"And now memory and loss beat softly, a measure of time. The last notes of the score have been played. A deafening, eerie silence that has fallen resonates. Sounds and screams seem like distant echoes from a recent past. There is nothing to say. Death is here. It is too late. Night has come. The ghosts are whispering in the crepuscular light of the parlor. Evil is at the door."

(From a Diary Entry)

The conflict in Bosnia is often publisized as a conflict between ethnical groups. The genocide that is occuring is often thought of by the international press as a result of the ethnical tension that have been brewing in that area of teh world for centuries. Therefore, the international community is increasingly wary of becoming involved in something that is "endemic' to the region and is for that reason almost impossible to solve with a peace agreement that will be lasting. The conflict in Bosnia has been fatefully miscontrued by the international community and press. The mass murders are not simply the result of a civil war and consequential ethnical cleansing associated with that type of conflict. By lookign at other genocidal situations (namely the Holocaust in Germany during WWII) and comparing the situation in Bosnia to the pattern of genocide that has devleoped through history in many instances through out the world, it will becoem clear that what is occuring in Bosnia is a genocide of the Muslim people. The contributing factors to the genocide will be highlighted, and an emphasis will be placed on teh international community's role in the evil that is called genocide. Bosnia represents the first time that genocide has been so widely disseminated through international televsion and radio. Unlike other situations of genocide, the situation is well known by the world community. However, their lack of involvement and intervention paints a frightening view of the morality of our culture. Are we as a peoples willing to let genocide happen? Being ever hopefull, this discussion of the situation in Bosnia will also look at the possiblities for intervention and peace that are left and will discuss the mistakes that have occured in past intervention in this area. Can peace exist at this point in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

The Serbian ideology is another crucial aspect of the genesis of the Holocaust. During the Nazi Holocaust the ideology of the Nazis was of the utmost importance. "It (the ideology) provided the conceptual framework, the cognitive map, the 'warrant for genocide' that gave the Nazis the illusion that they had located the sources of defeat, crisis and disintegration besetting Germany."(Melson. 1992. 7) The ideology became the primary justification for many of the Nazis involved in the Holocaust. Ideology can be used by a powerful leader to reduce the inhibition of the masses in their expression of hatred toward a particular group by providing them with justifications and rationalizations. "Ideology paves the way for plans of total extermination of the enemy, it arouses the leadership and masses to heretofore unknown levels of fervor until, finally, genocide becomes the sacred task."(Mazian. 1990. 249) But even the "sacredness" of the task did not always eliminate all of the cognitive dissonance (when two beliefs/attitudes are morally opposite each other and create dissonance) on the part of the perpetrator and many had to use other methods of justification for their actions (such as denial). In creation of the Greater Serbia, the land must be cleansed of Muslims so that it could be repopulated with Serbians.

The ideal of a Greater Serbia also created a psuedo-community in which the Serbs could join during a period where their self-concept was being threatened. In an effort to find security, Serbs created the concept of a Greater Serbia where every Serb is taken care of and the individual actions by each Serb toward the goal is recognized and awarded.

There is ample proof that not only was the genocide of the Muslim people pre-planned, but every action is thought out and order within the ranks of the Serbian army is sacred. When cleansing an area, the Serbs that reside there are often pre-warned so that they will not witness "unpleasant events". In May 1993, residents of a predominantly Serb district were ordered to stay indoors after 6 PM....uniformed sercurity forces blocked off the area, and more that 3, 000 pounds of explosives were used to destroy the mosques in the area. (Cigar. 1995.60)

The Serbian soliders are forced to participate in activities that desensitive the individual and reinforce the image of the Muslim as an animal. Some of the activities are strongly reminant of Nazi activites. It has been discovered that the role of the authority in genocide is very important. "When acts of violence are explicitly ordered, implicitly encouraged, tacitly approved, or at least permitted by legitimate authorities, people's readiness to commit or condone them is considerably enhanced." (Cigar. 1995. 64) In trying to understand the persuasive effect of the Serb officials on teh Serbian army, it might be helpful to look at how individuals react to authority.An interesting study that is worth discussing here was conducted by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, who measured the amount in which humans will obey orders which come increasingly in conflict with their consciences. In this study, volunteers were sought through a newspaper ad to be in an experiment about memory and learning. They were assigned to the role of teachers and were given a brief explanation of the experiment (that they could leave at any time and that they would receive a small fee and bus fare whether they left or not). The "teachers" were sat in front of an impressive looking machine called a "shock generator" with a control panel that housed 30 switches with voltage labels increasing in 15 volt increments from 15 to 450 and also with verbal designations from slight shock to danger-severe shock. Their instructions were to administer an electric shock to the learner every time they made a mistake and to increase the voltages for each mistake. (Unbeknownst to the "teacher" the "learner was an actor who would alter his response according to the voltages and at 185 volts would utter an agonizing scream and shortly after look unconscious or dead.)

When the teacher asked for advice about whether to continue or indicate that he/she did not want to continue, the experimenter would use "verbal prods" from "Please continue" to "you have no other choice, you must go on." Sixty-five percent of the teachers (even though showing physical signs of uneasiness-sweating, trembling, etc.)-would nevertheless obey orders all the way to the end of the scale on the shock generator. Not a single teacher disobeyed the experimenter's orders before reaching 300 volts marked Intense Shock.

In other versions of the experiment, the experimenter was called away and the teacher was left to continue administering the shocks alone. Or the teacher was supervised by two experimenters who gave contradictory orders. And in yet a third version of the experiment, the teacher did not instruct the teacher to increase the voltage after each mistake. In the first two versions, there was evidence of disobedience on the part of the teacher. In the last version, the teacher did not increase the voltage beyond Slight Shock where the learner did not show any signs of discomfort. (Miale. 1975.8)

Though this experiment is taken out of historical and cultural context, and therefore does not resemble the conditions that were prevalent in Bosnia, this experiment is useful in generally examining human's reaction to authority when it comes to moral decisions. Obviously, when there is a strong sense of authority, the individual tends to transfer responsibility for his/her actions onto the individual in power and begins to function solely as an agent of the authority. In the Nazi party, the practice of shifting responsibility for individual actions to the leader was highly encouraged. In fact, "Himmler told the SS that he and führer would assume all the responsibility for their actions-and that they were discharging a heroic duty requiring tremendous sacrifice. " (Staub. 1989. 84) There is ample evidence that this happens with the ranks of the Serbain army as well. This transferring of responsibility made it easier to conduct morally questionable actions knowing that they would not be held responsible and knowing that in fact their actions were in some way "good" or done for a higher purpose.

A very explicit example of this desensitizing can be found in a case of a member of the Bosnian Serbian cabinte woh reportedlly played osccer with member so teh Bosnian Serb Parliament using a dead Muslim's head as a ball. (Cigar. 1995.66) Indentifying the victim with disease also contributes to densitiving the perpetrator, and there have been instances of Serbian officials using this technique in their propaganda. As Karadzic himself stated : Serbs are willing to accept a national transistion conferderation in B-H with a Muslim state 'so we can control it....We are doing that for Europe- to make sure Islamic fundamentalism doesn't infect Europe from the south.' (Cigar. 1995.100)

Because of the international attention directed at the situation, Serbian officials have participated in propaganda efforts that range from purely word smithing in an effort to confuse the issue to outright denial that any vioilent actions are taking place against the Bosnian Muslims.

Using the term ethnical cleansing lends itself to the justification of violent actions by symbolizing something postitve and desireable-teh correction ofa an assumed impure, unnatural, and deamean ing state. Serbian officers often reply with pride that thier area is "ethnically clean". Serbian officials have also played with the word genocide. They incorrectly use in a way so that their actions couldn't possibly be labled as such. As an example, the Yugoslavia meinster of sports was caugth claiming that 'banning our athletes from taking part in international competition is genocide committed against the young." (Cigar. 1995. 87) This statement doesn't represent a mis-understanding or an ignorance of the real meaning of genocide, but a structured public relations effort to confuse the international community about the real events that are occuring within the country. The method most often used is outright denial of any connection between Serbains and muslim deaths. Karadzicmaintained to the end that the 'Serbian people have nothing to be ashamed of. "We can affirm with certainty that our (Bosnian Serb) army defended our people and their borders in a model manner,' he explained, 'and that it did no commit a single crime, rape or attack against civilians." (Cigar. 1995. 88) Karadzic also maintained that ethnical cleansing has never been a part of the Serbain policy.

Karadiz has been very involved in spreading misinformation in relation to Serbian activities. "We, unlike the Muslims, do not kill prisoners; that is why we had camps, not extermination camps as has been claimed, but prison camps." Forgetting earlier denial of their existence, Karadzic went on to reassure foreign audience that 'today we have dismantled them completely, and have freed everyone. The Muslims, however, still maintain theirs. Europe is being deceived by the media and by their governments." (Cigar. 1995. 90) Serbian officials have also feigned surprise when they were first presented with evidence of concentration camps. Then often they switch to publically denouncing the validity of the reports. They went so far as to announce on Begrade television in September, 1992 that the government was considering bring to trial anyone spreading 'misinformation' about such camps. (Cigar. 1995. 90)

Serbian authorities have also denied that rapes of Muslim women have occured. The current figures for the number of women who have been raped (and this is only the number who have reported the rape-many rapes go unreported) lies at about women. Not oly are Serbain men depicted as above such acts, but the Muslim women are present as at much at fault as their Serbian rapist. A well publized story states that: "...one of Blagojevics's Chetniks grabbed one pretty captured Muslim woman by the hand telling her to come with him because he had not spelt with a woman for a long time' she went along, saying that she had not spent with a man for a long time either. " (Cigar. 1995. 92) Unfortueatly in this situation, it's the victims' word against the prepratrator's, and unfortuelatly, the international community seems to believe the perpetrator.

In a further effort to divert attention from the genocide, Serbain officials have tried to question the UN and US's right to denounce the genocdie in Bosnia by looking at the treatment of the US's involvement in other civil wars and genocides. In a August, 1992 session of the UN a Yugoslav representative demanded that teh United State's role in Vietnam should be examined instead of a discussion about teh Serbain detention camps.

Serbian officials have also resorted to blaming Muslims for much of the catastrophe. This strategy of blaming the victim for the acts of violence has been unfortuneatley, very effective. The international press has picked up on it and helped the Serbians in disbursing the misinformation to even a larger audience. This vicitmization of Muslims is clearly shown in an article written for Newsday by Dimitri K. Simes, the presiden of the Nixon Center for Peaec and Freedom who also believe that the US should not be involved in a civil war situation.[

Serbian officials have a lot to gain from not only blaming the vicitim, but also maintianing that the situation is a civil war that is the result of ethnical conflict that is endemic to the region. Serbian officials realize that the international community is not willing to get involved in a conflict in which they need to pick sides. Which is why they encourage the idea that the conflict is just as bad on both sides and it only depends on which side your view the conflict from. Milosevic insisted that 'we are witnessing, in effect, an inconceivable explosion of hate and cruelty by all three parties involved in the struggle, not only by the Serb side as the western press wants us to believe." Although implicitly acknowledging wrongdoing, such an unwarranted equal distribution of guilt was intended to divert attention from Serbian actions and had the impact of diluting the accountability of the Serbs. (Cigar. 1995. 95)

Serbian officials have also played with the idea of publically condemning the Muslims of creating misinformation about he atrocities and even blowing up mosques on their own in an effort to attract international sympathy. A good example of this effort to blame the Muslims for Serbian actions occured when on February, 5, 1994 Serbians attacked Sarajevo's marketplace, by mortar fire, which left more than sixty dead and almost two hundred wounded. Initially, Karadzic accused the Bosnian government of masterminding the entire incident in order to convince NATO to launch air strikes against Serb artillery positions surrounding the city. He argued that the Muslims had used mannequins, actors, and cadaver supplied by the Croatians to mount an elaborate hoax. (Cigar. 1995. 93)

Serbs soliders are encouraged to invision themselves as the saviors for the Serbian people by retaking the land that was orginally theirs. Serbian officials reinforce this by indetifying the Serbs with other powerful leaders and revolutions. ""Are you familiar what Genghis Khan, the Mongol who before the common era controlled all of Europe and Asia, and who killed off an entire city of 300,000 people?.....That's the way we should deal with them (the non-Serbs) too." (Cigar. 1995. 65)

The propaganda has been eirily effective. A Muslim solider said apparently in good faith, that the was fighting because the "Muslims want our houses, (and) our women." (Cigar. 1995. 82)

A big part of the success of the genocide in Bosnia lies in the fact that the social controls became non-existent after World War II, and even the Orthodox Church (the supposedly "moral agency") supported ethnical cleansing. Social controls are institutions or concepts of social morality either developed by the state or the culture that prevent anti-social behavior. They institutionalize respect for laws and acceptable methods of expressing grievances, limit the conditions of strain that generate hostility, minimize discrimination and prejudices that increase social cleavage, and discourage divisiveness within the ruling groups of society. The absence of social controls is the one of the major contributing factors to genocidal tendencies. International participation can also serve as a form of social control. "Neutralism, or silence, regarding atrocities against a victim group provides great encouragement to those who commit those crimes. They realize that neutralism, in effect, guarantees noninterference...Regarding genocide in another country as an internal problem of that particular country automatically defines genocide as an act for which the uninvolved government does not have to answer." (Lang. 1990. 254) This was defineaetly the case in Bosnia. In fact, internationl intervention actually contributed the the genocide against the Bosnian Muslims by enforcing an army embargo which stopped the Muslims Serbs from obtaining arms but didn't affect the store of arms that the Serbs had. Instead of arming the Muslim Serbs so that they could defend themselves, the UN embargo gave the advantage to their perpetrators.

People's support, opposition or indifference largely shapes the course of events. The Nazi regime spent a great deal of energy making sure that their actions were cloaked in secrecy-even going to the point of destroying all evidence of the death camps and shrouding everything in euphemistic language- because they knew that any opposition could ruin all their efforts. As has been previously shown the Bosnian Serbs also participated in this denial where and secrecy were they have been albe to get away with it. An organized and well-promoted protest of the Serbian actions might have shattered the fragile psychological defenses that the Serbians had built around their actions, and disobedience might have bred among its ranks. But here was no large-scale protest of the Serbian's actions that caused them to reconsider their actions. The lack of protest only confirmed their faith that what they were doing had to be acceptable because no one had protested. In fact, religious doctrine, usually a social control, provided support of the Serbian ideology. "Religion, which cherishes human life as sacred, is considered to represent the zenith of human ideals and values. The failure to react to genocide by a such a powerful and viable social control agency is, in effect, tantamount to complicity in the genocidal process. A failure to act because the victim group does not belong to a particular faith sets an example to others to disassociate themselves form humans beings religiously unlike themselves-the victims. Such 'different people ' become unworthy of human consideration." (Lang. 1990. 56) Religion, while also a social support agency that provides a sense of security and community in this instance helped to breed the divisions between Serbians and Muslims that contributed to the atrocities of the consequential genocide. In Bosnia, there have been no institutional voices that have spoke out against the genoide, and international intervention has been lacking as well.

What could of been done if anything to forstall this genocide? There are muliple voices now in Bosnia that are recognizing that one of the best ways to prevent genocide is early detection and intervention. The Bosnian Muslims knew what was happening, but they didn't speak out. They put their faith in moral insitutions that turned their back on or supported what was happening. Haris Silajdzic, later B-H 's foreign minister and prime minister, acknowledge, : 'Yes, that is our own fault, and a big one. We believed in an international order which would not accept that genocide could occur in Europe." (Cigar. 1995.108)

Part of the problem is that some international leaders bought into the Serb propaganda which lead to disastrous result. On such leader is Major General Lewis MacKenzie from Canada who has stated: I think what has happened is that there have been atrocities, and those atrocities have been sophistacatedly exaggerated. Do not forget, the international media is there in big numbers in Sarajevo, and the propaganda that has been perpetuated has not entered into the minds of he people and they do not trust, and well never trust, in my estimation, the other side. " Some of what MacKenzie had to say to the international community was ironically funny in a very sad way in November 1993 "there has been no genocide in ex-Yugoslavia. He stress inexplicably that only 'more than one hundred thousand (have been) murdered." (Cigar 114. 116) One begins to wonder how many Muslims would have to die for MacKenzie to think its a genocide especially considering how uneven the positions are with the Serbs having supplies of artillery,and the Bosnian Muslims suffering from the arms embargo. Part of the reason for the apparent unwillingness for the international community to get involved surrounds the belief that this conflict is nothing more than a civil war in which one doesn't want to take sides. This is obviously how the US public views the situation especially when the support this theory gets from a journalist from the Washington Post.

In fact, he commented the 'ethnic cleansing, while indefensible, is not genocide, the attempt to eradicate a people. It is something else-an effort to rid certain Bosnian areas of Muslims...The eradication of the Muslims as a people does not appear to be a goal of the Serbian Bosnians. (Cigar. 116) This ideal spawned the US's involvement in Bosnia as simply an effort to contain the fighting and administer humanitarian aid but not get militarily involved for one side or the other. In the US's refusal to arm the Bosnian Muslims, the conflict became prolonged. Most Bosnians would rather have been able to defend themselvse rather that become well-fed victims.