Bosnia 10 years on.

Bosnia is a place that I won't soon forget. I spent one year of my life there as a Swedish UN peacekeeper, after the Dayton accords. It is a land of scenic beauty, and man-made horror. Where civil war turned neighbour against neighbour. And in some cases split families. Before the collapse of Yugoslavia, the world had never heard of places such as, Goradze, Banja Luka, Mostar, and of course Srebrenica. Now, most of these places, along with Sarajevo are synonymous with terrors such as ethnic cleansing, massacre, and genocide.

A quick history lesson. After the death of Marshal Tito, a new wave of Serbian nationalism began to take hold, while similar movements took hold in Croatia, and Slovenia. The man who rode this wave of Serb nationalism was Slobodan Milosevic. Then, in the early 90s, Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia, and a relatively bloodless war began. Later was to come war between Croatia and Serbia, and of course the confusion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Bosnia, the war was between, the Serbs and the Muslims, and the Croats, and the Serbs, and the Muslims, and the Croats, and in the middle was Sarajevo,, the melting pot of the great Balkan melting pot.

Anyway, fast-forward to today. How do you think the prescence of NATO, and UN troops has helped to improve, make worse, or keep the situation stagnant? How do you think Bosnia is better off? And, why are the Balkans so important in international geopolitics?

 

I visited Bosnia-Herzegovina twice in the late 1980's when it was still Communist.

After that, I returned to serve on an US Aircraft Carrier during the Bosnian War.

The UN was useless then, as was the EU - where we had to do the work for unwilling European nations.

It's a shame what happened there, and I sometimes wonder whatever happened to the families that I lived with during my short stays there.

It would be hard for me to say whether or not the situation has improved, but I can tell you I'm quite sure it is much better off now than when I returned to the area when I served during their war in the mid-1990s.

So, with other world events on the news stage, it's hard to say how the peacekeepers are doing. They must be doing a decent job, because we hear very little of it anymore.

 

The UN was useless then, as was the EU - where we had to do the work for unwilling European nations

Yes and no. The UN rules of engagement were a shambles, a disgusting mess. But don't forget that European, particularly French and British troops were on the groud - getting shot and killed - long before the US joined the party. The EU was incompetant, but the militaries of Europe were heavily engaged in Bosnia long before the US rolled up. Politically you are correct, but don't ignore the poor sods on the ground hamstrung by their political masters, DM

I think Bosnia, and the whole region seems to be pulling itself together, but this will probably take decades, and Bosnia may not make it as a unified nation even in peace.

 

Yes and no. The UN rules of engagement were a shambles, a disgusting mess.

This much is true, and is another example of how the UN bureaucratic process hamstrings operations.

In a five-day orgy of slaughter at Srebrenica in July 1995, 7,500 Muslims were systematically exterminated in what was described at the U.N. war crimes tribunal as ?the triumph of evil.?

Thousands of Bosnian Muslims had sought refuge in the spa town of Srebrenica in 1995 as the Bosnian Serb army marched towards them

They were protected by just 100 lightly-equipped Dutch peacekeepers -- who proved no match for the advancing, heavily-armed Serb army.

Denied reinforcements, the Dutch were forced to stand aside while Serb troops intent on ?ethnic cleansing? did their worst -- the peacekeepers even witnessing the summary execution of civilians.

SREBRENICA

Also, without a clear mandate, the first contingent of peacekeepers probably increased the problems there:

In July 1995, for instance, the French chose to turn the other way when Serbian troops stormed the U.N.-protected safe haven of Srebrenica. According to U.N. documents -- including a fax message from field chief Yasushi Akashi to Kofi Annan -- cited in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, French President Jacques Chirac allegedly brokered a deal with Serb war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. France promised to hold back NATO airpower against advancing Serb forces in return for the release of up to 400 U.N. imprisoned soldiers

But, the word eventually came out at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. When brought in front of the court as an indicted war criminal, and asked about the Srebrenica massacre, in September 2002, Milosevic replied: "Ask Jacques Chirac about Srebrenica. I want the truth to be revealed for this insane crime."

Mr. Chirac purportedly continued to make deals with war criminals even after the Srebrenica massacre, as the United States -- mobilized to prevent further atrocities -- started to bomb Serb targets.

HERE

Although now, Bosnia is continuing to make slow, but steady growth. It's GDP increased by 2% in 2002, and continues at this rate, mostly do to exports of light industrial machinery.