On April 6, 1992, the day of the recognition of the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the European Community, thousands of citizens from all over the country gathered in Sarajevo and called for peace.Croats, Serbs, Bosnians are gathered together in the streets.But from the roof of the Holiday Inn hotel, Serbian nationalists open fire on the crowd.The city then changed in a seat which will last 44 months, until February 1996. From the heights, the forces of the Bosnia Serbs bombard the capital, snipers shoot the besieged inhabitants and a complete blockade is established.
Thirty years later, the images of this seat which had turned upside down the world are engraved in all minds.On the occasion of the commemorations and a few days after the discovery, following the withdrawal of Russian troops, many corpses in the Ukrainian City of Boutcha, the local authorities did not fail to parallel with the current conflict.
"What had not been arrested in the 1990s in Bosnia becomes even more visible through Europe and the world," deplored on Tuesday, as the AFP, the mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, reported, duringFrom the ceremony organized at the National Library, a symbol of the destruction committed during the siege, now rebuilt."What we thought were belonging to the history of human dishonor returns to the scene through the fascist brutality, destruction and ideology adorned with new clothes," added Benjamina Karic, who was a year in April 1992.
"A fierce desire to resist and survive"
During the headquarters of Sarajevo, more than 11,500 people, including 1,600 children and adolescents, had been killed and more than 50,000 people injured by the forces of the Bosnian Serbs.For Henry Zipper of Fabiani, associate researcher at the Iris and specialist in the Balkans, the said seat had then marked "the hard alarm of a Europe frozen by the iron curtain and the east-west opposition and the sudden reappearance on the groundEuropean of an unnamed War of Wild ".For this former ambassador, this conflict notably marked the Western countries by "admiration for the very dignified and heroic behavior of the inhabitants of Sarajevo who, at the time, had not wanted to be lowered to the state of wild beasts".The images of men and women running under the bullets in "Sniper Alley" to go to work or from the artistic life that continued under the bombings thus remained vivid in our minds.
This behavior is one of the similarities observed by Loïc Trégourès, doctor of political science and member of the Balkan observatory, since the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.Thirty years apart, the current conflict has also highlighted the "queues, people hidden in the basement, disbelief when it starts and the fierce desire to resist and survive".
"A local conflict that quickly became international"
But for the historian Anne Madelain, researcher at the European Research Center of Inalco, we must not fall into the comparison trap."Sarajevo's seat had taken place as part of a country that bursts with the dislocation of Yugoslavia. Ukraine has been independent for thirty years. It is not the same configuration," notes this specialist in the Balkans."Nor are we in the same technological context. In 1992, we were before the Internet era. Sarajevo was a cut city, without mail or communications. The journalists who were then on site were the only sources of'Information ", specifies the researcher.
However, the historian notes a possible comparison with Ukraine today, that of "a local conflict very quickly became international". At the time, as early as July 1992, an air bridge was set up by the UN to provide humanitarian aid. But for three and a half years, the international community seemed to be unable to put an end to the violence committed in particular against civilians. "The UN device was unsuitable, but it had been decided in the context of the previous stages of the break -up of Yugoslavia. We were in the midst of mutation. The Americans also considered that it was a problem of Europeans and that NATO should not be hired because its doctrine was then exclusively the defense of the territory of its member states. It was necessary to adapt this doctrine and create the rapid action force (FAR) to support and then replace the force of Protection of the United Nations (FORPRONU) ", summarizes Henry Zipper from Fabiani.
In 1995, with the downstream of the UN, NATO launched targeted strikes on the positions of the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia.Finally, they led to a ceasefire and the signing in December 1995, in Paris, of the Dayton Peace Accords.Since then, the country has been administered by two distinct entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian Republic of Bosnia (Republika Srpska), without forgetting the district of Brcko, to the north, to particular status.More than twenty-five years after the end of the war, tensions are still lively between the different communities.
"A risk of secession"
In December 2021, the Parliament of the Bosnian Serbs thus laid the first milestones of what is a process of separation from the country's Serbian entity, thus implementing the threats of the separatist leader Milorad Dodik, the elected officialSerbian in the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.The parliamentarians gave a period of six months to organize the departure of the Serbs of three crucial institutions of this central state already little provided: the army, the justice and the taxes.
"There should be a response from the institutions in June and we are in a relatively blocked situation with the risk of a secession sustained by Russia, which is increasingly involved in the geopolitics of the Balkans", specifies the historianAnne Madelain."This is really the danger. A situation where other international actors are interfering and play the card of the division."For their part, the Croatian nationalists of Bosnia led by Dragan Covic defend an electoral reform aimed at strengthening the ethnic character of the vote.Negotiations on this reform finally failed on March 20, but the Croatian and Serbian nationalists threaten today to boycott the elections of October 2 which must renew the parliaments of all the entities of the country.
For Loïc Trégourès, the future is uncertain."No one knows what this can lead to" and, within the population, "fear exists with regard to the degradation of the local political situation", he analyzes.According to this specialist in Balkans, however, we must not look too much back: "A war never reproduces identical. If we anticipate that - something that will look like what we saw thirty years ago-, we are wrong. "
En attendant, Sarajevo, qui continue de panser ses plaies, pense aujourd’hui aux villes ukrainiennes assiégées. "De cette ville, symbole de la résistance, nous disons qu'il ne faut jamais perdre l'espoir et renoncer au combat pour un meilleur avenir", a lancé la maire Benjamina Karic lors des commémorations du 30e anniversaire du début du siège. "Abandonnée par quasiment tout le monde, sans armes, sans électricité, sans eau, sans nourriture, sans gaz, Sarajevo ne s'est jamais rendue", a-t-elle rappelé.
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