SERIOUS SHORTCOMINGS OF RICHARD J. BUTLER'S "SREBRENICA MILITARY NARRATIVE"
Richard J. Butler is a military 'expert' who authored the so called "Srebrenica Military Narrative" in 2000 (and then he published a revised edition in 2002) detailing "the information which links the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) to the multitude of criminal acts which occurred relative to the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995."
"On 20 April 1992, the first ambush of local Serbs occurred in Potocari, where six Serbs were killed, and four were wounded. On 07-08 May 1992, Bosnian Muslim forces recaptured the nearby town of Srebrenica, killing a number of Bosnian Serbs, allegedly including Goran Zekic, a deputy in the SRBIH Assembly."
Consider the following allegation by Richard Butler:
"The Drina Corps [of the Bosnian Serb Army] was formed on 01 November 1992...in response to the growing security threat posed along the western regions of the Drina River by Muslim strongholds in the mountainous regions of Cerska, Srebrenica, Zepa, Gorazde, and the outlying areas of Visegrad."
"The Bosnian Muslim side did not adequately prepare for the looming armed conflict... There were not even firearms to be found in the Bosnian Muslim villages, apart from some privately owned pistols and hunting rifles; a few light weapons were kept at the Srebrenica police station."
Richard Butler made another false allegation in his report. Like his previous untruths, the following lie by Richard Butler was also deliberately misleading:
"The local Bosnian Muslims operating from the Srebrenica area began mounting a series of raids and attacks which caused a significant number of Serb casualties, particularly among villages and even Municipal Defense commanders. By the end of May 1992, large scale and effective ambushes were being successfully orchestrated by the Bosnian Muslims."
Contrary to Richard Butler's less than honest conclusions, the facts tell a different story. 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."
Shame on you Prosecutors for hiring this incompetent individual to do to any serious research for your office. And shame on your Richard J. Butler for attempting to poison the well of history. It won't work. Numerous judgements against the Chetniks around Srebrenica (both ICTY and Court of B&H) have already confirmed that 99% of crimes in the Srebrenica region were committed by the Bosnian Serb side.
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