What are the 10 stages of genocide?

Examining what led to the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, on the 24th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.

July 11 marks the 24th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the worst atrocity on European soil since the Holocaust.

In July, 1995, Serb forces systematically killed more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in the so-called UN-protected enclave in Srebrenica, Bosnia.

In the nineties, genocide scholar Gregory H Stanton, an American, examined the stages of genocide, which eventually became his "10 stages of genocide" theory….. Genocide is not committed by a small group of individuals, rather a large number of people and the state all contribute to genocide.

At each stage preventive measures can stop the situation from deteriorating further, Stanton noted. Bosnian-Australian anthropologist Hariz Halilovic later added an eleventh stage particular to Bosnia's case - "trumphalism".

Stages 1, 2, 3: Classification, symbolization and discrimination

….. In Milosevic's famous address to a crowd in Belgrade in 1989, he presented himself as the savior of Serbdom and Europe. It enforced the notion of "us [Serbs] vs them"..... Bosniaks were typically called Turks, Balije (a slur for a Bosnian Muslim) and branded as terrorists and Islamic "extremists".

Stage 4: Dehumanisation

…. "In order to mobilise domestic public opinion against the Muslims and to justify future acts against them in the eyes of the West, the Serbian leadership needed an image of Islam as a totalitarian, inherently violent, and culturally alien system on European soil," ……… "Such a distorted image had been provided by some influential Serbian orientalists, the Orthodox Church, and some historians."

Stage 5: Organisation

… Known as the famous RAM (frame) plan, its aim was to carve up Bosnia into a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia

…… A secret police force was planned for arming and training local Serbs to create police and paramilitary units in Bosnia…. One document, written by the army's special services including experts in psychological warfare, stated that the most effective way to create terror and panic among the Bosniak population would be by raping women, minors, and even children.

Stage 6: Polarisation

Serbian and Bosnian Serb media regularly broadcasted polarising propaganda, to dehumanise victims and marginalise the opposition to war...…..

Stage 7: Preparation

Organised from Belgrade, Serbia, weapons were distributed to the Serb population by the truckload throughout 1990 and 1991 in Bosnia……. "The pretext for the arms deliveries and the rearmament was that this was necessary for the defence against 'the enemies of the people' - the Muslim extremists."

Stage 8: Persecution

Across Bosnia, influential, intellectual Bosniaks were often among the first to be executed, with their names drawn up in death lists…… As many as 50,000 Bosniak and Croat women, girls and young children were raped in Bosnia from 1992- 1995...… Across the country 200,000 people were deported to concentration camps where they were tortured, starved and killed…… Srebrenica, which was known as the world's biggest detention camp, was under siege for three years, before it fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.... Serb troops separated boys and men aged between 12 and 77 from the rest of the population and took them to fields, schools and warehouses to be executed.

Stage 9: Extermination

On July 11 at 16:15 General Ratko Mladic (now a convicted war criminal) entered Srebrenica with Serb forces, including paramilitary units from Serbia, claiming the town for Serbs. Strolling through the streets with the TV cameras rolling, Mladic announced that there will be "revenge against the Turks".....

Stage 10: Denial

In an attempt to conceal the killings, Serb forces transported the dead bodies with bulldozers and trucks and buried them in numerous locations, leaving the victims' remains fragmented and crushed….. According to an Al Jazeera Balkans poll from 2018, 66 percent of Serbs in Republika Srpska deny the genocide…… "[Denial] is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres," Stanton wrote.

Stage 11: Triumphalism

Convicted war criminals today are respected and honoured as war heroes.

According to the 2018 poll, 74 percent of Serbs in Republika Srpska consider Bosnian Serb convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic, guilty of genocide and war crimes to be a hero.

full article on aljazeera