Heartfield: ----------
>It was wrong to characterise the civil war as a genocide, since all
>sides were involved in atrocities, in my opinion, though I don't
>know whether Chomsky would agree.
Chomsky: -------
On the query, there are really two questions: (1) were all sides engaged in atrocities, (2) is it right to call it "genocide."
The two questions are unrelated. There is no connection between them.
As for (1), it's certainly true, though the bulk of the atrocities were Bosnian Serbs. As for Srebrenica, the most extensive study, by the Dutch government, concludes that Belgrade didn't know about it, and that Milosevic was appalled when he heard about it. That's being kept under wraps because it explodes the Tribunal, which is unusually dishonest even by those not glorious standards. Furthermore, one can easily explain the imbalance, and the great powers, particularly Germany and the US, have a lot to answer for as well. There is very good material on this, including even the Canadian general and the head of US intelligence in Sarajevo -- all public, kept under wraps. This was a crucial event in Western intellectual history: an opportunity for self-adulation on the part of Western intellectuals because of their heroism in condemning crimes by Serb peasants, at a time when Serbia was an enemy -- not because of its crimes, real but irrelevant, but because it was the only corner of Europe not following the Don's commands. Therefore any questioning of the Party Line is met by the usual hysteria of the commissar class.
As for (2), it depends on how one wants to use the term "genocide." Personally, I prefer to keep it in its original intent: the Holocaust, Rwanda, maybe a few other cases. I never even called East Timor "genocide," though maybe 1/3 of the population was killed by Indonesia-US-UK, along with others who thought they could make a buck. Or Vietnam. Or Guatemala and El Salvador. But by now the term has been so cheapened that anything can be called "genocide" as long as some enemy carries out it. So there's no answer.
Noam