Elitocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its impact on the contemporary understanding of the crime of genocide

Abstract

In my paper I will present and discuss the theoretical concept of elitocide (a systematic elimination of leading figures of a society or a group) and its impact on the crime of genocide on the example of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–1995. A systematization and scientific classification of elitocide as a sociological phenomenon bears great importance to the field of study on genocide, mass murder and human rights abuses. The scientific elaboration of new or hitherto neglected occurrences of organized violence has a significant impact on the understanding of the phenomenon of systematic war crimes and mass atrocities in modern war conflicts. In order to better understand how genocide or potentially genocidal mass murders emerge and how they can be prevented, it is necessary to modify and redevelop their conventional theoretical framework. Since the premises of modern war have changed, the science is obliged to adapt its approach to this new reality. This paper is a contribution to making the causes and consequences of mass atrocities practically cognizable and theoretically comprehensive.

Keywords:

• elitocide
• Bosnia
• war crimes
• genocide
• ethnic cleansing

Notes

The Serbian attack on the city of Bijeljina in April 1992 is generally considered the beginning of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A detailed report on the circumstances of the attack and the killings of prominent members of Bijeljina's local leadership is given in Human Rights Watch Report, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Unfinished Business: The Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons to Bijeljina.

Etymologically, the word “elitocide” is a blend of two words: the French word elite (chosen, leaders) and the Latin noun occidio (extermination). It could therefore be defined as a systematic elimination of leading and prominent figures of a society or a group.

Contrary to some opinions, the ethnic homogenization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, euphemistically labeled ethnic cleansing (“etničko čišćenje”), was not a consequence but the objective of the war. As Cigar points out, it was a rather rational policy, “implemented in a deliberate and systematic manner as part of a broader strategy intended to achieve a well-defined, concrete, political objective, namely the creation of an expanded, ethnically pure Greater Serbia” (Cigar, 4; also Silber and Little 244). In his standard reference on history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Noel Malcolm emphasizes the failure of the international community to consider and recognize the essence of the conflict: “Although the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ was now in general currency, there was still a tendency to assume that the essential problem was military, and that the flight of coerced and terrorized populations was merely a by-product of the fighting. It was then described as a humanitarian problem which could be ‘solved’ by moving refugees into refugee camps outside Bosnia. What was still not fully understood was that ethnic cleansing was not a by-product of the war. It was a central part of the entire political project which the war was intended to achieve, namely the creation of homogenous Serb areas which could eventually be joined to other Serb areas, including Serbia itself, to create a greater Serbian state” (246).

In her analysis of the history and politics of ethnic cleansing, Carrie Booth Walling explains: “Popularized by Western journalists, ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a literal translation of the Serbo-Croatian/Bosnian phrase etnicko ciscenje. The phrase is believed to have been part of the Yugoslav National Army's (JNA) military vocabulary to describe its policy of expelling Muslims and Croats from the territories conquered by the Serb-dominated rump Yugoslavia. Initially, the term did not have the negative connotations that it now carries. In fact, it was used openly by then Serbian President, Slobodan Milošević, and the regime's nationalist supporters. ‘Cleansing’ was used specifically for its positive connotations of cleanliness and purification that masked the ‘dirty truth’ of its implementation: forced deportation, murder, and rape. (…) Forced population transfer is a general synonym, but ethnic cleansing is a distinctive type and indeed represents an escalation of the idea of population transfer entirely based on ethnic criteria. (…) In practice ‘ethnic cleansing’ is most closely related to the German word Judenrein (meaning literally, clean of Jews) which was used by the Nazis to describe the areas from which Jews had been deported or expelled during World War Two” (48). Walling in particular focuses on the ethnic component of this phenomenon: “The term ‘ethnic’ refers to a group of people that share a distinct racial, national, religious, linguistic or cultural heritage, including shared history and perceptions, group identity and shared memory of past glories and traumas. Because ‘ethnic cleansing’ is exclusively based on ethnic criteria, it is distinct from other forms of large scale population removal, which can include religious cleansing, ideological cleansing (based on class or directed at political adversaries), strategic (applied to politically unreliable populations in sensitive military areas), economic and gender cleansings” (49).

For a detailed explanation on how the Court established the mens rea of genocide in a case involving the killing of more than 8000 male Bosniaks in the UN safe area Srebrenica, see the final verdict in the Krstić trial, case number IT-98-33-A, available on the official website of the International Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY): www.icty.org. See also the Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/55: The Fall of Srebrenica, UN-Doc. A/54/549 (15 November 1999).

On the night between 24 and 25 April 1915 (“The Red Sunday”), more than 200 Armenian politicians, journalists, physicians, lawyers, clergymen, bankers and intellectuals were arrested and loaded on red military busses upon an instruction of the Ministry of the Interior. On the next day, the Turkish authorities deported them outside the city where they were eventually murdered. By the end of August 1915 some 800 leaders of Armenian community of the Ottoman capital were neutralized through arrests and deportations. Only a few survived. (Balakian 56–74, 77–89); Melson, F. Robert. The Armenian Genocide as Precursor and Prototype of Twentieth-Century Genocide (87–99), in Rosenbaum, S. Alan (Ed.). Is the Holocaust Unique? Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.

The first elitocide verified in literature as a phenomenon forming part of the crime of genocide was probably the Burundi elitocide of 1972 (Chrétien and Dupaquier 139, 141, 152–288; O'Daley 22–25, 44–58, 68–77; Gilbert 85–102). A detailed report on the circumstances and preparation of the Rwandan genocide with a special focus on elitocidal preparatory activities is given in Linda Melvern's book A People Betrayed. On the Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide (115–33), and Arthur Jay Klinghoffer's The International Dimension of Genocide in Rwanda (44, 103–16).

The original wording of the “commissary order” is available here: http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/1941/kommissarbefehl.php.

Within the genocide studies framework, the term elitocide was for the first time used by Leo Kuper in 1981 in his book Genocide: Its Political Use in the 20th Century. Kuper uses elitocide to describe one of the first phases within genocide which is the destruction of the educated segment of a racial or ethnic group (32).

The basis for this paragraph are the research results contained in this author's Ph.D. thesis “Elitozid in Bosnien und Herzegowina 1992–1995,” published by the Nomos Verlag, Baden Baden, 2007.

On the organization of the conflict in former Yugoslavia (War Plan “RAM”) and the ideological background see Smail Čekić, Agresija na Republiku Bosnu i Hercegovinu. Sarajevo: Institut za istraživanje zločina protiv čovječnosti i međunarodnog prava, 2004 (325–72).

The “crisis headquarters,” derived from a concept designed for wartime conditions as part of the defense doctrine of the Yugoslav People's Army. As Gow emphasizes, the crisis headquarters were a vital part of the political preparations for the proclamation of the Serb autonomous regions. “In Bosnia, at least from the end of 1991 onwards, the SDS in conjunction with security service centers was preparing to take control in certain areas and making the provision for shadow secret governments using the crisis headquarters which would take up their role in office at a designated point” (122).

In the introduction to the verdict against the Serbian commander of the prison facility KP Dom in Foča, Milorad Krnojelac, from 15 March 2002, the applied methods of imposition of such circumstances that would lead to the expulsion and destruction of the Bosniak community are emphasized as follows: “Immediately after the Serb take-over, restrictions were imposed on the non-Serb inhabitants. (…) It was announced on the radio during the second half of April 1992 that the administration of the entire municipality of Foca would be run by the Serbs. From April 1992, Muslims were laid off from their jobs or were prevented or discouraged from reporting to work. Those who had held management positions prior to the conflict found themselves fired or replaced by Serbs. Although the Serb Crisis Staff ordered Serbs to return to work sometime at the end of April or beginning of May 1992, Muslims were not allowed to do so. Restrictions were placed on the movement of non-Serbs. A police car with a loudspeaker went through the town announcing that Muslims were not allowed to move about the town. A similar announcement was made over the radio. At the same time, the Serb population could move around freely, with the exception of a night curfew from 8.00 pm to 6.00 am imposed on all inhabitants. Muslims were forbidden to meet with each other, and had their phone lines cut off. In April and May 1992, Muslims stayed in apartments in Foca under virtual house arrest, either in hiding or at the order of Serb soldiers. Houses such as ‘Planika's’ and ‘Šandal's’ were used as interim detention centres by the Serb military. People wishing to leave Foča were required to get papers from the SUP (Secretariat of the Interior) permitting them to go. Military checkpoints were established, controlling access in and out of Foca and its surrounding villages. Non-Serbs were arrested throughout the municipality of Foca. Muslim men were rounded up in the streets, separated from the women and children and from the Serb population. Others were arrested in their apartments or in the houses of friends and relatives, taken away from their workplaces, or dragged from their hospital beds” (ICTY Krnojelac verdict IT-97-25 11). Krnojelac, who was a mathematics teacher before the war, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.

The brutality of everyday life in Omarska detention camp was also described by Rezak nuhanović, a former detainee, in his celebrated memoirs The Tenth Circle of Hell, published in 1996.

Some of these individuals were explicitly mentioned in the ICTY verdicts reached in the cases against Tadić (IT-94-1), Borovnica (IT-95-3), Sikirica and others (IT-94-8), Brđanin (IT-99-36), and Meakić and others (IT-02-65)

According to the data of the Research and Documentation Center Sarajevo, some 97,207 people were killed during the war (state of June 2009). Sixty-six percent of them were Bosniaks, and 83% of the murdered civilians were of Bosniak ethnic background.