Extra-Lethal Violence: Explaining Combatants’ Use of Grievous Violence During the Bosnian War

Author: Mia Baxley

September 24, 2026

[Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence and physical abuse.]

The bridge over the River Drina in Višegrad, Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the 1992 genocide campaign in Višegrad, the bridge had been used to throw bodies into the river. [Image credit: Monique Snijder/Unsplash]

Introduction

In 2013, conflict studies specialist Lee Ann Fujii created the term “extra-lethal violence,” which she defined as “physical acts, committed face-to-face, that [violate] shared [social attitudes] and beliefs about appropriate treatment of the living as well as the dead.”[1] Fujii’s study identified a gap in the field of conflict studies that failed to explain why armed combatants would choose to psychologically abuse, torture, maim, and humiliate their victims. She suggests that extra-lethal violence is used as a group bonding activity by treating the violence as a form of entertainment (also called a spectacle throughout this article). 

One benefit to Fujii’s theory is its ability to fit a variety of situations, both in active conflict and in times of non-conflict plagued by racialized violence. This essay will apply Fujii’s line of logic to the psychology of genocide during the Bosnian War. The outbreak of the Bosnian War is often described as “neighbors turning against each other” after decades of Josep Broz Tito’s policy of a united Yugoslav identity. However, when jingoistic political speeches escalated after Tito’s death in 1980, leading political figures like Slobodan Milošević in Serbia and Franjo Tuđman in Croatia referenced past ethnic conflicts in Balkan history. 

Through an examination of Balkan history and inflammatory politics, it will be argued that the Bosnian War’s extra-lethal violence was motivated by vengeance, and the victims of said violence were seen as symbols of past oppressors.

Literature Review: Lee Ann Fujii and Extra-Lethal Violence 

Political violence specialist Lee Ann Fujii first proposed the concept of extra-lethal violence to explain the willingness of combatants – including state militaries, paramilitary troupes, and spontaneous mobs – to commit acts of grievous violence other than traditional, swift killings. Under her definition, she listed three categories of extra-lethal violence, all depending on the numbers of targets, participants, and/or audience members: a “Carnival,” a “One-Man Show,” and a “Spectacle.”[2] 

• In a “Carnival,” multiple forms of violence occur within a specific event of the larger conflict with a large group of participants and targets. 

• In a “One-Man Show,” one or more leaders commit an act of personal violence against a target, sometimes with or without an audience. 

• In a “Spectacle,” a mob commits an act of violence against one or a small group of targets, often with willing or unwilling bystanders. 

  
  

Fujii’s theory applies to a variety of situations where one person or group harms another in a personal manner. Extra-lethal violence can be committed in peacetime (i.e., lynchings or mob violence) or in conflicts by militias or state armies against civilians and captured combatants. This definition of “violence” is also not limited to physical harm. Psychological or mental violence is included, such as forcing a captive to witness the rape or killing of a companion. What matters most to the definition of extra-lethal violence is the direct violation of decent conduct against humanity. 

Fujii’s article, “The Puzzle on Extra-Lethal Violence,” questions why humiliation would be employed when the victim would ultimately be killed, given the effort required to make it an effective strategy of cruelty.[3] She believes that, in places where rule of law still governs wartime conduct, committing extra-lethal violence should put the offenders at risk of social disapproval or prosecution. This was partially the reality in her case study on the My Lai Massacre, committed by the US Army’s Charlie Company against the Vietnamese civilians of the community of My Lai 4 in 1968. The Charlie Company killed more than 500 civilians of all ages during the night of March 16, 1968. 

The extra-lethal violence was conducted mostly face-to-face, but combatants also used military helicopters to kill anyone they saw from the air.[4] Twenty-four members of the Charlie Company were tried for their participation, while only one, William Calley Jr., was convicted.[5] Conversations around Calley’s trial intersected with anti-war protests and raised concerns about the conduct of the US military.[6]

Regarding extra-lethal violence during genocides, she argues that organized genocides contain fewer cases of extra-lethal violence in comparison to deaths because of their strict focus on extermination instead of torture.[7] The Holocaust, as the prime example of an organized genocide, was focused on efficiency in exterminating Jewish communities and other targeted populations. Once the Final Solution started, mass executions and gassing operations reduced the opportunity for personalized violence. Some of the most comparable instances of extra-lethal violence in the Holocaust are Josef Mengele’s human experiments at Auschwitz [8] and Hermine Braunsteiner’s routine of kicking prisoners to death at Ravensbrück and Majdanek.[9]

The presence of extra-lethal violence in genocide can be explained by a desire for vengeance against the group to which the victim belongs. Since Fujii asserts that extra-lethal violence violates norms of decency, it can be argued that these norms are suspended during an ethnic-based conflict. In retrospect, such violence seems like a violation of a society’s general values regarding the sanctity of life. However, when hatred against another group is normalized to such a high degree that combatants willingly participate in extra-lethal violence, norms of decency and hesitancy before the act are rarely brought into consideration.

Dehumanization as the ‘Tipping Point’ Towards Extra-Lethal Violence

The Ten Stages of Genocide, developed by Genocide Watch founder Gregory H. Stanton, is one of the most commonly cited conceptual models for explaining how and why genocides happen.[10] Stage four, “Dehumanization,” is especially relevant to the conversation on extra-lethal violence. This stage denies the target its humanity and, according to Stanton, “overcomes the normal human [disgust] against murder.”[11] 

The preceding stages – Classification, Symbolization, and Discrimination, respectively – exist in some capacity in every society. Classification organizes people by common cultural characteristics, including language and religion, and it can be found in most political documents. Symbols can be used by people or groups themselves, such as Christians who wear crosses, or they can be used by the state in a relatively harmless capacity (i.e. the national flag). Finally, discrimination may occur between people without the state’s involvement, often due to the personal prejudices of individuals.  

These three stages are not indicative of a growing genocide until they are used in excess. Other factors, such as what the state does with these labels, can give us an idea of whether they may escalate to genocide.[12] Examples include Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship laws, which suddenly classified Rohingyas (a primarily-Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar) as a stateless people group for the first time. Nazi Germany also notably weaponized classifications and symbols against the Jewish people, like the forced wearing of the Star of David, as a direct pretext for the Holocaust.

Dehumanization, however, should always raise concerns for future genocide. Dehumanizing language encourages potential combatants to see their targets as non-human and not equal to themselves. When people are told not to view their targets as human, it makes them much more willing to kill or persecute on a widespread scale. Therefore, it can be argued that dehumanization is the crucial stage that most effectively primes the average person to accept extra-lethal violence as a feature, rather than an anomaly, of war.

Moving forward, dehumanization will be the defining stage of the argument on Bosnia’s instances of extra-lethal violence.

The Symbolism of Extra-Lethal Violence in the Balkans

The history of the Balkan Peninsula, from Yugoslavia and beyond, has been characterized by centuries of complex political developments and repeated violence. What is most relevant to this conversation is the story behind the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Field. The defeat of the Serb military under King Lazar in Kosovo marked the beginning of centuries of rule under the Ottoman Empire, perpetuating a Serbian national narrative of hard-fought survival against Ottoman oppression. The story of Kosovo Field currently motivates Serb resentment against anything (or anyone) embodying their former oppressors.[13]

World War II in Yugoslavia created factions united by ethnicity first and political beliefs second. The Ustaše were Croat, Catholic, and fascist, while the Četnici (Četnik) were Serb, Orthodox, and loyal to the deposed King Peter II.[14] A third faction, the Partisans, were multiethnic, religiously neutral, and Communist, which stood out from its opposition by its ambitions for a multiethnic Federation.[15] Muslims in the region did not have their own political faction. Instead, they were primarily loyal to Ustašas or Partisans, with the Ustašas viewing them as “Muslim Croats” who abandoned Catholicism for Islam under Ottoman rule [16][17].

Serbs and Roma who have been rounded up for deportation to the Ustaše-run Kozara and Jasenovac concentration camps. The fascist Ustaše regime committed genocide against non-Croatians, especially Serbs, during World War II. Photo dated July 1942. [Image credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum archives]

Yugoslav politicians operated a government-in-exile in Great Britain, where British Allied forces became frustrated by the tensions between Serb and Croat leaders.[18] To combat concerns about future weak leadership in Yugoslavia, British Allies found a more stable alternative in Josip Broz Tito. As the leader of the Partisan faction, Tito stood out for his argument of building Yugoslav identity around a socialist brotherhood.[19] Following World War II, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established to replace the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Between 1945 and 1991, Yugoslavia lived in a period of relative peace. While Yugoslavia was less authoritarian compared to other Communist states at the time, the defining characteristic of Tito’s leadership was his oppression of ethnic expressions. According to conflict analysis expert Stuart J. Kaufman, Tito maintained peace among the Federation’s various ethnic groups by establishing himself as “the ultimate arbiter of ethnic disputes” and suppressing nationalism to build a unified Yugoslav identity.[20] By doing so, Tito effectively silenced discussion of past genocides, preventing the establishment of a reconciliation system that could have prevented much of the violence of the Yugoslav Wars.

Upon Tito’s death in 1980, Yugoslavia devolved from a federalist system held together by a central government to a loosely-constrained group of states lacking a unifying figure. Tito’s 1974 “strong Yugoslavia, weak Serbia” constitutional reforms set the stage for the collapse of the government. Under his reforms, he moved more political power to the individual republics and granted Kosovo and Vojvodina more regional freedom from Serbia.[21] 

This autonomy fueled the political resentment of future Serbian president Slobodan Milošević.[22] As the 1980s progressed, Milošević rose through the ranks of Yugoslav politics with his rhetoric of uniting Serbia’s lost lands. On the 600th anniversary of Kosovo Field in 1989, Milošević rallied ethnic Serbs behind a promise to restore the nation’s dignity:

“I am convinced that this awareness of harmony and unity will make it possible for Serbia not only to function as a state but to function as a successful state. Therefore I think that it makes sense to say this here in Kosovo, where that disunity once upon a time tragically pushed back Serbia for centuries and endangered it, and where renewed unity may advance it and may return dignity to it.”[23]

Milošević viewed the potential for an independent Kosovo as a threat to the ultimate goal of uniting Serbs under one border. Three months before the speech at Kosovo Field, the Assembly of Serbia voted to abolish Kosovo’s autonomy decree from 1974 to begin reclaiming the region as part of Serbia.[24] Kosovo’s cultural association with Islam, the religion of their former Ottoman oppressors, stood out as the most politicized piece of the story.[25] 

Milošević worked with leading Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić and Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić to slowly separate the Serb-majority areas of Bosnia from the rest of the republic. This political entity became Republika Srpska, and Mladić was appointed to lead the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpska, henceforth VRS) to achieve the means of a Serb-dominated entity.

Republic Srpska’s leadership ideology was heavily motivated by violence against non-Serbs, with a special focus on Islam. Karadžić’s rhetoric legitimized a long-standing claim that Bosnian Muslims (now identifying as Bosniaks) were “Turks” to be erased from an Orthodox land.[26] Karadžić’s vice-president, Biljana Plavšić, leveraged her pre-war standing as a biology professor to proclaim that Bosniaks were an inferior race whose adherence to Islam was a “genetic defect on the Serbian body.”[27]

In the first months of the Bosnian War, the VRS focused its initial efforts on five specific, strategic municipalities around the nation.[28] Some of these selected municipalities carried memories of massacres from World War II. Foča, about 80 kilometers south of Sarajevo, had been the site of two massacres in 1941: one against Serbs by Ustaša forces in the summer of 1941 [29] and another against Bosnian Muslims by Četnik forces the following December.[30] The VRS also targeted Vlasenica, in eastern Bosnia, in retaliation for a massacre against Serbs committed by Ustaša forces in June of 1941.[31] The municipalities of Prijedor and Brčko were also targeted as former strongholds of the Partisans.[32] They were also in the middle of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, a stretch of territory that the VRS identified as “historically Serb.”[33]

Bosnia’s Extra-Lethal Violence

The brutality of the Bosnian War significantly altered key aspects of international human rights law. The 1998 Rome Statute, the foundational piece of law for the International Criminal Court, was created in response to Bosnia and other major conflicts of the 1990s and expanded the list of trial-eligible crimes against humanity, including rape and forced pregnancy.[34] In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted VRS General Radislav Krstić of genocide in Srebrenica, making his case the first genocide conviction in Europe since World War II.[35] 

However, while there were organized efforts to commit genocide, much of the violence contained a personal aspect. Small-scale firing squads, rapes, torture, and destruction of cultural property all comprise the broader picture of violence as a spectacle and as vengeance for past grievances. To get a more cohesive view of extra-lethal violence in the Bosnian War, this case will focus specifically on torture in concentration camps and rape against women.

Torture in Concentration Camps

The presence of concentration camps drew the most significant parallels between Bosnia and the Holocaust. British journalists Ed Vulliamy and Penny Marshall first exposed the existence of the Omarska and Trnopolje concentration camps in Prijedor in August 1992, less than four months after the war officially began.[36] Vulliamy and Marshall’s images of emaciated men behind the barbed-wire fences became symbols of the Bosnian War. Within days, international rights groups made the first claims of a genocide on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.[37]

The former battery factory where UN peacekeeping forces were stationed, Potočari, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In July 1995, VRS forces overtook the local town of Srebrenica and commenced the Srebrenica Genocide. [Image credit: Pixabay]

These camps were built to hold mostly men and boys in conditions rife with physical violence, sexual abuse, illness, and death. In some cases, women were also held for sexual slavery and forced labor. In the Omarska camp, women were forced to serve food and clean blood from the torture and execution chambers inside the camp.[38] They were also forced to count and dispose of the bodies of executed men every morning.[39] Some camps were operated primarily as death camps resembling Holocaust camps like Auschwitz, while others were holding centers where death was considered “incidental” rather than intentional.

Participating in the camp system also provided financial and material benefits to guards. Human Rights Watch reported in 1997 that some guards and camp leadership in Prijedor looted bodies, confiscated the property of living prisoners, and accepted cash bribes from prisoners in exchange for their freedom.[40] At the Luka concentration camp in the Brčko District, police officer Goran Jesilić stole money and other valuables from newly-arrived detainees and threatened to kill them if they did not surrender their possessions.[41] 

Starvation was used as a weapon of torture in the camps. As another act of financial abuse, guards at Trnopolje took money from prisoners in exchange for bread but never followed through with feeding them.[42] Guards at Omarska used the once-daily ration time to beat prisoners, leaving some prisoners too scared to get food due to the potential abuse.[43] Prisoners were also forced to do inhumane things for the amusement of the guards on their way to rations, like run for their food or crawl on the floor.[44]

"Oh no, we will not waste our bullets on them. They have no roof, there is sun and rain, cold nights, beatings twice a day, we give them no food and water. They will starve like animals."

– Omarska camp guard, speaking to an anonymous informant in June 1992 and later quoted in UN Security Council resolution S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. 1)[45]

Commanders of camps ordered others to commit violence and occasionally participated in it themselves. At the Sušica concentration camp, near the town of Vlasenica, Commander Dragan Nikolić would personally call out a list of names of victims to kill and abuse. Zijad Zemić, a Sušica survivor, claimed that there was no obvious system to their callouts and that he and others would often do this while intoxicated.[46] The ICTY also found that Nikolić personally killed nine victims by kicking and beating them to death with a variety of hard objects.[47] Regarding the women in the camp, Nikolić called out the names of women to facilitate their rape by guards and local men allowed inside the camp.[48]

Wartime sexual violence in Bosnia was weaponized against both women and men for different purposes. Sexual violence against men in the camps served to humiliate victims and be a form of “entertainment” for perpetrators. Actual numbers are scarce, but one figure estimates that at least 3,000 men and boys were victims of some form of sexual violence or humiliation in the concentration camps during the Bosnian War.[49] Much of what is known was collected at the ICTY and the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina. For example, at the Luka camp, the ICTY concluded that former officer Ranko Češić held two brothers at gunpoint and forced them to perform sexual acts on each other in front of a small audience.[50]

There were depraved incentives to join the camp system, but some guards defected and later testified against their commanding officers. Former Sušica camp guard Pero Popović defected early on in the system’s operation. By 1993, he had deserted the VRS and became an outspoken critic of the camps.[51] The United States Department of State weighed granting Popović and his family asylum in the US in exchange for first-hand information about Bosnian Serb war crimes. According to an August 1994 memorandum, Popović was at risk of deportation in several European countries despite his valuable information.[52] Ultimately, his early activism and testimony at the ICTY aided in Dragan Nikolić’s prosecution. 

According to Fujii’s categories, the variety of torture methods in the concentration camps would most accurately be classified as a “Spectacle.” Very few crimes in the camps occurred without an audience or by a lone perpetrator. Guards used their positions of power to intimidate and abuse prisoners as a show for themselves and others. Although camps like Omarska and Sušica resembled Holocaust-era camps in their physical structure, Bosnia’s camp system presented more opportunities for face-to-face abuse. Bosnian camps were staffed primarily by local Serbs who, in most cases, knew their victims personally before the war.[53] While Holocaust concentration camps were focused on killing as many people as possible, Bosnian camps focused primarily on maximizing suffering for victims.

Sexual Violence

Before Bosnia, rape during war was considered primarily an isolated incident rather than a military tactic.[54] For women in Bosnia, the primary goal of rape was forced pregnancy with the intention of creating mixed-ethnic children.[55] An estimated 20,000 to 50,000 women were imprisoned in colloquially-named “rape camps,” and approximately 2,000 to 4,000 children were born as a result of this system.[56] During attacks on Bosniak villages, small groups of soldiers and individual attackers often raped women inside their homes or in mosques. 

The ethnically-divided and conservative society of the former Yugoslavia meant that many survivors of genocidal rape and their children no longer had a place in society. The intentional targeting of women served to shun survivors from their families, send them into silent exile, and limit their will to speak on the crimes that occurred against them.[57] Many survivors of rape have not come forward about their experiences out of fear of social abuse. Although approximately 30 percent of the trials related to Bosnian war crimes involve charges of rape, many women still refuse to speak out about their experiences because they have held onto shame for decades.[58]  

The children born from rape in Bosnia have faced social and legal barriers to full integration in their communities because of the circumstances of their births. Children of mixed-ethnic backgrounds faced a challenge in accurately representing themselves in the first national census conducted in the post-war era. The question on ethnic affiliation only allowed for the three “constituent groups” (Bosniak, Croat, or Serb) or no declaration at all.[59] 

Hundreds of survivors reported verbal and psychological abuse by their perpetrators in the form of racial slurs and taunting that the resulting child would “kill Muslims when he grew up.”[60] Some victims also reported being told, “It is better to give birth to Četniks than to Muslim filth.”[61] Furthermore, VRS soldier Borislav Herak, who was accused of 32 murders and 16 rapes, claimed during his 1993 trial that he was encouraged to rape and kill by a commander who told him that “[raping Bosniak women] was good for morale.”[62] 

In Fujii’s categories, mass rape and forced pregnancy can best be labeled as a “One-Man Show” due to the highly personal and sensitive nature of the crime. Rapes were often carried out in small groups or by a solo attacker against one victim at a time in a private or public setting. What also classifies Bosnia’s wartime rape as extra-lethal violence was the degree to which mental harm was inflicted upon victims. Rape by VRS soldiers against Muslim and Croat women centered on the ethnic dynamic between the perpetrators and the victims. These taunts brought up the nature of ethnic competition in the Balkans and implied that the desire to perpetuate ethnic violence would be passed down genetically. 

Conclusion

Like the steps leading to a genocide, extra-lethal violence occurs when a series of sensitive conditions are met. Coercion by others may be part of the decision, but it is not a strong enough argument to account for the actor’s conscious decision to carry out acts of extra-lethal violence. As such, this calls for a deeper discussion into the motivations that drive ordinary people to torture and kill their neighbors. Fujii created the groundwork for understanding the interpersonal side of war and provided plenty of room for applying her theory to potentially thousands of conflicts.

In Bosnia, the conditions for extra-lethal violence were the societal acceptance of violence (dehumanizing language in political speeches), ethnic segregation (created through genocide), and radicalized combatants (opportunists). The 1990s war can be tied back to the absence of reconciliation following World War II. Although Yugoslavia under Tito was considered peaceful from a lack of war, his suppression of ethnic identity created conditions after his death for political leaders with ethnic-based agendas to rile up the masses against their neighbors.

By tying the Bosniaks of the 1990s back to Ottoman-era oppressors from centuries ago, Greater Serbia advocates were able to brand the Bosniaks as invaders on “Serb land” who needed to be removed by any means. Concentration camps were largely staffed by individuals with sadistic motives to cause as much physical and mental harm as possible. Outside of the formal camp system, women who were forcibly impregnated were psychologically abused into believing they were going to birth their own future oppressors. The brutality of the Bosnian War, therefore, is marked less by its death toll (approximately 100,000) and more by the strategic trauma inflicted on survivors. 

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Pronunciation guide

• Č = “ch,” used at the beginning or in the middle of a name

• Ć = “ch,” used at the end of a name

• Š = “sh”

• Ž = “zh”

• Đ = “dj”

• J = the letter J mimics the sound of “Y” in English

• C = “ts”

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Glossary

• Anomaly: Something that is unusual enough to be noticeable.

• Arbiter: Someone who makes a decision in an argument.

• Balkan Peninsula: A broad geographical region of Southeast Europe, most commonly defined as the land from Hungary to Greece (north-south) and from Croatia to Turkey (east-west); often referred to as “the Balkans.”

• Bosniaks: An ethnic (sometimes considered ethnoreligious) group who consider Bosnia-Herzegovina as their ethnic homeland.

• Chetnik: Spelled “Četnik” in the Serbo-Croatian language; a paramilitary unit formed during World War II by the Serbian army to fight against the German occupation of Yugoslavia. The term was revived in the 1990s by Serb ethnonationalists who associated it with the cause of Greater Serbia.

• Coercion: Using force or pressure to persuade someone to do something that they are unwilling to do.

• Depraved: Morally bad or corrupt.

• Emaciated: Very thin and feeble from an illness or lack of nutrition.

• Ethnic cleansing: Violent acts or intimidation by members of one ethnic group against others to create an ethnically-homogenous area. This term is used most often to describe the ethnic-based violence of the Bosnian War, though it is not recognized as a legal term and genocide scholars denounce it as a euphemism. (Additional Source: Genocide Watch)

• Ethnonationalist: A political ideology that associates a person’s ethnic identity with the nation of their lineage. In contrast to cultural pluralism, people from outside the dominant ethnic group are often treated as second-class citizens or unworthy of living amongst the majority.

• Extermination: When the process of a genocide escalates to mass killing. This term is used intentionally to describe how the killers view their victims.

• Federalist system: A system of governing that grants some powers to a central government and other powers to individual states.

• Final Solution: The policy enacted by Nazi Germany that shifted from forced relocation of Jewish communities to extermination in concentration camps.

• Genocide: Intent to destroy, fully or in part, a people group of a certain ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation.

• Grievous: Causing severe pain, suffering, or sorrow to an individual or group of people.

• Government-in-exile: When a government is kicked out of its territory by an occupying force, it reorganizes in a foreign land to continue functioning.

• Inflammatory: When a political leader or commentator says or does something to make people react angrily on purpose.

• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Abbreviated to ICTY; the court of law established to handle war crimes that took place in the former Yugoslavia.

• Jingoism: Extreme nationalism combined with an aggressive foreign policy.

• Oppressors: A people group or government which uses its authority to abuse its people, especially minorities.

• Ottoman Empire: A historic empire across Southeast Europe), Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa that lasted from 1299 to 1922. 37 modern-day countries emerged from the territory formerly occupied by the Ottomans, including much of the Balkans.

• Paramilitary: A group of armed insurgents operating outside of the formal military structure, but is often contracted to carry out military campaigns on behalf of a nation.

• Psychological abuse: Various forms of violence used to cause long-lasting mental and emotional harm to victims, including threats of physical harm or forcing survivors to watch others be abused or raped.

• Racialized violence: Harms committed by dominant groups or governments to maintain power and control over oppressed (marginalized) communities.

• Reconciliation: A long-term tactic in peacebuilding designed to rebuild relationships that were damaged by violent conflicts or oppression. This is crucial to preventing future conflicts.

• Ustasha: Spelled “Ustaša” in the Serbo-Croatian language; a Croatian political movement aligned with Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers who sought to create a Croatian ethnostate. The Ustasha regime is most associated with its genocide against ethnic Serbs in Yugoslavia during World War II.

• Yugoslavia: A former federation in Southeast Europe that was composed of the current sovereign nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Some definitions include Kosovo as a nation, though it is not formally recognized as independent of Serbia.

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Footnotes

1. Fujii, Lee Ann. “The Puzzle of Extra-Lethal Violence.” Perspectives on Politics 11, no. 2 (2013): 410–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592713001060. 

2. Ibid, pg. 414

3. Ibid, pg. 410

4. Raviv, Shaun. “The Ghosts of My Lai.” Smithsonian Institution, January 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ghosts-my-lai-180967497/. 

5. Ibid.

6. “The My Lai Massacre | American Experience.” PBS. Accessed 2 August 2026. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/vietnam-my-lai-massacre/. 

7. Fujii, pg. 412

8. “Josef Mengele | Holocaust Encyclopedia.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed 2 August 2026. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele. 

9. “Is It Ever Too Late to Seek Justice? | Holocaust Encyclopedia.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed 2 August 2026. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/is-it-ever-too-late-to-seek-justice. 

10. Stanton, Gregory H. “Ten Stages of Genocide.” Genocide Watch. Accessed 26 July 2026. https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Magas, Branka. “The Curse of Kosovo.” The New Internationalist 247 (5 September 1993). https://web.archive.org/web/20221207125022/https://newint.org/features/1993/09/05/curse. 

14. Hoare, Marko Attila. “Whose is the partisan movement? Serbs, Croats and the legacy of a shared resistance.” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 15, no. 4 (2002): 24–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/13518040208430537. 

15. Ibid.

16. Gilbert, Andrew. “War and the Politics of Historical Imagination in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Transcending Fratricide, 2013, 165–88. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845247601-165. 

17. Hayden, Robert M. “Mass Killings and Images of Genocide in Bosnia, 1941-5 and 1992-5.” Essay. In The Historiography of Genocide, edited by Dan Stone, 487–516. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.

18. West Van Hook, Laurie. “Meeting Report #230: Ethnicity in Exile: Coping with the Yugoslavs in World War II.” The Wilson Center, 14 March 2001. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/230-ethnicity-exile-coping-the-yugoslavs-world-war-ii.

19. Ibid.

20. Kaufman, Stuart J. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001: p. 169.

21. Popovych, Tereziia, Mariana Topolnytska, and Yuliia Telep. “The 1974 Constitution of SFR Yugoslavia: Certain Content Aspects.” Visegrad Journal on Human Rights no. 3 (2023): 103-107. https://journal-vjhr.sk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/15-2.pdf. 

22. Fetter, John. “Why Yugoslavia Still Matters.” Foreign Policy in Focus, 6 April 2009. https://fpif.org/why_yugoslavia_still_matters/. 

23. Slobodan Milošević’s speech has been translated and archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230329133317/https://cmes.arizona.edu/sites/cmes.arizona.edu/files/SLOBODAN%20MILOSEVIC_speech_6_28_89.pdf. 

24. Haxhiaj, Serbeze, and Milica Stojanovic. “Autonomy Abolished: How Milosevic Launched Kosovo’s Descent into War.” Balkan Insight, 23 March 2020. https://balkaninsight.com/2020/03/23/autonomy-abolished-how-milosevic-launched-kosovos-descent-into-war/. 

25. Morel, Anne-Francoise. “Identity and Conflict: Cultural Heritage, Reconstruction and National Identity in Kosovo.” Architecture_MPS 3, no. 1 (May 2013). DOI: 10.14324/111.444.amps.2013v3i1.001.

26. Suljagic, Emir. “Targeting 'Turks': How Karadzic Laid the Foundations for Genocide.” Balkan Insight, 15 April 2019. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/04/15/targeting-turks-how-karadzic-laid-the-foundations-for-genocide/. 

27. Black, Ian. “The Iron Lady of the Balkans.” The Guardian, 9 September 2001. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/10/gender.uk1. 

28. Prosecutor v. Radovan Karadžić, IT-95-5/18, Indictment (ICTY, 24 July 1995).

29. Redžić, Enver. Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War. London; New York, NY: Psychology Press & Routledge, 2005: p. 74.

30. Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2012: p. 494-495.

31. Redžić, Enver. Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War: p. 74.

32. Hoare, Marko Attila. “Chapter 1: The Dual Bosnian Resistance: c. April 1941-April 1943.” Essay. In The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War, 13–62. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199327850.003.0002. 

33. Prosecutor v. Stojan Župljanin, Radoslav Brđanin, and Momir Talić, IT-99-36-I, Indictment (ICTY, 16 December 1999). https://www.icty.org/x/cases/zupljanin_stanisicm/ind/en/Zupljanin_991216eng_indictment.pdf. 

34. “Crimes Against Humanity.” United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. Accessed 16 August 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20220316102109/https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml. 

35. ICTY. “Radislav Krstic becomes the First Person to be Convicted of Genocide at the ICTY and is Sentenced to 46 Years Imprisonment.” ICTY press release, 2 August 2001. https://www.icty.org/en/sid/7964.

36. Vulliamy, Ed. “'We Can't Forget'.” The Guardian, 1 September 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/01/warcrimes.balkans. 

37. Rowe, Trevor. “Genocide By Serbs Is Alleged: Rights Group Seeks War Crimes Court.” The Washington Post, 13 August 1992. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/08/13/genocide-by-serbs-is-alleged/ee10b8f9-e37e-471e-86cc-0610b885d5da/. 

38. Vulliamy, Ed. “'We Can't Forget'.” The Guardian.

39. Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). “Survivors of Bosnian Serb Camp Mark Omarska's Closure.” Balkan Insight, 7 August 2019. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/05/survivors-of-bosnian-serb-camp-mark-omarskas-closure/. 

40. “Bosnia and Hercegovina: The Role of the Prijedor Authorities During the War and After the Signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.” Human Rights Watch, 1997. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/bosnia/Bosnia-03.htm. 

41. Prosecutor v.Goran Jesilić and Ranko Češić, IT-95-10-T, Judgment (ICTY, 14 December 1999). 

42. Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brđanin, IT-99-36-T, Trial session (ICTY, 10 December 2002). https://www.icty.org/x/cases/brdanin/trans/en/021210ED.htm. 

43. U.N.S.C. resolution S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. I), Annex V: The Prijedor report 28 December 1994). https://web.archive.org/web/20081206012327/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/ANX/V.htm.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Cohen, Roger. “Bosnian Camp Survivors Describe Random Death.” The New York Times, 2 August 1994. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/02/world/bosnian-camp-survivors-describe-random-death.html. 

47. ICTY. “Judgement in the Case The Prosecutor v. Dragan Nikolić: Dragan Nikolić Sentenced to 23 Years’ Imprisonment.” ICTY press release, 18 December 2003. https://www.icty.org/en/sid/8131. 

48. Ibid.

49. Đurđević, Maja Garaca. “Wartime Rapes of Men Remains Taboo in Bosnia.” Balkan Insight, 18 May 2017. https://balkaninsight.com/2017/05/18/male-victims-of-war-related-sexual-abuse-shunned-in-bosnia-05-18-2017-1/.

50. Prosecutor v. Ranko Češić, IT-95-10/1, Judgment (ICTY, 11 March 2004). 

51. Cohen, Roger. “Bosnian Camp Survivors Describe Random Death.” The New York Times.

52. Principal Deputy Legal Advisor Mark J. Matheson, Department of State, to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard, Department of Justice, 2 August 1994. Possible parole for war crimes witness. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/foia/garland/8001832_Box2_Folder22.pdf. 

53. Vulliamy, Ed. “'We Can't Forget'.” The Guardian.

54. Fisher, Siobhan K. “Occupation of the Womb: Forced Impregnation as Genocide.” Duke Law Journal 46, no. 91 (1996): 91–133. https://doi.org/10.2307/1372967. 

55. Ibid.

56. Pehlivan, Hamile. “Genocidal Rape and the Invisible Children of Bosnia.” TRT World, 12 July 2021. https://www.trtworld.com/perspectives/genocidal-rape-and-the-invisible-children-of-bosnia-48312. 

57. Husarić, Azra. “Bosnian War Rape Survivors 'Still Afraid to Speak out'.” Balkan Insight, 12 March 2021. https://balkaninsight.com/2021/03/03/bosnian-war-rape-survivors-still-afraid-to-speak-out/. 

58. Vladisavljević, Anja, Mladen Lakić, and Blerta Begisholli. “Compensation Comes Late for Rape Survivors of Balkan Wars.” Balkan Insight, 19 June 2019. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/06/19/compensation-comes-late-for-rape-survivors-of-balkan-wars/. 

59. “Concerns over 2013 Census in BiH.” Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 7 June 2012. https://www.acbih.org/concerns-over-2013-census-in-bih/. 

60. Fisher, Siobhan K. “Occupation of the Womb: Forced Impregnation as Genocide.” Duke Law Journal.

61. “Sexual Violence in Bosnia,” Remembering Srebrenica, 24 June 2021. https://srebrenica.org.uk/what-happened/sexual-violence-bosnia. 

62. Robson, Angela. “Weapon of War.” New Internationalist, 5 June 1993. https://newint.org/features/1993/06/05/rape.