Based on the author's experiences as an EC Monitoring Mission Observer, this narrative account of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia combines material from a range of eyewitness and documentary sources. Brendan O'Shea had access to both EU and UN official documents for his research and used these to unravel the complex story of the war. The author tells the tragic story of what happened at the "safe haven" at Bihac in north-western Bosnia between 1992 and 1996 to show the Bosnian civil war in microcosm. At Bihac, Muslim fought all variety of Serb, Muslim fought Muslim and the Croats interfered continually - thereby ensuring a rapid descent into bitter civil war and a vindictive power struggle. "Ethnic cleansing" was rife and horrific war crimes which shocked the world were committed by all sides. Local politicians manipulated the desperate refugee situation in order to extract concessions, humanitarian aid and considereable sums of money from the UN and other agencies, and then siphoned off huge quantities to pay for military arms and equipment. O'Shea reveals how General Dudakovic of the Bosnian Army's 5th Corp and Fikret Abdic, one-time friend of Alija Izetbegovic and later founder of the breakaway Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, manipulated all agencies who came to assist them in order to ensure their own military and political advancement. The war in Bihac was also linked to other events in former Yugoslavia and O'Shea offers a perspective on the relationship between Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, vis-a-vis who was actually in control of events on the ground. He also re-examines the role of Slobodan Milosevic in directing the activities of the Bosnian Serb Army. As every party to the Bosnian tragedy continues to promote their own version of events as "the truth", O'Shea reveals the numerous layers of deceit and dishonesty.
