[medo-bear]

the war in bosnia is generally thought to have started due to an illegal independence referendum held at the start of march 1992. if you are ukranian think crimea. also it wasnt a bosnian-serbian war. bosnian is not the same as bosniak. a bosnian is a person from a bosnian region (sometimes also incorrectly referring to people from herzegovina) and not a side in the conflict. you can more correctly say that the war was about bosnians killing bosnians. a bosniak is a nationality, historically slavic muslim, from the region of former yugoslavia. also it was a bosniak/croatian/serbian war, a three side war. moreover it wasnt really a Serbia vs Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Croatia war, as in state vs state, but a civil war faught by people living in bosnia and herzegovina. today bosnia and herzegovina has 3 constituent nationalities: bosniaks, croats, serbs

[aguaviva]

Wars aren't started by referenda, legal or otherwise.

They're started when one side chooses to initiate massive, disproportionate violence against the other.