Serbian Paramilitaries and the Breakup of Yugoslavia
Serbian Paramilitaries and the Breakup of Yugoslavia

Author: Iva Vukušić

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-09-30

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 100070971X

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This is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, nature, and function of Serbian paramilitary units during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. The book investigates the nature and functions of paramilitary units throughout the 1990s, and their ties to the state and President Slobodan Milošević. The work relies on the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, which conducted dozens of trials relating to paramilitary violence, and records from judicial proceedings in the region. It discusses how and why certain important paramilitary units emerged, how they functioned and transformed through the decade, what their relationships and entanglements were with the state, the Milošević regime, and organized crime. The study thus investigates the interrelated ideological, political, and social factors and processes, fueling paramilitary engagement, and assesses the impact of this engagement on victims of paramilitary violence and on the state and society for which the units purportedly fought. It argues that coordinated action by a number of state institutions gave rise to paramilitaries tasked with altering borders while maintaining plausible deniability for the sponsoring regime. The outsourcing of violence by the state to paramilitaries led to a significant weakening of the very state these units and their sponsors swore to protect. The book also analyzes differences between the units and how they attacked civilians, arguing that the different forms of violence stemmed not only from the function they fulfilled for the state but also the ways in which they were set up and operated. The final chapter brings the different strands of the argument together into a coherent whole, suggesting avenues for further research, in the former Yugoslavia and beyond. This book will be of much interest to students of ethnic conflict and civil war, war crimes, Balkan politics, and International Relations in general.

Torture, Humiliate, Kill
Torture, Humiliate, Kill

Author: Hikmet Karcic

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2022-03-25

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 0472902717

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Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse, and killing. Foreign journalists exposed the horrors of the camps in the summer of 1992, sparking worldwide outrage. This exposure, however, did not stop the mass atrocities. Hikmet Karčić shows that the use of camps and detention facilities has been a ubiquitous practice in countless wars and genocides in order to achieve the wartime objectives of perpetrators. Although camps have been used for different strategic purposes, their essential functions are always the same: to inflict torture and lasting trauma on the victims. Torture, Humiliate, Kill develops the author’s collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes. The book centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs. Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century
Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century

Author: Bridget Coggins

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1107047358

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From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

Genocide
Genocide

Author: Adam Jones

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-30

Total Pages: 807

ISBN-13: 1000958701

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Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction is the most wide-ranging textbook on genocide yet published. Designed as a text for undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines, it will also appeal to non-specialists and general readers. Fully updated to reflect the latest thinking in this rapidly developing field, this unique book: Provides an introduction to genocide as both a historical phenomenon and an analytical-legal concept, including the concept of genocidal intent and the dynamism and contingency of genocidal processes. Discusses the role of state-building, imperialism, war, and social revolution in fueling genocide. Supplies a wide range of full-length case studies of genocides worldwide, each with a supplementary study. Explores perspectives on genocide from the social sciences, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science/international relations, and gender studies. Considers the future of genocide, with attention to historical memory and genocide denial; initiatives for truth, justice, and redress; and strategies of intervention and prevention. Highlights of the new edition include: New case studies of the Uyghur genocide in the People’s Republic of China, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, and Muslims in India. The historical and archaeological legacy of genocide. New and vivid testimonies of survivors and witnesses to genocide. This significantly revised fourth edition will remain an indispensable text for new generations of genocide study and scholarship. An accompanying website (www.genocidetext.net) features a selection of supplementary materials, teaching aids, and Internet resources.

Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism
Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism

Author: Juline Beaujouan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-10-19

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1003809235

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This book examines the actors that shape societal dynamics leading to, or preventing, violent extremism from taking roots in their communities, including state representatives, religious institutions, and civil society actors. The volume contributes to an emerging stream of research focusing on intra- and inter-group dynamics to explain the emergence and persistence of, or resilience against, violent extremism. It utilises an actor-centric approach, uncovering the landscape of actors that play relevant roles in shaping societal dynamics leading to, or preventing, violent extremism affecting their communities. The analysis builds on new empirical evidence collected in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia. This allows for an innovative comparative perspective on two regions in the European neighbourhood that are rarely studied together, even though they seem to share common patterns of (de-)radicalisation and violent extremism despite their distinct historical, political, and cultural trajectories and relations with the EU. In both regions, the book analyses the roles of and interactions between state, political, religious, and civil society actors in shaping community vulnerability to and/or resilience against violent extremism. Different types of community leaders are equipped with varying levels of authority, trust, legitimacy, and influence over community members. As such, the categories of actors analysed can play either detrimental or beneficial roles, which makes vulnerability and resilience to violent extremism two sides of the same coin. This volume will be of much interest to students of countering violent extremism, terrorism, political violence, security studies, and International Relations generally.

A Research Agenda for Far-Right Violence and Extremism
A Research Agenda for Far-Right Violence and Extremism

Author: Rohan Gunaratna

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2024-04-12

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 180220962X

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This prescient Research Agenda offers an in-depth understanding of the increasing trend of far right-inspired political violence. As domestic extremism becomes a critical priority for governments worldwide, editors Rohan Gunaratna and Katalin Pethö-Kiss scrutinize the threat landscape and analyze far-right groups in countries of the greatest concern.

The Kosovo Report
The Kosovo Report

Author: Independent International Commission on Kosovo

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-10-19

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0199243093

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The war in Kosovo was a turning point: NATO deployed its armed forces in war for the first time, and placed the controversial doctrine of 'humanitarian intervention' squarely in the world's eye. It was an armed intervention for the purpose of implementing Security Council resolutions-but without Security Council authorization.This report tries to answer a number of burning questions, such as why the international community was unable to act earlier and prevent the escalation of the conflict, as well as focusing on the capacity of the United Nations to act as global peacekeeper.The Commission recommends a new status for Kosovo, 'conditional independence', with the goal of lasting peace and security for Kosovo-and for the Balkan region in general. But many of the conslusions may be beneficially applied to conflicts the world-over.

Mass Atrocities and the Police
Mass Atrocities and the Police

Author: Christian Axboe Nielsen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-06-16

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1350204579

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Between April 1992 and December 1995, more than 100,000 people were killed in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The terrible atrocities committed in this period have been much discussed and studied and many prosecuted as acts of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. But so far, the academic scholarship has focused on the role of the military in these events. This has come at the expense of considering the police's role, which Nielsen here demonstrates as crucial. Nielsen traces the origins of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the police and associated paramilitary groups. Nielsen makes this ground-breaking case by drawing on a host of confidential archival sources, academic research and practical experience as a widely cited expert witness in the most notorious of the war crimes tribunals. His innovative new history sheds light on wider issues regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Balkan wars and the region today.

Milosevic
Milosevic

Author: Adam LeBor

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0300103174

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Offers an account of a man who started wars, whose rhetoric whipped up Serb nationalism to a frenzy of "ethnic cleansing" and yet who retained for a decade the ability to wrap the "international community" round his little finger.