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A Brief History of Bosnia-Herzegovina

by Andras Riedlmayer, Harvard University

Area

19,741 sq. mi. / 51,130 sq. km (about the size of West Virginia; 1/4 larger than Switzerland). Picturesque mountain scenery (Bosnia's capital Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics), much of it covered by forests; some coal and minerals, no oil. Bosnia's traditional borders, established in the medieval period, are: the Sava River (in the N), the Drina River (E/SE), and the Dinaric Alps (in the W). Herzegovina ("the Duchy") is the historical name for the country's southwestern region (around the town of Mostar). Located in the heart of Europe (as the crow flies, Sarajevo is closer to Rome than Milan is).

Population

In 1991 Bosnia was home to 4,365,000 people (twice as many as live in West Virginia; 1/3 fewer than Switzerland); its largest city was Sarajevo (pop. 526,000). Much of Bosnia's population is urban and (until April 1992) was employed in manufacturing, mining, technology and service industries. It is (or was) a modern, industrialized European country with respectable educational and health-care statistics. Almost all (over 95%) of the people speak the same language (called Bosnian or Serbo-Croatian), and come of the same European racial stock, descended from Slavic tribes that settled in the area in the early Middle Ages. The people of Bosnia are traditionally called Bosnians. For reasons having to do with recent history (and as much with 20th-century ideologies as with traditional religious allegiances), Bosnians whose ancestors were of the Catholic faith are now identified as Bosnian Croats (17%), while those of Eastern Orthodox background are now identified as Bosnian Serbs (31%). The largest group of the Bosnian population, however, are the Muslim Slavs (44% in the 1991 census), descendants of Christian Bosnians who accepted Islam some 500 years ago.

Until the late 19th century, people of all three faiths identified themselves simply as Bosnians. Most Bosnians today are in fact highly secularized, and about a third of all urban marriages in Bosnia in recent decades have been between partners from different religious/ethnic backgrounds. While there were some villages in the countryside where one group or the other predominated, Bosnia's towns and cities have traditionally been the shared home of people from all ethnic and religious groups. The latter include Jews, who found a haven in the tolerant city of Sarajevo in 1492, following their expulsion from Spain. Unlike Jews in Venice and elsewhere in Europe, Sarajevo's Jews were not confined to a ghetto. The city's principal mosques, its synagogues and Christian churches are all located in close proximity to each other, a visible sign of the intermingled public and private lives of its ethnic and religious communities.

History

Medieval Bosnia (ca. 1200-1463)

Like the rest of the Mediterranean region, Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire during the first centuries of the Christian era. After the fall of Rome, the area of Bosnia was contested between Byzantium and Rome's successors in the West. By the 7th century AD, Bosnia was settled by Slavs, who formed a number of counties and duchies. The 9th century saw the establishment of two neighboring kingdoms: Serbia (southeast of Bosnia), and Croatia (in the west). In the 11th-12th centuries, Bosnia was governed by local nobles under the authority of the Kings of Hungary (the large kingdom to the north, which had also taken over neighboring Croatia).

Around 1200 A.D., Bosnia fought for and gained its independence. To retain it, the Bosnians had to fend off not only the Hungarians, but also their powerful neighbor to the east, the Kingdom of Serbia. The independent medieval Kingdom of Bosnia endured for more than 260 years (somewhat longer than the United States has thus far). Its population was entirely Christian, but in a tolerant environment unusual for the Middle Ages there was not one Christian church but three. While most Bosnians were Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxy and a schismatic local Bosnian Church also had adherents. All three churches were organizationally weak, their clergy largely uneducated, and none could count on steady and exclusive state patronage (these factors later contributed to the decision by a large part of the Bosnian people to abandon Christianity for Islam).

In the 14th century, the Ottoman Turks (an Islamic state originating in Asia Minor) embarked upon their conquest of the Balkans. By 1389 Serbia had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Turks (at the famous battle of Kosovo) and had been reduced to the status of an Ottoman vassal. Through skillful maneuvering between its more powerful neighbors, Bosnia managed to retain its independence until 1463, when it also succumbed to the Turks.

Bosnia's Ottoman Centuries (1463-1878)

The conquering Ottoman armies marched on towards Vienna, and in the century that followed, many Bosnians (for both spiritual and social reasons) dropped their allegiance to the weak and disorganized Christian churches and adopted the triumphant faith of the Islamic conquerors. The spread of Islam was aided by itinerant Muslim popular preachers, who taught a fairly broad-minded and inclusive form of Islam that allowed Bosnians to adapt their old traditions to the new faith. The Ottoman sultans and their local governors embellished Bosnia's towns and cities with splendid mosques and established pious endowments that supported schools, Islamic seminaries, libraries, orphanages, soup-kitchens and almshouses. Many Muslim Bosnians rose to join the ranks of the Ottoman ruling elite as soldiers, statesmen, Islamic jurists and scholars; not a few attained the highest posts in the Empire. Within Bosnia, a distinctive Bosnian Muslim culture took form, with its own architecture, literature, social customs and folklore.

There were also Bosnians caught up in the spiritual ferment of the 1400s and 1500s who did not choose Islam; some switched allegiances between Catholicism and Orthodoxy (the schismatic Bosnian Church soon faded away), some emigrated, and there were also immigrants from other parts of the Balkans. The Ottomans were tolerant of the non-Muslim minorities, allowing them full freedom to worship, live and trade as they pleased. At the same time, non-Muslims were subject to higher tax-rates and most civil and military offices of the Empire were reserved for Muslims.

For more than 400 years Bosnia retained a distinct identity as the Eyalet of Bosna, a key province of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. A native aristocracy of Bosnian Muslim notables ruled the province in all but name, ready to defend their autonomy by force of arms, if need be, against any efforts to curtail it. Thus Bosnia shared both in the Empire's days of prosperity and glory and in the decline that ensued in the 18th century. As the Ottoman Empire's borders began to recede, Muslim Slavs who had been driven out of the lost provinces found a refuge in Bosnia, reinforcing the already large Muslim element within its multi-ethnic population.

Bosnia's Ottoman centuries came to an abrupt end in 1878, when the Great Powers of Europe met in Berlin to decide what to do about the Ottoman Empire. Eyed hungrily by these same powers (as an object of colonial conquest), the Ottoman Empire by this time seemed ripe for the fall. Unable to pay its financial obligations, it was threatened both by internal civil disorder and by the aggressive designs of its neighbors. What saved the Ottoman Empire from disintegration for another forty years (until the end of World War I) was the inability of the Great Powers to agree on a division of the spoils. A compromise was reached at Berlin, according to which Ottoman finances were entrusted to an international commission composed of the creditors, while the Empire's borders were, for the moment, to be left largely intact. There were to be some exceptions: Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be administered by Austria-Hungary (which had felt left out in the race for colonies); the island of Cyprus was assigned to Britain (which insisted it needed it to protect the Suez Canal); and, after 500 years of Ottoman rule, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria were given full independence (at Russia's insistence).

Bosnia Enters the 20th Century (1878-1918)

The newly installed Austro-Hungarian administration in Bosnia was determined to turn it into a showcase "model colony." Railroads and industries were developed with state subsidies; new schools, public buildings, parks and other icons of modernity were to symbolize the benefits of the new regime. There was a building-boom in Sarajevo and little intellectual circles began to discuss up-to-date European ideologies in the coffeehouses. Among these new ideologies, alas, was nationalism, that bastard offspring of 19th-century Romanticism and social Darwinism.

The nationalist dream of a great South Slav state united under the leadership of Orthodox Serbia was eagerly promoted from across the border (by Serbian agents covertly financed by imperial Russia, the self-appointed "guardian of all Eastern Orthodox peoples"). The Muslim Slavs saw no place for themselves in this proposed new order and continued to advocate the old Bosnian ideal of a pluralist, multi-confessional society; for obvious reasons the latter was also the orientation favored by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. Some Bosnian Muslims emigrated to Turkey and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, fleeing Austrian military conscription and a politically uncertain future. Most stayed, however, taking advantage of the educational and economic opportunities brought in by the new rulers, and their community grew more modern and prosperous as it entered the 20th century. Serbian nationalists, meanwhile, were plotting to overthrow Austro-Hungarian rule not only in Bosnia, but also in the neighboring South Slavic lands of Croatia and Slovenia. The Austro-Hungarian government's decision to formally annex Bosnia-Herzegovina (in 1908-1909) added to the nationalists' sense of urgency.

In the summer of 1914, a Serb nationalist youth named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne during a state visit to Sarajevo. The ensuing World War killed millions throughout Europe. Among the casualties were many Bosnians drafted to fight in the Austro-Hungarian army (and some who fought for the Serbian army), but the city of Sarajevo itself and most of Bosnia somehow, miraculously, escaped becoming a battleground in this first World War.

Interwar Yugoslavia (1918-1941)

When the Great War ended in 1918 more than half of Serbia's military-age male population was dead, wounded or missing in battle, but the nationalists had realized their dream: Serbia's ruler was crowned King of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, of the newly-created greater South Slav state that before long was renamed Yugoslavia. As the original name indicates, there was to be no special provision made for people who considered themselves neither Serbs nor Croats, and in the interwar years Bosnia's Muslim Slavs were pressured to register themselves as one or the other. Insofar as the Muslims counted on the political scene, it was as a football between Serb and Croat nationalist ambitions.

In the 1920s and '30s, as the Yugoslav regime became increasingly dictatorial and centralist, even those non-Serbs who had initially welcomed its arrival had reason to resent it. Especially bitter were the Croats, who had enjoyed considerable autonomy under the Austro-Hungarian regime and thought they would be equal partners with the Serbs in the new state. A turning point came in 1928, when the popular Croat Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radich was shot to death on the floor of the Belgrade parliament by a Serbian radical deputy. In a royal coup the following year, the parliament was dissolved and the constitution suspended; internal borders were redrawn to efface historical territorial units (such as Croatia and Bosnia); the newly-formed provinces were placed under the rule of iron-fisted military governors sent from Belgrade. Some Croats succumbed to the lure of anti-Serb extremist organizations, including the fascist Ustasha movement, supported by Italy. When Yugoslavia's king was assassinated by an anti-Serb extremist during a state visit to France, a new crackdown followed. Unresolved social and economic issues, combined with the local effects of the global economic depression of the 1930s, also helped to gain adherents for extremist groups of the right and the left, including the small Yugoslav Communist Party.

The Second World War (1941-1945)

Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, the king fled abroad, and the country was parceled out between Nazi Germany's allies and local clients. The northernmost strip (Slovenia) was annexed to the Greater German Reich; most of the Adriatic coastline of Croatia was assigned to Fascist Italy; Macedonia in the south was given to Germany's ally Bulgaria. What remained was divided up between the Nazi puppet-state of Croatia (compensated for the losses on the coast by being granted all of Bosnia) and a German-appointed regime in Serbia, headed by a former royal Yugoslav general named Milan Nedich.

The fascist regime in occupied Croatia, under Ustasha leader Ante Pavelich, undertook to ethnically "cleanse" the areas it controlled by the murder of large numbers of Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, as well as Croat political opponents, sent to their deaths in camps such as Jasenovac, southeast of Zagreb. Many thousands of Serbs were forced to "become" Croats by signing loyalty oaths and converting to Roman Catholicism. Bosnian Muslims were considered as "Muslim Croats" in the Ustasha ideology, and for the time being they were largely spared in this round of killing. Although Bosnian Muslim religious and political leaders spoke out publicly against the regime's program of ethnic and religious persecution, some Muslims also joined in the slaughter as part of a short-lived all-Muslim SS division established in 1943 under German command.

Meanwhile in occupied Serbia a similar campaign was carried on under General Nedich, who operated concentration camps for Jews, non-Serbs, and his Serb political opponents on behalf of his German overlords. The first experiments in mass executions of camp inmates by poison gas were carried out in Serbia, which became the first Nazi satellite in occupied Europe to declare itself "Judenrein" ("cleansed" of Jews). Gen. Nedich's Serbian militia forces, which played a key role in this task, outnumbered both German security forces and resistance fighters within the wartime borders of Serbia.

Many Serbs who despised Gen. Nedich for his readyness to serve the Germans joined a Serbian nationalist resistance movement, popularly called the "Chetniks" and headed by another royal Yugoslav army officer, Col. Drazha Mihailovich. Though initially supplied by British airdrops, Mihailovich soon stopped fighting the Germans as it became clear that every resistance attack on a German soldier or unit would be followed by savage reprisals against the Serbian civilian population. Thereafter there was little anti-German guerrilla activity within Serbia proper, as the Chetniks turned their attention to "safer" targets more in line with their nationalist ideology, which envisioned an ethnically pure Greater Serbia.

"Cleansed" of all non-Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and traitors to the cause, this pure Serbia of the future was to extend beyond Serbia's current borders to embrace all of Bosnia-Herzegovina and much of Croatia. In pursuit of this vision, Mihailovich's Chetniks launched their own "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Bosnia, aimed at "undoing" the work of the Ustasha by killing off Croats and Muslim Slavs in order to tilt the ethnic balance in favor of the Serbs. Bosnia became a killing ground, as bands of Serbian Chetniks, the Croatian Ustasha, local militias, German and Italian occupation troops and the Communist Partisans vied with each other in terrorizing various segments of the civilian population. (Half a century later, the Chetnik vision of a purified Greater Serbia has been resurrected by Serb nationalists; the main street in the sector of Sarajevo under the control of nationalist forces was recently renamed Drazha Mihailovich Street, in tribute to the memory of the Chetnik leader and his ideology.)

Meanwhile the Yugoslav Communists, led by Josip Broz Tito, had organized their own multi-ethnic resistance group, which took up the fight against the Nazis as well as against the Chetniks, General Nedich, the Ustasha, and against anyone else who did not support their call for total armed struggle. Tito's Partisans, who fought their bloodiest battles in the mountainous terrain of central Bosnia and coastal Croatia, did not care that their attacks would provoke the Germans into killing off whole villages in reprisal. They knew that an embittered populace would then have no choice but to join the Partisans if they wanted to revenge themselves on the hated occupiers. Any who hesitated to join would soon be convinced by other means, including equally brutal Partisan reprisals against collaborators and other "enemies of the people." In battling the Communist Partisans, the Chetniks were drawn into compromising alliances with local Italian and the German occupation forces, while Tito's guerrillas gained a reputation for effectiveness in tying down Axis troops. As a result, in early 1944 the Allies withdrew their support from the Chetniks and began to airdrop supplies to the Partisans.

The Cold War and Communist Yugoslavia (1945-1990)

Thanks both to their ruthless tactics and to a now continuous flow of Allied military aid, Tito's Communist Partisans emerged at the end of the war as the undisputed masters of Yugoslavia. They marked their victory with mass executions of tens of thousands of Croat and Slovene militiamen who had surrendered to them at the conclusion of hostilities. Tito awarded himself the title of Marshal and ruled Yugoslavia as a one-party dictatorship for 35 years until his death.

Because Tito broke with Stalin soon after the end of World War II, he became a beneficiary of the Cold War, receiving economic and military assistance as well as diplomatic backing from the West. While Tito was one of the founding members of the international non-aligned movement and remained a staunch proponent of his own brand of Communism, it was economic and military aid supplied by the West that enabled him to build the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) into the fourth largest military force in Europe. When rumors of Tito's impending death in the 1970s sparked fears of Soviet intervention, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared that the United States viewed Yugoslavia as vital to its national interest and would risk nuclear war in its defense.

In Tito's Communist Yugoslavia overt manifestations of nationalism were proscribed and severe limits were imposed on religion, since both were seen as rivals to the official ideology. The country was reconstituted along federal lines: Bosnia-Herzegovina, restored within her pre-1918 borders, became one of six constituent republics (the others were Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Slovenia). In the Tito era, for the first time since World War I, Bosnian Muslims received official recognition of their separate identity (i.e. they were no longer forced to declare themselves as Serbs or Croats). Bosnia and its people had suffered terribly during the war, but the city of Sarajevo had once again emerged physically unscathed; it became the center of a cultural and economic revival. Although development in Bosnia lagged behind the levels attained by the more prosperous republics, in the decades following the end of the war Bosnia was transformed from a largely agricultural backwater into a modern, industrialized society.

Public worship and religiously-based customs were discouraged or banned outright under Tito's rule (this affected Islam as severely as it did the Christian denominations), but there was fairly broad freedom of cultural expression, as long as it did not appear to pose a political threat. In the early 1970s there was an economic boom, fueled in large part by money borrowed from abroad, and much of the country enjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity (the claim that Serbia did not get as much of a share of this prosperity as certain other republics later became a theme of the Serbian nationalists' politics of resentment).

All of this began to unravel after Tito's death in 1980. Yugoslavia was ruled for the next decade by a committee composed of the presidents of the six republics and two autonomous regions, with members taking turns as federal president. The economic boom had also come apart, the foreign loans that had financed the prosperity of the early 70s dried up, and rivalries among the republics ensued as they began to compete for pieces of an ever-shrinking federal pie. In theory, ethnic tensions had been overcome by socialist internationalism, but in practice national groups had long been played off against each other by the regime. While local Communist party leaders in each federal republic were given control of political affairs and patronage, ethnic Serbs were allowed to dominate the JNA officers' corps as well as key positions in state enterprises.

By the end of the 1980s, Communism as an ideology and state system was coming undone throughout the entire region. Nationalism was resurrected to fill the ideological void, as each of Yugoslavia's member republics sought to make its own way. The collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War also heralded the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia---a structure built by Tito but kept going in large part by his success in exploiting Cold-War rivalries. In the first multi-party elections, held in 1990, the Communist Party carried only Serbia and Montenegro; in all the other republics, parties calling for greater autonomy from Belgrade or outright independence won large majorities.

The Disintegration of Yugoslavia (1986-1992)

The dissolution of federal Yugoslavia was hastened by the rise to power of Slobodan Miloshevich as president of the Serbian Republic and his embrace of an extreme Serb nationalist agenda. That agenda calls for a solution of the "national question" by the creation of a Greater Serbia, uniting all Serbs in a single state; in 1986 it was endorsed by the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. The following year, Miloshevich and his hard-line faction gained power within the Serbian League of Communists, in large part by playing the nationalist card---appealing to the Serbian sense of grievance at having been deprived of a leadership role in Tito's Yugoslavia and at being outstripped by some other republics economically. He demanded that the more prosperous republics (Slovenia and Croatia) take on a greater share of the costs of the federal budget and called upon them to defer to Serbian leadership. His denunciations of Croat and Slovene efforts to liberalize the economy and to privatize state enterprises struck a chord among workers anxious about rising unemployment and other uncertainties of life in the twilight of the Communist era. By the end of 1987, Miloshevich was speaking of scrapping the federal constitution and the collective presidency altogether, calling for a new, recentralized Yugoslavia, united under a single strong hand.

In 1989, seizing upon the patriotic fervor surrounding a historic anniversary, Miloshevich initiated a crackdown on Serbia's ethnic Albanians, who form the majority (90%) of the population in the country's southern autonomous province of Kosovo. Kosovo was the seat of a Serbian kingdom in the Middle Ages and the site of the famous battle, fought in 1389, that ended medieval Serbia's independence and began its centuries of subjection to the Islamic Ottoman Empire. In the romantic imagery of Serbian nationalism, Kosovo represents both Serbia's past greatness and its humiliation at the hands of Muslims.

The continued presence of a large and politically assertive Muslim Albanian population in Kosovo is perceived as an intolerable affront to this nationalist vision of Serbia. In 1990 Miloshevich issued decrees abolishing the autonomous status of all of the Serbian Republic's minority regions and severely curbing the educational and political rights of ethnic minorities. The autonomous regions' seats in the Yugoslav collective presidency were retained, however, and were packed with Miloshevich's own appointees. Non-Serbs throughout Yugoslavia watched these developments with growing unease, unwilling to become either tools or targets of his policies

By the summer of 1991 Slovenia, the most prosperous and Westernized republic, decided it had had enough of Miloshevich's attempts to seize control of the federal presidency. When Miloshevich tried to block the Croatian member of the collective presidency from taking his turn at the federal helm, the Slovenes issued an ultimatum. As the deadline passed without a response from Belgrade, the Slovene parliament declared for independence (in theory, the right of each republic to secede was guaranteed under Tito's federal constitution). In Belgrade the Serbs responded with outrage and the Yugoslav federal army (with a 70% Serb officer corps) was called upon to intervene to stop Slovenia from seceding.

The army was unprepared for such a mission and the Slovenes, using public relations as much as derring-do, managed to inflict a series of humiliations on their vastly more powerful adversary (including sending captured JNA conscripts home on trains headed for Belgrade, clad only in their underwear). Following a brief struggle, Slovenia achieved its independence and JNA troops were evacuated to bases in neighboring Croatia. Since there is no Serb minority within Slovenia, this humiliating turn of events did not as yet seriously impinge on the Serb nationalist dream of a Greater Serbia. The same was not true in the case of the other republics.

Croatia, which is home to a sizeable Serb minority population, declared its independence on the same day as Slovenia. Following a tense period of skirmishes and negotiations between the Croatian government, representatives of Serb nationalist parties within Croatia and the Serbian-dominated federal authorities, talks broke down just as the conflict in Slovenia next door was coming to an end. The Yugoslav army launched a full-scale offensive against Croatia from its bases in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in coordination with militias that had been formed by Serb nationalists (supplied and armed by the JNA) within Croatia.

Savage fighting ensued, marked by the Serbian forces' deliberate targeting of civilians and of cultural landmarks (including the brutal siege of the medieval port city of of Dubrovnik and the total destruction of the town of Vukovar, a jewel of Baroque architecture). Battles continued until the end of the year, when the UN brokered a cease-fire that left nearly a third of Croatia's territory under the control of Serbian forces. This fighting bore all the features that later characterized the conflict in Bosnia, including the forcible expulsion of civilian populations from conquered areas, known as "ethnic cleansing."

Within Serbia, Miloshevich catered to nationalist sentiment by further tightening restrictions on minorities and instituting a reign of terror against the Albanians in Kosovo. Ultra-nationalist Serb paramilitary groups were given free rein, and there were calls to "cleanse" all non-Serbs from the Serbian lands. 185,000 Albanians in Kosovo were dismissed from their jobs in the state-controlled economy; the non-Serb population was subjected to a new round of random assaults, killings and mass arrests. The hard-pressed Albanians responded to this policy with nonviolent resistance, organizing a civil disobedience campaign and declaring for independence in an underground referendum, held at the beginning of 1992.

Bosnian Independence and the Assault on Bosnia (1992-?)

Following international recognition of Croatian and Slovene independence (January 1992) and news that Macedonia's secession was imminent, the elected government of Bosnia-Herzegovina found itself faced with an impossible choice. The prospect of remaining part of a rump Yugoslavia dominated by Miloshevich was clearly unacceptable to the majority of Bosnia's population, while Bosnian independence was anathema to Serb nationalists both within Bosnia and in Serbia.

A plebiscite on independence was held in Bosnia-Herzegovina in late February 1992. The Serb nationalist party threatened violence and called for a boycott, but participation was high and in an optimistic mood 70% of Bosnian voters (including many Bosnian Serbs) turned out to cast their votes for independence. Despite the fierce rhetoric of Serb nationalism, most Bosnians could simply not imagine that the horrors of World War II would be revisited on their country, whose citizens had lived with each other in tolerance for most of the previous 500 years.

On April 5, 1992, following the declaration of independence by Bosnia's parliament, there was a mass demonstration by citizens of Sarajevo, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, calling for peace among Bosnia's three major communities. Yugoslav National Army snipers and Serb nationalist militants hidden on surrounding rooftops opened fire on the crowd, killing and wounding scores of unarmed citizens. The following day, JNA units began to shell Sarajevo from prepared positions on the hillsides overlooking the city and columns of troops and tanks crossed the Drina River from Serbia into eastern Bosnia. Initially armed only with police sidearms and hunting rifles, later with captured and smuggled weapons, Bosnians tried to defend their newly independent country against the onslaught of the Serb nationalist forces unleashed by Miloshevich.

By April 7, 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina's independence had been officially recognized by the United States and by most European countries. On May 22, 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina was admitted as a full member of the United Nations. But an arms embargo, imposed on all of the former Yugoslavia by the UN (in 1991, at the request of the Belgrade government, and since then maintained at the insistence of the US and its Western European allies), has in effect barred the internationally recognized Bosnian government from acquiring the means to exercise its right to self-defense, guaranteed under the UN Charter:

"Nothing in this present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."
[United Nations Charter, Article 51]

Meanwhile Miloshevich and Serb nationalist forces in Bosnia have at their disposal the resources of the Yugoslav National Army, including the fourth largest arsenal in Cold-War Europe. They have used these weapons to lethal effect in their assault on Bosnia's cities, towns and villages. Over a million people have been bombed and driven from their homes, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and wounded. Serb nationalist forces have overrun 70% of Bosnia's territory, "cleansing" conquered areas by driving out or killing the non-Serb inhabitants.

Among the methods of "ethnic cleansing" employed by the Serb forces are the selective killing of the non-Serb community's civic, religious and intellectual leaders, the confinement of all males of military age in concentration camps, and the use of mass rapes as a weapon of terror and abasement. The dwindling number of non-Serb inhabitants remaining in the zones under Serb control have been barred from employment in the public sector and are required to display white flags on their places of residence. Denied police protection by the nationalist authorities, non-Serbs (Muslims, Croats, Gypsies, and Jews) remaining in Banja Luka and other occupied Bosnian towns have been subjected to vicious attacks, including robbery, murder and rape, carried out with impunity in broad daylight. The nationalists have also enacted antimiscegenation statutes that make it a crime for a non-Serb to marry or engage in sexual relations with a Serb.

Nationalist extremists are also trying to wipe out any physical evidence that could remind future generations that people other than Serbs ever lived together in peace in Bosnia. Historic mosques, churches, and synagogues as well as national libraries, archives, and museums have been torched, dynamited and bulldozed throughout the areas under assault by nationalist forces. The practitioners of "ethnic cleansing" are not content to terrorize and kill the living; they want to eliminate the memory of the past as well.

Amidst the surrounding carnage, many Bosnians of all backgrounds continue to cling to the ideal of coexistence. There are an estimated 55,000 Bosnian Serbs among the 380,000 citizens of Sarajevo who still remain in a city that has thus far endured more than a year of unremitting Serb bombardment and a harsh winter under siege. Although Muslim Slavs constitute a majority among the over two million people crowded into the areas still under the control of Bosnia's internationally recognized government, both its civil administration and its army have remained multi-ethnic in composition. Bosnia's vice-president and the deputy commander of the Bosnian armed forces are both Bosnian Serbs. Citizens of Serb and Croat background continue to live, work and worship in Sarajevo, Tuzla and other towns under the Bosnian government's control and---while the miseries of war and the flood of refugees into these enclaves have exacerbated social tensions---there is no officially sanctioned ethnic or religious discrimination.

Sought out, encouraged and given legitimacy by European diplomats in search of the "Croat faction," in the spring of 1993 Croat nationalists began their own "ethnic cleansing" campaign in an effort to carve an all-Croat "homeland" out of Herzegovina. Indications are (at this writing) that the Croats and the Serbs may be on the verge of a deal to carve up Bosnia between them, perhaps with a small area around Sarajevo left as a reservation for surviving Bosnian Muslims and for any other Bosnians unwilling to reside in ethnically pure states.

Meanwhile, initiatives to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia's government and calls for forceful international intervention to end the conflict have been continually blocked in the UN and in other international forums. Calls for cease-fires and for a stop to the atrocities have gone unheeded in the absence of any meaningful measures to enforce them. The governments of Russia, the United States and its European allies appear to have concluded, for the present, that conceding to the Serb nationalists the full fruits of their aggression will be less trouble---at least in the short run---than assuming the political risks that any intervention might entail. Permitting the Bosnians access to arms, in this analysis, would merely allow them to resist a speedy and convenient solution to the conflict.

The United States and NATO, which only twenty years ago were ready to risk a nuclear confrontation over Yugoslavia, now view its descent into genocide and chaos with detachment, unwilling to step in and anxious only to keep the mayhem from spilling over into areas of more immediate concern. Secretary of State Warren Christopher has stated that, since the conflict in Bosnia "does not affect our vital national interests," America will not intervene. Great Britain, France and our other European allies have stated their disinterest in intervening in even stronger terms. Russia and China, anxious not to create precedents for humanitarian intervention closer to home, have done their best to avert concerted action in the UN. Stopping genocide is, it would appear, not among the political imperatives of the New World Order.

In anticipation of the coming flood of Bosnian refugees, ministers of Western European countries held a meeting at the beginning of June 1993 to coordinate tighter restrictions on asylum and immigration. The siege of the city of Sarajevo (suffering the scars of battle for the first time in 300 years), and the uneven struggle between the two visions of Bosnia, one multi-ethnic and inclusive, the other "purely" Serb and exclusive, continues to this day.

Andras J. Riedlmayer
Harvard University, Summer 1993

Author's note:

Spellings of Slavic names and terms have been simplified throughout to make pronunciation easier for the non-specialist reader: Miloshevich, Ustasha, etc. Insofar as possible, this essay has aimed for clarity rather than comprehensiveness; statistics, names and dates have thus been kept to a minimum. Readers who are familiar with Bosnian and Balkan history may perhaps be disappointed that some issues have been slighted or left out of the discussion. For such omissions, and for errors of fact or interpretation that may have crept in despite his best efforts, the author asks the reader's indulgence.

Brief History of the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Paris, 29th November 1993 A/WEU/DEF (93) 14 DEFENCE COMMITTEE (Thirty-Ninth Session of the Assembly) ______ The Yugoslav conflict - Chronology of events from 30th May 1991-8th November 1993 INFORMATION DOCUMENT submitted by Sir Russell Johnston Chronology ========== 1991 ---- 30-31st May At a preliminary stage of the Yugoslavia crisis and still before the unilateral declarations of independence by both Slovenia and Croatia on 25th June 1991, the EC made it known that it was ready to help a democratised and reformed Yugoslavia, with unchanged internal and external borders, provided, among other things, that this state was willing to resolve problems in a peaceful manner without the use of force. As soon as the constitutional crisis was resolved, the EC was prepared to start talks on Yugoslavia's associate membership of the EC. 20th June The United States state department declared that Belgrade had to "find a way to give vent to the national aspirations of the various elements within Yugoslavia in a peaceful way". 28th June After the unilateral declarations of independence by both Slovenia and Croatia, there were several days of military confrontation between the Yugoslav national army (JNA) and republican forces, but the EC "troika" managed to broker a fragile cease-fire. 3rd-4th July The Committee of Senior Officials of the CSCE, meeting in Prague, agreed to recommend the dispatch of an EC- based observer mission to supervise the agreed cease-fire. 5th July The EC Foreign Ministers decided to impose an arms embargo on Yugoslavia and to freeze the EC financial aid. 8th July The United States administration, which, on 2nd July, had made it clear that it did not support the use of force to preserve the integrity of the Yugoslav state, while it would accept the republic's independence if achieved peacefully, endorsed the EC arms embargo. 29th July The EC Foreign Ministers offered to quadruple the number of EC observers to 200 plus 400 support staff, mentioning that these observers would go into Croatia only if their safety was guaranteed and if all parties accepted a cease-fire. 31st July With the fighting between Serbs and Croatians worsening in eastern Croatia, President Franjo Tudjman announced that legislation had been prepared to offer home-rule to the Serbian community in the self-proclaimed "Autonomous Region of Krajina". 7th August The WEU Council convened in London to discuss a possible monitoring role. 12th August Milosevic orchestrated a summit in Belgrade, where it was proposed to draft a new constitution for those republics which wished to stay in Yugoslavia as a "confederation of equal republics and peoples". 27th August At their meeting in Brussels, EC Foreign Ministers mentioned Serbia's responsibility for the conflict and envisaged a monitored cease-fire, the formation of an EC arbitration committee and an international peace conference. 2nd September A cease-fire agreement provided for the EC, CSCE, and representatives of all parties to the conflict to monitor the cease-fire, while extending the EC observer mission into Croatian territory. 3rd September EC Foreign Ministers met in The Hague and decided to hold the peace conference, earlier than proposed, on 7th September. Meeting in Prague on 3rd-4th September, the CSCE called for an embargo on weapons and war equipment against all parties involved in the conflict. 7th September The peace conference in The Hague was opened under the chairmanship of Lord Carrington. At the same time, an arbitration commission of eminent constitutional lawyers was appointed. In a declaration, it was established as a basis for negotiations that: - internal borders could not be changed by force; - the rights of minorities must be guaranteed; - full account must be taken of all legitimate concerns and aspirations. It was also declared that any differences which could not be resolved through negotiation would be submitted to an arbitration commission. 10th September Bosnia had asked the EC to send observers to its territory. While nationalist Serbs were taking control of Serbian areas in Bosnia, President Izetbegovic called for the establishment of a six-mile demilitarised zone along the Una and Savn rivers to separate the republic of Bosnia from Croatia. 11th, 12th September With the cut-off of oil supplies to Serbia by Croatia on 7th September and heavy fighting in Croatia in the following days, EC monitors admitted that their peace mission had failed and warned that they would leave Yugoslavia if their safety could not be guaranteed. 19th September Following increasing violations of Hungarian national air space by Yugoslav military aircraft and border incidents, the Hungarian Prime Minister offered to help the EC monitor the borders with Yugoslavia. Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand suggested sending a peace-keeping force to Yugoslavia, which should operate in a buffer zone, under the auspices of WEU. The United Kingdom, however, opposed sending a peace-keeping force because it represented a long-term commitment. A communique after a meeting of EC Foreign Ministers and WEU Defence Ministers stated that "no military intervention is contemplated", but proposed that WEU should explore ways of supporting the activities of EC monitors to make their contribution more effective. A study by military experts was immediately set in motion. 25th September The United Nations Security Council, convened at the request of France, adopted Resolution 713, calling for a complete arms embargo on Yugoslavia and the immediate cessation of hostilities, while requesting the then Secretary-General, Perez de Cuellar, to assist with mediation. 26th September At the fourth session of The Hague peace conference, Lord Carrington warned that no economic aid could be forthcoming until a long-term constitutional solution had been found. The conference set up three working groups to meet immediately, chaired by the European Commission, to study: - constitutional solutions; - economic relations between the republics; - the position of ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, the EC continued to broker cease-fire agreements which often collapsed again on the same day. 7th October Slovenia started to implement its declaration of independence. In this framework, the JNA agreed to withdraw from Slovenia by 25th October and to hand over military hardware to the Slovenian authorities. 8th October Croatia severed relations with Yugoslavia, at the same time identifying the JNA as an invading force and declaring Yugoslav law null and void on Croatian territory. 13th October The three-month mandate for EC monitors ran out, but was renewed indefinitely. 15th October The parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared the republic's sovereignty. 18th October At this session of The Hague peace conference, the EC proposed a plan for the future structure of Yugoslavia which was loosely based on its own structure. Of the six republics attending the conference, only Serbia rejected these proposals. The EC proposal envisaged a free association of sovereign states co-operating on trade, fiscal and security matters, with a council of ministers, an executive commission and a court of appeal. The independence of republics within existing borders would be recognised if the republics so wished and minorities would be given a second nationality and their own schools and legislature. In referendums declared legal by the Serbian government, voters in Kosovo approved sovereignty, while those in Sandrah were in favour of autonomy. 5th November In The Hague, the eighth session of the peace conference on Yugoslavia took place. The peace plan proposed by Lord Carrington in October, had been amended to allow republics to form a common state, whose economy could be organised on non- market lines, which the article granting autonomy to the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina deleted. Serbia and Montenegro proposed an amendment to permit not only republics but also "nations" to remain within Yugoslavia. No agreement was reached. 8th November Meeting in Rome, the EC Council of Ministers imposed trade sanctions on Yugoslavia and proposed a United Nations Security Council oil embargo. Greece, which sent 20% of its exports through Yugoslavia, would be compensated. 10th November The President of the United States declared that it would also impose trade sanctions, and the following day, the G-24 donor countries suspended aid to Yugoslavia. It should be noted that on 10th November the Yugoslav collective State Presidency had requested United Nations peace-keeping forces to be deployed around Serb-populated regions in Croatia, while the Croatian leadership had insisted that such peace- keeping forces should be kept on the legal republican borders. 19th November Meeting in Bonn, WEU Foreign Ministers agreed to allow naval ships to create "humanitarian corridors" for relief to Yugoslavia. 20th November Bosnia-Herzegovina requested the deployment of United Nations troops. 27th November The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 721 requesting a report on the feasibility of sending peace-keeping forces to Yugoslavia, conditional on the observance of a 23rd November cease-fire agreement; this last condition was considered fundamental. 2nd December Meeting in Brussels, EC Foreign Ministers decided to restore credit and trade agreements and to lift aid sanctions on four of the six Yugoslav republics; Serbia and Montenegro were excluded. The sanctions had been imposed on 8th November with the proviso that they be lifted against republics which could be shown not to be participating in aggression. At the same time, however, the United States imposed sanctions on all Yugoslav republics (trade with the United States represented about 5% of Yugoslavia's foreign earnings). 4th December The Assembly of Croatia unanimously approved a law on minorities, committing Croatia to accept all international conventions on human rights and granting cultural autonomy to ethnic communities within Croatia once there was peace in the republic within its 1974 borders. 9th December The peace conference in The Hague continued its work. A report by the EC arbitration commission concluding that Yugoslavia was "legally in the process of dissolution" was rejected by the Yugoslav presidency. 15th December The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to send "a small group including military personnel" to Yugoslavia as monitors to prepare for the eventual deployment of peace-keeping troops. It also urged United Nations members to do nothing to exacerbate the situation (i.e. recognise the independence of republics!). 16th December EC Foreign Ministers voted after a 10-hour debate to extend recognition by 15th January to republics which met certain conditions. The conditions agreed, which were based on guidelines elaborated by France for recognition of new states emerging in Europe, included: - acceptance of the United Nations, Helsinki Act and Paris Charter commitments on the rule of law, democracy and human rights; - guarantees of ethnic and minority rights; - acceptance of the inviolability of frontiers: - honouring disarmament and regional security commitments; - arbitration to decide a structure to replace the old state; - acceptance of the draft agreement on Yugoslavia's future, elaborated by the EC peace conference. 19th December Two Serb enclaves in Croatia, the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina and the Autonomous Region of Slavonia, Branaja and Western Srem, proclaimed themselves the Serbian Republic of Krajina. The two enclaves did not share a common border, but together occupied about a third of Croatian territory and included 300 000 people. Milan Babic was elected president. 23rd December The government of Montenegro said that it would not be asking for EC recognition. The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo asked for EC recognition of an independent Kosovo. Germany recognised the independence of Slovenia and Croatia and promised that diplomatic relations would be established on 15th January 1992. 24th December Four republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia were reported to have requested recognition from the EC. 25th December, The Serbian-dominated collective state presidency 31st December approved the United Nations plan for peace-keeping operations. This plan envisaged three demilitarised areas in Croatia, covering the Serbian enclaves of Western Slavonia, Eastern Slavonia and Krajina. Irregular forces would be disarmed and JNA and Croatian National Guard forces would be withdrawn. 26th December Macedonia drafted constitutional changes to fit the EC conditions for recognition. 27th December The Yugoslav presidency and the Federal Assembly condemned the EC's proposals and the presidency asked the United Nations to take control of the peace process. 1992 ---- 6th January Macedonia amended its constitution to fall in line with EC criteria for recognition. The amendments stated that Macedonia had no territorial claims on other countries, and renounced interference in their affairs. Constitutional amendments also abolished Macedonian representation in the Yugoslav Assembly and presidency. However, Macedonia's internal divisions were highlighted by a referendum held by the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia on 11th-12th January, in which 99.9% voted for territorial and political autonomy. 8th January Notwithstanding the shooting down by the Yugoslav air force of an EC monitor helicopter on 7th January 1992, killing all five of its crew, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the deployment of an advance force in the planned operation to send 10 000 United Nations peace- keeping troops to Yugoslavia. 9th January The risk of ethnic conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina was considered to be too great for that republic to qualify for EC recognition. The Assembly representing its Serbian population declared an autonomous Republic of the Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina announced that Bosnia-Herzegovina's President and Foreign Minister "no longer represent the interests of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serbian people in international forums". The EC peace conference reconvened in Brussels. President Milosevic accepted the EC plan for guaranteed minority rights, which also affected Serbian enclaves in Croatia. 10th January The EC Foreign Ministers lifted sanctions against Montenegro, thus leaving only Serbia subject to the sanctions imposed on 8th November 1991. The EC Arbitration Commission had also recommended recognising Macedonian independence, but Greece objected to an independent state under that name and had insisted on the inclusion of a clause in the EC criteria for recognition stating that republics should renounce "the use of a denomination which implies territorial claims". 15th January The presidency of the EC announced that its member states had decided to recognise Croatia and Slovenia as independent states. Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina which had also sought recognition, were not recognised. 16th January EC monitors extended their activities to Hungary to monitor compliance with the arms embargo on Yugoslavia after having signed a protocol with Hungary. 25th January A debate in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina, boycotted by Serbian parties, endorsed a referendum on the republic's sovereignty to be held from 29th February to 1st March. 29th February In the referendum in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 29th February to 1st March, 99.4% of the votes opted for full independence with a 63% turnout. Holding a referendum had been one of the conditions demanded by the EC before it would consider recognition of independence. Almost overnight, fighting erupted between Muslims and both Serb irregulars and JNA and Croatian irregulars. 3rd March The Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared itself independent. 9th March A first advance party of the peace-keeping force agreed by the Security Council in February, the United Nations Protection Force for Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR), under its commander, Lieutenant-General Satish Nambiar, arrived in Yugoslavia to prepare for the arrival of the 14 000 strong force in the United Nations-protected areas of Eastern and Western Slavonia and Urajina. 18th March Leaders of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia- Herzegovina signed an agreement in Sarajevo, under EC auspices, on the future of the republic which provided for its division into three autonomous units along ethnic lines. However, all signatories also agreed that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement because very few areas were in fact exclusively inhabited by any one of the three communities. 25th March President Izetbegovic called on all citizens to reject the division of the republic along ethnic lines alone and to accept the concept of a military state. He had signed the Sarajevo agreement only because he had been isolated and because the EC mediators had insisted on signing as a precondition for recognition of independence. 27th March The "Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" was proclaimed. The Bosnian government, asked the United Nations to send in military observers in order to monitor a cease-fire in Bosanski Brod. 6th April EC Foreign Ministers meeting in Luxembourg recognised the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 7th April, but not of Macedonia, due to Greek objections. On the same date, the United States recognised Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. 7th April The EC had conditionally ended trade sanctions against Serbia, but it warned of renewed sanctions and of severing diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia if fighting involving Serbian forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina did not stop by the end of the month. The United Nations Security Council recommended the full deployment of UNPROFOR. After the Bosnian independence declaration, fighting between different ethnic groups intensified. 27th April The Federal Assembly adopted the Constitution of a new Yugoslav state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), comprising Serbia and Montenegro. The constitutional law granted cultural minority rights, but the Albanian and Hungarian minorities distanced themselves from the new constitution. 28th April The United Nations agreed in principle to extend its involvement to Bosnia-Herzegovina. May The authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina repeatedly requested foreign military aid. Serbian communities in Croatia jeopardised the success of UNPROFOR by refusing to demobilise their forces. 2nd May Meeting in Guimaraes, EC Foreign Ministers agreed on an action plan including: - humanitarian aid; - collaboration with any United Nations action to separate the warring parties; - reinforced diplomatic efforts. The Foreign Ministers also concluded that the EC was "willing to recognise Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state within its existing borders and under a name that can be accepted by all parties concerned". 12th May The United Nations Secretary-General made recommendations to the Security Council that: 1. UNPROFOR headquarters should no longer be in Sarajevo for the safety of its own personnel. 2. No United Nations peace-keeping force should be sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina. 3. The United Nations peace plan for Croatia was in jeopardy from the failure of Serbs in Croatia to demobilise. 17th May UNPROFOR left Sarajevo for Belgrade, leaving a skeleton force of 120. 30th May The Security Council, by adopting Resolution 757, imposed comprehensive sanctions on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These sanctions included: - severing trade links; - freezing government assets abroad; - an oil embargo; - a sporting and cultural ban; - cutting air links. July When the practice of "ethnic cleansing" had been commonplace in many regions of former Yugoslavia for a number of months, the refugee problem became a subject of major concern. According to estimates from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and local Red Cross committees, some 2.5 million people from the former Yugoslavia were displaced by the end of July 1992, and some 10 000 people from Bosnia were joining them every day. The total included about 600 000 people who had been displaced during the war between Serbia and Croatia in 1991. The majority of the refugees, 1 885 000 remained in the former Yugoslav republics: 681,000 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 672 000 in Croatia (including the Serb-occupied zones), 383 000 in Serbia, 70 000 in Slovenia, 49 000 in Montenegro and 31 000 in Macedonia. Among neighbouring countries, Germany had taken in some 200 000 refugees, Hungary and Austria some 50 000 each and Sweden 44 000; smaller numbers were accepted in other European countries. Notwithstanding the need to address this problem, there was a considerable lack of consensus among the countries most affected. A German proposal to adopt a quota system for distributing refugees to EC member states found no support among the EC members and France and the United Kingdom proposed that refugees should be accommodated and given assistance as near as possible to their place of origin. Others proposed the establishment of so-called safe havens on the territory of former Yugoslavia, in particular in Bosnia- Herzegovina, but there was no consensus to provide the ground troops needed to protect these safe havens against armed attack or intimidation. At the UNHCR conference, participating countries pledged $152 million and logistical support for the housing of refugees and the maintenance of humanitarian road convoys inside Bosnia. 10th July WEU and NATO both agreed to police United Nations- imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia by means of an air and sea operation in the Adriatic, but there was no authority to stop vessels suspected of breaking sanctions. 13th July The United Nations Security Council endorsed a recommendation from Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali to send an additional 500 troops to join the 1 100 supervising the Sarajevo relief operations. 21st July According to the Commander of United Nations operations in Sarajevo, General Lewis MacKenzie, 40 000 United Nations troops were needed in Sarajevo alone to keep the peace. early August Greece closed its border with Macedonia and imposed an oil embargo. The Greek action, based on opposition to the creation of an independent state using the name Macedonia, brought the republic to the verge of economic collapse. 3rd August President Izetbegovic addressed a letter to the United Nations Security Council demanding that Bosnia- Herzegovina be allowed to import arms in order to "achieve the right of individual and collective self-defence" guaranteed by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. 4th August At a meeting in New York, the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO) advocated the use of force against the Serbian forces in compliance with Article 42 of the United Nations Charter, and the lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina. 13th August The United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 770, which authorised "all measures necessary" to ensure humanitarian aid. This resolution, however, was interpreted as authorising the use of force as a last resort, since several European governments expressed the need for caution. 14th August France offered to contribute a 1 100 strong "force of protection and escort", followed by Spain, Italy and Belgium with unspecified numbers. 18th August The United States and the United Kingdom had reiterated their opposition to the use of ground troops, but the United Kingdom offered 1 800 troops to ensure the protection of humanitarian convoys in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 25th August A United Nations General Assembly resolution was adopted citing Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter which authorises the use of force where economic embargo has failed. 26th-27th August In its final declaration, the London conference, organised by the UK presidency of the EC, once again outlined the terms for a political settlement of the crisis in former Yugoslavia. A settlement was to include: - recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina by all the former Yugoslav republics; - respect for the integrity of present frontiers unless changed by mutual agreement; - guarantees for national communities and minorities; - the right of return for those who had been expelled; It also stated that "an international peace-keeping force under United Nations auspices may be created by the United Nations Security Council to maintain the cease-fire, control military movements and undertake other confidence-building measures". 28th August WEU ministers agreed to tighten the embargo enforcement on the Danube and in the Adriatic. WEU also announced that it would place almost 5 000 troops, together with transport and logistical equipment, at the immediate disposal of the United Nations. 3rd September In Geneva, the new permanent conference on Yugoslavia co-chaired by Lord Owen for the EC and Cyrus Vance for the United Nations, was opened. 6th September In a communique, the Geneva conference announced that by 12th September, the warring parties in Bosnia- Hercegovina were to place under United Nations supervision their heavy weaponry (artillery over 100 mm calibre, 82 mm mortars, tanks and rocket launchers) deployed around Sarajevo, Gorazde, Bihac and Jajce. (This was only partly observed.) 14th September The United Nations Security Council agreed to expand the UNPROFOR by up to 6 000 troops, in addition to the 1 500 in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the 15 000 in Croatia, to protect humanitarian aid. UNPROFOR members were allowed to use force for self-defence, including when prevented from carrying out their mandate. 9th October The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 781, to ban military flights in the air-space of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The ban was immediately defied, but under intense international pressure and President Bush's announcement that the United States was prepared to participate in enforcing the ban, Bosnian Serbs finally grounded all combat aircraft. 16th October In their Birmingham declaration, EC leaders warned that they would ask the Security Council to consider enforcement measures if delays in compliance with the ban on military flights continued. 28th October The Geneva negotiators formally rejected the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into three "ethnic-, confessionally-based republics" and presented constitutional proposals for a decentralised Bosnia-Herzegovina aimed at preserving its territorial integrity. The reshaped republic, it was proposed, would be based on seven to ten provincial governments with substantial power and autonomy to control education, police, health and law enforcement. The borders of the provinces still had to be negotiated. A central government would remain in Sarajevo with responsibility for defence, foreign policy and trade. The largely ceremonial presidency would rotate among major groups. 6th November UNPROFOR convoys trying to reach towns under siege repeatedly came under fire and returned fire. 12th November In separate declarations Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria expressed support for a Greek initiative to guarantee the existing borders of Macedonia, apparently designed to allay international concern about Greece's intentions towards the former Yugoslav republic. 16th November The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 787 calling upon states to stop and search vessels in the Adriatic and on the Danube to ensure strict implementation of United Nations sanctions against former Yugoslavia. It called for observers to be deployed on the borders of Bosnia- Herzegovina. 19th November Alternative Bosnian Serb constitutional proposals based on the three-way subdivision of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as laid down in the March 1992 Lisbon agreement with provision for joint foreign, defence and other policies, were presented to the Geneva conference. 20th November NATO and WEU agreed to adopt powers to stop and search any ships entering or leaving Yugoslav waters, with warships being allowed, if necessary, to fire across the bows of vessels to force them to stop. 26th November Despite an agreement between military commanders of the Croat and Serb armed forces in Bosnia and the UNPROFOR commander, Major-General Philippe Morillon, for Croatian regular forces to begin withdrawing from the self-proclaimed Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina as from 30th November, there was no sign of a decrease in fighting. An earlier cease-fire arranged on 11th November, had broken down after five days. 8th December At the Geneva peace conference on Yugoslavia, leaders of the three warring factions in Bosnia presented maps for the "cantonisation" of the republic along ethnic lines. 10th December Over 1 million Greeks demonstrated in Athens against the international recognition of Macedonia under its existing name. In Brussels, EC Foreign Ministers criticised Greece for allowing Greek companies to violate United Nations sanctions by shipping oil to Serbia while at the same time withholding oil from Macedonia. United Nations sanctions against Serbia had already cut off Macedonia's main trade route. 11th December The United Nations Security Council authorised the dispatch to Macedonia of a United Nations peace-keeping force of 700 troops plus 35 military observers and 26 civilian police. 17th December Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which was preparing contingency plans for intervention, agreed to support any future United Nations resolution enforcing the existing flight ban over Bosnia, on condition that such a resolution provided for continued humanitarian efforts. The United Kingdom had consistently expressed reservations over intervention, in contrast to the stance of the United States which called for preventive bombardment of Serb positions. 18th December A United Nations Security Council resolution was unanimously adopted which vehemently condemned the detention and mass rape of Muslim women by Serb forces in Bosnia and called for EC observers to be allowed into the detention camps under armed escort to assess the situation. 20th December United States President George Bush and United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major agreed in Washington to support a United Nations resolution enforcing the flight ban. 25th December Bush warned Milosevic in a letter that if Serbia provoked conflict in the largely Albanian-populated province of Kosovo, or if the Security Council voted to enforce the flight ban, the United States could unilaterally use military force against Serbia. 27th December French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said that France would participate in United Nations efforts to enforce the flight ban. 1993 ---- 2nd January Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance presented a new proposal for Bosnia-Herzegovina, including: - the reorganisation of Bosnia-Herzegovina into ten provinces, according to a detailed map which was provided; - the establishment of five major corridors between the provinces would allow the safe passage of humanitarian aid and civilians; - constitutional principles for the republic with a large measure of autonomy for the provinces within a decentralised state; - cease-fire and demilitarisation arrangements. 10th January After an Amnesty International publication on conditions in detention camps and, in particular, on the organised and systematic rape and sexual abuse of women in camps, the French Foreign Minister Dumas said that France was prepared to act alone to free civilians from detention camps in Bosnia. Later, Defence Minister Joxe said that his colleague's words had been "misinterpreted". 12th January Kuradzic, under heavy pressure from Milosevic and Yugoslavia's President Cosic, agreed provisionally to the constitutional proposals. 14th January The EC Foreign Ministers gave the Bosnian Serbs a six-day ultimatum for the definitive acceptance of the latest proposals, and the EC presidency threatened the complete political and economic isolation of Serbia if this ultimatum was rejected. 19th-20th January The Bosnian Serb assembly in Pale finally accepted the outlines of the plan. 22nd January Croatian forces penetrated United Nations peace- keeping lines in the "Serbian Republic of Krajina" within Croatia in order to establish a new cease-fire line before the expiry of the United Nations peacekeeping mandate on 21st February and to recover Croatian territory from the Serbs. These operations took place in the disputed "pink zone" outside Krajina but occupied by Serb forces. 25th January The United Nations Security Council called on Croatia to withdraw its forces behind the original cease-fire line, while also demanding that the Serb authorities in Krajina return heavy weapons which had been seized from United Nations depots. 27th January A United Nations resolution warned that measures might be taken if troops were not withdrawn. 10th February The United States administration offered to become "actively and directly engaged" in peace efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and clarified its policy on former Yugoslavia with a series of proposals. Reginald Bartholomew, currently the United States ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, was appointed as the United States special envoy to the international peace talks on former Yugoslavia, which were transferred from Geneva to New York on 1st February. The administration expressed serious reservations about certain aspects of the Geneva peace plan drafted in January which, it maintained, rewarded ethnic cleansing. The United States administration proposed, among other things, that: - any peace plan had to be accepted by all parties rather than imposed; - sanctions should be tightened against Serbia, which had to be dissuaded from spreading the war to Kosovo or Macedonia; - the no-fly zone over Bosnia had to be enforced by a Security Council resolution; - if there were a "viable" agreement on Bosnia, the United States would join with "the United Nations, NATO and others" to enforce it, if necessary by military force. 19th February A Security Council resolution, extending the mandate of the UNPROFOR in Bosnia, Croatia and Macedonia until 31st March, also called for United Nations troops in former Yugoslavia to be armed for their protection. February Romania, Russia and Ukraine made calls for international compensation to be paid to them for losses suffered through United Nations sanctions against Yugoslavia. March United Nations forces became involved in attempts to evacuate Muslims from besieged areas. A fresh round of peace talks in New York failed to make substantial progress despite the signatures of several presidents for different parts of the Vance-Owen plan. 31st March The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 816 allowing NATO aircraft to shoot down planes violating the no-fly zone imposed on Bosnian airspace in October 1992. Enforcement was to come into effect after seven days. UNPROFOR's mandate, due to expire on 31st March was extended for a further three months. At the same time, President Tudjman continued to call for the implementation of the 1992 United Nations peace-keeping plan for Serb-occupied Croatian territory. April The Clinton administration, conscious of public opposition to direct military intervention, started to express the view that the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims should be lifted while allied air strikes might be used to reinforce sanctions and diplomatic pressure. 2nd April NATO endorsed the enforcement of a United Nations- imposed no-fly zone over Bosnia, but it laid down strict rules of engagement with Serbian military aircraft, with the provision that those violating the ban would first be warned off and only if the warning were ignored would they then be shot at. Serbian ground forces could not be attacked. 8th April Macedonia is admitted to the United Nations under its provisional name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". The German constitutional court in Karlsruhe authorises the participation of German military in NATO's AWACS operations, controlling air space in order to help apply the no-fly zone over Bosnia for Serbian aircraft. 12th April NATO fighters from France, the Netherlands and the United States started to enforce the "no-fly" zone. In the United Nations Security Council, the United States was instrumental in bringing about a decision to postpone the vote on tighter sanctions against Serbia until after the Russian referendum on 25th April, conscious that President Yeltsin was facing hard-line opposition from pro-Serbian conservatives. 16th April United Nations Security Council Resolution 819 declares Srebrenica, which had fallen into Serbian hands, a security zone. Srebrenica, is given back to the Muslims and becomes a demilitarised zone. 17th, 18th April The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 820, tightening the economic sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro. 25th April European governments with their troops involved in United Nations operations on the ground were opposed to such steps and EC Foreign Ministers took the view that lifting the arms embargo might escalate and prolong the conflict. Only Germany supported lifting the arms ban. The United Kingdom government stated that limited air strikes on Serb supply and communication lines would remain as the "least worst" option. At the same meeting, EC ministers reinforced their commitment to make tougher United Nations sanctions work by agreeing to double the number of EC sanctions monitors. 25th, 26th April The Bosnian Serb Assembly rejected the proposed territorial arrangements in the Vance-Owen peace plan for Bosnia, which had been endorsed by Bosnian Croats and Muslims. Many interpreted the Bosnian Serb decision as a calculated gamble that the West's response to the crisis would remain tentative and that there would be no direct international military intervention. 27th April At a meeting with NATO senior military officials in Brussels, General Colin Powell made it clear that the United States government would not contemplate military action without specific authority from the United Nations. On the same occasion, the Chairman of NATO's Military Committee insisted that western political leaders should first specify their political objectives in Bosnia before advocating any kind of military action. 1st, 2nd May A summit conference assembles all the main political leaders in the conflict. Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs signs the Vance-Owen peace plan under strong pressure. 6th May The self-proclaimed Serbian parliament of Bosnia, meeting in Pale, refuses to ratify the Vance-Owen peace plan and submits the final decision to a referendum to be held on 15th- 16th May. The Yugoslav rump-state, Serbia and Montenegro, imposes an economic embargo upon the Bosnian Serbs to force them to agree to the peace plan. The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 824, creating five security zones in Bosnia- Herzegovina (Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde and Bihac). 15th, 16th May In a referendum, the Bosnian Serbs reject the Vance-Owen plan with a 96% majority and vote in favour of the independence of the "Serbian Republic". 22nd May On the same day as the Bosnian Serbs pronounce their military victory, controlling 70% of Bosnian territory, the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Spain establish in Washington a "joint action plan". The "joint action plan", rejecting the military option, plans the creation of six security zones (Bihac, Gorazde, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Tuzla and Zepa) in order to protect the Muslim civilian population and the deployment of international observers at the frontier between Serbia and Bosnia in order to control Serbia's support to the Bosnian Serbs. 1st June Following an attack by a member of the ultra- nationalist Serb Radical Party on a member of parliament representing the opposition Movement for Serb Renewal, Belgrade experiences a night of rioting brought under control by violent repression. The Serb opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic is arrested. 2nd June The Yugoslav President, Dobrica Cosic, is accused by the Yugoslav Federal Parliament of conducting an independent foreign policy and removed from office. 4th June The Security Council authorises the dispatch of additional troops (Resolution 836) to protect the populations - some six million people - of the six Bosnian Muslim enclaves under seige by Serbian forces. The resolution explicitly authorises possible recourse to armed force in response to any attack against these areas. 8th June At a meeting in Luxembourg, the Foreign Ministers of the Twelve declare their unanimous support for the proposal for "safe areas". The North Atlantic Council and the WEU Council hold their first joint session on the surveillance operations for enforcement of the embargo, conducted by WEU and NATO in the Adriatic since June 1992. The two Councils approve a unique arrangement for the command of these operations: delegation of operational control of the NATO/WEU Task Force via SACEUR to the Commander of Allied Naval Forces, Southern Europe, who will conduct operations to secure compliance with United Nations sanctions on behalf of NATO and WEU. 10th June The meeting of the sixteen NATO foreign ministers is opened in Athens. The NATO member states decide to make 80 (mainly American) combat aircraft available to the United Nations for operations under NATO command. The American Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, confirms the dispatch of 300 troops to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. These are the first American soldiers to set foot in former Yugoslavia. Following the signature of memoranda of understanding between WEU and each of the Danuabe states in order to optimise monitoring of the embargo against Serbia and Montenegro, the WEU mission is based at a co-ordination centre at Calafat, Romania. WEU member states will send some 300 civilian officials and eleven patrol boats with the task of stopping or diverting river traffic in order to check cargoes and destinations. Adoption by the Security Council of Resolution 837 authorising the deployment of international observers in Serbia and Bosnia. This resolution in principle completes the "joint action programme" signed in Washington on 22nd May. 15-16th June Within the framework of the Geneva meeting on Bosnia, Presidents Milosevic and Tudjman reach agreement on the principle of the partition of Bosnia into "three constituent nations" (Serb, Croat and Muslim) in the framework of a federal or confederal state. This proposal sounds the death-knell for the Vance/Owen peace plan for a division of the country into ten provinces. 17th June The day after the Serbo-Croat initiative for partitioning Bosnia into "three constituent nations" Lord Owen states that the proposal marks the failure of the Vance/Owen plan. 19th June A referendum is held on whether the Serbs of Krajina (Croatia) should unite with the Bosnian Serbs and "other Serbian states which so wish". 20th June The Foreign Ministers of the Twelve affirm the need to respect "Bosnia's territorial integrity", while examining with the mediator, Lord Owen, the creation within the country of three entities for each of the three communities, Croat, Serb and Muslim. President Izetbegovic of Bosnia meets the European "troika" (the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, Denmark, and the United Kingdom), who urge him to take part in the new negotiations starting between Serbs and Croats. However Mr. Izebegovic again refuses to participate in any negotiations unless the siege of Sarajevo and the Muslim enclaves is lifted. 22nd June At the close of the summit meeting in Copenhagen, the Twelve recall their wish for the integrity of the Bosnian state to be preserved and a solution found that is acceptable to the three sides, Croats, Serbs and Muslims alike. Talks are resumed in Geneva on the Serbo-Croat plan for the partition of Bosnia between the three ethnic communities - in the absence of President Izetbegovic. 23rd June The Geneva peace talks between the Bosnian collegial presidency delegation and Presidents Milosevic and Tudjman come to a close, apparently without any progress being achieved. 25th June In Belgrade, Zoran Lilic is elected leader of the Yugoslav Federation (Serbia and Montenegro). The new president, reputedly "close" to the Serb President, Slobodan Milosevic, replaces Dobric Cosic, who was overthrown at the beginning of June. 3Oth June In New York, the United Nations Security Council rejects a resolution from the non-aligned countries proposing that the arms embargo be lifted to allow the Bosnian authorities to obtain arms. By voting in favour of this resolution the United States broke ranks with their European allies who, along with Russia, opposed it. The American vote in fact appears to be in contradiction with the "joint action programme" agreed with the Russians and Europeans in Washington in May. The Security Council extends the UNPROFOR mandate in Croatia by three months, agreeing to review the decision after 30 days to take account of the objections of the Croatian government. 1st July Arrival in Zagreb (Croatia) of General Jean Cot, the new commander-in-chief of the twenty-five thousand UNPROFOR blue berets in former Yugoslavia. The French general - who replaces General Wahlgren - stresses he will give priority to protecting and providing aid to the civilian populations. At the end of a two-day visit to Greece, Boris Yeltsin and Constantin Mitsotakis emphasise their two countries' common position on the Balkans. Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serb opposition, goes on hunger strike the day after the Serb Government's decision to keep him in detention. 7th July The meeting of the NATO Council at ambassador level adopts plans for an air operation in support of the blue berets in Bosnia, involving French, United Kingdom and Netherlands aircraft. The relevant operational procedures have been communicated to the United Nations. 8th July The American, European and Japanese partners of the G7 in Tokyo for their annual summit meeting state in a policy declaration on Bosnia "that they cannot accept a solution imposed by the Serbs and Croats at the expense of the Bosnian Muslims. 9th July In Belgrade, the leader of the Serb opposition, Vuk Draskovic, is released after being detained for a month. In Sarajevo, the Bosnian collegiate presidency rejects Serbo-Croat proposals for a tripartite confederation of Croatian, Muslim and Serbian republics. "We reject the division of Bosnia along ethnic lines" President Izebegovic states. 11th July The Bosnian collegial presidency confirms the existence of a proposal for organising Bosnia on a federal basis, without ethnic divisions. 12th July Arrival in Skopje of a 300-strong American battalion, whose task is to support the 700 blue berets from the Scandinavian countries in their mission to prevent the conflict extending into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 13th July During a brief visit to Budapest, Alain Juppe, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, expresses regret that United Nations Resolution 836 creating security zones in Bosnia remains a dead letter. 14th July Deployment of NATO fighter aircraft starts at Italian bases - a prelude to the operation to provide air cover for the blue berets responsible for protecting the besieged Muslim enclaves. 30th July Agreement is reached in Geneva between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims on a proposal for a "Union of Republics of Bosnia-Hertzegovina". This agreement envisages three constituent republics under the authority of a joint government with limited powers. 30th July Agreement is reached in Geneva between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims on a proposal for a "Union of Republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina". This agreement envisages three constituent republics under the authority of a joint government with limited powers. 9th August The Geneva negotiations are broken off because of the withdrawal of President Izetbegovic. The Bosnian leader refuses to continue talks on the partition proposal until Serb forces are withdrawn from Mount Igman and Mount Bjelnasnica above Sarajevo. The same day, in Brussels, the countries of the Atlantic Alliance reiterate the threats made by the United States President on 2nd August. NATO approves the principle of military intervention in Bosnia in the form of air-strikes to protect UNPROFOR troops and loosen the Serb stranglehold on Sarajevo. The the final decision on whether the operation goes ahead rests with the United Nations. 15th August Serb forces complete their evacuation of the mountains above Sarajevo. The Muslims agree that the blue berets should occupy the positions surrendered by the Serbs. 18th August In Geneva, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, his Croatian counterpart Mate Boban and the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic approve the document put forward by international mediators Lord Owen (EC) and Mr. Stoltenberg (United Nations). This text proposes a temporary status for Sarajevo as a demilitarised city administered by the United Nations over a period of two years. However it is anticipated that this agreement will only come into force once an overall settlement of the conflict has been achieved. 20th August The international mediators, Lord Owen and Mr. Stoltenberg, submit a plan for the partition of Bosnia- Herzegovina into three Republics to the warring factions. This plan appears to consolidate Serbian gains in that 52% of the territory is allocated to the Serbs, 30% to the Muslims and 18% to the Croats. A special status is proposed for Sarajevo and Mostar - which are to be administered under United Nations and EC mandate for two years. President Izetbegovic of Bosnia has misgivings over the plan for partition. However this is backed by the Bosnian Serbs, while the Bosnian Croats say they will accept it if the Serb and Muslim factions also approve. 31st August Negotiations are resumed in Geneva between Muslims, Serbs and Croats; although the new Owen/Stoltenberg plan is accepted unconditionally only by the Serbs. 8th September President Izebegovic is received in Washington by President Bill Clinton. The Bosnian President fails to obtain any formal assurance that the United States will intervene in the conflict in former Yugoslavia. 16th September The Muslims and Croats having reached agreement on some points (14th September), President Izetbegovic and the head of the Bosnian Serb Parliament, Momcilo Krajisnik, sign a joint declaration in Geneva containing further adjustments to the Owen/Stoltenberg plan: enforcement of a cease-fire and dismantling of the detention camps. The most important clause allows the three republics the option of seceding from the future "Union" purely on the basis of a referendum. 21st September The proposed meeting between the three factions at Sarajevo airport to consolidate the peace agreement is cancelled. 29th September By imposing impossibly rigid conditions for acceptance - restitution by the breakaway Serbs of part of the territory gained over the preceding eighteen months - the Bosnian Parliament effectively rejects the Owen/Stoltenberg peace plan. 4th October The United Nations adopts Resolution 871 extending the mandate of 14 000 UNPROFOR blue berets in Croatia until 31st March 1994. 7th October In a report published in Zagreb, UNPROFOR accuses the Croat army of having wreaked "systematic and planned destruction" in September in Croatian villages with a majority Serb population. 8th October Belgrade announces its intention of blocking the peace process in Bosnia if the peace plan is not accompanied by a "specific proposal" for lifting the United Nations embargo against Serbia and Montenegro. 10th October The UNPROFOR commander, General Cot, strongly criticises the attitude of the United Nations and NATO towards the crisis in former Yugoslavia. 15th October The Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman says he is opposed to a "blanket" approach to the crisis and especially to an international meeting which would link the Bosnian conflict with all the other problems dealt with by the Conference on former Yugoslavia. 20th October The United States confirms its readiness to participate in a peace-keeping force for Bosnia if a peace plan is accepted by the three parties to the conflict. 8th November In Brussels, the foreign ministers of the Twelve state their willingness to resume the initiative over the crisis in former Yugoslavia both as regards humanitarian aid and the search for a settlement. The Twelve envisage a progressive lifting of the sanctions against Belgrade in this connection.

How the War Started

forwarded by Nalini Lasiewicz
December 4, 1995 by Alan F. Fogelquist,
Dept. of History, UCLA


Too many people in the U.S. are now shouting out their general disapproval
for U.S. President Bill Clinton by attacking the NATO mission in
Bosnia-Herzogovina.  They have a right to their opinion, but I'm afraid they
are more influenced by right-wing and consertative media and radio hosts than
a throughtful analysis of the true flaws of the agreement and mission, or the
culpability and responsibility of the Western nations and in particular, the
United Nations Security Council has in the present state of the conflict.

I think that it's useful to have a simple overview of how this war was
started so that the debate include an understanding of the facist forces that
began the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  Without this basic knowledge, it is
impossible to argue whether the U.S. brokered partition plan is good for the
People or not.

Here is an essay from Alan Fogelquist's book, The Break-up of Yugoslavia,
published in 1993.  For more information on this book, call the Lasiewicz
Foundation at 213/668-1811, Los Angeles, CA.  If you are involved in other
internet discussion boards, please feel free to share this posting.

Submitted by Nalini Lasiewicz
==================================

   "The current war in Bosnia-Herzogovina is essentially a war of aggression
from the outside, even though it has internal ethnic dimensions. The conflict
is a continuation of the war of aggression against Slovenia and Croatia,
which temporarily subsided in those countries, (but has reignited in Croatia.
in 1995). If the Serbian war machine is not stopped, the war can only spread
to new areas and is likely to result in a confrontation of continental
proportions. In the meantime, Milosevic's allies in Bosnia have been carrying
out step-by-step destruction of most of the country.
  In the name of protecting Serbs, no one has done more to endanger the lives
of innocent Serbian people than Milosevic and his political allies. If
inter-communal violence and 'ethnic hatred' have emerged in what was once
regarded as a model multi-ethnic or multi-national federation, it is an
ethnic violence Milosevic and the federal army have manufactured, stimulated,
and perpetuated in their last-ditch effort to hold power in an era of
democratic and nationalist revolutions. It was his chauvinistic policies
which culminated in the arbitrary abolition in March 1989 of the autonomous
status of the provinces of both Kosovo and Vojvodina which had been
guarenteed by the Federal Constitution of the Yugoslav Federation.

ELECTIONS AND INDEPENDENCE.  In March and April of 1990, Slovenia and Croatia
held their first multi-party elections in almost fifty years. The Communist
reformers lost the elections to parties favoring national sovereignty within
a reorganized Yugoslav confederation. In November and early December 1990,
similar non-Communist democratic nationalist coalitions emerged victorious in
multi-party elections in Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina as well. Throughout
the first half of 1991, Bosnia's Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and
Macedonia's president Kiro Gligorov desperately sought to find a democratic
solution which would allow the Slovenians and Croatians to remain within a
decentralized and reorganized union of sovereign Yugoslav states but
announced their desire to leave the Yugoslav federation should the Slovenes
and Croats refuse to remain. Izetbegovic and Gligorov feared that if the
Croatians and Slovenians left, Bosnia and Macedonia would be left to the
mercy of Milosevic and other intransigent Serbian leaders.
   Milosevic and the federal military leadership flatly rejected joint
Slovenian and Croatian proposals for a looser federation or union of
sovereign Yugoslav states. Serbian leaders appointed puppet representatives
to the presidency from the no-longer existent autonomous provinces of Kosovo
and Vojvodina whose automy had already been arbitrarily and
unconstitutionally abolished by the Serbian parliament.  The last straw for
the Slovenians and Croatians came when the Serbs and Montenegrins, together
with these bogus representatives of no longer existent Kosovo and Vojvodina,
blocked the confirmation of the very moderate, rational, and conciliatory
Croatian Stipe Mesic as chairman of the federal presidency. According to the
post-Tito constitutional arrangement, the chairmenship of the federal
presidency, the highest executive body in the country, was to pass each year
to the representative of a different republic who was to be chosed by his
republic's parliament. It was Croatia's turn to select the federal president
and Stipe Mesic was the first non-Communist ever to be nominated to head the
federal presidency. The Croatians responded to Serbian stonewalling and
provocations with a plebiscite in which the vast majority voted to authorize
the Croatian parliment, 'Sabor' to declare independence at the end of June
1991 in the event that the coming weeks' negotiations proved futile.

CONSTITUTION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES  In December 1990, the Croatian parliament,
or Sabor, passed a democratic  constitution which guarantees the civil
liberties of all of its citizens and provides for cultural and educational
autonomy for the Serbs and other national minorities in Croatia. Under this
constitution, Serbs and representatives of smaller minorities are given the
right to have their own schools and to use their own language and alphabet as
the official language and alphabet of districts where they form a majority.
In May 1992, urged by the United Nations and European community, the Croatian
government went even further, passing a law guaranteeing self-government and
political autonomy to districts where Serbs make up a majority of the
population. Because of these conciliatory measures taken by the Croatian
government, it seems clear that the legitimate goals and concerns of the
Serbian minority could have been addressed through negotiation and
comprimise, and that there was no need whatsoever for an armed rebellion.

INSURGENTS IN CROATIA.  In the fall and winter of 1990, Serbian insurgents
centered in Knin organized autonomous districts with their own army and
police forces in the Krajina. During the spring of 1991, while negotiations
were taking place between the republican governments over the future of
Yugoslavia, armed guerrillas and agitators, with help from Milosevic,
"Yugoslav" army leaders, and Serbian officials, infiltrated village after
village, town after town and district after district in the Serbian populated
areas of Croatia. These agitators brought large quantities of weapons
provided by the Serbian police, the federal army, and state weapons factories
and literally thrust them upon the Serbian villagers in these areas. The
Yugoslav federal army, led by an officer corps that was eighty percent
Serbian, then entered the rebellious districts under the pretext of
preventing ethnic violence. Long before the Croatians made their final and
irrevocable declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, the "federal" army
had completed the occupation of as much as one quarter of Croatian territory.

RECOGNITION.  Despite all the evidence, the American, British, and French
governments continued to harbor the notion that a unified Yugoslavia had to
be preserved and that Croatia and Slovenia should be pressured into remaining
in the Yugoslav federation. Ignoring the months of fruitless negotiotions
deliberately sabotoged by the Serbian and federal army leadership, in the
final week before the Slovenian and Croatian independence proclamations,
American Secretary of State James Baker and Under Secretary Lawrence
Eagleburger publicly opposed the Croatians' and Slovenians' moves towards
independence. The German government, which ahd followed event much more
closely and carefully, rightly advocate immediate recognition of the
independence of Croatia and Slovenia and an unambiguous policy against
Serbian or "federal" military intervention to prevent the indepence of these
republics. Had the Germans been heeded, much bloodshed probably could have
been prevented. At times European and American diplomats seemed strangely
oblivious of the human suffering caused by Milosevic's war of aggression.

SEIZURE AND DESTRUCTION OF TERRITORY.  In the course of their war against
Croatia, Serbian and "federal" armed forces not merely entered
Serbian-populated areas to "protect" Serbs but seized wide stretches of
territory where Croatians formed an overwhelming majority.  In such regions,
they embarked on a systematic effort to terrorize and expel the Croatian
population. This has been well documented by international human rights
organizations. The same pattern was introduced simultaneously in Vojvodina
against local Hungarians, Croatians, and other non-Serbs. Whole sections of
Croatia and now Bosnia have been converted into a wasteland of rubble and
charred rafters. Factories and buildings, capital accumulated through decades
of toil and investment, have been totally destroyed. Hundreds of Serbian
civilians have been killed by the indiscriminate bombardment of villages of
mixed nationality and cities like Vukovar and Sarajevo, where a substantial
part of the population is Serbian. Hundreds of naive Serbian army recruits
have also been killed in the senseless and wanton assaults on Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina.  The destruction and killing perpetrated first against
innocent Croats and Bosnian as well as Serbs by the Serbian and "federal"
forces has been, nevertheless, of a far greater magnitude and is the result
of conscious governmentally sponsored policy rather than spontaneous
outbursts of "ethnic hatred."

PEACE ATTEMPTS.  For a short while in the first months of 1992, it appeared
that the Yugoslav crises might, indeed, finally be settled peacefully.
Representatives of the European Community and later the United Nations had
spent many months trying to find a solution acceptable to Milosevic. Cyrus
Vance, the chief United Nations negotiator, after months of foot dragging by
Milosevic and the federal army, appeared to have convinced the Serbian and
"federal" military leadership to agree to withdraw federal forces from
Croatia.
   But peace was not to be, and what followed cast grave doubt that Milosevic
and the federal military leadership had any intention of respecting UN or
European Community-sponsored agreements. After considerable delay, the United
Nations sent peace-keeping forces into the designated areas of Croatia, but
none to Bosnia. The "Federal" and Serbian military and civilian leaders have
blocked the repatriation of thousands of Croatians who were driven out of
their homes and are claiming the right to determine which Croatians will be
allowed into the areas they control. The federal army handed much of its
heavy weaponry over to local Serbian militias in Croatia, who have put on the
uniforms of local police forces allowed by the peace agreement. Efforts by
UNPROFOR to collect weapons from Serbian forces in Croatia have been
ineffectual and are hopelessly behind schedule. Because of the UN failure,
the Croatian government has now launched military action to reestablish
control over part of the occupied areas. The United Nations has been
unsuccessful in overseeing the return of any but a small handful of Croatian
refugees all of whom face dangerous and uncertain conditions. In the meantime
the Belgrade regime and its allies in Bosnia-Hercegovina have launched a new
war of aggression.

THE WAR IN BOSNIA.  Hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats were driven
from their homes by the Serbian forces in a deliberate campaign of
territorial conquest and ethnic purification. At the last count, the number
of refugees from the Serbian war of destruction and extermination in Bosnia
was approaching two million.  [note: updated to 3.5 million by October 1995.]
 The "federal" military in Bosnia joined the fight on the side of the Serbian
new-fascist legions and added its weaponry for the step-by-step destruction
of Sarajevo.
   Whenever Bosnians and Croatians have been able to organize defense forces
to resist the Serbian attacks, the systematic mass killing and ethnic
cleansing of these two peoples have been prevented. In areas where the
Bosnians handed over their weapons to the Yugoslav army or Serbian militias,
the local non-Serbian population have been totally defenseless and has
suffered mass atrocities. Areas which were well defended by local Bosnian
Muslim and Croatian militias were spared this fate. Bosnian Muslim and
Croatian forces have generally defended only areas where members of these
nationalities are in a majority. They have not engaged in systematic ehtnic
cleansing, and their actions have been largely defensive.

RESPONSE OF THE WORLD TO AGGRESSION.  The response of the United States and
Western European governments, Russia, United Nations officialdom and the
European Community to what is clearly a Serbian-Montenegrin or "Yugoslav" war
of aggression against the now internationally recognized independent and
sovereign nations of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina has been irresponsible
with appallingly destructive consequences. The United States, France, England
and Russia failed to intervene in an effective and constructive way to
mediate a democratic and peaceful disassociation of former Yugoslav republics
from the Yugoslav federation after its viability had been destroyed by a
series of arbitray actions of Milosevic's Serbian government and the
Serbian-dominated federal army leadership. The United States, France and
England - by initially publicly opposing the democratic decision of the
Slovenian and Croatian peoples when they declared independence after months
of Serbian and Montenegrin sabataged negotiations - gave the "Yugoslav"
military an open invitation to intervene militarily to prevent the
independence of these republics and to seize territory for Greater Serbia
alias Yugoslavvia.
   By imposing an arms embargo on all of former Yugoslavia by Resolution 713
on September 25, 1991, the United Nations Security Council effectively
granted a monopoly on heavy weaponry and air power to the aggressors in the
conflict, the "Yugoslav National Army" and the various Serbian and
Montenegrin paramilitary forces supported by the army leadership.

HUMAN RIGHTS.  Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia were the only republics of
former Yugoslavia to meet the human rights criteria set by the European
Community in December of 1991 as a condition for recognition. President
Izetbegovic had already shown himself to be a democrat and advocate of human
rights for all citizens regardless of religion or nationality. The only
sensible choice was for the international community backed up by the military
power of NATO and the United Nations to assist Bosnia-Hercegovina to achieve
a democratic and peaceful transition to independence and to provide
reasonable guarentees to the Serbian minority by sending a clear message to
Serbia/Yugoslavia and its Serbian Bosnian clients that they accept such a
peaceful and democratic solution and the democratically elected governments
of Bosnian-Hercegovina and Croatia.

SANCTIONS AND AID.  The United Nations has failed to provide effective
support for a just and democratic resolution of the crisis and has passed a
number of ineffectual resolutions all of which have done nothing to stop the
continued onslaught of Serbian military forces. On May 31, 1992, the United
Nations imposed economic sanctions on the rump Yugoslavia or Serbia and
Montenegro. This resolution for the first time singled out Yugoslavia or
Serbia and the aggressor in the Bosnian conflict. The sanctions have created
considerable economic discomfort in Serbia and Montegegro but have had little
effect on Serbia's policy towards Bosnia-Hercegovina or the behavior of the
Serbian forces in Bosnia. In summer of 1992, the United Nations belatedly
began providing food and medical supplies to the hungry, sick and blockaded
citizens of Sarajevo and other Bosnian cities. The aid mission has done
nothing to address the fundamental cause of hunger, disease, injury and
death, which is the war itself. The United Nations forces sent to deliver
humanitarian aid and monitor cease fire agreements have become virtual
hostages.
   For months after the outbreak of the conflict United Nations officials
failed to heed the many reports of ethnic cleansing, rape and mass killing
being carried out by Serbian forces on a massive scale. In a similar fashion,
the Bush administration for months suppressed daily reports of atrocities in
Bosnia which were reaching the United States Embassy in Belgrade. Only after
television news reporters showed the world public video footage of the
appalling treatment of prisoners at Serbian run camps did United Nations
officialdom or leaders of major world powers take notice of the problem. The
arrival of Red Cross monitors and United Nations special missions have done
little to change the situation. While some prisoners were released from the
most notorious camps, many others were merely transferred to unknown
locations or perhaps killed.

VANCE-OWEN PEACE PLAN.  According to the version of the plan which Vance and
Owen submitted in January 1993, the Bosnian Muslims who made up 44 percent of
the population in Bosnia-Hercegovina before the war began are to receive 29
percent of the land in the republic for their three cantons, the Croatians
who made up 17 percent of the population 25 percent and the Serbs who made up
31 percent of the population 42 percent. This arrangement leaves
approximately 44 percent of the Muslims living outside the cantons where they
are in the majority, 37 percent of Croatians outside the Croatian controlled
cantons and 48 percent of the Serbs outside the Serbian controlled cantons.
Nobody but the Tudjman government, the Boban wing of the Croatian Democratic
Union of Herceg-Bosna, and some Croatians living inside the proposed Croatian
controlled canton are satisfied with the Vance Owen Plan. In Izetbegovic's
view, Bosnian unity can be maintained only if Bosnia is organized as a
democratic and secular state which stresses the human and political rights of
all individuals rather than the rights of national or confessional groups,
and only a united Bosnia can be economically viable. If the plan were
actually implemented, the Bosnian government and Bosnian Muslims would
receive the least and give up the most. Bosnian Serb forces led by Karadzic
and General Mladic would be required to relinquish about one third of the
territory they have conquered and ethnically cleansed while keeping two
thirds.

This essay is from a book by Alan Fogelquist and was reprinted with
permission.

Yugoslavia's Birth to its Breakup

Yugoslavia took shape around a Serbian core during a series of wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the Ottoman Turkish Empire gradually lost control of its Balkan territories. In 1917, the Pact of Corfu proclaimed that all Yugoslavs (meaning southern Slavs) would unite after World War I to form a kingdom under the Serbian Royal House.

The nation was occupied by Germany during World War II. Two guerrilla armies -- the Chetniks under Draza Mihajlovic supporting the monarchy and the Partisans under Marshal Tito leaning toward the U.S.S.R. -- fought the Nazis for the duration of the war.

At the end of World War II, the monarchy was abolished and Communist Party leader Tito proclaimed the country the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, with himself as prime minister. Eliminating opposition, the Tito government executed Mihajlovic in 1946.

Tito died in 1980, and the fragility of the federation he ruled quickly became apparent. Three ethnic groups fell into conflict: Serbs

dominant in Yugoslavia's politics and army, living mainly in Serbia and Montenegro but with large minorities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Orthodox Christianity makes them natural allies of Russia.

Croats

Roman Catholics, closer to the West than Serbs and exposed to Western influences by tourist influx to Croatia's picturesque Adriatic coast.

Muslims

living mainly in ethnically mixed towns and cities in Bosnia -Herzegovina.

Hostilities among these groups resurfaced as neighboring communist governments collapsed at the end of the 1980s, leading to war in the 1990s.

1991 June 25 Croatia and Slovenia proclaim independence from Yugoslavia. June 27 Yugoslav army tanks fail to crush Slovenian independence.
Fighting begins in Croatia between Croats and local Serbs. December 19 Rebel Serbs declare independence in the Krajina region,
almost a third of Croatia. December 21 In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serb minority holds unofficial referendum opposing separation from Yugoslavia.
Local Serb leaders proclaim a new republic separate from Bosnia. 1992 January 3 The United Nations broker a cease-fire between the Croatian government and rebel Serbs. After subsequent cease-fire breaches, the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) puts 14,000 peacekeeping troops in Croatia. March 3 Bosnia's Muslims and Croats vote for independence in a referendum boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs. April 6 War erupts between the Bosnian government forces and local Serbs who lay siege to the capital Sarajevo. May U.N. sanctions are slapped on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. August Viewers worldwide are shocked by television pictures of emaciated Muslim captives in Serb-run prison camps in Bosnia. 1993 January Heavy fighting and the bitter Serb siege of Sarajevo continue.
United Nations-European Union peace efforts fail.
War breaks out between Muslims and Croats in Bosnia. April 13 NATO begins combat patrols over Bosnia to enforce a U.N. ban on flights. June NATO offers close air support to U.N. troops. 1994 February 6 A shell kills 68 people in a Sarajevo marketplace.
NATO threatens air strikes if Serbs fail to pull weapons back from around the city.
They do so, bringing a temporary respite. March U.S.-brokered federation agreement ends war between Muslims and Croats. April 10 NATO launches first air strike against Serbs, around the eastern enclave of Gorazde,
which is under heavy attack. 1995 January 1 Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian government sign four-month truce, mediated by
former President Jimmy Carter. March 20 The Bosnian army, gaining strength in spite of the arms embargo,
launches a major offensive in the northeast. May 1 The Croatian army captures the Serb enclave of Western Slavonia in a
first major bid to retake its occupied territories.
The Krajina Serbs launch a rocket attack on Zagreb, the Croatian capital, in reply. May 26 Serbs bombard Sarajevo. NATO air strikes touch off crisis in which
more than 350 U.N. peacekeepers are taken hostage by Bosnian Serbs. Serbia,
improving relations with the West, helps to arrange the hostages' release. July 11 The Bosnian Serbs overrun Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave which the United Nations have declared a "safe area".
The similar enclave of Zepa falls two weeks later. August 1 NATO threatens major air strikes if the remaining "safe areas" are attacked. August 4 Croatia launches an offensive against Krajina, capturing in days the whole region which
Serb rebels held for four years. August 11 President Clinton vetoes a congressional move to end the arms embargo on Bosnia and sends envoy
Richard Holbrooke on a new peace mission. August 28 Serb shells hit Sarajevo near the main market, killing 37 people and wounding 85 others. August 30/31 NATO planes and U.N. artillery blast Serb targets in Bosnia in response to the market attack. August 30 The Bosnian Serbs give Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic authority to negotiate for them. September 14 Bosnian Serbs agree to move heavy weapons and tanks away from Sarajevo. NATO halts bombing. September 15 A Muslim-Croat offensive wins 1,500 square miles of land; more than 150,000 Serbs flee, many to Eastern Slovonia. October 5 President Clinton announces a cease-fire has been agreed on and will start Oct. 10 and that
combatants are to attend talks in United States. October 12 After a two-day delay, the cease-fire goes into effect a minute after midnight; fighting
continues over contested towns in northwest Bosnia. October 16-18 Holbrooke and other international mediators meet in Moscow, travel to the main capitals of the former Yugoslavia.
The US name Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, as site for peace talks. November 1 Peace talks are launched. November 21 A comprehensive peace agreement is reached in Dayton. December 14 The peace accord is signed in Paris by presidents Franjo Tudman (Croatia), Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnia),
and Slobodan Milosevic (Serbia, on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs).
Compliance with the accord is to be assured by a 60,000-strong force under NATO command, which
began arriving in the area at the end of 1995 and has maintained the peace ever since.

Geneva Agreement

Source HR [Croatian] News
September 8, 1995

AGREEMENT ON BASIC PRINCIPLES IN GENEVA

In Geneva today the deal was struck at talks between the
foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and the rump Yugoslav state,
the first face-to-face negotiations in more than a year.
U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke told a news conference after talks between
Bosnia, Croatia and the rump Yugoslav state: "They were able to reach a
common agreement, which limited as it is, moves us towards peace."

The following is the text provided by diplomats of the basic principles
agreed on at Geneva today by Croatia, BiH and rump Yugoslavia:

* 1. Bosnia and Herzegovina will continue its legal existence with its
present borders and continuing international recognition.
* 2. Bosnia and Herzegovina will consist of two entities, the Federation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina as established by the Washington Agreements
(of 1994) and the Republika Sprska (RS).
- The 51:49 parameter of the territorial proposal of the Contact Group
is the basis for a settlement. This territorial proposal is open for
adjustment by mutual agreement.
- Each entity will continue to exist under its present constitution
(amended to accommodate these basic principles).
- Both entities will have the right to establish parallel special
relationships with neighbouring countries, consistent with the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- The two entities will enter into reciprocal commitments (a) to hold
complete elections under international auspices; (b) to adopt and
adhere to normal international human rights standards and obligations,
including the obligation to allow freedom of movement and enable
displaced persons to repossess their homes or receive just
compensation; (c) to engage in binding arbitration to resolve disputes
between them.
* 3. The entities have agreed in principle to the following:
- The appointment of a Commission for Displaced Persons authorised to
enforce (with assistance from international entities) the obligations
of both entities to enable displaced persons to repossess their homes
or receive just compensation.
- The establishment of a Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Rights
Commission, to enforce the entities' human rights obligations. The two
entities will abide by the Commission's decisions.
- The establishment of joint Bosnia and Herzegovina public
corporations, financed by the two entities, to own and operate
transportations and other facilities for the benefit of both entities.
- The appointment of a Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
- The design and implementation of a system of arbitration for the
solution of disputes between the two entities.

However, the talks failed to reach agreement on how to deal with the status
of Eastern Slavonia, still occupied part of Croatia.

update: Nov. 23 1997


     REFUGEE & DISPLACED PERSONS RETURN INFORMATION CONTACTS


    This is a survey of organisations in B&H that can provide
usefull information to refugees and displaced persons who want
to return to their homes. It contains the coordinates of
information, advice, councelling and legal assistance centres
all over B&H and the coordinates of other organisations
involved in refugee and DP return such as local human rights
organisations, UNHCR, the Red Cross, the Coalition for Return,
the Federal Ombudspersons, the Commission for Real Property
Claims, the Office of the High Representative Refugee and DP
department, the B&H Association of Refugees and DPs and some
governmental organisations.

    This is a second and revised version. Not only have more
info, advice, councelling and legal assistance centres been
added to the survey, in addition a list of local human rights
organisations has been added. Many human rights organisations
are involved in the field of return and have professional
knowledge related to return issues and to the security
situation in their area of responsibility. 
    
    An attempt has been made to distinguish between info,
advice and councelling centres on the one hand and legal
assistance centres on the other. Please note that this
distinction may be a bit artificial and that it is sometimes
difficult to make as some of the organisations work on all
these issues. The reason for making the distinction is that
some organisations specifically call themselves legal
assistance centres.

    As a 'summary' to this survey of organisations I have
compiled a list of towns, in alphabethical order, under which I
have listed, by name only, all organisations present in this
survey. 

    To be distributed freely and widely as possible. Info,
counselling, advice and legal assistance centres for returning
refugees and DPs are continuously cropping up all over the
country so this list will never be complete. Please add to this
list and put it back on the net again with your additions or
changes. I hope this list can be useful to anyone working on
these issues.

    NB:     Forthcoming: an ICVA Directory on info, advice,
counselling and legal assistance centres, containing detailed
information about the kind of information they provide and the
activities that they perform. 


              ************************************

                            Sources:

       Going Home - a guidebook for refugees (IF RC & RCS)
                         ICVA Directory
                         UNHCR documents
             Leaflets of various international NGOs
            Various Newspaper articles (Oslobodenje)
                    The World of B&H NGOs (1)


                          Compiled by 

                         Dave Bekkering
                  Bosnian NGO Development Unit
                        UNDP Gornji Vakuf
              E-mail: [email protected]

                  October 1997 (first version)
                 November 1997 (second version)


              ************************************


    A few statistics:

-   1.300.000 B&H refugees abroad
-   866.000 internally displaced persons in B&H
-   791.418 out of 1.300.000 refugees in third countries are   
    still without durable solutions 
-   since spring '96 100.000 refugees have returned to B&H
-   200.000 more returns are expected to happen in '97
-   100.000 DPs within the Federation have returned
-   60.000 DPs within Republika Srpska have returned
-   8.000 refugees have returned to RS from FRY in '96
-   50.000 returnees from FRY to RS planned for '97
-   In 1996 there were 10.000 minority returns, of which a
    1.000 Bosniacs and Croats returning to RS
-   Hope for 97: 30.000 minority returns
-   200 involuntary returns from Germany to B&H

    Miscellaneous info:

    In general Federation authorities only accept returning
refugees with a letter of garantee from friends or relatives,
athough Cantons may have their own, differing policy concerning
return.

    UNHCR has defined 39 target areas for reconstruction and 
subsequent return - Not to be considered as 'safe areas': Banja
Luka, Bihac, Bijeljina, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Petrovac,
Bratunac, Brcko, Brcko City, Celic, Derventa, Doboj, Glamoc,
Gorazde, Gradacac, Jablanica/ Prozor, Jajce, Kakanj, Kalesija,
Kljuc, Konjic, Kupres, Livno, Lukavac, Maglaj, East Mostar,
Mrkonjic Grad, Odzak, Orasje, Ribnik, Sanski Most, Sarajevo,
Sipovo, srpski Brod, Tesanj, Travnik, Trnovo, Ugljevik,
Vogosca, Zenica, Zvornik.

    UNHCR tries to encourage local authorities to proclaim
themselves as "Open City", a status which will be attributed to
any local authorities officially committing itself to return in
general, minority return specifically, reconciliation between
different ethnic groups, reintegration of refugees and
displaced persons and respect for human rights. 
    UNHCR lobbies with the international donor community for
these "Open Cities". This measure has been designed to speed up
returns, especially minority returns. Konjic was the first town
that officially gained the status of "Open City". Busovaca,
Bihac, Vogosca and gained the status as well.


    VARIOUS REFUGEE INFORMATION SERVICES 


*   Repatriation Information Centre (UNHCR and SFOR effort)
    
    The RIC offers any information that can be of use to
    returnees and covers the whole of B&H, ranging from
    information about the political, social and the security
    situation; about health services, educational services,
    reconstruction programs and other humanitarian social,
    economical or physical reconstruction projects. 

    Sarajevo
    Samoborska 23
    Tel: (387) 071 663304
    Fax: (387) 071 618314
    E-mail: [email protected] 
    Head of Office: A. V. Kohlschuetter
    Information officer: Michael Szporluk


*   Returnee Information Point of Caritas and Diakonie

    At this information point a database is available
    containing Bosnia- wide information concerning projects and
    programs of economic, social and physical reconstruction
    which are available to returning refugees and DPs. The
    database is linked up to, for instance, the databases of
    the IMG, the World Bank, FAO and ICVA and collects
    information from UNHCR field offices.

    Sarajevo
    Sime Milutinovica 1
    Tel/ fax: (387) 071 208022, 214318
    Contact: Joerg Kaiser

*   UNHCR funded info centres

    These centres give info about the present situation, about
    the prevailing socio-economic conditions and about issues
    relating to civil and social rights. The objective is to
    provide beneficiaries with information and counselling in
    response to their individual queries. The centres will also
    run public information campaigns. They are run either by 
    local or international implementing partners: 
    
-   Sarajevo
    JOB 22
    Husrefa Redzica 7
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 443604
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Zdravka Grebo
    
-   Tuzla-Podrinje Canton
    BOSPO 

    Project Coordination Unit
    Tuzla
    Rudarska 72
    Tel: (387) 075 283429
    Contact: Jasmina Husanovic

    Tuzla 
    Municipal Red Cross building
    Tel: (387) 075 233766
    Contacts: Nadira Hasic, Almira Omerenfendic

    Lukavac     
    Majevickih brigada bb
    Tel: (387) 075 571006
    Contact: Esma Ohranovic

    Zivinice 
    First Primary School
    Tel: (387) 075 775209
    Contacts: Vildana Softic and Amela Mujabasic

    Kalesija 
    Social Welfare Centre
    Tel: (387) 075 630132
    Contact: Damir Huremovic    

    Srebrenik
    Accross Social Welfare Centre
    Tel: (387) 075 64083
    Contact: Ajsa Siljic
    
    Rahic
    Kolovici bb
    Tel: (387) 075 372312
    Contact: Amela Zahirovic

    Gracanica 
    Todora Panica bb
    Tel: (387) 075 786990
    Contacts: Habiba Sulejmanovic and Ferid Imamovic

    Gradacac    
    Skorici 11
    Tel: (387) 076 817421
    Contact: Nelvedina Meskic
 
    Kladanj
    Luke 16
    Tel: (387) 075 620153
    Contact: Izudin Saric

    Sapna/Teocak
    Tel: (387) 075 631183
    Contacts: Faik Muratovic and Smail Kunic

-   Northern Republika Srpska
    Movimiento por la Paz, el Desarme y la Libertad (MDPL)

    Banja Luka
    Sime Matavulja 6
    Tel: (381) 78 40971
    Contact: Jurica Musa
    
    Prijedor    
    Oslobodilaca Prijedora 4
    Tel: (381) 079 22985
    Contact: Branka Mijatovic-Kolar

    Gradiska
    Dom Kulture
    Tel: (381) 078 813887
    Contact: Zeljko Cikic

    Mrkonjic Grad
    Cara Dusana 11
    Tel: (381) 070 11452
    Contact: Liljana Komljenic

-   Una-Sana Canton 
    IRC Information Centres 

    Here one can get information about the registration process
    for return to a municipality, shelter programs,
    humanitarian organisations, health and educational
    services, property questions, legal help and other issues.

    Bihac
    Branka Radicevica bb
    Tel/fax: (387) 077 333062
    Contact: Alascia d'Onofrio

    Kljuc
    Branilaca BiH bb (Dom kulture)
    Tel: (387) 079 77211
    Contact: Envera Crnolic

    Bosanska Krupa
    Trg Oslobodenja 3
    Contact: Sejla Mesic

    Bosanski Petrovac
    Ibrahim Pasica 2
    Tel: (387) 077 811700
    Contact: Selma Mehic

    Velika Kladusa
    Ibrahima Mrzlaka 12
    Tel: (387) 077 775955
    Contact: Hasija Melkic

*   Danish Refugee Council (DRC) Repatriation Project offices

    Integrated approach: Information and Counselling Service/
    encouraging reconciliation and confidence building/
    organising seminaras and training for local counterparts.
    Publication of newsletter "Postar".

    Main office:
    Sarajevo
    Fra Andela Zvizdovica 1
    Tel: (387) 071 442186, 483130, 201977
    Fax: (387) 071 444053

    Tuzla 
    Partner: BOSPO
    Rudarska 72
    Tel/fax: (387) 075 281043

    Jablanica
    DRC
    Trg Oslobodeja 28
    Tel: (387) 088 753202
    Fax: (387) 088 752005

    Zenica
    DRC
    Kucukovici 2
    Tel: (387) 072 414997, 415070
    Fax: (387) 072 414107
    
    Banja Luka 
    Danish Centre
    Partner: Caritas Denmark
    E. Kumicica 13
    Tel/fax: (381) 078 31211

*   Sarajevo
    "JOB 22"
    Helsinki Citizen's Assembly info system for refugees and
    internally displaced persons. Issues covered: protection of
    property, legal possession of flats, employment rights,
    amnesty, family rights, citizenship, heritage and copy
    right. Specific questions can be directed to their offices.

    HCA - JOB 22
    Husrefa Redzica 7
    71000 Sarajevo
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 443604
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Zdravka Grebo

*   Banja Luka
    Genesis - mobile refugee and DP information service
    Grcka 12
    Tel: (381) 078 31238
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Dijana Korda
    
*   Sarajevo
    Advice centre of IMIC
    (International Multireligious and Intercultural Centre)
    Obala kulina Bana 39
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 440904, 446937

*   Sarajevo
    Caritas Refugee and DP Advice Centre
    Pruscakova 13
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 650023
    
*   Zenica 
    Information and Consultation Office for Returnees
    Office for repatriation (Bruecke and Pax Christi effort)
    Zukici 2a
    Tel/fax: (387) 072 419313
    
*   Travnik
    Advice and Information Centre run by Centre for Civic
    Cooperation and UNDP Travnik
    Konatur bb
    Tel: (387) 072 818464, 818467
    Fax: (387) 072 818469
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Edib Agic, Artur Sewastian

*   Bosanska Krupa
    Advice and Information Centre for Returnees of Care Germany
    Bosanska Krupa
    Tel/fax: (387) 077 472263

*   Mostar
    MDPL Info Centre
    Trg Ivana Kurdelja 11a
    Tel: (387) 088 564511, 564512
    Contact: Jurica Musa

*   Sanski Most
    Advice and Information Centre of the Malteser Hilfsdienst 
    Muse C. Catica bb
    Tel/fax: (387) 079 81997

    
*   Local Red Cross Centres (Red Cross Information Network)

    Sarajevo    
    Main Advice and Information Centre for Refugees and DPs
    Trampina 2
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 208602
    
    Per canton:

    Bihac: (387) 077 229124
    Travnik: (387) 072 818066
    Sarajevo: (387) 071 664427
    Zenica: (387) 072 416862
    Gorazde: (387) 073 221128
    Tomislavgrad: (387) 080 52247
    Ljubuski: (387) 088 834274
    Mostar: (west): (387) 088 320692; (east): (387) 088 566207
    Odzak: (387) 086 761029
    Tuzla: (387) 075 237019


    LEGAL AID CENTRES


*   UNHCR funded legal aid centres 

    UNHCR has set up several centres providing free legal
    assistance to returnees, internally displaced persons and
    local residents regarding their civil and human rights. The
    main objective is to protect their human rights, thus
    enhancing the possibilities and conditions for them to
    return or to remain. Legal advice is available on property
    related matters, pension and social matters, identity and
    travel documents, citizenship issues. Centres:  

-   Tuzla           
    Human Rights Bureau Tuzla - working closely together with
    the Federal Ombudsperson's office (tel: 075 236643)
    VI Bosanske brigade 34
    Tel/fax: (387) 075 250504
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Branka Rajner

-   Zenica          
    Centre for Legal Assistance to Women
    Kulina bana 9 
    Tel: (387) 072 22049
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Amira Krehic

-   Bosanska Krupa  
    Ostvarite svoja prava - specifically for women returnees
    Trg Oslobodjenja 3
    Tel: (387) 077 477260
    Contact: Aida Topcagic

-   Una-Sana Canton
    Patrija

    Main office: 
    Bosanski Petrovac
    Bosanska 105
    Tel: (387) 077 881019
    Contact: Muharem Halilovic

    Other lawyers involved:

    Bihac
    Nazif Ceric
    Tel: (387) 077 229353

    Cazin
    Reuf Kapic and Dervis Nurija
    Tel: (387) 077 514025

    Sanski Most
    Senad Biscevic
    Tel: (387) 079 86599

    Kljuc
    Muhamed Mujakic
    Tel: (387) 077 511847

-   Mostar          
    Legal Aid Centre
    Trg Ivana Krndelja 11
    Tel: (387) 088 564511
    Contacts: Amra Kazic, Djordje Andric, Jurica Musa

-   Banja Luka
    Iustitia
    Brace Jugovica 18
    Tel: (387) 078 63212

-   Eastern Republika Srpska
    IRC Legal Aid/ Information Centres 

    Sokolac
    Cara Lazara bb
    Tel: (381) 071 868022
    Contacts: Civa Veljka, Milana Gavrilovic, Branka Bulajic

    Pale
    Trifka Grabeza 31
    Tel: (381) 071 783567
    Contacts: Snjezana Jokic and Gordana Vlacic

    Rogatica
    Centar 1
    Tel: (381) 073 475636
    Contacts: Miloslava Stanisic and Nedo Deric

    Visegrad
    Kozacka 18
    Contacts: Lazar Drasko and Dragan Ninkovic

    Foca/ Srbinje
    Hotel Zalengora, 2nd floor
    Contacts: Slavica Prodanovic and Mile Cajevic

*   Banja Luka
    Danish Centre - a locally run free legal advice centre
    Eugena Kumicica 13
    Tel/fax: (381) 078 31211
    Contacts: Stipo Ancic, Azra Odobasic, Berislav Duric

*   Mostar
    Swiss House - Vrelo's psycho-social & legal aid centre
    Ul. Mladena Balorde 2
    Tel: (387) 088 551774
    Contact: Amela Mikulic

*   Northern Republika Srpska
    LEX - free legal advice for refugees and displaced persons
    
    Banja Luka
    Jug Bogdana 14
    Tel/fax: (381) 078 62888
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contacts: Goran Bubic, Branko Peric

    Brcko
    Srpskih Oslobodilaca 46
    Tel/fax: (381) 076 25818
    Contact: Mirko Stevanovic

    Doboj
    Sv. Save 24
    Tel/fax: (381) 074 31015
    Contact: Miljenko Radonjic

    Kotor Varos
    Cara Dusana bb
    Tel/fax: (381) 078 880639
    Contact: Danica Matanovic

    Prijedor
    Vidovdanska 7
    Tel/fax: (381) 079 24196
    Contact: Mico Kreca

    Teslic
    Karadordeva 3
    Tel/fax: (381) 074 736420
    Contact: Nenad Kovacevic


    OTHER USEFUL CONTACTS

*   Coalition for Return, a multi-ethnic movement of internally
    displaced persons and refugees from all over Bosnia. Plans
    to create information centres and a regular bulletin to
    disseminate relevant info about the conditions for return.
    Info- and coordination centres will be established in Banja
    Luka, Mostar, Sarajevo and Tuzla.

    Koalicija za povratak - Information Centre 
    Aziza Sacirbegovica 80
    71000 Sarajevo
    Tel: (387) 071 652227
    Fax: (387) 071 652237
    Contact: Ljubinka Civsa

*   Association of Refugees and Displaced Persons of BiH

    Sarajevo office
    Tel/fax: (387) 071 664109
    Contact: Mirhunisa Komarica

    Travnik office
    Tel: (387) 072 811484
    Fax: (387) 072 813509
    Contact: Fikret Karac

    Zenica office
    Tel: (387) 072 21865
    Contact: Zuko Nusret

    Mostar office
    Tel: (387) 088 551169
    Fax: (387) 088 551094

*   Offices of the Federal Ombudsperson
    
    These ombudspersons deal with human rights issues,
    including property issues.

    Sarajevo: (387) 071 211392, 211393
    Mostar: (west) 088 311024; (east) 088 551332
    Zenica: (387) 072 417325
    Tuzla: (387) 075 236643
    Travnik: (387) 072 814200, 811706
    Livno: (387) 080 21911
    Bihac: (387) 077 331573

    Another office will soon be opened in Capljina and more
    offices will be opened next year in Orasje, Gorazde and
    Siroki Brijeg.  

*   Federal Ministry of Social Welfare, Displaced Persons and
    Refugees in the Federation of B&H

    Tel: (387) 071 201754
    Contact: Rasim Kadic

*   Ministry of Civil Affairs Refugee Office

    Tel: (387) 071 442870, 650068
    Contact: Mario Nenadic

*   Commission for real property claims of displaced persons
    and refugees. If returnees or displaced persons do not
    succeed in reclaiming their real property at the local
    administrative level, they can contact this commission.

    Sarajevo - Main office
    Danijela Ozme 4 
    Tel: (387) 071 211151
    Fax: (387) 071 211147
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Head of Office: Steven Segal

    Sarajevo - Regional office
    Tel: (387) 071 211151

    Mostar
    Ante Starcevica 44 
    Tel: (387) 088 322553
    
    Lukavica
    Toplicka cesta 42a
    Tel: (381) 071 672008

    Rahic (kod Brckog)
    Tel: (387) 076 373266

    Ravne (kod Brckog)
    Tel: (387) 076 745905

    Brcko grad
    Tel: (381) 076 205494

    
*   Office of the High Representative

    Dealing especially with refugee and DP issues:

    Sarajevo
    Tel: (387) 071 447275
    Fax: (387) 071 447420
    Contacts: Andreas Herdina, Minna Jarvenpaa, Vera Guendel

    Banja Luka
    Tel: (381) 078 17112
    Contact: Nils Kastberg

    Brcko
    Tel: (381) 076 205666
    Contact: Lori Galway

    Mostar
    Tel: (387) 088 317613
    Contact: Tom Foley


*   UNHCR offices in B&H
    
    Zenica: (387) 072 35863
    Jablanica: (387) 088 752705
    Mostar: (387) 088 551166
    Tuzla: (387) 075 215122
    Livno: (387) 080 23246
    Sarajevo: (387) 071 666160, 447736
    Bihac: (387) 077 331758
    Gorazde: (387) 073 224120
    Brcko: (381) 076 204510
    Zvornik: (381) 076 583402
    Banja Luka: (381) 078 32388
    Pale: (381) 071 786311
    Trebinje: (381) 089 25120


    LOCAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS

    As mentioned above, this revised version contains a list of
coordinates of local human rights organisations. They are
listed by means of a list of B&H towns in alphabethical order. 


*   Banja Luka

    Women and Law - Women's Rights
    Novice Cerovica 28
    Tel/fax: 381 78 36328

*   Bihac

    Serb Civic Council - Human Rights Office
    29 November 23
    Tel: 387 77 224815
    Contact: Dragan Zoric

*   Bijeljina

    Helsinki Board of Human Rights in Republika Srpska -
    Bijeljina
    Potporucnika Smajica 24a
    Tel: 381 76 472851
    E-mail: [email protected]
    President: Branko Todorovic

    Office for Human Rights
    Galac 19
    Tel/fax: 381 76 43066
    Contact: Predrag Maksimovic
    E-mail: [email protected]

*   Bosanska Krupa

    Women's organisation Realise Your Rights/ Ostvarite Svoja
    Prava
    Tel: 387 77 477131
    Contact: Aida Topcagic

*   Doboj

    Bona Vita - Human Rights Protection and Legal Assistance
    Ul. Sv. Save 18
    Tel: 381 74 24870
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Contact: Liljana Miljanovic

*   Gorazde

    Serb Civic Council - Human Rights Office
    Zdravstvenih Radnika bb
    Tel: 387 73 224558
    Contacts: Veljko Bjeljanin, Slavko Klisura

*   Livno

    Association of Jurists - human rights protection &
    education
    Tel/fax: 387 80 23816
    Contacts: Munib Sehic, Izeta Dzendzo
    Tel: 387 80 23911
    Fax: 387 80 23942


*   Medjugorje

    Centre for Human Rights 
    Mala Livada bb
    Tel/fax: 387 88 642395

*   Mostar

    Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
    Alekse Santica 4
    Tel/fax: 387 88 551518
    Contact: Dzemal Sunje

    Serb Civic Council - Human Rights Office
    Tel: 387 88 551393
    Contact: Ratko Pejanovic

*   Sarajevo

    Helsinki Committee of Human Rights in BiH - Sarajevo
    Mule mustafe baseskije 10/IV
    Tel: 387 71 206011
    Fax: 387 71 665653
    E-mail: [email protected]  
    President: Srdjan Dizdarevic

    Human Rights Commission of the Serb Civic Council
    Hamdije Kresevljakovica 3 
    Tel: 387 71 666962
    E-mail: [email protected] 
    President: Mladen Pandurevic

    Protector - human rights protection
    Buhotina 14 (Rakovica)
    Tel/fax: 387 71 624447
    Contact: J. Milosevic

    Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs (DISS)
    Karposevo 4
    Ilidza
    Tel: 387 71 452907
    Contact: Dusan Sehovac

*   Travnik
     
    Serb Civic Council - Human Rights Office
    Pod Ilovaca 10
    Tel: 387 72 811600
    Contact: Dragan Vikalo

*   Tuzla        

    Office for Human Rights 
    VI Bosanske Brigade 34
    Tel: 387 75 250504, 218197  
    Fax: 387 75 218197
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Coordinator: Branka Rajner

    Committee for Human Rights 
    Nikole Tesle 15
    Tel/fax: 387 75 234441
    President: Vesna Sehic-Jugovic 

    Serb Citizens Council - Committee for Human Rights
    Protection
    Djordja Mihajlovica 4
    Tel: 387 75 251537
    Fax: 387 75 236727
    Contact: Miso Bozic

*   Zenica

    Independent/ Nezavisan - International Institute for the
    Protection of Human Rights and Search for Missing Persons
    Masinski Fakultet, room 1107
    Fakultetska Ulica 1
    Tel/fax: 387 72 418685 
    E-mail: [email protected]   
    President: Dragutin Zvonimir Cicak 

    Committee for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights of
    Citizens of Jajce
    Tel: 387 72 23534
    Contact: Fikret Kasum

    Serb Citizens Council - Committee for Human Rights
    Protection
    Tel: 387 72 21940
    Contact: Sretko Radisic



    SUMMARY


*   Banja Luka

    Women and Law; LEX; Danish Centre; Genesis; Iustitia; MDPL
    UNHCR; OHR

*   Bihac

    HR Office Serb Civic Council; Patrija representative; IRC;
    Federal Ombudsperson; UNHCR

*   Bijeljina

    Helsinki HR Committee; Human Rights Office

*   Bosanska Krupa

    Realise Your Rights; IRC; CARE Germany

*   Bosanski Petrovac
    IRC; Patrija

*   Brcko

    LEX; Commission for real property Claims; OHR; UNHCR

*   Cazin

    Patrija representative

*   Doboj

    Bona Vita; LEX

*   Foca/ Srbinje

    IRC

*   Gorazde

    HR Office Serb Civic Council; UNHCR

*   Gracanica

    BOSPO

*   Gradacac

    BOSPO

*   Gradiska (Bosanska)

    MDPL

*   Jablanica

    DRC; UNHCR

*   Kalesija

    BOSPO

*   Kladanj

    BOSPO

*   Kljuc

    IRC; Patrija representative

*   Kotor Varos

    LEX

*   Livno

    Association of Lawyers; Federal ombudsperson; UNHCR


*   Lukavac

    BOSPO

*   Lukavica

    Commission for Real Property Claims

*   Medjugorje

    Centre for Human Rights

*   Mostar

    Helsinki Committee for HR; HR Office Serb Civic Council;
    MDPL; Swiss House/ Vrelo; Legal Aid centre; Federal
    Ombudsperson; Association of refugees and DPs of B&H;
    Commission for Real Property Claims; OHR; UNHCR

*   Mrkonjic Grad

    MDPL

*   Pale

    IRC; UNHCR

*   Prijedor

    LEX; MDPL

*   Rahic

    BOSPO; Commission for Real Property Claims

*   Ravne

    Commission for Real Property Claims

*   Rogatica

    IRC

*   Sanski Most

    Malteser Hilfsdienst; Patrija representative

*   Sapna/Teocak

    BOSPO
    
*   Sarajevo

    Helsinki Committee of HR; HR Office Serb Civic Council;
    Protector; DISS; Repatriation Info Centre; Returnee Info
    Point Caritas and Diakonie; Job 22; DRC; IMIC; Caritas;
    Local Red Cross Main Info Centre; Coalition for return Info
    Centre; Association of Refugees and DPs; Federal
    Ombudsperson; Fed. Ministry of Social Welfare, Displaced
    Persons and Refugees; Min. of Civil Affairs Refugee Office;
    Commission for Real Property Claims; OHR; UNHCR

*   Sokolac

    IRC

*   Srebrenik

    BOSPO

*   Teslic

    LEX

*   Travnik

    HR Office Serb Civic Council; Centre for Civic
    Cooperation/UNDP; Federal Ombudsperson; Association of
    Refugees and Displaced Persons 

*   Trebinje

    UNHCR

*   Tuzla

    Office for Human Rights; HR Committee; HR Office Serb Civic
    Council; BOSPO; Federal Ombudsperson; UNHCR

*   Velika Kladusa

    IRC

*   Visegrad

    IRC

*   Zenica

    Centre for Legal Assistance to Women; HR Office
    Independent; Committee for Protection of HR of Citizens of
    Jajce; HR Office Serb Civic Council; DRC; Pax Christi/
    Bruecke; Association of Refugees and DPs; Federal
    Ombudsperson; UNHCR

*   Zivinice

    BOSPO

*   Zvornik

    UNHCR


    Sometimes I think I must be crazy, doing all this work,
listing all these organisations, I can think of a better ways
to spend my weekend. I hope at least that this survey will be
of usefull!

Many greetings,

Dave Bekkering, 
Gornji Vakuf,
23.11.1997     


(1)     "The World of B&H NGOs - an Introduction into the World
        of B&H NGOs and B&H NGO Assistance" - Dave Bekkering/
        UNDP Gornji Vakuf, second & revised version, November
        97. Obtainable by e-mail: [email protected]
        and this web site 'Hope on the Balkans')

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