DID YOU KNOW?  -- Three years before the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, Serbs torched Bosniak villages and killed at least 3,166 Bosniaks around Srebrenica. In 1993, the UN described the besieged situation in Srebrenica as a "slow-motion process of genocide." In July 1995, Serbs forcibly expelled 25,000 Bosniaks, brutally raped many women and girls, and systematically killed 8,000+ men and boys (DNA confirmed).

16 December, 2006

DUTCH MEDAL OF BETRAYAL

Several days ago I received an e-mail from Srebrenica genocide survivor, Mr. Hasan Nuhanovic, who submitted the following opinion on recently awarded 'medal of honor' for those in Dutchbat who betrayed Srebrenica. - Srebrenica Genocide Blog Editor

Disclaimer: I have received second email from Mr. Hasan Nuhanovic on December 17th 2006. Mr Nuhanovic advised me that this article was incomplete in translation. I have also noticed that the article was poorly translated. Our readers should bear in mind that the translation of this article was made by Bosnjaci.net site, not by Srebrenica Genocide Blog.



SREBRENICA AS AN S-WORD IN THE NETHERLANDS
Hasan NUHANOVIĆ

Hasan Nuhanovic, Srebrenica Genocide Survivor"In the Netherlands, during past few years, an ambiance was created in which Srebrenica was turned into "S"-word, disliked even by the second rate medias. Both official and unofficial press releases, as a reaction to numerous legitimate isssues still raised by the families of the salughtered victims, today ask if it isn't the time for the Netherlands to turn another leaf and once for all conclude the chapter called "Srebrenica"."

"I didn't intend to give extensive answer to first few phone calls made by Dutch journalists last week. Too many times, for the past eleven years happened that Dutch journalists inquired about my opinion or reaction regarding something that occured in their country in relation to Srebrenica events from July 1995.

I had a feeling, during past few years, also confirmed by my friends and colleagues in the Netherlands, that public opinion and medias over there are far too saturated with the subject. That immediately change their facial expressions once the world "Srebrenica" is mentioned.

Actually, by the end of nineties, only few years after genocidal crime in Srebrenica and several scandalous attempts and statements by Dutch officials, Srebrenica in the Netherlands became a taboo. Unofficially this issue is addressed only as the "subject S" since then. Therefore, not even full name of this nice Bosnian town is to be mentioned anymore, only its capital letter - "S". Like, "You know, that subject S."

And while some were claiming that ex members of Dutchbat 3, the unit of Dutch military which found itself in Srebrenica on July 1995, suffer from PTS, while part of Dutch public opinion truly accepted the excuses that Dutchbat 3 was also a victim of Srebrenica events, while Dutch officials were publishing one report after another in 1995, 1998, 2002, and 2003, I was going from one place to another both in the Netherlands and in Bosnian repeating the misfortunes that had befallen my mother, father and brother whom those same Dutch soldiers, before my very eyes, handed over to Serb soldiers at the gates of their military base in Potocari, Republic Bosnia-Herzegovina."

One part of Mr. Nuhanovic's sad narrative was particularly touching, as many Bosniaks who had worked for any UN and NGO in Bosnia during SCG agression may find similar to their own personal experience. Therefore I took the trouble of translating it for your attention. It clearly reflects the innocence and naivety of Bosniaks of 1991-1995 in dealing with arogant UN and other foreign military personnel.

"A DINNER AT MY MOTHER'S"

Since the arrival of the very first group of UNPROFOR soldiers to Srebrenica, for which, by pure chance, I happened to work for since April 1993, I had established a custom to invite all newcoming officers I have dealt with daily, home for a dinner. My parents, my brother and me lived in a house not our own, being refugees from Vlasenica, together with another 20 persons. Despite all our powerty and misery, due to the fact I had been a paid interpterer, I was able to buy some food supplies. Supplies from which my mother always new how to make up some Bosnian specialty for these foreign guests - Bosnian pies, sarma rolls and hurmasica deserts.

For each of these occasions we did our best to offer our guests food much better in quality and quantity than the one we ourselves ate every day. It was that Bosnian hospitality, I guess. Five, six officers would sit down for food and small talk, talk I would translate at the same time and my father would always say: "You, who came to Srebrenica from afar, from London, Paris, Hague, you are our window into the world. We have no newspapers, no electricity, no TV. We are completely cut from the world, and when I listen and look at you this very moment, I feel as if I'm somewhere else - somewhere in Paris, London - elsewhere in a normal world where there is no war, no suffering, no killing. Thank you for comming..."

And my mother would sit on a side, listening. These aliens in the uniforms, choking in good Bosnian food, would manage to spill it between bites: "Hasan, tell your mother she is great cook." Some Gary, another Paul, Derksen, Willian, Tony, Mark Foster, dozens of them.

Much later, in 1997, when I accidently came across Mark Foster's phone number, who left Srebrenica in 1994, and called him in England in order to ask for help in my quest for information about my missing family, he said: "I'm so sorry, Hasan. Your mother used to make such delicious cakes (referring to Bosnian hurmasica which he ate at least twenty.)" I was confused, not knowning if I am talking with someone from the twighlight zone or real person called Mark Foster.

Among many of these aliens who had eaten at my mothers, there was a Dutch captain Andre de Haan.

When, late night on July 12th, sometime around midnight and day after the fall of Srebrenica (handover by UN troops as Bosnians had no weapons any more, com.ed.), I learned that at least nine bodies of men killed in the presence of Dutch soldiers were seen before the base, we were inside Dutchbat base in the improvized office where Andre de Haan was in charge. I said to my mother and brother, who stood next to me and de Haan, what I just learned and my mother fainted. She understood then and there, that all of us will be killed, her both sons and her husband.

I caught her in fall and placed her carefully on a bench nearby. She went yellow in face. In that moment, few feet from me there was de Haan, and next to him German nurse, Christina Schmit, as well as Aussie MD O' Brien. They've just turned their back on us, pretending that nothing was going on in the room. My mother was losing consciousness, yet they were standing and just talking. Just as if nothing was going on around them. Just as if my mother was a plain piece of furniture in that room.

That same de Haan, just few week ago ate Bosnian cabbage rolls at my mother's (while the rest of the people in the house were starving, com.ed.) and made several compliments how good her cooking was.

Tomorrow, on July 13th, 1995, around 5-6 pm, that same de Haan said the condemning sentence for my family: "Hasan, tell your mother, father and brother to leave the base." He was looking at me and them, while behind us stood three well armed Dutch soldiers. Everybody was looking at us - as if saying - what are you waiting for? Outside, right in front of Dutch base, Serb soldiers were killing Bosnian people. I still kept begging them to leave my brother at least.

My brother got up. He looked at me and said: "Hasan, don't you beg them any more. I'm going out..f...them. You stay here, if you can." And he left me. Forever. Him, my mother, my father, and all other Bosniaks from the base. Dutch didn't send me out, as there was hanging on my chest a piece of plastic upon which, beside my name, was written - UN.

In that same moment, on the tallest buiding of the base, there were two flags flapping in the wind - the flag of Dutch kingdom and the flag of United Nations.

The Netherlands, Assen, military base of Dutch army. December 5th, 2006. The splendor on the chest of Dutch soldiers shines upon all the shame of the Netherlands and the whole world.

What else there is to say?

Hasan Nuhanović
Sarajevo, 5.12.2006.

Bosnian language version can be read here:
http://www.bosnjaci.net/aktuelnosti.php?id=1082&polje=teme

20 October, 2006

KNIFE, WIRE, SREBRENICA

Slogans of hate at the stadium

Education and Sport Minister Slobodan Vuksanovic wants strict prohibition of racist behavior at sporting events. Yesterday, the Belgrade police took 152 fans of the Rad football team into custody for promoting national, racial and religious intolerance.

During the game, Rad’s fans shouted slogans such as “Knife, wire, Srebrenica” and “Serbia for the Serbs, out with the Turks.”

Among those arrested there were 47 Rad supporters who are under the age of 18.

Vuksanovic told B92 that he is concerned by this behavior shown by young people and that they have gone astray or have been disregarded at some point in their upbringing.

Vuksanovic said that the state institutions must react strongly to this racist behavior seen frequently at sporting events.

“Without strong reactions from the judicial institutions, quick processes and strict punishments, you cannot expect to have order. We should not make up and guess what the cure will be – we need to do what everyone in the world is doing in the fight against the same exact type of occurrences, which are obviously a problem in many societies.” Vuksanovic said.

Police arrest 152 Belgrade fans for racism

Belgrade police arrested 152 fans for racist insults at a Serbian second division match between local team Rad and Novi Pazar late on Wednesday .

"Police officers have arrested 152 Rad supporters, including 47 juveniles," police said.

"The offenders shouted slogans inciting racial, ethnic and religious hatred and intolerance."

The home fans shouted anti-Muslim slogans at Novi Pazar players and police moved in to remove them from the stadium.

Novi Pazar is a Bosniak-majority town in western Serbia. Some ultranationalist Serbs are hostile to Muslims, often glorifying the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Bosniaks by Bosnian Serbs.

It was a second outbreak of racism at Serbia's soccer grounds in four days after a black player was abused during a first division match on Saturday.

Borac Cacak's Zimbabwean striker Mike Tawmanjira was insulted by the club's fans who wore white hoods with Ku Klux Klan insignia, did a Nazi salute and held a banner saying the player was unwelcome in Serbia.

Eight of them face charges of spreading racial hatred and prison terms up to five years if convicted.

Serbia's sports and education minister Slobodan Vuksanovic strongly condemned the incidents and said "decisive action must be taken to deal with these people who have lost their way."

"There will be no order unless the judicial authorities react swiftly and impose harsh penalties on the offenders," he told B 92 television.

"We don't need to invent any new solutions, we just have to implement what the whole world already has in order to combat this deviation many societies are obviously prone to."

Mosque goers threatened in Niš (Serbia)

The Niš police have arrested two individuals from Pirot for threatening and insulting mosque goers in Niš.

Željko C. (21) and Saša Đ. (19) from Pirot, according to the police, “urinated on the walls of the Hadrović mosque building in a visibly intoxicated state” at around midnight last night. After several mosque goers confronted them, the two began to insult and threaten the Muslim individuals and threw stones at the mosque.

The two youths were taken into custody by the Niš police.

16 October, 2006

MLADIC WILL NEVER BE CAPTURED

SERBIA REFUSES TO CAPTURE GEN. RATKO MLADIC WHO COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN SREBRENICA

Editor's note: Why would they arrest him? He is their role-model and hero. It will take long time for sick Serbian society to heal and stop protecting and celebrating genocidal war criminals such as Ratko Mladic (pic 1) and Radovan Karadzic (pic 2)

Ratko Mladic - War Criminal on the RunU.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said on Monday she saw no political will from Serbia to arrest Ratko Mladic or other major suspects, seen by the European Union as vital to closer ties with Belgrade.

"It's almost a smokescreen they are describing us and showing us, it's no real political will and investigative will to locate and arrest Mladic," Del Ponte told reporters after briefing EU ministers and officials in Luxembourg.

The former Bosnian Serb military commander is wanted for trial by the Hague tribunal on genocide charges relating to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Radovan Karadzic - War Criminal on the RunThe EU suspended talks on a so-called Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the first step to eventual membership, in May to punish Belgrade for its failure to arrest Mladic.

"Most probably they want him to voluntarily surrender, to oblige him to voluntarily surrender, but I think Mladic will never voluntarily surrender," Del Ponte said, speaking in English.

"They will never achieve to locate or arrest Mladic, and I think they have no political will to arrest Mladic."

Del Ponte spoke as Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica met EU ministers and officials to discuss Serbia's stalled ambitions to join the bloc. He made no comments on arrival.

The prosecutor said she hoped the EU would assist in securing the arrest of Mladic and other war crimes fugitives by standing by its decision to suspend talks with Serbia. She said she saw no sign of wavering by EU states on that decision.

Earlier, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana highlighted Serbia's political and economic progress but said reopening of suspended talks on closer ties with the EU remained dependent on Belgrade's cooperation with the U.N. tribunal.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said before taking part in the talks with Kostunica he understood Serbia's cooperation with the Hague tribunal was "not satisfactory".

"This is decisive for the question when and if we will be able to restart the negotiations on the association agreement," he told reporters.

06 October, 2006

REVISIONIST ISLAMOPHOBIA

BOSNIA: The Help That Mattered

Those trying to portray the international crisis as a conflict between the West and Islam should consider the lesson of Bosnia.

By Alija Izetbegovic in Sarajevo
Dated: Nov 16, 2001, Republished Oct 06, 2006

Alija IzetbegovicAfter the tragic events of September 11, the world has seemed polarised between an anti-Islamic West and an anti-American Muslim East. There are important exceptions, little islands of common sense. Despite some strange statements by Western leaders in the first days of rage, efforts have been made, especially by Prime Minister Tony Blair, to insist that this war is against terrorists, not Islam. But still, other less reasoned voices are louder and more persistent.

They should consider the lesson of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We Bosnians understand the feelings of Americans better than most. For nearly four years, we were subjected to irrational terror attacks by Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic. More than 200,000 civilians were killed. In the besieged city of Sarajevo alone, almost 15,000 people died from sniper fire and shells.

Sometimes I wonder whether such an on-going terror, which stretched over 1,400 days, is harder to bear than the instantaneous shock that struck New York and Washington. Yet the question is pointless: both are terrible in their own ways, and both beg questions about the meaning and existence of the human race.

Yet Bosnians can attest that the new forms of conflict are not between types of religion but between forms of civilisation. The struggle is between a modern, globalised world and one of traditional values.

Bosnians can testify, from hard experience, that the West has fought for this new world and certainly not against Islam.

True, the United States responded almost instantaneously to the attacks on its own cities, while it needed more than three years to react to the attacks on towns in Bosnia. But the explanation is a deeply human one: any man feels the pain of his own wounds more deeply than those of others. We take from this not that America is anti-Muslim but that we ourselves need to be as strong as possible to defend ourselves.

Army of Bosnia-HerzegovinaIn the early years of the Bosnian war, the United States considered the conflict a European problem and to a great extent it was right. But Europe was impotent. Hampered by its own conflicting interests and complicated decision-making processes, and tinged perhaps with Islamophobic memories, Europe was not ready to take radical steps to stop the killing.

The tragedy of Srebrenica, the greatest genocide since the Second World War, changed everything. But still the United States had to take the initiative. Otherwise there would have been one genocide after another, until all of Bosnia became one big Srebrenica.

Two other reasons may explain these different responses. A truly diverse society, the United States was better positioned to comprehend the ideas, dilemmas and problems of a multi-ethnic Bosnia. Except for rare exceptions, Europe is made up of nation states. The United States, as a young (and inexperienced) nation, also retains a measure of idealism, in contrast to old and cynical Europe.

When the United States mediated peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, and then sent 20,000 of its soldiers, Bosnia became a US project. Whether the new Washington administration will continue to see it this way, I do not know. But I am certain that the presence of international troops, especially American, is indispensable for at least five more years. Otherwise, Bosnia will return to the situation in 1992, when the war began.

This is the general consensus among ordinary people in Bosnia. A crucial fact, often overlooked, is that in nearly six years there has not been a single attack against the international troops here. This is no coincidence. The vast majority of people, and most politicians, believe that these soldiers are here on a peace mission. Far from any kind of civilisational conflict, Western troops are welcome as essential support for our own effort to build a new, modern Bosnia.

Of course, the experience of Bosnia cannot provide any parallel to Afghanistan because there is no Islamic fundamentalism here.

True, we do have many Muslim believers. After a half century of communist repression and unofficial but enforced atheism, it is natural to see a religious revival. But radicalism is alien to the Bosnian spirit, and fundamentalist elements are a tiny minority. In the words of author Tone Bringa, we are Muslims "the Bosnian way".

For centuries, the line of contact between the East and the West ran right through Bosnia. While our history is marked with violent periods like any country, the friction between these two worlds produced a specific Bosnian mentality marked by tolerance and openness. Even during the most difficult days of war, when passions were running at their highest, in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla, Orthodox and Catholic churches, and synagogues, remained untouched. People displayed remarkable patience and little desire for revenge.

Revisionists are now trying to rewrite this reality by pointing to the presence of mujahedin. During the war, volunteers from Islamic countries did come, mainly to the central Bosnian towns of Travnik and Zenica. But they came uninvited, across borders we did not control, and still do not completely control. While the number of Islamic volunteers never exceeded 300, the Bosnian Army had more than 200,000 fighters. We did need weapons, because we had our own boys whose surnames, origins and intentions we knew.

Dealing now with those few radicals that remain is a separate issue, for a different time, from the period of war, when innocent people were being killed, women raped, and our houses of worship and sacred objects destroyed.

In our desperation, we took whatever help was offered. But the help that mattered, the help that still matters to Muslims and to all religious and ethnic groups in Bosnia, was that provided by a country now enduring its own period of pain, the United States.

Alija Izetbegovic is the former chairman of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

02 October, 2006

REASON WHY KRAJISNIK GOT AWAY WITH GENOCIDE

As András pointed out:

[It is] also worth keeping in mind that the indictment under which Krajisnik was charged covered ONLY acts that took place in the period 1 July 1991 and 30 December 1992; after December 1992, Krajisnik was no longer a member of the Expanded Presidency of the "Serb Republic" in Bosnia-Herzegovina. While he continued as Speaker in the "RS Assembly", by the last year of the war Krajisnik no longer had the same direct role in decision- making as he did before December 1992. Which is why he was not charged in the indictment with responsibility for the events that followed the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa. (read
full comment)

As Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic pointed out:

‘People are not little stones, or keys in someone's pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that... Therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only Serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. I do not know how Mr Krajisnik and Mr Karadzic will explain that to the world. That is genocide.'

Bosnia's ‘Accidental’ Genocide

Author: Edina Becirevic

The acquittal of Krajisnik on genocide charges challenges the very definition of this gravest of all crimes, according to a leading Sarajevo criminal justice authority writing for IWPR's Tribunal Update 470

On 27 September 2006 Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb leader accused of being one of the architects of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian 1992-95 war, was found guilty of most of the charges against him and sentenced to 27 years in prison. The tribunal judges said it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that he was responsible for the extermination, murder, persecution and deportation of non-Serbs during the war, adding that his role in the commission of these crimes was crucial. However, rather surprisingly, Krajisnik was acquitted of the most serious charges - genocide or complicity in genocide.

On first reading, this finding sends a somewhat confusing message. According to the summary of the judgement, read by Presiding Judge Alphons Orie on 27 September, genocide did take place in Bosnia - however, it was not possible to prove the intent of the perpetrators. ‘The Chamber finds that in spite of evidence of acts perpetrated in the municipalities which constituted the actus reus of genocide, the chamber has not received sufficient evidence to establish whether the perpetrators had genocidal intent, that is the intent to destroy, the Bosnian-Muslim or Bosnian-Croat ethnic group, as such,’ says the summary. The only reasonable conclusion that could be taken from this formulation is that genocide took place in Bosnia merely by accident.

The term genocide carries a heavy political burden, and scholars of genocide quite often disagree on the interpretation of the 1951 genocide convention. However, theorists from Raphael Lemkin - the Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide - to any other contemporary scholar in this field, would agree that it simply does not happen by accident and requires organised action. In his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in 1944, Lemkin specifically says that genocide could - but does not necessarily - mean destruction of a whole nation. However, he says that genocide requires organised planning aimed at destroying the basic foundations of the life of the national groups. That kind of plan would target ‘political and social institutions, culture, language, economic existence, as well as the personal security, freedom health, dignity, even lives of individuals that belong to those groups’.

Another recognised expert on the subject, Helen Fein, considers that the process of proving genocide involves establishing continuity in attacks aimed at destroying members of a group in an organised manner. Fein also says that two of the preconditions for genocide are the absence of sanctions for the perpetrators and the existence of ideologies that promote the idea of genocide.

Irvin Louis Horowitz, meanwhile, suggests that genocide is the structural and systematic destruction of innocent people.

None of the leading scholars in the field mentions ‘accidental genocide’.

The judgement against Krajisnik says, ‘The common objective of the joint criminal enterprise was to ethnically re-compose the territories targeted by the Bosnian-Serb leadership, by drastically reducing the proportion of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats through expulsion.’ It is important to note that this conclusion relies on the ‘six strategic aims of the Serb people’, which were adopted by the Bosnian Serb parliament at a session held on 12 May 1992. The first of these goals - to ‘separate Serb people from another two national communities’ - was announced by Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader also indicted for genocide by the tribunal. As parliamentary speaker, Momcilo Krajisnik presided over this session, and he emphasised the importance of the first strategic goal, which he said should be supported by ethnic division on the ground.

It is noteworthy that at this meeting, both Karadzic and Krajisnik were warned by Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, also indicted on genocide charges, that their plans could not be committed without committed genocide. ‘People are not little stones, or keys in someone's pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that... Therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only Serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. I do not know how Mr Krajisnik and Mr Karadzic will explain that to the world. That is genocide,’ said Mladic. It was obvious to Mladic that the plan envisaged by the Serb politicial leadership could not be put into practice without a genocide. Even though the general had no qualms about executing this genocidal plan, this quote from the parliamentary transcript shows that Serb military and political leaders were aware of the likely consequences of their actions.

In short, Krajisnik's judgement seems to go against established definitions of genocide, as well as what General Mladic believed the crime to be. The judges in the Krajisnik case said they had established that genocide took place, but were not convinced the Serb leadership intended to commit it. They appear to lean toward a school of thought which sets extremely high standards of proof for genocide. To them, the Srebrenica massacre was one ‘genocidal incident’ in the broader ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. In his book States of Denial, Stanley Cohen says that avoiding the use of the word genocide in situations of armed conflict gives other countries an excuse not to intervene. This may help explain why the term was so studiously avoided during the Bosnian war.

Edina Becirevic is senior lecturer at the Faculty of Criminal Justice Sciences in Sarajevo. This comment appeared in IWPR'S Tribunal Update No. 470, 29September 2006, see
http://www.iwpr.net/

Bosnia's Accidental Genocide - republished from Bosnian Institute.

27 September, 2006

MOMCILO KRAJISNIK SENTENCED TO 27 YEARS

Bosnian Muslim woman Munira Subasic watches on TV the verdict on Momcilio Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.Bosniak woman Munira Subasic watches on TV the verdict on Momcilio Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Bosnian Muslim women survivors of the Srebrenica massacre gesture as they watch on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica women in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Bosniak women survivors of the Srebrenica massacre gesture as they watch on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica women in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.


Bosnian Muslim woman Munira Subasic survivor of the Srebrenica massacre reacts as she watches on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sep. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Bosniak woman Munira Subasic survivor of the Srebrenica massacre reacts as she watches on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sep. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.


Sabra Kolenovic, a Bosnian Muslim survivor of 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslims reacts, during the live TV coverage from the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, from her office in Sarajevo September 27, 2006. Relatives of victims of the Srebrenica massacre blasted the U.N. war crimes tribunal's verdict on Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday as too lenient, despite his sentence of 27 years' jail.
Sabra Kolenovic, a Bosnian Muslim survivor of 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslims reacts, during the live TV coverage from the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, from her office in Sarajevo September 27, 2006. Relatives of victims of the Srebrenica massacre blasted the U.N. war crimes tribunal's verdict on Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday as too lenient, despite his sentence of 27 years' jail."


INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL JAILS FORMER BOSNIAN SERB POLITICIAN FOR 27 YEARS

“It’s a minimal punishment for what he has done,” said Zumra Sehomerovic, of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” association.“It doesn’t matter that he may not live long enough to walk out. What matters is that his acts are properly punished,” she said. “This Hague tribunal has also become a circus. God, is there justice anywhere in this world?”

Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik awaits for his judgement at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The United Nations war crimes court has sentenced Krajisnik to 27 years in prison for his role in the campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia but acquitted him of genocide.The UN Yugoslav tribunal today jailed the former speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament for 27 years for war crimes, but acquitted him of Bosnian genocide.

Momcilo Krajisnik, 61, one of the highest ranking politicians in wartime Bosnia, was convicted of five counts of war crimes, including persecution, extermination, and the murder of Bosniaks and Croats in the early stages of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, which left more than 100,000 dead on all sides, mostly Bosniaks.

Reading a litany of killings, plundering and forced transfers in a summary of the judgment, presiding judge Alphons Orie said Krajisnik’s “role in the commission of the crimes was crucial.”

Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik awaits for his judgement at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The United Nations war crimes court has sentenced Krajisnik to 27 years in prison for his role in the campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia but acquitted him of genocide.The judgment said Krajisnik “knew about, and intended, the mass detention and expulsion of civilians. He had the power to intervene, but he was not concerned with the predicament of detained and expelled persons.”

Orie said the judges were unconvinced by the evidence that the Bosnian Serb leadership had deliberately intended to destroy the non-Serb population in whole or in part – a key element in winning a conviction for Bosnian genocide.

The court has ruled in other cases that genocide occurred at Srebrenica, Bosnia, in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb troops killed at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the worst civilian massacre in Europe since the Second World War II (see preliminary list of dead and missing).

Former Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik in an undated photo.“Krajisnik wanted the Muslim [Bosniak] and Croat populations moved out of Bosnian-Serb territories in large numbers, and accepted that a heavy price of suffering, death, and destruction was necessary to achieve Serb domination and a viable statehood,” the judgment said.

Krajisnik listened to the reading of the verdict gravely, with downcast eyes, then stood as the sentence was read. His lawyers had asked for acquittal, and said they would appeal the ruling. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence.

Several family members were in the gallery to hear the verdict. “I know my brother is certainly not guilty, at least not to such an extent.” said Mirko Krajisnik.

Victims of the Bosnian Serbs decried the sentence as too lenient.

“It’s a minimal punishment for what he has done,” said Zumra Sehomerovic, of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” association.

“It doesn’t matter that he may not live long enough to walk out. What matters is that his acts are properly punished,” she said. “This Hague tribunal has also become a circus. God, is there justice anywhere in this world?”

Krajisnik’s case was of the most important remaining for the tribunal, which is due to begin its last trial in 2008, and may be the last chance to apportion blame among the leadership of the breakaway Bosnian Serb leadership for atrocities carried out by troops on the ground.

The two remaining key suspects, former Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, both indicted for genocide, are fugitives.

The ruling did not mention former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who prosecutors claimed had pulled the strings from neighbouring Serbia during the war. Milosevic died of heart attack in his cell in March, before a verdict could be rendered in his case.

A third figure in the Bosnian Serb leadership, Biljana Plavsic, confessed and is serving an 11-year sentence. She testified unwillingly against Krajisnik, saying he wielded almost as much power as Karadzic.

Krajisnik’s indictment covered events July 1991-December 2002, including the period when ethnic Serbs seized two-thirds of the territory in Bosnia and evicted non-Serbs. The judgment described what happened to Bosniak detainees at Zvornik, just one of the dozens of towns listed in the indictment.

“One man had his ear cut off, others had their fingers cut off, and at least two men were sexually mutilated,” it said. “About 160 detainees were later removed in small groups and executed by the Serb guards.”

Taken together, what was done to Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia would be enough to constitute the act of genocide, but “the chamber has not received sufficient evidence to establish whether the perpetrators had genocidal intent,” Orie said.

The judges rejected the argument by Krajisnik’s lawyers had argued he was only a small player in the Bosnian Serb government, They said he was part of its executive authority and bore responsibility.

18 September, 2006

GENOCIDE TRIALS AND MASS GRAVES

KAMENICA EXHUMATION COMPLETED, SERBS ON TWO SEPARATE GENOCIDE TRIALS HAVE LITTLE TO SAY

More than 1,000 remains from 1995 Srebrenica massacre found in mass grave

Srebrenica Genocide, 7/11 1995The bodies of more than 1,000 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre have been exhumed from the largest mass grave found to date in Bosnia-Herzegovina, forensic experts said Thursday.

Experts began digging in June near the eastern Bosnian village of Kamenica, close to the border with Serbia, where they have found eight other mass graves. The team has exhumed 144 complete and 1,009 partial skeletons.

"This is the largest mass grave so far found," said Murat Hurtic, head of the forensics team.

Along with the remains, experts found 14 documents indicating the victims were killed in the Srebrenica massacre, which became the site of Europe's worst mass execution since the Second World War when Serb troops in 1995 overran the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, which the United Nations had declared a safe zone. As many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slain.

The excavation team said it found bullets mixed with body parts, and plastic and cloth bindings around the victims' arms.

The remains were heavily damaged, a typical feature of "secondary" mass graves to which victims' bodies are moved from an original burial site in an attempt to hide a crime, experts said.

Much of the moving in this case was done with bulldozers, which complicates the identification process because parts of the same body can be found in two or even three different mass graves, experts said.

Srebrenica Massacre, 7/11 1995Forensic teams have been uncovering mass graves throughout Bosnia in recent years, collecting the remains and extracting DNA to be matched with family members. Once a match is found, the body is returned to the family for burial.

Of the 3,500 bodies of Srebrenica victims excavated so far, 2,500 have been identified through DNA and some 2,000 buried in a cemetery in the Srebrenica suburb of Potocari, where the victims last were seen alive before being rounded up by Serb soldiers and taken for execution.
Witness played dead while those around him were executed.

The trial of seven Bosnian Serb military and police officers continued this week with the testimony of a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who described in gripping detail the horrors he suffered after the enclave was overrun by Serb forces in July 1995.

Ahmo Hasic "believed to be one of only 12 men who survived the slaughter of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys" told the judges he stayed alive only by playing dead after Serb soldiers started shooting.

The trial chamber heard a similar testimony last week from Mevludin Oric who described how he lay under a pile of dead bodies for several hours.

On trial are Ljubisa Beara, Vujadin Popovic, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Vinko Pandurevic and Drago Nikolic, who face genocide and war crimes charges. Radivoj Miletic and Milan Gvero are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hasic, 70, is not new to the court. In 2001, he testified at the trial of Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic, currently serving a 35-year prison sentence in Britain after being found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide.

In 2003, Hasic was also a prosecution witness at the trial of Bosnian Serb military officers Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic. They were sentenced to 18 and 19 years respectively for their role in the massacre.

Last week, as he had done previously, Hasic told the judges that on July 13 he was separated from his family in Potocari and taken to the nearby Serb-held town of Bratunac, where he and hundreds of other Bosniaks were detained in the Vuk Karadzic elementary school.

But the true horror began on July 16, when the prisoners were taken to the nearby Branjevo farm. According to the indictment against the seven, it was at Branjevo that approximately 1,200 Bosnian Muslim males were summarily executed by automatic gunfire from members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment, the Bratunac Brigade and others.

Hasic's two sons and two brothers died in Srebrenica. Last year he reburied one of his sons after his remains were excavated from a mass grave near Srebrenica. He still hasn't found his other son.

As he got off the bus, Hasic saw an entire field covered with dead bodies. Serb soldiers then lined up the prisoners from Hasic's group and the mass execution began.

"I fell down before I was shot," he said. "The bullets whizzed past me."

While lying on the ground he saw more buses filled with Muslim detainees arriving, most of whom suffered the same fate. "The buses were unloaded, and the prisoners were lined up and then executed," said Hasic.

Hasic lay under a pile of dead bodies for hours as Bosnian Serb soldiers walked around the field looking for survivors. "One man who was lying not very far from me said, 'I'm alive'. The other one said, 'I'm wounded, come and finish me off'. Serb soldiers then shot them both dead," he said.

He continued, "I knew I didn't have much time, because the Serbs would come back with trucks and bulldozers to remove all those bodies. So I waited until dusk, and crawled through the layers of dead bodies to the bushes at the edge of the field."

There he found four other survivors. They all stayed hidden until dark, looking at the grisly scene in front of them. "There were between 1,000 and 1,500 bodies lying on the ground. They were all dead," Hasic told the court.

The five slipped away into the forest after nightfall, but Hasic's journey was far from over. The oldest man in the group, he was outpaced and soon got left behind and walked all night in the darkness, thirsty and exhausted.

In the morning, he found an asphalted road, but just as he began crossing, he saw a truck coming along it. "It was a Serb truck, full of dead bodies," he said. He believes the bodies were being taken from the execution site to a mass grave.

"The driver told me to stop, but I kept on walking," he said. "He probably thought I was a Serb too, so he let me go."

Hasic spent another 10 days wandering the hills around Srebrenica, and was captured by the Bosnian Serb military again. He was transferred to the camp in Batkovic, under the watchful eye of the Red Cross, and released five months later.

Srebrenica Genocide Trial in Sarajevo

Witnesses at the trial of 11 Bosnian Serbs accused of killing Bosniak men and boys during the Srebrenica massacre offered the Bosnian war crimes court only limited first-hand recollections of the events of July 1995 when they appeared in court last week.

The case, which began on May 9 and is still in the prosecution phase, is the first and only genocide trial being heard by the Bosnian national war crimes court in Sarajevo.

The indictment alleges that principal defendant Milos Stupar, a commander in the Sekovici Special Police at the time, along with 10 accomplices - Milenko Trifunovic, Milovan Matic, Brane Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic,
Dragisa Zivanovic, Petar Mitrovic and Branislav Medan took part in killing more than 1,000 Muslims in a warehouse at Kravice, near Srebrenica, on July 13.

The defendants are also accused of being part of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at forcibly evicting women and children from the Srebrenica enclave after it was overrun by Serb forces in summer 1995. In February this year, they pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.

The three Bosnian Serbs brought as prosecution witnesses last week were there because they had been served with subpoenas. They were serving in Serb police and army units and were in the vicinity of Srebrenica when the killings took place.

In court, two denied they knew what was going on, while a third said he heard gunshots and was told prisoners had been killed.

As has often been the case during this trial, the witnesses' evidence in court differed considerably from statements they gave to Bosnian investigators.

One, Stanislav Vukajlovic, told the judges that the discrepancies were the result of pressure put on him when he was first questioned by investigators. He said one had been "very rude" and had threatened him with prison if he did not cooperate.

Vukajlovic was a soldier in the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, at the time of the events in question. He told the court that in March 1995, he deserted the army and fled to Serbia but was arrested there and deported back to Republika Srpska shortly before the massacre. He testified that his unit was deployed in the Bratunac area around July 12, but that he "didn't see anything suspicious" over the next couple of days.

Witness Milos Vukovic, a former member of the Sekovici Special Police, was a truck driver stationed in Bratunac at the time of the massacre. He too said he had "no knowledge about the events in Srebrenica and Kravice". He confirmed only that he saw a large number of buses and trucks carrying women and children from Srebrenica to the Bosnian Government-held town of Tuzla.

Milenko Pepic, an ex-member of the same police unit, said that on the day of the massacre he was in the vicinity of Kravice and heard "gunfire and detonations" coming from the direction of the warehouse. Later that day, he passed by the warehouse and saw bullet holes all over the
building.

He said a superior officer told him that "it wasn't a good thing to shoot all those prisoners".

The trial continues next week.

17 September, 2006

RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT

DARFUR - GENOCIDE IN PROGRESS

Submitted by: Owen

DarfurToday was Global Day for Darfur, on the anniversary of the UN's adoption of the "Responsibility to Protect" declaration providing the legal and ethical basis for "humanitarian intervention" in a state that is unwilling or unable to fight genocide, massive killings and other massive human rights violations.

Ready and waiting is the prospect of a desperate catastrophe when the African Union mandate in Darfur runs out in 13 days time and the Sudanese government refuses to allow the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force.

The Global Day for Darfur aimed to push national governments to act as members of the internationa community to act rapidly to prevent a horrific deterioration in an already awful situation.

For those with a fast enough internet connect there's a fifty minute clip filmed by the Aegis Trust from this morning's event outside the Sudanese Embassy in London (followed by a march to 10 Downing Street via Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square)
http://astream.com/live/aegis/

First ten minutes are Darfuris calling for UN deployment (with pictures of the demonstration being filming inside the Embassy - behind the camera to start with, later on the white building with the metal-barred window), then various speakers to the rally included Adam Hussein, escapee from Darfur, Susan Pollack, survivor of Auschwitz, Beatha Uwazaninka, survivor of Rwanda, and preceding Beatha Uwazaninka at just after 34 minutes into the clip, Kemal Pervanic, survivor of Omarska, drawing the lesson from Bosnia for public concern to push the need for action over Darfur up the politicians' order of priorities.

Anyone who wasn't able to attend a meeting for the Global Day can go and sign the petition to the Secretary General of the UN and to the Prime Minister by going to the bottom of the page at
http://www.dayfordarfur.org/Events/London_UK.htm

"I, alongside people and organizations from around the world, call on my President or Prime Minister and the international community to:

* Strengthen the understaffed and overwhelmed African Union peacekeeping force now. We must offer extra help to the African peacekeepers already on the ground.

* Transition peacekeeping responsibilities to a stronger UN force as soon as possible. The UN must deploy peacekeepers with a strong mandate to protect civilians.

* Increase aid levels and ensure access for aid delivery. Shortfalls in aid continue to mean that people are at risk of starvation. Humanitarian organizations must have unfettered access to all who need help.

* Implement the Darfur Peace Agreement. For the violence to end, all parties to the agreement, in particular the Sudanese Government, must live up to their responsibilities."

11 September, 2006

PEOPLE SAY YES FOR PEACE

AFTER ALL: BOSNIAKS, SERBS, CROATS WANT TO LIVE WITH EACH OTHER

United Nations Development Program - Research Results

Translated from
Oslobodjenje

Children holding hands for peace.Recently published results of UNDP's research in Sarajevo Oslobodjenje have shown that Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina want to live together, but don't want to have close family ties.

According to this report, majority of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats are willing to share land with other ethnic groups, live with different ethnic groups in their neighbourhoods or send their kids to ethnically mixed schools. However, there is a very low percentage of people who are ready for ethnically mixed marriages.

According to the war-time statistics, there were 120,000 ethnically mixed marriages in Sarajevo alone. Today, 29.8% of Bosniaks on a territory where they form majority, approves marriages with Serbs; while 32.5% of Croats on a territory where they form majority approves ethnically mixed marriages with Serbs. On the other hand, 31.41% of Serbs where they form majority supported ethnic marriages with Croats, while 27.5% of them supported ethnic marriages with Bosniaks.

Interestingly, other minorities on all three ethnically diverse regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina support marriages with all three ethnic groups, including having family ties with "other" people; the exceptions were Bosniaks and Serbs who live on a territory with Croat majority.
Prof. Jusuf Ziga is not surprised by the results of this research.

"For me, these were expected, but also encouraging results." - says Ziga and explains that considering recent past of Bosnia, the fact that around 30% of citizens is still ready for ethnically mixed marriages and many more for life together "indicates that the readiness to appreciate and accept others has survived despite all odds, and it is still alive as a social value."

Bosniaks - the most tolerant

UNDP has concluded that Bosniaks are most ready than all to live together with other ethnic groups in all three ethnically diverse regions of Bosnia.

87.8% of Bosniaks are willing to live in same country with Serbs, and 94.8% of them with Croats.

76% of Croats are willing to share land with Serbs and Bosniaks.

58.9% Serbs are willing to live with Bosniaks and 60.9% with Croats in a territory where Serbs form majority.

Almost in equal percentage, Bosniaks want to have Serbs and Croats as neighbours, while percentage of Serbs who want other ethnic groups as neighbours is somewhat higher. Croats would rather share land where they form majority, than live with other ethnic groups in their neighbourhood.

When it comes to sending kids to same school with other ethnic groups, that number is even lower in Croats, although satisfactory: 66.5% of Croats approve sending their kids to same school with Serb children, while 63.5% of Croats are ready to send their kids to school with Bosniak children. Percentage of Serbs who are willing to school their children with children from other ethnic groups is somewhat smaller, however, 65% of Serbs do support mixed schools.

Consequences of Conflict

When the UNDP researchers asked citizens would they mind if their boss was of other ethnic background, the number of those who answered positively continued plunging. Bosniaks would rather have a Croat, then Serb boss. About 50% of Serbs would neither mind having a Croat, nor Bosniak boss.

Although differences are not huge, the research has shown that Serbs and Croats would rather share land, neighbourhood, school, and even a marriage among each other, then with a third ethnic group - Bosniaks.

Prof. Ziga finds reasons in religious differences, especially when it comes to marriages.

"The fact is that the consequences of conflicts can be felt even to day. And the fact is also that these conflicts were bigger among Bosniaks and Serbs, than they were among Serbs and Croats. But, although there are differences, it should not be forgotten that Serbs and Croats have same religious foundation and I am not surprised they have more readines for common marriage.

However, differences are minimal, even when it comes to this supersensitive question." - says Prof. Ziga, who thinks that UNDP results show that BiH society has strength for revitalization, but they also have need for community living."

Serbs - the most unattached to Bosnia-Herzegovina

While they wish to preserve common life among each other, ethnic groups have not developed enough feelings of attachment to common land. The exceptions were Bosniaks, while that feeling is somewhat weaker among Croats, and the weakest among Serbs - only 20% of them say they feel strong attachment to Bosnia. However, attachment to Bosnia among Serbs and Croats is much higher if they live in a community with Bosniaks.

Support for joining European Union

Serbs are more committed for European Union than to their own land. According to UNDP statistics, 61.4% of Serbs, 74.8% of Croats, and 88.4% of Bosniaks on territories where they form majority support Bosnia joining European Union. In 80% of cases other minorities expressed strong or somewhat strong support Bosnia joining European Union.

31 August, 2006

LIST OF SREBRENICA GENOCIDE SUSPECTS

NAMES OF SREBRENICA MASSACRE PERPETRATORS WHO ARE STILL IN POSITION OF POWER

NOTE: Srebrenica Genocide Blog will keep updating the list as names continue to be released by Sarajevo-based Oslobodjenje Daily.

The Bosnian daily newspaper Oslobodjenje has started publishing a list of over 800 Bosnian Serbs who allegedly participated in the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, and are still believed to be in positions of power.

These names are just a small part of a much bigger list of some 28,000 people who, according to the Republika Srpska [Serb Entity in Bosnia], RS, authorities, were directly or indirectly involved in the massacre. Out of 28,000 names that the full version of the report apparently contains, 892 are reported to be individuals still employed by governmental and municipal institutions.

Back in October 2004, the RS Srebrenica Commission, under pressure from the international community, released a report in which they acknowledged that Serbs had been responsible for killing thousands of Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica in July 1995.



First Part - 69 names, published on 08/24/06

Goran (Rajko) Abazović, Neško (Vladimir) Aćimović, Dušan (Drago) Aćimović, Milan (Vladimir) Aćimović, Zoran (Petko) Aćimović, Mile (Miladin) Aćimović, Siniša (Milan) Aleksić, Aleksa (Predrag) Aleksić, Draško (Božo) Aleksić, Milenko (Dragoljub) Aleksić, Brano (Dušan) Aleksić, Marko (Vladimir) Aleksić, Dragomir (Risto) Alempić, Rajko (Ljubinko) Alempić, Žarko (Vlajko) Andrić, Drago (Ljubo) Andrić, Mirjana (Stojan) Andrić, Nenad (Žarko) Andrić, Milan (Đorđo) Ašćerić, Radislav (Diko) Ašćerić, Dragomir (Božidar) Ašćerić, Vojslav (Ljubomir) Ašćerić, Mirko (Savo) Ašćerić, Dragan (Stevo) Ašćerić, Dragomir (Petar) Ašonja, Sveto (Rajko) Avramović, Miroslav (Jovo) Babić, Goran (Ilija) Bačić, Perica (Dragan) Bajević, Momir (Stojan) Bakmaz, Miroslav (Branko) Baljak, Novka (Petar) Banjac, Risto (Gojko) Barač, Ranko (Rajko) Baračanin, Dana (Branko) Bartula, Rade (Anđelko) Bašić, Miroslav (Mirko) Batovac, Ljubiša (Kosta) Bećarević, Siniša (Vladimir) Bećarević, Bogoljub (Bogdan) Begović, Goran (Cvijetin) Bencun, Milo (Božo) Bjelić, Marko (Risto) Blagojević, Ranko (Milivoje) Blagojević, Radenko (Neđo) Blagojević, Dušan (Slobodan) Blagojević, Gordana (Milan) Blažanović, Mila (Luka) Bodirogić, Milan (Anđelka) Bogdanović, Luka (Miladin) Bogdanović, Radovan (Mitar) Bojanić, Sredoje (Velizar) Bojić, Slobodan (Ljubo) Bojić, Milenko (Mijat) Borić, Radenko (Radosava) Borić, Darko (Vojislava) Borovčanin, Danko (Rade) Borovčanin, Radoslav (Milovan) Bošković, Todor (Boško) Bošković, Željko (Risto) Bošnjak, Obren (Dušan) Božić, Radoslav (Neđo) Božić, Kirilo (Mitar) Božić, čedo (Blagoje) Božić, Goran (Petar) Božičković, Borislav (Ratko) Božović, Stevo (Rado) Bunijevac, Boro (Marko) Bunjevac, Mile (Novo) Burilo.

Second Part: - 59 names, published on 08/25/06

Simo (Petar) Čabrić, Diko (Radivoje) Čabrić, Dragan (Nikola) Čabrić, Mario (Jozo) Cakalin, Radenko (Nenad) Čakarević, Vjekoslav (Veljko) Čakarević, Aleksa (Milentije) Čanić, Mladen (Bogoljub) Čavić, Predrag (Miodrag) Čelić, Rado (Krsto) Čelić, Ljubiša (Ranko) Čelić, Novica (Petar) Čelić, Petko (Milan) Cinco, Luka (Božo) Cinco, Milenko (Zdravko) Ćirković, Dragan (Branislav) Čobić, Marko (Dragiša) Čojić, Siniša (Šćepana) Čorić, Nemanja (Nedeljko) Crnjak, Rajko (Aleksa) Čuturić, Nada (Aleksa) Cvijan, Miljan (Borislav) Cijetić, Miroslav (Bogoljub) Cvijetić, Ristan (Čedo) Cvijetinović, Branislav (Matija) Čvorić, Radoš (Bojo) Čvoro, Todor (Milorad) Damnjanović, Stojan (Damjan) Danilović, Branislav (Boško) Danilović, Slaviša (Janko) Danojević, Vitomir (Rade) Deležan, Goran (Bogdan) Delmić, Milisav (Milan) Dendić, Milomir (Aćim) Đerić, Nenad (Spasoje) Deronjić, Boško (Miloš) Dešić, Nikola (Stjepan) Deurić, Goran (Zoran) Deurić, Momir (Lazo) Deurić, Milimir (Vojin) Divčić, Božidar (Drago) Đokić, Mirjana (Radoslav) Đokić, Slaviša (Dobrisav) Đokić, Savo (Sretko) Domazetović, Vitomir (Slobodan) Draganić, Miladin (Mitar) Dragić, Relja (Rajko) Dragić, Radomir (Branislav) Dragutinović, Zoran (Milan) Drakulić, Zoran (Ljuban) Drakulić, Ranko (Đorđo) Drašković, Marinko (Dražo) Dražić, Željko (Slobodan) Drljača, Dragiša (Mihajlo) Drljić, Pavle (Dragan) Dubov, Ljubiša (Cvijo) Đurić, Siniša (Mirko) Duković, Radinko (Mirko) Duković, Timo (Ratko) Dukić.


Third Part - 100 names, published on 09/05/2006

Tomislav (Milorad) Dukić, Rajko (Ratko) Dukić, Aleksandar (Vaso) Dukić, Zoran (Dejan) Durmić, Mile (Arsena) Đukić, Dragan (Milorad) Đukić, Brano (Milan) Đurđević, Miladin (Trivko) Đurić, Bogoljub (Gojko) Đurić, Dragan (Nikola) Đurić, Miloš (Nikola) Đurić, Boro (Veljko) Đurić, Srđan (Dušan) Đurić, Rajko (Slavko) Đurić, Milenko (Dušan) Đuričić, Aleksandar (Petar) Đurčić, Zoran (Mladen) Džabić, Nikola (Branko) Džebić, Brano (Ratomir) Džinić, Ratomir (Vukašin) Džinkić, Slaviša (Radivoje) Džuović, Veselin (Neđo) Erdelić, Ljuban (Milan) Erdelić, Radiša (Svetozar) Erić, Miroslav (Petko) Erić, Sreten (Tripun) Erić, Milenko (Todor) Erić, Cvjetko (Risto) Erić, Marinko (Mitar) Erić, Mirko (Miloš) Erkić, Dražan (Petar) Erkić, Nenad (Uroš) Filipović, Radiša (Simo) Filipović, Milomir (Danilo) Furtula, Aleksandar (Nikola) Gačanin, Veljko (Ilija) Gajić, Zoran (Milan) Gajić, Željko (Ilija) Gajić, Vlado (Čedo) Gajić, Ljubomir (Vukašin) Gajić, Milan (Mićo) Gajić, Goran (Branislav) Garić, Vojislav (Ilija) Gašanović, Mirko (Drago) Gašević, Miroslav (Miloš) Gatarić, Mladen (Stanko) Gavrić, Mikajlo (Bogdan) Gavrić, Ranko (Danilo) Gavrilović, Vida (Velimir) Glamočić, Miladin (Anđelko) Gligić, Milka (Petar) Gligorić, Siniša (Savo) Glogovac, Pero (Bogdan) Gluvak, Luka (Milutin) Gojgolović, Zoran (Đorđe) Gojković, Božica (Ilija) Golić, Dragan (Rajko) Golić, Ljepomir (Milan) Golić, Boško (Nikola) Golijanin, Goran (Ranko) Gostić, Miladin (Vid) Gostimirović, Ljubinko (Vid) Gostimirović, Slaviša (Milovan) Grahovac, Mirko (Bogoljub) Grujić, Slavoljub (Slavko) Gužvić, Dragan (Borislav) Hajduković, Dragan (Milojko) Ignjić, Dragan (Dragomir) Ikonić, Vidoje (Branko) Ilić, Mladen (Momir) Ilić, Ivo (Dušan) Ilić, Rajko (Pantelije) Ilić, Jovan (Savo) Ilić, Dragan (Desimir) Ilić, Stevo (Dušan) Ilić, Zoran (Živko) Ilić, Milenija (Miloš) Ilić, Cvijeta (Mihajlo) Ilić, Mladen (Lazo) Iličić, Dragan (Desimir) Iljić, Risto (Gojko) Ivanović, Milenko (Radenko) Ivanović, Željko (Gojko) Ivanović, Diko (Milenko) Ivanović, Đorđe (Risto) Ivanović, Radivoje (Dragoslav) Ivanović, Goran (Sreten) Ivanović, Nedeljko (Tomo) Jaćimović, Krsto (Boško) Jakšić, Zoran (Ljubisav) Janjić, Milorad (Radislav) Janjić, Nenad (Petar) Janjić, Lenka (Jovan) Janjušić, Jovo (Marijan) Janković, Boro (Dragomir) Jelić, Zoran (Zdravko) Jeličić, Slaviša (Radovan) Jelisić, Nebojša (Slobodan) Jeremić, Mile (Veselin) Jerkić.

30 August, 2006

SREBRENICA SURVIVORS RECEIVE THREATS


THREATS AIMED AT SREBRENICA MASSACRE SURVIVORS

Survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica war crimes have been receiving vicious threats on their lives recently

The threats have come as a reaction to the published list of police officials who are suspected of having been involved in the Srebrenica massacre, according to Sarajevo daily
Oslobođenje.

One woman from Srebrenica was threatened that she would be killed with pleasure the same way in which her sons were killed, according to the daily, which released some of the 810 names located on the list of those suspected of aiding and abetting the Srebrenica war crimes.

President and Vice President of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Association, Munira Subašić and Kada Hotić, said that they received such threats from the Republic of Srpska (Serb entity in Bosnia) directly after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but that it has not happened recently; not until this list was published.

“We were threatened by a 065 number again. However, we are getting the angriest calls from hidden numbers. I am not afraid because I have nothing left to lose, so that is why I have not reported the threats to anyone.” Subašić said.

She said that at one time, she regularly received threatening calls from the wife of Republic of Srpska military general Radislav Krstić, who was convicted of genocide in Srebrenica before the Hague Tribunal.

Republic of Srpska Police Chief Uroš Pena said that police officials of the RS that participated in the 1995 war crimes will be criminally prosecuted and released from the police force immediately.

Pena said that those who did not participate in the war crimes have no reason to fear for their status and protest the appearance of their names on the list.

22 August, 2006

TRIAL: MLADIC & KARADZIC EVADE JUSTICE

GENOCIDE TRIAL WITHOUT RATKO MLADIC AND RADOVAN KARADZIC


“Defenceless men and boys [were] executed by firing squads, buried in mass graves and then dug up and buried again in an attempt to conceal the truth from the world." - Carla Del Ponte, Aug 21, 2006. - Opening statement in Srebrenica Genocide trial.

The trial of seven top Bosnian Serb military officials charged over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslims was to resume in the UN court here, in the biggest ever joint trial for war crimes committed during the Balkan wars in the 1990s. (From top L) Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Ljubomir Borovcanin and Vinko Pandurevic (from bottom L) Vinko Pandurevic, Radivoje Miletic and Milan Gvero.Intro: Carla Del Ponte, the UN’s chief prosecutor, said in her opening statement: “Words cannot convey the magnitude of the crimes committed and the suffering of the victims. Now the name Srebrenica is infamous. Unfortunately, two men who should be sitting in this courtroom are still at large. I am talking, of course, about Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.” Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, and his military commander General Mladic are accused of ultimate responsiblity for the slaughter. Ms Del Ponte blamed the Serbian Government for their absence, accusing it of a scandalous refusal to arrest General Mladic, who is seen by many Serbs as a national hero. Conspicuous by their absence are wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, and his generals, Ratko Mladic and Zdravko Tolimir - all of whom are still on the run.
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Carla Del Ponte, the U.N.'s Chief Crimes ProsecutorThe U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague has resumed the trial of seven former Bosnian Serb military and police officers charged for their alleged role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre

The joint trial of the seven, five of whom are accused of genocide, is the biggest at the tribunal, which has combined their cases as it tries to complete its work by 2010. The trial, which started last month, got under way in earnest on Monday.

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte used her opening statement today to criticize Serbia's government for failing to arrest and extradite fugitive war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. She said it is "inexcusable" that the former top commander of Serb forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina has not been detained.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic are the most wanted fugitives of Bosnia's 1992-95 war, indicted by the Hague-based court for the siege of Sarajevo and masterminding the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Mladic is thought to be hiding in Serbia.

Kamenica: one of Srebrenica massacre mass graves.Serb forces killed over 8,000 Bosniaks, mostly men and boys, after capturing the town, which the United Nations had declared a United Nation's safe haven.

Five of the former officers, Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Vinko Pandurevic, Drago Nikolic and Vujadin Popovic, face various charges, including genocide and extermination. The two other men on trial, Radivoje Miletic and Milan Gvero, are charged with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of wars including murder, persecution, forcible transfer and deportation. They have already appeared individually before the court and pleaded not guilty.

Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, told the court that Gen Mladic "should be on trial in this case".

"Now the name Srebrenica is infamous ... invariably associated with the most heinous crimes," she added.

Kamenica: one of Srebrenica massacre mass graves.She repeated her criticism of Belgrade for failing to deliver him to the tribunal and promised that he and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic would eventually be brought to trial.

"It is absolutely scandalous that they have not been caught. Serbia is fully capable to arrest them, but has refused," she said.

Prosecutor Peter McCloskey said that Mladic and Karadzic plotted to force out the Bosniak population and that the armed forces were instructed accordingly.

"Mladic and Karadzic made what I refer to as the supreme act of arrogance and impunity and set out the plan to deal with Muslims in eastern Bosnia," he said.

"Men and boys were put in horrendous conditions ... they were beaten, starved and killed in two days," he said referring to July 1995, after the fall of the enclave.

"They were marked for death ... There was an organized mass execution going on," he added.

Bosnian Muslim woman asks U.N. soldier for help to prevent Srebrenica massacre. U.N. stood helpless while over 8,000 men and boys (children) were massacred by Serb forces on July 11th 1995.The EU suspended talks on Serbia's hopes of accession in May because of its failure to hand Gen Mladic to the UN war crimes tribunal.

Last month, the Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, submitted a plan for Gen Mladic's arrest which the EU welcomed.

Ms Del Ponte told the court that the seven men in the dock were "among the most responsible" for the massacre of over 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the UN-declared safe haven.

The trial at The Hague - which is expected to last more than a year - started last month with legal arguments and began its main phase today. It is the tribunal's latest attempt to hold senior officials responsible.

It was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Bosnian Serb forces committed "forcible resettlement of the population, mass murders and genocide," del Ponte stated.

The accused sat in silence and betrayed no emotion as Ms Del Ponte described the Srebrenica massacre as "the final phase of a comprehensive criminal plan to permanently erase the Muslim population of Srebrenica".

She told the court: "It is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the horror inflicted on the inhabitants.

“Defenceless men and boys [were] executed by firing squads, buried in mass graves and then dug up and buried again in an attempt to conceal the truth from the world."

She said many victims had been bound and blindfolded "to make the murder easier for the executioners".

Bodies continue to be found in mass graves. Last week, forensic experts said they had exhumed the remains of more than 1,000 victims from a single grave near the village of Kamenica (read more here ).

Many of the victims had had their arms bound with cloth or plastic and bullets were mixed with the bones.

The skeletons were badly damaged, indicating that the bodies had been dug up from elsewhere and dumped into a second grave as Bosnian Serb forces attempted to cover their tracks.

The Hague-based court has staged only a handful of trials dealing with the Srebrenica atrocities, including the case against the former Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic, which was aborted after his death in March.

The two men accused of masterminding the killings - General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic - are the tribunal's most wanted war crimes suspects.

The tribunal has already convicted six men over Srebrenica. Gen Mladic's deputy, General Radislav Krstic, is serving a 35-year prison term for aiding and abetting genocide and Colonel Vidoje Blagojevic is appealing against an 18-year sentence for complicity in genocide.

The indictments of the seven men were combined last year into a single indictment. They face allegations ranging from genocide to murder and persecution and are being defended by more than a dozen lawyers.

The suspects sat today in the packed courtroom, their faces betraying no emotion as they listened through earphones to a translation of Ms Del Ponte's opening statement.

At the end of her speech to the court, Ms Del Ponte vowed that the seven suspects would not be the last to face justice for the Srebrenica genocide.

Gen Mladic, Mr Karadzic and others evading capture "will be arrested," she said.

"They will be brought to The Hague and they will be tried for their crimes. This is our pledge to the international community and the women ... who mourn their losses and all victims of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia."

The prosecution sought to link former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to the Srebrenica massacre but the case was closed without judgment after his death in March.

The massacre in the Bosniak enclave in eastern Bosnia is Europe's worst atrocity since the Holocaust.

21 August, 2006

GENERAL LEWIS MACKENZIE

GENERAL LEWIS MACKENZIE - PAID SERBIAN LOBBYIST AND OUTSPOKEN SREBRENICA GENOCIDE DENIER

General Lewis MacKenzieGen. Lewis MacKenzie, the former commander of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia is an outspoken Srebrenica genocide denier. He portrays himself as an expert on Srebrenica who can rule on genocide issues, even though he has no legal background and he has never visited Srebrenica in his life. On July 14, 2005 edition of Canada's The Globe and Mail, under "The Real Story Behind Srebrenica", this is what he stated (quote):

Quote: "Evidence given at The Hague war crimes tribunal casts serious doubt on the figure of 'up to' 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred. That figure includes 'up to' 5,000 who have been classified as missing. More than 2,000 bodies have been recovered in and around Srebrenica, and they include victims of the three years of intense fighting in the area. The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed.... It's a distasteful point, but it has to be said that, if you're committing genocide, you don't let the women go since they are key to perpetuating the very group you are trying to eliminate. Many of the men and boys were executed and burried in mass graves." End Quote

Little did he know: Srebrenica genocide is not a matter of anybody's opinion; it's a judicial fact. Srebrenica massacre has been ruled a genocide first by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague and subsequently by the International Court of Justice.

As an alternative to Lewis Mackenzie's make-believe denials, read
Facts: 8,106 killed in Srebrenica Genocide.

While it is difficult to ascertain exactly how much has been directed towards payment for speakers and journalists, the SUC [Serbian Unity Congress] and Serbnet have set up a special fund for this purpose. Based on former UN General Lewis MacKenzie's own admission which was later corroborated by Serbnet -- that he was receiving over $15,000 per speaking engagement -- the amount spent on MacKenzie represents more than what the SUC is paying to PR firms such as Manatos and Manatos, Inc. (
source).

The Serbian propaganda campaign employs methods similar to Holocaust denial and revisionism. Their first line of action is to create an atmosphere of relativism. The second line of action is then to deny the totality of the destruction in order to downplay the purpose and systematic nature of the aggression. The third line of action is then to create their own 'facts' and 'references' and it is here where they have been most successful. The SUC [Serbian Unity Congress] has used public relations firms (Manatos and Manatos, McDermott O'Neill and Associates, David Keene and Associates), in order to grant their leaders and paid representatives access to television and radio interviews, congressional sub-committee hearings and U.N. sponsored commissions. These congressional hearings, interviews and official reports are then used as references, which lend legitimacy to their position. For example, the Serbnet speeches made by former UN General Lewis MacKenzie on his speaker-tour are frequently advertised, as are the articles of Sir Alfred Sherman which appeared in the British press.

But just, who is Gen. Lewis MacKenzie? To answer that question, one must go back to 1992. In December - same year - the chief Bosnian military prosecutor in Sarajevo, Mustafa Bisic, formally charged Gen. Lewis MacKenzie with sexual misconduct against civilians while on duty in Bosnia, and requested that the UN revoke his displomatic immunity. MacKenzie was accused of raping several Bosnian women being held captive in a Serbian prison camp, as a "gift" from Serbian officials. The victims were later executed by Serbian soldiers, allegedly to 'erase evidence'.

Here is an archived version of investigative article published on June 4th, 1993 by Pacific News Services.

COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street, Room 506
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364

ANSWERS NEEDED TO CHARGES OF UN MISCONDUCT IN BOSNIA

EDITOR'S NOTE: For half a year charges of sexual misconduct filed by a Sarajevo prosecutor against a high UN official have been circulating widely in Arab, European and Canadian media, and in UN and human rights circles in New York. While the official named denied the charges, to date there has been no formal acknowledgement let alone inquiry into them, raising troubling questions for some about who polices the peacekeepers. PNS associate editor Dennis Bernstein is an award-winning investigative reporter. Bernstein's research was funded in part by the Washington, D.C. based Fund for Investigative Journalism.

By: Dennis Bernstein, Pacific News Service
Date: 06/04/1993


Last November the chief Bosnian military prosecutor in Sarajevo charged a high UN official with sexual misconduct against civilians while on duty in Bosnia. The prosecutor publicly demanded that the Bosnian president press the United Nations to remove the official's diplomatic immunity.

Although reports of the alleged war crimes have appeared in the Arab, European and Canadian press, have been circulating in UN circles and even surfaced in a briefing for U.S. Congressional aides by a human rights group, there has as yet been no formal response from the UN. While the official has denied the charges, those attempting to investigate them -- journalists, human rights advocates, foreign policyanalysts, and at least one U.S. legislator, not to mention Bosnian officials and Sarajevans themselves -- believe they raise troubling questions about the overall accountability of the UN: just who is policing the peacekeepers?

Some months after he unexpectedly stepped down from his assignment last August, General Lewis MacKenzie, Canadian head of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia Herzegovina, was charged in a bill of indictment by chief military prosecutor Mustafa Bisic with sexually molesting four Bosnian Muslim [Bosniak] women held by Serbian forces in a prison camp in a Sarajevo suburb.

In a letter to the Bosnian president dated Dec. 3, 1992, Bisic cited the eyewitness testimony of a Serbian guard who had worked at the camp, known as Kod Sonje. The guard claimed he saw MacKenzie and several escorts arrive in a military transport vehicle with the UN insignia. The eyewitness claimed guards were then ordered to release four Bosnian Muslim women prisoners to MacKenzie. According to the prosecutor's complaint, the women were later murdered by camp guards under orders to "erase evidence" of this "unusual gift."

The prosecutor's charges, aired over Sarajevo television, were denounced by MacKenzie in several interviews with European and Canadian media as a propaganda tactic by one side in the three-sidedcivil war to gain international sympathy. "I can understand why they (Bosnian officials) would do something like that," the former UN peacekeeper told the Vancouver Sun in an interview published Feb. 13.

"If I had been in their position and found that the peace-keeping force was not what I wanted, I can envision my devious mind working out a story to discredit them."

Nevertheless, in February new information about the possible existence of a videotape placing MacKenzie at the Kod Sonje camp helped refocus attention to the charges. In an interview with Pacific News Service, U.S. Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) says she is "very concerned" about the charges and has informed U.S. ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright that her office "is trying to ferret them out as best we can."

Slaughter learned about the videotape from Safeta Ovcina, a Bosnian nurse who testified at a special briefing conducted by Helsinki Watch for Congressional staffers. The briefing was held February 23 amid growing concern in the West over media accounts of mass rapes of Bosnian Muslim women by Serbian soldiers.

Ovcina, who spent ten months tending war victims at a frontline hospital before fleeing Sarajevo for the United States, testified she had been shown the videotape by her neighbors whom she described as members of the Bosnian military.

"I looked at the tape and saw General MacKenzie, whom we always saw on TV news, with Serb chetniks. There were three or four girls on both sides of him...MacKenzie was hugging them."

In a telephone interview with Pacific News Service at her home in St. Louis, Ovcina says she recognized some of the young women as formerly involved in a hair cutting business.

"They didn't laugh, theydidn't cry, they just sat there...The feeling I had is that they were surrounded by a bunch of drunken people, and they were very unhappy," she recalled.

Ovcina says her neighbors told her the women were later killed and buried in a grave on the outskirts of Sarajevo. In her testimony at the Helsinki Watch briefing, she also described witnessing other abuses and indiscretions by UN personnel, including the selling of protection, food, cigarettes.

Bosnian officials in the United States interviewed by Pacific News Service say they do not know the whereabouts of the videotape nor do they have any verification that it exists. Although the allegations are now widely accepted as truth in Sarajevo, according to Bosnian Ambassador to the UN Muhamed Sacirbey, at this point "there is no proof to justify them." Interviewed by phone from New York, Sacirbeysaid his government had not formally challenged General MacKenzie's diplomatic immunity at the UN.

Another eyewitness to the alleged Kod Sonje incident is Borislav Herak, a Serbian soldier captured by Bosnian forces in early November and now awaiting execution for war crimes. Herak was interviewed on film by award winning Bosnian film maker and TV producer Ademir Kenovic several days after his arrest.

According to a transcript of the interview provided by Kenovic, Herak said he was at the camp when MacKenzie arrived in a white UN vehicle and met with the camp warden Miro Vukovic. He was then taken to a room "for big shots" where he was served whiskey and food.

Later, Herak said he saw MacKenzie and several other UN soldiers "taking four or five girls in this vehicle to have fun." Asked if he were certain it was General MacKenzie, Herak replied, "Yes, I am sure. I saw him on television."

To date, General MacKenzie has not been questioned by U.S. media about the charges and repeated phone calls to him by Pacific News Service in Washington DC were not returned.

Congresswoman Slaughter says while she doesn't want to spread "what could be a smear campaign," she considers the allegations serious enough to warrant investigation. If proven true, they couldundermine the UN's entire peacekeeping mandate.

"But I don't know who is authorized to handle such an investigation," she added.

Slaughter was especially troubled to learn that twice when he visited Washington last May, General MacKenzie was represented by the public relations firm of Craig Shirley and Associates which is closely identified with the Serbian government. The firm also represents Serb-Net Inc., a Chicago-based association of Serbian American organizations which a spokesperson says "works to counter the negative press images about Serbia."
(06/04/1993)
**** END ****
COPYRIGHT PNS

Related reading material suggested by our readers: I Begged Them to Kill Me - published by the Center for Investigation and Documentation of the Association of Former Prison Camp Inmates of Bosnia-Herzegovina; pages 183-189. Chapter: An Officer with a Rose.

18 August, 2006

SREBRENICA CHILD RAPED, HUNG

SREBRENICA MASSACRE:
CRIME AGAINST ALL HUMANITY


Photo: Ferida Osmanovic, hanged herself near the camp at Tuzla airport after being forcibly separated from her family and deported from Srebrenica during genocide. Photographed by Darko Bandic. According to the U.S. Dept of State, another 14-year-old Bosniak child hung herself with her scarf in Potocari after she and her 12-year old cousin were raped by Serb soldiers. (Thanks Owen B. for heads up).

In Potocari (Srebrenica) on July 12, 1995 a 14-year-old Bosnian girl hung herself  after Serb soldiers raped her and her 12-year-old cousin.  Photo: AP
Excerpts from:
Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Rights Practices, 1995

Author: U.S. Department of State

The Bosnian Serb occupation of the U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica in July resulted in one of the worst single reported incidents of genocidal mass killing of members of an ethnic or religious group in Europe since World War II. This massacre, combined with the Bosnian Serb intensive shelling of civilian Sarajevo and continuing ethnic cleansing, galvanized NATO into making a decisive military intervention. Massive NATO bombing of Bosnian Serb military targets and unrelated Bosnian government and Croatian ground assaults allowed the Federation to reclaim nearly 20 percent of Bosnia's territory. The changed battlefield circumstances, plus an intensive diplomatic effort led by the United States and its Contact Group partners (Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France) led to the negotiation of a comprehensive peace agreement in November 1995 near Dayton, Ohio; the agreement was formally signed in December in Paris.
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The Bosnian Army (ABiH) is the military arm of the Republic. It is a multiethnic fighting force, comprised predominantly of Bosnian Muslims, but also Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians of mixed ethnicity. In the course of the war it developed from a citizen militia into an army. The ABiH generally respected citizens' human rights, although it did commit some violations.
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The Bosnian Serb army (BSA) is the military arm of the Republika Srpska. Amalgamated in 1992 from Serbian paramilitary bands, local rural militias, and elements of the JNA, it continued its pattern of using terror tactics against Sarajevo and other civilian areas within sniper or artillery range. It also attacked, kidnaped, and harassed the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), cut utilities to Sarajevo in violation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 900, and blockaded deliveries of humanitarian assistance. Mercenaries from Russia, Greece, and Ukraine fought alongside BSA forces.
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Although all sides committed human rights violations during 1995, the Serbs--through continued ethnic cleansing, mass murders, and attacks on civilian areas--were responsible for the overwhelming majority of abuses. The Federation Government's policy and more open society allowed the collection of detailed information about human rights problems at all levels of society, while the more closed and repressive Republika Srpska restricted the efforts of human rights observers.
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The Bosnian government forces did not as a matter of policy commit political or other extrajudicial killings.
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Republika Srpska was responsible for by far the most massive, egregious, and well-organized killings targeted on members of an ethnic group, including one of the worst single reported incidents of genocidal mass killing in Europe since World War II. Serb military and paramilitary forces continued to terrorize Bosnian civilians through shelling, sniping, attacks on hospitals, and other military action (see Section 1.g.). The Serb seizure of Srebrenica, began at 3:15 a.m. on July 6 with an intensive bombardment of civilian targets in the enclave, causing chaos among the populace which had nowhere to retreat. In the next few days the shelling continued and Serb forces closed in, taking control of U.N. observation posts one by one and taking 55 U.N. troops hostage. The desperate civilians fled, many on foot, to the U.N. base in the neighboring village of Potocari.

On July 10 most of the military-age civilian males, and a number of ABiH soldiers, correctly concluded that they would be slaughtered if they were captured. They decided that their best chance of survival would be to try to walk 50 kilometers through Serb territory to the nearest government lines. Groups of varying sizes totalling from 10,000 to 15,000, including some women and children, departed over July 10 to 12. The various columns broke up into smaller groups as Serb forces attacked them. Survivors who reached safety in the Tuzla area reported mass executions of ABiH soldiers and civilian males. According to one report, the Serbs ambushed a group of about 2,000 in a confined area near Kamenica, killing most. According to some reports, Serbs dressed in U.N. uniforms they had stolen from UNPROFOR troops joined the column and knifed or strangled individuals. Many of the men surrendered to the Serbs; some were killed after they surrendered. Others reportedly committed suicide rather than surrender and face the possibility of torture. There are numerous, credible reports that many of those who surrendered were taken to places of mass execution north of Srebrenica. The systematic way in which prisoners were moved to execution sites, and the presence of trailers and bulldozers (to transport corpses and to dig mass graves) indicate that the mass killings were planned well in advance. More than 7,000 remain unaccounted for and presumed dead.

By July 12, 3,000 to 4,000 civilians were packed into the U.N. base and another 24,000 were grouped around the base. By this time, according to reports gathered by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, Serb soldiers had killed at least 99 people, including 20 to 30 women and children, and Bosnian Serb troops were freely walking inside the camp among the civilians, with the U.N. troops reduced to bystanders. Some Serbs donned U.N. uniforms, drove white U.N. jeeps, and thus disguised lured the refugees out of hiding to their deaths, according to U.N. and press reports.

The deportation of civilians began on July 13. Those men who did not leave on July 10 were separated from the women and children, including boys younger than 16 and men in their 70s. Bosnian Serb commanding General Ratko Mladic arrived that afternoon with the Serb press. With the cameras rolling and Serb soldiers handing out bread and water, Mladic told the refugees that they would be cared for.

Once the press departed the mass killings began in earnest. According to numerous and corroborated reports collected by the U.N., ICRC, and other international observers, eyewitnesses saw bodies of dead civilians along the road, many with their throats cut; others had been shot in the back of the head. On the morning of July 14 two women who left their camp to look for water told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that on their way back along the same path at around 8:00 a.m. they saw 10 dead males, some of whom they recognized, with their throats slashed. Witnesses reported seeing military-age men being taken off of buses and taken out of sight, and then hearing gunfire. Local Serb civilians confirmed to international journalists that the killings took place, and identified locations, such as the school in Karakaj, where the victims were held pending their execution. Members of the UNPROFOR battalion that was to protect Srebrenica reported seeing an estimated 1,000 ABiH soldiers confined in a soccer stadium north of Nova Kasaba on July 13 and hearing about 45 minutes of continuous shooting from the stadium beginning at about 2:30 a.m. on the morning of July 14.

According to an eyewitness who survived by pretending to be dead, some 2,000 civilian Muslims were packed into a warehouse in Kravica 2 days after Srebrenica was overrun: Serb soldiers then fired automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades into the building. Mass killings of civilian Muslims also took place at detention sites in Konjevic Polje, Potocari, and Karakaj. Dutch soldiers saw Serbs kill unarmed Muslims and masses of dead bodies. On July 15 Dutch troops saw 30 bodies on the road between Nova Kasaba and Bratunac and on July 17 saw approximately 100 bodies on two trailers coming from the direction of Srebrenica. A local man interviewed by journalists said he saw about 500 killed while he lay hiding in reeds along the main road to Nova Kasaba. Eyewitnesses reported that Serb army commander General Ratko Mladic was present at some of the mass executions of civilian Muslims, cradling an AK-47 rifle. Serb paramilitary groups, including the Drina Wolves, Seselj Militia, Specialna Policia, White Eagles, and Arkan Tigers reportedly were also present.

Similar atrocities may have occurred during the occupation of the Zepa safe-area, although a greater percentage of Zepa's population has been accounted for.

Mass killings of non-Serbs as part of ethnic cleansing also took place in Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bosanski Novi, and Bosanska Dubica in September and October, in part to make room for Serb refugees who fled from the Croatian reoccupation of Krajina. Croats reportedly were particular targets for revenge. U.N. and other international observers collected numerous accounts of killings and other atrocities.

In addition to mass killings, the Bosnian Serbs most often shot or slit the throats of their victims. Beatings to death were also frequently reported. Reports of grotesque cruelty were also common. For example, a Bosniak woman described to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki how at Potocari Serb soldiers slit her son's throat before her eyes and forced her to drink his blood. Victims of mass expulsions in the Banja Luka/Prijedor area in October reported that in some cases captives were forced to walk across mine fields or to cross rivers where the older and weak drowned. Many sick or wounded captives died because Bosnian Serb authorities denied them access to medical treatment. There are reports of suicides by non-Serbs who were traumatized by the brutality they experienced. In Potocari on July 12 a 14-year-old Bosniak girl hung herself with her scarf after she and her 12-year old cousin were raped by Serb soldiers.

One Bosniak woman reported that she was forced out of her Bosanska Dubica home at gunpoint by paramilitary forces wearing black stockings over their heads, was beaten by them, and dragged away by her hair. At the town square where she was held before her expulsion, she witnessed two women and three men beaten to death. In another case, all four members of a retarded family were killed because they failed to understand that they were supposed to leave their home and get onto a bus.

In May Bosnian Serbs shot down a helicopter carrying Bosnian Foreign Minister Irfan Lubjankic and Deputy Justice Minister Izet Muhamedagic from Bihac to Sarajevo. All seven persons aboard were killed. During the siege of Zepa, Serb commander Mladic lured Bosnian garrison commander Palic out of the enclave with an invitation to talk with him under UNPROFOR auspices. Mladic's forces killed the commander on his way back to the enclave, and Mladic publicly took credit for the killing.
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Women continue to be subjected to rape and other forms of physical abuse. Rape was one of the most frequently used tools of ethnic cleansing by the Bosnian Serbs (see Sections 1.c. and 1.g.). In northern Bosnia a 76-year-old woman was raped in the process of expulsion from her home. In Srebrenica a 91-year-old woman was shot to death for not getting into a bus fast enough.
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In the course of the war, nearly 17,000 children were killed, 35,000 wounded, and over 1,800 permanently disabled. In Sarajevo alone over 1,600 were killed, 15,000 wounded, and over 350 permanently disabled. Many of those killed in Sarajevo were killed by snipers, who could easily distinguish between children and adults. In fact, Serb snipers deliberately targeted children, and Serb artillery deliberately targeted schools and playgrounds for shelling. The elementary school in Alipasina Pale, a suburb of Sarajevo, was shelled twice in the spring; the first attack killed four pupils and a teacher and wounded 34, the second attack killed 7 and wounded 8. The small playground above the main Sarajevo marketplace was also attacked twice; two children were killed in the first attack and 4 killed and 4 wounded in the second. None of these places were located near military targets.
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Ethnic differences--complicated by religious differences--are at the heart of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have been manipulated by both the [Serb] SDS party and the [Croat] HDZ to sustain concepts of a "Greater Serbia" and a "Greater Croatia." The serious human rights violations committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina--ethnic cleansing, rape, forced labor, forced relocation, extrajudicial killing--were largely perpetrated with the goal of establishing the superiority and political domination of a particular ethnic group. No group was more victimized than Bosnia's Muslims.

http://www.hri.org/docs/USSD-Rights/95/Bosnia95.html