Richard AmmonBosnia is not far from any border crossing with Croatia. This one, near the Plitvice Lakes Park, led to a short visit
to the Bosnian provincial capitol of Bihac. It’s a university city with many students and a somewhat lively downtown.
But the feeling of recovery is still present especially with many bullet holes in numeous buildings and the ‘statue of peace’ (a woman holding a dove) is also pocked with bullet holes.
(See video of the carnage in Bihac during the Balkans War; in contrast to the Bihac Tourist Office video).
Bihac´ suffered the destruction of many buildings during the recent Bosnian War, when the area around the city
was under siege by the Bosnian Serb forces for over three years, until the summer of 1995 when the siege
was broken in the beginning of the Croats’ Operation Storm conjoined with Bosnian forces under
General Atif Dudakovic.Because the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a consequence of the instability
in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia, and due to the involvement of neighboring countries Croatia
and Serbia and Montenegro, there was long-standing debate as to
whether the conflict was a civil war or a war of aggression.
