Genocide on the Drina River

"The book focuses on seven municipalities of eastern Bosnia, exploring the patterns of mass violence in Zvornik, Vlasenica, Bratunac, Rogatica, Foča, Višegrad, and Srebrenica, leading to the 1995 genocide. Essentially, Bećirević argues that the massacres at Srebrenica were not the only instances of genocide in Bosnia, but one instance in a carefully planned process of genocide that began in 1992 and aimed to bring Bosnian Muslims from the whole of Bosnia Herzegovina to extinction. It’s a very compelling book and is built on a vast amount of evidence, not just from Bosnia itself, but from the prosecutions at the Hague, where the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has built a huge archive. It shows the entire operation of planning and realization of genocide comprehensively and more broadly than you’ll find elsewhere. It tells the whole story of the so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’ that culminated in the 1992-1995 genocide in Srebrenica. On another personal note, Edina was one of my mentors when I stepped into the world of court reporting from the Hague tribunal. Through her mentorship, Edina helped the development of my journalism career and she empowered me to take a more active role in the process of democratization and human rights protection in my country. It’s not often that women in our region are in place to provide mentorship and solidarity to other women and I remain eternally grateful for this to her."