The SDG were under the command of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which was controlled by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.
The Doboj ethnic cleansing refers to war crimes, including murder, deportation, persecution and wanton destruction, committed against Bosniaks and Croats in the Doboj area by the Yugoslav People's Army and Serb paramilitary units from May until September 1992 during the Bosnian war. On 26 September 1997, Serb soldier Nikola Jorgić was found guilty by the Düsseldorf Oberlandesgericht on 11 counts of genocide involving the murder of 30 persons in the Doboj region, making it the first Bosnian Genocide prosecution. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) classified it as a crime against humanity and sentenced seven Serb officials.
Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries. Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"". According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".
The Siege of Mostar was fought during the Bosnian War first in 1992 and then again later in 1993 to 1994. Initially lasting between April 1992 and June 1992, it involved the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) fighting against the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. That phase ended in June 1992 after the success of Operation Jackal, launched by the Croatian Army (HV) and HVO. As a result of the first siege around 90,000 residents of Mostar fled and numerous religious buildings, cultural institutions, and bridges were damaged or destroyed.
References
↑ Imamović, Mustafa (1996). Historija Bošnjaka. Sarajevo: BZK Preporod. ISBN9958-815-00-1
↑ Helen E. Purkitt (1 January 1994). World Politics 94/95. McGraw-Hill. pp.112–115. ISBN978-1-56134-290-7. Bosnia would be divided into three ethnically homogeneous states. The Croatian and Serbian states would be free to join Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia, respectively; the Bosnian-Muslim state would stand alone as an independent entity.
↑ Silber, L (1997), Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. Penguin Books, p.185
↑ Lukic, Reneo; Lynch, Allen. 1996. Europe from the Balkans to the Urals. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 210.
1 2 Kurspahic, Kemal (2006). "Chapter 6: From Bosnia to Kosovo and beyond: mistakes and lessons". In Blitz, Brad (ed.). War and change in the Balkans. Cambridge University Press. pp.76–86. ISBN978-0-521-67773-8.
↑ "We have told everybody that we want a dialogue. If you do not want to have a dialogue with us, if you do not want to harmonize Bosnia and Herzegovina with Dayton, in 2017 our proposal will be a referendum on the status of the RS. And that status implies a free and independent Republika Srpska." Milorad Dodik, NIN magazine, 28 May 2015
↑ "In that regard we said clearly that, unless there are visible and tangible elements of stabilization of the RS in accordance with the Constitution until 2017, meaning that many competencies that were stolen must be returned, in 2018 the RS will carry out a referendum on its status, to det ermine its status. The proposal will be an independent state." Milorad Dodik, Blic online/FENA, Istocno Sarajevo SNSD Congress, 25 April 2015.
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