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).

15 May, 2010

18TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ZAKLOPACA MASSACRE

More than three years before the Genocide, Serbs around Srebrenica were busy slaughtering their Bosniak Muslim neighbors. We Shall Never Forget.

On 16 May 1992, in the first weeks of war and more than 3 years before the Srebrenica Genocide, local Orthodox Christian clero-fascists disarmed the Muslim village of Zaklopaca, guaranteed the Bosniak residents their safety, and then slaughtered Bosniak women, children, and the elderly.

PHOTO: Three years before the genocide, Serbs around Srebrenica were busy slaughtering Bosniak women and children. In this photo, remains of a Bosnian Muslim child, wrapped in a blanked, can seen in the center. Serbs relocated remains of the victims from the village of Zaklopaca into a secondary mass grave two kilometres away in a failed attempt to conceal the crime.

Unfortunately, there is no Wikipedia entry for the 1992 Zaklopaca massacre, but that doesn't mean that the massacre will be forgotten. As a blogmaster and a long-time Srebrenica Genocide victims rights' activist, I urge you not to forget what the Serbs have done to us in World War II and the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Zaklopaca was a scene of two ghastly crimes in World War II and the Bosnian War simply because we failed to remember. But let us remember and commemorate these crimes each and every year, forever. Let us never forget the xenophobic and clero-fascist Orthodox Christian brutality perpetrated against the Muslims in the Balkans. Nazi collaborators, Christian Serbs, committed genocide over the Bosnian Muslim population in eastern Bosnia in World War II and in the Bosnian War. This is how a Zaklopaca massacre survivor described two massacres perpetrated by the Serbs against their Bosniak neighbours in this small Muslim village:

"My grandfather Ibro Hodžić, was a survivor. He survived a line up shooting at the hands of his Serb neighbor where upon around a dozen other Muslims form the village were killed, my great grandfather included – he was killed by another Serb neighbor. My grandfather was only fifteen years old then in 1941 and you could say his quick thinking saved his life. As the intoxicated Četnik was loading another bullet to shoot, my grandfather fell to the ground just before he had pulled the trigger on his very old model shot gun. He lay there motionless for quite some time, during which more Serbs came and drilled a few more bullets into the heads of those still moaning with signs of life. My fifteen year old grandfather survived this ordeal in the 1940s just to be killed by the same people in 1992 on the steps of his own home, along with the rest of his five sons and grandson who was only sixteen at the time."

According to Salko Hamidovic, editor of Zaklopaca.net web site, a traditional prayer for the souls of innocent victims will be held at 12:00 on Sunday. Salko recently buried his 14-year old brother Edin Hamidovic in Vlasenica, on 24 April 2010.

The acts of brutality, perpetrated by xenophobic Christian Serbs against the unarmed Bosnian Muslim civilians around Srebrenica in the World War II and in the first months of the 1992-95 Bosnian War the war, can only be described as the darkest chapter of savageness and sick inhuman beasts who are capable to massacre their own neighbors just because they happened to belong to a different ethnic group.

PHOTO: Hair braids and the remains of a Bosniak child in the Zaklopaca mass grave. Three years before the genocide, Serbs around Srebrenica were busy slaughtering Bosniak women and children.
Local Serbs - who supported Nazis and pledged their loyalty to the Chetnik commander and Nazi collaborator Draza Mihajlovic - continue to vent out their Islamophobia-fueled hatred against their Muslim neighbors. Just several days ago, Christian Serb extremists from Kravica erected a large wooden cross in a purely Muslim settlement of Budak, just above Potocari - the location of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial. The amount of hatred, instigated by the extremist teachings of Christian Church and their spiritual mentor - and Orthodox Christian clero-fascist - Vasilije Kacavenda, can only lead to a new conflict. Local Serbs clearly don't want peace.

More about the 1992 Zaklopaca massacre:
1. Child victims located in the Zaklopaca mass grave - (Photo Diary)
2. Remembering Zaklopaca Massacre - (Photo Diary)
3. Two Serbs Sentenced for Vlasenica war crimes