Ethnic Conflict And War Crimes In The Balkans

In the years following the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian social, cultural and political responses to the wars of the 1990s have fallen under intense scrutiny. In Ethnic Conflict and War Crimes in the Balkans, Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik explores some of those responses - taking into consideration notions such as silence, denial and conspiracy theory, the book sheds some light on the complicated narratives about the 1990s. The book considers the experience of knowing, witnessing and speaking about atrocities, and thus contributes to the debates on confronting the past in Serbia. Specifically, it considers how individuals of the "ordinary" public in Serbia reflect upon, understand and keep secrets about the 1991-1999 conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and the atrocities, human rights abuses and war crimes which were committed there. Close attention is paid to the stories of individuals whose voices and experiences are generally excluded from the broader debate about the past. Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik explores how these narratives diverge from, resist and are invisible to the formal and civil society initiatives aimed at confronting the past in Serbia.In doing so, the book also explores silence about and denial of the violent past, and considers how and where these dynamics manifest and what they might mean. In addition, it covers themes such as narratives of self-victimhood, conspiracy theory and the perception of war-time leaders and combatants. This is a detailed and considered investigation into how groups cope with knowledge and the witnessing of violent pasts. It is based on ethnographic research and interviews with a group of 'ordinary' individuals, in post-Milosevic Serbia. As such, it provides a unique perspective on the lived experience of the conflicts, and the ways in which stories of the 1990s emerge in everyday contexts.

In the years following the fall of Slobodan Miloševic, Serbian social, cultural and political responses to the wars of the 1990's have fallen under intense international scrutiny. But is this scrutiny justified, and how can these responses be better understood? Jelena Obradovic engages with ideas about post-conflict societies, memory, cultural trauma, and national myths of victimhood and justified war to shed light upon Serbian denial and justification of war crimes - for example, Serbia's reluctant cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Rather tha.

In the years following the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian social, cultural and political responses to the wars of the 1990s have fallen under intense scrutiny. In Ethnic Conflict and War Crimes in the Balkans, Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik explores some of those responses - taking into consideration notions such as silence, denial and conspiracy theory, the book sheds some light on the complicated narratives about the 1990s. The book considers the experience of knowing, witnessing and speaking about atrocities, and thus contributes to the debates on confronting the past in Serbia. Specifically, it considers how individuals of the "ordinary" public in Serbia reflect upon, understand and keep secrets about the 1991-1999 conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and the atrocities, human rights abuses and war crimes which were committed there. Close attention is paid to the stories of individuals whose voices and experiences are generally excluded from the broader debate about the past. Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik explores how these narratives diverge from, resist and are invisible to the formal and civil society initiatives aimed at confronting the past in Serbia.In doing so, the book also explores silence about and denial of the violent past, and considers how and where these dynamics manifest and what they might mean. In addition, it covers themes such as narratives of self-victimhood, conspiracy theory and the perception of war-time leaders and combatants. This is a detailed and considered investigation into how groups cope with knowledge and the witnessing of violent pasts. It is based on ethnographic research and interviews with a group of 'ordinary' individuals, in post-Milosevic Serbia. As such, it provides a unique perspective on the lived experience of the conflicts, and the ways in which stories of the 1990s emerge in everyday contexts.

During the twentieth century, the Balkan Peninsula was affected by three major waves of genocides and ethnic cleansings, some of which are still being denied today. In Balkan Genocides Paul Mojzes provides a balanced and detailed account of these events, placing them in their proper historical context and debunking the common misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the genocides themselves. A native of Yugoslavia, Mojzes offers new insights into the Balkan genocides, including a look at the unique role of ethnoreligiosity in these horrific events and a characterization of the first and second Balkan wars as mutual genocides. Mojzes also looks to the region's future, discussing the ongoing trials at the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia and the prospects for dealing with the lingering issues between Balkan nations and different religions. Balkan Genocides attempts to end the vicious cycle of revenge which has fueled such horrors in the past century by analyzing the terrible events and how they came to pass.

Dadrian, a former professor at SUNY, Geneseo, currently directs a genocide study project supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. The present study analyzes the devastating wartime destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire as the cataclysmic culmination of a historical process involving the progressive Turkish decimation of the Armenians through intermittent and incremental massacres. In addition to the excellent general bibliography there is an annotated bibliography of selected books used in the study. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In Amoral Communities, Mila Dragojević examines how conditions conducive to atrocities against civilians are created during wartime in some communities. She identifies the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders as the main processes. In these places, political and ethnic identities become linked and targeted violence against civilians becomes both tolerated and justified by the respective authorities as a necessary sacrifice for a greater political goal. Dragojević augments the literature on genocide and civil wars by demonstrating how violence can be used as a political strategy, and how communities, as well as individuals, remember episodes of violence against civilians. The communities on which she focuses are Croatia in the 1990s and Uganda and Guatemala in the 1980s. In each case Dragojević considers how people who have lived peacefully as neighbors for many years are suddenly transformed into enemies, yet intracommunal violence is not ubiquitous throughout the conflict zone; rather, it is specific to particular regions or villages within those zones. Reporting on the varying wartime experiences of individuals, she adds depth, emotion, and objectivity to the historical and socioeconomic conditions that shaped each conflict. Furthermore, as Amoral Communities describes, the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders limit individuals' freedom to express their views, work to prevent the possible defection of members of an in-group, and facilitate identification of individuals who are purportedly a threat. Even before mass killings begin, Dragojević finds, these and similar changes will have transformed particular villages or regions into amoral communities, places where the definition of crime changes and violence is justified as a form of self-defense by perpetrators.

Reconciliation by Stealth advances a novel approach to evaluating the effects of transitional justice in postconflict societies. Through her examination of the Balkan conflicts, Denisa Kostovicova asks what happens when former adversaries discuss legacies of violence and atrocity, and whether it is possible to do so without further deepening animosities. Reconciliation by Stealth shifts our attention from what people say about war crimes, to how they deliberate past wrongs. Bringing together theories of democratic deliberation and peacebuilding, Kostovicova demonstrates how people from opposing ethnic groups reconcile through reasoned, respectful, and empathetic deliberation about a difficult legacy. She finds that expression of ethnic difference plays a role in good-quality deliberation across ethnic lines, while revealed intraethnic divisions help deliberators expand moral horizons previously narrowed by conflict. In the process, people forge bonds of solidarity and offset divisive identity politics that bears upon their deliberations. Reconciliation by Stealth shows us the importance of theoretical and methodological innovation in capturing how transitional justice can promote reconciliation, and points to the untapped potential of deliberative problem-solving to repair relationships fractured by conflict. Thanks to generous funding from the London School of Economic and Political Science, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Author: Mr. Darko Trifunovic, M.S.L. Editor & translator: Ms. Jill Starr Art director: Mr. Milosh Zorica Publisher: LPC Yugoslavia Made Possible By, Mr. Jeremy Paxman (BBC Four), Editing, Layout, PDF Files and all other areas (Comment By Miss Jill Louse Starr © 2001 LPC Yugoslavia Srebrenica: Ignored Massacre of Bosnian Serbs & Alleged Massacre of Muslims Summary 13.The current situation of Srebrenica: Despair of Serbs The town of Srebrenica, which is located at the east of the entity of Bosnian Serbs or Republika Srpska in Bosnia, has the population of approximately 20 thousands now. Eighty percent of the current population is Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) particularly from Sarajevo in Bosnia and refugees mostly from Krajina in Croatia. Although almost three years have passed since the end of the war in Bosnia, no sign to restore Srebrenica can be seen. Water is still limited in supply, and not suitable for drink. Broken windows and doors make people shivering in winter. The school buildings in the elementary school have disgusting stench of damaged toilets. There are almost no economic activities to hire the population to sustain the life although this area is rich in land and minerals such as lead and zinc. Under these circumstances, refugees or IDPs have to endure the lowest level of the living conditions, and most of them are left alone without any means of income . The local report[1] warned that the rate of suicides and sudden death among the refugees and IDPs was high in Srebrenica area[2] possibly because of the combination of despair and malnutrition. The report continued to say that the year of 1996 particularly saw the high rate of mortality of the refugees and IDPs in the area, citing the deaths of more than 150 IPDs in Bratunac, a relatively large town in the area. Aid, which has recently begun to trickle down into Republika Srpska due to its apparent willingness to cooperate with western countries, carefully avoids Srebrenica area not to make it a beneficiary. The reason is the alleged massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995. For the countries insisting that the bad guys, Serbs, carried out cruel ethnic cleansing of poor Muslims in Srebrenica area, the emotional conscience is so convincing that they do not want to hurt Muslims by rewarding Serbs, no matter how many refugees and IDPs are living in Srebrenica area. In general, however, emotion is often shaped by temporary hysteria and biased or unconfirmed information. Conscience driven by emotion, thus, tends to be deceived fairness. The case of “alleged Srebrenica massacre” is not an exception.

Papers from a workshop held May 9-10, 2002, sponsored by the Open Society New York and the Center for Policy Studies, Central European University.