In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Balkan states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia became part of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.
After the death of longtime Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, growing nationalism among the different Yugoslav republics threatened to split their union apart. This process intensified after the mid-1980s with the rise of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who helped foment discontent between Serbians in Bosnia and Croatia and their Croatian, Bosniak and Albanian neighbours.
In 1991, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared their independence; during the war in Croatia that followed, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army supported Serbian separatists there in their brutal clashes with Croatian forces.
Here is a short chronology of what happened in Bosnia and the events surrounding the 1992-1995 war:
1992
Feb 29-March 1: Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats vote for independence in referendum boycotted by Serbs.
April 6: European Union recognises Bosnia’s independence. War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 per cent of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims and Croats to carve out a Serb Republic.
May: UN sanctions imposed on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.
1993
January: Bosnia peace efforts fail, war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, previously allied against Serbs.
April: Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia are declared three of six UN “safe areas”. The United Nations Protection Force UNPROFOR deploys troops and Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) attacks stop. But the town remains isolated and only a few humanitarian convoys reach it in the following two years.
1994
March: US-brokered agreement ends Muslim-Croat war and creates a Muslim-Croat federation.
1995
March:
Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic orders that Srebrenica and Zepa be entirely cut off and aid convoys be stopped from reaching the towns.
July 9 — Karadzic issues a new order to conquer Srebrenica.
July 11: Bosnian Serbs troops, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, capture the eastern enclave and UN “safe area” of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslim males in the following week. The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Karadzic and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo.
August: Nato starts air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops.
November 21: Following Nato air strikes against Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agree to a US-brokered peace deal in Dayton, Ohio.
December 14: The three leaders sign the Dayton peace accords in Paris, paving the way for the arrival of a 66,000-strong Nato peacekeeping Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia. The international community establishes a permanent presence in the country through the office of an international peace overseer.
1996
July: West forces Karadzic to quit as Bosnian Serb president.
September: Nationalist parties win first post-war election, confirming Bosnia’s ethnic division.
1997
Having lost power, Karadzic goes underground.
2002
February 12: Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial charged with 66 counts of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
2003
December: Ex-Nato commander tells the court Milosevic knew Bosnian Serbs planned to massacre Muslims in Bosnia in 1995.
2004
June 11: In a belated abandonment of its endless denials and under strong international pressure, the Bosnian Serb government make a landmark admission — that Serbs indeed massacred thousands of Muslims at in Srebrenica, on Karadzic’s orders.
2006
March 11: Milosevic is found dead in his cell in The Hague.
2008
July 21: Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men for planning and ordering genocide, is arrested.
— Mick O’Reilly, Foreign Correspondent, with inputs from agencies
