Customer Reviews

Endgame: The Betrayal And Fall Of Srebrenica, Europe's Worst Massacre Since World War II

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Brilliantly written and meticulously documented, with extensive notes about the sources, this book reads in one go and rewards the reader with a 'multi-dimensional' picture of the horrible events in Srebrenica providing also a social and political frame that will bring closer and elucidate the complexity of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Real-life characters are described vividly, one gains impressions about their character, reasoning and motivation. For one of the episodes mentioned in the book, that took place in Zagreb, I have a first-hand experience and was amazed how accurate and live Rohde's descriptions were. Srebrenica is a tragedy for the Dutch as well and as a foreigner living in the Netherlands I am glad that the role of the Dutch UN contingent was also documented with all their limitations and frustrations from acting within the framework of the United Nations. The truth is never "in black & white" and this book provides a number of colors and nuances in-between that will help you understand not only the tragedy of Bosnian war but a tragedy of ignorance mixed with indifference that was spreading like a cancer through the West, and elsewhere, with a shallow notion that all this was happening 'light-years' away in some far away, forgotten country, whereas in actuality it was all only couple of hours on a flight from world metropolis.

Several maps included in the book will help you follow the ten-day period and progression of the events this book describes. One of the protagonists, Drazen Erdemovic, was in the meantime sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Browsing through some of the (public) court documents on ICTY's web site provides a good opportunity if you're looking to expand your knowledge of the subject, especially since another Srebrenica protagonist - R. Krstic, a Bosnian Serb army officer promoted to the rank of general in June 1995, who commanded the units of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) that shelled Srebrenica and attacked the UN observation posts - is currently on trial.

This book should be required reading, especially for those who are unable to comprehend why America is still maintaining a presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, six years later. The book does not deny that atrocities were committed on all sides of the Bosnian conflict. It simply relives the horror of genocide perpetrated on a single city by a power-hungry dictator and his military leader, both wanted for war crimes against humanity. As an American who lived in Bosnia for over a year, I have spoken with survivors on both sides of the war, and Rohde's story rings true. While there are critics of his account, the genocide of Srebrenica can be denied no more than can the Holocaust; 7,000 men do not simply disappear and mass graves do not lie. Rohde does a wonderful job re-telling the cruel truth of that city's fall, as well as exploring the failure of the leaders of the international community in fulfilling obligations to the victims while covering their own political hides and again turning a cowardly eye to blatant genocide in Europe. A great book, one that I intend to keep and share with others who blindly ask "Why should WE be in Bosnia?" Here is your answer.

This is a well-written, journalistic account of the fall of the Srebrenica safe haven in Bosnia in July 1995. The story is told from many viewpoints, including Bosniacs, Serbs and Dutch UN troops. The Dutch battalion looks criminally negligent in its inability to stop a Serb force that barely exceeded four tanks, 200 infantry and a few mortars, from overrunning the town. Serb and Bosniac tactical abilities also appear sloppy; Serbs fought a 9 to 5 war and then went home and got drunk. The UN sat on its hands and did as little as possible. The maps in this book are excellent. The only weakness of Rohde's account is a certain ignorance of military affairs, which impacts upon the portayal of Serb and Dutch relative capabilities. Once the town falls, the face of evil struts onto David Rohde's stage in the form of General Ratko Mladic, who lies to the press while ordering the massacre of hundreds of prisoners. While the exact total number of Muslims who died as a result of the fall of Srebrenica remains uncertain, Rohde does yeoman work in piecing together the final moments of hundreds of the victims. If anyone cannot undertsand why Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are indicted war criminals, read this book.

This may be the single most disturbing book I have ever read. Rohde leads us through a day-by-day, minute-by-minute account of a shocking atrocity that did not need to happen. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, I could not bear to keep reading, but at the same time I could not put the book down.

Rohde presents his story from first-hand sources on the ground: victims, perpetrators, and peacekeepers alike. This is not the view from the policymakers. This is a remarkably informed account of what happened and why, through the eyes of those who watched it unfold.

Rare among recent Balkans writers, Rohde avoids the trap of tarring entire groups with the same brush. We see kind Serbs and cruel Serbs; valiant Bosniacs and vile Bosniacs; honorable UNPROFOR and cowardly UNPROFOR; and an international community paralyzed by a bizarre combination of incredulity, intentions (both good and questionable), and naivete.

Maps are well-placed throughout the book. Sadly lacking, however, are photographs of the city, the terrain, the players, and the events. Pictures could have driven the story home much better.

Still, even without them, Rohde tells a powerful, even overpowering, story. Everyone -- not just followers of the Balkans -- should read "Endgame."

Thank goodness David Rohde and his Pakistani colleague Tahir Ludin escaped from the Taliban in late June 2009. Rohde is decidedly Old School as a reporter: instead of surfing the Net at his desk, he actually goes out, usually to very dangerous places, and uncovers facts (bodies too) to publicize some of the worst contemporary conflicts. This sad, scathing but absolutely necessary book cannot be called enjoyable, but it is very worthwhile. It lacks the immediacy of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1990s reportage from Bosnia, but the Srebrenica tragedy is recreated in riveting fashion, and its horrors unfortunately remain both timely and timeless. Warning; it's both angering and depressing but capable of stirring action too. Here is one of the Good Guys, who repeatedly puts himself in the line of fire in service of humanity. We're thankful you're safe and sound; keep up the good work. Now go get that next story!

As a U.S. Army soldier with Operation Joint Guard in Bosnia-Herzegovina from March-October, 1997, my unit was responsible for patrolling the nearby town of Bratunac. We passed the deserted compound that had once been the UN Dutch basecamp and occasionally went into the town of Srebrenica itself. I never understood why we, as international peace-enforcers, were met with such distrust by its inhabitants. Why did it always seem that a dark cloud hung over the area? We had heard about what had happened there during the war, but not the details. These questions remained in the back of my mind until I read Rohde's masterpiece months after I rotated home to the United States.

Many people in this country do not understand what happened in the Balkans from 1991-95, nor do they understand why our soldiers are stationed there today. Read this book and come to know why.

You don't have to be a soldier to see the horror of what occurred in Srebrenica; you just have to be able to feel. The first-hand accounts of the atrocities committed are riveting and revolting. When you are finished, you will understand what it means to be in a fight with both hands tied behind your back. I have been to the sites where some of the Bosnians of Srebrenica were unceremoniously dumped after being brutally killed. I couldn't, at the time, see how it had been allowed to happen. Now I feel that I know the truth.

Rohde's work is a must-read for anyone studying the events of the Balkan Civil War and is absolute dynamite in the hands of anybody who would dispute that the events in Srebrenica occurred.

If some of you have read most of the reviews of this book listed in this web site, you would have noticed that there is one particular review from a Serb girl who claims this book is full of lies and that the real victims are the Serbs. This is truly a sad fact. Seven years after these horrors took place, there is still a large Serb population that believes that none of this ever happened. In many ways, it would be similar to have Germans believe that the Nazy holocaust never took place right after WW II ended. But the facts are the facts. 7079 men are still missing, and this book does a wonderful job at explaing why that is. I also found intersresting than my views on the Dutch Bat have changed somewhat. They have been protrait often as cowards and racists when in reality they were just soldiers sent on a sucide mission and managed by the most incompetent handful of burocrats of the last century. I truly felt sorry for the Dutch soldiers and it makes me wonder what would have happened if the UN would have done what it supposed to and defended the civilians they had promised to protect. This is a book everyone must read. I have. Three times.

"End Game" is a chilling, engrossing and terribly sad story of genocide, ethnic hatred and centuries old animosities between religions and people. It is a book that left me (once again) concerned that mankind is doomed by its capacity for brutality in the name of mystically based world views. To me Mr. Rohde appears to make no judgments in his book, he simply reports the facts as best he can. And the facts are appalling. Though Mr. Rohde makes no judgments, I had one after reading this book. And that is that the United Nations is a joke. In fact it seems the UN may have been the single greatest enabler of this terrible genocide next to the evil men who ordered the mass executions and pulled the triggers. Mr. Rohde provides ample evidence that this genocide could have been prevented and that the unimaginably incompetent leadership and profound cowardice of the UN and all the western powers involved is largely to blame for the deaths of so many innocent people.

This is a very good book, but it is a very sad story and one that left me deeply disturbed. It is not really a book one would take to read on a beach during a vacation.

It takes a brave person to gather the data to write a book like this. I am delighted that Mr. Rohde was released from his recent kidnappers. He is a reporter of great skill, courage and objectivity. Mr. Rohde is the kind of "old school" investigative reporter we are sorely lacking these days.

Mr Rohde narrates a compelling story woven around facts that many in the US and Western Europe still try to hide. Endgame accurately portrays the cause of the fall of Srebrenica as well as the Bosnian crisis as not the centuries old religious war that most are led to believe, but hyper-nationalistic propaganda spawned from the likes of Milosevic and Karadizic. Regardless of the cause, Rohde's Endgame forces the reader to realize that the people of Srebrenica are victims of circumstances truly beyond their control. While Mr Rohde does his best to relate all that occurred, one cannot fully understand the true horrors that the people of Srebrenica and of Bosnia went through, nor all the missed political opportunities by the West. Anyone who discounts this book at sensationalistic and faulty truly does not understand why this book was written. If you plan extensive reading on the Balkans crisis, one need not look further for a better source of information.

The version of Rohde's book I read is titled 'A Safe Area -- Srebrenica: Europe's Worst Massacre since the 2nd World War" but I reckon it has the same content. Srebrenica is really a microcosm of the larger crisis -- the Bosnian war -- as the other enclaves demonstrated. I don't profess to understand alot of the issues which surrounded and still continue to surround the discussion of the Balkan war today. There was obviously historical ethnic hatred among part of the population which spread to the rest through nationalistic propaganda combining wrongful portrayal of history and religion. There was the role of politicians, not only from the warring countries, but from the international community. But all these would not have been enough for the bloody war. In his recounting of the siege on Srebrenica, Rohde's book cleverly reconstructs the 10 day ordeal which the residents of Srebrenica had to endure when the world just sat and waited. Through eyewitness accounts, interviews and research, Rohde manages to piece together a chronology of what happened before and after the fall of the enclave. The honest, unsentimental and chilling account reveals that the international community had big ambitions, expected the peacekeepers to do wondrous things but their roles were not clearly defined and they were not given the support in terms of materials and weapons to protect themselves, much less the people. It all ended in a debacle of factions blaming one another for the failure to defend the enclave, when there was no will from the important players to being with. The whole Bosnian war and the case of Srebrenica showed how war is really used by politicians as a means to shore up their reputations and expand their influence. It begins with their approval, it starts with them igniting the fire, but when the time comes, the soldiers and fighters are the ones doing the dirty work and getting the blame at the end of it. The international community's inability or unwillingness to arrest Mladic and Karadzic is clearly due to the fact that these were the same men they made agreements and deals with. These same men would be able to implicate them. The war was a war of manipulators and profiteers, but what am I saying, all wars serve to benefit the select few who "seize the opportunity". Rohde's revealing study is dark, disturbing and not for the faint-hearted. But it's a must read for those who wish to have a better understanding of the war in Bosnia, and have basis to ponder: what kind of humanity do we belong to which values the lives of people based on their power, wealth, race and religion?