Quote:
Originally Posted by Troianii
I was a youngin' at the time, but my understanding is that all sides were messed up.
And as far as Bosnia's Christian majority, I'm not sure how relevant that is. Some of the most active Muslim terrorism in the Mid-East is where there is a signifigant Christian presence, even a majority, but as I say I was a youngin' I don't really know the specifics.
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If I had to blame anyone for what happened in Bosnia in 1995, I would say that Serbia gets about 60% of the blame and Croatia gets 40% of the blame in 1995. I've read a few books and essays on it. Basically, the Serbian leader Milosovic wanted to create a "Greater Serbia" out of the carcass of Yugoslavia. The Croatian leader wanted to do pretty much the same thing with Croatia (ethnically cleansing it of Serbs and linking up with other Croats in Bosnia). Croatia is in the west, Bosnia in the center, and Serbia in the east. Being in the center is a very bad place to be, when you are in between two people who hate each other and hate you too.
The Serb President Milosovic was in charge of Yugoslavia as it unravelled. He didn't care about Slovenia leaving (which they immediately did). The Croat President was a pure fascist from what I can tell about him. Croatia committed genocide against the Serbs in WWII, and he started giving praise to the "Ustashe" units which did that.
There were a lot of Serbs in Croatia for centuries and a civil war broke out in Croatia. The Serbs lost big time and the Croats pretty much burned them out of their homes, causing 200,000 to flee to the east. At the same time Serbia was doing ethnic cleansing and moving West. They ethnically cleansed the Muslims and the Croats in their path to link together their communities to be pure Serbian. Later in the war they would commit massive human rights violations with the siege of Sarejvo and the massacre of Srebrennica.
NATO airstrikes turned the tide against the Serbs. The Croats and Muslims took back all the lands that Serbia had taken.
4 years later, Yugsolavia was a rump state with Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and I think Macedonia having seceded. Kosovo also wanted to secede and they tried to do so peacefully, which failed. They then resorted to violence under the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is more or less a terrorist or guerilla warfare unit depending on your perspective.
In any case, Serbia responded by killing lots of innocent people and burning down other people's homes leading to a confrontation with Europe and the US. Serbia refused to stop and the Clinton bombing campaign ensued. Clinton bombed all Serbian military targets and then started destroying Serbian infrastructure. Serbia made a conditional surrender, which we accepted.
NATO troops were allowed in to Kosovo. During the war Milosovic tried to turn back the tides of centuries of history and throw most of the Muslims out. These muslims were allowed to return to their lands in Kosovo after Serbia gave up. Within the next few months you will see them declare independence from Serbia and the US and EU back them up.
To clear up your comments on why I mentioned religion, is because I thought this thread was going the religion route, but it is not and LessGov and I have cleared that up.