Twenty years ago , April 5 , 1992 , Suada Dilberovic and Olga Sucic were shot and killed in Sarajevo . They were the shots heard around the world and they started the Bosnian War . I covered that war , and many colleagues are gathering in Sarajevo now to commemorate what took hundreds of thousands of lives , left so many more wounded , and created millions of refugees . This was the war that introduced us to the term `` ethnic cleansing . '' The dominant Balkan power at the time , Serbia wanted to keep Yugoslavia together , and failing that , to carve out ethnically pure areas in the breakaway states to create a Greater Serbia . It was a horrible fantasy that sought to destroy an ethnically mixed , intermarried community that had lived peacefully and progressively together in Bosnia . This war was defining for the region , for the world and for those of us who covered it . See some amazing photos from the war . We witnessed the heroic resistance of a population under siege and shelling and sniping for nearly four years . We learned the pain of watching men , women and children brutally slaughtered . These were the non-combatants , casually targeted in the crosshairs of the sniper 's rifle , blown apart by mortar shells when they went to collect water , bread , fuel or even heading to school . We learned the bitter cynicism of the international community that refused for some time to intervene , the United States and its allies finding every which way , and every tortured rhetorical device -- including refusing to use the word genocide -- to avoid getting off the sidelines . I will never forget going to the funerals , one for a little girl called Almedina . Sarajevo had run short of everything even the letter `` A '' so Almedina 's grave marker could not be spelled correctly . I will never forget the mothers and fathers who would try to brave the siege around Sarajevo airport , then try to make a dash to the other side where in one village they could buy or scrounge some fresh fruit or vegetables , anything to complement the meager rations and dried food the humanitarian airlift would bring . The night I was out there , a father managed to find a single apple for his child . For that he had risked his life . On Friday more than 11,000 empty chairs will be arranged in silent poignant and powerful memory of Sarajevo 's war dead . Along with the citizens of Sarajevo and other besieged Bosnian towns and villages , many of our colleagues were killed and wounded . And who will ever forget the death camps , the skeletal prisoners who evoked the terrible crimes of World War II ? But this was at the end of the 20th century . This was the satellite age . We were there and we reported the story day in and day out , week after week , month ... year after year . This was the era of `` never again '' and it was happening again -- ethnic cleansing and genocide here in our own backyard , and on our watch . We fought back with all the power of our media . For me , Bosnia was where I learned about the truth . Horrified when the do-nothing crowd suggested I was taking sides , or losing my objectivity , I was forced to confront this charge , and examine our Golden Rule . Here in Bosnia I determined that in the face of unspeakable crimes and the most serious violations of international humanitarian order , there is no moral equivalence , no blurring the line between victim and aggressor . Objectivity means giving all sides a fair hearing . It does not mean drawing a false moral equivalence . In this case there is no one-hand-or-the other . And anyone who seeks to hide under that calumny is not just a liar , but an accessory , in this case to genocide . I refused . It is the lesson of my lifetime . As we all know , tens of thousands of deaths later including at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 , the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two , the U.S. finally intervened with NATO allies , ended the war and launched the peace that holds to this day . No country , no crisis , is the same . Of course Syria is not Bosnia , nor is it Libya , but in Syria today a heavily armed military is besieging and slaughtering ordinary civilians and outgunned rebels too as the state tries to crush an uprising . Just like in Bosnia , the Syrian rebels/opposition have been denied the right to self defense , for fear of `` accelerating the conflict on the ground and making it worse . '' Just like in Bosnia when the U.S. and its allies said they could not intervene `` because it 's a civil war and all sides are equally guilty , '' ( although that was not the case as there was a clear aggressor ) in Syria today they say they `` do n't know who to help , who to arm , the opposition is fragmented . '' The lesson of Bosnia is that our democratic and free world which seeks to uphold the highest values bestowed on humankind , could no longer watch as ordinary civilians were butchered . It 's a lesson that took too long to implement , and the peace is not perfect , but at least the killing stopped .
Amanpour : Bosnia was where I learned objectivity does not mean drawing a false moral equivalence . Amanpour : No crisis is the same but in Bosnia the government is fighting a heavily armed militia . Shah : In Bosnia the time came when the world could no longer watch as civilians were butchered .