Agony of Sarajevo siege

Agony of Sarajevo siege, 20 years later

 

The Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada would like to commemorate the Siege of Sarajevo that lasted from April 6, 1992 to February 29, 1996, during the war of aggression on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. It is estimated that during the siege, of the more than 12,000 people killed and 50,000 wounded, 85 percent were civilians. The Siege of Sarajevo not only marked the start of the war of aggression, but also the beginning of genocide and ethnic cleansing throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

In 2003 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted the first commander of the Republika Srpska para-military force and former Yugoslav People’s Army Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, Stanislav Galic, for the crimes against humanity committed during the Siege of Sarajevo. In 2007, Dragomir Milosevic, the Serb general who replaced Galic as commander, was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well.

 

The residents of the capital city of Sarajevo have historically lived in tolerance and diversity; in a city where Christianity, Islam and Judaism flourished side by side for centuries. Unfortunately, Sarajevo was the object of aggressor’s siege whose goal was to destroy its multiethnic fabric and eliminate any semblance of religious and cultural cohabitation.Today, we remember the heroic perseverance that Sarajevo endured in its fight to maintain the spirit of peace and coexistance during the four years of its siege.

 

For 1, 425 days, the brave residents of Sarajevo lived without water, electricity, medicine, and with very little food. The once vibrant and beautiful city was under constant shelling by Serb forces that bombed the city from the surrounding hills. In 1994, the Washington Post reported on a young, wounded man waiting for care at Sarajevo's Kosevo Hospital. He described the city: "There are trucks of dead, there are legs, arms, heads – as many as you want." This was the gruesome everyday reality of Sarajevo's residents. 

 

Genocide in Sarajevo

In Sarajevo under siege, in the period between 1992 and 1996, the individuals – civilians and civilian population and civilian objects protected by international humanitarian law were subjected to numerous forms of crimes against humanity and international law, and the gravest crimes of relevance for the international community as a whole, of versatile and different features – elements and characteristics, contents and form, committed in various ways, in the same or different areas at the same or at different times, directly or indirectly or in other ways.

 

The pursuit of the forbidden warfare is Sarajevo, in form of the siege, facilitated a coordinated, long-lasting, widespread and systematic campaign (military strategy) of shelling and sniping of civilians and civilian populations and civilian objects from the artillery, mortars, and infantry weapons. The intentional shelling and sniping resulted in the death of thousands of civilians, of both genders and all age groups, including children.

 

Civilians were intentionally shelled in their everyday activities or civilian locations. Namely, civilians were exposed to fire while in the streets, houses, water queue, in line for bread or while they were doing other things, in ambulances, hospitals, trams, buses, at funerals and other locations. Children were exposed to fire while in schools, houses, playgrounds, in the streets, kindergartens, water queues, in line for food and other places.

 

Around 340,000 residents lived in the town itself, and they were constantly kept under siege and they were permanently exposed to indiscriminate artillery and sniper activities, and all forms of inhumane warfare against civilians and civilian population.

 

In this strategy of planning, preparation, and execution of genocide and other forms of crimes against humanity and international law in Sarajevo under siege, but also in all other occupied places under siege in Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied by the great Serbian aggressor, especially important part relates to the strategy of systematic targeting the civilians. A special form of planning, preparation, and execution of the strategy of commission of crimes (targeting civilians) was directed against the most sensitive and most vulnerable part of the population – children.

 

Great Serbian aggressor applied the tactics of keeping Sarajevo under siege, intentional shelling, and sniping of civilians and civilian objects. Military strategy of shelling and sniping was pursued all around Sarajevo, with the intention to kill, injure, and terrorize the civilians of Sarajevo, which resulted in death or injuring of thousands of civilians of both genders and all age groups, including the children and the elderly.

 

The great Serbian aggressor intentionally fired at civilians for a distance, using the infantry weapons for direct activity (special sniper rifles with optical aim, different automatic and semi-automatic rifles).

 

Due to the heavy shelling, strong artillery and tank attacks, including the incendiary shells of civilian targets in Sarajevo, BašÄaršija was burnt, being of center of downtown, National and university library, Railways station, Zetra Olympic hall and other facilities, being essential facilities and landmarks in the city. Residential buildings were shelled and many of them were set on fire. Markets, trams, water points were shelled. Victims sustained injuries, and they still suffer the physical and mental consequences.

 

Serb snipers (well trained) shot at civilians, including young children, in their homes, in water and bread lines, while they were trying to get some firewood, in trams, while they were doing everyday things, talked to their neighbors. Moreover, Sarajevo-Romanija Corps organized special training for snipers in a barracks at Jahorina mountain.

 

Shelling of civilians and civilian population in Sarajevo under siege was intentionally directed against civilians. Mortar shelling was an everyday occurrence, and the principal objective was to kill and injure civilian population. There are so many examples of these activities, such as shelling of market Markale on 5 February 1994 and market Markale on 28 August 1995, on which occasion 111 civilians were killed (68 – Markale I and 43 – Markale II) and 245 injured (104 – Markale I and 141 – Markale II). In both cases, ICTY found that this crime was committed by SRC, and that the shelling was directed against civilians.

 

ICTY, based on the research of the Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the Sarajevo University, assessed also that “the total number of deceased in the territory of six Sarajevo municipalities /parts of six Sarajevo municipalities: Centar, Ilidža, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Stari Grad, and VogošÄ‡a/ in the period between April 1992 and December 1995 was 18,889”, including, according to other sources, 1,601 children, whereby in Sarajevo under siege 61,136 person was injured, of which 14,946 were children.

 

The available and clear evidence confirm the subjective (mental) element of genocide - intent (mens rea) to commit genocide against Bosniacs in Sarajevo and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To that end, we remind of the evidence relative to genocidal intention of the Serb leadership to establish a single Serb state, publicly presented by the highest officials who directly worked on this joint criminal enterprise of genocidal character.

 

Intentional, premeditated, coordinated, wide-spread, systematic, fierce, non-selective, excessive and disproportional campaign of shelling against the civilian population and civilian areas of Sarajevo and sniping attacks against the civilians resulted in, inter alia, thousands of killed, was conducted in continuity and in the way not recorded in the history of humanity since the Second World War. Such a campaign was not directed to an abstract social group, civilian population, as alleged in the indictments of Galić and Milošević, but at the specific group, protected (legally) under the international humanitarian law, which lived (and is still living) in Velešići, Pofalići and other settlements used to be under siege. Mostly the population at which the artillery and other fire was intentionally directed by the highest-ranked officers of Serbia and Montenegro (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), Ratko Mladić Stanislav Galić, Dragomir Milošević and others were Bosniacs, national, ethnical and religious group as such.