Serbs Force Bosniak Civilians to Assist in Ethnic Cleansing

Caught Behind the Lines: Bosniaks drafted into Serb army forced to assist in ethnic cleansing

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p.A4
13 February 1993.

By Dusan Stojanovic

ROZAJE, Yugoslavia — Just about anything bad that has happened to Muslims in Bosnia has happened to Sead Sehovic.

He is blind [photo], his face deformed by an explosion. He has been thrown out of his home and his country. As a Bosniak once forced by Serbs to fight his own people, he worries most about his honor.

“Maybe it’s better I cannot see myself in the mirror. I could not stand the reflection of shame and humiliation that I feel inside,” Sehovic said.

After the fighting erupted last year, rebel Serbs took Sehovic from his village near Trebinje in souther Bosnia and forced him to fight against Croats and his fellow Bosniaks.

Serbs Intended & Planned the Destruction of Bosniak People

The aim of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was to destroy the Bosnian Muslims

Author: Florence Hartmann
Interviewed by Dani (Sarajevo)
Translated by the Bosnian Institute, UK on 16 August, 2007

Florence Hartmann covered the former Yugoslavia for Le Monde, later became the most prominent spokesperson for the Hague Tribunal, and is the author of a study of Slobodan Miloševic

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

The deafening silence: A Diet of Serbian Imperialism

By Linda Paric
Green Left, Issue #56.
20 May 1992.

On Mother’s Day 1992, my village died. It was killed by Serbian mortars, guns and bombs. It never made the news, just like dozens of Croatian and Muslim villages and towns in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is another Vukovar, Osijek, Mostar, Sarajevo, Ravno, Foca, Visegrad, Vinkovci, Skabrnje, Bijelina, Dalj, Ulice …

Gorice, in north-east Bosnia, had survived 500 years of Turkish occupation, the poverty created by its Serbian landlords since 1914, two world wars and postwar illness and famine.

Like most Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I grew up on a diet of Serbian imperialism. They were the police, the public servants, the bureaucrats, the politicians and the teachers. Like my brothers before me, I had a Serbian teacher, even though we were all Croatian. He taught us Serbian, under the guise of Serbo-Croat, and gave extra marks if we wrote in Cyrillic script.

Even this was not enough. Only the total destruction of anything that is not Serbian will now satisfy.

Witness: Serbs Killed 1,350 Bosniak Prisoners in Brcko camp

“They raped one woman whose children and parents were present, along with everyone else… They took 15 people out and slit their throats on the grass… Three people who were watching at the window and were noticed by the guards, their throats were slit as well. With my own eyes I have seen this… I will forever remember [my friend’s] screaming and yelling not to kill him, and not to slit his throat” – Alija Lujinovic, Bosnian Genocide survivor.

Bosnian Muslim Describes Slaughter by Serbs

(Click to Enlarge) Bosnian Genocide (1992): Bosnian Genocide (1992): A 1992 photographs of mass grave in the area of Brcko showing a Bimeks truck (in the top right-hand corner). The trucks were believed to have been used to transport bodies. Bosniak (Bosnian Muslims) victims tied, killed and thrown into mass grave.

WASHINGTON — A 53-year-old Muslim from Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday said Serbian guards at a detention camp systematically slaughtered 1,350 captives during seven weeks of terror in May and June [1992] (see some of the killing in action)

Alija Lujinovic, who is from the town of Brcko in northeast Bosnia, told his horrific tale to a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee, then again to reporters at a news conference.

Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said he did not present Lujinovic at a public hearing because his staff had not had adequate time to corroborate his story. But he said “a lot of the things he’s saying are consistent with other reports… including intelligence.”

Lujinovic, a traffic engineer who denied any involvement in politics or violence, said he was captured May 3 [1992] while hiding in a cellar after Serbian irregulars and troops of the former Yugoslav army attacked his town.

Serbian Terrorists Ready to Fly into Western Targets

Unclassified CIA document shows that Serbs planned terrorist attacks against Western targets early in the Bosnian Genocide (1992-95) in case of NATO intervention. According to CIA,

“The ‘Foreign Minister’ of Radovan Karadzic’s ‘Serb Republic of B-H,’ Aleksa Buha, has told reporters that the Bosnian Serbs have ‘volunteers from friendly countries’ standing by, ready to help in case of Western military intervention against SDS [notorious Serbian Democratic Party led by Radovan Karadzic] forces. According to London Times correspondent Desa Trevisan, Buha said the Serbian Army of B-H [Bosnia-Herzegovina] would, if necessary, send ‘Kamikaze Pilots’ to strike targets in Western countries, including nuclear power stations.”

U.N. on Serbian Propaganda about Srebrenica and Naser Oric's Raids

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Fifty-fourth session, Agenda item 42
The situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina
15 November 1999, pages 103-104

Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35

The Fall of Srebrenica

B. Role of Bosniak forces on the ground

475. Criticisms have also been leveled at the Bosniaks in Srebrenica, among them that they did not fully demilitarize and that they did not do enough to defend the enclave. To a degree, these criticisms appear to be contradictory. Concerning the first criticism, it is right to note that the Bosnian Government had entered into demilitarization agreements with the Bosnian Serbs. They did this with the encouragement of the United Nations. While it is also true that the Bosnian fighters in Srebrenica did not fully demilitarize, they did demilitarize enough for UNPROFOR to issue a press release, on 21 April 1993, saying that the process had been a success. Specific instructions from United Nations Headquarters in New York stated that UNPROFOF should not be too zealous in searching for Bosniak weapons and, later, that the Serbs should withdraw their heavy weapons before the Bosniaks gave up their weapons. The Serbs never did withdraw their heavy weapons.

Primitive Serb Peasants Blamed for the Destruction of Bosnia

First the Bricks, then the Soul

New Sunday Times
18 October 1992.

By Rohas
(A Bosnian refugee)

ZAGREB: The Serbian academic dissident Bogdan Bogdanovic said:

“Serbian fascism is especially dangerous because it originates in the rural areas, and feels no responsibility for the architecture of towns.”

Their criminal attack on urban areas has been especially directed towards Bosnia-Herzegovinian towns, mainly the Muslim ones of Foca, Visegrad, Zvornik, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Brcko, and the old towns of Prusac.

Bosniak and Croatian architectures of value in Mostar have been especially attacked and religious buildings — mosques, abbeys, Catholic churches, graveyards, and other sacred places, have become particular targets.

Bosnian Genocide (1992-95) Confirmed by Four International Judgements

OTHER THAN SREBRENICA: Srebrenica is one of four legally validated genocides that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-95 Serbian aggression. Other notable cases of the Bosnian Genocide include international judgements in the following trials: Prosecutor v Jorgic (Doboj region), Prosecutor v Djajic (Foča region), and Prosecutor v Sokolovic (Kalesija/Zvornik region).

All three cases were tried in Germany — at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) — to ease caseload of the ongoing trials at the Hague. Both Nikola Jorgic and Maksim Sokolovic were convicted of genocide (other than Srebrenica); Novislav Djajic was acquitted, but the court confirmed that genocide against the Bosniak population was committed by the Serb forces in eastern Bosnian municipality of Foca.

Bosnian Genocide Memorial in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York – the Largest Christian Church in the World

Dedicated to the Bosnian Genocide

ICJ Judge, Serbia’s involvement in Srebrenica Genocide supported by massive and compelling evidence

Case: Bosnia v. Serbia
Judgement: Dissenting opinion of Judge Al-Khasawneh, Vice-President of the International Court of Justice.

The Court’s jurisdiction is established – Serious doubts that already settled question of jurisdiction should have been re-examined – SFRY’s United Nations membership could only have been suspended or terminated pursuant to Articles 5 or 6 of the Charter; Security Council and General Assembly resolutions did not have the effect of terminating the SFRY’s United Nations membership – The FRY’s admission to the United Nations in 2000 did not retroactively change its position vis-à-vis the United Nations between 1992 and 2000 – Between 1992 and 2000, the FRY was the continuator of the SFRY, and after its admission to the United Nations, the FRY was the SFRY’s successor – The Court’s Judgment in the Legality of Use of Force cases on the question of access and “treaties in force” is not convincing and regrettably has led to confusion and contradictions within the Court’s own jurisprudence – The Court should not have entertained the Respondent’s highly irregular 2001 “Initiative” on access to the Court, nor should it have invited the Respondent to renew its jurisdictional arguments at the merits phase.

Serbia’s involvement, as a principal actor or accomplice, in the genocide that took place in Srebrenica is supported by massive and compelling evidence – Disagreement with the Court’s methodology for appreciating the facts and drawing inferences therefrom – The Court should have required the Respondent to provide unedited copies of its Supreme Defence Council documents, failing which, the Court should have allowed a more liberal recourse to inference – The “effective control” test for attribution established in the Nicaragua case is not suitable to questions of State responsibility for international crimes committed with a common purpose -The “overall control” test for attribution established in the Tadić case is more appropriatewhen the commission of international crimes is the common objective of the controlling State and the non-State actors – The Court’s refusal to infer genocidal intent from a consistent pattern of conduct in Bosnia and Herzegovina is inconsistent with the established jurisprudence of the ICTY – the FRY’s knowledge of the genocide set to unfold in Srebrenica is clearly established – The Court should have treated the Scorpions as a de jure organ of the FRY – The statement by the Serbian Council of Ministers in response to the massacre of Muslim men by the Scorpions amounted to an admission of responsibility – The Court failed to appreciate the definitional complexity of the crime of genocide and to assess the facts before it accordingly.

Doboj Genocide, Serbs Raped 2,000-2,500 Bosniak & Croat Women & Children

Excerpt from “Mass rape: the war against women in Bosnia-Herzegovina” By Alexandra Stiglmayer, Marion Faber

“I saw about seven or eight little girls who died after they were raped. I saw how they took them away to be raped and then brought them back unconscious. They three them down in front of us…”

The Rape Camp in Doboj

According to the statements of three women, there was a women’s camp in the northern Bosnian town of Doboj in which approximately 2,000 Bosniak and Croatian women as well as a few children were detained in May and June 1992 (three years before the Srebrenica genocide. Note that Doboj Genocide is another legally validated case of genocide in Bosnia.). This number is very high, and I have discussed it at length with the women. They insist it is correct and say that the gymnasium of the Djure Pucar Stari school in which they were housed was very big, that international handball tournaments were held in it previously, that it even had tiers of seats, and that it was “completely overcrowded.”

“We couldn’t move without stepping on somebody,” says forty-year-old Kadira.” “There might even have been 2,500 women.”

Element of Bosnian Genocide, Systematic Rape of Muslim Women

A pattern of crime: Serbian soldiers repeatedly raped Bosniak women and girls as young as 6 and 7.

January 04, 1993.
NEWSWEEK

About all she has left is her name, which she prefers to keep to herself, and the shocking memories of last July. That’s when Serbian troops stormed the northwest Bosnian village of Rizvanovici, and S., a 20-year-old Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] woman with a ponytail, was rounded up with 400 other women in the yard of a neighbor’s house. Two soldiers, wearing camouflage uniforms and Serbian crosses around their necks, picked S. and her friend I. out of the crowd.

“They brought us to an empty house and there they did what they wanted to do,” says S. dully. “First we had to excite them and then we had to satisfy them.” Afterward the Serbs traded partners. The girls had been virgins. “They were laughing at us,” S. recalls. “They said we were pretty girls and [that] we saved ourselves for them.”

Her ordeal didn’t end there. After being raped and dumped at the yard, one of the soldiers came back to bring S. to his commander. “He told me to take off my clothes and to lie down on the bed,” she says. “Then he did the same thing.

Serbs Continue to Slaughter Bosniak Children in Sarajevo

Six children Killed in shelling on Sarajevo

The Southeast Missourian, p.5A
23 January 1994.

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The sun glistened on new snow, and after a week of relative quiet in Bosnia’s besieged capital, children were out sledding and skating. Then the shells slammed down Saturday.

Six children died, hospital and morgue workers said. At least three children-suffered serious wounds and one adult was injured.

Parents frantically got their children off the streets. Although there was no sustained bombardment, the Bosniak-led government immediately put the city back on general alert, a warning for people to stay indoors.

In Alipasino Polje, the western Sarajevo neighbourhood where the deaths occurred, witnesses said at least four shells exploded around 1 p.m. Scores of children were outside sledding on snowy hills and skating in the icy streets.

Systematic Rapes of Bosniak Women and Girls in Visegrad

By CHRIS HEDGES
Published: March 25, 1996.

VISEGRAD, Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 21 — For the thousands of Bosniaks who fled from this town in eastern Bosnia, and for the Serbs who remained, the war has bound this generation and the next to a Serbian militia leader named Milan Lukic.

Witnesses and survivors say Mr. Lukic, 29, killed scores of Muslims in this region from 1992 to 1995. He has not been indicted by the United Nations’ war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and the Serbs in Visegrad say they do not know his whereabouts.

Beyond Visegrad, his name and story are largely unknown. But detailed accounts collected during the last two weeks from witnesses, many of them now dispersed around Bosnia, provide a picture of slaughter, pillage and abuse condoned by the local authorities and Serbian commanders from Belgrade.

Rape is "a Weapon of War" in the Bosnian Genocide, European Inquiry

By Alan Riding
9 January 1993.

Ocala Star-Banner,
volume 50. No.131, year 127. p.
(also published in NYT)

A team of European Community investigators has estimated that 20,000 Muslim women have been raped by Bosnian Serb soldiers in recent months as part of a deliberate pattern of abuse aimed at driving them from their homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The team said there were indications that some rapes were carried out “in particularly sadistic ways so as to inflict maximum humiliation on the victims.” The report did not elaborate.

It said it had also received strong evidence that “many women, and more particularly children, may have died during or after rape.” The report did not give the range of ages of the victims or say how many might have died.

JERUSALEM POST: A look into Bosnian Genocide's notorious concentration camp

Family members of victims of the Omarska concentration camp near the Western Bosnian town of Prijedor hold photos of excavated bodies of their relatives, , during a visit to the site of what once used to be the camp, 06 August, 2006. Photos of the camp and it's prisoners, made in 1992 By the Guardian's Ed Vulliamy, horrified the world's public and drew attention to the fact that ethnic cleansing was being commited at the time in Bosnia, by nationalist forces of Bosnian Serbs.

 

First, Muslims and Croats had to wear white bands on their arms

By Tovah Lazaroff, JPost Correspondent in Geneva
Originally published: Apr 26, 2009.
Republished with Permission.

JERUSALEM POST – As an inmate in the Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia, in 1992, Nusreta Sivac began her days by counting the corpses of those who had been killed overnight.

“We would see them on the grass in front of the ‘white house,’ which was a little building where the worst torture was committed,” she told the audience who had gathered on Friday to hear her and other victims of racism, including some from Rwanda. They spoke on the sidelines of the United Nations anti-racism conference that met in Geneva last week.

They sat on a small stage, set off from one of the main corridors in the UN’s European headquarters, at an event titled “Voices: Everyone affected by racism has a story that should be heard.”

Stopping Bosnian Genocide was worth American blood

“‘When they came for the Jews I said nothing for I was not a Jew. When they came for the Catholics I did nothing for I was not a Catholic. When they came for me I could do nothing, and there was no one left to speak for me.’ Those who say Bosnia is not worth American blood bear a close resemblances to those who have made similar claims in the past.”

By Justin Green
| Justin Green wrote about and taught politics for 25 years before retiring to Prescott |

Daily Courier
18 December 1995.

The pundits and pols of Prescott and the nation have pontificated and reached agreement. Bosnia is not worth a drop of American blood. Fortunately Bob Dole has shown better judgment and even the House may sanction sending 20,000 Americans to Bosnia. These troops will be part of a NATO force of 60,000 assigned to preserve the Bosnian peace accords agreed to by the Bosnian Muslims [Bosniaks], Bosnian Serbs and the Croats.

I confess early on I vacillated on this issue. At one time I was opposed to sending our ground forces to the area. I did, however, urge the use of our air power and an end to the arms embargo imposed on Bosnia’s Muslims.

I have changed my mind.

Jewish people express outrage over Bosnian Genocide

By: Debra Nussbaum Cohen
The Jewish Post & News, 12 August 1992.

NEW YORK (JTA) – In language rife with the imagery of the Holocaust, leaders of Jewish organizations are calling on the United States and the United Nations to put an end to the atrocities being perpetrated by Serbian nationalists against Moslem [Bosniak] and Croatian residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Though the 600 Jews who remain in Sarajevo are not in more danger than any other residents of the besieged Bosnian capital, the brutal attacks on innocent men, women and children throughout the former Yugoslav state are resonating in the collective memory of the Jewish community. For Jews, the events unfolding in Bosnia eerily echo the Holocaust, when world leaders ignored early reports of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

Serbian war crimes in Bosnia, Six-year old girl raped in front of her mother

Do a ‘Desert Storm’ on Serbs

New Straits Times
9 October 1993.

By: H. Hashim Hassan

The cruelties committed by the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, defy the imagination. Expressing his disgust over the matter, the Prime Minister told the 48th UN General Assembly in New York on Oct 1, a six-year-old [Bosnian Muslim] child was repeatedly raped in front of her mother who not only had to watch but was prevented from giving any help until the little child died after two days of exposure.

This was not the first time Dr Mahathir has publicly touched on the barbarity of the Serbs. At the Non-Aligned Summit last year, he said that in Bosnia human rights were being ignored, ethnic cleansing was being carried out, women were being raped and children were being shot and killed by snipers. So apathetic and unconcerned were the Serbian aggressors after committing their horrendous crimes that rape and murder were something that they took delight in doing.

Israel Offers Help to Bosnian Muslims

Bush demands inspections; Israel offers aid

8 August 1992.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush vowed Friday that he would not rest until Serbian-run prison camps were opened to outside inspection, but he stopped short of threatening to bomb Serbian positions and targets to gain access.

On the question of military action to keep relief supplies flowing, which the United States is pressing the United Nations to authorize, Bush insisted that any U.S. involvement must be part of a U.N. effort. But the British and the French are both resisting a United Nations authorization vote.

Elie Wiesel: Bosnian Muslims Suffered "Auschwitz in Bosnia"

“How can you ever adequately punish a man who is guilty of ordering the assassination of 8,000 human beings [in Srebrenica]?” – asked Elie Wiesel.

Mr. Elie Wiesel is a Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of over 40 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several concentration camps. Mr. Wiesel established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity soon after he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace. The Foundation’s mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality.

Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel on Bosnian Genocide

By Elie Wisel

It’s unimaginable.

US Report: Serbs Worst Since Nazis, Systematic Shelling & Starvation of Bosnian Muslims

Serbs Worst Since Nazis, report says

By: Barry Schweid
The Daily Gazette
21 January 1993.

WASHINGTON – Serbian forces in Bosnia are conducting a campaign of systematic shelling and starvation of Muslims [Bosniaks] that “dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi times,” the State Department reported Tuesday.

“It borders on genocide,” said Patricia Diaz Dennis, assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs.

The 17th annual report to Congress surveyed 189 countries and found abuses in dozens of them, but none on the scale of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav republic whose assertion of independence touched off a brutal ethnic conflict.

Civilians are the primary targets of Serbian military action, the report said. By the end of 1992, more than 1.5 million people were displaced by the war, including an estimated one half of the Muslim [Bosniak] population.

All sides in the former Yugoslav republic are guilty of atrocities, but “the greatest atrocity – the systematic shelling and starvation by siege of large cities – was carried out by Serbian forces, which alone had both the means and the will to carry out such crimes against humanity.”

Serbs Threaten Terrorist Attacks Against U.S. Targets

According to Unclassified CIA document, Bosnian Serbs planned terrorist attacks against Western targets early in the Bosnian war:

“The ‘Foreign Minister’ of Radovan Karadzic’s ‘Serb Republic of B-H,’ Aleksa Buha, has told reporters that the Bosnian Serbs have ‘volunteers from friendly countries’ standing by, ready to help in case of Western military intervention against SDS [notorious Serbian Democratic Party led by Radovan Karadzic] forces. According to London Times correspondent Desa Trevisan, Buha said the Serbian Army of B-H [Bosnia-Herzegovina] would, if necessary, send ‘Kamikaze Pilots’ to strike targets in Western countries, including nuclear power stations.”

See the bottom of “PAGE 03″ of this unclassified CIA document: