Causes Of The Genocide In Bosnia

Causes Of The Genocide In Bosnia In 1980, the president Josip Tito of Yugoslavia died. After the loss of their president, Yugoslavia had political and economic chaos. Slobodan Milosevic became the leader of Serbia in 1987. He was a strong Serb nationalist and encouraged his beliefs in Serbia and in other republics with large Serb communities. The Serbs in Bosnia were not happy feeling like they were now part of Milosevic’s â€Å"Greater Serbia†. The Yugoslavian Army mostly had Serbs. Radovan Karadzic led Serbs who built their own Republica Srpska in the East, while a Bosnian Serb army was in control of the other  ¾ of the country, driving out most of the Bosnian Croats. Then the European Union tried to help both sides, and failed. The U.N. didn’t want to get involved, but helped a little by providing some troop convoys for humanitarian aid. They later decided to help more by providing six â€Å"safe areas†. The Serbs invaded five of the six â€Å"safe areas† and â€Å"ethnicall y cleansed† them. The Background: Bosnia is one of the several small countries that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after World War One. Yugoslavia was composed of ethnic and religious groups that had been historical rivals, including the Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics) and ethnic Albanians (Muslims). During World War Two, Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and was separated. Following Germany’s defeat, Tito reunified Yugoslavia by merging many countries. Tito, a Communist, was a strong leader who maintained ties with the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, playing one superpower against the other while obtaining financial assistance and other aid from both. After his death in 1980 and without his strong leadership, Yugoslavia quickly plunged into political and economic chaos. Organizers: In the late 1980’s, a new leader by the name of Slobodan Milosevic came to power in Yugoslavia. He used religious hatred to control the people by sparking old tensions between the Serbians and Muslims. He took advantage of complaints from the Orthodox Catholic Serbs by taking control of the country Kosovo, where the Serbs were the minority. Milosevic then turned his focus to Croatia, a country with 12 percent Serbs. With the assistance of Serbian guerrillas, Milosevic invaded the small country under the pretenses of protecting the Serbs. Milosevic’s motives for this genocide were strongly based on retaliation. Many Serbian citizens had been subject to genocide during World War Two and they finally had a chance to get â€Å"even† with their enemies. After 13 years at power, the Yugoslavian nations revolted and a national strike followed. Milosevic was tried on the following counts in 2002: genocide; complicity in genocide; deportation; murder; persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds; inhumane acts/forcible transfer; extermination; imprisonment; tort ure; willful killing; unlawful confinement; willfully causing great suffering; unlawful deportation or transfer; extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; cruel treatment; plunder of public or private property; attacks on civilians; destruction or willful damage done to historic monuments and institutions dedicated to education or religion; unlawful attacks on civilian objects. Milosevic died on March 11, 2006, at the U.N. war crimes tribunal detention center.