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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_j9tcnha wrote

Reply to comment by aylinminbabe in Weekly History Questions Thread. by AutoModerator

The Chetniks were Serbian ethnonationalists and guerrillas, who had a decidedly genocidal lean, in terms of 'removing' Albanians, Croats, Bosniaks, and Jews, from 'their' territory.

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aylinminbabe t1_j9tcvgh wrote

We’re they previously criminals or am I thinking about another group?

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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_j9tj64y wrote

Certainly not all of them, although because of their paramilitary nature they will have included criminals, and of course they went on what you might call an extensive run of war crimes.

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aylinminbabe t1_j9tjh7y wrote

I could be wrong, but wasn’t there a military group under the war that consisted of people with previous crimes but still had the freedom to do basically anything to the Bosniaks?

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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_j9tnu72 wrote

I don't know of a penal unit like that (although one may very well have existed!), but a great many units were free to persecute Bosniaks, and many have been named, such as the Serb Volunteer Guard, Chetnik Avengers, White Eagles, etc. Serbian paramilitaries were used to 'cleanse' their local areas of other ethnic groups, often simply committing mass murder.

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