Read on Twitter
Today is the 25th anniversary of the #Srebrenica massacre - a horror close to my heart since I visited Tuzla a few weeks after as a young reporter and met arriving survivors who'd fought their way out.
So I'm dismayed to see the Bosnian war is still misunderstood.
A thread:
So I'm dismayed to see the Bosnian war is still misunderstood.
A thread:
I'm seeing people suggest that this was a horror that somehow erupted from deep, existing feelings in Bosnian society so we all need somehow to guard against the same thing in our societies.
It's a glib response that makes it all about us.
It's a glib response that makes it all about us.
This reflects the argument that held sway in the British establishment throughout the war, which is reflected in the dreadful official papers now being published. There was an idea somehow these strange people over there had been filled with dark hatreds we didn't understand.
But, if it was some dark mysterious hatred between neighbours, how come the more rural Serb ones were well equipped with tanks and artillery, while many of the Croats were also very well kitted out?
Had they been nurturing their hatreds over decades under Tito while quietly stockpiling Yugoslav army tanks?
We've had criminal trials about what happened and we know.
This wasn't a war that came from the grassroots up. It was directed from Belgrade (and Zagreb) by opportunist politicians who'd seen in nationalism a chance to grab power and territory.
This wasn't a war that came from the grassroots up. It was directed from Belgrade (and Zagreb) by opportunist politicians who'd seen in nationalism a chance to grab power and territory.
The Srebrenica massacre was part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing meant to seize territory by clearing it of non-Serbs. Ratko Mladic was taking directions from Belgrade in staging the obscenity at Srebrenica.
Did neighbours who'd previously been friends end up killing each other in Bosnia? Yes. Was it because they'd always had some deep animosity that suddenly spilled over in 1992? Pretty much never.
In any war, there will be bad people who take the opportunity to do beastly things. But this war was directed from the top by politicians seeking to exploit nationalistic feeling to elevate themselves amid Yugoslavia's economic chaos.
There were undoubtedly resentments dating back to the second world war, discussion of which the Tito regime cloaked in a shroud of "brotherhood and unity". People called the Serb army Chetniks after the royalist, second world war-era militia.
I got the bus back from Tuzla with a bunch of mainly Bosniak refugees. Outside Mostar, a bunch of Croat police got on board to pick on people they wouldn't let through. I heard people hiss, "Ustashe" - the name of the second world war Croat secret police.
But, if we want to do a service to the people who died in that horror, let's not pretend this was some mysterious manifestation of humanity's dark side. We know what happened and we knew what was happening at the time.
The lesson should be to guard against recurrences.
The lesson should be to guard against recurrences.
The end.
