by Felix Quigley
July 25, 2008
(in association with some very valuable Jewish and Serb friends)
I have my own special angle on what has become known as THE Srebrenica Massacre. The more threadbare is the position of your political enemy, then the more outlandish needs to be the Big Lie in response to that weak and threadbare position.
And believe me the people who have promoted the claim that the Serb Army carried out a massacre of Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the year of 1995 have really got a very weak case. No, please correct that, they have got no case whatsoever.
You have heard of lies! This case is about lies. You have heard of the Big Lie! This case is the perfect example of same. When people in the future history of mankind think of the name Srebrenica they will not think that a massacre happened there by Serbs on Muslim civilians, but that a Big Lie was enacted there.
It is with great, great pleasure that I reproduce this article which first appeared on the famous JTF Jewish website:
[begin to read this great and succinct study of the Big Lie of the Srebrenica Massacre here]
The Massive Hitler style “Big Lie” spread by the US and NATO Imperialist Globalists -and their paid media prostitutes – about what happened in Srebrenica from 1992 to 1995.
Shalom & Greetings to all the wonderful people at JTF.
There have been some comments here by certain well meaning people on JTF trying to defend the Bosnian Serbs by saying that the Serbs only “massacred” such and such number of Bosnian Muslims.This is a very dangerous – and ultimately self-defeating – way of attempting to defend true history -and with it, the heroic Serbs.
For example, one very well meaning and intelligent person here by the name of George wrote the following:
“…even UN Investigation cannot prove that no more than 2,200 muslims were massacred.”
This is not correct. Those 2,200 bodies are not even identified by DNA analysis as conclusively proven to be Bosnian Muslims.
Not only that but there was NO DNA investigation performed to prove conclusively that those bodies were not the bodies of the 2,000+ Serbs slaughtered by Naser Oric’s thugs during 1992 and 1993:
the total number of Serbs in Srebrenica TORTURED and SLAUGHTERED by Bosnian Muslim Nazis Alija Izetbegovic and Naser Oric from March 1992 to July 1995 total 3,870 people – most of them elderly women, men and very young children – some as young as 4 years of age and under!
There was never a shred of forensic evidence ever presented to prove that even ONE Muslim was executed by the VRS (Republic of Srpska – Bosnian Serb army).
Yes, you read that correctly: NATO’s ICTY kangaroo court in the Hague failed to produce even a shred of evidence to support the charge that even ONE Bosnian Muslim was executed!!
Not one eye-witness was EVER presented during July 1995 who said that they saw with their own eyes a SINGLE atrocity by VRS forces take place.
This was even reported in the British press at the time!! (July, 1995)
Hubert Wieland, personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the [UK] Daily Telegraph (July 24, 1995, electronic edition):
“we have not found anyone who saw with their own eyes an atrocity taking place.”
Do a Google search on “Hubert Wieland” “Srebrenica”
Also Google this: “Schouten” “Bratunac”
and this: “Carlos Martins Branco” “Srebrenica” “Hoax”
In reality there is no such thing as a “UN” investigation regarding the events in Srebrenica in July, 1995.
The Hague ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia] is NOT – I repeat NOT- a legal United Nations body at all but a Kangaroo Court set up by NATO: the dominant permanent NATO members being the US, UK, France sitting on the Security Council.
Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council is NOT legally allowed to set up any kind of ad hoc “tribunal” – only the members of the UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY can do so.
The US and NATO knew that the overwhelming majority of UN General Assembly would never agree to such a phony kangaroo “court” so they – the US, France and UK – ILLEGALLY pushed it through the Security Council.
Who was behind the push to have the ICTY created? Why it was none other than that satanic witch named Madeleine Albright (aptly referred to by her critics as Meddlin Halfbright) who had her sorry butt – and that of her parents – saved by the Serbs in Serbia during the Holocaust.
To see – as in PHOTOGRAPHS – of what the Bosnian Muslim Nazis – led by Izetbegovic and Oric – did to 3,870 Serbs in Srebrenica and Gorazde from 1992 to 1995 , visit this link:
If 7 to 8 thousand “men and boys” were executed at close range by AK-47 military assault rifles and dumped in mass graves, there would have been by now – after over 13 years of time elapsed – 7 to 8 thousand Bosnian Muslim male corpses all with bullets in their backs or heads which would have been dug up and forensically examined.
This of course has never happened as 7 to 8 thousand bodies showing signs of execution were NEVER FOUND.
The place was crawling with UN troops, media people from many different countries, NATO+EU+ CIA/MI6 operatives, was being filmed & photographed by unmanned aerial reconnaisance vehicles, photographed by CIA spy satellites,etc.
Hiding and disposing of 8,000 bodies under all this surveillance without being detected would be about as likely as launching an elephant to the moon with a sling shot.
Even the Dutch troops headed by Captain Schouten who came on the scene shortly afterwards in the adjoining village of Bratunac said they never saw any evidence of a large scale massacre.
Here is a statement made by Dutch UN Captain Schouten:
“Everybody is parroting everybody, but nobody shows hard evidence. I notice that in the Netherlands people want to prove at all costs that genocide has been committed. (…) If executions have taken place, the Serbs have been hiding it damn well. Thus, I don’t believe any of it. The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac and stayed there for eight days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped.”
Captain Schouten was the only UN military officer in Bratunac – a town adjoining Srebrenica – at the time a massacre is alleged.
A commander of the Izetbegovic Muslim-dominated Army of BiH (Bosnia-Herzegovina) later confirmed to parliament in Sarajevo that 5,000 BiH troops ESCAPED LARGELY INTACT to Tuzla while the UN itself registered some 35,632 civilian survivors.
The population of Srebrenica was – according to the media + NATO/EU governments – was 40,632 people.
Add the figure of 35,632 registered AFTER the capture of the town to a minimum of 5,000 Izetbegovic Bosnian Islamist troops who had managed to escape – according to what the Izetbegovic government army spokespeople themselves admitted to the Sarajevo parliament – and you end up with 40,632 people: the very same population of Srebrenica before its capture by the Bosnian Serb VRS.
But if we believe what the ICTY + NATO/EU governments + media are trying to make us believe: 35,632 Bosnian Muslim “survivors” + 5,000 admitted by Izetbegovic’s people to have escaped = 40,632 to which we have to add 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males supposedly massacred = 48,632 people, which is 8,000 MORE people than even existed as the population of Srebrenica (40,632) according to the UN’s own figures, prior to its capture.
Please note that it was NOT the Serbs who claimed that 5,000 Muslim men escaped to Tuzla. It was Izetbegovic’s BiH government army spokesmen & the International Committe of the Red Cross [ICRC] & the Western media who made that claim.
ICRC (International Committe of the Red Cross)& media press reports back in August-September 1995, categorically stated that roughly 3,000 of Izetbegovic’s troops made it safely to Tuzla (a Muslim controlled town) and were re-incorporated into the Bosnian (Muslim) Army and I quote the ICRC here:
“without their families being informed”.
Izetbegovic’s own Bosnian government army spokespeople said at the time that a further 5,000 Srebrenica men made it safely through to Bosnian Muslim lines!! (now you can understand how they came up with the figure of 8,000 supposedly executed:
5,000 who “went missing” but instead made it safely to Muslim lines + 3,000 who also “went missing” according to the ICRC but who were later re-incorporated into the Bosnian Muslim army of Izetbegovic “without their families being informed” as the ICRC itself later stated to the media)
Within a week of the takeover of Srebrenica (July 18, 1995) one learns from the New York Times report that:
“Some 3,000 to 4,000 Bosnian Muslims who were considered by UN officials to be missing after the fall of Srebrenica HAVE MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH ENEMY LINES TO BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT TERRITORY. The group, which included wounded refugees, sneaked past Serb lines under fire and crossed some 30 miles through forests to safety.”
(Chris Hedges; Conflict in the Balkans: In Bosnia; Muslim Refugees Slip Across Serb Lines; New York Times; July 18, 1995, p. 7.)
May the G-d’s honest TRUTH set us all free.
Shalom,Shalom from your dear friends:
Joshua,Peter,Nathan and Felix from https://4international.wordpress.com
4international 
Then there is this astonishing and explosive material from the Dutch “Netherlands Institute for War Documentation” Report [from 2002]
This blows the lid off of how Clinton, Albright, the Western media and NATO created the Srebrenica Big Lie:
http://193.173.80.81/srebrenica/toc/p4_c05_s017_b01.html
The section below startlingly reveals how the word “genocide” came to be misappropriated by Izetbegovic’s Islamofascist Nazi regime in July 1995:
http://193.173.80.81/srebrenica/toc/p4_c05_s019_b01.html
Part IV
The repercussion and the aftermath until the end of 1995
Chapter 5
The debriefings in Zagreb
17. Investigations among Displaced Persons
These methodological problems, as well as the hindrances created by the Bosnian authorities, also confronted the interviewers who approached the Displaced Persons for information on behalf of various organizations. Important roles were assigned to UNHCR and the International Red Cross, but they were joined from Zagreb by a combined team of the Human Rights Office of Civil Affairs and the UN Centre for Human Rights. Furthermore various other bodies were active, such as the ‘Bosnian State Commission for the collection of information on war crimes’, as well as the Tribunal, Amnesty International and a number of smaller NGOs. Some of these were eager to publicize their findings as soon as possible. As early as 31 July, for instance, the US Committee on Refugees published an extensive report on the ‘death march’ from Srebrenica based on interviews conducted by its staff member Bill Frelick in Tuzla and the surroundings.[1]
Due to the nature of their work most of the organizations were cautious about publicizing politically sensitive information. UNHCR was less reserved in this respect and several times its spokespersons released details from the ‘unconfirmed reports’ by Displaced Persons. This included the suspicion that the VRS had used Dutchbat uniforms to mislead refugees.[2] Serious research, however, was commenced only on 21 July after Protection Officer Manca de Nissa had arrived in Tuzla. He submitted his report a week later, based on 70 interviews with both normal Displaced Persons and survivors of the march. Manca de Nissa did not however draw any conclusions about possible large-scale murders.[3]
It was much more difficult for an organization such as the International Red Cross to publicize findings. The strictly observed neutrality ruled out any statements that could be given a political slant. Another factor in this case was that the delegates were too familiar with the Bosnian propaganda and thus usually regarded the rumours issuing from Tuzla with great suspicion. In a communiqué on 14 July, three days after the fall of the enclave, nothing was said about missing persons or possible summary executions. Nevertheless, staff of the International Red Cross had already gathered much information by this time. Although the International Red Cross had no official access to the men who arrived in Tuzla from 16 July onwards, staff had in fact spoken to several of them. A communiqué of 19 July however mentioned only that the International Red Cross demanded of the Bosnian Serbs that it be given access to prisoners. Still no mention was made of deaths. But according to Christoph Girod of the International Red Cross the pressure was increasing.[4] Consequently, at a press conference on 31 July, Girod referred to the fact that there were 5000 to 6000 missing persons with the statement: ‘We have no indications of this whatsoever’. It was only on 14 August that the International Red Cross first dared to publicly mention the possibility of executions.[5]
The UN headquarters in Zagreb had also issued instructions that Displaced Persons be questioned about possible human rights violations (actually: violations of international humanitarian law). As early as 17 July a mixed team from Civil Affairs/Human Rights Office (HRO) and UNCHR had left for Tuzla Air Base on a fact-finding mission, i.e. to interview the Displaced Persons from Srebrenica. Ken Biser of Civil Affairs in Tuzla had already begun this task after an attempt to travel to Srebrenica, together with HRO staff member Peggy Hicks, had met with the resistance of the Serbs. From 18 July onwards Biser received the support of the team from Zagreb.[6]
A confrontation soon took place with a Field Delegate of the International Red Cross: ‘He bluntly told us that the ICRC was not happy with our work because it potentially interfered with its own work’. According to the delegates it was possible that people would not report certain information to the International Red Cross if they had already spoken to other researchers; they might think it was no longer necessary. The humanitarian debriefers of the two UN organizations ensured that they avoided the potential confusion between the two organizations by telling their respondents that they should afterwards also talk to the International Red Cross.[7]
There were other problems too. The investigation was considerably hindered by the journalists present. Anyone could walk in and out of the relief camps. According to the Swiss investigator R. Salvisberg, UNCHR Bosnia coordinator based in Sarajevo, the journalists encouraged the Displaced Persons to say what they wanted to hear. In his eyes the media were engaged in ‘a sensational hunt’ for the worst crime, and this would then be published in the papers. As a result Salvisberg and his colleagues were constantly working in the wake of newspaper headlines and television sound-bites (however strange it sounds, televisions were soon present in the camp too).[8] The investigators noticed in the process that the journalists were strongly focussed on Dutchbat. This possible distortion made it difficult to discern what the Displaced Persons had experienced themselves and what they were repeating from other sources.[9]
Salvisberg’s team initially took a random approach, with evaluations taking place each day, after which the work became more systematic. The investigators chose a gentle, passive approach. They asked who wanted to talk to them, and then interviewed these people. According to Salvisberg they were not after ‘sexy stories like the ones in the press’.[10] A total of five women came forward who said they had been raped. In general the stories of those who had been transported away in buses were relatively ‘uneventful’. They had experienced few incidents. A picture gradually emerged, but the main question was whether the reported executions were isolated incidents or indications of a widespread phenomenon. It was also very difficult to gain a picture of the number who had been executed, but things certainly gave cause for concern, according to the investigator Peggy Hicks of the Human Rights Office of Civil Affairs in Zagreb.[11]
After about a week the investigators of the two UN organizations noticed that their respondents had been told what to say; they suspected that these instructions came from the Bosnian authorities. The gist of these prompted stories was that the Serbs and the UN (not specifically the Dutch) had been the bad guys, who had ‘sold out’ the people of the enclave. At this time Salvisberg had not yet heard any criticism of the actions of the people’s own Muslim soldiers. It was to be some days before the first stories emerged which also assigned blame to the Bosnian government.[12]
After a few days the team of investigators started looking for men who had entered the Safe Areas following the march. They visited a camp full of soldiers outside Tuzla. This proved a difficult affair: the authority of T. Mazowiecki, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights who arrived in Tuzla on 22 July, was required to facilitate this visit. This solved only part of the problem: the interviewers were not permitted to approach people themselves but were ‘accompanied’ by the Muslim authorities. ‘They were presented to us’, reported the investigator Hicks. This was supposedly to save the investigators’ time. ‘It made me feel very uneasy’, said Hicks later.[13]
Other investigators shared her experience. According to R. (Roman) Wieruszewski of the UNCHR office in Sarajevo, one of the consequences of this ‘accompaniment’ was that everyone with whom he and his colleagues spoke claimed that he had been unarmed. In later interviews conducted independently of the authorities the interviewees generally declared that of course they had carried weapons, otherwise they would not have survived the march.[14] Sometimes it was women who said that of course the soldiers had been armed. Salvisberg recounted: ‘They even laughed at us when we asked about this.’ He and the other researchers calculated that of the Muslim men, about one-third had been armed and about two-thirds had been unarmed. They gained the impression that there had been an element of organization in the distribution of the available weapons: ‘You get one, you don’t’, which according to them led to conflicts. Other Displaced Persons reported fights between the Muslim soldiers. There were also reports that Bosnian Muslims had executed Serbs.
The impression gained by the research team was that the soldiers had several prepared standard stories, such as a mass murder of 25 people conducted by the Bosnian Serbs, in which the respondent kept under cover or pretended to be dead. ‘We heard this story ten times or so’, said Salvisberg.[15] Although the reconstruction of the march presented problems, the biggest problem proved to be establishing what had happened to the group in Srebrenica and Potocari.[16]
In the first report send by Hicks on 21 July, she nonetheless concluded that there was sufficient basis ‘to believe that significant human rights violations occurred both before and during the transport from Srebrenica’.[17] Much remained unclear, however. In the final report finished by Hicks on 31 July, the issue of numbers remained open. She could do nothing else than to conclude that further investigations were required.[18] It was only in October 1995, following new revelations in the press, that even she realized what the probable scale of the murder had been.[19]
Typical of the problems in defining the events shortly after the fall were the statements made by two high-ranking UN officials in Tuzla. The Peruvian diplomat H. Wieland, the highest official of the UN Centre for Human Rights in the region, said on 23 July that ‘we have not found anyone who saw with their own eyes an atrocity taking place’.[20] On the same day, however, the Special Rapporteur for human rights, Tadeus Mazowiecki, also declared in Tuzla that ‘barbaric’ acts had taken place.[21] Thus for a long time it remained unclear what precisely had happened in Potocari and the surroundings, together with the fate of the thousands of men who had been missing since the fall. A major factor for those concerned was the disbelief that these thousands of men had been murdered in cold blood. It was thus the case that not only did the ‘barometer’ give no clear indications in itself: those reading it were also influenced by their own expectations and assumptions when trying to establish what had really happened. The discussion of the issue as to whether a genocide, or a mass murder, had been committed after the fall of Srebrenica, was to an important extent determined by the various points of departure.
18. Genocide?
The question as to whether the term ‘genocide’ was applicable to the events taking place after the fall of Srebrenica became one of the dominant themes in the aftermath. Above all the resistance by Lieutenant General Couzy to the use of this term to describe the events following the fall of Srebrenica was to play a major role in the negative impression of the way that Dutch military personnel had responded to the disaster. It also became an element in the speculations concerning the poor relations between Minister Voorhoeve and his Army Commander Couzy, because a difference in approach to this matter soon became evident. The following section of this chapter examines the way that this ‘genocide issue’ took shape, based on a description and analysis of the actions of the main players and their interrelationships. The role of the media is also spotlighted, as this formed an important ingredient in the complex of actions and events.
Firstly it will be described how, following Couzy’s activities between 15 and 17 July, the issue of interpretation of the events played an increasingly important role in the public discussion. It will then be recounted how Couzy responded, partly in consultation with others, and how his actions should be viewed in the light of the knowledge that he had of the events. This is why detailed attention is also devoted to the debriefing of the main Dutchbat group conducted on Couzy’s instructions in Zagreb on 22 and 23 July, as opposed to the group of the 55 hostages and the Military Hospital Organization group who had already been interviewed between 15 and 17 July. The points of departure and the methods applied for the debriefing of the main group, which influenced the sort of information thus obtained, are also closely examined. In this context the simultaneous attempts made by UN bodies to gather information specially relevant to human rights violations are also dealt with. The interaction between the two debriefings and the resulting problems then form a subsequent important theme. In addition to revealing how strongly the Dutch authorities influenced the events in Zagreb, this also enables a comparison of the results to conduct a better analysis of the way in which Couzy arrived at his statements on human rights violations in the concluding press conference on the afternoon of Sunday 23 July. The final question to be examined is to what extent these statements, later subjected to strong criticism, were justified and understandable under the circumstances.
19. Pronk’s use of the term ‘genocide’
The origin of the ‘genocide issue’ lay with the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, J. Pronk. On Friday 14 July he and an aide travelled to Tuzla on behalf of the Ministerial Council. Pronk was given permission to organize an airlift between Tuzla and the Netherlands for the Displaced Persons. On 15 July he arrived via Split in Tuzla in the company of a reconnaissance group under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel L.M.T. Kuijpers. The delegation was to establish what assistance the Netherlands could provide for the Displaced Persons from Srebrenica. Pronk also hoped, however, to find out more about the fate of the several thousand missing men – an issue that was raising a growing number of questions. He conducted a large number of conversations with representatives of the UN, NGOs, Bosnian authorities and Displaced Persons at Tuzla Air Base, where the Displaced Persons were accommodated. In the evening he appeared in a direct broadcast on Dutch television news at 8pm. Pronk stated that he had consulted with Prime Minister Kok and Defence Minister Voorhoeve on the ‘chief problem’ in Tuzla. According to him this problem was not the Displaced Persons, but the ‘stragglers’, the ones who had not arrived in Tuzla. He advocated that international pressure on Mladic be stepped up. When the news presenter Hennie Stoel asked whether pressure and threats would help to motivate the Serbs ‘to do something for the stragglers’, Pronk responded in irritation: ‘Do something for the stragglers? Stop the people being murdered, that’s the issue here.’[1]
On Monday 17 July the Dutch newspapers and radio reported comparable statements made by Pronk in Sarajevo on his return journey from Tuzla. Pronk once again expressed his concern for the men in Bratunac. Het Parool reporter Kolijn van Beurden noted his words: ‘No one can get there and that makes you fear the worst’. Pronk was afraid that the Bosnian Serbs wanted to prevent the men from joining up with the Displaced Persons and then once again serving in the ABiH: ‘This points to murder as a preventative measure’. Pronk advocated that satellite photographs be used to obtain more information.[2]
These signals sent by Pronk failed to make a major impact. That only changed when he expressed them in strong terms on television. On the evening of 17 July Pronk had arrived in Split, from where he was to travel back to the Netherlands. Twan Huys was now also in Split. Pronk gave the NOVA reporter a frank interview, telling Huys about a number of atrocities in Srebrenica which he said had cost ‘thousands’ of lives. The interview was to be broadcast the following evening.
In The Hague the first alarm bells started ringing when NOVA approached the Ministry of Defence on Tuesday 18 July, one day after the interview in Split. Twan Huys’ team had also been in Zagreb on 16 July at the moment that the 55 ex-hostages and the Military Hospital Organization team were addressed by Couzy about their departure for the Netherlands. The camera was running when Couzy warned the assembled personnel about the expected media attention and urgently advised them to remain silent with respect to the press. The media quickly interpreted this as a ‘muzzle’, and it meant that the silence maintained by the 75 Dutchbat members who arrived at Soesterberg in the afternoon of 17 July was news in itself.[3] The discrepancy between this ‘muzzle’ for the Dutchbat members and the frankness of Minister Pronk thus also smelled newsworthy. The question was also quickly raised as to why, if Pronk’s account was true, the Dutch had done nothing to prevent the drama. The first critical commentaries appeared in the press, some of which did not shrink from comparisons with the Second World War. On the opinion page of De Volkskrant on 17 July, for instance, the old journalistic hand Herman Wigbold asked what the principal difference was between the engine drivers who drove the trains to Westerbork (the deportation transit camp set up by the Germans in the Netherlands during the Second World War) and ‘UN peacekeepers who ride on the Bosnian Serb trucks’. The example of the mayor in wartime was cited again too.[4] Voorhoeve, who had already been affected by the critical words of the historian Jan-Willem Honig about the actions of Dutchbat, hit back the following day with his own contribution to the opinion page in which he rejected all criticism of Dutchbat.[5]
It was thus no surprise that on 18 July NOVA contacted the Ministry of Defence to request that someone, preferably Voorhoeve or Couzy, should respond to Pronk’s statements in the programme. The Deputy Director of Information of the Ministry of Defence, H.P.M.(Bert) Kreemers, who had already been approached by Nova without success, immediately warned his minister of the impending danger. He advised him to consult as soon as possible with Pronk, who was due to arrive at Valkenburg Navy Air Base in the afternoon and to hold a press conference there: ‘Contact with the both of you seems advisable to me, because in the public eye we’re heading for a ‘clash’. [6]
This estimate proved to be correct. The interview recorded with Pronk in Split was broadcast on the evening of 18 July. Huys had initially not recognized the newsworthiness of Pronk’s statements about ‘large-scale murders’, as ‘everyone’ already knew this. But when he reported the interview to his editor-in-chief Ad van Liempt, the latter instructed that the recording be sent to Hilversum as soon as possible because it would initiate ‘an enormous political debate’. He said he knew that the government had agreed not to make any statements about the situation on the ground until the Dutchbat members were in safety.[7] The broadcast was thus announced with the words that the minister would say ‘what no politician or soldier has dared to utter’. Pronk said that no one should be fooled ‘by people who say that none of this had been confirmed. Thousands of people have been murdered. (…) Real mass murders have taken place. This is something that we knew could happen. The Serbs have done this several times. It’s genocide that is taking place.’ Pronk also referred to the presence of special Bosnian Serb troops who had frequently committed such actions before.[8] A few years later Pronk told the NIOD that this remark was prompted by reports from the Bosnian authorities about the presence of Arkan and his Tigers in the operations against the population of Srebrenica.[9]
The ‘clash’ predicted by Kreemers had now come about. In the absence of Voorhoeve and Couzy, who remained silent due to the position of Dutchbat, it was the CDA (Christian Democrats) spokesman De Hoop Scheffer who responded to Pronk’s statements in the Nova programme. Shortly after the fall of the town the CDA spokesman had already declared in Nieuwe Revu: ‘As we already knew, the Serbs can commit the most terrible acts if they want to do harm.’[10] This may be why, in the Nova broadcast, he did not focus on the content of Pronk’s statements but on their political opportunism. Although ‘understandable from the human perspective’, De Hoop Scheffer considered them ‘politically irresponsible’. He felt that Pronk had mixed private opinions and emotion with political responsibility, and called this ‘a political mistake’. De Hoop Scheffer said that he himself had ‘a whole lot of questions about what has happened there’ – here apparently referring to the missing men – ‘But we as the Dutch government now have one major priority. And that is to get Colonel Karremans and his 306 men back to the Netherlands safe and sound.’ The CDA politician said that with his statements Pronk had deviated from the reserved attitude taken by his colleagues Kok, Voorhoeve and Van Mierlo in the past week.[11] Five years later De Hoop Scheffer, by then chairman of the CDA, was to declare four times that when making his criticism at that time he was bearing in mind the interests of both ‘Displaced Persons and Dutchbat’ – in that order.[12] This is not, however, the impression gained from those days.
Although the D66 spokesman Jan Hoekema accused his CDA colleague of trying to make political capital from the statements, he too felt that Pronk was ‘jumping the gun’ and that his remarks were ‘not prudent and not opportune’. The VVD spokesman Blaauw described the statements as ‘extremely unwise’.[13]
One day after the programme, however, Pronk received support from an unexpected quarter. The AVRO radio news broadcast an interview with the Dutch Chief of Staff of the UN headquarters in Sarajevo, Brigadier General C. Nicolai: ‘Of course it’s ethnic cleansing. It’s only the scale that is completely unclear.’ Nicolai made his remarks two days before the departure of Dutchbat from Potocari, but he did not believe that he could thus endanger the return of the UN soldiers. [14] The PVDA (Labour) spokesman Gerrit Valk also played down the risks for the 307 Dutchbat members in Potocari: ‘I don’t have the impression that Mladic tunes in to Nova every day.’[15]
Jacques de Milliano, the director of Médecins Sans Frontières, who had arrived at airbase Valkenburg at the same time as Pronk, was equally forthright in using the word ‘genocide’.[16] De Milliano had gone to Bosnia because he had strong indications that Dutchbat had not supervised the transport of the Displaced Persons as well as the Dutch military leadership had claimed. Reports from the representatives of Médecins Sans Frontières in the enclave had made it clear to him that this had not been the case. Dutchbat and Karremans in particular had given the Displaced Persons ‘a false sense of protection’ by creating the impression that the Dutch would accompany them.[17] This picture was further strengthened by De Milliano’s conversations with Displaced Persons in Tuzla. This gave him grounds enough ‘to burst that balloon’.[18]
More important for Pronk from the political perspective, however, was the unreserved support from Prime Minister Kok the day after the Nova broadcast. He informed Parliament in a letter that he did not agree with the accusation that his party colleague had acted ‘irresponsibly’ and declared simply that Pronk’s actions were ‘not in conflict’ with the government policy: ‘under the present circumstances, maintaining the necessary degree of reserve when making public statements’.[19] Kok also referred to the fact that other members of the government had also expressed their concern. Indeed, on 17 July the Minister of Foreign Affairs Van Mierlo, when attending a General Council with EU colleagues in Brussels, had given a ‘chilling account’ during an intervention in the debate of the atrocities committed by the VRS. But for security reasons he did not wish to provide any details.[20] On the other hand, Van Mierlo also asked Pronk to moderate his statements until Dutchbat was free.[21]
Reserved or not, Pronk’s statement about genocide was received in the international media as the ‘first’ serious political indication of a mass murder.[22] His words led to a variety of reactions. Akashi, for instance, said he was not aware of the genocide that his ‘great friend’ Pronk had talked about. He said he would direct an inquiry to the Dutch government.[23] The really fierce reactions, however, came from the side of the Dutchbat military personnel. In the Netherlands the military trade union ACOM, in the person of its chairman P. Gooijers, was one of the first to heavily criticize Pronk’s statements in a press release and a letter to Minister Voorhoeve. In this ACOM asked him to assign ‘the highest priority now’ to the safety of the Dutchbat soldiers, for instance by ensuring that ‘colleague politicians take a restrained approach to the situation in the former Yugoslavia until the Dutch UN soldiers have safely returned to the Netherlands’.[24] Following this Voorhoeve asked his Deputy Director of Information Bert Kreemers to call Gooijers and to reassure him. This was successful, as Gooijers then expressed his support for Voorhoeve’s policy.[25]
The Dutchbat personnel in Bosnia also showed little understanding. In Potocari they had heard Pronk’s statements on satellite television. Some of the debriefing forms filled out by the group of 55 in Pleso contained gibes directed at Pronk. After the rest of the battalion had arrived in Zagreb on 22 July and the media put the issue of possible genocide to a number of Dutchbat soldiers, extremely angry reactions resulted which were aimed not only at Pronk. Minister Voorhoeve now also came under fire. On 21 July he had attended the international Bosnia Conference in London. He had an informal meeting with General Smith, who informed him confidentially that he feared the worst for the men still missing, even if hard proof was still lacking: ‘He was the first from the military sector who told me informally, “I think they’ve murdered two to three thousand men.” I don’t know how he knew it, but he also said, “I don’t have any hard facts, but things aren’t right. There are too many men missing.” That was on 21 July. He also said, “I don’t precisely know why I’m saying this, but it’s my feeling, intuition”.’[26] Strengthened by this information and the knowledge that Dutchbat had now left the Republika Srpska, Voerhoeve then issued strong accusations directed at the Bosnian Serbs: ‘Genocide means murder of a group, and that is what the Bosnian Serbs are doing’.[27] In the NOS television news of that evening he explained his words further:
‘We now no longer have any constraints on the things we can say. We know that very serious things have happened in Srebrenica. We don’t have the full picture yet, but I fear that hundreds if not thousands have died. There’s no longer any need to keep our voices down. We know that very serious things have happened and we also want them fully investigated on behalf of the Tribunal that is to investigate war crimes. I believe that serious war crimes have indeed taken place.’[28]
The reactions of some Dutchbat personnel to these statements were so fierce that a rather nonplussed Voerhoeve had to back-pedal a day later before the cameras in Pleso. But it was not only the normal troops with whom he clashed. General Couzy also rejected the far-reaching statements of his own minister and his colleague Pronk.
And then there is this:
SERB ATROCITIES IN SREBRENICA ARE UNPROVED
By Tim Butcher
The Electronic Telegraph [UK] Monday 24 July 1995
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/kosta/srebrenica/Srebrenica.95.05.html
By Tim Butcher in Tuzla
AFTER five days of interviews the United Nations chief investigator into alleged human rights abuses during the fall of Srebrenica has not found any first-hand witnesses of atrocities.
The lack of clear evidence facing Hubert Wieland, personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, proved the near-impossibility of establishing what happened when the Serbs overran the Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia.
“Of course the whole ejection of a civilian population is an enormous abuse of human rights,” Mr Wieland said yesterday. “But we have not found anyone who saw with their own eyes an atrocity taking place.”
Mr Wieland travelled to Tuzla, the Bosnian city where almost all of the Srebrenica refugees were taken, with a team of investigators to gather evidence of human rights abuses.
He said his team had spoken to scores of Muslims at the main refugee camp at Tuzla airfield and at other collective centres but no first-hand witnesses had been found.
“There are still many thousands of people unaccounted for and it is possible they themselves saw violations,” Mr Wieland, a Peruvian diplomat, said. “Lots of people told of dead civilians by the roadside but how they came to die we do not know.”
Mutilated bodies seen by the roadside
He said the interviewees, many of whom did not want to give their names, said they had seen mutilated bodies by the roadside, some with their throats cut or their limbs removed and at least one with a butcher’s hook through his throat.
The lack of first-hand witnesses does not disprove that atrocities took place in Srebrenica. But it shows how difficult it is to get to the truth. As so often in Bosnia, a Balkan mist descends.
The Serbs, by not allowing international observers into the town, made themselves vulnerable to accusations about atrocities. But without first-hand testimony it is difficult to remove all elements of scepticism.
“My job is simply to gather as much evidence as is available and pass it on to the commissioner. That is all I can hope to do,” Mr Wieland said.
Mr Tadeusz Mazowiecki, special rapporteur for the UN’s human rights commission, visited Tuzla yesterday to be given a briefing on the progress of the investigation.
* An Army inquiry was under way yesterday after a British soldier was killed in Bosnia. Pte Dale Little, 21, serving with the Royal Logistical Corps, died from gunshot wounds but had not been involved in action.
And then there is this highly revealing interview by a Bosnian Muslim newspaper with the founder of the SDA [Izetbegovic’s political party] disgusted with the staged fall of Srebrenica by Izetbegovic in July 1995:
Presidency and Army Command Sacrificed Srebrenica
Slobodna Bosna [Bosnian Muslim newspaper], Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, 7/14/96
Ibran Mustafic, representative in Bosnian and Federal Parliaments, founder of SDA in Srebrenica and the captive of the Serb Army after the fall of this town, talks about the events about which he had unsuccessfully tried to speak in the Bosnian Parliament.
Who are the people you accuse and the people you don’t trust?
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. The orders came from Sarajevo and Kakanj.
What were the consequences of the attacks staged from the demilitarized zone for the inhabitants of Srebrenica?
That was a conscious giving of a pretext to the Serb forces to attack the demilitarized zone.
Who in Srebrenica accepted to carry out those orders?
Those individuals who, in the Summer of 1995, without a scratch left Srebrenica (…). It is well known that that team managed to get out and take with along the elderly, children and horses. I can only thank God, that a number of honest people and patriots managed to get out with them. (…) According to our custom when someone finishes the foundations for a house, an animal must be slaughtered on top of them. It seems that Srebrenica was a sacrificial lamb for the foundation of this state.
Do you think that the events would have been different had Srebrenica truly be demilitarized?
Had some people then, or later, in 1994 and 1995 accepted to evacuate the people and to concede the territory, that would have represented the public division of Bosnia. It seems that they want to divide this state in a secret, perfidious way.
Who are you talking about?
About the official authorities.
Why wasn’t then, as you suggest, Srebrenica surrendered in 1993? What was the goal of such “games” with Srebrenica?
The basic goal of that game was the illusionary freedom of Sarajevo and the Bihac region. What hurts the most is the attitude towards the survivors from the Drina valley who were in Srebrenica in July 1995. Present attitude of the authorities towards those people is enough to convince me that the authorities expected that the number of the survivors would be smaller; it seems that the number of survivors is too high for their calculations. They made me say this: “It seems you are afraid of living Srebrenica inhabitants.”
What makes you say that?
In the Bosnian Parliament, I initiated the formation of a special committee whose task would be to search for the survivors from the enclave (I claim that there are survivors!). There are certainly quite a few survivors from Srebrenica. I am convinced that at least someone out of those men who were separated in Potocari, among whom I was, must have survived, if I have survived. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have released me as a witness. Secondly, when the column which was trying to get out of Srebrenica was cut in half, the privileged team, which I mentioned earlier and which had a permission to get out of the enclave, simply continued and kept throwing fliers behind them; the majority of the people was so confused that they simply surrendered in huge numbers. I personally believe that the majority surrendered alive.
Who was throwing fliers, and what was on those fliers?
They left behind them signs saying that the terrain was mined in order to confuse the people who had been following them as much as possible. The column was cut, people were out of their minds. I talked to a lot of people who came from Srebrenica without injuries and didn’t belong to that team; when they told me about what happened on the way, I was outraged. I cannot even think about that, let alone speak; these things are horrible.
Do you think there is no will to find those people?
The fact that in the Bosnian Parliament no one has asked me about that is enough to demonstrate that no one cares about that.
You suggested something else in the Parliament.
I suggested that a special fund be formed in order to assist the people who have survived that catastrophe. Unfortunately, when I spoke about that, prime minister Muratovic had left the hall, as if he had had a premonition that he shouldn’t hear that. I think that a lot of money has been collected for Srebrenica and is flowing into the Federal, cantonal and other budgets. I believe that the authorities, from cantonal over Federal to republican, have benefited much more from those funds than the people for whose use the funds had been supposedly earmarked. I’ve heard that the Srebrenica authorities had received more that DM 2 million a few months ago. How are they using those funds, I don’t know.
Therefore, this state hasn’t fulfilled its obligations towards the refugees from Srebrenica?
After all, taking into account the local situation, we have to ask ourselves whether this is a state after all. Take Srebrenica for example. No one from Srebrenica has been arrested in this state. And I claim that a good number of people from Srebrenica should have been arrested by now. They are still showing off, though.
What kind of crimes are you talking about?
The authorities in Srebrenica were not set up in accordance with the Constitution; it was private matter of a group of individuals. One could write pages and pages about looting, murders, terror, pressures, maltreatment and other events in Srebrenica.(…) In Srebrenica, it was always possible to buy at the market anything one might have wanted. Hardly anything was lacking. Still the only source of goods was humanitarian aid. Since not one commercial convoy had ever reached Srebrenica. Some people established contacts across the frontline, but as soon as the official authorities heard about that, that someone had managed to buy something at a lower price, they would intervene immediately, since they wanted to be the only source for supplies and hold a monopoly in Srebrenica.
You were the victim of two assassination attempts.
Yes, I was. The first attempt on my life was made on may 25, 1993, when someone fired a mortar shell from 20 meters away at a room in which I slept at the time. That shell destroyed the room, but I, thank God, wasn’t hurt. The second attempt occured on May 19 1995. I was with the former Srebrenica police commander, Hamed Halilovic. He died in that assassination while I received serious injuries. A whole frame was fired at me. When the assassins realized that I was still alive, they fired a bullet in my head from point blank range. I was severely wounded and consider that to be a double attempt at my life.
Who were the attackers?
The Srebrenica police commander at the time, Hakija Mehuljic, should know. I can say that the people from the top of Srebrenica authorities were involved in that assassination(…). That team which was in Srebrenica gathered around it only uneducated people. They killed “brains” to get rid of potential competition. As an example, I’ll mention the case of Nurif Rizvanovic. He came from Tuzla to Konjevic Polje in the summer of 1992 with 450 soldiers; the soldiers were in uniforms, armed and well trained. Rizvanovic, only because he was potential competition to someone, was shamefully executed in the fall of 1992. That is the reflection of everything that happened in Srebrenica and around it.
At the beginning of our interview you mentioned that your goal is to reveal the truth about Srebrenica.
Let me again mention that session of the Bosnian parliament. At that session it was clear who was hiding the truth about Srebrenica. My foremost task is to stay safe and secure in this state. If something happens to me, the authorities will be responsible.(…)
How do you see the present situation and the solution for the people from Srebrenica?
We are in this state 10th class citizens, left to fend for ourselves. I hope that this people will recognize current political situation and I think that their situation can only improve after the elections. The elections should bring some new people who can appreciate people and human values. The complete ruling team has failed at that test.
The Drina valley inhabitants are in the news because of another problem – moving into Serb houses in the suburbs of Sarajevo. What does the Dayton Agreement bring to them, in view of those events? Can we hope for a return?
The official policy is consciously working for the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina. I will repeat my words from the Parliament: I’m convinced that the Serbs would have signed the Dayton Agreement in 1991 or 1992, without a single bullet. I don’t think that people should be forced against their will to live together (..). The only possibility for the survival of the Muslim-Bosniak people is to return to the Drina. If we accept this persecution, I am convinced that my sons, who I hope to have one day, will have to go farther. As far as moving into other people’s homes is concerned, Srebrenica people hadn’t left tents behind them. We need accommodations. Let them return our property and we will return to Srebrenica. And we also want to be told what happened with our missing men.
Are there any new developments regarding that?
Taking into account that a lot of lies are circulating in this state, one can not trust anyone. I found out through some people who are close to the Croatian secret service who in their turn have contacts with Serb secret service, that some 5,600 Srebrenica inhabitants are still alive and held in different locations. Recently, Ms. Merhunisa Komarica has told me that she had received some data from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights which mention 4,500 people. I am ready to go anywhere and negotiate with anyone in order to win the release of a single person from Srebrenica. I prefer two living Srebrenica inhabitants to dead Radovan Karadzic. Finally, I would publicly state that some men are still alive. The fact that the precise number of missing is still not known, demonstrates how much the state cares about those people.
Do you wish to add something at the end of our conversation?
I read the latest issue of Ljiljan last night. I buy that magazine in order to check what the current official policy is. Anyway, I read that Mr. Silajdzic [leader of the Party for Bosnia-Hercegovina, former Bosnian prime minister] is gathering around himself corrupt officials. Among others, I found my name. My greatest sin, as far as Ljiljan is concerned, is that I got out of the Serb prisons alive. I should have died. They don’t appreciate living people. They only appreciate the dead because they cannot talk. They should consider two assassination attempts I survived in Srebrenica. If they are true believers and if their religion is not a mask (…). I am a Muslim and a believer. With my faith, I joined the people who do not spread fear in this state, do not support looting, who support truth, who do not advocate violence and support the rule of law. I haven’t heard of a Muslim country in the world in which Islam stands for something bad. Only their [SDA] version of Islam advocates crime, murders, lies, looting etc. If they want to advocate that sort of Islam, let them go and present it somewhere else, not to this people who doesn’t deserve to soil its faith.
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/war_crimes/srebrenica/Mustafic.html
And also this:
MISSING ENCLAVE TROOPS FOUND
MICHAEL EVANS, AND MICHAEL KALLENBACH IN BONN
The Times, London, August 02, 1995.
Thousands of the “missing” Bosnian Muslim soldiers from Srebrenica who have been at the centre of reports of possible mass executions by the Serbs, are believed to be safe to the northeast of Tuzla. Monitoring the safe escape of Muslim soldiers and civilians from the captured enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa has proved a nightmare for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. For the first time yesterday, however, the Red Cross in Geneva said it had heard from sources i n Bosnia that up to 2,000 Bosnian Government troops were in an area north of Tuzla.
They had made their way there from Srebrenica”without their families being informed”, a spokesman said, adding that it had not been possible to verify the reports because the Bosnian Government refused to allow the Red Cross into the area.
Although the Red Cross refused to speculate why the Bosnian Government was keeping secret the presence of the Srebrenica troops near Tuzla, it probably is doing so for military reasons.
In Germany the Government is embroiled in a bitter wrangle about whether to take in any more Bosnian refugees. The controversy began after, Manfred Kanther, the Interior Minister, suggested that the country should end its policy of giving shelter to refugees from former Yugoslavia. There was, he said. a limit to German generosity.
As the dispute has intensified, there have been outspoken attacks on France for not helping to ease the situation. There was, however no criticism of Britain, which is sheltering about 2,000 refugees. In London, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees appealed to 30 Western governments to find places for 5,000 Bosnian refugees immediately and issued a warning that up to 50,000 places might be needed soon if the situation in the former Yugoslavia were to deteriorate further.
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/war_crimes/srebrenica/troops.html
The folowing is also astounding and highly revealing – Izetbegovic’s very own Islamist fascist politicians and military commanders blow the lid off of the staged fall of Srebrenica in July 1995 in interviews given to the Bosnian Muslim press!!
Refuting the Srebrenica Myth: An Islamist Perspective
By: Konstantin Kilibarda
“The international press…made the battle for Srebrenica sound like Stalingrad. There is a kind of dialectical relation between the attention of a great power and the power of the media. It creates a distortion in our work. What I am trying to do, without great success, is to correct this distortion.”- Comments by UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali at the time of Srebrenica’s capture by Bosnian Serb troops.
For all intents and purposes the “Srebrenica Massacre” has become for many advocates of the “New Interventionism” the sine qua non of the Western presence in the Balkans. The notion that the Bosnian Serb Army or Vojska Republike Srpske (VRS) organized and executed a premeditated slaughter of 7,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim civilian males has become a crucial element in portraying Serbs, collectively, as genocidal aggressors.
However, one need not look too deep, or even to the Serbian side, for another, non-CNN, perspective on this chapter of the Balkan story. A completely different narrative emerges from within the ranks of the Armija Bosne i Hercegovine (ARBiH), in other words the army of the US-backed Islamist faction in Bosnia.
There exists strong evidence that the United States and the pro-American leadership in Sarajevo conspired to manufacture the appearance of a massacre in Srebrenica with the ultimate objective of provoking Western intervention. A precedent for such a scenario is well documented in the BBC’s ‘Death of Yugoslavia’ in which Germany is shown to have deliberately engineered the ‘fall’ of the town of Vukovar in order to gain support for the neo-fascist Croatian secessionists in late 1991.
About That Odd Tangent in Mr. Annan’s Srebrenica Report…
In UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recently released report on Srebrenica an astute reader might spot a curious tangent that is never explored by Annan. This tangent, and critical omissions within it, hold the key to understanding the complex nature of events that later transpired in the Drina Valley in the summer of 1995.
Describing the deliberations of the Izetbegovic regime over the Contact Group’s peace initiative, introduced aboard the HMS Invincible in the summer of 1993, the UN Report conveys the following information:
“115. Representatives of the Bosniac community gathered in Sarajevo on 28 and 29 September to vote on the peace package. A delegation of Bosniacs from Srebrenica was transported to Sarajevo by UNPROFOR [UN forces in Bosnia] helicopter to participate in the debate. Prior to the meeting, the delegation met in private with [Bosnian] President Izetbegovic, who told them that there were Serb proposals to exchange Srebrenica and Zepa for territories around Sarajevo. The delegation opposed the idea, and the subject was not discussed further. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people.”(My emphasis)
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/safe.htm#115
This would normally be a rather strange assertion for a head of government but it is not so strange coming from Alija Izetbegovic. It is well established that Izetbegovic’s own party, the SDA, specialized in staged mortar attacks on civilians which were then blamed on Bosnian Serb forces. This operational tactic of the Sarajevo regime’s Special Forces (AID) was designed to gain sympathy and invite NATO intervention on behalf of the Izetbegovic regime. This strategy has been confirmed not only by members of the ARBiH but also by many diplomats in the region, including chief negotiator Lord Owen and several UNPROFOR force commanders in Bosnia, such as General Satish Nambiar of India, General Louis Mackenzie of Canada, and General Michael Rose of Great Britain.
A similar deceit on the scale of Srebrenica was not without precedent. As mentioned earlier, an analogous ‘sacrifice’ had already occurred in Croatia. The ruling Croatian neo-fascist HDZ had decided, at a critical juncture in the battle over Vukovar, not to send necessary reinforcements to the city. This was done on the instructions of Bonn in order to gain maximum propaganda value when, as was inevitable, superior Yugoslav forces retook the city. A similar scenario could therefore ostensibly be engineered between the Sarajevo regime and their handlers in Washington in order to produce a similar propaganda effect.
By mid-1995 the Clinton Administration had already succeeded in fulfilling major US-foreign policy objectives in the Balkans by ending the Muslim-Croat War in Central Bosnia, by forging an anti-Serbian, Muslim-Croat military and political alliance, by increasing military support for these pro-Western belligerents, and by securing UN Security Council approval for limited air-strikes against Bosnian Serb positions.
However British, French, German and Russian foreign policy establishments wavered on the question of full-blown NATO intervention against the Serbs for complex domestic-political reasons. The already firmly anti-Serbian position of the Contact Group had to be further instilled in the general populace before a full-blown NATO intervention could be launched against the Serbs. Such an intervention would invariably include changing the ‘facts on the ground’ and would involve large-scale Western-backed ethnic-cleansing of Serbian populations throughout Croatia and large swaths of Bosnia. In order to sustain such a criminal enterprise the West needed to demonize the Serbs to such an extent that their large scale victimization would only be greeted with, at best, a “now they’re getting a taste of their own medicine” response among the general public.
Clinton’s Modest Proposal…
Although Izetbegovic has denied making the above statement about the possibility of NATO intervention in the wake of Srebrenica’s capture by the Serbian army, the allegations have persisted in the Bosnian press. In fact there is an added twist to the story. This additional information appeared in a June 22nd, 1998 interview with Hakija Meholjic in the Bosnian weekly DANI. Meholjic had been Srebrenica’s chief of police. Together with Naser Oric he spearheaded anti-Serbian pogroms in the Drina Valley. Meholjic was present at the Sept. 28th and 29th, 1993 meetings in Sarajevo. He was present when Serbian forces took Srebrenica in 1995. According to Meholjic, Izetbegovic had said:
“‘You know, I was offered by Clinton in April 1993 (after the fall of Cerska and Konjevic Polje) that the Chetnik forces enter Srebrenica, carry out a slaughter of 5,000 Muslims, and then there will be a military intervention.’ [Meholjic then continues] Our delegation was composed of nine people, one among us was from Bratunac and unfortunately he is the only one not alive now, but all the others from the delegation are alive and can confirm this.” (My emphasis. ‘DANI’, June 22, 1998. The text can be read in English at http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/dani/dani2.html and in the original Serbo-Croatian at http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/980678/tekst278.htm )
Thus in contrast with the UN report, it is clearly stated that none other than US President Bill Clinton had personally suggested that a “Srebrenica Massacre” scenario would produce NATO intervention on behalf of the ARBiH. Hakija Meholjic and the hardcore Srebrenica militants in the ARBiH to this day insist that “everybody betrayed us” and are determined to press for an inquiry.
Srebrenica’s Troubled Demons
Although designated a UN protected ‘safe-haven’ (which was supposed to mean complete demilitarization) in 1993, it is abundantly clear that the Srebrenica enclave continued to be filled with heavily armed ARBiH units through 1995. Various intelligence reports estimate that between 1,500-5,000 ARBiH troops were stationed in the enclave when it was captured by the VRS on July 12, 1995.
The UN protected ‘safe-haven’ was used as a de facto launching pad for ARBiH attacks on surrounding Serbian villages and civilians. Thus the real tragedy was the UN’s failure to protect the entire civilian population of the Drina Valley by failing to demilitarize the enclave.
The ARBiH units stationed in Srebrenica were quite militant and uncompromising in their attitude towards Serbs, whom they invariably viewed as “Chetnik aggressors”. It is not surprising that an alternate scenario about Srebrenica’s fall emerges from the ARBiH soldiers in the enclave itself. They were instrumental in spreading fear in the surrounding countryside by carrying out brutal attacks on undefended Serbian villages. For these Bosnian Islamist nationalists the whole Srebrenica scenario that played out in the Western media after the enclave’s fall was profoundly injurious to the reputations of these ‘defenders’ of the ‘Bosniac’ people.
In fact in the days before the enclaves fall, key figures in Srebrenica were called out of the enclave. Factional fighting, confirmed by Dutch peacekeepers on the ground, erupted between ARBiH factions over the ultimate fate of Srebrenica. The cause of their dispute was not only whether or not to abandon the town to the small advancing VRS forces, but also stemmed from complex political struggles within the ARBiH and the SDA. The struggle was a result of long-standing tensions between locally unpopular Izetbegovic loyalists, who took into consideration the situation in all of Bosnia, and those local leaders more narrowly committed to ‘defending’ Srebrenica. What becomes clear from the picture, however, was that Izetbegovic was willing to bargain away Srebrenica in order to achieve full control of Sarajevo (most of which – barring the Serbian sections – being already in the hands of his inner-circle). Srebrenica was therefore politically expendable to Izetbegovic, and it is increasingly evident that he exploited it for maximum political advantage. With one deft political maneuver he could not only eliminate popular elements within his own party that weren’t beholden to his directives but at the same time invite Western military intervention against the hated ‘Chetnik aggressor’.
In a January 18th, 1999 interview with ‘DANI’, Nesib Buric, former member of an ARBiH battalion stationed in Srebrenica, and now Deputy Mayor for Social Security of War Veterans and Disabled Persons in Srebrenica, clearly summed-up the perspective of the local Srebrenica faction within the ARBiH:
“I know that they are now trying to humiliate people from Srebrenica and spread rumors that we supposedly did not fight and were slain while running away from Srebrenica. No one can deny that in the Srebrenica municipality there are 2,000 buried fighters. No one can deny that we set up a large free territory. However, without assistance from outside we could not hold out for long surrounded by the enemy. You can write that I absolutely support the statement by Hakija Meholjic that we were betrayed. Why does not someone refute his assertions with arguments? Instead they are using slander and saying that Hakija was like this and like that. Hakija was among the first people in Srebrenica to pick up a rifle and work on the organization of the resistance. Therefore, he has the right to speak up. Ibran Mustafic and those women do not have the right to make lists for the Hague Tribunal. They do not have any evidence for that. In Srebrenica, Ibran refused to fight and lead a brigade, but turned to his prewar flirt with politics. As far as Hakija is concerned, you can write that every single child from Srebrenica agrees with his statement.” ( My emphasis. English translation of the text from ‘DANI’ can be read at http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/dani/dani6.html Original text in Serbo-Croatian can be read at http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/1999/93/tekst393.htm )
In short the Islamist veterans from Srebrenica make a three-fold claim, that:
1) A high-level political decision was made between the leadership in Sarajevo and the Clinton Administration on the fate of the Srebrenica enclave,
2) That the ARBiH militants in the enclave were betrayed by the Izetbegovic regime during the critical days in mid-June 1995 when the enclave was recaptured by the Bosnian Serb army, and that
3) Those killed in Srebrenica were ARBiH soldiers who died during firefights while defending their positions, not fleeing civilians.
Any version of events that doesn’t seriously consider this perspective on Srebrenica is designed to deliberately mislead public opinion on the dynamics of the conflict in the Balkans. By obscuring the real facts and presenting a simple scenario about Srebrenica, the Western foreign policy establishment and media have designed a narrative with the sole objective of demonizing the Serbs and justifying the continued existence of NATO and its presence within the Balkans.
The description of events described above, however, suggests a much more complex scenario. It becomes increasingly evident that there was a conscious decision made in Sarajevo to abandon the enclave’s “defenders” and extract maximum propaganda value by presenting their defeat as a massacre of helpless people. Furthermore, the distinct possibility that the Clinton Administration was intimately involved in this decision – and the precedent set by Germany and Croatia in Vukovar – suggest the profound control by Western nations over the decision and war-making apparatus of the secessionist republics during key phases of Yugoslavia’s dismemberment. The fact that the Western media has only played a marginal role (and even then with giant time-lags) in exposing the foreign policy machinations of our elites further underlines the current profound crisis of democracy in advanced industrialized countries.
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/kilibarda/islamist.htm
The web address for the above astounding article is:
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/kilibarda/islamist.htm
Generaal Krstic de verdediging in hoger beroep aangevoerd dat hij niet verantwoordelijk kan worden gehouden voor de misdaden die hij niet op de hoogte was werden daadwerkelijk gebeurt. Het ICTY betoogde dat voor de strafrechtelijke verantwoordelijkheid vast te stellen het niet nodig was om te concluderen dat de verdachte wist wat er gebeurde: ‘Het was voldoende om aan te tonen dat hij ervan bewust was dat deze handelingen buiten de overeengekomen onderneming werden een natuurlijke en voorzienbare gevolg is van de overeengekomen gezamenlijke criminele onderneming, en dat de verdachte heeft deelgenomen in de onderneming bewust van de kans dat andere misdrijven kan leiden. ‘ Door deze redenering, uiteraard, de eventuele deelname aan de oorlog is een criminele onderneming, net als in alle oorlogen is het vrij zeker dat misdaden zoals verkrachting, moord en mishandeling van krijgsgevangenen zal worden gepleegd. Bovendien is de eigenlijke definitie van genocide als in dienst van het Tribunaal niet zo zou kunnen algemeen worden begrepen: als de intentie om een dergelijk substantieel deel van een groep te vernietigen met betrekking tot het geheel beïnvloeden. Met het oog op vaststelling van de genocide Joegoslavië-tribunaal in de eerste plaats betoogd dat de Bosnisch-Servische leger had al van de Bosnische moslim-inwoners van Srebrenica en het omliggende gebied, ongeveer 40.000 mensen, niet alleen die vermoord gericht. Dit leidt tot een vreemde situatie waarin degenen die niet werden vermoord bijdragen aan het oordeel van genocide.Therefore, Krstic het proces van geopenbaard ernstige tekortkomingen in de presentatie van de val van Srebrenica als een daad van genocide. Het Joegoslavië-tribunaal was niet in staat om vast te stellen dat de commandant van de legereenheid die Srebrenica gevangen elk voornemen om, of kennis van enige moorden had. Bovendien, om de moorden te worden aangemerkt als genocide, het Joegoslavië-tribunaal begonnen aan een ingewikkelde definitie van genocide, dat niet afhankelijk is van van ofwel de intentie om genocide te plegen, noch op het aantal mensen daadwerkelijk vermoord. Dus onder deze definitie van genocide de moord op sommige individuen, zelfs soldaten in een gevecht situatie, geldt als genocide.From Kosovo in 1999 aan de Congo in 2005, is Srebrenica gehouden als overtuigend bewijs dat het Westen moreel verplicht is om militair in te grijpen in conflictsituaties. Jack Straw voerde ter verdediging van Westerse interventie in Macedonië in 2001, op grond dat Srebrenica zien wat er gebeurde toen het Westen was terughoudend om in te grijpen. Liberale commentator David Aaronovitch gebruikte hetzelfde argument om zijn steun voor de militaire actie in Irak uit te leggen. Bij de bespreking van het doden van 60 Congolese soldaten door de VN-troepen, de VN-generaal Patrick Cammaert pleitte voor robuuste militaire interventie, vanwege ‘de lessen van Srebrenica, Somalië en Rwanda. Er is sterk bewijs dat de Verenigde Staten en de pro-Amerikaanse leiderschap in Sarajevo samenspande om het uiterlijk van een massamoord in Srebrenica vervaardigen met als uiteindelijke doel te lokken westerse interventie. Een precedent voor een dergelijk scenario is goed gedocumenteerd in ‘De dood van Joegoslavië “van de BBC waarin Duitsland is aangetoond dat met opzet hebben de engineering van de’ val ‘van de stad Vukovar in om de steun voor de neo-fascistische Kroatische afgescheidenen te krijgen in eind 1991 . Vanaf het begin van de oorlog werden de Serviërs gepresenteerd als de nieuwe nazi’s. Kroaten en moslims werden gepresenteerd niet als strijders, maar als onschuldige slachtoffers. De Joseph Goebbels nazi-stijl “Grote Leugen” was de hele wereld verspreid met de mainstream media aangesloten apparaten van een multi-miljoen dollar gefinancierd Amerikaanse ‘public relations’ kamp; lobbyen firma onder de naam ‘Ruder Finn’ – die ook werkte als een lobbygroep in Washington namens de islamitische nazi-terroristische UCK en Tudjman HDZ fascistische neo-Ustasha nazi racistische regering verantwoordelijk is voor de etnische zuivering van meer dan 350.000 Krajina provincie Serviërs 1990-1995 en voor de moord op minstens 15.000 Serviërs tijdens dezelfde period.James Harff, van PR-firma Ruder Finn: interview 1993 In a January 18th, 1999 interview with ‘DANI’, Nesib Buric, former member of an ARBiH battalion stationed in Srebrenica, and now Deputy Mayor for Social Security of War Veterans and Disabled Persons in Srebrenica, clearly summed-up the perspective of the local Srebrenica faction within the ARBiH:
“I know that they are now trying to humiliate people from Srebrenica and spread rumors that we supposedly did not fight and were slain while running away from Srebrenica. No one can deny that in the Srebrenica municipality there are 2,000 buried fighters. No one can deny that we set up a large free territory. However, without assistance from outside we could not hold out for long surrounded by the enemy. You can write that I absolutely support the statement by Hakija Meholjic that we were betrayed. Why does not someone refute his assertions with arguments? At the presentation of the “Bosnian Atlas of War Crimes” held in Banja Luka on 31 March 2010, the director of the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo – Mirsad Tokaca – discussed the number of victims that were killed during the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide.Those buried at the Srebrenica Memorial Complex not only were not killed in July 1995, but actually died much earlier,, even in the early 1980s – more than 10 years before the civil war in Yugoslavia even started: Fetahija (Nazif) Hasanovic, b. 1955 – d. Dec.15, 1996, Srebrenica; Sukrija (Amil) Smajlovic, b.1946 – d. May 2,1996, Zaluzje; Maho (Suljo) Rizvanovic, b.1953 – d. Jan. 3,1993, Glogova; Mefail (meho) Demirovic, b.1970 – d. May 10, 1992, Krasanovici; Redzic (Ahmet) Asim, b.1949 – d. April 22, 1992, of Osman (Ibro) Halilovic (1912-1989), Nurija (Smajo) Memisevic (1966-1993), Salih (Saban) Alic (1969-1992), Mujo (Hasim) Hadzic (1954-1993), Ferid (Ramo) Mustafic (1975-1993) and Hajrudin (Ismet) Cvrk (1974-1992)………………………………..Hamed (Hamid) Halilovic (1940-1982), transferred from the nearby cemetery in Kazani, who apparently died a full 13 years before the Srebrenica “genocide.”Several hundred soldiers as well as civilians were transferred to the Srebrenica Memorial from other cemeteries and reburied, with Muslim burial rituals.In the summer of 2005, on the 10-year anniversary of the event, the “Srebrenica Research Group,” composed of mostly American and British media and academic figures, as well as former U.N. civil officials and military observers with ex-Yugoslavia experience, put up a website in which the entire “Srebrenica massacre” account was reconsidered and demystified. Instead of the 7-8,000 figure, U.N. officials and U.S. Congress experts were quoted giving figures of “700-800,” “the low hundreds,” “about 2,000 Muslims and Serbs total,” etc. http://www.srebrenica-project.com/hol/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10:the-real-story-behind-srebrenica-lewis-mackenzie&catid=3:2009-01-06-17-56-50&Itemid=4