Paramilitary Forces Research Articles

Unveiling Srebrenica: a Dual Perspective on the 1995 Genocide UN and VRS Documents

In July 1995, the Army of the Serb Republic (VRS) and paramilitary forces carried out a genocide in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina that claimed the lives of over 8,000 Muslims. Understanding this tragic period necessitates an examination of documents from the United Nations (UN) and the VRS. According to UN documents, it was ill-equipped and underprepared to deal with the situation. Daily reports suggest insufficient resources, restricted movement, and dependence on rumors owing to limited access to information, limiting their capacity to deliver meaningful aid. VRS records illustrate the organized character of the genocide through explicit talks and coded language used to hide operations. However, critical personal histories and contextual information on the VRS members are missing, leaving unresolved questions regarding motivations. Documents from both the UN and VRS provide distinct viewpoints. UN records highlight the problems of an underprepared organization, while VRS testimony sheds light on the organized nature of the genocide. Through an analysis of daily UN reports and select testimony from VRS members at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), this paper argues that the shortcomings of international intervention and the deliberate, organized actions of the VRS were crucial factors in enabling the genocide at Srebrenica, shedding light on both the failures of the global community and the calculated strategies employed by those responsible.

Minister vs. Mufti the struggle over ‘moderate Islam’ in wartime Syria (2011–2021)

ABSTRACT In 2021, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the most significant reform of religious institutions in Syria’s modern history by abolishing the position of Grand Mufti and replacing it with a collegial body. Whereas most observers interpreted this move as a means to further subdue the Sunni religious elites, I argue that in fact, Assad’s decision addressed an old demand of the conservative Sunni ulama. For decades, the latter had asked for a collegial religious authority to be entrusted with the protection of ‘correct’ Islam not only from extremist ideas but also from modernist interpretations like those propagated by the last Grand Mufti himself. Getting rid of such ‘enlightened’ figures was all the more urgent, for the conservatives, that wartime circumstances had provided their rivals with new allies among paramilitary forces and pro-regime minority constituencies. In that context, ‘moderate Islam’ had become the focus of competing definitions by conservatives, who equated it with traditional Sunni doctrines, and modernists, who advocated innovative interpretations of the Scriptures and further secularization of law and education.

Sudan: Rethinking the Conflict Between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)

Sudan, the third largest nation in Africa, faces severe poverty despite its abundant natural resources. Recent economic restructuring efforts offer hope for growth, but a power struggle between the military and paramilitary forces has plunged the country into a crisis. Intense violence in Khartoum and other regions has led to widespread damage to infrastructure and facilities, triggering a humanitarian crisis with millions displaced and urgent aid needs. The conflict, sparked by disputes over paramilitary integration and control of economic assets, threatens regional stability and the transition to democracy. This article analyses the conflict’s origins and proposes potential resolutions using the Protracted Social Conflict Theory.

Paramilitary Forces, Domestic Politics and Conflict: A Case of the Sudan Crisis.

What is the threat posed by paramilitary groups on the state? This paper seeks to examine the role and impact of paramilitary forces on domestic politics and how their involvement results in political (in)stability. It examines how the interplay between the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force in Sudan and the Sudan Armed Forces has resulted in a humanitarian crisis since the overthrow of Omar Al Bashir's government in 2019. The authors argue that the formation of paramilitary groups is aimed at protecting the government from internal and external threats, yet these paramilitary groups can shift or withdraw their loyalty to the political leadership. Such a shift the paper finds creates a high potential for confrontation between the paramilitary forces and regular forces leaving the citizens vulnerable to mass atrocities and war crimes. The paper begins by examining the origin, spread and activities of militia groups globally and at the regional level before examining the concept of paramilitary forces. The authors then look at Sudan’s historical and contemporary experiences with paramilitary groups before discussing the recent crisis between the regular forces and the paramilitary force in Sudan. They find that the preferential treatment of paramilitary forces influences their actions during a crisis.

Bodo Conflicts and Signing of Accords

India’s North-East region (NER), comprising of eight states- Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim, is inhabited by a large number of ethnic groups. The region is juxtaposed with a large number of challenges simultaneously- armed conflict, ethnic conflict, poverty, inequality, etc. A multicultural, poly-ethnic region, ethnicity and the ethno-nationalists sentiments of the numerous communities of the region have often led fanning political and ethnic conflicts. Ethnic violence can be categorised in three different types- first, there is violence fabricated by armed ethnic organisations in order to achieve their goals, often targeted against the government, involving rival organisations in the same ethnic groups or even against civilians belonging to other ethnic groups. Second, violence is set up by student (and other) organisations, including protests against the government through road blockades, the burning of bridges, and sometimes clashes with police or para-military forces. Third, there are inter-group clashes. Assam, the second largest state of the NER has been in turmoil and agitation since long. The Bodoland region is one of the most disturbed areas in Assam. Inhabited by various ethnic groups like the Bodos, Gorkhas, Assamese, Santhals, Bengali speaking Muslims etc., this region has witnessed several conflicts.

Paramilitary Forces of India: Vanguard of the Internal Security System

Paramilitary Forces of India: Vanguard of the Internal Security System

Patriots of the Empire: Cossacks in the Dniester War (1992)

Abstract The participation of the Cossack formations in the military operations of Dniester in 1992, together with paramilitary forces recruited locally and supported politically and militarily by the Russian Federation, remains a topic known superficially at the level of public opinion and approached almost entirely by chance by qualified researchers. This article aims to put into circulation hitherto unused information; to systematize and interpret the information dissipated in the memoirs, contemporary media, and chronologies drawn up by the participants in the events; and to open the phenomenon (much better developed later) of the mercenary engaged in the interest of the great powers. The authors apply interdisciplinary methodology, borrowed from historical, military, political, sociological, and psychological sciences. Consequently, the conclusions will reveal ideological motivations, tactics, and strategies; alliance and subordination policies; but also serious ethical slippages—all specific to mercenary behavior.

Taming Transylvania: Paramilitaries Building State and Peace after World War I

This text is a political analysis of the events surrounding the demise of the Austro–Hungarian administration in Transylvania and its replacement by the Romanian one at the end of World War I. It focuses on the months of November and December 1918. In particular, the text looks at the Romanian paramilitary groups called the National Guards. I argue that in Transylvania in November and December 1918, the National Guards played a pacifying and state-building role through their repressive and anti-Communist function. Unlike the paramilitary phenomenon in the rest of Europe, in Transylvania it was the very counter-revolutionary function of the paramilitary troops that produced constructive and constitutive effects. At the same time, unlike Romanian historiography, which almost unanimously has seen the role of these troops as only a positive one, I underline the repressive function of the National Guards, which made them act violently against any alternative political projects of that period in the region. The revolutionary state of the province in those days had to be calmed down for Transylvania’s autonomy to be ensured under the control of the local Romanian authorities. The Romanian elite’s state-building project needed security to gain legitimacy. To this end, this elite took control of the various paramilitary forces of the region and monopolized them under the National Guards umbrella. These groups were crucial in the repression against the republican movement and the perceived Bolshevik threat.

SOME DATA ON THE MASSACRE IN THE VILLAGE OF IZBICË, MARCH 1999

<p><span>The study sheds light on serious crimes of genocide level that the military, paramilitary armed forces and police of the FRY and Serbia have committed in Kosovo, with special emphasis the village of Izbicë in the municipality of Skenderaj. Archival documents, scientific literature as well as interviews in the field, which I have analyzed, treated and carried out during the scientific researches, have clearly proven that the scale of crimes against the civilian population increased in 1999, specifically from the month of March, when the OSCE observers began to withdraw from the field. Released from the pressure of international observers, numerous Serbian military, police and paramilitary forces began actions against the Albanian civilian population throughout Kosova, but the greatest intensity was in Drenica where all age groups and both sexes were not spared, showing strong evidence that Serbia as a state has committed crimes against the civilian population, respectively against children, women and the elderly, such was the massacre in the village of Izbicë where Serbian forces killed, executed, massacred in in a few days 147 Albanian civilians.</span></p><p><span><strong>Keywords: </strong>Drenica, Izbica, Albanian civilians, Serbian military, police and paramilitary forces.</span></p>

PARAMILITARY AND WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA / PARAVOJNE JEDINICE I RATNI ZLOČINI POČINJENI U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI

The last armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which took place between 1992 and 1995, was a bloody one. Not only was lots of real blood were spilled, but metaphorically speaking, it resulted in millions of displaced persons, hundreds of mass graves, hundreds of places of detention, hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, hundreds of thousands of tortured and destroyed lives. During the aftermath of the war, around 700 war crime cases were prosecuted, spanning one thousand defendants, and including all possible war crimes, including genocide. These war crime trials could be observed from different perspectives. While most of these crimes were committed by soldiers and police officers, among those who were not soldiers or police officers, one category is to be particularly observed, the paramilitary. Members of the paramilitary, not soldiers or civilians, according to the database of war crimes, were charged in some 5% of all war crimes cases. But then, if these persons are not soldiers or civilians, the question is who were they, and why they do what they did? Furthermore, what interest did they have in behaving in a way that is characterized as criminal, more precisely, a war crime. Among number of the war crimes committed by the paramilitary groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this paper will analyze ones including most serious crimes and those of most significance. By doing that, this paper will contribute to the better understanding of the position and behavior of the paramilitary groups involved in committing war crimes, further legal regulation of their position, and social understanding of the nature of paramilitary forces in and after the armed conflict.

THE DEADLY ANGELS AND THEIR JUNGIAN REDEMPTION, A TALE OF A SOUTHERN MILITIA

Becker (1996) said that militias are right-wing populist movements that form from frustrations, in particular when the economy is poor. Outwardly, unrest fuels paramilitary forces, the unconscious incarnation of its hero-myths, and the accompanying symbols in the racial unconscious. Here, heroes are born out of necessity, specifically by some who rose above poverty. Using the Jungian model, Frye proposes the seasons as the phases where a hero follows the seasonal narratives from birth to tragedy, death and rebirth. Here, the Angels, a paramilitary force, reaches the pinnacle of their achievement, the Redemption of their identity via all four phases, fully vindicated in the memories of their survivors despite their pejorative origins. After furtive sessions with the survivors, the deepest unconscious embedded in Jungian archetype of the collective psyche was discovered. The undertones were deeply religious and arresting to discover that the militia provided for the needs of the townsfolk for immediate relief and basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing which explains the positive impression of those who have survived the phenomenon.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0044/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Modern Army for Modern Times or Private Paramilitary? Polish Territorial Defense Force as a Benchmark Case in Conflict Evolution

ABSTRACT The new Polish military branch, the Territorial Defense Force (TDF), has been described both as a defensive tool against Russian hybrid warfare and as a private paramilitary force of the incumbent Law and Justice Party. This paper examines the strategic, political, and military purposes of the Territorial Defense Force using two theoretical models. One is designed for analyzing units intended to protect against external threats, the second for units targeting internal threats. Comparing these models with the officially declared objectives of the TDF, our results indicate a stronger correlation of the new branch with the second model and reveal distinct political motivations for its creation.

Occupational stress among armed forces and police personnel: a review

In today’s world, stress is a word which is hard to avoid. If someone asks people about their stress and specifically how they know it exists- two general types were described. First, there are experiences of mental distress, - often accompanied by feelings of not being able to cope, that things are falling apart, that the person is not in control of themselves and their situation or is just a general case that without specific reasons that all is not well. Secondly, the physiological manifestations of less appetite, sleeplessness, sweating, ulcers and physical illness of various degrees. Different people have different views about it from various, sources. Occupational stress can be explained as the physiological and emotional responses that originate when personnels feel an imbalance between their work demands and their capability and response to meet these demands. Purpose of this paper is to provide a general review on “occupational stress among armed forces and police personnel of India” with the help of available literature. The home ministry commissioned conducted a study to look into the reasons for premature retirements of paramilitary forces. The findings of the study revealed that lack of sleep, manpower crunch, no leaves and lack of motivation were some of the reasons responsible for people quitting the jobs. However, to the best of my knowledge, no specific research study has been carried-out in India till date to assess the rate and reason of suicides among armed forces and even the home ministry’s official statement revealed that, in most of the cases of suicides, the reasons are more personnel than work related.

Militiarizing Bodies: Transcending the Female Psyche in Niromi de Soyza's Tamil Tigress

Women are often marked as the most vulnerable group in any population, simply because discourses on women center around victimhood and economic responsibility. They are branded as a peace-loving population who naturally abhor violence and are often the victims of violation and sexual assault. The intake of female participants as combatants in the LTTE for their fight against the government was a reassurance for women to gain empowerment and break the clutches of patriarchal domination that wrung around them. LTTE was known for its notoriety and the women tigers in its forces. Many female combatants in the rebel paramilitary force were either abducted or forced to join it. The paper is an examination into the role played by female combatants in the LTTE through the memoir of Niromi De Soyza's Tamil Tigress: My Story as a Child Soldier in Sri Lanka's Bloody Civil War (2011). The book is an autobiographical first hand narration of a guerilla woman soldier who tries to understand her position as an empowered woman- a sacred virgin for the plight of the nation and later redemption. The paper tries to understand how the acceptance into the group of militant combatants affected the gendered crisis associated to a woman. It is an unravelling of the psyche of a woman soldier in the traumatic throes of a nation burdened by three decade long civil strife.

Tribes in arms Gjon Marka Gjoni and the irregular and paramilitary volunteer forces of Northern Albania during the fascist occupation (1939-1943)

This paper analyzes the relationship between Gjon Marka Gjoni, head of the Mirdita tribes in North Albania, and the phenomenon of mobilization and recruitment of many men from the hinterland of North Albania in the irregular and paramilitary forces, i.e., in the voluntary bands and the Milicia Fashiste Shqiptare [Albanian Fascist Militia], during the Italian occupation (1939-1943). In addition to his personal role and interpersonal ties, it focuses on the personal motivations of these forces, with an emphasis on both economic ones - wages, benefits, and potential banditry opportunities - and emotional ones, the latter driven by various kinds of fears. Finally, to better understand their local activity and the dynamics that emerged, this paper also addresses the nature and the extent of their violence and the consequent impact on the population.

The Perils of Pro-Government Militias in African Transition Democracy: Case of RSF in the Sudan’s Conflict

Sudan has never experienced peace since it attained its independence from Britain in 1956. Most of the causes of the conflicts in Sudan are related to political domination, economic deprivation, and Islamization. The regime of former President Omar al Bashir since it took power from 1989-2019, it adopted a counter-insurgency strategy of using militias in the peripheral areas to confront alongside its army on the rebellious activities. The review literature on pro-government militias in the context of the unstable Sudan provides debates pertains violent atrocities committed by militias against innocent civilians in the name of counterinsurgency. The 2003 crisis in Darfur region clearly outlines the state strategy of employing the Janjaweed militia who later metamorphosed into Rapid Support Force, a paramilitary group who committed genocide and crime against humanity in the name of fighting the two rebel groups: the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The RSF has grown a powerful paramilitary force that are now battling the State Army for the takeover of the government militarily. The militia group which was once built up by the state now turning a real danger to the transitional democracy. This paper argues that the RSF are the direct beneficiary of the state and are closely linked to its structures, its people, its wealth, and foreign partners. This paper draws a conclusion that amicable solution ought to be sought for the benefit of the marginalized peripheral areas of Darfur, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile or Sudan with this unstoppable conflict risks to fragment into different autonomous states.

Pre-translation analysis of military texts on the example of chapters from the manual "Paramilitary formations in various countries of the world"

The current military-political situation is of great interest to scientists. Texts devoted to these conflicts are actively studied by linguists, conflictologists, political scientists and other specialists from various fields of science. For a detailed understanding, translations of the original texts into Russian are made, but, unfortunately, typical mistakes are made during translation, namely, due to attention not being paid to the pre-translation analysis of the text. In universities, pre-translation analysis is studied only in general terms, often without taking into account the specifics of the translated vocabulary. All this adversely affects the quality of the translated text and, in particular, military texts. In this article, the author focuses on the importance of pre-translational analysis of texts, at its stages, and also gives several examples from the manual "Paramilitary Forces in Various Countries of the World". In the pre-translation analysis of military texts, it is important to take into account all the stages, you must not miss important points, otherwise the further translation will lose its accuracy, it will not correspond to the original language, important points may be missed. When you start working with a text, it is certainly important to determine its subject matter, you need to know the genre feature. If there is terminology in the text, it is necessary to determine all the subtleties of its use in two languages. The translator also draws attention to the fact that the abundance of proper nouns, which cause special translation difficulties, is dictated by the subject matter of the text. All the more important is the pre-translation analysis of the text before proceeding with the translation, in order to facilitate the process of understanding and reliable transmission of information. So, A.V. Skvortsova distinguishes two plans present in the text: the form plan and the content plan. When translating a text of any genre and subject, we set the following task: to replace the form plan of the original, while not changing the plan of content itself. The translator analyzes the source text (original), searches for and solves the translation difficulties he encounters, and as a result, bears full responsibility for the content of the text. When working with Chinese-language sources and materials, we often translate into several languages ​​at once and analyze the results as we make unprecedented translations and appeal to the language traditions of other languages.

Adopting and integrating cyber-threat intelligence in a commercial organisation

ABSTRACT Cyber-attacks are increasingly perpetrated by organised, sophisticated and persistent entities such as crime syndicates and paramilitary forces. Even commercial firms that fully comply with industry “best practice” cyber security standards cannot cope with military-style cyber-attacks. We posit that the primary reason is the increasing asymmetry between the cyber-offensive capability of attackers and the cyber-defensive capability of commercial organisations. A key avenue to resolve this asymmetry is for organisations to leverage cyber-threat intelligence (CTI) to direct their cyber-defence. How can commercial organisations adopt and integrate CTI to routinely defend their information systems and resources from increasingly advanced cyber-attacks? There is limited know-how on how to package CTI to inform the practices of enterprise-wide stakeholders. This clinical research describes a practitioner-researcher’s experiences in directing a large multinational finance corporation to adopt and integrate CTI to transform cybersecurity-related practice and behaviour. The research contributes practical know-how on the organisational adoption and integration of CTI, enacted through the transformation of cybersecurity practice, and enterprise-wide implementation of a novel solution to package CTI for commercial contexts. The study illustrates the inputs, processes, and outputs in clinical research as a genre of action research.

Learning the lessons of COVID-19: homeland resilience in the United Kingdom - is it now time for both a dedicated civil defense organization and a paramilitary force?

ABSTRACT The United Kingdom’s homeland resilience capacity is poor. The COVID-19 pandemic proved this. Back in 2019, the UK had been labeled as the best prepared country in the world for a pandemic. And yet, by 2020, and once COVID-19 had struck, the UK became “unequivocally” the hardest hit country in Europe – particularly in terms of excess mortality. In this article it is argued that the UK’s continental neighbors coped better than the UK because they had better homeland resilience capacity. This was provided by their having civil defense organizations, paramilitary forces and militaries which are specifically designed to contribute to homeland emergencies. The UK, in contrast and almost uniquely in the world, lacks both civil defense and paramilitary bodies and, moreover, it has armed forces that are not actually structured to provide help in domestic emergencies. Given the problems highlighted during COVID-19, is it now time for the UK to set up its own bodies specifically tasked with alleviating domestic emergencies? This article explores this question by comparing the UK’s pandemic response with that of Spain – a country which, according to all available data, should have performed worse than the UK. But it did not. Why?

Garłacz łzawiący: The Polish AWGŁ-3 Crowd-control System

This article provides a short summary of the development history, technical characteristics, and operational parameters of the Polish AWGŁ-3 teargas launcher and its ammunition. Although developed in the 1970s and deployed in Poland and other European countries in recent years, very little information is available on this weapon in the English language. With reference to a wide range of Polish-language sources, including original technical and operational manuals, the author elucidates the development history and operating principles of the AWGŁ-3. A brief review of employment principles and use history is also made, with reference to the Communist-era Polish paramilitary forces for whom the weapon was originally developed.