Siege of Bihać
Encyclopedia
The Bihać
area was the scene of fierce fighting during the Bosnian War
. It involved the Bosnian government army in Bihać on one side and Serb forces on the other side, who surrounded the area in a double siege – from the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (in Serb-held territories of Croatia
) on the north-west to the Army of Republika Srpska
(in Serb-held territories of Bosnia) on the south-east – as well as the rebel Bosniak forces who sided with the Serb extremists in the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia on the north from 1993. The siege of Bihać lasted for three years, from June 1992 until August 4-5 1995, when Operation Storm
ended it after the Croatian Army overrun the rebel Serbs in Croatia on the north-west.
The Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo
established that the communities that were under siege – Bihać, Bosanska Krupa
, Cazin
and Velika Kladuša
– had 4,856 killed or missing persons from 1991 to 1995.
of Republic of Serbian Krajina
was proclaimed in 1991 on the west, the inhabitants of Bihać were not allowed to cross into that territory anymore. After the Republika Srpska
was proclaimed in 1992 on the east, communities of Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Cazin and Velika Kladuša found themselves surrounded on both sides. The two Serbian armies cooperated in order to capture the Bosniak pocket in the middle of them. It has been blockaded and bombarded by Serbian forces since 12 June 1992. As a consequence, residents of Bihać were forced to live in shelters, without electricity or water
supply, receiving only limited amounts of relief food. Hunger would occasionally break out. The Bihać county declared a state of emergency
and began establishing its own army, the V Corps
.
Although he did not have any military education, Tomislav Dretar
, an ethnic Croat, organized the defense of Croats in the Bihać area, became the president of the Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ) of Bihać, established the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) of Bihać and the Bihać area on the 28th of July 1992 in the village of Šmrekovac in the municipality of Velika Kladuša
and become the First President and Military Commander as an officer with the title of colonel
. The Croatian units numbered a total of 1,200 men organized as smaller units within the Fifth Bihać Corps
as an autonomous Croatian military component. Under his command the Croatian HVO units were a component of the Army of Republic Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A shell fired from Serb positions in the hill exploded in the town centre on 11 August 1992, next to a building converted into a shelter for Bosniak women and children. It killed five people, including three children, and wounded 24. Eight needed amputation
s. The director of the town's hospital said "All the casualties were big operations". The inhabitants of Bihać, armed with little except old rifles, had no means of retaliating. Instead, as on every day since 12 June, when the Serbs first began to bombard Bihać, people simply did their best to carry away the wounded and clear up the wreckage. A secretary said it "took hours to wash away the blood". Almost every day the Serbs sent over more shells, some in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some at night. On one day in August, shelling lasted from 6.40pm until after midnight.
The region had a mainly Bosniak population and since the outbreak of armed conflict has received some 35,000 displaced persons, most of them coming from Serb controlled areas around Banja Luka
and Sanski Most
in the summer of 1992. In return, most of the indigenous Serbs left Bihać and fled to Banja Luka at the same time.
as a safe area was extended on 6 May 1993 to include five other Bosnian towns: Sarajevo, Tuzla, Žepa
, Goražde
and Bihać. The Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegović
, dismissed the concept. He said the havens would become death traps, where refugees, thinking they were safe, would instead become easy targets for Bosnian Serb forces.
Bihać had few food convoys throughout the three years, only the occasional airlift. The wreckage of the bombing lay all around. Sandbags were piled high against houses and bunker
s were dotted on street corners. Almost half the population was drafted into the army to defend the area. Cars almost disappeared from the streets of what was once a relatively prosperous community. There has been nowhere to go and little fuel
. The post office was piled high with sandbags. Almost every telephone line has been cut since 1991. The deployment of UN troops in the area did not help: Serbian forces inside the UN-protected zone in Croatia hijacked an aid convoy heading for Bihać in April 1993. UN refugee officials stood by helplessly as Serbs made off with 19 tons of food, mainly ready-to-eat meals. Marcus Tanner cynically commented how Serbs from 'UN protected' Krajina are shelling Bihać, a 'UN safe area
'.
The Bihać area, which contained 170,000 people, has been denied support from UN aid convoys since May 1993. The entire Bihać area had only one hospital that has exhausted the last of its food and medical reserves by December 1994, so that the feeding of the sick and wounded, more than 900 patients, was limited to one meal per day. Treatment was given only to the most desperate cases whereas operations were being performed under local anesthesia. In this situation, without the necessary food and medicines, infectious diseases were spreading- tuberculosis
, intestinal diseases, hepatitis
, vitamin A deficiency. The hospital was no longer in a position to help the inhabitants of the area.
The enclave was additionally weakened when rebel Bosniak forces led by Fikret Abdić
joined Serb extremists in the fighting and created the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia on the north.
By 27 November 1994, advancing Serb forces took around a third of the zone. Fighting raged less than 500 yards from Bihać hospital and moved closer to the headquarters of the Bosnian Fifth Corps. However, the Security Council had failed to reach agreement on a draft statement that would condemn the Serbs' shelling of and entry into Bihać and call for their withdrawal. The US plan to relieve the city was rejected by France and Britain
. Bosnian Serb forces first set a deadline of 1900GMT on 26 November for the town's defenders to surrender. They later amended this with a new offer for Bosnian Muslim troops to surrender to Fikret Abdić
's forces. But the mayor of Bihać, Hamdija Kabiljagić, rejected the surrender, saying "it would be the signal for mass slaughter by the Serbs". People were barricading the streets with trees and burned out cars.
Michael Williams, a spokesman for the United Nations
peacekeeping force, said that the village of Vedro Polje west of Bihać
had fallen to a Croatian Serb unit in late November 1994. Mr. Williams added that heavy tank and artillery fire against the town of Velika Kladuša
in the north of the Bihać enclave was coming from the Croatian Serbs. Moreover, Western military analysts said that among the impressive array of Serbian surface-to-air missile
systems that surrounded the Bihać pocket on Croatian territory, there was a modernized SAM-2 system whose degree of sophistication suggests that it was probably brought there recently from Belgrade.
Since Operation Deny Flight
did not allow fighter jets to be used in Bosnia, the Army of Republika Srpska avoided the ban by outsourcing air strikes to the Army of Srpska Krajina: they launched air strikes with aircraft based at a former JNA
military airport in Udbina
, south of Bihać, located in Croatian territory that was at the time controlled by the Republic of Serbian Krajina
. The Serb aircraft dropped napalm
and cluster bombs. Although most of the ordnance came from old, unreliable stocks and failed to explode, the attacks were a clear violation of the no-fly zone. NATO immediately looked for ways to respond, but its forces were not permitted to carry out operations in Croatian airspace, and due to Bihać's proximity to the border, Serb aircraft could attack into Bosnia, then cross back into Croatia before being intercepted. As such, NATO was powerless to stop the incursions. In recognition of the situation, the Security Council passed Resolution 958
, which allowed NATO aircraft to operate in Croatia.
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 959
"expressed concern about the escalation in recent fighting in the Bihać pocket and the flow of refugees and displaced persons resulting from it" and condemned the "violation of the international border between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
and demands that all parties and others concerned, and in particular the so-called Krajina Serb forces, fully respect the border
and refrain from hostile acts across it".
The United Nations General Assembly also addressed the issue:
and Žepa
enclaves in eastern Bosnia in July 1995, Croatia started massing soldiers near Serb positions outside the enclave as Serb forces with tanks and artillery bombarded Bosnian government lines. The goal was to prevent the fall of the Bihać enclave. Likewise, the Croatian and Bosnian leaderships signed a military pact. The siege ended with Operation Storm
on 4-5 August 1995 conjoined with Bosnian forces under General Atif Dudaković
. Dudaković said: "We needed Operation Storm as much as Croatia did". After the end of siege, food supplies and medical aid started arriving in the area from Bosnia and Croatia, which normalized lives of the people living there.
for participating in a joint criminal enterprise
, on the grounds that he "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of persecutions of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats" and "aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of the extermination
, murder
and wilful killings of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats", among them within the territories of Bihać.
General Ratko Mladić
was also indicted on the grounds that he "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of the persecution of the Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat or other non-Serb populations", among them in Bihać-Ripač
.
with the deaths of 121 civilians, three POWs and the wounding of 400 civilians in the Bihać region. Croatian authorities arrested him and put him on trial. In 2002 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes committed in the area of the "Bihać pocket”. In 2005 the Croatian Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 15 years.
Bihac
Bihać is a city and municipality on the river Una in the north-western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosanska Krajina region. Bihać is located in the Una-Sana Canton in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
area was the scene of fierce fighting during the Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
. It involved the Bosnian government army in Bihać on one side and Serb forces on the other side, who surrounded the area in a double siege – from the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (in Serb-held territories of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
) on the north-west to the Army of Republika Srpska
Army of Republika Srpska
The Army of Republika Srpska ; Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian Vojska Republike Srpske ) also referred to as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of today's Republika Srpska which was then the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina", a self-proclaimed state within the internationally recognized...
(in Serb-held territories of Bosnia) on the south-east – as well as the rebel Bosniak forces who sided with the Serb extremists in the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia on the north from 1993. The siege of Bihać lasted for three years, from June 1992 until August 4-5 1995, when Operation Storm
Operation Storm
Operation Storm is the code name given to a large-scale military operation carried out by Croatian Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to gain back control of parts of Croatia which had been claimed by separatist ethnic Serbs, since early...
ended it after the Croatian Army overrun the rebel Serbs in Croatia on the north-west.
The Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo
Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo
The Research and Documentation Center is an institution based in Sarajevo, which aims to gather facts, documents and data on genocide, war crimes and human rights violations, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It describes itself as an independent, non-governmental, non-profit, professional and...
established that the communities that were under siege – Bihać, Bosanska Krupa
Bosanska Krupa
Bosanska Krupa is a town and municipality in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the Una river. It is located northeast from Bihać...
, Cazin
Cazin
Cazin is a town and municipality in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Croatia. It is located in the Una-Sana Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cazinska Krajina is named after Cazin...
and Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša is a city and municipality in the far northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located near the border with Croatia. The closest city is Cazin, and a bit farther, the cities of Bihać and Bosanski Novi. Across the border, it is not far from Cetingrad...
– had 4,856 killed or missing persons from 1991 to 1995.
1992
After the puppet statePuppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
of Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
was proclaimed in 1991 on the west, the inhabitants of Bihać were not allowed to cross into that territory anymore. After the Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
was proclaimed in 1992 on the east, communities of Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Cazin and Velika Kladuša found themselves surrounded on both sides. The two Serbian armies cooperated in order to capture the Bosniak pocket in the middle of them. It has been blockaded and bombarded by Serbian forces since 12 June 1992. As a consequence, residents of Bihać were forced to live in shelters, without electricity or water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
supply, receiving only limited amounts of relief food. Hunger would occasionally break out. The Bihać county declared a state of emergency
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
and began establishing its own army, the V Corps
V Corps (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
The Fifth Corps was one of seven corps in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The formation was around the Bihać pocket to protect it against the surrounding Serb forces. The Fifth Corps also fought a secessional Muslim forces loyal to Fikret "Babo" Abdić, who was cooperating with...
.
Although he did not have any military education, Tomislav Dretar
Tomislav Dretar
Tomislav Dretar is a Croatian, Bosnian, French and Belgian poet, writer, critic, and translator, as well as an academic, journalist, editor, political leader and president of Bihać's HVO...
, an ethnic Croat, organized the defense of Croats in the Bihać area, became the president of the Croatian Democratic Union
Croatian Democratic Union
The Croatian Democratic Union is the main center-right political party in Croatia. It is the biggest and strongest individual Croatian party since independence of Croatia. The Christian democratic HDZ governed Croatia from 1990 to 2000 and, in partial coalition, from 2003...
(HDZ) of Bihać, established the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) of Bihać and the Bihać area on the 28th of July 1992 in the village of Šmrekovac in the municipality of Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša is a city and municipality in the far northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located near the border with Croatia. The closest city is Cazin, and a bit farther, the cities of Bihać and Bosanski Novi. Across the border, it is not far from Cetingrad...
and become the First President and Military Commander as an officer with the title of colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
. The Croatian units numbered a total of 1,200 men organized as smaller units within the Fifth Bihać Corps
Corps
A corps is either a large formation, or an administrative grouping of troops within an armed force with a common function such as Artillery or Signals representing an arm of service...
as an autonomous Croatian military component. Under his command the Croatian HVO units were a component of the Army of Republic Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A shell fired from Serb positions in the hill exploded in the town centre on 11 August 1992, next to a building converted into a shelter for Bosniak women and children. It killed five people, including three children, and wounded 24. Eight needed amputation
Amputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
s. The director of the town's hospital said "All the casualties were big operations". The inhabitants of Bihać, armed with little except old rifles, had no means of retaliating. Instead, as on every day since 12 June, when the Serbs first began to bombard Bihać, people simply did their best to carry away the wounded and clear up the wreckage. A secretary said it "took hours to wash away the blood". Almost every day the Serbs sent over more shells, some in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some at night. On one day in August, shelling lasted from 6.40pm until after midnight.
The region had a mainly Bosniak population and since the outbreak of armed conflict has received some 35,000 displaced persons, most of them coming from Serb controlled areas around Banja Luka
Banja Luka
-History:The name "Banja Luka" was first mentioned in a document dated February 6, 1494, but Banja Luka's history dates back to ancient times. There is a substantial evidence of the Roman presence in the region during the first few centuries A.D., including an old fort "Kastel" in the centre of...
and Sanski Most
Sanski Most
Sanski Most is a town and municipality in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located on the Sana River in Bosanska Krajina, between Prijedor and Ključ. Administratively it is part of the Una-Sana Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
in the summer of 1992. In return, most of the indigenous Serbs left Bihać and fled to Banja Luka at the same time.
1993
The designation of SrebrenicaSrebrenica
Srebrenica is a town and municipality in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska. Srebrenica is a small mountain town, its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War, the town was the site of the July 1995 massacre,...
as a safe area was extended on 6 May 1993 to include five other Bosnian towns: Sarajevo, Tuzla, Žepa
Žepa
Žepa is a town in the east of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the municipality of Rogatica. Žepa is located northeast of Rogatica itself, southwest of Srebrenica and northwest of Višegrad...
, Goražde
Goražde
Goražde , is a city and municipality in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Drina river. It is located between Foča, Sokolac and Višegrad, and is administratively part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the center of the Bosnian Podrinje Canton.-Location:Goražde is situated on the...
and Bihać. The Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegović
Alija Izetbegovic
Alija Izetbegović was a Bosniak activist, lawyer, author, philosopher and politician, who, in 1990, became the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served in this role until 1996, when he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving until 2000...
, dismissed the concept. He said the havens would become death traps, where refugees, thinking they were safe, would instead become easy targets for Bosnian Serb forces.
Bihać had few food convoys throughout the three years, only the occasional airlift. The wreckage of the bombing lay all around. Sandbags were piled high against houses and bunker
Bunker
A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...
s were dotted on street corners. Almost half the population was drafted into the army to defend the area. Cars almost disappeared from the streets of what was once a relatively prosperous community. There has been nowhere to go and little fuel
Fuel
Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air...
. The post office was piled high with sandbags. Almost every telephone line has been cut since 1991. The deployment of UN troops in the area did not help: Serbian forces inside the UN-protected zone in Croatia hijacked an aid convoy heading for Bihać in April 1993. UN refugee officials stood by helplessly as Serbs made off with 19 tons of food, mainly ready-to-eat meals. Marcus Tanner cynically commented how Serbs from 'UN protected' Krajina are shelling Bihać, a 'UN safe area
United Nations Safe Areas
United Nations Safe Areas were areas established in 1993 in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council....
'.
The Bihać area, which contained 170,000 people, has been denied support from UN aid convoys since May 1993. The entire Bihać area had only one hospital that has exhausted the last of its food and medical reserves by December 1994, so that the feeding of the sick and wounded, more than 900 patients, was limited to one meal per day. Treatment was given only to the most desperate cases whereas operations were being performed under local anesthesia. In this situation, without the necessary food and medicines, infectious diseases were spreading- tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, intestinal diseases, hepatitis
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
, vitamin A deficiency. The hospital was no longer in a position to help the inhabitants of the area.
The enclave was additionally weakened when rebel Bosniak forces led by Fikret Abdić
Fikret Abdic
Fikret Abdić is a politician and businessman from Bosnia and Herzegovina, convicted of war crimes against Bosniaks in the region of Velika Kladuša....
joined Serb extremists in the fighting and created the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia on the north.
1994
The territory of Western Bosnia was seized by the Bosnian government troops in 1994, but they were expelled later that year with the significant help of Serbs, and the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia was re-established.By 27 November 1994, advancing Serb forces took around a third of the zone. Fighting raged less than 500 yards from Bihać hospital and moved closer to the headquarters of the Bosnian Fifth Corps. However, the Security Council had failed to reach agreement on a draft statement that would condemn the Serbs' shelling of and entry into Bihać and call for their withdrawal. The US plan to relieve the city was rejected by France and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Bosnian Serb forces first set a deadline of 1900GMT on 26 November for the town's defenders to surrender. They later amended this with a new offer for Bosnian Muslim troops to surrender to Fikret Abdić
Fikret Abdic
Fikret Abdić is a politician and businessman from Bosnia and Herzegovina, convicted of war crimes against Bosniaks in the region of Velika Kladuša....
's forces. But the mayor of Bihać, Hamdija Kabiljagić, rejected the surrender, saying "it would be the signal for mass slaughter by the Serbs". People were barricading the streets with trees and burned out cars.
Michael Williams, a spokesman for the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
peacekeeping force, said that the village of Vedro Polje west of Bihać
Bihac
Bihać is a city and municipality on the river Una in the north-western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosanska Krajina region. Bihać is located in the Una-Sana Canton in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
had fallen to a Croatian Serb unit in late November 1994. Mr. Williams added that heavy tank and artillery fire against the town of Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša is a city and municipality in the far northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located near the border with Croatia. The closest city is Cazin, and a bit farther, the cities of Bihać and Bosanski Novi. Across the border, it is not far from Cetingrad...
in the north of the Bihać enclave was coming from the Croatian Serbs. Moreover, Western military analysts said that among the impressive array of Serbian surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
systems that surrounded the Bihać pocket on Croatian territory, there was a modernized SAM-2 system whose degree of sophistication suggests that it was probably brought there recently from Belgrade.
Since Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight was a North Atlantic Treaty Organization operation that began on April 12, 1993 as the enforcement of a United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina...
did not allow fighter jets to be used in Bosnia, the Army of Republika Srpska avoided the ban by outsourcing air strikes to the Army of Srpska Krajina: they launched air strikes with aircraft based at a former JNA
Yugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
military airport in Udbina
Udbina
Udbina is a village and a municipality in the Lika region of Croatia. It is an administratively part of in the Lika-Senj county.-Geography:The village is located in the large karst field called Krbava...
, south of Bihać, located in Croatian territory that was at the time controlled by the Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
. The Serb aircraft dropped napalm
Napalm
Napalm is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, primarily as an anti-personnel weapon...
and cluster bombs. Although most of the ordnance came from old, unreliable stocks and failed to explode, the attacks were a clear violation of the no-fly zone. NATO immediately looked for ways to respond, but its forces were not permitted to carry out operations in Croatian airspace, and due to Bihać's proximity to the border, Serb aircraft could attack into Bosnia, then cross back into Croatia before being intercepted. As such, NATO was powerless to stop the incursions. In recognition of the situation, the Security Council passed Resolution 958
United Nations Security Council Resolution 958
United Nations Security Council Resolution 958, adopted unanimously on November 19, 1994, after recalling all resolutions on the situation in the former Yugoslavia including Resolution 836 , the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, determined that the situation in the...
, which allowed NATO aircraft to operate in Croatia.
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 959
United Nations Security Council Resolution 959
United Nations Security Council Resolution 959, adopted unanimously on November 19, 1994, after recalling all resolutions on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina including resolutions Resolution 824 and Resolution 836 , the Council discussed the efforts of the United Nations Protection Force ...
"expressed concern about the escalation in recent fighting in the Bihać pocket and the flow of refugees and displaced persons resulting from it" and condemned the "violation of the international border between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the direct main predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
and demands that all parties and others concerned, and in particular the so-called Krajina Serb forces, fully respect the border
Border
Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
and refrain from hostile acts across it".
1995
The enclave has come under heavy tank and mortar fire again on 23 July 1995 in what UN officials described as “the most serious fighting in Bosnia in months”. Thousands of rebel troops, backed by 100 tanks, have attacked the Bosnian government's army there.The United Nations General Assembly also addressed the issue:
End of siege
After the fall of the SrebrenicaSrebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
and Žepa
Žepa
Žepa is a town in the east of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the municipality of Rogatica. Žepa is located northeast of Rogatica itself, southwest of Srebrenica and northwest of Višegrad...
enclaves in eastern Bosnia in July 1995, Croatia started massing soldiers near Serb positions outside the enclave as Serb forces with tanks and artillery bombarded Bosnian government lines. The goal was to prevent the fall of the Bihać enclave. Likewise, the Croatian and Bosnian leaderships signed a military pact. The siege ended with Operation Storm
Operation Storm
Operation Storm is the code name given to a large-scale military operation carried out by Croatian Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to gain back control of parts of Croatia which had been claimed by separatist ethnic Serbs, since early...
on 4-5 August 1995 conjoined with Bosnian forces under General Atif Dudaković
Atif Dudakovic
Atif Dudaković is a former general in the Bosnian army, commanding the army's Fifth Corps before becoming the general commander of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina army...
. Dudaković said: "We needed Operation Storm as much as Croatia did". After the end of siege, food supplies and medical aid started arriving in the area from Bosnia and Croatia, which normalized lives of the people living there.
ICTY legal proceedings
The ICTY indicted Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
for participating in a joint criminal enterprise
Joint Criminal Enterprise
Joint criminal enterprise ' is a legal doctrine used by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to prosecute political and military leaders for mass war crimes, including genocide, committed during the Yugoslav wars 1991-1999....
, on the grounds that he "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of persecutions of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats" and "aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of the extermination
Extermination
Extermination or exterminate may refer to:* Pest control, elimination of insects or vermin* Genocide, the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group...
, murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and wilful killings of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats", among them within the territories of Bihać.
General Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladić was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
was also indicted on the grounds that he "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution of the persecution of the Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat or other non-Serb populations", among them in Bihać-Ripač
Ripač
Ripač is a village in the municipality of Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina.Ripač is the location of a border crossing with Croatia, across Užljebić.-References:...
.
Domestic trials
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina charged Fikret AbdićFikret Abdic
Fikret Abdić is a politician and businessman from Bosnia and Herzegovina, convicted of war crimes against Bosniaks in the region of Velika Kladuša....
with the deaths of 121 civilians, three POWs and the wounding of 400 civilians in the Bihać region. Croatian authorities arrested him and put him on trial. In 2002 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes committed in the area of the "Bihać pocket”. In 2005 the Croatian Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 15 years.
External links
- French video footage of Bihać in 1992 at Ina.fr