|
The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. After being initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army, Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 (1,425 days) during the Bosnian War. The siege lasted three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the Siege of Leningrad.〔(Spencer Burke, Sarajevo Rose )〕 After Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Serbs—whose strategic goal was to create a new Bosnian Serb state of Republika Srpska (RS) that would include parts of Bosnian territory—encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 13,000 stationed in the surrounding hills. From there they assaulted the city with artillery, tanks and small arms. From 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian government defence forces (ARBiH) inside the besieged city, numbering some 70,000 troops, were poorly equipped and unable to break the siege. A total of 13,952 people were killed during the siege, including 5,434 civilians. The ARBiH suffered 6,137 fatalities, while Bosnian Serb military casualties numbered 2,241 soldiers killed. The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980. There are estimates that prior to the siege the population in the city proper was 435,000. The current estimates of the number of persons living in Sarajevo range from between 300,000 to 380,000.〔 After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted two Serb officials for numerous counts of crimes against humanity committed during the siege. Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years imprisonment respectively, while Momčilo Perišić received a 27 year-sentence, before being released on appeal in February 2013. One of the 11 indictments against Radovan Karadžić, the former president of the Republika Srpska, is for the siege. ==Background== From its creation following World War II, the government of Yugoslavia kept a close watch on nationalist sentiment among the many ethnic and religious groups that composed the country, as it could have led to chaos and the breakup of the state. When Yugoslavia's longtime leader Marshal Tito died in 1980 this policy of containment underwent a dramatic reversal. Nationalism experienced a renaissance in the 1980s after violence had erupted in Kosovo. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralisation of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to the federalisation and the decentralisation of the state. On 18 November 1990, the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (with a 2nd round on 25 November), which resulted in a national assembly dominated by three ethnically based parties, which had formed a loose coalition to oust the communists from power.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Balkans: A post-Communist History )〕 Croatia and Slovenia's subsequent declarations of independence and the warfare that ensued placed Bosnia and Herzegovina and its three constituent peoples in an awkward position. A significant split soon developed on the issue of whether to stay with the Yugoslav federation (overwhelmingly favored among Serbs) or to seek independence (overwhelmingly favored among Bosniaks and Croats). The Serb members of parliament, consisting mainly of Serb Democratic Party members, abandoned the central parliament in Sarajevo, and formed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24 October 1991, which marked the end of the tri-ethnic coalition that governed after the elections in 1990. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 January 1992, which became the Republika Srpska in August 1992. A declaration of Bosnian sovereignty on 15 October 1991 was followed by a referendum for independence from Yugoslavia on 29 February and 1 March 1992. This referendum was boycotted by the vast majority of the Serbs. The turnout in the independence referendum was 63.4% and 99.7% of voters voted for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on 3 March 1992. Following a period of escalating tensions the opening shots in the incipient Bosnian conflict were fired when Serb paramilitary forces attacked Bosnian Croat villages around Capljina on 7 March 1992 and around Bosanski Brod and Bosniak town Goražde on 15 March. These minor attacks were followed by much more serious Serb artillery attacks on Neum on 19 March, on Bosanski Brod on 24 and 30 March 1992 on Bijeljina. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Siege of Sarajevo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|