Ironically, today the students of American campuses call for arming a defender, a victim of genocide. Quite opposite, of course, the cause of 20 years ago, during the Vietnam era. I believe the cause of these students—this generation—will once again prove to be right. Why? Because youth has a way of being uncontami-nated by the manipulation of politics and youth knows the truth.
—Muhamed Sacirbey, foreign minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Violence directed against civilians in Bosnia-Herzegovina continued unabated for over three and a half years. The failure of two American presidential administrations to respond effectively when confronted with genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina leads to a question: have dissenting voices been raised against American policy? To what extent?
This chapter provides a case study of one community of dissent in American society—the campus-based Balkan anti-genocide movement. “Balkan anti-genocide” is an appropriate name, because, as will be shown, a recognition that genocide occurred in the Balkans and a need to take action to stop it and prevent it from recurring describe the core motivations of most campus activists. Their activities range from political action, to humanitarian aid and peer education. “Movement” is appropriate, because campus groups with nearly identical ideology and actions exist nationwide and have formed a united coalition. Leaders, who coalesce in the organization known as Students against Genocide (SAGE) Coalition, provide information, facilitate intercampus communication, and lend direction to individual group actions. SAGE Coalition is closely aligned with a grassroots coordinating body, the American Committee to Save Bosnia (ACSB).
Why study the activists? Grassroots opposition to American Balkan policy has not previously been examined in detail. Aside from newspaper reports covering their demonstrations, the nature of the activist groups and the personality of the activists have remained largely unstudied. On the other hand, while ignored by the mass media and academia, the movement has accomplished much in the realms of legislative pressure, relief efforts for war victims, and education of Americans about genocide in Bosnia.
Campus-based and community-based activist organizations are the anti-genocide movement’s two strong components. This chapter focuses on the campus-based groups, and is written from the perspective of an active member and leader of the SAGE Coalition since 1993. The protests, civil disobedience, teach-ins, and humanitarian projects taking place on campus in response to the Balkan situation represent a refreshing exception to the stereotypical image of the lethargic student on American college campuses in the 1990s. Rather than relying solely on observation to portray the movement, I base this chapter on written questionnaires and on telephone and videotaped interviews with the activists.1
The unfolding tragedy of the Balkans has appeared prominently in American print, radio, and televised media. In 1994 and 1995, only the O. J. Simpson trial received greater coverage on the “big three” network evening newscasts.2
How, then, has nightly exposure to the horrors of genocide affected the typical American viewer? How has watching the destruction of a multiethnic, multicultural society affected those who live in one themselves? The answer is surprising: few Americans claim to understand the war, and polls taken prior to the Dayton Agreement and subsequent commitment of American troops showed that most types of military involvement were thinly supported or opposed.3
On the other hand, for many Americans, the images of war have hit hard and have evoked a desire to understand and to act. On campuses around the country, that sentiment has found an outlet as like-minded individuals encounter one another. Concerned students seek out lectures about the war, find each other in Muslim, Croatian, Turkish, and Jewish student groups, raise the issues at Amnesty International meetings, and find ways to act after encountering Bosnia support and anti-genocide groups on campus.
The broad ethnic, religious, and cultural origins of those who respond to the images of violence and suffering are remarkable. Consider these: a Haitian student at Stanford University, already sensitive to oppression and human rights abuses, a Japanese student at the University of Washington who grew up with lessons of Hiroshima, and an American student bred in the traditions of activism—all gleaned lessons from their backgrounds that encouraged them to act.
Despite their diversity, many of the activists recall experiencing nearly identical realizations leading to involvement: a sudden awareness that genocide was being committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina (or prior to that, atrocities in Croatia) and a feeling of moral obligation to respond. Jennie Davis, a University of Vermont undergraduate who founded the Vermont Committee for Peace in Bosnia and served in SAGE Coalition’s elected board, had a typical response: “At first the situation was abstract and then one day it kind of hit me. I saw genocide happening today and wanted to take action. For a long time I thought, I should be doing something about this,’ and one day I realized that I could.”
A non-Jewish student living in the southern United States, SAGE Coalition activist Brent Phillips, cites lessons of the Holocaust: “The lack of action by the U.S. to halt the clear genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina compelled me to get involved. ‘Never Again’ obligates us all to act (by default) if our governments are unwilling.”
While quite cognizant of the differences between the Holocaust and the genocide in Bosnia, many, particularly Jewish, students nonetheless see a connection. The numbers of those killed and a myriad of other parameters might be different, but those involved in the movement perceive genocide and targeting of a religious group for expulsions, killings, or torture as intolerable anywhere and on any scale. Many of these activists, such as Stanford chemistry graduate student and SAGE-net (SAGE’s electronic network) administrator Rich Green, were taught from an early age to speak out, rather than be a passive witness to such injustices: “The more that I read about Bosnia, the more I was reminded of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, it made me understand how it was possible that the world did nothing in the face of the Holocaust. I could not face looking at myself as a ‘good German’ who never acted.”
Frequently, but certainly not always, those that have taken action already had a particular interest in East European affairs. This contrasts with the general student population, who, in the poll done for this chapter, indicate more interest in domestic affairs, or in the case of most foreign students, the happenings in their country of origin. Erik Nisbet, codirector of the Bosnia Support Committee at Cornell University and a SAGE Coalition activist, was previously interested in Eastern Europe and foreign affairs.
I always had a fascination with Yugoslavia. I was planning to go to Zagreb [Croatia] to study when the war broke out. At the same time, I was involved with United Nations Association USA and Model UN—at first I thought the UN would produce a just solution. Then our group sponsored [Bosnian Ambassador to the UN] Muhamed Sacirbey to speak on campus. That’s when I realized the UN’s mistakes and that’s what motivated me to get informed and involved.
Others became active because they shared a religious belief with the primary victims of Serbian aggression, namely, Islam. Some were from other countries in the area—particularly Turkey. Still others traced their backgrounds to the region, usually Bosnia or Croatia, or came to the United States from there to study during the war. Emira Tufo is a first-year student from Sarajevo and an active Stanford SAGE member whose reasons for involvement exemplify those of other students from Bosnia:
I have the moral responsibility because it’s my country and nobody else is doing much. I spent all my life there. I had the greatest times there. My family and friends are still there and my fondest memories are too. I spent two and a half years of war there and it seemed that no one was doing anything. Now that I’m in a position to help, I don’t want to be one of the people who turned away.
An obstacle to the movement is that students whose families (or who themselves) originate from Bosnia or Croatia and who would form the logical core of the Balkan anti-genocide movement are relatively scarce. Steve Walker, a former State Department official who resigned in protest over United States policy in the Balkans, speaks frequently on campuses in his current position as director of the American Committee to Save Bosnia:
There is no natural constituency that can provide the core of the movement. Jewish students form somewhat of a core, but Hillel hasn’t taken an unambiguous pro-Bosnian, pro-arms-embargo-lifting-stance—they’re more involved in education about the war. Muslim students are also a core to some extent, but not enough of them feel a strong enough connection to Bosnian Muslims—there’s not the feeling that “this could be me.” The anti-apartheid movement, for example, had the advantage that African Americans could more easily imagine, “this could be me.”
One welcome by-product of the campus-based initiatives has been the increased contacts and cooperation between involved Jewish and Muslim students. Students from these two religious groups tend to be involved in Bosnia support activities to a proportionately greater extent than others. As discussed above, this can be attributed to Jewish students’ heightened awareness of the issue of genocide and the religion Muslim students share with the primary victims of the war. Haverford College’s Michael Sells, a professor of comparative religions and a director of the Community of Bosnia Foundation, works closely with students on the campuses of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges: “The Muslim Students Association worked with Hillel at Haverford and Bryn Mawr. The events in Bosnia got groups who usually don’t communicate really actively involved in cooperating with one another.”
Jewish and Muslim students learn about one another’s religion and customs by working with one another. For example, holidays and prayer times need to be taken into consideration when planning demonstrations or other activities are planned. On the national grassroots level, Muslim and Jewish groups have also explored working with one another and issuing joint statements. In one example, on July 25, 1995, six prominent national Jewish and five prominent national Muslim organizations (including the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the National Association of Arab Americans, B’nai B’rith, and the American Jewish Congress) joined other organizations and individuals in sending a letter to each U.S. Senator supporting the Dole-Lieberman bill to end the arms embargo against Bosnia.4
Many students become involved as a result of active friends or acquaintances. Some of those most active in the anti-genocide movement started out by being sympathetic and wanting to do something, but not knowing how to take action. Mike Rothenberg is a Stanford M.D. and Ph.D. student who experienced this before joining SAGE, but then went on to serve as SAGE’s legislative affairs task force director. “I felt more strongly about Bosnia than perhaps I’ve felt about any other issue. I never knew how to act on those feelings, though. It was only through a good friend that was thinking about ways to act that I was then able to do something about an issue that concerned me—for the first time in my life.”
This willingness to act, but inability to do so alone, presents a challenge to the campus activists. Intense education and outreach efforts by the anti-genocide groups are critical to the growth of activism both on campus and nationally. This is particularly important on campuses where activist turnover is high as students graduate each spring. Outreach is also important because indications are that students familiar with Bosnia support groups on their campus, even though they might not join them, are more empowered to affect the situation than others. A Stanford pre-medical student said, “I know someone who’s active in SAGE. Because of our conversations, I’ve tried to keep informed. I’ve also written to my senators and the president to express my concern about their lack of decisive action. I acted because ‘never again’ is happening again and people want to ignore it.”
Many mention news coverage of the war’s atrocities as the initial impetus for their engagement. For Stanford SAGE member John Till-inghast, an article by historian Noel Malcolm clearly defined the issues. For others, the war crossed the ocean and found its way into their consciences by way of shocking, personal testimonies of concentration camp and rape camp survivors. Those stories facilitated a personal connection and understanding that broke down the abstract, intellectual construct most people have of the war. This occurred to an even greater extent when students met Bosnian refugees living in their neighborhoods or Bosnian students and faculty who came to campus during the war.
Encountering an individual affected by war evokes strong sentiments. Says Erik Nisbet: “When you see their faces, you can no longer tolerate the predominant logic of ‘they’re not Americans, so why should we care.’ I am American and I am ashamed. Just because someone’s Bosnian or Rwandan doesn’t mean it’s not our business. We’re all human beings.” Another activist puts it succinctly: “When the news makes you weep, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything, you need to act to avoid losing your mind.”
In summary, the students, faculty, and staff who took action tended to do so because they perceived the war in Bosnia as a human rights issue (more specifically, an issue of genocide), and they were empowered to act by both internal and external factors. As discussed below, when the activists learned more about the situation in the Balkans, their initial convictions were reinforced by the realizations that (1) stopping the appeasement of an ultra-nationalist aggressor in Eastern Europe is in America’s self-interest, and (2) international law demands the prevention and punishment of genocide and supports the right of victim nations to self-defense.
The movement’s core ideologies from 1993 to the Dayton Agreement in late 1995 can be summarized as follows: (1) the acknowledgment and condemnation of genocide occurring in Bosnia-Herzegovina; (2) the demand that the American government act to stop the genocide (and the belief that it is in America’s interests to do so); and (3) the support of the Bosnian government’s right to self-defense. Following the Dayton Agreement, the movement increased its emphasis on the importance of war crimes investigations and the use of international forces to ensure that indicted war criminals are removed from power and brought to trial—particularly those accused of the crime of genocide.
The word “genocide” is used frequently in this chapter, and is used frequently by Balkan anti-genocide activists. The choice of the word is not an emotional one, but rather a judgment based soundly on evidence of the situation in the former Yugoslavia and the legal definition of the word.
Genocide is defined under international law as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group,” including “killing members of the group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” All of the following—genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, and even complicity in genocide—are punishable under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ratified in 1948. The convention’s signatories, which include the United States and Yugoslavia, have pledged to “undertake to prevent and to punish” genocide.5 Michael Sells has considered the issue of genocide carefully and works to educate his students and other about what it means:
The movement’s focus on genocide and its definition is important. Most columnists are ignorant—they say, “this isn’t genocide,” but they don’t know the definition of genocide set down in Geneva and the concept coined by international lawyer Raphael Lemkin after World War II. The word “genocide” was very carefully defined so it could be part of international law.
Some people assume only the Holocaust is genocide or that you’re making false parallels to the Holocaust when you use the word. But Lemkin defined the word specifically to avoid trivializing the Holocaust, and as a disincentive to the future occurrence of genocide.
I’ve been amazed at columnists who claim this isn’t genocide. Are they implying that they are right and a group of international jurists with a forty-year education in the subject and two years investigating war crimes in former Yugoslavia are wrong? The International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has issued indictments for genocide, including the Bosnian Serb leader Karadžić and the Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic!
While some in the media, such as Newsday’s Roy Gutman and the Christian Science Monitor’s David Rohde, investigated war crimes in Bosnia, others have downplayed them. Skepticism greeted the early reports of atrocities, perhaps out of a human tendency to doubt that such horrible actions could be perpetrated in the “modern world.” Sadly, even after war crimes had been thoroughly documented by the investigative body of the UN War Crimes Tribunal and numerous human rights organizations, they were still being denied by Serb-nationalist lobby groups in the United States and misrepresented in the media.
Sometimes the media’s mischaracterization can be blatant: for example, casting the situation as one in which “all sides are killing each other as they have been for the past six hundred years.” Other times, the disbelief in genocide and the survivors of terrible atrocities can take more subtle forms. For example, in February 1996, a story ran on a San Francisco evening newscast that included painful interviews with survivors of the notorious Serb-run concentration camp Omarska now living in the San Francisco area.6 At the time, the horrors of Omarska were universally acknowledged, having been investigated by, among others, the Red Cross and U.S. State Department; and an Omarska guard, Dusan Tadic, was about to stand trial in the Hague for war crimes. Even so, the station offered this disclaimer: “[the survivors’ stories go] on and on and on. Some stories are probably exaggerations, others fabrications. In war, the truth is often the first to die.”
Indeed, this lack of understanding and a failure to perceive the events in Bosnia as genocide seem to extend to the general population. On campus, perhaps the crux of the difference between activists and their fellow students is the connection they make between today’s events and the lessons learned by the world community following the Holocaust. In a poll of students at Stanford in October 1995, even when prompted, respondents were least likely to say that the United States should apply the lessons of World War II or the Holocaust to Bosnia and more likely to indicate that the lessons of Somalia and Vietnam (dangers of involvement) and South Africa (rewards of limited, nonmilitary involvement) should be applied.
Perhaps those students did not realize the extent of the atrocities committed in Bosnia, or perhaps they did not want to notice. A recent Stanford graduate admitted he purposely did not follow the war:
I think there’s the issue of preferring to be ignorant rather than aware and silent or complicit in the face of genocide. It’s like when you’re watching TV and a documentary about hunger in Africa comes on. You just flip the channel. You don’t want to feel there’s something else you have to do something about.
Students who take action have a clearly different view. Like many other students involved in the Balkan anti-genocide movement, Andreas Silver of the Coalition against Genocide at UNC-Chapel Hill is concerned with genocide in multiple regions of the world:
“Never again” does not mean “never again will Jews be slaughtered.” It should be never again will Cambodians, East Timorese, Tibetans, Bosnians, and anyone else be slaughtered . . . but this has been going on steadily ever since 1945 in one place or another. The major countries which control the United Nations have fastidiously ignored their obligations under international law to prevent and punish genocide.
This sentiment, and the awareness and recognition that genocide anywhere is intolerable, has led members of the Balkan anti-genocide effort to begin responding to other cases of looming ethnic violence and genocide, for example, Rwanda, Burundi, and Chechnya. Zachary Rothschild and Jennifer Gerlach, cochairs of Drew University’s SAGE chapter, emphasize the importance of broadening their work: “Our larger goal is to educate people that genocide continues to happen again and again in different places around the world. We have to take a stand against it because every life counts.”
The knowledge and acceptance that events in Bosnia constitute genocide leads to the view that neutrality is no longer a valid concept. Acknowledging the occurrence of genocide forces a decision—either act to oppose it, or be its silent accomplice. At a demonstration in front of the White House after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, one of the placards raised by a demonstrator read, “In cases of genocide, neutrality is complicity.” The fact that complicity in genocide is also punishable by international law may explain the Clinton administration’s refusal to use the word.
One of the key political demands of the anti-genocide movement in America has been the unilateral American lifting of the arms embargo against the Bosnian government. Following the Dayton Agreement, the activists urged that the Bosnian government be armed and trained to defend against the threat of new attacks after the withdrawal of IFOR forces. Activists justify these demands by referring to both the obligations of United Nations member states to prevent genocide and the right of a nation to self-defense, which is supported by international law. Articles 2(4) and 51 of the United Nations Charter codify this right, which may not be abridged by actions of the Security Council.7 Furthermore, the arms embargo was imposed against Yugoslavia prior to its dissolution and thus could not be legitimately applied to Bosnia without its consent once it was admitted as a member of the United Nations.
The arms embargo also conflicted with numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for the delivery of humanitarian aid, and protection of personnel delivering that aid, and protection of Bosnia’s population in United Nations-declared safe areas.
Opposition to the activists on campus has been rather weak, but it has presented a minor obstacle to the actions of the Balkan anti-genocide groups. When opposition occurs, it tends to be in one of several forms. To begin with, it comes from some who object to making parallels with the Holocaust. For example, a Stanford professor, who noted that a forum on Bosnia was organized by Hillel, accused Jewish students of having been pushed by their connection with the Holocaust from “morality to moralizing.” Perhaps he was implying that Jewish condemnation of the atrocities in Bosnia was insufficiently reasoned. However, as Brad Blitz, the organizer of the event and cofounder and former director of SAGE, put it, “the reasons behind our condemnation of the aggression in Bosnia stand well enough on their own.”
Other criticism along these lines can be found within the Jewish community itself. In particular, the Holocaust survivor community appears to be split. Some, like Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, have spoken out publicly and in the strongest terms possible about the need for a Western response to the situation in the Balkans: “‘We cannot tolerate the excruciating sights of this old new war,’ Mr. Wiesel said, turning to President Bill Clinton at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. ‘Mr. President, this bloodshed must be stopped. It will not stop unless we stop it.’ “8
Other Holocaust survivors publicly voice concerns that the Holocaust is trivialized by comparisons with events in Bosnia. Some go further, and express an unwillingness to criticize Serbs, whom they perceive as having been friends of the Jews in World War II.9 Some also reserve contempt for Croats, whom they consider to have been brutal puppets of the Nazis. This memory has made it difficult for many survivors to speak out on behalf of victimized Croats, and even Bosnian Muslims, today.
Perhaps the most frustrating opposition the anti-genocide activists confront is the obsession of those who want to give “both sides” a platform out of a need to appear “neutral.” Activists are likely to attribute such moral equivocation on the part of their peers to ignorance. “The [knowledge] gap between people who are interested and those who are not is enormous,” says Shin Yasui, a Japanese student and director of the Committee for World Peace at the University of Oregon. An ABC News reporter commented in June 1995 after revealing the results of a new poll, “Few [Americans] are sure what the war in Bosnia is all about.”10
Many of today’s students go to lengths to give all sides in a conflict an equal hearing. The “default mode,” then, is to not “take sides,” or not to view a conflict as one between a victim and an aggressor until the situation is fully explored. Unfortunately, most students never progress past this default mode by taking time to learn about a situation and develop an educated response. “Everyone is a victim there,” said a freshman biology student polled about Bosnia, who then couldn’t name a single party to the conflict and said she didn’t understand it well.
Activists are also frustrated by peers who oppose “political” types of actions. In most cases, students express willingness to attend lectures or support “humanitarian” activities for Bosnia (even though much of the humanitarian aid collected throughout the war was pillaged at Serb roadblocks and prevented from entering by dangerous skies and mined roads). Those students, however, are less likely to be willing to demonstrate or write letters to elected officials with the goal of actually ending the bloodshed. At its extreme, a few students even shy away from engaging in humanitarian aid activities, out of a perception that engaging in them would constitute taking sides. For example, the new student leader of a group that had previously sent tons of needed medical supplies to Bosnia decided to drop the program because it was “too political . . . you’re making a political statement by who you send the supplies to.”
On the whole, there is enormous pressure on the student groups to be more humanitarian aid-oriented than “political.” Humanitarian activities are met with wider approval, provide opportunities for raising funds, and are more likely to be covered as “human interest” stories in the media. In some cases (for example, at Cornell University), activists have actually felt compelled to form separate groups—one for humanitarian activities and another for political action. This has occurred on the national grassroots level as well; a separate, nonprofit educational institute (the Balkan Institute) has been formed for public education about the situation in the Balkans. At the same time, the politically active grassroots coordinating body, the American Committee to Save Bosnia, was retained under the auspices of the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans. On campus, splitting into two organizations has the result of broadening the appeal of humanitarian aid and educational activities. Other campus organizations (such as Amnesty International) and academic departments seem more willing to work with Bosnia support groups on such “nonpolitical” projects.
Some students found themselves “at war” with pacifist elements on campus. While the grassroots Bosnia support movement claims among its members many who participated in the antiwar protest movements of the 1960s, there appears to be a split of opinion among traditional pacifists. The September 1995 edition of the Progressive highlighted this issue. It featured two articles by peace activists who argued the case for a U.S. military response in Bosnia. In the same issue, however, the editors argued, “Bombing the Bosnian Serbs . . . will certainly bring more killing and horror. And it’s extremely unlikely that the Bosnian Serbs will give up.” (Only days after the issue hit the newsstands, of course, the editors were proved wrong. NATO employed decisive, but militarily selective, air power; the Croats and Bosnians mounted an offensive; and the Serb forces, who could no longer shoot down on civilian populations at whim, were suddenly willing to talk peace). “Pacifists” who opposed military intervention to end the genocide in Bosnia also argued from a position of general distrust of the American military and general opposition to use of its power. Others considered themselves “noninterventionists” (however, they failed to perceive that the UN Security Council-imposed arms embargo was itself a form of intervention). Michael Sells has confronted many self-described pacifists in his Bosnia support work:
I think there are very, very few genuine pacifists. When people claim to be pacifists I ask them, “When the ethnic cleansers come to your house and someone turns to call the police, would you take the phone out of their hands because the police use force?” Most people wouldn’t. So, I call it “pacifism for the other guy.” It’s in many cases a deeply cynical position.
Like much student opposition to Bosnia support activities, the “pacifist” nonresponse may be rooted in an inaccurate or uneducated view of the conflict in the Balkans. Surely, if they perceived it in terms of a nation facing genocide, most would acknowledge, at minimum, the right of that nation to self-defense. Inexplicably, the pacifist advocates of nonresponse failed to recognize that aggressive forces continued to kill innocent civilians on a massive scale (e.g., Srebrenica, Žepa, and Banja Luka) throughout the three and a half years of the Bosnian War and even after countless diplomatic initiatives. Appeals to reason and economic sanctions failed to stop the aggressors. Genocide continued unopposed and undaunted for over three and a half years because the international community failed to arm its victims or protect them.
On the other hand, some of those uncomfortable with taking political positions on the use of force took action on other levels. Sells relates,
It’s ironic, but some people with whom I disagree on political issues have gotten very involved and really accomplished things. The Quakers, for example, get involved much more than other groups. But they never want to see a bad guy and a good guy. However, once they see a documentary videotape like Killing Memory by Harvard’s Andras Riedlmayer, there’s no way people can say “everyone’s to blame.” Once that problem is over, then we can discuss what to do. If someone is a pacifist, then they can still help a refugee student.
This holds true of students on campus, many of whom enthusiastically participate in projects such as English-language tutoring programs for refugees, but steer clear of political demonstrations. Interestingly, some Bosnia activists who campaign for Bosnia’s right to self-defense and American military involvement considered themselves pacifists at an earlier point in their lives. Rich Green was one of those:
I read a book a number of years ago called A Cambodian Odyssey written by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. This book had a profound effect on me. It made me realize that some governments are so terrible that force must be used to remove them, if necessary. This understanding contributed to the demise of my previously held pacifist beliefs . . . through studying the Holocaust on my own, my views became reinforced.
Other opposition to campus-based Balkan anti-genocide activities has come from communities of ethnic Serbs (mostly off-campus) who are organized into aggressive political lobbying groups. This subject is treated extensively in the chapter by Brad Blitz this volume. Here it is worth mentioning only that events on several campuses have been disrupted by the noisy protests of those involved with such groups.
At this point, it is interesting to note that a few of the campus activists include ethnic Serbs who are opposed to the genocide in Bosnia. Furthermore, many campus groups take pains to avoid referring to the aggressors as “Serbs” (thus accusing an entire ethnic group) and rather refer to them as “ultranationalist Serbs” or “Karadžić’s Serbs.” Frequently it is Bosnian refugee student members of the groups who insist on this—remarkably, after being driven from their homes by ultranationalist Serb forces, most refuse to succumb to the hatred those forces engender. “If I hate them, then I will become like them” is the way one student from Sarajevo put it. Many activists have also sought to understand the goals of the Serb-nationalists, the fears of Serbian people and what they claim incites them to seek an ethnically homogenous “Greater Serbia.” None of the reasons or the goals, however, have convinced the activists that genocide is a permissible means to attain them. Says Brad Blitz: “While Serbian ultranationalists frequently frame their arguments around political concerns regarding minority status and sometimes genuine fear or uncertainty, there is a deep-seated denial as to what is actually happening on the ground. Dismembering Yugoslavia politically, by voting, is a far cry from using the military to pursue a policy of dismembering people—specifically civilians. This is what the Serb-nationalists fail to address.”
Only at times when Bosnia features prominently in the news for one spectacular human rights atrocity or another (a Sarajevo marketplace bombed, the population of a city killed and buried in mass graves) do many people on campus briefly take notice and try to understand the situation. In attempting to capitalize on the attention, and draw more members while adding their voices to the outrage, many campus demonstrations are organized rapidly following such events. “When there is a crisis situation your phone rings off the hook,” says Nader Hashemi, coordinator of the Ad Hoc Committee on Bosnia at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. “When there’s no crisis, no one seems to care.”
Thus, more than opposition, perhaps, the student activists face apathy. Some attribute it to a general sense of disconnectedness and isolation on campus. “It seems that people are reluctant to commit or get involved with anything, not necessarily just this issue,” says Amy Gaglia, an activist at Syracuse University.
Add to the ambient apathy a sense of confusion and distance from events in Bosnia, and the task of organizing students around the issue grows tremendous. A Stanford biology graduate student complains, “it’s hard to get involved in something you don’t understand. Different papers, different reporters say different things. It’s hard to get the real story.” A graduate student in civil engineering adds, “the war just doesn’t concern me enough to take a stand.” Activist Rich Green speaks to his peers about the Balkans as often as possible. He frequently finds them uninformed and uninterested:
People don’t know the difference between the Krajina and Kosovo, between a Bosnian Croat and a Croatian Serb. The situation is complex enough that people throw up their hands and say, “I wish all those folks would just stop killing each other, but what can we do?” In short, the situation is pretty depressing in terms of people’s willingness to be informed.
What does it take to overcome the students’ apathy? Personal contact may be key. “To get involved I would need someone to say, ‘we’re having a meeting,’” said a first-year psychology graduate student who had just arrived at Stanford. “I feel like the situation is publicized but the channels to action aren’t open.”
This kind of response presents a challenge to activists, who realize that in order to gain support and educate the larger community, they must focus more on outreach and organizing events that will draw media coverage. The campus itself is an environment somewhat more conducive to reaching people than most. Yet activists still must work hard to be noticed. A Stanford computing staff member who expressed an interest in Bosnia had not heard of activities on campus, which had been taking place for over two and a half years: “It’s hard, not being a member of any side’s community. I don’t have a familial attachment, and I haven’t felt an organized response by our government or on the grassroots level. There probably are grassroots efforts, but I haven’t heard enough about them.”
Apathy on campus can drain activists’ energy. Low turnouts to some events, combined with stereotyped notions about successful campus activist movements of the past, add to the problem. ACSB’s Steve Walker has observed this on his campus visits, but feels that communications between the campus organizations within SAGE Coalition help counter the problem.
It would have been easier for people to give up due to frustration over their small numbers if it weren’t for SAGE. My sense is that the materials going out to students and SAGE being there to unify people has given the student activists strength and endurance. At least with SAGE and the ACSB, they are part of a living, growing coalition.
Michael Sells, the professor at Haverford College, finds himself giving pep talks to his students and explaining why they shouldn’t look to the Vietnam antiwar movement as a model for their current activism efforts. He assures them that what they see as a weakness, the low proportion of students involved in anti-genocide activism, is actually an expected phenomenon:
People tend to make a false comparison with today and the Vietnam antiwar movement. The difference is that back then people were going to get drafted. I tell the activist students here, “to compare yourself with Vietnam is a very big mistake.” There’s just no comparison. What’s going on now fits the predominant historical pattern. People don’t want to believe that genocide is happening. People are busy and don’t want to accept it or feel obligated to do something about it. This is a natural phenomenon and it’s natural for activists to have to find ways to confront it.
The reasons for the more widespread involvement in the Vietnam antiwar movement had much to do with the fact that students were directly affected by the war, argues Sells. In Bosnia, thus far, this has not been the case:
In Vietnam, a minority of people were activists. But many people were willing to help shut down the university for a day. It was very easy to get a crowd.
However, as soon as Nixon abolished the draft, the anti-war movement lost its major power. The numbers of people at demonstrations just plummeted dramatically. So, the difference was that at first, something was directly impinging on people’s lives. This situation is not directly impinging on people’s lives.
ACSB’s Walker completes the thought by contrasting the proposed American troop deployment to Bosnia with that of Vietnam: “Even the U.S. sending in twenty thousand ground troops to enforce an unstable peace does not concern this generation of students. There’s no draft. There’s no danger of students being drawn into those troops, whereas that was a strong motivating factor in Vietnam.”
In summary, the size of the current movement is commensurate with the expected response to a faraway situation, and does not warrant disparaging comparisons to the size of the Vietnam antiwar movement. That movement, however, is useful as a study of why people tend to involve themselves in activism. Today’s anti-genocide campus activists are learning that to widen support for their cause, they must bring the war home by educating their peers about the risks America faces by ignoring genocide.
Apathy on campus emanates from faculty as well as students. Whereas on a few campuses, professors took the lead in educating students about Bosnia and forming activist support groups, on many others, faculty are indifferent or even hostile to such actions.11 On a few campuses, activist professors organized in-depth courses on the war, but on many the war was either not covered, or covered as part of other courses on contemporary politics or Balkan history. In this study, most Balkan anti-genocide activists on campus described professors as only “somewhat supportive” of their groups’ activities.
The relative silence of the academic community on the Balkans has surprised many. In Britain’s Times Higher Education Supplement (August 4, 1995), Simon Targett polled leading academics in Britain and the United States on their attitudes toward the fighting. Most supported some sort of action to end the war (for example, confronting Serbian forces militarily or allowing the Bosnian government to arm itself) or else suggested the United Nations be strengthened to protect civilians. Many also agreed there were parallels between the actions of Western governments in the summer of 1995 with the appeasement of Hitler in 1938—1939. That said, some professors pointed out their disappointment with the failure of their peers to speak out about the war. Norman Stone, professor of modern history at Oxford University, was quoted as saying, “To their shame, academics have been all too silent on the Bosnian question. It’s shocking.”
Part of this can be explained, suggests Steve Walker, by considering that
while the academics you’d expect to be activists are the ones who were already involved with the subject area, in this case they aren’t sympathetic. The Balkan studies field is composed of a lot of people who studied Yugoslavia and spent a lot of time in Belgrade. A pro-Serb and pro-Yugoslav-unity bias predominates. The war and peace studies academics, another group you’d presume would have an interest in this area, are split on the issues.
But many others cringe at letting academia’s leaders off the hook easily. Brad Blitz attempted to cajole faculty to action in several opinion pieces he penned for the Stanford Daily. In one, on April 4, 1995, he wrote,
The faculty at this university have proven themselves intellectually and morally bankrupt. . . . [As a result of revelations about the extent of Serb atrocities] serious academics can no longer pretend that the destruction of Bosnia is the result of a civil war in which all sides are guilty. SAGE has received no support from faculty, who have refused to condemn the use of genocide against the citizens of Bosnia. Rather, in some cases, there has been a backlash from prominent faculty against such student organization. This has taken the form of a simplistic relativism which some faculty have used to criticize student protest. This relativism assumes that the University is an apolitical setting where ideas are necessarily of equal weight. It disguises a new ethic of indiscriminate moral equivalence.
Stanford faculty and associates have repeatedly demonstrated their confusion between the legitimate ideal of “objectivity” and the political demand for “balance” . . . To criticize those who exclude legitimate voices [is quite different from criticizing] those who exclude the illegitimate claims of ultranationalist hate-mongers who want to be heard.
A great university should be able to recognize the contradictions which the destruction of Bosnia poses to our value-system and intellectual traditions. Surely the mission of the university should be to align itself politically when necessary rather than ignoring the significance of real world events.
In sum, apathy and ignorance on campus, both from students and faculty, have constituted a serious challenge to the political action and even humanitarian aid activities of the activists. A strong focus on education and outreach, as discussed, seems the logical antidote, but cannot be expected to cure the problem entirely.
The student and grassroots movements successfully helped pressure congressional representatives and senators to vote to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia’s government. After two years of effort, both houses of Congress passed the legislation in July 1995 by overwhelming margins. (Although subsequently vetoed by President Clinton, the threat of an override played an important role in pressuring the President to take action to stop the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.) Along the way, however, activists faced opposition to lifting the arms embargo from many elected representatives.
The pacifists’ argument that “more arms will bring more death and more destruction to innocent people on all sides”12 was also employed by politicians. U.S. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo wrote to a SAGE member on August 2, 1995, “I do not support lifting the arms embargo unless a case can be made that arms sold to the Croats or Bosnian Muslims would be used only for defensive purposes and not to commit further atrocities and bloodshed.”
Incredibly, this letter arrived just weeks after thousands of Bosnian Muslims from the UN-declared “safe area” Srebrenica were herded into a giant soccer stadium, killed, and buried in mass graves. The Serbs received no opposition from the West, nor were the poorly armed Bosnian fighters able to keep them at bay. The defenders of the next “safe area” to fall, Žepa, held out for weeks longer than expected—a prolonged death gasp that could have been halted by Western decisiveness.
The irony of the eastern enclaves being written off as Serb territory just weeks later in the Dayton “partition plan” for Bosnia was not lost on activists. They recognized that by allowing Žepa to fall, the West made its task of dividing Bosnia easier, at the price of thousands who were summarily slaughtered. Their blood is forever on the hands and the conscience of the Western leaders.13
The misleading and sometimes clearly false statements of political leaders, trying to defend their decisions to “do nothing,” seem to affect the outlook of students. As Nader Hashemi puts it, “the opinions of government leaders are regurgitated by the masses.” These include calling the conflict a “civil war,” referring to the situation as intractable because “they’ve been fighting for centuries,” and generally subscribing to a doctrine of moral equivalence. These platitudes are also widely cited in the mass media, contrary to the observation of many historians of the region.
The other predominant congressional argument can be encapsulated as “let’s not Americanize the war.” The Clinton administration was successful in convincing some that lifting the embargo meant putting United States military troops in danger. Ironically, following Clinton’s veto of Congress’s arms embargo legislation, American troops are now in Bosnia facing the dangers of mines and snipers to implement a plan many feel is an unjust and potentially unsustainable solution to the war. Perhaps the editors of the New Republic put it best when they wrote, “You Americanize the war or you Americanize the genocide.”14 That is the choice. Inaction in the face of genocide constitutes action.
While the percentage of students involved on each campus may not be overwhelming, the activists have accomplished much in the realms of peer education, humanitarian aid, refugee outreach, support for human rights, and political action. Other effective movements on college campuses have likewise made an impact well out of proportion to the numbers of those involved. At the antiwar movement’s heyday in 1970, for instance, Martin Duberman quoted studies showing that activists constituted “only a small minority, though a growing one, of all college students; at Berkeley, for example, their number is put at about 15 percent.”15 More to the point, in her study of the U.S. antiapartheid movement, Janice Love highlights two successful campaigns to introduce divestment legislation that “were led and run by small groups of about six people . . . in neither state was a massive mobilization of popular support necessary for the adoption of the legislation.”16
Indeed, while currently lectures about the war may tend to draw the most interest on campus and political activities the least, political activities are generally rated by activists as successes. A demonstration targeting a senator that, while small, lands coverage on the evening news and a picture in the newspaper makes progress in educating the public and pressuring the politician. “A few very active people on campus can help activate and motivate a large number of people,” says Steve Walker, “and fortunately there are at least a handful of such people on a large number of campuses.”
In the 1994–95 academic year, as a typical example, the relatively small, all-volunteer, all-student core of active SAGE members at Stanford hosted a half-dozen speakers on the war, ran a tutoring program for twenty Bosnian refugees, undertook the nearly complete financial sponsorship of a refugee family, organized five campus-based demonstrations arid two demonstrations in San Francisco (all covered by local and/or national media), and raised donations for three humanitarian aid agencies. In addition, its members gave speeches, organized letter-writing campaigns to Congress and meetings with representatives, facilitated nationwide coordinated demonstrations, compiled and distributed the SAGE Direct Action Kit, ran the SAGE-net electronic network, and more. A comparable level and breadth of activity takes place on campuses around the country.
Further, most activists feel the movement enjoys the support, if not the membership, of the wider student population. Reflecting this, a January 1994 editorial about SAGE entitled “A Sagacious Group,” by the editors of the Stanford Daily read:
The group’s approach to student activism is one to be commended. . . . And despite the thousands of miles between Stanford and Bosnia, the group’s commitment has not wavered. Their attitude alone is enough to convince other students to make a similar effort on other issues . . . [and] their growing national popularity, among other things, prove[s] that student activism is far from dead.
Activist groups have been founded on American campuses at all points during the Balkan conflict—from the time of the shelling of Dubrovnik, Croatia, to the present writing. An organized movement can be traced to December 1993, when grassroots organizations, including student groups from Stanford, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, and elsewhere met in Washington, DC, formed the American Committee to Save Bosnia, and elected Steve Walker its director. Once the ACSB was established, it began focusing on grassroots organizing, and SAGE at Stanford, under the visionary directorship of Brad Blitz, took the lead in organizing campus groups. That year, SAGE produced and/or distributed educational information, documentary videotapes, preprinted postcards addressed to congressional representatives and the president, and other materials to campuses around the country. SAGE also began distributing a newsletter with reports on campus activism, started SAGE-net, and organized several awareness-raising demonstrations that took place simultaneously on multiple campuses. The next year, the ACSB sponsored a second grassroots conference in Washington, DC. There, students from around the country organized special sessions and voted to form SAGE Coalition. SAGE Coalition’s platform was derived from the platform of SAGE at Stanford, and the ACSB Call to Action.17 Since that time, SAGE Coalition has elected officers who attend campuses around the country, and expanded its role of supporting, organizing, and facilitating communication between campus groups.
Organizing a movement that spans America’s vast terrain has been helped immensely by the advent of the computer age. Rapid communication has played a key role in conveying leadership and guidance from SAGE and ACSB to foster a united political platform among the dispersed campus-based and grassroots organizations. While traditional methods of communication such as newsletters, action kits, and grassroots meetings are used by the activists, modern tools, including electronic mail, e-mail networks, and World Wide Web home pages have likewise made a great impact. The SAGE electronic mailing list (SAGE-net), moderated by Rich Green, allows activists to share information about the war, plan action initiatives, and organize humanitarian aid projects. Most college campuses provide internet services free of charge to students, faculty, and staff, and thus SAGE-net is available to most campus activists. SAGE-net participation contributes to a feeling of being part of a larger movement. Says Amy Gaglia, “with the internet connection one at least gets the feeling that there are like-minded people somewhere.”
In another innovative use of the internet, SAGE Coalition leaders have instituted “e-mail meetings.” From around the country, they “log on” to their e-mail accounts once every two weeks at a specified time to discuss issues. To contribute to the discussion, one need only mail his or her comment to the SAGE Coalition mailing list and each leader receives a copy within seconds, to which they may then reply.
Another internet resource that has had a powerful effect on the movement is BosNET. Over fifteen hundred direct subscribers and thousands of other receive daily, in-depth news reports concerning events in the region from a variety of news agencies and other sources, as well as activism notes, ACSB and Action Council for Peace in the Balkans publications, and much more. BosNET (also known as BosNews) has informed not only the activists, but also reporters and government officials. One reporter recently wrote, “Even with all the AP and Reuters wire and footage coming into the newsroom day and night, I still can’t get the same feel for the situation [in Bosnia] as I do from BosNEWS.”
The service was initiated and is run entirely by volunteers, most of whom are young people originally from Bosnia or other countries of the former Yugoslavia.18 The volunteer BosNET moderators spend hours every day compiling the reports and sending them out.
Both SAGE-net and BosNET distribute This Week in Bosnia, a publication of the Boston-based Bosnia Action Coalition, written by Sharon Gartenberg. This succinct weekly electronic newsletter containing news and activism suggestions is meant to be printed out and posted in dormitories, workplaces, and places of worship to educate not only the activists, but the wider public.
The internet is used by activists in a multitude of other ways. They set up World-Wide-Web home pages to provide information ranging from maps of the region to photographs and descriptions of accused war criminals. SAGE’s “web-page” encourages its visitors to send a message to the president’s e-mail address—which can be done simply by clicking a button and then typing the message.
Due to the outstanding efforts of those that set up the ZaMir Transnational Net (za mir means “for peace”—it was organized with human rights groups in various countries of the former Yugoslavia) to provide computers, networking equipment, and system operators to people in places like Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zagreb, Belgrade, Pristina, and Ljubljana, the internet also provides an opportunity to communicate with those in the war zone (when electricity and phone lines function) and antiwar activists in other regions of the former Yugoslavia (for example, the Center for Antiwar Action in Belgrade). When Stanford SAGE helped facilitate the arrival in the United States of a Sarajevan family whose child had been injured, most of the early communication took place on the internet, using the ZaMir network. Others took ZaMirnet even further to help counter the effects of the sieges. Kenan Zahirovic, then a university student in Sarajevo, together with an American, Ed Agro, started the Sarajevo Pony Express (SPE)/PISMA. It has worked as a mail service whereby people with access to the internet pass messages from outside the war zone or across battle lines to those otherwise cut off by the war.
Using both traditional and novel tools, activists have created a range of responses to the war. The following broad categories cover most of them: humanitarian aid, education, and political action. A majority of the groups coordinate activities in all realms. Some examples follow below.
The campus initiatives covered a wide range of humanitarian needs. Some groups gathered medical supplies, clothing, or money for established organizations such as the International Rescue Committee, Edin-borough Direct Aid (which delivers supplies by convoy to war-torn areas), the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and many others. One of the most ambitious humanitarian aid collections of this type took place at Harvard University in the 1993–94 academic year. In a weeklong period, all students on the campus were visited and asked to contribute $10 toward the purchase of a truck to bring food and medicine into Sarajevo. Nearly $50,000 was raised.
Zainab Salbi, a graduate student at George Mason University, started her own humanitarian aid organization, Women for Women in Bosnia, during the war. The organization matches American women with Bosnian women who are refugees in Croatia and Bosnia. They share letters, and the Americans send financial support. A central mission of the organization is to raise public awareness among American women about what is happening in Bosnia and about the use of rape as a weapon of war.
On other campuses, students, faculty, or staff solicited scholarships for Bosnian students. These efforts were frequently coordinated with the help of the Bosnian Student Program, led by Professor Michael Sells of Haverford College, or the Bosnia Student Project of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Jerrahi Order. Sells’s group alone has solicited $3.5 million dollars in scholarships for Bosnian students.
Sells sees a parallel between such activities and those of the “sanctuary movement” of the early 1980s, which brought Central Americans who would have been targeted by death squads to America by means of underground railroads. In both, the arrival of a refugee made a huge contribution not only to that person’s future, but to educating and reenergizing the movement that had organized to help him or her:
That was one of the most mainstream protest movements in the U.S., which involved civil disobedience on the part of nuns and other church and synagogue leaders. However, the inertia was similar to today with students on campuses. Once a refugee showed up, it made a big difference. The same thing is true with students from Bosnia. As soon as a student arrives on campus, everything changes. People are waiting for this tribal, Balkan, age-old hating, religious fundamentalist. Instead, a warm, bright student shows up and shocks them. What’s amazing about these students is how rarely they do get angry about what has happened to them. The longer this goes on, though, and bright students are condemned to uncertain futures in refugee camps, the more likely hatreds will spring up and be reinforced. So, I think that anyone who is doing something with refugees is doing something beyond the humanitarian.
Some campus groups work closely with growing local Bosnian refugee populations. This takes the form of English-language tutoring and help with job and college applications. The relationships between students and refugees frequently progress to friendships, as students first-hand about the war and its effects on individuals. Mike Rothenberg spent time working with refugee children from Bosnia and Croatia at a summer camp in Croatia. He also helped bring a family with an injured child from Sarajevo to the Stanford area, and has become close with them. “Feeling I’ve made a difference for individual Bosnians has been the greatest reward of the work I am doing,” Rothenberg said. “The positive effect of our actions on individuals is easy to see, whereas the results of our efforts regarding the larger issues, like stopping genocide, are more difficult to see.”
Many Bosnians living in America choose to engage in activism and participate in student-organized demonstrations, give speeches at colleges and high schools, and speak about their painful experiences to the media. To do so clearly requires a great amount of courage.
In her study of the U.S. antiapartheid movement, Janice Love writes, “the movement’s credibility, legitimacy and success depend in part on the depth and accuracy of its members’ understanding of the forces they want to oppose.”19 This holds equally true in the Balkan anti-genocide movement, which places great importance on education. Activists spend a great amount of time reading newspapers, magazine articles, wire service reports (over the internet), and books to educate themselves.
This information is conveyed to peers through a variety of methods. Many campuses have held a Bosnia lecture series, teach-in, or daylong symposium. Popular speakers include Steve Walker (State Department resignee over U.S. Balkan policy and director of the American Committee to Save Bosnia); Andras Riedlmayer (Harvard librarian and Community of Bosnia member—expert on Bosnia’s cultural heritage); Sven Alkalaj (Bosnia’s ambassador to the United States); Muhamed Sacirbey (Bosnia’s ambassador to the United Nations and former foreign minister); various visiting professors from Bosnia-Herzegovina, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers. Of all the activities that the Bosnia activists plan, these lectures seem to draw the most interest from students, faculty, and staff, and have been used as simultaneous chances to solicit new members and raise money for humanitarian aid initiatives. “Some of our most successful actions have been the numerous events with excellent speakers we were able to hold,” says Tin Gazivoda, a Croatian student and a leader of Stanford University’s SAGE chapter.
Educational efforts are making a difference in raising the level of awareness on campus. For instance, Steve Walker notes an improvement in the quality of questions asked at his college lectures:
A year or two ago audiences were uninformed, and critical or skeptical at first about what I had to say. Questions now are well thought out and largely supportive of our point of view. That has to be attributed to activists on campus and public education efforts as well as events in the Balkans. It’s hard for people to say all sides are to blame after watching the people of Srebrenica and Žepa be “ethnically cleansed.”
Other educational efforts include “tabling” at campus events, distributing articles and information summaries (such as SAGE’s “Twelve Questions on Bosnia”), and writing letters to the editor and editorials for campus newspapers. Activists tend to consider every event they plan, including demonstrations and humanitarian aid activities, as chances for education. More important, most educational efforts are geared toward empowering students to act.
Overall, the activists maintain a strong conviction that humanitarian aid and education are not sufficient steps to stop the genocide. The groups add political activism to these activities in an effort to pressure the U.S. government to help bring a sustainable and just peace to the region and end human rights abuses.
Although there is room for debate and diverse opinion among group members, the student and grassroots organizations and their leaders have been remarkably consistent in their political demands. ACSB and SAGE Coalition affiliates subscribe to and act on nearly identical principles. These include the acknowledgment and condemnation of genocide being committed against the Bosnian people; the insistence on the Bosnian government’s moral and legal right to self-defense; the support for U.S. military action (namely, air strikes) to enforce the protection of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid; the belief in preserving a democratic, viable, and multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina; and the demand for war criminals to be brought to justice. Political action takes several forms, including demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns (using letters, postcards, and petitions), calls to the “White House Comments Line,” and meetings with congressional representatives and their staff members. SAGE, along with other grassroots and human rights organizations, has initiated Freedom of Information Act proceedings to release classified information the U.S. government has about genocide in Bosnia.
In April 1995, SAGE Coalition leaders debated the use of civil disobedience at demonstrations. This subject was considered carefully—students did not want to appear extreme, and wanted instead to ensure that they chose appropriate targets. On some campuses, the tactic was used, but on most it was not. A change came after Srebrenica fell in the summer of 1995. Extremely distressed, many decided that civil disobedience was appropriate at this juncture. Students and other grassroots activists converged on the White House, demonstrated, and were arrested for occupying a restricted area.
The activists who participated conveyed strong reasons for doing so. Joanne Trgovcich is a leader of the Coalition against Genocide at University of the North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she spoke about her motivations that day:
For three years I’ve been doing everything a concerned citizen should be doing—writing letters, making phone calls, helping organize educational forums and peaceful demonstrations. After three years I’m left with a profound sense of disillusionment with my government and with the United Nations. I decided it was time to get arrested to make my point.
Caroline Spicer, a SAGE Coalition activist from the Bosnia Coordinating Committee and a library specialist at Cornell University, also participated. Her experience of civil disobedience brought to mind childhood memories of World War II.
It’s important for me to bear witness. I remember being a kid during the Second World War and hearing about the concentration camps and what had happened to the Jews. I wouldn’t have believed then that in my lifetime I would be going to jail because some people were being persecuted in the same way.
The main political message of the demonstration was to urge Congress to vote to lift Bosnia’s arms embargo, which it subsequently did by a “veto-proof” majority. As Brad Blitz put it then, “We’re here today because we believe the arms embargo should be lifted, because current U.S. policy in Bosnia is absolutely criminal—it is encouraging genocide and the only way forward is to ensure that the Bosnian people have the right to defend themselves.”
Bosnia activists have also employed a technique used successfully by the anti-apartheid movement. Janice Love writes that those activists created a political climate in which the only antiracist option was to support the proposed legislation. “Activists were able to cast the debate so that a moral issue was at stake, and to be against the legislation was to risk a public association with racism.”20 A similar tactic was sometimes used by anti-genocide activists lobbying on the arms embargo legislation. Congressional representatives were told that failing to lift the arms ban would constitute complicity in genocide.
Indeed, it was sometimes this moral argument, rather than the strictly logical one, that won over unexpected votes. California’s senator Dianne Feinstein, in the summer of 1995, was written off by the activists due to her strong opposition to lifting the arms ban. However, the events of Srebrenica apparently changed her mind. She made public statements about the effect of “the devastating photograph of a young Bosnian woman who decided she could not go on and hung herself from a tree. This anonymous image spoke eloquently to me of the desperation facing the Bosnian people as they endure rape, torture, summary execution, and a litany of war crimes.”21
Feinstein described the photograph as “a call for change.”22 And again, once making the moral realization that “there is one thing we cannot do, and that is nothing,” Feinstein found ample logical and military reasons to support her decision to lift the arms embargo. After careful consideration of the latest “Contact Group” negotiations and empty resolutions, she concluded, “It has become painfully clear now that no one will defend the Bosnians except the Bosnians themselves. If no one will defend them, we can no longer deny them the right to defend themselves. And so, I intend to support the Dole/Lieberman resolution [to lift Bosnia’s arms embargo].”23 This was another case of the ocean being spanned by a compelling picture of an individual human being. Feinstein added, “Just as the anonymous white-shirted young man facing down a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square a few years ago conveyed the unspeakable message of oppression to the world, so did this photograph point eloquently to the world’s failure in Bosnia.”24
Unfortunately, repression continues in China, and after years of compelling photographs, the genocide in Bosnia may not have permanently ended. But slowly, one by one, people are taking notice—students with the will to make their voices heard, and people, like Feinstein, who already have the power to affect political reality. Change is happening. The student and grassroots movements, their presence drawing attention to the situation, have helped convince Congress to vote overwhelmingly to grant Bosnians their right to self-defense. Although the measure was vetoed by Clinton, the threat of an override ushered in a period of intense focus and activity on the part of the Clinton administration—a dedication to American involvement in Bosnia, however flawed.
Unfortunately, the story cannot end happily. Too many people have been killed under the watchful eyes of the world. Too many times those that could have stopped the slaughter looked the other way. Even while the current, tremendously unjust (and potentially unsustainable) “peace plan” was being promoted heavily by the world’s most powerful country, genocide was continuing unabated in areas of Bosnia such as Banja Luka. Months into the plan’s implementation, indicted war criminals are still in power. Bosnia supporters are calling the Clinton administration’s solution to the war a “partition plan,” and some, who have not forgotten who started the war and with what deadly goals, name it after its originator—the “Milošević plan.” Whatever they call it, most of the movement’s members accept the plan as the current reality and are working to ensure that important aspects of it are implemented.
These days, Bosnia activists are sticking to their guns and returning to the basic tenets of their organization—the call for “a just peace and the preservation of a democratic, viable, multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Activism for Bosnia will continue until the peace is stable, the Bosnian army is armed and able to defend civilians, war criminals are removed from power and brought to justice, and promised economic aid is fully delivered. The needs for humanitarian aid, rebuilding assistance, and justice for war criminals in the former Yugoslavia will keep the activists busy. Democracy and nonnationalist politics need to be fostered. Brilliant young Bosnians in refugee camps deserve a chance to go to college.
But what will likely motivate the Balkan anti-genocide activists far into the future will be the realization that ethnic violence looms in other areas of the world. Student activists, like Catherine Petrusz, a leader of the Coalition against Genocide (CAGE) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, feel empowered to continue working for justice: “I used to be like one of those who, today, frustrate me with their apathy. This issue has brought me into politics.”
Many would like to see the establishment of a permanent war crimes tribunal. Michael Sells expresses the anti-genocide activists’ challenge to the world: “The anti-genocide movement is one way the world can reenergize itself. The Cold War is over, so now let’s turn our attention to abolishing genocide like slavery was abolished.”
Will the movement continue to grow and gain enough power to push the world community into fulfilling this ambitious mandate? Hopefully it will, but it must first overcome some serious difficulties. These include financial limitations, which are particularly grave for student activists and the national coordinating bodies (SAGE and ACSB). Steve Walker, whose job it is, as director of ACSB, to lead the grassroots activism movement forward, is all too cognizant of the challenges:
One glaring problem on the campus and grassroots level is the lack of resources to do a real outreach effort. We’ve relied instead on people that came to us and national organizations that already existed. I think that will prove to be one of our weaknesses. When a sense of crisis passes, other organizations won’t care as much, and it will be harder to engage new people. The challenge will be to maintain our activists and to grow.
On the other hand, with American soldiers on the ground in Bosnia, anti-genocide groups have witnessed an upsurge of interest in their activities on many campuses. Students seem eager to understand the war and lend assistance to its victims. Some are scheduling summer trips to help with reconstruction.
This chapter presents a snapshot in the life of the campus-based Balkan anti-genocide movement. While far from exhaustive, the study carried out for this chapter was able to ascertain much about the motivations of the activists, their core ideology, the challenges they face, and the activities in which they engage. The positive and negative roles of the media in shaping both the movement and the attitudes of the larger public deserv further attention. So, too, do the innovative uses of modern computing and the internet in the political, humanitarian, and educational realms of the movement. And clearly, a broader study of the general grassroots (noncampus-based as well as campus-based) Balkan anti-genocide movement is warranted.
1. Detailed questionnaires were distributed by electronic mail to roughly twenty-five leading activists from within the campus-based movement around the United States. They contained both open-ended and multiple-choice questions regarding the motivations of the activists, the nature of their individual organizations, the response to their efforts on campus, the major challenges of their work, and the most and least successful types of actions they have undertaken. Nine questionnaires were returned as a result of the initial distribution (nonresponding activists frequently cited a lack of time as the cause of their inability to fill out the detailed questionnaire). Therefore, a further seven interviews were conducted over the telephone with key activists, using identical questions. In addition, the questionnaire was distributed to and filled out by five leaders of the Stanford University chapter of SAGE. The returned questionnaires contained lengthy personal comments. Detailed autobiographical reasons for participation in the anti-genocide movement were provided in both written questionnaires and interviews; this resulted in a privileged view of the motivations of the activists and the challenges that face them.
In addition, a separate questionnaire was prepared and used in interviews of a random sample of twenty Stanford University students (nonmembers of SAGE) in the student union area of campus on October 10, 1995. Interviews lasted roughly fifteen to twenty minutes each and probed the students’ interest in the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, their understandings of and attitudes about the war, their opinions about potential American involvement, and the likelihood that they would attend various activities that campus-based anti-genocide groups might sponsor. Students were not told the subject of the questionnaire when they were asked to participate; response rate (those agreeing to be interviewed as a percentage of the number asked to participate) was very high (over 90 percent); and once interviews began, they were completed in all twenty cases.
Finally, some of the information and quotations are derived from informal interviews of roughly thirty activists conducted on videotape by recent Cornell University graduate and SAGE Coalition activist, Erik Nisbet. The interviews were recorded on July 16, 1995, during and after a demonstration in front of the White House, which campus activists, community activists, and concerned citizens from around the country attended. At the demonstration, several dozen Bosnia supporters were arrested for civil disobedience while protesting the U.S. failure to intervene and prevent the fall of the UN-declared “safe area,” Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
2. The Tyndall Report, ADT Research; cited in the Guardian, October 4, 1995, and the Washington Post, January 3, 1996.
3. See, for example, Yankelovich poll for CNN/Time Magazine, conducted July 19–20, 1995 (52 percent of those polled said the United States “does not have any moral obligation to protect citizens of Bosnia against Serbian attacks”); Times Mirror Center for People and the Press poll released June 24, 1995 (61 percent surveyed opposed using U.S. forces to end the “Bosnian civil war”); in a Newsweek magazine poll released June 3, 1995, the majority of Americans polled (61 percent) would “support U.S. ground forces taking part in any and all peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia”; in a University of Maryland poll (report authored by Steven Kull, released May 16, 1995), a majority of adult Americans polled (64 percent) favored “large-scale military intervention to stop ethnic cleansing,” holding true even assuming 3,500 American fatalities (60 percent still favored); however, a majority opposed United States unilateral lifting of the arms embargo (73 percent); Wall Street Journal/NBC television poll, March 11, 1994, found those surveyed favored U.S. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia (53 percent). (In many of these polls, and those taken earlier in the war, however, the majority supported U.S. ground troops to help with UN withdrawal or with enforcing a peace agreement. Perhaps this explains why President Clinton, one president to whom the polls seem to matter very much, pursued just such an intervention as elections drew nearer.)
4. The text of the letter reads as follows:
Dear Senator:
We are writing to urge you to vote yes on the Dole-Lieberman bill (S. 21) to end the U.S. arms embargo against the Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We also urge you to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill and to recruit your colleagues as co-sponsors.
The war in Bosnia is now well into its fourth year. Over 200,000 civilians have been brutally murdered by Serbian forces, tens of thousands of women raped, and almost three million people have been forced to flee their homes and villages. Serbian forces have been able to carry out their genocidal assault on Bosnia with virtual impunity because of an immoral arms embargo that denies the legitimate government of Bosnia the means to exercise its inherent right to self-defense.
The response of the United Nations to the aggression has been to send poorly armed peacekeepers, even though there is no peace to keep. In recent weeks, Serbian forces have been allowed to overrun two of the six UN-declared “safe areas,” and the UN mission has approached total collapse. The lesson we must learn is that only the Bosnian Army has the will and the manpower to defend the fledgling multi-ethnic democracy and its citizens against further attacks.
It is also clear that the ultra-nationalist Serbian leaders have no interest in negotiating while they can accomplish their military and political objectives by attacking Bosnia’s remaining civilian population. Until the Bosnian Army can mount a credible defense on the ground, this cowardly war of aggression will continue. And we must live in the knowledge that, at least in part, we are responsible for tying the hands of the victims.
The organizations listed below represent a wide range of religious, humanitarian, student, and citizen advocacy groups. Some of the names will be familiar to you; others have been formed in recent months by voters outraged by the genocide and our feeble and immoral response to it. We have joined together today to ask for your support for the Dole-Lieberman bill.
The U.S. and its allies, NATO, and the UN have failed to stop the aggression. Unless Congress acts—and acts NOW—thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, more innocent people will die and the price of eventually confronting this aggression will continue to rise.
By voting for Dole-Lieberman, you will be taking a clear stand against genocide, against aggression, against appeasement, and for an honorable and sustainable peace in Bosnia. You will be rejecting the failed policies of European countries that have facilitated more than three years of genocide. You will be voting for the one policy that makes moral, political, and military sense.
Vote YES on the Dole-Lieberman bill.
Sincerely,
Action Council for Peace in the Balkans, American Committee to Save Bosnia, American Council for Public Affairs, American Jewish Congress, American Muslim Council, American Task Force for Bosnia, Arab American Institute, B’nai B’rith, Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot, Islamic Network, Muslim Public Affairs Council, National Association of Arab Americans, National Federation of Croatian Americans, National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Academic Society of Bosnia-Herzegovina, American Bosnian and Hercegovinian Association, Americans for Bosnian Orphans, Ann Arbor Committee for Bosnia, BosNet Society, Bosnia Advocates of Metrowest, Bosnia Briefings, Bosnia Support Committee of D.C., Bosnia Task Force, San Diego, Bosnia-Herzegovinian Help Organization, California Coalition against Ethnic Cleansing, Coalition against Genocide, Coalition for Intervention against Genocide, Free Bosnia Action Group, Friends of Bosnia (W. Mass), Friends of Bosnia, Philadelphia, Greenwich Coalition for Peace in Bosnia, Human Rights Council, USA, JACOB at B’Nai Jeshurun, Jews against Genocide/NY Committee to Save Bosnia, Jews against Genocide in Bosnia, New England Bosnian Relief Committee, New Hampshire Committee for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, New York-Sarajevo Exchange, Students against Genocide (SAGE), Social Action Committee/Congregation Beth El, Stop Ethnic Cleansing, U.S. Bosnia Relief, Women in Islam.
5. See the full text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (U.N. GAOR Res. 260A (III), December 9, 1948) in appendix 2 of this volume.
6. KRON-TV Channel 4 news, “Surviving Bosnia,” February 13, 1996.
7. The arguments have been set out in a legal memorandum, ‘The Arms Embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina Violates the Inherent Right to Self-Defense,” by Paul R. Williams, with the support of Michael Scharf, former attorney-advisers for European and United Nations affairs, respectively, for the United States Department of State. Prepared for the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans, February 1994.
8. Quoted in D. J. Schemo, “Holocaust Museum Hailed as Sacred Debt to Dead,” New York Times, April 23, 1993, Al.
9. See, for example, L. Katz, “Holocaust Survivors in Conflict over Bosnian War,” Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, July 21, 1995, 1.
10. World News Saturday, ABC, June 3, 1995. Results of the Newsweek magazine poll are described above.
11. There are notable exceptions. Some faculty, such as William Hunt (St. Lawrence University) and Michael Sells (Haverford College), initiated impressive humanitarian efforts. Others, including Ivo Banac (Yale University), Thomas Cushman (Wellesley College), John Fine (University of Michigan), Stjepan Meštrovic (Texas A&M University), Andras Riedlmayer (Harvard University), and Carolyn Spicer (Cornell University), primarily undertook to educate the student body and wider community. Still other faculty led efforts that included political action along with education and humanitarian aid—notably Gunseli Berik (University of Utah), Francis Boyle (University of Illinois-Champaign), Joshua Goldstein (American University), Catharine MacKinnon (University of Michigan), and John Weiss (Cornell University). This list is by no means exhaustive.
12. “The Menace of War,” comment, Progressive, September 1995, 1.
13. These incredibly tragic events occur over and over. Citing “realpolitik,” American leaders refrain from opposing and preventing the most severe atrocities. For example, on September 20, 1995, the New York Times published an article indicating that paramilitary death squad leader Zeljko Raznatović (“Arkan”) and his forces were being sent by Belgrade to Banja Luka. Given his extensive record of war atrocities, anyone could predict that his forces would not be used for military purposes, but rather for terror and destruction of the small remaining population of non-Serbs in Banja Luka (originally the city contained over three hundred thousand non-Serbs). Why did the Clinton administration or its chief negotiator in the former Yugoslavia, Richard Holbrooke, not pressure Milošević to recall Arkan? Why weren’t air strikes threatened? At that time, the Clinton administration was preoccupied instead with pressuring Bosnian forces to refrain from liberating Banja Luka, and was rehabilitating Serbian president Milošević as a “peacemaker” and “dove” in the name of a “peace plan.” Sure enough, a few weeks later the New York Times was reporting (October 10, 1995) that the few survivors of Arkan’s latest brutal “ethnic cleansing” campaign were straggling in to Bosnian government territory. Thousands are still unaccounted for. The activists are demanding that the U.S. government be made accountable for the crime of not responding in situations like these, for failing to lift a hand and prevent the preventable.
14. “Accomplices to Genocide,” New Republic, August 7, 1995, 7.
15. M. Duberman, “On Misunderstanding Student Rebels,” in Essays on the Student Movement, ed. Patrick Gleeson (Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 1970), 26.
16. J. Love, The U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement (New York: Praeger, 1985), 228–29.
17. The “Call for Action,” adopted January 8, 1995, by the Students against Genocide Coalition, reads,
We are deeply concerned by the aggression and genocide taking place in Bosnia. To bring a quick and just end to the suffering of the people in Bosnia, SAGE Coalition actively supports humanitarian assistance efforts and promotes the following Call for Action:
1) The United States and other governments must acknowledge and condemn the genocide that is being committed against the Bosnian people and invoke the Genocide Convention.
2) The United States and other countries must actively support the Bosnian government’s moral and legal right to self-defense and ensure that it has the means to do so.
3) The United States and other countries should lead the international community, acting through appropriate multilateral bodies—including NATO—in using all necessary means to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Bosnia, especially those guaranteeing delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection of civilians.
4) The United States and other governments should sponsor and mediate new negotiations with the goal of a negotiated settlement that provides for a just peace and the preservation of a democratic, viable, multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5) The United States and other countries should investigate and ensure accountability of the activities and behavior of the United Nations and its agencies in the conflict.
6) The International War Crimes Tribunal should be fully funded and supported by our governments.
18. Founders of BosNET, moderators, and others who helped with establishing and running the service include Lazer Berisha, Zeljko Bodulovic, Muris Cicic, Adnan Dzinic, Murat Erkocevic, Iztok and Stela Hozo, Dubravko Kakarigi, Dzevat Omeragic, Duško Pavlović, Nairn Saiti, Zlatko Sijercic, Omer Sulejma-nagich, Davor Wagner, and Nermin Zukic.
19. Love, op. cit., 13.
20. Ibid., 233.
21. D. Feinstein, “Unilaterally Lifting the Arms Embargo in Bosnia,” Speech in U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, July 25, 1995.
22. D. Feinstein, “U.S. Policy in Bosnia,” statement, July 19, 1995.
23. Feinstein, “Unilaterally Lifting the Arms Embargo.”
24. Feinstein, “U.S. Policy in Bosnia.”