Laura M. Herţa*

ROMANIAN REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VI, 2, 2014
INTRA-STATE VIOLENCE IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA AND THE
MIXED REACTIONS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE AMBIVALENCE OF THE
TRANSATLANTIC WORLD
Laura M. Herța
Abstract:
The article will briefly present the phases which led to the international recognition
of the Yugoslav dissolution. Secondly, the article intends to analyze the reaction of
the international community (herein understood as the transatlantic world or the
West) to the violent armed conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The main purpose of
the article is to present and analyze the vacillations of the West between a
perception of the conflict as endemic to the Balkans, on the one hand, and as a
plight of innocent civilians generated by genocide-type actions of extremists, on the
other hand.
Key-words: Yugoslav dissolution, Bosnian war, discourse construction,
transatlantic world
Introduction
The break-up of Yugoslavia triggered international concern and
entailed different phases among which: the reaction of the international
community to the independence of former Yugoslav republics; the ten-day
military confrontation in Slovenia; the war in Croatia; the war in BosniaHerzegovina from 1992 to 1995; the independence of Macedonia in 1992
followed by the deployment of the UN preventive mission; the violent
conflict in Kosovo in 1999 and NATO’s forceful humanitarian intervention;
the separation of Montenegro from Serbia in 2006; the independence of
Kosovo in 2008. In this article, I intend to present and analyze the mixed
reactions of the international community with respect to the dissolution of
Yugoslavia (and to the ensuing violent conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina) and

Laura Maria Herța holds a PhD in History and is currently Lecturer in International
Relations within the Department of International Relations and American Studies, Faculty of
European Studies, and member of the Centre for African Studies (Babeș-Bolyai University).
Contact: [email protected]
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Laura M. Herța
the inconsistencies of the transatlantic world in portraying the nature and
development of the conflict.
The article will briefly present the phases which led to the
international recognition of the Yugoslav dissolution. Secondly, the article
intends to analyze the reaction of the international community (herein
understood as the transatlantic world or the West) to the violent armed
conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The main purpose of the article is to present and analyze the
vacillations of the West between a perception of the conflict as endemic to
the Balkans, on the one hand, and as a plight of innocent civilians
generated by genocide-type actions of extremists, on the other hand.
Building on Lene Hansen’s discourse analysis (Security as Practise: discourse
analysis and the Bosnian war), the article will show two competing views
regarding the portrayal of the intra-state violence in Bosnia: 1) as
overwhelmingly and inescapably loaded with inter-ethnic age-long hatred
(and hence the derivative Western response of no solution from outside)
and 2) as the plight of innocent civilians caught among brutal nationalisms
(which required clear-cut actions from the West).
To recognize or to not recognize the break-up of Yugoslavia?
Numerous arguments were built around the factors that led to the
demise of Yugoslavia, including the financial crisis of the 1980s, the death
of Tito, the unifying figure of the South Slavs (Yugoslavs/Jugoslaveni), the
gradual weakening of the federal structure, the rise of Serbian nationalism
and growing power of Milošević which triggered fear among the other
republics, but also exogenous factors such as the fall of communism and
the end of the international bipolar order.1
See, inter alia, Ivo Banać, “The Fearful Asymmetry of War: The Causes and Consequences
of Yugoslavia’s Demise”, Daedalus, 1992, 121 (2), pp. 141–74; Jasminka Udovički and Ivan
Torov, “The Interlude: 1980-1990”, in Jasminka Udovički, James Ridgeway (eds.), Burn this
House. The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, Durham & London: Duke University Press,
2000, pp. 80-109; Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the
Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević, fourth edition, Westview Press, 2002; Mary Kaldor, New
and Old Wars, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001 (chapter “Bosnia-Herzegovina: A
Case Study of a New War”, pp. 31-68); Kori N. Schake, “The Break-up of Yugoslavia”, in
Roderick Von Lipsey, Breaking the Cycle, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, pp. 95-118.
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 25
The ambivalent reaction of the international community to the
dissolution of Yugoslavia started with the intention of Slovenia and Croatia
to break away from Yugoslavia. In what follows I will emphasize this
inconsistency and briefly present several phases in this respect which
indicate the shift from a commitment to the preservation of Yugoslav unity
to the recognition of the dissolution in less than one year.
Phase 1: commitment to territorial integrity
Against the background of paralleling the break-away tendencies of
Soviet republics with the case of Yugoslavia, President George Bush
declared in 1991 the American commitment towards preserving the
Yugoslav federation.2 The USSR, at its turn, “beset with its own centrifugal
forces, supported Yugoslav unity” while the European Community
corroborated the US position.3 A statement issued by the EC Foreign
Ministers stipulated that the “EC would not recognize any unilateral
declaration of independence by either Slovenia or Croatia” by invoking the
Helsinki Final Act which stressed the impossibility of state borders’
modification without consent.4 Moreover, in May 1991 EC president
Jacques Delors and prime minister of Luxembourg Jacques Santer visited
Belgrade and fortified the idea of Yugoslav territorial integrity.5 The fervent
advocates of the Slovene and Croatian cause for separation was Austria, at
the time not a member of the EC and NATO6 and the Vatican which
“openly lobbied for the independence of the predominantly Roman
Catholic republics” from Yugoslavia.7 Up to this moment Germany had
remained consistent with the position of its Western European partners
“support[ing] each EC communiqué and, as late as 4 September 1991,
Tom Gallagher, The Balkans after the Cold War. From tyranny to tragedy, London and New
York: Routledge, 2003, p. 38.
3 Peter Radan, The Break-up of Yugoslavia and International Law, London and New York:
Routledge, 2003, p. 161.
4 Ibidem.
5 Susan L. Woodward, “International Aspects of the Wars in Former Yugoslavia”, in
Jasminka Udovički, James Ridgeway (eds.), Burn this House. The Making and Unmaking of
Yugoslavia, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2000, pp. 219-220.
6 Gallagher, op. cit., p. 40.
7 Woodward, op. cit., p. 217.
2
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Laura M. Herța
Chancellor Helmut Kohl called publicly for the preservation of
Yugoslavia.”8
Phase 2: towards acknowledgement of right to self-determination
Following the Slovenian and Croatian declarations of independence
in June 1991, violence and military confrontations broke out and the
situation dramatically deteriorated in Eastern Croatia inhabited by a large
group of Serbs who suddenly became a minority in a newly created state
and started expelling Croats using the military support of the Yugoslav
National Army (JNA - Jugoslovenska narodna armija). Against this
background of violence with spill-over potential, European states
reconsidered their position leading to division within the EC and the
ensuing ambiguities regarding the interpretation of self-determination
became a prerequisite for the dramatic events in Bosnia. The latter played a
crucial role in the unfolding of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and most
importantly in the mixed signals from the international community
towards this tragic crisis.
The main division within the EC was emphasized by Peter Radan
who presented the polarization between “France and Spain in favour of
maintaining a federal Yugoslavia” on the one hand, and “Germany and
Belgium [who] supported the other viewpoint favouring the possible
recognition of Slovenia and Croatia in particular.”9 For a few months a firm
position of the EC was absent and the descent into violence in Croatia
marked the vacillations between reaffirming previous statements and
commitment to integrity and assessing the possibility of acknowledging
new circumstances and the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia as
independent states. It is again Peter Radan who indicated the fact that “the
ambiguity of the EC position was further reflected in an EC Declaration on
5 July 1991, which asserted that as a result of the secessions of Slovenia and
Croatia ‘a new situation has arisen’.”10
Phase 3: the recognition of Yugoslavia’s dissolution
In August 1991, the European Community decided upon a peace
conference on Yugoslavia (whose president was appointed Lord
Carrington, former British Foreign secretary) and hence created an
Gallagher, op. cit., p. 44.
Radan, op. cit., pp. 161-162.
10 Ibidem.
8
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 27
Arbitration Committee (later known as the Badinter Arbitration
Commission) which was chaired by Robert Badinter, president of the
French Constitutional Council. The Badinter Commission’s ruling was
issued in January 1992, but Germany had already recognized the
independence of Slovenia and Croatia in December 1991 and widely
campaigned for this among European partners.
The German public opinion, appalled with the violence in Croatia,
had exerted pressure towards a different stance regarding independence
“favouring self-determination for republics which wished to escape Serbian
aggression” while opinion polls conducted in Britain and France indicated
similar attitudes.11 Following the ten-day war in Slovenia, the Brioni
Agreement was signed in July 1991 which in fact recognized the breakaway will of Slovenia. According to Susan Woodward, “the European
Community thus accepted that republics were states and their borders
were sacrosanct. The source of their sovereignty was the right of a nation to
self-determination. This also made Slovenia and Croatia the subjects, de
facto, of international law and cleared the way for the eventual recognition
of their statehood.”12 With respect to Croatia, a month later an EC
Declaration on Yugoslavia was adamant in expressing the rejection of
changes to Croatia’s frontiers which were brought about by force.
According to Peter Radan, “this was a significant statement in that it
appeared to accept Croatia as a subject of international law [and] made
clear that the principles of territorial integrity applied not only to
international borders, but also to the internal federal borders of an
internationally recognised state.”13 The message entailed therein hence
recognized Croatia as subject of international law and denied the validity
of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina (comprising Serbinhabited regions in Eastern Croatia, Western Slavonia, and Kninska
Krajina). According to the ruling of the Commission, “although States are
prohibited from acquiring a territory by force, they might freely decide [...]
Gallagher, op. cit., p. 44.
Woodward, op. cit., p. 224.
13 Radan, op. cit., p. 162.
11
12
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Laura M. Herța
to a modification of their frontiers ‘by agreement’.”14 However, the Badinter
Commission also specified that the rights of minority groups must be
protected in the post-independence entities: “where there are one or more
groups within a state constituting one or more ethnic, religious or language
communities, they have the right to recognition of their identity under
international law.”15 According to Susan Woodward, the EC has shifted
rapidly from holding on to the preservation of the federal state to
acknowledging its dissolution, and “the EC abandoned its commitment to
Yugoslavia”, hence the “continuing ambiguities in EC declaration about
whether Yugoslavia did or did not exist.”16
In its Opinion no. 2, referring specifically to the question “Does the
Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as one of the
constituent peoples of Yugoslavia, have the right to self-determination?”,
the wording of the Badinter Commission mentioned “that the Serbian
population in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia is entitled to all the rights
concerned to minorities and ethnic groups under international law and
under the provisions of the draft Convention of the Conference on
Yugoslavia of 4 November 1991, to which the Republics of BosniaHerzegovina and Croatia have undertaken to give effect.”17 But, at the time
of its ruling, “the Badinter Commission found that Croatia failed, without
reservation, to qualify for EC recognition under the EC guidelines”18 and
decided that “only Slovenia and Macedonia satisfied its conditions on
specific democratic standards and rights of minorities.”19 Concomitantly,
Germany had already recognized the independence of Croatia and
Slovenia prior to the ruling of the Badinter Commission (and to its
standards for recognition) and argued that “that it did not legally have
As explained by Alain Pellet, “The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee. A
Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples”, in European Journal of International
Law, 1992, issue 3, p. 180.
15 Ibidem, pp. 183-184.
16 Woodward, op. cit., p. 224. See also, Marc Weller, “The International Response to the
Dissolution of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia”, American Journal of International
Law, July 1992, vol. 86, pp. 569-588.
17 Pellet, op. cit., pp. 183-184.
18 Cf. Ugo Caruso, “Interplay between the Council of Europe, OSCE, EU and NATO”,
MIRICO: Human and Minority Rights in the Life Cycle of Ethnic Conflicts, 2007, p. 11,
available at [http://euc.illinois.edu/_includes/docs/ReportoninterplayWEB.pdf]
19 Woodward, op. cit., p. 224.
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 29
binding effect for EC member states, because it was a device of arbitration
not of international law.”20
The repercussions of this “premature recognition” were anticipated
by the UN and other key actors. Lord Carrington (president of the EC
Peace Conference on Yugoslavia) warned that this “might be the spark that
sets Bosnia-Herzegovina alight”21 and UN Secretary-General Perez de
Cuellar stated that “premature, selective recognition of Croatian
independence would lead to disastrous consequences for the EC
Conference and for the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”22
All these precipitating events led to the international recognition of
Yugoslav dissolution, since the EC recognized Slovenia and Croatia in
January 1992 and USA “took the lead in sponsoring international
recognition for Bosnia as a sovereign state”23 and recognized Slovenia,
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as independent in April 1992. A fourth
phase ensued which I will briefly overview by emphasizing the effects of
the West’s inconsistent reaction to the Yugoslav dissolution upon the crisis
in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Phase 4: ambivalence regarding the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina
The reactions of the international community to the disintegration
of Yugoslavia had significant consequences for multinational BosniaHerzegovina, comprising the Bosnian Muslims (43.7% and represented by
the Party of Democratic Action/PDA), the Bosnian Serbs (31.4% out of the
total population and led by the Serbian Democratic Party/SDP), and the
Bosnian Croats (amounting to 17.3% and represented by the Croat
Democratic Union/CDU).
Reacting to the decision of the Badinter Commission, who had set
up December 1991 as deadline for the republics’ application for
international recognition of independence, and following the break-away
moves of Slovenia and Croatia, the Party of Democratic Action moved to
adopt a declaration of state sovereignty, which was supported by the Croat
Democratic Union. However, it was opposed by the Serbian Democratic Party,
Caruso, op. cit., p. 11.
Woodward, op. cit., p. 225.
22 Caruso, op. cit., p. 11.
23 Cf. Sumantra Bose, Contested Lands. Israel–Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka,
Cambridge, 2007, p. 124.
20
21
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Laura M. Herța
since nationalist leader Radovan Karadžić had convinced Bosnian Serbs to
boycott the vote within the National Assembly and the plebiscite.24 The
result was that a resolution for independence was supported only by the
Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, which was not consonant to the
ruling of the Badinter Commission which had specified “that the claim for
independence would be considered valid only if a sufficient proportion of
voters within each of the three ethnic communities supported secession.”25
Consequently, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s first application was rejected (in
January 1992) as, as emphasized by Jasminka Udovički and Ejub Štitkovac,
the intention of the Badinter Commission “played into the hands of Serbian
nationalist extremists”26 whose reaction was the self-proclaimed Serb
Republic (later called Republika Srpska) within Bosnia-Herzegovina.
According to Jasminka Udovički and Ejub Štitkovac, the European
Community “eventually acted in violation of the Badinter Commission”
and the ambivalence had pernicious effects on the development of the crisis
in Bosnia-Herzegovina: “By overriding the stipulation of the Badinter
Commission and recognizing Bosnian independence on April 6, 1992,
despite the overwhelming boycott of the referendum for independence by
Bosnian Serbs [...] the EC made matters worse.”27 Just two days later, the
war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UN imposed an arms embargo
on the whole Yugoslavia, violence escalated quickly, and by summer 1992
the Bosnian Serbs, benefitting from the support and ammunition of the
Yugoslav National Army, already militarily occupied large parts of the
territory.
What followed suit was the perception of international community
of the war in Bosnia as archetypal for ethnic violence, characterized by
rivalries among three ethnic groups fighting against each other, and not as
deliberate ethnic cleansing or genocide committed against civilians
belonging to specific communities. Mary Kaldor emphasized the
misunderstanding of the nature of violence within the international
community, which “fell into the nationalist trap” and explained that all
For a detailed and accurate analysis on this, see Radan, op. cit., pp. 183-186.
Jasminka Udovički; Ejub Štitkovac, “Bosnia and Hercegovina: The Second War”, in
Udovički; Ridgeway (eds.), op. cit., p. 177.
26 Ibidem, p. 178.
27 Ibidem.
24
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 31
peace plans for Bosnia-Herzegovina were centred on the partition along
ethnic lines (as if the three groups could no longer live together), which
was in fact the chief aim of the nationalists and the outcome of ethnic
cleansing.28 Negotiating peace for Bosnia meant separating the three
communities according to some sort of fait accompli in 1992, but in fact, as
underlined by Lene Hansen, “most of the Serbs’ territorial gains were made
within the first months of the war.”29 This meant on-going de facto partition
with the use of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against civilians, and
engagement in peace negotiations based on this fait accompli. Therefore,
from that point on the external solutions30 for ending the conflict
accommodated the new status quo which was brought about by force.
The construction of discourses and the ambivalence of the
transatlantic world
The “inescapable ancient hatred” perception within the
international community
The reaction of the international community to the outburst of
violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina is intertwined with the portrayal of the
nature of the conflict. One major perception regarding the type of conflict
was linked to what could be called “the inescapable ancient hatred”,
meaning that the conflict was seen as merely a continuation of previous
bloody episodes in the history of the Balkans and, more specifically, in the
history of Bosnia. Hence, this perception was centred on the idea that the
three communities were predestined to confrontation and cannot escape
self-perpetuating ethnic rivalries.
Raymond Taras and Rajat Ganguly showed that one explanation for
the outbreak of violent ethnic conflicts in the post-Cold War period was
created mainly by journalists and media personnel. Basically, the idea
advanced was that “ethnic groups locked in violent combat had a lengthy
history of bellicose intergroup relations” and that the periods of relative
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, p. 58.
Lene Hansen, Security as Practice: discourse analysis and the Bosnian war, London and New
York: Routledge, 2006, p. 104.
30 The term ‘external solutions’ here refers to the Vance-Owen and Stoltenberg-Owen peace
plans (more precisely the plans resulting from the UN/EC mediation by Cyrus Vance and
Lord Owen in September-June 1993 and by Thorvald Stoltenberg and Lord Owen in JulyDecember 1993).
28
29
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Laura M. Herța
peace were due only to the strong central authority (in the case of
Yugoslavia the communist centralized organization of the federal state).31
American president George H. Bush argued that “the collapse of
communism has thrown open a Pandora’s Box of ancient ethnic hatreds,
resentment, and even revenge”32 while senator John McCain described
Bosnian violence in terms of “a conflict which has been going on in the
Balkans for hundreds of years.”33
According to Lene Hansen, these explanations amounted to a
“Balkan discourse” which articulated the nature and dynamic of the
conflict in Bosnia as “a ‘Balkan war’ driven by violence, barbarism, and
ancient intra-Balkan hatred stretching back hundreds of years.”34
Numerous speeches, accounts, and discursive representations of events in
Bosnia-Herzegovina stand as testimony for such a geographic construction
predisposed to endemic violence. Robert D. Kaplan stated that “the Balkans
were the original Third World, long before the Western media coined the
term [and that] whatever has happened in Beirut or elsewhere happened
first, long ago, in the Balkans”; he also believed that “twentieth-century
history came from the Balkans. Here men have been isolated by poverty
and ethnic rivalry, dooming them to hate.”35 Warren Zimmerman, the last
American ambassador to Yugoslavia, believed that the bloody conflicts
accompanying the break-up of Yugoslavia were “a throwback to the
ancient bandit traditions of the Balkans”36 while David Anderson, another
former US ambassador to Yugoslavia, said that “the problem, I fear, is the
Yugoslavs themselves. They are a perverse group of folks, near tribal in
their behaviour, suspicious of each other (with usually sound reasons), [...]
Raymond C. Taras; Rajat Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflict. The International
Dimension, New York: Longman, 2008, pp. 20-21.
32 Quoted from James Gerstenzang, “U.S. joins Europeans in Yugoslav sanctions Bush issues
warning about nationalism”, The Baltimore Sun, 1991, November 10, available at
[http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-11-10/news/1991314010_1_yugoslavia-economicsanctions-eastern-europe].
33 Quoted from Hansen, op. cit., p. 94
34 Hansen, op. cit., p. 94.
35 Robert D. Kaplan, Fantomele Balcanilor (Balkan Ghosts), Antet, 2002, p. 18.
36 Quoted from Hansen, op. cit., p. 94.
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 33
proud of their warrior history, and completely incapable of coming to grips
with the modern world.”37
This portrayal of the Bosnian war triggered consonant reactions
relative to its resolution. First of all, the representation of the war as being
overwhelmingly characterized by inescapable old-age hatred led to the
impossibility of external agents to restore peace. Consequently, the West
was found in a position wherein it could not impose a peaceful solution
from outside, since the Balkans were perceived as “locked into repetitive
violence.”38 Secondly, the proclivity towards violence was attributed to all
three parties of the conflict equally, as if they were inherently and
irreversibly consumed by nationalism. Tom Gallagher called it the
“equivalence of guilt” and corroborated it with Lord Carrington’s
statement in 1992 when referring to the three communities in Bosnia as “all
impossible people ... all as bad as each other.”39 Senator McCain mentioned
that the primary American responsibility targets US troops whose lives
would be jeopardized in such an area of violence, hence the nature of the
“Balkan warfare” was linked with previous traumatic episodes that
revealed bloodshed on the American side, like Vietnam, Beirut and
Mogadishu. Therefore, as Hansen showed, by articulating the “ancient
roots” of the conflict, this discourse tried to prove that there was not much
that the “West” could do.40
The pro-interventionist discourse
As violence mounted in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbian-run
concentration camps and the siege of Sarajevo became widely known, a
discourse centred on the West’s responsibility to stop atrocities shaped
which was also congruent to political speeches.
The Independent believed in 1992 that “the Muslims have [...]
suffered far the worst from the brutal policy of ethnic ‘cleansing’ practiced
most ruthlessly by the Serbs” and critically assessed the Western policy “as
hopelessly indecisive and reactive” (The Independent 1992). The Guardian
Quoted from Srebrenica: a ‘safe’ area Part I - The Yugoslavian problem and the role of the West
1991-1994, Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, pp. 94-95, available at
[http://www.srebrenica-project.com/].
38 Hansen, op. cit., p. 96.
39 Gallagher, op. cit., p. 93.
40 Hansen, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
37
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Laura M. Herța
concluded an editorial in April 1993 by asking “How, why, have we failed
so dismally to save Bosnia?” while The Times argued in 1993 that “Bosnians
are paying a terrible price for Europe’s vacillation more than a year ago,
when preventive action could have stopped the fighting from breaking
out.” Also, The Independent indicated a “deep sense of collective shame that
is building up among the people of this country as they watch the atrocities
in Bosnia unfold.”41 Another journalist critique of the “ancient ethnic
hatred” idea came from Paul Harris who, in a Scottish newspaper in 1992,
pointed to the fact that “just as in Bosnia, Scotland [...] could be consumed
with violence in just a few weeks. All this would happen not because the
Scots actually hate the English but because the situation had been
engineered by a relatively small group of people with access to media and
weapons.”42 Senator Joseph Lieberman referred to the “failure of the
civilized world to take action to stop the aggression” while Joseph Biden
argued that “the West” had “orchestrated its institutions in a symphony of
evasion, [... have been] accomplices in a calculated act of negligence” and
that by-standing atrocities “represents a historic abdication of
responsibility.”43
The most convincing and consistent account came from Roy
Gutman’s investigative reports for the New York’s Newsday, subsequently
collected and published in the book A Witness to Genocide, which revealed
the existence of camps in northern Bosnia in the summer of 1992.44 The
result was international outrage, but the reports were also precise in
proving the existence of concentration camps, the plight of the Muslims
and the deliberate and systematic Bosnian Serb strategy in this respect.
The solution for intervention stressed by this discourse aimed at
correcting the military imbalances among combatants (by lifting the arms’
embargo and providing support for the Bosnian Muslims) but did not
envisage a consistent transatlantic response with respect to deployment of
troops.
Quoted from ibidem, p. 114.
Quoted from Gallagher, op. cit., p. 97.
43 Quoted from Hansen, op. cit., p. 124.
44 Gallagher, op. cit., pp. 85-86; Hansen, op. cit., p. 12 and pp. 159-160. See Roy Gutman, A
Witness to Genocide, New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1993.
41
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Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 35
The inconsistencies and mixed reactions to the war in Bosnia
The first mismatch in the transatlantic world occurred at the
beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, when the United States did not
immediately recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia still
holding on to the preservation of the federal state, in contrast to the
European states. But the US did recognize the independence of BosniaHerzegovina one day after the European Community did, and “the
Administration action was intended to bring United States policy into line
with that of the European Community.”45 Secondly, there was ambiguity
about who should lead an intervention in Bosnia and what means should
be employed to end the conflict. During the initial phase of the conflict, the
Bush administration did not want to engage as leading agent, but preferred
to leave the responsibility to the European partners.46 After atrocities of the
war captured media spotlight and triggered concern in the international
community, the United States became preoccupied with the plight of
Bosnian Muslims and distinguished between the virulent nationalism of
Serbs and Croats, on the one hand, and the benign nationalism of Muslims,
on the other hand. This view contrasted with the Europeans who perceived
the three types as equally blameful.47 French president François Mitterrand
stated that there is difficulty in specifying who are the victims and who are
the aggressors: “What I know is that for a long time Serbia and Croatia
have been the scene of many such dramas [...] After Tito’s death, the latent
conflict between Serbs and Croatians was bound to erupt.”48 As shown by
Tom Gallagher, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd also “amalgamated
the victims of violence with its perpetrators” by saying “when there is no
will for peace, we cannot supply it.”49
The Clinton Administration was even more ambivalent in treating
the war as emblematic for the Balkans and then shifting to the
David Binder, “U.S. Recognizes three Yugoslav Republics as Independent”, The New York
Times, April 8, 1992, available at
[http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/08/world/us-recognizes-3-yugoslav-republics-asindependent.html].
46 Robert C. DiPrizio, Armed Humanitarians. U.S. Interventions from Northern Iraq to Kosovo,
Baltimore&London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, p. 118.
47 Kaldor, op. cit., p. 58.
48 Quoted from Gallagher, op. cit., p. 47.
49 Ibidem, p. 87.
45
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responsibility to save the innocent while at the same not eager to deploy
American ground troops. According to DiPrizio, “indecision plagued
Clinton’s Bosnia policy”50 and other observers expressed this in a sharp
manner: “Clinton’s indecisiveness and inconsistency confused the world
and his statements promised much that his policies could not deliver.”51
The cumulative effect of these factors resulted in lack of cohesion
within the transatlantic world with respect to the forms of intervention.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher advanced the American strategy
“Lift and Strike” which basically identified the Serbs as aggressors,
emphasized the need to lift the UN arms’ embargo which had weakened
the Bosnian Muslims in their efforts to counteract the YNA-supported
Bosnian Serbs, and intended to use NATO air strikes to defeat Bosnian
Serbs.52 On the other hand, Britain and France who had contributed with
peacekeeping troops (comprising a large part of the UNPROFOR53 mission
in Bosnia-Herzegovina) were adamant against the “Lift and Strike”
solution because it endangered their troops. The division among European
states also played a role in dealing with Bosnia’s tragedy. As explained by
Gallagher, at the beginning of the Yugoslav dissolution process, when
Germany lobbied for recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, there was a
suspicion among French diplomats that Bonn was pursuing the creation of
an area of influence in the north of the Balkans. Hence, a pro-Serb stance
was justified by this perception and “British counterparts [...] shared
similar views, though perhaps in not as great numbers.”54 When violence
mounted in Bosnia-Herzegovina, German criticism targeted Britain “for not
accepting a fair share of refugees”55, followed by the British proposal of
confining the “safe havens” within Bosnia-Herzegovina proper. According
DiPrizio, op. cit., p. 119.
Wayne Burt, The Reluctant Superpower, apud ibidem.
52 See details about the “Lift and Strike” strategy in Hansen, op. cit., pp. 117-118 and 122-125;
Alastair Finlan, The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991-1999, Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2004,
p. 65.
53 UNPROFOR, the United Nations Protection Force, was initially deployed in Croatia to
ensure demilitarization but when war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina its mandate was
extended to ensure the delivery of humanitarian relief, to monitor "no fly zones" and "safe
areas". See the mission’s profile at
[http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unprof_p.htm].
54 Gallagher, op. cit., p. 49.
55 Woodward, op. cit., p. 237.
50
51
Intra-state violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Mixed Reactions... 37
to Alistair Finlan, Britain’s tolerant policy towards the Serbs and resistance
towards deployment of more troops led to the assessment that it “bears a
great deal of responsibility for the tragedy that engulfed the former
Yugoslavia, and yet at the same time played an important part in getting
humanitarian aid to those that needed it. This seemingly absurd contradiction
symbolised the disjointed European approach to the Balkan problem.”56
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