Balkan genocides Mojzes, Paul
2011., 2011, 2011-10-16, 20110101
eBook
During the 20th century, the Balkan Peninsula was affected by three major waves of genocides and ethnic cleansings, some of which are still being denied today. In Balkan Genocides Paul Mojzes ...provides a balanced and detailed account of these events, placing them in their proper historical context and debunking the common misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the genocides themselves. A native of Yugoslavia, Mojzes offers new insights into the Balkan genocides, including a look at the unique role of ethnoreligiosity in these horrific events and a characterization of the first and second Balkan wars as mutual genocides. Mojzes also looks to the region's future, discussing the ongoing trials at the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia and the prospects for dealing with the lingering issues between Balkan nations and different religions. Balkan Genocides attempts to end the vicious cycle of revenge which has fueled such horrors in the past century by analyzing the terrible events and how they came to pass.
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.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of interpreters in war while ...investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes and legal aspects of interpreters’ taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as witnesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by interpreters in violent conflict.The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials, with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualized discussion, focusing on the Japanese military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examination of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality, drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote intersectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to manifestly unlawful acts such as torture.
Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide.Why Did They Kill?is one of the first ...anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants-almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.
Abusive leaders are now held accountable for their crimes in a way that was unimaginable just a few decades ago. What are the consequences of this recent push for international justice? In The ...Justice Dilemma, Daniel Krcmaric explains why the "golden parachute" of exile is no longer an attractive retirement option for oppressive rulers. He argues that this is both a blessing and a curse: leaders culpable for atrocity crimes fight longer civil wars because they lack good exit options, but the threat of international prosecution deters some leaders from committing atrocities in the first place. The Justice Dilemma therefore diagnoses an inherent tension between conflict resolution and atrocity prevention, two of the signature goals of the international community. Krcmaric also sheds light on several important puzzles in world politics. Why do some rulers choose to fight until they are killed or captured? Why not simply save oneself by going into exile? Why do some civil conflicts last so much longer than others? Why has state-sponsored violence against civilians fallen in recent years? While exploring these questions, Krcmaric marshals statistical evidence on patterns of exile, civil war duration, and mass atrocity onset. He also reconstructs the decision-making processes of embattled leaders—including Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Charles Taylor of Liberia, and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso—to show how contemporary international justice both deters atrocities and prolongs conflicts.
Through a global comparative approach, Amy Sodaro uses in-depth case studies of five exemplary memorial museums that commemorate a range of violent pasts and allow for a chronological and global ...examination of the form: the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; the House of Terror in Budapest; the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda; the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile; and the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York. Together, these case studies illustrate the historical emergence and global spread of the memorial museum and show how this new cultural form of commemoration is intended to be used in contemporary societies around the world emerging from widely divergent forms of political violence.
This dissertation examines the case of two satellite concentration camps of Buchenwald in the German towns of Altenburg and Meuselwitz and the fate of the - mostly female - prisoners, forced to work ...in the factories of the arms manufacturer HASAG. The dissertation itself consists of two parts: In the stage play "Flieder, 1945 / Lilac, 2015", I investigate the history and memory of the camps, factories, and the community which produced those through the frayed relationships of three generations of German women and a group of prisoners attempting to survive the camp. The commentary "Visibility, Memory, Gender: Writing and Re-imagining National Socialist Atrocity for the Stage" addresses the history of the camps in Altenburg and Meuselwitz, documents the creative process, and engages with various theatrical and filmic representation of National Socialist atrocity. Particular focus is placed on questions of visibility of atrocity, the role of the 'bystander', and the female experience of atrocity, as well as the implications of the legacy of National Socialism for next-generation Germans.
This thesis seeks to explain how the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) interpret the Responsibilityto Protect (R2P) in the context of the region. In doing so, it investigates the ...response of ASEAN and its member states to atrocity crimes in the region; the crises in Myanmar and the Philippines. A qualitative case study approach with 26 in-depth elite interviews was conducted, involving 15 interviews with state-based actors of ASEAN countries and 11 interviews with non-state actors. Interview data were analysed by developing themes and identifying the patterns and interrelations among them. Interpretation of the data was conducted, using the conceptual lens of norms especially the concepts of norm contestation, norm subsidiarity, norm implementation and norm robustness. Overall findings were discussed and compared to existing literature regarding the diffusion and implementation of R2P in the ASEAN region. Interpretation of the data was also conducted to learn broader lessons regarding the dynamics of norm diffusion and contestation. Most ASEAN countries emphasise three interrelated points when refusing the use of R2P principle in the context of the region. First, they question the extent to which atrocity crimes are said to be occurring and therefore whether the application of R2P can be justified. Second, most ASEAN countries argue that atrocity crimes do not even exist in the region. The two cases have been interpreted as complex problems, including the issues of poverty, counter insurgencies and transnational crimes, but ultimately, they have been considered domestic issues and national affairs of the relevant countries. Third, the ASEAN countries emphasise that the region already has its own principles and frameworks for responding to regional problems, including human protection issues. They claim that their frameworks contain the core elements and basic ideas of R2P. This thesis concludes that R2P diffusion in the ASEAN region has been resisted and problematised rather than accepted or localised. The ASEAN and its member states demonstrate subsidiary behaviour in the sense that they have used their locally constructed norms to offer normative resistance to the diffusion and application of R2P in the context of the region. Regional arrangements have also been used by the ASEAN countries in order to preserve the autonomy of the region as well as to justify their right to use their own mechanisms and approaches to respond to the cases.
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