i don't understand the bosnian/yugoslavia genocide?

Question

I'm doing a world history genocide project on yugoslavia and i need help!
Can someone break it down for me ?

I've done research but it was too much too read and too complicated to understand so please don't copy and paste from a website !

Answer 1

I will brake it down for you in my own words.



The only case in ex Yugoslavia which was ruled "genocide" was the Srebrenica event.



Srebrenica was declared a demilitarized zone and was put under Dutch UN protection. But, a fully armed Bosnian Muslim battalion kept hiding in Srebrenica. It was raiding surrounding Bosnian Serb villages and had killed some 1000 Serb peasants during that period.



Srebrenica was full of Bosnian Muslim refugees. There were being taken in buses away into safer areas. The Bosnian Serb forces were around Srebrenica and were allowing that. At one point, the Bosnian Muslim leader Izetbegovic prohibited refugees from leaving Srebrenica. He had a reason, but you can read that further in the website I give you.



The Bosnian Serbs wanted to stop the Bosnian Muslim battalion from killing Serb peasants, so they attacked Srebrenica and started hunting down every enemy soldier. Those soldiers they caught, were shot. This was done by Bosnian Serbs who went off-command taking revenge for the death of their peoples committed by the Bosnian Muslims.



Of course, this story does not sound like genocide but war crime. The reason it is called genocide is because the Bosnian Serbs were fighting the Bosnian Muslims. The Bosnian Muslims are the official victims of that war, while the Bosnian Serbs are the official perpetrators of unimaginable crime.



One example is the number of 8000 killed Bosnian Muslims. Notice that the number includes Bosnian Muslim soldiers, Bosnian Serb soldiers and people who were later found alive... The real number of people killed at close range was probably not greater than the number of Serbs killed...



These two websites are very clear. They can tell you the whole story:



Reasons of genocide:



http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Harff



Specially these two passages:



When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. But by a single move we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys, which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content, such as "ethnic cleansing", "concentration camps", etc., which evoked images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful that nobody could go against it.



You could base your research entirely on this link:



http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/10/12/srebrenica-revisited/

Answer 2

All hell broke out after the Bosnian politicians refused to accept conditions on a referendum and wanted Bosnia to become independent. The Serbs had made it clear that they would never see the day of becoming independent. So what you need to look for in a political sense is that Bosnian politicians refused to negotiate at one stage any further because this is where all the trouble started from. It was rather sad because there were only a hand full of them who basically were deciding the fate of their people without realizing the consequence afterward. Admittedly, I don't understand the complexity of it either, but I am sure that during World War Two, the Serbs were pro-Allied, but not the Croatians, in fact the Croatians were pro-Nazi. This was a sticky situation because before World War Two started Yugoslavia had a multi composite government ruled by Serbs and Croatians. However, the Croatians had the most influence in that government which in turn caused huge problems when Hitler had more or less expected (or demanded) that their Prince visit Berlin which amounted to nothing less than a 'dressing-down' to tell him how the country should be run in future. The Bosnian officer corp deposed that Prince and but their own Prince in his place. The boy was Royal but only 17 and had little clue about politics. Belgrade celebrated the whole event in a huge way to send a message to Hitler basically letting him know where he can go. It must be remembered here, that this was the only country to literally defy Hitler openly. When the news filtered back to Berlin what had happened, Hitler cracked up and cancelled his invasion of Russia (temporarily) to send his army to Yugoslavia first with the instruction that they teach them a lesson never to be forgotten, which they did. The atrocities were such that people were hanged of Belgrade street lamp posts. This will give you some idea of how much hate there existed between these groups.

Answer 3

You don't understand it? Join the club.

Yugoslavia was a peaceful and rather successful country until about 1989. The breakup of the Eastern Bloc in 1989-90 caused an economic crisis. Yugoslavia's economy was already shaky, and pretty much collapsed at that time. This led to a breakdown of civil order, and in the ensuing chaos, different armies and militias formed and started massacring each other and nearby civilians.

It's not 100% clear why this happened in Yugoslavia and not in other coutnries with similar situations, like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, or Rumania.



Aside to Art: Most Serbs (and Montenegrans and Macedonians) are Orthodox, not Catholic. Most Slovenes and Croats are Catholic. Bosnia before the war had a mixture of Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and small minorities of other religions, with the largest group in Bosnia (about 40%) being Muslims.

Answer 4

The Catholic Serbs hated the Bosnian Muslims, and had brutal leaders to carry out mass murder, Mladich and Karovic.