Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Siege of Sarajevo
Most travelers know that Bosnia-Herzegovina was torn apart by a war when
Yugoslavia broke up in the early to mid-1990s (see the Understanding Yugoslavia
chapter). But few realize that in that country's capital, Sarajevo, the “war” was not
conventional fighting between armies, but a medieval-style siege designed to cut off
the city from food, water, electricity, telephone, medicine, and other critical supplies.
The Siege of Sarajevo lasted for more than 1,300 days, making it the longest siege in
modern European history (longer than the infamous WWII-era Siege of Leningrad,
a.k.a. St. Petersburg). How could a modern city of some 300,000 people be cut off in
this way?
In early 1992, the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina voted in favor of independence
fromYugoslavia;althoughmanySerbsboycottedtheballotbox,64percentofBosni-
ans turned out, and 98 percent of them voted yes. Over the next month, Bosnian Serb
leaderRadovanKaradži
ć
andBosnianPresidentAlijaIzetbegovi
ć
tradedheatedrhet-
oric about what the new nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina would look like. Meanwhile,
each one built a makeshift army: Izetbegovi
ć
's Bosnian Army asserted control over
Sarajevo's city center, while Karadži
ć
's well-supplied Bosnian Serb troops from the
Yugoslav People's Army fortified their positions on the hills ringing the capital.
On April 1, a Serb militia group invaded the town of Bijeljina in eastern Bosnia,
massacring many innocent civilians. On April 5, some 100,000 Sarajevans—of all
ethnic stripes—came to the busy intersection in front of the Bosnian Parliament to
stage a peace rally. Karadži
ć
watched nervously from his office in the Holiday Inn
across the street. When the protesters turned their attention to his building, he com-
manded his snipers to open fire on the unarmed crowd, killing six. Karadži
ć
fled to
the hills above town, while Izetbegovi
ć
's police moved in and arrested the snipers.
After Izetbegovi
ć
refused Karadži
ć
's ultimatum to release the snipers, Karadži
ć
began shelling the city.
Forthenextmonth,thesituationdegradedinotherpartsofthecountry,asBosnian
Serb paramilitary groups carried out ethnic cleansing. On May 2, 1992, the Bosnian
Serb Army began their advance on the capital in earnest, bombarding Sarajevo's city
center, blowing up its central post office to disable telephone communication, and
erectingbarricades,completelycuttingofftheSarajevansfromtheoutsideworld.The
citywasdefendedbyamotleycollectionofpolicemen,professionalsoldierswhohad
defected from the Yugoslav army, and even criminal street gangs. About 12 percent
of the army was made up of Serbs. It wasn't necessarily a “pro-Bosnia” army—just
