History, Civil War

Full-scale civil war, with Serbs and Croats armed and backed by Serbia and Croatia respectively, erupted the same week in April 1992 that Bosnia was recognized by the United States and the EC. Muslims fought alongside Croats against the Serbs. In May, Serbia and Montenegro declared themselves the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). By summer, Serb forces, which included troops from the Serb-dominated army of the former Yugoslavia, controlled about 70 percent of Bosnia. They laid siege to Sarajevo and carried out brutal massacres and expulsions of non-Serbs in territories they controlled, a process chillingly called “ethnic cleansing.” These atrocities produced worldwide condemnation, but no effective international intervention other than humanitarian aid under the protection of an otherwise ineffective United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

The HVO consolidated Croat administration of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the district was virtually joined to Croatia by mid-1992. In May 1993 the Croats launched a war against their former Muslim allies for control of central Bosnia and the Muslim portion of Mostar, the capital of the Herzegovina region. Muslim Mostar held out, and the Bosnian government’s initially almost nonexistent army, consisting mostly of Muslims, held its own against the HVO in central Bosnia. Both the Croats and the Muslims also carried out bloody massacres and “ethnic cleansing” in contested territories.

International efforts to achieve a cease-fire and resolution of the conflict included conferences, sanctions, peace proposals, and charges against suspected war criminals. Conferences attended by all the parties were held in Lisbon, London, and Geneva in 1992 and 1993. The UN began imposing economic sanctions on the FRY in 1993 and co-sponsored a series of peace plans with the EC that one or more Bosnian factions in each case ultimately rejected. The UN also established so-called “safe areas” for Muslims, although they were frequently violated, most notoriously in Srebrenica in July 1995.

In May 1993 a UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in The Hague, Netherlands. By early 1999 the ICTY had publicly indicted more than 50 men, including Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community negotiated brief local or general cease-fires, and U.S. pressure put an end to the Muslim-Croat war, forcing the Croats to agree, on paper, to a Muslim-Croat federation in March 1994.