Bosnian Genocide Quotes

But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?

....in Bosnia, mass rape was a policy of the war, systematically carried out, implicating neighbors, paramilitaries, soldiers.

Europe has another meaning for me. Every time I mention that word, I see the Bosnian family in front of me, living far away from whatever they call home and eating their own wonderful food because that's all that is left for them. The fact remains that after fifty years, it was possible to have another war in Europe; that it was possible to change borders; that genocide is still possible even today.

That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.

My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States.

Grievances are not in themselves sufficient to radicalize somebody. They are half the truth. My meaning is best summarized this way: when we in the West failed to intervene in the Bosnian genocide, some Muslims became radicalized; when we did intervene in Afghanistan and Iraq, more Muslims became radicalized; when we failed to intervene in Syria, many more Muslims became radicalized. The grievance narrative that pins the blame on foreign policy is only half the story. It is insufficient as an explanation for radicalization.

Children lost their arms, legs, and eyes While foreign governments fed us blatant lies Bodies laid on the street, frozen to death While some foreign teenagers took crystal meth

My father was shot in his ankle by a Chetnik And my mother was 2 inches away from death I could have easily become an orphan And suffered endlessly until my last breath

We were trapped, we were completely caged Some of my mother’s good friends were raped This is what went on while war and genocide raged Our dignity, identity, and layers of skin were scraped

genocide n. 1. ethnic cleansing When Serbian gunmen go door-to-door in a Bosnian town pulling Slavs and Roman Catholic Croats from their homes at gunpoint and herding them forcibly onto cattle trucks and deporting or later shooting them, the Serbs call it "ethnic cleansing." - New York Times, May 22, 1992 2. depopulation 3. elimination of unreliable elements

Events. Events in response to other events. Think about it. Nothing since the big bang has happened without a reason. And even the big bang might have come from something, because of something. One thing makes another thing, and then that thing makes the next thing. Look at these kids. These two brothers, still kids. They don't know themselves yet. They are acting in response, in reaction, passionate reaction to something that set them off, made them commit to violence. They would not be here if the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. The United States would not have had fertile ground for the lie it told about Irag, weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein, etc., etc., if not for Osama bin Laden and 9/11. Osama bin Laden would not have been able to recruit those men to learn how to fly planes and then crash them into buildings if not for propaganda about the persecution of the global Muslims, Afghanistan after the Russian invasion, Chechnya in the nineties, Bosnian genocides, or any instance of Islam under attack by the West, one culture trying to extinguish another. History is always a story of cause and effect.

I barely escaped Sarajevo in one piece Chetniks looked directly at my mother They were eager to kill us like mice She saw their evil eyes, as cold as ice They wanted to ensure our extinction They wanted to plan our demise But despite their ammunition We were strategic, clever, and wise Imagine being in a situation like that What would you do? What would you think? How would you deal with the intensity Of being afraid to even blink? Think about people that matter to you most What if they became like a distant ghost? What if all your friends, family, and favorite things Suddenly became birds with clipped wings?

The Siege of Sarajevo, the longest city siege in the history of modern warfare, stretched from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996. The United Nations estimates that approximately 10,000 people were killed and 56,000 wounded. An average of 329 shells hit the city each day, with a one-day high of 3,777 on July 22, 1993. In a city of roughly half a million people, 10,000 apartments were destroyed, and 100,000 were damaged. Twenty-three percent of all buildings were seriously damaged, and a further 64 percent partially. As of October 2007 the leaders of the Bosnian Serb Army, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, are still at large, despite having been charged in 1996 with war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslovia in The Hague

Dehumanization has fueled innumerable acts of violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocides. It makes slavery, torture, and human trafficking possible. Dehumanizing others is the process by which we become accepting of violations against human nature, the human spirit, and, for many of us, violations against the central tenets of our faith. How does this happen? Maiese explains that most of us believe that people’s basic human rights should not be violated—that crimes like murder, rape, and torture are wrong. Successful dehumanizing, however, creates moral exclusion. Groups targeted based on their identity—gender, ideology, skin color, ethnicity, religion, age—are depicted as “less than” or criminal or even evil. The targeted group eventually falls out of the scope of who is naturally protected by our moral code. This is moral exclusion, and dehumanization is at its core. Dehumanizing always starts with language, often followed by images. We see this throughout history. During the Holocaust, Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen—subhuman. They called Jews rats and depicted them as disease-carrying rodents in everything from military pamphlets to children’s books. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Indigenous people are often referred to as savages. Serbs called Bosnians aliens. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. I know it’s hard to believe that we ourselves could ever get to a place where we would exclude people from equal moral treatment, from our basic moral values, but we’re fighting biology here. We’re hardwired to believe what we see and to attach meaning to the words we hear. We can’t pretend that every citizen who participated in or was a bystander to human atrocities was a violent psychopath. That’s not possible, it’s not true, and it misses the point. The point is that we are all vulnerable to the slow and insidious practice of dehumanizing, therefore we are all responsible for recognizing it and stopping it. THE COURAGE TO EMBRACE OUR HUMANITY Because so many time-worn systems of power have placed certain people outside the realm of what we see as human, much of our work now is more a matter of “rehumanizing.” That starts in the same place dehumanizing starts—with words and images. Today we are edging closer and closer to a world where political and ideological discourse has become

A few years back, I had a long session with a psychiatrist who was conducting a study on post-traumatic stress disorder and its effects on reporters working in war zones. At one point, he asked me: “How many bodies have you seen in your lifetime?” Without thinking for too long, I replied: “I’m not sure exactly. I've seen quite a few mass graves in Africa and Bosnia, and I saw a well crammed full of corpses in East Timor, oh and then there was Rwanda and Goma...” After a short pause, he said to me calmly: “Do you think that's a normal response to that question?” He was right. It wasn't a normal response. Over the course of their lifetime, most people see the bodies of their parents, maybe their grandparents at a push. Nobody else would have responded to that question like I did. Apart from my fellow war reporters, of course. When I met Marco Lupis nearly twenty years ago, in September 1999, we were stood watching (fighting the natural urge to divert our gaze) as pale, maggot-ridden corpses, decomposed beyond recognition, were being dragged out of the well in East Timor. Naked bodies shorn of all dignity. When Marco wrote to ask me to write the foreword to this book and relive the experiences we shared together in Dili, I agreed without giving it a second thought because I understood that he too was struggling for normal responses. That he was hoping he would find some by writing this book. While reading it, I could see that Marco shares my obsession with understanding the world, my compulsion to recount the horrors I have seen and witnessed, and my need to overcome them and leave them behind. He wants to bring sense to the apparently senseless. Books like this are important. Books written by people who have done jobs like ours. It's not just about conveying - be it in the papers, on TV or on the radio - the atrocities committed by the very worst of humankind as they are happening; it’s about ensuring these atrocities are never forgotten. Because all too often, unforgivably, the people responsible go unpunished. And the thing they rely on most for their impunity is that, with the passing of time, people simply forget. There is a steady flow of information as we are bombarded every day with news of the latest massacre, terrorist attack or humanitarian crisis. The things that moved or outraged us yesterday are soon forgotten, washed away by today's tidal wave of fresh events. Instead they become a part of history, and as such should not be forgotten so quickly. When I read Marco's book, I discovered that the people who murdered our colleague Sander Thoenes in Dili, while he was simply doing his job like the rest of us, are still at large to this day. I read the thoughts and hopes of Ingrid Betancourt just twenty-four hours before she was abducted and taken to the depths of the Colombian jungle, where she would remain captive for six long years. I read that we know little or nothing about those responsible for the Cambodian genocide, whose millions of victims remain to this day without peace or justice. I learned these things because the written word cannot be destroyed. A written account of abuse, terror, violence or murder can be used to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, even though this can be an extremely drawn-out process during and after times of war. It still torments me, for example, that so many Bosnian women who were raped have never got justice and every day face the prospect of their assailants passing them on the street. But if I follow in Marco's footsteps and write down the things I have witnessed in a book, people will no longer be able to plead ignorance. That is why we need books like this one.

The three-finger salute was flashed by Serbs To signify their hatred and nationalistic pride They shot at us repeatedly until we died We cried over and over again, we couldn’t even hide

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

The organization of Human Rights Watch spoke the truth About how the Serbian Radical Party launched a campaign Intended to undermine the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide and crime By spinning stories which degraded Bosniaks, Chetniks are such slime

The United Nations lied directly to our face They said that Srebrenica was a safe zone But clearly they did not protect us at all Judging by the number of bodies and bone

Graffiti showed the text of a Dutchbat UN soldier Who said that Bosnian women had no teeth He thought they smelled like shit and had mustaches, too It seemed that evil took over and shared its view

A member of the Red Berets spoke openly About how starving Bosniaks in Srebrenica Was like a cat and mouse game to play It was how nationalism continued to slay Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Karremans and General Ratko Mladić Were seen drinking a toast together to celebrate All of the innocent lives that were destroyed All of the Bosniak heads that were on a plate

Mladen Grujičić became the Mayor of Srebrenica He is an ethnic Serb that spreads vicious poison He said that genocide never happened there Why is there no justice for Bosniaks? This is unfair!

Miloš Milovanović, a former commander of the Serbian Guard Who represents the Serbian Democratic Party in Srebrenica Stated that the entire Srebrenica massacre was a lie He called it propaganda, as if Bosniak people didn’t die

They did not have the privilege to express themselves publicly like other social groups. People should not be allowed to disrespect marginalized communities like Bosniaks. I had to face a constant stream of bullies and haters who tried to destroy my success and contributions. Bosniaks like me encountered heartache, considerable hurdles, and pain as a product of the Bosnian War and its aftermath. If they tried to succeed or make a mark, Bosniaks dealt with people who were jealous of what they achieved. Furthermore, these people were fully aware that Bosniaks escaped the Bosnian Genocide. That fact did not stop them from being cruel and sadistic.

Why were so many painful tears shed? Why were so many babies not fed? Why did Serbs have to throw darts? Why were Bosnian bodies torn into parts?

I’m sick of the oppression, constant trauma, and despair I’m sick of seeing innocent people have to live in fear Being heroic needs to become common, not something rare Otherwise war, genocide, and hate will always be near

Nura Alispahić, the mother of Azmir, had her entire family killed Her husband (Alija) and her two sons (Admir and Azmir) are all gone In addition to her brother, 12 of her nephews, and five brother-in-laws Everyone was wiped out from the face of the Earth, their destiny was drawn In addition to all of the hell that she went through Nura’s daughter died after the Bosnian War because of intense grief Why do Serbs get to do whatever they want to Bosniaks? But then receive prison sentences that are very brief?

Serbs murdered Safet Fejzić, Azmir Alispahić, Sidik Salkić As well as Smajil Ibrahimović, Dino Salihović, and Juso Delić These killers called themselves the Scorpions to display power They thought they were gods, that they ruled society’s tower There is a video online that shows the brutality of this crime How a Serbian Orthodox priest blessed them to show support These Serbs were so confident that Chetniks would win the war They thought that they would never see the inside of a court The cameraman of the Scorpions massacre video was disappointed Because the camera’s battery was almost out Can you imagine the level of evil that lived inside them? This is why good people have to fight against such scum

In another such instance I witnessed a classmate ruthlessly declare to my entire class, “All Bosnians should have been killed in the war”. He was an Albanian Catholic who openly supported Serbs, hatred of Muslims, and genocide. He also enjoyed pointing out that my father was a “weakling” next to his father because my father worked as a security guard (despite having a college degree) while his father worked for a reputable company and made more money despite not having any education. He wanted to emphasize how much more powerful he and his family were than me and my family.

Please remember the heroes of the Bosnian War Like Izet Nanić, Safet Hadžić, and Mehdin Hodžić Who bravely ventured into situations that were unknown Risking their safety in the middle of a war zone Sing this powerful song for everyone to hear Sing so that the stories of Bosnians are clear and loud Pound your fists on the table and declare That justice must be firm, strong, and proud!

For some, their childhood began in World War II And old age ended with the Bosnian War They tried to run from their horrible past They wanted their heartache to pass by fast

Bosnia and Herzegovina went through hell Terror and evil ruthlessly charged through As snipers shot at heads and grenades fell The lives of Bosnians took on a dark view

Furthermore, parents of these bullies also bullied Bosniak children by hitting Bosniaks with their purses (and other personal belongings) as they walked by them. These parents shoved into the shoulders of Bosniak children to make them suffer. Despite such tragic events, Bosnians face Serbian Chetniks and nationalistic Croats who publicly declare that they want to commit another genocide.

These are the voices of Sarajevo This is the price of nationalism and fear These are the voices of Sarajevo Bosnians lost everything they held dear

We were trapped, we were completely caged Some of my mother’s good friends were raped This is what went on while war and genocide raged Our dignity, identity, and layers of skin were scraped

Countless people were traumatized beyond belief They were just looking for a way to escape From the mountains of intense sorrow and grief So that their suffering would become brief

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

Serbs murdered Safet Fejzić, Azmir Alispahić, Sidik Salkić As well as Smajil Ibrahimović, Dino Salihović, and Juso Delić These killers called themselves the Scorpions to display power They thought they were gods, that they ruled society’s tower

There is a video online that shows the brutality of this crime How a Serbian Orthodox priest blessed them to show support These Serbs were so confident that Chetniks would win the war They thought that they would never see the inside of a court The cameraman of the Scorpions massacre video was disappointed Because the camera’s battery was almost out Can you imagine the level of evil that lived inside them? This is why good people have to fight against such scum

Serb leaders refuse to admit that genocide Is what happened to Bosniaks in Srebrenica Tomislav Nikolić, Dodik, Šešelj, Dačić, and Vulin are an evil crew That call the genocide in Srebrenica untrue

Serb leaders refuse to admit that genocide Is what happened to Bosniaks in Srebrenica Tomislav Nikolić, Dodik, Šešelj, Dačić, and Vulin are an evil crew That call the genocide in Srebrenica untrue

More than eight thousand Bosniak men and boys Were slaughtered mercilessly by Serbs in Srebrenica Who wanted Bosnia and Herzegovina’s land Who murdered in cold blood, it was all planned Mass graves were found on every single corner Because torture is how Chetniks spend their time They wanted to display their dominance over us And commit acts against humanity, their favorite crime

People were lit on fire, little girls were raped Pregnant women had their stomachs stabbed This is how Chetnik minds were shaped This is how they ensured our mouths were taped

I encourage readers to get informed and expand their perspective on war and global events. My life has been profoundly affected by the Bosnian War and genocide. I have made it my life mission to spread awareness about the excruciating impact it had on the lives of millions of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnians. My goal is to honor Bosnian people who were raped, tortured, and murdered from senseless violence. Bosnians have literally gone through every form of degradation from Serbs. They were beaten, harassed, discriminated against, threatened, thrown out of their homes, dismissed from workplaces, had their properties robbed, and had their businesses bombed. In addition, Serbs took passports, driver’s licenses, jewelry (among other valuable items), and money from Bosnian families. Religious institutions were completely obliterated. Villages were raided, pillaged, and burned.

I encourage readers to get informed and expand their perspective on war and global events. My life has been profoundly affected by the Bosnian War and genocide. I have made it my life mission to spread awareness about the excruciating impact it had on the lives of millions of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnians. My goal is to honor Bosnian people who were raped, tortured, and murdered from senseless violence. Bosnians have literally gone through every form of degradation from Serbs. They were beaten, harassed, discriminated against, threatened, thrown out of their homes, dismissed from workplaces, had their properties robbed, and had their businesses bombed. In addition, Serbs took passports, driver’s licenses, jewelry (among other valuable items), and money from Bosnian families. Religious institutions were completely obliterated. Villages were raided, pillaged, and burned.

I think that it is important for everyone to understand the brutality of the Bosnian War. The Army of Republika Srpska (VRS, operated by Serbian Chetniks), The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA, who transferred from their army and into the Army of Republika Srpska), The Croatian Army (HV), and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) committed genocide against Bosnians, the majority of them being Bosniaks. Political parties that supported Croatian and Serbian nationalism included the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). 90 percent of war crimes were committed by Serb forces while Croats were responsible for 6 percent of war crimes.

More than 100,000 Bosnians were killed during the war. More than 2.2 million people were displaced. There were more than 677 detention centers and concentration camps where Bosniaks and Bosnians were subjected to agonizing, inhumane, excruciating, and horrifying war crimes and conditions by the Serb forces. Several of these camps held thousands of prisoners. Intellectuals, in particular, were targeted because they are the backbone of society. They drive progress and initiate changes that benefit everyone around them. That is why the Serb forces sought to eliminate critical thinkers so they could conquer Bosnian culture more effectively. More books, movies, TV shows, and songs should discuss the Bosnian Genocide and its effect on Bosnian culture.

Compassion for the victims of the Bosnian Genocide can only be properly developed if people have an accurate understanding of what sorts of experiences someone has gone through. This leads them to realize the gravity of the situation. Please take a moment of silence and read about the atrocities that were committed towards innocent Bosniaks and Bosnians during this war. There is no other place for Bosnians to go but up because to say that we went through hell would be a massive understatement.

Around two million land mines and unexploded munitions were still littered around Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war. Some of these munitions exist to this day and people frequently lose their lives to them. Bosniaks have lost entire families and generations to the consequences of the evil acts perpetrated by the Serb forces. Prominent individuals have vividly described concentration camps of the Bosnian Genocide as an echo of Auschwitz. In addition to the terror of the Bosnian Genocide, Bosniaks and Bosnians have dealt with intense discrimination, obstacles, hardships, multiple types of stress, trauma, and harassment as refugees and immigrants in foreign countries.

Children were forced to translate English to their parents. Their parents had no one to help them understand English. Bosnian children also drove parents to places like work, stores, doctor’s appointments, etc. because of their physical handicaps. Due to a lack of understanding English, their parents could not get a driver’s license. Imagine barely escaping a genocide, going to a foreign country, leaving everything you own behind, having memories of war and murdered family members, your identity practically destroyed, and then having to figure out where grocery stores, department stores, and malls are in an alien culture. Essentially, they did not have resources and access to information that was trivially available to other people around them.

My grandmother was almost shot dead Snipers proudly aimed right for her head The world watched us lay in our own blood As Serbian forces threw our bodies in the mud They chopped off heads of Bosnian children And thrust them directly onto a knife So that their mothers felt the unbearable pain Of having lost the meaning to their life

My grandmother was almost shot dead Snipers proudly aimed right for her head The world watched us lay in our own blood As Serbian forces threw our bodies in the mud They chopped off heads of Bosnian children And thrust them directly onto a knife So that their mothers felt the unbearable pain Of having lost the meaning to their life

The Omarska geological region is rich in iron ore and has been historically lucrative for mining companies. After the Bosnian Genocide, The Mittal Steel Company bought the rights to extract iron ore from the camp site. In 2005, they announced plans to build a memorial replacing one of the camp buildings. Due to active political hostility from Serbs against building a memorial, the idea was abandoned. Bosniaks argue that the bodies of all victims should first be extracted and respectfully cremated before the memorial construction to avoid desecrating dead bodies. 20 years after the Omarska genocidal nightmare, there was no progress for building a memorial.

Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp.

The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.

My mother personally knew Nusreta Sivac, who was held, tortured, and raped at the camp for two months. I admire Nusreta’s extraordinary courage and fortitude in enduring the horror of genocide and speaking boldly about her experiences. She is a champion for women’s rights and a hero of the Bosnian people. She motivated and vehemently advocated for justice by persuading other Bosniak rape victims to come forward and take legal action against their perpetrators. Thanks to Nusreta’s efforts, rape in the context of war is categorized as a war crime under international law. She was instrumental in helping convict her rapist and bringing him to justice. She was continually raped for two months in captivity. Sivac also spent years collecting evidence and testimonies from rape survivors and constructing legal cases which were presented to the ICTY. For centuries, rape was considered a byproduct of war. Are women just considered spoils of war? Her contributions are a powerful achievement because they mark the first time in history that an international court convicted war crimes solely for sexual violence. I applaud Nusreta for being a pioneer.

Amor Mašović, the president of the Bosnian government’s Commission for Tracing Missing Persons, confirms that there are hundreds of undiscovered mass graves. To this day, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is helping identify dead bodies from such mass graves, using technologies such as DNA testing. As many as 150 prisoners were killed every single night in Omarska Camp. Estimates from the United States also suggest that, at a minimum, several hundreds of civilians were murdered during the camp’s evacuation period. Actual numbers are likely to be much higher. All the toilets in the camp were blocked. There were human feces throughout the area. The prisoners’ extremely deplorable and terrifying conditions were confirmed by a British journalist named Ed Vulliamy in a testimony. He also mentioned that the detainees consumed water from an industrially polluted river causing them severe diarrhea and intestinal diseases. There were zero criminal reports filed against the Serb perpetrators. The victims were constantly subjected to abuse resulting in serious psychological and physical deterioration.

During the Bosnian War in 1992, the Serb forces took over the Prijedor municipality. The Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) repeatedly broadcasted the Serb forces’ capture of Prijedor on radio as a display of significant victory. For further hostile takeover, 400 men were added to the Serb forces in Cirkin Polje (town in Prijedor) to seize Prijedor’s governing bodies such as the municipality, post office, police, bank, courts etc. By April, they successfully captured these government entities. This forceful takeover by Serb politicians was declared to be an illegal coup d’état by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The coup was a cold blooded, pre-planned strategic effort to capture Prijedor and convert it into a pure Serb municipality. These strategic plans were never concealed. Milomir Stakić played an important role in the strategic capture by the Serb forces.

Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp. The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.

Survivors testified on several occasions that the dead bodies were shot in the head with an “extra” bullet. Many captives were forced to dig graves. This displays the extremely sadistic nature of the crimes of the Serb forces. Within the year, the majority of the Bosnian population of the Prijedor municipality was either murdered or forcefully displaced by the Serb forces, resulting in the Prijedor massacre. The camp buildings were filled over capacity with detainees. Some victims were forced to stay in the area between the two main buildings. There were land mines set up in the vicinity of the camp. Evidence of more than 145 mass and numerous individual graves was discovered within the surrounding area. Unearthing of a mass grave close to the camp revealed 456 dead bodies. There are certainly many more dead bodies that have not yet been discovered. The number increases exponentially when accounting for the fact that 456 bodies were found in one mass grave. What about the other 144 mass graves? What about the mass graves that were never discovered?

The iron lady took you on a wild ride Filled with courage, ambition, and passion Her inner compass served as her guide So being classy became a timeless fashion “The Iron Lady” is dedicated to the 50,000 Bosniak women that were raped during the Bosnian Genocide. A special thank you to Bosnian activists Nusreta Sivac and Bakira Hasečić for inspiring me to be a fierce feminist.

The Dark Cloud Is the decision I could have made to go into a homicidal rage when my bullies laughed at my father’s leg because he was shot in his ankle during the Bosnian War Is the rage I felt when 4 of my friends were raped in college because rapists like to roar Is the fierce determination I have to make sure that no woman ever gets raped Is the tragic end of girls and babies who were slaughtered while their rapists escaped

in 1994 Oman was approached by the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, to discuss a special need. Karadzic, currently on trial for war crimes including the Srebrenica genocide, wanted to acquire something that would fundamentally alter the conduct of the Balkans conflict: a weapon of mass destruction.64 Karadzic believed that Oman could use his connections in the Russian military to deliver a so-called ‘vakuum’ or elipton bomb. The device, roughly suitcase size with a kiloton payload powered by nuclear material – either red mercury or osmium – was known to be immensely powerful.