SERBS NEED TO COME IN TERMS WITH WAR CRIMES IN BOSNIA

Kozluk mass grave of Srebrenica massacre victims. 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were machine-gunned after the fall of Srebrenica. Photo source: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague.

According to the most comprehensive United States assessment of atrocities in Bosnia, Serb military forces were responsible for at least 90 percent of all war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The report was published in March 1995, four months before the systematic murder of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica. 

Between April 1992 and December of 1995, Serbs attempted to create racially pure 'Greater Serbia' by conquering large swaths of Bosnian territory and persecuting, killing, raping and mass murdering minorities -- mostly Bosniaks. Thousands of Serbs fought and died in the pursuit of this criminal enterprise, but even today they tend to look at their losses as innocent victims. It's a victimhood mentality that keeps large portions of a Serbian society imprisoned in their own glass house from which they throw stones. The denial of responsibility for Srebrenica stretches not only for events that took place after the fall of this besieged Bosniak enclave, but also the events that preceded the fall of Srebrenica.

What happened in Srebrenica? And How it all started?

In April 1992 (more than three years before the Srebrenica massacre), Serb forces -- with logistical and military help from Serbia -- began a widespread campaign of brutal "ethnic cleansing" of the Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] population of Eastern Bosnia. Thousands of Bosniak refugees flocked to Srebrenica. They were forced to live in the besieged enclave with little or no means of survival and under brutal Serb attacks. Many starved to death. 

The Trial Judgment of Naser Oric makes it clear that Serb-occupied villages around Srebrenica were heavily militarized bases from which Serbs launched brutal attacks on the beleaguered Bosniak population of the besieged enclave of Srebrenica. As stated in his Trial judgment,

"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. Each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the population to surrender their weapons, and then began with indiscriminate shelling and shooting. In most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet, expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to indiscriminate shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in particular was a daily target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim settlements were routinely attacked as well. All this resulted in a great number of refugees and casualties."

Serb Army stationed around Srebrenica never demilitarized, even though they were required to do so under the 1993 demilitarization agreement. In 1992 alone, approximately 100,000 Bosniaks had been expelled from their homes and at least 11,391 Bosniaks were killed by Serb forces in eastern Bosnia (source: Research & Documentation Centre in Sarajevo), while hundreds of Bosnian Muslim villages were destroyed around Srebrenica. Serb forces stationed around Srebrenica constantly attacked neighbouring Bosniak villages and Srebrenica itself. They also bombarded Srebrenica from air with Serbian airplanes.

In July 1995 the Bosnian Serb army staged a brutal takeover of Srebrenica and its surrounding area, where they proceeded to perpetrate genocide. Bosnian Serb soldiers -- with military and logistical help from Serbia -- separated families, committed brutal rapes of many women and girls, and then forcibly expelled at least 20,000, while summarily executing 8,372 Bosniak men and teenage boys. Srebrenica genocide is remembered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Don't Forget Srebrenica