Genocide during the Bosnian War

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Recommended: Analysis of genocides

Raphael Lemkin described genocide as "acts of barbarism that should be outlawed, even in times of war". Lemkin is right. Genocide is a cruel vicious act that I do not wish upon my greatest enemies. It is torture and death. A lot of people think genocide is a thing of the past. After all it is 2014 already. We are so much more advanced and connected then back during the time of the Holocaust. A genocide started just 22 years ago and it was during the Bosnian War. The Bosnian Genocide was atrocious because it classified and dehumanized a religion, it allowed for the extermination of a people based on religion and the murderers denied they ever committed a crime and tried to cover the deaths up.
The Bosnian War took place in the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This region was ethnically and religiously diverse. There were three main ethnic groups: the Serbs, the Croats, and the Muslims. "In 1991, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina stood at 4.5 million"(Ching). Forty Four percent of this country (which is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia) population were Muslim, thirty three percent was Serb, and seventeen percent was Croat. There were also small communities of Roma (often called Gypsies), Jews, and ethnic Albanians. Because the towns in Bosnia were typically mixed communities, Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims were all friends and neighbors. They even intermarried (Ching). Being so ethnically diverse led to a lot of conflict.
The Balkans also, had alternating periods of peace and conflict. For example, " The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Serbian nationalist group, the Black Hand, ignited World War I."(Bosnian Genocide). A communist resistance army expell...

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...cide classified and dehumanized a religion, allowed for the extermination of a people based on religion and allowed the murderers to deny they ever committed their crimes. Genocide is a horrendous act allowed to happen because human kind cannot seem to get over the idea of others being different. Even in war, humans should not have the right to torture and kill other humans if the reason is as stupid and naive as being different. If we all embraced our differences and stopped associating evil and different as the same we would get along a lot better. After all, wouldn't life would be boring if we were all the same.

Works Cited

Bosnia 1995. n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.
Bosnian Genocide. n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.
Ching, Jacqueline. Genocide and the Bosnian war. New York: Rosen Pub., 2009. PDF.

The Combat Genocide Association. Bosnian Genocide. n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.

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