It would be unlikely that a child raised in a different culture would seek revenge for a dad or uncle he never met.
This book should be dedicated to Moses.
Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by Beverly Allen. University of Minnesota Press, 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 209, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520, 1996, 180 pages, $20.00.
Rape Warfare is a compelling book and a necessary read for all military officers who will serve or are serving abroad and for planners responsible for implementing Joint Publications 3-07.6 (Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Humanitarian Assistance Operations) and 3-08 (Interagency Coordination During Joint Operations). All forms of genocidal rape constitute the crime of genocide as described in Article II, United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Allen’s book is a testimony and an analysis of the horrifying phenomenon of "a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide." While the United States military would never engage in such a policy, unfortunately we have or will become involved with nations that do. Sometimes we become involved in the horrors and ramifications of rape. Remember the incident in Okinawa? There, three members of the armed forces of the United States raped a 12 year old Japanese girl. This incident embroiled our government in a foreign legal system, closed bases, destroyed decades of goodwill and credibility, and gravely offended one of our important Asian allies. Allen takes the United States to task over our lack of understanding rape and lambaste Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia over their use of rape to further military policy.
As defined by Allen, rape warfare is "a military policy for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and Croatia by members of the Yugoslav Army, the Bosnian Serb forces, Serb militias in Croatia and B-H, the irregular Serb forces known as Chetniks, and Serb civilians." There are three main forms of this "genocidal rape" that Allen has identified. First, Chetniks or other Serb forces enter a B-H or Croatian village, take several women of varying ages from their homes, rape them in public view, and depart. The news of this atrocious event spreads rapidly throughout the village. Several days later, regular Bosnian Serb soldiers or Serb soldiers from the Yugoslav Army arrive and offer the now-terrified residents safe passage away from the village on the condition they never return. Most accept, leaving the village abandoned to the Serbs and thus furthering the genocidal plan of "ethnic cleansing."
Second, B-H and Croatian women being held in Serb concentration camps are chosen at random to be raped, often as part of torture preceding death. Third, Serb, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb soldiers, Bosnian Serb militias, and Chetniks arrest B-H and Croatian women, imprison them in a rape/death camp, and rape them systematically for extended periods of time. Such rapes are either part of torture preceding death or part of torture leading to forced pregnancy. Pregnant victims are raped consistently until such time as their pregnancies have progressed beyond the possibility of a safe abortion and are then released. In the first case, the death of the victim contributes to the genocidal goal; in the second, the birth of a child does, for the perpetrator or the policy according to which he is acting considers the child to be only Serb and to have none of the identity of the mother.
Allen does not offer political-military remedies to the horror of genocidal rape. She feels that the arms embargo should be lifted so that the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina can defend itself and fight to regain territory conquered by the criminal Serb aggression. Politically there are no remedies either since they would depend on negotiations with the architects and executors of the policy of rape. But she does offer some very sound and workable humanitarian and legal remedies. Some of the most effective remedial work in caring for victims has been done by non-government organizations and private individuals offering aid and refuge. Her analysis of outside government "humanitarian" aid found it was accompanied by the almost total refusal to intervene in any way to stop the atrocities happening to the same people they were trying to keep alive.
Legal remedies suggested by Allen include the dropping of the British (and American) tradition of common law for the juridical system derived from Roman Law and the Napoleonic Code. By addressing genocidal rape under these codes, it would be possible to bring Radovan Karadzic and the Serb army officers (General Blagoje Adizic and General Milan Guero) who authored the Ram and Brana plans (which promulgated the military policy of ethnic cleansing) to trial, even if they are not present. Allen also strongly advocates that a permanent tribunal be established so that instances of genocidal rape in particular and genocide in general, as well as other war crimes, be adjudicated on an ongoing basis.
Just as the reader is taking all of this in, Allen, using the definition that biological warfare is, "a voluntary use of living organisms or their toxic products with the aim of killing or harming persons, useful animals, or plants," concludes that genocidal rape is a type of biological warfare. She explains this conclusion by demonstrating that as a systemic policy, rape is willfully destructive and aimed at harming. Secondly, it is used to attack a highly susceptible sector of a population, women and children, who are under the threat of death, whether imprisoned or not. Third, sperm, as used in genocidal rape for enforced pregnancy, attacks a specific biological system in its victims: the reproductive systems of women capable of gestating a pregnancy. Fourth, genocidal rape has both immediate and long-term effects; immediately it produces atrocious physical pain, mental suffering, and often death; long-term produces social ostracism, psychological trauma, and possible death by abortion, childbirth or suicide. Therefore, according to Allen, genocidal rape qualifies as biological warfare, a crime and a UN Treaty violation.
What Allen has done is take a giant step in justifying the American/UN/ NATO presence in the Balkans and its continuing presence. These organizations are as opposed to the use of biological warfare as they are adamantly opposed to the use of chemical and nuclear weapons. Therefore, for this and other reasons, there is justification for intervention in the Balkans and other regions as well.
This book is written on a level of detail as to make the reader extremely uncomfortable as well as more knowledgeable about the concept of rape warfare. It must be read at least two or three times to understand the dimensions of what Dr. Allen has seen, researched and synthesized. The book calls for actions that will aid survivors, judge the perpetrators, and do what is required to guard against the atrocity of genocidal rape in the future. Otherwise, as Dr. Allen writes, we will never move towards any new formulations of justice and peace in our disordered world.
D. G. Bradford
Orlando, FL
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