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Revenge and reprisal violence in Kosovo

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14678801003665968

1478-1174

Michael J. Boyle,

Global Peace and Security Dynamics

Abstract One of the most often reported but under-studied phenomenon in post-conflict states is that of revenge violence. While such violence is widely acknowledged to occur after wars, it is often dismissed as epiphenomenal to the central problem of restoring order and good governance in the state. This paper seeks to refocus attention on this phenomenon and challenge the way that it is normally portrayed as a normal, almost incidental consequence of armed conflict. It develops an ideal-type distinction between revenge violence and its strategic mirror, reprisal violence. While revenge violence is premised on a judgement of individual responsibility for a prior act of harm, reprisal violence is driven by an assumption of collective guilt. This paper argues that these two types of violent activity—one expressive and the other strategic—are often intermixed in post-conflict states. Moreover, the interplay between them provides political cover for those who would employ violence to achieve strategic or political goals, while lowering the risks involved when doing so by attributing it to revenge for wartime atrocities. In effect, the fact that revenge and reprisal violence are mirror images of one another can serve to explain and subtly justify the use of organised violence against disadvantaged groups in post-conflict states. This paper examines the validity of this heuristic distinction through a within-case analysis of violence in Kosovo from 1999 to 2001 and identifies the policy consequences of this distinction. Acknowledgements This article is drawn from my doctoral dissertation entitled 'The Prevention and Management of Reprisal Violence in Post-Conflict States', unpublished, Cambridge University, 2005. I am particularly grateful for to Professor Paul Cornish for his supervision. An earlier draft of this paper was developed while I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. For comments on an early draft of this paper, I would like to thank Marie Bescanon, Kelly Greenhill, Rachel Gisselquist, Sean Lynn Jones, Nathan Paxton, Robert Rotberg and Monica Duffy Toft. I would also like to thank Astri Suhkre, Mats Berdal and the participants at the Chr Michelson Institute workshop on post-conflict violence for their insights on this subject. All errors and omissions remain my own. Notes 1. Sabrina Tavernese, 'As Iraqi Shiites Police Sunnis, Rough Justice Feeds Bitterness'. The New York Times, 6 February 2006; and Mariam Karouny, 'Sunnis Build Up Their Own Militia in Iraq'. Reuters, 6 February 2006. 2. Fearon Fearon, James, 2007. 'Iraq's Civil War'. Foreign Affairs 86(2), 2–16 [Google Scholar], 'Iraq's Civil War'; Boyle Boyle, Michael J. 2009. 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