Cultures of Violence, Local Networks and Social Complicity

In contexts such as Bosnia and Croatia, local fighters are more likely to know their victims and are less likely to be able to conceal their actions from their own family or community. If many of the victims knew their perpetrators, so too did others in the local community know who was being victimised, and often by whom. Throughout Bosnia and Croatia, the proximity of victims and perpetrators within the same local area also meant that individuals could identify what they perceived as the direct personal benefits that could be gained from participating in armed activities, be that looting, acquiring stolen property or taking revenge for petty disputes. This chapter explores the social networks and the structural and emotional relationships that supported the irregulars and their causes from the localities, within communities, and even within families. It also considers the broader entropic socio-cultural processes that stemmed from and impacted upon paramilitary dynamics.