— by Deboleena Bhattacharya —
Ethnic Cleansing is one of the cruel systematic acts to get rid of a particular group of people, due to the intention of making the region or area ethnically homogenous. The term “Ethnic cleansing” first arrived to introduce Albanian nationalism of the Kosovo Serbs which was in the 1980s and used during Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. This systematic process has been practiced to separate the ethnic group from the society. This article will describe ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina and also the UN and other international organizations to help the victims in a possible way.
During the time of 1992 to 1995, ethnic cleansing occurred at the time of the Bosnian War. Due to the cruel practice of ethnic cleansing during the war, many people from Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats were forced to leave the land by the self-proclaimed Serb secessionist republic, Army of Republic Srpska, and Serb Paramilitaries units. Also, the Bosnian Croats forces had expelled Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs or the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbian Radical Hegemonic Ideology that arrived during the 1990s, was the main reason behind the ethnic cleansing and genocide, the system was very much planned and clearly acts of the Serb leadership, other than Serb political leaders and military units there were also bureaucratic elite, clergy, intellectuals given ideas of carrying out such project of ethnic cleansing and also genocide over Bosniaks groups who were sharing the same land.
A meeting was held in Banja Luka which is the second-largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city in Republika Srpska. The meeting occurred in May 1992, it was at the time of the Bosnian War, their plan was to separate and segregate Serbs from Bosniak (Muslim) and Croat communities in Bosnia.
Serbian leaders’ plan included six main acts, which were planned to make a Serbian-controlled region. These main acts were, 1) Build new state borders to separate people from other ethnic communities 2) establishment a corridor in the Drina River Valley, that is, eliminate the Drina as a border separating Serbian States 3) Control the Drina River Valley 4) Building a border on Una and Neretva Rivers 5) Separate the city of Sarajevo into Serbian and Muslim parts and build strong state authorities in both regions 6) and the last is to make sure Serbian-controlled territory has the access of sea for Republika Srpska.
To achieve these six goals, the cruel act of “ethnic cleansing” was practiced through violence, removing people from the land, and genocide, lives were lost, and people’s homes were lost, it was a chaotic and cruel act within humanity. In 1995, when the war was over, the Dayton Peace Agreement officially recognized Republika Srpska as one of the three parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, alongside areas for Bosniaks and Croats. However, this area’s number of people’s percentage has changed because too many non-Serbs have been forced to leave.
In 1993 the Security Council passed Resolution “819”, which was meant for Srebrenica as a “safe-guarded sone” but still it could not stop Serbs from starting a military operation against the “Safe zone” of Srebrenica. Even after this situation, this zone became disastrous zone, where people were dying of starvation.
Whereas the international community and the United Nations (UN) could not support or protect the civilians in the “safe Zone” due to lack of effective actions. The United Nations took action through the Charter on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the Geneva Conventions (1949) and Additional Protocols (1977).
The Serbs made the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) less powerful in protecting the “Safe Zone”. Before the attack. Thus, the UNPROFOR left and asked to continue the peace negotiations.
This article talked about the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, ethnic cleansing, which is a cruel act in human society, the situation talks about how it was well-planned and political to separate and segregate the people from the region and get complete political power and keep one ethnic group within the region. Due to the six goals, they have practiced cruel acts within humanity such as ethnic cleansing and genocide. The case brings awareness to society and makes the international communities and authorities more careful for the next time.
