Political Greed Led to Bosnian War
Reviewed by Sally Breen
THIS WAS NOT OUR WAR: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace
by Swanee Hunt, Foreward by Bill Clinton
Duke University Press
November, 2004, 254 pages,
$29.95
Swanee Hunt did not intend to write this book. However, through her
diplomatic and humanitarian work in the 1990s she met incredible women who
had survived the Bosnian War, and she felt their stories must be told. Ms.
Hunt is Founder and Chair of Women Waging Peace, a global policy-oriented
initiative working to integrate women into peace processes.
Through seven years of interviews, their heroic stories unfold. The women
describe what it was like living in a vibrant multicultural community that
suddenly imploded in an onslaught of violence. Your heart breaks as you
learn of the atrocities inflicted on them and their families, sometimes by
neighbors who had been their friends.
What caused the war? They all insist it was not caused by hatreds carried
from a long-ago past. Rather, they state clearly that the cause of the war
was political greed, and the determination of those politicians to hold on
to their power.
The courage that sustained these women throughout their ordeal has not
dimmed. Using their talents and whatever resources are available to them,
they are currently involved in creating a sustainable society — a society that
must be patched together from the ruins left of a ruinous and completely
unnecessary war.
Back to Peace
Talk Index, Spring 2005