Resolution Passed: US Congress Recognizes Bosnian Genocide (1992-95)

Whereas

in July 1995 thousands of men and boys who had sought safety in the United Nations-designated `safe area’ of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the protection of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were massacred by Serb forces operating in that country;

Whereas

beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces, while taking control of the surrounding territory, resulted in a massive influx of Bosniaks seeking protection in Srebrenica and its environs, which the United Nations Security Council designated a `safe area’ in Resolution 819 on April 16, 1993;

Whereas

the UNPROFOR presence in Srebrenica consisted of a Dutch peacekeeping battalion, with representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the humanitarian medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) helping to provide humanitarian relief to the displaced population living in conditions of massive overcrowding, destitution, and disease;

Whereas

Bosnian Serb forces blockaded the enclave early in 1995, depriving the entire population of humanitarian aid and outside communication and contact, and effectively reducing the ability of the Dutch peacekeeping battalion to deter aggression or otherwise respond effectively to a deteriorating situation;

Whereas

beginning on July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces attacked UNPROFOR outposts, seized control of the isolated enclave, held captured Dutch soldiers hostage and, after skirmishes with local defenders, ultimately took control of the town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995;

Whereas

an estimated one-third of the population of Srebrenica , including a relatively small number of soldiers, made a desperate attempt to pass through the lines of Bosnian Serb forces to the relative safety of Bosnian-held territory, but many were killed by patrols and ambushes;

Whereas

the remaining population sought protection with the Dutch peacekeeping battalion at its headquarters in the village of Potocari north of Srebrenica but many of these individuals were randomly seized by Bosnian Serb forces to be beaten, raped, or executed;

Whereas

Bosnian Serb forces deported women, children, and the elderly in buses, held Bosniak males over 16 years of age at collection points and sites in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, and then summarily executed and buried the captives in mass graves;

Whereas

approximately 20 percent of Srebrenica’s total population at the time — at least 7,000 and perhaps thousands more — was either executed or killed;

Whereas

the United Nations and its member states have largely acknowledged their failure to take actions and decisions that could have deterred the assault on Srebrenica and prevented the subsequent massacre;

Whereas

Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of the massacre at Srebrenica , subsequently moved corpses from initial mass grave sites to many secondary sites scattered throughout parts of northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control;

Whereas

the massacre at Srebrenica was among the worst of many horrible atrocities to occur in the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from April 1992 to November 1995, during which the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing pursued by Bosnian Serb forces with the direct support of the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic and its followers ultimately led to the displacement of more than 2,000,000 people, an estimated 200,000 killed, tens of thousands raped or otherwise tortured and abused, and the innocent civilians of Sarajevo and other urban centers repeatedly subjected to shelling and sniper attacks;

Whereas

Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (done at Paris on December 9, 1948, and entered into force with respect to the United States on February 23, 1989) defines genocide as `any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’;

Whereas

on May 25, 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 827 establishing the world’s first international war crimes tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and charging the ICTY with responsibility for investigating and prosecuting individuals suspected of committing war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991;

Whereas

nineteen individuals at various levels of responsibility have been indicted, and in some cases convicted, for grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, crimes against humanity, genocide, and complicity in genocide associated with the massacre at Srebrenica, three of whom, most notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain at large; and

Whereas

the international community, including the United States, has continued to provide personnel and resources, including through direct military intervention, to prevent further aggression and ethnic cleansing, to negotiate the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (initialed in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on December 14, 1995), and to help ensure its fullest implementation, including cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved,

That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that–

(1) the thousands of innocent people executed at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995, along with all individuals who were victimized during the conflict and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, should be solemnly remembered and honored;

(2) the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(3) foreign nationals, including United States citizens, who have risked and in some cases lost their lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina while working toward peace should be solemnly remembered and honored;

(4) the United Nations and its member states should accept their share of responsibility for allowing the Srebrenica massacre and genocide to occur in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 by failing to take sufficient, decisive, and timely action, and the United Nations and its member states should constantly seek to ensure that this failure is not repeated in future crises and conflicts;

(5) it is in the national interest of the United States that those individuals who are responsible for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, should be held accountable for their actions;

(6) all persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) should be apprehended and transferred to The Hague without further delay, and all countries should meet their obligations to cooperate fully with the ICTY at all times; and

(7) the United States should continue to support the independence and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, peace and stability in southeastern Europe as a whole, and the right of all people living in the region, regardless of national, racial, ethnic or religious background, to return to their homes and enjoy the benefits of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and economic opportunity, as well as to know the fate of missing relatives and friends.

Attest:

Clerk.

H. Res. 199

In the House of Representatives, U.S.,
[Passed on] June 27, 2005.

Evidence: Serbian President Linked to Bosnian Genocide

Evidence shows former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic  linked to the Bosnian Genocide.

Office of the Prosecution:

Florence Hartmann for the Office of the Prosecutor made the following statement:

Following the publication of press articles stating that there is no evidence linking Milosevic to the genocide committed in Srebrenica, I wish to recall first and foremost that this is a matter under consideration in an ongoing trial and it should be left to the judges’ determination rather than being the object of speculation. Although no final conclusion can be drawn before the completion of the trial, and before the Defense has completed its case, substantial evidence linking Milosevic to the worst atrocities committed in Bosnia has been submitted during the trial, and the Trial Chamber has apparently found that evidence sufficient at this stage to warrant the continuation of the trial on 66 counts in the indictment against Milosevic, including the charge of genocide

ICJ Judge, Serbia Was Accomplice in the Srebrenica Genocide

Case: Bosnia v. Serbia
Judgement: Declaration of Judge Keith, the International Court of Justice.

Explanation of vote on complicity — Knowledge of principal’s genocidal intent necessary as a matter of law, but not shared intent — Evidence of aid and assistance established — Evidence of knowledge of the facts underlying the genocidal intent established — Finding of complicity in the genocide committed at Srebrenica.

Poison Gas Attacks on Srebrenica in March 1993

It is generally known that Serb forces used chemical weapons and gassed Bosniaks during the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995. For example, on 21 July 1995, Serb General Zdravko Tolimir sent a report from Zepa to General Radomir Miletic, acting Chief of General Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army, asking for help to crush some BH Army strongholds explaining to Miletic “the best way to do it would be to use chemical weapons.” In the same report, Chemical Tolimir proposed chemical strikes against refugee columns leaving Zepa, because that would “force the Muslim fighters to surrender quickly”.

However, what is less commonly known is a fact that two years before the genocide, Serb forces carried out at least three separate chemical strikes against the enclave of Srebrenica. According to the report #262/93, published on 3 April 1993 by the Srebrenica War Presidency, Serb forces in the area used chemical agents in three separate attacks against the town.

In the report (below), the Srebrenica war presidency described in detail the events “on the Srebrenica front between 20 January and 3 April 1993.” For 15 March 1993, they recorded the following:

Suffering of Sick and Elderly in the Besieged Sarajevo

Photo: Nurse Galiba Secibovic (Bosniak) cares for 72-year-old Vojin Nikolic (Serb), a deaf mute staying in the makeshift shelter in Sarajevo. Nikolic often tries to leave in search of his brothers in Serb-held territory.

“Death is at Home Here”
For elderly Bosnians, outlook is grim from a Sarajevo shelter

By Samir Krilic
The Free Lance-Star, p.A4
21 February 1995.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Crammed onto one floor of a former school, dozens of elderly Bosnians silently await the end of the war, or their lives, whichever comes first.

Sick and elderly Bosniaks, Abid Jahic (69) and Ajsa Smajlovic (81).

The makeshift old people’s home was set up in August 1993 in a shell-shattered school building several hundred yards from the front line. It shelters 64 sick and old people with no one to turn to.

One doctor, five nurses, four orderlies and a social worker try to cope with the needs both of their live-in charges and 150 other elderly people, many living on their own.

Conditions are miserable. Many of the elderly are too sick or feeble to make it to the toilet, so they relieve themselves on the floor or in bed. Natural gas for heat is scarce, so rooms are often icy. For most, frugal meals of beans, lentils and rice are the only break in a day of staring at the walls.

Serbs Shell Bosniak Evacuees, 1 killed and 21 wounded

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p.A4
25 March 1993.

“U.N. helicopters swooped into Srebrenica to fly Bosniak refugees to safety yesterday, but the operation was halted after Serbs shelled some of the refugees as they waited in a soccer stadium.

The attack killed one person and injured 21, including two Canadian peacekeepers, U.N. officials said.

They said 29 people, including women, children and the wounded U.N. soldiers, were flown out before flights were stopped.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali deplored the casualties and called for an immediate halt to the shelling. Brigadier Roddy Cordy-Simpson, the chief of staff of the U.N. force in Bosnia, called the attack “the ultimate in despicable behavior.”

Serbian warplanes defy Bosnia's no fly zone, 3 children dead and 10 wounded

Manila Standard, p.7
12 October 1992.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Warplanes took to the skies over Bosnia in apparently open defiance of a United Nations ban while civilians were trapped by fighting in the north of the republic and shelling claimed new victims among the children of Sarajevo.

Government-controlled Bosnian radio on Saturday reported fierce air attacks by Serb planes on the besieged Bosniak-held town of Gradacac which if true made a mockery of a ban on military flights decided by the Security Council on Friday.

It said they were “the heaviest attacks on Gradacac since the start of the war… the whole town is demolished and still burning.”

Serbian Planes Kill 19, wound 34, Bosnian forces shot down Serbian MIG fighter plane

By Chuck Sudetic
October 11, 1992.

ZAGREB, Croatia — At least 19 people were killed and 34 wounded in Serbian air attacks on the Bosnian town of Gradacac, less than 24 hours after the United Nations imposed a ban on military flights over Bosnia and Herzegovina, radio reports said.

Other civilians were hit in Serbian air strikes in Croatian-populated villages in northern Bosnia near Brcko, Sarajevo and Zagreb radios reported. They said Bosnian forces had shot down one Serbian MIG fighter.

Serbs Bomb Maglaj with Napalm and Cluster Bombs, 12 dead and 50 wounded

The Telegraph-Herald, p.11B
8 October 1992.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Rebel Serbs, heartened by their captured of a strategic border town, pounded other targets in northern Bosnia today, prompting warnings of possible foreign military intervention.

Sarajevo was relatively quiet. Repair crews set out to restore cut utilities to the capital and its surroundings, and a senior U.N. general warned the U.N. troops escorting them would return fire if the crews were attacked.

Serb artillery, meanwhile, pounded the towns of Gradacac and Maglaj with “destructive howitzer shells, particularly incendiary ones,” and attacked them by air, Bosnian radio said.

Serbs Attack Sarajevo with 540 Projectiles, 7 dead and 40 wounded

Serbian Shelling Shatters Tranquility

By Samir Krilic
Times Daily, p.10A
17 October 1993.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Months of relative tranquility in Sarajevo ended abruptly Saturday with the boom of Serb heavy artillery as well as tank and troop movements around the Bosnian capital.

The renewed military activity led to fears of an impending major attack, since artillery often is used to soften up targets for tanks and infantry.

The main Kosevo hospital reported seven dead and 40 wounded from the shelling, which began before dawn, but eased by evening.

Lt. Col. Bill Aikman, a spokesman for U.N. troops, described the shelling as the “heaviest for months.” The intensity of the barrage — U.N. monitors counted 540 projectiles hitting the city by midafternoon — caused the United Nations to cancel flights into the city for four hours.

Meet Baby Emina, Born to Muslim Rape Victim in the Bosnian Genocide

The Spokesman-Review
13 January 1993.

ZAGREB, Croatia — She has no official name, but nurses at Petrova maternity hospital call her Emina [Bosnian Muslim name].

The baby was born in November to 17-year-old Bosniak girl who said she was raped repeatedly during three months in a Serb-run detention camp near Teslic in central Bosnia.

“She didn’t want to see the baby after the birth. She just left,” said Veselko Grizelj, the Zagreb hospital’s chief obstetrician. Where she went, is not known. Grizelj said the dark-haired infant has become the favorite of the hospital staff.

ICJ Judge, Serbia Was Complicit in Srebrenica Genocide

Case: Bosnia v. Serbia
Judgement: Declaration of Judge Bennouna, the International Court of Justice.

FRY’s continued presence within the United Nations — Effects of Serbia and Montenegro’s admission to the United Nations on 1 November 2000 — Serbia’s complicity in genocide — Accomplice’s mens rea as opposed to principal perpetrator’s — Relationship between individual criminal liability and State responsibility — Definition of complicity — “Scorpions”, a paramilitary force under Serbian control.

I wish by means of this declaration to expand upon and clarify certain aspects of the Court’s reasoning in reaffirming its jurisdiction to decide this case. I shall then explain why I disagree with the Court’s finding that Serbia was not complicit in the genocide committed at Srebrenica.

Srebrenica Genocide Started Two Years Before the Massacre

United Nations Security Council Resolution 819, adopted unanimously on April 16, 1993, after reaffirming resolutions 713 (1991) and all (1992) subsequent resolutions, the Council expressed concern at the actions of Bosnian Serb paramilitary units in towns and villages in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, including attacks on civilians, the United Nations Protection Force and disruption to humanitarian aid convoys.

The Report of the Security Council Mission, dated 30 April 1993, required Bosnian Serbs refused to withdraw their heavy weapons (to demilitarize) around Srebrenica, which they refused to do:

Children of Rape Living Reminders of Horrible Secret of the Bosnian Genocide

Photo: Traumatized woman, Bosnian Muslim rape victim. Photo taken by Antony Loyd, noted war correspondent and former British Army officer. Image used for Fair Use Only and in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 for research and educational purposes.

By Teddie Weyr
Gadsden Times, p.A6
26 January 1993.

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — No one knows how many there may be. Outwardly, they will carry no scarlet letter. But a fear they may be stigmatized by their horrible secret has sparked a scramble to save innocents from the sins of their fathers.

They are the babies of victims of rape – living reminders of its use as a tool of war in Bosnia.

Publicity has touched a nerve and led to adoption offers from across the world. With the first few of these children already born and many more on the way, much is left to be decided. But it is clear many of their mothers never want to lay eyes on them.

Bosnian Genocide Survivor, "I remember my mother's eyes"

To learn more about the 1993 Cerska massacre, browse available documentation on our web site.

Srebrenica Orphans Recall Horror

Lodi News-Sentinel,
p. front, A88 July 1996.

Ferida Osmanovic hanged herself a year ago. She just walked off alone into a quiet wood, leaving behind her two children to fend for themselves.

Her despair was too much to bear. She endured the long siege of Srebrenica. Then came the terrifying end when Bosnian Serbs overran the Muslim enclave. The final horror was seeing the Serbs drag her husband away.

One July later, Osmanovic’s grave in a paupers cemetery is marked by a simple slab of wood inscribed: “No name: Srebrenica.”

Her children know where she is buried and have drawn the hard lessons of war, death and despair.

Muslims Hanging from Trees After the Fall of Srebrenica

Photo: Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) woman Ferida Osmanovic hanging from a tree after the fall of Srebrenica. Photographed by Darko Bandic. According to the U.S. Dept of State, another 14-year-old Bosniak child hung herself with her scarf in Potocari after she and her 12-year old cousin were raped by Serb soldiers.

By STEPHEN KINZER
Published: July 14, 1995.
New York Times

TUZLA, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 13— Thousands of stunned Muslim refugees streamed into this town in northern Bosnia today, telling of bodies left hanging from trees and littering the street after the Bosnian Serb conquest of the “safe area” of Srebrenica.

Busloads of refugees, many with just the clothes on their backs, continued to arrive late into the night. They camped under a full moon on mosquito-infested fields near the Tuzla airport, trying to come to grips with their sudden losses.

Dozens of refugees interviewed here told similar stories of atrocities. Many said they had hidden fearfully in their homes on Tuesday night, after Bosnian Serbs had entered Srebrenica late Tuesday afternoon with virtually no resistance.

On Wednesday morning, these witnesses said, when Bosnian Serb soldiers routed them out to waiting buses for shipment to Government-held territory, they saw “many men hanging” — words repeatedly used — and many more men lying dead in the streets. There was no independent verification of their accounts.

The refugees said that they had heard some shots during the night but that many of the men had apparently been stabbed to death.

“I saw men who seemed to have gone crazy, killing people with knives,” said Vahida Nukic. “We didn’t know what was happening,” she added.

Some of the refugees also described rapes and abductions of women, notorious weapons of degradation in past episodes of “ethnic cleansing” by the Serbs.

Memories Haunt Bosnian Genocide Death March Survivors

Bosnian Genocide survivors from the conquered Srebrenica arrived in Tuzla on Monday night after seven days of death marches from Srebrenica to Bosnian government held territory. A U.N. truck helped them arrive to Tuzla and look for relatives who have also fled the fallen city.

Lawrence Journal-World, P.9A
19 July 1995.

Survivors who fled the Bosnian Serb army that bore down on Srebrenica have horror stories to tell and memories that won’t fade soon.

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bahrem Ektic, 16 and frail, saw dozens of Muslim [Bosniak] men lying dead or dying as he made a seven-day trek to safety from conquered Srebrenica. The memory of one victim will remain with him.

“One had nose and ears cut off, and only two fingers left on each hand. When we passed by, he whimpered. He begged us to kill him. But we could not shoot him, for fear Serbs will hear us. And nobody mustered strength to put him out of his misery with a knife.”

A very young child, Bosnian Genocide survivor, emerged from mass grave

“And then, suddenly, the shooting stopped. A very young boy emerged from the heap of bodies, covered in blood and mangled flesh. He began walking toward the gunmen, crying for his “Babo” (father). The soldiers lowered their weapons. The commanding officer ordered them to shoot the boy…”

A relentless quest for justice, on international scale

By Adam LeBor — Cynics argue that because the United Nations was unable to stop the carnage in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, it set up war crimes tribunals instead, as a kind of humanitarian consolation prize.

What the diplomats did not expect was Carla Del Ponte’s determination to bring the perpetrators to justice and to end the culture of impunity. As the attorney general of Switzerland, she had fought against the muro di gomma, the wall of rubber, that deflected her attempts to stop Mafia money-laundering. “Madame Prosecutor” is her account of battling the muro di gomma across the Balkans, Rwanda and Western capitals. It is a relentless, sometimes understandably) angry book, and an important insider’s account of the quest for international justice. Each of its 13 chapter titles begins with the word “Confronting,” including “Confronting the Tribunal Bureaucracy,” in which she accuses some of her own officials of obstruction and incompetence.

11-year-old Bosnian Genocide Survivor Recounts Serbian Terror

Record-Journal, p.A11.
24 May 1992.

SPLIT, Croatia — Part of the biggest wave of refugees in Europe since World War II, Adnan Hebib describes what it’s like to be an 11-year-old held hostage in the hell of Sarajevo.

“In our shelter I saw a man with his arm torn off, and another one with his intestines hanging out of his stomach when a shell hit us and killed four people,” Adnan recalled.

He and his mother, Adnija Hebib, 40, a Slavic Muslim [Bosniak], and brother Admir, 9, reached the port of Split late Friday in a column of 3,000 people, mostly mothers and children. They had spent three days of captivity in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, at the hands of Serb irregulars.

The irregulars let them go after Bosnian authorities let food through to besieged barracks of the Serb-led federal army in Sarajevo.

First Sarajevo Breadline Massacre, Serbs kill 20, injure 100

“We had to end these negotiations because of these monstrous acts on the part of these [Serb] terrorists.” – Haris Silajdzic,  Bosnia’s foreign minister.

Lodi News-Sentinel
28 May 1992.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — The European Community imposed trade sanctions on Serbia on Wednesday to stop its interference in Bosnia, which pleaded for foreign intervention after a gruesome mortar attack on an outdoor market.

At least 20 people were killed and more than 100 wounded when three mortar shells fell Wednesday morning on a market where they were standing in line for bread, said Ejup Ganic, Bosnia’s deputy premier.

The market on Sime Miskin Street was strewn with scores of bleeding people, with corpses and weeping men and women with torn-off limbs.

Sarajevo TV showed an elderly man, still clutching his bread, leaning helplessly against the wall with blood pouring from his face. A women sitting in streams of blood reached out feebly for help.

Bosnian Genocide, Other Than Srebrenica

In 1994, Austrian court tried Dusko Cvjetkovic, who was charged with genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, he was acquitted.

In 1997 German courts sentenced Novislav Djajic to five years for complicity in murders committed in Foca. He was released early and has since been deported. [note: The judgement ruled that genocide took place in the Bosnian municipality of Foča]

In 2001, the German courts sentenced Maksim Sokolovic to nine years’ imprisonment for complicity in genocide committed in Kalesija.

Meanwhile, Germany saw the first trial for genocide since the end of the World War Two when local courts sentenced Nikola Jorgic in 2000 to life imprisonment for genocide in the Doboj area.

Pronouncing the verdict, the German Federal Court said that German courts had the right “to try genocide indictees, no matter where the crime was committed”.

German courts in 2001 meanwhile sentencted Djuradj Kuslic [Kusljic], a former police chief in Vrbanjci, near Kotor Varos, to life imprisonment for complicity in genocide.

The above information was excerpted from Aida Alic’s “Britain to Stop ‘Sheltering’ War Criminals.” Also, please visit Aegis Trust web site.

Captured by Israel, Serb War Criminal Aleksandar Cvetkovic, Bosnian Genocide Suspect

Serb forces “targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica,” according to judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal presided over by a Holocaust survivor, Judge Theodor Meron. The perpetrator of the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust shed some tears at Jerusalem’s district court. He was not sorry for his victims; he was sorry for being caught. Aleksandar Cvetkovic personally took sadistic enjoyment in executions of up to 1,200 unarmed Bosniak men and boys as young as 10 at Branjevo farm in July of 1995. We thank Israel for capturing him on Tuesday and we hope extradition proceedings will be as quick as possible.

Aleksandar Cvetkovic (aka: Aleksander Cvetkovic), 42, (C) a former soldier in the Army of Republika Srpska, a Bosnian Serb Army, arrives for a remand hearing at the District Court on January 19, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel. Cvetkovic is suspected of taking part in the Srebrenica genocide. He personally directed executions of up to 1,200 unarmed Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) at Branjevo farm, one of series Srebrenica massacre sites.

Eyewitness Testimony of the Srebrenica massacre

3 Muslims Survive Slaughter

Witness describes massacre by Serbs, says Ratko Mladic was there

Bangor Daily News
5 October 1995.

Editor’s Note: Since the fall of the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica July 11, scattered but persistent reports of Serb killings of Srebrenica’s Bosniaks have filtered out to the West. The Associated Press interviewed three survivors who gave a detailed account of how as many as 3,000 Muslims allegedly were killed at one massacre site near Krizevci, about 22 miles north of Srebrenica.

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Serb captors had promised a prisoner exchange. But Hurem Suljic says that as he clambered off a truck with other Muslim captives, he saw only a green hillside covered with bodies.

In the next hours, first under the July sun and then, at night, by the headlights of two backhoes, as many as 3,000 Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] men captured when Serbs overran the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica were mowed down, Suljic says.

He said those who didn’t die immediately were killed by a pistol shot to the head.

Only three men are known to have survived, one of them Suljic, a 54-year-old disabled bricklayer. The others are Mevludin Oric and Smail Hodzic.

Besieged Srebrenica Resembled Nazi Concentration Camps

Starving Bosniak Refugees Tell of Horror

Record-Journal, p.3
13 March 1993.

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The first emaciated wounded and sick arrived Friday from besieged Srebrenica, leaving behind near-starvation and desperate hardship, including amputation without anesthetic.

Doctors at Tuzla’s main hospital said 12 of the worst cases were flown in by Bosnian military helicopter from the Muslim-held enclave in eastern Bosnia.

A similar airlift two days ago evacuated eight wounded soldiers from the eastern Bosnian front, but Friday’s arrivals were the first from Srebrenica proper, a focus of U.N. relief attempts.

“All the time I was thinking of getting away to somewhere where I could heal,” said Sead Klempic, his bones throwing sharp contours into the blanket covering his wasted body. He was left paraplegic by shrapnel to the spine.

“It kept me alive,” he said.

"It was a bloodbath:" The 1993 Srebrenica Children Massacre

‘Chaos, Carnage’: Official tells of Srebrenica horror

By Misha Savic
The Day, p. A3
15 April 1993.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — With deadly efficiency, Serb gunners blanketed the main street of Muslim-held Srebrenica with explosions designed to claim as many lives as possible, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

The barrage hit a school packed with refugees and a field where children were playing, he said.

“It was definitely calculated to launch a series of precise hits,” said Louis Gentile, an official of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees who returned from Srebrenica on Tuesday. “It was a bloodbath.”

Ghettos for Jews and Bosnian Muslims

Warsaw Ghetto (Jews) and Srebrenica Ghetto (Bosnian Muslims)

50 years of European progress:

Polish Jews: In 1943, some 400,000 Jewish people were rounded up and herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. German Nazis starved them and murdered many of them – just because they were Jewish.

Bosnian Muslims: In 1993, some 80,000 Bosnian Muslims were herded into the enclave of Srebrenica. Serbs starved the Bosniak civilians, tortured them, terrorized them, and attacked them on a daily basis from nearby Serb village – just because they were Muslims.

It was genocide: In 1993, two years before the Srebrenica massacre, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 819, adopted unanimously on April 16, 1993, Resolution 819 describing the situation in Srebrenica as a “slow-motion proces of genocide.” With the fall of the enclave two years later, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice ruled it was Genocide.

Serbs massacre 12, maim 15 women, children and elderly lined up for Sarajevo water

“The Serbs just lure us out of our homes by cutting off the water supplies so they can massacre us… I saw it, heads and limbs flew everywhere. I’ve never seen anything so awful.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p.A3.
13 July 1993.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (REUTERS) — Serb forces besieging the Bosnian capital lobbed amortar shell onto a group of people lining up for water at a garden pump yesterday, killing 12 and wounding 15, hospital and police officials said.

“The Serbs just lure us out of our homes by cutting off the water supplies so they can massacre us,” sobbed Dervisa Fazlic as doctors dressed a wound in her arm.

“This is our reality. This i not life. But what can be done?” said Visnja Tufekdzic as she grimly cleaned and wrapped the body of two friends, a mother and teen-age daughter, in a cement shack serving as a makeshift morgue.

The afternoon attack, unreported for two hours because a power blackout cut Sarajevo’s phone lines, was the latest episode in a Serb reign of terror in the Bosnian capital.

Second Sarajevo breadline massacre, Serb attack kills 15, injured 30

By John Pomfret
The Daily Gazette
31 August 1992, p.A1,A3

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A howitzer shell crashed into a crowded marketplace Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens in one of the bloodiest single attacks during the Serbs’ siege of Sarajevo.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting around Gorazde forced U.N. officials to delay plans to dispatch an aid convoy.

Serbs announced Saturday they were lifting their five-month siege of the city southeast of Sarajevo.

“It appears to be extremely dangerous,” said Fred Eckhard, chief spokesman for U.N. operations in former Yugoslavia. He said the convoy might leave on Wednesday.

Gorazde, as the lone government holdout against Serb insurgents in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, has been an emotional symbol of the war that began when the majority Bosniaks and Croat voted for independence from Yugoslavia on Feb. 29. As many as 100,000 people have been trapped there.

TV propaganda distorts view of Serb populace toward foes

The Spokesman-Review
15 June 1992.

By Mary Beth Sheridan

NIS, Yugoslavia — Factory worker Miroslav Ivanovic has a ready explanation for why Serb forces have been battling so fiercely in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“The enemy cuts throats. They massacre little children,” the 35-year-old worker said earnestly. “They cut out Serbs’ hearts and kidneys then sell them in Germany,” added his colleague, Zoran Pavlovic.

Asked where they had heard such outrageous reports, the men responded: “Television.”

Concentration Camp Survivors in Bosnia Detail Executions

Model of Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia used in the court proceedings by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Reading Eagle, page A16.
5 August 1992.

By Ron Gutman

ZAGREB, Croatia – Serbian guards at the Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia daily executed Bosniak and Croat prisoners from the thousands being held in at least three locations in the sprawling former mining complex, according to an interview conducted by Newsday Tuesday.

Guards selected seven or eight victims at random each night using a flashlight in a darkened warehouse where 600 to 700 prisoners were packed together, according to a 53-year-old Muslim camp survivor, who asked to be identified only as “Hujca.”