How Is Bosnia A Genocide Or A Civil War

This essay will differentiate whether the events that took place in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 are to be considered as a genocide or a civil war. In the aftermath of world war two many Balkan states including Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia became part of the federal republic of Yugoslavia . Following the death of longtime Yugoslav leader, Josip Tito in 1980, many Yugoslav countries grew in terms of nationalism and the desire for the regarded countries to become independent. The mid-1980’s saw the rise of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic who brewed the discontent between the Bosnian Serbians, Croatians and Bosniaks.

In February 1992 Croatians and Bosnian Muslims voted for Bosnia’s independence, the Serbians boycotted this referendum therefore the referendum did not reflect the views of the whole population.

April in the same year the European union recognized Bosnia’s independence thus sparking the outbreak of war. Serbian renegade army led by Radovan Karadzic began persecuting Bosniaks and Croatians in order to create a Serb republic.

Propaganda became relevant to Bosnia when the Serbian led government took control of the media depicting the Bosniaks and Croatians as non-Serbs and referring to them as evil, which creates a sense of “them against us” amongst the public as well as identifying the Bosniaks an Croatians as the enemy.

May 1992 saw the construction of the first concentration camp in Bosnia. Omarska death camp was constructed in order to create an effective way to carryout mass murder upon the Bosnian Muslims and Croatians.

Abandoned Buildings were converted to rape camps were the Serbians carried mass rape to the Croatian civilians and Bosnian Muslims as a result, approximately 60,000 woman were raped.

In Jan...

... middle of paper ...

...x the Bosnian land respectively and that the war was fought over territory. The fact that the President of the united states referred to the events as a “civil war” supports this statement .

Other evidence that supports this statement is the fact a civil war is defined as a war fought between citizens of the same country, the fact that the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims both in theory belonged to Bosnia and the war was fought between these two for the right to territory as the Serbians believed that Bosnia was their rightful homeland.

In conclusion, the events that took place in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 was in fact a genocide due to the fact that the argument of it being a genocide out ways the counterargument of it being a civil war to support this conclusion, Milosevic was charged with two counts of genocide by the international criminal tribunial.