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Interesting article totally unrelated to the Cyprus problem but it blames Turkey for something.

A Genetic History of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The word Bosnia originates from the name of the river “Bosna”, which historians believe is Illyrian in origin. Herzegovina is named after the Croatian duke Stjepan Vukčić Kosača. The region literally translates into “Duke’s land”, since Vukčić Kosača was a duke – or a Herzog in German.

So, since one region is named after a river, and the other is named after a duke, who or what are the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Bosnians? Herzegovinians? The people are neither from an ethnical standpoint, since there was never a tribe of “Bosnians” nor a tribe of “Herzegovinians.” Being Bosnian and Herzegovinian can only refer to whoever lives or is born in these regions, regardless of their ethnicity.

With that in mind who, then, are the people of these regions – ethnically? The answer, based on history and genetic analysis conducted in Vancouver, Canada, is that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina are by vast majority count, Croats. The historic evidence is enormous. Prior to the Turkish occupation of the land, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were both ruled by a Croat king named Tomislav, who governed over these territories as a single nation. The population of united Croatia, prior to the Ottoman occupation, was as follows:

850,000-900,000 inhabitants in total.
Ethnic Serbs, mostly in Podrinje, about 25,000.
Ortodox Wallachians in Duklja and Travunja, about 30,000.
Croats-Catholics about 750,000.
Croats-Krstyani about 80,000.

With the fall of Bosnia in 1463 to the Ottoman Turks, everything changed. As the occupation drew into its first century, many Croats had already been converted to Islam. Islamization of the Croatian population in Bosnia was conducted through blackmailing and, at its most extreme, kidnapping of Croatian children which were sent back to Turkey in order to become Janissaries (or the sultan’s personal infantry unit), through forced Islamization. Once of age, the children were sent back to Bosnia, fully converted and uprooted from their ancestral roots.

As even more time passed, Croats of Bosnia fully forgot their Croatian heritage and were submersed into Ottoman traditions. Even the duke, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, after whom Herzegovina is named, fell victim to Muslim indoctrination by Ottoman forces and eventually changed his name to Ahmed Hercegović. Many Croats followed the same fate as the duke. After 415 years, in 1878, the Ottoman Empire finally withdrew from Bosnia-Herzegovina, leaving a population which was by now fully detached from their Croatian heritage. Eventually, during the Austro-Hungarian rule, the vast majority of Croat Muslims became furthermore uncomfortable as Croats, since they had become culturally Ottomans. They opted for a separate ethnicity, one which was primarily based on their Islamic culture. Austrian authorities gave in to their demands, and allowed Croat Muslims to declare themselves as Bosniaks.

The first Yugoslavia did not sympathize with the artificial creation of such ethnicity, and removed the option on declarations. It was not until 1971 that Josip Broz Tito, now leader of the second and communist Yugoslavia, allowed Croat Muslims to declare themselves as a separate ethnic group (then called Muslims by Nationality). With the collapse of Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1991-92, the term Bosniak reemerged and was officially recognized during the battle for an independent Bosnia by Bosnian authorities.

But even with the majority yearning for a separate ethnicity within Bosnia, the history is quite clear. Bosniaks were never a tribe (like the Croats had been for example), nor was there any historic evidence that supported their existence prior to the Austrian authorities recognizing them. Bosniaks are, by all genetic and historic accounts, Croats. This fact bothers many, but it is a painful truth that was complicated from the forced occupation by the Ottoman Empire. It should be on Turkey’s conscience of the damage they infiltrated on Bosnia's population which has now, thanks to them, forgotten their true ancestral history. The identity issue that is so commonplace within Bosnia even today would never have become an issue had it not been for the forced occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosniaks are victims of Turkish colonization and ancestral depravation.

http://www.sarajevo.net/content/274-A-G ... erzegovina