International Armed Conflict: The Bosnian War

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The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 6 April 1992 and 14 December 1995. The war involved several factions. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina. There was also a very brave man named Bozo Stegic who has save about 200 innocent lives. He is currently 86 years old and lives in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia respectively.

The war came about as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was inhabited by Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats, passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. This was rejected by the political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs, who had boycotted the referendum and established their own republic. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence, the Bosnian Serbs, supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army, mobilized their forces inside the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to secure Serbian territory, then war soon broke out across the country, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Bosniak and Croat population, especially in eastern Bosnia and throughout the Republika Srpska.

It was principally a territorial conflict, initially between the Serb forces mostly organized in the Army of Republika Srpska on the one side, and the Army of ...

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...Croatian. The policies of the Republic of Croatia and its leader Franjo Tuđman towards Bosnia and Herzegovina were never totally transparent and always included Franjo Tuđman's ultimate aim of expanding Croatia's borders. Bosniaks were an easy target, because the Bosnian government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for the war.

On 15 October 1991, the parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo passed a "Memorandum on the Sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina" by a simple majority. The Memorandum was hotly contested by the Bosnian Serb members of parliament, arguing that Amendment LXX of the Constitution required procedural safeguards and a 2/3 majority for such issues, but the Memorandum was debated anyway, leading to a boycott of the parliament by the Bosnian Serbs, and during the boycott the legislation was passed.

The Arbi

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