THERE WERE NO MASSACRES OF SERBS IN VILLAGES AROUND SREBRENICA

The "massacre" by definition is "a brutal slaughter of a large number of people." Individual Serb victims who died in the crossfire between Serbian Chetniks and the regular forces of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina do not qualify as the 'victims of massacres.' There were no massacres of Serbian people in the villages around Srebrenica. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found no evidence of any massacres of Serbs around Srebrenica. Milivoje Ivanisevic (who is on record for denying the Srebrenica genocide) claimed that forces under the command of Naser Oric massacred 3,500 Serbs around Srebrenica. However, according to the Hague Tribunal, these figures do not reflect reality. In fact, the figures of the individual Serb casualties around Srebrenica are proven to be 9 to 10 times lower than reported by the Serbian ultra-nationalist sources. From 1992-95 there were around 480 Serb casualties around Srebrenica – not “thousands." Of this figure, 329 were Serb soldiers and paramilitary thugs that participated in massacres, rapes, and ethnic cleansing of predominantly Bosniak ethnic territory of Eastern Bosnia.

Serbian propaganda regularly misuses images of individual Serb victims - who died all over Bosnia - and deliberately misrepresents them as victims of the "Muslim attacks" on Serb civilians around Srebrenica. "Serbianna," for example, devoted a special photo section featuring alleged Serb victims of the so called "Muslim crimes" around Srebrenica. Most, if not all, of these alleged Serbian casualties are not even from Srebrenica. The most striking example is a hoax photo of "PERO MAKIC." The photo is being circulated by the Serbian nationalists as a proof of "Muslim attrocities" in Srebrenica. This photographic forgery is hosted by Serbianna in a section titled: "Srebrenica Massacre: A Photo Story." Serbianna describes this image as a photo of "the decapitated head of Bosnian Serb farmer Pero Makic, who was executed by Bosnian Muslim/Croat forces in the northeastern Bosnian city of Brcko." Of course, Brcko is nowhere near Srebrenica, but the photo can still be found in Serbianna's section meant to reveal the so called "Bosnian Muslim atrocities in Srebrenica." The section contains about 30 images of Bosnian Serb casualties who died all over Bosnia, but they are conveniently branded as victims of the so called "Muslim Terror" in/and around Srebrenica.

During the Bosnian war (1992-95), forces under the command of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) kept many B&H cities under the siege. Many Serbian civilians died in these cities as a result of constant attacks carried out by the VRS. We take Sarajevo as an example. In Sarajevo alone, as a result of the Bosnian Serb Army's shelling and sniper attacks, over 10,000 residents (of all nationalities) lost their lives - including more than 1,500 children. [see photos]

The Hague Tribunal's Office of the Prosecutor investigated the different figures of Serbian casualties in the Srebrenica region and made the following conclusions:

"The figures circulating of hundreds of victims or claiming that all 353 inhabitants [of Kravica] were 'virtually completely destroyed' do not reflect the reality. During the attack by the BH army on Kravica, Jezestica, Opravdici, Mandici and the surrounding villages (the larger area of Kravica), on the 7th & 8th January 1993, 43 people were killed, according to our information. Our investigation shows that 13 of the 43 were obviously civilians.... For the whole region, i.e the municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica and Skelani, the Serb authorities claimed previously that about 1400 people were killed due to attacks committed by the BH Army forces for the period of May 1992 to March 1995, when Srebrenica was under the control of Naser Oric. Now the figure has become 3,500 Serbs killed. This figure may have been inflated. Taking the term 'victims' as defined previously, these figures just does not reflect the reality."

Furthermore, the Research and Documentation Center (RDC) in Sarajevo, which included joint Bosniak, Serb and Croat investigators, also investigated the figures of Serb casualties around Srebrenica and concluded that the alleged number of 3,287 Serb casualties in Central Podrinje is actually incorrect and the correct number is nine to ten times lower than reported by the Serbian media. RDC closely works and aids ICTY Investigations and is funded by both international community and the joint government of Bosnia-Herzegovina (which is composed of Bosniak, Serb and Croat lawmakers).

The fact is that Serb forces committed horrendous massacres against the Bosniak civilians around Srebrenica, for example, Glogova Massacre and Zaklopaca Massacre both occured in 1992 and they involved brutal murders of Bosnian Muslim women, children, and the elderly - many of them burned alive.

The Trial Judgment of Naser Oric makes it clear that Serb villages around Srebrenica were heavily militarized bases from which Serbs launched attacks on Bosnian Muslim villages, as well as on the town of Srebrenica itself. As stated in the Judgment, quote:

"Between April 1992 and March 1993, Srebrenica town and the villages in the area held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults, including artillery attacks, sniper fire, as well as occasional bombing from aircrafts.... All this resulted in a great number of refugees and casualties."

Bosniaks had to defend themselves so they engaged in the counter-attacks or raids against the Serbs. The 1999 U.N. Report on the Fall of Srebrenica concluded that,

"the few 'raids' the Bosniaks mounted out of Srebrenica were of little or no military significance. These raids were often organized in order to gather food, as the Serbs had refused access for humanitarian convoys into the enclave. Even Serb sources approached in the context of this report acknowledged that the Bosniak forces in Srebrenica posed no significant military threat to them.... Serbs repeatedly exaggerated the extent of the raids out of Srebrenica as a pretext for the prosecution of a central war aim: to create geographically contiguous and ethnically pure territory along the Drina, while freeing their troops to fight in other parts of the country."

Bosnian Serb forces around Srebrenica were obligated to demilitarize, but they constantly violated the 1993 demilitarization agreements. Specific instructions from United Nations Headquarters in New York stated the Serbs should withdraw their heavy weapons before the Bosniaks gave up their weapons. The Serbs refused to honor their part of the demilitarization agreement and they never did withdraw their heavy weapons. In fact, "following the adoption of Security Council resolution 836 (1993), the Bosnian Serbs continued to bombard the safe areas at about the same rate as before. In Sarajevo, for example, Serb shells continued to land in the safe area at an average rate of approximately 1,000 per day." The Siege of Srebrenica lasted from April 1992 to July 1995 and ended with the Srebrenica genocide.

IN CONCLUSION: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found no evidence that forces under the command of Naser Oric committed massacres against Serbs around Srebrenica. The judges concluded that "any criminal responsibility of Naser Oric was offset by the real and present necessity to acquire food for the survival of the population of Srebrenica." Furthermore, the judges "recognised that the defence of necessity was an established principle in customary international law in 1992 and 1993."

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