The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) welcomes the decision by the French government to not carry out the arrest mandate issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for the arrest of the journalist Florence Hartmann, a former spokesperson for the prosecutor at the Hague..   For more than two years, CNAB has written to ICTY demanding that the charges against the French journalist be dropped because it unjustly punished Florence Hartmann for publishing the truth about behind-the-scenes dealings involving ICTY and the Serbian government. 

In her book “Peace and Punishment”, Hartmann wrote about the existence of secret documents, which was already in the realm of public knowledge,  linking the Serbian government with atrocities committed in Bosnia, and secret agreements between the Hague tribunal and the Serbian government at the expense of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For this, she was found “guilty” of telling the truth and sentenced to a monetary fine that was converted into days in jail.

CNAB agrees with the French government in asserting that the Hague Tribunal should focus on doing its job by investigating and prosecuting the war criminals, especially the need for swift justice in the cases against war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the war and aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina.  ICTY should not be wasting time and resources prosecuting those who tell the truth.

Lastly, we demand once again of the United Nations to issue an investigation into the illegal agreement signed with Serbia which denied the justice for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Without justice, there can be no peace and reconciliation in the region. This is evidenced by a continuous ethnic turmoil in the country which threatens the stability of the entire region. This turmoil is also a byproduct of injustice and lack of accountability of Serbia and Montenegro for its policies of aggression in the 1990s.

On behalf of CNAB,

Kemal Hamulic, spokesperson

“This is the first ever liaison officer assigned to a state,” said Army National Guard Maj. Matthew DiNenna, the SPP director for Maryland. “This is a benefit for the Guard.”

Lt. Col. Dzevad Buric is the Bosnia-Herzegovina liaison to the state of Maryland, as well as the assistant BiH Defense, Military, Naval and Air attaché to the United States.

Other state programs are beginning to see the benefit of the position.

DiNenna said other SPP directors have contacted him to obtain information on how they may be able to have liaisons for their programs as well.

Buric’s position is currently a three-year tour where he works as the advisor on BiH issues to Army Maj. Gen. James Adkins, the adjutant general of Maryland. His position as the liaison officer is also to build closer ties between Maryland public and private institutions with their counterparts in BiH such as areas in education, economic opportunities and health care. He coordinates policies and procedures between the Maryland National Guard and the BiH armed forces and the annual schedule of joint training events between the two services. Additionally, Buric provides knowledge and advice on BiH practices.

“There is no higher symbol for our partnership than to provide an officer position for Bosnia to sit on our staff,” Adkins said. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of relationships we’ve built on a long-term basis. There is nothing more important than establishing relationships promising peace and democracy between the nations.”

DiNenna said that because of Buric’s background, he was the ideal candidate for the liaison position because he had previously worked with the Ministry of Defense coordinating with the joint staff and the International Corporation Department.

“He was the most qualified person to help push the program forward,” DiNenna said.

Buric is essential to the SPP because he is a subject matter expert on BiH, he added.  Buric knows contacts in his home country that can be used to answer any questions, he understands the rank structure of the BiH armed forces and government, and he is able to better prepare the Travel Contact Teams on what they need to know before traveling to BiH.

While the Maryland National Guard is seeing many advantages from Buric’s position as the liaison for the program, the BiH armed forces is also benefiting from the partnership between Maryland and the country.
 
“From our perspective, we see this partnership as a way to bring us closer to NATO standards,” Buric said. “The skill sets that your Soldiers have, they transfer to our Soldiers, and our Soldiers also transfer some of our skills for your Soldiers to learn.”

Depending on the mission, BiH armed forces may come to Maryland, or Marylanders will visit BiH to learn different skills from each other.

Recently, members of the Maryland National Guard traveled to BiH for a Senior Leader Visit, a Flight Safety Assessment and Accident Investigation training, and to assist with developing post-deployment reintegration programs. 

Currently members of the BiH armed forces are scheduled to come to visit Maryland throughout the summer to attend various Maryland National Guard annual trainings to receive training on their respective functional areas.

While the main focus of the SPP is military-to-military events, Buric added that they are looking to expand to more civilian-to-military events, as well as civilian-to-civilian activities.  This is another benefit that the liaison position brings to Maryland, being able link the additional elements together, as the SPP is not authorized to work outside the military-to-military relationships.

The SPP was launched in Europe as part of the initial outreach by the United States to new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The SPP brings together U.S. states and territories with partner nations through a range of military, civil-military and civil activities under the Maryland Military Department auspices.

The Maryland Military Department has another partnership with Estonia that has been in place since 1993.

Source: Maryland National Guard News

“I must admit that I find it difficult to use the word genocide, which conjures up images of the Holocaust. ” (read the full post here)

While we never questioned Mr. Dobbs’ acceptance of the occurrence  of these crimes against Bosniaks, we did express concerns about his hesitation to use the  term “genocide. Most of Mr. Dobbs’ reporting regarding the Srebrenica genocide is highly commendable (just read his latest post slamming the pro-Serb genocide denier  “Srebenica historical project).  However,  using incorrect terminology such as “massacre” is very damaging to the victims of genocide because it fails to portray the full intent of the Serb army to annihilate the population of this enclave.

In today’s blog response, Mr. Dobbs clarified his position that he agrees with the classification of Srebrenica genocide by the courts stating:

“While I do not agree with all the opinions handed down by the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, I agree with the conclusion of the judges that the Srebrenica massacre met the legal definition of “genocide,” as defined by the United Nations Convention. ” you can read the full blog post here .

We appreciate Mr. Dobbs clarifying his position on genocide and we urge him to be more consistent in his use of the word  (instead of “massacre”) when describing the horrific genocide against Bosniaks in July 1995 in Srebrenica.  While to some it may appear insignificant, from an international law perspective it has significant implications on preserving the truth about the agression on Bosnia and Herzegovina, genocide against Bosniaks. Furthermore, there can be no peace or reconciliation in the region without full acceptance of responsibility for these actions.

Hamdija Custovic

CNAB Spokesperson

“The Mladic Files” will provide a multifaceted account of the proceedings against Mladic, who, as commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992–95 Balkans conflict, has been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. “The Mladic Files” is available at www.ushmm.org/mladic-files. The project’s blog is available on Foreign Policy’s website.

The project is being led by the Museum’s Goldfarb Fellow, prize-winning foreign correspondent and author Michael Dobbs, who will follow the trial as part of his investigation into the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica. In addition to observing the legal proceedings in The Hague, Dobbs will travel to Srebrenica, Sarajevo, and Belgrade to interview Mladic’s victims and associates, posting his discoveries to the website as he seeks to uncover what drove the Bosnian Serb military commander to order Europe’s deadliest massacre since World War II.

“‘The Mladic Files’ will not only document the trial but also explore the roots of the Srebrenica massacre and its ongoing impact in the former Yugoslavia and the international community,” says Michael Abramowitz, Director of the Committee on Conscience, the Museum’s genocide prevention program. “This historic trial will play an important role in determining if Mladic’s actions constituted genocide. We are pleased that, through our fellowship program, the Museum will be able to provide deeper insights into the trial and the events that brought it about.”

As part of its genocide prevention efforts, the Museum has long shone a spotlight on the atrocities in the Balkans and in particular the massacre at Srebrenica, which is one of the few cases that the international community has deemed genocide. The Museum has been monitoring the arrests and trials of those accused of crimes against humanity in the region.

The Museum’s work on genocide and related crimes against humanity is guided by the Committee on Conscience, a standing committee of the Museum’s Council. The Committee on Conscience’s mandate is to alert the national conscience, influence policy makers, and stimulate worldwide action to confront and work to halt acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanent place on the National Mall, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit ushmm.org.

Source: United States Holocaust Museum

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) expresses its sincere sympathy and condolences to the victims of the horrific 7.2 magnitude earthquake in eastern Turkey on Sunday.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the Turkish people as they mourn the victims and conduct a search and rescue effort of the survivors.   We stand together with the Turkish people and government who also came to the aid of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens during the war of aggression on our homeland. CNAB will do whatever it can to assist and encourage its members to do the same in helping the victims of this natural disaster.

  Sincerely,

 
Haris Alibašić, MPA
President of the CNAB Board of Directors

The denial, prejudice, supremacism: they are all seeds of evil, for they evolve, they expand, and if left unchecked, when they ripen, they flourish, overgrow, and unleash the violence of unimaginable proportions. They can turn seemingly good men — everyday husbands, fathers, neighbors – into psychopathic rapists, ferocious tormentors, maniacal monsters, and mass killers. It happened in Bosnia.

The human ‘willingness’ to use rape as an instrument of terror in war, for the sole purpose of inflicting irreparable, long term psychological and physical trauma to defenseless women and children, became evident in the bloodstained Serb-led campaign of ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia, between 1992 and 1993. A preliminary European Community report, published in January of 1993, estimated that 20,000 Bosniak women may have been raped by Serb forces in Bosnia. The report also added that there was strong evidence that many women and children were killed during or after sexual abuse. (AP, The News-Journal, p.8A, “Bosnia Rape Victim Waits to Give Unwanted Birth”, 8 January 1993.) In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that rape was indeed used by the Bosnian Serb armed forces as an ‘instrument of terror.’ (Trial Judgment in the case of Kunarac et al.)

While Serb soldiers participated in systematic rape of Bosniak women and girls, often mothers with their daughters, Bosniak men were sent to concentration camps or execution fields. Before they met their fate, Bosniak prisoners were savagely beaten and then forced into signing coerced statements that they had committed “crimes against Serbs.” The Serb authorities needed these “confessions” from tortured Bosniak prisoners so that they could falsify both the history and the nature of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (see, for example, the trial judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal in the case of Duško Tadić, par. 163-167.)

Women, War & Peace is the latest, and arguably the most important documentary film focusing on the systematic rape in war zones like Bosnia, to be published since the end of the Bosnian Genocide. As a survivor of war, words cannot express my gratitude toward everyone who was involved in the making of the “Women, War & Peace” DVD, especially toward the Academy-Award-winning actor, screenwriter and philanthropist Matt Damon. I urge everyone to pre-order this DVD as soon as possible. Hat tip to distinguished journalist Jessica Buchleitner for telling me about this project. Here is a preview:

Women, War & Peace is a bold new PBS mini-series challenging the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain. A co-production of THIRTEEN and Fork Films, Women, War & Peace places women at the center of an urgent dialogue about conflict and security and reframes our understanding of modern warfare.

Featuring narrators Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard, the series reveals how the post-Cold War proliferation of small arms has changed the landscape of war, with women becoming primary targets and suffering unprecedented casualties. Simultaneously, they are emerging as necessary partners in brokering lasting peace and as leaders in forging new international laws governing conflict.

Episodes include…

When the Balkans exploded into war in the 1990s, reports that tens of thousands of women were being systematically raped as a tactic of ethnic cleansing captured the international spotlight.

I Came to Testify, narrated by Matt Damon, is the moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foča broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law. Now, as Bosnia is once again in the headlines with the capture of Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladić, the women agree to speak for the first time since then, on condition that we keep their identities hidden for their protection. “Witness 99,” who was held at gunpoint for a month with dozens of other women in a sports hall in the center of town remembers: “We were treated like animals. But that was the goal: to kill a woman’s dignity.” Their remarkable courage resulted in a triumphant verdict that led to new international laws about sexual violence in war. Returning to Bosnia 16 years after the end of the conflict, I Came to Testify also explores the chasm between this seismic legal shift and the post-war justice experienced by most of Bosnia’s women war survivors.

The War We Are Living travels to Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s pacific southwest, where two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are fighting to hold onto their gold-rich lands. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war.

War Redefined, the capstone of Women, War & Peace, challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State, and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making. Interviewees include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; and globalization expert Moises Naim.

Note: A good complement to Women, War & Peace is BBC’s The Land That Radovan Built with Allan Little. I helped BBC producers with contacts in Bosnia during the shooting of this documentary in September of 2008. I still keep two production copies of CDs and a Thank You note sent to me from BBC producer Kate Peterson. You may watch a short preview here.

Originally published on the Official Blog of Daniel Toljaga

In evaluating the sentence of 27 years of imprisonment for General Perišić, the Trial Judgment emphasized that “the Army of Republika Srpska’s crimes lasted over a long period of time and that the victims were numerous and particularly vulnerable and that General Perišić kept providing assistance to the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army] for months after being informed of the massacre in Srebrenica”… “
Helge Brunborg, a demographer and expert witness, testified about the total number of missing persons involved with the fall of the enclave of Srebrenica. According to Brunborg, as of 21 November 2005, approximately 7,661 people were identified as missing based on reports from family members. Brunborg noted, however, that some were never reported by their relatives as missing, in some cases because the whole family was killed. It follows that the total number of missing people is probably higher.”

Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today convicted Momčilo Perišić, a former Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and sentenced him to 27 years of imprisonment.

Perišić, the most senior officer and Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) from 26 August 1993 to 24 November 1998, was found guilty by majority in the Trial Chamber, Judge Moloto dissenting, of aiding and abetting murders, inhumane acts, persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, and attacks on civilians in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. He was also found guilty, by majority of Judges, Judge Moloto dissenting, of failing to punish his subordinates for their crimes of murder, attacks on civilians and injuring and wounding civilians during the rocket attacks on Zagreb on 2 and 3 May 1995. Perišić was unanimously acquitted of charges of aiding and abetting extermination as a crime against humanity in Srebrenica and of command responsibility in relation to crimes in Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

Today’s judgment is the first handed down by the Tribunal in a case against an official of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Trial Chamber found that General Perišić oversaw the Yugoslav Army’s provision of extensive logistical assistance to the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) and the Army of Serbian Krajina (SVK), the self proclaimed Croatian Serb entity, which notably included vast quantities of infantry and artillery ammunition, fuel, spare parts, training and technical assistance. Such assistance “became more centralised, structured and coordinated during General Perišić’s tenure” – Judge Bakone Justice Moloto, Presiding, said reading the Judgment.

General Perišić also proposed and implemented the idea to create Personnel Centres to maintain the status of military officers of the Yugoslav Army for those who serve in the VRS (30th Personnel Centre) and SVK (40th Personnel Centre).

In relation to the crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Judgment states that “the VRS regularly made no distinction between civilian and military targets. In fact, it targeted Bosnian Muslim civilians as a matter of course”. It further adds that “the crimes charged in this case were not perpetrated by rogue soldiers acting independently. Rather, they were part of a lengthy campaign overseen by top VRS officers on the Yugoslav Army’s payroll, including General Mladić.” Besides General Mladić, members of the 30th Personnel Centre included high-ranking officers who have been convicted by the Tribunal’s Trial and Appeals Chambers for crimes in Sarajevo (Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević), and for crimes in Srebrenica (namely Milan Gvero, Radivoje Miletić, Ljubiša Beara, Radislav Krstić, Vujadin Popović, Vinko Pandurević, and Dragan Obrenović).

In the finding of the Majority, “General Perišić was alerted to the fact that the VRS was conducting a campaign of sniping and shelling against civilians during its siege of Sarajevo”, a campaign that lasted from September 1992 to November 1995 and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and the wounding of thousands of others, which the Majority found to constitute murder as a war crime and crime against humanity, and inhumane acts and attacks of civilians as war crimes. General Perišić was receiving information from a variety of sources concerning the VRS’s criminal behavior and discriminatory intent against Muslims, including from the Yugoslav Army’s own monitoring of international community and international media and from diplomatic reports.

“General Perišić knew that it was highly probable that the VRS would forcibly transfer Bosnian Muslims and commit killings and other abuses with discriminatory intent once Srebrenica had fallen under VRS control” – reads the part of the judgment on Perišić’s aiding an abetting of murders, inhumane acts (inflicting serious injuries, wounding, forcible transfer) and persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds as crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Srebrenica in July 1995.

The Trial Chamber, however, could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that General Perišić could reasonably have foreseen, based on his knowledge of the VRS’s prior conduct, that the VRS would engage in the systematic extermination of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica, and acquitted him of aiding and abetting extermination as crime against humanity in Srebrenica.

The VRS largely depended on logistical and personnel assistance overseen by General Perišić in order to conduct its operations in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. Since such operations encompassed systematic crimes against civilians, General Perišić’s actions had a substantial effect on these crimes that amounted to aiding and abetting them. “General Perišić repeatedly exercised his authority to provide logistical and personnel assistance that made it possible for the VRS to wage a war while he had knowledge that the VRS’s operations encompassed grave and systematic crimes against Muslim civilians” – the Trial Chamber, by Majority, concluded.

In reaching its conclusions, the Trial Chamber relied upon witness testimonies as well as other numerous sources of information, such as material delivery forms, personnel files, internal military reports, communication records, and minutes of the Supreme Defence Council featuring discussions between General Perišić, Slobodan Milošević, Zoran Lilić and other top officials.

While Momčilo Perišić was found criminally responsible for aiding and abetting murder, inhumane acts, attacks on civilians and persecution on political, racial or religious grounds in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, he was found not guilty as superior pursuant to Article 7(3) of the Statue in relation to these crimes and extermination. The evidence did not establish beyond reasonable doubt that there was a requisite superior-subordinate relationship between him and perpetrators of the crimes committed in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. «Even though General Perišić had a collaborative relationship with Mladić and substantially aided his operations, the evidence does not establish that he exercised effective control over him or any other Yugoslav Army officer serving in the VRS through the 30th Personnel Centre” – presiding Judge Moloto said.

Momčilo Perišić was also found guilty, on the basis of command responsibility, of crimes committed by the Army of Serbian Krajina firing rockets on the city of Zagreb, on 2 May 1995, that killed 5 people and injured 146, and again on 3 May, which killed two persons and injured 54. Unlike his relationship with officers serving in VRS, Perišić is found to have exercised effective control over Yugoslav Army officers serving through 40th Personnel Centre in the SVK as he initiated disciplinary proceedings against them and had the ability to issue command orders to senior SVK officers who considered them binding. The Trial Chamber, by Majority, therefore, found him guilty for failing to take necessary and reasonable measures to punish his subordinates in the SVK who perpetrated the two unlawful rocket attacks on Zagreb, although he was immediately notified of both the attacks.

In evaluating the sentence of 27 years of imprisonment for General Perišić, the Trial Judgment emphasized that “the Army of Republika Srpska’s crimes lasted over a long period of time and that the victims were numerous and particularly vulnerable and that General Perišić kept providing assistance to the VRS for months after being informed of the massacre in Srebrenica”.

Perišić is entitled to credit for 1,078 days he has spent in custody. Both the Prosecution and the defense have the right to appeal.

The Indictment against Momčilo Perišić was raised on 24 February 2005 and he surrendered on 7 March 2005. His trial began on 2 October 2008 and concluded with closing arguments on 31 March 2011. The Trial Chamber heard over 100 witnesses and admitted in evidence 3,794 exhibits.

Since its establishment, the Tribunal has indicted 161 persons for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. Proceedings against 126 have been concluded. Proceedings are currently ongoing for 35 Accused.
Trial Judgement: Momčilo Perišić (Serbia’s Involvement in War Crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia)

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Originally posted and authored by the Srebrenica Genocide Blog:  http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2011/09/perisic-judgement-confirms-serbias.html

A convicted war criminal who burned alive scores of Bosniak civilians and systematically tortured and raped Bosniak women and under-age girls enjoys the uncritical endorsement of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade reports that the Serbian Orthodox Church has hosted a book launch at the parish house of the Cathedral of St. Sava in Belgrade to promote a prison memoir, “Ispovest haškog sužnja” (“Testimony of a Hague prisoner”). The book’s author is the convicted war criminal Milan Lukić — a ruthless mass murderer and serial rapist. The Belgrade publisher responsible for promoting the launch is the Serbian Radical Party led by ultra–nationalist politician Vojislav Šešelj. Šešelj himself is currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague for crimes against humanity. The manuscript of Lukić’s book was smuggled out of the UN Detention Unit illegally.

This is not the first time Serbian Orthodox Church has aligned itself with war criminals. The recently-captured fugitives, former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadžić, bragged that the Serbian Orthodox Church helped them evade justice. General Mladić is now on trial as the orchestrator of the Bosnian Genocide; Hadzic is on trial for crimes against humanity committed in Croatia.  The Serbian Orthodox Church sees itself as the moral compass of the Serbian people. Its incomprehensible and repellent actions suggest that the Church is morally adrift.

In 2009 the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague found Milan Lukić guilty of burning alive more than 120 Bosniak women, children and elderly men in the eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his terrible crimes.

On 14 June 1992, a group of victims, most of them from the same village, were locked into one room of a house on Pionirska Street, Višegrad, which was then set on fire. Milan Lukić was found to have placed an explosive device in the room which set the house ablaze. He then shot at people as they tried to escape the burning house. At least 59 women, young children and elderly people were burned alive, among them a 2-day-old baby.

Lukić was also found guilty of burning alive at least 60 women, children and elderly men two weeks later, on 27 June 1992, in a house in the Višegrad settlement of Bikavac. He and other members of his paramilitary group, ‘White Eagles’, forced the civilians inside the house, blocked all the exits and threw in several explosive devices and petrol, setting the house on fire.

“The perpetration by Milan Lukić and [his cousin] Sredoje Lukić of crimes in this case is characterised by a callous and vicious disregard for human life,” presiding Judge Patrick Robinson noted.

He observed that, “In the all too long, sad and wretched history of man’s inhumanity to man, the Pionirska street and Bikavac fires must rank high. At the close of the twentieth century, a century marked by war and bloodshed on a colossal scale, these horrific events stand out for the viciousness of the incendiary attack, for the obvious premeditation and calculation that defined it, for the sheer callousness and brutality of herding, trapping and locking the victims in the two houses, thereby rendering them helpless in the ensuing inferno, and for the degree of pain and suffering inflicted on the victims as they were burnt alive.”

Milan Lukić also participated in systematic sexual assaults on Bosniak women and under-age girls in “rape camps” in and around Višegrad. Most notably the Vilina Vlas spa hotel on the outskirts of Višegrad was used as a rape camp while it was, on Lukić ‘s own admission, his military unit’s command post. Approximately 200 women and under-age girls were detained  in Vilina Vlas. The Association of Women Victims of War — led by rape survivor Bakira Hasečić — believes that fewer than ten women prisoners survived their detention.

Rape and sexual slavery charges were added to the indictment against Lukić less than a month before the trial. The day before proceedings were due to begin, the Trial Chamber ruled that the accused did not have enough time to mount an adequate defence.

I have taken the liberty of translating this short but important press release issued by the Humanitarian Law Center from Serbian into English:

“Humanitarian Law Center urges the institutions and citizens of the Republic of Serbia to condemn publicly the use of the Parish House of the Cathedral of Saint Sava in Belgrade for the launch of a book by the convicted war criminal Milan Lukić during which priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church took part in the eulogisation of a war criminal responsible for some of the most terrible crimes against humanity.

Humanitarian Law Center demands that the Patriarch reveal the names of the priests who took part in this public event and explain to the public why a religious building whose construction was paid for by the state and many individual citizens has been used to celebrate a convicted war criminal who burned women and children alive.

On 29 July 2011, in the parish house of the Cathedral of Saint Sava in Belgrade, an event to promote the book ‘Confession of a Hague Prisoner’ by the war criminal Milan Lukić was attended by several priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the company of numerous Lukić supporters. The book is published by the Serbian Radical Party.

The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague sentenced Milan Lukić to life imprisonment for shooting five Bosniaks beside the Drina River on 7th June 1992, killing seven workers of Varda factory, burning alive at least 120 Bosniak women, children and the elderly in Višegrad’s Pionirska Street and Bikavac district, the ‘cold and brazen’ murder of Hajra Koric and the brutal torture of Bosniak detainees in Uzamnica detention camp near Višegrad. In all these crimes, Milan Lukić, played a ‘dominant role’ and exhibited a ‘callous and vicious disregard for human life’, personally killing ‘at least 132 people’ according to the judges at the International Criminal Court.”

An album of photos from this ‘book’ promotion can be found on Milan Lukić’s Facebook page, which is being maintained by the priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

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This post was originally published on the Official Blog of Daniel Toljaga found here: http://danieltoljaga.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/serbian-orthodox-church-endorses-war-criminals/

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) welcomes the news of release of Jovan Divjak, former General of the Bosnian Army, in Vienna on Friday. An Austrian court has rejected Belgrade’s request that general Divjak be extradited to Serbia for a false and politically motivated accusation of war crimes in the “Dobrovoljacka” case.  General Divjak is a patriot who served his country Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) honorably when it came under the attack from the forces of Serbia and Montenegro following its declaration of independence in March of 1992.

It is an outrage that Serbia continues to issue arrest warrants in this case, which has been found on numerous occasions to be without merit by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an authoritative body established by  the United Nations to prosecute serious crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.  Serbia continues its aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, using false accusations and frivolous arrests of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  In the case of Dr. Ejup Ganic, the UK court denied the Serbian extradition request in July of 2010 after several months of proceedings that were, in the words of Judge Timothy Workman, “…being used for political purposes.”  Same was the case with Ilija Jurisic; another Bosnian citizen falsely arrested and sentenced by Serbia to 12 years in prison, and was thankfully released after months of protests and appeals in November of 2010.  The latest false imprisonment of General Divjak is further proof that Serbia is not sincere in its efforts to reconcile with its neighbors, especially when it comes to taking full responsibility for its past policies of aggression and genocide. 

Instead of taking responsibility for its actions, Serbian authorities continue to undermine Bosnian sovereignty and the rights of its citizens, and to intimidate their way into averting blame for atrocities committed during the war from Serbia onto other countries in the region. This is particularly easy for them to do in Bosnia where Bosnian Serb representatives also work tirelessly to undermine Bosnian state authority and are continuing a practice of revisionist history to justify their actions. CNAB has warned on several occasions that Serbia continues to be a source of political instability in the region, particularly in its policies towards Bosnia and Herzegovina and the mainly Bosniak southern region of Sandzak.

CNAB demands that all further extradition requests for detainment of Bosnian citizens who defended their country from Serbian aggression, be categorically dismissed by the international community.  Furthermore, we call upon the United Nations, the United States, Canada, and the European Union, to take notice and act swiftly to hold Serbia accountable for its actions of continued infringement on Bosnian sovereignty and destabilization of the Balkans. We also request of the Bosnian government officials to take all means necessary to protect its citizens against attacks on its sovereignty and the freedom of its citizens to travel and not be subjugated to false arrests.

On behalf of CNAB,

Hamdija Custovic, Spokesperson
The Congress of North American Bosniaks
 www.bosniak.org

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC), the American Institute for Genocide and Education (BAGI) and the Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO) welcome the news of the arrest of Goran Hadžić in Serbia the last high profile war criminal who was at large for more than seven years, accused of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws rules of war established by the Geneva Convention.

Twenty years after the beginning of the wars of aggression and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Hadzic’s arrest is another significant milestone in the history of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The arrest of Goran Hadzic is also a significant step that can bring about justice to the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Croatia.

KBSA, IRGC, BAGI and VBHOA once again caution the UN Security Council, for the sake of a better future of humanity and civilization and in the name of the truth about crimes and justice for the victims of these crimes, to provide sufficient time and resources to the ICTY to fully conduct the trials of Goran Hadžić, Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić in accordance with the standards of international justice.

We also urge the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to fully carry out the investigation and prosecution of all other war criminals in accordance with the law and the judicial powers of the War Crimes Chamber established by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We especially point out the importance of continuing relentless search for war criminals that are at large all over the world and applying international extradition request warrants bringing them to face justice.

Finally we want to underline that it is very important that the war criminals are held fully accountable for their actions as the only way to lasting peace and reconciliation in the region of former Yugoslavia.

Haris Alibašić, MPA, President
The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB)
www.bosniak.org

Prof. Emir Ramić, President
Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC)
http://www.instituteforgenocide.ca/

Senada Softić-Telalović, mr. sci , President
Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO)

Sanja Seferović-Drnovsek J.D, MEd, Chair
Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI)
 www.baginst.org

On 6 December 1992 The New York Times described a May 1992 attack in Prijedor:

“When the attack began, Serbs from the village guided the tanks to the homes of certain Muslims…and the inhabitants were asked to come out and show their identity cards. Many of those who did were summarily executed…The bodies of the dead were carried away by trucks, which left a trail of blood. Those not killed on the spot were transferred to a convoy heading toward Omarska, a Serb concentration camp.”

19^th Anniversary of Prijedor Genocide

Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada {IRGC} wants to show respect of the dignity and humanity of the victims of the genocide that happened in Prijedor. We express our regret for the destruction of life, and our solidarity and compassion for the suffering of the victims. All the killed ones are important to us, it is important that their suffering is recognized and respected, because, without that, their families and entire communities of victims of genocide in Prijedor cannot overcome the past, nor can they accept reconciliation without accountability.

IRGC wants to show that those murdered left the deepest marks in our lives, and that ignorance or indifference towards what happened to the victims is, in fact, the denial of their and our human dignity. We want to share the sorrow, compassion, solidarity and responsibility towards the victims of genocide with our fellow Canadian citizens.

On this occasion, we want to point out again that the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide in Bosnian and Herzegovina and for other most serious war crimes, to The Hague Tribunal is extremely important act. However, as the arrest was made after 16 years, we demand from the representatives of the Serbian institutions to launch an investigation and find out who hid, protected and guarded Mladic all these years. In what military and/or other facility was he kept? How much has the hiding of Mladic cost the citizens of Serbia?  If, in due time, representatives of the Serbian institutions do not provide the answers to these and other questions, it will be clear that the arrest was solely a pragmatic act, which has nothing to do with justice for victims, nor with the changing of the system of values and the abandonment of ideological, moral and cultural patterns that enabled and justified war and war crimes, and turned criminals into heroes.

The Trial Chamber found that the takeover of Prijedor was an illegal coup d’état

As the Trial Chamber found in its decision, the Serb takeover in Prijedor was accompanied by and accomplished through the commission of atrocities on a massive scale, including the establishment of internment camps at Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje. These atrocities include frequent killings, rapes and sexual assaults. Moreover, thousands of individuals were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, including routine beatings and torture. The cleansing of Prijedor also resulted in the expulsion of Bosniaks from their homes as well as their deportation in huge numbers, often in convoys organized and supervised by Serb authorities. According to the Trial Chamber, more than 20,000 civilians were victims of the expulsion campaign and more than 1,500 were killed in massacres carried out by Serbs during the takeover. Others have reported that the death toll from the internment camps was equally high – according to one source, nearly 2000 Bosniaks died at Omarska alone. We first heard of Omarska in the summer of 1992. That is when Roy Gutman, a foreign correspondent working for Newsday, reported on the existence, at a mining complex, of a camp run by Bosnian Serb militants that held several thousand non-Serb prisoners, primarily Bosniaks but also Croats. Based on the later reports of the detainees who survived their ordeal at Omarska, Gutman called it a ‘‘death camp’’ and reported on the appalling conditions and the rape, torture and execution of detainees. International reporting, especially by British journalists Ed Vulliamy, Penny Marshall and Ian Williams, exposed the horrors of Omarska and ultimately forced the camp to close. After Omarska, it became clear to many people that, in Bosnia, we were dealing with evil on such a scale that can neither be explained away nor ignored. Eventually, the internationally community organized an international tribunal to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the former Yugoslavia. The tribunal convicted several of the camp guards, commandants and associated others for crimes committed at Omarska.

The municipality of Prijedor is located in the north-western region of Bosnia and Herzegovina known as the Bosanska Krajina. The town of Prijedor is the largest settlement in the municipality. According to the 1991 census, out of a total population of 112,543, 43,9% regarded themselves as Bosniaks, 42.3% as Serbs, 5.7% as Yugoslavs, 5.6% as Croats and 2.5% as “others”. The census, for the first time, identified the Bosniaks as the largest ethnic group in the municipality of Prijedor. The shifting demographic balance in favour of the Muslim population was considered a challenge by the Serbs and became one of the central issues in the municipality’s political life during 1991 and 1992.

During the war in Croatia, the tension increased between the Serbs and the communities of Bosniaks and Croats. There was a huge influx of Serb refugees from Slovenia and Croatia into the municipality. At the same time, Bosniaks and Croats began to leave the municipality because of a growing sense of insecurity and fear amongst the population.

Pro-Serb propaganda became increasingly visible. The Serb media propagandised the idea that the Serbs had to arm themselves in order to avoid a situation similar to that which happened during World War II when the Serbs were massacred. As a result of the takeover of the transmitter station on Mount Kozara in August 1991 by the Serbian paramilitary unit the “Wolves of Vučjak”, TV Sarajevo was cut off. It was replaced by broadcasts from Belgrade and Banja Luka with interviews from Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) politicians who argued that, while Serbs sought to preserve Yugoslavia, the Bosniaks and Croats wanted to destroy the country.

At the meeting of the Prijedor Municipal Board of the SDS on 27 December 1991 it was decided to overthrow the existing authorities in the town, replace legitimate central authorities with SDS or SDS-loyal personnel, and form independent Serb bodies. At the session on 7 January 1992, the Serbian members of the Prijedor Municipal Assembly and the presidents of the local Municipal Boards of the SDS proclaimed the Assembly of the Serbian People of the Municipality of Prijedor. Milomir Stakić was elected President of this Assembly.

By the end of April 1992, a number of clandestine Serb police stations were created in the municipality and more than 1,500 armed men were ready to take part in the takeover. In the night of the 29 to 30 April 1992, the takeover of power took place “without a single bullet fired”.

Employees of the public security station and reserve police gathered in Čirkin Polje, part of the town of Prijedor. They were broadly divided into five groups. One group was responsible for the Municipal Assembly building, one for the SUP building, one for the courts, one for the bank and the last for the postoffice.

The Trial Chamber found that the takeover of Prijedor was an illegal coup d’état which had been planned and coordinated for months and which had as its final goal the creation of a Serbian municipality eventually to form part of an envisaged pure Serbian state. After the takeover, Milomir Stakić became, amongst other things, President of the Municipal Assembly and President of the Prijedor Municipal Peoples’ (National) Defence Council. From May 1992, he served as President of the Prijedor Municipal Crisis Staff. The Trial Chamber established that Milomir Stakić was the leading political figure in Prijedor municipality in 1992.

A comprehensive pattern of atrocities amounting to a campaign of a persecutorial nature was proved to have been committed against non-Serbs in Prijedor municipality in 1992. This included killings on a massive scale in the Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps, in Bosniak towns and villages throughout the municipality, and, finally, on Mount Vlašić.

The takeover of Prijedor, deportation of civilian from Prijedor and the operation of capturing, detention, and execution of Bosniacs are the acts of genocide, well planned, envisaged, efficiently organized, widespread, ordered from the top political and military leadership, and executed systematically according to the plan.

Number of the killed and execution, quick formation of mass graves, quick burials in mass graves, dislocation of mortal remains to secondary and tertiary mass graves suggest that the political, military, administrative, and police potential of the Serb forces supported by a large number of disciplined perpetrators took part in the plan, preparation, execution and the cover up of genocide.

Perpetrators of crime took all the steps, including the systematic digging, transfer, and reburial of the victims’ bodies, so as to cover up the genocide and prevent the justice, which constitutes yet another systematic form of crime committed against the killed, which has not been known in history. This speaks of the perpetrators as being aware of the criminal character of their actions, and there is no dilemma related to their subjective accountability and liability and/or firm intention related to the perpetration of this graves form of crime.

Mass graves of the genocide victims in Prijedor are apparent evidence of the planned and organized system of crimes, which resulted in genocide – the worst form of crimes against humanity and international law. Simultaneously, they are also one of the ways of concealing and destruction of clues of crimes. Unfortunately, International Court of Justice in The Hague in the case Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), did not mention at all the mass graves of the genocide victims in Prijedor.

The massive crime against Bosniacs of Islamic religion was committed in Prijedor. That crime is an act of genocide against Muslims. The area were the crimes were committed, speed of execution of several thousands of people, territory in which the bodies were buried, multiple transfer of mortal remains, and the number of individuals who took part in the execution and the covering of the crime absolutely indicate that the crimes were known to a large number of people and that they were persistently concealed.

Genocide against Bosniacs of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Prijedor was committed before the eyes of the world public. This was a part of direct preparation for the Dayton Accord following the traditional manner of placing everyone before the final act whiles securing strategically important border area to Serbia. This crime of genocide is only a tip of the iceberg within the crimes against humanity and international law committed continuously in the period of four years in the territory of three quarters of the state territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – in all the occupied places and towns under the siege.

There is a lot of evidence to prove that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina such as widespread killings, the siege of town, mass rapes, torture, deportation to camps and detention centers.

Conclusions of the Final Prijedor Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established pursuant to security council resolution 780 (1992)

“It is unquestionable that the events in Opstina Prijedor since 30 April 1992 qualifies as crimes against humanity. Furthermore, it is likely to be confirmed in court under due process of law that these events constitute genocide”.

More of the Prijedor Report : http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/anx/V.htm

IRGC wants to take this chance to restate its conviction that the world must never again allow such atrocities to occur unopposed and its determination that justice will seek out any who choose such barbaric paths.

* * * * *

A Prijedor Timeline: 1980 to 1995

Prelude to war

· 4 May 1980: Tito dies; collective Yugoslav presidency is established.

· 6 December 1989: Slobodan Milosevic elected present of Serbia. He begins his push for a Greater Serbia by laying claim to all areas where Serbs live.

· April-May 1990: Elections in Slovenia and Croatia set the stage for independence in those republics.

· November 1990: the SDA (Party of Democratic Action, which had strong Muslim support) wins a plurality but not majority of seats in the Prijedor Assembly. The municipal government of Prijedor is now split between Serbs and Muslims.

· 25 March 1991: Milosevic and Franjo Tudman secretly agree to divide Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia.

· Prijedor’s Serbs establish Serb shadow government in Prijedor under Milomir Stakic.

· April 1991: Serbian politicians declare the Bosanska Krajina Srpska Autonomna Oblast (the Serbian Autonomous Region of the Bosnian Krajina).

· The Prijedor Assembly votes down a proposal to join what is essentially a secessionist state.

· 25 June 1991: Croatia and Slovenia proclaim independence.

Prelude to genocide

· August 1991: War between Croatian forces and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army begins.

· At the same time, a heavily armed brigade from Serbia arrives in Prijedor. Serbian military authorities fail to persuade the Muslim population to join their war against Croatia.

· Throughout 1991: Light weaponry is brought in from Serbia and distributed to Serbs in Prijedor under the false pretext of defense against Muslim extremists.

· Fall 1991: In Prijedor, Serbs secretly begin to set up a parallel administration called the Serb Municipality of Prijedor. They set up nine new police stations and arm the police.

· September 1991: UN establishes an arms embargo against all of Yugoslavia.

· October 1991: Bosnian parliament proclaims the sovereignty of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serb deputies belonging to the SDS (Serb Nationalist Party) walk out.

· 9 January 1992: The Assembly of the Serbian People in Bosnia and Herzegovina declares a separate Serb Republic.

· February 1992: In Prijedor and elsewhere, Serbs establish “Crisis Committees” (Krizni Stab).

· March 1992: Referendum is held on independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina; most Serbs boycott referendum. Of those voting, 99 percent vote in favor of an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina.

· March 3, 1992: Bosnian Parliament declares Bosnia-Herzegovina an independent republic.

· March 1992: In Prijedor, Serb artillery is moved into place on Mount Kozara.

· 21-28 March 1992: Serbs seize control of television transmitter near Prijedor on Mt. Kozara;
transmissions from Zagreb and Sarajevo are blocked.

· 6 April 1992: EEC recognizes independence of Bosnia Herzegovina. In Sarajevo, Serb snipers attack peaceful demonstrators supporting a multiethnic Yugoslavia.

· 14 April 1992: Serbs erect roadblocks around Prijedor.

· 27 April 1992: Bosnia-Herzegovina decrees that the JNA (now a Serbian army, formerly the Yugoslav army) must leave the country.

· 28 April 1992: Due to mounting danger, UN military observers in Prijedor and nearby Banja Luka are withdrawn.

· 29 April 1992: Forged fax “surfaces”; it purports to order Bosnian territorial defense units to attack the JNA. The effect is to further agitate Serbs.

· 30 April 1992: The Serb Prijedor Crisis Staff takes over all government offices in Prijedor in order to “secure their survival.”

· The seizure of government offices takes twenty-five minutes.
· What had previously been the Serb shadow government assumes control.
· Identification papers are now required of everyone.
· Massive firings of non-Serbs begin.
· Serb police are ordered to follow Serbian law, not Bosnian law.
· Serb authorities intensify pressure on non-Serbs to give up any weapons.

· Mid to late May, 1992: Serbian military personnel remaining in Bosnia convert JNA units into the Bosnian Serb Army, to be commanded by General Ratko Mladic. The Bosnian Serb Army would work jointly with a number of Serb paramilitary units.

· Mid May, 1992: Men belonging to ultra-nationalist paramilitary group under the leadership of Arkan (Zeljko Raznjatovic) move into Hotel Prijedor.

· 23 May to 1 June 1992: Due to series of ultimatums, non-Serbs in Prijedor surrender remaining weapons to Serb authorities.

Genocide in Prijedor

· 23 May 1992: Village of Hambarine (pop. 2499) shelled and stormed. Approximately 100 villagers are killed or wounded; many more flee.

· 24 May 1992: Kozarac area (non-Serb pop. 27,000) shelled and stormed. As many as 5,000 people are killed in the Kozarac area in the days that follow.

· 35 non-Serb police officers are executed in front of the primary school.
· Serb soldiers fire upon a column of non-Serb citizens leaving Korazac, killing men, women, and children.
· “Young Muslim women” are “shepherded to Serb military positions,” where they are sexually abused.
· Eight elderly non-Serbs are “shepherded into a cellar and massacred.”

· 24-25 May 1992: Serbs open concentration camps at Trnopolje, Omarska, and Keraterm. Serbs focus efforts on imprisoning and otherwise eliminating Muslim and Croat leaders, including business leaders and intellectuals.

· 30 May 1992 and after: Stari Grad, Prijedor’s “Old Town,” is razed. Civilians who live in the area are transported to Logor Trnopolje, where they are kept without food for several days. Women and children are eventually released; men are detained.

· 30-31 May 1992: Serbs move through additional parts of the city of Prijedor, targeting and forcing out non-Serb inhabitants. Men not killed are taken to Omarska and Keraterm; women and children who are not killed are taken to Trnopolje. Dozens of corpses of non-Serbs are observed piled throughout the city.

· Early June 1992: All non-Serbs are required to wear white armbands and hang white flags from the windows of their homes.

· July 1992: Throughout Prijedor, Serbs destroy buildings “built in a traditional Muslim style.”

· Starting 20 July 1992: The area on the left bank of the Sana River is shelled.

· “A total of more than 1500 people [are] killed on 20 July 1992 alone.”
· Women and children are separated from the men; the latter are executed or transported to concentration camps.
· When Omarska and Keraterm are filled, men on one bus destined for the camps are shot to death by Serb soldiers.
· Houses are systematically looted and destroyed.

· 23 July 1992: Serbs encircle the town of Carakovo, southwest of Prijedor. “Hundreds of people [are] killed—shot, burnt alive, beaten, or tortured to death in other ways.” At least 760 non-Serbs are killed.

· 20-25 July 1992: In Lisina, “between 70 and 100 Muslim civilians [are] killed” by Serbs.

· End of July 1992: Serbs kill between 100 and 120 Muslim civilians from Jugovci.

· 1 August 1992: In Redak, south of Ljubija, Serbs kill 200 Muslim civilians.

· Mid-August 1992: Omarska and Keraterm camps are closed; surviving prisoners divided into groups; some are executed, and others are sent to camps at Manjaca and Trnopolje.

· 21 August 1992: 228 prisoners are massacred at Koricanske Stijene on Mount Vlasic. Recounted a survivor, “they brought us to the very edge . . . facing the abyss. Then people started screaming, yelling. . . . I leaped into the abyss. . . . When I became conscious, I realized that through some incredible luck I was not injured. . . So I took a body of a man and I covered myself. . . . And then they started shooting. . . .”

· 5 November 1992: Serbs are observed burning the remains of people killed in Lisina in July. The odor is smelled “kilometers away.”

· Early October 1992: Trnopolje camp is closed. Many prisoners remain in the camp because their homes have been destroyed or taken.

· 17 December1992: Radovan Karadzic becomes president of a Bosnian Serb state.

Aftermath

· 1993-1995: Random and targeted killings continue. Many of the Muslims and Catholics remaining in Prijedor and the surrounding area are forcibly deported; their property is confiscated.

· 22 February 1993: The U.N. Security Council establishes the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

· February 1994: A Croat-Bosniak (Catholic-Muslim) federation is established in Bosnia; joint Croat-Bosniak forces afterwards try to retake territory controlled by Bosnian Serbs.

· July 1995: U.N. “safe haven” of Srebrenica falls; Serbs massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.

· 29 August 1995: NATO begins Operation Deliberate Force against the Bosnian Serb insurgents.

· 16-17 September: The Bosnian army retakes extensive territories in western Bosnia, including Kljuc and Sanski Most. Bosnia forces move towards Prijedor but fail to reach the city.

· Late September-early October 1995: Serbs fleeing advancing Bosnian forces seek refuge in Prijedor; they initiate a second wave of “ethnic cleansing,” pushing out Prijedor’s remaining Muslims and Catholics.

· 12 October 1995: General ceasefire takes effect in Bosnia-Herzegovina, before Prijedor can be recaptured.

· 14 December 1995: The Dayton Peace Accords are signed by Slobodan Milosevic (Serbia), Franjo Tudman (Croatia), and Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The agreement leaves about half (49%) of the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the hands of the Bosnian Serbs. The Prijedor municipality remains in the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia.

The Institute for Research of Genocide- Canada is honoured to inform the public that the University of Sarajevo has awarded Mr. Brian Masse, Member of the Canadian Parliament and Sponsor of the Srebrenica Genocide Resolution in the Canadian Parliament and Professor Emir Ramic, Director of the Canadian Institute for Genocide with the prestigious academic award, the Golden Badge of the Sarajevo University.

Excerpt from the reasons for the award of the Golden Badge of the Sarajevo University for Mr. Brian Masse, Member of the Canadian Parliament:

“All citizens of Bosnian origin living in Canada can testify that Brian’s contribution and hard work to acknowledge and declare a day of mourning for Srebrenica and to make sure that everyone knows that the crimes committed in Srebrenica were in fact genocide. Despite the resistance to include the word genocide in the resolution, Brian was determined to pass the resolution in the Parliament. This task was accomplished on October 19th 2010.The lobbying and advocacy process for this resolution lasted more than a year and Brian’s dedication, commitment, integrity and courage are important factors that led to the realization of this; something that is very important to the Bosnian Herzegovinian community. Furthermore, this gives an advantage to Canada to strengthen its commitment in the fight to prevent genocide in the future, and further optimize the relations between BiH and Canada to prevent future genocides. It is vastly important to emphasize Brian Masse’s commitment to fighting for human rights since the beginning of his political career. In fact, his entry into politics was linked to the genocide in East Timor. From then onwards, Brian has maintained his integrity in the fight for human rights. In the case of the Srebrenica Resolution he demonstrated that the need for justice surpasses the need for apparent peace”.

Excerpt from the reasons for the award of the Golden Badge of the Sarajevo University for Professor Emir Ramic:

“Professor Ramic is the name that everyone in Canada associated with a relentless struggle for truth and justice in North America and beyond. Ramic,is a victim of genocidal ideology in his hometown of Prijedor and a victim of the same ideology in Canada, but his selfless and heroic efforts in Bosnia are synonymous with resistance, and patriotism in the most original sense of the word. There is not enough space on these sheets to include all his merits and all of his victories, but we will draw attention to his immense contribution in Canada. Canada is the largest Western states to join the list of countries that passed a motion which acknowledges the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica and this is in large part thanks to Emir. While many have resisted the passage of the resolution and other similar documents, and although many people attempted to sabotage the project or at least diminish its importance by attempting to remove the word genocide from the resolution, Ramic did not accept any other offer except the original document which clearly identifies the act as: genocide, Who committed the act, who the victims are and how many victims there are. In the past seven years Ramic worked hard to adopt the Srebrenica Resolution in the Canadian Parliament. The idea eventually gained momentum, and the resolution was adopted on October 19th 2010. Now, under the watchful eye of Emir, we are working on passing a law that would officially declare a Srebrenica Remembrance Day in Canada, as well as establish a memorial for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide in the city of Windsor. A member of the Canadian Parliament, Brian Masse presented Emir’s resolution in the Canadian parliament”.

More: http://unsa.ba/s/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=988&Itemid=348&lang=english

Aldina Muslija
Secretary
The Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada

Masse discussed the significance of the motion and the importance of demonstrating support for it: “It will be an honour to participate in these ceremonies. It is important for Canada to show clearly that atrocities like the Bosnian genocide are condemned in no uncertain terms. The institutionalization of Srebrenica Remembrance Day sends the message to the international community that Canada will not tolerate acts of genocide and that we will stand with people impacted by these atrocities to inform future generations.”

The Organisational Committee has created a Programme that spans 10 days and includes victims and their families, dignitaries from the United Nations, the European Parliament, Academia, Religious Communities and Activist Organizations dedicated to peace promotion. There are a range of events scheduled including formal remembrance ceremonies both secular and religious in nature, discussion panels, athletic events, and a peace march. The ceremonies will capture international attention and many of the events will be broadcast live on national television.

Senad Alicehajic, a Member of the Bosnian Community of Windsor who will be attending the ceremonies with Masse talked about the support from the international community and the importance of continued vigilance: “The Bosnian Canadian Community appreciates Mr. Masse’s efforts to keep the memory of victims of genocide alive. Genocide is the worst example of human intolerance and is still happening all over the world. Unfortunately, it happened in our Bosnia in the 1990′s. Mr. Masse is fighting to ensure that the truth is known, and that victims are not forgotten. This trip is the follow through of the Srebrenica Remembrance Day motion and underscores the belief that much work still needs to be done in order to live up to the “Never Again” vow. Don’t forget Srebrenica!”

Masse and Alicehajic will be travelling to Srebrenica July 9th returning on the 13th.

The Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) cordially invites you to the 16th Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide on Capitol Hill. We will commemorate the lives lost during the worst atrocity committed in Europe since World War II.

Monday, July 11, 2011
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Congressional Meeting Room North

Opening Remarks:
Admir Serifovic, BAACBH President

Speakers:
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia – invited
Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-MO), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia – invited
H.E. Sven Alkalaj, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dr. Sheri Fink, Pulitzer Prize Winning Investigative Reporter and author of the book “War Hospital”
Ms. Dijana Muminovic, Documentary photographer who will display her work titled “Searching for Closure”

*Bosnian delicacies will be provided*

RSVP Contact: Ajla Delkic
202-347-6742
adelkic@baacbh.org

  The policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992-1995 meet the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide[i]

 In these resolutions, the United States government recognized that the premeditated and well-organized mass murders, rapes, forced detentions, torture, and forced expulsions of hundreds of thousands of defenseless Bosnian civilians as well as the wanton physical destruction of the Bosnian people’s ancient cultural, national, and religious objects and symbols that took place from 1992-1995 constituted a vicious genocidal campaign carried out by Serb forces intent on extirpating the native Bosnian population from its ancestral homeland. The passage of these landmark resolutions was a vital step in remembering the victims of genocide and thwarting the efforts of individuals and organizations intent on denying the Bosnian Genocide. History has shown that genocides that are not recognized, remembered, and discussed are inevitably denied, trivialized, and forgotten.

 It is disappointing that six years after the United States government formally recognized the Bosnian Genocide we rarely hear the American media and political establishments refer to it as such. Today we hear about the Rwandan Genocide, the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust (the genocide against the Jewish people), the Cambodian Genocide, and even the genocide in Darfur but almost never do we hear the Bosnian Genocide mentioned or discussed by the media and our public officials. When the 1992-1995 genocidal campaign against Bosnian civilians is discussed in the media and in political circles we often hear about an “ethnic conflict”, about a “civil war”, about “ethnic cleansing”, about heinous atrocities committed against civilians because of their ethnicity or religion, and we hear about the “massacre” at Srebrenica – what we often don’t hear is the word genocide being used to correctly and succinctly describe the nature of the crimes committed and the intent of the perpetrators.

 Despite the fact that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have both rendered judgments[ii] that the atrocities committed by Serb forces in Srebrenica were acts of genocide as it is defined by international law[iii], members of the news media continue to misleadingly refer to it as a “massacre” more often then they refer to it as genocide. It’s rather shocking that more than a few well respected sources of news and information seem to think that the word massacre, which denotes an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people[iv], is in any way interchangeable with the word genocide which denotes a specific well defined international crime – considered to be the most heinous crime imaginable. Other well researched instances of genocidal mass slaughter of Bosnian civilians that took place in towns and villages like Visegrad, Foca, Prijedor, and Zvornik – just to name a few -are almost completely ignored. It seems that the entire four year genocidal military campaign intent on establishing an ethnically pure “Greater Serbian” fascist state that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, resulted in the rapes of thousands of young girls and women, the forced displacement of millions, and the complete destruction of many priceless national, religious, and cultural treasures all over Bosnia-Herzegovina has been reduced by the American news media and political establishment to one horrifying incident in July of 1995 that is routinely referred to as being merely a large “massacre” of “Muslims” seemingly separate and disconnected from all other then ongoing  and ideologically connected genocidal massacres against the Bosnian people. We need to start thinking of the genocide committed in Srebrenica as being to the Bosnian Genocide what the Auschwitz extermination camp was to the Holocaust – one preeminent and visceral example of a much larger genocidal campaign. It’s unfortunate that the solid evidence that has been collected over the past decade and a half proving that genocide took place, the international court rulings that unequivocally state that it did, and the national as well as international resolutions that formally acknowledge that it did are all seemingly ignored by a majority of those charged with informing the American public.

 By avoiding the use of the word genocide to correctly describe what took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992-1995, most American journalists, editors, and public officials are knowingly or unknowingly trivializing the Bosnian Genocide and are thereby opening the door to historical revisionism and genocide denial.   

 Public officials and members of the news media can and must do a better job of presenting the truth about what happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the American public and informing themselves and their respective audiences about the genocide that was committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as all other historical and currently ongoing instances of genocide. Our ability to prevent future genocides from taking place depends on us recognizing and learning from those that took place in the past.

 For the sake of serving the truth, upholding justice, and working towards a future free from genocide and mass atrocities against civilians it is time for the 1992-1995 genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be fully recognized, for it to be referred to by its proper name, for the American public to be informed about it, for its victims to be honored and remembered, for its perpetrators to be brought to justice, and for its painful lessons to be learned and applied – it’s time we started talking about the Bosnian Genocide.  

Endnotes

[i]  Senate Resolution 134 passed by the 109^th Congress

   House Resolution 199 passed by the 109^th Congress

[ii] ICTY court ruling: By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.

   ICJ court ruling: The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in

[iii] In Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 [iv]  Oxford Online English Dictionary defines massacre as an “indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people”

The start of Ratko Mladic’s trial today means that the most important Bosnian Serb war-criminal, alongside Radovan Karadzic, is now facing justice. This trial will be crucially important for two reasons.

Firstly, its proceedings may shed some light on the role of Serbia and its military in the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995. At the time of the massacre, Serbia was in a federal union with Montenegro, and the joint state went by the name of the ‘Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ (Savezna Republika Jugoslavija – SRJ). Its army, the ‘Army of Yugoslavia’, provided logistical support for the Bosnian Serb army – the ‘Army of the Serb Republic’ – and its Croatian Serb counterpart, though these were formally independent of it. The minutes of the SRJ’s Supreme Defence Council (which comprised the presidents of ‘Yugoslavia’, Serbia and Montenegro) were recently used by the prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  in its case against former Yugoslav army Chief of Staff Momcilo Perisic. They reveal that Perisic regularly appealed to the Supreme Defence Council to provide such logistical support to the Bosnian Serb military, and that these appeals continued up until the eve of the Srebrenica massacre. Hopefully, the trial of Mladic, alongside that of Perisic, will provide more information on the role of the Army of Yugoslavia during the Srebrenica massacre. Indeed, it is likely that Mladic’s ability to provide such information was one of the reasons that Serbia’s military shielded him from arrest for so long. This is, however, an optimistic hope, as Mladic is more likely to continue denying responsibility for the massacre and to shield his former protectors than he is to spill the beans.

The second, and more important reason why Mladic’s trial is important, is that it provides the best chance yet to prove that genocide occurred not only at Srebrenica in 1995, but in other places and at other times in Bosnia-Hercegovina as well. The judicial record on this question so far is ambiguous. Germany’s courts have convicted Bosnian Serb perpetrators for offences relating to genocide carried out in parts of Bosnia outside of Srebrenica. One of these, the paramilitary leader Nikola Jorgic, was convicted of genocide in the north Bosnian region of Doboj in 1992, but appealed his conviction all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. The latter upheld Jorgic’s conviction for genocide, ruling that the German courts’ definition of genocide was consistent with the international legal definition. The German and ECHR rulings on Jorgic corroborate the view that genocide occurred across Bosnia from 1992, not merely at Srebrenica in 1995. On the other hand, the International Court of Justice, in the case for genocide brought by Bosnia against Serbia, acquitted Serbia of all genocide-related charges apart from failure to prevent and punish genocide. The ICJ specifically stated that genocide in Bosnia occurred only at Srebrenica in 1992, not in other places or at other times. Mladic, however, stands accused by the ICTY prosecution of systematic genocide across both western and eastern Bosnia from May 1992. If Mladic is found guilty on all charges, the judicial record for a genocide in Bosnia that occurred across the country from 1992 to 1995 will be greatly strengthened.

Be this as it may, the significance of this trial, and of Mladic personally, should not be overstated. News reports have suggested that Mladic was, along with Serbia’s wartime president Slobodan Milosevic and the wartime Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the three principal perpetrators of Serb war-crimes in Bosnia. In fact, the singling out of these three individuals, to the exclusion of all others, betrays a false understanding of the nature of the Great Serbian killing campaign and of how it was organised. In reality, the Serb military aggression against Bosnia and programme of mass killing of its non-Serb inhabitants was planned and organised by the regime in Belgrade; not merely by Milosevic the despot, but by a much wider circle of top political, military and police officials. This war followed on seamlessly from the prior war waged by Serbia against Croatia in 1991-1992.

Mladic, on the other hand, was merely a run-of-the-mill officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) until well after the war in Croatia had begun. He served as chief of the Department for Instruction of the JNA’s 3rd Military District based in Skopje in Macedonia until January 1991, then as assistant to the commander of the Pristina Corps in Kosovo until July 1991, when he was transferred – still as a mere colonel – to Knin, which was the self-proclaimed capital of the Serb rebels in Croatia. He was appointed chief of staff of the 9th (Knin) Corps at the end of July, and played a central role in ethnic cleansing operations against Croatia. In October, after Serbia together with Montenegro had carried out a coup d’etat to establish exclusive control of the federal organs of rump Yugoslavia, including of the JNA, Mladic was promoted to major-general. From late November or early December 1991, as they were preparing to wind down the war in Croatia and to shift it to Bosnia, the Milosevic regime and the leadership of the JNA set about organising a Bosnian Serb military within the framework of the JNA, something that involved concentrating all Bosnian Serb soldiers and officers in the JNA on Bosnian territory. On 30 December, the rump Yugoslav presidency (i.e. the representatives of Serbia and Montenegro) established a new military district – the ’2nd Military District’ – based in Sarajevo, that had jurisdiction over Mladic’s Knin Corps. At the same time, Mladic was promoted to commander of the Knin Corps.

Thus, when the JNA launched a full-scale war against Bosnia in March and April 1992, Mladic was not even based in Bosnia, but was still in the relatively junior position of commander of the Knin Corps, based in Serb-occupied Croatia. He nevertheless participated in the start of the aggression against Bosnia; his forces captured the town of Kupres in south-west Bosnia from its predominantly Bosnian Croat defenders on 8 April 1992 and helped to organise the future Bosnian Serb army in that region of the country, after which he returned to the Knin region for further operations against the Croatian Army.

On 27 April 1992, Milosevic’s regime proclaimed the new ‘Yugoslavia’ – i.e., the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ), consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro. The Bosnian Serb rebel entity, subsequently known as the ‘Republika Srpska’, had already proclaimed independence a month before. By establishing the SRJ and the Bosnian Serb republic as formally separate states, the Milosevic regime aimed to pretend to the world that it was not involved in the war in Bosnia, and that this war was really just a ‘civil war’. This necessitated a formally independent Bosnian Serb army, separate from the Yugoslav army, and Mladic was handpicked by Belgrade to be its commander. On 30 April, Milosevic and other top officials of Serbia, Montenegro and the JNA met with the Bosnian Serb leaders under Radovan Karadzic to arrange the formation of a Bosnian Serb army, and it was agreed that Mladic – who had been promoted to lieutenant general only a few days before – would serve as its commander. In early May, JNA Chief of Staff and acting Yugoslav defence minister Blagoje Adzic summoned Mladic to Belgrade to inform him that he was to be promoted to both commander and chief of staff of the JNA’s 2nd Military District, based in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. At about the same time, the acting president of the Yugoslav presidency, Branko Kostic, ordered the previous JNA incumbent of the post to surrender his duties to Mladic, whose appointment as commander of the 2nd Military District was reported by Belgrade TV on 9 May.

Mladic subsequently recalled that ‘When I took up duty in the 2^nd Military District I immediately assigned myself the task of assembling men and forming a command and General Staff, partly from the remnants of the 2^nd Military District and partly from the men who had come with me from Knin and from other areas, who were born in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We immediately began the formation of a General Staff of the [Bosnian] Serb Army.’ On 12 May, the self-declared Bosnian Serb parliament voted to establish a Bosnian Serb army incorporating all JNA units on Bosnian territory, and to appoint Mladic as its commander. Yet the law was not promulgated by the presidency of the self-declared Bosnian Serb republic until 19 May. Until that time, Mladic was still formally subordinate, along with all Serb forces on Bosnian territory, to the Yugoslav military command and Yugoslav presidency in Belgrade. Only on 19 May did the the JNA formally split into two separate armies: the ‘Army of Yugoslavia’, made up of troops from Serbia and Montenegro, which formally withdrew from Bosnia on the same date; and the ‘Army of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina’, subsequently simply the ‘Army of the Serb Republic’, headed by Mladic and now formally independent.

In other words, although Mladic played a prominent and significant role in the Serb military assault on Bosnia that began full-scale in the spring of 1992, he was far from being its chief instigator or organiser. The latter was the political and military leadership of Serbia, Montenegro and the Yugoslav People’s Army, which handpicked and groomed Mladic for the role. Attributing excessive importance to Mladic as organiser of the war in Bosnia downplays the party that was actually responsible: the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

War crimes investigators at the ICTY were aware of how the war and mass killing in Bosnia were organised. According to the amended indictment of Milosevic for war crimes in Bosnia:

‘Slobodan MILOSEVIC participated in the joint criminal enterprise as set out below. The purpose of this joint criminal enterprise was the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, from large areas of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter referred to as “Bosnia and Herzegovina”), through the commission of crimes which are in violation of Articles 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Statute of the Tribunal. The joint criminal enterprise was in existence by 1 August 1991 and continued until at least 31 December 1995. The individuals participating in this joint criminal enterprise included Slobodan MILOSEVIC, Radovan KARADZIC, Momcilo KRAJISNIK, Biljana PLAVSIC, General Ratko MLADIC, Borisav JOVIC, Branko KOSTIC, Veljko KADIJEVIC, Blagoje ADZIC, Milan MARTIC, Jovica STANISIC, Franko SIMATOVIC, also known as “Frenki,” Radovan STOJICIC, also known as “Badza,” Vojislav SESELJ, Zeljko RAZNATOVIC, also known as “Arkan,” and other known and unknown participants.’

However, at the time of writing, not a single official of Serbia, Montenegro or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – i.e. of the regime that organised the war – nor any officer of the JNA (excluding officers of the Bosnian Serb army who had previously served in the JNA) has been convicted by the ICTY of war crimes in Bosnia. The weight of ICTY punishment has, so far, fallen exclusively on the Bosnian Serbs, while the regime of Milosevic in Belgrade and the leadership of the JNA have been mostly let off the hook. Only six such officials were ever indicted: Milosevic, Stanisic, Simatovic, Perisic, Arkan and Seselj. Arkan was assassinated before he could be arrested, while Milosevic died while his trial was in progress. This leaves a maximum of four representatives of the regime who could, if the prosecution is wholly successful, receive punishment for organising the worst case of aggression and mass killing in Europe since World War II. None of these belonged to the top rank of officials responsible for organising the war in Bosnia, with the exception of Stanisic, who was head of Serbia’s State Security Service.

Of the other representatives of the ‘joint criminal enterprise’ from Serbia, Montenegro and the JNA high command who were listed in the Milosevic indictment, Stojicic was assassinated in Belgrade before the indictment was issued. Adzic and Kadijevic, the two top figures in the JNA during the war in Croatia and (in Adzic’s case) during the first stage of the war in Bosnia, were never indicted. Neither were Jovic and Kostic, the Yugoslav presidency members for Serbia and Montenegro respectively, and therefore (along with their counterparts for Vojvodina and Kosovo) the individuals in ultimate formal command of all Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia up until 19 May 1992. Other top officials of Serbia, Montenegro and the JNA also escaped indictment over Bosnia or Croatia – such as Montenegro’s wartime president Momir Bulatovic, and acting Yugoslav army chief of staff Zivota Panic (who died in 2003).

Some relatively minor JNA figures were indicted for war-crimes in Croatia, in relation to Vukovar and Dubrovnik, but over Croatia, as over Bosnia, the weight of the ICTY’s punishment has fallen on the Croatian Serb agents of Belgrade – such as Milan Martic and Milan Babic (and potentially also the still unarrested Goran Hadzic) – while the officials of the former Milosevic regime have escaped extremely lightly.

This extraordinary failure of international justice over Bosnia – the failure of the ICTY to indict more than a handful of the officials of the regime and army responsible for the planning and launching the war, and so far to convict a single one of them – reflects both the inability of its prosecutors to understand the war properly, as well as their poor strategy in issuing indictments. As I have indicated elsewhere, a preliminary draft of a war-crimes indictment for the leadership of the SRJ (Serbia and Montenegro) drawn up in 2001 by investigators – including the present author – aimed to indict Milosevic and other members of his regime together, including Jovic, Kostic and Adzic. But by a decision of Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, the policy was then dropped in favour of an indictment of Milosevic alone. Apart from allowing his chief collaborators to escape justice, this had the unfortunate effect – as Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of Milosevic, himself noted – that when Milosevic died in 2006, his trial came to an end, and with it, the trial of his regime. This contrasts with the sensible indictment strategy pursued over Serbian war-crimes in Kosovo by del Ponte’s predecessor, Louise Arbour, who indicted five top members of the regime together, including Milosevic.

In her published memoirs, del Ponte’s failure to understand the planning and organising of the war in Bosnia is apparent; it is a failure that found expression in her misguided indictment strategy. She describes Milosevic and Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman as the two figures primarily responsible for the break up of Yugoslavia – as if their respective roles in the process were equal, and as if none of the other leading members of Milosevic’s Belgrade regime was of similar importance. But this is false.

The break up of Yugoslavia and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia all formed part of a single process, planned by the regime in Belgrade under Milosevic’s leadership from at least the spring of 1990, with the goal of creating a Great Serbia (masquerading as a ‘new Yugoslavia’). So far as Bosnia was concerned, this ’joint criminal enterprise’ aimed to destroy the country and kill or expel most of the Muslim or Bosniak population. Most of Bosnia, as well as large parts of Croatia, were to be annexed by Serbia, and rump Croatia was to receive some Bosnian territory as well, with the Muslims or Bosniaks, at best, being confined to an Indian reservation in between. Tudjman was an eager collaborator in this programme of genocide and aggression, whose other leading members were, in particular, the aforementioned Jovic, Kostic, Kadijevic, Adzic, Stanisic, Panic and Bulatovic. None of these has yet been punished, and most of them certainly never will be.

As for Mladic, he was merely a middle-ranking agent in the planning and launching of this enterprise – more than a pawn, but not more than a knight or a bishop. So while his arrest and trial should be celebrated, and while we have much to expect from it, let us not pretend that justice is being served.

Originally Published on the Greater Surbiton blog on June 3, 2011

(See original Der Spiegel interview here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,635205,00.html)

“Judge Christoph Flügge was hearing the case of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic in The Hague in 2009, when he told Der Spiegel magazine that “mass murder” was a more suitable term for the killing of 8,000 men and boys in the UN safe haven in July 1995.

The judge, a former public prosecutor in Berlin, maintained in the interview that there was no reason to differentiate between “a group that is murdered for their nationality, religion, ethnicity or race, as is regulated by the Hague Statute” and a group that “happens to be gathered at a specific location”. (IrishTimes.com)

The article also referenced a CNAB letter in which we requested removal of Judge Flügge from the Karadzic case due to his impartiality to the case, because the killing of 8,000 Bosniak civilians in Srebrenica was on several previous occasions classified as genocide by the same court (ICTY) that he serves, including ICJ ruling against Serbia and Montenegro.

The judge’s comments led at the time to demands by relatives of the Srebrenica victims for his removal from the trial, with the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) describing his comments as “genocide denial” which rendered his impartiality impossible.

CNAB demanded an apology and asked the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to remove the judge, not only from the Karadzic trial but from “any case dealing specifically with charges of genocide”. (IrishTimes.com)

CNAB will protest the assignment of Judge Flügge once again due to his compromised impartiality as well as his refusal to apologize for the comments and publicly recognize the classification of Srebrenica Genocide.

Sources:

Cluskey, Peter. “Judge for Mladic case in row over ‘genocide’” The Irish Times. 30. May. 2011 <http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0530/1224298058574.html>.

Der Spiegel. “UN Tribunal Judge on the Karadzic trial. “. Der Spiegel. 9. July. 2011. <http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,635205,00.html>

Congress of North American Bosniaks. “CNAB Demands Removal of ICTY Judge Christoph Flügge”. CNAB. 10. July. 2011 <http://www.bosniak.org/cnab-demands-removal-of-icty-judge-christoph-flugge/>

Help Us, Say Women of Bosnia

Bosniak women told a Press conference in London recently about the rape, torture and other atrocities they suffered at the hands of their Serbian captors. Zaharah Othman has the story.

In a voice devoid of emotion, Bosniak Jasmina Kocarac narrated her traumatic experience at the hands of Serbian soldiers who 15 days earlier had mercilessly killed her husband and her in-laws before her very eyes.

As with other victims of Serbian atrocities, there was no time for Jasmina to shed any more tears, for indeed her more important task now was to tell the world about the systematic ethnic cleansing by the Serbs to wipe out Bosniaks from the map and history of the world.

Jasmina was raped repeatedly by three Serbian soldiers after being arrested and taken to a concentration camp. She was handpicked from a group of women and taken to another room where she said there were naked women who had apparently been raped and sexually molested. She knew she was about to meet the same fate but was mercifully spared the humiliation when she passed out.

She wasn’t lucky the next time round and was fully conscious of the brutal reality that those who raped her were her former neighbours. One of them was the best man at her wedding.

In the same monotone voice Jasmina vowed that she would kill her rapists if she found them.

Jasmina was among a group of Bosniak refugees from Zagreb in Croatia who attended the London Peace Conference recently. Like all the others, she acquired her freedom from the concentration camp in exchange programmes for Serbian prisoners held by Bosniaks.

What happened to Jasmina was by no means an isolated case. According to Fatima Kafedzic, president of the Mothers’ Movement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, age did not seem to be a deterrent. Gang-raping girls as young as seven years old in front of their mothers and other prisoners offered some kind of morbid pleasure to their Serbian captors.

At a concentration camp in Manjaca, near Banja Luka, seven-year-old Mirma was gang-raped in front of her mother and fellow prisoners. Her distraught mother prayed for her daughter’s death to end her trauma. She died eight hours later.

Others, according to Fatima, were not so lucky. At a hospital in Zagreb, where many Bosniaks are taking refuge, teenage girls are awaiting the birth of unwanted babies. Some have to undergo intense psychological treatment and counselling.

“Members of my movement visited a 13-year-old girl who was raped and tortured. She was in a state of shock and was constantly crying. We told her to try to forget what had happened and try to rebuild her life,” said Fatima, her voice betraying her own conviction of her statement.

A mother of 10 children, Fatima fears for the safety of her daughters who are still in Sarajevo. She was in Austria collecting medical supplies and could not return when trouble broke out. Since then she has lost contact with her husband and six children. From Zagreb, her movement tried to help victims pick up the pieces and start life anew. It also helps rehabilitate children who had lost their parents in the war.

Another tireless figure who spends her time healing the physical and mental wounds of the war victims is Dr Alma Muslic. She said she has seen terrible cases of torture, especially of pregnant women who were brutally knifed in the stomach. And there were, of course, little children who were victims of sniper attacks or who were left orphaned without both parents.

One child who was lucky to have both parents around was Jasmin, 9, but he has to live with the constant nightmarish reminder of his days at the concentration camp in Manjaca.

Jasmin was with his mother Aziza and sister Waleeda, 12, on a abus to his aunt’s house in Dobrinja when they were stopped by Serbian soldiers.

Bosniak passengers were marched off for questioning. Jasmin was repeatedly questioned about who was supplying arms to Bosniaks.

When Aziza was taken away for questioning they threatened to rape her children if she did not co-operate.

It was while she was away that Jasmin witnessed men, who were just skin and bones, being tortured.

At the Press conference in London recently, Jasmin broke down while narrating his story and Waleeda constantly hid her face in her hands in an effort to wipe out the memory.

Earlier, before the start of the conference, a brief separation from his mother proved too much for young Jasmin, whose nagging fear was not seeing his mother ever again.

For Aziza and her children, the peace conference which brought them to London for a brief respite from the troubles in their homeland offered little hope for real peace in Bosnia.

However, they received their first good news in months during their stay in London when they heard that her husband was safe in Sarajevo.

However, for Fatima Hodzic, her husband and the rest of the menfolk in her family perished in a mass killing by Serbian soldiers.

Now, her son, five-year-old Mohamed is the only male survivor in her close-knit family of 35.

Putting her sadness aside, Fatima and the rest of the Bosniak refugees in London recently appealed for women’s organisations, especially from the Muslim world, to help them in any way they can.

“This is one occasion to call all women to give us support as we want to return to our country as soon as possible. We do not want anybody to receive us as refugees. We want to return to our country, to work and rebuild it.

“We would like to appeal for financial help to bring back our children who are refugees in Western countries so that we can bring them up as Bosniaks. We do not want them to lose their identity.”

Mr. Adis Šušnjar

PR KoREKOM BiH

Sarajevo: Coalition for REKOM

Kralja Tvrtka 5/5, Sarajevo,
Bosna and Herzegovina

www.zarekom.org

Joint letter by the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC), Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI) and Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO)

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), an umbrella organization of all American and Canadian Bosniaks, in collaboration with Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC), Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI) and Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO) are supportive of the initiatives that bring forth a comprehensive study about the severity of the crimes committed in the Balkans as a result of Serbian aggression, which includes those that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s neighboring countries. However, all four organizations are of the view that it is imperative to prevent equating of the aggressors and the victims of genocide. For this reason, we believe that all the research should be conducted under the protocol of standard scientific and academic methods taking into consideration the official results of the preceding research done so far on war crimes, genocide and tribunal rulings in this area. CNAB. in collaboration with both institutes in North America as well as with the Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO) support all projects based strictly on the results of academic research.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a symbol of suffering of people due to their ethnic and religious affiliation and the continuing agenda and conquering aspirations towards Bosnia and Herzegovina and extermination of Bosniaks.

At the end of the 20th century Bosniaks have once again undergone genocide due to their religious and national belonging. According to the great-Serbian plan, genocide was intended to exterminate Bosniaks as a nation and as a religious group in order to create an ethnically pure Serbian nation. Being involved in the research of genocide and other forms of crimes both against humanity and against international laws, the above-mentioned institutions raise their voices against genocide and war crimes.

Present and future generations from all previous crimes of genocide must, in the interest of the future of the modern world and civilization, draw a historical lesson about the need to strengthen, develop and unite all progressive forces, regardless of national, ethnic, racial, religious, ideological or political affiliation and commit to the strategy of prevention and punishment of crimes of genocide.

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC), Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO) and Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI) deem that the initiative for proclaiming Regional Commission for the Establishment of Facts about war crimes and other grave violations of human rights in the region of former Yugoslavia should take into consideration all existing academic research based on the crimes done under the aggression of the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and crimes of genocide against the Bosniak people. We also believe that all verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice relating to the crimes in the former Yugoslavia should be accepted and recognized, and insist that the Prosecutor’s Office in BiH processes all war crimes.

Mr. Haris Alibašić, President
The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB),
www.bosniak.org

Prof. Emir Ramić, President
Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC)
http://www.instituteforgenocide.ca/

Ms. Sanja Drnovšek Seferović, President
Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI)
www.baginst.org

Ms. Senada Softić-Telalović, President
Australian Council of BiH Organizations (ACBHO)

Source: Originally Published on March 16, 2011 in Greater Surbiton Blog, by Dr. Marko Attila Hoare.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, as Defence Secretary until July 1995 and thereafter as Foreign Secretary, was one of the architects of Britain’s disastrous policy toward the war in Bosnia. For over three years, on the basis of this policy, Britain obstructed all meaningful intervention to halt Serbian aggression and genocide in Bosnia, pressurised the Bosnian government to accept the dismemberment of its country, and – most notoriously – mercilessly upheld a UN arms embargo that seriously restricted Bosnia’s ability to defend itself. It was, in effect, an intervention on the side of the aggressor and against the victim. As a direct result of that policy, Bosnia remains a mess to this day.

Yet Sir Malcolm has had time to reconsider. Monday’s edition of The Times published a powerful piece by him calling for intervention in support of the rebels in Libya, in which he argues the following:

‘First and most important should be an open and urgent supply of the necessary weapons to the insurgents so that they can fight Gaddafi on equal terms. The UN has imposed an arms embargo and some have suggested that this makes illegal any supply of weapons to either side in Libya. The UN Resolution, however, refers to a ban on arms supply to the Libyan “Jamahiriya”, which is Gaddafi’s invented name for the state he controls. It need not prevent supplies to those trying to bring him down. Otherwise, we will repeat the mistake of the Bosnian war – when the UN embargo had much less impact on the Bosnian Serbs who were, already, heavily armed. Having been Defence Secretary at that time I have, in retrospect, felt that that was the most serious mistake made by the UN.’ [emphasis added]

Indeed, there had likewise been no legal obligation on the part of UN member states to enforce the arms embargo against Bosnia, since UN Security Council Resolution 713 had been imposed on the state of Yugoslavia, not on the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Those enforcing the embargo against Bosnia did so because they wanted to, not because they were legally obliged to. So it is with the Libyan rebels today.

As Jesus said, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Former US president Bill Clinton has similarly admitted his error in failing to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda: ‘I feel terrible about it because I think we could have sent 5,000, 10,000 troops there and saved a couple hundred thousand lives. I think we could have saved about half of them. But I’ll always regret that Rwandan thing. I will always feel terrible about it.’

One wonders whether Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will one day regret the shameful policy they are pursuing toward Libya today.

Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada
Published: March 16, 2011  

Source: Originally Published on March 10, 2011 in Edmonton Journal, Canadian daily newspaper. For background see: Smear Campaign Against the IRGC.

Re: “Denying genocide should not be called freedom of speech,” by Srdja Pavlovic, Letters, Feb. 28.

Prof. Srdja Pavlovic of the University of Alberta argued that Canada was within its rights and acted correctly in refusing admission to Srdja Trifkovic, a journalist and political activist. Trifkovic writes political commentary, principally for the magazine Chronicles, a polemical publication from an organization of the extreme right, in which he is also an editor. Among scholars Trifkovic is regarded, not as a colleague, but as a curiosity from the side.

After leaving professional journalism he spent much of the 1990s in political roles, principally involved with the parastate established by a group of extremist Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was the representative of that parastate in London and the international spokesman (albeit “unofficial”) for Radovan Karadzic in the 1990s.

After the wars ended, Trifkovic continued to deny crimes it was his job to deny as international spokesman for Karadzic. His arguments are summarized in an article, The Hague Tribunal: Bad Justice, Worse Politics. He also published two books, The Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad, arguing terrorism and violence are intrinsic to the Islamic religion.

As for the claims Trifkovic makes regarding crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they have been disproven before international judicial bodies such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has found individuals responsible for genocide in Srebrenica, and the International Court of Justice, which found that genocide was committed.

Although Trifkovic often raises the fact that he testified in defence of one indictee at ICTY, Milomir Stakic, he tends not to mention that Stakic was convicted on five counts — and that the presiding judge, Wolfgang Schomburg, felt it necessary to distance the defendant from the extreme views advanced by his witness, Trifkovic.

Despite extreme views that would discredit most public speakers, Trifkovic has become a bit of a cause célèbre in some parts of the émigré community, partly because he is amusing and well-spoken and partly because he holds a doctorate.

What was meant to happen at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Alberta is this: student and diasporic organizations rented a room from the universities and advertised a public lecture associating the speaker’s name with a respected institution. This was meant to give Trifkovic personally and the views being promoted scholarly credibility they do not have.

Freedom of movement is a fundamental democratic value and should be restricted only for compelling reason. The Canadian government was right to exclude a participant in violations of human rights from entry to the country and to prevent this misuse of the authority of the university from taking place.

We support our colleague Pavlovic in defending the autonomy and authority of the university. We do not think denial and advocacy of crime is protected under legal guarantees of free speech.

Eric Gordy, University College London; Florian Bieber, University of Graz; Tomislav Longinovic, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Elvira Veselinovic, University of Cologne; Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Regensburg; Davor Beganovic, University of Konstanz; Bojan Aleksov, University College London; Ted Blodgett, University of Alberta; Tamara Gordy, Bainbridge Graduate Institute; Wendy Bracewell, University College London; Nebojsa Petrovic, University of Belgrade; Armanda Kodra Hysa, Institute for Cultural Anthropology, Tirana; Emilian Kavalski, University of Western Sydney; V.P. Gagnon, Ithaca College; Svetlana Rakocevic, University College London; Andrew Gilbert, University of Toronto; Dejan Djokic, Goldsmiths , University of London; Catherine Baker, University of Southampton; Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Goldsmiths, University of London; Jessica Greenberg, Northwestern University; Nicole Lindstrom, University of York; Ja mes Lyon , independent scholar; Christopher Lamont, University of Ulster; Andy Knight, University of Alberta

The recent decision by Canadian authorities to deny Srdja Trifkovic – an outspoken denier of the genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and former advisor to the Bosnian Serb regime that orchestrated it – the right of entry into the country is commendable and should be welcomed by all those concerned with preventing genocide, bringing perpetrators to justice, and combating the denial of the crime of genocide. By taking this courageous action the Canadian government has sent a clear message that foreign individuals that publicly deny confirmed instances of genocide and have a history of collaborating with genocidal regimes will not be welcomed into the country.  

The acts of denying confirmed instances of genocide and advocating further violence against the victims of genocide as well as other at-risk national, ethnic, racial, and religious groups in society are inseparably linked. The renowned genocide scholar Dr. Gregory H. Stanton has described the denial of genocide as the eight and final step of any genocidal campaign.  He stated that:

“Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.”

As they were committing the genocide at Srebrenica the Serb forces were intentionally dismembering corpses and burying them in dozens of mass graves scattered around Srebrenica with the hope that they would never be found. To this day – fifteen years after the massacre – criminal anthropologists and other experts in finding and identifying human remains are still trying to locate and excavate all the mass graves that were dug.  The perpetrators’ intention from the very beginning was to deny that the calculated mass murder of over eight thousand Bosnian men and boys ever took place. In his speeches and writings Mr. Trifkovic is continuing the perpetrators’ work by trying to make sure that the truth of what happened to the victims remains buried beneath untruths and misinformation and that those responsible never get punished for the heinous crimes they committed.

By denying the genocide that was committed and attempting to protect its perpetrators Mr. Trifkovic is willfully spreading the genocidal ideology that led to the murder of over two hundred thousand innocent civilians. His public statements and published articles present a clear danger to Bosnians living in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as Bosnian-Canadian citizens who found safety in Canada after being forcefully expelled from their homes. Many of these refugees and their children are Canadian citizens and it is the duty of the Canadian government to ensure their safety as well as the safety of all other at-risk ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural groups in Canadian society.

By deciding not to welcome Mr. Trifkovic into their country the Canadian authorities have shown their commitment to combating the denial of genocide and holding those known to have been involved in genocides to account. For this the Canadian authorities should be applauded. The Canadian government’s strong stance against Holocaust denial and its decision to not allow a well known and outspoken denier of genocide and former advisor to a genocidal regime to enter their country will no doubt serve as positive examples to other democratic governments that value human rights and take their commitment to upholding the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide seriously. It will hopefully inspire them to follow Canada’s lead by taking serious steps to combat denial of the Holocaust and other confirmed instances of genocide and not welcoming foreigners engaged in such nefarious activities into their countries.

Dear Professor Stephen J. Toope

The Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada {IRGC} was informed that Srdja Trifkovic, a Serbian-American ‘scholar’, will be holding a lecture on Thursday February 24th at 5pm at the University of British Columbia . It is organized by the Serbian Students Association.

IRGC is shocking that the University of British Columbia would allow Srdjan Trifkovic, who has repeatedly and openly denied the Srebrenica genocide to speak at this respectable academic institution.

Denial of genocide is widely considered to constitute a form of racist hate propaganda that is incompatible with Canadian values. Recently, the Parliament of Canada has recognized the Bosnian Genocide that took place in the enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.

In 2004, the Holocaust survivor, Judge Theodor Meron, presided over the appellate judgement of Radislav Krstic when the International Criminal Tribunal unanimously ruled that:

“By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity. The Bosnian Serb forces were aware, when they embarked on this genocidal venture, that the harm they caused would continue to plague the Bosnian Muslims. The Appeals Chamber states unequivocally that the law condemns, in appropriate terms, the deep and lasting injury inflicted, and calls the massacre at Srebrenica by its proper name: genocide. Those responsible will bear this stigma, and it will serve as a warning to those who may in future contemplate the commission of such a heinous act.”

Srebrenica Genocide is not a matter of anybody’s opinion; it’s a judicial fact recognized first by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and subsequently by the International Court of Justice.

IRGC calls on all Canadians, friends of truth and justice to protest against Trifkovic’s lecture at the University of British Columbia

IRGC will send a request to the Canadian Parliament and Government to ban Trifkovic’s lecture.

On behalf of more than 50.000 Canadians, Bosnian origin, ost of them victims of the Bosnian genocide, IRGC invites you using your powers to deny Trifkovic’s lecture the University of British Columbia.

Prof. Emir Ramic, President
Institute for Genocide Research Canada

Dear Mr Green

We are an organization called Bosnia and Herzegovina UK Network which is composed of Bosnia and Herzegovina citizens who live in Great Britain. Bosnia and Herzegovina UK  Network consists of 14 branches that are located around the UK this was established in  1996 with our head office based in Birmingham.

The aim is to help Bosnian citizens who came to the UK as refugees after the outbreak of the war in Bosnia in1992 our aim is to assist Bosnian people to adapt to the new environment in the UK; youngsters went on and completed their education at schools, colleges and universities. While working age citizens took up employment to help the economy we can say that this Bosnian population has integrated well into the British culture and most of them have also become British citizens.

The Bosnian population in the UK is not large, about 10,000. They are organised through Bosnia House associations that helped them to accustom to a new way of living regards to being in the UK and help maintain contact with their homeland.

As you may know Bosnia and Herzegovina have achieved visa-free access to the European Union’s through “Schengen Agreement” which is considered one of the great successes for this small country. Since the UK is not a signatory to the Schengen Agreements the UK is not obliged to allow entry of Bosnian citizens to the UK without a
visa for this reason the Bosnia and Herzegovina UK Network would like to ask you to consider the possibility of changing legislations set to visas for Bosnian citizens to make it easier to enter the UK.

Why are we asking for this?

Many of the Bosnia citizens who came to live in the UK are now honourable British citizens fulfilling their duties and obligations in the same way as other citizens for the UK.

We do believe that an opportunity should be given to their families and friends to come and visit them. They will comply with all the legal requirements and regulations that are required.

We sincerely thank you and hope that you will favour our appeal for any changes in legislations set to visa for Bosnian citizens to make it easier to comply.

Yours faithfully,

Meho Jakupovic
Chairman

By: Daniel Toljaga
Institute for the Research of Genocide, Canada

Unembarrassed by an obvious lack of familiarity with the subject, this ‘tenured full professor’ of history at the University of Arizona recycles propaganda about the events at Srebrenica that has long been recognized as promoting misunderstanding and antagonism.

Origin of the Srebrenica massacre

My “Part I” response to Prof. David Gibbs can be found

In his book, ‘First Do No Harm‘, Prof. Gibbs downplays Bosnian Serb war crimes, denies genocide and blames the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) victims for instigating the massacre that followed the fall of the town in July 1995. On p. 160, he declares that: “The origin of the Srebrenica massacre lay in a series of Muslim attacks began in the spring of 1995.”

Before making this unequivocal assertion, he might have done well by studying the conclusions of the United Nations report on “The Fall of Srebrenica. ” The report addresses some of the major issues surrounding events that led to the fall of Srebrenica, including allegations that the Bosniak defenders of Srebrenica ‘provoked’ the Serb offensive by attacking out of the safe area:

“Even though this accusation is often repeated by international sources, there is no credible evidence to support it. Dutchbat personnel on the ground at the time assessed that the few ‘raids’ the Bosniaks mounted out of Srebrenica were of little or no military significance. These raids were often organised in order to gather food, as the Serbs had refused access for humanitarian convoys into the enclave. Even Serb sources approached in the context of this report acknowledged that the Bosniak forces in Srebrenica posed no significant military threat to them… The Serbs repeatedly exaggerated the extent of the raids out of Srebrenica as a pretext for the prosecution of a central war aim: to create a geographically contiguous and ethnically pure territory along the Drina, while freeing their troops to fight in other parts of the country. The extent to which this pretext was accepted at face value by international actors and observers reflected the prism of ‘moral equivalency’ through which the conflict in Bosnia was viewed by too many for too long.” (UN,  ”The Fall of Srebrenica” p.103-104.)

In another standard reference source, Human Rights Watch (HRW) finds the origin of the Srebrenica massacre in the Bosnian Serb leadership’s hatred of their Bosniak compatriots:

“The 1995 massacre in Srebrenica occurred because Bosnian Serb leaders, intoxicated by hatred and an illusory sense of omnipotence, lashed out savagely against the country’s Muslim population. But the international community also bears responsibility for the worst crime in Europe since World War Two. After promising protection to the inhabitants of Srebrenica, the United Nations and NATO allowed the ’safe area’ to fall.” (HRW, “The Legacy of Srebrenica“, 10 July 2005)

A preeminent scholar and Holocaust survivor, Judge Theodor Meron, had the privilege of sitting as the presiding Judge in the appeal of Radislav Krstić – a landmark ruling that put to rest any doubts about the legal character of the massacre. The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) unanimously ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was a crime of genocide:

“By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand [40,000] Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general…. the law calls the massacre at Srebrenica by its proper name: genocide.”  (ICTY Press Release, “Address by ICTY President Theodor Meron“, 23 June 2004).

Gibbs’ Sources, Genocide Deniers

Having assigned the fundamental blame for what happened in July 1995 to the victims of genocide, Prof. Gibbs takes issue with the judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) without offering any evidence of his own expertise in the field of international humanitarian law. He dismisses the Krstić judgement  as  an exaggeration.

Despite the multitude of evidence that Serb forces committed genocide in Srebrenica, Prof. Gibbs finds comfort in a personal opinion of another genocide denier:

“I agree with Katherine Southwick’s criticism of the ICTY judgement, which was published in the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal… Certainly, the murder of eight thousand people is a grave crime, but to call it ‘genocide’ needlessly exaggerates the scale of the crime.” (‘First Do No Harm‘, p. 281, note 101)

To advance his ideological agenda, Prof. Gibbs cites discredited statements of former UN Protection Force commander, General Philippe Morillon – a biased source for any serious consideration –  who, unsurprisingly, also happens to be genocide denier. In support of his view that the inhabitants of Srebrenica were responsible for their fate, Prof. Gibbs presents Gen. Morillon as a ‘reliable’ source of information about Srebrenica and Naser Orić. Consider the following version of Serbian propaganda history that may appeal to misguided readers:

“Orić engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed [Serb] villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the [Srebrenica] region… I wasn’t surprised when the Serbs took me to a village to show me the evacuation of the bodies of the inhabitants that had been thrown into a hole, a village [of Kravica] close to Bratunac.” (‘First Do No Harm‘, p.154, citing statements of Gen. Philippe Morillon)

The Court: Orić committed no massacres

Gen. Morillon uncritically and sweepingly assigns blame for creating “hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region” to Naser Orić’s attacks on Serb villages “during Orthodox holidays”. Gen. Morillon is presumably referring to a specific attack by Bosnian army forces led by Naser Orić on the village of Kravica – a Serb military stronghold – during the Orthodox Christmas holiday, 7-8 January 1993. At the same time, he avoids to mention that Serb crimes around Srebrenica started in April 1992 (some 8 months before Orić’s attack on Kravica). In the first three months of the Bosnian war (April – June 1992) Serb forces destroyed 296 Bosnian Muslim villages around Srebrenica and slaughtered at least 3,166 Bosniaks. Therefore, it is more than obvious who was responsible for this “degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region.” It was the Serbs.

The Hague Tribunal found no convincing evidence that Bosniak forces were responsible for the destruction and casualties in Kravica and a number of other Serb villages (Šiljkovići, Bjelovac, Sikirić, Fakovići and Divovići) because the Serb forces used artillery in the fighting in those villages. In the case of Bjelovac, Serbs even used warplanes. Not excluding the military justification for the Bosniak attack on Kravica, the Tribunal noted that,

“… the village guards [in Kravica] were backed by the VRS [Bosnian Serb army], and following the fighting in the summer of 1992, they received military support, including weapons and training. A considerable amount of weapons and ammunition was kept in Kravica and Šiljkovići. Moreover, there is evidence that besides the village guards, there was Serb and Bosnian Serb military presence in the area.”  (ICTY, Orić Trial Judgement, para. 664).

Certainly a number of Serb civilians died in the Kravica attack (11, perhaps 13). But Morillon’s reference to the massacring of ‘all the inhabitants’ of an unspecified number of Serb villages is inaccurate, and more so is his failure, like Gibbs’, to make appropriate reference to the context in which the attack on Kravica took place — the Serb ethnic cleansing of the Drina Valley at the start of the 1992-1995 war, the siege of Srebrenica and the desperate struggle for survival of the starved inhabitants.

As for the civilian casualties in the Kravica incident, there was no massacre. The death of 11 or 13 Serb civilians caught in the cross-fire between enemy soldiers does not constitute massacre. In legal terms, the massacre is understood as the intentional killing of a larger group of helpless people (including prisoners of war) – in a particularly gruesome manner – for no ‘valid’ military objective, other than to inflict death.  The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague reviewed Serbian accusations against Naser Orić extensively, but found no evidence that his troops committed any massacres against Serb civilians in villages around Srebrenica. In the Orić’s trial judgement, the judges used the term ‘massacre’ only once, referring in fact to Serb propaganda prior to the outbreak of conflict:

“Influenced by Serb propaganda predicting an imminent massacre by Bosnian Muslims, many Bosnian Serbs left the town of Srebrenica in March and April 1992″ (ICTY, Orić Trial Judgement, para. 95).

When Serbs retook Kravica in March 1993, Philippe Morillon attended the funeral of Serbian soldiers and civilians in the village. During his stay in Srebrenica, he never bothered to attend funerals of Bosniak soldiers and civilians killed by Serb forces who regularly attacked Bosnian Muslim settlements from Kravica.

Why was Kravica attacked?

Like other Serb villages around Srebrenica, the heavily militarized Serb stronghold of Kravica was used as a ‘launching pad’ for brutal attacks on neighbouring Bosniak villages and the town of Srebrenica itself. In the case of Kravica, the Hague Tribunal established it was the Serbs who attacked first:

“The fighting intensified in December 1992 and the beginning of January 1993, when Bosnian Muslims were attacked by Bosnian Serbs primarily from the direction of Kravica and Ježestica.” (ICTY, Orić Trial Judgement, para. 662)

The Bosniak attack on Kravica was a response to the village’s use as a base for constant Serb attacks on Srebrenica and surrounding Bosnian Muslim settlements, including the Serb blockade preventing humanitarian aid from entering the enclave.  According to the Hague Tribunal,

“Between April 1992 and March 1993, Srebrenica town and the villages in the area held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults, including artillery attacks, sniper fire, as well as occasional bombing from aircrafts. Each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the population to surrender their weapons, and then began with indiscriminate shelling and shooting. In most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet, expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to indiscriminate shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in particular was a daily target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim settlements were routinely attacked as well. All this resulted in a great number of refugees and casualties.” (ICTY, Orić Trial Judgement, para. 103)

Serbs from Kravica had played a key role in earlier atrocities around Srebrenica such as the massacre of Bosniak civilians at Glogova in May 1992. In 1992, approximately 350 Bosniak civilians  - unarmed men, women and children – were held as prisoners in a detention camp located in an abandoned Serb Orthodox church in Kravica. Serbs tortured, raped and killed Bosniak prisoners including women and underage girls.

The Serb leadership had the avowed objective of making conditions of life intolerable for the remaining Bosniak population of the Drina Valley. When the soldiers under Orić’s command attacked Kravica they were followed by large numbers of starving Bosniak civilians from the besieged enclave in search of food (the so-called “torbari” or “bag people”). The Hague Tribunal described the circumstances which led these people to accompany military raids:

“Between June 1992 and March 1993, Bosnian Muslims raided a number of villages and hamlets inhabited by Bosnian Serbs, or from which Bosnian Muslims had formerly been expelled. One of the purposes of these actions was to acquire food, weapons, ammunition and military equipment. Bosnian Serb forces controlling the access roads were not allowing international humanitarian aid most importantly, food and medicine to reach Srebrenica. As a consequence, there was a constant and serious shortage of food causing starvation to peak in the winter of 1992/1993…. Numerous people died or were in an extremely emaciated state due to malnutrition… Threatened by starvation, almost everyone from Srebrenica participated in searches for food in nearby villages and hamlets under Bosnian Serb control. These searches were very dangerous; many stepped on mines or were wounded or killed by Serbs. [...] Hygienic conditions throughout the Srebrenica enclave were appalling. There was a total absence of running water. Most people were left to drink water from a small river which was polluted. Infestation with lice and fleas became widespread among the population. The Srebrenica war hospital … lacked almost all the essentials. […] Patients suffered in dreadful conditions, as no disinfectants, bandages, aspirins or antibiotics were available with which to treat them. Limbs were amputated without anaesthesia, with brandy being administered to ease the pain… ” (Oric Trial Judgement, para. 104, 110, 112-114.)

Gibbs’ sloppy research

Critical of the ICTY’s assessment of the scale of the crime of genocide, Prof. Gibbs is less rigorous in examining the sources of the “Orić legend” on which he bases his assessment of the nature and scale of the crimes that he believes were at the origin of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.  He makes no attempt to distinguish between Serb military and civilian casualties, nor does he try to assess the balance of casualties between the two sides.

Deniers are entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. Approximately 95 percent of all victims around Srebrenica (1992-95) were Bosniaks, according to the Research and Documentation Center. All attempts to equalize the demise (military defeat) of the Serb war criminals around Srebrenica in January of 1993 with the genocidal suffering of the Bosniak people in/and around Srebrenica (from 1992-1995), amount to nothing more than a case of moral equivalence and a gross distortion of historical facts. The brutal siege of Srebrenica was described by the United Nations itself as a “slow-motion process of genocide.“‘ (United Nations, “Report of the Security Council Mission Established Pursuant to Resolution 819 (1993),” S/25700, 30 April 1993.)

Serb soldiers who died in the pursuit of criminal enterprise — by participating in the siege of Srebrenica, attacking the enclave, and committing war crimes against the Bosniak civilians in/and around Srebrenica) – cannot be considered ‘victims’ of massacres.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the Hague Tribunal has described how the scale of the alleged suffering endured by the local Serb population around Srebrenica had been deliberately distorted:

“… the OTP is always very careful in the use of the word ‘victim’. Military or police casualties from combat should not be considered victims in a criminal investigation context in the same way people are victims from war crimes, such as summary executions. Before speaking about the whole area of Podrinja, including at least the municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica and Skelani, I would comment on the various figures circulating around the Kravica attack of January 1993. The figures circulating of hundreds of [Serb] victims or claiming that all 353 inhabitants were ‘virtually completely destroyed’ do not reflect the reality. During the attack by the BH army on Kravica, Jezeštica, Opravdići, Mandići and the surrounding villages (the larger area of Kravica), on the 7th & 8th January 1993, 43 people were killed, according to our information. Our investigation shows that 13 of the 43 were obviously civilians. Our findings are matching with the Bratunac Brigade military reports of battle casualties which are believed in the OTP to be very reliable because they are internal VRS [Bosnian Serb Army] reports. For the whole region, i.e. the municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica and Skelani, the Serb authorities claimed previously that about 1400 [Serb] people were killed due to attacks committed by the BH Army forces for the period of May 1992 to March 1995, when Srebrenica was under the control of Naser Oric. Now the figure has become 3,500 Serbs killed. This figure may have been inflated. Taking the term ‘victims’ as defined previously, these figures just do not reflect the reality.” (ICTY, Weekly Press Briefing, 6 July 2005)

The most up-to-date analysis of Serb casualties in the region comes from the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre (IDC), a non-partisan institution with a multiethnic staff, whose data have been evaluated and accepted by an international team of experts. They put the number of Serb military casualties in the attack on Kravica at 35 killed along with 11 civilian victims. The IDC’’s extensive review of casualty data around Srebrenica found that Serb casualties in the adjoining Bratunac municipality — where majority of  military operations took place — amounted to 119 civilians and 424 soldiers; about one third (or 139) of Serb military losses — listed as casualties of Naser Orić’’s attacks around Srebrenica – had in fact died elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Furthermore, a number of Serb war criminals who died in the process of terrorizing and killing more than 10,000 Sarajevo residents were presented as victims of Orić’s attacks around Srebrenica:

“Under the Dayton Peace Accords, the suburbs of Sarajevo held by the VRS were to be re-integrated into the city of Sarajevo . The then leadership of the RS [Republika Srpska] called on the local Serb population to leave Sarajevo and even take the graves of their loved ones with them. In fact, such a large majority followed the instructions that parts of the city of Sarajevo remained deserted for months. The remnants of their loved ones have been buried in Bratunac after the war, but their deaths are presented as the result of actions taken by the Bosnian Army units from Srebrenica.” (The Research and Documentation Center, “Myth of Bratunac,” 7 June 2010)

Philippe Morillon’s Lack of Impartiality

The French UNPROFOR commander, General Philippe Morillon, is perhaps best known for his pledge to the besieged inhabitants of Srebrenica that the enclave would be protected by the international community. He gave that pledge shortly after a fact-finding visit to the nearby towns of Cerska and Konjević Polje on 5-6 March 1993 following reports of massacres a few days earlier. The  enclave of Cerska had been overrun by Serb forces on 2 March 1993. After spending some minutes walking around the village and seeing no dead bodies, Philippe Morillon sent the controversial message back to the UN, ”Je n’ai pas senti l’odeur de la mort” (I didn’t smell the odour of death.)

According to survivor Sahma Muminovic, Serb forces massacred refugees trapped in the town’s schoolhouse. They bombarded the schoolhouse with artillery and tank shells before moving in and killing people. The victim’s bodies remained trapped under the rubble of a destroyed school.

Invited to attend a funeral of Serb soldiers in Kravica, Morillon was apparently too busy to investigate another report of the massacre. As the Serbs continued their offensive, they slaughtered 200 Bosnian Muslims fleeing Cerska, near Mount Rogašija. A group of 900 Bosniak refugees had split in two groups. A survivor, Besim Topalovic, told how the column he joined, numbering as many as 200 people, were all machine-gunned. Topalovic was fortunate to be the only survivor; the corpses fell on him and protected him from gunfire.

Despite Morillon’s denial of the Cerska massacre, the evidence  from Bosnian Serb army tells a different story. The daily combat report obtained by the Hague Tribunal and dated 2 March 1993, describes how the columns of Bosniak refugees fleeing from Udrč and Raševo towards Konjević Polje “were hit with every available means.” In the cross-examination of General Vinko Pandurević, the prosecutor Peter McCloskey was able to show how the Bosnian Serb army attempted to cover-up the attack on the column by revising their own combat reports.

“There’s been an editing job by the corps, hasn’t there?” – the prosecutor Peter McCloskey asked. “Yes, that’s what we read here,” – responded the accused.

The revised version of the original report dated 2 March 1993 referred only to “soldiers.” The revised report also replaced “The columns were hit with every available means“ with “Fire was opened on the column.” (Popovic et al., Trial Transcript, 25 February and 26 February 2009).

Nevertheless the survivor’s report which reached Zagreb via an amateur radio link, had clearly described how the escapees were attacked and slaughtered with grenade launchers and machine guns. Gen. Morillon does not seem to have followed up this report.

Shortly after his failure to investigate the 1993 Cerska massacre and other Serb massacres of Bosniak civilians around Srebrenica, Gen. Morillon went on to say something in mid March 1993 that raised eyebrows of his own aide-de-camp. On March 15, during a meeting with the Serb generals Manojlo Milovanović and Zdravko Tolimir, Morillon referred to Srebrenica — home to some 80,000 emaciated Bosnian Muslim refugees — as a nest of terrorists. He told the Serbs:

“I know you wish to clean out this nest of terrorists. I will do it for you and save you many, many casualties.” (ICTY, Orić trial transcript, 5 December 2005)

Also, during the trial of Slobodan Milošević, Gen. Morillon touched on the subject of pro-Serbian bias, hinting his own lack of objectivity:

“Once again, in this context one has to explain why sometimes French forces were considered as too indulgent to Serbs. I’m a French general. I do not forget the statue which is in Belgrade, ‘Let us love France as France loved us’…” (ICTY, Milošević trial transcript, 12 February 2004)

Speaking of those who excited nationalism, he stood in defense of the Serbs, showing his lack of impartiality and openly defending the Serbian side from any type of criticism:

“This is the reason why I have continued to say that everywhere that Serbs should not be demonised but one should judge those who brought them there to that solution, to that impasse in this drama.” (ICTY, Milošević trial transcript, 12 February 2004)

On 3 September 2010 — appearing on Bosnian television after being heckled by survivors at the Srebrenica memorial complex in Potocari — Gen. Morillon repeatedly refused to acknowledge the 1995 Srebrenica genocide (interview available on FaceTV.ba).

So much about the shattered credibility of Prof. David N. Gibbs and his sources. No further commentary is necessary.