Bosnia: Civil War or Genocide?
* The Bosnian War began in 1992. The nation of Yugoslavia was breaking up, its six ethnic groups no longer held together by Cold War fears or a Communist dictatorship. The leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milosovic, used fear of Croats, Bosnians, and Muslims to unite Serbians and carry out warfare against these other groups.
* The war lasted three years and was extremely brutal. Serbian troops and militia routinely targeted civilians in campaigns called “ethnic cleansing.” Milosovic's plan was to kill one third of all Bosnians, drive out one third of Bosnians, and culturally assimilate one third. Estimates of the death toll were from 100,000 to 200,000. Tens of thousands of Bosnian women and girls were raped, often forced to bear their captors' children.
* Why wasn't Bosnia included under genocide? After three years of little action, the UN, NATO, and the US under Bill Clinton finally began to intervene. There was intervention, somewhat successful, but not enough, certainly not early enough. There also has been a great deal of disagreement over whether this was a civil war or a genocide.
* Clinton and NATO launched a series of bombings on Serbian positions. At first the bombings did little damage and only led to defiance by Milosovic, painting himself as a David taking on Goliaths. But more bombings led to Serbian forces backing down. Milosovic fell, and faced war crimes trials along with other Serbian leaders. There also were rescue efforts and quite a bit of media attention. UN peacekeepers came in, and Bosnia eventually became independent.
* In the end, UN war crimes trials only convicted Serbian war criminals for genocide for one massacre, at Srebenica. The debate over genocide has centered over two main questions: Were all civilians targeted or not? Were other sides in the war equally guilty?
* Some argue that Serbian forces targeted only military age males. But this is clearly not the case. Rapes in particular systematically targeted females. Both older males and young children also were frequent murder victims.
* Other sides in the war definitely committed atrocities though. Croatian forces in particular carried out massacres of both Bosnians and Serbians. Bosnian forces rarely did the same, in part because they did not have the military capability to do so. Most war crimes carried out by Serbians were by Bosnian Serb militias allied with the Serbian military, with the Serbian military committing a lesser number.
* The Clinton administration clearly did respond to atrocities in Bosnia. For most of three years, this was their central foreign policy concern. For the first two years they tried to work through both the UN and NATO, ironically the same criticism that many had of GW Bush for not doing in the Iraq War. The UN tried to put in place an embargo, but in 1993, Clinton tried to end the embargo so that Bosnians could defend themselves better. In 1994, the Clinton administration spent much of its time trying to convince NATO to carry out air strikes.
* Finally, in 1995, the situation seemed to be worsening enough for NATO to agree. Within three weeks of the air strikes, Serbia backed down. There are many grounds for criticizing Clinton, but there is no consensus either on his actions or on the question of genocide.