Country: Serbia

Group: Bosniak

Date Finalized: 3/25/2020

Team: Gabriel Cardenas (lead), Aracely, Esquer, Ray Gerard Regorgo

Content Warning: homicide, genocide, sexual assault

Approximate Time Period: 1992-1995

On April 6th, 1992, the country of Bosnia attempted to secede from Yugoslavia. This resulted in the start of the Bosnian-Serb war that ended on December 14th, 1995. Serbia had held the majority of power in the multi-ethnic country of Yugoslavia, and it attempted to keep Bosnia in their country, declaring that they need to free fellow Serbian Orthodox Christians living in the predominantly Bosnian Muslim region (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d.). Together the Serbs and Bosnian Serbs invaded the country and set out on a series of military campaigns to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d.; Shackelford 2007, p. 23). The invading military set up concentration camps where men were executed. Women were brought to separate camps, where they were systematically raped and told that they were going to have Serbian babies (Fisk, 2015). When NATO forces finally intervened and after a series of bombings against the Bosnian Serb/Yugoslavia forces, the war finally ended. But before the conclusion in 1995, 8,000 Bosniaks were taken to concentration camps and murdered, and approximately 80,000 Bosniaks were killed during the war. In 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled that country of Serbia is not responsible for the ethnic cleansing, rapes, and genocide that occurred during the war, but that they failed to stop these events happening. The general of the Bosnian Serb forces in 2017 was arrested and convicted of genocide, and war crimes against humanity. The Bosnian genocide has clear evidence (3) and should be considered a genocide.

            Regarding the Bosnians who lived in Serbia at the time of the outbreak of the war. Information was scarce and no resources directly mentioned Bosnians living in Serbia during this time. This may be due to the location of the fighting during war, which was mostly in Bosnia. But, the borders at this time were not stable, and the Bosnians currently living in Serbia could have been easily a part of the conflict that resulted in the Bosnian Genocide. A definitive conclusion cannot be given for the potential inclusion of the Bosnians living in Serbia taking part in the conflict between the two countries.  

Sources

  1. Holocaust Museum Houston (n.d.). Genocide in Bosnia. Retrieved from https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-bosnia-guide/
  2. Shackelford, Scott. (2007). “Holding States Accountable for the Ultimate Human Right Abuse: A Review of the International Court of Justice’s Bosnian Genocide Case.” Human Rights Brief 14, no. 3 (2007): 21-26.
  3. Fisk, R. (2015, September 21). Bosnia War Crimes: ‘The rapes went on day and night’: Robert Fisk, in Mostar, gathers detailed evidence of the systematic sexual assaults on Muslim women by Serbian ‘White Eagle’ gunmen. Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bosnia-war-crimes-the-rapes-went-on-day-and-night-robert-fisk-in-mostar-gathers-detailed-evidence-of-1471656.html