Bosnia and Herzegovina 1999

In 1999, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was estimated to be around 4 million people. The economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina was largely based on agriculture, mining, forestry, and manufacturing exports. Its foreign relations were mainly with other European countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. Politically, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999 was a semi-presidential republic under President Alija Izetbegovic. The Prime Minister was Zlatko Lagumdzija and his party held a majority in Parliament. The country had a bicameral parliamentary system known as the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. See ethnicityology for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the year of 2018.

Yearbook 1999

Bosnia and Herzegovina 1999

Bosnia and Herzegovina. Stagnation characterized the political life in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in many cases the international peace coordinator – called the “High Representative” – had to make important political decisions himself. At the beginning of the year, Spaniard Carlos Westendorp was peace coordinator, but he was succeeded by Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch, who showed his muscles as he fired 22 elected politicians from all three peoples groups – Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Before that, Westendorp had kicked, among other things. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republican Srpska President Nikola Poplasen because he refused to cooperate on ethnic diversity, as provided for in the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995. The poplas, an ultranationalist, reacted with anger and urged the Serbs to armed struggle against the dictates of the outside world. However, he was not obeyed.

  • Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of BIH which stands for Bosnia and Herzegovina and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.

Map of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo in English

Despite the great efforts of the Peace Coordinator, his associates and American and European aid organizations, 1.2 million refugees could not return to their homes because of ethnic contradictions; that is close to one third of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s population of 3.5 million. The situation had almost worsened in the divided city of Mostar in Herzegovina in southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the tension between Croats and Muslims was almost sharpened. In the Muslim enclave Goražde in Republika Srpska, Serbs did not dare to move into the more than forty houses that an international aid organization had earmarked for them. At the same time, Goražde was overpopulated by Muslim refugees who did not dare to return to their homes because some other population group was in the majority in their hometowns. In the suburbs of Sarajevo where the Serbs lived until the end of the war in 1995, there was also no relocation to speak of. The Serbs fled their heads when the city attacked the Federation of Muslims and Croats.

Business was hampered by a pervasive bureaucracy, brother-in-law and corruption. In the summer, the American New York Times published a secret-stamped report that showed that politicians and authorities in Bosnia had stolen a billion dollars from international aid, amounting to just over $ 5 billion.

In Sarajevo, a large conference was held in the summer, drawing up a stability plan for the entire Balkan Peninsula, attended by heads of state and government from around the world, including US President Bill Clinton. UN coordinator Carl Bildt emphasized that this was not an actual pact but about the beginning of a process.

The conflict over the city of Brčko on the banks of the Savas river, which linked the eastern and western parts of the Republika Srpska and which both Croats and Muslims and Serbs claimed, was resolved by an international arbitration tribunal. He decided that the city should be an autonomous, multicultural district under the supervision of the world community.

The Swedish battalion, which was a member of the NATO-led SFOR (Stabilization Force) force, was withdrawn, and only about forty Swedes remained at the turn of the year. The entire NATO force in Bosnia and Herzegovina lost from 32,000 to 19,000 soldiers. The SFOR force seized a few suspected war criminals during the year, but still Serbald Radovan Karadžić and General Ratko Mladić, both prosecuted for war crimes at the War Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, were released.

The process of disintegration of the Yugoslav federation, after the independence of Slovenia and Croatia (June 1991), continued through the dismemberment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On April 7, 1992, R. Karadžić (leader of the SDS), after having rapidly occupied about 70 % of the Bosnian territory, proclaimed the birth of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its capital Pale. In response, the Croats of Herzegovina established the self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna (May 15, 1992), with West Mostar as its capital and president M. Boban, of the HDZ, which later became the Republic of Herceg-Bosna on August 28, 1993.. These dates include that of the declaration of independence from the Yugoslav federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on April 6, 1992. Subsequently, in northwestern Bosnia, a faction of secessionist Muslims, led by F. Abdić, declared the Bihać (Zapadna Bosna) area autonomous in September 1993. Thus, at the end of that year, under the control of Izetbegović’s government, only 9 % of the Bosnian territory remained. At the same time, during 1993, there was an exacerbation of the Croatian-Muslim conflict which had caused great tragedies in central Bosnia. One of the symbols of the harshness of the clashes then became the demolition, by the local Croatian militia, of the Old Bridge (Stari Most), which made the division of the city of Mostar even more tangible: the West (Croatian) and the eastern part (Muslim), almost completely razed to the ground by Croatian bombing.

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