florian bieber, approaches to political violence and terrorism in former yugoslavia

Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans,Volume 5, Number 1, 2003

Approaches to political violence and terrorism informer Yugoslavia1

FLORIAN BIEBER

No other part of Europe has seen a greater degree of violence in the pastdecade than former Yugoslavia. The wars and violence leading to the death ofmore than 200,000 people were primarily motivated by ethnic nationalism. Thisethnic violence was simultaneously deeply political in the sense that it wascommitted with political goals in mind—such as the creation of homogeneousnation-states or maintaining political power—and organized by politicalforces—parties and governments.2

As most conflicts in the former Yugoslavia have been described as ‘wars’the usefulness of the term political violence is not apparent at first sight. Atcloser examination, however, one can note that before, during and after thewars, political violence took place in most regions of former Yugoslavia. Howto distinguish war from political violence? Wars are marked by high intensity,both in terms of the number of participants, as well as in terms of the numberof victims. Some scholars have used the somewhat arbitrary, yet necessary,threshold of 1000 victims to consider a violent conflict a war.3 Political violenceon the other hand can describe a much broader range of violence, claiming farfewer lives and coexisting with an overall state of peace.4 In fact, most civilwars, including the ones in former Yugoslavia, have been preceded by low-in-tensity political violence. In many cases, the wars are inconceivable without aconsiderable degree of political violence first. Developing a better understand-ing of political violence thus appears imperative in explaining the escalation ofethnic violence into wars.

This will be discussed below. In the first instance, we need to distinguishbetween different categories of political violence, particularly between terror-ism and political violence perpetrated by guerilla groups and paramilitaryformations. The term ‘terrorism’ has become a much-used label since 11September 2001. In former Yugoslavia, ‘terrorism’ had been already heavily

1This article is based on a study written in the framework of a project of the Forum for EthnicRelations, Belgrade with the funding of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, New York on Terrorismand Ethnic Conflicts: Experience of the Western Balkans.

2M. J. Esman, Ethnic Politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 1994, pp. 26–48.3M. E. Brown, ‘Ethnic and internal conflicts. Causes and implications’, in C. A. Crocker et al. (eds),

Turbulent Peace. The Challenges of Managing International Conflict, United States Institute of Peace Press,Washington, 2001, p. 212.

4Mary Kaldor actually largely describes political violence when distinguishing ‘new’ from ‘old’wars. See M. Kaldor, New & Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Era, Stanford University Press,Stanford, CA, 1999.

ISSN 1461-3190 print/ISSN 1469-963X online/03/010039–13 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1461319032000062642

40 Florian Bieber

used throughout the 1990s by political elites to either describe the opponentson the other side of the ethnic divide—often employed to describe a wholenation—or to portray threats in general against the respective nation. As a termwith strong normative connotations and a history of misuse, terrorism has tobe firmly placed into relationship with other forms of political violence.Terrorism will thus be examined as one form of political violence and dis-tinguished from other, often more common, types of political violence.

This paper seeks to develop a framework for understanding politicalviolence in former Yugoslavia. In particular, it will examine the role ofterrorism during the past decade as a form of political violence and argues thatcontrary to frequent pronouncements by political actors in the region, terrorismhas only been a marginal phenomenon, constituting merely a small segment ofpolitical violence, in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Instead, other formsof political violence have been substantially more prevalent and are more likelyto pose a threat to the stability of the region than terrorism.

Distinguishing political violence and terrorism in former Yugoslavia

While the overall number of instances of terrorism have been low in formerYugoslavia in the 1990s, especially if compared with other types of politicalviolence, it is worth attempting to develop a conceptual matrix in whichterrorism and other forms of politically motivated violence in SoutheasternEurope can be understood.

When examining terrorism and political violence in Southeastern Europe,we can exclude some categories, which might be applicable elsewhere, but areuncommon in the Balkans.5 Firstly, most political violence and terrorism havebeen motivated by ethnicity and/or national identity. Related one can findelements of religious fundamentalism and racism, but both are mostly connec-ted to nationally motivated political violence. Other motivators, such as left-wing ideology, have been marginal or non-existent in political violence ofrecent years. We need to distinguish furthermore internal from transnationalpolitical violence. Although nationalist movements are often active across stateborders, they are not ‘international’, as their activities are confined to their areaof residence (or claim).6 The only significant type of internationally activeterrorism has been by Islamic fundamentalist groups, possibly linked to Al-Qaida. These groups have carried out or planned only a few terrorist acts in theregion itself.7 Their targets have mostly not been connected to the countriesthemselves, but rather representations of the USA. As such, they constitute alargely foreign group targeting other non-domestic actors. Countries where this

5For a broader typology of terrorism, see P. Wilkinson, ‘The strategic implications of terrorism’,in M. L. Sondhi (ed.), Terrorism & Political Violence. A Sourcebook, Har-Anand, New Delhi, 2000.

6This stands in contrast to some Ustase emigre terrorist groups, which were active in the 1970sin attacking Yugoslav representations in North America and Western Europe. See M. Glamocak,Koncepcije velike Hrvatske i velike Srbije u politickoj emigraciji, Rujno, Uzice, 1997, pp. 111–123. Althoughoccasionally commentators feared the re-emergence of this type of political violence, it did notmaterialize. See D. Hedl, ‘Croatian extremist threat’, IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 8 September 2000.

7Including a car bomb in front of the police station in Rijeka, Croatia planted by Al-gam’a al-islamiyaover the alleged arrest of one of the group’s leaders; the planned attacks against US interests in Bosniain the aftermath of 11 September 2001. Data from Forum for Ethnic Relations, ‘Terrorism and ethnicconflicts: experience of the western Balkans’, Belgrade, 2002.

Political violence and terrorism 41

threat exists, especially Bosnia, are thus only involved as a consequence of thewar and weakness of state authority.

Primarily, we have to take into account three types of criteria in thecategorization. Firstly, the relationship to the government, secondly the readi-ness to use violence (and degree) and the nature of the violence employed. Thetaxonomy given in Table 1 is not a rigid framework in which to conceptualizepolitical violence, but should rather serve as a compass to understand differenttypes of political violence.

If we first examine the readiness to use violence, we have to distinguish therhetoric of violence from the actual use of violence and define an intermediarystep of rhetoric of violence combined with sporadic violence.

The rhetoric of violence, although not constituting an act of violence, meritsinclusion here, as the incitement to violence has been a key component of theconflicts in former Yugoslavia, as has been the case with most other conflictswhich include aspects of ethnicity.8 The group advocating violence might notitself engage in it, but will usually not try to distance itself from acts committedunder its ideology. In the case of Southeastern Europe, extreme nationalistpolitical parties and groups qualify for this category. In Serbia the SerbianRadical Party (SRS) and the Party of Serbian Unity (SSJ), both with links toparamilitary formations during the Bosnia and Kosovo war, openly advocatedthe use of force against other nations in Yugoslavia and in neighboring states.9

In Croatia the Croatian Party of Right (HPS) falls into the same group. Also incases such as Macedonia, where a full-scale war in 2001 was narrowly averted,some parties, including the governing party at the time, the Internal Macedo-nian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party of Macedonian NationalUnity (VMRO-DPMNE),10 condoned the use of force. In addition to parties,nationalist movements belong to this category, such as the ultra-nationalistmovement Obraz in Serbia, whose following has grown since the fall of theMilosevic regime.11 While some groups and parties maintained their ownparamilitaries, others merely advocated the use of force. In times when the useof force was legitimate within the political framework these parties and groupsoperated, few of those who condoned the use of force refrained from somedegree of direct or indirect involvement. As a result most parties and groupsat time of war might fall into the third category of organizations using violenceagainst objects or groups.

In the next category, we find groups, which engage in both sporadic acts ofviolence and which at the same time publicly advocate violence. Often suchgroups would substantially use the threat of violence, rather than violenceitself. Stopping short of being outright terrorist groups or paramilitaries, these

8See for example M. Lenkova (ed.), ‘Hate Speech’ in the Balkans, ETEPE, Athens, 1998.9The Party of Serbian Unity was in fact set up by the paramilitary leader and convicted criminal

Zeljko ‘Arkan’ Raznatovic.10The name of the party is borrowed from a pre-World War II group which employed guerilla

strategies at the turn of the century and terrorist tactics in inter-war Yugoslavia. On this issue see S.Troebst, ‘IMRO � 100 � FYROM? The politics of Macedonian historiography’, in J. Pettifer (ed.), TheNew Macedonian Question, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001, pp. 60–78.

11Although Obraz has also been implicated in a few violent incidents, the primary function of thegroup is advocating the use of force and extreme nationalist ideas. Helsinki Committee for HumanRights in Serbia, Human Rights and Transition. Serbia 2001, Belgrade, 2002, pp. 236–239.

42 Florian Bieber

Tab

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Tax

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oups

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emis

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groups are usually characterized by a lower organizational degree and mighthave other constraints such as the danger of a ban if engaging to openly inviolence. Such groups would typically include Skinheads and other neo-Fascistgroups and movements, as well as some extremist parties.

A third group can be defined as openly engaging in acts of violence, withvarying degrees of public acknowledgment thereof. Such groups includeparamilitaries, parts of the army and police in some countries, guerilla groupsand terrorist organizations. To further define this category, it is worth differen-tiating the nature of the violence perpetrated, although one is likely to oftenfind these groups perpetrating violence in all three categories.

The first category limits violence to material damage inflicted, for example,through bombs. Such attacks usually seek to instill fear in the population or aparticular group. This tactic has been commonly used either as a tool to engagein ‘ethnic cleansing’ or to prevent the return of refugees after the end of thewars. Thus, it can be found mostly in areas directly affected by war, such asCroatia, Bosnia and Macedonia. However, such attacks also occurred againstminorities in Serbia during the early phases of the war in 1991–1992. As the aimis immediate (expelling/preventing return of communities) and the politicalintention obvious, most attacks have not been claimed by the perpetrators.12

This type of political violence, beyond the wars themselves, has probably beenthe most common and had lasting effects on inter-ethnic relations and thedemography of former Yugoslavia. In Croatia, for example, in areas whichwere occupied by the Serbian Republic of Krajina between 1991 and 1995 some22,000 Serb-owned homes were destroyed after the end of the armed conflictin August 1995.13 In addition to the destruction of houses, attacks againstsymbols of other nations have been common, such as the destruction of mostmosques in the Serb Republic during and after the Bosnian war and bombingof Serbian Orthodox churches and monuments in Kosovo after the end of thewar in 1999.

In the subsequent category, violence is targeted against individuals. Thistype of violence expresses itself in assassinations, car bombs and other types oftargeted attacks. Although nationalism and inter-ethnic tension have playedtheir part, this type of political violence has rarely been directed againstpolitical figures of other nations. Altogether these types of attack have beensporadic and are often indistinguishable from organized crime. There havebeen generally four types of assassinations: the first targeted politicians, suchas the car bomb against the Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov in 1995 or thespree of assassinations of Serbian regime politicians in 2000.14 A second groupaffected individuals who have been uncovering war crimes, such as theassassination of Milan Levar, a key witness in a Croatian war crimes case atThe Hague war crimes tribunal in 2001 and the car bomb against the editor ofthe Bosnian Serb independent newspaper Nezavisne Novine, Zeljko Kopanja, in1999, for investigating war crimes by local Serbs. Third, some attacks were

12In a number of cases the respective governments and some of its agencies (police, army) havebeen directly or indirectly involved.

13‘Croatia war veterans protest against UN grave dig’, Reuters, 24 April 2001.14The assassination included the Federal Minister of Defence, Pavle Bulatovic.

44 Florian Bieber

directed against officials for investigating organized crime, such as the as-sassination of the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Bosnian Federation,Jozo Leutar, in 2000. Finally, opposition politicians and personalities have beentargeted, presumably by the authoritarian regimes of the 1990s. This has beenparticularly the case in Serbia, where the journalist Slavko Curuvija was shotduring the Kosovo war in 1999, as well as at least one attempt on the life ofVuk Draskovic, president of the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO),was made in 1999–2000. While most assassinations have largely remainedunresolved, most can be characterized by the (presumed) perpetrators:Nationalists and groups with links to war criminals for the second group,organized crime with the third and individuals and organizations associatedwith the authorities with the last group.

Finally, organized groups might target particular groups defined by ethnic-ity, political conviction, sexual preferences and religion. These acts of politicalviolence can include most crimes committed during ethnically motivated wars,such as the ethnic cleansing and mass murder by armed forces during the warsin Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Additionally, paramilitary groups and govern-ment-controlled forces have been targeting groups outside of war zones. Suchinstances include the expelling of Croats from the Vojvodina village ofHrtkovci in 1992, organized by the paramilitary organization of the SRS,15

attacks by Croatian government forces, as well as Serbian paramilitaries in 1990in ethnically mixed areas in Croatia.

While paramilitaries and terrorist groups will be identifiable in all threecategories of violence committed, terrorist groups would most fall into the firstand second group of the types of violence employed (objects and individuals),while paramilitaries would mostly be active in violence of the third category(groups).

In addition to the categorization according to the types of force employed,a distinction is required as to the role of governmental involvement. Here therole of the government surveyed is less the question of the general support amovement might receive from any government outside the area of conflict, asoften the case with terrorist groups, but rather the relationship on the ground.Here government does not need to refer to the legitimate or internationallyrecognized government, but rather the authority, which controls a particularterritory and exercises authority over it. Thus the army of the Republika Srpskaduring the Bosnian war would not qualify as a terrorist group, but as an armyor as a paramilitary group. Generally speaking, we can distinguish five typesof relationships to governments. Some groups might be direct institutions ofthe government, such as army and police units. They might sometimes beacknowledged by the authorities, while at times these links might be denied.Most importantly, they are part of the integral structure of the state and theauthorities exercise direct control over these units. In addition, it is importantthat the state (or parts/actors) control these groups. Due to cronyism andpersonalization of state institutions, it would be flawed to include civilian ordemocratic control in this category. In the case of former Yugoslavia most

15See Humanitarian Law Centre, Human Rights 1991–1995. Spotlight Series, Belgrade, 2002,pp. 83–108.


secret services, special army and police units have acted as belonging to thiscategory,16 as have some groups resemble paramilitary formations, but were infact integrated into and controlled by state structures, such as the Lionsparamilitaries in Macedonia, which have been implicated in some of the acts ofviolence against Albanians and opposition during the conflict in 2001.17

The second category includes groups which are intrinsically linked to thestate either through personnel or funding, but which maintain a certain degreeof independence. Within the category of engaging in rhetoric of violence,they might be coalition partners in government, or—with higher propensity toviolence—they might be paramilitary groups working with the state. A numberof Serbian paramilitary groups, such as Arkan’s Tigers, would fall in thiscategory.18

Closely linked are groups, which are tolerated by the government, but notexplicitly endorsed or supported by governmental authorities. The differenceto the second group might be caused by the collusion of goals, but not ofmeans. Other factors, such as international pressure or competition for power,might explain the difference to the second category. Such groups include someof the Serb paramilitary groups active in Bosnia after 1993, when the Serbiangovernment sought to end the war and put pressure on the Bosnian Serbauthorities to accept international peace plans. In Croatia and Bosnia theparamilitary Croatian Defense Forces (HOS) maintained separate units fromthe government forces active in Croatia in 1991–1992 and in Bosnia in 1992. Thegovernment eventually took control of HOS and integrated it into the regularforces in Croatia and into the Bosnian Croat army (HVO).19

Some groups with a rhetoric of violence and the sporadic use of violencemight be met with government indifference, especially if the targets of thesegroups are on the social margins of the society where governments might havelittle motivation to pursue these groups. It is at the same time inconceivable forgroups to be using violence as a main means of advancing their agenda,without either tacit government support or opposition. Per definition, govern-ments hold the monopoly over the use of force. Any erosion of this monopolyis usually met with resistance by the government, unless these groups servesome political purpose for the government. There might be instances whennon-political violence, especially in connection with organized crime, mightmeet government indifference, but the inherent political nature of the violencedescribed here prohibits such indifference.

The final category includes groups, which oppose the government, eitherthrough a rhetoric of violence, such as extremist anti-system parties andmovements, or through acts of violence. It is here where we would locateclassic terrorist groups, as well as guerilla movements. A distinction between

16For this in Bosnia see M. A. Hoare, ‘Civilian—military relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina1992–1995’, in B. Magas and I. Zanic (eds), The War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991–1995, FrankCass, London, 2001, pp. 178–199. For Kosovo see Fond za humanitarno pravo, Kosovo. Kako viztseno,tako receno, Belgrade, 2001, pp. 21–25.

17P. Sherwell, ‘Ministers arm paramilitaries in Macedonia’, Sunday Telegraph, 1 July 2001.18‘Milosevic and the chain of command in Kosovo’, Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, New York,

2 July 2001.19US Department of State, Croatia Human Rights Practices 1993, Washington, 1994.

46 Florian Bieber

the two types of groups will be elaborated later. Most acts of political violence,which would be categorized as classical terrorism in former Yugoslavia, havehad few claims of responsibility. Guerilla groups have been more prominent.The armies of the Serbian Krajina in Croatia and the Serbian Republic wouldnot fall into this category, however, as they were structurally part of theYugoslav army and soon controlled a territory which resembled a parastate.Cases of guerilla groups in the former Yugoslavia have been the KosovoLiberation Army (UCK) between 1996 and 1999, the Liberation Army ofPresevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) in 2000 and 2001, as well as theNational Liberation Army (UCK) in Macedonia in 2001.20

What emerges from this taxonomy is that terrorism constitutes merely asmall segment of organized political violence. While groups of nearly allsub-categories have been described as ‘terrorists’, it is more useful to focus onthe distinctions between the groups. As all groups share at least the rhetoricalsupport for the use of violence to achieve political goals, boundaries might befluid and cooperation between groups belonging to different categories isfrequent.

As development is a key factor in all movements, one will often observegroups moving from one sub-category to another in the course of time. Due tothe over-usage of the term terrorism in the context of the former Yugoslaviaand globally, a closer examination of terrorism is in order.

Understanding terrorism

The previously mentioned rhetoric of terrorist threats points us to a keyproblem associated with the study of terrorism: definitions. It is no surprisethat terrorism has been more prolific in the rhetoric of politicians than ofscholars. Terrorism, as some scholars point out, is ‘a convenient label to attachto someone you dislike: If you get others to accept that label, you have won asubstantial victory in the struggle by getting others to adopt your valuesystem’.21 The use of the label ‘terrorism’ has and is frequently used to describethe use of violence opposed by the person or government using the label. Assuch, it can be seen more as a discursive practice than as valid categorizationof violence. In order to grasp terrorism as a concept, one has to place it in arelational context with other forms of violence, thus limiting it. While theborder to other forms of violence might remain fluid, using a restrictivedefinition is the only way to use the term ‘terrorism’ in an academically usefulway.22

Terrorism can be defined as a type of political violence, which uses thethreat or act of violence to create an atmosphere of fear for the advancement

20On the three see T. Judah, Kosovo. War and Revenge, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT andLondon, 2000; S. Lipsius, ‘Vorbild UcK: Albaner in Serbien grunden UcPM’, Sudosteuropa, 49(3–4),2000, pp. 133–143; S. Lipsius, ‘Die neue UcK in Makedonien und die politische Entwicklung inKosovo’, Sudosteuropa, 50(1–3), 2001, pp. 1–16.

21D. W. Ziegler, War, Peace, and International Politics, 8th edn, Longman, New York, 2000, p. 147.22This is also pointed out by Walter Laqueur in the introduction to his updated work on terrorism

from 1987 where he addressed critiques, which noted that he did not categorize guerilla warfare orstate terrorism as ‘terrorism’, see W. Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism, Little, Brown, Boston and Toronto,1987.


of a political agenda.23 As such, as Paul Wilkinson points out, ‘terrorism is aweapon or method which has been used throughout history by both statesand sub-state organizations for a whole variety of political causes or pur-poses’.24

Political violence implies that the act of terrorism is carried out with aparticular agenda. Assassinations for example without a political motive wouldnot be considered terrorism (e.g. the assassination attempt on Ronald Reaganin 1981). When the motivation is criminal, one also cannot speak of terrorism(such as assassinations among members of the Belgrade underground). Theseacts of violence are usually considered criminal by both domestic laws underwhich they are carried out (arson, murder, blackmail, etc.) as well as byinternational law (targeting of civilians). To distinguish terrorist movementsfrom guerilla movements and parties in an ethnic conflict, it is necessary toinclude a dimension of territory to the definition. Guerilla movements confinetheir activities to the area of dispute and are mostly confined to rural settings.Urban guerilla movements have been generally limited and occurred primarilyin collapsed states, such as Beirut in the 1970s and 1980s.25 Similarly acts ofviolence committed during an ethnic conflict by either militias or paramilitarygroups are similar to terrorism in the sense that they are criminal in nature andseek to instill fear, especially when taking the example of ‘ethnic cleansing’committed during the Bosnian war, it is worth distinguishing it from terrorism.Finally, it is important to differentiate goals and effects of terrorist movementsfrom those of parties to an ethnic conflict. While it is again difficult to draw afirm distinction, most terrorist movements seek to trigger a larger conflict,rather than overthrow the existing order (in the broad sense of both politicalsystem and social order) single-handedly. As such, they rely on either areaction by the government targeted which will trigger solidarity of the victimsof the government reaction with the terrorist movement or a withdrawal of thegovernment (if possible) in the face of losses inflicted by the terrorist acts.Fighting by paramilitary and other groups is often aimed at changing theethnic composition itself and does not perceive itself primarily as a ‘trigger’.The difficulty of this distinction is highlighted by the activities of the UCKwhich acted both as a guerilla movement and as a terrorist group: it attackedAlbanians loyal to the Yugoslav authorities, sought to trigger Western interven-tion and built mass support by seeking reprisals against civilians by Serbianand Yugoslav (para-)military and police forces. While structurally resemblingguerilla groups, the tactics of the UCK of securing external support through itsacts rather than accomplishing its goals, i.e. independence of Kosovo, are morereminiscent of terrorist groups.26

As mentioned above, it is hard to avoid the normative dimension whendefining terrorism. Few, if any, movements would agree with being described

23P. Waldmann, ‘Terrorismus-Unterschatzte oder Uberschatzte Bedrohung?’, in C. Leggewie (ed.),Politik im 21. Jahrhundert, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 2001, pp. 392–394.

24P. Wilkinson, op. cit.25W. Laqueur, op. cit., p. 300.26T. Loza, ‘A need for atrocities’, Transitions, 6(3), March 1999, pp. 16–17. More generally on the

use of international attention as a tool to advance domestic goals in the Balkans see S. Troebst,‘Balkanisches Politikmuster? Nationalrevolutionare Bewegungen in Sudosteuropa und die“Ressource Weltoffentlichkeit” ’, Osteuropa, 50(11), 2000, pp. 1254–1266.

48 Florian Bieber

a ‘terrorist organization’, as it implies activities, which are per definitionimmoral and target innocent people.27 As a result, the analysis of terrorism willinevitably condemn the acts of terrorism. At the same time, it is to separate theacts of violence from the goals. Just as the aims do not justify the means, themeans should not automatically discredit the goals. All to often the goalsthemselves are incompatible with liberal democracies and human rights and,even if they are, the means employed cast doubt on the sincerity of itsproponents. Nevertheless, it would be shortsighted to dismiss the goals out-right, especially in cases where the terrorist movement appears to have a broadbase and when operating in or against an oppressive system.

In addition to the definition, one can arrive at a number of features of mostterrorist movements. Firstly, a group that engages in acts of terrorism can haveother functions and the use of terrorism might not be the only way it acts. Thegroup might also operate as a guerilla movement or as a political party at thesame time.28 Obviously terrorist groups can transform themselves over timeinto parties or organizations that pursue their aims only peacefully. Alterna-tively, many terrorist groups just disappear because of arrest, the fulfillment oftheir goals or the decline of the movement’s ideological underpinnings. Mostterrorist organizations are characterized by their small size, most often number-ing only a few dozen or a few hundred members. This is to their militaryadvantage and political disadvantage, as Laqueur has emphasized: ‘… [w]hileit is difficult to detect small groups and while they can inflict considerabledamage, their political effect is bound to be limited’.29

Beyond former Yugoslavia, terrorist groups can derive their motivation andclaim to legitimacy from a number of different sources. The basis could beideological, anti-colonial, nationalist–separatist or religious. These categories are notto be conceived as being rigid dividers. Many movements have combinedcharacteristics from several categories. The Palestinian movement Hamas isboth a religious movement and an anti-colonial movement. The strength of thedifferent categories of terrorist movements has changed throughout time.While in the 1970s ideological movements were identified as the main threat topeace, religion-based movements replaced them by the 1980s and 1990s.Although the reach of activities of organizations might be global and directednot only at the particular regimes they seek to change, but also their inter-national supporters mostly keep a local political agenda. A few movements,however, have extended their activities and goals primarily beyond thenational framework and sought a global goal, most notably and recentlyAl-Qaida. By definition, neither nationalist–separatist nor anti-colonial move-ments have developed such a global agenda, despite the existence of sometypes of coalitions between different movements.

At the same time the use of violence might evolve to a degree that theactual agenda becomes submerged so that the main raison d’etre of movementsis violence, as has been the case with later generations of Western European

27On the nature of terrorism from a moral perspective, see P. Gilbert, Terrorism, Security, andNationality: An Introductory Study in Applied Political Philosophy, Routledge, London, 1994, pp. 4–42.Gilbert seeks to differentiate terrorism from freedom fighting or tyrannicide by focusing on the systemagainst which the movement operates.

28Similarly parties can be closely coupled to terrorist organizations, such as the IRA and Sinn Fein.29W. Laqueur, op. cit., p. 301.


radical left-wing terrorist organizations in the 1970s and 1980s.30 In addition toviolence being the motivator of such movements, non-political criminal activi-ties can become prominent stimuli for terrorist movements. While these organi-zations would merely become criminal organizations if they ceased entirely topursue a political agenda, criminal and political goals are often closely wed.One reason lies in the per definition criminal nature of terrorism. Another keyfactor can be attributed to the need to use illegal sources to raise funds forcriminal activities. Drug smuggling (e.g. Shining Path/Peru, UCK/Kosovo)and kidnapping (Abu Sayef Group/Philippines) are among the activities oftenpursued by terrorist movements with the result that at times the money-gaining components of the movements’ activities gains the upper hand overthe political goals, as evidenced with a number of loyalist groups in NorthernIreland.

Terrorism and Southeastern Europe

Terrorism has not been alien to Southeastern Europe. Throughout the 20thcentury, a significant number of terrorist movements have been active in theregion, including the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914by Mlada Bosna and the assassination of the Yugoslav King Aleksandar inMarseille in 1934 by the Macedonia nationalist VMRO together with theCroatian fascist Ustase movement. In more recent decades, some radical Croatemigre organizations conducted terrorist acts against Yugoslav institutions andrepresentatives abroad in the 1970s. As outlined above, the violence in formerYugoslavia throughout the 1990s and early in the new millennium is moredifficult to define. Contrary to many expectations, especially in the West duringthe NATO bombing and exemplified in Western popular culture (e.g. themovie The Peacemaker), only little terrorism took place. In most cases, theviolence cannot be qualified as terrorism. For this phenomenon, we can identifythree tentative reasons:

• Most violence was state organized and/or sanctioned. As such, there waslittle need for small terrorist groups to further their political agenda indepen-dently from state-sanctioned violence.

• Despite the high degree of inter-ethnic tensions, the political–criminal elitespursuing the wars and violence engaged with each other to an unpre-cedented degree. The degree of explicit and implicit cooperation betweenthese elites throughout most of the conflict reduced the interest of states insponsoring terrorism in former Yugoslavia.

• The goals of the war were largely confined to the conquest and/or control ofterritory while expelling or controlling populations of other ethnicity. Conse-quently, the overthrow of the other states/authorities was not the primaryinterest of the nationalist movements.

Although terrorism has been largely absent from the spectrum of violenceemployed in former Yugoslavia in the past decade, it would be false tocompletely deny the effects the wars had on terrorism. More important thanthe emergence of local terrorist movements have been the internationalimplications for terrorist movements.

30Ibid.

50 Florian Bieber

Firstly, the wars in former Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia, and thepassivity of Western countries were instrumentalized by many radical Islamicorganizations in the Muslim world as evidence for the anti-Muslim policies ofthe ‘West’.

Secondly, the wars and the weak position of the Bosnian governmentduring the war led to the arrival of both radical Islamic fighters and organiza-tions that have remained active in Bosnia after the end of the war.

Finally, one consequence of the wars has been the emergence of weakpolitical units where public authority does not control the entirety of theterritory effectively. Weak states, both in terms of the lack of control ofterritory, fragility of institutions, and the absence of the rule of law, can easilyhost global terrorist groups.31 With these effects in mind, it is important toremain cautious and not overestimate their impact. The rhetoric of large andwell-organized terrorist groups in Southeastern Europe has not been backed bysubstantial evidence and mostly been a tool to advance a particular political—often a nationalist—agenda.32

Defining the threat of political violence

The main threat of political violence in the past decade emanated fromgovernments and organizations sponsored by recognized or unrecognizedauthorities. With different governments at conflict with each other and sup-porting groups using violence as a means to achieve political objectives, littleroom for terrorist groups in the narrow sense existed. We can note attacksagainst buildings and members of ethnic, religious and social minoritiesthrough the past decade. Some of these attacks were specific to the conflict—such as the bombing of houses and religious monuments—while others weremirrored throughout Europe, i.e. Skinhead attacks against Roma. In most cases,however, these incidents were either perpetrated by paramilitary groups withgovernment support or consent, or were rather sporadic with either nobodyclaiming responsibility or shady groups with little structure or consistency.

With the end of the authoritarian regimes in Serbia and Croatia and thesubstantial international military presence in the region the risk of outrightstate-sponsorship of political violence has declined. Despite the change ofregimes, political and ethnic violence continued to be a significant problem inMacedonia, Kosovo and Southern Serbia. In these areas there is a continueddanger of violence perpetrated by paramilitary and terrorist groups.

In the larger region the main danger for political violence lies elsewhere.Here two types of political violence can be identified as possible dangers.Firstly, violence against social and ethnic minorities might increase. A numberof attacks against Roma in Serbia and elsewhere in recent years committed bySkinheads and other extremist groups point to this trend. Such movementsthrive on the dissatisfaction of especially the youth with the transformationprocess.33 The high degree of nationalism, result of the nationalist mobilizationof the 1990s, might feed into this phenomenon. This type of violence can,

31See M. Glenny, ‘Heading off terrorism in the Balkans’, New York Times, 16 October 2001.32A. Ciric, ‘FRY in war against terrorism’, AIM Belgrade, 8 October 2001; W. v. Meurs, ‘Der Balkan

im Schatten des 11. September 2001’, Sudosteuropa Mitteilungen, 42(4), 2002, pp. 10–13.33For Serbia see Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, op. cit., pp. 235–239.


however, be equally observed in other transition countries, as well as inWestern Europe.

The second type of violence might arise in former conflict areas throughterrorist groups or radical movements who might seek to reverse the tentativere-integration in parts of the former conflict zones. Lacking state-sponsorship,they might be explicitly directed against the governments and be ready to useviolence to pursue their aims. Until today such groups have only appeared inthe form of declarations, rather than through acts of violence.34

Beyond the future threat of political violence, the record of the 1990shighlights another source of concern: the erosion of the state monopoly ofthe use of force.35 Although most use of force, as has been demonstrated,has been instigated by governments, rather than by sub-national actors, aconsiderable degree of political violence has been committed by groups onlyloosely or indirectly controlled by governments. A high degree of privateownership of weapons, the participation of significant parts of the populationin former Yugoslavia in armed formations during the past decade and continu-ing weaknesses of some states in the region pose a threat arising from‘non-governmental’ political violence.

Florian Bieber is senior non-resident research associate at the European Centrefor Minority Issues based in Belgrade and International Policy Fellow at theOpen Society Institute, Budapest. He has published articles on nationalism andpolitics in Southeastern Europe in Nationalities Papers, Third World Quarterly,Current History and other journals. He authored Bosnien-Herzegowina undLibanon im Vergleich. Die historische Entwicklung und das politische System vorAusbruch des Burgerkrieges [Comparing Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon. HistoricalDevelopment and the Political System Prior to the Civil War] (Pro UniversitateVerlag, Sinzheim, 1999) and edited together with Dzemal Sokolovic Recon-structing Multiethnic Societies: The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Ashgate, Alder-shot, 2001) and with Zidas Daskalovski Understanding the War in Kosovo (FrankCass, London, 2003). He is co-editor of the journal Southeast European Politicsand founder and editor of Balkan Academic News.

Address for correspondence: Majke Jevrosime 6/14, Serbia and Montenegro11000 Beograd. E-mail: [email protected]

34In 2001, for example, leaflets were distributed in the Serb entity of Bosnia threatening Bosniakreturnees. The materials were signed by largely unknown organizations called ‘Serbia to Tokio’ and‘Greater Serbia’, see Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Republika Srpska, Human Rightsin Republika Srpska April—June 2001, Bijelina, 2001.

35In addition, the use of force by governments has been frequently illegitimate in its targeting ofgroups and individuals for political and ethnic reasons. On general consideration on this issue seeA. Leander, ‘Globalisation and the eroding state monopoly of legitimate violence’, COPRI WorkingPaper, No. 24, 2002.

florian bieber, approaches to political violence and terrorism in former yugoslavia

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