Graduate School of Social Sciences MSc International Relations Master Thesis Perpetrators of violence against non-combatants in the Bosnian War Seeking the logic behind the incomprehensible By Yael van Pomeren 10458743 ❖ Under the supervision of Dr. Jana Krause Second reading by Dr. Darshan Vigneswaran ❖ Word count: 21.059 Submission date: 22nd of June 2018 2 een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen dan dooft het licht… -H.M. van Randwijk 3 Acknowledgments First, I want to thank my supervisor Dr. Jana Krause, both for her encouragement during the process as for her lasting patience with me and my method of working. Additionally, I express my gratitude to Dr. Darshan Vigneswaran, as he kindly accepted taking time of his schedule to be the second reader of this thesis. Lastly, I want to express sincere appreciation, tremendous amounts of gratitude and everlasting gratefulness to whomever has helped me in these past months. Your patience, your listening ears, your time and overwhelming efforts to keep me both mentally sane, inventive and productive have been more than valuable. You know who are: Thank You. 4 Abstract What makes individuals able to perpetrate atrocities and horrible acts of violence, without preceding criminal records or systematic exposure to violence in general? This research, focusing on the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, aims to show both the complex situations perpetrators in which perpetrators operate, to demonstrate the role malicious regimes play in creating the conditions for perpetrators to thrive in and to prove that there should be a focus on the importance of situational factors and context, for there are no personality traits that distinguish genocidal perpetrators from other human beings. It draws upon perpetrator-based research – primarily from the Holocaust and Rwanda, and researches documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in particular pleas and statements by the defendants. 5 Table of contents * For the purpose of maneuvering easily through the (online)document, hyperlinks are embedded within the table of contents 1. Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………………… 4 Abstract 5 2. Illustrations……………………………………………………………………………………... 7 3. Preface………………………………………………………………………………………...….. 8 4. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 10 Gap in the literature 11 Methodological Approach 12 5. Perpetrator-based research………………………………………………………………….. 14 6. Concepts ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 21 Ethnicity and anti-Semitism 21 Genocide and the dynamics within 24 Ethnic cleansing 29 7. Case study…………………………………………………………………………………… 32 8. Macro-level context…………………………………………………………………………. 36 Befehl ist Befehl 38 Brotherhood and Unity 40 9. Ordinary men ………………………………………………………………………………….. 44 Findings 54 10. Discussion, Limitations and Recommendations………………………………………….. 55 11. Conclusions .…………………………………………………………………………………… 57 11. Bibliography.………………………………………………………………………………....... 59 6 Illustrations 1 Figure 1: The Serbian concentration camps; within this thesis, both in the body text as in the embedded statements, names of towns and villages are mentioned. Figure 1 serves as a tool to keep overview of both the conflict in general and the place of certain events in specific. 1 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/atrocities/map.html 7 Preface In regard to my ongoing research, many people ask me why I focus, to such an extent, on the Holocaust. The subject of this thesis is the behaviour of perpetrators in the Bosnian war, with all its mayhem and bloodshed. Why focus on the Holocaust, a totally different event, in a totally different time, by a totally different regime? To understand this paradox within this research I found the quote by French archaeologist and historian Paul Veyne to be very useful: History exists only in relation to the questions we pose it. Knowledge about a certain event depends on the varied fields of research, who have varied methods, approaches, and languages in perceiving and understanding a certain event. All these different kinds of research obtain different outcomes, therefore broadening and deepening the knowledge of one event. Within the field of genocide studies, the Holocaust holds a historical uniqueness against all other events. According to many scholars, this uniqueness faces the Holocaust with fundamental problems of historical narration and explanation. It might even not be explained or narrated at all, withal comparing other genocides with the Holocaust is even more off bounds.2 This research does not hold that same view; ‘the Holocaust is no more exempt from perspectival reframing than any other historical occurrence’.3 Its uniqueness reveals the overall limits and boundaries of historical interpretation.4 In comparing the Holocaust with other genocides we compare events of a similar kind (extermination) but not of a similar degree of perceived historical significance. No other genocide constituted such a historical and epistemological break as the Holocaust. The Holocaust as a foundational past, an event that represents an age because it embodies a historical novum that serves as a moral and historical yardstick, as a measure of things human. The foundational element exists in people’s subjectivity and therefore is a historical construct.5 In the West – the importance of the Holocaust is less pronounced in the rest of the world – it can be perceived as ‘ the core event of our time’. The core rupture in contemporary historical time, morality, representation and experience.6 The Holocaust is the foundational past in our age, the paradigm shift that marked the beginning of ‘our way of thinking’, the icon to which one refers and where everything relates to. [emphasis intended] Albeit the Holocaust exists in the past, it still shocks and is part of the present. Not only new research by historians have resulted in a vast new body of knowledge regarding the Holocaust, but also new 2 Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: the Holocaust as historical Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012), p.3 3 Donald Bloxham, ‘Europe, the Final Solution and the dynamics of intent’, Patterns of Prejudice, nr.4 (2010), p.317-318. 4 Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: the Holocaust as historical Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012, p.3 5 Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: the Holocaust as historical Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012, p.5-6 6 Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: the Holocaust as historical Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012, p.6 8 ways of representing the Holocaust have created a new level of understanding about the extreme event.7 New ways of thinking therefore have altered the way in which we nowadays think about an event that occurred in the past. Although the event itself did not change, the way of thinking or the additional knowledge have made the representation of the event different. Therefore it does not only exist in the past, but also in the present. These new ways of thinking may also have the effect of the Holocaust receding in the past, this sense of ‘pastness’ itself opens up new ways of understanding and interpreting the event. Although the understanding and interpretation of the Holocaust may have altered in decades following the event, the sheer fact that the Holocaust is the turning point in human history, remains unchallenged. This again is subjective, for someone living before 1933, this point of reference might have been the French Revolution of 1789. For our understanding is both dependent on its foundational past, the current paradigm, and the questions we choose to pose regarding our field of research. The association between the French Revolution and the Holocaust, together with the phenomenal concept of foundational pasts have been made by Alon Confino. His work is a must read in the field of memory studies in general and the field of genocide studies in specific. For me, a researcher from the West, my point of reference is the Holocaust. I am surefooted that this event influenced me in my choice of study, thesis subject and general interest. Nothing in our contemporary thinking is not influenced by it. This insight forces me to relate the events in Bosnia to the Holocaust. Forces me to interlink the knowledge of Holocaust studies to my thesis. To be aware of the relativity of this knowledge, to understand it has altered and changed depending on the questions we posed and the knowledge we had available, obliges me to use different angles, but most importantly to shift between scopes of analysis within this research. While doing this, I accept that others may have a different view or contrasting opinions. 7 Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: the Holocaust as historical Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012, p.1-2 9 Introduction On the territory of the country in which I was born, shooting from firearms was usual when celebrating the birth of a male child. These shots tell you everything, what a new male member of the family means and what is expected of him - strength, protection; he should be a warrior, a soldier, the head of the family, as they say in our parts. Unfortunately, when other kinds of shooting started in the former Yugoslavia, shooting in war, it was normal for every man, every male child, to put on a uniform, take up a weapon, and go to protect his homeland, his nation, and ultimately his family. This was expected of him. This was his role, a sacred