Genocide in the former Yugoslavia: a critique of left revisionism's denial

In 2001 two events at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Hague put the subject of genocide in the former Yugoslavia back on the front pages of newspapers. First, Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic was convicted of genocide against the Muslim population of the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the first conviction at the ICTY for this gravest of crimes. Second and more spectacularly, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was indicted and put on trial for genocide against the Muslim and Croat populations of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole. These events at the ICTY inflamed the bitter controversies that have raged over this conflict since it broke out in 1991. Internationally, political opinion has been divided into two camps divided by their conflicting analyses of the crisis and view of the correct international response. On the one side were those who viewed the war as a result of Serbian aggression and expansionism and generally advocated military intervention by the West in response. On the other side were those who viewed the conflict as a civil war between competing nationalisms (Serb, Croat, Muslim and Albanian) in which the Serb side was, if anything, less to blame than the others. They tended to blame Western interference for catalyzing the conflict and to reject military intervention against Serbian forces. For the sake of convenience, we may refer to the first camp as the “orthodox” and the second as the “revisionist.”