March 1: Restoration of Millennial Independence

In the referendum on February 29 and March 1, 1992, out of 64 percent of citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina who responded to the referendum on the restoration of independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 99.44 percent voted "yes".

The referendum question was: "Are you for a sovereign and independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, a state of equal citizens, the peoples of BiH - Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and members of other peoples living in it?".

The decision to hold a referendum on BiH's independence was made in the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia had already declared independence.

It was a time of intense, but mostly unsuccessful, talks between the six presidents of the presidencies of the Yugoslav republics to find a way out of the Yugoslav crisis. However, the war events from Croatia had already spilled over into Bosnia and Herzegovina with the attack of the Yugoslav People's Army in September 1991 on the village of Ravno in southeastern Herzegovina.

Within BiH, it was a time of forming parallel government structures. Under the leadership of the then-Serb Democratic Party, on October 24, 1991, the so-called Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed in Pale, near Sarajevo, which on January 9, 1992, adopted the Declaration on the Proclamation of the so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (whose name was changed to Republika Srpska in August 1992). On November 18, 1991, the so-called Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was proclaimed in Grude.

The fate of the republics of former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, was also intensely discussed at the international level. The Conference on Yugoslavia was held in The Hague, Netherlands, on November 5, 1991, after which the Arbitration Commission of the Conference concluded that the country was disintegrating. In practice, this meant that the SFRY no longer had a legal identity on the international stage.

On December 16, 1991, the European Community adopted the Declaration on Yugoslavia, calling on the Yugoslav republics to apply for the status of independent states by December 23. Three days before the deadline, the Presidency of the SR BiH, without the votes of the Serb members, decided to submit a request for the recognition of the SR BiH as an independent state. However, the report of the Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia, chaired by Robert Badinter, conditioned the international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the holding of a general referendum on independence under international supervision.

Guided by this condition, the Assembly of the SR BiH on January 25, 1992, decided to call a referendum on the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, the Assembly of the SR BiH also decided to withdraw the representatives of the SR BiH from all federal state bodies and organizations of the SFRY.

Representatives of Bosniaks and Croats voted for the parliamentary decision on the referendum, while representatives of the Serb people, at the proposal of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), led by the now Hague indictee Radovan Karadžić, left the parliamentary session.

Karadžić then, in front of the entire Bosnian-Herzegovinian and world public, issued an open threat to the Muslim people.

- What you are doing is not good. This is the path on which you want to lead Bosnia and Herzegovina, the same highway of hell and suffering that Slovenia and Croatia have taken. Do not think that you will not bring Bosnia and Herzegovina into hell, and the Muslim people, perhaps, into extinction. The Muslim people cannot defend themselves if there is a war here," Karadžić said from the parliamentary podium on October 15, 1991.

Alija Izetbegović, President of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, immediately reacted to Karadžić's statement.

- His way of presenting, his messages perhaps best explain why we may no longer want to stay in Yugoslavia... His way of presenting, his messages perhaps best explain why others do not want to stay in that Yugoslavia either. No one wants the kind of Yugoslavia that Mr. Karadžić wants anymore. Perhaps no one except the Serb people wants it anymore. Such a Yugoslavia has been simply hated in the eyes of the Yugoslav peoples, Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians, Hungarians, Muslims... as well as in the eyes of Europe and the world... - Izetbegović said.

The referendum will be conducted by the Republican Election Commission and municipal election commissions.

The then-SDS leadership did everything to prevent citizens of Serb nationality from participating in the referendum. Many SDS supporters were already heavily armed, and barricades were set up on the roads to prevent the delivery of referendum materials.

Despite this fact, about 30 percent of Serbs, mostly in larger BiH cities, went to the polls and supported the restoration of BiH's independence.

The night before the referendum, the media reported that Serb extremists had set up barricades at Komar and killed two people. On the second day of the referendum, the situation was somewhat calmer.
Before the polling stations closed, Alija Izetbegović stated at a press conference:

- I think we can say that we are not only a sovereign and independent state, but also an internationally recognized state.

However, just a few hours after Izetbegović's statement, or after 64 percent of citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina said they wanted the restoration of their country's independence, images from the capital of BiH shocked the world. In the evening of March 1, on Baščaršija, near the Old Orthodox Church, Serb groom Nikola Gardović was killed. This was the reason for the SDS at the time to organize barricades on all major intersections in Sarajevo during the night.
The next day, Sarajevo woke up completely blocked. The SDS crisis headquarters announced a demand to halt all activities on the recognition of a sovereign and independent BiH.

The daily newspaper "Oslobođenje" appeared with a front page headline: "Barricades Against Sarajevo".