The Bosnian Genocide

Today, the United States acknowledges the crimes against humanity carried against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats out by the Bosnian Serb Army from 1992 to 1995 as genocide. However, these crimes– including the infamous massacre at Srebrenica– were not officially recognized by Congress as genocide until 2005 (“Bosnian Genocide,” Wikipedia.) Some Bosnians complain that the US took too long to officially recognize the actions of Serb forces as genocide, and that as a result, many still use vague euphemisms such as “ethnic cleansing” or “the Bosnian conflict” instead (It’s Time We Started Talking, 1.) By examining our definition of genocide, we can decide whether the devastation during the Bosnian War fits that classification.

    In Comparative Politics, David J. Samuels defines genocide as “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of a particular ethnic, religious, or national group, through mass murder” (Samuels, 279.) According to this definition, attacks from the Bosnian Serbs may seem to qualify as genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croatian civilians were singled out and expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulting in an estimated 100,000 deaths.  The Srebrenica massacre consisted of Bosnian Serbs murdering over 8,000 Bosniaks, most of whom were men and boys. The UN Secretary-General described the Srebenica massacre as the worst crime on European soil since WWII (Srebrenica Massacre.)

    However, one of the reasons the Bosnian genocide was not officially recognized for years is because with the exception of the Srebrenica massacre, most of the crimes against humanity were not direct acts of mass murder. For example, expulsion under the name of “ethnic cleansing” killed thousands through starvation and exposure. However, when using such a narrow definition of genocide, atrocities committed through a third party– such as the force of nature– are overlooked. As History.com notes, “Ethnic cleansing differs from genocide in that its primary goal is the expulsion of a group of people from a geographical area and not the actual physical destruction of that group, even though the same methods--including murder, rape, torture and forcible displacement--may be used” (Bosnian Genocide.)  Concentration camps existed in Srebrenica, but no extermination camps; prisoners were illegally confined, raped, and tortured– but the international community was slow to recognize these crimes as acts of genocide.

    The problem with classifying the Bosnian genocide is that in many ways, the only situation people could compare it to was the Holocaust; because the Bosnian Serbs had no gas chambers and occupied a much smaller territory, their actions went under the radar for many years. Compared to the extermination of 6 million Jews, their crimes against humanity did not reach the quantitative magnitude of the Nazis.

    It was not until 1998 that rape was recognized as a crime of genocide, by the UN-appointed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (War Rape.) Years earlier in the Bosnian war, the mass rape of Bosniaks was part of an organized, systematic strategy of sexual abuse (Rape in the Bosnian War.) This classification was confirmed in 2001 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that the rape and sexual enslavement carried out by Bosnian Serbs is a crime against humanity (War Rape.)

    Given these factors, a more encompassing and satisfactory definition of genocide is the one used by the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime and Genocide (CPPCG), which describes genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" (Genocide.)

    By focusing on the deliberate and systematic destruction of a people without limiting the crime simply to murder, we achieve a more accurate portrayal of the harm inflicted during the Bosnian genocide. This definition classifies the sexual abuse, torture, destruction of property, mass expulsion, beating, robbery, unlawful confinement and inhumane treatment of Bosnian civilians as genocide. Additionally, this definition brings up the argument that genocide is applicable if only a part of a certain group is being attacked. Most of the Bosniaks targeted were within a near vicinity of Srebrenica, and most of the mass rapes took place in Eastern Bosnia (Srebrenica Massacre.)

    By using the CPPCG internationally recognized definition of genocide, we can recognize the atrocities carried out by the Bosnian Serbs for what they were. It is crucial to examine cases of political violence in their own context; measuring them against other instances of violence does a disservice to victims of both travesties. The Bosnian genocide made history by changing the interpretation of genocide to include crimes against humanity such as mass rape and forcible displacement – things that may not entirely destroy the body, but surely kill the soul. Focusing on harm instead of death  opens the door for us to better prevent and intervene in instances of genocide– empowered by our ability to recognize genocide when we see it.