An Irregular Architecture of Defence

When violence began in spring 1992, the Sarajevo government was forced to rely on a loose coalition of irregular armed groups, some of which were created under the auspices of state and pro-government forces, while others were genuine grassroots paramilitary groups. The chapter explains that the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina emerged disjointed, at first made up of a network of units organised along roughly conventional military lines and spontaneously created militia formations. The spontaneity of the Bosnian defence came out of necessity rather than design, and meant that irregular armed groups were the foundation of military capabilities. But as the conflict progressed, central authorities were constantly seeking to create a disciplined regular command structure. An irregular, spontaneous, and unified armed coalition meant that the Bosnian government was ill equipped to effectively protect its populations and was hampered in its efforts to convince the international community of their urgent need for protection.

Conclusions and Lessons

Within perpetrating structures, elite architects are able to manipulate domestic and international prejudices by perpetuating myths of non-state violence as part of their imagined exclusionary narrative, in order not only to legitimise violence but seemingly to explain or even predict it. This dimension of atrocity architecture has emerged in part as a response to the apparent rise in proxy wars and the perceived prevalence of irregular structures of violence around the world. Atrocity crimes are political acts, increasingly framed in a context of uncontrollable civilian struggle. In the modern world, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide often require a significant degree of social complicity. Perpetuating narratives of non-state violence enables state elites to encourage and sanction a spectrum of actors—civilian or otherwise—to participate in armed struggle while themselves remaining on the margins. When identity-based crimes are committed by combatants claiming to represent the perpetrating identity rather than the state, the objectives of the crimes are fulfilled as much by the symbolism of their implementation as by their violent actualisation.

Architectures of Violence and Atrocity

Almost all states use paramilitary groups, but even the most militarised regimes shy away from parading their covert and clandestine purveyors of violence. Therefore, despite the prevalence of armed formations that exist outside formal armies, understanding how these groups operate remains a challenge for global peacekeeping, civilian protection, and atrocity prevention efforts. As this chapter explains, the problem arises when extra-ordinary units participate, and do so apparently independently of state or other external control. The ambiguity of command can conceal the intentions that sometimes lie behind the participation and objectives of those groups, thereby obscuring responsibility and accountability. It is for these reasons that irregular combatants have, in various guises, been present during virtually every case of genocide in the twentieth century.

An Architecture of Opportunism

The irregular dynamics that emerged with the support of Croatian state structures may not have been either as planned or as efficient as their Serbian counterparts, but pro-Croat paramilitary groups enjoyed a similarly varied degree of patronage from their political and military authorities. Irregulars were responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed against non-Croats in Croatia and in Bosnia. The chapter explains that the majority of irregular perpetrators of the documented crimes fit into the Croat architecture of violence and were only rarely genuinely independent combatants. While the various paramilitary, militia and local defence units contributed numbers and ideology to the evolution of the Croatian military architecture, the military police force ran like a central artery through emergent armed commands in both Croatia and Bosnia. Ultimately, the Croatian strategy was characterised by the pragmatic pursuit of its political objectives through violent and diplomatic means.

Criminal Structures

Mass atrocity crimes are inherently political. They are, above all, about power. The architectures this book explores are similar in many respects to those of mafias and organised crime. There is a clear logic to arguing that the criminology of modern mass atrocities can be understood as scaled up forms of organised crime. Certainly, conceptualising mass atrocities as organised crime puts focus upon their logic, rather than the all too often misunderstood ‘causes’ of atrocities. This chapter explores the overlap and collaboration between the architectures of mass atrocity and the architectures of organised crime. Understanding the criminal dynamics of mass atrocities as part of the larger violent and irregular architecture is crucial not only for post-atrocity reconstruction, but for prevention strategies too. This chapter therefore explores how cultures of organised crime and corruption can be created by elite structures but can also stimulate more spontaneous or day-to-day participation in criminal activity and can shift perceptions of what is and is not legally or morally permissible.

Cultures of Violence, Local Networks and Social Complicity

In contexts such as Bosnia and Croatia, local fighters are more likely to know their victims and are less likely to be able to conceal their actions from their own family or community. If many of the victims knew their perpetrators, so too did others in the local community know who was being victimised, and often by whom. Throughout Bosnia and Croatia, the proximity of victims and perpetrators within the same local area also meant that individuals could identify what they perceived as the direct personal benefits that could be gained from participating in armed activities, be that looting, acquiring stolen property or taking revenge for petty disputes. This chapter explores the social networks and the structural and emotional relationships that supported the irregulars and their causes from the localities, within communities, and even within families. It also considers the broader entropic socio-cultural processes that stemmed from and impacted upon paramilitary dynamics.

Constructing an Architecture of Atrocity

The visible participation of paramilitaries in Serbia from 1991 succeeded in simultaneously downplaying the capacity (and intent) of the Serbian irregulars while exaggerating the capabilities of the Croatian or Bosniak opposition. Most importantly, it also elevated the roles played by the (largely imagined) communities. This chapter explains how revisionist history provided an analogy by which the Serbian leadership could falsely equate the Serbian and Bosnian forces, while continuing to exercise command over well-trained, well-equipped irregular units behind the scenes. Throughout the crisis, the Serbian and Bosnian Serb political leaderships offered explanations for the decentralised nature of the violence in Bosnia that exaggerated the presence of paramilitary and irregular units to provide evidence that it was a non-linear, community-based conflict, concealing the calculated political rationale of the organised violence against civilian communities.

Introduction

This book addresses the persistent—and growing—challenge facing the international community of how to respond to mass atrocities in situations where the perpetrating and/or defensive military structures contain irregular elements. This chapter introduces the term ‘architectures of violence’ as a means of better understanding the structures, networks, and relationships of command, control and influence that connect states, localities, organised crime and society with the perpetration of international crimes. The perception that irregular military dynamics were propelling the Yugoslav conflagration seemingly legitimised existing prejudices—both in the region and abroad—of the Balkans and its history. The introduction explains that those tasked with predicting, preventing and responding to modern mass atrocities, from policy makers to civil society, are not learning lessons from patterns of behaviour that are too frequently repeated.