Serb forces pre-armed and pre-positioned to occupy 70 percent of Bosnia upon its recognition

Evidence

On April 6-7, 1992, after Bosnians had voted for independence in a referendum, the European Community and the United States recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina as a sovereign state. Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb nationalists had declared their own independent “Republika Srpska” (Serbian Republic) and set up their headquarters in the town of Pale, not far from Sarajevo, with Karadzic as their president and backed by Serbia. The Yugoslav army and the Serb militias invaded the new nation from all sides: from the Serb-controlled areas of Croatia known as Krajina, from Serbia, and from Montenegro. Units of the Yugoslav army stationed in Bosnia had ringed the hills around Sarajevo with massive artillery, ostensibly as a “training exercise.” And local Bosnian Serb extremists had been armed in advance by agents of Serbian militias and the Yugoslav army. By the fall of 1992, the Serb military had occupied 70 percent of BosniaHerzegovina, after rolling over towns and villages that were lacking in basic defense capability. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 72

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim of advanced arming and “training exercise” artillery rings deserves cross-verification against other accounts of the pre-war military buildup.

Related

• The Bosnian conflict was organized destruction rather than a war (similarity 0.78)