by Secre

Created on: March 06, 2009

An overview of the Bosnian genocide

The term Bosnian genocide can be used to describe either the genocide committed by the Bosnian Serb Forces in Srebrenica in 1995, or to the scheme of ethnic cleansing that took place during the Bosnian War between the years of 1992-1995. Both will need to be covered in this overview to give a full account of the Bosnian genocide, although only the Srebrenica massacre has been formally counted as a genocide by both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice. The ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War has however been counted as genocide by the United Nations General Assembly and the United States Congress.

The Bosnian War would appear to be the best place to start; considering that it started before the Srebrenica massacre took place and also led to the Srebrenica massacre. During the war ethnic cleansing was a common occurrence with the Serbs and Croats intimidating, expelling and killing the Muslims in Bosnia. Much like any other type of ethnic cleansing it also included the destruction and removal of the buildings that they lived and worshipped, but also included any important historical site and cemeteries that were used by the Muslims. The most common form of murder used by the Serbs was throat slitting and is described as, The murderer binds the victim's hands behind his or her back and forces the victim to kneel on the ground. The murderer then jabs his knee into the center of the victim's back, grabs the top of the victim's head by the hair, pulls the victims head back, and slits the victims throat with his knife' (http://www.earlham.edu/~pols/ps17971/terneel/rape.ht ml. The aim of this was supposedly to create pure states for both parties. Serbia's ethnic cleansing also included the Croat's during the civil war between the two, and an example of this would be the city of Vukovar in July 1991, in which they bombarded the Croats for 86 days until they finally took the city, killing hundreds of Croat men and burying them in mass graves.

The main ethnic cleansing Muslims, however, started in April 1992 when the independence of Bosnia was formally recognised by Europe and the United States. Milosevic attacked Sarajevo in response to Bosnia's declaration of independence, and Serb snipers shot down helpless civilians in the streets including over 3500 children. The Bosnian Muslims were outnumbered by a long way, and as the Serbs gained ground they began to systematically

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