Bosnia and Herzegovina: History

The three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, and languages are Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. Religions include Islam, Serbian Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, some Protestant sects, and some others.

For the first centuries of the Christian era, present-day Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, it was contested by Byzantium and Rome's successors in the west. Slavs settled the region in the 7th century. The medieval kingdom of Bosnia emerged in the 12th century and ended in 1463, when Ottoman Turks conquered the region.

During Ottoman rule, many Bosnians converted from Christianity to Islam. Bosnia was under Ottoman rule until 1878, when the Congress of Berlin transferred administrative control to Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908. While those living in Bosnia came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, South Slavs in Serbia and elsewhere were calling for a South Slav state. World War I began when Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Following the Great War, Bosnia became part of the South Slav state of Yugoslavia, only to be given to the Nazi-puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. Many atrocities were committed against Jews, Serbs, and others who resisted the occupation from 1941-45. The end of the war saw the establishment of a Communist, federal Yugoslavia under wartime leader Josip Broz Tito, with Bosnia and Herzegovina as one of six republics in the Yugoslav federation.

After Tito died in 1980, Yugoslavia's unraveling was hastened by Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power in 1986. Milosevic's embrace of Serb nationalism led to intrastate ethnic strife. Slovenia and Croatia both declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991. By late September 1991, Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic's Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) had declared four self-proclaimed "Serb Autonomous Regions (SAO)" in Bosnia. In October 1991, the Bosnian Serbs announced the formation within Bosnia of a "Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" that would have its own constitution and parliamentary assembly. In January 1992, Radovan Karadzic publicly proclaimed a fully independent "Republic of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina." On March 1, 1992, the Bosnian Government held a referendum on independence. Bosnia's parliament declared the republic's independence on April 5, 1992. However, this move was opposed by Serb representatives, who had voted in their own referendum in November 1991 in favor of remaining in Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs, supported by neighboring Serbia, responded with armed force in an effort to partition the republic along ethnic lines. Recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence by the United States and the European Community occurred on April 6-7, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted to the United Nations on May 22, 1992.

In March 1994, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia signed an agreement creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ending a period of Muslim-Croat conflict. The conflict with the Bosnian Serbs continued through most of 1995. Many atrocities were committed, including acts of genocide committed by members of the Army of Republika Srpska in and around Srebrenica in July 1995, where approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed. The conflict ended with the November 21, 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which was formally signed on December 14, 1995 in Paris.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (http://www.icty.org/) in The Hague in July 1995 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from their role in crimes against civilians throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina culminating in the Srebrenica massacre. Karadzic was apprehended and transferred to the ICTY in The Hague by Serbian authorities on July 21, 2008. Mladic was apprehended in Serbia on May 26, 2011 and transferred to The Hague on June 1, 2011.

Bosnia and Herzegovina today consists of two Entities--the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), which is largely Bosniak and Croat, and the Republika Srpska (RS), which is primarily Serb. In July 2000, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a decision whereby Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are recognized as constituent peoples throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In March 2002, this decision was formally recognized and agreed on by the major political parties in both Entities.

The most recent national elections took place in October 2010, electing new state presidency members; state, Entity, and cantonal parliaments; and the RS presidency. The BiH presidency was sworn in on November 10, 2010. The RS government was formed in December 2010, and the Federation government was formed in March 2011. Talks are ongoing to form a state-level government. The next municipal elections are scheduled to occur in 2012, and the next general elections will take place in 2014. In October 2008, Bosnia and Herzegovina held municipal elections, where mayors and members of municipal assemblies were directly elected (in all municipalities except Mostar and Brcko District).

The international community retains an extraordinary civilian and military presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) stemming from the Dayton Peace Accords. The Dayton Accords created the position of High Representative, an international official charged with overseeing implementation of the civilian aspects of the agreement. The current High Representative (since March 2009) is Austria's Valentin Inzko (www.ohr.int).

In December 1995, NATO deployed a 60,000-troop Implementation Force (IFOR) to oversee implementation of the military aspects of the peace agreement. IFOR transitioned into a smaller Stabilization Force (SFOR) in 1996. With the end of the SFOR mission in December 2004, the European Union (EU) assumed primary responsibility for military stabilization operations. Approximately 1,600 EU troops remain deployed in Bosnia (www.euforbih.org). NATO maintains a small headquarters operation with responsibility to assist with defense reform and efforts against persons indicted for war crimes and counterterrorism.

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