Nonfiction books about ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War.

[Owen]

Preferably shorter/ easy to understand for those with little knowledge. Thank you!

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Start with these:
Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo
Sarajevo: A War Journal
A Village Destroyed, May 14, 1999: War Crimes in Kosovo
The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo
Balkan Justice: The Story Behind the First International War Crimes Trial Since Nuremberg

Also, on the wider implications of ethnic cleansing and war crimes, two really great, short reads by two of the leading figures of the International Criminal Tribunal(s) for the former Yugoslavia (and for Rwanda), both of whom are also among the most distinguished jurists of their respective countries (ICTY/ICTR's first Chief Prosecutor, who oversaw, inter alia, the indictment of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, and one of his successors -- also a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights -- who oversaw the indictment of Slobodan Milosević):
For Humanity: Reflections Of A War Crimes Investigator
War Crimes and the Culture of Peace

For yet more books, you may want to take a look at these two Goodreads lists:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/73...
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/87...

[Owen]

Thank you so much. I have to write a term paper for my history class about this, and these resources will be very helpful.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

You're welcome; glad I could help. What's the topic of your term paper?

[Owen]

We have to choose a topic from world history, not US or World War II from 1750-modern day. I asked my teacher if I could do the Bosnian War and he said it was a bit vague so I think I am going to do ethnic cleansing.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Wow. Tremendously interesting, once you've learned to deal with the sheer gruesomeness factor.

When you've familiarized yourself a bit with the basics, you may also want to have a look at the ICTY website: http://www.icty.org/

You can do a search for "ethnic cleansing," and/or look at some of the case histories and documents: http://www.icty.org/action/cases/4

There's a ton of detail there as well.

Of the cases currently at the trial level, I'd suspect that four would be particularly relevant to your paper:
http://www.icty.org/case/karadzic/4 (Karadžić)
http://www.icty.org/case/mladic/4 (Mladić)
http://www.icty.org/case/seselj/4 (Šešelj)
http://www.icty.org/case/tolimir/4 (Tolimir, a/k/a "Srebrenica")

There's another Srebrenica case currently on appeal:
http://www.icty.org/case/popovic/4 (Popović et al.),

and the proceedings against Milosević are among the closed cases, as M. died before they could be concluded: http://www.icty.org/case/slobodan_mil...
(There are also several other high profile cases among the closed cases, including several others relating to Srebrenica.)

[Owen]

Haha, a bit of an information overload. But no really, thank you so much. Now I will definitely have more than enough for starting the research. You're the best!

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Well, I DID say "when you've familiarized yourself with the basics" ... :)

By all means, start with the books I listed in my first post; and of course I'm not suggesting you should even try to absorb every word of all those file records available on the ICTY website. Also, it might be a good idea to look at the press releases first of all (they're listed at the bottom of the categories of documents available), as they sum up the most important developments/items from the cases, and they'll also tell you what charges are at issue in each case.

For a flavor of what the hearings are like (and maybe to do a specific search for certain events or evidentiary content, once you're down to that level of detail), you may later also want to take a peak at the transcripts and/or videos.

If I can help in any other way, feel free to PM me.

[Owen]

Sure thing, thanks.