Bosnia-Herzegovina

Country in central Europe, bounded north and west by Croatia, and east by Serbia and Montenegro.

Government

Under the December 1995 Dayton Agreement, which ended a three-year civil war, Bosnia-Herzegovina is an international protectorate, under a High Representative, and comprises two sovereign entities, a Bosnian Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian Serb state, and a central government, with a rotating presidency. The Office of the High Representative, which represents the international community through the United Nations and is the European Unions's special representative, oversees implementation of civilian aspects of the Agreement. Bosnia-Herzegovina's three main ethnic groups, Slav-speaking Muslims (Bosniaks), Roman Catholic Croats, and Christian Orthodox Serbs, have a guaranteed share of power.

The federal government conducts foreign, economic, and fiscal policy. It is headed by a three-member (Bosniak, Croat, and Serb) presidency, popularly elected every four years by voters in each entity. The chair of the presidency is held in rotation for eight months by each of the three presidents. The presidency is responsible for foreign policy and proposing the budget and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (prime minister), which the lower house of parliament approves. The federal parliament, or legislature, comprises two chambers: a lower house, the 42-member House of Representatives, with two-thirds drawn for four years from the legislature in the Bosniak-Croat Federation and one-third from the Serb entity legislature; and a 15-member House of Peoples, serving two-year terms and drawn in the same proportion from the two entities. The parliament ratifies treaties and agreements and approves the budget.

Each entity has its own constitution and directly elected legislature and president, and its own council of ministers. The Bosniak-Croat Federation legislature comprises a 58-member House of Peoples, elected by cantonal assemblies, and a 98-member House of Representatives, popularly elected for four years. The Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, has a 28-member Council of Peoples and 83-member National Assembly, elected for four-year terms.

There is a constitutional court and Sarajevo is the united capital.

History

Once the Roman province of Illyria, Christianity was introduced to the area in the 1st century. The area enjoyed brief periods of independence in medieval times, after emerging as an independent state in the 1180s. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1463, although the northern part was annexed to Hungary until 1526. Under the Ottomans, there was a large population change, with conversion of many of its Slavic-speaking people to Islam, and Sarajevo developed into a regional centre. After the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, Bosnia became a western frontier state for the Empire and there was a succession of peasant revolts. Austria-Hungary took over its administration in 1878 and annexed it in 1908, provoking the Bosnian crisis. In June 1914 a young Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo, sparking World War I.

In 1918, after the war, Bosnia was incorporated in the future Yugoslavia, and in 1929 divided between four Yugoslavian regions. It came under Nazi German rule in 1941, and during World War II around 12,000 of 14,000 Bosnian Jews were killed, and about 1 million Yugoslavs died. Many Serbs joined the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist and royalist guerrilla movement which fought against the Nazis but also carried out atrocities against some Bosniaks. Yugoslav communists formed a multi-ethnic resistance group, the Partisans, which, led by Marshal Tito, fought against the Nazis and Chetniks and in November 1943 established a provisional government at liberated Jajce. Bosnia-Herzegovina – kept undivided because of its ethnic and religious compound of Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholic Christians), and Serbo-Croat-speaking Slavs (Muslims) – became a republic within the Yugoslav Socialist Federal Republic in November 1945, after the expulsion of the remaining German forces.

Communist rule

Bosnia was one of communist Yugoslavia's poorest republics, but became a base for its military defence industry. The republic's communist leadership became notorious for its corruption, racketeering, and authoritarianism, and from 1980 there was an upsurge in Islamic nationalism. Ethnic violence between Muslims and Serbs worsened 1989–90. In the November-December 1990 elections Bosniak, Croat, and Serb nationalist parties routed the ruling communists. They formed a loose ruling coalition initially, but divisions soon emerged, after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, leading to the break-up of Yugoslavia and to warfare. Serbs in Bosnia favoured staying in the Yugoslav federation, but Bosniaks and Croats favoured independence.

Civil unrest

In 1991 the conflict between Serbia and Croatia and civil war in the latter spread disorder into Bosnia-Herzegovina, with Croats setting up barricades in an attempt to stop the predominantly Serb Yugoslav National Army (JNA) moving through into Croatia. In August 1991, the republic's president, Alija Izetbegović, a devout Muslim, expressed concern that Serbia intended to divide up Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia, with a reduced Muslim buffer state in between, and appealed for support from Turkey and the European Community (EC). From September border areas began to fall into Serbian hands and Serbs began to form autonomous enclaves within the republic.

Independence achieved

In October 1991, the republic's ‘sovereignty’ was declared by its parliament. Bosnian Serbs rejected the declaration, and established an alternative assembly, holding a referendum in November 1991 on remaining in the rump Yugoslav federation. Muslims and Croats, in alliance in the republic's parliament, voted in January 1992 to seek recognition of independence by the European Community (EC). A subsequent referendum in February 1992, requested by the EC, voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, but was boycotted by Serbs. Violent ethnic clashes ensued, with bombings in several Bosnian cities. Despite the worsening situation, the EC and the USA officially recognized the country's independence in April 1992, and in May 1992 Bosnia-Herzegovina became a full member of the United Nations (UN).

Continued fighting

In spring 1992 Bosnian Serb militia units, led by Radovan Karadžić and effectively backed by Serbia, took control of border towns in eastern Bosnia and launched attacks on the capital, Sarajevo. As Croats and Muslims also struggled to gain disputed territory, a state of emergency was declared. A number of ceasefires were made and quickly broken. By the end of May 1992, hundreds had been killed and hundreds of thousands made homeless. The UN called for the withdrawal of the JNA and imposed sanctions against Serbia, and in June 1992 the first UN troops were drafted in to Sarajevo in an attempt to relieve a three-month Serbian siege of the city and to ensure the supply of humanitarian aid.

Atrocities reported

Bosnian Serb forces, which received logistical and financial support from Yugoslavia, established control over an area stretching from the northwest to the southeast, comprising almost two-thirds of the country, and declared it independent. Croats dominated large portions of the western part of the country, and subsequently declared an independent Croatian state. There was increasing evidence of atrocities being perpetrated, particularly by Serbs. Muslims and Croats were being forcibly expelled from occupied zones, or killed, as part of an ‘ethnic cleansing’ process, and there were reports of ‘death camps’ and group slaughter of internees. In October 1992, the UN Security Council voted to create a war crimes commission and imposed a ban on all military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina. In November 1992, the first British troops were deployed in the area.

Failed Vance–Owen peace plan

From January 1993, UN negotiator Cyrus Vance and EC negotiator Lord Owen urged adoption of a peace plan under which the country would be divided into ten substantially autonomous, ethnically controlled provinces. The plan gained US approval, but the warring factions disagreed over details. A Bosnian Serb referendum in May 1993 overwhelmingly rejected the plan and endorsed the creation of a Bosnian Serb state. Fighting continued, with Sarajevo subject to regular bombardment by Serbian forces. The USA commenced airdrops of food and medical supplies into war-ravaged eastern Bosnia in March. By this date an estimated 1.8 million Bosnians, 40% of the population, had been made refugees, and at least 130,000 had been killed in the interethnic conflict since May 1992.

UN ‘safe areas’ set

In May 1993, six UN ‘safe areas’ were created – Sarajevo and the Muslim strongholds of Bihac, Gorazde, Tuzla, Srebrenica, and Zepa – to provide shelter for Muslim civilians fleeing Serbian aggression. A further peace plan, based on a division of the country into three semi-autonomous, ethnic provinces, was abandoned in July. In October 1993 Haris Siladzic, a Muslim and former foreign minister, became prime minister. A UN ultimatum, issued through NATO in February 1994, gave warring factions around Sarajevo ten days to withdraw their heavy weapons or face air strikes. The Serbs agreed to withdraw only after Russia had intervened in the crisis.

Bosnian Muslim-Croat federation agreed

A Muslim-Croat ceasefire in the north followed, and in March 1994, under US prompting, a Bosniak-Croat federation was created, with the long-term aim of forming a confederation with Croatia. This coalition changed the military balance in the republic, although Bosnian government forces continued to be deprived of weapons by an international arms embargo.

UN military intervention

Bosnian Serb forces had meanwhile switched their attentions to Gorazde, another UN ‘safe area’. NATO bombing of Serb control positions in April 1994 failed to halt the advance and the Serbs took control of the city. They later withdrew, against all expectations, after a second UN ultimatum. By May 1994 22,000 UN troops were deployed in the republic, with a mandate to ‘contain’ the fighting, to airlift relief supplies into starving, isolated eastern Bosnia, to enforce the ‘no-fly zone’, and to protect UN ‘safe areas’.

Serbia withdraws support

In July 1994 the Bosnian Serbs rejected a further peace plan devised by the USA, Russia, the UK, France, and Germany – collectively known as the ‘contact group’. The plan awarded Bosnian Serbs 49% of territory against the 70% they currently occupied; the remaining 51% was assigned to the Muslim-Croat federation. Seeking a reduction in crippling UN sanctions, Serbia had put pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to accept the proposal; when they failed to do so, it imposed an economic border blockade against its former allies.

Renewed hostilities

Fighting broke out again around Sarajevo and Bihac in the autumn of 1994. Use of cluster bombs and napalm by the Serbs provoked further NATO bombing, but after UN personnel were taken hostage, further strikes were ruled out. The USA announced in November 1994 that it would no longer attempt to enforce the arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina. The following month a four-month ceasefire was negotiated by former US president Jimmy Carter, intended to take effect from January 1995.

However, sporadic fighting continued and in April 1995 hostilities renewed, both sides having taken advantage of the period of relative peace to regroup and rearm.

In June 1995 several hundred UN peacekeepers were temporarily taken hostage by the Serbs after further NATO action. The West reacted by sending in a 12,500-troop Rapid Reaction Force to protect the peacekeepers. Fighting intensified and in July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces overran the ‘safe areas’ of Srebrenica and Zepa; more than 40,000 Muslims were forced to flee to neighbouring Tuzla. When a UN report of the capture of Srebrenica was published in 1999, it reported that 7,300 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serbs in what was the worst massacre in the civil war. The report also criticized the UN for using insufficient force to deter to Bosnian Serbs. After Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serbs switched their attentions to Bihac, another ‘safe area’, but a surprise offensive by Croat-government and ethnic Croat troops sent them into retreat. Meanwhile, NATO had begun a sustained air bombardment of Bosnian Serb command posts and weapons depots around Sarajevo in retaliation for a mortar attack on the city's market.

Dayton Peace Accord

With their military machine in a state of disarray, the Bosnian Serbs agreed for the first time to recognize the sovereignty of the Muslim-Croat federation, and in September 1995 the two contending parties agreed in principle to a US-sponsored peace proposal, leading to a 60-day ceasefire in October 1995. This was followed up by the agreement of the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia to start negotiations on a new constitution for post-war Bosnia, which took place at the US air base at Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995. These culminated in a historic accord, the Dayton Peace Accord, which allowed the Bosnian Serbs to keep 49% of the land they claimed, leaving the remaining 51% to the Muslim–Croat federation. It also provided for the country to remain a single state and for free, supervised elections, a rotating presidency, the return of refugees, and the banning from public office of indicted war criminals. In December 1995, the peace accord was formally signed in Paris and a 50,000-strong NATO-led force, the Implementation Force (Ifor), was drafted in to police it, replacing the UN presence. The three years of war had claimed between 100,000 and 250,000 lives and displaced 2 million people.

Bosnian prime minister Haris Silajdzic resigned in January 1996 in protest at proposals to reduce the powers of the central government, and was replaced by Hasan Muratovic, while Izudin Kapetanovic became prime minister of the new Muslim-Croat Federation.

In May 1996, Bosnian Serb prime minister Rajko Kasagic was dismissed by Karadžić. Biljana Plavsic, a hardliner, took over negotiations with the international community and Gojko Klickovic, an extreme nationalist, became prime minister.

War crimes proceedings

In May 1996, proceedings began at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in the Hague against almost 60 men, including Karadžić, accused of war crimes – the first international war-crimes trial since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. Drazen Erdemovic, a 25-year-old Croat who took part in the Bosnian Serb army massacre of 1,200 Muslims at Srebrenica, was the first person to be sentenced by the tribunal. He received a ten-year prison term. In November 1998 the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague convicted the first Muslims and Croats to be found guilty of civil war atrocities committed in 1992 against Serbs.

An arms-control accord was agreed by all parties to the Dayton Peace Accord in June 1996. In July, under the threat of renewed economic sanctions, Karadžić officially resigned as president of the Bosnian Serb republic (Republica Srpska) and withdrew from active politics. In elections held in September 1996 Izetbegović, the incumbent Muslim president, was elected the first head of state, for a period of two years, of the new three-person presidency, working alongside Serb nationalist Momcilo Krajisnik and Croat Kresimir Zubak. Biljana Plavsic was elected president of the Bosnian Serb republic.

In October 1996, full diplomatic relations were opened with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in November in the Bosnian Serb republic a new government was formed headed by Prime Minister Gojko Klickovic.

In December 1996, the 31,000-strong NATO-led Stabilization Force (S-For) replaced Ifor. It included troops from the USA, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Norway, and Turkey, who would work in the country for 18 months alongside a UN civilian operation.

Return of refugees

The UN High Commission for Refugees reported in December 1996 that fewer than a third of the expected 870,000 Bosnians returned home in the first year of peace.

In December 1996 the Bosnian Croat para-state of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Bosnian republic government ceased to exist as all powers were transferred to a new Muslim-Croat Federation, with Edhem Bicakcic as prime minister. In January 1997 Haris Silajdzic (a Muslim and former prime minister of the Bosnian republic) and Boro Bosic (a Serb) were appointed as co-chairs of the all-Bosnian Council of Ministers; Neven Tomic (a Croat) became deputy chair.

In March 1997 the Bosnian Serb republic signed a joint customs agreement with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In August 1997, international peace-keepers moved to Banja Luka in northwest Bosnia to block a possible coup by police opposed to Biljana Plavsic, the elected president of the Bosnian Serb republic. The operation, in which British and Czech ground troops disarmed Bosnian Serb police opposed to Plavsic, was a clear intervention in what might have become a civil war between Bosnian Serb factions. The UN's International Police Task Force seized 2,500 arms and a quantity of bugging equipment.

Two years after the Dayton Accord, a 51-nation meeting was told that international involvement would probably need to be stepped up rather than scaled down. By the end of 1997, only 34,000 refugees had returned to live in territory controlled by the army of a different ethnic group, and of these less than 1,000 were Croats or Muslims returning to the Serb republic.

The pro-Karadžić Serbian Democratic Party won the most seats in Bosnian Serb elections in December 1997 but lost its overall majority. A coalition government was formed in January 1998 led by Milorad Dodik, the pro-Western moderate leader of the Independent Social Democrats, who was nominated by Plavsic. Dodik promoted ethnic tolerance and stated he would acquiesce in the arrest of suspected war criminals. He formed a non-party government of professionals, which also enjoyed the support of 18 Muslim MPs. The EU rewarded this change by providing the Republika with 6 million ECUs (US$6.6 million) in aid (aid had been frozen since the November 1995 Dayton Accord because of the Bosnian Serbs' non-compliance). The new government announced that it would move its capital from Pale, a stronghold in the east still controlled by Bosnian-Serb hardliners led by Radovan Karadžić, to Banja Luka, in the west. It also stated that refugees would be welcomed back to their pre-war homes, press freedom encouraged, privatization promoted, and the Serb Orthodox Church separated from the state.

The federal and constituent republic elections of September 1998 saw ultra-nationalist Serb and Croat politicians polling strongly. Nikola Poplasen, a Serb extremist, who advocated the creation of an ‘ethnically cleansed’ Greater Serbia transcending present boundaries, outpolled Biljana Plavsic to become president of Bosnia's Serb republic.

NATO announced in November 1999 that it would cut its S-For peacekeeping force in Bosnia by a third, to 20,000, by April 2000. The reduction was justified by a return to stability in some areas of Bosnia and increased refugee returns, so that civil policing rather than military presence was needed.

War crimes convictions

In October 1997 ten alleged Bosnian Croat war criminals, including Dario Kordic, one of their toughest wartime commanders, surrendered to The Hague tribunal investigating atrocities in Bosnia's four-year war. In August 1999 Colonel General Momir Talic, head of the Bosnian Serb army, became the highest ranking military leader to be arrested on orders from The Hague tribunal. He was charged with persecuting and expelling Bosnian Muslims and Croats 1992–95. Momcilo Krajisnik, a Serb nationalist and former co-president of Bosnia's three-person presidency, was arrested in April 2000 by NATO-led troops in Bosnia, making him the highest ranking Bosnian Serb politician to be arrested on charges of war crimes. The former Bosnian Croat commander General Tihomir Blasik was sentenced to 45 years in prison by The Hague tribunal, for his role in commanding Croat soldiers in central Bosnia 1992–93. His forces were responsible for the massacre of more than 100 Muslim villagers, and his sentence was the longest ever passed by the tribunal.

Brcko

In February 2000, the northeastern town of Brcko, the only territorial dispute outstanding from the Dayton peace agreement, was officially established as a self-governing neutral district, to be ruled by an elected alliance of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims.

Refugee situation 2000

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, reported in March 2000 that 2,000 Bosnian Muslims had returned to the Bosnian Serb republic, 4,000 Serbs to the Bosnian-Croat town of Drvar, and 20,000 Serbs and Croats had returned to Croatia. There were still some 836,000 displaced people living within Bosnia and 330,000 living abroad. Croatia stated that it would allow Serbian refugees to return to Croatia.

Elections and Croat agitation for autonomy

Serb and Croat nationalists did well in the parliamentary elections held in November 2000. In the Republika Srpska, the hardline nationalist Mirko Sarovic, leader of the Serbian Democratic Party, was elected president and the nationalists formed a coalition government, with the moderate Mladen Ivanic as prime minister.

In March 2001, the UN dismissed Ante Jelavic, the Croat member of the three-person presidency, for agitating for autonomy for Bosnia's Croat-inhabited regions. In April 2001, violent clashes broke out between Croats and troops of the NATO-led S-For, as UN administrators sought to stifle the growing Croatian separatist campaign.

War crimes tribunal

On 10 January 2001, former president of Bosnia's Serb republic, Biljana Pavsic, gave herself up to the UN's war crimes tribunal at the Hague, becoming the highest-ranking Bosnian official to date to be tried. Initially, she pleaded ‘not guilty’ to nine counts of war crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and planning, preparing, or executing the destruction of the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat communities. In October 2002, she changed her plea to one of guilty of crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 11 yearsseveral imprisonment.

In February 2001, the UN War Crimes Tribunal convicted the first senior politician, Dario Kordic, a Bosnian Croat commander during 1993, of war crimes.

In June 2001, Slobodan Milosevic, the leader in Serbia during the Bosnian civil war, was transferred from jail in Belgrade to UN custody in Bosnia en route to The Hague, where he was to stand trial on war crimes charges.

In August 2001, the tribunal found Radislav Krstic, a former Bosnian Serb general, guilty of genocide for his role in the murder of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. In what was the first genocide conviction since World War II, Krstic was sentenced to 46 years in prison.

In the face of international pressure, in December 2001 the main Serb nationalist party, the SDS, voted to expel all war crimes suspects. This included the wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who was in hiding.

New High Representative

In May 2002, Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, became the international High Representative, replacing the Austrian, Wolfgang Petritsch, who had held the post since 1999. A long-time advocate of international intervention in the region, Ashdown became an active High Representative, using his powers to force through legislation and dismiss officials, which made him unpopular with the Bosnian Serbs. He was succeeded in January 2006 as High Representative by the German Christian Democrat politician, Christian Schwarz-Schilling.

Elections and leadership changes

In October 2000 Izetbegović stepped down as the Bosniak representative on the federal presidency as a result of failing health.

The October 2002 federation, presidential, and parliamentary elections were won by nationalists. Sulejman Tihić, a founding member of the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, became the Bosniak representative as president, Dragan Čović the Croat representative, and Mirko Šarović the Serb representative. Šarović resigned in April 2003 after being implicated in an arms sales to Iraq scandal and Parliament replaced him with Borislav Paravac of the Serb Democratic Party. Dragan Čović was dismissed in 2005 by High Representative Ashdown, after being indicted for financial corruption, and was replaced by Ivo Miro Jovic.

In the Republika Srpska, Dragan Čavić of the nationalist Serb Democratic Party became president in November 2002 and Milorad Dodik, of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, became prime minister in February 2006. The Croat, Niko Lozančić, became president of the Bosniak-Croat federation in January 2003.

Growing involvement of the EU

In January 2003, the EU took over policing duties in Bosnia from the UN, in its first foreign security operation.

In December 2004, NATO handed over peacekeeping duties to the EU-led, Eufor.

In October 2005, the central and entity parliaments backed the setting up of a unified police force.

Bosnia-Herzegovina (redirected from Bosnia and Herzegovina)