Personal Reflection by Susan Orsini

The “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia is a key example that proves that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did the complete and total opposite thing than what it was created for. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created to defend the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created to prevent another tragedy such as the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in the many years since it was approved, tragedies concerning the human rights of people have occurred all over the world. These very incidents that occurred after the sanction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proves that the United Nations is ineffective when it comes to the prevention and halting of these horrid events. The one example of human rights violations that occurred after the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the vile actions that happened in former Yugoslavia. In this particular case, the ethnic groups chose violence as an escape from their hatred of the other ethnicities in their country, and for their desire of liberty from the country. Due to the hatred of the many different ethnic groups living in the same country, each ethnic background would kill the others for domination of former Yugoslavia. The Serbs would drive the Bosniaks out of their territories, the Croats would force the Serbs out of the territory they were in, the Serbs would fight the Albanians in many places such as Kosovo, and the Bosniaks would continually kill the Serbs that were found in the area that they occupied. The world basically sat back and watched as the human rights of the thousands of people who were living in former Yugoslavia were being violated. At one point, the UN and NATO stepped in to try and get the different ethnic backgrounds to agree to a peace settlement, but all of their attempts only ended up in more hatred of the other ethnic backgrounds and more bloody fights. There were no safe areas in former Yugoslavia. Thousands of people, including civilians, were forced to leave their homes, if they had not been killed already. There was no mercy, there was no safe hideout. What could be said as the most safe area was the NATO "secured safe areas”, but even those were not completely safe from enemy attack.

This “ethnic cleansing” was similar to Holocaust in many ways, but it was on a much smaller scale. The killings were carried out on purpose, based solely on personal identity. When the Germans were discriminating against people based on their personal identity, to kill them, traits such as Jewish, Homosexual, Gypsies and so on were the targeted points. In the case of former Yugoslavia, it was done for the same reasoning as the Germans eliminated the Jews in the Holocaust—their ethnicity. In former Yugoslavia being a Serb to the Bosnians, Slovenians, Croatians and Albanians, and being Muslim to the Serbs was their form of “ethnic cleansing” like the Jews were to the Germans. Another example was in the case of the Srebrenica Massacre. Muslim males were singled out for the sole reason that they were not of the same religion, and they were murdered by the thousands, unlike the mass murders of the Jews and other minorities by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Yet another example in former Yugoslavia was Srebrenica. It was genocide, due to the fact that the Serbs had methodically planned to eliminate all the Bosniaks in Srebrenica. In other areas, civilians were murdered individually during their daily routines and were singled out to be sniped for no other reason than they were racially different. Many similarities can be found between the Yugoslav conflicts and the Holocaust, except for one main topic. In Yugoslavia both sides were giving and receiving hits, where in the Holocaust, the only side that was taking hits was the Jews, along with the Homosexuals, Gypsies and so on. Nazi Germany had no one that they were targeting, like the Jews, fight back.

In this case involving the republic of former Yugoslavia, humanism was no present or did it seem to matter in this horrifying event. Humanism and the properties that it holds were clearly denied during the Yugoslav wars. This concept of how all individuals matter with their dignity and worth protected, was rarely, if at any time, seen during the Yugoslav wars. For illustration, even though the Croatians and other ethnic backgrounds believed it was in the best interest of their race to exile the Serbs from their state, while they were trying to accomplish that goal, they ignored all the principles of humanism. The people that were living in the former Yugoslavia got so caught up in exiling the other ethnic groups that they forgot the meaning of individuality. Most of the Serbs saw was a Bosniak, not a person with feelings, or a valuable life, just a worthless Bosniak. Generally, in former Yugoslavia, when people were determining who would die and who would live, all they looked at was their ethnic background to decide. All of the individuals rights were lost during this time, so in former Yugoslavia, the idea of humanism was denied.

After researching and becoming very emotional connected to the unfortunate story wit former Yugoslavia, I was filled with many feelings towards the leadership, the perpetrators, and the victims. First off, I think that the leadership may not be the only people to blame. Maybe, like in the case of the Holocaust, these people where taught their whole lives to hate the other ethnic backgrounds, like the Germans were taught to hate the Jewish peoples. These leaders, of all sides of ethnic backgrounds, thought they were doing what was right. It isn’t completely their fault if they honestly and truly believe that what they were doing was justified and right. Secondly, I feel the same way about the perpetrators of the crimes. I mean maybe they were in fact taught to hate the other ethnic groups, but I don’t agree with what they did. Lighting people on fire, raping all women, throwing people out of windows, and so on is not the way to handle your hate for others. Violence is such a horrible thing. How can someone be filled up with so much hate that they do those horrid things to the others? Furthermore, I feel bad for the extreme measures that were taken to “ethnic cleanse” the other ethnicities, but all sides were guilty here. All sides had the blood on their hands. I am not saying that any of them deserved what happened because that is not what I believe at all, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Lastly, these actions taken on by all sides were not justified at all. Violence isn’t the answer to problems, or a way to release hate towards anyone. It is just so sad how people didn’t realize that they even though they all had different religions and so on, that life is deeper than skin or in this case beliefs. They had had blood coursing threw their veins, they all need the same necessities to live and they all come from the one true creator of life, God. If they just realized that there was more in common than not, I believe that that whole crisis could have been avoided. This is just a case of pure ignorance, and ignorance isn’t justified.

I strongly believe that peacekeeping efforts by the United Nations in sovereign countries are not acceptable. One example is the one that I have been mentioning this whole time, the former Yugoslavia crisis. The involvement of the United Nations was not even close to being successful or productive when it came to the ending of the killings in Yugoslavia. The UN proved futile in enforcing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in former Yugoslavia. The protection of human rights is way more important than a country’s sovereignty. These horrible crimes against others rights is not only unfair and cruel, but it has no justice. Every country has the right to enforce and create their own laws, but there is no justification for violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights If the UN had stepped into the crisis in former Yugoslavia sooner, many lives could have been saved. By the time it was too late, the UN decided to step in, and when they did there was no response. The only reason why they were there was to be like a peacekeeper, which forced them not to use violence on either side. They might have just as well sat home and watched it all go down on TV. As a result, the different types of ethnicities just ignored the UN and continued its violence, with no care of the newest spectators. They would sit back and watch as Serbs rounded up hundreds of Muslims and massacred them in places like Srebrenica. If the United States was violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights I would hope that the UN would step in and stop it. There should be no toleration for any discrimination based on race, sex, orientation, religion, etc. Yes, national sovereignty is an important thing, but only to the extent of everyone’s rights being protected and honored. Sovereignty is something that can be held until a further time, unlike human rights. If human rights are not protected then turmoil starts to brake loose. I truly believe the sovereignty of nations should always be respected, but that there can be exceptions when human rights are being violated.