Sera Kara | Originally Published: 21 March 2026
Introduction
In everyday language, the concept of ‘ending’ connotes a permanent resolution, finality, or complete restoration of daily order after a chaotic political episode within a country. Yet, as Bridget Conley-Zilkic demonstrates in How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq, in the case of political violence, the true nature of ‘endings’ is often quite different than what people imagine; they are multilayered, prolonged, and rarely definitive. The aftermath of mass atrocities not only represents the loss of innocent lives but also the deterioration of social dynamics, the distortion of an already insubstantial political order, and the entrenchment of institutional corruption. Focusing on six case studies—Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, Sudan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Iraq—Conley-Zilkic and her colleagues demonstrate the sociological, economic, and political conditions that shape the endings of mass atrocities, and reveal why the ‘endings’ are not direct, immediate, and permanent.
Political Violence as a Byproduct of Corruption and Oligarchy: Guatemala
The author further claims that the foundations of the mentioned political violence, contrary to the conventional narrative, do not emanate from temporary explosions of refined and collective hatred, but are rather sustained by the corrupt individuals or oligarchic structures seeking to impose their agendas on specific groups of people. These particular power holders often embrace extreme physical and psychosocial measures in order to silence or control the targeted group, and in case of resistance, these violent measures can evolve into rooted systematic pressure, public humiliation, and mass murders. This salient perspective is the first of Conley-Zilkic’s four key stories to understanding the dynamics of mass killings: the political rationality of the perpetrators, which explains the factors and motivations behind the targeted violence.
The Guatemalan case is a striking example of this perspective. After the Sandinista Revolutionaries in Nicaragua successfully overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the Guatemalan state and the bourgeoisie feared that the snowball in Nicaragua would turn into an avalanche in Guatemala, triggering a domino effect among the leftist factions located inside the borders. This anxiety marked the beginning of one of the most violent periods of Guatemalan history: The reign of Lucas Garcia.
During Lucas García’s four years in office, from 1978 to 1982, the state stigmatized the Maya people as the “insurgency’s social base.” It used this label as justification for perpetrating systematic massacres to maintain its political and economic dominance. Rios Montt, Garcia’s successor, combined Garcia’s ethnic cleansing methods with tactics used by the U.S. government in Afghanistan and Iraq to develop even bloodier forms of repression. One of the most obscene implementations under this rule was the attempts to control the Indigenous population by gathering them in certain areas of the regions, establishing “model villages”. This particular project can be defined as a real-life example of ‘sedentarization of Indigenous populations,’ which James C. Scott further elaborates in his book, Seeing Like A State. By establishing state-engineered villages, the Guatemalan authority coerced the Mayan population into sedentarization, allowing the government to examine the Mayans’ behaviours, as they became more predictable under the forced limitations. This particular method also refers to the concept of “legibility,” which in this case assisted the prevention of rebellion by dividing society into hierarchical structures.
Erosion of Economic, Psychosociological, & Political Structures: Burundi
The second story demonstrates a broader outline of historical-political change. Noel Twagiramungu explores how economic, psychosociological, and political structures erode over time, and how these deformations affect social behaviour after a cycle of bloodshed. The extremely fragile nature of the political order after violent periods leaves societies vulnerable to relapse, which is also considered a trigger for the beginning of new, prolonged chaos within a country. This political fragility is quite clear in the Burundi case. Years-long colonization narratives and polarization indoctrination—pushed first by Germany, then by Belgium—reconstructed Burundi’s cohesive ethnic community into supposedly oppositional Hutu and Tutsi people. As Barnett and Duval further demonstrate in Power in Global Governance, the immobilization of productive power by the colonizer states provides them with a deep, transformative control that structures how societies view their own identities. Hierarchical classifications and the administrative structures created to maintain the polarized society normalized the completely forged differences.
The words implemented in the language during mass atrocity periods demonstrate that the people also view and experience violence as an endless cycle. The necessity to incorporate two different terms into the language, guhagarara (to stop) and guhera (to end)—which is also the rarest word selected by the people during their interviews with the author—and the distinction between them serve as a tragic reflection of the Hutu and Tutsi people’s vision on mass atrocities: hopes of definitive, long-term peace are unrealistic. Incorporating linguistic data in this way is deeply compelling; it provides the reader with a comprehensive understanding of how productive power can be exploited under authoritarian regimes, and completely alters the perspective of victimized peoples. The extent of the violence can be grasped through the semantics embedded in the new linguistic trends, and the regularity of the use of certain words in the language.
Intersections of Mass Atrocities and Armed Conflict: Sudan, the Holocaust, Iraq, and Bosnia-Herzegovina
The third story delves into the intersections of armed conflict and mass atrocities. The author exemplifies that mass atrocities are not solely the byproducts of wars, while also explaining that the motives behind these atrocities warrant consideration beyond any military objectives they supposedly serve. Armed conflicts, as demonstrated in the book, are convenient tools for authoritarian governments to exploit, enabling them to pursue violent paths, such as ethnic cleansing and imposition of ideological agendas. This dynamic is also visible in Sudan, where violence in the South and in Darfur was not only a byproduct of the war, but also non-coincidental strategies to control and indoctrinate the target population.
Within these systems, the individuals, bureaucrats, and soldiers work under the mere sensation of ‘duty.’ The reason for their hatred is not inherent, but solely their obedience to their superiors, and to given orders. This particular concept aligns deeply with Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” As Arendt participates in the Eichmann Trials, i.e., the trials of Adolf Eichmann, who was a major Holocaust perpetrator, in person, her perception about who and what she defines as ‘evil’ dramatically changes. The man who sat in front of her, Adolf Eichmann, seemed to be in a completely thoughtless state, committing evil deeds only because he was a part of the bureaucratic system which perpetuates violence. Arendt wanted to draw attention to Eichmann’s story, as she believed that it was evidence of how ordinary, banal, and simple people can also commit horrific acts of violence.
Upon reading these stories, the reader is left with a crucial question: What role do others, who are not directly targeted by mass violence, play in putting an end to these atrocities? This question is the focus of the last story explained by Conley-Zilkic and her colleagues, “the story of us,” which states how civilians, bystanders, and international organizations can influence the trajectory of these atrocities. The Bosnia and Iraq pairing demonstrates the restrictions and contradictions of the international community’s perception of ethical responsibilities. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the pressures of the international community post-Srebrenica put an end to the mass atrocities happening in the region. Beginning in April 1992, Serbia began its genocide of Bosnian Muslims. According to the Holocaust Museum Houston, despite the UN declaring Srebrenica a safe zone, Serbia committed the largest massacre since World War 2, as 8,000 men were killed and 23,000 women, children, and elderly were displaced to Muslim-controlled countries. In 1994, NATO intervened to stop the conflict, which the UN later declared a genocide.
In Iraq, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion was considered justified by the international community, even though the actions that were taken during that period still reproduce political instability and extreme violent cycles in the country. The casualty count from the Iraq invasion ranges from 100,000 to 1,000,000. Yet, the international community did not intervene to stop the US’s invasion. This duplicity in responses to Iraq and Srebrenica highlights the effect of the international community’s perspective on political violence. While Srebrenica was labelled a genocide and thus NATO intervened to stop atrocities, Iraq was considered a justified war against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). Thereby, NATO did not halt the conflict, thereby enabling the US to commit atrocities that would usher in decades of political unrest and violence. That said, NATO did set up a non-combat capacity-building mission to assist Iraq in building military forces to combat terrorism. Considered together, Conley-Zilkic’s last story and The Politics, Power, and Pathologies by International Organizations by Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, offer the reader a comprehensive understanding by illuminating the double-edged nature of international humanitarian action.
As Barnett and Finnemore state, a reason for the failure of international intervention is the mere fact that IOs and other international powers become trapped in their own bureaucratic system. Barnett and Finnemore argue that “Bureaucracies are infamous for creating and implementing policies that defy rational logic, for acting in ways that are at odds with their stated mission, and for refusing requests of and turning their backs on those to whom they are officially responsible.” States are also actors who prioritize their rational gains; thereby, conflicts benefiting a state’s allies and/or involving a shared motivation—such as the international community’s fear that Iraq had WMDs—are less likely to be stopped. This particular failure is also exemplified by the delayed UN intervention in the case of Srebrenica; while ethnic cleansing began in 1992, the UN did not intervene and designate safe zones until 1993, with NATO intervention only occurring in 1994. Conley-Zilkic’s statement can be viewed as an extension of this narrative, revealing the bureaucratic issues under the guise of humanitarian intervention.
Conclusion
Conley-Zilkic and her colleagues’ comprehensive analysis offers the reader an understanding of the paradoxical nature of mass murders, exemplifying how the international actors, authoritarian structures, and ‘banal’ individuals affect the trajectory of these atrocities. By combining extensive empirical evidence, statistical data, and detailed case studies, the book underlines the true nature of violent crimes and how the societies which were targeted by authoritarian powers still reflect and experience the chaotic patterns in their daily lives. These insights also remain strikingly relevant in contemporary cases where the paradox of violence, constant indoctrination, and the agendas of international powers align with the patterns Conley-Zilkic gives place in her remarkable book.
References
1. Conley-Zilkic, Bridget, ed. How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
2. Goldberg, Maren. “Somoza Family.” Britannica, n.d.https://www.britannica.com/topic/Somoza-family.
3. Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300252989.
4. Barnett, Michael N, and Martha Finnemore. “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations.” International Organization 53, no. 4 (1999): 699–732. https://doi.org/10.1162/002081899551048.
5. Barnett, Michael, and Raymond Duvall. Power in Global Governance. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
6. Galtung, Johan. “LANGUAGE AND WAR: IS THERE A CONNECTION?” Current Research on Peace and Violence 10, no. 1 (1987): 2–6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40725052
7. Holocaust Museum Houston. “Genocide in Bosnia.” Holocaust Museum Houston, 2026. https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-bosnia-guide/
8. NATO | OTAN. “NATO Mission Iraq.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2025. https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/operations-and-missions/nato-mission-iraq
9. Steele, Jonathan, and Suzanne Goldenberg. “What Is the Real Death Toll in Iraq?” The Guardian, March 19, 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/19/iraq
10. Benjamen Walker, “The Big Ideas Podcast: The Banality of Evil,” The Guardian, August 17, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/audio/2011/aug/17/big-ideas-podcast-banality-of-evil
The Attaché 