Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
|
Lädt ... Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevovon Peter Andreas
Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.  bruchu | Nov 9, 2008 |  keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Auszeichnungen
The 1992-1995 battle for Sarajevo was the longest siege in modern history. It was also the most internationalized, attracting a vast contingent of aid workers, UN soldiers, journalists, smugglers, and embargo-busters. The city took center stage under an intense global media spotlight, becoming the most visible face of post-Cold War conflict and humanitarian intervention. However, some critical activities took place backstage, away from the cameras, including extensive clandestine trading across the siege lines, theft and diversion of aid, and complicity in the black market by peacekeeping forces. In Blue Helmets and Black Markets, Peter Andreas traces the interaction between these formal front-stage and informal backstage activities, arguing that this created and sustained a criminalized war economy and prolonged the conflict in a manner that served various interests on all sides. Although the vast majority of Sarajevans struggled for daily survival and lived in a state of terror, the siege was highly rewarding for some key local and international players. This situation also left a powerful legacy for postwar reconstruction: new elites emerged via war profiteering and an illicit economy flourished partly based on the smuggling networks built up during wartime. Andreas shows how and why the internationalization of the siege changed the repertoires of siege-craft and siege defenses and altered the strategic calculations of both the besiegers and the besieged. The Sarajevo experience dramatically illustrates that just as changes in weapons technologies transformed siege warfare through the ages, so too has the arrival of CNN, NGOs, satellite phones, UN peacekeepers, and aid convoys. Drawing on interviews, reportage, diaries, memoirs, and other sources, Andreas documents the business of survival in wartime Sarajevo and the limits, contradictions, and unintended consequences of international intervention. Concluding with a comparison of the battle for Sarajevo with the sieges of Leningrad, Grozny, and Srebrenica, and, more recently, Falluja, Blue Helmets and Black Markets is a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary urban warfare, war economies, and the political repercussions of humanitarian action. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeineBeliebte Umschlagbilder
 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)949.703History and Geography Europe Other parts Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina ∙ Croatia ∙ Kosovo ∙ Montenegro ∙ Macedonia ∙ Serbia ∙ Slovenia) [formerly also Bulgaria]Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (3.63)
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1
In this monograph, author Peter Andreas explores the underworld economy during the 3-year siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian war of 1993. The longest such siege of the 20th century according to Andreas.
"Blue Helmets and Black Markets" seeks to answer the question why the siege lasted so long. In doing so, Andreas' comes to his central thesis which is that the unintended consequences of "the dynamics of war economies, humanitarian and media access to conflict zones, and the political repercussions of relief aid" were complicit in the proliferation of black market trading which necessarily led to the prolonging of the siege as it institutionalized it. In other words, because the underground economy kept Sarajavens alive, international intervention was not required until the situation became untenable.
The most eye-opening accounts were the reports of UNFPOR actively engaging in the criminalized war economy facilitating the illegal trade of weapons for cash, oil for supplies, and most disturbingly the trafficking of human cargo especially young females.
The siege of Sarajevo was one of the most widely covered conflicts by the international media in the 20th century and Andreas shows how journalists were far from objective bystanders. Often acting as middle-men carrying letters and delivering remittances from the outside world.
Throughout the book, Andreas attempts to contrast the public image of the Bosnian war with what actually happened on the ground. Like any desperate situation, moral relativism is central to survival. After the war, there was much ambivalence among Bosnian authorities to prosecute the many war profiteers of the underground economy due to their help in fighting the Bosnian-Serb militias. Such a parallel can and is made by Andreas to conditions in Auschwitz, in the same way that Primo Levi argues in his book "If This Is a Man."
The book is very well-researched and written in a very personal way. Though written for an academic audience, the language is quite colloquial and no prior knowledge of the Bosnian war is required to understand the fundamental arguments Andreas is attempting to make. Overall, I recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a slightly different look at the history of war and specifically the Bosnian war. (