Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime [Paperback]

Jan Willem Honig (Author), Norbert Both (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1997

Describes how Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica murdered thousands of unarmed Muslim men, both soldiers and civilians, in a supposed safe area, while UN troops did nothing.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

Dramatic, wrenching and horrific ... [the book] details the final battle for Srebenica and the murder of its men, it attempts to explain why the Bosnian Serbs committed such a horrific act of genocide, and it analyzes why the international community sleep-walked into the disaster.

From Kirkus Reviews

By focusing on the single most horrific event in the Bosnian war, the authors reveal in compelling detail the complex and ambiguous nature of international involvement in that conflict. In July 1995 the ``safe area'' of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia fell to Bosnian Serb forces, despite the presence of Dutch peacekeeping troops. Some 20,000 women and children were deported. Several thousand Muslim men, both soldiers and civilians, were killed in cold blood by the Bosnian Serb army. Honig and Both's presentation of these enormously complex and frustrating events serves as a general indictment of all the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. The authors are Dutch specialists in war and defense studies, and their account dwells heavily on the military and political considerations, including the role of Dutch combat forces, the only UN forces serving in that area. This meticulous and honest reconstruction of events leaves no party unblemished, from the warring armies to UN officials. (Dutch soldiers, for instance, were held hostage by both Bosnian Army and Bosnian Serb forces.) Sharp accusations are leveled at the Serbian leadership itself, whom the authors consider guilty of pursuing genocide as ``part of a deliberate strategy.'' If there is a clear villain in this story, it is General Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army. If there is a hero, it is certainly General Phillippe Morillon, of the UN forces, who valiantly attempted to save Srebrenica by personal initiative. Above all, Srebrenica questions the morality of the international community's policies in Bosnia. ``Was it right,'' the authors ask, ``to have opposed ethnic cleansing and instituted `safe areas' in eastern Bosnia, if one was unwilling to put one's life at risk to protect the people in those areas?'' Srebrenica is a penetrating and thoughtful response to this vexing and complex question. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 1 edition (March 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140266321
• ISBN-13: 978-0140266320
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > History > Europe > Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chronicle of a Massacre, January 2, 1999

By 

richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime (Paperback)

Honig and Both are Dutch foreign policy specialists who take an academic approach to the massacre of Srebrenica in Bosnia in July 1995. Their detailed accounts of UN policy debates and genocidal Serb attacks on the civilian population leading to the expulsion of over 20,000 women and children and the murder of 6,000 Bosnian Muslim men clearly demonstrate the failure of the international community's tepid approach to peace-keeping and the responsibility of the military and political leaders involved. There were no heroes at Srebrenica, only variable levels of guilt. The book is dispassionate and slightly distanced from the moral implications of the massacre. It is indeed a `record of a war crime'.

The Bosnian Serbs, commanded by General Ratko Mladic and led politically by Radovan Karadzic (both indicted for war crimes by the Hague tribunal), carefully planned for weeks and months the reduction of the Srebrenica enclave. They had calculated the number of buses needed to transport the Muslim men to their killing fields, and they ordered the victims to remove their shoes before being shot in order to thwart identification.

The book is divided into three sections, describing the actual fall of Srebrenica; the slow slide of the international community into the "safe area" concept as a sort of least common denominator; and the months of military and political deterioration leading up to the massacre. There is criticism for everyone: the UN which viewed the safe areas as an interim solution and came to endorse them because Security Council members were unwilling and unable to agree on anything more substantive. For their defense, the Bosnians in Srebrenica relied on the goodwill and the hesitation of their enemy Serbs and on an undersupplied battalion of Dutch soldiers. The US which abandoned the Vance-Owen peace plan without a viable alternative and then endorsed the creation of "safe areas" without the will to defend them. The authors also point out that policy disputes in Washington prevented the pursuit of a "Frasure Deal", a negotiating track between US Ambassador Robert Frasure and Serb President Slobodan Milosevic. The Bosnian Muslim leadership which refused to evacuate its civilians from Srebrenica long after it recognized the enclave as indefensible. The Dutch government which ostentatiously placed its troops in harm's way in order to satisfy domestic humanitarian demands, but then allowed them to become little more than underfed hostages unable to defend themselves, much less a large civilian population.

But most of all, final and criminal culpability falls to Mladic and Karadzic and the Bosnian Serbs with murder in their hearts who achieved military conquest through genocide. For while the authors demonstrate that any number of international players may have been able to stop the massacre of Srebrenica, only one side actually started it, the Serbs.

The book is excellently researched and clearly organized. By allowing the facts to speak for themselves and eschewing vociferous moral censures, Honig and Both have indicted us all for our roles in the worst European massacre since World War Two.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book, April 5, 2006

By 

Adnan Boskailo (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime (Paperback)

I thought that book is very good because it tells a llot of truth that happend in Srebrenica. I am very happy that Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both took the time to tell the world what happened in Srebrenica.

The author is talking about the war that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The author is giving details on the massacre that took place in little town of Srebrenica. Over twenty thousand Muslim women and children were deported; thousands of unarmed Muslim men were murdered. All this happened in then called "Safe area" protected with United Nations.

I would recommend this book to others because it tells the turth about the massacre that happend in Srebrenica. You are able to form your own opinion about the United Nations assistance in keeping peace in the Safe area.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Study of the Massacre in Srebrenica, January 11, 2004

By 

K Scheffler (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime (Paperback)

The massacre of thousands of Bosnians by Bosnian-Serbs following the fall of Srebrenica during the summer of 1995 was a lamentable and heinous crime in a civil war already noted for its unspeakable brutality. The events also served to show the indecisive and weak-willed approach the UN and the Americans adopted in response to the crisis. The events are complex and there is no doubt much that we are still not aware of, but the authors manage to piece together a sound account of the events surrounding this incident, in particular concerning the under-manned and ill-equiped Dutch contingent deployed in the Srebrenica "Safe-Area."