The Breaking of Yugoslavia
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, Crocitia, and Macedonia, all fractions of former Yugoslavia. Human rights violations are an everyday occurrence, mainly due to the fact that one group is different than the other. When Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992 it was met with resistance. The army sweep through Bosnia-Herzegovina committing mass killings, tortures, forced evacuations, and rapes, “Particular interest arose in the global community when images of prisoners in concentration camps (namely Omarska) emerged reminiscent of similar camps which existed during the Holocaust.” (Al-Marayati, 1995) Yugoslavian forces committed rapes, sometimes under order sometimes not.
They would run into a town gang raping, mostly leading to murder of the victims. The commanders would capture women, young and old, for continuous rape to satisfy the needs of their solders. The young and old almost always died because of this. (Al-Marayati, 1995) They used the rapes as porn to fund the war. Video taping it and selling it to their country and Bosnia-Herzegovina; so they unwittingly funded the war against themselves. They also did this to make the women bare the children of their enemies.
Many women would be shunned from their homes because of this. (Al-Marayati, 1995) Because of the mass killings, tortures, forced evacuations, and rapes, people lost many things. They lost their homes to the enemy, forced to walk many miles to foreign environments. Many had horrendous injuries, caused by the tortures and beatings. Many families lost loved ones, to sickness due to the forced evacuations or the mass killings that were taking place. (Al-Marayati, 1995) Recovery for the people, and descendents both physically and psychologically is uncertain, most if not all will suffer from long term post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
Which is an anxiety disorder that is triggered by a traumatic event; symptoms may include flashbacks of the event, avoidance of things that remind them of it, emotional numbing or arousal and anxiety. The PTSD may last a short time or for many years. (Mayo Clinic) In Serbia-Montenegro women are also being treated badly. Before 1995 wives were beaten and the authority’s largely ignored their cries for help. Bur that is getting better with the help of women rights originations across the world.
They are now getting equal pay for equal work. Mostly that would be a good thing, if they could find good jobs. Women are vastly under represented at top level government and state run industries. They are also not aloud in government run academic institutions. Because they are not scolded, they can’t get good paying jobs, if they can even find jobs willing to hire them. Women are aloud one year of maternity leave after that they have to find people to watch them, or send them to work.
There have also been reported cases of the Serbia-Montenegro police violence towards non-Serb children. The children born with disabilities have no formal rights. They are cared for but the only thing people are really made to do is put wheelchair access on buildings. Ethnicity and religion are so intertwined as to be inseparable, “the ethnic minorities of Serbia-Montenegro suffered discriminations in all respects as the ‘FRY’ continued its policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as a means of creating ‘Greater Serbia'” (Serbia-Monternegro Human Rights Practices, 1994) People from different nationalities, races, ethnicities, and religions are fired form their jobs. Sometimes are forced from their homes, just because they are different.
The armed forces of Serbia-Montenegro act with suspicion and out right hostility towards these people. In Croatia, another breakaway of Yugoslavia, armed forces are also committing horrendous crimes. In the 1991-1995 armed conflict, armed forces committed murders, torture including rapes. They caused people to “disappearances arbitrary detention, of arrest and or detention of an individual in a case in which there is slime or no chance that they committed the crime or no proper trial, are also in force. ( Human rights in Croatia ) Even after the war these things did not go away in fact they increased.
Courts sill apply ethnic criteria in investigating and prosecuting war crimes. The government fails to address violations allegedly committed by the army and police forces. “The failure of authorities to disclose information on the fate and where abouts of Croatian Serbs who went missing during the 1991-1995 armed conflict and victims of ‘disappearances’, whose alleged perpetrators were members of the Croatian Army and police forces, and to bring to justice those responsible for the ‘disappearances'” (Human rights in Croatia) is wrong, it shows the unwillingness to help people manly Croatian Serbs. Also in Macedonia, its government does not prosecute war criminals and refuses to respond to old and new accusations of torture and ill treatment when in the custody of government officials. The cries of its people falls on deaf ears. The government of Macedonia also decimates people for the ethnicity and gender like in Serbia-Montenegro, women and people of other ethnicities, are not aloud in state run institutions.
For women domestic abuse is common place, along with trafficking. (Macedonia Human Rights) Freedom of speech and expression are a fairy tale, and separation of church and state is becoming a lie. The Macedonia government is putting religious education into state run schools. When a local group of university students went to protest they were meet by the Macedonia Orthodox Church, who vastly our numbered them and attacked. The reports portray, “… police officers as ‘passively observing clash'” (Macedonia Human Rights) Refugees are treated in a similar manor.
The government denies full, far and effective procedures for protection. Just because one group is different doesn’t meen it should change the way people look at each other. The differences everybody could lessen or even stop if people would get ahold of there egosentric fellings.
