I | INTRODUCTION |
Bosnia and
Herzegovina (Bosnian Bosna i Hercegovina), country in southeastern
Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Formerly a constituent republic of Yugoslavia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence in March 1992. War then broke
out among Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats, and Serbs in the country (see
Wars of Yugoslav Succession). At the end of the war, in 1995, Serbs
controlled 49 percent of the country’s territory, comprising an area known as
the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska). The remaining territory, officially
known as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federacija Bosna i
Hercegovina), was controlled by a federation of Bosniaks and Croats. Today,
the Bosniak-Croat federation and the Serb Republic together constitute the
country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In reality, since the war the country has
remained divided three ways—among the Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs—despite
international attempts to unite it.
In the 14th century the principality of Bosnia
joined with a duchy to the south that would eventually be called Herzegovina as
part of a short-lived medieval kingdom. The modern-day country of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, often referred to simply as Bosnia, is still divided geographically
into a northern region of Bosnia and a southern region of Herzegovina. The
republic is bounded on the north and west by Croatia and on the east by the
republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Bosnia also has 20 km (12 mi) of coastline
along the Adriatic Sea, wedged between Croatian territories. The capital and
largest city is Sarajevo.
II | LAND AND RESOURCES |
Bosnia has an area of 51,129 sq km (19,741 sq
mi). It is a mountainous country. In particular, extensions of the Dinaric Alps,
which form Bosnia’s western border with Croatia, traverse the western and
southern parts of the republic. The highest peak is Mount Maglič, measuring
2,387 m (7,831 ft), on the border with Montenegro. Much of the republic also
lies within the Karst, a barren limestone plateau broken by depressions and
ridges. The northern part of the republic is heavily forested, while the south
has flatter areas of fertile soil. Those flatter areas are used primarily as
farmland.
Bosnia’s principal rivers include the Bosna,
the Sava, which flows along the northern frontier, and the Sava’s tributaries,
the Una, Drina, and Vrbas. These rivers all flow north; only a few other rivers,
notably the Neretva, flow toward the Adriatic Sea. The valleys of the northern
rivers widen into the fertile Sava plain, which stretches across the northern
third of Bosnia.
A Mediterranean climate prevails in the south,
with sunny, warm summers and mild, rainy winters. A modified continental climate
of warm summers and cold winters dominates the northern inland territory. At
higher elevations, short, cool summers and long, severe winters with snow are
common. The average temperature for Sarajevo, in the continental zone, is -1°C
(30°F) in January and 20°C (68°F) in July.
Bosnia’s soils are predominantly brown earths.
Beech forests constitute the primary natural vegetation. Among the wildlife
found in the country are hares, lynxes, weasels, otters, foxes, wildcats,
wolves, gray bears, chamois, deer, eagles, vultures, mouflon (wild sheep), and
hawks. Lynxes, weasels, and otters have the status of endangered species.
Bosnia is rich in natural resources. These
resources include large tracts of arable land, extensive forests, and valuable
deposits of minerals such as salt, manganese, silver, lead, copper, iron ore,
chromium, and coal.
Air pollution from metallurgical plants, water
shortages, and poor or failing sanitation services are a few of the problems
facing the country, but the destruction of its infrastructure because of the
civil war that took place from 1992 to 1995 is the most pressing current issue.
Most activity since the war’s end has been concentrated on restoring basic needs
and services, rather than addressing environmental problems directly. However,
despite their preoccupation with rebuilding a war-torn infrastructure, leaders
in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not lost sight of environmental issues—the
country was an observer at the World Conservation Congress in Montréal in
1996.
III | THE PEOPLE OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA |
In 1991, in the last census taken in
Yugoslavia, Bosnia had a population of 4,364,574. Bosnia’s population
subsequently decreased during the civil war, which left hundreds of thousands
dead and forced many thousands of others to flee. Casualty rates during the war
were approximately equal for the ethnic Muslims and Serbs (between 1992 and
1995, 7.4 percent of the prewar Muslim population and 7.1 percent of the prewar
Serb population were killed or listed as missing); the casualty rate for the
ethnic Croats was much lower. Of the Bosnians who fled, most went to the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (now the separate countries of Serbia and Montenegro),
Germany, Croatia, and Sweden.
In 2008, the population of Bosnia was
estimated to be 4,590,310, giving the country an average population density of
90 persons per sq km (233 per sq mi). In 2005, 45 percent of the population
lived in cities and towns. The largest cities are Sarajevo, the capital and an
important cultural and commercial center; Zenica; Banja Luka; Mostar; and Tuzla.
A | Ethnic Groups, Religions, and Languages |
Bosnia’s major ethnic groups are Bosnian
Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. Since 1994 Bosnian Muslims, long considered an
ethnic group, have officially been known as Bosniaks. A small number of Roma
(Gypsies) also live in Bosnia. In the 1991 census, prior to independence,
Muslims represented 44 percent of the population, Serbs 31 percent, Croats 17
percent, Yugoslavs (people of mixed Muslim, Serb, and Croat ancestry) 6 percent,
and others 2 percent. The “Yugoslav' identity claimed in 1991 was abandoned when
Yugoslavia broke up. In 2003 the government estimated that Bosniaks constituted
73 percent of the population, Croats 22 percent, and Serbs 4 percent.
The primary difference among the largest
ethnic groups is religious, the Serbs being traditionally Orthodox Christians
and the Croats Roman Catholics. The Bosniaks, descendants of Slavs who converted
to Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries, are generally Sunni Muslims (see
Sunni Islam). Bosnia also has a small number of Jews.
The people of Bosnia speak the Bosnian
language. However, according to the Bosnian government, the country officially
has three languages: Serbian, Bosnian (the language associated with Bosniaks),
and Croatian. In writing, the Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet, while Bosniaks
and Croats use the Latin alphabet.
B | Ethnic Discord |
Before the war, the rural Bosnian
population lived largely in concentrations of each ethnic group, but the
concentrations were so interspersed as to resemble a leopard’s skin. The Muslim
population was concentrated mainly in central and eastern Bosnia (bordering
Serbia) and in the far west (bordering Croatia). Concentrations of Serbs
separated those of the Muslims. Croats were mainly concentrated on the northern
and southwestern borders with Croatia, with some Croat pockets in central
Bosnia. Serb military campaigns in 1992 and 1993 and Croat campaigns in 1993 and
1995 were aimed at expelling others from areas claimed by these groups. By the
end of the war almost all non-Serbs had been expelled from Serb-claimed lands in
eastern and northern Bosnia, and non-Croats from Croat-claimed lands in
southwestern Bosnia. In turn, most non-Muslims had left land under Muslim
control in northwestern Bosnia.
The largest cities had mixed populations
in 1991, but the war and its aftermath made them almost homogenous. Banja Luka,
55 percent Serb in 1991, was almost 100 percent Serb by 1993. It is the capital
of the Serb Republic. Mostar, 34 percent Croat, 35 percent Bosniak, 19 percent
Serb, and 10 percent “others” (who registered no ethnic affiliation) in 1991,
had by 1995 been divided into an almost purely Croat western part and an almost
purely Bosniak eastern part, with very few Serbs or “others” left in either.
Under the terms of the 1995 Dayton peace accord, which ended the war, Sarajevo,
located in the Bosniak-Croat federation near the boundary of the Serb Republic,
is a united city under federal Bosnian control. However, the city’s population
changed from 49 percent Bosniak before the war to 90 percent by 1996, and the
Bosniak authorities have permitted few non-Bosniaks to return.
The return of refugees was mandated by
the international community at the time of the Dayton agreement, but had not
occurred in any great numbers by the end of 1998. This was especially true of
the return of people into areas where their group was in the minority after the
war. In April 1998 Croats in the western town of Drvar rioted against the return
of Serbs, attacking refugees and burning buildings used by the UN. In June 1998
up to 820,000 people within Bosnia remained displaced from their previous homes.
In general, the political leaders of all groups have engaged in cultural
projects aimed at ensuring that the ethnic groups regard themselves as
inherently different from one another, with conflicting cultures and
interests.
C | Education |
Education is compulsory and free for all
children from ages 7 through 15. Secondary education is also free. Wartime
destruction or damage to schools disrupted education for many children, although
“war schools” were created in other buildings. There are officially four
universities in the country, in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Mostar. The
university in Mostar, however, has split into two unrelated institutions, a
Croat university in western Mostar and an Islamic one in eastern Mostar.
D | Way of Life |
Until 1991 Bosnia had an urban population
that aspired to the standard of living of western Europe and was increasingly
intermingled ethnically by residence, occupation, friendship, and marriage. The
rural population remained more divided ethnically and less well-off. As a result
of the wars, religious identification and adherence to religious rules has risen
among Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. Many Bosniak women have adopted Islamic dress
styles that had not been common, at least in cities, before the war. The
destruction of the economy has thrust many previously working women into
traditional female roles as housewives and mothers. Members of all groups favor
a diet that is heavy on roast meats and bread.
The People of Bosnia and Herzegovina
section of this article was contributed by Robert M. Hayden.
IV | CULTURE |
Bosnia’s diverse population has made the
country’s cultural life rich. Epic stories, a form of traditional oral
literature, were still sung throughout the country well into the 1950s. Bosnian
urban love songs, largely Muslim in origin, were popular throughout the former
Yugoslavia.
A | Literature, Film, and Music |
Ivo Andrić, a Serb who was raised Catholic
in Bosnia, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961. His novels include Na
Drini ćuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina, 1959), in which
a bridge from the Ottoman period symbolically united the peoples of Bosnia. The
novelist Meša Selimović was of Muslim origin but said that he wrote Serbian
literature. The film director Emir Kusturica, also of Muslim origin, made
internationally acclaimed films in Sarajevo. His film When Father was Away on
Business was a finalist for the Academy Award in the United States for best
foreign film in 1984. That film had a cast and crew that included Muslims,
Serbs, and Croats. Through 1991 the Bosnian rock group Bijelo Dugme was
extremely popular throughout Yugoslavia, playing music influenced by the various
traditions of Bosnia.
These ethnic and cultural mixtures have
declined since the war. The Bosniak authorities regard Andrić as having been
anti-Muslim, and they closed the museum devoted to him in his home town of
Travnik. Filmmaker Kusturica moved to Serbia in 1992. His internationally
acclaimed 1995 depiction of the war, Underground, was condemned in
Sarajevo. As of early 1999, he had not been able to return there.
B | Cultural Institutions Destroyed |
The most important library in Bosnia was
the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. It
was intentionally destroyed by Serb shelling in 1992 and remained in ruins as of
early 1999. The world famous bridge in Mostar, built by Ottoman rulers in the
17th century, was intentionally destroyed by Croat shelling in 1994. Throughout
Bosnia, churches (Orthodox and Roman Catholic) and mosques were destroyed by the
armed forces of the other major ethnic groups. Among the most important losses
were two mosques in Banja Luka that were on the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) register of world cultural
monuments. These mosques were leveled by Serb authorities in 1992, with even the
stones removed from the sites.
The Culture section of this article was
contributed by Robert M. Hayden.
V | ECONOMY |
Bosnia was economically one of the least
developed republics of the former Yugoslavia. The republic’s economy was largely
devoted to mining, forestry, agriculture, and some sectors of light and heavy
manufacturing, notably of armaments. Although Bosnia exported specialty
agricultural products, such as fruit and tobacco, it had to import staples,
including more than half its food. The war shattered the newly independent
country’s economy, and recovery has been tentative.
A | Wartime Collapse |
In 1990, 48 percent of the labor force was
employed in industry and 11 percent in agriculture. Bosnia produced mineral
products, timber, manufactured goods such as furniture and domestic appliances,
and about 40 percent of Yugoslavia’s armaments. By the time war broke out in
1992, Bosnia’s inflation rate was already at 120 percent; during the war, it
rose to well over 1,000 percent. Unemployment was about 30 percent when war
broke out, and by 1995 it had risen to 75 percent. Prices of goods soared during
the war, and average living standards declined sharply. All sectors of the
economy were hit hard by the war. About 45 percent of industrial plants,
including about 75 percent of the republic’s oil refineries, were destroyed,
damaged, or plundered.
B | Tentative Recovery |
The Dayton accord allowed economic recovery
to begin. Bosnia’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 20 to 30 percent per
year from 1995 to 1998, although the recovery was driven almost entirely by
international aid. The GDP in 1998 was estimated to be about $6 billion.
Unemployment dropped from its wartime high of 75 percent to 42 percent in 1998.
Renewed economic growth has come mainly within the construction, trade, and
services sectors, with traditional light industries also showing some capacity
for recovery. But the big industrial conglomerates that dominated Bosnia’s
prewar economic life remain largely unrestructured and are operating at a
fraction of their production capacity. Corrupt political leaders apply
regulations and taxes arbitrarily, stymieing the development and growth of new
businesses. The black market remains a significant factor.
Behind this mixed pattern of recovery lie
the special problems of privatization of state-owned firms in Bosnia. When
Bosnia was part of Communist Yugoslavia, its economy was controlled by the
state, which effectively owned most enterprises. These enterprises did not have
to be profitable and often were managed inefficiently. Transferring firms to
private ownership so that they can prosper or, if unprofitable, fail and cease
to be a drag on the system, is a crucial step for the success of a free-market
economy. While 90 percent of Bosnia’s registered firms are in private hands, the
big conglomerates remain under state ownership. Comprehensive privatization
legislation is now in place, but the political obstacles to privatization remain
formidable.
The country’s mandated division into two
autonomous entities has proved a significant obstacle to economic recovery. The
central government has scored notable successes by establishing a single central
bank and adopting a unified customs fee schedule for imported and exported
goods. But in many essential areas of economic life the governments of the
entities, rather than the central government, make the decisions. The Serb
Republic’s territory includes much of Bosnia’s agricultural and mineral-rich
land, while the industrial zones remain largely within the Bosniak-Croat
federation.
C | Energy |
Prior to the war, Bosnia drew electricity
from coal-burning and, to a lesser extent, hydroelectric power plants. As a
result of the war, Bosnia’s electricity-generating capacity declined by about 78
percent. Aid-financed reconstruction of the electric power grid has made
substantial strides, but the political divisions create serious obstacles to the
entire country being reconnected. In 2003 hydroelectric plants accounted for 50
percent of Bosnia’s energy production, with coal-burning plants producing the
rest. With most of the hydroelectric plants located in the Croat-controlled area
of the Bosniak-Croat federation, cooperation across Bosniak- and Serb-controlled
territory is essential for the widespread distribution of electricity. The cost
of electricity varies enormously from region to region. In the Serb Republic the
government heavily subsidizes energy producers, cutting the amount users must
pay.
D | Foreign Trade |
In 1990 Bosnia’s imports totaled about $1.9
billion. They consisted primarily of fuel, machinery, transportation equipment,
miscellaneous manufactured products, and chemicals. In the same year, exports
totaled about $2.1 billion. They consisted mainly of miscellaneous manufactured
products, machinery, and raw materials. The war severely disrupted Bosnia’s
trade, with both the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now the separate countries
of Serbia and Montenegro) and Croatia imposing economic blockades on the
republic and supply routes being obstructed by the fighting. In 2004 imports
totaled $4.9 billion and exports $1,615 million. The huge trade deficit reflects
the degree of Bosnia’s dependence on foreign aid.
E | Currency and Banking |
In January 1998, after Bosnia’s Bosniak,
Serb, and Croat leaders failed to agree on a new national currency, the United
Nations introduced one, the konvertibilna marka, or just marka.
Marka banknotes entered circulation in June 1998 with a value equal to the
German deutsche mark (In June 1998 1.79 deutsche marks equaled
U.S.$1). Yugoslav dinars continue to circulate in the Serb
Republic, and the Croatian kuna was used in the Croat parts of the
Bosniak-Croat federation. Inflation came down in the federation following the
introduction of the new currency. In the Serb Republic, price trends were less
clear. The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, established in 1997 under
foreign administration, is the bank of issue for the marka. The Serb Republic
and the federation each oversee their own banks.
F | Transportation and Communications |
Much of Bosnia’s infrastructure, including
its highways, railroads, and telecommunications network, was devastated in the
war. In 1991 Bosnia had 21,168 km (13,154 mi) of highway, of which about half
was paved. During the war, about 35 percent of the country’s highways and 40
percent of its bridges were damaged or destroyed. The railroad system consisted
of around 1,000 km (600 mi) of track, of which three-quarters was electrified.
Damage to the railway system was estimated at about $1 billion. There is an
international airport at Sarajevo, which was also seriously damaged in the
fighting. From 1995 to 1998 more than $1 billion in foreign aid was provided to
rebuild Bosnia’s battered infrastructure. However, reconstruction of the road
and rail network also has been hampered by Bosnia’s divisions. More is being
done to reconnect the telecommunications network, with the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) coordinating national reconstruction and
providing a $20 million loan. The fourth donors’ conference for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, held in Brussels, Belgium, in May 1998, made improvement of
infrastructure a continued priority for future aid.
The Economy section of this article was
contributed by David Dyker.
VI | GOVERNMENT |
When Bosnia declared independence in 1992, it
operated under a modified version of the Yugoslav constitution, which provided
for a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature, a government headed by a prime
minister, and a collective presidency with one representative from each of the
three major ethnic groups. After the 1990 elections, in which most Bosnians
voted along ethnic lines, Bosniaks enjoyed a slight advantage in representation.
However, the Bosniak-dominated government was paralyzed during the war as the
Croats and the Serbs established governments of their own and rejected its
authority.
A new constitution was drafted as part of the
Dayton accord, providing for a national government structured much as it had
been under the previous constitution. There is a three-member presidency and a
bicameral legislature. The central government has very little authority within
the country, however, and for the most part its power extends only to foreign
trade and foreign affairs. The new constitution recognizes Bosnia as a state
officially composed of two entities, the Serb Republic and the Federation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. All governmental functions not given expressly to the
central government belong to the entities.
The Bosniak-Croat federation has its own
government. Its constitution was drawn up by U.S. government lawyers in 1994.
The federation’s government is headed by a president and a bicameral
legislature. However, this government has no authority except over foreign
affairs. In addition, the legislature can easily be deadlocked when the deputies
vote along ethnic lines. In reality, the federation has never really functioned,
and the Croat-controlled areas of Bosnia remain free of control by the
federation authorities, being closely linked with Croatia instead. In 1992 the
Croats formed a breakaway state, the “Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia.”
Herzeg-Bosnia continues an unofficial existence. Its territory is integrated
into the Croatian telephone and electrical networks, and residents use Croatian
money and vote in Croatian elections. Like the Bosniak-Croat federation, the
Serb Republic has its own constitution (drafted by Serb leaders in 1992) and
complete governmental structure, including a president and unicameral
legislature, the People’s Assembly. The government of the Serb Republic wields
authority over domestic and foreign affairs.
In practice, the constitutional system of
Bosnia does not provide the structure for a workable state. From 1995 through
1998 the only effective governmental decisions were those made by the High
Representative, the position established by the European Union and the U.S.
government to oversee implementation of the Dayton accord. By 1998 the High
Representative, Carlos Westendorp, was proclaiming laws when the national
legislature was deadlocked. The High Representative also removed elected
officials from the governments of the entities and disqualified candidates for
the 1998 elections on political grounds, primarily if he believed they could
jeopardize implementation of the Dayton accord. Westendorp selected the flag for
Bosnia when the presidency and central legislature could not agree on a design.
The major qualification for this new flag was that its elements had no
traditional political meaning to any of Bosnia’s ethnic groups. Bosnia is a
member of several international organizations, including the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN).
A | Executive |
Bosnia’s three-member joint presidency
comprises one Bosniak, one Croat, and one Serb member. All members are formally
equal, with chairmanship of the collective body rotating every six months. The
members of the presidency are elected by direct popular vote from their
respective entities (two from the federation, one from the Serb Republic).
Although the first elections, in 1996, were for two-year terms, the members are
to be elected for four-year terms. The collective presidency is supposed to make
decisions by consensus, and a provision exists for nullification of a
non-unanimous decision by the presidency if so demanded by the entity whose
representative has been outvoted. The presidency, as head of state, has some
powers related to foreign policy and represents Bosnia internationally. The
presidency also nominates the government, composed of Bosniak and Serb co-prime
ministers (with a Croat deputy prime minister) and a cabinet known as the
Council of Ministers. No more than two-thirds of the members of this cabinet may
be from the Bosniak-Croat federation, and each minister must have deputy
ministers from the other two national groups. Ministers are confirmed by the
central legislature.
B | Legislature |
The central legislature has two chambers,
the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. The House of Peoples has
15 members, 5 Bosniaks, 5 Croats, and 5 Serbs, elected by the parliaments of the
entities. The House of Representatives has 42 directly elected members,
two-thirds from the federation and one-third from the Serb Republic. The central
legislature is charged with drafting laws that implement decisions made by the
collective presidency, determining a national budget, and ratifying
international treaties. Complicated procedures exist to try to ensure that no
ethnic group is outvoted on matters concerning its vital interests.
C | Judiciary |
Bosnia has no national court system, but
rather each entity has its own system of trial and appellate courts. At the
national level there is a Constitutional Court, which decides constitutional
issues and disputes between the entities. The Constitutional Court has nine
members, four elected by the parliament of the Bosniak-Croat federation, two
elected by the parliament of the Serb Republic, and three appointed by the
president of the European Court of Human Rights who must not be citizens of
Bosnia or any neighboring state. The first judges appointed hold five-year
terms. Subsequent appointments are supposed to last until the judge reaches age
70.
D | Political Parties |
In every relatively free and fair election
in Bosnia in the 20th century, starting in 1910, the population has voted along
ethnic lines. In 1945 Yugoslavia emerged from World War II controlled by the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia (name changed to the League of Communists of
Yugoslavia, or LCY, in 1952). The Communists, whose power extended throughout
Yugoslav government and society, were practically the only party in the country
until 1990. The LCY chapters in each of the republics officially disbanded in
1990, some taking other names. In Bosnia, nationalist parties for each of the
three largest ethnic groups formed that year. Since then the most important
Bosniak party has been the Party of Democratic Action (PDA). In 1998 the PDA
became the dominant party in a Bosniak coalition, the Coalition for a Whole and
Democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina. The most important Croat party is the
Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CDU-BH), a branch of the
ruling Croatian Democratic Union in Croatia. The CDU-BH answers to Croatian
party leaders.
For Bosnian Serbs, more than one party has
significant backing. The overwhelming winner in the elections in 1990 and 1996
was the Serbian Democratic Party (SDP). This nationalist party advocated either
that Bosnia remain in Yugoslavia (when it still could) or that lands inhabited
by Serbs in an independent Bosnia be united with Serbia. While this party was
still the largest Serb party in 1998, Sloga (Accord), a coalition of
other Serb parties less opposed to Bosnia’s ethnic reintegration, was also
created. The coalition received backing from Western Europe and the United
States for pledging to support the Dayton peace accord. The third major Serb
party was the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, which staunchly advocated
a “Greater Serbia.” The Serbian Radical Party is a branch of the same party in
Serbia and is controlled from there.
E | Social Services |
Social services are supposed to be
provided by the entities, not the central government. Within the Bosniak-Croat
federation, services often are provided by Croat and Bosniak authorities (to
their respective populations), instead of by the federation government. In the
1990s foreign non-governmental organizations actually provided the bulk of
social services. Before the war, health care in Bosnia was state-administered
and free.
F | Defense |
Separate Serb, Croat, and Bosniak military
forces are acknowledged in the national and Bosniak-Croat constitutions, with
some provisions for coordination but not for joint control. In 1998 the Bosniak
army (officially the Bosnian army) numbered about 40,000; the Croatian Defense
Council had some 16,000 troops in the country. The Serb Republic had up to
30,000 troops in its army. The military forces of one entity are prohibited from
entering the other.
The Government section of this article was
contributed by Robert M. Hayden.
VII | HISTORY |
The earliest known inhabitants of what is
now Bosnia, traceable to the Neolithic period, were the Illyrians, a people of
Indo-European stock who are considered ancestors of the modern Albanians. By
ad 9, when Rome crushed the last
Illyrian resistance in present-day Bosnia, all of Illyria had become part of the
Roman Empire. Rome’s most enduring legacy in Bosnia was the division between
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian faiths along the border between
the western and eastern Roman empires. That border, first drawn around 285,
passed through Bosnia.
As Roman power declined, successive waves
of nomadic Goths, Alans, Huns, and Avars devastated the land before moving on.
In the 6th century Slavic tribes, probably swept along with the
Avars, settled in the area and soon absorbed the peoples, languages, and
cultures that were already there. A second wave of Slavic tribes, called Serbs
and Croats, arrived in the 7th century. The names Croat and Serb probably both
derive from the name of an Iranian or Sarmatian tribe that ruled and was
absorbed by them on the way.
Bosnia was first mentioned by that name in
a surviving document from 958. The area became a remote mountainous borderland
between successive competing empires and kingdoms that subjugated or claimed all
or parts of it during the early medieval period. Bosnia’s Slavs were generally
Christian, either Roman Catholic or Orthodox. In 1180 Ban (“governor” or
“viceroy” in Croatian and Hungarian) Kulin created the nucleus of an independent
Bosnian state, which was revived, consolidated, and expanded by Ban Stephen
Kotromanić (reigned 1322-1353). Kotromanić’s conquest of Hum (later Herzegovina)
in 1326 united Bosnia and Herzegovina for the first time. Medieval Bosnia
reached its height under Stephen Tvrtko (reigned 1353-1391), who was crowned
Tvrtko I, king of Serbia and Bosnia, in 1377. Under his rule, Bosnia briefly
became the most powerful and prosperous Slavic Balkan state.
A | Ottoman Rule |
Tvrtko’s kingdom gradually disintegrated
after his death. In 1448 Stephen Vukčić, lord of Hum, asserted his independence
by giving himself the title herceg (duke; from the German Herzog)
of Hum, and his land soon came to be called Hercegovina (Herzegovina; the
Duchy). The Ottomans quickly conquered most of Bosnia in 1463 and Herzegovina in
1483. Ottoman rule, lasting more than 400 years, introduced two more sizeable
religious communities: Jews and Muslims. The Jews had been expelled from Spain
in 1492, and they became an important part of the cultural and economic life in
Sarajevo and other Balkan cities. Immigrants from the Ottoman Empire were among
the first Muslims to settle in Bosnia. Later, growing numbers of local converts
added to their number.
Bosnia, along with Albania, was the only
part of Ottoman Europe where large numbers of Christians converted to Islam. The
most persuasive explanation for this, advanced in recent scholarly studies, is
that all Christian faiths in this religious borderland were weak, with few
churches and clergy. Current scholars reject the theory that all or most of the
Bosnian Christians who embraced Islam had been members of an allegedly heretical
(“Bogomil”) Bosnian church. The Bosnian church, essentially Catholic in
doctrine, was nearly extinct by the 15th century. In an empire in which Muslims
were privileged and a ruling caste, converting to Islam offered advantages. The
result, unique in Ottoman Europe, was a landholding and military nobility of
native Muslim Slavs ruling over a mostly Christian peasantry.
By the 19th century the Muslim Slav
nobility, like the local ruling elite in several other Ottoman possessions, was
virtually independent of crumbling Ottoman central authority. The Bosnian
nobility was determined to prevent the Ottomans from reasserting authority and
implementing modernizing reforms, collectively known as the Tanzimat. The
Tanzimat threatened the Bosnian nobility’s power and exploitation of an
increasingly impoverished and rebellious peasantry. The last decades of Ottoman
Bosnia were marked by repeated rebellions of two kinds: by the Muslim elite
against the Ottoman authorities, and by the mostly Christian peasants against
that elite.
B | Austro-Hungarian Rule |
In 1875 a peasant uprising took root in
Bosnia and spread to Bulgaria in 1876, prompting a major international crisis.
In 1877 Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Russian armies advanced to
the gates of İstanbul, the Ottoman capital, in 1878. The Congress of Berlin,
meeting that year to resolve the crisis and prevent a wider war, decided that
Austria-Hungary should occupy and administer Bosnia. Austro-Hungarian occupation
met with serious armed resistance, primarily Muslim but also Orthodox Christian;
it took 82,000 troops and four months to subdue that resistance. But Muslim
fears for their religion and privileges, which led many to emigrate to the
Ottoman Empire, proved unwarranted. The Austro-Hungarian regime did not
interfere with existing social and landholding relations, focusing instead, and
with some success, on economic development.
In 1908 Austria-Hungary formally annexed
Bosnia, partly to end Serb nationalist dreams of eventually incorporating it
into the Kingdom of Serbia. The province had become a prime target of Croat as
well as Serb nationalist propaganda and schemes, with Croat nationalists
agitating for its union with Croatia, then a part of Hungary. Serbs claimed that
the Bosnian Muslims were Islamicized Serbs; Croats claimed that they were Muslim
Croats. The idea of a single nation whose people would be defined by their
common ethnicity, not their religion, was promoted by Benjamin Kállay, the
Austro-Hungarian official in charge of Bosnia from 1882 to 1903. He wanted to
counter both Serb and Croat ambitions, but his idea emerged too late to win any
except a few Muslim adherents. However, a group of Croats who in the 1830s began
advocating the union of all South Slavs, which included Serbs and Croats, was
more successful. According to the Yugoslav idea, the South Slavs were one nation
or kindred nations who should be unified within a single state of their own
(Yugoslavia means “Land of the South Slavs”). The Yugoslav idea appealed to a
number of primarily younger Bosnians from the ethnic Muslim, Croat, and Serb
communities.
On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Gavrilo
Princip, a young Bosnian Serb who professed to be a “Yugoslav,” shot and killed
Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his
wife. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia a month later, igniting World War
I. During the war, most Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims remained loyal to
Austria-Hungary.
C | Integration into Yugoslavia |
At the end of the war in 1918, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated. Bosnia became part of the new Kingdom of
the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929). Serbia’s
Karadjordjević dynasty and a Serb-dominated government and administration ruled
the new state. The kingdom’s political parties, suppressed under a royal
dictatorship from 1929 to 1934, were all ethnic nationalist parties except for a
pan-Yugoslav Communist Party, which was banned and went underground in 1921. The
main Bosnian Muslim party, supported by nearly all Muslims, was the Yugoslav
Muslim Organization (YMO), founded in February 1919 and led by Mehmet Spaho
until his death in 1939. Spaho skillfully maneuvered himself and the YMO into a
balancing position among other parties that ensured that the YMO and Muslim
interests would be represented in most Yugoslav governments and policies. Spaho
died two months before the Yugoslav government made a major concession to Croat
national aspirations and created an autonomous Banovina (Province)
of Croatia that included parts of Bosnia with large Croat populations.
When Nazi Germany and its Axis allies
invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia in April 1941, during World War II, Bosnia
was divided into German and Italian occupation zones. It was made part of the
so-called Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH in
Bosnian). The NDH was an Axis puppet state run by the Ustaše, a Croat fascist
and terrorist organization whose wartime attempt to exterminate the NDH’s nearly
2 million Serbs was modeled on Hitler’s genocide of Europe’s Jews. Bosnian Serbs
fled to the forests to join two violently competing resistance movements. These
were the Serb royalist Četniks, under Draža Mihailović, and the Partisans, a
Communist-led multiethnic “Army of National Liberation” organized and headed by
Josip Broz Tito, the Croat head of the Yugoslav Communist Party.
Bosnia became the Partisans’ principal
zone of operations in two overlapping wars. In one war the Partisans battled the
Axis armies of occupation. In the other they fought a parallel civil war against
both the Četniks and the Ustaše. The fighting was particularly fierce between
the Partisans and the Četniks. The Četniks’ anti-Communism and determination to
restore a Serb-dominated monarchy led them to join first Italian and then German
operations against the Partisans. In November 1943 Tito convened a Partisan
congress in Jajce, a medieval Bosnian capital. The congress proclaimed a new
federal Yugoslavia of equal South Slav peoples, naming Tito marshal and prime
minister. The congress included the Muslims as one of the South Slav peoples.
Bosnian Muslims and Croats joined the Partisans in growing numbers.
D | Tito’s Yugoslavia |
By the end of the war in Europe in May
1945, the Partisans had won both of their wars and recreated Yugoslavia, under
firm Communist control, as a federal state of six republics. Five were to be
semi-autonomous 'homelands' for Yugoslavia’s Serbs, Croats, Slovenes,
Macedonians, and Montenegrins. The sixth, Bosnia, was to be the joint homeland
of its intermingled Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. When a new, totally Communist
government was installed in November 1945 after strictly controlled elections,
Tito headed the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (known after 1952 as the League of
Communists of Yugoslavia, or LCY), the government, and the armed forces.
For the next 45 years, Bosnia was part of
Tito’s Yugoslavia. That state was at first a faithful copy of the authoritarian,
rigidly Communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under Joseph
Stalin. After Tito’s break with Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia underwent a gradual
process of relaxation and decentralization, in which greater power was given to
the republics, including Bosnia, and their own Communist leaderships. Economic
experiments with “market socialism” and “socialist self-management” were
introduced. The political changes included a strict apportioning of party and
state positions among Bosnia’s three constituent peoples. Bosnia’s branch of the
LCY continued to be more repressive and opposed to reforms of the Communist
system than party branches in most of the other republics. In 1968 the Muslims
were fully recognized as Yugoslavia’s sixth official national group.
Tito’s death in 1980 coincided with the
onset of an enduring economic crisis in Yugoslavia, during which production
levels and living standards declined significantly. Tito’s successors, the
leaders of republics with conflicting economic interests and national
aspirations, could not agree on effective remedies. Acceptance of the
institutions and eventually even the structure of Tito’s Yugoslavia declined
everywhere, especially in Slovenia and Croatia. This trend accelerated among
non-Serbs in reaction to Serbian president Slobodan Milošević’s militant
assertion of Serb nationalism and his aggressive campaign to restore central
party and state control under Serb domination. Tensions and disputes among the
republics and among the ethnic groups in the republics multiplied.
The disintegration of the LCY in January
1990 paved the way for multiparty parliamentary elections in all six republics
by the end of the year. The elections in all the republics produced absolute or
relative majorities for nationalist parties. In Bosnia’s elections, the three
winning nationalist parties, one for each of the major ethnic groups, garnered
76 percent of the popular vote and 202 of the parliament’s 240 seats. The
principal party of the Bosnian Muslims, the Party of Democratic Action (PDA),
led by Alija Izetbegović, won 87 seats, or 34 percent. The Serbian Democratic
Party (SDS), led by Radovan Karadžić, took 72 seats, or 30 percent. Forty-four
seats, or 18 percent, went to the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (CDU-BH), the Bosnian branch of the party that had won Croatia’s
elections in spring 1990. That party was led by Croatian president Franjo
Tudjman. Izetbegović became president of Bosnia’s seven-member trinational
presidency. By pre-electoral agreement, the three parties formed a fragile
coalition government. It fell apart as Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991.
E | Independence |
Negotiations among the post-Communist
republic leaders from January to early June 1991 failed to find a formula to
preserve some kind of Yugoslavia. (Izetbegović and President Kiro Gligorov of
Macedonia kept trying to the very end.) Slovenia and Croatia declared
independence in June 1991. The Yugoslav army lost a token ten-day war in
Slovenia against Slovenia’s own police and military. In Croatia, a six-month
Serb-Croat civil war ensued that left 30 percent of Croatia under Serb control
until 1995. Bosnia and Macedonia, with large majorities unwilling to stay in a
shrunken Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, also began leaning toward independence.
Bosnia’s Serbs were determined not to
become a minority in an independent state, and its Croats would not stay in a
Muslim-majority state if the Serbs seceded. Milošević in Serbia and Tudjman in
Croatia had already discussed partitioning Bosnia between their two countries.
The Bosnian Serbs and Croats began creating “statelets” of their own in 1991.
Karadžić’s SDP established armed “Serb Autonomous Regions” and a self-proclaimed
Serb legislature. In November 1991 the Bosnian Serb legislature held its own
referendum in which Bosnian Serbs voted almost unanimously to “remain in a
common Yugoslav state” with the rest of the “Serb nation.” Later that month
Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia (it was admitted to the
United Nations under the name the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). In
January 1992 the Bosnian Serb legislature proclaimed independence as the Serb
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In western Bosnia, the Croat Community of
Herzeg-Bosnia also was proclaimed in November 1991. It was run by the Croat
Defense Council (Hrvatsko Viječe Odbrane, or HVO), which had the backing of the
Croatian government and army.
Slovenia and Croatia gained
international recognition in January 1992. In March, the Bosnian government held
a referendum on independence demanded by the European Community (EC; now the
European Union, or EU) as a condition for recognition. Most Serbs boycotted the
referendum, but 97 percent of the Muslims and Croats who participated voted to
secede. Bosnia proclaimed its independence that month, and the SDS formally
proclaimed its separate Serb Republic (Republika Srpska). The United
States and the EC recognized Bosnia’s independence on April 6, 1992.
F | 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.
Bosnian 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 Bosnian 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 Bosnian Muslims, held
its own against the HVO in central Bosnia. Both the Croats and the Bosnian
Muslims also carried out bloody massacres and “ethnic cleansing” in contested
territories.
International efforts to achieve a
ceasefire 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 Bosnian
Muslims (officially known as Bosniaks since 1994). However, those areas were
frequently violated, most notoriously in Srebrenica. In July 1995 Bosnian Serb
forces overpowered the UN peacekeeping troops at Srebrenica. They systematically
executed about 8,000 unarmed Bosniak men and boys and buried them in mass
graves.
In May 1993 a UN war crimes tribunal,
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was
established at The Hague, the Netherlands. By mid-2005 the ICTY had publicly
indicted more than 160 individuals, including Bosnian Serb leader Karadžić, for
war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law
committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. See also War Crimes
Trials; Geneva Conventions.
Meanwhile, the international community
negotiated brief local or general ceasefires. Pressure from the United States
put an end to the Bosniak-Croat war, forcing the Croats to agree, on paper, to a
Bosniak-Croat federation in March 1994.
G | Postwar Bosnia |
The war in Bosnia was finally ended in
late 1995 by a combination of efforts. These efforts entailed vigorous diplomacy
led by U.S. assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke, a successful joint
Bosniak-Croat offensive in western Bosnia (the first serious Serb defeat in the
war), and a major air attack on Bosnian Serb positions by the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO). In November 1995 the warring parties initialed a
peace accord at a U.S. Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio, after three weeks of
intensive negotiations and pressure by the United States. Tudjman, Izetbegović,
and Milošević (who represented the Bosnian Serbs with their reluctant agreement)
signed the Dayton peace accord in Paris in December. The war had claimed an
estimated 100,000 lives.
In addition to dictating a new
constitution for Bosnia and providing for internationally organized elections,
the accord established a formally united Bosnia made up of two entities, the
Bosniak-Croat federation and the Serb Republic. It included provisions for the
unhindered return of refugees to their places of origin. The UNPROFOR was later
replaced with a multinational but primarily NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) of
60,000 troops, initially for one year but soon extended indefinitely, to keep
the peace and oversee the agreement’s military and civilian security provisions.
In 1997 the IFOR became the Stabilization Force (SFOR) and was reduced to 31,000
troops. The number of troops was gradually decreased to 7,000 by the time NATO
concluded its military mission in Bosnia in December 2004. At that time an
EU-led stabilization force called EUFOR, also 7,000 strong, replaced the
SFOR.
The Dayton provisions put the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in charge of the return and reintegration of
war refugees and internally displaced persons. The UNHCR estimated that the war
had displaced about half the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or about 2.3
million people out of the prewar population of 4.4 million. The UNHCR reported
that by mid-2005 some 440,000 refugees had been repatriated to Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and more than 500,000 internally displaced persons had been
returned to their homes.
Following the war, ethnic divisions
remained strong between the Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. They remained divided
on the cause of the war and its outcomes, leaving open social wounds that
impeded the recovery process and further entrenched ethnic tensions. The leaders
of each ethnic group continued to oppose one another, and there was little free
movement and provision of services between their communities. The United
Nation’s High Representative for Bosnia, Carlos Westendorp, had to dictate such
things as a common flag, vehicle license plates, and the form of currency.
Westendorp also dismissed some nationalistic mayors and police chiefs and many
observers asserted that he was turning Bosnia into a NATO-EU protectorate.
H | Recent Developments |
Elections under the supervision of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were held in
September 1996 for national offices and in September 1997 for local governments.
The winners, each capturing about 80 percent of its ethnic constituency in 1996,
were again the nationalist parties, the PDA, SDP, and CDU-BH. The republic and
its entities remained in the hands of the parties and most of the people who had
run the war.
But in 1997, Biljana Plavšić, the
president of the Serb Republic, abandoned much of the Serbs’ nationalist
rhetoric and became a NATO and U.S. favorite. A close Karadžić ally, Plavšić
replaced Karadžić as Bosnian Serb president when he resigned under outside
pressure after his indictment. After taking office, she promised to uphold the
Dayton peace accord and clashed with Karadžić’s supporters in the Serb
Republic’s People’s Assembly. She and the assembly dismissed each other,
initiating a crisis that was not resolved by a special legislative election in
November. In that election the SDP won 24 seats but lost its majority. Plavšić’s
new Serb People’s Alliance and the extreme nationalist Serbian Radical Party
(SRP) of Vojislav Šešelj, now vice prime minister of Serbia, each won 15 seats.
The deadlock virtually split the Serb Republic into two entities, with a Plavšić
administration based in the western city of Banja Luka and Karadžić’s supporters
still in control of the east from the village of Pale.
Elections for central and entity offices
in September 1998 were contested throughout Bosnia by the Coalition for a Whole
and Democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, dominated by the PDA. In the Serb
Republic, the coalition called Sloga (Accord), organized by Plavšić, was a
force. Still, the results were mixed and contradictory.
For Bosnia’s House of Representatives,
both the Bosniak PDA’s coalition and the Serb SDP and SRS lost votes to
nonnationalist opposition parties. Svetozar Mihajlović, of the moderate Sloga
coalition, was elected co-prime minister from the Serb Republic; Haris Silajdžić
of the moderate Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, was named co-prime minister
from the Bosniak-Croat federation. A Serb moderate defeated the nationalist
incumbent as the Serb member of Bosnia’s collective presidency. Alija
Izetbegović, of the PDA, and Ante Jelavić, of the CDU-BH, took the other seats
in the presidency.
In the Bosniak-Croat federation
nonnationalist parties also gained votes, but the Coalition for a Whole and
Democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina and the CDU-BH dominated elections for the
federation’s two houses. In the Serb Republic, Plavšić was defeated by an
extreme Serb nationalist, Nikola Poplasen, for the Serb Republic’s presidency.
Moderates won a significant number of seats in the People’s Assembly, and
Milorad Dodik, a Plavšić ally appointed prime minister in January 1998, kept his
position at the head of a caretaker government. Poplasen nominated others to
replace Dodik, but the assembly confirmed none of them. In March 1999 High
Representative Westendorp removed Poplasen from office for obstructing political
reconciliation. Westendorp asserted that Poplasen’s attempts to unseat Dodik
constituted a violation of the Dayton accord.
Also in March a UN arbitrator designated
Brčko, a city in northeastern Bosnia at the Serb Republic’s narrowest point, to
be placed under the joint administration of Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. The
Serbs had held the strategic city, which had formerly been inhabited mainly by
Bosniaks and Croats, since 1992.
The November 2000 elections for central
and entity offices, like the preceding elections in 1998, produced mixed
results. Support for nationalist parties remained strong, and in the Serb
Republic the SDP emerged as the largest party. Nevertheless, the SDP failed to
gain an absolute parliamentary majority and was compelled under international
pressure to take a back seat in the governing coalition to the moderate Party of
Democratic Progress (PDP). At the level of the central government, and in the
Bosniak-Croat federation, nonnationalist parties fared much better. A coalition
of nearly a dozen mostly nonnationalist parties, under Western tutelage and led
by the center-left Social Democratic Party, formed governments in both
entities.
Elections in October 2002 were a setback
for nonnationalist moderates. The three largest nationalist parties—the CDU-BH,
PDA, and SDP—won the most votes for nearly every post in the country, including
seats in the central parliament, the assemblies in the Serb Republic and the
Bosniak-Croat federation, and for the tripartite state presidency. The three
parties united to form a coalition government in the central parliament, with
support from two smaller, more moderate, parties. The PDA, the clear victor
among Bosniak voters, emerged as the leading party in the central parliament and
in the Bosniak-Croat federation, and it entered into a coalition with the SDS in
the Serb Republic.
Also in October, former Bosnian Serb
president Biljana Plavšić pled guilty to one charge of crimes against humanity
before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Plavšić, who succeeded Radovan Karadžić as president of the Bosnian Serb
republic in 1996 (and who had earlier served as the republic’s vice president
during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina), was the first high-ranking
Bosnian politician and the only woman to plead guilty to war crimes. Plavšić
admitted her involvement in the commission of atrocities against Bosnian Muslims
and Croats during the war. In February 2003 the ICTY sentenced Plavšić to 11
years in prison.
In April 2004 the ICTY conclusively
ruled that the massacre of about 8,000 Bosniak males at Srebrenica in July 1995
was an act of genocide. The events at Srebrenica were recognized as the worst
mass killings in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). In June the Serb
Republic authorities for the first time publicly acknowledged that Bosnian Serb
forces were responsible for the Srebrenica massacre. The ICTY indicted the
alleged perpetrators, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and his
military commander, Ratko Mladic, on charges of genocide. However, both men
remained at large as war crimes fugitives.
The History section of this article was
contributed by Dennison Rusinow.
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