//Skip to content
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Bosnia and Burma: How History Repeats Itself

October 1, 2017
A group of Rohingya refugee people walk in the water after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 1, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

History seems to be in the remake. The tragedy occurring now to the Rohingya in Burma, who face “ethnic cleansing” by the hands of Burmese military, as described by the UN, is very much reminiscent of what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, where Muslim Bosnians were also subject to ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces. The Bosnian War It all began in 1992, when Bosnia’s Muslims voted for independence from Yugoslavia in a referendum boycotted by Serbs. War broke out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), laid siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 percent of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims. In 1995, Serbs troops, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, captured the eastern enclave and UN “safe area” of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslims. The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Karadzic and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo. Following an intervention by NATO, Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agreed to a U.S.-brokered peace deal in…


Hi guest,

You've read all of your free articles.
Subscribe now to support independent journalism and to enjoy:


Unlimited access to all our articles

Exclusive events and offers

First access to new premium newsletters

Ability to comment on articles

Full user profile