War In Bosnia Research Articles

Senator Dennis Deconcini and the Battle for Bosnia on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S.A

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of former Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini during the Bosnian War. DeConcini, along with other congressional Bosnia hawks, supported the newly independent country in its self-defense during the 1992–1995 war. DeConcini's activism was mainly through the U.S. Helsinki Commission but he also undertook a number of steps with a view to legislative American foreign policy towards Bosnia in the early 1990s. Based on the congressional archive and DeConcini's papers at the University of Arizona, this article will piece together the story of how an Arizona senator became a champion of Bosnia on Capitol Hill.

Some remarks on the issues of the consequences of war rape on the example of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the bloodiest armed conflicts after the end of the Second World War. Despite the passage of years, it is still a painful part of reality for a large group of the country's population. During the war, human rights were violated in the form of ethnic cleansing, murders, and so-called genocidal rapes. Women who were raped face social stigma to this day. According to conservative estimates, approx. 4000 children were born as a result of rapes. Today, the adult generation of "children of shame" experiences social ostracism in almost all spheres of life. Their situation is affected by the fact that they are not recognized as "victims of war" under the current regulations. This situation is slowly beginning to change, but it is a long-term process that requires intensified efforts not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in the international arena.

Muzeum jako nośnik pamięci zbiorowych. Kazus Sarajewa

This article explores the relationships between memory politics and museums. It shows the institutionalisation of the past, which supports both the creation of historical narratives and the visibility of national identity. Analysing the Sarajevo museums dedicated to the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author shows how contemporary institutions have become carriers of collective memory and incubators of the national identity of Bosnian Muslims.

The Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: Continuities, Adjustments and Domestic Dimensions

The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy was issued in the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the most significant conflict in Europe since at least the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995, and perhaps, since 1945. The promulgation of the first-ever White House Indo-Pacific Strategy, even before the release of an overall national security strategy, is viewed as a message of US priorities extending beyond events elsewhere. And yet domestic US preoccupations as well as an incomplete economic strategy for the Indo-Pacific hover over the new Biden Indo-Pacific strategy.

The specific characteristics of the "new Bosnian narrative" as exemplified by Karim Zaimović's short stories book Tajna džema od malina

The article is an attempt to describe the specifics of the „new Bosnian narrative” as exemplified by Karim Zaimovic’s short stories collected in the book Tajna džema od malina. The text synthetically presents the new generation of prose writers clearly referring to the heritage of the so-called „narrative Bosnia” (J. Kršić). The generation of writers contemporary to Zaimovic, which dominated the literary scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last decade of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, was united by a creative motivation generated by common experiences, which was a reaction to the tragedy of the homeland war. The article briefly characterizes the „new narrative Bosnia”, highlighting the great tradition of narrative (pripovijetka) in local literature. Narrative/Short story is considered to be the most important and valued genre, which in its meaning goes far beyond purely literary boundaries – it has played and still plays an important role in the cultural, social, political and ideological context. In the text, it is shown that Zaimović’s stories, compared with (anti)war writing, are distinguished by: the way of constructing scenes that make up the story adapted from comic art, the presence of fantastic elements known from the work of „Borges writers”, as well as a characteristic, humorous style –where the author deals with the absurdity of war by the use of grotesque and satire, and describes the Sarajevo apocalypse using numerous metaphors and allegories. Even though, Zaimović’s texts cannot be treated as a model or the most representative example of “the new Bosnian narrative“, their unconventional way of presentation of the main theme as well as structural and compositional innovation have earned them an iconic status. The circumstances of the stories, and above all the fate of the young writer, made him a tragic symbol of the drama of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The involvement of Western Balkan terrorist-fighters in armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq

The primary purpose of this article is to explain the meaning and consequences of foreign fighters’ participation from Western Balkan countries (WB6) in armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In the first part, the issue of foreign fighters is discussed in historical terms. The author focuses on the examples of the Soviet inva-sion of Afghanistan and the ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the second part of the text, the definition framework of foreign fighters’ concept and its evolution towards foreign terrorist-fighters is dis-cussed. Then, a detailed analysis of the main problem is conducted, and several research questions are an-swered: 1) What is the scale of the phenomenon of Balkan volunteers (e.g., their number, the structure of origin, and others) in comparison to fighters from other regions? 2) What are their motivations and goals, and what are their recruitment process and ways of moving into the war zone? 3) What is the threat posed by returning fight-ers to the security of the Western Balkans, and how do individual states counteract this phenomenon? The au-thor uses mainly the following research methods: critical content analysis (literature, scientific articles, docu-ments, reports, press materials), and historical and comparative analysis. The author’s visits to this country in 2018-2020 constituted an essential contribution to the part concerning the case of Kosovo.

Postdejtonsko traganje za pravdom: Suđenja za ratne zločine u Bosni i Hercegovini pred nadležnim sudovima

The armed conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1992 to 1995, which ended with the conclusion of the so-called The Dayton Peace Agreement was marked by serious violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms and the commission of horrific war crimes. Prosecution of defendants for these crimes takes place at several levels, ie before: a) the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), b) domestic courts and c) courts of certain foreign states. The paper analyzes certain indicators related to the prosecution of these crimes, their scope and structure, as well as the ratio of convictions and acquittals for certain war crimes, the scope of application of conventional and summary forms of ending criminal cases and court policy of sanctioning perpetrators. It was learned that by the end of 2020, hundreds of criminal proceedings against approximately a thousand defendants had been completed. Most of the accused were prosecuted before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Court of B&H), followed by the ICTY, and a slightly smaller number before the courts of the former SFRY and some Western European countries. The research established that before the ICTY, out of the total number of accused for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as many as 90.2% were convicted of some of these crimes, while the rate of convicted in relation to accused before the Court of B&H was 67.2% , and before the courts in the Republic of Serbia 70.2%. It is interesting that before the ICTY as many as 24.3% of the accused were convicted in summary proceedings on the basis of a plea agreement, while before the Court of B&H 13,3% of the accused were convicted using a plea bargaining as a consensual model for ending criminal cases. So far, 22 people have been convicted of the crime of genocide as the most serious crime before the ICTY, the Court of B&H and German courts, and all convictions related to the activities of the Army of Republika Srpska during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Court of B&H, inherited a relatively mild policy of punishing war crimes. Finally, it was found that certain courts, especially Court of B&H, inherited a relatively mild policy of punishing war crimes.

Spriječiti povratak: Provođenje Aneksa VII Dejtonskog sporazuma za mir u Bosni i Hercegovini (1995-2020)

Spriječiti povratak: Provođenje Aneksa VII Dejtonskog sporazuma za mir u Bosni i Hercegovini (1995-2020)

Dejtonski mirovni sporazum – Okončanje velikodržavnih pretenzija?

Dejtonski mirovni sporazum – Okončanje velikodržavnih pretenzija?

A Christmas Ceasefire: Jimmy Carter’s Peace Mission to Bosnia in 1994

In December 1994, former US president, Jimmy Carter, travelled to the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale outside Sarajevo where he was hosted by rebel leader Radovan Karadžić. Carter negotiated a four-month ceasefire between the Bosnian government and Bosnian Serb forces. This article reconstructs how the Carter mission unfolded, the motivations behind the initiative and how the interests of different actors converged to facilitate the ceasefire. Drawing on the literature on Carter’s post-presidential career, private peace-making and the war in Bosnia, this article uses the case study of the Carter mission to develop the concept of an external private peace entrepreneur. These are private individuals unrelated to a conflict with no official capacity who undertake peace initiatives.

Prosecutor v. Mladić (U.N. Int'l Residual Mechanism Crim. Tribunals App. Chamber)

On June 8, 2021, the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) Appeals Chamber delivered its appeals judgment in Prosecutor v. Ratko Mladić. The judgment affirmed the 2017 trial judgment of Trial Chamber I of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted Mladić, the Bosnian Serb commander, of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes during the war in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, as well as affirming his sentence of life imprisonment. This constituted Mladić's final appeal, opening the door for his assignment to a prison somewhere in Europe.

Connection between the COVID-19 pandemic, war trauma reminders, perceived stress, loneliness, and PTSD in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In order to gain a better understanding of what happens during the COVID-19 pandemic to those who were previously traumatized, this study investigated perceived stress and severity of PTSD symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in people who experienced the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was also examined how reminders of past trauma and loneliness instigated by the COVID-19 crisis relate to current stress and PTSD symptoms. The sample consisted of 123 participants (74.8% women). Participants responded to assessments of sociodemographic characteristics, exposure to COVID-related information, concerns over disease, severity of exposure to war, frequency and intensity of war trauma reminders, loneliness, stress, and severity of PTSD symptoms. Data was collected as part of the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey. Results showed that in a population previously exposed to the effects of war, severity of PTSD symptoms was positively related to perceived stress, and loneliness during the pandemic significantly mediated this relationship. Intensity of exposure to war trauma reminders was associated with higher levels of PTSD symptom severity. Higher severity of PTSD symptoms was related to forced displacement during the war. Moreover, higher stress was related to increased concerns over disease. To conclude, those exposed to war may be more affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic and preventive measures that accompany it, while loneliness mediates the effects of PTSD and perceived stress in this population.

CIRCULATIONS OF AFFECTS: AFFECTIVE MEMORIES: THE SOLDIER IN SARAH KANE'S BLASTED

Baby-eating, eye-gouging, rape, torture, "people packing into trucks like pigs" fleeing in fear of the war – Sarah Kane's first breathtaking play Blasted has been one of the most noted cultural events since the 1990s. Although Kane has shared that she wanted to attract attention to the war in Bosnia, to make people see the old woman from Srebrenica, and hear her plea for help (Sierz, 2001, pp.100-101), the name of Bosnia is never mentioned in the play. The playwright's intention to provoke reaction to the violence in the specific political context has not diminished the universality of her work. The following study explores the affective circulations within the fictional world of Blasted by analysing the Soldier's presence in terms of emotions. It offers three readings of the Soldier’s brutal behaviour within the play and suggests that ‘confession’ is of vital importance for the process of traumatic emotional and physical healing. The play is mainly approached in the context of the works of the socio-political and socio-cultural affect theorists – Sara Ahmed and Margaret Wetherell as well as the trauma theorist Cathy Caruth. The paper further offers a close reading of the complex affective circulations of emotions in the play and analysis what affects do and how they move and act upon the characters. By contributing to the considerably new way of analysing literature through affect theory, this work sheds light on the important role of emotions in war context.

Shadows of the past: violent conflict and its repercussions for second-generation Bosnians in the diaspora

ABSTRACT This article explores how diaspora youth is impacted by and deals with the legacies of the violent conflict in their parents’ homeland of Bosnia. Based on the analysis of narrative-biographic interviews with second-generation Bosnians in Switzerland and ethnographic observations in diaspora spaces, this paper highlights the repercussions that Yugoslav disintegration wars and, particularly, the war in Bosnia (1992–1995) have for young people who were raised in Switzerland. First, it demonstrates that instead of a coherent picture about the past, young people receive fragments and pieces of personal memories and experiences that their families went through. Second, the history of conflict has repercussions for the ways young people establish and articulate their sense of attachment and belonging to the homeland of their parents. Third, while second-generation Bosnians rarely reproduce the conflict dynamic themselves, they move in spaces in which the legacies of conflict continue to be an important discursive and structural force.

Empire's Labor: The Global Army That Supports U.S. Wars

Empire's Labor: The Global Army That Supports U.S. Wars

NEUSPEH ŽENEVSKIH PREGOVORA O PREKIDU RATA U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI JANUARA 1993.

The International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia was created in London in August of 1992 as an instrument for the negotiations conducted by the United Nations and the European Community, represented by Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen. Until the end of the year, they developed a detailed proposal to settle the Bosnian conflict, known as the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP). The VOPP was presented to the leaders of the warring factions in Geneva during the first session of talks in January of 1993. On the basis of archive material, judicial records, published documents, and memoirs of the participants, this article aims to reconstruct the dramatic negotiation process, which consisted of several rounds. An analysis of the declared Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian positions during the negotiations, as well as the interactions among the delegations and relations within them, reveals that all the parties were had been deeply engaged in double dealing. The Croatian side was seemingly ready to sign the VOPP but was undermining it by launching a conflict in the field at the same time. The Serbian side was escalating as well, the Bosnian Serb leaders were not ready to accept the plan, despite the suggestions they had received from Belgrade. Sarajevo was procrastinating, hoping for a direct US involvement in the crisis following the inauguration of the new Clinton Administration. That administration did undermine the plan, which damaged the credibility of the international negotiators. In such circumstances, the plan had slim chances of succeeding. Although a ceasefire would have shortened the Bosnian war by almost three years and cut human losses by at least half, the main negotiators found a compromise solution to be unacceptable. As they defined and propagated maximalist goals, acceptance of a compromise was both damaging their grip on power and defying their worldview.

Women as perpetrators of war crimes: a case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Having in mind the quantity of consequences that war crimes are leaving to their victims and society as a whole and the need for their prevention, it is very important to fully understand their nature. Data on the personality of the perpetrator can play an important role in accomplishing this goal. Starting with the examination of the place of women in the world of crime, the authors open the floor for a discussion about of the role of women in the perpetration of war crimes. Finally, they test their conceptual findings with actual cases, through a case study of the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995)

Američki kongresmen i srpski lobi u SAD-u / A US Congressman and Serbian Lobby in the USA

The aim of this paper is to analyze the foreign policy activism of former Republican Congressman Dan Burton during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia. Based on Burton's newly accessible congressional papers, this article traces the Indiana Republican's efforts to influence US policy towards Bosnia. Opposed to any US involvement in Bosnia, Burton's views reflected the Serbian-American diaspora's policy positions on Bosnia. Though ultimately unsuccessful, Burton's efforts in the early 1990s provide a glimpse into how opponents of American intervention in Bosnia operated.

The West and its Radical Others

This contribution explores François Debrix’s <em>Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping</em> on the question of radical alterity. I argue that Debrix presents a unique and prescient analysis of alterity in the context of the war in Bosnia that highlights an ideological aspect of late twentieth century ‘disciplinary neoliberalism’. For Debrix, the visualization and representation of genocidal racial violence in Bosnia becomes a form of seductive voyeurism. As I argue, this also opens up the possibility of imagining forms of microfascism circulating within the West itself as a way of reigniting the political in the face of a depoliticized world. Debrix’s <em>Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping</em> helps us situate the proliferation of contemporary forms of neo-fascism in this ideological legacy of the late 1990s ‘End of History’.

A Feminist Analysis: Sexual Violence in the Bosnian War (1992-1995)

Throughout history, war violence has disproportionately affected women, especially in patriarchal societies. Wartime rape, which is the most common and destructive type of conflict-related sexual violence, is the clearest example of these effects. This study clarifies the sexual violence experiences of Yugoslavian women during the Bosnian War, which had lasted between the years 1992-1995, with an anti-militarist feminist perspective. The first part of the article includes hypotheses of feminist theory about conflict-related sexual violence. The second part handles types of sexual violence such as wartime rape, forced prostitution, and forced pregnancy that had affected women in Yugoslavian conflict areas between 1992-1995. The last part of the study describes the numerical dimensions of the sexual violence used in the Bosnian War and its ef-fects on Yugoslavian women. Throughout history, war violence has disproportionately affected women, especially in patriarchal societies. Wartime rape, which is the most common and destructive type of conflict-related sexual violence, is the clearest example of these effects. This study clarifies the sexual violence experiences of Yugoslavian women during the Bosnian War, which had lasted between the years 1992-1995, with an anti-militarist feminist perspective. The first part of the article includes hypotheses of feminist theory about conflict-related sexual violence. The second part handles types of sexual violence such as wartime rape, forced prostitution, and forced pregnancy that had affected women in Yugoslavian conflict areas between 1992-1995. The last part of the study describes the numerical dimensions of the sexual violence used in the Bosnian War and its effects on Yugoslavian women.