SIX STRATEGIC GOALS: DRAFT FOR GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA

During the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina and military operations from 1992 to the second half of 1995, military and police forces of Bosnian Serbs committed horrific crimes, including genocide over Bosniaks. These crimes were preceded by the adoption of policies and strategic goals of political representatives of Bosnian Serbs of the time.

On 12 May 1992, the sixteenths session of the Assembly of then “Srpska Republika of Bosnia and Herzegovina” was held in Banja Luka, which was already controlled by Serbia army. A long discussion took place on how and what should be done to ensure Serbian victory. On this occasion, president of Republika Srpska, war criminal Radovan Karadžić, announced strategic goals of Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These goals were adopted by Serbian assembly as the official policy of Republika Srpska during the war.

The six strategic goals of Serbian people were the following:

1.     state demarcation from the other two ethnic communities,

2.     a corridor between Semberija and Krajina,

3.     formation of a corridor in the valley of the river Drina, i.e. eliminating the Drina as the border between Serbian states,

4.     formation of a border on the rivers Una and Neretva,

5.     division of the city of Sarajevo into Serbian and Muslim part and establishing effective state authorities in both parts,

6.     outlet of Republika Srpska to the sea.

The first strategic goal implied demarcation of Serbian ethnic community from the community of Muslims and Croats, which would in turn lead to the formation of ethnically “pure” Serbian state in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second strategic goal would achieve territorial connection between Republika Srpska Krajina (a Serbian entity in Croatia which was defeated in 1995) and Yugoslavia (which then consisted only of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro). The third strategic goal was accurately defined by Radovan Karadžić in his address to the Assembly: “We are on the both banks of the Drina, with our strategic interests and our living space. At the moment, we see the establishment of some Muslim municipalities on the banks of the Drina, as enclaves, so that they could exercise their rights, though this area has to be part of Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is both strategically useful for us in a positive way, and helps us to ruin the interest of our enemies to open a corridor which would connect them to the 'Islamic International’ (official Serbian propaganda presented Bosniaks as fundamentalists who desire the formation of an Islamic state and connection with other Muslims in the Balkans, the so-called countries of the 'Green Transversal') and thus make this area unstable.”

The six strategic goals constituted the starting point which shaped the rest of the war. The most horrific crimes were committed after the adoption of the goals in Serbian Assembly. They were later elaborated and “built on” by Directive 4 and, finally, by the Directive 7, which was imposed on the army of Bosnian Serbs by president of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić several weeks before the fall of Srebrenica and Žepa. Directive 7, of 8 March 1995, gave the following orders to the Drina corps of the army of Republika Srpska: “It is necessary to disable as many enemy forces as possible by diversions and active combat operations in the northwest part of the front, using operative and tactical measures of camouflage while, in the direction of enclaves Srebrenica and Žepa, Srebrenica should be completely physically separated from Žepa as soon as possible, by preventing any communication between people from these two enclaves. Well-planned and well-conceived combat operations should create an unbearable situation of absolute uncertainty without any hope for the survival of people of Srebrenica and Žepa.”

Among other things, the six strategic goals show the intention to exterminate Bosniaks of eastern Bosnia who lived in the valley of the river Drina. The sixteenth session of the Assembly of Srpska Republika of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be considered the Wannsee Conference of the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.