ABSTRACT
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a virtually landlocked Balkan state which shares boundaries with Croatia and Yugoslavia. The country is therefore located on the fracture zone between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. After World War II, Bosnia-Herzegovina became one of the six republics of the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY), established and ruled as a communist state by Tito. Ethnic conflict mounted and in April 1992 the UN Security Council agreed to the deployment of a UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR). The VanceOwen plan of early 1993 envisaged a decentralised state divided into 10 semi-autonomous provinces. In the meantime, following the pattern established after the Gulf War, the UN Security Council recognised six Muslim safe areas. The next suggested solution, the OwenStoltenberg plan which would have resulted in the division of Bosnia into three ethnically based states under a federal constitution. In early 1995 following a UN/NATO air strike, the Bosnian Serbs took 400 UN peacekeepers as hostages.
