Must-Read Post at "Srebrenica Genocide Blog"

If you are not yet a reader of Daniel's excellent Srebrenica Genocide Blog, right now would be a good time to change that habit.

His latest post details the documented torture and forcible displacement of Bosniaks in the Sanjak (Sandzak) region. It is not pleasant reading, and the photographs are not pretty. But this is an under-reported story which demands wider notice.

I must confess that I am guilty of remaining somewhat ignorant of what was clearly a concerted campaign of state terror against the Bosniaks in Sanjak, to the point where I believe I may have even noted the absence of a genocidal campaign against the Muslim population of Serbia proper as proof that the war in Bosnia was fought for geopolitical ends rather than being an outbreak of spontaneous ethnic hatred. In fact, while I cannot remember which past post(s) made this claim, I am all but certain that I have done so.

In a sense, I still stand by those sentiments--it seems to me that the campaign against Serbia's Slavic Muslims was intended to deprive Bosniaks from Bosnia proper of any logistical support just across the river, as well as demonizing Bosniaks among ethnic Serbs in Serbia by creating violence and instability in the region.

But that does not excuse my lazy, unthinking acceptance that not much happened (as I essentially implied) in the Sanjak during the 1990s. Clearly, the campaign of terror the Belgrade regime waged in Bosnia was supported and furthered by a parallel campaign within its own borders, against its own citizens. This is a story which needs to be told. I strongly urge my readers to read the above-linked story.