The Bosnian War and Ethnic Cleansing


Book Description

The Bosnian War (1992–1995) involved ferocious killing among a trio of the region’s major ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. By the war’s end, as many as 26,000 Muslim civilians had been systematically murdered. This insightful resource offers a unique look at those terrifying events, including highlighting three possible perspectives on the war and the confusion these different perspectives can cause, even years later. Readers will also benefit from a review of Bosnia’s history and the events that culminated in this gruesome time.




Bosnia Remade


Book Description

Bosnia Remade is an authoritative account of ethnic cleansing and its partial undoing from the onset of the 1990s Bosnian wars up through the present. Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman combine a bird's-eye view of the entire war from onset to aftermath with a micro-level account of three towns that underwent ethnic cleansing and--later--the return of refugees.There have been two major attempts to remake the ethnic geography of Bosnia since 1991. In the first instance, ascendant ethno-nationalist forces tried to eradicate the mixed ethnic geographies of Bosnia's towns, villages and communities. These forces devastated tens of thousands of homes and lives, but they failed to destroy Bosnia-Herzegovina as a polity. In the second attempt, which followed the war, the international community, in league with Bosnian officials, endeavored to reverse the demographic and other consequences of this ethnic cleansing. While progress has been uneven, this latter effort has transformed the ethnic demography of Bosnia and moved the nation beyond its recent segregationist past.By showing how ethnic cleansing was challenged, Bosnia Remade offers more than just a comprehensive narrative of Europe's worst political crisis of the past two decades. It also offers lessons for addressing an enduring global problem.




Genocide in Bosnia


Book Description

The genocide that has been occurring in Bosnia-Herzegovina since 1992 demands national attention. Incidents of these atrocities have involved European, American, and Islamic interests; they have taken place in the heart of Europe which had promised never to tolerate such a bloodbath again; they have paralyzed mechanisms set up to prevent such genocide, from the UN Charter to the NATO mandate; and they have been monitored, observed, and documented in progress.




Surviving the Bosnian Genocide


Book Description

In July 1995, the Army of the Serbian Republic killed some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica--the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. Surviving the Bosnian Genocide is based on the testimonies of 60 female survivors of the massacre who were interviewed by Dutch historian Selma Leydesdorff. The women, many of whom still live in refugee camps, talk about their lives before the Bosnian war, the events of the massacre, and the ways they have tried to cope with their fate. Though fragmented by trauma, the women tell of life and survival under extreme conditions, while recalling a time before the war when Muslims, Croats, and Serbs lived together peaceably. By giving them a voice, this book looks beyond the rapes, murders, and atrocities of that dark time to show the agency of these women during and after the war and their fight to uncover the truth of what happened at Srebrenica and why.




The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina


Book Description

This book examines the historical, cultural and political dimensions of the crisis in Bosnia and the international efforts to resolve it. It provides a detailed analysis of international proposals to end the fighting, from the Vance-Owen plan to the Dayton Accord, with special attention to the national and international politics that shaped them. It analyzes the motivations and actions of the warring parties, neighbouring states and international actors including the United States, the United Nations, the European powers, and others involved in the war and the diplomacy surrounding it. With guides to sources and documentation, abundant tabular data and over 30 maps, this should be a definitive volume on the most vexing conflict of the post-Soviet period.




Ethnic Mobilization, Violence, and the Politics of Affect


Book Description

This book offers an unprecedented account of the Serb Democratic Party’s origins and its political machinations that culminated in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. Within the first two years of its existence, the nationalist movement led by the infamous genocide convict Radovan Karadzic, radically transformed Bosnian society. It politically homogenized Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina, mobilized them for the Bosnian War, and violently carved out a new geopolitical unit, known today as Republika Srpska. Through innovative and in-depth analysis of the Party’s discourse that makes use of the recent literature on affective cognition, the book argues that the movement’s production of existential fears, nationalist pride, and animosities towards non-Serbs were crucial for creating Serbs as a palpable group primed for violence. By exposing this nationalist agency, the book challenges a commonplace image of ethnic conflicts as clashes of long-standing ethnic nations.




Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage


Book Description

The massive intentional destruction of cultural heritage during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War targeting a historically diverse identity provoked global condemnation and became a seminal marker in the discourse on cultural heritage. It prompted an urgent reassessment of how cultural property could be protected in times of conflict and led to a more definitive recognition in international humanitarian law that destruction of a people's cultural heritage is an aspect of genocide. Yet surprisingly little has been published on the subject. This wide-ranging book provides the first comprehensive overview and critical analysis of the destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina's cultural heritage and its far-reaching impact. Scrutinizing the responses of the international community during the war (including bodies like UNESCO and the Council of Europe), the volume also analyses how, after the conflict ended, external agendas impinged on heritage reconstruction to the detriment of the broader peace process and refugee return. It assesses implementation of Annex 8 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, a unique attempt to address the devastation to Bosnia's cultural heritage, and examines the treatment of war crimes involving cultural property at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). With numerous case studies and plentiful illustrations, this important volume considers questions which have moved to the foreground with the inclusion of cultural heritage preservation in discussions of the right to culture in human rights discourse and as a vital element of post-conflict and development aid.




This Time We Knew


Book Description

This book punctures once and for all common excuses for Western inaction in the face of incontrovertible evidence of the most egregious crimes against humanity to occur in Europe since World War II.




Bosnian Genocide


Book Description

Providing an indispensable resource for students and policy makers investigating the Bosnian catastrophes of the 1990s, this book provides a comprehensive survey of the leaders, ideas, movements, and events pertaining to one of the most devastating conflicts of contemporary times. In the three years of the Bosnian War, well over 100,000 people lost their lives, amid intense carnage. This led to unprecedented criminal prosecutions for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity that are still taking place today. Bosnian Genocide: The Essential Reference Guide is the first encyclopedic treatment of the Balkan conflicts of the period from 1991 to 1999. It provides broad coverage of the nearly decade-long conflict, but with a major focus on the Bosnian War of 1992–1995. The book examines a variety of perspectives of the conflicts relating to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo, among other developments that took place during the years spotlighted. The entries consider not only the leaders, ideas, movements, and events relating to the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 but also examine themes from before the war and after it. As such, coverage continues through to the Kosovo Intervention of 1999, arguing that this event, too, was part of the conflict that purportedly ended in 1995. This work will serve university students undertaking the study of genocide in the modern world and readers interested in modern wars, international crisis management, and peacekeeping and peacemaking.




War, Women, and Power


Book Description

Rwanda and Bosnia both experienced mass violence in the early 1990s. Less than ten years later, Rwandans surprisingly elected the world's highest level of women to parliament. In Bosnia, women launched thousands of community organizations that became spaces for informal political participation. The political mobilization of women in both countries complicates the popular image of women as merely the victims and spoils of war. Through a close examination of these cases, Marie E. Berry unpacks the puzzling relationship between war and women's political mobilization. Drawing from over 260 interviews with women in both countries, she argues that war can reconfigure gendered power relations by precipitating demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. In the aftermath, however, many of the gains women made were set back. This book offers an entirely new view of women and war and includes concrete suggestions for policy makers, development organizations, and activists supporting women's rights.