Description

Based on the author's experiences as a serving soldier and European Commission Monitor, a narrative account of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia

Brendan O'Shea had access to both EU and UN official documents for his research and used these to unravel the complex story of the Bosnian war. He tells the tragic story of what happened at the "safe haven" at Bihac in northwestern Bosnia between 1992 and 1996, showing the Bosnian civil war in microcosm. At Bihac, Muslims fought all variety of Serb, Muslims fought Muslims, and the Croats interfered continually, thereby ensuring a rapid descent into bitter civil war and a vindictive power struggle. "Ethnic cleansing" was rife, and horrific war crimes that shocked the world were committed on all sides. Local politicians manipulated the desperate refugee situation in order to extract concessions, humanitarian aid, and considerable sums of money from the UN and other agencies, and then siphoned off huge quantities to pay for military arms and equipment. O'Shea reveals how the generals manipulated all agencies who came to assist them to ensure their own military and political advancement. Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and Slobodan Milosevic are still names that stick horribly in the memory. As every party to the Bosnian tragedy promoted their own version of events as the truth, O'Shea reveals the numerous layers of deceit and dishonesty.