Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West

by David Rieff

In a shocking and deeply disturbing tour de force, David Rieff, reporting from the Bosnia war zone and from Western capitals and United Nations headquarters, indicts the West and the United Nations for standing by and doing nothing to stop the genocide of the Bosnian Muslims. Slaughterhouse is the definitive explanation of a war that will be remembered as the greatest failure of Western diplomacy since the 1930s.
Bosnia was more than a human tragedy. It was the emblem of the international community's failure and confusion in the post-Cold War era. In Bosnia, genocide and ethnic fascism reappeared in Europe for the first time in fifty years. But there was no will to confront them, either on the part of the United States, Western Europe, or the United Nations, for which the Bosnian experience was as catastrophic and demoralizing as Vietnam was for the United States. It is the failure and its implications that Rieff anatomizes in this unforgiving account of a war that might have been prevented and could have been stopped.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, Islam

274 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

David Rieff is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism.

Reviews

[Beau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult, but working balance between different ethnic groups existed in Yugoslavia for several decades after WWII. That balance was destroyed in the early 1990's by corrupt leadership, greed, lust for power, and the reluctance to intervene by those with the means to stop the violence. Rieff's writes with the energy of his journalistic roots, but is purposefully incendiary--clearly taking a moral stance in his portrayal of the conflict in which "white" Europeans descended again into the hell of ethnic cleansing.

[Rodrigo Mares · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terminé de leer esta obra del analista político y periodista estadounidense David Rieff (Boston, 1952), escrita con base en su experiencia in situ durante la Guerra de Bosnia —nombre inadecuado, según él, para lo que en realidad fue una carnicería unilateral— entre 1992 y 1994.

Rieff ofrece no tanto una crónica como un análisis de la situación que se desenvolvía en el estado separatista, como lo había sido Croacia no mucho tiempo antes, por lo que la mayoría de los sucesos no siguen un estricto orden cronológico. Asimismo, gran parte del esfuerzo del autor se dedica a realizar un balance de las acciones y, más importante, las omisiones de Naciones Unidas por medio de su Fuerza de Protección (FORPRONU) para la antigua Yugoslavia, y el Alto Comisionado para los Refugiados (ACNUR). Rieff no teme tomar partido y a lo largo de su texto se lee pro-bosnio —postura que he compartido desde que me interesó el tema por primera vez—, y denuncia la incompetencia, la hipocresía, y la apatía con que la ONU y los gobiernos occidentales mal manejaron el asunto desde el momento del sitio contra Sarajevo por parte de los serbios —designación étnica, no de ciudadanía—, e incluso el cinismo y el claro sesgo a favor de los atacantes, quienes estaban cometiendo un genocidio, pobremente disfrazado bajo el eufemismo de "limpieza étnica", frente a todo el mundo. Y cómo, aún así, la OTAN, Naciones Unidas, y los gobiernos que las forman, decidieron no intervenir aduciendo las justificaciones más ridículas y escudándose en una forma vergonzosamente a tono con la infame Defensa de Nürnberg.

Sin embargo, se dedica un capítulo al reconocimiento de la actuación del personal de ACNUR, por lo menos mientras estuvo bajo el mando del español José María Mendiluce Pereiro, quienes fueron los únicos que actuaron con decencia, principios morales, y bajo los principios que, se supone, rigen ese ideal decadente conocido como ONU. Rieff admite que los bosnios vivieron de la peor manera su situación debido a su condición de blancos europeos a quienes "esto no debió haberles pasado", pues consideraban que tal tragedia era más característica del Tercer Mundo. Al respecto, el entonces Secretario General de la ONU, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, emitía la opinión de que los bosnios deberían considerar que su tragedia era una más entre otras, y que había problemas más importantes que atender en aquellos otros rincones del mundo. Al final del día, para Occidente, los bosnios y en especial los Bošnjaci —musulmanes objetivo principal del genocidio serbio— eran las víctimas de su propia necedad al aferrarse a mantener unido a un estado bosnio, independiente de Yugoslavia, y su negativa a ceder los territorios que reclamaban los fanáticos alentados por Radovan Karadžić y apoyados desde Belgrado por Slobodan Milošević y su Ejército Popular Yugoslavo. El libro cierra con un epílogo sobre el Acuerdo de Dayton y sus repercusiones inmediatas, así como el recordatorio de que "comprender no es perdonar".

Esta es definitivamente una lectura obligada para cualquier persona interesada en temas de Derechos Humanos. Sin embargo, también nos viene bien a quienes tenemos complejo clasemediero, lo cual, según el autor, fue causa de una gran desilusión entre los bosnios, dado que "una educación de clase media es cualquier cosa menos la mejor preparación para una vida de refugiado". Fuera de una redacción en ocasiones enredada —en parte por la introducción de nombres, cargos, y antecedentes, en parte quizás por la traducción—, y de un par de comentarios que se leen un poco misóginos, se trata de un libro excelente. Lo recomiendo ampliamente.

[Merricat Blackwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was one of the best arguments for humanitarian intervention that I've ever read, which is not to say that it convinced me, but it forced me to think deeply. It's much better than the last book I read about the Balkan wars, Misha Glenny's The Fall of Yugoslavia, and addresses some of the things I found baffling about that book (like the bizarre claim that Bosnians might have mortared their own marketplace in Sarajevo in 1994) with considerably better attention to the evidence. It also lays out practical tensions in the ideology of "peacekeeping"--what's the point of diplomacy without the threat of force to back it up? Who does the international community listen to when the victor wants to impose an unjust peace while the victimized party wants to keep fighting a just war?--in a way that helped me to think practically about what exactly international law is.

I've been reading about the Balkan wars recently in part because I've seen a lot of people (on various sides) drawing parallels between these wars and Russia's present war on Ukraine, but the major parallel that came to mind as I read this book was Palestine. There’s a clear parallel in the idea that a people who have suffered invasion, massacre, and ethnic cleansing ought to give up the idea of returning to their land or getting any sort of redress for the sake of “peace.” Rieff writes, reflecting on the failures of UN peacekeeping: “The Serbs had committed great crimes, of course; everyone conceded that. But now they were, UN officials kept insisting, ready to sit around the table and make peace. Why wouldn’t the Bosnians go along?” To me it’s impossible to read this without thinking of the pro-Israel refrain: “We OFFERED them a state.” Here’s Rieff later in the book, on accusations that the Bosnian government was inflicting more suffering on its own people for the sake of international attention: “The only weapon they had in ample supply was their own suffering. And if they sometimes waited to remove a body until the foreign journalists had arrived, or sometimes seemed almost masochistic in their refusal to negotiate agreements that might have secured a little more electricity or gas for Sarajevo, this did not mean, as UN people in Zagreb, Sarajevo, and New York sometimes liked to contend, that they were the authors of their own suffering. They were the victims.” This, to me, obviously parallels the common international complaint that Palestine’s government spends too much on defense and not enough on the needs of its people. I was struck by a peripheral bit about the Grand Mufti of Palestine recruiting an SS battalion in Bosnia, as the Grand Mufti’s Nazi sympathies are, for some reason, a common talking point for people who want to defend atrocities against Palestinians in the twenty-first century. Bosnians didn’t deserve to be ethnically cleansed for the sins of their ancestors, and neither do Palestinians.

[Ethan Doerstling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important insight into the Bosnian war from a journalist’s point of view. It’s hard to explain how vital I think some of the ideas in this book are to real justice and peace in the world.

“If the purpose of a mission is to stop war, and one side, having won, appears ready to settle, while the other side, feeling it’s cause to be just but having turned out to be a loser, is determined to fight on, then those running this mission are likely to find that most of the time their interests coincide with those of the victors.” (175)

“… neutrality is a very different moral construct from impartiality. To be neutral is to make it known that, when all is said and done, one does not care that much what happens.” (247)

[Len Boselovic · Rating 1 out of 5]

A genuine literary slog. Rieff's self-righteous indictment of the UN's failure to stop the genocide in Bosnia might be more effective if it wasn't so mind-numbingly repetitive. It is argued with a multitude of 50-, 60- even 100-word sentences that force the reader to return to the start of them to figure out what point he was trying ineptly to make. Instead of dispassionately laying out the case and letting readers come to his conclusion on their own, Rieff employs a nine-pound hammer. My head still hurts. There are far more compelling books on the subject, notably David Rohde's Endgame.

[Женя Ноир · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for anyone that wasn't around back then to see the events unfold as they were happening. An excellent analysis of the role of the "international community", the UN and their inaction/ complacency that resulted in horrific events that will continue to reverberate in terms of what is possible and what continues to be possible in Europe, to this day. You will recognise the same mistakes (?) and patterns from the past being repeated over and over again. Recommended.

[Shimaa Elsaeed · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب بيتناول قضية البوسنة و الهرسك من منظور مختلف، مش بيسرد تفاصيل المذابح و الفظائع بصورة كبيرة لكن ركز اكتر علي موقف المجتمع الغربي و الأمم المتحدة من القضية واللي كان بإمكانها تعمل كتير لكن اكتفت بموقف المتفرج تجاه واحدة من أسوأ قضايا التطهير العرقي اللي شهدها العالم ، و بعدين بيتكلم عن التحولات النفسية اللي طرأت علي المجتمعات دي سواء المجتمع البوسني او حتي المجتمع الصربي.

[C.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think david rieff brings valuable insight into the failings of the UN in interfering with the bosnian war. however, what i wanted more from this book was an understanding of the people it actually effected. it takes away too much focus from the victims.

[Scott Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a genocide, Bosnian needed humanitarian and governmental assistance in the brutality from the Serbs. Same is happening in Palestine on a larger scale right now, finger out Starmer.

[Ru Cheeseman · Rating 3 out of 5]

First 30 pages well worth all to read.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm only on page 45, and I'm blown away by his honest and to-the-point indictment of the West's failure to stop the massacre in Bosnia. I'm glad I read Ed Vulliamy's "Season of Hell" first, which explains the history of the region and the actual events in detail.

"Knowledge, in any case, is not power. If the fall of Yugoslavia, televised down to the lat detail, teaches anything, it is that simple fact."

[Rachel D · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this book very much. The writing was very repetitive and often hard to follow; the arguments were unclear. If there was a logic to how the book was organized, I didn't see it. There wasn't much analysis, just a lot of description. Lots of "how" but little on "why". Did he really need 200+ pages to tell us all the different ways in which the UN failed Bosnia?

[Marcy Heller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening and erudite, but a little too in depth for the general reader.

[Víctor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leído en español