Definition:
The Zelena transferzala (Green Transversal) was a genocidal propaganda narrative systematically employed by Serbian and Croatian nationalist leaders during the 1980s and 1990s to justify the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). It fabricated the existence of a planned pan-islamic territorial corridor—allegedly orchestrated by Bosniak leadership—as an existential threat to Serbs and Croats, thereby inverting victimhood and providing a pseudo-defensive rationale for large-scale atrocities.
Core Claims of the Conspiracy Theory
The narrative asserted that Bosniaks, under President Alija Izetbegović, were not pursuing a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina but aimed to create a contiguous Islamic state spanning from Bosnia through Sandžak, Kosovo, and Albania, ultimately linking to Turkey. Propagandists framed this imagined “Green Transversal” as a bridge for Islamist expansion into Europe, sometimes evoking the specter of a “Muslim International” or a caliphate stretching “from the Great Wall of China to the Adriatic.”
Function in Justifying Genocide
By portraying Bosniak civic and national existence as an aggressive, expansionist plot, the theory recast genocide as pre-emptive self-defense. It served to mobilize Serb and Croat populations, legitimize policies of ethnic cleansing, and provide moral cover for systematic extermination. The strategic objective of eliminating the “Muslim corridor” in the Drina River valley directly motivated the destruction of Bosniak communities in eastern Bosnia, culminating in the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995.
Historical Significance
The Zelena transferzala conspiracy theory exemplifies how manufactured geopolitical narratives can be weaponized to enable mass violence. It formed a core ideological component of the propaganda apparatus that facilitated concentration camps, mass killings, and the forced displacement of Bosniaks, underscoring the role of disinformation in planning and perpetrating genocide.
