By Branka Magaš — A member of Bosnia’s war-time presidency, who subsequently served as president of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ejup Ganic, was arrested at London’s Heathrow airport on 1 March 2010, at the request of the Serbian war-crimes prosecutor and on the basis of a European extradition treaty. Ganic appeared at a London court on the evening of his arrest, and has been remanded in custody until 29 March; bail was refused on 3 March and he remains in Wandsworth prison, denied contact with his family or lawyer. It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand the British government’s own role in the arrest.

As president of the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, which is twinned with the University of Buckingham, Professor Ganic has been a frequent visitor to Britain. The Serbian extradition request alleging his responsibility for deaths connected with an attack by Bosnian forces on a column of troops belonging to the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in Sarajevo on 3 May 1992. The Serbian government is expected to provide full papers to support their extradition request, before a date can be fixed for an extradition hearing, according to British sources. ‘A judge will then consider whether there are any bars to the extradition.’ But as pointed out by several analysts, Serbia is seeking Ganic on the basis of evidence that has already been dismissed by the UN war-crimes tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague. And Serbia has only recently signed an agreement with Bosnia-Herzegovina according to which people sought for war crimes would be tried in the countries where they are domiciled, but which it has now chosen to disregard. Ganic’s arrest is all the more puzzling given that the Bosnian federal government is itself, in fact, already conducting an investigation into the events of 3 May, and has consequently applied to the British government for the professor to be returned to Sarajevo.

Ganic’s arrest is only the first step in the execution of Belgrade’s plan to indict all members of the wartime Bosnian presidency, which in turn would make liable every single Bosnian who served his country in any capacity during the war. According to the current members of the Bosnian state presidency Željko Komšic and Haris Silajdžic, by bringing charges against Bosnia’s wartime leaders Serbia has violated the Rome Agreement signed in 1996 by Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. ‘This agreement clearly states that, before the countries who signed it can bring charges, they must first ask for the Hague tribunal’s opinion, which Serbia has failed to do, thus violating international law’, say Komšic and Silajdžic. They stress that they themselves would seek the Hague tribunal’s opinion, ‘because Bosnia-Herzegovina’s sovereignty is also being violated.’

Bosniak, Croat and Serb members of the wartime government have sharply condemned Ganic’s arrest, which in their view is designed as an attempt to criminalise Bosnian resistance to Serbia’s aggression of 1992-5. Ivo Komšic, like Ganic a member of Bosnia’s wartime presidency, told local media that: ‘This is an attempt to show that defence against aggression is a crime. It is shocking to see a respected member of the international community such as Great Britain colluding in it.’ Mirko Pejanovic, another member of the wartime presidency, agrees: ‘The issuing of warrants for the arrest of defenders of Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina is an attempt on the part of Serbia to revise history and to present the war in our country as a civil war in which all parties were equally guilty.’ And he expressed his concern for the impact which Ganic’s arrest will have on Bosnia’s internal stability, the maintenance of which underpins regional peace. One can only wonder why the British authorities have allowed themselves to become involved in Serbia’s dangerous game.

For Serbia the war goes on

It might be thought that a country which spent much of the 1990s making war against its neighbours, and committing numerous crimes in the course of it including that of genocide, a country that has harboured many indicted and yet-to-be indicted war criminals including ones sought for genocide, would be the last country on earth to be so moved by the plight of soldiers belonging to an invading army which it did not legitimately command, and which was operating outside Serbia’s own borders, that it would be willing to give the lie to its own proclaimed commitment to improved regional relations, in order to bring the alleged perpetrators - who are not its own citizens - to justice.

So why is Serbia seeking extradition of the Bosnian wartime leader Ejup Ganic from an unaccountably pliant Britain? Why does the Serbian government feel impelled to override both ICTY, which has found no case against Ganic, and its recently signed treaty with Bosnia-Herzegovina which precluded any such actions on its part? Why is its government so ready - at the very moment it has been trying to polish up its image in preparation for being formally invited to begin the process of joining the European Union - to jeopardise its still fragile relations with its neighbours, all of whom at different times fell victim to its aggression? What is it that makes this Serbian government so willing to face the charge that it is - yet again - trying to throw this part of Europe, only now beginning to stabilize itself, into fresh turmoil, with unforeseeable consequences for European peace? Why is Belgrade so keen to get hold of man who teaches engineering to Bosnian and British university students, and plays no role in Bosnian national politics? In sum, why do Ejup Ganic and others responsible for Bosnia’s defence in 1991-5 remain such a threat to Serbia, fifteen years after the end of the war and ten years after the fall of Slobodan Miloševic who started it in the first place?

The simple answer is that Serbia is doing it out of fear. The nationalists who seized power in Serbia on the eve of the fall of Communism, and who remain in control of the Serbian state, have sought to build their case in the eyes of the Serbian population by erecting a bi-polar image of its national history, in which one pole stands for a saintly Serb nation living under a permanent threat of extinction, the other pole its numerous enemies including Serbia’s neighbours, faiths other than Orthodox Christianity, and the West in general. This image is now under mortal threat. For Serbia initiated genocidal wars at a time when the European continent was at peace, and then found that the crimes these entailed cannot easily be swept under the carpet. Ever since the ICTY and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Serb forces had committed genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbian government has been living in constant dread that this preferred national image would be tarnished for good if Serbia itself were to be found guilty by the ICTY of having committed genocide. As the national guru Dobrica Cosic has recently declared in connection with the pressure on Serbia to pass the European parliament’s resolution condemning the genocide in Srebrenica, Serbia should never accept the ‘lies about Serbs committing genocide in Bosnia’, because this would make the Serbs a ‘genocidal nation on a par with Nazi Germany’. (Pecat, 12 February 2010.)

Serbia managed to get round the ICJ, which did not find it guilty of committing genocide at Srebrenica, but ‘only’ of not doing enough to prevent it. The court had relied on evidence collected by the ICTY. But, as Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee in Serbia points out, several trials are currently taking place before the Hague Tribunal - against Radovan Karadžic, Momcilo Perišic, Jovan Stanišic and Franko Simatovic - include charges pertaining to genocide in Bosnia. Karadžic’s own charge for genocide has been extended beyond Srebrenica to include dozens of other municipalities across Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Belgrade has devised a complex strategy to fight the Tribunal, which involves hindering its work through lengthy delays (a tactic adopted by Slobodan Miloševic, Radovan Karadžic, Vojislav Šešelj), opting for an overwhelmingly political defence, intimidating witnesses, withholding documents (see its agreement with the Tribunal’s former prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, to prevent publication of sensitive documents testifying to Serbia’s direct involvement in the Bosnian war), etc. And from the very start of the Tribunal’s work Belgrade has relied on a policy of equalisation: on the claim that all parties to the war were equally guilty of starting it and equally criminal in its prosecution. Karadžic’s defence before the Tribunal contains all these elements, including also the claim that it was the Bosniaks who started the war, and that they even habitually killed other Bosniaks in order to throw the blame unjustly on the Serbs.

Thrown into disarray by the ICJ verdict in 2007, Belgrade has tried to establish the ‘all are equally guilty’ thesis by focussing on the alleged plight of the JNA in places like Tuzla during its withdrawal from Bosnia, when a number of troops were killed and wounded after coming under attack on 15 May 1992. A high-ranking local police officer, Ilija Jurišic, was arrested on Belgrade airport in May 2007, charged with having ordered the attack, and in 2009 sentenced to 12 years in prison - even though the B-H war-crimes court, which has jurisdiction in the case, had dismissed the case against him. Having met no dissent from the EU, the same recipe has now been applied to Ejup Ganic in connection with similar events on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo (see the interview with Jovan Divjak in the next post).

Belgrade’s concern with the suffering of JNA soldiers (rather than their civilian victims) relates only to Bosnia. This preoccupation with Bosnia reflects the fact that two international courts have ruled that soldiers under Belgrade’s influence and command have committed genocide there. The earlier arrest of Ilija Jurišic and now that of Ejup Ganic should be seen as an integral part of the effort to re-interpret the causes and nature of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in such a way that, by criminalising its resistance, Serbia’s aggression against it might appear justified and the crimes committed during it more intelligible, however unfortunate. And Bosnia is a country in which Serbia holds an important stake in the form of Republika Srpska. The already shaky legitimacy of this entity founded on heinous crimes committed against unarmed civilians would suffer a grave blow if Karadžic were to be found guilty of genocide and if Serbia’s own role in it were legally established. The current debate in Serbia over the adoption of a parliamentary resolution on genocide in Srebrenica testifies to a very real fear of the nationalist establishment that, in the words of its favourite historian Cedomir Antic, by having the Serbian parliament finally accept that what happened in Srebrenica was indeed genocide, Belgrade will accept also ‘collective responsibility on the part of Serbia and Republika Srpska’ for the crimes their armies committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Vreme, 4.2.2010).

As Biserko argues, Belgrade’s warrants serve a wider political purpose, a purpose that runs counter to regional and European interests. Western governments would do well, therefore, to halt Belgrade’s destructive policy. They should also put pressure on ICTY to release all protected documents, in order to present a true picture of what actually happened during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Back in the 1990s, the West failed miserably in its basic duty to uphold collective security in Europe, when it chose not to halt Slobodan Miloševic’s murderous adventure. British complicity with Serbia in carving up Bosnia-Herzegovina is well attested. Ganic’s arrest shows London determined not to learn from past mistakes.

What actually happened in Dobrovoljacka Street? We publish in an accompanying post an interview given in October 2009 by retired general of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina Jovan Divjak to Omer Karabeg of Radio Free Europe (RFE) about the events in question. General Divjak participated directly in these events, which took place on 3 May 1992, when during the evacuation of the former Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) from the command centre of the second army district, the column was attacked and a number of soldiers and officers were killed. The army’s withdrawal was part of an agreement reached on 2 May after the JNA had failed to take the centre of Sarajevo and had imprisoned the president of the Bosnian Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, his daughter and personal secretary Sabina, and a member of the Bosnian negotiating team, Zlatko Lagumdžija, as they landed at the Sarajevo airport on their return from internationally staged negotiations with the Karadžic faction in Lisbon.

Credits: Bosnian Institute, UK. / March 4, 2010.

Congress of North American Bosniaks strongly condemns the latest political provocation…

that continually shows that Serbia doesn’t recognize the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens. Issueing the warrant on the basis under which Mr. Ejup Ganić, former member of the BiH Presidency, was arrested in London, is yet another confirmation of the Serbian bullish arrogance and attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina through the attempt to equalize the victim and the aggressor.

For CNAB it is unacceptable and incomprehensible that the state is the only one in history convicted of a violation of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide has the right to call warrant for people who stood to defend their homeland and whose right to self-defense is enshrined in the Charter of Human Rights and all of the UN Charter and international conventions. Serbia has with this move shown that it is more interested in the destabilization of the situation in BiH than to face its own crimes and criminals whom she gave rise to and carefully guarding and keeping them within its own borders. One of them is in the Hague, just on the day of Mr. Ganić’s arrest, a trial started for kind of crimes not remembered in Europe since the Second World War.

Issuing warrants (and now the arrest of Mr. Ganić) for members of the War Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a direct attack on the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of its authorities, officials and citizens who were just performing their patriotic duty and obligation to defend homeland from attacks and aggression. The goal of such warrant and the arrest is not law and justice, but true political humiliation of the true victims and attempt to equalize the victim and the aggressor, which illustrates the most prominent political judgment case of Mr. Ilija Jurišić. The state of BiH must not allow Mr. Ganić or any other citizen of BiH to experience the same fate.

CNAB is requesting from the state authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina clear and decisive response that should result in:

- termination of all diplomatic relations with Serbia and the withdrawal of the Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Serbia

- BiH formal request to apply a system of reciprocity and raise the indictment against Serbian war leadership

- Sending a protest note to the Government of Great Britain and seeking immediate release of Mr. Ganić

Brendan Simms said in his book The Darkest Moment: “Britain and the destruction of Bosnia (Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia), published by Penguin Press described the negative role the British government played during the aggression on Bosnia-Herzegovina. The arrest of Mr. Ganić is put into doubt the intentions of Great Britain in and against the BiH.”

- initiate proceedings against Serbia in the European Court of Justice because of the false charges against the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina

We call upon citizens and patriots of BiH, BiH and in the Diaspora to:

- in the states and cities where there is the Embassy or Consulate of Serbia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the UK-a) organize peaceful protests and from the protest send protest letters to the Serbian government and the UK, as well as a call to governments of countries and international and European institutions to stop the process of destabilization of Balkans, which is continuously implementing the official policy and the justice from Serbia.

- boycott products and services of companies with headquarters in Serbia until Mr. Ganić and Mr. Jurišić have not been released

CNAB believes that every crime must be punished, but does not accept the thesis that the criminals are those who were defending their lives and their homeland, especially if this thesis represents the state that doomed it, did nothing to prevent the crime of genocide, although it could have had.

Serbia will not experience catharsis by condemning bh patriots, that can only be achieved by condemning those who have in her name and on behalf of the Serbian people committed atrocities.

CNAB BoD

H.E. Judge Patrick Robinson, President
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
P.O. Box 13888
2501 EW The Hague, The Netherlands

H.E. Judge Carmel Agius
Presiding Judge in a Specially Appointed Chamber
P.O. Box 13888
2501 EW The Hague, The Netherlands

Open Letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Congress of North American Bosniaks, representing the interests of Bosniak diaspora in the United States and Canada, urges the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), to be swift in the trial of the war criminal Radovan Karadžić, who led the campaign of genocide against Bosniak civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This notorious war criminal should not be allowed to delay the judicial process and make mockery of the Court with delays and absurd claims of not having enough time to prepare a defense. Hiding in Serbia for 14 years using a false identity, Karadzic had more than enough time to prepare his defense for the worst crimes against humanity that Europe has seen since the Second World War. The facts are that Radovan Karadžić orchestrated and authorized genocide, mass killings, rape, and ethnic cleansing of Bosniak civilians during the Serbian aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-1995. More than 100,000 people died as a direct result of his leadership among the Bosnian Serbs. He even infamously announced on national television the extermination of the Bosniak people in October of 1991, as a threat against the pending referendum for independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia.

The real problems in this whole process are the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the Hague Tribunal in delivering swift justice for the victims of genocide and war crimes. The Court continues to disappoint the concept of international justice by allowing war criminals to manipulate the judicial process and exploit every legal loophole there is. The best example is the trial of Slobodan Milošević which lasted more than four years before he was found dead in his cell. More recently, Biljana Plavšić, a key member of Karadžić’s party, who admitted to charges of Crimes against Humanity, and subsequently served only six years in prison before being released. As a slap in the face to the victims, she publicly retracted her admission to these crimes on more than one occasion. There is also the case of Momčilo Krajišnik who was sentenced to 27 years in prison, only to have his sentence reduced to 20 years and now he is requesting an early release. Not to mention that the prosecutor has failed to secure the arrest of Ratko Mladić who is hiding in Serbia.

It is incomprehensible that the Court behaves with such passiveness and utter lack of urgency when it comes to the opportunity to set precedent and deliver harsh punishment to war criminals in order to prevent such crimes from occurring in the future anywhere in the world. On the contrary, their lethargic behavior is an insult to the victims and a disgrace for the international community. When taking into consideration the fact that the Court continues to make blunders, by allowing war criminals to act like celebrities and give interviews to the media, prosecuting Florence Hartmann for exposing an illegal and unethical deal with Serbia on key evidence, and tolerating a judge who denied genocide, it forces us to lose hope that the ICTY ever can effectively prosecute war crimes in the future.

We strongly urge the Court to be aggressive and vigilant in pursuing justice for the victims. These hardened war criminals cannot be allowed to delay the process and escape justice with only slaps on the wrist. They have, beyond all doubt, organized and engineered the ethnic cleansing, murder, rape, and genocide of thousands of innocent civilians whose only crime was that they were not Serbs. If the Tribunal continues to ignore the requests of victims for swift and aggressive justice, it will have serious consequences for the credibility of the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice. CNAB requests the following actions be taken immediately.

• Swift and aggressive prosecution of Radovan Karadžić. There should be no delays in the trial nor should he be allowed to deviate from the charges against him. The Court of Justice should never be the place for media posturing and theatrical displays of defiance. ICTY should ban outside funding of his defense in light of clear evidence that the sole purpose of the defense is to cause unnecessary procrastination in hopes that charges would eventually be dropped or reduced. This is simply unacceptable.
• Arrest and prosecution of Ratko Mladić. This general led his forces into mass murder of more than 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica. It is an outrage that he continues to escape justice by hiding in Serbia.
• Ensure that all war criminals fully serve out their sentences and discontinue the practice of early releases and reduced sentencing for mass murder.
• Release evidence that was sealed in an illegal deal with Serbia and Montenegro that shows direct involvement of these countries in the war of aggression and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This had a direct impact on the ruling in the lawsuit of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) against Serbia in front of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In June of 2009, thousand email addresses received copies of the documents which contained signatures of judges Theodor Meron and Fausto Pocar of the Hague tribunal, dated September 20, 2005 and April 6, 2006. The documents are in regards to the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which, if authentic, confirm the existence of an agreement between the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and Serbia and Montenegro (SCG) to seal documents that are key evidence of the Serbian and Montenegrin aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and genocide in BiH. ICTY must finally respond to questions surrounding its unethical decision and to requests for unsealing and removing protective measures regarding the documents. In the name of all victims of aggression and genocide committed against Bosnia and Herzegovina, who consequently now reside in North America, the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) requests of ICTY to address the authenticity of these documents.

Congress of North American Bosniaks will continue to press for justice for all victims of genocide, rape, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. It is our sincere hope that ICTY and ICJ will listen to our voices and deliver justice for the victims and their families.

Sincerely,

Haris Alibašić, MPA
President of the Congress of North American Bosniaks Board of Directors
Letter is cosigned by the following partners:
Emir Ramic
President of the Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada

Amer Sabitovic
President of the Bosnian Academic Circle (BAK)

Sanja Seferovic Drnovsek
Director of the Bosnian-American Genocide Institute and Education Center

Senada Softic- Telalovic
President of the Australian Council of BH Organizations

cc: Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations
cc: Ambassador John McNee, Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations
cc: Ambassador Ivan Barbalic, Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations

Srebrenica region, three years before the Genocide
From April to June 1992, Serb forces plundered and torched hundreds of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) villages and hamlets in the municipality (district) of Srebrenica and the neighboring municipalities of Bratunac, Vlasenica, Rogatica, and Visegrad. According to the UN war crimes tribunal’s judgment in the Naser Orić case, “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.” One of these villages was Zaklopača, a small place formerly in the Vlasenica municipality near the border with Srebrenica. On 16 May 1992, Serb forces approached the village and demanded Bosniak residents to hand over their weapons. Except few hunting rifles, Bosniak residents did not have any combat weapons to defend themselves. When the Serbs learned that the residents were effectively unarmed, they blocked all exists of the village and massacred at least 63 Bosniak men, women and children.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Nihada, thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview. I am truly honored to have this opportunity. When you think of Zaklopača, do bad memories overshadow good ones?

NIHADA HODZIC: First of all, I would like to sincerely thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences and broader knowledge about the events of May 16, 1992, that would befall Zaklopača and much of eastern Bosnia as the Serb aggression progressed into the heartland of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I feel extremely fortunate to be in the position of talking to you about what exactly happened on that dreadful day, instead of being among the forgotten statistics that will never be able to demand justice for what has been done to them, and to us who were lucky enough to survive. I feel fortunate to have lived; however, I feel that much of the life my family and I knew died together with our loved ones. So to answer your question, yes, I believe that the bad events will inevitably overshadow the good memories until proper justice has been served. Though we survived, we live with the legacy and pain of this gruesome event and its memories will haunt us as long as we are alive. We would like to think of our relatives in more ‘happy’ terms, but whenever we remember how unjustly and brutally their lives were cut short, it brings us back to this sad reality we have to deal with — as we have still not seen those who committed the heinous murders brought to proper justice.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: A similar crime also took place in Zaklopača in the fall of 1941, when Serb Chetniks under the command of Nazi collaborator Jezdimir Dangić barricaded 81 Bosniak men, women and children in the local mekteb (Muslim religious school) and then burned them alive. Did you ever imagine that Serbs would repeat the Zaklopača massacre in 1992 – some three years before the Srebrenica Genocide and 50 years after World War II?

NIHADA HODZIC: Generally people were assured that nothing would ever happen to us - when we heard automatic weapons being fired in the distance, we were told that it was only routine ‘training’ by the armed forces. My grandfather was not as gullible however. He knew the picture looked very bleak and that something terrible was surely coming our way. You see, my grandfather Ibro Hodžić, was a survivor. He survived a line up shooting at the hands of his Serb neighbor where upon around a dozen other Muslims form the village were killed, my great grandfather included - he was killed by another Serb neighbor. My grandfather was only fifteen years old then in 1941 and you could say his quick thinking saved his life. As the intoxicated Četnik was loading another bullet to shoot, my grandfather fell to the ground just before he had pulled the trigger on his very old model shot gun. He lay there motionless for quite some time, during which more Serbs came and drilled a few more bullets into the heads of those still moaning with signs of life. My fifteen year old grandfather survived this ordeal in the 1940s just to be killed by the same people in 1992 on the steps of his own home, along with the rest of his five sons and grandson who was only sixteen at the time. But, no one could really understand my grandfather’s fears as we had a well trusted Serb neighbor Milenko Đurić (Gorčin) reassuring our safety time and time again, telling us “not even a hair will be missing from your bodies.” Unfortunately, we had trusted our Serb neighbors; we believed their deceitful lies to keep us grounded in the village. Prior to the massacre we had attempted to flee to a safe haven in Zivinice, however we were sent back with the same type of reasoning by the Serb neighbor. There is apt reasons to believe that he was directly or indirectly involved in the entire plot of the incident in Zaklopača. Gorčin played as a middleman who manipulated our fears and our trust in him as a long term neighbor and whom some even considered a great ‘friend’ in order to set the stage for a more effective premeditated “military” operation by the Serbs. We were certainly sensing the changing atmosphere and the deepening angst which was growing within our community - but we could have never imagined being betrayed in such a cruel way.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: What were the first signs that the massacre was about to happen?

NIHADA HODZIC: One week prior to the massacre two of my uncles and my father were arrested and brought for questioning to the Police Station in Milići. At the time my father was working in Boksit Transport, in Milići, where upon one day he along with his relative, on their way home, were taken by the reserve police and brought to the Milići police station. First however, they had asked for their identification cards, and made sure they were Muslim. Who ever had a Muslim name, they told them to form a line and to follow them to the station. When they finally reached their destination, for hours they interrogated them with petty questions. Question regarding personal family backgrounds to some other questions to which no one could give any answers to. For example they would point to a machine gun and ask whose it was - obviously no one could have known - when my father answered “I don’t know” the interrogator said “you will know” and shoved him off. At the police station my father along with hundreds of other Muslim men were shoved into a small room where he witnessed some very gruesome acts being performed on these defenseless civilian men. They were beaten beyond recognition, some defecated out of fear and it was simply a gruesome and frightening atmosphere. Shortly there after, though it seemed much longer to my father, our long time neighbor Gorčin, whom I have mentioned before, came to his ‘rescue’. Gorčin was responsible for my father’s release from the police station, and he was brought back home that same day, however my father, witnessing what he had, anticipated something far worse was brewing then we might have thought. Gorčin, again, reassured us that this would never happen again, that my father should continue to go to work, though my father had refused to go after this incident. Of course, other men where not so lucky, they were left behind at the station, and we are not sure what happened to them.

There are however other smaller indicators of the massacre coming our way. About the same number of days prior, Serbs were adamantly cruising through our village in search for weapons, and demanded that everyone who had any type of weapon even “hunting guns” - that they should hand them over. In other words, they were demilitarizing our village days before the actual massacre, making sure we had no way of defending ourselves, even though no one had claims to any type of lethal weapons anyway.

Also, just about when the massacre was to occur, my mother (Najla Hodžić) was in her vegetable garden just outside of our home, when Police jeeps and cars came flooding into our small town. It was noon, on a very beautiful and sunny Spring day on May 16, 1992. There were a few cars (she could not recall the exact number as they were driving back and forth through the village), in front of them a police car and following them a white jeep with the slogan “pokolj” (slaughter) written in Cyrillic across the vehicle. Our house was located right next to the main road, so my mother saw everything in clear view as they were rolling into the village, coming from the main road leading from the town Milići. She recalls that the vehicles had been packed with Četniks, with long beards, some with nylon socks covering their heads, and loaded Kalashnikovs across their broad chests. Upon seeing this, my mother hurriedly motioned my oldest uncle Bećir Hodžić (who was helping my mother around the garden) to run, yet his last words to my mother were “don’t worry Sister-in-law everything is going to be alright - don’t be afraid” when he was spotted by the Četniks and taken away, not to be seen alive again.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: At this point, you and your mother were also in immediate danger of being killed. Can you tell us what happened next?

NIHADA HODZIC: Once the vehicles moved further into town, my mother ran into the house and franticly began to pack the bare essentials (some clean clothes, food and a few family pictures) and get my sisters and I ready for the worse possible situation. I was only a small child then, but I remember, in the midst of this frightful situation I was so obnoxious as to whine about which clothes I was going to wear - obviously I was not fully aware of the seriousness of what was about to happen. At this time, we had no idea where my father was, and thus we would remain clueless of his whereabouts until almost one year later, when we finally found out that he was alive. But back to the massacre. My mother, my two older sisters and I ran across the yard to one of my other uncle’s homes (Haso Hodžić), at which time almost all my other aunts and their kids were gathered. Just as we, along with my other five aunts and their children and few other neighbors gathered inside, the lightning bolts began to fly, and the sound of thundering bullets began to ring on all sides. My mother was with me all the time - cuddling me inside her lap and shielding me from all the harm. The bullets whizzed through the house, creating big cratered holes as they made a full impact with the concrete walls. At one point, a bullet pierced through my mothers light denim jacket, as I was still cuddling in her lap. The bullet missed us both by a hair. For another fifteen to twenty minutes, the showers of deadly bullets filled the suffocating air, killing anything that was moving - anything that was alive would have met its final death. As it calmed down, we heard my second uncle (whose house we were all in) calling upon my aunt to come out. We all did, and form the porch we saw my uncle standing at gunpoint. A Serb, was aiming at him, ready to pull the trigger any time. My dear uncle looked pale, and afraid. He asked for a cigarette, and as he reached for the lighter in his pocket, the ringing sound of Kalashnikovs went off once more, and as we were all standing on the porch, we all saw my beloved uncle murdered in front of our very own eyes. His body was thrown up into the air at least a few feet from detonation and came back crashing onto the hot asphalt, motionless and lifeless. My grandmother saw her son mercilessly killed in front of her sorrowful, teary eyes. As she frantically yelled out “My son is Dead,” the Serb (Četnik) opened fire again, chasing us back into the house, shocked, dismayed and still in disbelief of what we had seen. But my grandmother ran out, bewildered, lost and deeply hurt into the streets - suffering a mental breakdown.

Through out this time, we were quite unaware of the whereabouts of my father (Ekrem Hodžić). From his perspective of the story, things followed in a different fashion from ours. While we were still inside the house, my father observed everything from the woods just above my grandfather’s house. As he saw the cars rolling into town, driving in the direction of the village ‘Gornji Zalkovik’ full of Četniks and returning empty. Curiously, my father went north into the woods to observe where they had gone while two of my uncles went down to see what was happening in town. Just as he reached into the woods the shorts began to fly. He remained in a state of shock as he began running deeper into the woods, however, unaware of where he was going he returned to the outskirts of the woods in dismay - unable to comprehend what was going on.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: When the shooting stopped, I can only imagine the shock and horror you and your family had to endure. Would you mind telling us what happened immediately after the massacre?

NIHADA HODZIC: As the thunder of bullets finally stopped, our small town was gasping for air - it was gasping for life. The Serbs left, the same way they came in, completing their heinous job with blood on their hands. The blood of innocence - the blood of Zaklopača. We dared to step out again, to witness that inferno, the death and destruction of this inevitable storm which plundered our town and raped it of its virtues and good life. We saw dead bodies everywhere. The smell of death permeated the entire town. Dead children, women, men. Bodies everywhere. We were in shock. The tears seemed to have almost dried up, nothing was coming out. It was like a nightmare! A terrible nightmare you desperately wished to wake up from, but never did. We covered my uncle with a blanket, and proceeded to go further into town - hoping to find survivors. We saw my eldest uncle (Bećir Hodžić) again - in a kneeling position with a cigarette still burning in between his index and middle fingers, his head bowed to the ground, and a puddle of blood next to him - he was dead too. We saw small children with their mothers lying side by side on the ground, motionless, very still - in an eternal sleep. We were told that my father was among the dead too. We couldn’t go on. My family and I decided to give our selves in (to “surrender” to the Serbs) - we thought we had no one left alive, in this highly emotional moment we were ready to die too.

My father, on the other hand, was met by other men who survived and fled into the woods. Among them was my uncle Bećir’s son Amir (seventeen at the time), who told my father, that everyone in town was dead — that they were the only survivors. My father also witnessed during this time, after the massacre, Serbs came back to the village to burry their crimes into yet another mass grave. My father saw everything.

From this point onward, my father’s path diverged from my mother’s, sisters’ and my own. It is a long story… We later learned that my father was indeed alive, in March of 1993 we were re-united in Zagreb, Croatia.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: It is my understanding that remains of eight members of your family were located in the Zaklopača mass grave. Can you tell us more about them?

NIHADA HODZIC: I have actually lost many more relatives, as our small village was very closely knit and most of us were related in some way or another. It was a relatively small village, where over 200 people were ethnic Muslim Bosniaks. Around sixty percent of the entire population of Zaklopača - somewhere around forty percent were killed and the remaining Muslim population was ethnically cleansed from the area. My grandfather was Ibro Hodžić. He was killed along with my five uncles; Becir Hodžić, Huso Hodžić with his sixteen year old son Mersudin Hodžić, also, Haso Hodžić, Hamdija Hodžić, and Safet Hodžić. The entire ten member family of Ibis Hodžić which included my cousin Naida Hodžić who was only four years old at the time she was killed. Also, members from the family Hamidović who were our extended relatives. My father, and my two first cousins, Amir and Samir Hodžić were the only male survivors from my immediate family. But it is hard to separate the pain we feel for our close relatives from the pain we feel for our neighbors and good friends. We hurt for them all!

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Forensic reports indicate that the bodies of the Zaklopača massacre victims were first buried in the village, but were later dug up and relocated in order to cover up the crime – just as your father saw it happen. This looks like a well-planned operation, yet none of people involved in this ghastly crime have ever been prosecuted. In your opinion, what should be done to put pressure on the authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina to finally prosecute suspects for this massacre?

NIHADA HODZIC: Well, I am certainly no expert in this matter. All I can say is that my family has tried various means to identify those responsible and push for some sort of justice. My family, as well as other survivors form the village, have given numerous testimonies to different sources in an attempt to find any persons responsible, who were directly involved in the massacre. Our big obstacle is that most of the people who could have or might have known these Serbs were killed. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my father was not close enough to identify any potential suspects, but we do know for certain that the Milići police force was directly involved in the Zaklopača massacre. Of course there were some attempts at questioning certain individuals, however nothing was ever established. The process has been extremely slow and exhausting, and thus far no one has been convicted nor held responsible for the crimes committed in Zaklopača in May of 1992.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: The ICTY court transcripts suggest Milenko Đurić was directly involved in the events leading to the Zaklopača massacre, including demands that Bosniak villagers hand over their weapons. I find it interesting that in the chain of command, he was directly under Milomir Stanić – former mayor in charge of all civil and military authorities. Stanić’s authority also stretched to Sušica camp where Serb forces subjected 2,500 Bosniak civilians to horrific conditions, torture, rapes, and murders. Do you think that Đurić and Stanić will ever be brought to justice to face justice?

NIHADA HODZIC: Unfortunately I am very pessimistic in this regard. I do not see any proper justice being served. As we have clearly seen from previous trials of Serb war criminals and their subsequent verdicts, that their given sentences are simply a superficial number, and are not completely enforced, for the most part. We do not wish to speculate on the levels of involvement ‘Gorčin’ had in the Zaklopača massacre, but we believe that he will walk free either way. We do have grounds to doubt that he may have indirectly been involved, as he did advise my uncle Haso in particular (because of their pre-war dislikes of each other) that he should give up his “weapon” insisting that my uncle had a gun and that he should hand it over to the Serbs. He also, as I said before, kept reassuring us safety and that we should all stay firm in our village as he said there was no need for us to go anywhere. No one, to this date, has been convicted of the war crimes in Zaklopača, and the current pattern in convictions do not indicate that there ever will be justice for the victims of the massacre.

DANIEL TOLJAGA: Thank you for taking part in this interview. Do you have any final words?

NIHADA HODZIC: Although I was very young, at the time of the Zaklopača massacre, I do live with its legacy to this day. My father still wakes up in nightmares from the haunting memories of that day, and my mother is still suffering from the side effects of shock and traumatic stress. Today, I am fighting to raise awareness in any way I can about what happened in Zaklopača on May 16, 1992, because I feel it is important to note that genocide was not limited to Srebrenica - it extended far and beyond - across all of eastern Bosnia. These were premeditated and cold blooded, calculated massacres, which targeted one particular group of people for extermination - the Muslim population - and we have to keep voicing these tragic events so that they may not be absorbed and forgotten in the pretext of larger massacres such as that of Srebrenica in 1995. I am currently in my last year of University studies, majoring in International Studies, and I wish to continue my fight on a larger political playing field, where I can demand proper justice for each and every death - each and every forgotten statistic. I wish to put a face to the number and have people remember what happened from 1992-1995 across Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that we do not repeat the same mistakes in the future. Peace still remains very elusive in Bosnia, and some of the rhetoric coming from politicians does not indicate a very optimistic future.

The parliament of Republika Srpska voted on February 10 to approve the measure, which was strongly backed by Prime Minister Milorad Dodik. Dodik has repeatedly called for greater autonomy for the Bosnian Serb entity and has threatened to use a referendum to challenge the authority of Bosnia’s international monitors or even break with Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat half.

Either vote would violate the terms of the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian War in 1995. They would also likely scupper talks on constitutional reforms meant to centralize Bosnia’s governing structures.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Lieberman expressed regret that Bosnian Serb lawmakers proceeded with the vote despite calls from Western officials to reconsider.

“This is very disappointing and alarming news from Republika Srpska,” Lieberman said. “It’s not totally surprising because Mr. Dodik has threatened this before. This is a nation that experienced genocide only approximately 15 years ago. Dayton ended a war, but it did not achieve yet a genuine solution to these problems.”

U.S. and EU officials are desperately trying to convince Bosnian officials to agree on a set of constitutional reforms that would unify the country and put it on a course to EU membership. Supporters argue it is essential to strike an agreement on the reforms well ahead of the country’s October elections.

Lieberman said the autumn vote will give Bosnians in both the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation an opportunity to indicate “whether they want to go toward an orderly unified government and membership in the European Union, or back to division and conflict.”

Lieberman last week traveled to Bosnia with Senator John McCain to meet with members of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, who called for greater Western involvement in resolving the country’s political impasse.

Lieberman today suggested that both the United States and the EU could create new posts with a special focus on Bosnia.

“I wonder whether the European Union and the United States ought now together to appoint special envoys to go back to Sarajevo to stay there and to try to bring the parties together,” he said. “Because the consequences of not doing so are very bad.”

Dennis Blair, the director of U.S. national intelligence, warned this month that Bosnia this year represents Europe’s biggest security threat.

Source: RFE/RL

The  State of Illinois General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution HR712, which declared July 11th as Srebrenica Remembrance Day and the week of July 11th as Bosnia and Herzegovina  Tribute Week in the State of Illinois.

As stated, the resolution also called upon all citizens of the State of Illinois to jointly advocate to stop the cycle of violence and promote peaceful coexistence among all people on Earth.

State representatives Greg Harris and Harry Osterman jointly sponsored the Resolution.

The passing of the resolution by the state authorities was made possible by efforts of following Bosnian Americans:

• Sanja Drnovsek-Seferovic - Director of the Bosnian-American Institute for Genocide

• Ferid Sefer - member of the   Board of Directors of the Bosnian-American Institute for Genocide and education who also serves as the Secretary of the Congress of North American Bosniaks and the creator of the web magazine “Chicagoraja”.

• Ivica Jurišić, President of the BiH Club

• Samija Hajdarevic Diab, who was forced to leave Bosnia with two her two young sons,

• Emin Drnovsek-Seferovic - an 8th grade student of the “Taft” school

Below is the speech given by Sanja Seferovic Drnovsek to the Illinois Legislature on February 3, 2010.

Honorable Members of the State Government Administrative Committee,

A Resolution has been placed before you to set aside July 11 as the annual day to remember the Srebrenica Genocide and the week of July 11 as the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Tribute week in State of Illinois .

Be it further, we call upon all the citizens of the State of Illinois to work toward ending the cycle of violence and to promote peaceful coexistence among all people on earth.

This is an historical moment and I am honored to have an opportunity to speak for Bosnian American citizens  in Illinois that have signed the petition for this Resolution in April last year which is the month that is dedicated to the prevention of genocide that has taken place, and still occurs, in whole world.

This Resolution is in compliance with; the U.S. House Resolution 134 (in 2005) and the U.S. Senate Resolution 199 (in 2005), as well as the International Criminal Court Tribunal established for the former Yugoslavia, the European Parliament Resolution from 2009, and similar Resolutions in the States of Michigan and Missouri. All these Resolutions and their court decisions state that the Srebrenica massacre in which 8, 372 Bosniaks, who were innocent civilians representing three generations of men, were executed by Bosnian Serb forces, as the worst single war crime committed in Europe since World War II.

During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina , which democratically become its own independent state in April 1992 with the endorsement of the U.S. , 200, 000 persons were killed, 40% of 4,600,000 Bosnians were displaced, and one quarter of the total population were forced to leave. Many of the heavily wounded, victims of concentration camps and of rape camps, arrived in the U.S.  Among them are my friends, Mrs. Samija Hajdarevic Diab who came with two sons, and Mr. Ferid Sefer, who came with his family. Both are with us in this room.

Illinois is the most welcoming state to our community where more than 50, 000 Bosnians (over 35, 000 in the city of Chicago ) found their new home. Illinois opened its hospitals, Illinois open its schools, and Illinois opened its businesses and community centers for them. Today Bosnians are everywhere in Illinois ; they are factory workers, construction workers, teacher, doctors, lawyers and scientists. They are successful and loyal citizens of the State of Illinois . The state made a difference to thousands and represented hope for a new world view for millions.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Greg Harris and Mr. Harry Osterman, and all of you for your participation in this Resolution that will continue the selfless voice for fairness and justice.  I would like to thank you on behalf of my friend, Zuhra Osmanovic, a survivor of Srebrenica genocide. Her husband was killed and her son was taken from her hands that day, on July 11 1995. She has never seen her son since. He was my son’s age. My son is with us today in this room. She will never forget that moment, but she told me that this Resolution will give her hope that justice and truth will prevail and will prevent future genocide, here or there, or everywhere in the world.

I personally believe that possibility for greater understanding in Bosnia and Herzegovina and throughout the world depends upon our realization that truth and justice are the first steps toward reconciliation. It is also a warning to future generation that this crime should never happen again to any group of people, anywhere or anytime.

Thank you again.

Sanja Seferovic Drnovsek
Director of the Bosnian-American Genocide Institute and Education Center

“While a referendum can be a legitimate mechanism in the right circumstances, it can be counter productive, and even provocative, when used to pursue a narrow political agenda,” the US embassy in Sarajevo said.

“The United States would consider provocative any referendum that threatens the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Bosnia-Hercegovina,” an embassy statement added.

It also warned against “any question that would challenge the structures of the Dayton peace accords (which ended the 1992-1995 war), including the authorities and decisions of the High Representative,” a reference to the powerful international envoy to the Balkan country.

A push towards staging a referendum in the Bosnian Serb entity in the ethnically-divided Balkan nation has sparked fears that it could further deepen the rift between Republika Sprska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Post-war Bosnia consists of two highly-autonomous entities — the Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Each has its own government.

The Bosnian Serb parliament met earlier Tuesday to discuss amendments to the law on referenda that would remove obstacles for their organisation.

Under the current law, the Muslim and Croat minorities in the Bosnian Serb parliament’s upper house can effectively block a referendum with stalling tactics until a deadline passes but the new law would scrap time limits.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said recently his government wanted to hold a referendum on decisions by the top envoy Valentin Inzko, who Bosnian Serbs see as biased against them. The top envoy can impose laws and sack obstructive officials.

Dodik has often warned that he would call a referendum on independence for Republika Srpska if its autonomy were threatened.

Bosnian Serbs continuously refuse any strengthening of Bosnia’s central institutions, sought by the international community to make the country more functional, at the expense of their autonomy.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved

Serbia is mulling over a resolution expressing remorse for the massacre in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. This time, EU accession aspirations may prove a big enough incentive to make it happen.

By Anes Alic
- a senior writer for ISN Security Watch, based in Sarajevo and the co-founder and executive director of ISA Consulting, based in Sarajevo and Tel Aviv.

The Serbian Parliament is expected to discuss and possibly even pass a resolution on the Srebrenica massacre in the coming weeks, in a move that is causing mixed feelings among the opposition and a dispute among members of the ruling coalition.

But more interestingly, and in the true Balkan fashion, it is not remorse over what happened in Srebrenica that Serbia is willing put its condemnation down on official paper, rather it is a matter of pleasing the international community as Belgrade seeks European integration.

In early January, Serbian President Boris Tadic announced that the parliament would prepare and adopt a resolution condemning the July 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak men in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica and adopt a resolution condemning the incident. Immediately, the announcement was met with criticism by both opposition forces and members of the ruling coalition, who vowed to present a counter resolution.

While most members of parliament agreed that a resolution should be adopted, many object to singling out Srebrenica, noting that crimes were committed elsewhere in the region during the Yugoslav wars. As such, it is possible that the Serbian Parliament will debate two separate draft resolutions in an attempt to satisfy all parties.

The original resolution will specifically condemn crimes committed against Bosniaks in Srebrenica, while the parallel resolution condemns all war crimes on the territory of the former Yugoslavia – including against Serb victims in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Though theoretically, this should be a sufficient compromise, it is not still safe to predict that the resolutions will pass without further compromises.

Serbian media predicts that Tadic’s initiative could secure the support of 120 parliamentarians from the ruling coalition and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, this is not enough for the resolution to pass in the 250-seat parliament.

When is a spade a spade?

Still another issue could deepen the dispute and prolong the debate: How exactly should Serbia refer to what happened at Srebrenica? Though some agree that the incident should be labeled ‘genocide,’ the majority would rather call it a ‘severe crime.’

“The crimes committed against Serbs in the recent wars are tragedies, but the Srebrenica massacre is [also] a tragedy, and Serbia’s shame. We have to call it what it is: genocide,” Nenad Canak, leader of the League of Vojvodina Social Democrats (LSV), Tadic’s coalition partner, told ISN Security Watch.

Canak, whose party initiated the previous failed attempts to pass the Srebrenica resolution, said that it was important, for both moral and political reasons, that the resolution be approved by parliament, since it would distance Serbia from crimes and be a major contribution to reconciliation in the region.

“Serbia as the society, which for years neglected the crimes committed in its name, has to show support for such a resolution. I don’t know why we are afraid in Serbia to call the crime in Srebrenica its proper name, genocide,” Canak said, stressing that his party would not lend support to the alternative resolution in Parliament if in the final draft the term ‘genocide’ was left out.

The League of Vojvodina Social Democrats and the Liberal Democratic Party are unique among Serbia’s political parites in that when the speak publicly about the Srebrenica resolution, they discuss moral obligation above all else, due to Serbia’s involvement in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All others who would support the resolution, including Tadic, stress the necessity of its adoption in terms of easing the country’s EU accession bid, and in terms of Belgrade’s legal obligations to the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In February 2007, the ICJ cleared Serbia of responsibility for the genocide of Bosniaks and Croats, but said that Serbia had failed to use its influence with Bosnian Serbs to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica, and failed to comply with its international obligation to punish those responsible.

Tadic said that only by recognizing the suffering of others could Belgrade gain credibility in the international community, stressing that adoption of these resolutions would be beneficial to the people and the state of Serbia.

Sonja Biserko, the president of Serbia’s Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, told ISN Security Watch that the political elite’s failure to face up to Serbia’s role in the massacre has backfired, leading much of the world to assign collective guilt for Srebrenica to all Serbs. According to her, the passing the original resolution is the only way to make a break with Serbia’s wartime heritage.

“By doing so, we would confirm that the Republic of Serbia is sincere in its attempts to build a society different from the one led by [former Serb leader Slobodan] Milosevic, to condemn crimes and show respect for the victims,” Biserko said.

The resolution was also on the Serbian political agenda in 2005 but for the same reasons – the sticking point of singling out Srebrenica – it was sidelined.

Bigger carrots

This time around, however, Serbia may have a stronger incentive – EU accession.

Following the EU’s move last month to ease visa rules for Serbian citizens traveling to EU countries, authorities in Belgrade began to step up measures to fulfill the requirements for joining the bloc, hopefully by 2014.

For long, Belgrade’s European ambitions have been hampered over the failure to turn over major war crimes fugitives, particularly Bosnian Serb wartime General Ratko Mladic, indicted over Srebrenica and believed to be hiding out in Serbia.

But in early December 2009, chief UN prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Serbia had improved cooperation with the ICTY and was making satisfactory efforts to capture the fugitives. The Brammertz report led to the unfreezing of Belgrade’s interim trade pact with the EU.

Still, the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) - the first step toward EU membership for western Balkan nations - remains blocked, as some member states, particularly the Netherlands, insist that Mladic first be captured.

The EU Council of Ministers is unlikely to consider Serbia’s membership application before June if the fugitives remain at large. Dutch and Belgian officials insist that the bloc wait for Brammertz’s next assessment before putting Serbia’s bid on the Council agenda.

Should Mladic be apprehended, the agreement would be immediately unblocked. And indeed, few experts would be shocked to learn of his arrest in a Belgrade suburb after over a decade on the run.

Indeed, if the Srebrenica resolution passes in parliament, it may prove a strong indication that political will to arrest Mladic is not far behind.

Regional will

And certainly, Serbia has been more cooperative in terms of Srebrenica than its neighbor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose Bosnian Serb leaders have shown no effort at discussing the issue at an institutional level.

Should Serbia end up adopting the Srebrenica resolution, Bosnia and Herzegovina – where the massacre took place – would be the only country in the region not to have adopted such a resolution.

In January 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Srebrenica calling on the all countries to endorse the measure and proclaim 11 July, the day the massacres began, a day of commemoration throughout the EU. The European Parliament’s resolution was followed by the adoption of similar resolutions in Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro.

Bosnia itself failed to pass the resolution, though this was not unexpected, as the Bosnian Serbs in the government rejected the idea, saying that it failed to take into account Bosnian Serb victims of the war.

Bosnian Serb officials refuse to adopt a resolution on this single incident, saying any resolution should take into account all war crimes committed against Serbs on the territory from World War II on. Initially, Bosniak politicians agreed to such an arrangement, but insisted on highlighting the Srebrenica massacre. But this, too, is unacceptable to Bosnian Serbs, since it would lend credence to the claim that Republika Srpska (Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity) was created on the foundations of genocide. As such, we should not expect a Srebrenica resolution to be on the Bosnian agenda for some time, as it would further inflame high ethnic animosity.

All information about the Institute is available on the web site www.instituteforgenocide.ca, which was launched on 27 January 2010 on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust, as an important reminder of the universal study of the Holocaust, a unique evil which cannot simply be left to the past and forgotten.

Faithfully Yours,
Emir Ramic
President of the Board of Directors
The Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

1. Thanks to EU and US complacancy in the face of Bosnia’s continuing disintegration, it has been left to Croatia’s president to promise resolute action in defence of this fragile state.

2. The secession of the Republika Srpska from Bosnia-Hercegovina would be catastrophic for stability in the Balkans, and would most likely spark a renewed Serb-Bosniak war.

3. A Croatian threat to attack the Republika Srpska in the event that it secedes makes war less rather than more likely, by deterring an action that would most likely result in war.

4. We should therefore encourage Croatia to act as Bosnia’s guarantor in this manner, while hoping that Serbia will eventually show a similar degree of post-nationalist regional responsibility.

Outgoing Croatian president Stjepan Mesic earlier this month threatened to intervene militarily in the event that Bosnia’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, attempts to secede and establish itself as an independent state. He was responding to repeated separatist noises on the part of the Republika Srpska’s aggressively nationalistic prime minister, Milorad Dodik, who makes no secret of his hostility to the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina and his designs against its territorial integrity, and whose atrocity denial and friendship for convicted war-criminals indicate a dangerous contempt for the norms of civilised behaviour. Mesic has warned that if Dodik announces a referendum on secession - as the first step toward the Republika Srpska’s unification with Serbia to form a ‘Great Serbia’ - he would send the Croatian Army south across the River Sava to cut in half the Bosnian Serb entity, which ‘would then have to disappear’. Yet the establishment of a Great Serbia is not the only danger about which Mesic has warned. He has highlighted also the possibility that, with Republika Srpska seceding and the Bosnian Croats following suit, it would leave behind an embittered Muslim rump-state, that ‘would find itself in a hostile surrounding, and would be able sustain itself only with the help of a fundamentalist regime.’ Consequently, ‘In the next 50 to 70 years there would be a new center of terrorism. It would be a new Palestine in the heart of Europe.’

German Ambassador to Sarajevo Joachim Schmidt is reported to have said that Mesic’s military threat ‘is not of help’. Yet it would not be left to Bosnia’s western neighbour to issue such a threat if the EU and US had not shown themselves to be quite so complacent in the face of Bosnia’s threatened collapse. Bosnia was lumbered with the unworkable and unsustainable Dayton settlement that ended its war in 1995. To sustain this unsustainable settlement, to make the unworkable work, required a powerful High Representative wielding authoritarian powers, backed up by a large international military presence. The Dayton system enjoyed its golden years in 2002-2006, when the Office of the High Representative (OHR) was held by the energetic Paddy Ashdown, and Bosnia superficially appeared to be making genuine strides towards reintegration. Yet the EU, naively believing that the farcical Dayton constitutional order could actually be made to function without massive outside interference, has since been rushing to wind down the OHR, and has withdrawn its support from Ashdown’s successors. With few international troops now remaining, the OHR has been left as a paper tiger, something that Dodik has taken advantage of to pursue his secessionist policy. It is as if a zoo-keeper had decided that, since his caged tiger had not eaten many people recently, it was now tame and could safely be let out of the cage, not realising that it was only because of the cage that the tiger appeared to be safe.

With the EU and US blithely fiddling while Bosnia burns, it has been left to the Croatian president to behave like a responsible European statesman, and make clear that the destruction of the international order in the Balkans will not be tolerated. Those condemning Mesic forget that his policy toward Bosnia is the exact opposite of that pursued by his predecessor, the chauvinistic tyrant Franjo Tudjman. Where Mesic defends a unified Bosnia, Tudjman joined with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic in attempting to destroy Bosnia and crush the Bosnian Muslims. And that is really the choice that Europe has, so far as Croatia is concerned: between a Croatia that upholds Bosnia, a la Mesic, and a Croatia that undermines Bosnia, a la Tudjman. It does not take a genius to realise that a Mesicite Croatia is preferable to a Tudjmanite Croatia.

Under Tudjman, Croatia was a corrupt and despotic state that sheltered war criminals, persecuted national minorities and undermined the territorial integrity of its Bosnian neighbour. The Tudjman regime represented a synthesis between the authoritarianism of the Croatian Communist ancien regime - whose child Tudjman himself was - and right-wing Croat emigre nationalism, combining the worst features of both. Yet since Tudjman’s death in 1999 and the electoral defeat of his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 2000, Croatia appears definitely to have made the transition to becoming a democratic European state. Both Ivica Racan’s Social Democratic government, which took power in 2000, and the government of Ivo Sanader, who reconstituted the HDZ as a mainstream conservative party and took power in 2003, have guided Croatia down the democratic European path. Over them presided President Mesic, a reformed nationalist who honourably broke with Tudjman as early as 1994 over the latter’s Bosnian policy. These politicians redeemed Croatia in the 2000s from the disgrace brought upon it by Tudjman in the 1990s: they turned their back on anti-Bosnian Croat irredentism; refrained from pandering to neo-Ustasha sentiment; cooperated with the war-crimes tribunal in the Hague; put on trial war-criminals who persecuted Serb civilians in the 1990s; recognised the independence of Kosovo; and have brought Croatia into NATO and up to the gates of the EU. Croatia’s citizens should be as proud of their rulers’ record in the 2000s as they should be ashamed of their predecessors’ record in the 1990s. Of course, Croatia still faces huge problems of corruption and organised crime, but measured against where it would be now if Tudjman’s policies had been continued into the 2000s, the achievement is monumental.

With the election victory of the Social Democrat Ivo Josipovic in this month’s Croatian presidential election, Croatia has reaffirmed its democratic European path. His opponent in the presidential election, Milan Bandic, was a vulgar and corrupt populist who enjoyed the support of the nationalist emigration, of the better part of the clergy and of war-criminals such as Branimir Glavas and Tomislav Mercep. Bandic waged a red-baiting campagin directed against the Social Democrats on account of their Communist past - despite the fact that he too had been a member of the Communist party. Had he won the election, he would have become a Croatian Berlusconi. Yet Josipovic, a composer and law professor, crushed Bandic, winning 60.26% of the vote. Zivjela Hrvatska !

Josipovic is a civilised, non-nationalist individual who will serve to consolidate Croatia’s democratic transition and guard against any resurgence of Tudjman-style chauvinism. Yet there are indications that he lacks Mesic’s toughness. He has spoken of the possibility of withdrawing Croatia’s lawsuit against Serbia at the International Court of Justice; this would be an error, for although Croatia is unlikely to win the case, the verdict is highly likely to recognise Serbian war-crimes in Croatia in 1991-92, as it did in its judgement on Bosnia’s case against Serbia, when it recognised that ‘it is established by overwhelming evidence that massive killings in specific areas and detention camps throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina were perpetrated during the conflict’ and that ‘the victims were in large majority members of the protected group [the Muslims], which suggests that they may have been systematically targeted by the killings’, and that ‘it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm, during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps.’ Croatia can reasonably hope for a similar recognition of its people’s suffering in the early 1990s.

Josipovic has also distanced himself from Mesic’s threat to intervene militarily to prevent the Republika Srpska’s secession, saying ’sending the Croatian Army to a neighbouring country for me is not an option’ and ‘problems must always be solved through negotiations and with the agreement of all interested parties’. The pacific sentiment is commendable; the naivete less so. The Western alliance, given its past record, cannot be relied upon to take action to prevent the Republika Srpska’s secession; if it does not, and if Croatia does not either, then one of two things might happen. The Bosniaks might be stupid enough not to respond militarily, on the grounds that ‘problems must always be solved through negotiations and with the agreement of all interested parties’, in which case Republika Srpska will become independent at the price of some token concessions to the Bosniaks. Or the Bosniaks might take military action alone, in which case the consequences cannot be predicted, but are unlikely to be good.

It is worth stating again the case against allowing Republika Srpska to secede: it would represent a violation of the right to self-determination of the nearly 50% of the territory’s population that was Bosniak and Croat before 1992, that was mostly ethnically cleansed during the war and that has not been able to return since Dayton; the quid pro quo for international recognition of the Republika Srpska’s existence, with a massively disproportionate share of Bosnia’s territory, was the Serb recognition of Bosnia’s unity and indivisibility, and if the Serbs cease to recognise Bosnian unity then nobody is under any obligation to recognise the Republika Srpska’s existence any longer; the secession of Republika Srpska and its eventual unification with Serbia would derail Serbia’s own democratisation, and send it back down the path of expansionism and regional troublemaking; if Bosnia is allowed to break up, it will create a precedent for the break up of Macedonia and the secession of the Macedonian Albanians to unite with Albania and form a Great Albania, with all the dangers that would bring; and finally, the elements responsible for the bloodbath of the 1990s must never be rewarded. For all these reasons, Republika Srpska should not be allowed to secede. It is for the Bosnian citizenry as a whole to decide whether Bosnia should be divided into separate Serb, Croat and Bosniak states or whether it should remain united as a single state; it is not for either of the Bosnian entities to decide this unilaterally.

A threat, such as Mesic’s, makes a war in the region less rather than more likely, since so long as it is plausible, it will serve to deter an act of secession that would at the very least greatly destabilise the Balkans, and that would most likely spark a new Serb-Bosniak war. Dodik may be ready to pursue a secessionist policy that will result in war if he only has to fight the Bosniaks; he will be much less likely to do so if he has to fight Croatia as well, because he would inevitably lose. Those, such as Germany’s Ambassador Schmidt, who would like to deter Croatia from promising to defend Bosnia militarily if necessary, are contributing to the likelihood of war in the Balkans. Rather than praising him for not doing so, we should do well to encourage Josipovic to adopt Mesic’s policy.

We have spoken of Croatia’s tremendous achievement in turning its back on the politics of the late Franjo Tudjman. Serbia, too, has made tremendous strides in its democratic transition, particularly since the victory of the pro-European parties in Serbia’s 2008 parliamentary elections. Serbia has become a fully democratic state, embraced the European path and put war-criminals on trial, and however misguided its attempt to retain Kosova might be, it is at least using judicial means that are within its rights. But in one respect in particular Serbia scores much lower than Croatia: it has not abandoned its nationalist paradigm vis-a-vis Bosnia. Whereas official Croatia today sees Bosnian unity as its national interest, and refrains from promoting Bosnian Croat separatism, official Serbia continues to see its interest in undermining Bosnia and promoting the separateness of the Republika Srpska.

The day when Serbia sees its national interest as defending Bosnia’s unity and integrity from enemies such as Dodik, is the day when post-nationalist Serbia will truly have arrived.

Marko Attila Hoare is European Neighbourhood Section Director for the Henry Jackson Society

This is the latest of the disturbing trends of persistent unchecked secessionist politics that have been ignored by the international community and have allowed for extremists to return to the same ultranationalist policies that led to the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War.

The draft bill violates the United Nations Charter recognizing the independence and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, according to its historically recognized borders.

We call upon the United States, the European Union, and the larger international community, to take all the necessary steps to preserve peace in the region by enforcing the United Nations Charter. They must annul all illegal legislation and remove from power all of those who dare to resurrect the past policies of aggression, discrimination, and genocide, while hiding behind the curtain of democracy. We need real democratic reform that would fully preserve the rights of all citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina, eliminate ethnic voting which is contrary to democratic principles, and establish a stronger central government by providing a framework for peace and stability for the country.

The future of Bosnia-Herzegovina is at stake. The Bosnian people deserve to live in a democratic country whose path is towards full euro-Atlantic integration, and NATO membership. This path has been constantly obstructed by nationalist politicians who want to resurrect ethnic hatred, and do everything in their power to project Bosnia as a failed state. There can be no place for such politics that echo the Nazi and fascists movements of the early 20th century. The international community should learn from the past and be proactive in dealing with these threats to peace and stability, rather than wait for another war or genocide to occur.  It is our collective responsibility to never allow Bosnia to be taken hostage once again by the politics of ethnic hatred and division. Congress of North American Bosniaks stands ready to assist the international community in ensuring peace and stability in the region.

Board of Directors

The court has announced that the indictment states that the accused planned, ordered, encouraged and participated in the joint criminal act.

“Between July 10 and 19, 1995, the accused were allegedly causing serious injuries and mental harm to a group of Bosniaks, killing men and forcing women, children and elderly out of the UN safe area of Srebrenica in order to completely eradicate national, ethnic and religious group of Bosniaks,” the indictment reads.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), acting on orders from the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office, arrested the three former police officers on October 28, 2009.

Ilić was a member of the Jahorina Police Training Center Unit that was in Srebrenica in July 1995, while Jević and Đurić were both witnesses before the Hague Tribunal in the Srebrenica crimes cases.

Today, the United States extradited Nedjo Ikonic to Bosnia. 

A spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office, Boris Grubesic, said 45-year-old Nedjo Ikonic had been arrested in the United States on an international arrest warrant. He said Ikonic was a commander of a special police brigade operating within the Serb Republic interior ministry during the Bosnian 1992-95 war that claimed 100,000 lives. Ikonic is a former Serb policeman suspected of taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide - Europe’s worst massacre since World War Two.

“In 1995 Ikonic commanded the unit which together with the Bosnian Serb army controlled the roads to and out of the eastern town of Srebrenica,” Grubesic told state radio.

Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic, killed about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after the eastern town, which was a United Nations-protected safe zone, fell into their hands in 1995. Most were killed while trying to escape through the woods, and were either shot or arrested and taken to places of execution before burial in mass graves.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has sentenced seven Bosnian Serbs for the Srebrenica massacre. Nine more are on trial. Mladic is still on the run, 14 years after he was indicted.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, whose trial before the Hague-based court is adjourned until March, denies all 11 counts of war crimes relating to the Bosnian war, including the genocide at Srebrenica.

The Bosnian war crimes court, set up in 2005 to relieve the burden on the Hague-based tribunal, has put dozens of Bosnian Serbs on trial over Srebrenica. Twelve have been jailed, seven acquitted and seven are still being tried.

Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) condemns and protests against hacker attacks directed towards the on-line portal Bosnjaci.net. CNAB is of the opinion that these heinous attacks against the portal are a planned and direct attack against Bosniaks. It is a way to stifle freedom of speech and revelation of the truth about the aggression against Bosnia and genocide that was committed against Bosniaks as a nation, as well as revelation of truth about those who directly and indirectly committed atrocities of said crimes. These attacks against Bosniak-owned media outlets are the equivalent of the attacks against democratic, independent, sovereign state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its open, free and pluralistic society. These are direct attacks against the legacy of a democratic, civic society and civilization in general.

In addition, we condemn the statement made by the Bosnian Archbishop of the Serb-orthodox Church Nikolaj just around Christmas regarding the editor of the web portal mr. Esad Krcic. Instead of spreading a message of peace for the religious holiday, he is disseminating messages of hate and threats instead, trying to stop Bosniaks from revealing truth.

We are sending a message to the Archbishop Nikolaj in the name of 350,000 American and Canadian Bosniaks, victims of Serbian genocide and aggression, that even though Bosniaks have lost their homes and family members, the time for intimidation is over; the time of silence is over; that Bosniaks will make sure that Serbian genocide against Bosniaks is not forgotten and will be revealed to everyone.

The time of poltroons and Bosniaks’ silence is over. We have the responsibility to our future generation and history to make sure the roles of Serbia and Serbian Orthodox Church in pitting neighbors against neighbors and starting genocide and aggression not only against Bosniaks, but also against Bosnian Croats, and other nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sandzak, and Kosovo. The destruction of Bosniaks is obvious even from the latest political moves of the Serbian government with plans to partition Sandzak into two statistical units.

CNAB supports all pro-Bosniak media outlets that propagate truth about Bosnia and Herzegovina and invites all friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina to support in any possible way media such as on-line magazine Bosnjaci. Net

CNAB Board of Directors

Since the year 2000, the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) has defended the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bosniaks in diaspora by ensuring that relations between our homeland and the United States and Canada remain strong.

On behalf of CNAB, we wish you a Happy New Year and we invite you to join the ranks of our organization and actively participate in lobbying for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Board of Directors

A row has erupted between Bosnian Serb politicians and the top international official in Bosnia-Hercegovina over the role of foreign judges and prosecutors.

The international High Representative, Valentin Inzko, says the Bosnian Serb republic, Republika Srpska (RS), has violated the 1995 Dayton peace accords.

His statement came after RS rejected his extension of the judges’ and prosecutors’ mandate until 2013.

They work on Bosnian war crimes cases, in line with the Dayton peace accords.

The Bosnian Serb prime minister, Milorad Dodik, has rejected Mr Inzko’s comments, and accused his office of undermining the peace deal.

Under the Dayton agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia was divided into Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim)-Croat and Bosnian Serb entities, with a federal presidency.

Plea to respect Dayton

The High Representative has the power to impose laws and dismiss elected officials.
A statement from Mr Inzko’s office says Republika Srpska’s government and parliament “are in violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement” because they rejected his extension of the foreign judges’ and prosecutors’ mandate.

“The Republika Srpska must respect the Dayton Peace Agreement in its entirety and must not challenge actions undertaken on the basis of Dayton,” the statement said.

Mr Dodik, quoted by the Belgrade-based Radio B92 website, countered that Mr Inzko’s team “are the ones committing crimes and violating Dayton, not us”.

Mr Inzko, an Austrian diplomat, is taking the matter to the UN Security Council and to the governments monitoring implementation of Dayton.

Meanwhile, the Bosnian Serbs plan to hold a referendum on the issue.

The leaders of Bosnia’s divided communities have stalled over reform of the Bosnian constitution - seen as a vital step towards eventual EU and Nato membership.

The 14th anniversary of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords passed unnoticed in November. The collapse of a US-EU diplomatic initiative in Bosnia-Herzegovina last month went virtually unreported too, as has the fact that Bosnia’s cold peace is under serious threat.

Bosnia may seem less significant than it used to be to the US and her allies. Pressing challenges in Afghanistan and beyond need great attention. But the risk of a failed state taking root in Europe cannot be ignored by Europe or in Washington.

Brussels struggles with serious Balkan diplomacy – so many capitals to confer with and tactics to co-ordinate, and so little political will to take difficult decisions. The EU hopes that its all-carrots, no-sticks approach linked entirely to the promise of an eventual EU accession process will change the domestic politics of Bosnia and neighbouring Serbia, and produce political co-operation. The US backs this approach, despite the fact that Bosnia is further from EU membership than any other aspirant country.

Bosnia’s economy has grown with foreign aid, but the state has not grown, and today it does not work. The Bosnian Serbs have exploited the autonomy they were granted at Dayton, relying on stalling tactics to keep the country divided, its government dysfunctional, and their hopes of secession alive, while some Bosniak leaders can be equally rigid. Some resistance has been overcome when the international high representative overseeing Dayton has insisted on it. But even this level of effort has overtaxed the patience and capacity of the EU and US. The high representative’s office has been allowed to be demeaned so that none of the parties, particularly the Bosnian Serbs, heed its efforts. It is now proposed to weaken the role further by recasting the high representative as an EU special representative and stripping out real authority – the “Bonn powers”.

With the election season in Bosnia imminent, nationalist rhetoric will certainly increase in all parts. Even the Bosnian Croats increasingly talk of their own entity and a break with their federation with the Bosniaks.

What happens in Europe’s backyard matters: the consequences of Bosnia’s disintegration would be catastrophic. The breakdown of the country into independent ethnic statelets would not only reward ethnic cleansing – surely a moral anathema – but would also risk the creation of a failed state in the heart of Europe; a fertile breeding ground for terrorism and crime, and a monstrous betrayal of all those who survived the concentration camps, mass graves and displacement of the 1990s. Bosnia will not solve itself, nor will the prospect of EU integration be enough to pull the country back from the brink.

Instead we must recognise that all the countries in the region are linked and cannot be dealt with in isolation.

We urge the US and EU to each appoint a special envoy to the region, who would work in lockstep to deliver a united message and drive forward progress. We must impress on Bosnia’s leaders that the sovereignty of the country is unquestionable and its break-up unthinkable. But we must also say to European candidate countries Serbia and Montenegro that they are expected to uphold EU policy towards Bosnia.

A robust international approach should focus on a single goal: a central government in Bosnia effective enough to meet the responsibilities of EU and Nato membership. Each Bosnian leader should have to stand for, or against, that simple idea – and face consequences for his or her answer.

The international community should be prepared to use sticks as well as carrots. There is a strong argument for the threat of targeted sanctions against politicians who undermine the Bosnian state.

Talk of timelines for the closure of the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina is premature. The Office should only be closed once constitutional reform has been achieved. Meanwhile, the high representative must have the solid backing of the EU and US so that all parties know they cannot sit out the international presence in the country.

Finally, the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia must be retained, and reinforced if necessary, to send a strong signal that neither secession nor violence will be tolerated.

Today Radovan Karadzic is finally on trial in The Hague on charges of alleged genocide and war crimes in Bosnia. As he and others are called to account over their part in the horrendous events of the 1990s, it would be a supreme irony if their plans for carving up Bosnia-Herzegovina were to be realized simply because the international community was too busy to care.

Mr Hague is UK shadow foreign secretary, Lord Ashdown is a former high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. This article was co-written by James O’Brien, a former US presidential envoy for the Balkans, Morton Abramowitz, former US ambassador to Turkey and a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and Jim Hooper, a managing director of the Public International Law and Policy Group

If there is one foreign dignitary whom a majority of Bosnian citizens do not want to see in the new year, it must be Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, whose country holds rotating presidency of the European Union for a few more days.

He would be welcomed, of course, to come together with his wife, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, to ski at Sarajevo’s Winter Olympics venues, but not in a political capacity. But even then, both would likely be asked unpleasant questions about their political dealings concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Carl Bildt merits a different outlook from Turkey, for example. Sincerely or not, he tried until the last moment to unblock Turkey’s EU accession talks, stressing that it was “in the strategic interest of Europe” to do so. In Tel Aviv, he was called a “stupid man” due to his comparison of Israel with Hamas. He was not welcomed in Moscow during the war in South Ossetia because of his comparison of Russia with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, he lays all blame for the country’s political impasse on Bosnian politicians, not making any distinction between those struggling to preserve its integrity and those threatening to further destabilize — or even divide — it.

People — whether as individuals, small social groups or whole nations — when unable to recognize their weakness and impotence to solve grave problems by themselves, place the blame on others. But in the Bosnian case in particular, the international community has the essential responsibility for the current Bosnian political stalemate. The international community stopped the war in Bosnia with the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, but at the same time imposed a constitutional structure that, aside from rewarding aggressors, prevents the country from entering 2010 as a normal and functional state.

Bildt was part of that international community’s mechanism and, thus, shares its responsibility. He served as the co-chairman of the Dayton peace talks as well as the co-chairman of the recently failed US-EU attempt to ease the crisis in Bosnia. He has been involved in Bosnian and other Balkan problems, representing the UN or the EU but adding to his missions a personal, and very often controversial, touch.

I met the man only once, in İstanbul. It happened on a rainy winter day shortly after the Dayton Peace Accords were concluded when Bildt came to consult Turkish officials about its implementation. We were having dinner in a restaurant being splashing by the choppy waters of the Bosporus when a Turkish colleague whispered to me a question while pointing at Bildt. “On whose behalf did he come here?” We guessed it was more on the behalf of the Americans, or the Britons, or even the French — but these were all guesses. “You should know,” he whispered to me. “Western powers like to engage Scandinavians, particularly Swedes, to accomplish dirty diplomatic jobs for them.” He said the same was the case even in Ottoman times, citing the conclusion of treaties in 1813 and after the Balkan wars in 1913. I never again met with my interlocutor from that stormy Bosporus night to continue our talk, and I have yet to find a Swede who served as a mediator in the years he mentioned. I also did not have the opportunity to ask Turkish historians, such as İlber Ortaylı, about this, but they should know if indeed there was someone.

The role of Swedes

However, ever since, I have kept somewhere in the back of my mind the idea of “dirty diplomatic jobs” whenever there was talk of international mediation missions in the hands of Sweden or other Nordic countries. Modern history remembers some mediators and conciliators who, risking even their lives, exerted themselves to direct great crises and conflicts toward a peaceful settlement. Perhaps most prominent among those who gave their lives on that path in the last century were the Swedes.

One was Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations’ mediator for Palestine. After the failed UN effort to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state in November 1947 and at the beginning of the first of the wars in the Middle East, in May 1948, the UN General Assembly chose the former International Red Cross mediator to undertake the first serious UN attempt at peacekeeping after World War II. Seeking to stop the war between newly proclaimed Israel and the Arab states, Count Bernadotte proposed a new plan of partition, with Jerusalem ruled by Jordanians. Jewish extremists did not like it at all, and their terrorist group Lehi, led by future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, assassinated the UN envoy when he was passing through the Jerusalem streets only four months after his arrival in the conflict area.

That assassination left no hopeful trace for future developments. Jerusalem is still one of the stumbling blocks in the Middle East crisis. From the other side, weakness displayed toward the Jewish state for its reluctance to prosecute the murderers of the UN mediator seriously damaged the image of the world organization at the very beginning of its existence.

Another one was Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish statesman and the second UN secretary-general. He was known as an international peacemaker of great moral authority and sensitivity. He was killed in a plane crash over today’s Zambia at the peak of the Congo crisis in 1961. It is believed that Hammarskjöld was assassinated as well. He initiated the sending of a UN peacemaking force to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but Russia, then the Soviet Union, strongly opposed UN involvement. It was one of the largest tests of East-West rivalry, so Hammarskjöld could also be considered a victim of the Cold War. He was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “I realize now that in comparison to him, I am a small man,” US President John F. Kennedy said at the time.

Mediators for two centuries

At the crossroads of two centuries, Scandinavians were again engaged as international mediators: Swedes in Nagorno-Karabakh and Bosnia, Norwegians in the Oslo talks between Israelis and Palestinians and Finn Martti Ahtisaari, who acquired fame in Kosovo.

Swedes have also considerably contributed to studies and expertise in the fields of international mediation, conciliation and peacekeeping. There is the Swedish Forum for Mediation and Conflict Management, the Folke Bernadotte Academy and the department of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University.

A question was raised when Olof Palme served as prime minister over whether Sweden had taken on the role of a critic at the expense of that of a mediator. Palme was also assassinated. He was known as a harsh critic of everyone: the Americans because of Vietnam, the Russians because of Czechoslovakia, the Britons because of the apartheid in South Africa, the Israelis because of the Palestinians. Ulf Bjereld was right, proving in his study “Critic or Mediator? Sweden in World Politics, 1945-90” that his country’s taking on the role of a critic in the 1960s was not followed by a decrease in its mediation or bridge-building missions. He concluded, however, that “restrictions on criticism and attitudes come up in conflicts where that country is also acting as a mediator or bridge-builder.”

There was also an interesting recent study by Professor Isak Svensson from Uppsala University examining the effect of biased versus neutral mediation on the content of peace agreements, but I have yet to see its full text to see if he considers Bildt’s missions in the Balkans and Bosnia as biased or neutral.

Concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bildt would deserve a secure place under the first category. That’s why a majority of its citizens would like to bid him a full-hearted adieu.

Everything aside, he cannot be forgiven for what he did immediately after the peace deal was signed in Dayton. He was appointed as the international community’s first representative in the country. He gave Serbs a full month, enabling them to dismantle factories and take them to Serbia as well as to abandon devastated territories Serb leader Radovan Karadzic ordered them to leave.

Bildt was not alone in appeasing Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic as a Balkan “capo.” He introduced the term “collective guilt” for whatever Serbia was doing in Bosnia and Croatia, where he was declared persona non grata, but he went further, saying in his memoirs, “I had no way of knowing who was responsible for what was happening around Srebrenica.” The words genocide in Srebrenica never passed his lips.

The families of Srebrenica victims were recently very outraged when they became aware that Bildt was implicated in the early release of Biljana Plavsic, who was among the Bosnian Serb leaders most responsible for the killings of more than 8,000 of their sons, husbands and relatives.

In the end, Bildt’s wife, a Swedish delegate in the European Parliament, gave all this a particular touch. She was the most vociferous opponent of a proposal that would grant citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina the right to join those from other regional countries in being able to travel to EU member states visa-free.

Who knows what causes lie behind Bildt’s controversial behavior. Is it a more or less biased approach, as seen in his dealings in the Balkans and in Bosnian affairs, or an unrealistic desire to enroll himself among the most prominent Swedish and European statesmen? Or is there is a personal complex or even a simple human fear that he could lose his life, just as his great compatriots Hammarskjöld and Palme did? In any case, I have been unable to find an idea of Bildt’s worth remembering, but I know an appropriate one from Hammarskjöld’s diary: “He who wills adventure will experience it — according to the measure of his courage. He who wills sacrificed will be sacrificed — according to the measure of his purity of heart.”

PRESENT:

“Genocide Revisited, Healing for Tomorrow” Surviving the Concentration Camps of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian War, Then and Now

A Two-Day Event at Maryville University; Presentations and Panel Discussions with Survivors and Exhibits.

Presenters include:
Zeljko Komsic, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Murat Tahirovic, President of the Concentration Camp Survivors of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bakira Hasecic, President of the Association of Women Victims of War
Amor Masovic, Director of the Institute for Missing Persons
Mrs. Natasa Kandic, Director of the Humanitarian Law Fund, Belgrade, Serbia
Mrs. Munira Subasic, President of the Association Movement of Mothers of Enclave of Srebrenica and Zepa
Mr. Smajil Cekic, Director of Institute for Research of War Crimes
Mr. Sead Selman, President of the Union of Civil War Victims of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kristin Bulin, Executive Director of the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma
Jean Abbott, Clinical Director of the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma
Brita Sydhoff, Secretary-General of International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims

WHEN? APRIL 9-10, 2010. Please download the poster and share it with your friends! For more information, please visit www.stlcenterforsurvivors.org.

D&B Country Risk Office
Marlow International Parkway
Marlow, Bucks SL7 1AJ
United Kingdom

To Whom It May Concern:

On behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), we are writing  to express our anger and disappointment over the comments made by Darren Middleditch, a senior economist for your company, Dun & Bradstreet.  In a recent interview for a business portal located in the smaller entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr. Middleditch stated that in the view of your company, “the ultimate solution will be independent states along today’s de facto lines.”  He attempted to justify these statements on the basis of the recently failed talks on constitutional reforms and the continued political stalemate in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We find it perplexing that instead of advocating for a stronger central government, and perhaps even the abolishment of entities, whose “de facto lines” do not constitute sovereignty or statehood, Mr. Middleditch recommends the breaking apart of the sovereign and internationally recognized country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is nothing short of a shameful act for a company that is supposed to give objective country risk ratings (versus
recommendations of this magnitude).

While the Bosnian economy is indeed in a volatile situation, particularly in these challenging times, it is unimaginable that a representative of a company such as yours would have the audacity to bring into question the sovereignty of another nation. No matter how difficult it is for businesses to operate in Bosnia, there is no justification for such outrageous comments which only serve those elements in Bosnia and Herzegovina who would like nothing more than to project Bosnia as a failed state.  Mr. Middleditch and Dun & Bradstreet are, in essence, giving ammunition to corrupt politicians who see these kinds of interviews as a validation that their twisted plan is working.  It could very well be a self fulfilling prophecy.   Mr. Middleditch is either ignorant of these facts, or willingly promotes the Serbian ultra-nationalist arguments that would like to turn Bosnia into an economic wasteland.

We demand an immediate apology and retraction of these statements. If you are truly reporting on current business conditions in Bosnia — and what you believe it would improve business conditions, you should make recommendations that are based on reality, and which are in line with international law. These statements are highly immoral and unethical, given the manner in which these de facto lines came into being.  Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and displaced as a result of the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign which included genocide and war crimes against Bosnian civilians. You should be ashamed that you are, in this manner, serving the agenda of murderers and war criminals, the likes of Karadzic and Mladic, by making assertions that insult the victims of genocide who lost their lives so that Bosnia could remain free and independent. Your report only helps fuel the fire of those who would like to take Bosnia and Herzegovina back into the cycle of violence of 14 years ago. You should re-assess whether your report will improve the business climate or result in more bloodshed.

Sincerely,

On behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB)
Mr. Haris Alibašić, MPA
President of the CNAB Board of Directors

The Honorable Chris Smith
2373 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

As members of the Bosniak American community, and on behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks, we are writing to you on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, which was commemorated around the world earlier this month because of your record as a friend of Bosnia and to let you know that human rights are still being violated every day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The aggression on BiH, which followed the country’s declaration of independence in 1992 and the ensuing arms embargo by the international community, which severely handicapped Bosnia’s ability to defend its people, resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians being displaced, killed, raped and wounded. The most enduring image of this gruesome aggression was the genocide of the Bosniaks in Srebrenica, confirmed by rulings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and International Court of Justice, and which was recognized by the United States Congress in 2005.

In retrospect, the Dayton Peace Accords stopped the war in BiH. However,  the Dayton Accords allowed the perpetrators of the genocide the right to define the political future of the country. Today, the successors of nationalist and discriminatory ideology are again denying basic rights to the exiled and displaced citizens of BiH. The citizens of BiH today can only participate in democratic elections if they satisfy the ethnic background requirement. It should be pointed out that the government of the smaller entity (Republika Srpska) aims to usurp the laws of private property of displaced persons and displaced victims of genocide through public denial of genocide and by denying them the right to legal, moral and economic well being.

Bosnia is suffering today on many fronts and many of the successes of the post-war period have been reversed. For instance, the educational system is broken and breeds segregation and intolerance. In the town of Stolac, students are forced to enter through a different school door because of their ethnicity and school principals refuse to sign the diplomas for students of Bosniak nationality. Religious minorities are also being discriminated in parts of the country, particularly those of Islamic faith. Worshippers, religious officials and religious objects are almost daily exposed to pressures, with discriminatory graffiti slogans, desecrations of graves, among other assaults. The country’s judicial system is under constant political and ethnic pressure, illustrated by the recent controversy over the status of international judges who serve as one of the few remaining guarantors for judicial impartiality and independence.

On the other hand, the EU member states, which are currently leading the reforms in Bosnia, have not demonstrated thus far that they have the best interest of Bosnian citizens in mind. This was particularly true when they announced that BiH will not be placed on the White Schengen list, allowing for visa-free travel for Western Balkan countries to EU member states. We and many in Bosnia, see this as a discriminatory act against one group in particular, given the political reality in the region and the fact that most non-Bosniaks in Bosnia have Serbian and Croatian citizenship, countries on the White Schengen list.

Bosnians and Bosnian-American citizens consider the United States an important ally of BiH and hope for a more active participation of the United States in ensuring Bosnia’s accession into the EU and NATO. We believe that the international community is conscious of the missteps embodied in the Dayton agreement and that it recognizes the need for a new approach in resolving the current impasse toward a fully functioning Bosnian state and its participation in Euro-Atlantic integration.

We ask you to do all you can in order to ensure a more active involvement of the U.S. in resolving the current deadlock in BiH. It is in the interest of all citizens of BiH to live in a free and democratic society, and this can only be implemented through serious constitutional reform that will provide the central government with the sovereignty and authority in every corner of Bosnia to ensure equality and human rights that are enjoyed by the citizens of the United States and the EU. On May 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 171 (H.Res. 171) on Bosnia and Herzegovina. H. Res. 171 calls for an immediate and urgent constitutional reform that will enable BiH to work towards the creation of an efficient and effective state, able to meet its domestic and international obligations, particularly regarding full accession into the EU and NATO. We call for full U.S. engagement in BiH.

We hope that you will strongly advocate the idea of an indivisible and democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which all its citizens enjoy the same civil rights.

We will be honored to be your partners in achieving this goal.

Sincerely,
On behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB)
Mr. Haris Alibašić, MPA
President of the CNAB Board of Directors

The Mothers of Srebrenica consider it unjustifiable that a judge involved in a case brought by the family members of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide is also an advisor to the accused of that genocide and have requested an explanation from the district court at The Hague. The President of the Court, Mr. F.C. Bakker, subsequently announced that the Judge concerned will no longer be involved in the Srebrenica proceedings.

In the civil law proceedings brought by 6,000 family members of the genocide victims – also known as the Mothers of Srebrenica – against the Dutch State and the United Nations (UN), the district court at The Hague ruled on 10 July 2008 that the UN enjoys absolute immunity and can therefore never be brought before a court of law. The Mothers of Srebrenica have appealed this decision. The case against the Dutch State is still pending before the court at The Hague. Prof. G.K. Sluiter [Göran Sluiter] was a member of that court’s tribunal in these proceedings and was thus immediately involved in the aforementioned decision of 10 July 2008.

Various recent publications noted that prof. Sluiter is an advisor to Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic is standing trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Karadzic is specifically held to be responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica. The Mothers of Srebrenica are of the opinion that prof. Sluiter’s positions as a judge in the Srebrenica proceedings and as an advisor to Karadzic are incompatible, and that prof. Sluiter therefore can no longer be considered impartial. The President of the district court at The Hague, Mr. F.C. Bakker, was therefore asked to clarify this apparent conflict of interests.

In response, Mr. Bakker announced that prof. Sluiter would no longer be acting as a judge in the Srebrenica proceedings (see the Dutch announcement at: this link).

Surprisingly, it is noted in the official statement by the district court at The Hague that it was always the intention to limit prof. Sluiter’s involvement in the Srebrenica proceedings to the matter of the UN immunity. This is however contradictory to the general rule that judges are not changed during the proceedings of a case. This rule is applied even more stringently in complex proceedings that run for years, like the Srebrenica proceedings.

In its announcement, the district court furthermore states that prof. Sluiter was specifically included in the tribunal for his specialist knowledge in the area of international public law and that this expertise was only required in the matter concerning the UN’s immunity from prosecution. Apart from the fact that prof. Sluiter is a professor in the area of international criminal law and not in the area of international public law, the district court disregards the fact that the claims brought against the UN and the Dutch State in the Srebrenica proceedings are partially based on international public law. It is incorrect to assume that in the further proceedings international public law expertise will not be required. The official statement of the court therefore does not in any manner reassure the Mothers of Srebrenica, but only gives rise to further questions.

The Mothers of Srebrenica recall that last year, in a different case brought by other family members of the Srebrenica genocide victims, a wondrous change took place at the district court at The Hague. In that case, one of the judges who had been involved from the very beginning of the proceedings and who had advised the Dutch State to reach a settlement with the plaintiffs was changed just prior to the ruling in those proceedings. Looking at those and at the current events, the Mothers of Srebrenica are seriously concerned whether they are receiving a fair trial.

Marco R. Gerritsen and Dr. Axel Hagedorn
Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten
Dijsselhofplantsoen 14-18
1077 BL Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 5747474
Fax: +31 (0)20 5747475
www.vandiepen.com (see: Srebrenica Case)

The digital performance commemorates the Srebrenica victims, but Zukic is quick to note that its purpose “is to highlight the massacre not as a demonstration of powerlessness, but as a condition for possibility and agency.”

In 1992, the Bosnian War broke out. Naida Zukic was 16.

“For years, Muslims, Catholics, Jews and Serbs had lived in harmony in my town,” she recalls. “Then our world exploded.” Zukic and her family, who lived in Prijedor in northwest Bosnia, fled the country in 1995 and ultimately settled in the U.S.—but not before the Srebrenica massacre took the lives of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. It remains the most horrific instance of genocide in Europe since the Second World War.

Communicating across lines
Zukic’s chief interest, she says, has been “in exploring questions of power and agency, and how oppressed groups have historically negotiated those spaces and subverted power.”

“Weight of Meaninglessness,” a five-minute film that transcends language, “is borne out of my frustration with the medium of language as a means of expression,” Zukic says. “Over the years I’ve written essays and articles about human rights abuses and violations that have taken place throughout the world, and especially in Bosnia, but could never overcome the limitations of language. So I turned to the medium of digital performance as an alternative means of expressing things I couldn’t necessarily convey verbally.”

Reawakened memories
While memories of the Bosnian conflict have flared anew in recent years with the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, “few Americans are aware of the Srebrenica genocide,” Zukic says. “But it is never possible to escape the reality of war, suffering and human rights violations, as we see today in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Some survivors of mass trauma “externalize the experience by trying to forget, or by living in a perpetually wounded state,” she says. “Others must continually relive the experience in order to transcend and be empowered by it—by teaching or writing about it, or otherwise helping to create awareness of human suffering and humans rights violations. In that sense, the need both to forget and relive the trauma is paradoxical.”

In Zukic’s case, an aesthetic, rather than language-based approach has helped her work through the trauma she lived through as a young girl. “As a Bosnian refugee, the last thing I want to be seen as is a victim,” she says. “But the fact is that people who have survived traumatic events are traditionally seen in this way. ‘Weight of Meaninglessness’ is my response to that point of view.”

Naida Zukic on her digital performance — “The Weight of Meaninglessness”
http://www1.bmcc.cuny.edu/video/zukic_video.html

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Contact: Barry Rosen, (212) 220-1238

At first glance, it looks nothing unusual because, since 1995, Karadzic has been indicted for his participation in a conspiracy of a joint criminal enterprise to permanently remove the Bosnian Muslim and the Bosnian Croat communities from the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he claimed as a Bosnian Serb territory. However, more attention should be paid to the temporal scope of the criminal charges against him, which have varied through the years.

At the beginning, the ICTY’s investigators and prosecutors lacked evidence to precisely establish the countdown to the massacre. As far as in 2000, when the first amended indictment against Karadzic was issued, they could not determine when exactly Karadzic formed his intent to kill the men of Srebrenica. The prosecutors stuck to some undisputable facts that on March 8, 1995, Radovan Karadzic, as Supreme Commander, instructed the Bosnian Serb forces to create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival of life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica (paragraph 25) and on July 12, the day after the fall of Srebrenica, at an early morning meeting at the Bratunac Brigade headquarters, Gen. Ratko Mladic announced his plan to separate the men fit for combat from the rest of the population and to kill the prisoners (paragraph 26).

Nevertheless, years after the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniaks [[CNAB comment: it's more than 8,000]], some doubts emerged about the degree to which those killings were premeditated in advance or were merely improvised as a last minute decision. The evidence gathered showed that most of those killed were unarmed prisoners, who were executed in groups with their hands tied behind their back or being blindfolded, what ruled out a possibility that the victims died in a combat with the Bosnian Serb forces, as the latter claimed. In 2001, the above described acts of a well organized and planned destruction of the Bosnian Muslim community in Srebrenica, led the ICTY to classify these mass killings as genocide. However, it still remained unclear whether said acts were premeditated well in advance before the seizure of Srebrenica or were spontaneous decisions made after the enclave was captured on July 11, 1995.

In the first “Srebrenica cases” brought before the ICTY against the members of the Bosnian Serb army, the Tribunal established that the decision to commit the genocide was made after the takeover of the enclave, on July 12 and not anytime earlier. However in 2003, some new evidence was introduced showing that the plan was actually pre-existing. A Prosecution’s witness, Miroslav Deronjic, a war time President of the Bratunac Crisis Staff (a municipality adjacent to Srebrenica), testified in several cases (including at the Milosevic trial) that on July 9th, i.e. a few days before the fall of Srebrenica, Karadzic ordered him to perpetrate said massacre. “Miroslav, kill all of them. Kill all you possibly can!” – Karadzic said to him in Pale, which at that time was the Bosnian Serb capital. Karadzic gave his orders just after meeting with Jovica Stanisic, the head of Milosevic’s state security, in which they discussed the issue of the “disarmament of terrorists” and the fate of the captured men after Mladic’s anticipated seizure of Srebrenica.

The new evidence had almost no impact on the ICTY’s resolution of the Srebrenica cases and all subsequent ones (Vidovoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic, Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Radivoje Miletaic, Milan Gvero and Vinko Pandurevic) continued to disregard the problem. The facts established in those trials tended to say that “on 11th and 12th of July, 1995, the Srebrenica enclave was taken over by the Bosnian Serb army and the police forces and the plan to remove the Muslim population from Srebrenica was implemented, along with the plan to murder all the able bodied men of Srebrenica.”

The final conclusions in the abovementioned cases were based on an expert testimony given by Richard Butler, a US military analyst who joined the Office of the prosecutor at the ICTY, in a report entitled “Srebrenica: Military Narrative, Operation Krivaja 95” . In this report and in his testimony, Butler insisted that there existed no earlier plan to exterminate Bosnian Muslim men of military age, regardless of their civilian or military status. The decision to exterminate, according to Butler, was made by Ratko Mladic the day after the fall of Srebrenica, in a meeting at the Bratunac Brigade headquarters early morning that day.

When in 2001, the International Court of Justice had to decide the genocide case brought by Bosnia against Serbia, the justices followed the ICTY’s findings and concluded that “the Bosnian Serb Army’s command, on 12th or 13th of July, changed its initial plans and formed the intent to destroy in part the Bosnian Muslim population” of Srebrenica.

Unfortunately, both tribunals omitted available evidence showing the pre-existence of a plan to murder all Muslim men capable of military service and the fact that the mass killings in Srebrenica followed a general pattern of crimes committed by the Bosnian Serb forces in other areas of the country. Since the beginning of the war, the Serb forces perpetrated major killings during and after the takeovers of territories, or did so subsequently in detention facilities. An assumption that the killings (in addition to the forcible transfer of the population) would not follow after the capture of Srebrenica would be unreasonable, without any factual grounds or plainly naïve under the circumstances.

However, the ICTY and the ICJ are not the only entities advocating that the Srebrenica massacre was an irregular precedent constituting an unexpected and unprecedented change in the Serb strategy resulting from Mladic’s ill-minded decision of July 12th at Bratunac. The theory that this genocide was a result of an unforeseeable last-minute decision was originally initiated years ago by some Western governments, which used this argument to explain to their constituencies that the Srebrenica genocide was something unforeseeable to them. Pauline Neville-Jones, the political director of the UK’s Foreign Office at that time, reiterated recently on the BBC: “We didn’t have the kind of information that would have led [us] to understand what their (Serb) next move was going to be. Perhaps, we should have known that one day they would have changed their game but we didn’t.”

Regardless of the official public statements coined after the Srebrenica massacre, there actually is no proof supporting Western governments’ argument about the unexpected change of course in the Bosnian Serbs’ military strategy. Although there is presently no evidence to precisely determine the timing of the origination of a plan to exterminate people of Srebrenica, the Serbs’ objective to permanently cleanse the Bosnian Muslim inhabitants from the Drina valley was no secret. When, in 1993, the Serb forces made their first attempt to capture Srebrenica, international diplomats warned of a possibility of ethnic slaughter coming in the aftermath, should the enclave be allowed to be overtaken. Senior UN officers in Bosnia repeated such warnings when the Serbs launched their final offensive upon the town in July 1995. So far, the ICTY’s investigators found evidence showing that the issue of anticipated Srebrenica war prisoners was discussed in Belgrade as early as in May of 1995, at a meeting between the Serbian and the Bosnian Serb leaderships.

The Karadzic’s trial may clarify “whether [Serbs] had a long range intention to do just that”, as Mrs. Pauline Neville-Jones put it. By modifying the indictment, the Prosecutor has already indicated a likely departure from the official political explanations of the acts precedent to the massacre. The Prosecution presently contends that the Srebrenica genocide was premeditated because “in the days immediately preceding July 11th, 1995, Radovan Karadzic and others formed the shared objective to eliminate the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by killing the men and boys and forcibly removing the women, children and some of the elderly men.” It might not be the “long range intention” that could seriously embarrass the Western powers by showing that the ethnic cleansing was premeditated long enough in advance for them to gather and analyze available and pertinent data. But still, it could show that the egregious human rights violations were readily foreseeable as a consequence of the Serbs’ takeover of Srebrenica, which was done in an attempt to exterminate its population and for what knowledge was available in advance.

Unfortunately, because the Prosecution lacks access to some crucial evidence in the possession of the U.S. which prior, during and after the Srebrenica tragedy was intercepting the phone conversations between the Bosnian Serb and the Serbian leaderships, the public opinion might never find out when exactly the plan to exterminate the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica was created and by whom.

* Originally published by the European Courier on December 13, 2009.

The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Madam Secretary Clinton,

On behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks, I am writing to express our gravest concern regarding the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the resurgence of the ultra-nationalist rhetoric that led to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The appeasement of Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian nationalists during that time period created an environment that was based on ethnic and religious hatred and led to the worst civilian atrocities Europe has seen since World War II. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence within its historical borders and was recognized by the United States, the United Nations, and the larger international community as a multi-ethnic, democratic state that could have served as a model for peaceful coexistence and tolerance as they have done for many years in its history. But evil forces of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, and other Serb leaders at the time used nationalist rhetoric that was rooted in deep hatred towards non-Serbs, especially the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We all know how the story unfolded, and that it was thanks in large part to the Clinton administration, the United States government, and NATO that the war ended with the Dayton agreement.

Unfortunately, a sequel seems to be in the making, as the same ultra-nationalist rhetoric is once again being propagated by a new generation of Milosevic’s followers, including Milorad Dodik, the current premier of Republika Srpska, Nikola Spiric, the prime minister of BiH, and Nebojsa Radmanovic, the current member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over the last few years, they have been testing the will of the United States and the European Union and purposely crippling any hopes for reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by trying to create an environment where they can illegally proclaim a referendum for independence of Republika Srpska, thereby attaining Karadzic’s wartime goals.

Looking back on the Dayton agreement, the wartime representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina only agreed to the Dayton agreement after a full guarantee by the United States that its sovereignty will be preserved. It was clear that the intentions were to end the war, guarantee Bosnian sovereignty, and hope for a better future for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead, the Serbian nationalists choose to misinterpret the agreement and use it as a tool for their agenda to accomplish “in peace” what Milosevic and Karadzic could not in war, a greater Serbia. This is, sadly, being almost completely ignored by the United States and the EU, who have sent a message that the people of Bosnia must resolve their own differences and come to an agreement on how to structure the country. While this sounds like an ideal solution, it is clear that the Bosnian Serb representatives do not want to accept any solution, except that which preserves a homogeneous Republika Srpska. This is now also fueling fires with some Bosnian Croat representatives who think they should have the same. On the other hand, there is clear lack of leadership by the Bosniak representatives in dealing with these issues. Thus, the ascertainment that the destiny of Bosnian framework is up to the local politicians is only partially acceptable because the international community, with the Dayton agreement, provided them with tools which they now misappropriate for nationalist gain, by spreading propaganda of fear and hatred in order to promote a secessionist agenda.

Therefore, we ask, again, for the help of the United States of America in this dire time of need. Although, thankfully, there is no armed conflict at this time, it is imperative to implement sound foreign policy to prevent the injustice that Bosnia has suffered and the tragedy that has happened to its centuries’ old tradition of tolerance, diversity, and coexistence. This time, we ask not only as the former refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also as American citizens to save Bosnia and Herzegovina from the dark clouds that have once again begun to gather on the horizon. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason why Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot exist as a multi-ethnic, democratic, and prosperous nation that is fully integrated in Europe and a future member of NATO. One of the main obstacles to Bosnian democracy is the so called ethnic voting, which severely undermines the ability of Bosnia and Herzegovina to function as a state.

The only question that remains is the following: is the United States still committed to fulfilling its obligation as the broker of the Dayton agreement to preserve peace, democracy, and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or will it stand by and allow these ultra-nationalist elements to disintegrate any resemblance of a functioning state and be rewarded for committing genocide? As it currently stands, Russia now has a far more involved role in Bosnia and Herzegovina than before and threatens to undermine the United States’ efforts by promoting Serbian nationalism. We urge you to consider the gravity of the situation and realize that it is not only the moral duty of the United States to stop such activity, but that it is of vital national interest to the United States to prevent further instability in the region.

We believe that an urgent entry of Bosnia and Herzegovina into NATO would quell the manipulation of some of its citizens and provide a strong message to all in the region that Bosnian sovereignty will never come into question. We also recommend urgent constitutional reforms that guarantee equal rights for all of its citizens, but also eliminate the undemocratic process of ethnic voting that holds the central government hostage from implementing any reforms that would lead towards euro-Atlantic integration. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Mr. Haris Alibašić, MPA
President of the CNAB Board of Directors