In November 1995 peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, to work out the details of an agreement that provided for settlement of the war in Yugoslavia. This conflict began in April 1992 after nationalist Serb snipers fired on peaceful demonstrators in Sarajevo. Bosnia-Herzegovina, after seceding from the Yugoslav Federated Republic, was recognized by the West in May 1992 as an independent state. Bosnian Serbs, supported by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevics, immediately began an armed war with the goal of dividing the republic along ethnic lines. Reports of “ethnic cleansing”—the mass murder and/or dispossession of non-Serbs—and other atrocities soon reached the international press. U. S. president William J. Clinton became a vocal advocate for a search for peace. The peace conference worked out the details of an accord that provided for an Implementation Force (IFOR) made up of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeeping troops, and national elections to be held in September 1996. The United States supplied 20,000 soldiers to the operation. Although imperfect—the concerns of Albanians in Kosovo were not considered— the Dayton negotiations made progress toward ending the war and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The presidents of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia signed the agreement, which confirmed the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
See also foreign policy.
—Michele Rutledge
World History
