The War between Serbia and Bosnian-Muslim Croats War (Research Paper Sample)

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The War between Serbia and Bosnian-Muslim Croats War
The former Yugoslavia was a peaceful country until ethnicity overtook humanity. As political and ethnic leaders marshaled their troops against defenseless civilian, the death toll escalated to unimaginable numbers within a short period. What the Serbians dubbed as "ethnic cleansing" led to the death of many Bosnians as the angry and bloodthirsty Serbian soldiers swept through. It is an incident took the whole world in shock and confusion for a while before springing into action to end the onslaught. However, what fueled such inhuman assault and genocide amongst people who had lived in piece since late 1800s? It clearly revealed that there was an ethnic time bomb just waited for a little trigger to explode. The Conflict manifested into one of the bloodiest world's genocide after the end of the Cold war.
Between 1991 and 1992, the great Yugoslavia succumbed to ethnic conflict, the demagoguery of the Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and economic issues and split up. The independence of Slovenia and Croatia catalyzed warfare in the two new nations prompting the United Nations to send peacekeeping troops in the middle of 1992 to calm the situation. Additionally, the United Nations further enforced arms restriction on the region aimed at curbing the flow of ammunitions to the combatants. Serbian forces carried out a widespread ethnic cleansing in areas occupied by non-Serbians forming horrendous sights of refugees and concentration camps that appeared incredible in modern Europe.
Causes of the war
Apart from ethical tensions, the Bosnian war was fueled by the quest for annexation of the Bosnian territory by both Serbia and Croatia living in the region. Serbia, under the stern leadership of Slobodan Milosevic, could not control their quest for a greater Serbia. Milosevic’s actions prompted the Bosnian Croats and Muslims to seek for independence from Yugoslavian control to safeguard their land for him (Savich). However, Milosevic did not waste any time, and he partnered with Radovan Karadzic create a renegade army in Bosnia to prepare the way for his plans. By 1992, Karadzic commanded ethnic cleansing policy of non-Serbs living in Bosnia (Ball 104).
The development of the war
Bosnia’s pronouncement of sovereignty from Yugoslavia in 1992 elevated the war to a new level, leading to an over three years' war and perfected the complexities of the post-cold war premeditated environment. Three ethnic groups of Croatian, Serbian and Muslim, comprised the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Formerly, Serbs and Croats enlarged their territorial power at the expense of the Bosnian state. The Serbs got support from Yugoslav National Army and the Serbia, which gave them nearly 70% of the Bosnia-Herzegovina. The widespread "ethnic cleansing”, therefore, paved way for shifts in territorial control (Ching 5).
As the situation in Yugoslavia constantly featured in the global discussion tables, President George Washington bush and his advisors, and his administration took into account the situation in the Balkans to be principally an issue of the European Union. The US's silence featured immensely in the 1992 United States presidential campaigns and elections. The 1992 democrats presidential candidate bill Clinton backed a "lift and strike" policy. The policy meant lifting arms ban operating in the expense of the Bosnian Muslims and Croats, carrying out airstrikes against Bosnian Serb forces.
Immediately Bill Clinton took over power, his new administration commenced work swiftly with Madeleine Albright, who was the then ambassador to the UN. This step aimed at shaping a more vigorous United Nations responsibility in the conflict. During president bush's administration final moments in the early January 1993, the European Union together with its United Nations counterparts had mediated on the implementation of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP) on Bosnia. Thirty days down the line, the UN Security Council instituted a war crimes hearing for the former Yugoslavia while the United States instigated night airdrops of relief food to the Muslim enclaves (Ball 104).
By March the same year, the United Nations approved implementation of a no-fly zone in Bosnia. This policy was enforced by the US Air Force in operation it dubbed Operation Deny Flight becoming the first military commitment of the US in the region (Ching 6). However, the Bosnian Serbs rejected the brokered Vance-Owen Peace Plan prompting the UN to pronounce Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica, Zepa, Bihac, Gorazde, and Tusla ‘safe areas’. The UN security docket, therefore, did not secure those areas (Leydesdorff 209).
On the 1st of May 1993, President Clinton sent his Secretary Of State Warren Christopher to confer with the main NATO allies and Russia so as to get support for the "lift and strike" plan. However, Warren’s efforts bore no fruits and only exposed matters that would constrain NATO's activities in the conflict of another couple of years. Alliance members of taking part in UNPROFOR were because their troops were less armored a sparsely deployed could easily fall into the assailants' traps. This fear of captivity weakened the participants' support for the Washington's zeal for an air crusade. A wide rift developed between the massive alliance’s national viewpoints on the onslaught and the very little European home support for military intervention. This compounded the administration’s problems. NATO’s inability to come into an effective agreement with other parties on this issue raised eyebrows on its future performance, especially in the Cold War aftermath.
The standoff in the alliance was reflected in the US interagency policy process. The department of defense was hesitant to commit into a responsibility in the Balkans, apprehensive, as it was a prolonged occupation or guerrilla warfare. Ambassador Albright was actively promoting a western reaction, but she had a slight effect on the entire administration policy. Moreover, there was also modest home support in the US for intervention in the Balkans, but news about the violence was constantly kept in the public eye via cable television documentaries. In June 1993, Serb attacked Srebrenica, which was initially marked by UN as a "safe area”. This action got into the nerves of the U.N. Security Council, and it authorized the application of an air strike "to assist UNPROFOR in the execution of its mandate." The movement created a "dual key" plan between the NATO and U.N. in control of schemed air assault in response to the Serbian attacks. This plan proved challenging for Washington because the U.N. was extremely hesitant to permit any effective war action on the segment of NATO (Crossette)
On February 5, a mortar shell went off in the Markala marketplace in Sarajevo leading to 69 civilian casualties. The attack called for a 20-kilometer no-weapon area around Sarajevo. However, a looming row with the Serb forces was thwarted via Russian intercession. Two months later, Bosnian Serb forces began an attack against Gorazde. Similarly, NATO could not withstand the killing of a UNPROFOR combatant by the Serbian artillery and also commenced a fierce air strike. Nonetheless, Bosnian combatants stood firm their ground and besieged a UNPROFOR contingent of soldiers together with their commander (Tucker 2182).
The rebels threatened to murder all of them if NATO did not terminate its air strikes. Soon after this, the United States fronted the formation of a Contract Group to forefront policy toward the conflict. The group tabled a number of principles for whichever peace settlement. Among the principles were that Bosnia would reserve its independence constituted of Muslim-Croat confederacy and a Serb entity, which could be tied by constitutionally, agreed standards. The second principle rooted for a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina in which Muslim-Croat federation controlled 51% with the Serbian entity commanding only 49% of the territory (Ching 7)..
In 1994, Washington agreement brought the two-warring teams on a round table leading to the signing of a cease-fire. However, the ceasefire plan did not augur well with the Bosnian Serbs and they eventually rejected it. They decision notwithstanding, the military balance begun to equalize because Serb terminated support to Bosnian-Serb forces while Bosnian-Muslim and Croatia forces grew through an increasing porous firearm embargo. The year 1994 ended with a four-month peace mediated by President Jimmy Carter. The year ended with a four-month armistice mediated by former President Jimmy Carter (Tucker 2181).
The onset of 1995 renewed the onslaught with the Croatian forces now on the attacking side from the western Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is a development, which unfolded as a bitter quest for revenge on the Serbian forces. However, the Bosnian Serb forces single-handedly repossessed UN secure ammunitions by kicking aside the UNPROFOR guards. The assault took a u turn when the NATO responded with air strikes, and the Serbs took hostage UNPROFOR soldiers as a human shield against the NATO. This prompted the NATO immediately to deploy combat-ready rapid reaction force to Bosnia to neutralize the widely sparse UNPROFOR troop’s vulnerability to captivity.
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb commandants instigated yet another offensive against the eastern enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa. The renewed attack massacred more than 7,000 men in Srebrenica. The bloodbath triggered a landmark decision by the western powers to take a decisive end to the war. The meeting was convened in London on the 21st day of July in which NATO gave in on the immediate termination of the "dual key" strategy to for controlling air strikes....