ABSTRACT
The war in Kosovo between March and June 1999, tragic as it was, offered an ideal opportunity to analyze the representation and rhetoric of gender in Western mass media. An overriding Serb strategy in the conflict was “gendercide” against non-combatant men – the same strategy Serb forces had followed from the outset of Yugoslavia’s war of dissolution. From the first day of the war in Kosovo (March 24, 1999), and indeed long before, the Serbs overwhelmingly targeted “battle-age” men for the most severe atrocities, although women, the elderly, and children were also exposed to a wide range of abuses and war crimes, ranging from killings to rape and forced expulsion. The report issued after the Kosovo war by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was emphatic in pointing to these gender-and age-selective strategies:
Young men were the group that was by far the most targeted in the conflict in Kosovo . . . Clearly, there were many young men involved in the UCK [Kosovo Liberation Army] . . . but every young Kosovo Albanian man was suspected of being a terrorist. If apprehended by Serbian forces – VJ [Yugoslav army], police or paramilitary – the young men were at risk, more than any other group of Kosovo society, of grave human rights violations. Many were executed on the spot, on occasion after horrendous torture. Sometimes they would be arrested and taken to prisons or other detention centres, where, as described afterwards by men released from such detention, they would be tortured and ill-treated, while others would simply not be seen again. Others were taken for use as human shields or as forced labour. Many young men “disappeared” following abduction.1
