The Director of the Jerusalem office of the Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, was quoted regarding the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Srebrenica.
"Neither Rwanda nor Srebrenica represent a mass murder on industrial scale like the Holocaust", he added, expressing at the same time doubts about the fact the in Srebrenica a genocide in the true sense of the term was committed. "I think that the decision to define as genocide the events in Srebrenica was taken for political reasons", he concluded. (ANSA).
20 years have passed since the tragic events of July 11, 1995, in Srebrenica, Bosnia. In war, there are two sides to the story. To the civil war in Bosnia in the 1990s, an argument can be made for 4 sides to the story. According to the Srebrenica Historical Project (#2 in minibook), Drazen Erdemovic is a Bosnian Croat who fought for the Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. The most commonly reported conflict took place between the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims led by Radovan Karadzic and Alija Izetbegovic. There were also the Bosnian Croats led by Mate Boban. Boban and Karadzic agreed to divide Bosnia in the Graz Agreement on May 6, 1992. The Bosnian Croats sided with the Bosnian Muslims under pressure from the outside countries. There was a breakaway Bosnian Muslim group led by Fikret Abdic in the northwest pocket of Bosnia bordering Croatia. Abdic advocated better relations between Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. Abdic received the most votes in the 1990 election but Izetbegovic took control for reasons that remain unclear.
The civil wars in the former Yugoslavia began in 1991 as Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia. It was the beginning of 4 of the worst years of my life. My Dad's family moved from Montenegro in 1776 to Markovac, Slavonija, a small village in Austro-Hungarian Empire not far from the The Krajina (The Military Frontier). Markovac was unfortunately one of the first villages ethnically cleansed in the former Yugoslavia by the resurgent Croatian Ustasha (who were Nazis allies in WWII). 7 relatives died during the 1990s in addition to the 7 relatives lost in WWII.
The civil war moved to Bosnia in 1992 after Izetbegovic rejected the Lisbon Peace Plan and declared independence in March 1992. Izetbegovic was jailed by Tito in the 1970s after published the fundamentalist "Islamic Declaration".
There can be no peace or coexistence between the "Islamic faith" and non- Islamic societies and political institutions. (page 22)
Izetbegovic was also "a member of a Muslim youth organization that recruited for the Waffen SS during World War Two."
In February 1991, Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic declared, "I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina." He was true to his word; his government’s declaration of independence in March 1992 sparked off a civil war, pitting Bosnia’s ethnic communities — Serbs, Muslims, and Croats — against each other over the following three and a half years.
During the Bosnian Civil War, Izetbegovic gave Bosnian citizenship to Osama Bin Laden at the Bosnian Embassy as witnessed by respected Der Spiegel writer Renate Flottau (pages 123-124). The Bosnian citizenship allowed him to travel easier in the lead-up to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Passports were also provided to other Muslims to participate in the September 11th attacks. There were additional Bosnian Muslim links to the September 11th attacks in this analysis by Gregory R. Copley.
Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of Bosnian Militants
Exclusive. Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS, with input from GIS stations in the Balkans.
Within this framework, apart from the links between the B-H officials and the original bombers of the New York World Trade Center in 1993, five of the known terrorist attackers on the US in 2001 had direct links through and with Bosnia, and literally all were supported by Bosnian-linked Islamist “charities”. The significance of the placement of Amb. Zivalj in New York in the brief period leading up to the September 11 attacks, and his departure shortly thereafter also cannot be overlooked. Nor can the links between the bin Laden and Iranian terrorist organizations with the Bosnian Islamists and the 1993 bombers who — as Yossef Bodansky pointed out in 1996 — promised terrorist retaliation against the US.
The Bosnian link to the September 11th and other terror attacks is detailed by Dr. Gordon Bardos with emphasis added on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed below.
"Yugoslavia’s disintegration in the 1990s opened the doors for a second generation of militant Islamists to establish itself in the region. Composed mostly of foreign transplants from Afghanistan and other jihadi fronts, it was even more extreme and dangerous than Izetbegovic’s original group. Mostly concentrated in a unit Izetbegovic formed in August 1992 named the Katibat al-Mujahideen, veterans of the Bosnian jihad in the 1990s included people such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, involved in the attack on the USS Cole; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, involved in the August 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa; Abu Hamza al-Masri, the spiritual father of the July 2005 London Underground bombings; and Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, one of the participants in the November 2008 Mumbai bombings. Ali Hamad, a Bahraini-born al-Qaeda operative, has claimed that al-Qaeda figures would visit Bosnia with 'state protection,' and both the US and Saudi Arabia accused the Izetbegovic regime of giving Bosnian passports to known terrorists."
Additional evidence of Al Qaeda fighting for the Bosnian Muslim is highlighted in these three paragraphs.
"Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad, an Al-Qaeda commander who was part of the Bosnian Muslim Army during the 1992-1995 civil, testified under oath at the war crimes trial of Bosnian Muslim military commander Rasim Delic that the Bosnian Muslim Government of Alija Izetnegovic had knowledge of Al-Qaeda war crimes against Bosnian Serb civilians and POWs but did nothing to prevent or punish them.
"Most importantly, Hamad confirmed under oath in a court of law that Al-Qaeda was part of the Bosnian Muslim military forces. This is a bombshell. Yet this admission and conclusive and unmistakeable proof of the Al-Qaeda presence in Bosnia was censored and suppressed in the U.S. and Western media. The mainstream media in the U.S. deleted it and censored it. Nevertheless, this testimony offers proof that Al-Qaeda was part of Alija Izetbegovic’s Bosnian Muslim Army.
"In sworn testimony before the ICTY war crimes trial in Sarajevo, Ali Hamad testified that, 'as far as he knows', the Bosnian Muslim Army never took measures to punish the Al-Qaeda troops in the Bosnian Muslim Army or any of the other Afghan-Arab mujahedeen. Moreover, he testified that the Bosnian Muslim military and political leadership did nothing to prevent Al-Qaeda and mujahedeen forces from committing war crimes against Serbian and Croatian civilians and POWs in Bosnia. These war crimes included ritual beheadings of Bosnian Serb civilians and POWs, decapitations, torture, circumcisions, and mass executions of Bosnian Serb POWs. Specifically, 60 Bosnian Serb POWs were tortured and murdered and three Bosnian Serb women were raped by Bosnian Muslim troops."
Emphasis added for connection between Bosnia and September 11th in the last paragraph of this link.
The Bosnia and 9/11 Connection: Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawal Al-Hazmi (above) from Saudi Arabia organized and participated in the 9/11 attacks. They were the suicide hijackers who crashed American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing all 64 persons on the plane and 125 in the Pentagon. They were both veterans of the Bosnian Muslim Army who possessed Bosnian passports issued by the Alija Izetbegovic Government.
Graphic Photo Warning : Before becoming a member of the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Semsudin Mehmedović holds a Serbian head as a trophy.
The Bosnian Muslim jihadist threat continues after September 11th. Former CIA Director Porter Goss visited Sarajevo in June 2005. "The Bosnian ministry for civil affairs says at least 900 men acquired Bosnian passports in this way since 1995. Six of them were extradited to U.S. authorities and transferred to the Guantanamo Bay military base following the attacks on New York and Pentagon in 2001."
Osama bin Laden's nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, is in the final news listing at the bottom of NATO SFOR Main News Summary for Friday, 14 May 2004.
Main News Summary
Friday, 14 May 2004
Friday, 14 May 2004
| Topic | Source | Title | Narrative |
| TERRORISM | Slobodna Bosna | Missionaries from the road of young Muslims | Dani has established a link between Osama bin Laden's nephew and Sarajevo. According to Dani, an investigation conducted by the US has also continued in BiH. Information gathered during this investigation shows that a link established between the banned Islamic organizations, Global Relief Foundation and Taibah, was not accidental. This information was partly used in the proceedings filed by the US authorities against Alamoudi for money laundering and banned transactions with foreign countries. Alamoudi was one of the leaders of the American Task Force for Bosnia (ATFB), a US national co-ordination body of Islamic organizations, which was actively involved in lobbying in the US to assist Bosniacs. Alamoudi was also the Deputy Director of the Taibah International Aid Agency, one of the founders of which was Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's nephew. Taibah had its branch offices in Bosnia and Albania, and it is also registered in Hadzici. (Photo on page 18) |
Another example of the Al-Qaeda Bosnian connection is Bosnian-born US citizen Adis Medunjanin sentenced to life in prison for a plot to bomb the New York City Subway in November 2012.
"'Justice demanded a sentence of life for this al-Qaeda operative, who was dedicated to mass murder and destruction in the New York City subways,' US attorney Loretta Lynch said.
'Scores of innocent New Yorkers would have been killed or maimed had Medunjanin succeeded.'"
Ms. Lynch is currently the US Attorney General.
===
I wanted to provide some background on the complex nature of the conflicts and actors in the former Yugoslavia. I want to now address what happened at Srebrenica. The establishment main stream media (MSM) focuses on the events of July 11, 1995. The deaths of Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serbs were tragic. What the MSM does NOT focus on the war crimes committed by Naser Oric and other Bosnian Muslims against 3,267 Bosnian Serb men, women and children in Srebrenica from 1992 to 1995. Warning : These are graphic photos of some of Oric's victims. Oric bragged about his killings in "Nasir Oric's Greatest Hits" in an article titled 'A Reporter's Account of an Evening Spent with Nasir Oric, the Muslim Commander in Srebrenica" in the Toronto Star, on July 16, 1995 by Bill Schiller. The original title was 'Fearsome Muslim warlord eludes Bosnian Serb forces'.
Oric, as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield, escaped Srebrenica before it fell. Some believe he may be leading the Bosnian Muslim forces in the nearby enclaves of Zepa and Gorazde. Last night these forces seized armored personnel carriers and other weapons from U.N. peacekeepers in order to better protect themselves.
Oric is a fearsome man, and proud of it.
I met him in January, 1994, in his own home in Serb-surrounded Srebrenica.
On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his living room watching a shocking video version of what might have been called Nasir Oric's Greatest Hits.
There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing.
Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork.
"We ambushed them," he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the screen.
The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: "We launched those guys to the moon," he boasted.
When footage of a bullet-marked ghost town appeared without any visible bodies, Oric hastened to announce: "We killed 114 Serbs there."
Later there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting his praises.
These video reminiscences, apparently, were from what Muslims regard as Oric's glory days. That was before most of eastern Bosnia fell and Srebrenica became a "safe zone" with U.N. peacekeepers inside - and Serbs on the outside.
=== End of Toronto Star text ====
The Washington Post's John Pomfret confirmed Schiller's report on February 16, 1994, with emphasis added on the headless Serb men.
"Nasir Oric's war trophies don't line the wall of his comfortable apartment -- one of the few with electricity in this besieged Muslim enclave stuck in the forbidding mountains of eastern Bosnia. They're on a videocassette tape: burned Serb houses and headless Serb men, their bodies crumpled in a pathetic heap.
"'We had to use cold weapons that night,' Oric explains as scenes of dead men sliced by knives roll over his 21-inch Sony. 'This is the house of a Serb named Ratso,' he offers as the camera cuts to a burned-out ruin. 'He killed two of my men, so we torched it. Tough luck.'"
Bosnian Muslim Ibran Mustafic corroborates many of Oric's crimes in his book, "Planned Chaos". It includes quotes that “The Whole Bridge was Floating in Serbian Blood”.
Mustafic writes how the events of July 1995 set the stage for the Bosnian Muslim state at the bottom of this link. “According to our [Bosnian Muslim] custom, when someone finishes the foundation for a house, an animal must be slaughtered on top of it. It seems that Srebrenica was a sacrificial lamb for the foundation of this [Muslim] state.”
Mustafic is saying the Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica were sacrificed for the Bosnian Muslim state.
Diana Johnstone backs up Mustafic's claim that Srebrenica was sacrificed. These are some key excerpts from her "Srebrenica Revisited" article.
"A few other indisputable facts should not be overlooked:
"Shortly before the Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica, the Muslim troops stationed in that enclave carried out murderous attacks on nearby Serb villages. These attacks were certain to incite Serb commanders to retaliate against the Srebrenica garrison.
"Meanwhile, the Muslim high command in Sarajevo ordered the Srebrenica commanders, Oric and his lieutenants, to withdraw from Srebrenica, leaving thousands of his soldiers without commanders, without orders, and in total confusion when the foreseeable Serb attack occurred. Surviving Srebrenica Muslim officials have bitterly accused the Izetbegovic government of deliberately sacrificing them to the interests of his State.
"According to the most thorough study of Srebrenica events, by Cees Wiebes for the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation report, the Bosnian Serb forces set out in July 1995 to reduce the area held by Bosnian Muslim forces on the outskirts of Srebrenica, and only decided to capture the town itself when they unexpectedly found it undefended."
Johnstone continues with these other key points.
"In short, Srebrenica, whose Serb population had been chased out by Muslim troops at the start of the civil war in 1992, was both a gathering point for civilian Muslim refugees and a Muslim army base. The enclave lived from international humanitarian aid. The Muslim military did not allow civilians to leave, since their presence was what ensured the arrival of humanitarian aid provisions which the military controlled.
"When the Bosnian Serb forces captured the town on July 11, 2005, civilians were clamoring to leave the enclave, understandably enough, since there was virtually no normal economic life there. Much has been made of the fact that Serb forces separated the population, providing buses for women, children and the infirm to take them to Tuzla, while detaining the men. In light of all that preceded, the reason for this separation is obvious: the Bosnian Serbs were looking for the perpetrators of raids on Serb villages, in order to take revenge.
"However, only a relatively small number of Muslim men were detained at that point, and some of them are known to have survived and eventually been released in exchange for Serb prisoners. When the Serb forces entered the town from the south, thousands of Muslim soldiers, in disarray because of the absence of commanding officers, fled northwards, through wild wooded hills toward Tuzla. It is clear enough that they fled because they feared exactly what everyone aware of the situation dreaded: that Serb soldiers would take vengeance on the men they considered guilty of murdering Serb civilians and prisoners.
"Thousands of those men did in fact reach Tuzla, and were quietly redeployed. This was confirmed by international observers. However, Muslim authorities never provided information about these men, preferring to let them be counted among the missing, that is, among the massacred. Another large, unspecified number of these men were ambushed and killed as they fled in scenes of terrible panic. This was, then, a 'massacre', such as occurs in war when fleeing troops are ambushed by superior forces."
Johnstone makes other key points. I included her entire article at the end of this post.
Sacrificing Srebrenica was a discussed during the Hague Proceedings on page 9480 on Thursday, April 5, 2001 and also listed Mr. Meholjic's testimony on the ICTY website.
From tape presented:
[Muslim official] Hakija Meholjic [INTERPRETER Voiceover]:
THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "A meeting with American president Clinton, Alija [Izetbegovic] was telling us about the offer of Clinton. Chetniks [meant as derogatory for Serbs] would take Srebrenica and kill 5.000 Muslims, and then there will be a military intervention, and what did we think about that? And we rejected that. We didn't think it was normal that 5.000 people would be slaughtered."
"That the American president would have suggested that Serbs would enter Srebrenica and to kill Muslims in order to justify an intervention would be too absurd, but from the UN research, it now seems that this is not too awkward. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them that he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was possible but could only occur if the Serbs which would break into Srebrenica are killing at least 5.000 of its people."
Wharton School Professor Emeritus of Finance Edward S. Herman describes the first "Srebrenica Massacre" in an interview with John Robles.
Herman: The Srebrenica massacre, actually I always put it in quote marks, because actually there were lots of massacres in the Srebrenica area, the one before July 1995 there were vast numbers of Serbs killed by Muslim, Bosnian Muslim, forces who went out of Srebrenica.
One estimate is that there were more than 150 Serbs villages that were totally wiped out and one study gives actually gives the names of 2,383 Serb civilians who were killed between 1992 and July, 1995. So then we’d call that “the first Srebrenica massacre”. Then in July 1995…
Professor Herman edited "The Srebrencia Massacre Evidence, Context, Politics".
Journalist Philip Corwin wrote on pages 8-9 of the forward with emphasis added on Western Slavonia.
"There
is also evidence in this book that thousands of Serbs were massacred,
expelled, tortured, raped, and humiliated during the wars within former
Yugoslavia. The international community has not seen fit to publicize
these atrocities with as much vigor as it has those of Srebrenica.That
simple observation does not justify what occurred in Srebrenica. But it
is another piece of the puzzle that explains the anger of the Serbs when
they assaulted Srebrenica. In May 1995, for example, just two months
before Srebrenica fell, the Croatian army captured Western Slavonia
and expelled 90 per cent of the Serb population in that region. Serbs
had lived in Western Slavonia for hundreds of years. But the
international community said nothing about those expulsions; in fact, it
applauded the Croatian action, as though the Serb civilians deserved
what had happened. To massacre Croatians or Bosnians or Kosovo Albanians
was genocide. To massacre Serbs was regarded as appropriate
retribution. Clearly, the international community has not seen fit to
consecrate the massacres of Serbs with monuments. Instead, it has issued arrest warrants for Serb leaders.
"What
happened in Srebrenica was not a single large massacre of Muslims by
Serbs, but rather a series of very bloody attacks and counterattacks
over a three-year period, which reached a crescendo in 1995. And the
number of Muslim executed in the last battle of Srebrenica, as former
BBC reporter Jonathan Rooper has pointed out, was most likely in the
hundreds, not in the thousands. Moreover, it is likely that the number
of Muslim dead was probably no more than the number of Serbs that had
been killed in Srebrenica and its environs during the preceding years by Bosnian Commander Naser Oric and his predatory gangs." This is a FaceBook Remembrance site of the 3,267 Serbs killed at Srebrenica from 1992-1995.
This is a typed list of some of the Serb victims in Srebrenica and the surrounding area.
After the war, there was great debate on what happened at Srebrenica. The Srebrenica Historical Project based in the Netherlands has proceeded to study the events of July 11, 1995, and more broadly from 1992 to 1995. I also would like to see a South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Bosnia as a means to reconcile and move forward.
Foreign peacekeepers were key in trying to keep the peace and deliver aid. Dutch peacekeepers played a large role in Bosnia, particularly Srebrenica.
Dutch Battalion (Dutchbat) soldier Marco Van Hees articulated the challenge of 450 lightly armed Dutch soldiers defending an area that had 10,000 well armed Bosnian Muslim soldiers.
“It is Not Our Fault Muslims Lost the Battle!”
“Bosnian Federation lost the case against Netherlands which it sued for the alleged failings of our battalion. They sued us, although no Muslim lost his life while we were stationed in the bases in and around Srebrenica! The fact they lost the case, however, doesn’t mean that our troops got any measure of satisfaction”, Van Hees said, explaining that Dutch battalion was comprised of young troops, aged 19-20, unprepared for clashes.“We were saddened by the fact we are being sued by the ones we were helping out for almost two years… by those who were stealing our food and gasoline, who were cursing at us, insulting us… It is not our fault they lost the battle. Our task was to ‘protect them from the Serbs’, while they were attacking us. They killed one of our soldiers and wounded several others!”, Van Hees said.
“There’s lots of problems with the Muslims”, he unexpectedly said in Serbian. “With Serbs there are ‘no problems’,” Dutchbat veteran said.
“Commander of the Dutchbat, then-Lieutenant Colonel Karremans publicly said that the battle for Srebrenica was an ‘exceptionally well carried out military action’, after which he was criticized in Netherlands. Our battalion was withdrawing from Srebrenica on July 9, 10 and 11. Practically nothing was going on at that time,” Van Hees said.
Serbs were Not Killing and Abusing Muslim Civilians
Regarding the wish former members of the Dutch battalion expressed to testify on behalf of the Serbs in the Hague, Van Hees explained that “no Dutchbat soldier saw or heard of either the killing or raping of the Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Our soldiers who were on the buses, transporting [Bosnian Muslim] women and children from Potocari to Tuzla can testify there was no mistreatment or killings by the Serbs. Those who were in Kalimanici could also confirm they saw no killing of the Muslims. There was a lot of crime among the Muslims themselves in Srebrenica…,” Van Hees said.Bosnian High Representative Paddy Ashdown was implicated along with the Deputy High Representative, American Ambassador Donald S. Hays with trying to force a fabricated report on Srebrenica.
Noam Chomsky Compares Srebrenica with the Fallujah Invasion
Historian Dr. Vojin Joksimovich discussed the Impact of US Autistic Foreign Policies in the Balkans: Part II Bosnia
"The non-governmental Srebrenica Research Project has published a short info-book Srebrenica 1995-2015: Just the Facts, Without Propaganda or Embellishment. There is substantive evidence that many Muslims, soldiers and refugees, were killed in ambushes and firefights with the Serbs, while conducting a military breakout from Srebrenica on the way to the Muslim controlled city of Tuzla. The UN Secretary General used the figure of ~3,000. Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister and diplomat as EU special envoy to the Former Yugoslavia and High Representative for Bosnia, quoted a figure of 4,000 in his book. Former US National Security Agency analyst John Schindler, in his book Unholy Terror, gave an estimate of 5,000, while the ICTY prosecution witness Richard Butler had quoted in his testimonies a number of 2,000. In the western media narrative these Muslims, killed in the battles, are 'genocide victims.'
"There is substantive evidence that hundreds of Muslim prisoners had been summarily executed but it has yet to be established who issued the order for these executions. In the Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic’s ICTY trial, now in the fourth year, it has not produced any hard evidence that he issued the order. The only person convicted by the ICTY is not a Serb but a Bosnian Croat called Drazen Erdemovic, who was identified as a member of the Bosnian Serb military '10th Sabotage Unit,' a multi-ethnic unit including mercenaries with French Foreign Legion backgrounds. Erdemovic’s contradictory and inconsistent testimony was analyzed in German Chivikov’s book Star Witness. Erdemovic was not even able to confirm the date of the massacre before the ICTY and couldn’t remember who issued the order, 'some lieutenant-colonel.' He testified of having received up to 12 kilos of gold for certain 'services rendered.'
"The Dutch daily Algemaine Dahblad (AD) has recently revealed the biggest Srebrenica mystery. It accuses the US, GB and France of having a secret agreement to deny the air support to the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica. The most chilling revelation about Srebrenica comes from Hakija Meholjic, the police chief and the leader of the Social Democratic Party in town, who claimed 'Srebrenica was sold.' According to him Izetbegovic planned to swap Srebrenica for Vogosce, a Sarajevo suburb. Izetbegovic told the Srebrenica representatives that President Clinton told him that if the Serbs enter Srebrenica and massacre some 5,000 Muslims there would be NATO military intervention. The SDA promised an investigation that never took place. Apparently, Srebrenica was a propaganda coup that Izetbegovic wanted.
"American journalist Diana Johnstone in 2011 summarized the situation: on Srebrenica the facts are partly established, partly disputed, and partly unknown. The Srebrenica Research Project booklet says: 'After 20 years, for all the media attention and limelight, the only conclusion that can be made with certainty is that nothing certain has been determined. The main reason for this failure lies in the fact that politics and pragmatic interests have trumped justice and the pursuit of truth. Only an independent, representative, international truth commission could establish the truth.'”
Dr. Joksimovich cites ICTY prosecution witness Richard Butler had quoted in his testimonies a number of 2,000. The 2,000 number is in line with the analysis of Dr. Ljubiša Simić, pathologist and forensic expert who had full access to the Hague Prosecution’s forensic evidence. Dr. Simić found 1,919 right and 1,923 left femur bones. Moreover, Swiss researcher Alexander Dorin, author of the book Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism (Srebrenica — die Geschichte eines salonfahigen Rassismus) told Belgrade daily Press in an exclusive interview.
These are two key questions and answers that back up the 2,000 number killed (instead of 8,000) as well as 3,000 Bosnian Muslims voting in the 1996 Bosnian Elections a year after the war ended in 1995.
“Srebrenica Victims” Voting
Q: Does your book offer additional evidence?A: The book also presents evidence which shows 2,000 Muslim men who lost their lives in Srebrenica fell during the battles. In order to be able to claim that the “genocide” was committed, and since they didn’t have enough bodies to back the initial claim of 8,000 allegedly killed Muslims, they listed as Srebrenica victims a number of Bosnian Muslim fighters who died long before Srebrenica takeover, or were shot down in other battles during the civil war, from 1992-1995. The list of the alleged Srebrenica victims also contains the names of those who are still alive.
Q: You mean those who were later voting in the elections…?
A: That is correct. In the 1996 Bosnian elections, the electoral lists contained some 3,000 Bosnian Muslims who were also listed as “Srebrenica victims”. This further underlines the fact that so-called Hague Tribunal still has no evidence of “Srebrenica genocide”. Instead, they rely on the claims of Croat Dražen Erdemović, proven to be sheer lies, as Bulgarian reporter Germinal Civikov has demonstrated in his latest book.
CONCLUSION
Question : Why does the US consider the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims a "genocide" while NOT classifying the deaths of 1.5 million dead Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians also as a "genocide"? 1.5 million is 187.5 more times than 8,000 people.
Michael Averko, a New York-based foreign policy analyst and regular contributor to Eurasia Review, provides an answer. Averko also accused the administration of President Barack Obama of double standards in its continued refusal to condemn Turkey for the World War I massacre of 1.5 million Christian Armenians as genocide.
Columbia University Professor Dr. Gilbert Doctorow discussed the UN Srebrenica Resolution Shows Double Standards Justifying Russian Stand
"Yes, Srebrenica was a war crime, and let things stand there," the Columbia professor said.
Srebrenica was also a precedent for US intervention in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere according to Nebojsa Malic, a foreign policy analyst born in Bosnia of Serb descent and now living in Washington, DC. It also gave NATO a new lease on life after the Cold War ended.
The first commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo, Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, makes these observations regarding "genocide".
There is plenty of blame for war crimes committed in and around Srebrenica. It starts locally with Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. I agree with the Srebrenica Historical Project that "... b) the Bosnian Muslim leadership headed by former president Alija Izetbegovic, which refused the above peace initiatives, actively imported thousands of mujahedeen fighters into Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, and took deliberate actions that sabotaged peace efforts in order to provoke U.S. led intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans." Moreover, there are also outside forces to blame. For instance, "a) U.S. officials who continually sabotaged efforts to reach a peaceful solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina, from the failed Lisbon Plan in March 1992, by which the Bosnian Serbs were even willing to accept an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina and separation from ex-Yugoslavia, to the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan of 1993."
The first commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo, Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, makes these observations regarding "genocide".
There is plenty of blame for war crimes committed in and around Srebrenica. It starts locally with Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. I agree with the Srebrenica Historical Project that "... b) the Bosnian Muslim leadership headed by former president Alija Izetbegovic, which refused the above peace initiatives, actively imported thousands of mujahedeen fighters into Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, and took deliberate actions that sabotaged peace efforts in order to provoke U.S. led intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans." Moreover, there are also outside forces to blame. For instance, "a) U.S. officials who continually sabotaged efforts to reach a peaceful solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina, from the failed Lisbon Plan in March 1992, by which the Bosnian Serbs were even willing to accept an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina and separation from ex-Yugoslavia, to the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan of 1993."
Regarding American involvement, former CIA agent Robert Baer is quoted.
Reference Links
(1) Wiesenthal Center, absurd comparing Srebrenica and Holocaust
According to Zuroff, no proper genocide in the enclave
(2) The Graz Agreement.(3) Pro-Yugoslav Muslim Leader Put on Trial by R. Arsenic
(4) "Miloševićevi ljudi" (in Serbian). NIN. 13 January 2000.
(5) BOSNIAN PRESIDENT - AYATOLLAH KHOMEYNI'S RIGHT HAND MAN
(6) The Real Izbegovic by Nebojsa Malic
(7) Srebrenica : The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic.
(8) Unholy Terror by John Schindler. Der Spiegel reporter Renate Flottau witnessed Izetbegovic granted Osama Bin Laden Bosnian Muslim citizenship.
(9) BosnianOfficial Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become Increasingly Apparent asClinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of Bosnian Militants by Gregory R. Copley
(10) Jihad in the Balkans: The Next Generation by Gordon N. Bardos
(11) The Other Side of the Story: Proof: Al-Qaeda Role in Bosnia, Carl Savich blog on Serbianna, July 25, 2008
(12) Ali Hammad, former Al Qaeda warrior in Bosnia: We were torturing Serbs in concentration camps, hammered them alive, drove rusty nails through their genitals. By Grey Carter on November 30, 2013.
(13) "BALKANS: Fears Rise Over Support to Terrorists," by Vesna Peric Zimonjic, on June 25, 2005, IPS News Agency.
(14) Osama bin Laden's nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, is in the final news listing at the bottom of the table. NATO SFOR Main News Summary for Friday, 14 May 2004.
(15) "New York bomb plotter Adis Medunjanin sentenced to life," BBC on November 17, 2012.
(16) The Real Srebrenica Genocide by Nathan Pearlstein
(17) A Reporter's Account of an Evening Spent with Nasir Oric, the Muslim Commander in Srebrenica
Original title, 'Fearsome Muslim warlord eludes Bosnian Serb forces' Toronto Star, July 16, 1995 By Bill Schiller
(18) "WEAPONS, CASH AND CHAOS LEND CLOUT TO SREBRENICA'S TOUGH GUY"by John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service, The Washington Post, February 16, 1994.
(19) New Evidence Against Srebrenica Warlord
(20) Srebrenica Revisited by Diane Johnstone.
(21) Srebrenica "men and boys" Was it a genocide?
(22) Mr. Hakija Meholjic's testimony on ICTY website page 9480 on Thursday, April 5, 2001.
(23) This website details "New Evidence Against Srebrenica Warlord" which includes Ibran Mustafic's book : Srebrenica was a “Planned Chaos”. It includes quotes that “The Whole Bridge was Floating in Serbian Blood”. Oric only served two years in prison.
(24) Typed list of some of the Serb victims in Srebrenica and the surrounding area.
(25) The Srebrenica Massacre was a Gigantic Political Fraud by Edward S. Herman and John Robles
(26) "The Srebrencia Massacre Evidence, Context, Politics" Edited by Edward Herman, Foreward by Phillip Corwin.
(27) Студенти за истину - правда за све жртве Сребренице
(28) Srebrenica Historical Project
(29) Dutchbat III
(30) “US Official Implicated With Bosnian High Representative Ashdown in Attempting to Force Fabricated Report on Srebrenica”
(31) Impact of US Autistic Foreign Policies in the Balkans: Part II Bosnia By Vojin Joksimovich
(32) Srebrenica — Neither Massacre, Nor Genocide By Alexander Dorin.
(33) Alexander Dorin: “Srebrenica Massacre” is a Western Myth
Amazon listing.
Listing on a German language website.
(34) Alexander Dorin, Writer of a Book on Srebrenica Disappeared! Arrested? Where is he?
(35) The Crown Witness at The Hague by John McLaughland.
(36) Srebrenica, Twenty Years Later by Srdja Trifkovic.
(37) Deconstruction of a Virtual Genocide: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Srebrenica. Introduction on Pages 7-9 by Jonathan Rooper, Quote used is on Page 9.
(38) UN Srebrenica Resolution Shows Double Standards Justifying Russian Stand
(39) How Srebrenica tragedy became excuse for atrocities around the world
(40) Srebrenica Forensics: 1919-1923 Victims in Total
(41) Srebrenica "massacre".
(42) Srebrenica: a ‘safe’ area
Appendix II
Intelligence and the war in Bosnia 1992 - 1995: The role of the intelligence and security services
(43) "The real story behind Srebrenica" By Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie.
(43) "The real story behind Srebrenica" By Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie.
(44) SREBRENICA 1995-2015: Just the Facts, Without Propaganda or Embellishment
(45) CIA exposed by former agent – Robert Baer eBritic interview by Aleks Simic on October 10, 2012
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Since De-Construct.net has been hacked in the past, I am posting the entire article for future reference.
New Evidence Against Srebrenica Warlord
May 29th, 2008 | By De-Construct.net | In Bosnia
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Ibran Mustafic: Srebrenica was a “Planned Chaos”
Immediately before the April 1, 2008 discussion before the Appellation Board of the Hague tribunal in the case of Srebrenica warlord, commander of the Bosnian Muslim army stationed in Srebrenica Naser Oric, a written testimony which reveals some of the previously unknown details about the “lord of life and death in war-torn Srebrenica” was published.Ibran Mustafic, the author of the book “Planned Chaos”, for which most Bosnian Muslim leaders wish it was never written, was an MP of the Party of the Democratic Action (SDA, headed by the Bosnian Muslim war leader, Alija Izetbegovic) in the Bosnia-Herzegovina Parliament constituted after the 1990 elections and just before the start of the civil war, and President of the Executive Board of Srebrenica Municipal Assembly.
At the start of the Bosnian civil war he clashed with, as he calls it, “Naser Oric Junta”, which resulted in the series of attempts of his assassination. In the third assassination attempt on May 11, 1995, Mustafic was heavily wounded and it was deemed a miracle that he survived. Assaults by Bosnian Muslims against Mustafic became more frequent after his book was published. The latest took place on April 25 this year, when he was attacked and severely beaten by a group of thugs in Srebrenica downtown, in broad daylight.
“They call me a traitor,” Mustafic says, “claiming I invented Naser Oric’s crimes, but that kind of stupidity doesn’t bother me in the least. The purpose of my book was not to defend the Serbs, but I will by no means defend the members of my nation who committed atrocities! Criminals are criminals, regardless of their name and ethnicity. I categorically claim that Naser Oric is a war criminal without a par!”
Atrocious War Crimes Against Srebrenica Serbs
“Planned Chaos” sheds a new light on Srebrenica events during the war and represents first admission and a testimony by a Bosnian Muslim from Srebrenica about Serbian suffering in Srebrenica region. Apart from describing the crimes committed by the Bosnian Muslim army under the command of Naser Oric against the Serbs, Mustafic also testifies about arming of the Bosnian Muslims prior and during the civil war, including the period when Srebrenica was declared a demilitarized zone under the UN protection. He also describes the mutual clashes between Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica municipality, lorded over by the Naser Oric mafia.Far from representing a Bosnian Muslim “dove”, Ibran Mustafic presents himself as someone who idolized Ustasha movement from the early youth, choosing his heroes among the notorious Croat Nazi cutthroats Jure Francetic, Kadrija Softic, Nurif Oric and other members of the Ustasha “Black Legion” and Bosnian Muslim 13th SS Handzar Division, indoctrinated with the contempt and hatred against the Serbs.
Regardless, his written account of atrocities committed against the Bosnian Serbs by Naser Oric’s gang of thugs has prompted widespread accusations of “treason” among the Bosnian Muslims.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of widespread atrocities and war crimes committed by Oric and his gang in the town of Srebrenica and surrounding villages populated by the Serbs, the Kangaroo Court in Hague acquitted him of direct involvement in the murder and cruel treatment of Serbs, and of responsibility for the wanton destruction of entire villages, churches, homes and property. While he was convicted of “failing to prevent men under his command to kill and abuse imprisoned Bosnian Serbs,†and sentenced to two years in jail, he was immediately released, since he has already spent three years in the Hague during the charade of a trial.
Naser Oric is a Monster, a War Criminal Without a Par
However, Mustafic’s book offers additional evidence about Oric’s direct involvement in some of the most macabre war crimes committed on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the civil war.Probably the most shocking chapter of the book is the one with Naser Oric’s personal admission of the first Serb he killed by his own hands, murder of the Srebrenica Judge Slobodan Ilic.
“When we took that group captured in Zalazje from [Srebrenica] prison to take them back toward Zalazje, and when the slaying begun, Slobodan Ilic came into my hands. I climbed on his chest. He was bearded and hairy like an animal. He looked at me without saying a word. I took out the bayonet and jabbed it straight into one eye, and then turned it back and forth. He didn’t let the single sound out. Then I hit him with the knife in the other eye… I couldn’t believe he’s not reacting. Frankly, that’s when I got scared for the first time, so I cut his throat right after that”, Oric described his ‘feat’ to Mustafic word-for-word during one evening Mustafic visited him.
Oric’s admission is followed by the testimony of Mustafic’s uncle Ibrahim, who witnessed the same slaughter.
“Naser came over and told me to get ready at once and go with the flag in front of Srebrenica prison. I dressed up and went over. When I came in front of the prison, they took out all those captured in Zalazje and ordered me to drive them towards Zalazje. When we reached the depot, they ordered me to stop and park the truck. I moved to a safe distance. But, when I saw their savagery and when the slaying begun, I felt all the blood drain from my head. When Zulfo (Tursunovic) ripped the knife down the chest of the nurse Rada, while asking her where is her radio-station, I couldn’t watch any longer. I came back to Srebrenica on foot from the depot, and they drove the truck over afterwards, which I took from Srebrenica to go home to Potocare. The inside was all bloodied up”, Mustafic cites the testimony of his uncle.
The above mentioned medical nurse Rada Milanovic stayed in Srebrenica even after her family moved away. Srebrenica territorial defense headquarters assigned her to medical field group and to a local hospital.
“The Whole Bridge was Floating in Serbian Blood”
Mustafic also recounted other crimes against the Serbs from the town of Srebrenica which were more or less well known. He mentioned that, after the assault against the village Jezestica “Kemo from Pale [near Sarajevo] was carrying a severed head around with him, scaring people”.The murder of the Stjepanovic family is also described. Stjepanovic family members were taken out of their apartment in the Srebrenica Battalion Street by Oric’s butchers in July 1992, and taken to nearby Potocare.
“Andjelija Stjepanovic (74) and her son Mihajlo (50) were among those brutally slain then. One Bosnian Muslim from Potocari described afterwards how the whole bridge where these poor people were slaughtered was literally swimming in blood. The killer of Stjepanovic family is Kemo Mehmedovic from Pale, Naser’s loyal follower in atrocities. The executioner today lives in Austria, and there are tons of similar examples from Srebrenica. It is a shame that not one of these monsters in the human form have faced responsibility for their crimes, and their main organizer and the one who ordered them to kill, Naser Oric, is today parading in freedom,” commented one of a handful of Bosnian Serb civilians who survived the hell of Srebrenica imprisonment.
The previously little known details about the torture and murder of the severely ill Krsto Dimitrovski and his wife Velinka, from Srebrenica, were also revealed in Mustafic’s book, charging Ejub Golic, former commander of the “Independent Hill Battalion” from the village Glogovo. Golic was freed of charges raised against him for this crime.
Hague Tribunal Rewards Bosnian Muslim War Criminals
Apart from recounting these and many other savage tortures and murders of the Serbs who had the misfortune to remain in the town of Srebrenica occupied by Oric’s butchers, Mustafic also describes how his testimony against the Srebrenica Muslim monsters in the Hague tribunal was turned down, and why he had no opportunity to tell the court what really went on in “Srebrenica safehaven” before General Mladic took the town over.“I was, indeed, called to testify before the Hague tribunal as a Prosecution witness [in the trial against Oric], and I believe I was supposed to be the last witness for the Prosecution. After three days spent in the preparatory procedure, there was a major clash between the Prosecution representative and myself. First of all, the indictment against Naser was entirely ridiculous. He was charged for the things he wasn’t guilty of, but not for any of the things he was guilty for. Secondly, the Hague tribunal was more and more starting to look like Carla Del Ponte’s parade, so a number of processes turned into circus. Finally, I was most offended when they tried to blackmail me, by threatening me with up to seven years’ imprisonment or the 200,000 Euros fine. I couldn’t stay silent when I saw that paper, and I told the prosecutor: ‘That’s right! the whole purpose of me coming here to testify was to actually get a more severe punishment than Erdemovic [another Bosnian Muslim war criminal], who was rewarded by the Hague tribunal for admitting he personally took part in over 140 murders!’ After all that, when I came in front of the courtroom, I was waiting for two hours, but they finally informed me that the Judges decided not to let me testify and that I can go back home,” Mustafic wrote.
Srebrenica as a Safehaven for War Criminals, Thugs and Mafia
Regarding the situation in the “Srebrenica safehaven”, Mustafic wrote that, when the region was declared a demilitarized zone and placed under the UN protection, there were no “provocations” by the Bosnian Serb Army. Despite that, according to Mustafic, Oric’s Muslim troops kept digging the trenches around the town of Srebrenica and, alongside the humanitarian aid, weapons were being delivered to the “demilitarized zone” — all in the plain sight of the Dutch UNPROFOR battalion.Mustafic writes that, even though the boards were placed around the town of Srebrenica declaring it a “Demilitarized zone, every military operation is strictly prohibited, Article 60, Protocol 1 of Geneva Convention”, delivery of weapons, ammunition, uniforms and explosives was never interrupted. The military equipment, despite the UN Resolution prohibiting the flights over Bosnia and Herzegovina, was delivered by helicopters. Likewise, the agreement signed by General Ratko Mladic on the Bosnian Serb side and Sefer Halilovic on the side of Bosnian Muslims, stipulating that “not a single soldier who finds himself within, or wishes to enter the demilitarized zone, except for UNPROFOR members, is permitted to carry arms, explosives, or ammunition”, was deemed completely worthless by the Bosnian Muslim Srebrenica troops.
Mustafic writes that there were 18 flights carrying weapons, with most of deliveries carried out at the time Srebrenica, as a supposedly demilitarized zone, was under UN Peace Corps protection [UNPROFOR].
Mustafic lays a great deal of blame upon the Dutch troops stationed in Srebrenica, claiming they were fully aware about all the violations daily committed by the Oric’s gang, but chose to silently observe, hoping to pass their service unscathed.
“Obviously, the Dutch accepted to patrol the lines together with our troops only in order to take responsibility off themselves, and to show the world that Srebrenica was not a demilitarized zone. Indeed, at the time, the Dutch battalion which was supposed to have some 600 troops, had around 250 soldiers, while [Oric's] 28th division was comprised of 5,500 allegedly demilitarized men,” Mustafic wrote.
“When the battles for Srebrenica begun, one of our thugs, probably on order, killed a soldier from the Dutch battalion. This helped dissolve the entire system of Dutch responsibility,” Mustafic revealed.
Foundation of the Muslim State Sealed by the Sacrificial Blood of the Innocent
He also notes that Srebrenica Muslim troops kept staging ambushes from the UN “safehaven”, killing the members of the Bosnian Serb Army, and that they used the Srebrenica protected status to launch assaults against the surrounding Serbian villages, such as the raid under the Oric’s commanders Ekrem Salihovic and Ibrahim Mandzic of the Bosnian Serb village Visnjica, where they killed civilians and torched the village.“When I told Madzic that such attacks would justify the Bosnian Serb Army attack on Srebrenica, he said: ‘This was not an action initiated by us. We received the orders from Sarajevo’,” Mustafic testifies, adding that he later learned that “the order for the attacks on Serbian villages around Srebrenica was signed by General Enver Hadzihasanovic [of the Bosnian Muslim army, from their Sarajevo HQ]…. Clearly, they wanted to provoke the response, to solve the Srebrenica problem”.
However, it turned out that the “problem” Bosnian Muslim leaders and their foreign sponsors wanted solved was far more profound than the issue of one town in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that is how to take over the rule over the entire Bosnian republic after the destruction of Yugoslavia, even though Bosnian Muslims are just one of three large nations living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and even today not a majority. The only way they thought this could be done, was if Bosnian Serbs were entirely exterminated or, failing that, if the entire Serbian nation is pinned with charges of “genocide”, which would enable the complete assimilation of all the Serb-owned land and property in state.
Ibran Mustafic confirmed this claim back in July 1996:
“According to our [Bosnian Muslim] custom, when someone finishes the foundation for a house, an animal must be slaughtered on top of it. It seems that Srebrenica was a sacrificial lamb for the foundation of this [Muslim] state.”
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CIA exposed by former agent – Robert Baer
October 10, 20122
by aleks simic (272)
Over the years there have been
many ex military and secret service personnel that have written books
and articles that talk about their work and the objectives of their
bosses. Such disclosures are always most interesting when the subject
matter is close to your heart and when you feel that the public
perception needs to be altered.
Robert Baer is a
former senior CIA officer and the author of many works about his former
employers at the time of the administrations of Bill Clinton and George
W. Bush. His publications have been a source of irritation to the
current US authorities leading to his arrest on several occasions.
As a senior CIA operative, he worked in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-1994 and in the Middle East. He has participated in several documentaries on the National Geographic TV channel accusing Bush of making war for oil!
The following interview with Robert Baer was conducted by Milos
Cupurdija last month in Canada and highlights some of the public
misconceptions about the events that tore up Yugoslavia.
_____________________________
When did you arrive in Yugoslavia and what was your first job? I first arrived by helicopter with 3 other agents on 12 January 1991 in Sarajevo. Our job was to keep an eye on the supposed Serbian terrorists who were due to attack Sarajevo.
Who were supposed to be the terrorists and why would they be expected to attack Sarajevo?
They were given information about a group called “Serbian Supreme” and their plans to attack key buildings in Sarajevo with the desire that Bosnia would leave Yugoslavia.
Was there such a group, and what did you actually do in Sarajevo?
Such a group never existed and we had been tricked by our central command. We were tasked with warning people and spreading panic amongst the politicians in Bosnia. Basically we just filled their heads with the idea that the Serbs will attack. Initially we were taken with the story but eventually realised that we were spreading stories and fear about a group that did not exist.
How long did this operation last and what was it called?
For me it lasted for two weeks because then I received orders to go to Slovenia on another job. The operation continued for another month after and the code name was “Istina” which is exactly what it was not.
Why did you go to Slovenia?
There I was told that Slovenia was getting ready to declare it’s independence from Yugoslavia. I was given money, several million dollars with which we would finance non governmental organizations, opposition parties and politicians all of whom were prepared to spread and incite amongst the population.
Given these propaganda activities what sort of opinions did you have of the CIA and what did you’re colleagues think?
Of course you do not refuse a task given to you by the CIA especially at that time when everybody was jumpy and given to paranoia. Many agents and high ranking officers had disappeared because they had refused to work on propaganda against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. I personally was shocked at the amount of lies being perpetrated by the CIA and the US politicians. Many CIA agents worked in propaganda but were not entirely aware of what they were doing as they would be involved with just one facet of the project and only those who could piece together the whole picture knew the aims of the work and they were the politicians.
So there was only propaganda against the Serbs?
Yes and no. The propaganda was aimed to divide the republics and to ensure that the states are separated from the mother of Yugoslavia. We had to choose a sacrificial lamb that could be blamed for everything. Someone who would be responsible for the war and the violence. Serbia was chosen because it is in some ways the successor of Yugoslavia.
Can you name the politicians from the former Yugoslavia that received money from the CIA?
Yes, although this is delicate. Stipe Mesic, Franjo Tudjman, Alija Izebegović, many advisors and members of the government of Yugoslavia, and also Serbian generals, journalists and even some military units. For a time Radovan Karadzic was paid but stopped taking the help when he realized he would be sacrificed and charged with crimes in Bosnia. He was played by the U.S. administration.
You mentioned the financing and control of the media, how did this take place?
It is already known that some CIA agents were responsible for writing the official statement that news anchors would read. Of course the news readers did not know anything as they received their instructions from their bosses who received instructions from his boss who was our (CIA) man. There was one overall task and that was to incite hatred and nationalism through television and for differences between the people to really stand out.
Srebrenica which we are all aware of. Can you say something about that situation?
Yes, from 1992 I was in Bosnia again, but this time we had to train military units representing Bosnia, the new State which only just declared it’s independence. Srebrenica is an exaggerated story, and unfortunately many people have been manipulated by it. The numbers of the people killed…these were all part of the political marketing. My boss who had previously been in the US Senate had several times told me that there would at some point be a big con in Bosnia. A month before the supposed genocide in Srebrenica he told me that this town would be known around the world and we were instructed to inform the media. When I asked him why he said I will see. We received an order that with the newly formed Bosnian army we should attack the houses and people of Srebrenica. Of course the Serbs followed suite as they would have been incited and paid to do so also.
Who could it be responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica?
Simply the deaths in Srebrenica were due to the Bosnians, the Serbs and the Americans, us! But the blame for everything is laid at the feet of the Serbs. Unfortunately many of the victims were buried as Muslims and yet they were Serbs or other nationalities. A few years ago a friend of mine, a former CIA agent and currently working in the IMF said that Srebrenica was a product of an agreement between the U.S. government and politicians in Bosnia. Srebrenica as the city was sacrificed because after the alleged crimes of Serbs, the America had a reason to attack.
Why do you think that Yugoslavia broke up and why did your government want to have it’s role in this?
Everything is clear, people who had quietly instigated the war and loudly shouted about the peace are now the owners of the companies that exploit a variety of mineral resources and the like in that land! Simply, they made slaves of you, your people are working for free and the products are going to Germany and America, they earn! In the end you have to pay to import what you have made yourselves and since you have no money you must take out loans. It’s the story with the whole of the Balkans!
You have not been active in Kosovo as a CIA agent, but was there some pressure from the United States?
Of course! Kosovo was taken for two reasons, firstly because of mineral and natural resources, and secondly, the Kosovo military base NATO! In the heart of Europe is their largest military base.
Do you have any message for the people of the former Yugoslavia?
I have. Forget your recent past it was staged and faked. You have been manipulated and they got what they wanted and it would be stupid for you to still hate each other. You have to be stronger and to show that you are aware what has happened and who was responsible. I sincerely apologise and this is why I have for a long time now been exposing the secrets of the CIA and the White House.
______________________________
Robert Baer is currently promoting his new book “The Secrets of the White House”. Here are some of his previous publications.
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, Crown Publishing Group, January 2002, ISBN 0-609-60987-4.
Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, Crown Publishing Group, July 2003, ISBN 1-4000-5021-9.
Blow the House Down: A Novel, Crown Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 1-4000-9835-1.
The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, Crown Publishing Group, September 2008 ISBN 0-307-40864-7
The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story, Crown Publishing Group, March 8, 2011
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October 12, 2005
Srebrenica Revisited
Last summer, almost the entire political spectrum in the Western world joined in a chorus of self-flagellation on the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The dominant theme was “nostra culpa”: “we” let it happen, “we” didn’t want to know about it, and “we” mustn’t let it happen again.
Dear reader, who are “we” in this case? How in the world could “we” (you and I) have known or done anything about this at the time? And in fact, how much do “we” really know about it now? We know what we read in the newspapers or see on television. But how precise and accurate is that information? How do we know now that we are much better informed than we were before the event?
Such questions are virtually taboo. Srebrenica has become a sacred symbol of collective guilt, and to raise the slightest question is to be instantly condemned as an apologist for frightful crimes , or as a “holocaust denier”.
A left that retains any capacity for critical thinking should regard the lavish public breast-beating over “Srebrenica” (the quotation marks indicate the symbol rather than the actual event) with a certain skepticism. If mainstream media commentators and politicians are so extraordinarily moved by “Srebrenica”, this is because it has become an incantation to justify whatever future foreign war the U.S. government and media decide to sell under the label of “humanitarian intervention”.
The Uses of a Massacre
Aside from the probable future use of “Srebrenica”, there is the way it has already been used. Indeed, it was perhaps being used even before it happened.
From the the U.N. Secretary General’s 1999 Report on Srebrenica, it emerges that the idea of a “Srebrenica massacre” was already in the air at a September 1993 meeting in Sarajevo between Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and members of his Muslim party from Srebrenica. On the agenda was a Serb proposal to exchange Srebrenica and Zepa for some territories around Sarajevo as part of a peace settlement.
“The delegation opposed the idea, and the subject was not discussed further. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people.” (1)
Izetbegovic later denied this, but he is outnumbered by witnesses. It is clear that Izetbegovic’s constant strategy was to portray his Muslim side in the bloody civil war as pure helpless victims, in order to bring U.S. military power in on his side. On his death bed, he readily admitted as much to his ardent admirer Bernard Kouchner, in the presence of U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Kouchner reminded Izetbegovic of a conversation he had had with French President Mitterrand in which he “spoke of the existence of ‘extermination camps’ in Bosnia.”
You repeated that in front of the journalists. That provoked considerable emotion throughout the world. […] They were horrible places, but people were not systematically exterminated. Did you know that?
Yes. I thought that my revelations could precipitate bombings. I saw the reaction of the French and the others-I was mistaken. […] Yes, I tried, but the assertion was false. There were no extermination camps whatever the horror of those places. (2)
Like the Bosnian Serbs, the Muslims also herded their adversaries into “horrible” camps at the start of the civil war, on the way to expulsion. Unlike the Bosnian Serbs, the Bosnian Muslims enjoyed the services of high-powered U.S. public relations experts in the Washington-based Ruder Finn agency who knew how to “spin” the Bosnian conflict in order to equate the Serbs with the Nazis-the quickest and easiest way to win public opinion over to the Muslim side. The news media and political figures were showered with press releases and other materials exaggerating Serb atrocities, whereas Muslim atrocities (such as the decapitations of Serb prisoners, fully documented) remained confidential. To the public, this was a one-sided conflict between a Serbian “fascist aggressor” and innocent victims, all unarmed civilians.
The general public did not know that Srebrenica, described as a “safe area”, was not in fact simply a haven for refugees, but also a Muslim military base. The general public did not know what Lord Owen knew and recounted in his important 1995 book, Balkan Odyssey (p.143), namely that in April 1993, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was extremely anxious to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from overrunning Srebrenica. “On 16 April I spoke on the telephone to President Milosevic about my anxiety that, despite repeated assurances from Dr. Karadzic that he had no intention of taking Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb army was now proceeding to do just that. The pocket was greatly reduced in size. I had rarely heard Milosevic so exasperated, but also so worried: he feared that if the Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica there would be a bloodbath because of the tremendous bad blood that existed between the two armies. The Bosnian Serbs held the young Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, responsible for a massacre near Bratunac in December 1992 in which many Serb civilians had been killed. Milosevic believed it would be a great mistake for the Bosnian Serbs to take Srebrenica and promised to tell Karadzic so.”
Thus, many months before the July 1995 “Srebrenica massacre”, both Izetbegovic and Milosevic were aware of the possibility and of its potential impact-favorable to the Muslim cause, and disastrous for the Serbs.
A few other indisputable facts should not be overlooked:
Shortly before the Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica, the Muslim troops stationed in that enclave carried out murderous attacks on nearby Serb villages. These attacks were certain to incite Serb commanders to retaliate against the Srebrenica garrison.
Meanwhile, the Muslim high command in Sarajevo ordered the Srebrenica commanders, Oric and his lieutenants, to withdraw from Srebrenica, leaving thousands of his soldiers without commanders, without orders, and in total confusion when the foreseeable Serb attack occurred. Surviving Srebrenica Muslim officials have bitterly accused the Izetbegovic government of deliberately sacrificing them to the interests of his State.
According to the most thorough study of Srebrenica events, by Cees Wiebes for the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation report, the Bosnian Serb forces set out in July 1995 to reduce the area held by Bosnian Muslim forces on the outskirts of Srebrenica, and only decided to capture the town itself when they unexpectedly found it undefended.
“The VRS [Republika Srpska Army] advance went so well that the evening of July 9 saw an important ‘turning point’ […] The Bosnian Serbs decided that they would no longer confine themselves to the southern part of the enclave, but would extend the operation and take the town of Srebrenica itself. Karadzic was informed that the results achieved now put the Drina Corps in a position to take the town; he had expressed his satisfaction with this and had agreed to a continuation of the operation to disarm the ‘Muslim terrorist gangs’ and to achieve a full demilitarization of the enclave. In this order, issued by Major General Zdravko Tolimir, it was also stated that Karadzic had determined that the safety of UNPROFOR soldiers and of the population should be ensured. Orders to this effect were to be provided to all participating units. […] The orders made no mention of a forced relocation of the population. […] A final instruction, also of significance, was that the population and prisoners of war should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. On July 11 all of Srebrenica fell into the hands of the Bosnian Serbs.”
In testimony to a French parliamentary commission inquiry into Srebrenica, General Philippe Morillon, the UNPROFOR officer who first called international attention to the Srebrenica enclave, stated his belief that Bosnian Serb forces had fallen into a “trap” when they decided to capture Srebrenica.
Subsequently, on February 12, 2004, testifying at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, General Morillon stressed that the Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, “engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region, and this prompted the region of Bratunac in particular—that is the entire Serb population—to rebel against the very idea that through humanitarian aid one might help the population that was present there.”
Asked by the ICTY prosecutor how Oric treated his Serb prisoners, General Morillon, who knew him well, replied that “Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself. I think that he realized that these were the rules of this horrific war, that he could not allow himself to take prisoners. According to my recollection, he didn’t even look for an excuse. It was simply a statement: One can’t be bothered with prisoners.”
Morillon recounted how “the Serbs took me to a village to show me the evacuation of the bodies of the inhabitants that had been thrown into a hole, a village close to Bratunac. And this made me understand the degree to which this infernal situation of blood and vengeance […] led to a situation when I personally feared that the worst would happen if the Serbs of Bosnia managed to enter the enclaves and Srebrenica.”
“I feared that the Serbs, the local Serbs, the Serbs of Bratunac, these militiamen, they wanted to take their revenge for everything that they attributed to Naser Oric. It wasn’t just Naser Oric that they wanted to revenge, take their revenge on, they wanted to revenge their dead on Orthodox Christmas.”
* * *
In short, Srebrenica, whose Serb population had been chased out by Muslim troops at the start of the civil war in 1992, was both a gathering point for civilian Muslim refugees and a Muslim army base. The enclave lived from international humanitarian aid. The Muslim military did not allow civilians to leave, since their presence was what ensured the arrival of humanitarian aid provisions which the military controlled.
When the Bosnian Serb forces captured the town on July 11, 2005, civilians were clamoring to leave the enclave, understandably enough, since there was virtually no normal economic life there. Much has been made of the fact that Serb forces separated the population, providing buses for women, children and the infirm to take them to Tuzla, while detaining the men. In light of all that preceded, the reason for this separation is obvious: the Bosnian Serbs were looking for the perpetrators of raids on Serb villages, in order to take revenge.
However, only a relatively small number of Muslim men were detained at that point, and some of them are known to have survived and eventually been released in exchange for Serb prisoners. When the Serb forces entered the town from the south, thousands of Muslim soldiers, in disarray because of the absence of commanding officers, fled northwards, through wild wooded hills toward Tuzla. It is clear enough that they fled because they feared exactly what everyone aware of the situation dreaded: that Serb soldiers would take vengeance on the men they considered guilty of murdering Serb civilians and prisoners.
Thousands of those men did in fact reach Tuzla, and were quietly redeployed. This was confirmed by international observers. However, Muslim authorities never provided information about these men, preferring to let them be counted among the missing, that is, among the massacred. Another large, unspecified number of these men were ambushed and killed as they fled in scenes of terrible panic. This was, then, a “massacre”, such as occurs in war when fleeing troops are ambushed by superior forces.
Counting the victims
So we come to the question of numbers. The question is difficult, both because of the uncertainty that surrounds it, and because merely pointing to this uncertainty is instantly denounced as “revisionism” and lack of respect for the victims. This reproach is not logical. Victims are victims, whether few or many, and respect is not in proportion to their numbers.
The question of numbers is complex and has been dealt with in detail by others, recently by an independent international Srebrenica research group which will soon publish its findings in book form. (3)
Suffice it here to note the following:
1. The sacralization of the estimated number of victims. In many if not most disasters, initial estimates of casualties tend to be inflated, for various reasons, such as multiple reports of the same missing person, and are subsequently corrected downwards. This was the case for the World Trade Center disaster, where initial estimates of up to 10,000 victims were finally brought down to less than 3000, and there are many other examples. In the case of Srebrenica, the figure of 8,000 originated with September 1995 announcements by the International Committee of the Red Cross that it was seeking information about some 3,000 men reportedly detained as well as about some 5,000 who had fled to central Bosnia. Neither the Bosnian Serbs nor the Muslims were ever forthcoming with whatever information they had, and the “8,000” figure has tended ever since to be repeated as an established total of “Muslim men and boys executed by Serb forces”. It can be noted that this was always an estimate, the sum of two separate groups, the smaller one of prisoners (whose execution would be a clear war crime) and the larger one of retreating troops (whose “massacre” as they fled would be the usual tragic consequence of bitter civil war). Anyone familiar with the workings of journalism knows that there is a sort of professional inertia which leads reporters to repeat whatever figure they find in previous reports, without verification, and with a marked preference for big numbers. This inertia is all the greater when no truly authoritative figures ever emerge.
The number of bodies exhumed.
Despite unprecedented efforts over the past ten years to recover bodies from the area around Srebrenica, less than 3,000 have been exhumed, and these include soldiers and others-Serb as well as Muslim-who died in the vicious combats that took place during three years of war. Only a fraction have been identified.
2. The political desire for the largest possible number. Aside from the journalistic inertia mentioned above, the retention of the unproven high figure of massacre victims in the case of Srebrenica is clearly the result of political will on the part of two governments: the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic and, more importantly, the government of the United States. From the moment that Madeleine Albright brandished satellite photos of what she claimed was evidence of Serb massacres committed at Srebrenica (evidence that was both secret, as the photos were shown in closed session to the Security Council, and circumstantial, as they showed changes in terrain which might indicate massacres, not the alleged massacres themselves), the U.S. used “Srebrenica” for two clear purposes:
to draw attention away from the U.S.-backed Croatian offensive which drove the Serb population out of the Krajina which, as much as Srebrenica, was supposed to be protected by the United Nations;Exploitation of “Srebrenica” then helped set the stage for the Kosovo war of 1999:
to implicate Bosnian Serb leaders in “genocide” in order to disqualify them from negotiating the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (The U.S. preferred to replace them at Dayton by Milosevic, whose eagerness to end the war could be exploited to get concessions the Bosnian Serbs might refuse.)
by blaming the United Nations (whose failure to defend Srebrenica was in reality the inevitable result of the unwillingness of the United States to give full support to U.N. ground forces), NATO emerged as the only agent capable of effective “humanitarian intervention”.To use “Srebrenica” as an effective instrument in the restructuring of former Yugoslavia, notably by replacing recalcitrant Serb leaders by more pliable politicians, the crime needed to be as big as possible: not a mere war crime (such as the United States itself commits on a serial basis, from Vietnam to Panama to Iraq), but “genocide”: “the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust”. That arouses the Hitler image, which is always good for the image of the United States as saviour from across the seas, and implies a plan decided at the highest levels, rather than the brutal behavior of enraged soldiers (or paramilitaries, the probable culprits in this case) out of control.
by falsely identifying Milosevic with the Bosnian Serb leadership and by exploiting the notion that Srebrenica killings were part of a vast Serb plan of “genocide” carried out against non-Serbs for purely racist reasons, Madeleine Albright was able to advocate the NATO war against Yugoslavia as necessary to prevent “another Srebrenica” in Kosovo, where the situation was altogether different.
But what plan for genocide includes offering safe passage to women and children? And if this was all part of a Serb plot to eliminate Muslims, what about all the Muslims living peacefully in Serbia itself, including thousands of refugees who fled there from Bosnia? Or the Muslims in the neighboring enclave of Zepa, who were unharmed when the Serbs captured that town a few days after capturing Srebrenica? To get around these common sense obstacles, the ICTY prosecution came up with a sociologist who provided an “expert” opinion: the Srebrenica Muslims lived in a patriarchal society, therefore killing the men was enough to ensure that there would be no more Muslims in Srebrenica. This amounts to shrinking the concept of “genocide” to fit the circumstances.
It was on basis of this definition that in August 2001 the Tribunal found Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic guilty of “complicity in genocide”. Although he neither ordered, participated in or was even aware of any executions, the judges ruled that he took part in what the ICTY calls a “joint criminal enterprise” simply by capturing Srebrenica, since he must have been aware that genocide was “a natural and foreseeable consequence”. This is the ruling that established “genocide” as the official description of events at Srebrenica.
Why such relentless determination to establish Srebrenica as “genocide”? A December 27, 2003, Associated Press dispatch provided an explanation by U.S. jurist Michael Scharf, one of the designers of the ICTY who has also coached the judges for the trial of Saddam Hussein: On a practical level, if the court determines Srebrenica does not fit the legal definition of genocide, it would be very difficult to make the charge stick against Milosevic, said Michael Scharf, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
“And it is crucial that he be convicted of genocide,” Scharf said. If Milosevic can’t be convicted, “then who can you convict of genocide in the modern age?” he asked.
The legal definition of genocide could also come into play in an Iraqi war-crimes tribunal, which has vowed to follow international legal precedent.
It is striking that from the very start, the effort of the United States and of the Tribunal in The Hague-which it mainly finances, staffs and controls-has been to establish what it calls “command responsibility” for Serb crimes rather than individual guilt of actual perpetrators. The aim is not to identify and punish men who violated the Geneva conventions by executing prisoners, but rather to pin the supreme crime on the top Serb leadership.
The office of the ICTY prosecutor has chosen to rely heavily on a single confessed participant in the Srebrenica massacre. This person is one Drazen Erdemovic, a petty criminal of Croatian nationality who was hospitalized in Serbia in March 1996 after a near-fatal brawl in a bar in Novi Sad. Quite possibly in order to escape further threats from his personal enemies, Erdemovic confessed to Western news media to having taken part in mass murder in Bosnia. He was arrested by Serb authorites who then, at his request, turned him over to the Hague Tribunal.
From then on, the prosecution has used Erdemovic repeatedly as its star witness, using the U.S. procedure of “plea bargaining” by which a confessed criminal gets off lightly by incriminating somebody else the prosecution wants to convict. He has told his story to the judges at his own brief trial, where he was exempted from cross examination thanks to his guilty plea, as well as at a hearing incriminating Karadzic and Mladic (in the absence of any legal defense) and at various trials whenever “Srebrenica” comes up.
His story goes like this: after briefly serving in the Bosnian Muslim army, Erdemovic joined an international mercenary militia unit that seems to have been employed by the Bosnian Serb command for sabotage operations on enemy territory. On July 16, 1995, his unit of eight men executed between 1,000 and 1,200 Muslim men near the village of Pilice, some 40 kilometers north of Srebrenica. From around 10:30 in the morning to 3 o’clock in the afternoon, these eight mercenaries emptied bus load after bus load of prisoners and lined them up to be shot by groups of ten.
Now in fact, it seems that a serious crime was indeed committed in Pilice. Subsequent forensic investigators exhumed 153 bodies. One hundred and fifty-three executions of prisoners of war is a serious crime, and there is material evidence that this crime was committed. But 1,200? According to the manner of execution described by Erdemovic, it would have taken 20 hours to murder so many victims. Yet the judges have never questioned this elementary arithmetical discrepancy, and Erdemovic’s word has consistently been accepted as gospel truth by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. (4)
Why this insistence on an implausibly higher number than can be supported by material evidence? Obviously, the Tribunal wants to keep the figures as high as possible in order to sustain the charge of “genocide”. The charge of “genocide” is what sharply distinguishes the indictment of Serbs from indictments of Croats or Muslims for similar crimes committed during the Yugoslav disintegration wars.
In August 2000 after not quite four and a half years in jail, the self-confessed mass murderer Erdemovic was freed, given a new identity, residence in an unspecified Western country and a “job”, so to speak, as occasional paid and “protected” witness for the ICTY.
In contrast, General Krstic was sentenced to 35 years in prison and will be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Clearly, the purpose of the “genocide” charge is not to punish the perpetrators but to incriminate the Bosnian Serb, and the Yugoslav Serb, chain of command right up to the top.
Srebrenica As Myth
The transformation of Srebrenica into myth was illustrated last July by an article in the Italian leftist daily Liberazione (close to the “Communist Refoundation” party) reporting on a semi-documentary film entitled “Srebrenica, luci dall’oblio” (“Srebrenica, lights from oblivion”). The title suggests that the film-makers have rescued from oblivion a tragically neglected event, when in fact, rarely in the history of warfare has a massacre been the focus of so much attention.
Here we have the usual self-flagellation: “…what happened in Srebrenica: the massacre of 9,000 civilians, in the most total silence/absence on the part of the world institutions [responsible for] peace…” The author accepts without question the term “genocide” and raises the figure of victims to new heights. “Around 9,000 men between the ages of 14 and 70 were transported by truck to nearby centers where they were massacred and buried in mass graves…” This was “the greatest mass genocide committed since the days of Nazism until today”… What is the point of this exaggeration, this dramatization? Why is Srebrenica so much more terrible than the war that ravaged Vietnam, with countless massacres and devastation of the countryside by deadly chemicals, or the cold-blooded massacre of surrendering Iraqis at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991? But that is a genuinely forgotten massacre-not only forgotten, but never even recognized in the first place, and the “international community” has not sent teams of forensic scientists to find and identify the victims of U.S. weapons.
In all probability the film-makers, aspiring artists and “genocide experts” who consider “Srebrenica” suitable material for touching the emotions of the public believe that they are serving the interests of peace and humanity. But I would suggest quite the contrary. The misrepresentation of “Bosnia” as scene of a deliberate “genocide” against Muslims, rather than a civil war with atrocities on all sides, contributes to a spirit of “conflict of civilizations”. It has helped recruit volunteers for Islamic terrorist groups.
The political exploitation of Srebrenica has turned the Bosnian war into a morality pantomimew between pure good and pure evil, a version of events which the Serbs can never really accept and the Muslims have no desire to give up. This stands in the way of unbiased investigation and serious historical analysis. Reconciliation is in fact ruled out by the moralistic insistence that a stark distinction must be made between “aggressor” and “victim”. This stark difference exists between NATO and Yugoslavia, or between the U.S. and Iraq, where an overwhelmingly superior military power deliberately launched an aggressive war against a sovereign country that neither attacked nor threatened it.
But the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not of that nature. The war there was the result of an extraordinarily complex legal situation (an unsettled small Federal Republic constitutionally composed of three “nationalities”: Serb, Muslim and Croat, itself part of a disintegrating larger Federal Republic) exacerbated by myriad local power plays and the incoherent intervention of Great Powers. Moreover, this occurred in a region where memories of extremely bloody civil war during World War II were still very much alive. To a large extent, the fighting that broke loose in 1992 was a resumption of the vicious cycle of massacres and vengeance that devastated Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1941-44, when the Nazi occupation broke up Yugoslavia and attached Bosnia-Herzegovina to Greater Croatia, which proceeded to eliminate Serbs.
Today it is an unquestioned dogma that recalling atrocies is a “duty of memory” to the victims, something that must be endlessly repeated, lest we forget. But is this really so obvious? The insistence on past atrocities may simply prepare the next wave, which is what has already happened in the Balkans, and more than once. Because in reality, the dead victims cannot profit from such memories. But the memory of victimhood is a moral and political capital of great value for the heirs of victimhood and especially for their self-appointed champions. And in the case of Bosnia, it promises to bring considerable financial gain. If Milosevic, as former president of Serbia, can be convicted of genocide, then the Bosnian Muslims hope to win billions of dollars in reparations that will keep Serbia on its knees for the foreseeable future.
* * *
The obsessive reference to “Srebrenica” has a negative effect far beyond the Balkans.
The “Srebrenica massacre” is part of a dominant culture discourse that goes like this: We people in the advanced democracies have reached a new moral plateau, from which we are both able and have a duty both to judge others and to impose our “values” when necessary. The others, on a lower moral plateau, must be watched carefully, because unlike us, they may commit “genocide”. It is remarkable how “genocide” has become fashionable, with more and more “genocide experts” in universities, as if studying genocide made sense as a separate academic discipline. What would all these people do without genocide? I wonder what is behind the contemporary fascination with genocide and serial killers, and I doubt that it is a sign of a healthy social psychology.
In the world today, few people, including Bosnian Muslims, are threatened by “genocide” in the sense of a deliberate Hitler-style project to exterminate a population-which is how most people understand the term. But millions of people are threatened, not by genocidal maniacs, but by genocidal conditions of life: poverty, disease, inadequate water, global climate change. The Srebrenica mourning cult offers nothing positive in regard to these genocidal conditions. Worse, it is instrumentalized openly to justify what is perhaps the worst of all the genocidal conditions: war.
The subliminal message in the official Srebrenica discourse is that because “we” let that happen, “we” mustn’t let “it” happen again, ergo, the United States should preventively bomb potential perpetrators of “genocide”. Whatever happened in Srebrenica could have best been prevented, not by U.S. or NATO bombing, but by preventing civil war from breaking out in Bosnia Herzegovina to begin with. This prevention was possible if the “international community”, meaning the NATO powers, Europe and the United States, had firmly insisted that the Yugoslav crisis of 1990 should be settled by negotiations. But first of all, Germany opposed this, by bullying the European Union into immediate recognition of the secession of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia, without negotiation. All informed persons knew that this threatened the existence of Bosnia Herzegovina. The European Union proposed a cantonization plan for Bosnia Herzegovina, not very different from the present arrangement, which was accepted by leaders of the Bosnian Muslim, Serb and Croat communities. But shortly thereafter, Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic reneged, after the U.S. ambassador encouraged him to hold out for more. Throughout the subsequent fighting, the U.S. put obstacles in the way of every European peace plan. [6] These years of obstruction enabled the United States to take control of the eventual peace settlement in Dayton, in November 1995.
This rejection of compromise, which plunged Bosnia-Herzegovina into fratricidal war, was supported at the time by a chorus of humanitarians- not least politicians safely ensconced in the European Parliament who voted for “urgent resolutions” about situations of which they were totally ignorant-claiming that Bosnia must be a centralized State for the sake of “multiculturalism”. These were the same humanitarians who applauded the breakup of multicultural Yugoslavia-which in fact created the crisis in Bosnia.
Clearly, whoever executes unarmed prisoners commits a very serious crime whether in Bosnia or anywhere else. But when all is said and done, it is an illusion to think that condemning perpetrators of a massacre in Bosnia will ensure that the next civil war somewhere in the world will be carried out in a more chivalrous manner. War is a life and death matter, and inevitably leads people to commit acts they would never commit in peacetime.
The notion that war can be made “clean”, played according to rules, should not be the main focus of international law or of peace movements. War first of all needs to be prevented, not policed.
The false interpretation of “Srebrenica” as part of an ongoing Serb project of “genocide” was used to incite the NATO war against Yugoslavia, which devastated a country and left behind a cauldron of hatred and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The United States is currently engaged in a far more murderous and destructive war in Iraq. In this context, the Western lamentations that inflate the Srebrenic massacre into “the greatest mass genocide since Nazi times” are a diversion from the real existing genocide, which is not the work of some racist maniac, but the ongoing imposition of a radically unjust socio-economic world order euphemistically called “globalization”.
DIANA JOHNSTONE is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions published by Monthly Review Press. She can be reached at: dianajohnstone@compuserve.com
NOTES
1. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35 (1998), Section IV, paragraph C.115.
2. Bernard Kouchner, “Les Guerriers de la Paix”, Grasset, Paris, 2004, pp. 372-375.
3. “Srebrenica: The Politics of War Crimes”, by George Bogdanich, Tim Fenton, Philip Hammond, Edward S. Herman, Michael Mandel, Jonathan Rooper and George Szamuely. See http://www.srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm.
4. Germinal Civikov, “Kalaschnikow und Einzelfeuer: Der Fall Drazen Erdemovic”, Freitag, 16 September 2005.
5. Davide Turrini “Il genocidio jugoslavo rivive sullo schermo”, Liberazione, 12 July 2005.
6. See David Owen, Balkan Odyssey, Victor Gollancz, London, 1995. Lord Owen, who, as co-chairman of the steering committee of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, attempted from August 1992 to June 1995 to negotiate a peace settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, concludes (Indigo paperback, p.400): “From the spring of 1993 to the summer of 1995, in my judgement, the effect of US policy, despite its being called ‘containment’, was to prolong the war of the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
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