tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/bosnian-serbs-39779/articlesBosnian Serbs – The Conversation2022-04-13T16:50:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1807452022-04-13T16:50:25Z2022-04-13T16:50:25ZBosnia-Herzegovina could be the next site of Russian-fuelled conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457726/original/file-20220412-10836-xt4jo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C66%2C4970%2C3176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bosnian Serbs march carrying a giant Serbian flag in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Jan. 9, 2022. The country's Serbs celebrated an outlawed holiday with a provocative parade showcasing armored vehicles, police helicopters and law enforcement officers with rifles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/bosnia-herzegovina-could-be-the-next-site-of-russian-fuelled-conflict" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>International politics is usually discussed in terms of historical periods associated with specific characteristics — think Cold War adversaries, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/254418">wars fought for ostensibly humanitarian reasons in the 1990s</a> or the focus on terrorism and state-building during the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/24/lesson-afghanistan-war-on-terror-not-work">War on Terror</a>. </p>
<p>For many, including the United States government, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the beginning of a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cold-war-russia-china-ukraine-america-nuclear-scarier-foreign-policy-2022-3">new period</a> of superpower showdowns. We’ve entered a world where large, militarily powerful states will wrestle for influence, recognition and control over what they see as important elements of the international system. </p>
<p>Thinking in categories, however, hides the fact that international politics unfolds cumulatively. Simmering tensions and outdated political agreements often create the conditions for future conflict. Including today.</p>
<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tied to the history of both states and the ongoing conflict that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014. For many, the current war is a continuation and escalation of an existing conflict.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-ukrainian-nationalism-and-its-tumultuous-relationship-with-russia-179346">A short history of Ukrainian nationalism — and its tumultuous relationship with Russia</a>
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<p>But there are other places where Russia could use either political or military might to expand its influence. </p>
<p>Rather than see Russian actions in Ukraine as unique, we need to remember there’s a wider context within which <a href="https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/russias-foreign-policy-in-a-historical-perspective/">Russia will work to achieve its goals</a>. Regardless of what comes of the war in Ukraine, there are other places that Russia might be eyeing.</p>
<h2>Bosnia-Herzegovina at risk?</h2>
<p>Bosnia-Herzegovina is by far the most important example. The <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/bosnia-dodik-cvijanovic-uk-sanctions/31797542.html">Republika Srpska</a>, a Serb province within Bosnia created at the end of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bosnian-War">the Bosnian War</a>, celebrated its 30th anniversary on Jan. 9, 2022. The province’s leadership has pushed for increased autonomy and perhaps even independence.</p>
<p>The looming Ukraine crisis overshadowed this, but the tensions are related. Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina, <a href="https://hr.n1info.com/english/news/russia-ambassador-bosnia-can-join-nato-but-moscow-will-react-to-threat/">Igor Kalbukhov</a>, and Serbia’s prime minister, Ana Brnabic, <a href="https://www.intellinews.com/bosnian-serbs-celebrate-unconstitutional-republika-srpska-day-231238/">attended events to commemorate the anniversary together.</a></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired woman in a turtleneck and suit jacket speaks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457725/original/file-20220412-13-pwakd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, in March 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)</span></span>
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<p>Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine are connected because both are places where Russia believes it can achieve its desire to be recognized as a global force. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/60477712">In Ukraine</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/12/georgia-teaches-english-over-russian">and Georgia</a>, Russia has ostensibly fought for Russian speakers. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia’s <a href="https://natoassociation.ca/keys-to-understanding-russias-relationship-with-serbia/">historical ties</a> to the Serbs — due to their shared Slavic and Orthodox heritage and their alliances during the First and Second World Wars — provide a similar justification.</p>
<p>The Dayton accords, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2020/nov/18/the-dayton-accords-a-peace-agreement-for-bosnia-archive-1995">the treaty that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995</a>, is showing its age, and the outcome of that war could now play a role in another competition between Russia and the West. </p>
<p>Peace was celebrated at the time, but has proven to be a failure. War between ethnic groups ended and a loose federal government was created, but actual reconciliation between <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2015/02/25/peace-and-reconciliation-in-the-balkans-croatia-vs-serbia/">Serbs, Croatians</a> <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/bosnia-unravelling-serbs-separatists/31542689.html">and Bosnians did not ensue</a>. </p>
<p>This means that Russia could claim it must use its power to protect a subjugated ethnic group. Like Russian speakers in Ukraine and Georgia, Serb political demands could become a pretext for Russian action.</p>
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<img alt="An elderly man rides his bike past the burnt out wreckage of a bus and cars." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458010/original/file-20220413-18-qrig04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Sarajevo resident cycles past the wreckage of burnt-out vehicles damaged in fighting in Sarajevo in 1992.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Santiago Lyon)</span></span>
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<h2>Non-existent state-building</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381611000831">Ethnicity plays an important role</a> in Bosnian politics because people think of their needs, challenges and opportunities in ethnic terms. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/053901847401300407">State-building</a> — the process states go through as they create the systems and institutions that allow them to serve their population — has been limited, leaving people to lean on ethnic parties for support. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bosnias-endless-crisis-could-be-solved-by-letting-it-break-apart-peacefully-173051">Bosnia's endless crisis could be solved by letting it break apart peacefully</a>
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<p>Bosnia’s failure means two things. Civil conflict spilling over Bosnia’s borders could re-emerge if tensions rise, and Russia could align its goal of exerting further influence on European politics with Serb calls for self-determination. Given Bosnia’s position on the European Union’s flank, this poses a security risk for the EU.</p>
<p>In short, Russia has a <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/03/securing-and-protecting-bosnia-amidst-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/">ready-made situation</a> that allows it to use diplomatic, political or even military power to further its efforts to compete against western influence. </p>
<p>This could involve increased political or economic support for Bosnian Serbs, support for Serb forces should conflict break out or even conducting a military operation labelled as “peacekeeping.” This final possibility is actually what Russia argued it was doing <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-2008-russo-georgian-war-putins-green-light/">when it invaded Georgia in 2008.</a></p>
<p>The stakes are high. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/04/20-years-since-the-bosnian-war/100278/">Bosnia’s last civil war</a> resulted in 100,000 people killed and nearly <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/57jreh.htm">2.5 million people displaced</a>, either inside the country or forced to flee as refugees. </p>
<p>This humanitarian catastrophe occurred during a time when the international community was relatively unified behind the United States and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12300">Americans were able to pressure the various parties into reaching a settlement at Dayton</a>. Unquestioned American dominance is not the case today.</p>
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<img alt="A woman with a scarf on her head walks in a cemetery among a sea of white gravestones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457727/original/file-20220412-23-djmkmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this 2016 photo, a Bosnian woman walks among gravestones at Memorial Centre Potocari near Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where many of those who died in the 1992-95 war are buried.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Amel Emric)</span></span>
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<h2>Difficult to manage</h2>
<p>Conflicts like the one in Ukraine or a potential conflict in Bosnia occur at the seams between areas that great powers influence. </p>
<p>This means they are not easily managed short of escalation to all-out war. Globally, another world war seems to be the only thing that competing powers share an interest in avoiding. For Ukrainians, and perhaps Bosnians, this means that while the West and Russia may compete over them, they will simultaneously seek to avoid direct conflict with one another. That can create protracted and interminable regional wars.</p>
<p>Direct intervention is not the answer — state-building is. If we want to stabilize our world and prevent the types of atrocities we are seeing every day in Ukraine, the work must be done now. It will not be easy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-afghanistan-is-and-isnt-vietnam-all-over-again-166455">as past failures indicate</a>, but only by attempting to solve the quagmire that is state-building can we hope to avoid these tragedies in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Russia’s future influence on global affairs may not be limited to Ukraine — it may run through Bosnia-Herzegovina. To understand why, we need to think about how past conflicts shape today’s politics.James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser UniversityJack Adam MacLennan, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Graduate Program Director for National Security Studies, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1411772020-07-08T12:17:05Z2020-07-08T12:17:05ZSrebrenica, 25 years later: Lessons from the massacre that ended the Bosnian conflict and unmasked a genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345841/original/file-20200706-3992-1dz43r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3598%2C1726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bosnia's memorial cemetery of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which is still receiving new remains as more genocide victims are identified. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bosnian-muslim-woman-prays-near-graves-of-her-relatives-at-news-photo/1155046846?adppopup=true">Elvis Barukcic/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe’s worst massacre since World War II occurred 25 years ago this July. From July 11 to 19, in 1995, <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/file/Outreach/view_from_hague/jit_srebrenica_en.pdf">Bosnian Serb forces murdered 7,000 to 8,000 Muslim men and boys</a> in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica. </p>
<p>The Srebrenica massacre occurred two years after the United Nations had designated the city to be a “safe area” for civilians fleeing fighting between Bosnian government and separatist Serb forces, during the breakup of Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/1995/10/15/fall-srebrenica-and-failure-un-peacekeeping/bosnia-and-herzegovina">20,000 refugees and 37,000 residents</a> sheltered in the city, protected by fewer than 500 lightly armed international peacekeepers. <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/08/it-was-hell-dutch-troops-recall-failure-to-stop-srebrenica-deaths/">After overwhelming the UN troops</a>, Serb forces carried out what was later documented to be a carefully planned act of genocide. </p>
<p>Bosnian-Serb soldiers and police <a href="https://undocs.org/A/54/549">rounded up men and boys ages 16 to 60</a> – nearly all of them <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/file/Outreach/view_from_hague/jit_srebrenica_en.pdf">innocent civilians</a> – trucked them to killing sites to be shot and buried them in mass graves. Serbian forces bused about <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/bosnia-herzegovina/srebrenica/violence/systematic-executions">20,000 women and children</a> to the safety of Muslim-held areas – but only after raping <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2010/07/08/silence-and-shame-shield-srebrenica-rapists-from-justice/">many of the women</a>. The atrocity was so heinous, that even the reluctant United States felt compelled to intervene directly in – and finally end – Bosnia’s conflict. </p>
<p>Srebrenica is a cautionary tale about what <a href="https://depaul.digication.com/tom_mockaitis1/Publications">extremist nationalism can lead to</a>. With xenophobia, nationalist parties and ethnic conflict resurgent worldwide, the lessons from Bosnia could not be timelier. </p>
<h2>Perpetrators must be held accountable</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314449/the-bosnia-list-by-kenan-trebincevic-and-susan-shapiro/">Bosnia’s civil war</a> was a complex religious and ethnic conflict. On one side were Bosnian Muslims and Roman Catholic Bosnian Croats, who had both voted for independence from Yugoslavia. They were fighting the Bosnian Serbs, who had seceded to form their own republic and sought to expel everyone else from their new territory.</p>
<p>The carnage that ensued is epitomized by one street in one town I visited in 1996, as part of <a href="https://depaul.digication.com/tom_mockaitis1/Publications">my study of the Bosnian conflict</a>. In Bosanska Krupa, I saw a Catholic church, a mosque and an Orthodox church on a narrow stretch of road, all left in ruins by the war. Fighters had targeted not only ethnic groups but also the symbols of their identities. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bosnia’s conflict was part of the Yugoslavian Civil War, which destroyed a nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-war-in-yugoslavia-news-photo/539998516?adppopup=true">David Brauchli/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>It took more than two decades to bring those responsible for the atrocities of the Bosnian civil war to justice. Ultimately, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, a <a href="https://www.icty.org">UN court that ran from 1993 to 2017</a>, <a href="https://www.icty.org/sid/24">convicted 62 Bosnian Serbs of war crimes</a>, including several high ranking officers. </p>
<p>It found Bosnian Serb Army Commander General Ratko Mladić guilty of “<a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/cis/en/cis_mladic_en.pdf">genocide and persecution, extermination, murder, and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica</a>” and convicted Bosnian Serb <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/acjug/en/130711_judgement_summary_rule98bis.pdf">leader Radovan Karadžić of genocide</a>. The tribunal also indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloŝević on charges of <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/ind/en/mil-ii011122e.htm">“genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, and violations of the laws or customs of war</a>” for his role in supporting ethnic cleansing, but he died during his trial. </p>
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<p>Though many other people have never been tried, the criminal indictments that followed Srebrenica show why the perpetrators of wartime atrocities must be held accountable, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/17/former-auschwitz-guard-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison/">no matter how long it takes</a>. Criminal convictions provide some closure for victims’ families and remind the guilty they can never be certain of escaping justice. </p>
<p>It also emphasizes that guilty individuals must be held accountable after war – not entire populations. “The Serbs” didn’t commit genocide. Members of the Bosnian Serb Army and Serbian paramilitaries, led by men like Mladić, did the killing.</p>
<h2>Denialism is dangerous</h2>
<p>Despite the landmark international convictions and painstaking documentation of the crimes against humanity that occurred in Bosnia, some in Serbia <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/srebrenica-massacre-bosnia-anniversary-denial/398846/">still claim</a> the genocide never happened. </p>
<p>Using arguments similar to those made by deniers of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/europe/turkeys-century-of-denial-about-an-armenian-genocide.html">Armenian genocide</a> and <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-holocaust-denial">the Holocaust</a>, Serbian nationalists insist the number of dead is exaggerated, the victims were combatants, or that Srebrenica is but one of many atrocities committed by all parties to the conflict. </p>
<p>During wartime, it is true, belligerents on both sides will do terrible things. But evidence from Bosnia clearly demonstrates that Serb forces killed more civilians than combatants from other groups. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20164302?seq=1">At least 26,582 civilians died</a> during the war: 22,225 Muslims, 986 Croats and 2,130 Serbs. Muslims made up <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/bosnia-herzegovina/case-study/background/1992-1995">only about 44% of Bosnia’s population</a> but 80% of the dead. <a href="https://www.icty.org/sid/24">The Hague tribunal convicted only five Bosnian Muslims of war crimes</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, the president of Serbia apologized for the “crime” of Srebrenica, but <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22297089#:%7E:text=Serbia's%20President%2C%20Tomislav%20Nikolic%2C%20has,up%20of%20Yugoslavia%2C%20including%20Srebrenica.&text=He%20was%20criticised%20after%20his,was%20no%20genocide%20in%20Srebrenica.%22">refused to acknowledge that it was part of a genocidal campaign</a> against Bosnian Muslims.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A funeral for 175 newly identified victims of the Srebrenica massacre, July 11, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anniversary-of-the-slaughter-of-srebrenica-bosnia-where-news-photo/524306738?adppopup=true">NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indifference is complicity</h2>
<p>Srebrenica is a stark warning that any effort to divide people into “them” and “us” is cause for grave concern – and, potentially, for international action. Research shows that genocide starts with <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-of-genocide">stigmatization of others and, if unchecked, can proceed through dehumanization to extermination</a>.</p>
<p>Srebrenica was the culminating event in a yearslong campaign of genocide against Bosnian Muslims. In 1994, over a year before the massacre, <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aa2138.html">the U.S. Department of State</a> reported that Serb forces were “ethnically cleansing” areas, using murder and rape as tools of war and razing villages. </p>
<p>But the Clinton administration, fresh from a humiliating failure to stop a civil war in Somalia, wanted to avoid involvement. And the United Nations refused to authorize more robust action to halt Serb aggression, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/16/world/un-details-its-failure-to-stop-95-bosnia-massacre.html">believing it needed to remain neutral for political reasons</a>. It took the slaughter in Srebrenica to persuade these international powers to intervene. </p>
<p>Acting sooner could have saved lives. In my 1999 book, “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/911e/99accb514df2bd51103281d0c83af4c6b6aa.pdf">Peacekeeping and Intrastate Conflict</a>,” I argued that only a heavily armed force with a clear mandate to halt aggression can end a civil war. </p>
<p>The U.S. and UN could have supplied that force, but they dithered. </p>
<h2>Massacres continue</h2>
<p>Remembering past genocides like Srebenica will not prevent future ones. Marginalized groups have been brutally persecuted in the years since 1995, including in <a href="https://www.jww.org/conflict-areas/sudan/darfur/">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/11/whats-happening-syria-is-genocide/">Syria</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/14/6700-rohingya-muslims-killed-in-attacks-in-myanmar-says-medecins-sans-frontieres">Myanmar</a>. Today, the Uighurs – a Muslim minority in China – are being rounded up, thrown into Chinese concentration camps <a href="https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c">and forcibly sterilized</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, remembrance of past atrocities is critically important. It allows people to pause and reflect, to honor the dead, to celebrate what unites humanity, and to work together to overcome their differences. Remembering also preserves the integrity of the past against those who would revise history for their own ends. </p>
<p>In that sense, commemorating Srebrenica 25 years later may, in some small measure, make us more willing to resist the evil of mass murder going forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Mockaitis received a USIP grant in 1995 to fund research on the book "Peacekeeping and Intrastate Conflict: The Sword or the Olive Branch?" (Praeger, 1999), which has a chapter on the Bosnian Conflict. Some small DePaul grants and paid leave also supported his book project.</span></em></p>In July 1995, Serb forces murdered at least 7,000 Bosnian Muslims – an act so heinous it forced the US and UN to intervene in Bosnia’s war. What has the world learned since then about ethnic violence?Tom Mockaitis, Professor of History, DePaul UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/991222018-07-11T12:31:34Z2018-07-11T12:31:34ZRemembering Srebrenica, more than 20 years on<p>One of the darkest hours in recent human history, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has plenty of unpleasant parallels in today’s world, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrias-latest-chemical-massacre-demands-a-global-response-94668">Syria</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rohingya-crisis-this-is-what-genocide-looks-like-83924">Myanmar</a>. 23 years after the massacre in and around the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, remembrance of what has been <a href="http://www.icty.org/en/press/radovan-karadzic-and-ratko-mladic-accused-genocide-following-take-over-srebrenica">described</a> as “scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history” is as important as ever.</p>
<p>The events in and around Srebrenica between July 10-19 1995 are well known. In those few days, an estimated 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces. Efforts to find, recover, identify and repatriate the victims’ remains are ongoing – and the task is a hugely complex one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/11/srebrenica-massacre-commemorated-with-burial-of-recently-identified-bodies">Every year</a> at the <a href="https://www.srebrenica.org.uk/lessons-from-srebrenica/srebrenica-potocari-memorial/">Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre and Cemetery</a>, more victims are laid to rest. This year, <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/sarajevo-honours-convoy-carrying-srebrenica-dead-07-09-2018">35 people</a> have been identified and will be buried. Of the 430 Srebrenica-related sites where human remains have been recovered, 94 are graves and 336 are surface sites with human remains scattered on the ground. Pathologists and anthropologists examined more than 17,000 sets of human remains related to Srebrenica, resulting in around 7,000 identifications, most of them via DNA. To gather enough DNA to make those identifications, more than 20,000 DNA samples had to be collected. </p>
<h2>Slow justice</h2>
<p>It was only in autumn 2017 that Ratko Mladić, a former general of the Bosnian Serb forces, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">convicted</a> of the crimes that took place in Srebrenica – genocide and persecution, extermination, murder, and the inhumane act of forcible transfer. Mladić is one of relatively few defendants to have appeared before the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) charged with genocide. </p>
<p>This is because for a conviction on the grounds of genocide, the prosecution has to prove a catalogue of things. To be convicted of the crime of genocide, the accused must have <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/file/Legal%20Library/Statute/statute_sept09_en.pdf">deliberately intended</a> “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such”. Punishable under Article 4(3) of the ICTY Statute are also conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide, attempts to commit genocide and complicity in genocide. Two things have to be proven: the <em>actus reus</em> (the actual killings, serious bodily or mental harm and deliberate infliction of conditions designed to bring about the destruction of the group) and the <em>mens rea</em> (the specific intent to destroy the group).</p>
<p>Mladić’s 2017 conviction did not bring an end to all aspects of his case. In March 2018, both the defence and prosecution <a href="http://jrad.unmict.org/webdrawer/webdrawer.dll/webdrawer/search/rec&sm_recnbr&sm_ncontents=mict-13-56&sm_created&sm_fulltext&sort1=rs_datecreated&count&rows=100">filed their notices of appeal</a>. Though not in relation to Srebrenica, the prosecution submits that the trial chamber erred in two of its findings: first, that Bosnian Muslims in the areas of Foča, Kotor Varoš, Prijedor, Sanski Most and Vlasenica did not constitute a substantial part of the Bosnian Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and second, that Mladić (and others) did not intend to destroy those Bosnian Muslims. As a result, the <a href="http://www.unmict.org/en/cases/mict-13-56">proceedings</a> are ongoing.</p>
<p>During the 530 days of Mladić’s original trial, 377 witnesses appeared in court, some of them victims of war crimes. Victims often have <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24977/">many needs</a>: to tell their stories, to contribute to public knowledge and accountability, to publicly denounce the wrongs that were committed against them and others, to bear witness on behalf of those who did not survive, and to receive reparations, public acknowledgement or apologies. They may wish to confront the accused, to find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones, to contribute to peace goals or to help prevent the perpetration of further abuse. Many risk their own personal safety to tell their stories, or those of victims who did not survive.</p>
<p>And yet, a recent <a href="https://www.impunitywatch.org/docs/Keeping_the_Promise_%5BFINAL%5D.pdf">report by international NGO Impunity Watch</a> paints a bleak picture stating that “Western Balkan states have done very poorly when it comes to victim participation in [transitional justice] processes. Victims’ voices are marginalised and their rightful claims have been politicised by the different sides.”</p>
<h2>Remembrance and responsibility</h2>
<p>Impunity Watch describes a continuing “battleground of conflicting narratives, in which each side claims victimhood and blames the other for past abuses”. This does not bode well for the future.</p>
<p>The divisions in Bosnia are hard to ignore; Srebrenica’s Serb mayor, Mladen Grujičić, <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/srebrenica-s-serb-mayor-repeats-denial-of-genocide-04-13-2017">denies that the genocide occurred</a>, as does <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/thousands-mourn-at-srebrenica-anniversary-commemoration-07-11-2016">Milorad Dodik</a> the leader of Bosnia’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpska. Many Serbian nationalists regard Mladić as a war hero. To many people, his conviction would therefore be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/bosnians-divided-over-ratko-mladic-guilty-verdict-for-war-crimes">effectively meaningless</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, plenty of civil society activities, interventions and educational programmes have been devised. In Bosnia, <a href="https://balkandiskurs.com/en/2018/02/11/youth-united-in-peace-25-years-of-seaside-peacebuilding/">Youth United in Peace</a> and <a href="http://www.yihr.org/">Youth Initiative for Human Rights</a>, to name but two, offer young people the chance to hear different perspectives about the past through workshops and visits to commemorative places of all sides. Such projects try to counter ethnic <a href="https://www.osce.org/mission-to-bosnia-and-herzegovina/education">segregation</a> to offer shared space for dialogue.</p>
<p>In a speech to the United Nations in 1958, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/universal-declaration-human-rights-UDHR">Eleanor Roosevelt</a> famously said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works.</p>
<p>Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All too often this is forgotten. But with stark societal divisions palpable in many parts of the world, we have to keep reminding ourselves that all others are above all else human beings. Only if we do that will the idea of human rights be meaningful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The massacre of 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks in a few days in 1995 must never be forgotten.Melanie Klinkner, Principal Academic in International Law, Bournemouth UniversityGiulia Levi, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/879762017-11-22T17:21:41Z2017-11-22T17:21:41ZRatko Mladić’s conviction and why the evidence of mass graves still matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195903/original/file-20171122-6061-czl9t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former general Mladić during proceedings in January.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/icty/31737888363/in/photolist-9Mgq4q-oMbmvS-57FJbJ-bv3iqL-GQnVnF-9MHbyF-7uTBvq-9SqZ6C-GQnVvB-QmyYtM-9Qf31o-Dpbets-21rZs4G-ZqwwKn-21rZtkE-GQnV18-Dpbex5-Dpbefm-GQnVEp-GQnWgz-ZqwwVT-GQnVdT-GQnWpF-GQnVNR">UN ICTY</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ratko Mladić <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">has been convicted</a> of genocide and persecution, extermination, murder and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica in 1995. He was also found guilty of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and inhumane act of forcible transfer in municipalities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and of murder, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians in Sarajevo. </p>
<p>In addition, the former Bosnian Serb army general was convicted for the hostage-taking of UN personnel. But he was acquitted of the charge of genocide in several municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.</p>
<p>The events that occurred in and around the Srebrenica enclave between July 10-19 1995, where an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, lost their lives, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/11/reviews/970511.11grimont.html">are well documented</a>. These atrocities, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yugoslavia-Death-Nation-Laura-Silber/dp/0140262636">culminating in</a> the “biggest single mass murder in Europe” since World War II, not only resulted in a tremendous loss of life and emotionally scarred survivors, it also left behind a landscape filled with human remains and mass graves.</p>
<p>Forensic investigations into the Srebrenica massacre <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24750/1/Karadzic%E2%80%99s%20guilty%20verdict%20and%20forensic%20evidence%20from%20Bosnia%E2%80%99s%20mass%20graves%20Sci-Justice%202016.pdf">assisted</a> in convicting Mladić, who stood accused for his involvement in implementing and orchestrating the forcible transfer and eventual elimination of the Bosnian Muslim population from Srebrenica. For the Srebrenica investigations, between 1996 and 2001, the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) conducted exhumations at 23 sites, while a further 20 mass graves were probed to confirm that they <a href="http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/P642-1a.pdf">contained human remains</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Srebrenica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/martijnmunneke/2653413838/in/photolist-53trus-53tuFf-53pecX-53trZG-53tuRh-53tuzf-53tuLW-53pcec-53pcsF-53tvwJ-53pgY6-53tvtd-53pezt-53pdXF-53tsNy-53trCJ-53pftF-53tsru-53tu8y-53tvpG-53trfJ-53phoB-53pe4X-53pffz-53tr4w-53ttaW-53pfn4-53peXP-53tsUY-53tqTq-53pdB4-53pfai-53pgLr-8A4MLN-53pgkx-53tviA-53ph1r-53tvd3-53tuPq-o9UYVS-obNR8L-a5ypHx-53tvaL-53tv93-53pgNn-53pfGX-vSB5KV-a3tvtf-Xefv6v-a3tuw3">Martijn.Munneke/ Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The investigative objectives for these investigations were to:
* Corroborate victim and witness accounts of the massacres;
* Determine an accurate count of victims;
* Determine cause and time of death;
* Determine the sex of victims;
* Determine the identity of victims (a process that is ongoing with the help of DNA analysis); and
* Identify links <a href="http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/P642-1a.pdf">to the perpetrators</a>.</p>
<p>The task of locating and exhuming mass graves in Bosnia continues, as does the general quest of locating the missing in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. And this evidence still matters for the ICTY. Evidence on hundreds of bodies exhumed from the Tomašica mass grave near Prijedor in the north-west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was <a href="http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/what-post-mortems-of-tomasica-victims-showed.29.html?cat_id=1&news_id=16662">presented in the Mladić trial</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/tjug/en/171122-summary-en.pdf">summary judgment</a> read out in the court room in The Hague made this very clear:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During several weeks in September and early October 1995, senior members of the VRS [Army of the Bosnian-Serb Republic] and the MUP [Ministry of the Interior] attempted to conceal their crimes by exhuming their victims’ remains from several mass graves, and then reburying those remains in more remote areas in Zvornik and Bratunac municipalities. Their attempt to cover up the Srebrenica massacres ultimately failed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such attempts at hiding crimes by digging up mass graves only to dispose of the bodies in so called “secondary mass graves” results in commingled and mutilated body parts rendering identification and repatriation of human remains all the more difficult. This causes further and prolonged distress to the survivor population and can be seen as intent to cause suffering.</p>
<p>Properly investigated forensic evidence from mass graves, the presentation of such physical evidence, the testing of expertise, independence and impartiality of the accounts in court, is likely to result in more reliable findings. In the case of Bosnian Serb leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/radovan-karadzic-sentenced-to-40-years-but-peace-is-still-a-work-in-progress-56778">Radovan Karadžić</a> forensic evidence helped confirm the crimes committed – it can be assumed that the same is the case for Mladić; at the time of writing the judgment in its entirety is not available yet. </p>
<p>It is well worth remembering that the information from forensic mass grave investigations has another purpose and does not only speak to a court of law. The work on the ground through organisations such as the <a href="https://www.icmp.int/">International Commission on Missing Persons</a> will continue <a href="https://www.ictj.org/news/karadzic-bosnia-herzegovina-criminal-justice#.VwvL_wtXbgc.twitter">as there are</a> “too many people who are still searching for their children’s bones to bury”. Those forensic findings will have a value and meaning for family members and survivors that judgments such as the Mladić one cannot have. It offers them information on their lost loved ones and, hopefully, the return of their human remains.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Klinkner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forensic science of the dead helps to convict the living responsible.Melanie Klinkner, Senior Lecturer In Law, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/809132017-07-14T12:40:08Z2017-07-14T12:40:08ZWhen Bosnia was torn apart, football clubs were ethnically cleansed along with the population<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178114/original/file-20170713-10278-4oz6m8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Displaced team Velež Mostar FC’s far less glamorous postwar home, in the village of Vrapčići.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Mills</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For tens of thousands of refugees displaced by the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina 25 years ago, the first painful hours after being ejected from their homes were often spent in football stadiums. Some found themselves in stadiums for their own protection, while for others the football stadium was the last they would see of their former community before being expelled in the name of ethnic cleansing. For others still, corralled into stadiums by armed paramilitaries, the football ground would be the last thing they would see.</p>
<p>The three-way conflict that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17632399">engulfed Bosnia between 1992 and 1995</a> left 100,000 dead and forced half the country’s population to relocate. Used by Serb, Croat and Bosnian government (primarily Bosniak, or Bosnian Muslim) forces, football stadiums and sports infrastructure were part of this – and football clubs themselves suffered alongside the population: some clubs embraced narrow ethnic identities, whereas multi-ethnic clubs became targets. </p>
<p>While many footballers took up arms, hundreds more were displaced by the fighting. Some Serb players fled east to Serbia and continued their careers at clubs in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Velež Mostar FC’s <a href="https://www.transfermarkt.com/nikola-jokisic/profil/spieler/400938">Nikola Jokišić</a> among them. Borac Banja Luka FC continued to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.801220">compete in the Yugoslav football leagues</a> for the duration of the war, playing “home” matches at stadiums across Serbia. Other teams played in the competitions of the incipient Bosnian Serb state. </p>
<p>Talented Croat and Bosniak players headed westward, signing for clubs in neighbouring Croatia or venturing further afield. Like thousands of their compatriots, many footballers rebuilt their lives in countries across western Europe and, while there is a long tradition of Yugoslavia’s best players making profitable moves abroad, the war turned a steady stream into a flood. While the most talented Bosnians found themselves welcome at some of Europe’s best clubs, others scrambled to secure any contract they could in order to escape.</p>
<p>When in 1993 Bosnian Croat forces harnessed <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2010.497018">Velež Mostar’s Bijeli Brijeg Stadium</a> to round up Bosniak civilians from west Mostar, the football club was also a victim. The team had strong links to the failed communist order and espoused a multi-ethnic identity that was ill-suited to the Bosnian Croat project. The team was expelled along with the civilian population.</p>
<p>Ejected from its home, Velež gradually resumed activities in Bosnian government-held territory and competed in Bosnia and Hercegovina’s first wartime championship of 1994. Other clubs, such as Željezničar Sarajevo FC, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2016.1219899">split along ethnic lines</a> and rival incarnations laid claim to the club’s history on either side of the front line. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178245/original/file-20170714-14287-y8wjtw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former home of FC Velež, Mostar’s Bijeli Brijeg stadium now hosts Croatian team HSK Zrinjski.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stadion_H%C5%A0K_Zrinjski.JPG">Mostarac</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Croat forces and international peacekeepers used Tomislavgrad’s football ground as a reception centre for Croat civilians fleeing fierce fighting in nearby Bugojno. Footage of this operation shows <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060013979">women chatting quietly on rugs laid out under the goal posts</a>, surrounded by hastily-packed bags of prized possessions while their children play on the pitch.</p>
<p>When the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dayton-Accords">Dayton Accords</a> brought the war to an end a year later, Bosnia was recreated as a federal state, implicitly recognising the results of ethnic cleansing. Territorially, Bosnia’s three principal ethnic groups remain largely separated today, although there is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2014.974512">a unified football league and national team</a>. Yet Velež has been unable to return to its west Mostar home: <a href="https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/hsk-zrinjski-mostar/startseite/verein/6808">Zrinjski Mostar</a>, a resurrected Croat club that had been banned during the communist era, now plays at the Bijeli Brijeg Stadium. Displaced Velež play their football several miles east of the town at a hastily prepared ground in the village of Vrapčići.</p>
<h2>A changed landscape</h2>
<p>Inside Bosnia today, the football landscape is irrevocably altered. East of Sarajevo, a large new settlement is now home to thousands of Serbs who left the capital as a result of the war. There, inhabitants who once backed Sarajevo’s leading football clubs now gather around Slavija FC, another team resurrected in the early 1990s that boasts a proud Serbian identity. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Velež and other prominent Bosnian clubs have fans among the displaced supporters who have built new lives beyond the Balkans, who often gather together to celebrate the club that shared their fate. Professional footballers who were child refugees in the 1990s retain strong emotional attachments to Bosnia, even though they have lived the vast majority of their lives in western Europe. </p>
<p>In the UK, <a href="http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/from-refugee-to-footballer-the-journey-of-bosnian-mario-vrancic-to-carrow-road-1-5083043">Norwich City FC’s new Bosnian signing</a> Mario Vrančić, originally from the town of Bosanski Brod, spent most of his life in Germany. Nevertheless he – like other compatriots in similar positions, including his own brother – has proudly represented Bosnia and Hercegovina at international level.</p>
<p>Those who passed through football stadiums after being thrown out of their homes were not the worst affected. Bosnian Serb forces attacking the UN-protected “safe area” of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 took thousands of Bosniaks who sought refuge there to detention facilities, including the football grounds of lower league Bosnian teams. As described by <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/329799/srebrenica-by-jan-willem-honig/9780140266320/">witness testimony from UN personnel</a> and in the proceedings of the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</a>, men and boys were separated, bussed to other facilities, and executed. </p>
<p>A US U-2 spy plane captured images of hundreds packed onto a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/1995/aug/19/warcrimes">football pitch in Nova Kasaba</a>, surrounded by guards. On its return, the spy plane saw only mounds of freshly dug earth in the adjacent field. Some 8,000 men and boys were massacred in the days following Srebrenica’s fall, one of the darkest moments in Bosnian history, but also in the history of Bosnian football.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In many countries sports like football brings people together, but in Bosnia it re-emphasises the divides.Richard Mills, Lecturer in Modern European History, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793932017-06-16T13:50:22Z2017-06-16T13:50:22ZHow the spectre of Yugoslavia looms over EU’s handling of the refugee crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174172/original/file-20170616-505-v1g0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Memorial to early 1990s war in Sarajevo, Bosnia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/26781577@N07/16027223292/in/photolist-egsG6G-6abNp5-7JM6DS-qqgH75-9y4d8t-rU8BDr">Clay Gilliland</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With peak season approaching for refugees making treacherous journeys to and through Europe, don’t be surprised if we are told again that this is unprecedented. That would certainly be in keeping with what <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34173972">news organisations</a>, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0QZ0TK20150831">politicians</a> and <a href="https://www.oecd.org/migration/Is-this-refugee-crisis-different.pdf">research bodies</a> have asserted in the past several years. </p>
<p>In fact, Europe has coped with comparable situations – not least the Balkan crisis of the early 1990s. It tends to be overlooked that the Yugoslav experience has informed EU refugee policy this time around. Arguably this has made the situation better than it might otherwise have been. </p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, similar numbers of people <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3c3eb40f4.pdf">from the</a> former Yugoslavia <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/latest/2002/6/3d0f6dcb5/2001-global-refugee-statistics.html">sought</a> asylum in northern Europe as Syrians have <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report">more recently</a> – as demonstrated below. Indeed, more sought asylum from the former Yugoslavia in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and the UK than from Syria so far. </p>
<p><strong>Asylum applications from Yugoslavs and Syrians</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173636/original/file-20170613-30061-fihe29.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sources: UNHCR, Eurostat.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Looking at asylum seekers <a href="http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=migr_asyappctza&lang=en">in general</a>, more did come to most northern European countries during the 2010s than the early 1990s. Yet the difference is not enormous: approximately 2.5m in 1991-96 versus 3.2m in 2011-16. </p>
<p>While Germany, Sweden, France and Austria have recorded more applications in the more recent period, the opposite is true for the Netherlands and the UK. And since most northern European countries’ populations rose between the early 1990s and the early 2010s, the overall difference will also be less as a proportion of populations as a whole. </p>
<p><strong>Asylum applications as a whole</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173642/original/file-20170613-30093-13g8863.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sources: UNHCR, Eurostat.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Mediterranean spectacle</h2>
<p>The northern European media have nevertheless given much more prominence to the latest crisis. Partly this is because those seeking protection in the early 1990s mainly came by car, bus or train. In more recent years, many asylum seekers have taken to the seas to get around Europe’s strict visa laws. Images of distressed boat migrants played out in the media before millions of viewers. It became a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2013.783710">border spectacle</a>, which encouraged perceptions of migrants’ illegality in the process.</p>
<p>The fear of Islamic terrorists posing as refugees also differs substantially nowadays. Although many Muslims from Bosnia and outside Europe applied for asylum in the early 1990s, their religious background was not such an issue. </p>
<p>Following 9/11 – and numerous other Islamic terrorist attacks in the West – debates about immigration and asylum have become far more security and culturally oriented. This has frequently been driven by anti-immigration parties such as <a href="http://www.ukip.org">UKIP</a> in the UK, France’s <a href="http://www.frontnational.com">Front National</a> and the <a href="https://www.parlement.com/id/vhnnmt7m4rqi/partij_voor_de_vrijheid_pvv">Partij voor de Vrijheid</a> in the Netherlands. </p>
<p>These parties did sometimes break through in northern Europe in the early 1990s. The Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs in Austria attained 22% of the <a href="http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2017_94.htm">national vote in 1994</a>, for example. Nevertheless these parties have become much more media savvy and presentable, as demonstrated by Marine le Pen in France and the <a href="http://eureferendum.com">Brexit success</a> in the UK. This has been heavily assisted by the economic crisis and a sense of disillusion with mainstream politics. </p>
<h2>EU in the dock</h2>
<p>The anti-immigration parties attach much blame to the EU for allowing too many people to come in and failing to control what happens at borders. The truth is rather more complicated. </p>
<p>During both crises, many European states have adopted a beggar-thy-neighbour attitude to asylum. States, including Germany, that encouraged joint European responses have borne most of the burden. In 1994 Germany <a href="http://www.lse-students.ac.uk/THIELEMA/Papers-PDF/JRS-16-3-BS-Interests-Norms.pdf">proposed</a> a pan-EU distribution system for asylum seekers. Other EU members, especially the UK and France, opposed this – despite receiving relatively few applicants. In the end, the EU shelved the idea.</p>
<p>The likes of the Germans and Swedes perceived that the EU’s lack of power over immigration asylum policy was part of the problem, so they sought reform. As a result, the EU’s influence on the immigration and asylum affairs of member states has since developed significantly. The <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A41997A0819%2801%29">1997 Dublin Convention</a> requires asylum seekers to apply for protection in the first EU country they enter, while the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum_en">1999 Common European Asylum System</a> attempted to harmonise the whole asylum process. </p>
<p>Another lesson post-Yugoslavia was that instead of relying on the likes of the British, you seek alternatives. So instead of any move towards proper collective responsibility for EU asylum seekers, the southern and central European states <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319398280">have taken</a> more responsibility while the north’s commitment has stayed the same. </p>
<p>Southern EU countries, notably Greece and Italy, agreed to this in the 2000s because they had few refugees and wanted to implement a comparable system to the northern states over time. Newer EU states joined too late to influence negotiations. You can see the consequences in this graph:</p>
<p><strong>Applications in Hungary, Greece and Italy</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173768/original/file-20170614-21350-1lffgzm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sources: UNHCR, Eurostat.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only has the EU therefore reduced northern member states’ asylum burden, with Angela Merkel to the fore it successfully negotiated an <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18-eu-turkey-statement/">agreement</a> with Turkey last March. This helped greatly reduce the numbers making the sea voyage to Greece, cutting all <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/mediterranean-migrant-arrivals-top-363348-2016-deaths-sea-5079">boat voyages</a> to Europe by roughly two-thirds in 2016. </p>
<p>This has not solved the problem. The numbers dying at sea actually <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/23/record-migrant-death-toll-two-boats-capsize-italy-un-refugee">increased</a> in the same period despite this agreement because the journey from Libya to Italy is much more dangerous. It remains difficult for the EU to strike a deal with Libya – the country’s civil war is ongoing and it has never signed the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html">UN Refugee Convention</a>. Migrants also <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LY/DetainedAndDehumanised_en.pdf">tend to be</a> treated appallingly in Libyan detention centres. </p>
<p>Many EU states are nevertheless seeking a way around this problem –a <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/eu-leaders-approve-plan-to-curb-migration-from-libya-africa/">plan was agreed</a> earlier this year to curb refugee numbers from Libya. Expect further debate about such initiatives once peak season begins. </p>
<p>In short, what separates the current refugee crisis is not its scale. It is that it has occurred during a <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2016/02/europe%E2%80%99s-refugee">perfect storm</a> of other factors: the economic crisis, the rise of anti-immigration parties, and a media <a href="http://serious-science.org/newspapers-in-crisis-5974">increasingly desperate</a> for readers and arguably resorting to ever uglier coverage to keep them. </p>
<p>Look beyond this and the northern European countries have clearly tried to learn from the past. The real question is whether the fix is workable – in particular, the shifting of some of the burden to southern and central European states. It is not at all clear <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/refugee-hotspots-in-italy-and-greece-not-yet-adequate-say-eu-auditors/">whether they have</a> the capacity to cope with it. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of a series on sustainability and transformation in today’s Europe, published in collaboration with <a href="http://www.europenowjournal.org">EuropeNow Journal</a> and the <a href="https://councilforeuropeanstudies.org">Council for European Studies (CES)</a> at Columbia University. Each article is based on a paper presented at the <a href="https://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/conferences/upcoming-conferences/2017-ces-conference">24th International Conference of Europeanists</a> in Glasgow.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irial Glynn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Everyone has forgotten there were almost as many asylum seekers in Europe in the early 1990s as today.Irial Glynn, Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the Institute of History, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.