Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of "ethnic Cleansing"

Few events in history have received as much real-time exposure as the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Few dilemmas have perplexed peacekeepers and negotiators as has the victimization of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. With the memories of the Jewish holocaust so freshly etched in people's memories, could such genocide have happened again? What catalysts vault nationalism across the threshold into inhumanity?

In this compelling and thorough study, Norman Cigar sets out to prove that genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina is not simply the unintentional result of civil war nor the unfortunate by-product of rabid nationalism. Genocide is, he contends, the planned and direct consequence of conscious policy decisions taken by the Serbian establishment in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its policies were carried out in a deliberate and systematic manner as part of a broader strategy intended to achieve a defined political objective--the creation of an expanded, ethnically pure Greater Serbia.

Using testimony from congressional hearings, policy statements, interviews, and reports from the western and local media, the author describes a sinister policy of victimization that escalated from vilification to threats, then expulsion, torture, and killing. Cigar also takes the international community to task for its reluctance to act decisively and effectively. The longer the world did nothing concrete about Bosnia-Herzegovina, the more unlikely it became that the situation would be reversed, as the country was torn apart or its population scattered or killed.

Genocide in Bosnia provides a detailed account of the historical events, actions, and practices that led to and legitimated genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It focuses attention not only on the horror of ethnic cleansing and the calculated strategy that allowed it to happen but also offers some interesting solutions to the problem. Cigar's book is important reading for anyone interested in the inherent violence of overzealous nationalism--from Rwanda to Afghanistan and anywhere else.