Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Republika Bosna i Hercegovina

1992–1997
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem
Jedna si jedina
Једна си једина
"You are the one and only"
Green-Red: Full legal territory of the Republic.
Green: Territory controlled by the government at any
one time during the Bosnian War (1992–1995).
Capital Sarajevo
Languages Bosnian
Government Parliamentary republic
President
 -  1992–95 Alija Izetbegović
Prime Minister
 -  1992 Jure Pelivan
 -  1992–93 Mile Akmadžić
 -  1993–95 Haris Silajdžić
Legislature National Assembly
Historical era Bosnian War
 -  Independence declared 3 March 1992
 -  Washington Agreement 1 March 1994
 -  Dayton Agreement 14 December 1995 (Implementation process until 1997.) 1997
Currency BH Dinar

The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian: Republika Bosna i Hercegovina, Република Босна и Херцеговина) was the direct legal predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[1]

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina existed legally until co-signing the Annex 4 of the Dayton Agreement, containing the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 14 December 1995, but official documents reveal that the state existed up until the end of 1997 when the implementation of the Dayton Agreement was finished and only then it fully came into effect.[2] Most of this period is taken up by the Bosnian War, in which each of the two other main ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats) established their own entities (Republika Srpska and Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia respectively), which left the republic representative primarily of its Bosniak population. By the Washington Agreement of 1994, however, Bosniaks were joined by ethnic Bosnian Croats in support for the Republic by the formation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a sub-state joint entity. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords joined the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Serb entity, the Republika Srpska into the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

History[edit]

Seal of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The 1990 parliamentary elections led to a national assembly dominated by three ethnically based parties, which had formed a loose coalition to oust the communists from power. Croatia and Slovenia's subsequent declarations of independence and the warfare that ensued placed Bosnia and Herzegovina and its three constituent peoples in an awkward position. A significant split soon developed on the issue of whether to stay with the Yugoslav federation (overwhelmingly favored among Serbs) or seek independence (overwhelmingly favored among Bosniaks and Croats). A declaration of sovereignty in October 1991 was followed by a referendum for independence from Yugoslavia in February and March 1992. The referendum was boycotted by the great majority of Bosnian Serbs, so with a voter turnout of 64%, 99% of which voted in favor of the proposal, Bosnia and Herzegovina became an independent state.[3]

While the first casualty of the war is debated, significant Serbian offensives began in March 1992 in Eastern and Northern Bosnia. Following a tense period of escalating tensions and sporadic military incidents, open warfare began in Sarajevo on 6 April.[3] International recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina meant that the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officially withdrew from the republic's territory, although their Bosnian Serb members merely joined the Army of Republika Srpska. Armed and equipped from JNA stockpiles in Bosnia, supported by volunteers, Republika Srpska's offensives in 1992 managed to place much of the country under its control.[3] By 1993, when the Croat-Bosniak conflict erupted between the Sarajevo government and the Croat statelet of Herzeg-Bosnia, about 70% of the country was controlled by the Serbs.[4]

In 1993 the authorities in Sarajevo adopted a new language law (Službeni list Republike Bosne i Hercegovine, 18/93): "In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Ijekavian standard literary language of the three constitutive nations is officially used, designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian."[5]

In March 1994, the signing of the Washington accords between the Bosniak and ethnic-Croatian leaders led to the creation of a joint Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This, along with international outrage at Serb war crimes and atrocities (most notably the Srebrenica genocide of as many as 8,000 Bosniak males in July 1995[6]) helped turn the tide of war. The signing of the Dayton Agreement in Paris by the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman), and FR Yugoslavia (Slobodan Milošević) brought a halt to the fighting, roughly establishing the basic structure of the present-day state. The three years of war and bloodshed had left between 95,000 and 100,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced.[7]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "CONSTITUTION OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA" (PDF). The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
  2. ^ "HUMAN RIGHTS CHAMBER DOM ZA LJUDSKA PRAVA FOR BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA REPORT" (PDF). www.hrc.ba. Retrieved 4 July 2015. 
  3. ^ a b c Malcolm, Noel (1994). Bosnia A Short History. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-5520-8.
  4. ^ Riedlmayer, Andras (1993). A Brief History of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project.
  5. ^ Bugarski, Ranko; Hawkesworth, Celia, eds. (2004). Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers. p. 142. ISBN 0-89357-298-5. OCLC 52858529.
  6. ^ Federal Commission for Missing Persons; "Preliminary List of Missing and Killed in Srebrenica"; 2005 [1] PDF (522 KB).
  7. ^ November. 21, 2005. Bosnian war "claimed 100,000 lives". Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

External links[edit]