New research article sheds light on challenges in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the aftermath of the genocide in the 1990s
Together with Zlatan Delić from University of Tuzla in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Goran Basic has published an article that illustrates how politicians and media in the Serbian republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina deny that the genocide in the 1990s ever took place. According to the researchers, this constitutes an obstacle to financial and peaceful development in the country.
During the Yugoslavian war of the 1990s, Serbian police and military were driving forces in the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which culminated in Srebrenica in 1995. The genocide formed the basis for the fact that there is a Serbian republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina today, but politicians, institutions, and media in the republic deny that the genocide ever took place.
The researchers account for that the Serbian republic’s denial maintains the logic behind the genocide – to create an ethnically homogenous society by driving away other ethnic groups, by making other ethnic groups invisible in history, and by undermining that those who have been persecuted are entitled to social support. In this way, the approach contributes to maintaining conflicts between ethnic groups, which is an obstacle to a trusting, financial and peaceful development in the country.