As we have attempted to outline the concept of "stranger" in previous chapter, before we move into brief history of conflicts in Bosnia raging throughout the 20th Century, it will be useful just to recapitulate our two major 'strangers'. We will keep dealing with strangers in this chapter too. However, the bloody nature of Bosnian conflict has very much to do with human nature and very little to do with signification process commonly encountered in discussions that deal with peculiar nature of Bosnian landscape.
In Chapter 3, we have firstly outlined our stranger as emerging out of social change that has been 'cooking' in former Yugoslavia for about 10 years - from Tito's death to the first democratic elections in Bosnia and Herzegowina. As we said, the repressed self found itself suddenly free in the vacuum of social change brought about in 1990 elections. It took about 2 years for 'indwelling' stranger to acquire its official position and we noted that individual 'indwelling' stranger, whilst still kept somewhat in check courtesy of the legal system, it also kept receiving an ever greater support from a collective self until finally all hell broke loos. Further more, and as we suggested, 'indwelling' stranger needed another stranger in order to go about his murderous business and in full conviction that it had not been doing anything wrong. For that matter 'oncoming' stranger provided a perfect counter part for various reasons. Firstly, an oncoming stranger was an unknown stranger and then secondly, and most importantly, this 'oncoming' stranger was reduced to the level of object. Mob mentality of a group psychology achieves objectification towards others with no problem what so ever. So, we ended up with strangers doing what they had done.
Interestingly enough, notion of strangers is well documented in Bosnian History (I'm quite positive, should someone conduct an analysis over some other unrelated conflict situation any where else in the world, she or he will very soon stumble over all sorts of 'strangers' in their analysis; This must be the case, because if it wasn't, we would be back on track with Darwinism and Social Darwinism as outlined by Heribert Spencer. We maintain here, despite frequent usage of the term "peculiar" in conjunction with the Bosnian situation, that there is nothing so 'Balkans' or 'Bosnia' specific about the whole conflict of the Nineties.) If we were to track down various strangers all the way back to 8th Century, we wouldn't be doing much favor to this study since we would end up in familiar controversies, none of which can give us any conclusive and clear cut answers. So, we will restrict this rather brief overview of 'strangers in action' to the 20th Century only, and even then we will mention just a few 'stranger moments'.
After pushing the Ottoman Turks from Balkan Peninsula during the First and Second Balkan War, in early 20th Century, Bosnia found it self in a situation that may be described as a political limbo. One group of strangers, Ottoman Turks, we no longer there in form of a ruling and military strata. Population left behind, consisted mostly of strangers - Serbs whose ancestors have fled Serbia for some reason, Croats whose ancestors we part of an old Croatian Kingdom, and Bosnian Muslims who were descendants of partly naturalized Serbs and possibly Croats and also naturalized Bosnians - descendants of those who used to live in a Bosnian State before the arrival of Ottoman Turks in 14th Century.
Having realized the political vacuum caused by the forceful departure of Ottoman Turks, and also unwillingness or weakness of Serbian Kingdom to seize control over Bosnian territory, the then Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire had decided to move in and to join Bosnia within its borders. Should we mention here that this Empire was also an Empire of 'strangers' for those who lived in Bosnia? Be it as it may, there seemed to be little space for peace in those early years of 20th Century. History will tell us that Bosnian population had not been 'beside themselves' over a shear luck to become part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yet at the same time, Bosnian population had been nicely disorganized and I would say religiously fragmented, and too busy over basic needs of life, to do something about re-establishing some autonomous rule over its territory.
The year 1914 saw a new turn of events. Now, we do not want to indulge into any discussion over reasons for the Great War, since the Bosnian population wouldn't have had any idea of what was going on on a larger scale. But what we need to say is that the assassination of Austrian Crown Prinz Franz Ferdinand took place in Sarajevo - Bosnian capital on 28th of June 1914. Later the kids will be taught in schools (this text's author as well) that Sarajevo's assassination had caused the beginning of the Great War. More appropriately, the assassination event had been used as a 'beautiful' excuse to finally launch, what had been long time coming - an all out European war, that will drag into itself as much of the world as possible, with a sole purpose of the New World Order and new division of colonies. Hm, should we say at this stage that protagonists of Sarajevo's assassination were members of the so called "black glove" secret society based in Serbia? So, the assassination was an act committed by a stranger Gavrilo Princip, a member of Serbia based secret society.
The Great war came and ended, seeing disappearance of three European Empires and also emergence of some new states. One them was Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians encompassing also Bosnia. Yet no mention of Bosnians had been made in the name of that new state / kingdom. Interesting, something like strangers ruling Bosnia again. Later that kingdom was renamed into Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This has been due to pan Slavic movement of the time and also to make the state's name more neutral. Lots of agreement in that Kingdom between its nationalities had never been achieved. But should we remark, the whole name is somewhat 'strange'. Everyone, included Bosnians who had not been asked in the first place - had given up on their ethnic name in favor of a new name. Be it as it may, with Kingdom of Yugoslavia, we reached the Second World War (IIWW)...
Again, we need to leave aside 'global' reasons for the Second World War... Be it as it may, Bosnian population ended up within a Nazi marionette state called "Independent State of Croatia". Hm, again some strange state. More importantly, geographical annexation was accompanied by various resistance movements, such as "Chetniks" - pro Serbian nationalistic paramilitary force, and Partizans - a Balkans wide para military formation under the umbrella of Communist Party and with an agenda to liberate Balkans from German occupation and their domestic servants, to overthrow the exiled king, and to establish a Slavic state on Balkan peninsula modeled after Soviet Union. So lots of mess within one single war and all of that heavily supported by various 'strange' agendas. After huge human sacrifices and four years of bloody conflict all Partizan's goals had been achieved. More over, Partizan's had made possible for Bosnia and Herzegowina to emerge as a constitutive republic within new Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia. The constitutive peoples of that Bosnian republic had been Croats, Serbs and Muslims (at that stage "muslim" was a more of religious description than an ethnic one, and also written with a lower case "m". The constitution of 1974 saw "Muslim", an other wise strictly religious term, acquiring the capital "M" and becoming also an ethnic term). Be it as it may, Communist era did provide Bosnia and Herzegowina with its own administrative territory, but it also acknowledged as Bosnian constitutive elements ethnic groups who were looking elsewhere for guidance: Croats towards Croatia, Serbs towards Serbia and Muslims towards the Oriental world (needless to mention, the first democratically elected President of Bosnia and Herzegowina, leader of SDA - a Muslim political party, considered Afghanistan as a 'model state'.) Our point here is that all those who may have considered themselves as Bosnian, have been either left in a limbo or under a danger to be associated with Muslims. Yet the reality was somewhat different. All of us, who have been children from 'mixed' marriages and who have always declared themselves as "Yugoslavs" in former Yugoslavia, have lost the point of reference when it comes to our 'ethnic' origin in a new state called Republic of Bosnia and Herzegowina; for us Bosnia is ruled by strangers and its Dayton model is not very promising (one state, two federal entities, three Ethnic groups - makes no sense, does it?)...
A number of objections may pop up in relation to previous paragraphs. Haven’t we named all those strangers, where as our ‘indwelling’ stranger is rather an “x”? How do we make a connection between the two, ie., between the 20th Century strangers and our ‘indwelling’ stranger? Firstly, we are dealing with facts here, only after they have happened. So we can see and name various ‘strangers’. It would be fairly reasonable to assume, each of the above-mentioned forms of rule over Bosnian populace, have applied to a greater or lesser extent its own Ideological State Apparatus. Every mode of those governments has had its own toys and punishments in place for the process of substitute gratification. Substitute gratification is a general process via which an individual is being introduced into society from its earliest age. If this weren’t so, society would not be possible to begin with. Secondly, presence of ‘strangers’ in form of dominating force also offers an individual a possibility to distance her / him self from that dominating force, which will in case of conflict allow for a violent action against the dominant strata. Dominant strata again, for the same reasons, will retaliate ruthlessly – its only strangers they are dealing with. Thirdly, the notion of stranger remains well present in individual’s psyche. Should the circumstances change, one will always have a readily available target and, one will also have a readily available trigger (‘indwelling’ stranger) to pull. Possibly even more could be said, but this should suffice at this stage and for the purposes of this study.
Chapter 5:
“Guilt, Blame, Admission and Reconciliation”
Quo Vadis? The state of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegowina exists, together with its two federal units and its three constitutive Ethnic groups. But a lot of unhealed wounds are still there, memory of atrocities is still fresh, graves are being visited on a daily basis. And new graves are just being dug – because the victims did not get a proper burial after their executions. Will an occasional genocide process in Haag to one or another protagonist of mass killings satisfy those left behind, those who have lost loved ones for good?
Admission of guilt and responsibility is the most difficult thing to do and everyone avoids it for as long as possible. Yet unrecognised guilt is followed by blame and both present a vicious catch 22. One would think, until an admission has been made, there is no possibility for real reconciliation and there is no possibility for blame to go away. For the present Bosnian case, it is of utmost importance to get done and dusted with issue of guilt and blame, of admission and then to proceed with reconciliation. Imagination can run wild, as to what may happen in the future, should these issues remain unresolved. One option is to continually pretend as if war atrocities were a thing of the past, yet pretending also includes keeping alive the memory of the same.
Further on, possible admission may also result in legal persecution of perpetrators, as it should be the case. However this notion will only entrench the perpetrators in their resolve not to be discovered. But then again, History will teach us: beware the pay back time. And even in this instance some will immediately revert to the hypothesis how this war has been a form of pay back for the atrocities committed during the Second World War. In the same breath, they all forget a pay back is never or hardly ever a pay back. To whom you issue a ‘pay back invoice’? To the crime perpetrator or to someone who is in some way (like going to the same church or mosque) related to the crime perpetrator? Circle of evil could be stopped. However, the costs are clear: a decision not to go along the pay back path. These are serious questions that need to be resolved and one is fully justified in an opinion that it cannot be done. However, an attempt is always worth a shot, and it costs nothing.
It is my intent to propose certain moments along which the ugly and bloody saga of Bosnian war may come to its final conclusion. Yet these moments them selves are as ugly as the war itself. Perhaps, if one nail is driven out by another, one ugliness could be overcome or driven out by another. The following paragraphs may not sound ‘right’ but the war wasn’t right either. What I intend to propose is an ugly play of numbers, and this is further strengthened with turns an analysis may take in order to come up with some conclusions of acceptable if not good quality. And what follows may appear to be as heartless as it gets but in the end it is numbers we are dealing with all along, such as in “number of victims”, “number of wounded or killed”, “number of attackers”, “number of defenders” etc.
As I suggested, its all in numbers!!! But let me start with saying that even one killed person is one too many. No ideological concept is worth pulling a trigger at another human being. Which ever Ideological concept approves of murdering another human being, it is essentially an Ideological concept not worthy of human beings. Any forceful and purposive termination of another life is venturing into a sphere, where humans must not venture. Bosnian war has seen thousands upon thousands of killed, wounded, dislocated, forcefully relocated, massacred and otherwise hurt persons. So how do we come down to bare numbers. As i said, even one killed person is one too many and since the Bosnian war has produced so much death, grief and pain we cannot apply for it this analogy. Therefore, let us resort to pure numbers.
Bosnian Serbs had had a control over the majority of Bosnian territory. At some stage they controlled some 70 % of Bosnia and Herzegowina. The likelihood of Serbs committing majority of crimes has been established by a mere size of the space they had controlled. In terms of population structure on the controlled territories, it would be expected that Serbs will attend to ethnic cleansing, which they had done and which in itself is not a historical precedent but rather a 'normal' course of action practiced all over the world and not even 'most advanced' nations are unfamiliar with this practice.
Majority of weapons, if one would be able to count them all, was in Serbs' hands. Moreover, they had taken or stolen most of military equipment that was a possession of the former Jugoslav People's Army (JNA). Even the military equipment withdrawn by JNA from Slovenia and Croatia had ended up in hands of Bosnian Serbs (Some of that equipment did stay in Croatia in service of Croatian Serbs). So the best militarily equipped formation at the beginning of Bosnian war, was the one of Bosnian Serbs. Now one would think, if this is so then their prospect of 'winning' the war on the battlefield was far greater than that of Croats and Muslims. However one needs to understand historical development of war strategy in relation to casualties. The Great War was a really large scale soldier against soldier war - the numbers of killed soldiers on all sides is beyond belief and it is very probable that the Great War in relation to killings had exceeded the atrocities of the so called "Dark Middle Ages". But our point is, that the great war was fought predominantly if not exclusively along the battlefield lines. However this will soon change during the Second World War. The casualties among civilian population will increase exponentially. Hence the conclusion that the modern war fare moves towards more damage to the infrastructure and civil casualties then to the actual fighting combatants - this has been at least a theory taught in former Yugoslavia. The Practice of that theory will find its confirmation during the Bosnian war and since the Serbs possessed majority of military equipment it would be expected that they will commit majority of war crimes and they did just that.
Whilst not many of Serb controlled cities in Bosnia were surrounded by Croat or Muslim armies, most populous cities controlled by Muslim army (or Army of Bosnia and Herzegowina) were more or less totally or partly surrounded by Serb military force. The concept of bombing was a daily routine, the concept of snipers even more so. Again, the Serbs were in a most likely position to commit majority of atrocities, and they did just that. This is by no means to say that Croatian Military formation and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegowina were immune of such practice. It is only to say that Serb 'effectiveness' was far greater due to their resources the numebr of cities under their siege. Cities of Mostar and Travnik, or the Serb controlled parts of Sarajevo, or Vogosca are best proves that every military formation was using more or less the same strategies, depending on possibility to utilize the same. It is just that the Serbs had had at their disposal far greater possibilities to do that and had had more localities at their hand where to exercise this 'modern' war fare.
Foreign support is another contentious point, so much so, that the Bosnian side will insist that the war in Bosnia as an act of aggression of one state on another, of Serbia on Bosnia and Herzegowina. Along these lines, Serbs were usually referred to as 'Serbian aggressors'. Be it as it may, support the Bosnian Serbs had been receiving throughout the war from Serbia was overwhelming - be it in military equipment or in human flesh. Moreover a number of para military pro Serb formations were present at any time in Bosnia during the Bosnian War. Now, this is again not to say that Croats had not been supported from Croatia nor that Bosnian Army had not been supported by moujahedins from Islamic countries (Bin Laden allegedly traveled with Bosnian passport at the time). If anyone objects to the fact that Serbia was supporting Bosnian Serbs with manpower, he or she should take a walk through cemeteries in Serbia and take a note of a huge number of those who died at a similar age and between 1992 and 1996. Serbia was militarily involved in Bosnian conflict. Croatia was militarily involved in Bosnian conflict. Islamic world was militarily involved in Bosnian conflict. Due to convenience and mere numbers involvement of Serbia on behalf of Bosnian Serbs was far greater than that of the other two sides.
In the light of the above said, there can be no doubt that Serbs committed most war crimes during the war in Bosnia and Herzegowina, moreover their crimes exceed those committed by other two sides several times. The setting for the Bosnian Serbs to become major perpetrators of crimes had been more than 'perfect'. However the other two sides involved in Bosnian war cannot claim innocence - war is war, what ever one side does, the other side does it too and the only difference is measured in numbers. And since the number of killed persons on either side is greater than one, all sides bear responsibility for war crimes. This is an acknowledgment begging to be told or admitted. Major protagonists need to be brought to justice but their conviction 'will not make things good again'. It is admission of guilt that may bring more healing than convictions reached by Haag's court.
Conclusion of the matter, if there can be one!
In the end it needs to be said, international community bears a fair bit of responsibility for the extent of destruction that had happened in Bosnia and Herzegowina. Their constant unwillingness to react timely and appropriately has contributed significantly for bloody Bosnian war to go on for four years. Differing interests between Americans on one side, European Union on another and Russians on the third side has been rather nicely diminished. Whilst Americans sought to score some points with Islamic world, and Europeans were too afraid of resurrected Islam on European territory and Russians were too reluctant to speak some tough words to Serbia, all three warring factions went on with their business of killing. In terms of numbers, Bosnian Serbs were far ahead in every respect and hence their responsibility is the greatest. An admission of guilt will do no damage to national identity. More over an admission of guilt may do a fair bit good on a long run. However the other two sides need to acknowledge their 'contribution' in horrors of Bosnian war. This is a very though thing to do but it has to be done, should there be any hope of living together in one state called Bosnia and Herzegowina, with two federal units and with three constitutive ethnic groups. As for all of us, whose misfortune of immigration has been a consequence of Bosnian war, for all of us, who do not belong to any of the three major ethnic groups in Bosnia, for all of us who have started new lives elsewhere - we truly belong there where we are now. The place we left is not the place we grew up in. I love this great country of ours, we call Australia!!!
