The Bosnian Conflict
The motivation for the war in Bosnia was found in Nineteenth century nationalism and memories of the intense fighting of the Second World War. Tito’s multiethnic, communist Partisans were successful over the Croatian Ustashe and the Serbian royalists known as the Chetnicks.
The driving force in the war that erupted in Bosnia was the desire on the part of the Croats and Serbians to eliminate the multiethnic nature of the republic and split the territory between them. Many Bosnians wanted to retain the traditional multiethnic nature they had always known when it also declared its independence on 3 March 1992.
In April 1992 Serbia and Montenegro joined together under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic to declare their independence as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and was made a member of the United Nations. On 22 May 1992 the new independent republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina became members of the United Nations (UN).
Politically Bosnia and Herzegovina’s population became fractured along ethnic lines with the rise of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) led by Redovan Karadizic who was a pan Serbian nationalist. Supporting the SDS was the Bosnian Serb armed militia (BSA) that supported Bosnian Serb desires. The Bosnian Croat Defence Council (HVO) acted as a militia to support and protect Bosnian Croats.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina the Muslim and Croat population agreed to vote in favour of independence. This coalition out numbered the Serb population. In response the Bosnian Serbs boycotted the vote as they wanted to be a part of a larger Serbia. They also argued that the constitution stated that decisions like independence had to be made with a consensus. The Serbs inability to influence the referendum on the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina provided the justification for war against the other ethnic groups.
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