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Editorial
SHORTSIGHTED AND LOSING POLICY
By Sonja Biserko
Russia's undertaking in and about Kosovo triggered off a state of
mental confusion and chaos among Serbia's political elite. With domestic situation similar
to that in Serbia, Russia is, the same as Serbia, incapable to define its true national
interests that would take into account not only military power but also the overall social
ambience - the population, its education, culture, healthcare, infrastructure and the
like. Russia's saber-rattling and spiraling nationalism cannot but associate 1980s in
Serbia - the time when Cosic and Milosevic steered for the radical nationalistic road of
no return. The European Left, unaware that the world has changed irreversibly and that the
balance of power relying on the Russian military strength is gone, cheers Russia's
international... |
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THE SERBIAN ELITES AND
GENOCIDE
IN BOSNIA
By Sonja Biserko
HCHRS
Ever since the foundation of the modern Serbian state in the 19th
century, but especially since the Congress of Berlin, Serbia's elites have viewed Bosnia
as a territory which could solve all their frustrations over borders. It was, namely, at
that time that they set the goal of gaining access to the sea and expanding living space,
something that could only be had at Bosnia's expense. The idea was that this 'must be
solved by force' because without a sea Serbia was 'without economic breath, without
lungs'. When later the southern Slav peoples united in one state - Yugoslavia - the
objectives of the Serbian elites were more or less achieved. The Serbian elites looked
upon Yugoslavia as their own country, namely an expanded... |
A STATEMNT AR THE SEVNTH BIENNIAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
Sarajevo, July 2007
Florance Hartmann
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Genocide was defined as a crime of destroying or committing conspiracy to destroy a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Genocides or mass killings characterized by
their systematic and widespread nature emerge from a long process recognisable by its
pattern of purposeful actions that are common to each genocide: from the political
doctrine and the message creating a clear distinction between them and us, to the
perpetration of offences showing a pattern on repetition of destructive and discriminatory
acts. But it is not sufficient identifying these patterns and even the... |
INTERNATIONAL COMPLICITY IN THE BOSNIAN GENOCIDE
Sylvie Mutton
(A Statemnet at the Seventh Biennial Meeting of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, Sarajevo, July 2007 )
Ladies and gentlemen,
Having very little time to speak, I will be direct; I'll just say clearly what I believe
about Western complicity with the genocide that occurred in Bosnia in the 1990s. But it is
disturbing for me to do so here, when among all the scholars here present there are also
victims, survivors; it's as if I were appropriating the right to tell you your own story,
the story of your suffering; a story you know much too well. I hope you will forgive me.
"Reacting to genocide before it's too late." Unfortunately, there seems to be no
such thing in history, either before 1948 nor after... |
