Painful as it may be, to understand the case of Dusko Tadic, one needs to be familiar with the war in Bosnia. To understand the war in Bosnia, it helps to understand the Balkans. What follows is a brief outline of the main ethnic/religious groups and their roles in the region before the war in 1992.

Despite the animosity and mistrust among the historical enemies in the Balkans, all of the parties in the former Yugoslavia share one important trait: they are all Slavs. Furthermore, a careful consideration of the region's history suggests they all arrived around the same time.

The first Slavs came to the Balkan region in the sixth century. By the mid-seventh century two new Slav tribes appeared in the region: the Serbs and the Croats. The Serbs and Croats each settled in areas which roughly correspond to their modern national boundaries. Neither group was Christian; both probably practiced some form of paganism.

Early in medieval history, three separate religious groups were defined in the Balkan region. In the early middle ages, Serb Slavs became more aligned with the Byzantine Empire to the east and, as a consequence, the Eastern Orthodox faith. On the other side, Croats and the Slavs of Bosnia were aligned with the Hungarian Empire and the Catholic Church. The isolation and remote nature of much of Bosnia, however, created a different church which attracted many Slavs in Bosnia: the Bosnian Church.

Islamicization in Bosnia
In 1463, Ottomans overran Bosnia. Within a few years, a large Muslim population developed. How Muslims came to dominate Bosnia is hotly contested. Some say the Islamicization was a product of immigration rather than conversion. Some argue that Bosnians converted in order to lord over their Serb neighbors: Only Muslims could have leadership roles in the Ottoman state and Muslims enjoyed superior legal status in the Ottoman Empire. In addition, slaves who converted to Islam were automatically freed. Finally, many Muslim Slavs immigrated to Bosnia as the areas Muslim population grew.

19th Century to World War I
The Ottoman occupation of the Balkans lasted until the mid-nineteenth century with varying degrees of control. Throughout this period, Bosnian Muslims were the dominant ethnic-religious group in the Balkan political arena. The Serbs were a vocal political minority.

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and its control over the Balkan region ended. In 1878, the Treaties of San Stefan and Berlin recognized Serbia as an independent kingdom. At the same time, the Hapsburg monarchy occupied Bosnia; it would officially annex the region in 1908.

World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, by Serbian nationalists chaffing under the threats by the Austro-Hungarians to annex Serbia. World War I marked the end of the Ottoman and the Hapsburg empires.

Creation of Yugoslavia
In December 1918, in the wake of World War I, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed, renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. In World War II, Germany invaded the region, forcing the ruling monarchy into exile. There were two resistance groups: chetnicks, royalists eager to re-establish the control of the monarch and the partisans, a communist group led by General Tito. In 1943, the two groups turned against each other. By 1944, the Germans had withdrawn and Tito -- with the backing of the Russians and the presence of the Red Army -- moved toward the establishment of the communist state of Yugoslavia.

In 1946, a new constitution created six republics within the federal republic of Yugoslavia: Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Tito ruled the communist Yugoslavia until his death in 1980.

Post-Cold War Yugoslavia
Tito provided Yugoslavia with stability. Through his strong leadership and the communist apparatus, Tito reduced the fears of ethnic domination felt historically by many of the Yugoslav people. The Serb minority in Croatia, the Muslims of Bosnia, the Croats of Serbia, all felt that Tito and the communist state protected them from ethnic oppression.

With the end of the Soviet Union and the inevitable collapse of the post-Tito communist Yugoslavia, the dormant ethnic tensions flared anew. Several republics feared a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. In 1987, Slobodan Milosevic, a Serbian nationalist, became the Serbian Communist party leader. To the alarm of the other republics, Milosevic and his supporters revived the vision of a Greater Serbia. Towards this end, in early 1989, Serbia rescinded Kosovos autonomy (Kosovo is a province of Serbia) and sent in troops to suppress the protests of Kosovos population -- which is 85% Albanian.

In response to threatened Serbian expansion, Slovenia and Croatia elected non-communist governments in early 1990 and declared their independence on June 25, 1991. (Milosevic had been elected president of Serbia by this time.) Fighting immediately broke out as the federal army (controlled largely by Serbs) moved into Slovenia. By the end of July, federal troops had left Slovenia but fighting continued in Croatia between the Croatian forces and the federally-backed Serbs from the Serbian areas of Croatia.

Bosnia
Bosnia is the only republic in the former Yugoslavia not dominated and defined by one ethnicity. For much of its history, in fact, Bosnia's defining characteristic was its multi-ethnic population and its capital Sarajevos cosmopolitan nature. Before the war, most residents of Bosnia were Croats, Serbs or Muslims, although many would have simply identified themselves as Yugoslavian. In 1992, Muslims accounted for 44% of the population; Croats comprised 17%; and Serbs 31%. As a result of this ethnic mix, the pressures building up in many of the former republics of Yugoslavia affected Bosnian territory even more. With three ethnic-religious groups in one republic, tensions over governance ran especially high. As war raged in Croatia, many observers thought the real battleground might be Bosnia.

In late December 1991, Muslims and Croats in the Bosnian parliament asked the European Community to recognize Bosnia-Hercegovina as an independent state. Serbs insisted that they wanted to remain part of the federal Yugoslavia, and on January 9, 1992, Bosnian Serbs announced that they were forming their own state within the republic, called the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina. In February and March 1992, Bosnia held a referendum on the independence resolution passed by the Bosnian parliament. While Muslims and Croats voted overwhelmingly to approve the establishment of the Bosnia republic, most Serbs boycotted the voting and declared it invalid.

On April 6, 1992, following the recognition of Bosnia by the European Union, the Yugoslav Army (a Serb-controlled national army) and Bosnian Serb paramilitary groups began the siege of Sarajevo. The U.S. recognized Bosnia the next day. At the same time, Serbs declared their independence from Bosnia.

On June 16, 1992, the Bosnian government announced a formal military alliance with Croatia to fight the Serbian and Yugoslav forces. The Bosnian government formally declared a state of war on June 20, 1992. This government is now commonly referred to as the Muslim-led government of Bosnia.

Today, what used to be Yugoslavia consists of only two of the six republics which were formerly part of the federation: Serbia proper and Montenegro. As for the other four former republics of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia), Slovenia , Croatia and Macedonia have been recognized as independent sovereign states. Bosnia has also been recognized as an independent sovereign state, however within Bosnia there are two entities: The Muslim-run Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serb -dominated Republika Srpska.

The Dayton Peace Agreement, which effectively ended the Balkan conflict, formalized this structure.

Casualty estimates vary, but most observers report that about 200,000 are missing or killed since the war began.