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Special Report: The Truth about Srebrenica

20 years later

The Saker
140-178 minuter

This past week the world was reminded that it has been 20 years since the events
following the Bosnian Serb Army’s entry into Srebrenica and today I am posting a
special report about this event which I personally consider of absolutely crucial
importance in world history not only because of the large number of people who
died in this event, but also because it served as the pretext for the first completely
illegal war of aggression by the US/NATO which attacked the Bosnian Serbs in
violation of the UN Charter.  All the subsequent wars of aggression of the
AngloZionist Empire (Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen,
etc.) have their prototype in the war against the Bosnian-Serbs.
I can personally attest that doubts about what really happened (or not) in
Srebrenica were voiced in, shall we say, “well informed circles” within days of the
Bosnian-Serb conquest of the city.  I cannot name these circles, but let’s just that
that I am talking about people with direct access to classified information coming
out of Bosnia.  One thing was immediately established: that a large number of
armed Bosnian-Muslim men had attempted a breakthrough from Srebrenica to
Tuzla and that 1) many had been killed in *combat* with Bosnian-Serbs and many
actually made it to Tuzla.
[Sidebar: Srebrenica had been declared a “safe area” by the UN.  That meant two
main things: first, the Bosnian-Muslims had to totally demilitarize the entire town
while the Bosnian-Serbs had to stop attacking it, nevermind entering it.  These
UN “safe heavens” were intended for civilians only.  In reality, however, the
Bosnian-Muslims kept and entire Mountain Division in Srebrenica and they
continued to reinforce it both by land and by air.  To make things even worse, the
Bosnian-Muslims constantly used Srebrenica as a safe base to attack the Bosnian-
Serb positions around the town.  At the beginning of the war, the Bosnian-
Muslims had already burned down all the Bosnian-Serb villages around
Srebrenica and massacred most of the civilians living they found in them (we are
talking about several thousand civilians).  The local Bosnian-Serbs had promised
that one day they would take revenge for these massacres and some of them,
indeed, do that when the Bosnian-Serbs entered Srebrenica.  Needless to say,
none of that was ever reported by the western corporate Ziomedia].
The other fact which all “well informed” folks knew is that there had been several
“false flag” massacres in Sarajevo, in particular the so-called “Markale market
massacres” (1994 and 1995) both of which were not attributable to the Bosnian-
Serbs, something which UNPRFOR knew but could not say publicly.
While I am personally convinced that the official narrative about Srebrenica (a
deliberate mass murder or even genocide organized by the Bosnian-Serbs) is
false, I have also come to believe that this was not a “simple” false flag attack
either.  Srebrenica was a simultaneous combination of the following:
1. Combat operations between regular Bosnian-Serb forces and Bosnian-Muslim
forces attempting to break out of Srebrenica.
2. The “spontaneous” execution of a number of civilians and POWs by Bosnian-
Serbs seeking revenge.
3. The deliberate execution of a number of civilians and POWs ordered not by
Bosnian-Serbs but by some Yugoslav (Federal) officials.
4. A deliberate PSYOP by the USA to grossly inflate the number of victims and
blame the Bosnian-Serbs.
I have to say here that I only learned about point #3 very recently from a well-
informed Serbian contact whom I fully trust.  While I cannot corroborate his
claim, it does ‘fit’ perfectly with what I know.  This contact is currently reluctant
to go into details or name names, but I am confident that the truth about this will
come out fairly soon.
What is no less important about what Srebrenica was is to also spell out what it
was not.
1.  It was not a genocide even by the most inclusive definition of this word.  First,
the Bosnian-Serbs and Bosnian-Muslims are exactly the same ethnic group and
what differentiates them is their religion.  So any talk of “ethnic cleansing” is
nonsensical in the Bosnian context.
2.  It is quite obvious that neither Radovan Karadzic nor Ratko Mladic ever gave
any orders to commit massacres.  Had they wanted to issue such orders, they
would have kept away from the scene and not done what Mladic did that day:
bring in several bus loads of reporters and then go on TV to publicly promise the
Bosnian-Muslim civilians that he personally guaranteed their safety.  It is
absolutely clear to me that Mladic and the Bosnian-Serbs walked into a trap
carefully laid by the USA.
3. However, there is now evidence that orders did come from Belgrade to “deliver”
a certain amount of innocent victims which, in turn, would provide the US/NATO
with a pretext to intervene.  Yes, you read that right.  I am claiming that certain
officials in Belgrade were working hand-in-hand with the US.
[Sidebar: To those who might doubt that (at least some elements in) Belgrade and
Washington were covertly working together I would remind that the Yugoslav
Federal authorities (Milosevic) did join the AngloZionist blockade against the
Bosnian-Serbs and that when the US/NATO attacked the Bosnian-Serbs
Miloseciv ordered the Yugoslav forces to move back and betray the Bosnian-Serbs
who had trusted them {Note: I was told by a reader that while the betrayal did
take place–in the form of a blockade–but there were no Yugoslav units holding
the line in 1995.  They had been withdrawn in 1992, when they suffered
heavy casualties withdrawing from Sarajevo.  This might be true – it has been 20
years and I write from memory.}  Likewise, Milosevic also betrayed the Serbs in
Kosovo when he ordered his military to retreat even though it had survived the
NATO bombing almost completely unscathed]
The main problem in establishing the truth about what happened in Srebrenica is
the literally everybody, including the USA, NATO, European countries, and even
Russia under Eltsin and Yugoslavia under Milosevic, had a huge interest in
sticking by the official story.  All these forces wanted to end the war and the
stubborn Bosnian-Serbs were not willing to surrender.  So everybody needed a
pretext for the US/NATO to directly attack the Bosnian-Serbs and this is what
Srebrenica became: a buzzword to justify a completely illegal (and, I would argue,
immoral) attack of a superpower and military alliance against a  small, largely
rural, religious minority which was guilty of not obeying the Hegemon’s orders
when told to do so.
My hope is that 20 years later this might change and that the biggest change
might come from the least expected side: the Muslim world.
Why?
A number of reasons:
First, while the AngloZionist Empire did pretend to act in defense of Muslims in
Bosnia and Kosovo, it then turned to exactly the same set of PSYOPs to attack
Muslim countries such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia,
etc.  While initially it was the “Serbian Chetniks” who were on the receiving end of
the “Empire of Kindness'” “responsibility to protect” (r2p) operations, but after
Bosnia and Kosovo all the other “new Hitlers” were in Muslim nations.  Do you
remember the nonsense about “Gaddafi giving Viagra to his soldiers to rape
opposition women”?  Does that not remind you of “rape as a weapon of ethnic
cleansing” of the Bosnian narrative?  What about the Syrian “Houla massacre”? Is
that not a “Markale massacre”?  Now that the Muslims are themselves the victims
of exactly the same old dirty tricks, they might be far more willing to question the
official narrative about Srebrenica than before.
Second, a large number of Muslims did die in Srebrenica.  Some in “legitimate”
combat, but other were truly executed.  The friends and relatives of these
murdered Muslims will want to know who really ordered these murders.  While it
might be comforting for them to see Karadzic and Mladic in jail at the Hague, they
might not be so happy at the idea that the real culprits are still free, especially if
some of these culprits include Bosnian-Muslim officials from the Sarajevo
government.

The Timisoara massacre: it never happened and the original figure of 4’630
“massacre victims” was later brought down to a much smaller but official 93. The
real figure is probably even much lower (http://www.france24.com
/en/20091220-twenty-years-later-timisoara-affair-exposes-media-credulity)
The full and real story of Srebrenica has not emerged yet, but the good news is
that it is finally being researched and questioned.  Even more importantly,
Muslims and Orthodox Christians have begun looking at these events together
(see below).  What is crucial at this point in time is to fully separate two issues:
a) The investigation of actual events on the ground, what really happened in
Srebrenica and the establishment the full list of those responsible for the
massacres of civilians and POWs regardless of where they were or are.
b) Analyzing the use which was made by the AngloZionist Empire of the events in
Srebrenica.
These are different issues which should be addressed separately.  Both of these
issues, however, absolutely mandate that we all accept to question the official
narrative (which, frankly, makes no sense at all) and the we pursue the truth,
whatever it might be, and at all costs.
As part of this quest for the truth through an open and frank debate I am
presenting you with a number of very important documents:
1) A “Srebrenica Facsheet” prepared by Stefan Karganovic and Aleksandar
Pavic.
2) A report entitled “”Srebrenica Fifteen Years Later – The Question of
Evidence” written by by George Bogdanich and Jonathan Rooper.
3) A report entitled “Srebrenica Narrative Responsibly Challenged” about
a about a recent conference in Banja Luka on the topic “Can politically
weaponized Srebrenica be turned into a peace-making tool?”
4) The video of the address of Sheikh Imran Hussein to the Banja Luka
Conference.
5) The video of the address of Professor Alexander Dugin to the Banja
Luka Conference.
6) The video of an appeal to the Bosnian-Muslims by Sheikh Imran
Hussein.
7) An analysis entitled “Reconciliation – the Empire’s way” by “S.P.” about
the events surrounding the Russian veto at the UNSC of the “Srebrenica
Genocide” Resolution submitted by the United Kingdom.
For those who have not seen them, I would like to also refer you to the following
past articles concerning the war in Bosnia:
The truth about Srebrenica finally?
Srebrenica: requiem for a propaganda fiction
The Genocide Myth: Uses and Abuses of “Srebrenica”
Saker interview with Nebojsa Malic aka “Grey Falcon”
Response from a Bosnian Muslim
Whose Bosnia is it anyways?
Response to a Bosnian Muslim
This is a lot to read, I understand that, however I do strongly believe that the topic
is important enough to deserve a thorough and detailed analysis and discussion.
I also want to repeat here that while my personal position on what really
happened in Srebrenica is pretty clear, I do invite those who will disagree with it,
or with any of the documents presented here, to present their own evidence and
analysis.  While absolutely no ad hominems of any kind will be tolerated, I do
encourage a vigorous and open ended debate on this, and any other, topic.
A lot of people put a lot of efforts presenting you with all this information and I
hope that you will find it worthwhile and that you will make good use of it.  To all
those who helped prepare this report – my most heartfelt gratitude for all your
time and efforts!
Srebrenica happened twenty years ago, but it is still used today as the primary
weapon by those who want to oppose Muslims and Orthodox Christians.  As long
as we all accept to play by the “Chetniks vs Wahabis” playbook they will continue
to divide and conquer us.  Those who will insist against all evidence that this
narrative is true ought to ask themselves who benefits from this dynamic.  I
submit that the real guilty party is the one which actually created all the
conditions for Srebrenica to happen and who worked on this plan not in Pale or
Sarajevo, but in Belgrade and Washington DC.  I hope that the information below
will contribute to establish this truth.
The Saker

*******
SREBRENICA 1995-2015: Just the Facts, Without Propaganda or
Embellishment
What has been irrefutably established, and what hasn’t
For a full 20 years, the full picture about what happened, and did not
happen, in and around the supposed UN “safe area” in the town of
Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina in July 1995 has been suppressed.
It’s time to lift the fog of secrecy and disinformation.
SREBRENICA 1995-2015: Just the Facts, Without Propaganda or
Embellishment
This short info-book is based on the work of various American, British, Dutch,
Serbian and Bosnian Muslim experts engaged in analyzing or investigating the
events in Srebrenica over the past 20 years, media reports, and testimony of
persons directly involved or affected.
Editors:
Stefan Karganovic
Aleksandar Pavic
Introduction
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, in July 2015, is an important occasion. This brief fact book is
dedicated to all those who are interested in truth, rather than politicization. After
20 years, it is time to take a hard look at the facts, and facts only. This is especially
important not just from the standpoint of seeking the truth, but also because the
Srebrenica events have become not just a local, or even a regional, but a globally
important issue, one that consistently attracts broad mass-media coverage, stirs
political controversy and serves as an instrument of political destabilization.
The basic intent of this booklet is to provide both experts and the broader public
an overview of all the known facts regarding Srebrenica that have been
established on the basis of verdicts issued by the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the ad hoc court established by the UN in 1993,
at the height of the Yugoslav civil war, on U.S. insistence. However, an equally
important task is to demonstrate what has not been established and yet continues
to be (mis)treated as fact, on the basis of which far-reaching political assessments
and decisions are made.
What are the basic principles behind this publication?
– The truth is always needed, for the victims as well as the accused and the
convicted, for historians interested in facts rather than propaganda, and for
public figures who truly wish to work in the public interest; yet, in regard to
Srebrenica, the truth has not been well served thus far, as will be shown;
– Although it still cannot be claimed with certainty exactly what took place in
Srebrenica in 1995, enough has been ascertained over the past 20 years to be able
to assert with confidence what did not happen – yet that is what is being
presented as the truth. The numbers that are constantly being uncritically pushed
in local, regional and international media, forums and political institutions and
structures – centered around the claim that “Serbian forces” committed
“genocide” over 7,000-8,000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners of war – simply do not
stand up under scrutiny, and are not supported by evidence that has been
established thus far;
– Arbitrary numbers and factually unfounded allegations, parliamentary and
international “resolutions,” along with ICTY convictions, are being (ab)used to
poison social, political, interfaith, interethnic and international relations, sow
divisions and instability, deepen tensions, and foment extremism in the Balkan
region and beyond. This serves only the interests of those who stand to profit
from permanent destabilization, turbulence, artificial divisions and “clashes of
civilizations”;
– The Srebrenica tragedy has been (ab)used numerous times, and continues to be
(ab)used, as a pretext for organizing political and/or military intervention against
sovereign states, or meddling in their internal affairs and fomenting inner turmoil
on “humanitarian” grounds. “We must prevent another Srebrenica!” is a war cry
that has been heard often in the past decade or so, as a preface to Western
military interventions in Yugoslavia (Kosovo), Congo, Macedonia, Iraq, Syria,
Libya. Srebrenica is also an important pillar in the ideology behind the so-called
“Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine that has been constructed to legalize
global Western-instigated interventionism. This is why the truth about
Srebrenica, no matter how unpleasant or incriminating for all involved, is a
matter of global importance and ramifications;
– After almost 20 years of work, indictments, testimonies, trials and millions of
pages of “evidence,” the ICTY has still not succeeded in establishing the truth.
About the only success the ICTY can claim is that it has managed, by questionable
means, to label the Srebrenica events “genocide” – without adequate evidence,
and using highly questionable legal reasoning.
Thus, after two decades of futility, deliberate obfuscation and political
gamesmanship with a human tragedy, it is time to try something new. In order to
finally make a credible attempt at ascertaining what really took place in
Srebrenica in July 1995, the best and the most legitimate course to take would be
to establish a truly independent international Srebrenica Truth Commission. This
would be the best way to halt further ugly politicization and (ab)use of this tragic
event, as well as to finally bring peace to its true victims, on all sides of the
conflict, and satisfaction to the true victims’ families, with whom all well meaning
people share their pain. For, a crime certainly did take place in Srebrenica, and
only its full and complete resolution would allow everyone to openly and fully deal
with the past, reconcile and finally move on.
This publication is a contribution towards that end, an effort to facilitate the
establishment of the full truth regarding what happened in Srebrenica, and not
just in 1995, in the hope that it will be of use to the media, the general public,
policy makers and all those with the power to undertake appropriate measures to
finally deal with this international problem and put it in its proper perspective –
without manipulation, abuse of facts, or ulterior motives.
Srebrenica: facts, presumptions, unknowns
1. According to judgments issued by the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), how many people were
killed in Srebrenica in July 1995?
The Memorial Center in Potocari, near Srebrenica, lists the number of 8,372
victims.
According to the “Bosnian Atlas of Crime,” issued by the Center for Research and
Documentation in Sarajevo, 6,886 people were killed in and around Srebrenica in
July 1995; however, a separate table published by the Center lists 4,256 killed and
2,673 missing Bosnian Muslims (it is evident here that the numbers don’t add
up).
The ICTY judgment in the case of Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic cites the
figure of “7,000-8,000 people” (Trial Judgment, par. 487).
The ICTY judgment in the case of Bosnian Serb colonel Vujadin Popovic, states:
“The Trial Chamber has found that, from 12 July until late July 1995, several
thousand Bosnian Muslim men were executed” (Trial Judgment, par. 793). The
Chamber further stated that it “found that at least 5,336 identified individuals
were killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica, and this number
could well be as high as 7,826” (Trial Judgment, footnote 2862).
In the ICTY judgment in the case of Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir, the
figure of “4,970 victims” is given (Appeals Judgment, par. 426).
Thus, not only do the figures offered and supposedly ascertained by the ICTY
consistently vary, they also conveniently blur the distinction between casualties
that were a) indeed victims of executions, b) those that died from other causes,
either combat with Serbian forces, natural causes, as a result of suicide, battle or
infighting between Muslim forces themselves, and c) those that are still missing
and whose exact fate is unknown. Only those under a) can be considered to be
victims of war crimes. Yet, all these victim categories are lumped together under a
common figure, in order to inflate it sufficiently to warrant the “genocide” claim.
Conclusion: neither the ICTY nor any other institution has, as of July 2015,
precisely determined the number of executed prisoners. In addition, victims of
execution, casualties of battle, infighting, suicide, those that died of natural
causes, and those missing are consistently being lumped together. The precise
number of executed victims has yet to be established – and they alone can in this
situation be classified as victims of a war crime.
2. How many persons have been actually convicted by the ICTY as
direct perpetrators or accomplices in prisoner executions in and
around Srebrenica in July 1995?
The only person convicted by the ICTY as a direct perpetrator of crime in
Srebrenica is not a Serb, but a Bosnian Croat, Drazen Erdemovic, identified as a
member of the “10th Sabotage Unit” within the Bosnian Serb army, who was
convicted in 1998 for participating “in the deaths of hundreds of Bosnian Muslim
male civilians, the exact number of which has not been ascertained” (Sentencing
Judgment, March 5, 1998) – and sentenced to exactly 5 years. This absurdly low
sentence was passed after Erdemovic made a deal with the ICTY Office of the
Prosecutor, on the basis of his own testimony, which he changed several times,
and on the condition that he testifies against Serb indictees whenever the ICTY
summoned him. Another part of the deal was that Erdemovic was granted
protected witness status, on the basis of which he was given a new identity and
residence in an unnamed Western country.
By his own admission, Erdemovic fought on all three sides of the Bosnian conflict:
the Bosnian Muslim army, the Bosnian Croat army and the Bosnian Serb army.
Additionally detrimental to his credibility is the fact that, after conducting a
psychiatric exam, the ICTY pronounced Erdemovic mentally impaired and unfit
for further trial on June 27, 1996. Yet, only several days later, on July 5, 1996,
Erdemovic, still formally under indictment, appeared as a witness of the
Prosecution in the process against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and
commander of the Bosnian Serb army, General Ratko Mladic. Even though the
ICTY had just deemed Erdemovic “unfit to be questioned,” the “unverified and
unchallenged (and unchallengeable) testimony of this sick man and mass killer
still facing his own trial and sentencing” (Prof. Edward Herman) was used to issue
arrest warrants for Karadzic and Mladic.
Erdemovic was initially arrested by Yugoslav authorities on March 3, 1996, and
almost immediately indicted, but was turned over to the ICTY under U.S. and
ICTY pressure and on his own insistence on March 30, 1996.
Erdemovic’s contradictory and inconsistent testimony has been analyzed and
exposed in detail in the book “Star Witness,” by Germinal Chivikov, a Bulgarian
journalist who reported on the trial in the ICTY for German state radio Deutsche
Welle.
One of the key matters that discredit Erdemovic is the fact that, on the very
location where he testified that he participated in the execution of “about 1,200
prisoners,” ICTY forensic teams unearthed a total of 127 remains of potential
victims, of which 70 with blindfolds and/or ligatures, which would indicate death
by execution. Nevertheless, this glaring inconsistency did not prevent the ICTY
from continuing to use Erdemovic as its “star witness” regarding Srebrenica.
Also, Erdemovic was not even able to confirm before the ICTY the exact date of
the “massacre” in which he allegedly participated, alternatively offering both July
16 and July 20, 1995, as the possible dates.
Erdemovic could not even offer consistent testimony regarding the rank he held at
the time of his alleged crime, alternatively claiming that he was either a sergeant
or had been demoted to ordinary private.
Finally, to this day, Erdemovic “cannot remember” who issued the order for the
executions in which he allegedly took part. In his version, it was “some lieutenant-
colonel”, who has still not been identified after almost 20 years.
Some, but not all of Erdemovic’s named accomplices were subsequently
convicted, but not by the ICTY, but by the Bosnia-Herzegovina War Crimes Court
in 2012.
Franc Kos, Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja were sentenced to
varying prison terms for executions carried out at the Branjevo farm. What is
especially interesting is the fact that neither they nor any of the other seven
accomplices, or two superiors in the chain of command named by Erdemovic,
were ever indicted by the ICTY or even called to testify as witnesses, probably
because the ICTY was unwilling to run the risk of hearing testimonies that would
contradict that of its “star witness.” Think about it: the accomplices in what is
alleged to be “the gravest crime in post-WW II Europe” – have never been a
subject of interest by the international tribunal in charge of the case. This would
be akin to any criminal court ignoring all the participants in a group killing, and
issuing a warrant for the arrest and interrogation of only one member of the
group, without being interested in hearing testimony from the other accomplices.
Erdemovic and his accomplices were members of a Bosnian Serb military unit,
the “10th Sabotage Detachment,” a multi-ethnic unit comprising Serbs, Croats,
Muslims and a Slovenian, whose chain-of-command links with the Bosnian Serb
army have never been established, and whose members were, according to
testimony before the ICTY, on a 10-day leave from service at the time the alleged
executions took place. A number of the unit members were clearly mercenaries,
engaged by French interests in Africa after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Erdemovic himself testified to having received up to 12 kilos of gold for certain
“services rendered,” which is simply not the way that regular military units
operate.
3. What judgments has the ICTY passed against others sentenced for
crimes or “genocide” in Srebrenica?
Dragan Obrenovic (2003), sentenced to a 17-year prison term for persecution of
the Muslim population of Srebrenica, after a plea bargain with the Prosecution.
Vidoje Blagojevic (2005), as accessory to murder, persecution and inhumane
treatment, sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Dragan Jokic (2005), as accessory to extermination and crimes against humanity,
sentenced to 9 years in prison.
Vujadin Popovic (2010), for genocide and crimes against humanity, life sentence.
Ljubisa Beara (2010), for genocide and crimes against humanity, life sentence.
Drago Nikolic (2010), as accessory to genocide and crimes against humanity,
sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Radivoje Miletic (2010), for crimes against humanity and violation of the laws or
customs of war, sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Vinko Pandurevic (2010), for crimes against humanity and violation of the laws or
customs of war, sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Ljubisa Borovcanin (2010), for crimes against humanity and violation of the laws
or customs of war, sentenced to 17 years in prison.
None of the above individuals was either accused or convicted of executing war
prisoners, but on the basis of “command responsibility” and the controversial
“Joint Criminal Enterprise” (JCE) doctrine developed by the ICTY, for which the
legal experts have adopted an apt translation: “Just Convict Everybody.” Using
this convenient legal device, the ICTY has been able to convict even people who
had no knowledge of crimes having been committed, much less having
participated in them, or having given orders for them.
4. After almost 20 years of trial proceedings, has the ICTY established
who gave the orders for the execution of prisoners of war?
No. In his separate and partly dissenting opinion in the Appeals Judgment in the
Tolimir case (April 2015), Appeals Chamber judge Jean-Claude Antonetti wrote
that, if any of the victims’ family members were to ask him who ordered the
executions and why, he would be unable to answer (Appeals Judgment, p. 400).
No other ICTY judge has challenged this assessment.
In addition to this, there is another widely publicized testimony that simply must
not be ignored if we are to place the entire Srebrenica tragedy in a proper context,
and try, in good faith, to get to its root causes.
On several occasions and by way of various media, Hakija Meholjic, former
Srebrenica police chief and member of its wartime presidency, has quoted the
words of Alija Izetbegovic, the wartime Bosnian Muslim president, spoken in
Meholjic’s presence at a meeting in Sarajevo in 1993, which were summed up in
the following UN Report:
“Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that
President Izetbegovic also told that he had learned that a NATO intervention in
Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could occur only if the Serbs were to
break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people. President Izetbegovic
has flatly denied making such a statement.” [The Fall of Srebrenica (A/54/549),
Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35,
November 15, 1999, par. 115.] Meholjic continues to claim to this day that he was
one of nine witnesses that heard Izetbegovic say this, and that this was an offer
directly communicated to Izetbegovic by then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Perhaps
this is why another wartime Srebrenica leader, Ibran Mustafic, on the occasion of
Clinton’s 2003 visit to Srebrenica, stated that it was a case of “the criminal
returning to the scene of his crime.”
5. How many bodies have been buried thus far at the Potocari
Memorial Center near Srebrenica, the cemetery reserved for the
Muslim victims from July 1995?
As of 2015, approximately 6,300 “names” have been buried at the cemetery
(making substantial progress toward the number of 8,372 inscribed on the
Memorial monument, although the basis for this figure is unclear). The burial
procedure is completely controlled by the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, and the Muslim religious authorities who, under
the pretext of respect for religious rules and prescriptions, have not allowed any
third party access to the contents of the coffins, just as they have not allowed any
independent examination of the interred remains. This means that even ICTY
indictees’ defense teams have been denied access to independent confirmation of
the identity of the human remains buried in Potocari.
As an illustration of the opaque nature of the Potocari Memorial Center and the
dark games that surround it, it is instructive to read the words of Hasa Omerovic,
a Bosnian Muslim woman who lost her husband, father and brother around
Srebrenica in July 1995, but who has refused to have her husband buried at the
Potocari Memorial Center cemetery:
“There are other families that have avoided speaking out, but who have quietly,
at their own expense, buried their loved ones in other places, outside of Potocari.
There are also people buried in Potocari who were not killed in 1995, who were
soldiers or commanders. They are buried in Potocari, and their monuments are
the same as those of the people who were indeed killed in July 1995. Also buried
there are those killed in internecine or other types of battles. That was the
dirtiest war, waged by Mafiosi, not by normal people.”
(“Hasa Omerovic – another Face of Srebrenica,” Novi Reporter magazine, Banja
Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, March 2, 2011.)
And one of the founders of the main Bosnian Muslim political party, and long-
time member of the Organization Committee for Srebrenica Remembrance, Ibran
Mustafic, says:
“For a long time, Srebrenica has been an object of manipulation, and the chief
manipulator is Amor Masovic (president of the Commission for Search of the
Missing of the B-H Federation), whose plan was to live off the victims of
Srebrenica for the next 500 years. There are also many others, who were close
to Izetbegovic, who as early as the summer of 1992 started their project of
maximally pumping up the numbers of Bosnian victims.”
(“Mustafic: More than 500 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica Were Killed by
Bosnian Muslims,” Politika daily newspaper, Belgrade, Serbia, February 20,
2013.)
6. Has it been definitely ascertained that all the bodies buried at the
Potocari Memorial Center are “Srebrenica victims”?
No. Other than forensic personnel of the ICTY and the ICMP (International
Commission on Missing Persons) in Tuzla, under the control of the U.S.
Government, no one has access to the bodies or the right to independently verify
them.
Demographic data and ICTY judgments fail to mention combat casualties among
the 28th Division of the Bosnian Muslim army – which had been based in the
Srebrenica “demilitarized zone” during the previous three years – during its
breakout through Bosnian Serb army lines toward the northern Bosnian city of
Tuzla in mid-July 1995. On the average, UN reports and other competent sources
estimate the number of these battle casualties to be around 3,000. It must be
emphasized that these deaths, while doubtlessly tragic, are casualties of war and
cannot be classified as victims of war crimes.
Mirsad Tokaca, director of the Information and Documentation Center in
Sarajevo, stated in 2010 that “about 500 living residents of Srebrenica,”
previously classified as “missing,” have been found, along with “70 persons buried
at the Potocari Memorial Centre, who were not killed in Srebrenica.”
Ibran Mustafic, a Bosnian Muslim official from Srebrenica, has stated that about
1,000 people were killed in internecine battles during their withdrawal from
Srebrenica in July 1995.
In his book, “Srebrenica Testifies and Accuses” (1994, pp. 190-244), commander
of the Muslim forces in Srebrenica, Naser Oric published the names of 1,333 men
from the supposedly demilitarized Srebrenica enclave who were killed in battles
prior to the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, when Oric’s units regularly launched
murderous raids on surrounding Serb villages. Yet, many of these have been
classified and buried as “genocide victims.”
Director of the Potocari Memorial Center, Mersed Smajlovic, and director of the
Center for Missing Persons of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Amor Masovic, have admitted
that about 50 persons who were killed in 1992, but who are “closely related” to
persons classified as execution victims, are buried in the Potocari Memorial
Center cemetery.
Former Srebrenica police chief Hakija Meholjic has stated that he is “angry at all
those” responsible for the burial of 75 people who were not killed in July 1995 in
the Potocari Memorial Center cemetery.
American Philip Corwin, the highest ranked UN civil official on the ground in
Bosnia-Herzegovina in July 1995, has consistently claimed over the years that
“700-800” people were executed in the vicinity of Srebrenica at that time.
Yossef Bodansky, Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and
Unconventional Warfare of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004,
has referred to the figure of 7,000 Srebrenica victims as “disinformation”, adding
that “all independent forensic evidence points to Muslim casualties in the
hundreds, possibly the low hundreds. Continued emphasis on such allegedly high
numbers of Muslim deaths at Srebrenica also obfuscates the Muslim murders in
that city, earlier, of Serb civilians.”
(International Strategic Studies Association Special Report, “Osama bin Laden
Focuses on the Balkans for the New Wave of Anti-Western Terrorism,” August 29,
2003.)
7. How many people were killed in battles around Srebrenica in July
1995?
ICTY expert witness Richard Butler has estimated that about 2,000 Bosnian
Muslim fighters were killed; Portuguese officer and UN observer Carlos Martins
Branco also estimates 2,000 Bosnian Muslim fighters killed; U.S. National
Security Agency analyst John Schindler gives an estimate of 5,000 Bosnian
Muslim fighters killed; former UN and EU envoy and high official Carl Bildt gives
an estimate of 4,000 Bosnian Muslim fighters killed in his memoirs; the UN has
estimated the number of Bosnian Muslim fighters killed to be around 3,000. All
these estimates invariably point to the fact that a significant number of missing
persons on the Bosnian Muslim side – who are nevertheless consistently being
labeled by Western officials and media as “genocide victims” – were killed in
battle, as legitimate casualties of war, not as victims of “genocidal” executions.
8. According to forensic evidence gathered under ICTY supervision,
how many persons have been identified as indisputable victims of
executions carried out in July 1995?
The exhumation of human remains from various graves that could potentially,
although not necessarily, be linked with events in Srebrenica in July 1995, was
under the control of the ICTY only between 1996-2001. In that period, a total of
3,568 “cases” were processed and classified. However, it should be noted that one
“case” does not necessarily equal one body, but may only represent a body part. In
fact, almost 44,4 % of the “cases” referred to a single body part, often just a bone.
Forensic analysis of these “cases” has yielded the following results:
– Only 442 exhumed bodies could be classified as indisputable execution victims,
as they had either blindfolds or ligatures;
– 627 bodies had shrapnel or other metal fragment injuries, which points to death
in combat rather than execution;
– 505 bodies had bullet injuries, which may indicate death by execution, but also
death in battle;
– cause of death could not be determined for 411 bodies;
– 1,583 of the “cases” represented only body fragments, and ICTY forensic experts
concluded that cause of death could not be determined for 92.4% of them;
– in order to gain the closest estimate of the number of bodies among the 3,568
“cases”, a method was used by which left and right thigh bones (femurs) were
matched, giving a total of 1919 right femurs and 1923 left femurs, which means
that the total number of bodies was under 2,000.
To sum up: original forensic reports, produced under ICTY supervision and
control between 1996-2001, indicate the presence of less than 2,000 bodies.
However, upon closer examination, it is clear that most of the bodies represent
victims of battle or other undetermined causes of death – rather than “execution
victims.”
Since 2002, mass grave exhumation and body identification has been under the
exclusive control of the State Department-founded and Western-financed
International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and the Commission for
Missing Persons of Bosnia-Herzegovina. No one from the general public,
independent media or any independent expert organization has ever been allowed
independent access to the working area of the main forensic laboratory in Tuzla,
where the data is “processed,” nor is the work conducted there transparent and
open to independent international verification.
The personnel of these organizations have radically expanded the scope of their
exhumation work since 2002, extending it to a broad regional area around
Srebrenica, without distinguishing between graves of potential execution victims
and those containing the remains of battle casualties incurred by the 28th
Division of the Bosnian Muslim army in battles against Bosnian Serb forces,
during their push toward Bosnian Muslim-controlled territory.
Finally, with great media fanfare, another methodology designed to arrive at the
widely publicized figure of “8,000 genocide victims” has been adopted during the
past several years – the effort to match DNA samples of exhumed victims and
their family members. As a result, graves containing human remains of various
type and origin, often far removed from any sort of “war crime,” are now being
used as unlimited repositories of “genocide victims” whose remains are
ceremonially buried by the hundreds each July 11 in the Potocari Memorial Center
cemetery.
This is highly misleading. DNA matching cannot determine the time, cause and
method of death, but only identity of the body. This was even confirmed by ICMP
director Thomas Parsons, under cross-examination, at the Karadzic trial on
March 22, 2012:
“The ICMP does not concern itself with whether — with the legal question of how
these people were killed or — particularly with whether their deaths were lawful
or not. I’m reporting on the identifications that have been made with regard to
mortal remains recovered from these graves” (Karadzic trial, transcript, p.
26633).
Since it is an established fact that, along with executions that did take place, fierce
battles were being waged in the immediate vicinity, along a 60 kilometer long trail
between Srebrenica and Tuzla, it is obvious that mere identification of bodies
found in the area, be it by DNA-based or any other methodology, is useless for the
purposes of criminal investigation and, especially, the legal qualification of the
cause of death. Nothing can replace sound, responsible, independently verifiable
forensics.
The ICMP has claimed that a total of about 6,600 missing persons have been
identified by name, through the method of DNA matching. For its part, the ICTY
has implicitly accepted this number to represent the number of execution victims.
If such a list of names does exist, no one has been able to see it or was allowed to
trace its origins. Defense teams of Srebrenica-related indictees before the ICTY
have been denied the right to independently verify the existence of such persons,
and to investigate whether these persons are in fact deceased, or may still be
living.
Regardless of all these considerations, Western media and political interests have
continued to try to impose the equation: DNA-based identification = “genocide
victim.” This simply is not true.
9. How many Serbs from Srebrenica and its vicinity were killed by
Bosnian Muslim forces operating from Srebrenica between spring
1992 and July 1995?
According to data provided in the study Serbian Victims of Srebrenica,
1992-1995, conducted under strict criteria in accordance with accepted
international legal standards for defining civilian victims, and published by the
Dutch-based NGO “Srebrenica Historical Project,” 705 Serb civilians were killed
on the territory of Srebrenica during that time period. It must be emphasized that
this number is not final.
The “Institute for Research of Serb Suffering in the 20th Century” has published a
list of names of over 3,200 total Serb victims of Bosnian Muslim forces operating
under the command of Srebrenica commander Naser Oric between 1992-1995,
covering the area of the municipalities of Zvornik, Osmaci, Sekovici, Vlasenica,
Milici, Bratunac and Srebrenica.
10. Has anyone been convicted by the ICTY for these crimes against
the Serb population?
No one has been convicted for crimes committed against Serb civilians in the
Srebrenica region between 1992-1995, when several thousand were killed,
including women, children and the elderly, some after savage torture and
butchering. The ICTY indicted Naser Oric, commander of the Bosnian Muslim
forces in Srebrenica, but he was acquitted for “lack of evidence,” despite the fact
that he talked freely about the killing of Serb civilians to some Western mass
media outlets before 1995. Here are two such reports:
1. “SREBRENICA, Bosnia: Nasir Oric’s war trophies don’t line the wall of his
comfortable apartment– one of the few with electricity in this besieged Muslim
enclave stuck in the forbidding mountains of eastern Bosnia. They’re on a
videocassette tape: burned Serb houses and headless Serb men, their bodies
crumpled in a pathetic heap.
‘We had to use cold weapons that night,’ Oric explains as scenes of dead men
sliced by knives roll over his 21-inch Sony. ‘This is the house of a Serb named
Ratso,’ he offers as the camera cuts to a burned-out ruin. ‘He killed two of my
men, so we torched it. Tough luck.’
Reclining on an overstuffed couch, clothed head to toe in camouflage fatigues, a
U.S. Army patch proudly displayed over his heart, Oric gives the impression of a
lion in his den. For sure, the Muslim commander is the toughest guy in this town,
which the U.N. Security Council has declared a protected ‘safe area.’”
(“Weapons, Cash and Chaos Lend Clout to Srebrenica’s Tough Guy,” John
Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service, The Washington Post, February 16,
1994.)
2. “Oric, as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield, escaped
Srebrenica before it fell. Some believe he may be leading the Bosnian Muslim
forces in the nearby enclaves of Zepa and Gorazde. Last night these forces seized
armored personnel carriers and other weapons from U.N. peacekeepers in order
to better protect themselves.
Oric is a fearsome man, and proud of it.
I met him in January, 1994, in his own home in Serb-surrounded Srebrenica.
On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his living room watching a shocking video
version of what might have been called Nasir Oric’s Greatest Hits.
There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing.
Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork.
‘We ambushed them,’ he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the
screen.
The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: ‘We launched
those guys to the moon,’ he boasted.
When footage of a bullet-marked ghost town appeared without any visible
bodies, Oric hastened to announce: ‘We killed 114 Serbs there.’
Later there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting his
praises.”
(“Fearsome Muslim warlord eludes Bosnian Serb forces,” by Bill Schiller, The
Toronto Star, July 16, 1995.)
Neither these nor other, much more graphic and direct witness testimonies, were
deemed sufficient by the ICTY to convict Oric.
11. Was Srebrenica truly demilitarized, in line with its UN Protected
Area status?
In spite of the agreement reached in May 1993, according to which the Srebrenica
enclave was declared a UN “safe area,” it was never demilitarized, as reflected in
the following statements:
1. Report of the UN General Secretary of May 30, 1995:
“In recent months, government forces have considerably increased their military
activity in and around most safe areas, and many of them, including Sarajevo,
Tuzla, and Bihac, have been incorporated into the broader military campaign of
the government’s side… The government also maintains a substantial number of
troops in Srebrenica (in this case a violation of a demilitarization agreement)
Gorazde and Zepa, while Sarajevo is the location of the General Command of the
government army and other military installations.”
(U.N. document S/1995/444.)
2. Yasushi Akashi, former UN Chief of Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in an
article for the Washington Times of November 1, 1995, wrote:
“It is a fact that the Bosnian government forces have used the ‘safe areas’ [that
were supposed to be demilitarized] of not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo, Tuzla,
Bihac, Gorazde for training, recuperation and refurbishing their troops.”
3. Report of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD),
Srebrenica, a “safe” area, April 2002:
“The supposed demilitarisation in the enclave was virtually a dead letter. The
Bosnian army (ABiH) followed a deliberate strategy of using limited military
actions to tie up a relatively large part of the manpower of the Bosnian Serbian
army (VRS) to prevent it from heading in full force for the main area around
Sarajevo. This was also done from the Srebrenica enclave. ABiH troops had no
qualms about breaking all the rules in skirmishes with the VRS. They provoked
fire by the Bosnian Serbs and then sought cover with a Dutchbat unit which then
ran the risk of being caught between two fires.”
12. What was the comparative strength of the Bosnian Serb forces
around Srebrenica and the Bosnian Muslim forces inside the
“demilitarized zone” in the Srebrenica enclave at the beginning of July
1995?
The Norwegian documentary film, “Srebrenica: a Town Betrayed,” directed by Ola
Flyum and David Hebditch (2011) provides the figure of 400 Bosnian Serb army
regulars, plus about 1,600 armed locals.
Philip Hammond, “The UK Press on Srebrenica,” Findings of the Srebrenica
Research Group:
“Perhaps the most interesting explanation was that offered by The Times’
Defence Correspondent, Michael Evans, in a July 14 front-page report titled
‘Muslim soldiers ‘failed to defend town from Serbs’, which relied on military and
intelligence service sources. The article noted that Bosnian Muslim forces in
Srebrenica ‘put up only a brief fight…and their commanders left the night before
the Serb tanks entered the town’. According to one ‘intelligence source’: ‘The BiH
just melted away from Srebrenica and the senior officers left the night before’.
Srebrenica had been effectively abandoned ‘to a relatively small Serb advancing
force’. Challenging other reports that ‘up to 1,500 Serbs were involved in the
assault’, Evans cited intelligence estimates that ‘the main attack was carried out
by a force of about 200, with five tanks’. According to one of his unnamed
intelligence sources: ‘It was a pretty low-level operation, but for some reason
which we can’t understand the BiH (government) soldiers didn’t put up much of
a fight’. This description of a ‘pretty low-level operation’ stands in marked
contrast to the co-ordinated campaign of genocide suggested by later coverage.”
As for the strength of Bosnian Muslim forces, the Norwegian documentary speaks
of their numbering “about 5,500 soldiers.”
Muslim General Sefer Halilovic has testified at the ICTY that there were at least
5,500 Bosnian Muslim Army soldiers in Srebrenica after it had obtained the “safe
area” status, and that he had personally arranged numerous deliveries of
sophisticated weapons by helicopter.
This is corroborated by John Schindler, former chief analyst for Bosnia-
Herzegovina at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), who stated in the
Norwegian documentary that the “demilitarized zone” in Srebrenica was being
armed by way of “black flights,” which UN forces were powerless to stop, as the
air space over Bosnia-Herzegovina was under NATO, i.e. U.S. control.
Therefore, the Bosnian Muslim forces inside the “demilitarized zone” in
Srebrenica were both numerically superior to the Bosnian Serb forces, and very
well armed, courtesy of NATO conveniently shutting its eyes. Clearly, the Bosnian
Serb forces, both numerically and technically inferior, could not realistically
conceive of carrying out any sort of “mass killing” or “genocidal” plan. This is also
the conclusion of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD),
“Srebrenica, a ‘safe’ area”:
“With hindsight there are no indications that the increased activity of the VRS in
East Bosnia at the beginning of July 1995 was aimed at anything more than a
reduction of the safe area Srebrenica and an interception of the main road to
Zepa. The plan of campaign was drawn up on 2 July. The attack commenced on
6 July. It was so successful and so little resistance was offered that it was
decided late in the evening of 9 July to press on and to see whether it was
possible to take over the entire enclave.”
13. What is the main argumentation behind the Western-inspired
assertion that “genocide” took place in Srebrenica?
The first major judgment of the ICTY, which made the greatest contribution to the
construction of the “official version,” according to which “genocide” was
committed in Srebrenica in July 1995, was in the case of Bosnian Serb army
general Radislav Krstic, brought in August 2001.
As British professor Tara McCormack summed up the judgment against Krstic:
“Joint criminal enterprise is a new category that does not entail proving that the
accused had any direct intent to commit, or knowledge of, the crime. At Krstic’s
trial it was established that Krstic did not know of any murders that were being
committed, and in no way participated. Moreover, the ICTY also accepted that
Krstic had personally given orders that Bosnian Muslim civilians were not to be
harmed. His conviction was based on the grounds that he had participated in a
‘criminal enterprise’, the capture of Srebrenica.”
(“How Did Srebrenica Become a Morality Tale,” Spiked-online, August 3, 2005.)
In the words of Michael Mandel, Professor of International Law at York
University in Toronto:
“But if the Krstic case stands for anything, it stands for the fact that genocide
did not occur at Srebrenica. And the Court’s conclusion that it did can only be
considered a legal form of propaganda and another contribution to the
spreading impression of the Tribunal as more a ‘political tool’ than a ‘juridical
institution’, to paraphrase its most famous defendant.
The Tribunal’s claim that genocide occurred at Srebrenica was not supported by
the facts it found or by the law it cited. Even the Trial Chamber’s conclusion that
‘Bosnian Serb forces executed several thousand Bosnian Muslim men [with the]
total number of victims … likely to be within the range of 7,000 -8,000 men’ was
not supported by its explicit findings. The number of bodies exhumed amounted
to only 2,028, and the Chamber conceded that even a number of these had died
in combat, in fact going so far as to say that the evidence only ‘suggested’ that
‘the majority’ of those killed had not been killed in combat: ‘The results of the
forensic investigations suggest that the majority of bodies exhumed were not
killed in combat; they were killed in mass executions.’”
(“The ICTY Calls it ‘Genocide,’” Srebrenica Research Group, 2005.)
Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and certainly a leading
authority on what constitutes genocide, had this to say about the Srebrenica
“genocide” qualification in June 2015, in a statement given to the Belgrade daily
Politika:
“As far as I know, what happened there does not fit the description or definition
of genocide and I think that the decision to call this genocide was adopted for
political reasons.”
14. Did a Republika Srpska Government Commission truly “admit
genocide” in its 2004 Report?
No. In its report, the Commission used the term “genocide” only in quoting the
ICTY judgment against Bosnian Serb army general Radislav Krstic. The
Commission did not accept the figure of “8,000 executed prisoners,” instead
concluding that there was a list of 7,108 names of persons reported as missing
between July 10-19, 1995. The Commission also did not state that all the persons
on the list were killed or missing. Instead, it stated that the list contains persons
killed in war operations prior to 1995, as well as those that died of natural causes,
while others were found to have changed their identity and place of residence, or
to be serving prison sentences for criminal activity.
The report itself was produced under highly irregular circumstances, under direct
pressure of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, as
described by University of Pennsylvania professor emeritus Edward Herman:
“The Bosnian Serbs actually did put out a report on Srebrenica in September
2002, but this report was rejected by Paddy Ashdown for failing to come up with
the proper conclusions. He therefore forced a further report by firing a stream of
Republica Srpska politicians and analysts, threatening the RS government, and
eventually extracting a report prepared by people who would come to the
officially approved conclusions. This report, issued on June 11, 2004, was then
greeted in the Western media as a meaningful validation of the official line-the
refrain was, the Bosnian Serbs “admit” the massacre, which should finally settle
any questions.”
(“The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre,” July 7, 2005, Global Research.org)
As a reminder, according to general and international law, acts committed under
coercion cannot be considered to be legitimate.
Conclusions
After 20 years, for all the media attention and limelight, the only conclusion that
can be made with certainty is that nothing certain has been determined when it
comes to Srebrenica. The number of victims of war crimes is yet to be determined,
as is the number of total victims, on both the Bosnian Muslim and the Bosnian
Serb side. The main reason for this failure lies in the fact that, in the case of
Srebrenica, politics and pragmatic interests have trumped justice and the pursuit
of truth. Only an independent, representative, international truth commission on
Srebrenica could establish the full truth. It is high time that such a commission
was established.
To summarize, this is what is known about Srebrenica, after 20 years:
– There is no established connection between prisoner executions and official
structures of either the Republic of Serbia or Republika Srpska;
– Prisoner executions that did take place were carried out by a small number of
people, of various nationalities, which lays waste to claims of any sort of collective
“Serbian guilt” regarding Srebrenica;
– The number of prisoners for which it can be said with a great degree of certainty
that they were victims of execution – is from 10 to 20 times lower than the
number of “7,000-8,000” constantly being uncritically promoted in the mass
media. The only plausible reason for this unfounded exaggeration is the intent to
artificially build an image of collective “Serb guilt” as justification for permanent
meddling in the Balkans, as well as justification for Western intervention
worldwide, on “humanitarian grounds,’ to “prevent new Srebrenicas”;
– The thus far proven number of executed prisoners, who were killed by persons
who have either been sentenced to prison terms, or were subsequently engaged as
Western mercenaries in Africa, is lower that the number of murdered and
butchered Serb civilians in Srebrenica and its vicinity – a crime for which no one
has answered, nor is anyone seeking to attach the “genocidal” label to Bosnian
Muslims for it.
Therefore, Serbia, Republika Srpska and the Serbian people as a whole are not
obliged to apologize collectively for everything that happened in Srebrenica, not
just in July 1995, but during the entire time of the civil war in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, between 1992-1995.
If any apologies and admissions of guilt are due, they are due from a) U.S. officials
who continually sabotaged efforts to reach a peaceful solution in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, from the failed Lisbon Plan in March 1992, by which the Bosnian
Serbs were even willing to accept an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina and
separation from ex-Yugoslavia, to the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan of 1993,
b) the Bosnian Muslim leadership headed by former president Alija Izetbegovic,
which refused the above peace initiatives, actively imported thousands of
mujahedeen fighters into Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, and took deliberate
actions that sabotaged peace efforts in order to provoke U.S. led intervention in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans, and
c) all those who are obstructing efforts to arrive at the real, unadulterated truth
regarding Srebrenica, as the only way forward to achieving genuine justice,
punishing the truly guilty and opening the way to sincere and lasting
reconciliation in the Balkans.
July 2015
Belgrade, Den Haag, Washington

*******
Srebrenica Fifteen Years Later – The Question of Evidence
by George Bogdanich and Jonathan Rooper
The conduct of recent international war crimes trials of the former Yugoslavia
reveals that political considerations tend to trump provable facts. The arrest of
former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic last year was treated by
commentators on both sides of the Atlantic as though it has been clearly
established that he was a “mastermind” of bloody events at Srebrenica, and that
some “7000 to 8000” men and boys of combat age were killed by Bosnian Serb
forces in July of 1995. Much of the commentary implied that a trial would be a
mere formality that should not hinder swift justice. But a good deal of evidence
has emerged in the last fourteen years that casts doubt on the official narrative,
the casualty figures and the ability of the International Criminal Tribunal for
Yugoslavia (ICTY) to render just verdicts in a case which has drawn worldwide
interest.
It is worth noting that the July 1995 indictment of Karadzic by the International
War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) was issued before an official
investigation had been mounted and long before the facts had been established.
So too was the repeated use of the 7,000-8,000 casualty figures by the US State
Dept at a time when Muslim refugees from Srebrenica were still arriving at UN
refugee center at the Tuzla airport.
The overtly political nature of the ICTY’s actions was made clear when the first
indictments against Karadzic and Bosnian Serb Army General Ratko Mladic were
announced on July 27, 1995 — two weeks after the July 11 capture of Srebrenica —
Antonio Cassesse, the US appointed President of the ICTY, applauded the action
as a “a great political result”[1] adding: “The indictment means that these
gentlemen will not be able to take part in peace negotiations.” US envoy Richard
Holbrooke was similarly candid about the political usefulness of the Tribunal
thereafter, when he told the BBC “the War Crimes Tribunal was a huge valuable
tool. We used it to keep the two most wanted war criminals in Europe out of the
Dayton process and we used it to justify everything that followed.”[2]
In her memoir[3] published last year, former chief ICTY chief prosecutor Carla
Del Ponte acknowledges that the US State Department, which pushed relentlessly
for the indictments of Serbian leaders, showed little interest or cooperation in
pursuing serious war crimes by Croat and Muslim forces against Serbian civilians
in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Del Ponte was abruptly removed from her other
position as the chief prosecutor in the International War Crime Tribunal of
Rwanda when she informed the US State Dept of her intention to investigate
crimes by the US-backed Rwandan Patriotic Front. She was apparently chastened
by the experience. The public was never told about ICTY investigations of
responsibility for war crimes authorized by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic until after their deaths, by which time the
cases had been sealed.
In this context, it is not surprising that even such a fierce critic of the Bosnian
Serbs as former BBC journalist Martin Bell has declared that the ICTY, as well as
Mr. Karadzic, will be on trial. “The war crimes tribunal is a prosecutor’s court,” he
observed, “more interested in securing convictions than in delivering justice.”[4]
The official ICTY version of events at Srebrenica — Serbs entering a UN “safe
zone” and slaughtering innocent Muslims while a UN battalion failed to protect
them — did indeed serve the US political agenda, which was to prepare public
opinion for Operation Deliberate Force, a long planned US bombing campaign
against Bosnian Serb targets two weeks after the capture of the enclave. This
would be followed nine days later by the massive US backed Croatian Army attack
known as Operation Storm which cleansed 200,000 ethnic Serbs living in the UN
Protected Zones in the Krajina region of Croatia.
Scorched Earth Raids of 1992-93 and the Cycle of Violence
For those who were willing to look, however, it did not take long to see through
the Manichean picture of innocent Muslims and evil Serbs promoted by the US
policy makers and self-described “journalists of attachment” such as Martin Bell.
The BBC documentary “Lies and Allies” detailed how the US helped facilitate
arms shipments in large C-130 cargo planes to Muslim forces at Tuzla airport.
These shipments were then flown by helicopter to Zepa and Srebrenica according
to former Muslim army Commander General Halilovic and turned the supposed
“safe zones,” such as Srebrenica and Gorazde, into staging areas for Muslim
attacks against nearby Serbian villages designed to provoke a Serbian reaction
which would bring NATO air strikes. In testimony before the Hague in 2001,
General Sefer Halilovic, former Commander of the Muslim Army of Bosnia
Hercegovina, acknowledged that the Bosnian Government High Command issued
“a large number of orders for sabotage operations from the safe areas” against
Serbian villages.[5]
Shortly after the outbreak of war in Bosnia, the Serbian population of Srebrenica
began to be driven out by Muslim warlord Naser Oric, who thereafter led the 28th
division in scorched earth raids against numerous Serbian villages, killing
civilians, their livestock, and gaining a reputation for extreme brutality. Oric
clearly understood that with uncritical US support for the Izetbegovic
government, he could act with impunity. He even videotaped some of his
butchery, including severed Serbian heads, showing these videotapes to John
Pomfret of the Washington Post and Bill Schiller of the Toronto Star. Schiller
writes that Oric was “as bloodthirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield”[6] and
then recounts a visit to the warlord’s home in January 1994:
On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his room, watching a shocking video version of
what might have been called Naser Oric’s Greatest Hits. There were burning
houses, dead bodies, severed heads and people fleeing. . Oric grinned throughout,
admiring his handiwork. “We ambushed them,” he said. The next sequence of
dead bodies had been done in by explosives: “We launched those guys to the
moon,” he boasted. When footage of a bullet marked ghost town appeared
without any visible bodies, Oric hastened to announce. “We killed 114 Serbs
there.” Later, there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting
his praises.[7]
UN Commander General Phillipe Morillon who served in 1992-93 during these
massacres told ICTY prosecutor “Naser Oric engaged in attacks during Orthodox
holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a
degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region.”[8] A report by
Belgrade-based researcher Milivoje Ivanisevic, who has been documenting human
rights abuses against Bosnian Serb civilians since 1992, notes that “of the 93
Serbian settlements in Srebrenica and Bratunac Counties, 82 of them were
destroyed.”[9] In 2005, the Center of the Investigation of Crimes against Serbian
People released a list of 3,262 Serbs from the region who were killed by Oric’s
unit. Of these, 880 were members of military or police organizations. The
remaining 2382 were civilians and their names were published in Vecernje
Novosti, a Belgrade daily newspaper in 2005. Ivanisevic points that not a single
name was challenged in the year and half before the release of the full report in
2007.
Oric was no rogue commander acting on his own. As, Morillon testified: “Naser
Oric’s reign implied a thorough knowledge of the area held by his forces. It
appeared to me that he was respecting political instructions coming from the
[Bosnian] Presidency.”[10] Despite his 28th Division’s responsibility for well-
documented massacres of Serbian villagers,[11] many of them elderly residents
who could not flee, the government of Izetbegovic awarded him the Golden Lily,
Bosnia’s highest military decoration. When Serbs formed the Drina Corp in 1993
to stop the attacks, Morillon helped negotiate an agreement that was supposed to
demilitarize Srebrenica, but the UN never gave the Dutch battalion overseeing the
enclave the authority to carry out the terms of the agreement. Oric’s 28th Division
not only remained in place in violation of the agreement, but received modern
planeloads of illegal weaponry from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries
facilitated by the US Defense Intelligence agency.[12]
The Dutch Government Report at Odds with Official Story
Was Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic a “mastermind” of the carnage
following the capture of Srebrenica in July of 1995? The comprehensive 2002
Dutch government report on Srebrenica, whose authors had access to all relevant
intelligence documents — American, Serbian, Bosnian Muslim, German, Dutch —
produced a wealth of information, but none linking Karadzic to atrocities
following the capture of Srebrenica.
The Dutch government report notes that Karadzic had authorized a small unit of
the Bosnian Serb Army to shrink the Srebrenica pocket by occupying the south
end of the safe zone to prevent ongoing attacks from Muslim forces in Srebrenica
against nearby Serbian villages like Visnica which had been assaulted the week
before. Former Muslim Commander General Sefer Halilovic confirms that about
200 Serbian soldiers backed by five tanks entered the pocket on July 6, 1995.[13]
The Bosnian Serb unit was surprised to find no resistance whatsoever from the
well armed 28th Division (which, according to the testimony of another Muslim
Commander, General Enver Hadzihasanovic,) had billeted 5,500-6000 soldiers in
the town.
The Muslim forces had a 25 to 1 advantage in manpower. But by July 9, the 28th
Division and most civilian Srebrenica men of combat age had been ordered to
leave the town. British military analyst Tim Ripley wrote that surprised Dutch UN
troops “saw Bosnian troops escaping from Srebrenica move past their observation
points carrying brand new anti-tank weapons, still in their plastic wrappings. This
and other similar reports made many UN officers and international journalists
suspicious.”[14] The Muslim men regrouped the following day in the nearby
village of Susnjari. Meanwhile the women, children and mostly elderly men left
for the village of Potocari.
According to the Dutch Government report, the fact that that the larger Muslim
28th Division had abandoned its secure position in Srebrenica, encouraged the
Bosnian Serbs to capture the town, which they decided to do on the evening of
July 9. The Dutch report notes that in a written order from General Tolimer:
“Karadzic had determined that the safety of UNPROFOR soldiers and of the
population should be ensured. Orders to this effect were to be provided to all
participating units. The safety of the population should also be guaranteed in the
event that they should attempt to cross to the territory of the Republika Srpska.
The orders made no mention of a forced relocation of the population. The VRS
[Bosnia Serb Army] units were to be ordered not to destroy any civilian
property unless they met with resistance. Buildings were not to be set on fire. A
final instruction, also of significance, was that the population and prisoners of
war should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.”[15]
On July 11, this small unit of Bosnian Serbs entered the nearly empty town of
Srebrenica. The UN Dutch Battalion (DutchBat) had called in a NATO air strike
earlier that day against Serb targets, but to little avail, because the Muslim
defenders had left the town. Official reports note that little physical damage was
done to the town and the only UN soldier killed at Srebrenica was shot by a
retreating member of the Muslim 28th Division.
Under the gaze of international observers, Bosnian Serb forces provided buses at
Potacari for at least 25,000 women and children from Srebrenica who wished to
go to Muslim-held Tuzla. A small group of mostly elderly men – less than a
thousand according to UN sources — were imprisoned briefly after being queried
about possible involvement in war crimes by the 28th Division. Some 796 Muslim
men were also allowed to make their way to Zepa, near the border with Serbia,
which was itself later also captured by the Bosnian Serbs.[16]
The overwhelming majority of the Muslim male population of Srebrenica refused
offers to surrender. They had moved to Susnjari on July 9 and 10, trusting the
Bosnian Serbs to provide safe passage for the civilian population. These Muslim
soldiers and most military age males chose to fight their way across Serb held
territory to get to Tuzla. Many died fighting in a series of confrontations and
numerous minefields on the road to Tuzla, according to both Muslim and Serb
testimony.
From Blood-Soaked Mercenary To Star Witness
Drazen Erdemovic, one of six Croatians along with a Muslim and a Slovene in an
eight man mercenary unit which had become loosely attached to the Bosnian Serb
Army, was turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal in 1996 when he was arrested
in Serbia after being injured in a drunken shootout with his former comrades
War Crimes Tribunal psychiatrists questioned Erdemovic’s mental fitness and the
ICTY decided his testimony could not be used in his own prosecution. Yet, this
same highly dubious testimony was used in the controversial Rule 61 proceeding
of the War Crimes Tribunal – a sort of “trial by press” procedure which allowed
prosecutors to bring up all manner of undocumented allegations against Karadzic
and Mladic without any rebuttal from defense lawyers, in order to exert public
pressure for the arrest of the Bosnian Serb leaders. Though he had admitted to
taking part in serious crimes, Erdemovic received the short sentence of five years
(3 ½ already served), because, according to an official of the Tribunal, he
“assisted in the public clamour to arrest Radovan Karadzic.” The ICTY has failed
to this day to pursue other members of Erdemovic’s murderous unit who might
have contradicted Erdemovic’s testimony or shed light on events.
Fortunately, a German author of Bulgarian descent named Germinal Civikov has
investigated Erdemovic and recently filled in crucial information gaps with his
German language book “Srebrenica: Der Kronzeuge (Star Witness) ” (Wien:
Promedia, 2009) a meticulously documented and persuasive account of the
activities of this mercenary unit. A key finding is that Erdemovic’s unit was
actually on leave following the capture of Srebrenica when Erdemovic claimed
that they had carried out executions. Civikov concludes that Erdemovic’s account
of the executions, including the number of victims, is physically impossible.
Erdemovic claimed that that his small unit killed 1200 men in five hours by lining
up ten men at a time and having them shot.[17] But, to do so, his small unit of
eight soldiers would have had only 2.5 minutes to line up ten men and execute
them. If it took only 10 minutes to assemble and execute 10 prisoners, it would
have taken 20 hours to kill 1200 men in the manner that Erdemovic claimed. Not
surprisingly, ICTY prosecutors referred in court proceedings to “hundreds” killed
by Erdemovic and his seven bloody cohorts at Branjevo Farms near Pilica. Even
that description overstates the number of those executed by this unit, because the
remains of 153 persons were found by investigators at the killing site.[18] Civikov
also noted that Erdemovic had told a reporter for War Report that he was also
involved in killings at Nova Kasaba, but later changed his story when it turned
that he claimed to be elsewhere on the same day in another account.
Erdemovic Testimony Undermined by Witnesses
Erdemovic says he participated in the capture of Srebrenica on July 11 and he
acknowledges that his unit was told by their superior Milorad Pelemis,
Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army 10th Sabotage Detachment, not to harm
civilians. Before the Tribunal, he testified:
Yes, there was an order that we should not harm civilians, that soldiers should not
harm civilians. So, as I could see it at that time, soldiers were not shooting at
civilians who had surrendered.[19]
Erdemovic also testified that Pelemis was not present during the atrocities five
days later, but claims he saw Pelemis at the nearby Vlasenica base a number of
times prior to the killings at Branjevo Farms. That, however, would have been
physically impossible, because Pelemis was seriously injured on July 12 in an
Armored Personnel Carrier accident which killed his passenger Dragan Koljivrat.
Pelemis was taken to a military hospital in Belgrade where he stayed until July 22.
In 2004, Pelemis’s superior, Col Petar Salapura, a defense witness in another
case, testified that he had called the Vlasenica camp on July 13th and was told that
that Pelemis was in the hospital and the other soldiers were on leave.
Straining to tie the actions of his unit to the Bosnia Serb Army High Command
and fulfill his agreement with ICTY prosecutors, Erdemovic offered an incredible
story that a private in his unit named Brano Gojkovic was the one who gave
execution orders. By this account, Erdemovic, then a sergeant, Franc Kos, a
second lieutenant and five others were taking orders from this lowly private to
carry out mass executions! How did lowly Private Gojkovic take command of the
unit and order higher ranking soldiers to kill captive soldiers? Erdemovic testifies
that “He [Gojkovic] said that Pelemis came and said to get ready, so I conclude,
on the basis of that, that Pelemis told Brano what needed to be done”.[20]
As a young lawyer defending a murder suspect, Abraham Lincoln once called the
prosecutor’s case “thinner than the soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon
that starved to death.” A similar description could be made of Erdemovic’s
constantly changing testimony. There is little chance it would survive in a normal
court proceeding. To the consternation of ICTY prosecutors, but unnoticed by
reporters, a prosecution witness in another later case named Dragan Todorovic
eviscerates Erdemovic’s testimony. Todorovic testified that Franc Kos, the
lieutenant of Slovenian origin was the commander of Erdemovic’s unit. Indeed,
the ICTY judges had in their possession a receipt showing that Kos had signed for
the equipment the unit would use, because he alone had the authority to do so.
Todorovic also confirms that Pelemis was not at Vlasenica as Edemovic claimed in
the days before the killings. Todorovic had rushed to the scene of Pelemis’s
accident on July 12 and helped bring the body of the dead soldier to his parent’s
home in Trebinje. Upon his return, Todorovic tried to drop off presents from the
soldier’s parents to Pelemis at the base in Vlasenica, but was told Pelemis was not
there. Todorovic testifies: “I asked a soldier at the gate where Mr. Pelemis was,
and he told me that he [Pelemis] was either in Bijeljina or at the hospital in
Belgrade” and other members of unit were on leave.[21]
The question of who Erdemovic and his cohorts were really working for on July 16
while his unit was on leave, is central to the case. Erdemovic acknowledged to the
court that his group had been paid the equivalent of 1 million Euros in gold, but
couldn’t or wouldn’t tell the Tribunal who paid them. ICTY prosecutors showed
no further interest in the critical issue of the money, which is the main motive of
mercenaries, presumably because it would distract from the effort to link these
bloodstained soldiers of fortune to the Bosnian Serb High Command.
All of which begs the question: cui bono? Who would benefit if there was news
that a large group of Muslim soldiers were executed? Certainly not the Bosnian
Serbs. If either Karadzic or General Mladic harbored a desire to carry out a
massacre of Muslim prisoners (with the whole world watching,) how likely is it
that they would entrust the task to a mercenary unit led by unstable personalities
that had fought previously with both the Muslim Bosnian government forces and
the Croat HVO militia? No physical evidence has ever been presented tying the
Bosnian leaders to this mercenary unit.
Rather, it was the testimony of one soldier of fortune named Drazen Erdemovic
that enabled the ICTY to convict General Radislav Krstic of genocide and bring
indictments against Karadzic, General Mladic, Serbian President Milosevic as well
as General Vujadin Popovic and seven other top Bosnian Serb military leaders.
In “Srebrenica: Star Witness,” Civikov argues that by failing to indict Erdemovic’s
seven partners in crime — or even question them, the ICTY showed a stunning
lack of interest in a full account of what the tribunal has called ‘the worst atrocity
in Europe since World War II’. If lowly private Brano Gojkovic gave the order to
execute, why has he not been arrested and questioned? When one of Erdemovic’s
fellow executioners, another Bosnian Croat named Marko Boskic, was arrested in
Boston in 2004 for failing to disclose to US immigration authorities his service in
a unit attached the Bosnian Serb Army, the Tribunal decided not to extradite him,
even though Boskic reportedly admitted to the FBI that he had taken part in the
executions at Branjevo Farms. When reporters asked why Boskic was not being
extradited, Anton Nikiforov, the spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor,
replied that the prosecutor had to concentrate on going after the “the big fish.”[22]
If there were any orders to Erdemovic’s unit from the leaders of the Bosnian Serb
Army to carry out executions, Milorad Pelemis, Commander of the 10th Sabotage
Division would have been the link to higher ups such as the Bosnian Serb High
Command at Han Pijesak. But over 12 years the ICTY showed no interest in
questioning Pelemis, while Erdemovic’s testimony enabled the ICTY to convict
one top Bosnian Serb after another. Why take a chance that other, more credible
witnesses would undermine Erdemovic’s testimony? Any nagging concerns about
discovering the actual truth regarding the bloody events at Branjevo Farms – a
prerequisite for a justice — were swept aside by prosecutors in the all consuming
effort to convict “big fish” like Karadzic and Mladic.
Confirmed Survivors Rule Out Inflated Casualty Figures
Contrary to the official story, the combined tally of officially confirmed survivors
from Srebrenica clearly rules out the possibility that 7,000 or 8,000 men were
killed in battle, minefields or executions. The ICTY indictment of Bosnian Serb
General Radislav Krstic placed the number of residents of Srebrenica between
38,000 and 42,000 before the town was captured. We know that the UN
registered 35,632 surviving refugees at the Tuzla airport, as acknowledged by the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bosnian government, according to the
1996 Amnesty International report on Srebrenica.[23] We also know from
testimony by Bosnian Army Commander Hadzihasanovic, that 3,175 soldiers[24]
of the 28th division survived the fighting with the Bosnian Serbs on the way to
Sapna Finger near Tuzla where Muslim soldiers regrouped and were redeployed
to other theaters of conflict. Along with the 796 Muslims soldiers that fled to
Zepa, who were acknowledged in the same Amnesty Report, there were at least
39,603 officially confirmed survivors from Srebrenica.
Even if one uses the Tribunal’s highest estimate of the pre-capture population of
Srebrenica (42,000), subtracting the number of officially confirmed survivors
(39,603) would indicate between 2000 and 2400 Muslims were killed, whether in
battle, walking through minefields or by execution.
Senior US military officials in the best position to know, understood from the
outset that the casualties for Srebrenica were inflated. In a 1995 article in Foreign
Affairs, former Deputy Commander of NATO, Charles Boyd, in charge of
intelligence, wrote that “except for the amount of handwringing and CNN
footage,” the scope of the violence around Srebrenica in 1995 “differed little” from
the US supported Croatian attack on the Serbian population of the UN Protected
Zone in nearby Western Slavonia two months earlier.[25]
The inflated number of Srebrenica casualties used by the US State Dept, however,
was crucial in building public support for US/NATO military intervention against
Serb targets in late July 1995. William Perry[26], who served as US Secretary of
Defense during the Bosnian conflict, would observe to the New York Times years
later ”you don’t go to war with people unless you demonize them first.”
Instead of gathering evidence first, and deciding what crimes had been
committed, ICTY investigations were compromised by the need to justify
indictments that had been made for the political reasons so candidly offered by
Richard Holbrooke and ICTY President Antonio Cassesse. Five years after the
largest exhumation of wartime casualties in history, the remains of 2000 bodies
were recovered in a region where fierce fighting had raged for three years and
these findings were offered as evidence in the trial of General Radislav Krstic who
was in Zepa when the Muslim column with the 28th division clashed with Bosnian
Serb units from the Drina Corps.
Various official casualty lists using the 7,000 to 8,000 figure, including one
compiled by the International Committee of the Red Cross, used information
provided on questionnaires filled out by purported surviving relatives. They have
been found to be seriously flawed, because they include names of individuals still
alive, persons who died prior to the capture of Srebrenica, and many others from
different locations in Bosnia, as well as 3000 persons who voted a year later in the
1996 Bosnian election supervised by the OECD.[27]
Was Srebrenica Sacrificed?
US officials focused on the responsibility of the Serbs for events in Srebrenica, but
several key Muslim officials bitterly claimed that Srebrenica was “sacrificed” by
the Bosnian government to set the stage for NATO intervention.
One of them is Ibran Mustafic, former Mayor of Sarajevo who was the head of the
Muslim ruling party SDA organization in Srebrenica during the war. He was
among the relative small number of Srebrenica men who joined the women and
children at Potocari. He was interrogated by the Bosnian Serbs, taken prisoner
and then released.
Mustafic, who has since written a book about events in Srebrenica (“Planned
Chaos”) told the Bosnian Muslim publication Slobodna Bosna in a 1996
interview:
“The scenario for the betrayal of Srebrenica was consciously prepared.
Unfortunately, the Bosnian presidency and the Army command were involved in
this business; if you want the names, figure it out yourself. I understood the
situation in Srebrenica and you can trust me on this, had I not been prevented by
a group of criminals, many more inhabitants of Srebrenica would be alive today.
Had I received an order to attack the Serb army from the demilitarized zone, I
would have rejected to carry out that order without thinking and would have
asked the person who had issued that order to bring his family to Srebrenica so
that I can give him a gun and let him stage attacks from the demilitarized zone. I
knew that such shameful, calculated moves were leading my people to a
catastrophe.”[28]
Mustafic had survived two assassination attempts by what he calls the “group of
criminals,” led by Naser Oric. But Srebrenica’s police chief, Hakija Meholjic, a
hardliner who served under Naser Oric, also believes that Srebrenica was
deliberately sacrificed by the Izetbegovic government and the high command of
the Bosnian Army to enable NATO forces to intervene.
In an interview with the Bosnian Muslim publication Dani, Meholjic recalls that
at the Bosniak conference in Sarajevo in September 1993, Izetbegovic claimed to
have discussed various scenarios for Srebrenica with President Clinton. According
to Meholjic, an ally of Naser Oric:
We were received there by President Izetbegovic, and immediately after the
welcome he asked us: “What do you think about the swap of Srebrenica for
Vogosca [a Sarajevo suburb]?” There was a silence for a while and then I said:
“Mr. President, if this is a done thing, then you should not have invited us here,
because we have to return and face the people and personally accept the burden of
that decision.” Then he said: “You know, I was offered by Clinton in April 1993
that the Chetnik [a derisive term for Serbs] forces enter Srebrenica, carry out a
slaughter of 5,000 Muslims, and then there will be a military intervention.”[29]
Meholjic, who was stunned by this disclosure from Izetbegovic, subsequently
repeated this account to the producers of a Dutch documentary that was shown as
evidence in the War Crimes Tribunal.[30] According to the film, President
Izetbegovic was questioned by UN investigators and denied making the
disclosures. While there is no evidence, nor any way to confirm that President
Clinton actually made such a proposal to Izetbegovic, however hypothetical, there
were at least eight surviving witnesses to confirm what Izetbegovic told the
Srebrenica delegation.
In negotiations between the Muslim and Bosnian Serb leaders, Senior Clinton
administration figures, including Madeleine Albright and Alexander Vershbow,
had consistently maintained that Srebrenica and other isolated Muslim enclaves
such as Gorazde should be exchanged for Serb-held territory such as Vogosca near
Sarajevo. Both sides expected Srebrenica to become part of Serb territory in a
settlement and for that reason the Serbs had shown little interest in stretching
their limited manpower to capture the enclave when their Western front was
under pressure from major military attacks by Croat Muslim forces in Western
Bosnia.
The Bosnian government set events in motion that led to the capture of
Srebrenica when they withdrew Oric and 17 other top commanders of the 28th
division to attend a Bosniak conference in Zenica, just before ordering the now
leaderless unit in Srebrenica to engage in attacks against nearby Serb villages that
were sure to provoke a response from the Bosnian Serb Army. UN officials
involved in events share the belief of local Muslim leaders such as Mustafic and
Meholjic that the Sarajevo government deliberately sacrificed Srebrenica to bring
NATO military intervention against the Serbs. Carlos Martins Branco, Deputy
Chief Operations Officer in the UN Peace Forces in Bosnia writes: “The besieged
[Muslim 28th Division] forces could have easily defended the enclave.” Since it
was going to be traded away “it was preferable to let this happen in the most
beneficial manner possible.”[31]
Michael Evans of the London Times said that the fact that Bosnian Army
commanders and a large division “abandoned the town before the Serbs breached
the perimeter, [was] a sign that a decision made to sacrifice Srebrenica for the
sake of a political strategy.”[32]
Before his death in 2003, Izetbegovic freely acknowledged that he had made false
accusations in the course of the war in an effort to encourage NATO to bomb the
Serbs. During a 1992 visit from French President France Mitterand, Izetbegovic
accused the Bosnian Serbs of running “extermination camps,” a charge that
created headlines worldwide and led to congressional hearings in the US. But,
Bernard Kouchner, currently France’s Foreign Minister accompanied by Richard
Holbrooke, visited Izetbegovic on his death bed, where the Bosnian President
disowned his sensational charges against the Serbs.
“Yes,” he told Kouchner, “I thought that my revelations could precipitate [NATO]
bombings. Yes, I tried, but the assertion was false. There were no extermination
camps whatever the horror of those places”[33]. At the very time that Izetbegovic
was making his charges in 1992 about “death camps”, the International
Committee of the Red Cross, which had visited prison camps run by the three
factions in the Bosnian civil war, stated officially: “Serb, Croats and Muslim all
run detention camps and must share equal blame”.
Izetbegovic’s government made similar headlines in December 1992 when its
Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic (the current President of Bosnia) told the NBC
“Today” Show that “forty to fifty thousand women were raped and are being raped
now, even as we speak” by Bosnian Serbs. Two years later, after extensive
investigations, a report by UN Special Rapporteur Tadeusz Maziowiecki[34] put
the number of confirmed rapes at 337 for all sides, a finding which received little
attention from news organizations that trumpeted the original Bosnian
government charges.
Nor was Izetbegovic hesitant about using the word “genocide” without basis when
it suited his purposes. Barely a week into the war, on April 6, 1992, Izetbegovic
was already being quoted in news accounts using the word “genocide”[35] to
characterize a brief battle between Serbs and Muslims in the Eastern Bosnian
town of Bijeljina. This pattern continued whenever the Bosnian leader called
publicly for NATO military intervention.
On July 9, 1995, two days before the Serbian soldiers entered the empty town of
Srebrenica, Izetbegovic was already on the phone with world leaders including US
President Bill Clinton decrying “terrorism and genocide against the civilians of
Srebrenica.”[36] At this time, the small Serb unit which had entered the enclave
from the south, had yet to encounter any serious resistance from Muslim forces,
which were already moving north from Srebrenica to redeploy in Susnjari.
To justify the indictments of Karadzic and Mladic, it has been a singular goal of
the ICTY to support and prop up the original estimate of 7,000–8,000 despite the
lack of hard evidence and some breathtaking inconsistencies in official documents
and indictments. There is unmistakable evidence that the Bosnian government
and the ICTY conflated casualties from across Bosnia with those from Srebrenica
to arrive at the inflated official figure. For example, an internal memo written by
the ICTY demographer Ewa Tabeau in 2008[37] states that of the total of 7661
Muslim men allegedly missing from Srebrenica, 5371 were soldiers of the Bosnian
Army and that 3481 of these were identified from excavated remains as of the date
of her memo. But Tabeau’s statistics come from the same official Bosnian Army
sources, including the government sponsored “International Commission on
Missing Persons” (ICMP), that have repeatedly invoked the inflated number of
Srebrenica deaths.
The ICTY’s problem is that the top commanders of the Bosnian Army — Generals
Halilovic and Hadzihasanovic — had already testified under oath in 2001 that the
total number of Bosnian Army members in Srebrenica was around 5500, and that
3175 Muslim soldiers of the 28th Division had survived the bloody flight across
Bosnian Serb territory.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, in an unguarded moment on Sarajevo
television a month after the capture of Srebrenica, acknowledged that “3400
soldiers”[38] managed to reach “free,” ie. Muslim-held territory near Tuzla, a
slightly higher, rounded- off figure than his generals would use in their testimony.
On another occasion he told Sarajevo radio that surviving troops were dispatched
to join fighters around Bihac in Northwest Bosnia.
Given that at least 3,000 soldiers survived out of a unit of 5500, how could 5371
soldiers have been deemed missing by the ICTY? If the “missing” were in fact
Bosnian soldiers, obviously, they could not have been from Srebrenica.
A contemporary, authoritative UN source provides further confirmation that
there were many survivors from the Muslim military column and that most of
those killed along the way were the victims of mines and battles with Bosnian
Serb soldiers. A 17 July 1995 report to the UNPROFOR office in Tuzla, Edward
Joseph, refers to the arrival of “Srebrenica men” in the Tuzla area and comments
that “5 to 6 thousand crossed into BiH 2 Corps controlled- territory in the
southern Sapna area last night (16 July)…Up to three thousand were killed on the
way, mostly by mines and BSA [Bosnia Serb Army] engagements. Unknown
others were captured. Some committed suicide. Unknown others went to
Zepa.”[39]
By August 4, a very large number of civilian men from Srebrenica registered as
displaced persons with the UN at the Tuzla airport. The 1996 Amnesty
International report states that “at least 13,000 men successfully made their way
through the forest.”[40]
In his November 1, 2002 report to the ICTY, Richard Butler, the American
military expert for the prosecution stated that “depending on the source, 10,000
to 15,000 persons formed a mixed [military and civilian] column…”[41] which
sought escape following the Srebrenica-Tuzla route. Given that 13,000 Srebrenica
men survived, this again rules out the inflated number of 8,000 killed. Butler’s
reference to the mixed military and civilian nature of the column confirms that it
was a legitimate military target.
Of the 2,000 plus Srebrenica men who died as part of the mixed column of
soldiers and civilians, how many were killed in military encounters with the
Bosnian Serbs, from deadly mines or from executions? The ICTY’s chief
investigator Jean-Rene Ruez has stated: “A significant number [of Moslems] were
killed in combat… Many were killed while trying to make it through minefields…
As for those who perished in the woods, we are compelled to figure that they were
killed in battle.”[42] Ruez notes that the Bosnian Serbs also had significant losses
in battle, particularly the Zvornik brigade, which had its largest casualties of the
entire war during four days of engagements with Bosnian Muslim troops in the
column breaking out of the Srebrenica enclave. Richard Butler testified that he
had not made a location by location analysis of Bosnian Army losses in battles
with Bosnian Serbs, but the figure of “1,000-2000 sounds reasonable.” In an
interview with Sarajevo based Dani Magazine, Muslim commander Nesib Buric
stressed that his soldiers had fought hard and sustained many casualties: “In my
battalion, out of 320, 280 died…No one can deny that in the Srebrenica
municipality there are 2,000 buried fighters”. [43]
The well-documented accounts of military engagements the length of the trip
from Srebrenica to Sapna by 37 surviving Muslim soldiers interviewed by the
ICTY suggests the number of executions among these 2,000 casualties would
have to be in the hundreds. Some 442 ligatures and blindfolds were found at
several locations including Branjevo Farms where Erdemovic claimed to have
carried out executions. It is also possible, though unproven to date, that some
local Bosnian Serb soldiers may have disobeyed standing orders and taken
revenge by executing soldiers of the 28th Division who had slaughtered their
families during Naser Oric’s reign of terror in 1992-93.
The most comprehensive effort to analyze and categorize the method of death of
those exhumed was performed by forensic physician Ljubisa Simic of the Dutch-
based Srebrenica Historical Project, who produced graphs and tables of category
of injuries sustained in the 13 primary burial sites excavated in 1996-2002 from
3600 reports accounting for the remains of some 2,000 bodies. While some
researchers have raised questions whether blindfolds or ligatures may have been
planted, Simic believes that these were victims of executions. At least 600 bodies
showed evidence of injuries[44] from projectiles, mostly in feet which are
consistent with deaths from mines. Significantly, Simic notes that the same grave
sites that were excavated in 1996-97 also contained bodies that showed advanced
decomposition inconsistent with burials of two years or less following the capture
of Srebrenica. These remains had to have been buried during the scorched earth
attacks on Serbian villages in 1992-93 by Naser Oric’s 28th Division. (Oric was
finally indicted in 1998 and convicted only on trivial charges despite massive
evidence of his murderous activities including his own videotapes. He was later
found innocent by ICTY judges after serving only two years, and released to a
hero’s welcome.)
The Numbers Game
What are we to make of the claim by the International Commission on Missing
Persons (ICMP) claim that there are now DNA matches for the remains of 6200
persons from Srebrenica? First, we need to understand that despite its name, the
ICMP is not an independent group but rather a successor organization of the
Muslim dominated group which maintains control over the investigative and
forensic work. The ICMP is allied with the same Bosnian government figures such
as Haris Silajdzic, current President of Bosnia, who, as Foreign Minister in 1992,
grabbed headlines with charges of mass rape.. It was Silajdzic, also, who told a
press conference in 1994 that “70,000 people” had been killed in fighting around
Bihac, though the UN monitors informed BBC reporter John Simpson that fewer
than a thousand persons had been killed in the Bihac fighting that had been
initiated by the Bosnian Government side.[45]
As for DNA matches, there is no reliable basis for the ICMP number. We already
know the ICMP used an inflated number (5,300) for missing soldiers from
Srebrenica, because the 28th Division had only 5,500 members and according to
both the High Command and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, that more than
3,000 survived. News accounts of the ICMP identification process have raised
questions about their methodology (particularly contamination) and skepticism
about claimed breakthroughs in DNA technology.
Eight years after the end of the war, the ICMP began to greatly widen the search
for bodies beyond the Srebrenica area to distant regions of Bosnia. They did so on
the basis of a theory that the Bosnian Serbs had undertaken a vast cover-up
exercise to hide massacres, reburying bodies in secondary and tertiary graves.  No
compelling evidence to support this theory was ever made public – indeed, no
mention of it had been made at all until several years after the wars ended. No
suggestion that graves had been violated was made when Physicians for Human
Rights carried out their investigations in the summer of 1996.
This drastic rewriting of the official chronology gained traction among ICTY
officials, despite its implausibility. It would have been difficult, if not impossible
for the Serbs to carry out such a major operation without it being noticed at the
time (autumn 1995, when Bosnia was under satellite and drone surveillance,
crawling with UN, OSCE, CIA, MI6 personnel).   And if the Serbs were desperate
to cover up crimes and went to the trouble of excavating, moving and re-burying
some 500 tonnes of human remains, why did they not remove the blindfolds and
ligatures?
Most importantly, despite their claims, the ICMP has not shared the DNA
evidence with the ICTY, much less the Karadzic defense. These results have never
been subject to peer review. Yet, the Tribunal is expected to cite these claims in
upcoming proceedings as justification for the inflated number of casualties used
in the indictment of Karadzic, whose trial will take place this fall. While there is
substantial evidence that Erdemovic repeatedly committed perjury in his
testimony which sought to connect his small group of mercenaries on leave, with
the Bosnian Serb High Command, there is little prospect that Karadzic will be
found not guilty of charges, including genocide, in the ICTY indictments. The
same judges who allowed Erdemovic’s incredible testimony to convict General
Krstic to a forty five year sentence, are unlikely to reverse their course now.
Taking no chances, the ICTY transferred one of its most able senior prosecutors,
Alan Tieger, from prosecuting the Croatian generals who carried out “Operation
Storm,” to prosecuting the Srebrenica case against Radovan Karadzic. That move
says a great deal about political priorities of the tribunal, because “Operation
Storm” was a much larger attack that cleansed 200,000 ethnic Serbs in two large
UN Protected Areas. Senior Canadian UN Commanders have testified that the
Croatian Army, which was trained and supported by a private US military
contractor MPRI, directly targeted civilians.
The Tribunal and its most important sponsor, the US government, are heavily
invested in the outcome of the trial. The inflated numbers at Srebrenica, like the
false stories of WMDs in Iraq, enabled the US and NATO to expand its military
operations for the first time outside the original NATO mandate. In the early 90’s,
there was palpable concern among US policy makers that, with the collapse of the
Soviet Union, NATO no longer had a mission as a defensive alliance. Senator
Richard Lugar (R-In) used the slogan “Out of area, or out of business”[46] to
trumpet his belief that a suitable cause for NATO intervention needed to found
soon to validate a new mission for the military alliance. Srebrenica provided a
pretext for a new role — out of area intervention, helping the US retain a
dominant role in Europe and project its military power eastward.
There is no reason to dispute Richard Holbrooke’s description of the War Crimes
Tribunal as “valuable tool” of big power politics. However, no close observer of
the tribunal is likely to call it “independent” or “impartial.” Instead of functioning
to promote truth and reconciliation, the blatant politics and institutional biases of
the ICTY have heightened and prolonged the tensions between Serbs, Muslims,
Croats and Albanians in what Balkan scholar Robert Hayden calls “war by other
means.” Those seeking the truth about events at Srebrenica, will have to look
elsewhere.
George Bogdanich: an independent American documentary producer, reporter,
freelance journalist and editor, contributing member of Srebrenica Research
Group.
Jonathan Rooper: formerly political editor at the BBC; now an independent
journalist and video producer.

*******
Srebrenica Narrative Responsibly Challenged
by Stephen Karganovic
During the month leading up to the official observance of the 2oth anniversary of
the Srebrenica massacre, the prevailing atmosphere was one of heated
controversy, not merely about the underlying facts of the event itself, but also the
proposed (and ultimately vetoed by Russia) one-sided British UN Security
Council resolution and the Swiss arrest, followed by “extradition” to Sarajevo, of
Srebrenica warlord Naser Oric. In such political ambience, “Srebrenica Historical
Project,” a Dutch-registered NGO dedicated to scholarly research of July 1995
events in Srebrenica and their contextual background, together with its partners,
“Strategic Culture Foundation” from Moscow and “Genocide Museum” in
Belgrade, conducted two important conferences focusing on various aspects of the
Srebrenica issue.
The first conference took place on June 17 2015 at the Faculty of Political Science
in Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, and was sponsored by “Srebrenica Historical
Project.” The second, on July 4 2015 in Belgrade, was held in cooperation with the
two above named institutions.
The topic of the Banja Luka conference was “Can politically weaponized
Srebrenica be turned into a peace-making tool?” Distinguished participants
included Sheikh Imran Husein and Russian geopolitical scholar, Prof. Alexander
Dugin. The thrust of the conference was to try to find ways to bridge the gap
between the Muslim and Orthodox communities not just in Bosnia, but world-
wide in the face of acute challenges to their common values.
Various participants shed light on issues such as the political abuse of the concept
of “genocide” as a device for causing inter-communal rifts (Prof. Srdja Trifkovic),
Drina River as a metaphorical dividing line between kindred communities in
Bosnia and Serbia (Prof. Veljko Djuric), what evidence adduced at Hague
Tribunal trials has demonstrated about what happened in Srebrenica (Mladic
defense team attorney Miodrag Stojanovic), and whether a shared understanding
of Srebrenica is possible for Bosnia’s Orthodox and Muslims (Dzevad Galijasevic).
The topic of the Belgrade conference was “Srebrenica 1995 – 2015: Facts,
Dilemmas, Propaganda.” Topics covered were Srebrenica as a pretext for Western
“humanitarian” interventions (Aleksandar Pavic), the crimes of the unprosecuted
local warlord Naser Oric (Anna Filimonova), the questionable use of DNA
evidence to buttress inflated execution figures (Jonathan Rooper), Bosnian Army
column breakthrough from Srebrenica through Serb-held territory and its
casualties (Milos Milojevic), Srebrenica “intelligence games” (Prof. Veljko Djuric),
and evidence of special intent to commit genocide in July 1995 (Stephen
Karganovic).
The general concept of both conferences was not to deny crimes, but to refer to
available evidence in order to assess their true scope and to attempt to establish
their proper legal characterization.
In the Final Document issued on July 4 2015 it was stated that, unfortunately,
there exist two parallel versions of what occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995. One
of them is promoted, and indeed often imposed, by interested geopolitical players
as the “mainstream” account and has come to resemble a protected narrative,
immune to empirical verification and rational criticism. The other approach is in
the tradition of critical scholarship and proceeds from the premise that the right
to open and good faith examination of historical facts and events is a paramount
intellectual value.
After noting criticisms of the mainstream narrative, participants expressed their
concern over the fact that the slogan of “preventing another Srebrenica” was little
more than cover for rationalizing lethal and destructive wars of aggression waged
mainly on uncooperative Muslim countries, resulting in over one million deaths
(immensely more than the highest estimates for Srebrenica) and the destruction
of entire societies. Participants severely reproached Great Britain’s failed
resolution in the UN Security Council for inciting animosity between communities
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and expressed their condolences to the survivors of all
the victims of “humanitarian interventions” conducted since the turn of the
century on the pretext of “preventing genocide”.

*******
Video of the address of Sheikh Imran Hussein to the Banja Luka
Conference.

*******
Video of the address of Professor Alexander Dugin to the Banja Luka
Conference:

*******
Video of an appeal to the Bosnian-Muslims by Sheikh Imran Hussein
Transcript:
Assalaamu ‘alaikum! In the same way that I have continuously denounced the
Ottoman Gog and Magog Empire for their centuries-long oppression of the
Orthodox Christians (on behalf of Dajjal the false Messiah), so too do I condemn
the scandalous attack on the Serbian Prime Minister who courageously attended
the ceremony in Srebrenica marking the 20th anniversary of the slaughter of
thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys.   In the same way that I have
apologized to our Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters for the disgraceful and
manifestly sinful conversion of their premier Hagia Sophia Cathedral to a Masjid
– to the eternal shame and disgrace of Muslims – so too do I apologize to the
Serbian Prime Minister for what appears to have been a pre-planned attack on
him. I hope that Serbian Orthodox Christians will not allow this disgraceful event
to deter them from increasingly denouncing the unjust slaughter of thousands of
Muslims in Srebrenica 20 years ago. Friendship and alliance between the worlds
of Islam and Orthodox Christianity will take place Insha Allah, and none (NOT
EVEN NATO) can prevent it. Hagia Sophia will be returned to you when the
conquest of Constantinople prophesied by Nabi Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa
sallam) takes place, and none (NOT EVEN NATO) can prevent it..  with sadness,
Imran N. Hosein

*******
Reconciliation – the Empire’s way
Lately on this blog, there were initiatives to encourage dialog between different
factions, namely Muslim and Orthodox Christian population. A lot of history the
two groups shared together, a lot of it tragic and very violent too. The first thing
that comes to my mind are wars when the Ottoman Empire was expanding – with
Byzantine, Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian Empires; all of them Orthodox
Christian. That is my first association when someone mentions the topic of clash
between the two. But there were some recent conflicts too. Not necessarily on
purely religious basis, but it seems that this was one of the main ‘stumbling
blocks’, a difference that helped in creating division. Or better said, a difference
that was exploited the most when there were efforts on creating division. Those
more recent conflicts were wars during the 90s in the Balkans, namely the
Bosnian war. And this topic too, was lately popular on the blog, as a part of the
reconciliation dialog between Islam and Orthodox Christianity. A noble and
worthy effort, that is sure and if not one of the hardest!
Among other things, I often noticed statements similar to this: “It’s the West that
pushed two sides toward the conflict” or “The war between Muslims and
Orthodox Christians is exactly what the Anglo-Zionists want”.
I consider claims such as these to be absolutely true. There are countless
examples of ‘third party’ involvement in these conflicts. Not only recently, but
since the wars with Ottoman Empire that I mentioned in the beginning. When we
analyze those historic events from centuries ago, and with all the information that
is available now an ‘invisible guiding hand’ of the British Empire becomes
obvious. Vatican had it’s role too in these conflicts. And fast forward to more
recent history, we see involvement of US, British, Israeli and other secret services
in sponsoring international terorrism. Again, the ‘invisible guiding hand’.
Whether it’s the involvement of CIA in Chechen wars, Bosnia, or most recent ISIS,
a mentor is always present. I will not go through history and analyze all these
events, as that is not the topic I want to write in this. Anyone interested in these
things should do his/her homework and try and find the invisible guiding hand.
Before getting to the main topic, I will make another small digression. About truth
and how I see the truth as a concept and as a right.
Truth, together with freedom is perhaps the most expensive thing in the world.
Priceless. And although I believe in universal truth, that is the one we will see
most rarely, almost never. What is the truth we will most often see? It is the truth
of the victor. For justice it is the same. In this imperfect world you will get justice
if you have power and influence to back it. Those that are powerless rarely see
justice. In the same manner they will get their share of truth too. Wether it’s the
weapons of mass destruction that needed to be captured, a dictator brought to
justice because of use of Sarin gas on his own people, or it is the global anti-terorr
campaign to catch those that are responsible for the attack on World Trade Center
– there are many truths. The universal truth is out of reach again. The truth of the
powerful, however, is there for everyone to hear. But human beings (still) have
their own free will and right to independent thinking, and therefore the truth of
the powerful is not the last thing for them.
We are living in the time of a global Empire. The most powerful in the (known)
history – a thing people should have in mind. And therefore, it is the Empire’s
truth that is most readily available and we will hear it the most.
And finally, if you love truth and justice and hold them dear – never loose a war!
Now back to the track. As I said, there is initiative to bring Orthodox and Islamic
world closer together, and a discussion on Balkans as a part of a larger, global
initiative for dialog. Now, it is important to know that there also exists something
opposite of that. An initiative to divide the two and pit them against each other. It
would be very naive to think that the guiding hand that was present throughout
such long history, is now asleep. Of course it isn’t, in fact, it is working overtime
on creating new divisions among the two mentioned factions. It is easier to spot it
when you look back on the past events, as you are looking through the lenses that
contain all the information that was collected since then to this day. You are
looking at past with the intellect of the present.
With the crisis in Greece taking the spotlight these days and Ukraine, Syria, USA
– China/Russia relations following closely it is no wonder that this event is
passing almost unnoticed.
Now I will try to deconstruct for you the work of the guiding hand as it is
happening now. It touches upon both the Muslim – Orthodox relations and the
war in Bosnia, and therefore I think it will be interesting to those that worked on
these initiatives/projects.
I will not, like others, go in detail and give presentation of events as they were
unfolding and a historical background to those events. I will leave it to others, as,
if I understood right, we will see the conflict from the perspectives of the members
of all ‘conflicting parties’, Croat, Bosniak and Serbian. And it is only right to do it
that way.
These last few days the entire machinery of the Empire is working in full capacity
to bring us, twenty years after the conflict, the Resolution on Bosnia in the
Security Council of the United Nations. The main reasons, they say, is to bring
people together, honour the victims and make reconciliation possible. The main
initiator? Great Britain. After first hearing about this just a while back, I paid
additional attention to this process. They are naming a noble goal, but with some
knowledge of the past, I was little skeptical from the start.
The British Empire was one of the main architects of the conflicts between Islam
and Orthodox Christianity in the past. So, it is not surprising to me at all that they
have the leading role in this today. And when the Ottoman Empire started
crumbling and it’s power and influence in the Balkans started to fade it was the
British who tried the hardest to prevent the re-emergance of the independent
Serbian state. Even Napoleon sent troops and resources to help squash the
Serbian uprising. It was the little man rising up against a huge Empire – a concept
they are still afraid of today.
But back to the Resolution – not only that the ‘reconciliation’ was not the goal,
but the goal is the exact opposite. There are various reasons that the British (with
close support of USA and EU) are pushing the Resolution and reconciliation is not
among them. Reconciliation in this case is the only thing that is not allowed.
Like I said, the British have enormous experience it this, and they show their
expertise today as they made such a Resolution that if it pass – it will create new
division and conflict. And if it doesn’t pass – it will again create it regardless.
The Resolution
First, let’s look at some of the main points of the resolution and how it went in the
Security Council.
(Some of these clauses were a subject to change several times as there were seven
versions in total). It is also worth noting that they didn’t make all versions of the
draft available for the public and therefore all that was available were the excerpts
that the journalists were able to get from the spot and difference is notable
between reports in the different media outlets.
Pieced together from various media reports on this ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ), some of the
main points of the Resolution are:
– in the strongest sense condemning the genocide in Srebrenica perpertraited by
Serbs in which over 8000 bosnian man and boys were killed
– assumes that accepting the tragic events in Srebrenica as genocide is a
prerequisite for reconciliation
– condemning a denial of said genocide and pointing out that continous denial is
hurting the victims
– calling for the member states (of the UN) to include the Srebrenica genocide
and war crimes into education material to prevent the posibility of such things
reoccuring
– the first version of resolution also contained condemnation of rape of tens of
thousands women, men and boys, including in Srebrenica. British then took this
out in Second version
– marking 11th of July as a day of remembrence of Srebrenica genocide
– and finally it says recognizing that there were innocent victims on all sides
during the conflict
(There were supposedly 12 introductory points plus 16 main, and the text of
Resolution was changed seven times, but these points in one formulation or other
remained. They also didn’t make a draft public on the official site of the UN,
leaving room for media speculation and conflicting reports.)
All in all it mentions word genocide 35 times, and reconciliation 3 times. This was
in later versions reduced to 26 times.
There were also speculations about involvement of Sanela Jenkins in drafting a
Resolution.
Now as soon as seeing this, Russian members in the Security Council evaluated
that such one sided Resolution would only serve to make additional division in
the region. They suggested changes in the Resolution to make it more neutral and
acceptable to all the parties that were involved in the conflict. So, over the course
of several days the Resolution has seen several incarnations. British, however still
insisted that the points above stay in, and right before voting on June 7th they
offered the version six that was actually more ‘severe’ than previous versions. This
led to a delay of the vote as suggested by the Chinese and the whole process was
moved for July 8th. Russians then in turn offered their own version of the
Resolution, condemning war crimes on both sides and honouring all victims and
challenging Srebrenica massacre classification as genocide. This version of
Resolution was categorically refused by the original initiators. They pushed for
voting on their version and Russia used the veto right, with 4 members abstaining
from vote. 10 of the members voted for.
Russian diplomats again explained that they don’t see how having victims of one
side in higher regard than the others would help in reconciliation. They also noted
that some crimes perpertrated by Serbian side are named in detail and
condemned, but no such thing was done for the other side. They said that the
Resolution was politicaly motivated, unbalanced and ruinous for reconciliation
efforts in the region. They noted that all the blame was put on the Serbian side,
regardless of the fact that the Serbs too were victims in this conflict. Russian
Foreign Ministry also gave a public notice pointing this out.

They also repeated that all those responsible for Srebrenica and all other war
crimes must be brought to justice and offered condolences to the families, adding
that the mutual understanding between people is the best guarantee of peace.
Now, something that was seen in almost every media that ran the story and the
commentaries of those that presented the resolution in the UN, was that the
genocide is ‘undeniable legal fact’. Why a phrase ‘legal fact’? Because the
International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia aka The Hague Tribunal convicted
several memmbers of the Army of Republic of Srpska and some paramilitary as
well, on the charges of genocide. Now, the Hague and the Resolution have a lot in
common, for example, both were made by the same people. And both are political
tools.
Taking a quick look at the work done there so far, we will see that:
– of the total number of verdicts in the Hague, over 90% of sentences were for
Serbs,
– for crimes agains Serbs in Croatia, no Croat was convicted, however for crimes
against the Croats, 26 Serbs were convicted on total of 429,5 years
– in Tribunal over 60 Serbs were convicted to total of 1.112,5 years
– out of all court sentences for crimes in Bosnia, 7,9% of sentences are for crimes
against Serbian population
– Bosniaks got total of 123 years for crimes against Serbian population ( 1 ) ( 2 ) (
3 ) ( 4 ) (5)
If I am to call the Serbs heretics to the ‘New World Order’, then the Hague would
be the ‘Spanish Inquisition’. Now, not to get me wrong, there are war criminals
who broke Geneva Conventions and did crimes on civilian population and
prisoners of war and are fully deserving to be there. But the problem is the same
bias as with all the justice that came from the NATO courts and Parliaments. By
doing half of work, it is nothing but a cangaroo court. Many law expets around the
world consider it just as a political tool and something that will put a legal stamp
on Empire’s interventionism and imperialism.
Other then the mentioned ‘legal fact phrase’, every report on this Resolution in
the media and in the Resolution contains these:
– they were in the UN safe area /UN protected zone. That in fact is true, but only
up to a point. It fails, however, to explain how did the armed Bosniak forces use
UN protected area as a base of operations, without repercussions form the UN? It
is worth noting that several UN officers gave testimonies confirming this.
– there were 8000 people execute there – I will give a short info on this below in
the article and how the number of victims was established.
*after the UN vote, both European Parliament and US Senate adopted their own
versions of the Resolution.
The Genocide – or – Who denies what
Now let’s take a few moments to look back at the killings that took place in the
area of Srebrenica. While no one is trying to deny the atrocities committed there,
the stumbling block appears to be classification of that crime as a genocide. With
some also disputing a number of people killed and the way they died.
*I will touch upon several topics that deserve to be a main theme for a separate
writing, and I will thus advise a reader to do a fact checking on his or her own.
This would turn into a book or several books if every event mentioned is to be
analyzed as a part of this short essay. I will in most cases give some
directions/hints as to where to look for it.
**another sort of ‘disclaimer’ is needed here before proceeding onward. I believe
that every person, regardless of religious background (or if a person is religious at
all) must condemn all and any killing of an innocent victim regardless of who that
is. This is something far more basic than any religious principles, it is a principle
of any moral person. Also, no innocent life weights more than some other
innocent life. This is, I believe, obvious to majority, but still important to point
out when there is talk on topics such as these.
***honoring the victims and at the same time using them for political games is
worse than not giving any recognition to the dead. Politicizing the dead while
claiming to fight for their families is probably even more insulting to those
families.
****using double standards and hypocrisy and at the same time claiming that you
are making an effort towards reconciliation is totally counterproductive.
Especially among the so called ‘International community’.
It is important when using word genocide as a legal cathegory, to take these
things into consideration too:
– Firstly, there must be a clear intention and plan of destroying an entire
population belonging to (usually one) ethinc group. An extermination campaign
supported by state and under clear directions. This, in the case of Bosnian war
didn’t exist.
– Secondly, destruction of entire population must include women, especially
young, pregnant and fertile women and children too. Looking back at Rwanda,
Armenian genocide, Holocaust, as well as NDH, you can clearly notice an
intention and planned massacre of all members of one or more ethnicities. Again,
no such thing happened in Srebrenica. Women and children were evacuated to
Muslim controlled Tuzla.
– The number of victims is not a cathegory in definig genocide. Meaning there is
not a certain number of bodies after which the massacre is called genocide.
Example, if somewhere lives a relatively small tribe (let’s say somewhere in
Amazon) with two thousand members or less. And if someone kills 1500, can this
be called a genocide? I certainly guess so. So the number itself is important to
victims and to those who lost their loved ones but not in defining a genocide as a
legal category.
I will here outline why I think that calling Srebrenica a genocide is dishonest at
the least:
*again, a disclaimer – note the diference between disputing if there was a
genocide and if there were killings. I won’t respond to claims such as: “Oh, so now
you say that no one was killed there?!” That, of course is not the case. Dead bodies
are real and the grievance of families is real.
– official narrative today is that around seven to eight thousand persons were
executed, mostly by firing squads. The forensic reports that were part of the
official evidence material presented during the processes in the Hague didn’t
support this claims. Dr Lubisa Simic explains this in more detail here .
And analisys in the book “Deconstruction of a virtual Genocide” here: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3
)
English version – here ,
– about the DNA method used in investigation, and shortcomings and
manipulation of thereof – here .
– Many more info in this site here , also with publications in English.
– Srebrenica Massacre – Evidence, Context, Politics – here .
– in the number of victims that was presented in Resolution, they included those
killed during the breakthrough of the armed column. Acording to various sources,
the number of those killed during fire exchange in breaktrough is between 2000
and 4000. In the war that is still curently playing out in Ukraine, we’ve seen the
consequences of such manouvers. However, Ukrainian MoD still didn’t confirm
the official number of killed in Debalcevo (in fact the number of killed during the
whole war is still a taboo), but it could be thousands from just that one
encirclement. But whatever the case is – those were not casualties of the war
crime, but a regular military operation. There were even witnesses on the Bosniak
side that gave testimonies about clash between different groups of Army of BiH.
As breakthrough and movements outside were done mostly during the nightime,
they came under friendly fire on few occasions. It is claimed that 500 – 1000 lost
their lives by Bosniak forces themselves. We’ve also seen that in the mentioned
Ukr conflict. But in the case of Srebrenica, they were burried together at the
cementary/memorial for genocide. Testimonies of Admir Jusufovic, Adil
Mehmedovic, AdmirHasan, Vejz Hasanovic, Ragib Beganovic, Sabaduhin Gutic
among others confirmed the deaths during a breakthrough.
– also, forming an independent international comission to do an investigation
was not allowed. Serbian side asked for this to be done, as well as Russians on few
occasions.
Here, I would like add to the subject of hypocrisy and one sided view of things. (as
I mentioned in the passage with **** above). Since all this started about ten days
ago I kept seeing stuff like this:
– an official notice about Srebrenica from “Foreign & Comonwelth Office”. There,
below the notice you can see:

Now, following the link for a petition to free a ‘hero’, you will see a lot of praise for
an innocent hero, persecuted by fascist Serbian government. I am not aware of
how many of petitions and initiatives were made, but that is unimportant here –
he was freed very shortly, so the petitions reached just a thousand and something.
He would probably be freed regardless, as those same Swiss authorities by the
order of NATO persecute those that publish info on Srebrenica that mentiones the
work of Oric and men under his command.
This, as expected, is in full accordance with the Resolution and the MSM reports
on the Srebrenica. And yet, those same men in the area that are constantly
proclaimed as fully innocent massacred over 3200 Serbs in the area of Srebrenica,
Zvornik, Bratunac, Vlasenica and area of Podrinje. Naser and his men chose their
dates carefully while attacking villages and towns in the area, they made the worst
masssacres on Christian holidays: Orthodox Christmas and New Year, Saint
George’s Day, St. Vitus Day, Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. ( 1 )
Here is link to some of the evidence material from those scenes.
**** WARNING – Extemely graphic images **** younger than 16 and those with
sensitive health condition to skip this ! Some of the videos from the scenes
GRAPHIC ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 )
Why did I post this? As to give you an example of the heroics that those hypocrites
write about. And to remind that none of these massacres are mentioned anywhere
in the Resolution or in the media reports. As if it never happened. Also, the
owerwhelming majority of these were civilians found on their properties, during
the sacking of some 50 vilages and small towns. Attackers didn’t ‘discriminate’
between the young and old, man and woman.
For the killings of 3.267 Serbs in the area of Podrinje, where most of the victims
were women, old, and children, no one answered for nor there is currently any
proces in the court up to this day.
* again, I point out, these victims don’t give any justification for the innocent
Bosniak victims that were killed. So, I would ask in advance not to throw wild
accusations like: “So, now you are telling that they were right to kill the civilians
form the other side?” Of course not. And these kind of ‘manouvers’ in the
discussion are called ‘straw man fallacy’ (giving counteragruments to things that
were never said).
Those that made a Resolution know very well about these crimes, as most of them
were present at the time when this happened, and some even worked as
journalists, as you will see later.
It is also important to notice an enourmous pressure on people who published
works on Srebrenica that were not in accordance with the official version of the
events. Some of the cases below:
– an example of Alexander Dorin . He was kidnapped around June 20th this year
from his apartmant in Switzerland. He published several books that challenge the
official narrative on Srebrenica. His works gained international recognition, but
that also lead to the threats on his life on a regular basis. His apartment was
literary torn appart, with floor and wooden door frames also demolished. All
materials were confiscated. Swiss authorities refused to comment on this. Only a
couple days ago they finally said that he was arrested, on asumption of marihuana
trade (!). However, his friends are still unsure of the whole situation, or even if he
is alive, as they didn’t get a chance to get in direct contact with him or talk.
– Zoran Jovanovic, a co-author of Dorin’s last book published in 2012.
“Srebrenica – how it hapened” claimed that he aquired video eveidence of some of
the massacres that challenge the oficial narrative, died immediatley afterward on
July 12th 2013. In one phoce call he said he’s going to meet with a contact he
found that was willing to sell him video material from Srebrenica. Shortly
afterward he phoned and said he made acquisition with possibility to get more
and that he’s on his way back to Vlasenica. In less than 10 hours he was dead. It is
said that the cause of death was heart attack, but no autopsy was done. No
evidence or video material was found on him. An ironic thing is that he once said,
‘this thing about Srebrenica will cost me my head.’
– Ibran Mustafic one of the Bosniaks that survived the war in Srebrenica was also
subject to threats and severe beating that led to him being hospitalised. He wrote
the book on those events called: “The planned chaos”
– cases where Stephen Karganovic, col. Ratko Skrbic and others had their press
conferences banned in various countries on insisting by warious NGOs that were
behind most of publicizing of the genocide of Srebrenica.
The Peace makers – or – Hipocrisy as a way of life and double
standards as a rule
The picture is incomplete until we look at who is the pusher behind this project.
So, let’s have a look at the people involved in this.
– Although, the British diplomats presented this to UNSC, it was the USA’s
Samantha Power who was the loudest one at the meeting. She already showed
herself as a world class hypocrite during the Ukrainian crisis and fits perfectly
with the rest of the US Dream team – Jen Psaky, Marie Harf, Condolisa Rice and
others.
Just recently, RI had a piece featuring her performance in the US senate, and on
Consortium News . And she’s the autor of this book , which “grew out of a paper
she wrote while attending law school” (according to wiki page that quotes : J.
Anthony Lukas Prize Project winners”. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at
Harvard)
She is one of the key figures to defend the official narrative of the Empire in
regards to the interventionism and ‘humaniarian missions’. But there is more;
this Resolution is almost like a crown to her lifetime project. She started her
career in the Bosnian war as a journalist. Also read this: http://www.nytimes.com
/2003/02/05/books/mission-shine-spotlight-genocide-samantha-power-s-mind-
leaps-bosnia-iraq.html
”Our view of American power was born” in Bosnia, said Ms. Power –
need I say more?
I still wait for her book “Fake humanitarian missions as an excuse for American
Interventionism and Global Domination”.
She also served as an advisor to President Obama during his campaign for
presedency. Obama, who during his terms bombed 7 Muslim countries. She was
also one of the loudest to push for intervention in Lybia, great job they did there.
After Resolution was vetoed she said: “In USA, we know that when someone
denies the Holocaust that he is crazy, it is the same with this”. Although she failed
to explain how is this same as holocaust?
Her husband is one of the hunters on ‘conspiracy theorists’, as they undermine
the United States’ fight against global terorrism. From his book:
“We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban
conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial
or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might
itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy
theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in
counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with
such parties, encouraging them to help.” However, the authors advocate that each
“instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and
each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy
idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that
produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).”
– David Cameron – not much to say here, he is known far and wide as a promoter
of world peace, right?
– Prince Zeid al-Hussein – Jordanian representative in the UN and also UN high
commissioner for human rights, also expressed dissapointment over failure to
pass a resolution.
He was also in Bosnia around ’95 as a political officer in UNPROFOR (a UN
peacekeeping force in Bosnia). He once said that he saw a Bosnian Serb driving a
car decorated with the heads of the children and pulled right next to him. His
words were the only evidence of this. However, he failed to see some other things
during his time in UMPROFOR, like these: https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=n5hk7zV3Yok
– Peter Wilson, an ambassador in the UN representing UK – said after the
Russian veto: “Russia will have to justify its decision to the families of over 8,000
people murdered in the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War.”
Well, perhaps you should justify why there is not resolution for more than million
dead Armenians, or resolutions on illegal agressions by NATO all over the world,
in all of which Britain took part. He added that Russia “sided with those who are
trying to prevent reconciliation”.
Now something about the people who pushed this in the media and who will be
one of the main delegates in the 20th commemoration.
– Bill Clinton – self explanatory
– Madelene Albright – Another peace maker with a heart of gold. Spoken here
like a true angel. I wonder if she will go to comemorate those Iraqi children too?
A few years back, she had a reality check during one of her book signing events in
Czech Republic. A group Czechs came to the event to bring her pictures of dead
Serbian children that were killed during the ’99 bombing by NATO. Asked her
“What’s wrong, don’t you want to sign this too?” and calling her a “blood soaked
war criminal”. Madelene was one of the biggest backers of the bombing campaign,
which led to the name “Madelene’s War”. Thinking that those were the evil Serbs
coming to haunt her, she yelled: “GET OUT! Disgusting Serbs!”
She together with Bill, presented US delegation. It is said that the murderers
always come back to the crime scene.
– Angelina Jolie – another ‘poster child’ for American Interventionism.
– Hasim Thaci – also known as “Snake” from his days in the KLA terrorist
organisation. On the left in this picture.

Served as a Prime Minister of Kosovo two terms and now and a Foreign Affairs
Minister. It is very ironic that this man is coming to attend a comemoration of the
victims of warcrimes, while at the same time using his influence and lobbying to
prevent a formation of tribunal for the war crimes commited by KLA.
– Ahmet Davutoglu – represented Turkey and also insisted on calling it genocide.
The same Davutoglu that just some two months ago slammed European Union
and Pope and Russia for using a word genocide to describe massacre of over
million Armenians. Belongs with the rest of the hypocrites.
The real WHY
And although the real goals of this move by British and other western political
elites is now much more clear, let’s get into more detail on how they plan to use it.
– Genocide as an impregnable wall between the two peoples
Whenever someone starts the dialog between the Bosniak and Serbian people,
they will choke on the word genocide. The British insisted on making such a
Resolution that will be unacceptable to the Serbian people (as I listed those
reasons above). This will now serve as a fuel to those that profit on creating inter
ethnic tensions. Those that win elections on nationalistic demagogy. They will
now insist that no peace can be with ‘genocide deniers’. For dialog, love and
reconciliation it always takes two, for hate one is enough. And as hate breeds hate,
you only need to start with one argument based on it. The snowball efect will
assure, if you nurture it. This will inevitably bring into discussion all the past
crimes and conflicts, from WW2, WW1, and all the way back to Middle Ages and
Turks and back.
Now everyhting can be focused on that ‘line of separation’ created as a sum of all
past conflicts. This served to bolden that line to never fade. Now people will show
to Resolution and say ‘here, you refused to acknowledge the genocide you made
on Muslim population’, but the other side will say ‘that Resolution doesn’t
mention the slaugher of Christian population, while the creators of it will gloat
over those that fight between themselves.
I heard one of the mothers of those that died say “Mothers on both sides
reconciled a long time ago.”
– Radicalisation of muslims
Similar as with previous paragraph, Srebrenica and the war in Bosnia general, can
serve to radicalize Muslims. Not just in the Balkans, but worldwide. When
presented as the sole victims of the war, it will leave long lasting greviances. There
are generations already that grew up on this, and they are now 100% convinced
that no one on their side did anything bad. And they have a lot of proof to back it
up. Like the stories that western media ran about it and still does so, and now this
Resolution as de facto ‘proof’ that the sole culprit now even refuses to admit the
deeds. I’ve heard people saying, I’m proud that we Muslims never killed a civilian
during the war. Young people that weren’t even around during the war say these
things. Victims of war are used as a fuel for radicalization. And those who do that,
do it purposely, as they are eager for next conflict, for the profits and benefits that
it will bring to them.
– As a tool for ending the Republic of Srpska
After declaring that genocide was made during the war, they will insist that the
Republika Srpska was made on genocide. This kind of rethoric was heard before
and will now just gain more traction. Bosnia and Hertzegovina as it is now, can
not become a part of NATO and EU without consent of the Serbs in it. Croatian
and Bosniak entities are for cooperation and integration into Alliance and EU,
and the Serbian entity in BiH can ‘veto’ it with the authority given to it by Dayton
Agreement. This is why the western politicians, especially British, US and German
are working to reppel it. To null the previous deal on the claims that Serbs are
leading a retrograde politics that doesn’t allow the region and BiH as a country to
prosper. They also use this excuse for everything bad that happened in the
country that they themselves wrecked.
– NATO’s alibi
This Resolution is the NATO’s alibi for all it has done in the area of former
Yugoslavia. NATO conducted illegal bombing campaigns against Serbs and as a
pretext they used the prevention of genocide and ethnic cleansing. They
circumvented this same UN Security Council they now use to justify their actions.
Several years later, when bombing of Serbia started on March 24th ’99 a phrase
was repeated that they won’t allow ‘another Srebrenica’ to occur. This is how we
got the first ‘humanitarian bombing campaign’ in history. That humanitarian
campaign that left the country contaminated with over 15 tons of depleted
uranium. This led to rapid increase in cancer cases, with the number of new cases
every year increasing by 2,5%. It is approximated that 7000 – 9000 people die
every year from the consequences of bombing. Monetary damage from
destruction of infrastructure and industry is between 100 and 200 billion dollars.
However, damage from human casulties can’t be measured, as contamination will
keep killing people virtually forever. A question of repaying for the damage done
still looms in the air when NATO is mentioned. However, if those that were
bombed are genocidal nation, then you need not worry about it.
About a week after the Srebrenica massacre the Operation ‘Storm’ was carried
out, in which some 250 000 Serbs were forced out of their homes, with around
2000 killed, many victims being women and children. However the reports of this
were very obsure and biased and usually they mentioned them together with the
news about the massacres in Srebrenica.
This can also serve as any future alibi for involvement in Serbia. With the current
geopolitical situation in the world and Serbia’s stance on NATO unchanged they
just wait for an excuse to ‘bring peace and order’ again.
– To ‘spill out’ the effects of division between religions that exists here
Knowing that Serbia will ask for help from Russia on the matter, and that Russia
was the only country that can block such a Resolution, it can be exploited on a
bigger scale.
The media already started work on this. A week before the talks of Resolution in a
‘mysterious’ way, pictures of president Putin appeared all over the Srebrenica .
Now when seeing how western media portrays Russian veto, it becomes more
clear. Headlines and statements like : Russia sides with genocide deniers, etc .
I have no doubt that they will continue to exploit this and present it as ‘Orthodox
Christians supporting genocide of Muslims’. And serving stories like ‘look how
Russia treats you and your victims’ etc.
– Appeasement of Muslims world wide
“Look how we care and fight for you and your rights” (while at the same time
bomb several Muslim countries). Now when confronted with criticizm of their
policy in the Middle East and towards Israel, they can just pull this out and say,
‘we were the only ones to fight for condemnation of genocide of Muslims, but
Russia, China and others didn’t care’. The Empire needs every possible piece of
evidence that they in fact support and care for Muslim population as their drones
fly high above.
– western propagandists like to use a concept of ‘black and white’ when
explaining to the sheeple the situation in the conflict zones they are involved (or
plan to get involved). Then, of course, they will enter on the side of the ‘good guys’
against the ‘bad guys’ with the US as the ‘ultimate good guy’ being the patron and
representative of those good guys. Just a while ago we’ve seen how they were
trying to force that concept into the Syrian conflict too. And although they tried to
represent the ‘moderate rebels’ as the purely good and oppressed peole that fight
for their freedom against a killer dictator, they had a major trouble at it as now
the cameras and mobile phones are present in every battlefield. And so we had an
interesting attempt to try and ‘soften’ the image of a ‘moderate rebel’ cutting out
the heart of dead enemy and eating it in front of the camera.
The Resolution is another attempt at stamping ‘bad guy’ on the forehead of every
Serbian. That way, when they are killing Serbians, they aren’t killing people, but
genocidal beasts. It also helps their concience (at least of those that watch the
news, as their politicians have no concience)
Serbia, as seen by many westerners as ‘little Russia’ must at all cost remain a bad
guy. You can notice the same treatment in the media now that Russia gets and the
treatment that Serbia got during the Balkan conflicts. But thanks to the widely
available Interned today, now they are having much worse results.
– Serves as a moral high ground
This is the foundation, the base of the projected image of the Empire. They love to
act from the ‘position of moral high ground’. This toghether with phrases,
‘bringing democracy’, ‘peace, stability’ and others, forms the imperial
exceptionalism. They can always brag to the world that they figh for justice, peace
etc. Kills 500.000 children – it was to prevent a dictator from killing those
children and more. Drops nuclear bombs on cities with notable civilian
population – it was to end the war, and so on. Now they have another ‘certificate
of kindness’ in the form of this Resolution.
– To take your attention away from all the real genocides they have commited
Now, it is not an accident that those were the British presenting such document.
Just thinking for a few seconds about the history of their conflicts these came to
mind: from North America, over Ireland and all the way to Middle East and India,
Vietnam and Australia, and then to Africa. All those were places where those same
hypocrites from western Europe massacred people in thousands and millions. The
genocide is their child, born in the cultured Albion and matured all over the world
where Albion went.
– in US military doctrine now stands that they can react to breaking of human
rights and intervene wherever they decide it is necessary. We will certainly see
more of these ‘humanitarian interventions’ in the future. This ‘Knight in shining
armour’ doctrine is fully endorsed by the likes of Samantha Power. And if you
point out the double standards in their approach as well as the hidden agenda
behing it, her husband will probably call you a conspiracy theorist.
When the Russian delegation blocked this Resolution, after the meeting the
French ambassador said that veto right should be taken away from Russia, at least
when war crimes are involved. This of course would be perfect – the Inquisition
will then declare ‘undesirable’ anyone they want and proceed to enforce the
sentence. Unfortunately, they tricked Russia once like this and used the decision
for a no-fly zone to bomb and desroy one of the most prosperous countries in all
of Africa. Now it would be best to get rid of both Russia and China from Security
Council, and then the work on ‘improving the world’ can finally start.
The Reconciliation
If we leave it to those people that I mentioned above and the main stream media
to reconcile us, then God help us all. They had a good reason for keeping this area
in the state of frozen conflict, and now they want to cash in on their frozen goods.
The victims of war crimes on both sides must not be used to breed hatred and
future conflict, but to guide us to future peace and understanding. There is a lot of
flammable rethoric going back and forth now when the old wounds have been
oppened. Some would like us to remember only the bad things and conflicts from
the history of the two peoples, to make everybody believe that that is the only way
it can ever be. I’ve come to notice that the richer those politicians get, the sharper
their rethoric becomes. The same goes with western paid propagandists and
NGOs that work under the banner of peace. People like Samantha Power and
Peter Wilson hold the words ‘reconciliation’ and ‘peace’ in front of themselves like
a shield while they charge forward. But we must not allow them to do all the
discussion – the dialog must be between the people, and not between some Soros
paid representatives in the NGOs or foreign embassies or anyone else that comes
from outside to teach peoples of Balkan how to get along. They are first and
foremost acting in the interests of their own countries and will push the agenda
that fits those that fund them.
Various incidents and provocations will be created and exploited by the
politicians on both sides, they will spew flammable rethoric and be the first ones
to leave the country when the war starts. Common people will be left afterwards
to live with all the concequences of conflict and the western ‘moral giants’ will
once again gloat over the sight and come to act as the mediators and call for
civilised dialog and reconciliation (until they need more cannon fodder for the
next opportunity).
So, look to your first neighbours, with whom you share the land you live on. Those
are the people with whom you should have the dialog about reconciliation.

The Essential Saker III: Chronicling The Tragedy, Farce And Collapse of the
Empire in the Era of Mr MAGA

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian
challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire