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I want to answer a question that's at the end of my story on the concentration camps of Bosnia and the abuse of immigrants on the U.S. border: "How could genocidal events a quarter-century ago have any relevance to America today?" theintercept.com/2019/06/27/imm…
There is a pattern to how immoral authorities attempt to cover up their abuse of defenseless people who are treated as sub-human. I saw this pattern in Bosnia, where I was among the first journalists to visit the Serb-run camps, and we're seeing it now in America.
Serbs played a shell game once we heard of their camps -- they shipped out detainees, cleaned things up, then brought in journalists on tightly-controlled visits. I wrote about my visit to Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm for the Washington Post in 1992. washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…
Now read this chilling story by Simon Romero, who visited one of the worst U.S. camps this week. Lots of children had been removed, the ones who remained were unable to talk with the journalists, no photos allowed, no inspections of the sleeping quarters. nytimes.com/2019/06/26/us/…
The NYT: “Don’t talk to her,” one agent said when a reporter saw one girl, who appeared to be 10 or 11 years old, crying uncontrollably while speaking in Spanish with a relative on a phone in a processing room. “If you ask her anything you’ll be thrown out,” the agent warned.
U.S. officials at the camp -- it's in Clint, Texas -- made a show of the soap and food that they said is being supplied to the detained children. It's eerily similar to the show that Serb officials put on when I visited Omarska. This is from my Wash Post story: 
Visiting these camps, even under controlled conditions, is nonetheless of value. The lies offered by camp officials can be nearly as revealing as incriminating evidence kept out of view. Often that’s the only evidence of guilt you might get — the absurdity of the deception.
Just as we eventually found out what happened at the Serb-run camps -- the war crimes committed there -- we will find out what has happened, and is happening, at America's concentration camps for immigrants. From my story today:
"I could go on — and it is horrifying that I could go on. How could genocidal events a quarter-century ago have any relevance to America today? That is where we are. That is what we have become." theintercept.com/2019/06/27/imm…
I had thought my thread would end there, but a quote from a famous novel about Bosnia is on my mind. The novel is "The Bridge on the Drina" by Ivo Andric, and though the book has its flaws, it has greatness, too. It's about the history of a beautiful Bosnian town, Visegrad.
Andric was writing about the rivalries and fears shaping the history of Visegrad, but what he wrote applies to the rivalries and fears shaping all of us, even today.
