Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War

Vulliamy, a British journalist with keen powers of observation and nerves of steel, describes what he saw during his 1992-1993 coverage of the war in Bosnia. Much of his compelling narrative consists of scenes in which drunken thugs and uniformed lynch mobs perpetrate outrages and atrocities against civilians, including the systematic rape of women. The testimony he collected for his chapter on rape in the war zone encompasses, as he puts it, ``every conceivable dark cranny of sexual sadism and male violence.'' Vulliamy denounces the UN and the European Community for failing to come to the aid of Bosnia's stillborn democracy, especially its Muslim population, and for denying them the means to defend themselves. His coverage of the fighting in the former Yugoslavia earned him Grenada Television's Foreign Correspondent of the Year award in 1992. Photos. (Sept.)