Perhaps no time in the history of the world women had to undergo such atrocities as the Bosnian women are undergoing. The genocide of the people of Bosnia and especially the brutal rape of its women will go down as a permanent black spot on the face of the so-called civilized world.
For the first time in history, the world witnessed the svstematic use of rape as a world. "Rape camps" (sic) began sprouting over the territories occupied by the fascist Chetniks. The meaning of war took on a new dimension with the Chetnik barbarian's carefully planned assault on the psy- che of Bosnia by targeting women. The opening of this diabolic dimension to the already gruesome saga of ethnic-cleansing emphatically underscored the wanton, barbaric and utter moral depravity of the Chetniks.
For the Bosnian women, the tragedy struck in all its gory nakedness. It was like an avalanche let loose from all sides with no escape. The barbaric hordes of Chetniks descending on the Muslims population with all the accouterments of barbarism. Killing, raping, pillaging, plundering, and creating a virtual replica of hell-on-earth.
The nascent state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with its hands tied due to the criminal imposition of the arms embargo, could do little but watch its women's honor being trampled upon, its children being mowed down and its men becoming a statistical casualty to the marauding Chetniks.
The world, which congratulates itself as one ushered into a civilized age, had no recourse but to accept the reality that barbarism is still rampant condoned and abetted (as was the case of imposition of the arms embargo on Bosnia). The plethora of women's rights groups, the defenders of "modern" women were nowhere to be seen. The so-called defenders of human rights tried to explain away the Chetnik atrocities as a "deep-rooted religious hatred among the incorrigible Balkan population."
Most tragic was the response (or the lack thereof) from the Muslim world. Gone are the days when one Muslim woman's cry for help from the remote plains of Sindh in India was enough to make the Khalif send out the Muslim army to her rescue. Now the heart-rending cries of sixty thousand Muslim women are nothing but irritating 'noise' for the Kings, the Emirs, the presidents, and the Prime Ministers of the so called Muslim countries.
The following heart-rending cries of Muslim women will bear witness against those in power on the Day of Judgement —for they had the means to stop but chose to do nothing. And for those of who offer lame excuses for our inaction, there is nothing but Shame--Eternal Shame!
Statement made hy N.N. (as reported on BosNet):
They took me together with other internees twice at night to Chetniks' rooms. During one night, five or six Chetniks raped each of the female interness, including me. When I noticed that I had become pregnant I asked them to allow me to go to the doctor for abortion. They did not allow me that and told me that they just wanted Muslim girls to bear Chetniks. They insulted us and sang songs insulting Muslims. When I was six months pregnant they exchanged all women, thirteen of us. All of us were pregnant except one 6 year old girl. They also raped her. When they raped her, we were witnesses to terrible cries and atrocities in the room in which we were kept..."
The New York Times featured an article portraying the hell through which the Bosnian women are passing through. This appeared under the title "Rape after Rape after Rape" in the OP-ED column dated December 13, '92.
Z.N., age 40.
Our Serbian neighbors locked us in. I knew many; they used to visit our house. As soon as we entered a camp, Smarticevic (followers of Milan Martic, a Serbian leader) came in with guns and selected younger women and girls. They put them in the halls and told the Chetniks to do with the women what they pleased.
"There was silence. Then the crazy, dirty, stinking, Chetniks jumped at the women like animals; they tore off their clothes, pulled their hair, cut their breasts with knives. They'd cut the belly of the women who wore the traditional Muslim baggy trousers. Those who screamed would killed on the spot.
"In front of a few hundred prisoners they raped and tortured women and girls for days. It was unbearable to watch girls being raped in front of their fathers. In the evening, after heavy drinking, the Chetniks would come in the hall with lamps. Stepping on us, they would look for girls, not older than 12 or 13.
"The girls cried, holding on to their mothers. As they were taken, pieces of their mother's clothes remained in their hands. While doing that, the Chetniks would shoot at us. Later they would leave the girls' dead bodies in the hall, so we had to see them. We cried until morning. Then they would throw the bodies in the river.
"Every day the same picture was repeated; they would rape and kill in front of hundreds of us.
Once a young woman with a baby was taken in the middle ot the hall. It was in June. They ordered her to take off her clothes. She put the baby on the floor next to her. Four Chetniks raped her; she was silent, looking at her crying child. When she was left alone, she asked if she could breast-feed the baby. 'Then the Chetnik cut the child's head off with a knife. He gave the bloody head to the mother.' The poor woman screamed. They took her outside and she never came back. The biggest criminals in Doboj are Bosko Jeitic, Milenko Varnjes, Mico Tuca, the brothers Stankovic and Jorgovic. "I was raped and tortured too, because they knew I am the wife of a leader of the Muslim party.
My neighbor tortured me the most, the one my husband respected as his own brother. By the end of June, Chetniks brought another neighbor of ours and with a gun pointed at him, they forced him to rape a 14-year old girl. He stood trembling and stuttering with fear Then he turned to a Chetnik he believed was a leader and said, 'Don't make me do it. I have known her since she was born, her father and I drank to her birth.' They beat him in front of us until he died. It was an example to the other Serbs that there is no pity, that one must do what leaders order them to do.
"In August, some prisoners were exchanged including me and my sons. Many women and girls who were pregnant remained in the camp. They were transferred to a hospital and fed twice a day because, as the Chetniks said, they had to bear their offspring."