Written by:
Alan Kocevic
Halmstad, Sweden
PROVING GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA
Rebuttal of Diana Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions.
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to offer a rebuttal of Johnstone’s book Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. Diana Johnstone is a writer who belongs to a group of left intellectuals commonly known as revisionists. Characteristic of this type of historical revisionism is a tendency to blame the U.S. government for the break-up of Yugoslavia. According to these revisionists, the U.S. hegemony and imperialism pose a grave threat to international peace and security. In their continual efforts to depict the U.S. as the main culprit for the breakup of Yugoslavia, revisionists like Diana Johnstone, Edward Herman and Michael Parenti are prepared to seriously downplay the Serb atrocities and what is worse even to deny that genocide against Bosnian Muslims took place. Johnstone even asserts that the U.S. and Germany bear the main responsibility for the break-up of Yugoslavia. While there is little doubt that U.S. foreign policy is extremely flawed and discriminatory, there is no evidence to corroborate this claim. It was the actions of Milosevic and his regime that caused the collapse of the country. Admittedly, the actions of the late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman and his regime also played a pivotal role in the breakup of Yugoslavia. After all, there is ample evidence that the two former leaders made a tacit agreement to divide Bosnia between themselves (for corroboration, see for example Yugoslavia Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little).
Johnstone’s Version of the War in Bosnia
Johnstone postulates that there is no evidence of genocide in Bosnia. She prefers
the term “collective guilt”, arguing that all warring parties share
equal responsibility for the bloodshed in Bosnia. According to Johnstone, it
was the Croat nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism that led to the disintegration
of Yugoslavia. Johnstone asserts that Germany deliberately fueled Croatian nationalism.
By supporting Croatian nationalism, Germany sought to induce dissolution of
Yugoslavia. To reassert its military might, Germany would intervene against
Serbia following the collapse of Yugoslavia, writes Johnstone. Germany has always
considered Serbia an enemy; this hatred for the Serbs dates back to the World
War II.
Another key international player in the breakup of Yugoslavia is the U.S. Elaborating,
Johnstone claims that the U.S. wanted to destroy the last socialist state in
Europe. The unconditional U.S. support for Muslims before and during the war
had one major purpose: to boost the Islamic fundamentalism. Also, the U.S. alliance
with Turkey and other Islamic countries forced the U.S. to aid Bosnian Muslims.
Consequently, the destruction of Yugoslavia was the main objective of the U.S.
government. Thus, the U.S. imperialism and Germany’s quest for European
domination played a crucial role in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Thus, the Serbs
were the victims of this joint U.S./German conspiracy to destroy Yugoslavia.
Johnstone describes Milosevic as a “multiculturalist” who advocated
unity and denounced nationalism. Johnstone even makes a comparison between Milosevic
and Clinton only to subsequently refer to Clinton as a liar. The former president
of Bosnia, the late Alija Izetbegovic, is labeled an Islamic fundamentalist
whose primary objective was to create an Islamic state in Bosnia. Franjo Tudjman
is depicted as a Nazi. Johnstone further suggests that there is no compelling
proof that Milosevic was the mastermind behind the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.
None the less, at one point, she admits knowing that Milosevic and Tudjman secretly
agreed to partition Bosnia into a Croatian and a Serbian part. Paradoxically,
she later writes that she sees nothing wrong with this secret agreement, simply
divide Bosnia between Croats and Serbs because after all, who cares about Bosnian
Muslims. Despite being familiar with this agreement, Johnstone holds that the
Serbs fought to preserve Yugoslavia. How can one fight to preserve something
if one wants to divide it in two?
After accounting for the causes of the Yugoslav dissolution, Johnstone goes
on to examine the atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. According to Johnstone, there
is no incriminating evidence that the Serbs were responsible for the abhorrent
massacres that took place in Sarajevo. Speculating, she implicitly suggests
that the Muslims were targeting their own people to induce a NATO intervention
against the Serbs. As regards the gruesome massacre in Srebrenica, Johnstone
denies that there was any massacre. The notorious prison camps in Omarska, Keraterm
and Trnopolje never actually existed. All the images of tortured prisoners surrounded
by a wire were manipulated as a part of an anti-Serbian propaganda campaign.
When it comes to atrocities committed by the Serbs, there is simply never sufficient
evidence. The same pattern can be found throughout the book. While Johnstone
somehow always finds overwhelming evidence of Muslim and Croat war crimes, the
opposite is never true of the war crimes perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs. According
to Johnstone, the West deliberately fabricated Serb atrocities in Bosnia and
Kosovo in order to dehumanize Serbs. This is in fact Johnstone’s central
thesis, i.e. the Serbs were the victims.
What really happened?
In the following I will test Johnstone’s claims against the existing
evidence. Findings by respectable fact-finding organizations such as Human Rights
Watch and U.S. Department of State will be analyzed.
The evidence that the war in Bosnia was genocide is abundant and incontrovertible.
In perhaps one of the most authoritative and meticulously researched accounts
of the breakup of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia Death of a Nation (1997),
Laura Silber and Allan Little argue that Serbs and Croats secretly agreed to
divide Bosnia between themselves. Moreover, Silber and Little provide compelling
evidence that the war in Bosnia was a Serbian aggression. When the war in Bosnia
began in 1992, the Serbs from Serbia proper began shelling Zvornik. In point
of fact, according to José Maria Mendiluce, a senior official of the
UNHCR who himself witnessed the Serbian assault on Zvornik: “there was
a big artillery bombardment coming from the Serbian side of the Drina. I even
saw smoke coming from the cannons on the Serbian side” (as adopted from
Silber and Little p. 223). Among those who participated in the attack on Zvornik
and Bijeljina was a notorious war criminal Zeljko Raznjatovic also known as
Arkan and his ”Tigers”. Arkan and his paramilitary forces killed
and expelled Bosnian Muslims in Zvornik and Bijeljina. This systematic annihilation
of a people based on their ethnicity and religion is frequently referred to
as “ethnic cleansing”. Even Vojislav Seselj, an ultra-nationalist
from Belgrade, acknowledged that the attack on Zvornik had been planned in Serbia
(Silber and Little: p. 223). Silber and Little further point out that the JNA,
the federal Yugoslav army, fought on the Bosnian Serb side. The reader will
recall that Johnstone’s principal assertion was that all warring parties
in the Bosnian “civil war” were equally guilty. How can it be a
“civil war” when the federal Yugoslav army committed atrocities
in Bosnia? What was the JNA doing in an internationally recognized state? How
does Johnstone explain the presence of the Serbian paramilitary factions in
Bosnia such as Arkan’s Tigers and Mirko Jovic’s Chetniks? Knowing
that these facts seriously undermine her main argument, Johnstone refuses to
even address them. Needless to say, the omission of these crucial facts is indicative
of spurious or at best extremely flawed research.
In stark contrast to Johnstone’s assertions, Thomas Cushman and Stjepan
Mestrovic offer in This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia
(1996) a completely different picture of the war in Bosnia. Analyzing the findings
by the CIA, the UN, the U.S. State Department, Helsinki Watch and the Red Cross,
Mestrovic and Cushman demonstrate without a doubt that genocide took place in
Bosnia. Elaborating, Cushman and Mestrovic write: “genocide has occurred
in Bosnia-Herzegovina and it has been perpetuated by the Belgrade regime and
its proxies” (p.16). They then add that all sides in the conflict committed
atrocities but only the Serb side committed systematic war crimes the goal of
which was to cleanse Bosnia of non-Serbs. In Bosnia a Short History (1996),
referring to the war in Bosnia, Noel Malcolm writes that “this was predominantly
an invasion of Bosnia planned and directed from Serbian soil” (p. 238).
According to some estimates, there were approximately 94,000 Serbian soldiers
in Bosnia fighting for the Bosnian Serbs. Furthermore, in addition to having
received manpower from Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs also received sophisticated
weaponry (Malcolm: p.239).
Michael Sells, Professor of Religion at Haverford College, maintains that even
though no warring side in the Bosnian war was completely innocent, the Bosnian
Muslims irrefutably suffered the most (p. 13-14). According to Sells: “the
organized persecution in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 was an effort to destroy both
Bosnian Muslim culture and Bosnian multireligious culture and to destroy the
Bosnian Muslims as a people” (p. 24-25). A mere fact that every single
mosque (approximately 600) in the Serb controlled territory has been destroyed
divulges an attempt to systematically eradicate every trace of the Islamic heritage
in Bosnia (Sells: p.3). Similarly, the destruction of the National Library (Vijecnica)
in Sarajevo which contained a great amount of ancient Islamic and Jewish literature
speaks of the immense Serb hatred for Islam (p. 1-2). Analyzing the root causes
of the Serb hatred for Islam, Sells concludes that it was the Serb mythology
and propaganda that facilitated the genocide of Bosnian Muslims. An event that
played an important role in the rise of the Serbian nationalism was the infamous
battle between the Serbs and the Ottomans in Kosovo in 1389. Prince Lazar was
killed in this battle and the Muslims have since been considered Christ killers
(p.31). Sells further scrutinizes Serb literature demonstrating its enormous
bias against Islam. Containing numerous elements of vicious anti-Islamic propaganda,
the Serb literature has had a tremendous importance in fostering Serb nationalism
and islamophobia. Ivo Andric’s The Bridge on the Drina and Njegos’s
The Mountain Wrath are the books that perhaps best exemplify this islamophobia.
One important aspect of the Bosnian war was that the Serbs were militarily superior
to the Muslims. Malcolm points out that “although the UN itself recognized
Bosnia and admitted it as a member-state distinct and separate from Yugoslavia
on 22 May 1992, it continued to apply the embargo as if nothing had changed.
Of course it continued to apply it to Serbia too; but Serbia held most of the
stockpiles of the former federal army, and had a large armaments industry of
its own” (p.243). With no heavy weaponry, the Bosnian Muslims remained
virtually defenseless throughout the war. Commenting on the arms embargo, Sells
claims that its imposition infringed the right of Bosnian Muslims to self-defence
because it was in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter (p.25). Elaborating,
Sells writes: “the advantage of the Serb army in heavy weapons over the
Bosnians was estimated in anywhere from 20-1 to 100-1” (p.116-117). Thus,
the arms embargo severely impaired the ability of Bosnian Muslims to offer solid
resistance. If what Johnstone claims is true, i.e. that the U.S. was supporting
the Muslims in the war, why did not the U.S. unilaterally rescind the arms embargo?
Johnstone is well aware of the fact that the U.S. had intervened unilaterally
on numerous previous occasions, what stopped them this time?
Serb atrocities in Bosnia
The reader will recall that Johnstone claims that there is no
evidence that the Serbs committed atrocities in Bosnia. According to Johnstone,
there were no detention camps in Omarska and Trnopolje, the Serbs were not responsible
for the market square massacre in Sarajevo, there was no massacre in Srebrenica
and the Serbs did not conduct ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Devoting many pages
to the massacre in Srebrenica, Johnstone denies that there is no compelling
proof that it occurred. As regards the notorious detention camps in Omarska
and Trnopolje, the images of malnourished men inside a barbed wire were manipulated
and fabricated. Johnstone asserts that this “dehumanization” of
Serbs was a deliberate Western strategy, the goal of which was to put pressure
on NATO to intervene in Bosnia on behalf of Bosnian Muslims. Let us now analyze
whether or not Johnstone’s thesis will be able to withstand close scrutiny.
Needless to say, all sides in the Bosnian war committed war crimes. However,
did all sides commit systematic atrocities with an explicit aim to annihilate
the members of the other ethnic group? No. On this point, evidence is abundant
and extremely well documented.
Ed Vulliamy and Penny Marshall were among the first journalists to document
the abhorrent atrocities at Omarska and Trnopolje, two of the most notorious
detention camps in Bosnia. In addition to collecting countless witness testimonies,
Vulliamy managed to obtain visual evidence from Omarska, showing extremely malnourished
men. According to BBC news, there were approximately 6000 Croat and Muslim detainees
in Omarska. Describing the conditions of the prisoners, BBC news reported: “at
Omarska- and smaller camps at Keraterm and Trnopolje, also in northern Bosnia-
new arrivals were reportedly beaten with batons and rifle butts, and crammed
into stiflingly hot rooms with no beds and meagre sanitary facilities. They
were fed a starvation diet”. According to Peter Maass, the conditions
in Omarska were appalling; the prisoners were frequently tortured, maltreated
and underfed. When Maass and his crew visited Omarska they saw terrified prisoners
who when asked how they had been treated refused to respond. With guards overseeing
all interviews, the prisoners knew that they could not tell the journalists
what was really happening in the detention camp. Telling the truth would have
them killed. Maass writes that mass killings occurred every day in Omarska with
the guards using every instrument available to torture the prisoners. Comparing
Omarska to Nazi camps, Maass asserts that “the Serbs, however, wanted
to interrogate their Bosnian prisoners, have sadistic fun by torturing them
in the cruelest of ways and then kill them with whatever implement was most
convenient, perhaps a gun, perhaps a knife or scissors, perhaps a pair of strong
hands wrapped around an emaciated neck. If the Germans had used the same approach,
they would have needed decades to kill 6 million Jews” (p. 45). Maass
interviewed many survivors from Omarska and Trnopolje who had fled to Croatia.
The survivors spoke of unspeakable cruelty and unfathomable suffering. Not only
were the prisoners severely beaten, they were also sexually abused. In one horrific
case, a prisoner was forced to bite off other prisoners’ testicles. In
yet another case of gruesome barbarity, the guards put a wire around one prisoner’s
testicles and then attached the wire to a motorcycle and the rest you can figure
out I guess. The prisoners were frequently ordered to fight each other and if
they refused, they would be beaten by their guards. Moreover, local Serb residents
sometimes came to Omarska to torture the detainees (Maass: p. 50-53).
According to Silber and Little (1997): “in a systematic campaign, Serb
paramilitary hit-squads swept through northern and eastern Bosnia in the spring
and summer months and, municipality by municipality, seized control of the region
without, in most places, encountering real military opposition” (p. 244).
Not only was this campaign systematic, it also targeted the Muslim elite. Silber
and Little further point out that: “a common characteristic of the cleansing
operation was this systematic elimination of community leaders- prominent people,
intellectuals, members of the SDA, the wealthy” (p. 244-245). That the
Serbs conducted ethnic cleansing in Bosnia is evident from the fact that approximately
95% of the Muslims were expelled from Zvornik, Visegrad and Foca (Malcolm p.
237). Noel Malcolm further writes that the primary objective of the Serbs was
to annihilate Muslim intellectuals and those within the Muslim community who
held prominent and respectable jobs (p. 245)
.
In its report on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gross Abuses of Basic Human Rights
, Amnesty International notes the complicity of Serbia in the Bosnian war. According
to this report: “the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
and the Government of Croatia have a heavy responsibility for abuses to the
extent that they have supported politically and materially the various forces
within Bosnia-Herzegovina” . Reporting on the war crimes in Bosnia, Human
Rights Watch (HRW) reached the following conclusion: “the overwhelming
majority continued to be perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs”. One of the most
appalling attacks on civilians took place in Sarajevo on February 5, 1994. HRW
writes that 63 people were killed in this attack by Bosnian Serbs. In another
gruesome mortar attack, Bosnian Serbs killed 71 civilians in Tuzla, writes HRW.
Ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Banja Luka by the notorious war criminal Zeljko
Raznjatovic, also known as Arkan, constituted a gross human rights violation.
After arriving in the town, Arkan and his forces began expelling non-Serbs.
According to estimates by HRW, about 5000 non-Serbs were ethnically cleansed
from the area. Other areas from which many Muslims had been expelled were Krajina
and Bijeljina. Approximately 10,600 Muslims and Croats were forced to leave
their homes.
A 1994 human rights report on Bosnia by the U.S. Department of State gives an
exhaustive account of the human rights violations perpetrated in Bosnia. While
acknowledging that all sides committed war crimes in Bosnia, the report makes
clear that only Bosnian Serbs engaged in the process of ethnic cleansing. The
document further reveals that Serbia provided Bosnian Serbs with extensive military
aid. According to the document: “supported by the Serbian authorities
in Belgrade, the BSA (Bosnian Serb armed militia) began a brutal campaign of
terror- in which acts of genocide took place- to establish an ethnically pure
state linking Serb-occupied territory in Croatia with Serbia/Montenegro to form
“greater Serbia” . Here is what the same report said of Bosnian
Muslims: “the Bosnian Government is Muslim-dominated but continues to
support a multiethnic society, and elected officials are drawn proportionally
from all national groups”. The report further corroborates findings by
the HRW that a significant number of Muslims were expelled from Banja Luka and
Bijeljina. Several thousand Muslim civilians were killed in the Serb attacks
on Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa. According to this report, in order
for the Serbs to inflict as much damage as possible, they targeted heavily crowded
places such as hospitals etc. Another important strategy of Bosnian Serbs was
to deny U.N. food convoys entry to Srebrenica, Gorazde, Zepa and Sarajevo. Bosnian
Serbs knew that shortage of food, water and medical supplies would inevitably
result in malnourishment, starvation, diseases and despair.
After three years of Serb occupation and intensive bombardment, Srebrenica fell
on 11 July, 1995. What followed constituted the most serious human rights violation
in Europe since World War II. Ratko Mladic who is now being sought for war crimes
and his forces entered Srebrenica and immediately began separating men from
women. While women and children were taken to Tuzla, men were taken to various
locations to be executed. Approximately 7,000 Muslim men were killed in this
gruesome massacre. Here is what one report by the U.S. Department of State said:”
the Bosnian Serb occupation of the U.N. “safe area” of Srebrenica
in July resulted in one of the worst single reported incidents of genocidal
mass killing of members of an ethnic or religious group in Europe since World
War II”. Elaborating, the report further pointed out that:” the
systematic way in which prisoners were moved to execution sites and the presence
of trailers and bulldozers (to transport corpses and to dig mass graves) indicate
that the mass killings were planned well in advance. More than 7,000 remain
unaccounted for and presumed dead”. According to the same document, there
are countless reliable eyewitness accounts of random killings of civilians in
Srebrenica. Dutch soldiers themselves witnessed the atrocities; they saw dead
bodies by the road, says the report.
HRW writes in its 1996 report : “following the fall of Srebrenica, Bosnian
Serb forces summarily executed hundreds, possibly thousands of men and boys
at various mass execution sites near the Srebrenica area and during their flight
from Bosnian-Serb-held territory to Bosnian-government-controlled areas. Women,
children and elderly persons deported from the area were also terrorized, and
thousands of persons remained disappeared”. There is evidence that the
massacre in Srebrenica was a direct order of Karadzic and Mladic. According
to testimonies by two Bosnian Serbs at the War Tribunal in The Hague (Miroslav
Deronjic and a Lieutenant Colonel Dragan Obrenovic), Karadzic and Mladic ordered
the Srebrenica massacre . The most compelling proof, however, comes from an
official Bosnian Serb investigation into the Srebrenica massacre. The results
of the investigations are staggering to say the least. Bosnian Serbs admitted
for the very first time that they were responsible for the Srebrenica massacre.
This admission shocked the world. Furthermore, the commission also found that
6,447 people remain unaccounted for, only 1,332 have been identified. The commission
also incriminated senior Bosnian Serb officials in the Srebrenica massacre.
A British journalist David Rohde, the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the
author of Endgame, visited the region of Srebrenica and was able to
obtain significant proof of mass graves. According to David Rohde: “large
empty ammunition boxes littered the fields where the ground had been dug recently.
Diplomas and other personal effects of Srebrenica Muslims were scattered near
the areas of disturbed earth. When I reached the site this week, three areas
of fresh digging were clearly visible. On the edge of the smallest of the three
alleged mass graves, what appeared to be a human femur and tibia jutted from
the earth” .
Despite this irrefutable evidence and the Bosnian Serb admission, Johnstone
claims that Srebrenica massacre never occurred. Not even the fact that Bosnian
Serbs officially apologized for the Srebrenica massacre constitutes compelling
proof for Johnstone. Numerous corroborated testimonies do not suffice either.
One would hope that a testimony by Colonel Obrenovic would prove sufficient
given that he himself participated in the attack on Srebrenica. That the Srebrenica
massacre was considered an act of genocide by the War Tribunal in The Hague
makes no difference either. What does it take for some people to admit the truth?
Conclusion
The present author hopes that he has been able to demonstrate that genocide
occurred in Bosnia. As shown here, there is overwhelming evidence that Serbia
was actively aiding Bosnian Serbs during the war in Bosnia. Bosnian Serbs received
enormous military and financial aid from Serbia. The involvement of the JNA
in Bosnia strongly indicates that the war in Bosnia had been planned in Serbia.
In light of the facts presented in this paper, there is no evidence to substantiate
Johnstone’s “collective guilt” theory. In addition, contrary
to what Johnstone claims, there is indisputable proof that Bosnian Serbs committed
the majority of atrocities in Bosnia. Srebrenica, Gorazde, Zepa, Maglaj, Sarajevo,
Doboj, Banja Luka, Bijeljina and Visegrad all represent places where Bosnian
Serbs conducted ethnic cleansing and seriously violated human rights by killing
and expelling the non-Serb population. Only in Srebrenica 7,000 Muslims were
killed in an abhorrent massacre.
Johnstone’s failure to even take into account these facts seriously undermines
her work. By ignoring the sources that do not support her thesis, Johnstone
remains highly selective throughout the entire book. Furthermore, Johnstone
frequently downplays findings by the Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Department
of State because these organizations are unreliable and biased towards Bosnian
Muslims. Instead, Johnstone uses dubious and uncorroborated sources to support
her thesis. Another technique frequently employed by Johnstone is speculation.
This highly efficient strategy enables Johnstone to confuse the reader. Here
is how it works: for example, when describing the mortar attack on Sarajevo,
Johnstone writes that there is no proof that Bosnian Serbs fired the shell that
had killed many civilians. Then she asserts that the shell might actually have
been fired by the Muslims. To prompt the NATO intervention, the Muslims would
stop at nothing. In this case and numerous others throughout her book Johnstone
is deliberately speculative. Inadvertently, the reader will begin to question
whether or not the Serbs actually committed these atrocities. Now, we know that
Bosnian Serbs had been shelling Sarajevo and many other cities for that matter
for three years killing many people. Why would there be controversy this time
about who was responsible for the attack? Why, in light of the Serb admission,
should she question whether or not the massacre in Srebrenica occurred? Johnstone
shows a flagrant disregard for countless corroborated testimonies by the survivors
of the Srebrenica massacre.
Some of Johnstone’s assertions are so bizarre and unfounded that there
is no point in addressing them. Consider only two examples. Johnstone’s
theory that Germany wanted to destroy Serbia in order to demonstrate its military
supremacy in Europe is so preposterous that it warrants no serious comment.
Also, Johnstone’s claim that the U.S. sought to boost the Islamic fundamentalism
in Bosnia needs no further consideration. Her description of Milosevic as a
“multiculturalist” is very alarming and at best extremely naïve.
Similarly, Johnstone’s view of Karadzic and Mladic is deeply disturbing
given that both have been charged with genocide by the War Tribunal in The Hague.
So many factual errors and absurd postulations lead me to conclude that this
book is not even about the war in Bosnia. It is about the U.S. imperialism.
The left revisionists such as Diana Johnstone have always considered the U.S.
hegemony the greatest threat to world peace. Johnstone cannot possibly imagine
a situation warranting a military intervention especially when the U.S. is involved.
Admittedly, the U.S. foreign policy is primarily driven by imperialistic motives.
Nevertheless, not all U.S. actions fall under this category. It is imperative
that we judge each U.S. intervention individually. It is one thing to criticize
the U.S. government’s actions throughout the world but it is a completely
different thing to deny atrocities and to defend the aggressor. While it is
justifiable and warranted to condemn U.S. transgressions, it is sad and insulting
to the victims to refuse to tell the truth. The least that the people of Bosnia
deserve is that we always tell the truth. For three years, Western diplomats
had been trying to negotiate an end to the Bosnian carnage and to stop Serb
atrocities in Bosnia but to no avail. The Serbs had been warned many times to
immediately refrain from targeting Sarajevo, Gorazde, Zepa and Srebrenica but
they simply ignored the warnings. Once someone crosses the line we are obliged
to intervene. It is our moral obligation to put an end to someone’s suffering
or at least to allow the victim to defend himself. What many left intellectuals
fail to understand is that diplomacy does not always work. Sometimes, one has
to resort to violence in order to resolve a conflict; Bosnia is a case in point.
Johnstone makes no mention in her book of the fact that the NATO had warned
Bosnian Serbs many times that unless they ceased their attack on Srebrenica,
they would face air strikes. Bosnian Serbs continued with their advancement
towards Srebrenica in a flagrant defiance of the NATO’s warnings. When
they finally entered the town, they slaughtered approximately 7,000 people.
If the NATO had intervened before the Serbs overrun the town these people would
have been saved. One cannot but wonder would Johnstone oppose the NATO intervention
had she herself been trapped in Srebrenica for three years under constant bombardment,
with no food, water, electricity and medical supplies.
List of References
Books:
- Cushman Thomas & Mestrovic G. Stjepan. (1996). This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia. New York University Press.
- Johnstone Diana. (2002). Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western
Delusions. Monthly Review Press.
- Little Allan & Silber Laura (1997). Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation.
(2nd edition).
- Maass Peter. Love thy Neighbor A Story of War. (1996). First Vintage Books Edition.
- Noel Malcolm. Bosnia a Short History. (1996). New York University Press.
- Sells Michael. The Bridge Betrayed Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. (1998). University of California Press.
Internet Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1634250.stm
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/bosnia_herzegovina/document.do?id=90741F5D96AEDC12802569A600602B93
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/WR95/HELSINKI-03.htm
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/1993_hrp_report/93hrp_report_eur/Bosnia-Herzegovina.html
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/1995_hrp_report/95hrp_report_eur/Bosnia-Herzegovina.html
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/WR96/Helsinki-04.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3228458.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3799937.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,2763,474612,00.html
Posted 22 December 2004