Bosnia



Describe Bosnia here.

Where to start? Slovenia and Croatia had both managed to secede from Yugoslavia with relatively minimal fuss in Slovenia's case and rather more fuss in Croatia's. The secession of Bosnia-Hercegovina was something else entirely.

Without getting too involved -- partially because it's far too complicated and partially because it's still very sore -- there were three ethnic groups living in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Bosniaks (referred to at the time as "Bosnian Muslims"), Croats and Serbs. As a rough rule of thumb, the Bosniaks wanted independence, the Croats and Serbs wanted their bits of Bosnia to break away and join up with Croatia and Serbia proper.

They fought. A lot. Eventually, a peace agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, which came up with a bit of a compromise that everyone could just about live with.

The Bosnian war gave the world the term Ethnic Cleansing.

The United Nations didn't cover itself in glory, either, with its "peacekeeping" forces often forced to watch impotently as civilians were massacred. One particularly notorious episode was the fall of Srebrenica.

Bosnia in fiction

 * Warriors - British mini-series with Ioan Gruffudd about British peacekeepers.
 * Force Ten from Navarone (as part of Yugoslavia)
 * One episode of Prime Suspect
 * One episode of Waking the Dead
 * An episode of Seven Days had Frank landing in a California Doubling version