BOSNIAN

By: Max GENOCIDE

Mizrahi, Matthew Utset, Bella
Wetherington

AN ANALYSIS OF
GENOCIDE
The United Nations defines genocide as any of the
following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily
or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part (United
Nations, Genocide).
This definition relates to the Bosnian Genocide because
the Serbians invaded Bosnia and ended up killing, raping,
and destroying the lives of over 100,000 Bosniaks.
The fact that the Serbs purposely tried to kill and cause
harm to the Bosniaks and the Croatians makes it an act of
genocide.

CAUSES

The countries ethnic tolerance changed when the

country began to collapse during the fall of
communism in the early 1990s.
The provinces of Slovenia and Croatia declared
independence, and war quickly followed between
Serbia and these breakaway republics.
Ethnic tensions were brought to the forefront, and
people who had lived peacefully for years as
neighbors turned against each other and took up
arms.
When Bosnia attempted to secede, Serbia under
Slobodan Miloevics leadership invaded with the
claim that it was there to free fellow Serbian
Orthodox Christians living in Bosnia.

https://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Bosnia.shtml

PEOPLE AFFECTED

The people affected by the Bosnian

genocide were Bosniaks as well as
Croatian civilians.
Bosniak: a Bosnian Muslim

http://www.history.com/topics/bosnian-genocide

FOREIGN REACTIONS

Reports of mass killings and rape had

slowly came out of Bosnia, and once
photos and videos of concentration
camps like Omarska and Trnopolje were
published by Western journalists, the
reports captured the worlds attention
In May 1993, the U.N. Security Council
created the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands.

http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/bosnian-genocide

IMPACT

During the subsequent civil war that lasted from

1992 to 1995, an estimated 100,000 people were
killed, 80% of whom were Bosniaks
The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended in 1995 with
a peace agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio. It
established two state entities: the Serb Republic,
which includes Srebrenica, and the Bosnian
Federation joined by a weak central government.
Refugees were guaranteed the right to return to
their homes, but only a fraction of the prewar
Bosniak population has gone back to Srebrenica.
http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/bosnia-herzegovina/bosnia-aftermath

ANALYSIS OF DECLINE

In 1993, the United Nations (UN) Security Council

declared that Sarajevo, Goradze, Srebrenica and other
Muslim enclaves were to be safe areas, protected by a
contingent of UN peacekeepers.
But in July 1995, Serbs committed the largest
massacre in Europe since World War II in one such
area, Srebrenica. The so-called safe area of
Srebrenica fell without a single shot fired by the UN.
In 1994, NATO initiated air strikes against Bosnian
Serbs to stop the attacks.
In December 1995, U.S.-led negotiations in Dayton,
Ohio (The Dayton Peace Accords) ended the conflict in
Bosnia, and a force was created to maintain the
ceasefire.
The decline of the genocide occurred mainly when the
rest of the world became more involved in the conflict.

https://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Bosnia.shtml

Primary Source 1

The account of Christiane Amanpour is a very sad story, and

includes her story, and visual aids that help express her
emotions. Christiane Amanpour is a TV personality, and
travelled to Bosnia during the genocide, and has first hand
experiences, and video footage of how badly the people were
being treated. At the end of the interview, video footage was
being shown of the refugees when the genocide was finally
stopped. The people were very badly wounded deformed,
and malnourished. It shows how bad the genocide really
was, and why it is considered to be one of the worst.
Amanpour may have been biased, because she was not
affected by the genocide. She witnessed the atrocities, but
never was affected in any way while she was there, and when
she was the the genocide had ended, and she only witness
the aftermath.

Primary Source 2

Dragan Obrenovic was an officer in the Yugoslav army,

and he claimed that The war would only last a few
days. He was obviously very wrong, because the war,
and genocide lasted from 1992-1995. Dragan did not
have a choice to hurt or help the people he was following
orders, but their is no way to tell what was actually going
through his head. He claims that he had no clue that the
army was getting involved in inter-ethnic hatred. He is
obviously trying to repent for the bad things he has done,
and was not completely responsible for his actions.
Dragan may be biased, because if he said he agreed
with the Yugoslav government then he would most likely
be arrested, and prosecuted for his crimes, but telling the
story like the way he does, does not incriminate him at
all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Bosnian Genocide." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.history.com/topics/bosnian-genocide>. This was a very good source
because it provided a base of information that we could build off of to create a very
well-rounded assignment
"Bosnian Genocide." Bosnian Genocide. World Without Genocide, n.d. Web. 27 Apr.
2015. <http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/bosnian-genocide>.
This source provided a more in-depth analysis of the Bosnian genocide, which helped
to increase the level at which we could research the subject.
"Genocide in Bosnia." Genocide in Bosnia. Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d. Web.
27 Apr. 2015. <https://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Bosnia.shtml>. This source
provided more of a brief outline that highlighted major events in the Bosnian genocide;
especially the events that dealt with foreign powers.
Bosnia-Herzegovina. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 27 Apr.
2015. <http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/bosnia-herzegovina>. This
source gave lots of information that pertained to almost every aspect of the Bosnian
genocide in an understandable way. It helped to build the background knowledge of
the event as well as fill in details regarding the genocide.
Framework, Analysis, and Legal Definition Of Genocide. Office of the UN Special
Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide." Office of the UN Special Adviser on the
Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG) (n.d.): n. pag.Www.un.org. United Nations. Web. 28
Apr. 2015.This source proved to be helpful because it provided us with the Worldwide
definition of genocide.

Primary Source
Bibliography

"Eyewitness Testimony: Dragan Obrenovi." United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
This source gave a good idea of what the outside world
thought of the war, and genocide in bosnia. It gave a
television perspective, and the perspective of the aftermath of
the war.
"Eyewitness Testimony: Christiane Amanpour." United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
This primary source gave the perspective of a mid ranking
officer in the yugoslav army. How much he knew about the
actions he was doing at the time and how he felt after. It
shows how helpless even the military was to the leaders.