Bystanders in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Conflict in the 1990s

Abstract

Research on the Holocaust introduced the concept of bystander in order to describe the civilian population passively tolerating atrocities committed against the Jewish population, which was actively encouraged by the German national socialist propaganda. Subsequently, a more general approach to this concept has been employed to integrate it in a wider range of armed conflicts. This article discusses the applicability of the bystander concept in the context of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s. In our case study, the media, in particular in the United States, ascribed the role of the bystander to the U.S. government, thus calling for its military action. Based on witness accounts, as well as reports from legal records from the International Crime Tribunal for Yugoslavia and other sources, the author emphasizes key differences in the constellation of the conflict between the Holocaust and the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Propaganda by the local media first cast individuals in ethnic terms, and then actively mobilized the population to take active roles in the conflict. Moreover, systematic traumatization was a commonly used means to further polarize the civilian population along ethnic lines, eliminating any space for passive observers. Thus, the applicability of the concept of bystander on the local population in Bosnia and Herzegovina is called into question