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How Was the Bosnian Genocide Similar/Different to the Holocaust?

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How Was the Bosnian Genocide Similar/Different to the Holocaust?

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The Holocaust and the Bosnian Genocide were very similar. Both were genocides where one party attempted to wipe out an ethnicity, but they still have many differences. In the Holocaust, Nazis rounded up the Jews and sent them off to concentration camps. However, in the Bosnian Genocide, Bosnian Serb troops positioned themselves on all of the mountains surrounding Sarajevo and trapped the Bosnian Muslims there while shooting at them from the mountain tops. In the Holocaust, Germany attacked multiple countries to expand their empire. This is unlike the Bosnian Genocide, where the Bosnian Serbs focused on eliminating all the Muslims in Bosnia alone. In conclusion, I believe that these two events are share many similarities.

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Lampe, John R. “Bosnian Conflict.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 8 Mar. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Bosnian-conflict#ref338677.

“Bosnia 'Failing to Meet Landmine Removal Target'.” Balkan Insight, www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnian-citizens-still-endangered-by-landmines-04-03-2017-1.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina Unemployment Rate.” Kenya Government Debt to GDP | 1998-2018 | Data | Chart | Calendar, TRADING ECONOMICS, tradingeconomics.com/bosnia-and-herzegovina/unemployment-rate.

Genocide in Bosnia, www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Bosnia.shtml.

Lampe, John R., et al. “Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/place/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina.

“The Bosnian War and Srebrenica Genocide.” United to End Genocide, endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-bosnian-war-and-srebrenica-genocide/.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/bosnia-herzegovina.

U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/breakup-yugoslavia.

“Youth Unemployment Rate for Bosnia and Herzegovina.” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 27 Sept. 2018, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLUEM1524ZSBIH.

Map of the current political divisions of Yugoslavia:
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/the-history-of-yugoslavia-and-yugoslav-unification/

Map of landmines in Bosnia:
http://www.bhmac.org/?page_id=747&lang=en

Image of Ratko Mladic:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/26/ratko-mladic-military-mastermind

Image of Slobodan Milosevic:
https://www.biography.com/people/slobodan-milosevic-9409281

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The war first started when all my Serbian friends began to move away. There were whispers of an armed conflict brewing, but no one actually believed it. At least, not until May 1992. There were a few pops from the hillsides, and before we knew it, Sarajevo was under attack. Snipers were positioned at the top of the mountains shooting down at us. Luckily, my entire family was home at the time. Grenades and shrapnel rained down outside. We rushed down to our basement and hunkered down there until we stopped hearing the horrible explosions outside. The following weeks were chaos. Bombings, shootings, chaos, murder, fires. The electricity stayed on through the first month. Then it started to only come on at certain times. Then it stopped all together. No running water, no heat, and a short supply of food. I remember my dad preparing to go outside to bring back some water and food for us. We all hugged him like we'd never see him again; after all, it was a possibility. The entire family fretted and worried the whole time he was gone. It was cold, I was hungry and afraid that he would never come home. Four hours later, Dad bursts through the door with a jug of murky water and a few cans of food. We jumped on him and gave Dad a great big hug, checking for any injuries. He had sprained his ankle, but for the most part, Dad was unharmed. The canned food was the worst thing I have ever tasted in all of my life, but we were starving so we ate it up. He told us about what he had seen outside while we ate. People, running, trying to get the necessities for their families to survive and being shot at by snipers in the hills. We were scared witless that day. Why would anyone do this? Why do we have to die for the sake of some stupid political issue? I continued to ask myself those questions for the next four years. As soon as the war ended, my dad applied for a job in Germany and we all moved away from the city that had tortured us for the past four years. It has been twenty years since that day, and this is the first time I have come back. I go visit the blood red colored Sarajevo Roses and place flowers by the graves of some of my former classmates and friends. I still ask myself every day: Why did this have to happen?

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Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia.

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Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian war general

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Below is a picture of the ICAR canned beef monument. In Sarajevo, Bosnia.

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This is a map of the current mine situation in Bosnia provided by BHMAC (Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center). The blue dots represent mines that have already been cleared and the red dots represent mines that have not been cleared.

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A map of Yugoslavia separated into its current-day countries.

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During the war, the crisis was mostly ignored by the rest of the world, and the Bosnians didn't get a lot of help. However, there are two notable cases during the war when other countries stepped in to lend a helping hand. One of these cases was in July 1993, when the UN decided to step in and help the Bosnians by delivering care packages to the capital, Sarajevo. They delivered 160,000 tonnes of food, medicine, and blankets to the suffering citizens. The UN continued bringing food until the end of the war in January 1996. The downside of this was that the canned food they provided was years out of date, or made of pork which the mainly Muslim Bosnians couldn’t eat. One famous example was called ICAR canned beef, which was said to be nearly inedible. To commemorate the UN’s “help”, the Bosnians built a monument of the ICAR canned beef can. During the siege, Bosnia also obtained help from NATO, who sent in airstrikes against the invading troops in an attempt to stop the slaughter. One year after, in 1995, negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton Peace Accords were negotiated there in November, but were formally signed in Paris on December 14th. They were the conclusion to the horrific three year war. After the war ended, to address the genocide, or more specifically address the people behind it, a series of arrests began. One of those arrested was Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Yugoslavia. In 2001, he was arrested for genocide and crimes against humanity, and died five years later in his jail cell in The Hague, Netherlands. Another notable figure that was arrested was Ratko Mladic. He was a Bosnian Serb general who was convicted for genocide and war crimes. After Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in 2001, Ratko went into hiding. Around 10 years later, he was discovered by the Serbian police. He was put on trial in 2011 and received a life sentence in prison. Radovan Karadzic, the president of Srpska during the genocide, and Slobodan Proljak, a war general, are just a few other people who were also arrested for crimes against humanity and genocide, among other things. Though many things were done to attempt addressing the problem, more could have been done considering how atrocious the events of the Bosnian genocide were.

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Why Should the Rest of the World Be Concerned About This Issue?

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Why Should the Rest of the World Be Concerned About This Issue?

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The rest of the world should be concerned because thousands of people were murdered when they didn't have to be. I chose this especially due to the fact that I feel that a large amount of people aren't aware that this horrific war occurred. When the genocide was happening, most countries just ignored it because it didn't involve them. For the most part, the coalition of Bosnian Muslims and Croats didn't receive the aid they so desperately needed to fight back the Serbs. The rest of the world should have been concerned because people were being sniped at, bombed, and murdered. The hard truth is, since the genocide didn't involve them, it was ignored. The world should care about this now so that they can learn from their mistakes and prevent something like this from ever happening again.

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How Has the Problem Affected the Community?

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How Has the Problem Affected the Community?

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Even 23 years later, the effects of the war are clear to see. The abrupt end of the war caused the Bosnian government to be in shambles. The country has three presidents (one from each ethnic group) who rotate every 6 months. Not only that, but there are still landmines littering the mountains of the country. All of the landmines were supposed to be cleared by 2019, but due to underfunding they are far behind schedule. Bosnia’s Mine Action Centre recently stated that there are over 80,000 mines leftover from the war, and about 1,000 square kilometers yet to be cleared of mines. However, the damage does not stop there. Around 34.99% of the country is unemployed, and hundreds are still without homes. Many of the houses left standing are riddled with bullet holes. To sum it up, the war left the country is devastated and not much has improved since the fighting ended.

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What Is the Problem and What Are the Root Causes of the Problem?

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What Is the Problem and What Are the Root Causes of the Problem?

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The Bosnian Genocide was a devastating time. To introduce you to this war, I need to tell you about the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was a communist country in the Balkans that was founded in 1918, and ended in multiple bloody wars in 1992. It consisted of four modern day independent countries: Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Slovenia. In 1991, Slovenia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Croatia soon followed suit. In May 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina took a poll to see if the people wanted independence. Of Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups, the majority of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats voted yes, but most Bosnian Serbs opposed independence. Soon civil war broke out. One of the reasons that the war went on for so long is because the country received minimal help. With Serbia attacking from one side, and Croatia recovering from their own war, aid couldn't easily be provided. Bosnia has a beach, but it is only 12 miles long. As a result, large shipments of supplies couldn't be delivered. Because of misfortunes like these, the war that lasted around four years, 100,000 people were killed.