Ethnic Conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s

465 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995 essay

The 1990s were a period of extreme ethnic conflict in the former nation of Yugoslavia. In 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina passed a referendum for independence, which was not met with an equal enthusiasm amongst the republic's population. The group most against this independence was the Serbian minority, who were convinced by leaders such as Slobodan Milosovic and psychiatrist Jovan Raskovic in the idea of a "greater Serbia." Serbs were told they needed to dominate the surrounding Croats and Muslims based on their psychological superiority. Serb fighters carried out vicious campaigns of ethnic cleansing, killing over 100,000 people with another 1.5 million being forced from their homes to created predominantly Serbian areas. In 1995 Bosnia Croatia and Serbia signed the Dayton peace accords and focus shifted towards Kosovo, where discord had been emerging between the Albanians and the Serbs.

In 1992 (and with resolutions created earlier) Kosovo's Albanian majority also voted to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia, hoping to unite with Albania. The conflict in Kosovo could be seen as t...

Show More
Related

  • Extreme Ultranationalism: The Bosnian Genocide

    911 Words  | 2 Pages

    In fact, sometimes it is actively encouraged as part of preserving the culture and the traditional aspects of the nation in question; for example, routine celebrations of national holiday and the wearing of cultural clothing demonstrate moderate forms of nationalism. However, it is when extreme pride in one’s nation leads to acts that contravene common decency that the forces of nationalism become dangerous. A historical example of such an event was the Bosnian war and the resulting Bosnian genocide that occurred shortly after the partition of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s. In this event, extreme Serbian nationalism called for the unity of the Serbian peoples in Bosnia-Herzegovina - an event that echoes the words of the source. Serbian leaders and followers believed that their culture and people were superior to that of the neighbouring ethnic groups - the Bosniaks and the Croatians - and thought that they needed to be eliminated because of the potential threat they posed to the establishment of an autonomous Serbian Republic, or “Greater Serbia”. In the course of the war, and the ethnic cleansing that followed, more than 100,000 Bosniaks and Croatians were to be killed in a mass act of genocide. This appalling and gruesome figure shows the extent to which extreme nationalism is unacceptable and how unification of a people by force is both detrimental and wrong on all

    Read More

  • Bosnian Genocide Research Paper

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bosnia is a country in Europe and its capital is a city called Sarajevo. Bosnia is bordered by Serbia and Croatia. In this genocide, between 1992 and 1995, the Serbians wanted to pursue genocide against the Muslims of Bosnia. After World War 1, a country called Yugoslavia was created in 1918. It was created out of the Austria-Hungary empire that lost the war and lost its land. Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, and Bosnian Serbians and Muslims lived all in one country. The problem was the people didn't get along and each republic wanted to take control of the country. This went on until after WWII, when the Soviet Union took power and control over the country. Joseph Broz (Tito) was leader of Yugoslavia until the 6 republics separated. Then in 1992, Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Soon after, the Bosnian

    Read More

  • U.S involvement in Bosnia

    2078 Words  | 5 Pages

    The United States Involvement in Bosnia; is it positive or negative. After a lifetime of war in Bosnia, can the United States really offer positive change? To truly get a feel for the conflict in this region we must first look at the long-standing hatred between the occupying ethnic groups: Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. From 1481 to 1903 the Ottoman Empire was the ruling body over the entire Balkan region. By the early nineteen hundreds the Ottoman Empire had collapsed. In 1918, at the end of World War One, Russia annexed the Balkan region renaming it Yugoslavia. In 1919 Joseph Stalin, Communist ruler of Russia and its satellite states (i.e. Yugoslavia), appointed Tito to be the head of Yugoslavia. Tito quickly became an iron fisted and ruthless dictator. The Machiavellian characteristics exhibited by Tito have given all Serbs a reputation as being strong armed and merciless. With Tito’s death in 1991, Yugoslavia collapsed and split into 3 independent states: Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia. In 1994 Slovadon Malosovitch was elected ruler of the Serbian state. Incidents of mass genocide and several other war crimes became regular occurrences under his rule. The Bosnian crisis has shown the world the worst of human nature. On behalf of the United Nations, in an effort to settle the unrest in the Balkan region, The United States became involved in 1995. The United States involvement includes: the commitment of twenty thousand troops, the troop support of legions of tanks and other vehicles, and the “full support” of the United States Government.

    Read More

  • Ethnic Breakup in Yugoslavia

    1737 Words  | 4 Pages

    The last two decades of the twentieth century gave rise to turbulent times for constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eventually leading them to split apart. There were a number of damaging aspects of past history and of the political and economic circumstances that contributed to the breakup and eventually caused the situation to snowball into a deadly series of inter-ethnic conflicts. Yugoslavia was reunified at the end of the war when the communist forces of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country. Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a relatively liberal form of government in comparison to other East European communist states at the time and experienced a period of relative economic and political stability until Tito’s death in 1980. In addition to internal power struggles following the loss of their longtime leader, Yugoslavia faced an unprecedented economic crisis in the 1980’s. As other communist states began to fall in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some former Communist leaders abandoned communism and founded or supported ethno-national parties, blaming the economic suffering on the flaws of communism and other ethnic groups. The ethnic violence that followed would not have been possible without the willingness of politicians from every side to promote ethno-nationalist symbols and myths through media blitzes, which were especially effective due to low levels of education in the former Yugoslavia. Shadows of the events of World War II gave these politicians, especially the Serbs, an opportunity to encourage the discussion and exaggeration of past atrocities later in the century. The ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to a series of linked damaging factors such as the de...

    Read More

  • Cause of Yugoslavia's Revolution

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    struggle, however, fought under the guise of ethnic hatred. Bibliography Glenny M, "The Balkans, 1804-1999", 2000. Lampe JR, Yugoslavia as History. Twice There was a Country, 1996. Kegley and Wittkopf, "World Politics", 2001.

    Read More

  • Bosnia-Herzegovina genocide

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting. Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population. During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state led by Ante Pavelic and his fascist Ustasha Party. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres.

    Read More

  • Bosnian Genocide Essay

    1893 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bosnia and Herzegovina, located just west of Serbia, is a European country with a current population of approximately 3,834,000 people. In 1992, the population estimate was 4,113,000, but by the end of the genocide in 1995, it dropped to 3,521,000 citizens. The main languages are Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Bosnia’s main religions that make up the country are: Islam - with the largest percentile of the population at 40%, followed by 31% Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholics at 15%, and other religions which make up a total of 14% of the population. The capital is Sarajevo, which was also meant to be a safe haven for Muslims who were in fear during the genocide and war. Fellow cities Gordaze and Srebrenica were were two of the other safe havens (there were 5 total). However, these cities were not only sieged, but the markings for massacres and bloodshed within a nation.

    Read More

  • Slobodan Milosevic and Genocide in the Former Yugoslavia

    2158 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the late 1980s through the 1990s, the republics of the former Yugoslavia experienced serious ethnic tensions, escalating into all-out war which resulted in some of the worst war crimes committed in Europe since World War II. In 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was formed with the goal of punishing perpetrators who carried out acts of genocide and crimes against humanity in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and to prevent any such atrocities from ever occurring again. One of the most significant and high-profile trials of this tribunal was that of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of both Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, who was accused of committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and abuses of power and corruption. Milosevic died in 2006, and his trial was never concluded. Whether or not he would have been convicted of these crimes is a subject of debate.

    Read More

  • Yugoslavia: The Fabrication and Failure of a Nation

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    Their action to prevent this was to dissolve the rest of Yugoslavia and created Serbia and Montenegro. This was the end of Yugoslavia.

    Read More

  • Proposal for paper - Could Genocide have been prevented?

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    -     Review in detail the key players that were involved in the split of the nations by religious reasons. This includes Milosevic.

    Read More

  • Why It Proved to be Impossible to Solve the Problems Created by Balkan Nationalism Before 1914

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    Why It Proved to be Impossible to Solve the Problems Created by Balkan Nationalism Before 1914 Balkan nationalism was apparent in the years leading up to 1914 in two forms: The desire for expansion, or rather, self-determination, within the immediate region, and also in the support of Pan-Slav nationalism (a Russian idea). In the years from 1900 to 1914, this nationalism caused the key problems of mistrust and suspicion between the two great powers of Austria Hungary and Russia, who’s conflicting national interests concerning the Balkan states arose from mutual distrust and desire to gain influence in the area and brought to the surface the conflicting national interests of the two countries within the region. The reasons it why it proved impossible to solve these aforementioned issues and soothe the tensions will be the focus of this essay. The Bosnian crisis of 1908 resulted form the annexation of the Balkan provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria Hungary.

    Read More

  • The Croatian War of Independence

    1400 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gagnon, V. P. (2004). The myth of ethnic war: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

    Read More

  • Essay On Bosnia And Herzegovina

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    The history of modern Bosnia began with the country of Yugoslavia in the 1900s. At the beginning of World War I, the Baltic region was controlled by Austria-Hungary. The trigger for WWI actually took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia, when a group of insubordinate Serbs assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand (heir to Austria-Hungary). In the ashes of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Baltic countries formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918. The Kingdom united as the country of Yugoslavia in 1929, of which Bosnia was a constituent republic until Nazi Germany invaded in 1941. After Nazi Germany fell, President Marshall Tito took over the country and controlled it. Although President Tito was a Communist, he did do some good in the country, especially by keeping the Soviet Union at arm’s length, which planted unity in his country against a common enemy. When Yugoslavia was under Tito, it had some of the best times in Slavic

    Read More

  • Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo What Happened Before and After NATO Intervened

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    Milosevic’s main goal in Kosovo was to expel Kosovo Albanians population in an effort to ensure continued Serbian control over the province. Du...

    Read More

  • Reasons for the Disintegration of Yugoslavia

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    From its birth in 1918 to its death in the 1990’s, Yugoslavia has always been a whole. Yugoslavia was kept together by it’s diplomacy and their good reputation and achievements during the administration led by Tito. As a result of his death, neighbors that lived in peace for decades turned on each other, ethnic hatred was occuring and republics were declaring independence one after the other. The country was gradually falling apart. There were many reasons for the breakup of Yugoslavia but one of the most important one was realism which basically deals with politics.

    Read More

More about Ethnic Conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s

Open Document