Reports of mass killings and rape slowly came out of Bosnia, and once photos and videos of concentration camps were published by Western journalists, the reports captured the world’s attention. “No other atrocity campaign in the twentieth century was better monitored and understood by the U.S. government than the Bosnian genocide,” said author Samantha Power. Despite the amount of information and unquestionable evidence of genocide, the U.S. government under both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton initially chose to remain apart and showed no interest in the conflict.
In July of 1992, the first international press reports, photos, and videos of the issue in Bosnia were published, bringing back memories and images of the horror of the Holocaust fifty years earlier. Even with the public outrage seen after releasing these reports, the international community still refused to intervene. A year later, after Serbian forces had taken over several Bosniak-dominated cities, the UN established six safe areas that were to be protected by international peacekeepers. There were very few weapons and orders not to fire unless in self-defense, meaning these peacekeepers were pretty useless. The Bosnian Serbs not only attacked the Safe Havens but also attacked the peacekeepers as well. The Serbs took hundreds of peacekeepers as hostages and turning them into human shields, chained to military targets such as ammo supply dumps. After three weeks of negotiations, a peace was declared. Terms of the agreement included partitioning Bosnia into two main sections known as the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The agreement called for democratic elections and declared that war criminals would be handed over for prosecution.
In July of 1992, the first international press reports, photos, and videos of the issue in Bosnia were published, bringing back memories and images of the horror of the Holocaust fifty years earlier. Even with the public outrage seen after releasing these reports, the international community still refused to intervene. A year later, after Serbian forces had taken over several Bosniak-dominated cities, the UN established six safe areas that were to be protected by international peacekeepers. There were very few weapons and orders not to fire unless in self-defense, meaning these peacekeepers were pretty useless. The Bosnian Serbs not only attacked the Safe Havens but also attacked the peacekeepers as well. The Serbs took hundreds of peacekeepers as hostages and turning them into human shields, chained to military targets such as ammo supply dumps. After three weeks of negotiations, a peace was declared. Terms of the agreement included partitioning Bosnia into two main sections known as the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The agreement called for democratic elections and declared that war criminals would be handed over for prosecution.