yugoslavias implosion

will not accept any dictate and in the spirit of their tradition, they
will give the eu and its subsidiaries a resolute no.” 294 In January 1992,
the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Republika Srpska of the
Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina was adopted by the Assembly
of the Bosnian Serbs; the Constitution of the Republika Srpska was
promulgated on February 28.
On April 6, 1992, immediately after a referendum in which the
majority of the Bosnia-Herzegovina population—Muslims and Croats,
as well as some Serbs—voted for independence, the governments
of the European Union and the United States decided to recognize
Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state. This decision met with
general Serbian condemnation. Vojislav Šešelj advocated the “demarcation
of the Serb territories in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the establishment
of an autonomous Territorial Defense and police in the
territories, controlled by rs of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and liberation of
the territories, which, in terms of the population structure, belong to
the Serb Bosnia-Herzegovina.” 295 Ćosić wrote to the congress of Serbian
intellectuals in Sarajevo on March 26, 1992: “We Serbs, Muslims,
and Croats, respectful of the historical experience and the present
state of affairs among us, need to separate and partition as fairly as
possible.” In his diary, Ćosić noted: “The collapse of Yugoslavia compels
the Serbs to find a state-political form for the solution of their
national question. I see it now in a federation of Serb lands. This federation
should encompass not ‘All Serbs,’ but all Serb ethnic areas .” 296
Sarajevo, which was first attacked in April 4, 1992, and remained
under siege for four years, served as a cover, drawing attention away
from the ethnic cleansing of the predominant Muslim population in
eastern and western Bosnia. Concentration camps, mass expulsions,
and mass rapes were all part of a deliberate policy to create ethnically
294 Borba, December 23, 1991
295 Vecernje novosti, April 3, 1992 .
296 Vecernje novosti, August 19, 1992 .
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