Mass rape in the Bosnian War

During the Bosnian war, Serb forces conducted sexual abuse strategy on the thousands of Bosnian Muslim girls and women which will be later known as mass rape phenomenon. So far, there are no exact figures on how many women and children were systematically raped by the Serb forces in various camps [Odjek - revija za umjetnost i nauku - Zločin silovanja u BiH - [http://www.odjek.ba/index.php?broj=03&id=21] ] [Grbavica (film) - [http://www.coop99.at/grbavica_website/] ] [ICTY: Krnojelac verdict - [http://www.un.org/icty/krnojelac/appeal/judgement/index.htm] ] , but estimates range from 20,000 [ [http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Anthropology/21A-217Fall-2004/BC205381-420D-471A-8B40-2AF7FFA4B0C0/0/6_yugoslavia.pdf Massachusetts Institute of Tehnology-short time line of Yugoslav war with number of rapes] ] to 50,000. [The Independent (London): Film award forces Serbs to face spectre of Bosnia's rape babies - [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060220/ai_n16146172] ] Mass rape was mostly done in Eastern Bosnia (especially during Foča and Višegrad massacres), and in Grbavica during the Siege of Sarajevo. Numerous of Serb officers, soldiers and other participants were indicted or convicted of mass rape as the war crime by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [Guardian: Mass rape ruled a war crime - Hague tribunal finds Serbs guilty of systematic enslavement and torture of Bosnian Muslim women - [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/feb/23/warcrimes] ] [Serbs convicted of mass rape - [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_200103/ai_n8945781 ] ] The events inspired the Golden Bear winner at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in 2006, called "Grbavica".

Background

At the outset of the Bosnian war, Serb forces attacked the non-Serb civilian population in Eastern Bosnia. Once towns and villages were securely in their hands, Serb forces - i.e. the military, the police, the paramilitaries and, sometimes, even Serb villagers – applied the same pattern: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down while Bosniak civilians were rounded up or captured and, sometimes, beaten or killed in the process. Men and women were separated, with many of the men detained in local camps.cite web|url=http://www.un.org/icty/kunarac/trialc2/judgement/kun-tj010222e-5.htm#VC|title=ICTY: The attack against the civilian population and related requirements|]

Mass rape

Women and girls were kept in various detention centres where they had to live in intolerably unhygienic conditions and were mistreated in many ways including being repeatedly raped. Serb soldiers or policemen would come to these detention centres, select one or more women, take them out and rape them. All this was done in full view, in complete knowledge and sometimes with the direct involvement of the Serb local authorities, particularly the police forces. The head of Foča police forces, Dragan Gagović, was personally identified as one of the men who came to these detention centres to take women out and rape them. There were numerous rape camps in Foča. "Karaman’s house" was one of the most notable rape camps. While kept in this house, the girls were constantly raped. Among the women held in "Karaman's house" there were minors as young as 15 years of age. cite web|url=http://www.gfbv.ba/index.php?id=126|title=The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV): Documentation about war crimes - Tilman Zülch|]

Muslim women were specifically targeted as the rapes against them were one of the many ways in which the Serbs could assert their superiority and victory over the Bosniaks. For instance, the girls and women, who were selected by convicted war criminal Dragoljub Kunarac or by his men, were systematically taken to the soldiers’ base, a house located in Osmana Đikić street no 16. There, the girls and women, were raped by his men or by the convicted himself. Some of the girls were just 14. Serb soldiers demonstrated a total disregard for Bosniak in general, and Bosniak women in particular. Serb soldiers removed many Muslim girls from various detention centres and kept some of them for various periods of time for him or his soldiers to rape.

The other example includes Radomir Kovač, convicted also by ICTY. While four girls, were kept in his apartment, the convicted Radomir Kovač abused them and raped three of them many times, thereby perpetuating the attack upon the Bosnian Muslim civilian population. Kovač would also invite his friends to his apartment, and he sometimes allowed them to rape one of the girls. Kovač also sold three of the girls. Prior to their being sold, Kovač had given two of these girls, to other Serb soldiers who abused them for more than three weeks before taking them back to Kovač, who proceeded to sell one and give the other away to acquaintances of his.

Case study - an insight into the moral decline of the perpetrator

Among the most appalling and deplorable accounts of inhuman treatment and cruelty brought upon young Muslim females of Bosnia is that of the 12-year-old Almira Bektovic, a helpless war victim for whom virtually no compassion was shown whatsoever. Born in the town of Mostar in the year 1980, she lived in Miljevina in the municipality of Foca, the birth village of her father, Ramiz Bektovic, at the time of the Serb attack on these areas in the summer of 1992. Her father was taken away by the Serbs in june 1992 and was never seen again. Almira and her mother were instead detained in the Partizan Sports Hall with hundreds of other Bosniak women and girls under inhuman conditions and with lack of food or water. In mid-August 1992, Almira Bektovic among other girls was brought to 'Karaman's house' by Radovan Stankovic, this lasted for ten days until she was returned to her mother whom she told that "she had worked as a waitress, washed clothes, cleaned and cooked, and that there were many other girls there who did chores and things for the Serb soldiers". Afterwards in mid-september 1992 deportation busses were prepared for elderly Muslim women and young children that were to take them to Bosnian-government-controlled areas for exchange; in a bus were Almira and her mother and two sisters, however suddenly the bus was stopped at the Drina bridge, and men sent by Radovan Stankovic entered, who called out the name of the girl and snatched Almira Bektovic from her mother's arms, who then screamed repeatedly "Give me back my child!" before losing consciousness, Almira was heard screaming and crying "Don't take me, I'm only twelve!". One of the surviving witnesses from Karaman's house reported that Almira was brought to the house holding her doll tightly to her chest, apparently not knowing what was awaiting her. Soon thereafter Nedo Samardzic raped Almira Bektovic and reportedly bragged about "having taken her virginity" and "having fooled soldier Pero Elez (who was always looking for virgins) in who was to be the first to take her virginity". Almira was found crying and vomiting after the assault (as part of rape trauma syndrome), by one the surviving girls from the house. Over the next three months Almira Bekotvic was forced into much the same pattern as all the other women and girls detained in the house; she had to do household chores, cook for the soldiers and sexually please these, at the age of merely 12. Almira's status however was even more vulnerable than that of the other girls who (in contrast to Almira) were 'assigned' to specific soldiers who got to rape them only, Almira thus not being assigned to any specific soldier was free to be raped by any soldier that was granted entrance to Karaman's house. Radomir kovac detained, between or about 31 October 1992 until December 1992 Almira Bektovic (and other girls). During their detention they were also beaten, threatened, psychologically oppressed, and kept in constant fear. During this period Almira was moved between various locations and apartments in Foca in order to 'serve' Serb soldiers and friends of Radomir Kovac. At one or more occasions she was forced into sex with 50-year-old soldier Slavo Ivanovic. On about 25 December 1992, Radomir Kovac sold Almira Bektovic to a Montenegrin soldier (who were known among the detained women as "more aggressive") for 200 DM (100 Euro), and from there on the tracks of her are lost (probably murdered shortly thereafter). [ [http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/kun-iii991108e.htm Kunarac and Kovac - Amended indictment ] ] [http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/mis_bos.nsf/7a25cf19d0a3d8c94125680b003bf1ff/937000252c81f8f1c12573e20049f65c!OpenDocument] [ [http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/stan-3ai031208.htm Radovan Stankovic - Third Amended Indictment ] ] [ [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/22/i_ins.00.html CNN Transcript - CNN Insight: International Court's Finding In Foca - February 22, 2001 ] ] [ [http://k.mihalec.tripod.com/current/slavenka.htm Women, State, Culture ] ] [ [http://www.hrw.org/reports98/foca/ Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Closed Dark Place ] ] [ [http://www.ex-yupress.com/dani/dani104.html Dani, Moments Of Truth At Site Of Crime, by Dzenana KARUP-DRUSKO, October 15, 2004 ] ] [ [http://horriblewarcrimes.blogspot.com/ Most Horrible War Crimes ] ] [ [http://www.bim.ba/en/39/10/1741/?tpl=58 BIRN - Samardzic: Court hears of rape trauma ] ] [ [http://www.un.org/icty/transe23/000405ed.htm 000405ed ] ]

*Cases like these were especially repulsive considering the fact that they also constituted pedophilia. One could somehow grasp this inhuman act [of loading such a large mental and sexual burden on a child] if it were such that lonesome individuals had preyed on a child in the opportunities of war. But rather these crimes were played out with a large consent among the Serb military and police leadership as well community in Foca [and other parts of Bosnia] . It was much a coordinated attack against the Bosnian Muslim women and girls on basis of harming them regardless of age or state; evident by the fact that many of the perpetrators probably were not pedophiles as such, but were driven by hatred. It should however also be noticed that the soldiers and local Serbs made a business and economic profit out of the enslaved girls by selling and renting them to customers.

*After being 'sufficiently' raped and used for the pleasure of the local perpetrator, the younger and more helpless girls were often sold on to other soldiers or people. Often to Montenegro where they had to work as slaves in cafés and similar (as the patterns of sexual abuse continued). Due to widespread disbelief between Serbs/Montenegrins (Orthodoxs) and Bosniaks (Muslims), especially at the time of war, the girls couldn't simply appeal to locals or even the police station for help (they were almost always sent back).

The patterns of abuse was evident: day and night, soldiers came to the house taking two to three women at a time. They were four to five guards at all times, all local Foca Serbs. The woman knew the rapes would begin when 'Mars na Drinu' was played over the loudspeaker of the main mosque. ('Mars na Drinu,' or 'March on the Drina', is reportedly a former Chetnik fighting song that was banned during the Tito years.) [http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/reports/7thB.html Seventh Report On War Crimes In The Former Yugoslavia ] ]

While 'Mars na Drinu' was playing, the women were ordered to strip and soldiers entered the homes taking the ones they wanted. The age of women taken ranged from 12 to 60. Frequently the soldiers would seek out mother and daughter combinations. Many of the women were severely beaten during the rapes.

The first time, soldiers had entered and grabbed an 18-year-old girl, asking her if she were a virgin. She said she was. Licking his knife, one of the soldiers said that if they found she was not, he would butcher her. Another woman pleaded with them not [to] take the girl but to take her instead. "We'll take you too," they said. While this woman was being raped, her rapist told her, "You should have already left this town. We'll make you have Serbian babies who will be Christians." Two soldiers raped the woman that time; five soldiers raped the 18-year-old girl in full view of the woman.

*These assaults were not only for the physical but also mental pleasure of the perpetrator. The assaults were used in combinations that would maximally humiliate the Muslim women on basis of their religion and historical rivarly. There was a strong sense among the pepetrators to construct horrorful scenarios (as with the mosque speaker) and constantly pointing out that "they will impregnate the women of the Muslim enemies with Christian Serb children" or "that they had killed relatives of the women and girls".

A 28-year-old woman was taken by Serbian soldiers around midnight on August 12 to the outdoor sport stadium in Foca. There she was raped by 28 soldiers before loosing consciousness. In addition the soldiers burned her body with cigarettes and cigarette lighters.

Mass rape was a well-spread instrument of war by the Serbs in all of the areas they held; a 55-year-old Bosnian Muslim from Brcko was a prisoner at Luka camp during which he saw teen-aged girls being brought, eight to ten at a time, into the camp commander's office building on Wednesdays and Saturdays, between about 2 and 6 pm. The teenagers came only those 2 days of the week.

Monika, a Serbian woman in her early 20s, would say "We've brought them." The camp commander would take his time selecting a girl, who would then be escorted upstairs. Once the commander had made his choice, three or four guards would select another girl, and so on. Only the commander had a girl to himself.

The witness identified Monika as the well known daughter of Brcko's leading prostitute. She bragged about her job of going around town to "buy and prepare" the girls, and she was assisted by three men who participated in the "delivery service," as well as serving as "police" at Luka camp. The witness identified all of the aforementioned people and provided names of girls known to be dead and presumed to have died from being gang-raped at Luka camp. Monika brought a nurse to Luka to "prepare the girls and make them calm." The girls apparently have no idea what was going to happen to them, because they were only slightly frightened. The witness implied that the nurse was coerced into "treating" the girls. The witness observed Monika beating young men on the genitals repeatedly and for extended periods of time.

*In many instances Serb women of the community were aware and actively participiated in organizing the rapes, further elevating the fact that the rapes were used as a 'historical revenge of the Serbs for the past', since these women had no pure sexual use of the detainees. Also significant are those cases in which medical personel was used to calm the girls and treat gyneocological and psychological complications resulting from the rapes in order to 'prolong their sexual capablilty'.

Another woman and likewise mother testified: "One night they took away my daughter. She had recently turned eleven. There was nothing I could do. I watched them take away my daughter, and ran after her, but other women stopped me. I screamed "why children!?", "leave the children alone!", "if you have to rape, rape us then, but leave the children alone!"

Nothing helped. I watched them take away my daughter, my big wound. From the surrounding premises I could hear her scream as they raped her. All in the camp were sickened, head between our knees, hands on our ears so that we would not hear the scream of my little girl which until then never had the thought of anything like this happening to her. Some of the girls were so young that they really didn't understand why this was done to them."

*Rapes were many times not hidden from large amounts of detainees, nor men or women. Presumably to cause fear, stress and state of shock among large populations of detainees, as well as to show "en masse" the Serb preponderance over the Bosniaks.

Individuals convicted of war crimes related to sexual abuse

Convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia:
*Dragoljub Kunarac (28 years in prison)
*Radomir Kovač (20 years in prison)
*Zoran Vuković (12 years in prison)
*Milorad Krnojelac (12 years in prison)
*Dragan Zelenović (pleaded guilty, 15 years in prison)

Convicted by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina:
*Radovan Stanković (20 years in prison; escaped from prison recently)
*Neđo Samardžić (24 years in prison)
*Gojko Janković (34 years in prison)

External links

* [http://www.un.org/icty/: INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA]
* [http://www.odjek.ba/index.php?broj=03&id=21 Odjek: Zločin silovanja u Bosni i Hercegovini] bs icon
* [http://www.peacewomen.org/news/BosniaHerzegovina/newsarchive/massrape.html Women's International League for Peace and Freedom: Mass Rape in Bosnia: 20,000 women, mostly Muslims, have been abused by Serb soldiers]
* [http://www.gendercide.org/case_bosnia.html Gendercide Watch - Case Study: Bosnia-Herzegovina]

Related films

*
* - Part III. The Struggle for Bosnia

Related audio documentaries

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2008/01/071227_only_one_bakira.shtml BBC - Only One Bakira]

References