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Serbia 

Serbia (including Kosovo and Vojvodina) had a prewar population 9,800,000. Serbia is the largest and most populous of the republics of the Former Yujoslavia. 66% are ethnic Serb of traditionally Eastern Orthodox religion. Until 1989, Serbia also had two autonomous regions, Kosovo (to the south) and Vojvodina (in the north). Kosovo, bordering Albania, was the historic seat of a traditional Serbian kingdom and the site of the famous Battle of Kosovo at Kosovo Polje ("Field of Blackbirds")in 1389, when the Serbs were conquered by Ottoman forces. Today Kosovo's population is 90% ethnic Albanian, most of them Muslims. The Albanians are a pre-Slavic ethnic group speaking a distinct language unrelated to the various forms of Serbo-Croatian spoken throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Bosnia and Herzegovina 

Bosnia-Herzegovina had a prewar population 4.4 million. Bosnia has the most complex mix of religious traditions among the former Yugoslav republics: 44% Bosniaks (Muslims), 31% Bosnian Serb (Eastern Orthodox), and 17% Bosnian Croat (Roman Catholics). BosniaÃs Muslims are Slavs who converted to Islam in the 14th and 15th centuries after the Ottoman Empire conquered the region. From World War I until the end of the Cold War, Bosnia was part of the newly created country of Yugoslavia. Bosnia declared independence in March 1992.

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Croatia 

Croatia had a prewar population 4.8 million and is the second largest republic of former Yugoslavia. Prior to the war, 79% of Croatia's residents were ethnic Croatian and 12% ethnic Serb, who were concentrated in the Krajina region, which closely follows Croatia's border with Bosnia. Most Croatians are Roman Catholic. Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991. During the summer of 1995, Croatian forces reclaimed the Krajina and drove more than 200,000 Serbs to exile in Serbia.

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Montenegro 

Montenegro had a prewar population 584,000 and was the only republic not conquered by the Ottoman Empire or other outside powers. Mostly Serb Orthodox, Montenegro and Serbia now comprise what is left of Yugoslavia.

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Slovenia 

Slovenia had a prewar population 1,892,000, and has the smallest in land mass but the wealthiest of the former republics. Slovenia is also the closest to Western Europe, sharing a border with Austria. Its population is almost entirely composed of ethnic Slovenes, who have their own distinctive Slavic language and traditions. Slovenia declared its independence at the same time as Croatia, in June 1991.

See this Article:

NPR: 'Yugonostalgia' Takes hold in Slovenia

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Macedonia 

Macedonia had a pre-war population 2,000,000. Home to Macedonian Slavs (66%) who are mostly Orthodox Christians with some Muslims, Albanians (25%-35%) who are mostly Muslim, and a host of smaller minorities (Turks, Gypsies, Vlachs). Macedonia became the only former Yugoslav republic to make a nonviolent transition to independence in 1992. The Albanian population has long demanded some degree of cultural autonomy and, until the current crisis, most Macedonian Albanians have attempted to go about this by working within the existing power structures.

Source: Center for Balkan Development

Yugoslavia used to be described by its own people as a small country with a variety of big problems: 

Seven neighboring countries, and problems with all of them;

Six republics, and problems between them,

Five nationalities,

Four languages,

Three religions,

Two alphabets, and

One political party

Chronology of Events 

World War II to 1991

During World War II, armed groups claiming allegiance to various ethnic factions fought both against each other and against the Nazi occupiers. By 1945, almost 1 million Yugoslavs had lost their lives, most of them at the hands of other Yugoslavs. Croatian fascists (Ustashe) were the most notorious for killing Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and political opponents, but Serb Chetniks were also responsible for many mass killings. The Communist-led Partisans fought against both groups and were victorious (with Allied support) at the war's end. The Partisan leader, Josip Broz (Tito), ruled the country as a one-party socialist state.

Despite using repressive tactics and centralized control, Tito understood the importance of apportioning power evenly among the Yugoslav ethnicities. Under Communist rule, it was a serious crime to openly express ethnic aspirations of any kind.

After Tito's death in 1980, the nation slid into economic and political decline as a collective leadership began to squabble over power and the allocation of shrinking resources among the republics. With the final collapse of Communism in the 1980s, the restive population began seeking solutions to provide economic and political stability in a post- Cold War world. Unfortunately, the solution promoted by Serb and Croat extremists in this time of crisis was ethnic nationalism.

Source: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

1986-1987: The Stirring of Serb Nationalism and the Rise of Slobodan Milosevic 

"No one will ever beat you again!"

Serbia's Communist Party leader, Slobodan Milosevic, began invoking Serb nationalism, and quickly consolidated his power to become the unchallenged ruler of Serbia. Through his control of the party apparatus and control of the media, he was able to become the dominant leader in Yugoslavia. Throughout his time as President of Serbia, his priority was the preservation of power and the creation of a "Greater Serbia."

One of Milosevic's first acts was to change Serbia's constitution and void the autonomy of Kosovo. He directed a campaign of repression against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, making him a hero in the eyes of Serb nationalists throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Milosevic's attempts to seize control of the federal government and his aggressive methods toward the Albanians in Kosovo drove the newly elected non-Communist governments of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia to seek independence. Milosevic's determination to gather all Serbs under the umbrella of a Greater Serbia and the historic nationalism he invoked attracted immense popular support.

Sources: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

1988-1989: The Slovene Spring and Milosevic's Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution 

Slovenia was the most vocal opponent of reform and the strongest advocate of autonomy because it was also the most affluent and most Western of the republics. Leaders in Slovenia, followed by Croatia were the first to portray Serbia as imperialistic and as the enemy of democracy. Slovenia encouraged a loose confederation among republics in order to weaken Serbia's tight grip on the central government. In November 1989, Slovenia unilaterally asserted constitutional sovereignty over its borders and walked out of the Congress of the League of Communists. They largely dared Serbia to invade, threatening a slow strategy of guerilla warfare and attrition. This action emboldened the other republics, especially Croatia. In June 1989, the Serb-dominated central government sent the JNA into Slovenia, ostensibly to protect Yugoslav territorial integrity. But Yugoslavia had already begun an irreversible dissolution. Within ten days the Slovenes gained victory through a Serb withdrawal. Knowing well where the Serb population resided, Milosevic threw all of this efforts into a Greater Serbia.

Sources: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

Bosnian War Footage 

A More Melancholy and Searching Tune with Good Coverage of the Seige of Sarajevo

1989-1991: Descent into War: The Awakening of Croatia, The Knin Rebellion and the Arming of Slovenia and Croatia 

The Yugoslav National Army (JNA) --with a predominantly Serb officers' corps --responded with brutal attacks supported by Serb nationalist militias in Croatia and Bosnia.

When the war began in Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, many Croats and Bosnians thought the Yugoslav National Army would protect them. They soon learned that the national army--the fourth largest in Europe--was clearly in the hands of Milosevic and being used to create Greater Serbia.

With Serb nationalists in control in Belgrade and Croat nationalists in power in Zagreb, Croatia voted to secede from Yugoslavia in 1991 to counter the plan for a Greater Serbia. Although Croat nationalists share responsibility for fanning ethnic tensions, it was Serbian forces who launched a savage military response to Croat independence, capturing and "cleansing" a third of Croatia, including eastern and western Slavonia, and the Krajina region adjacent to Bosnia.

The Summer of 1992: Ethnic Cleansing 

Throughout Bosnia, Bosnian Serb nationalists and the JNA began a systematic policy of "ethnic cleansing" to erase all vestiges of the non-Serb populace and establish a "racially pure" Serb republic. They drove out all other ethnic groups by terrorizing and sytematically displacing non-Serbs through direct shelling and sniper attacks. Entire villages were destroyed. Thousands were forcibly expelled from their homes, held in detention camps, raped, tortured, deported, or summarily executed. Rape and executions were often a military tactic employed to destroy the bonds of families and communities. Throughout the war, many fervently wished to preserve a multiethnic state, but nationalistic groups on all three sides employed various military and political strategies to achieve territorial advantage for their respective side at the expense of the others.

1992-1994: The Muslim-Croat Conflict 

When the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia attacked Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992, the Bosnian Croats and Muslims collaborated to defend themselves. As Serbian pressure increased and it became clear that the West would not intervene,
the two allies began to stake out their own territorial claims.

A massive influx of Muslim refugees into central Bosnia following the Bosnian city of Jajce's fall is frequently cited by Croats as a cause of the outbreak of the Muslim-Croat conflict. Bosnian Muslims point to the Bosnian Croats' premature efforts to implement the Vance-Owen plan in the central Bosnian provinces as the true explanation for the outbreak of this conflict. Open conflict between the Muslims and Croats in Central Bosnia broke out on January 14, 1993.

The Muslim-Croat war ended in 1994. Croat and Bosnian forces then focused their full effort against the Serbs. In 1995, Croatia launched Operation Storm against Serb forces. Occurring in the months prior to the Dayton Peace Accords, and with the assistance of U.S. commercial-military trainers (MPRI), Croatian forces were successful in reoccupying territory it had previously lost.

Sources: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

Mostar's Old Bridge "The Stari Most" 

April 1993: The Fall of Srebrenica and UN Safe Areas 

Sources: Yugoslavia, Death of a Nation, Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

In the Bosnian silver-mining town of Srebrenica in July 1995, Serb forces separated civilian men from women and killed thousands of men en masse, or hunted those who attempted to escape through the forests to Tuzla.

The events at Srebrenica were in many respects the turning point of the war in Bosnia. One of the largest massacres of the early part of the war took place at a gymnasium in the village of Bratunac in April 1992, when an estimated 350 Bosnian Muslim men were tortured to death and massacred by Serb paramilitaries and special police. Bratunac lay just outside Srebrenica, and would again serve as a killing ground when the city fell to Bosnian Serb forces again in July 1995.

The Bosnian town of Srebrenica changed hands between the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs several times between 1992 and 1993. In January 1993, the Serb military launched another large-scale offensive and occupied the neighboring villages between Srebrenica and Zepa. Bosniak residents of the outlying areas converged en masse on Srebrenica, causing its population to swell to between 50,000 and 60,000 people and creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. General Philippe Morillon of France, the Commander of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) visited Srebrenica in March 1993 and told the panicked residents of Srebrenica in a public gathering that the town was under the protection of the UN and that he would never abandon them.

Serb forces continued to attack Srebrenica even after the town had been declared by the UN to be a safe area. Scores of terrified Muslims fled to Portocari, a suburb of Srebrenica--and the site of the main Dutch UNPROFOR base. General Ratko Mladic was on the scene to direct the Bosnian Serb Army and the events that followed.

The Dutch made an attempt to keep the Serb troops away from the Muslim refugees but they were outnumbered and outgunned and facing thousands of Serbs, they did not prevent the massacre. In July 1995, an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males were executed in and around the town of Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serb army and Serb militias. The Dutch soldiers have been criticized for failing to protect the Muslim refugees, but this is more reflective of the UN's minimalist approach. The Dutch felt abandoned by their command in Sarajevo--a number had been taken hostage by Serb troops and one Dutch soldier was killed by a grenade lobbed by retreating Bosniaks.

January-May 1993: The Rise and Fall of the Vance-Owen Plan 

The Bosnian War in many ways represented President Clinton's "baptism of fire" in the foreign affairs arena. Because the disintegration of Yugoslavia began in 1991, President Clinton inherited the Balkan Crisis from the previous Bush Administration. The complexity and violence scale of of the Balkan conflict did not lend itself to easy or quick results. Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance along with former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen, participated in peace initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Vance-Owen Peace Plan was the first concerted attempt to resolve the crisis. It proposed a division of Bosnia into ten federated provinces three of which would be designated as Serb, three Croat, three Moslem and one mixed, and subject to a central government. Under the plan, Serbia was required to withdraw from some portions of the territory it seized but would retain control over other occupied territories. Under the plan, roughly 43 percent of Bosnia would remain in Serb hands.

Source: Department of State Archives

February-August 1994: The Market Square Bomb and the NATO Ultimatum, The Washington Agreement, The Battle for Gorazde 

Just before noon on February 5, 1994, a 120mm mortar mortar round exploded on a stall in the main market square in Sarajevo killing 68 and wounding 200 people--Serb and Muslim. It was one of the worst atrocities during the then 22-month old conflict. The UN could not prove where the mortar came from and the US was unwilling to strike against the Serbs without hard evidence of its origin. On February 10th, NATO gave the Bosnian Serbs a 10-day ultimatum to either withdraw their artillery to 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) outside Sarajevo or face air strikes. The Serb shelling of Sarajevo decreased, and NATO lifted their threat.

A U.S. diplomatic push followed. For four days at the end of February 1994, the U.S. State Department conducted proximity talks between a Croatian and a Bosnian delegation. On March 1 the Croatians and Bosnians agreed to a framework for a federation of Croat and Bosniak majority areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina and a preliminary agreement for a confederation between the Federation and Croatia. At a White House ceremony on March 18, 1994, Bosnian Muslim Prime Minister Silajdzic and Bosnian Croat leader Zubak signed a constitution for the Federation. At the same time, Presidents Tudjman and Izetbegovic initialed the preliminary agreement on the confederation.

At the end of March, the developing humanitarian crisis in Gorazde had reached the headlines. Bosnian Serb forces launched a major counteroffensive using artillery, tanks, and infantry, breaching Muslim lines. Bosnian Serb reinforcements deployed all around the Gorazde "Pocket," and began preparations for a major assault. Bosnian Muslim's pointed toward the crisis in Gorazde to argue for US intervention. By March 31st, Bosnian Serb forces had completed the encirclement of Gorazde.

Sources: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Wikipedia

The Result 

The Balkan Wars ended with much of the former Yugoslavia reduced to poverty, massive economic disruption and persistent instability across the territories where the worst fighting occurred. The wars were the bloodiest conflicts on European soil since the end of World War II. They were also the first conflicts since World War II to have been formally judged genocidal and many identified participants in the atrocities were subsequently charged with war crimes. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by United Nations to prosecute these crimes at The Hague, Netherlands. In Bosnia alone, more than 200,000 Bosnians out of a population of 4.4 million were killed. Some 200,000 were injured, 50,000 of them children. Millions of people were deported or forced to flee their homes. Sixty percent of all houses in Bosnia, half of the schools, and a third of the hospitals were damaged or destroyed. Power plants, roads, water systems, bridges, and railways were ruined. Throughout these horrors, the international community failed to respond in a timely or effective way.

Sources: Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

Bosnian War Footage 

Excellent Coverage of the War to the Theme of Shinedown's .45

Key Players in the Conflict 

Serbia:
President Slobodan Milosevic's nationalist aims for a Greater Serbia started the machinery of war in 1986. Now based in Belgrade, he still controls the fourth largest army in Europe, the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). He has thus far evaded charges of war crimes and continues to exert considerable influence in the region. He was the Serb representative at Dayton and was subsequently indicted, arrested and tried for war crimes at The Hague; however, died after five years in prison with just fifty hours of testimony left before the conclusion of the trial. Milosevic suffered from chronic heart ailments, high blood pressure and diabetes. The official Coroner's inquest determined that Milosevic died of a heart attack. Many Serbs remain suspicious of the cause of death.

Bosnian Serbs:
In 1991, prior to the war, Radovan Karadzic (a former psychiatrist) created a renegade army within Bosnia with the support of Milosevic in Belgrade. In 1992, under his leadership, Bosnian Serb nationalists began a systematic policy of "cleansing" large areas of Bosnia of non-Serbs. Both Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, have been indicted for war crimes, including genocide, by a UN war crimes tribunal. Both remain at large and continue to wield power in Republika Srpska.

Croatia:
President Franjo Tudjman, headquartered in Zagreb, led the Croatian army and had close ties to the Bosnian Croat army, the HVO. The HVO lost a great deal of territory to the Serb-controlled Yugoslav National Army, but supported Bosnian Croats as they captured swaths of territory in Herzegovina, the southwestern region of Bosnia around the city of Mostar where many Bosnian Croats reside. Tudjman continues to exert influence in the area controlled by the HVO, most of which remains "cleansed" of all Muslim and Serb inhabitants. Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims formally allied in 1994 in an uneasy federation that was brokered by the United States.

Bosnia:
President Alija Izetbegovic, head of the Muslim-dominated Party of Democratic Action (SDA), was based in Sarajevo. Bosnia was attacked by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), Bosnian Serb nationalists, and Bosnian Croat nationalists.. The siege of Sarajevo lasted 43 months. An international arms embargo was in effect throughout the war, preventing the Bosnian government from obtaining the heavy artillery and arms that it needed to fight the more sophisticated arsenals of the Serb

The Role of the UN 

The failure of the UN to halt or even contain the violence in Bosnia seriously compromised its credibility as it neared its 50th anniversary in 1995. The UN already had UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) troops in Sarajevo at the outset of war because it was their base of operation for the UN mission in Croatia. The UN hoped that their presence would discourage the spread of the conflict from Croatia to Bosnia. But when Sarajevo came under attack by Serb artillery in April 1992, the UN forces pulled out to avoid casualties, leaving behind only a small and lightly armed contingent of peacekeepers to discourage attacks by Bosnian Serb nationalists. As the situation deteriorated, a humanitarian cataclysm developed. The UN struck a deal with the Serbs to control the Sarajevo airport, but it remained under de facto Serb control and constant observation. During the next three years, the airport was the scene of hundreds of casualties. UN humanitarian flights were repeatedly fired upon and Bosnian civilians were killed by sniper fire as they attempted to escape across the tarmac. All aid flights and personnel transports had to be approved by Serb liaison officers stationed at the airport. In one of the most flagrant failures of the UN to provide adequate protection to the peace process, the Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister was shot point-blank by Bosnian Serb nationalists in 1992 while riding in a UN armored personnel carrier at the airport.

Source: Center for Balkan Development, Wikipedia

A European Peacekeeper's Perspective 

A French Officer's Retrospective

"First, you have to remember that the UN operation was aimed at humanitarian relief. That was the mandate. A lot of things can be said about the way things went when you are sitting in your office chair a few thousand miles away. The truth is that European countries were also frustrated by the way things went, but the tipping point in the summer of '95 is not US resolve and leadership but the fact that France and the UK decided in July to send a 12,000 man Rapid Reaction Force in Bosnia without asking anybody. This force was aimed at protecting UN troops and if necessary help evacuate them. Part of this force were a few French 155 mm tank mounted guns that were positioned on Mount Igman overlooking Sarajevo."

"Why did we send in the RRF? On May 27, 1995, the bridge of Vrbanja in Sarajevo, held by French soldiers under UN flag, was taken by surprise by Serb troops (they wore blue helmets), taking 14 soldiers hostage. In the hours that followed, the bridge was taken by the French (2 killed, 17 wounded). This was the first retaliatory ground action in Bosnia. It lead France (under newly elected Presidet Jacques Chirac) and the UK to send the RRF to act as a deterrent and if necessary take action."

"When the attack on the Sarajevo market place occurred on August 27, NATO was authorized by the countries with troops on the ground to launch airstrikes because the RRF was there. By the way, the French 155 threw in a few hundred rounds that were quite effective."

During this conflict, France lost 87 soldiers."

New Quick Poll 

The Dayton Peace Accords 

The Dayton Peace Accords, signed on December 14, 1995, by Presidents Milosevic, Izetbegovic, and Tudjman, affirmed Sarajevo as the capital of Bosnia but carved Bosnia into two autonomous and ethnically based entities, separated by a demilitarized zone of separation (ZOS). The Serbs, in control of the Republika Srpska, were allocated 49% of the territory of Bosnia. The Bosnians were granted the remaining 51% of the country, called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The result was an uneasy alliance of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Today, each entity has its own government, military, and police. A central government handles banking and foreign policy.

Source: To End a War, Center for Balkan Development

IFOR 

Shortly after the Dayton accords were signed, the international Implementation Force (IFOR), a NATO-led peacekeeping force of 60,000 soldiers, arrived in Bosnia. Though heavy weapons were pulled back from front lines and the killing of civilians stopped, most non-Serbs were "cleansed" from Serb-held areas (like Srebrenica) and attempts to return them to their homes has been met with only mixed success. Likewise, many Serbs left Federation-controlled territories. IFOR was replaced by the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR); and SFOR has since been replaced by a European Force (EUFOR), that is rapidly dwindling in numbers.

Source: SFOR and EUFOR Websites, Center for Balkan Development

Cast of Characters 

Albeit a Partial Cast.... (Source: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, To End a War)

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 

The International Criminal Tribunal, the first international war crimes court since the Nuremberg trials following World War II, was established by the UN Security Council in February 1993. Based in The Hague, it announced indictments against 75 individuals. Most trials are either completed or in progress. Two remain pending capture--Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

New Quick Poll 

Balkan War Links 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Responding to Threats of Genocide (in the Balkans)

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's superb analysis of genocide in the Balkans

NATO's Stabilization Force

NATO's Stabilization Force Website

Video of a Wartime Atrocity

Frontline's Video of a Srebrenica Executions by a Serb Ministry of Interior Unit

Photo of the Destruction of Mostar's Old Bridge

Dramatic Amateur Photo, along with audio of Tito's funeral train

Donatella Lorch's Site

One of the finest journalists I know....

Quotable Quotes 

Conclusion 

After the failed U.S. humanitarian intervention in Somalia, the Bosnian War became a symbol of futility for the United Nations, Europe and the United States--which was especially reluctant to cross what had become known as the "Mogadishu Line." As the situation in Bosnia deteriorated, President Bill Clinton's credibility began a rapid downslide. His decision to intervene in a robust way finally proved to be decisive. Ultimately, NATO's bombing and the western Croat offensive turned the tide of the war and forced the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table. In its wake, the Bosnian intervention fundamentally changed the scope and nature of future humanitarian interventions.

Questions for Discussion 

Questions for Discussion

• Why did Yugoslavia disintegrate?
• Where were the Republics on the J-curve in 1990?
• What were the roots of ethnic conflict and wars in the Balkans ?
• To what extent were ethnicity and religion the true drivers of the conflict?
• What are some of the other factors?
• What are the reasons for the different development of the former YU republics?
• What governance challenges does the region face after nearly a decade of civil war?
• What are the broader security implications of the conflict?

U2's "Miss Sarajevo" 

Your Feedback! 

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Many Thanks!

John

News Updates from the Institute on War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 

IWPR builds democracy at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of professional journalism.

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Sources 

Center for Balkan Development Website

Many of the country descriptions and modules above are derived directly from this website, formerly "Friends of Bosnia"

Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation

Module titles come from the chapter titles of this excellent book.

Wikipedia

Many of the photos on this lens came from Wikipedia. A great source, when used with a discerning eye in detecting bias and subjectivity in its narratives.

To End a War, by Richard Holbrooke

The definitive account of what transpired during the Dayton Peace Accords

CBS News Story on the Dutch Role in Srebrenica

Includes Dutch Battalion former soldiers' accounts of what happened on the ground in Srebrenica

Blood and Vengeance, by Chuck Sudetic

One of the two best accounts of what transpired in Srebrenica. A truly searing account of those events from one Bosnian family's perspective.

End Game, by David Rohde

One of the two best accounts of what transpired in Srebrenica from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, David Rohde--who was captured and held by Serb forces during his investigation of the Srebrenica Massacre.

European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Great photos and great explanations of the situation in Bosnia and the EUFOR mission there.

Great Stuff on Amazon 

Great Stuff from Bosnia on CafePress 

Black T-Shirt

from visualanomaly.com

Portrait of Mostar's Stari Most ("The Old Bridge"). Comes in Black and Red

Price: 21.99

I Love Sarajevo Long Sleeve T-Shirt

from I Love (Heart) T-Shirts

Price: 24.99

from

Price: 0.00

Great Stuff from Croatia on CafePress 

Croatia Coat Of Arms Golf Shirt

from One World T-shirt / T-shirts

Price: 21.99

Cap

from Go Croatia

Price: 27.99

Croatia Vertical Wall Calendar

from Fine Travel Photography

Price: 22.99

Libertas Black T-Shirt

from Croatian Online Store

Price: 21.99

Great Stuff from Serbia on CafePress 

Tote Bag

from Serbia Shop - BelgradeInfo.com

Price: 14.99

License Plate Frame

from Serbia Shop - BelgradeInfo.com

Price: 10.99

Rock Star In Serbia Large Mug

from One World T-shirt / T-shirts

Price: 16.99

JOSIP BROZ TITO SALE Baseball Jersey

from YOUSHI DESIGN STORE

Price: 22.49

Vote for Your Favorite Books on Bosnia! 

Feel free to add your favorite Bosnia-related books to this list if it's not already listed!

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Bosnia: A Short History by Noel Malcolm

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Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe's Worst Massacre Since World War II by David Rohde

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Blood and Vengeance: One Family's Story of the War in Bosnia by Chuck Sudetic

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To End a War (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Richard Holbrooke

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Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass

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The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society , No 11) by Michael A. Sells

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War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival by Sheri Fink

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Inferno by James Nachtwey

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The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina : Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention by Steven L. Burg

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Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia by Brendan Simms

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When History Is a Nightmare : Lives and Memories of Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Stevan M. Weine

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Fools Rush In: A True Story of Love, War, and Redemption by Bill Carter

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National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia by David Campbell

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CLEANSE THEIR SOULS: Peace Keeping and War Fighting in Bosnia 1992-1993 by Monty Woolley

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Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco

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Genocide and Resistance in Hitler's Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941-1943 (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs) by Marko Attila Hoare

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Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime by Jan Willem Honig

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My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary by Nadja Halilbegovich

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The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict by Cynthia Cockburn

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Farewell to Bosnia by Gilles Peress

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Hearts Grown Brutal:: Sagas of Sarajevo by Roger Cohen

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Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of Ethnic Cleansing (Eastern European Studies) by Norman Cigar

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The Paratroopers of the French Foreign Legion: From Vietnam to Bosnia by Howard R. Simpson

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Sarajevo: A War Journal by Zlatko Dizdarevic

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This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia

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Postcards from the Grave by Emir Suljagic

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Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention by Sumantra Bose

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The Graves: Srebrenica And Vukovar by Eric Stover

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The Road to Kosovo: A Balkan Diary by Greg Campbell

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^#30

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Ottoman Bosnia: A History in Peril

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The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft by Derek Chollet

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Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan by Michael Ignatieff

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Welcome to Sarajevo: Natasha's Story by Michael Nicholson

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