SARAJEVO-1995 Peace Project.

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M I N U T E S T O WA R : Once Upon a Time in Sarajevo Historical Background To The Seige Of Sarajevo 1992-1996 Yugoslavia began to disintegrate following the collapse of Communist regimes in other parts of Eastern Europe in 1989. In June 1991, the state of Slovenia declared its independence, closely followed by Croatia. Despite opposition from other member states in the European Union, Germany recognised Slovenia and Croatia in December 1991. Other EU countries followed. This had immense consequences: it left Yugoslavia as a Serbian-dominated rump state. This was intolerable for Muslims in Bosnia, who had lived amicably with Serbs and Croats in Bosnia for 40 years, and whose ideal was a multinational Yugoslavia, but who now faced being a vulnerable minority in a state ruled by Serb nationalists. A referendum on Bosnian independence was held in February 1992. The Bosnian Serbs boycotted it, because they did not want to be separated from their brethren in Serbia. Since the Muslims (44%) and Croats (17%) made up a majority of Bosnia’s population, the referendum produced an overwhelming vote for independence. In April 1992, the EU and US recognised the new state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. War broke out immediately, but the Serb-controlled army had confiscated the weapons of its territorial defence forces. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were swept from their homes, especially along the Drina valley in the east of the country. During the next four years Bosnia would be torn by the bloodiest and most ruthless European conflict since the Second World War. The capital, Sarajevo, was the focus of an epic siege in which 12,000 people were killed, including 1,600 children. The siege of Sarajevo began with Serbs raining shells on the city from hilltop positions. In August 1992, evidence emerged of Muslims in northern Bosnia being herded into concentration camps. These TV images led to the creation of a UN War Crimes Tribunal, now sitting in The Hague (the first international war crimes trial since Nuremberg). At the same time, the largest refugee movement in Europe since the Second World War began as Muslims fled to Croatia and other parts of Europe. ‘That summer of 1992, only months after the Bosnian war erupted, was the darkest period in Europe since the Holocaust. In an orgy of murder, rape, detention, and eviction, the Serbs put hundreds of thousands of dispossessed Muslims to flight and seized their ancestral lands.’ Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 22 December 1994. By 1993 Serbs controlled almost two-thirds of Bosnia, while Croats had taken over nearly onethird. Evidence of massive human rights atrocities were discovered, including the raping of thousands of Muslim women and ‘ethnic cleansing’ actions by Serbs, especially in eastern Bosnia. In May 1993, the United Nations designated six UN-protected ‘safe areas’ in Bosnia. These were all areas that had been under siege by the Bosnian Serbs for some time and where Muslims were under threat: Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, and three small enclaves in eastern Bosnia (Srebrenica, Gorazde, Zepa). UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) soldiers provided limited military protection and humanitarian aid. In July 1995, Serb forces launched attacks on the UN safe areas in eastern Bosnia, forcing thousands of Muslims from their homes in Srebrenica and Zepa, and ‘ethnically cleansing’ areas that had been Muslim for generations. The men were driven out of the ‘safe havens’—as the UN forces watched—to mass execution sites in the countryside around. In August 1995 shells launched from Serb positions in the surrounding hills landed in a marketplace in Sarajevo killing 85 people. NATO finally launched massive air strikes against Bosnian Serb positions.
M I N U T E S T O WA R : Once Upon a Time in Sarajevo The Siege of Sarajevo 26th October to 3rd December 1995 In which the artist Dominic Ryan after returning to Australia meets again the Slovenian journalist, Darja Lebar. They decide to enter Sarajevo towards the end of the siege in october 1995 smuggling a humanitarian billboard carrying a message - we have all suffered enough into the city. After being temporarily arrested on the grounds of spying for the Serbians by inadvertently taking photos in a sensitive military area, with the help of the UNPROFOR French 4th battalion the two along with the French battalion erect the billboard in the destroyed House of Youth. Ryan is subsequently awarded the Liberty Prize for Human Rights in the EU. He returns to Australia. Forming a small voluntary group of friends who decide to continue to focus on conflict resolution in zones of war.
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