ABSTRACT
War erupted in Bosnia-Herzegovina on 2 April 1992. eljko Ražnjatović, who operated under the nom-de-guerre of ‘Arkan’, conducted a raid on Bijeljine, a small town on the Serbian border. He claimed that he was preventing a massacre of Serbs, but it was dozens of Muslims who were killed (Bennett 1995:187). Fighting spread to Sarajevo on 5 April, when Serb gunmen fired indiscriminately from the top of the Holiday Inn hotel at thousands of anti-war demonstrators offering their support for a multi-national Bosnia and calling for fresh elections. The next day the EU and the USA recognised Bosnia as an independent state, but neither showing any sign of being ready or willing to intervene to deter violence. Soon Serb heavy artillery was pounding the city. There is evidence that the VJ, successor to the JNA, hoped to take Sarajevo in seven to ten days and all of Bosnia in three to four months (Divjak 2001:157). However, a resistance force, under Sefer Hafilović, made up for the unpreparedness of Izetbegović and the SDA, and managed to knock out columns of JNA troops (Hoare 2001:186).
