Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-200) and index.
Contents:
The longest siege -- Sarajevo on center stage -- The cast of characters -- Front stage and backstage: formal and informal roles -- Conflict narratives -- Criminalized conflict narratives -- Preview -- Imposing the siege -- The road to siege warfare -- The start of the siege and the criminally aided defense -- The international response -- Sustaining the siege -- Diverting and manipulating humanitarian aid -- Exploiting the privileges of mobility and access -- The UN-controlled airport as smuggling hub -- Tunneling under the siege: lifeline and profit center-- Trading with the enemy -- The media and its dependence on the black market -- The money letter smuggling system -- The smugglers' markets and cigarettes as currency -- The siege within -- Criminal defenders as predators -- Political corruption, abuse, and opportunism -- Obstructing access to water -- Lifting the siege -- Front stage: triggering NATO air strikes -- Backstage: shifting the military balance by evading the UN Arms Embargo -- Aftermath -- The criminalized aftermath of war -- The criminalized new elite -- Sarajevo as transit point for migrant smuggling -- Sex trafficking and peacekeeping -- The Arizona market: peace through illicit trade? -- Extensions -- Srebrenica -- Leningrad -- Grozny -- Falluja -- Revisiting Sarajevo -- Lessons from Sarajevo.
Summary:
"In Blue Helmets and Black Markets, Peter Andreas traces the interaction between these formal front-stage and informal backstage activities, arguing that this created and sustained a criminalized war economy and prolonged the conflict in a manner that served various interests on all sides. Although the vast majority of Sarajevans struggled for daily survival and lived in a state of terror, the siege was highly rewarding for some key local and international players. This situation also left a powerful legacy for postwar reconstruction: new elites emerged via war profiteering and an illicit economy flourished partly based on the smuggling networks built up during wartime." "Andreas shows how and why the internationalization of the siege changed the repertoires of siege-craft and siege defenses and altered the strategic calculations of both the besiegers and the besieged. The Sarajevo experience dramatically illustrates that just as changes in weapons technologies transformed siege warfare through the ages, so too has the arrival of CNN, NGOs, satellite phones, UN peacekeepers, and aid convoys. Drawing on interviews, reportage, diaries, memoirs, and other sources, Andreas documents the business of survival in wartime Sarajevo and the limits, contradictions, and unintended consequences of international intervention."--BOOK JACKET.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.