Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War

One of the major aspects of the conflict was international involvement, both diplomatic and military. In response to the campaign of politically and strategically motivated terror in Bosnia, the international community took a series of limited measures. These included peace initiatives and peace plans; the imposition of a comprehensive regime of sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro for involvement in Bosnia, intended to curtail the Serb campaign there; and the decision to deploy the largest ever UN peace force to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid and in creating the conditions for settlement.

The UN force was intended to assist in enabling communities under siege (in effect, mainly Muslim communities) to remain where they were, rather than being forced to become refugees. This measure had a limited impact, but did allow communities to remain in place. As a consequence, the Bosnian government was often able to organize militarily in those areas, albeit on a limited scale. The role of the UN peace force in Bosnia was extended in 1993 to include responsibility for six “safe areas” designated by the UN Security Council (Bihac, Gorazde, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Tuzla, and Zepa). The small pockets of troops on the ground had the possibility of being supplemented by NATO air power, but for most of a two-year period, the management of the “safe area” regime was problematic. In the final phase of the war, two of the areas, Srebrenica and Zepa, were overrun by Serbian troops. The peace accord agreed at Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, and signed by Milošević, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman on December 14, envisaged one Bosnia and Herzegovina, with two “entities”, one Serb, the other Muslim-Croat, and three communities. A large, NATO-led international peace implementation and stabilization force (IFOR, then SFOR) was then deployed to prevent a return to hostilities and to assist in making the peace in Bosnia work.

An additional international response was to establish an international criminal tribunal. Based in The Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was active in carrying out investigations and issuing indictments against alleged war criminals from all parties to the conflict. The ICTY issued indictments against 161 individuals, of whom the majority were Serbs. The most complex prosecution brought so far was against Slobodan Milošević, who was on trial before the Tribunal between 2002 and 2006. He died before his trial was completed.