A shocking and impassioned exposé of new and horrifying methods of war in the Balkans. In 1992, Beverly Allen learned of the existence of rape/death camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia from a former student, a woman of Croatian heritage. In these camps, women were-and are still-being detained and raped repeatedly by Serbian soldiers, whose goal often is to impregnate their victims or to torture them before they are killed. In this highly personal account, Beverly Allen provides a compelling testimony and analysis of the horrifying phenomenon of “a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide.”
In Rape Warfare, Allen examines the complexity of identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia through the accounts of rape/death camp survivors and those who work to help them. She then presents and analyzes the information she has gathered about genocidal rape, all the while asking, “How can I, an empathizing outsider, communicate what is happening without reinforcing the damage that has already been done?” In a nuanced discussion of the ethics of representing such atrocities, she decides to “forgo storytelling except when the stories I tell are my own.” Allen concludes with an impassioned argument for bringing to trial the perpetrators of genocidal rape. By turns personal, polemical, and informative, Rape Warfare is a lucid guide for anyone seeking to make sense of what is happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
Beverly Allen has spoken out in newspapers and on television and radio to raise awareness of rape/death camps. In Rape Warfare, she writes, “Every time I meet another woman who has survived, or who is helping the survivors, or who is struggling to articulate the horror the survivors and the dead have suffered and to prevent its recurrence, my own anger and grave distress turn toward hope.”
