Photographic Evidence of the Suha massacre, Bosnian Genocide

Bosnian Genocide (1992) - Remains of a baby bottle and baby clothing with a bullet hole were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population of the Podrinje region (eastern Bosnia).

The following is forensic photo evidence of the Suha massacre, which occurred on 10 May 1992, more than three years before the Srebrenica genocide. Suha in the nearby Bratunac municipality, on the outskirts of the Srebrenica district. On 10 May 1992, Serb soldiers slaughtered around 38 Bosniak women, children, sick and the elderly in the village. There was also one pregnant woman whose baby fetus was clearly visible…

All photos © Human Rights NGO Truth for Justice (www.ispa.ba); Photographer: Almir Arnaut; Used with Permission; Photos archived by http://www.Genocid.org project. Forensic evidence collected by the U.N. war crimes investigators. The remains of victims analyzed by the Department of Pathology at the University Clinical Center Tuzla. Click photos for higher resolution.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) - Remains of a baby bottle and baby clothing with a bullet hole were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) - Remains of a baby bottle and baby clothing containing multiple bullet holes were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosniak population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide, when Serbs overtook Srebrenica summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) - Pathologist at the University Clinical Center Tuzla inspects remains of unborn Bosniak baby that was found in a womb of a murdered mother. The victims' remains were excavated from the mass grave Suha in Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of a Bosniak woman and her unborn baby excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. Baby's undeveloped body was preserved in mother's womb. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Pathologists at the University Clinical Center Tuzla show remains of a pregnant Bosniak woman and her unborn baby. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide, when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of a pregnant Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) woman and her unborn baby excavated from the mass grave Suha in Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. Baby's undeveloped head, fingers, and legs are clearly visible. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Pathologists at the University Clinical Center Tuzla examine remains of a pregnant Bosniak woman and her unborn baby found in mother's womb. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The victims were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosnian Muslim population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of a pregnant Bosniak woman, ZEKIRA BEGIC (maiden: Hrustenbasic), and her unborn baby excavated from a mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. Fetus body was preserved in mother's womb with tiny legs and undeveloped brain clearly visible. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. In the neighbouring municipality of Visegrad, Serbs also barricaded at least 150 Bosnian Muslim women, children, and elderly men in two abandoned houses and then burned them alive. Zehra Turjacanin recently she testified 'what it feels like to burn alive.'

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of Bosniak children killed by Serbs around Srebrenica. The victims' remains were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosniak population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity had culminated in a crime of genocide, when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) child and a baby killed by Serbs around Srebrenica. The victims' remains were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosniak population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Bosnian Genocide (1992) -- Remains of Bosniak children killed by Serbs around Srebrenica. The victims' remains were excavated from the mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. The massacre was committed by Serbs around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. The events preceding and leading to the Srebrenica genocide included unprecedented levels of cruelty committed by Bosnian Serbs around Srebrenica against the civilian Bosniak population of the Podrinje. In July 1995, crimes against humanity culminated in a crime of genocide when Serbs overtook Srebrenica, summarily executed between 8,372 and 10,000 Bosniaks (men, children, and elderly), and forcibly expelled 30,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in a U.N.-assisted case of ethnic cleansing.

Tears for Kids, the 1993 Srebrenica Children Massacre

(Photos courtesy: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., from video testimony about the 1993 Srebrenica Children Massacre)

The Srebrenica Children Massacre refers to the killing of as many as 62 children among the victims when the elementary school in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, was shelled by the Army of Republika Srpska in April 1993.

The Srebrenica Children Massacre occurred two years before the Srebrenica genocide.

On 12 April 1993, the Bosnian Serbs told the UNHCR representatives that they would attack the town of Srebrenica within two days unless the Bosniaks surrendered. The same day, Serbs attacked Srebrenica’s elementary school, killing 62 Bosniak children and wounding 152 others.

Bosnian Genocide (1993) -- Srebrenica Children Massacre, April 1993. Photo courtesy: The USHMM, video screenshots.

According to evidence given to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia by Sead Bekric, one of the survivors, describing how he was blinded at the age of 14, “There was a soccer field in Srebrenica on April 12th 1993 and there was a massive amount of people and we had a match and there was a shelling from Zvijezda, from the hill above Bratunac and the soccer field was shelled and I was blinded, together with 62 other people killed on the soccer field. … My understanding there was about 60, 62 people killed on that day and there was over 100 wounded on that day.”

Bosnian Genocide (1993) -- Srebrenica Children Massacre in April 1993. Video screenshot courtesy of CNN.

Survivors were treated by Dr Nedret Mujkanovic, who in an interview with Chuck Sudetic described how people were sitting around in front of the refugee-packed school and children were playing football and other games. “In less than one minute, seven rockets from a multiple-rocket launcher fell in an area about half the size of a football field.”

Srebrenica Children Massacre (Bosnian Genocide) in 1993

Dr. Mujkanovic told Sudetic that 36 people had died immediately and 102 had been seriously wounded. He said that the Serbs knew there was a camp of refugees from Cerska and Konjevic Polje in the school. “They directed their fire at that location. It came completely by surprise. There were pieces of women scattered about, and you could not see how to fit them together. I saw one dead mother lying on the ground and holding the hands of her two dead children. They all had no heads.”

Photo of Sead Bekric, child victim of the 1993 Srebrenica Children Massacre. Shrapnel from a mortar had swept away this boy's eyes and blinded him, part of his skull was also crushed. Credits: James Mason

Dr Mujkanovic subsequently gave evidence to the ICTY about the shelling on 12 April. Srebrenica was under general attack. After the fall of Cerska and Konjevic Polje, their population of 15,000 or more had fled to Srebrenica and were accommodated in the primary and secondary schools in Srebrenica and even on the streets. When the school was shelled over 100 people were killed and approximately the same number seriously injured, including lots of women, lots of children and some men. Dr Mujkanovic also told the Tribunal how the evacuation of the injured had been shelled by the Serbs.

There is some confusion about the final number of the dead. No formal investigation was conducted as far as Sead Bekric’s evidence to the ICTY indicates.

Footage from ABC reporting from Srebrenica by Tony Birtley.

The massacre and the injured Sead Bekric were seen as emblematic of the fate of the child victims of the violent war of ethnic cleansing unleashed in Bosnia. Sead’s face was shown around the world by CNN television. The cover of the 10 May 1993 edition of Newsweek magazine printed one large, self-explanatory word across Sead’s injured chest: “Bosnia.”

This massacre occurred immediately before the United Nations declared Srebrenica a “safe haven”, and more than two years before the Srebrenica genocide.

The massacre is also mentioned in Emir Suljagic’s personal account of the siege and fall of Srebrenica, “Postcards from the Grave”.

Slaughter of Bosniak Children around Srebrenica in 1992

Here is what the Bosnian Serb army had been doing around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica genocide. According to the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague (case of Naser Oric):

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

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child killed by Serb sniper in the vicinity of Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Bosnian Muslim towns and villages around Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child killed by Serb shelling in Gorazde, south-west of Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child killed by Serb shelling of Gorazde, south west of Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child Sead Bekric seriously wounded and blinded in the Srebrenica Children Massacre in April of 1993, two years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child Sead Bekric seriously wounded and blinded in the Srebrenica Children Massacre in April of 1993, two years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child Sead Bekric seriously wounded and blinded in the Srebrenica Children Massacre in April of 1993, two years before the Srebrenica massacre..

Bosniak child Sead Bekric seriously wounded and blinded in the Srebrenica Children Massacre in April of 1993, two years before the Srebrenica massacre..

Bosniak child killed by Serb shelling of Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Bosniak child seriously wounded by Serb shelling of Srebrenica in 1992, three years before the Srebrenica massacre.

Remains of a pregnant Bosniak woman, Zekira Begic, and her unborn baby excavated from a mass grave Suha in the Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. Fetus body was preserved in mother’s womb with tiny legs and undeveloped brain clearly visible. Pathologist at the University Clinical Center Tuzla inspected the remains of defenceless victims.

Remains of Bosniak children killed by Serbs in the Suha massacre in 1992, Bratunac/Srebrenica pocket, three years before the Srebrenica genocide. 

Bosnian Muslims and Jews have a joint experience of persecution and genocide in Europe

Bosnian genocide mass grave at Pilica farm near Srebrenica, twenty feet deep and a hundred feet long, was excavated by forensic pathologists in 1996. Bosniak victims were blindfolded with hands tied behind their back. Photo by Gilles Peress (from The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (Scalo Books, 1998)).

Dr. Mustafa Cerić is the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina (leader of Islamic community) and a prominent member of the Committee on Conscience fighting against the Holocaust denial.

Invited by president of Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah, David de Rothschild, Reisu-l-ulema Dr. Mustafa Cerić took part today in Paris, the seat of the UNESCO, in the presentation of Projet Aladin, accompanied by some two hundred prominent intellectuals, historians, academics and political personae from thirty countries, most of them from the Islamic world.

The gathering is about cultural and educational initiative for promotion of the Jewish-Muslim dialogue based upon mutual acquaintance, respect and refusal to deny and diminish Holocaust. Hosted by the UNESCO, former President of France Jacques Chirac, Prince El-Hassan bin Talaal of Jordan, former President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid and former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, project “Aladdin” aims to assist in Muslim-Jewish dialogue so as to remove many a prejudice and stereotype which burden the Muslim-Jewish relations in the world.

“The call of conscience”

A statement, titled “The Call of Conscience”, was adopted to denote the principle of the project:

The United States Mourns Bosnian Genocide Victims

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release July 11, 2010
Statement by the President on the 15th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica
_______________________________________________________

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica, and on behalf of the United States, I join my voice with those who are gathered to mourn a great loss and to reflect on an unimaginable tragedy.

Fifteen years ago today, despite decades of pledges of “never again,” 8,000 men and boys were murdered in these fields and hills. They were brothers, sons, husbands, and fathers, and they all became victims of genocide. I have said, and I believe, that the horror of Srebrenica was a stain on our collective conscience. We honor their memories and grieve with their families, as many of them are laid to rest here today. They were people who sought to live in peace and had relied on the promise of international protection, but in their hour of greatest need, they were left to fend for themselves. Only those of you who suffered through those days, who lost loved ones, can comprehend the unspeakable horror. You have carried this burden and live with pain and loss every moment of your lives.

Canada Mourns Bosnian Genocide Victims

Canada Commemorates 15th Anniversary of Srebrenica Genocide

(No. 217 – July 10, 2010 – 12:30 p.m. ET) The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre:

“Fifteen years ago, in Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were executed and over 25,000 Bosniaks were forced from their homes by Bosnian Serb forces. This tragic event was the worst crime of its kind to be committed in Europe since the Second World War. Both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia determined it to be genocide.”

“On this solemn occasion, I wish to extend my condolences on behalf of the Government of Canada to the survivors of this atrocity, as well as to all of those whose loved ones lost their lives or remain missing.”

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.

The Politics of ‘Neutrality’ in the Bosnian Genocide (1992)

Bosnian Genocide (1992): Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoners in Trnopolje concentration camp near Prijedor. Credits: Ron Haviv, Blood & Honey.

INTRODUCTION:
The Bosnian Genocide is the event referring to brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing of at least 500,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) coupled with the killings of 65,000 to 75,000 Bosniaks during the 1992-95 war of Serbian aggression. There are three legally validated genocides that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, other than Srebrenica. Notable international judgements include: Prosecutor v Nikola Jorgic (Doboj region), Prosecutor v Novislav Djajic (Foča region), and Prosecutor v Maksim 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. The following is an account of Ed Vulliamy:

“Neutrality” and the Absence of Reckoning:
A Journalist’s Account

By Ed Vulliamy
Text reprinted from the Journal of International Affairs v 52. no. 2 Spring 1999.

On the putrid afternoon of 5 August 1992, I stumbled into Omarska, as a reporter for the Guardian of London, along with a crew from the Independent Television Network (ITN). It was said we had “discovered” Omarska, but this was an inaccurate flattery. Diplomats, politicians, aid workers and intelligence officers had known about the place for months and kept it secret. All we did was announce and denounce it to the world.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) Prisoners in Trnopolje concentration camp near Prijedor.

By remaining neutral, we reward the bullies of history and discard the peace and justice promised us by the generation that defeated the Third Reich. We create a mere intermission before the next round of atrocities. There are times when we as reporters have to cross the line…

During his opening remarks at a recent conference at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Tom Buerghental, chairman of the museum’s Committee on Conscience asked:

How do we explain to our children and grandchildren that in the world in which we live, it is easier to mount a $40 billion rapid response to save the economy of this or that far-away country because its collapse might affect our stock holdings, while we diddle and daddle when it comes to mounting a rapid military response to save people from destruction by a murderous regime?

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) Prisoner in Trnopolje concentration camp near Prijedor.

How indeed? How will I explain to my daughter when she is seven years old that a little girl her age died in my arms because, through the sight telescope of the beast who murdered her, she was just a “filthy Muslim,” unfit to live her brief life?

I think the answer to this challenge rests in the entanglement of two notions that are embedded in the Holocaust’s legacy. The first is the notion of “reckoning” — staring history in the face, assigning blame and moral or criminal responsibility. The second is neutrality, the idea that the diplomatic world, like the press, must be detached to do its job properly. In the context of the carnage in Bosnia and the West’s toleration of it, these concepts are vitally important. I believe that history without reconciliation is dangerous history. Crimes against humanity not reckoned with can only lead to more of the same. I also believe that there are moments in history when neutrality is not neutral, but complicit in the crime.

I will argue here that in the examples of Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia and elsewhere, the neutrality adopted by diplomats and the media is both dangerous and morally reprehensible. By remaining neutral, we reward the bullies of history and discard the peace and justice promised us by the generation that defeated the Third Reich. We create a mere intermission before the next round of atrocities. There are times when we as reporters have to cross the line, recognize right as right, wrong as wrong and stand up to be counted.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoners in Trnopolje concentration camp near Prijedor. Ron Haviv, Blood & Honey.

A Reporter’s Account

In the winter of 1996 I was asked if I would testify in the case against Dusko Tadic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. The ICTY was formed by the United Nations to bring individuals charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice. I was initially wary that the tribunal was no more than a release valve to compensate for the West’s crime of appeasement. Some colleagues who had also worked in Bosnia and whom I greatly admire refused to testify and advised that it was an unwise and perilous course of action. “Our job was to report,” they advised, and if possible, to prompt others to do something that would end the suffering. But justice — the acquittal of the innocent and imprisonment of the guilty — was the business of others. The tribunal was an unknown and potentially dangerous labyrinth. If I testified I would certainly lose any claim to neutrality, if I ever wanted to stake one. The rules are not unlike those of the Mafia; you can say whatever you like about them and they don’t care, but you cross a line once you go into the courtroom.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Covert photograph of beaten inmate at Trnopolje concentration camp. Penny Marshall, ITN, 6 August 1992.

On the other hand, there was an argument with legal and moral components. For example, if I see someone being mugged, I should expect the police to call me as a witness at the mugger’s trial. If the victim is a defenseless child or old lady, one is instinctively more willing to testify. Multiply that reasoning by a factor of a thousand, and you have good reason to testify against genocide in Bosnia. I thought about these arguments carefully. In the end, these were deliberations over what kind of history was being made, over what kind of legacy was left by the camps and ethnic cleansing.

I talked to my father who fought in the Second World War. I was part of a generation and a citizen of a newly unified continent, brought up in the shadow of the Third Reich and in the aura of victory. I had watched at close range, the language and practice of appeasement tear the promises of postwar Europe to shreds. I had watched diplomats obfuscate and lie; I had watched the flag of the United Nations — an icon of this generation — deliver the defenseless people of its own designated safe areas into the hands of butchers. I had watched my own country lead the international community in rewarding the worst violence to blight Europe since Nazi Germany.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Covert photograph of emaciated inmate at Trnopolje. Penny Marshall, ITN, 6 August 1992.

Above all, it seemed to me that the ICTY, for all its shortcomings, was the last organism in the attempt at reckoning in the aftermath of Bosnia’s war. Although Tadic was only a minnow in a war of minnows, this was a war of macabre intimacy in which people knew their torturers. I decided this was a chance for some kind of reckoning for the only people I really cared about — the victims. I threw aside any pretense of neutrality and went to The Hague. I gave the prosecution in the Tadic case all my notebooks and I told them everything I knew.

The Hague, the Netherlands, June 1995.

The breakfast scene resembled what you might find at any other modern Dutch hotel. Corn flakes, cheese, fruit and a generous selection of buns and rolls were arranged on a big table. Waiters and waitresses in pressed shirts and breezy catering-school smiles waited on business travelers enjoying the luxury of company tabs. On this particular morning, a group of guests, noticeably different from the usual clientele, poked at the food with a certain detachment, as though the abundance were somehow unreal, laid out for someone else.

This group from Bosnia was obviously connected by a bond that distanced them from the uniformity of the international hotel. They were mostly men, with one or two women, who looked older than their years. In their speckled brown eyes lay something unfathomable and lachrymal and — whatever this secret was, whatever the bond — it was an unhappy one. The sorrow that sealed it would be told to the world during the days that followed.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoner in Omarska concentration camp near Prijedor.

They were Muslims from northwestern Bosnia, survivors of the Omarska concentration camp. Many had not seen each other since the day after the camp had been revealed to the outside world on 7 August 1992, when it was abruptly closed by its Bosnian Serb management in an attempt to conceal its dark secrets. That day, the surviving inmates of this hell were put on buses and taken to other camps, or deported in convoys across mountains and minefields. Some lucky ones were evacuated to far-flung countries — like Germany, Indonesia or Sweden — that volunteered to take them in.

As was the hallmark of Bosnia’s war, members of their families had been slaughtered, scattered or simply disappeared without trace after the hurricane of violence swept through their villages and towns. Now they exchanged news of who was alive or dead, who had vanished and who had not. They even wondered what had happened to their torturers and the camp commanders and recalled the days when they — inmates and guards — had played soccer together.

(Click to Enlarge Photo) - Bosnian Genocide (1992), Relative of the Omarska concentration camp victims near the Western Bosnian town of Prijedor in Bosnia-Herzegovina holds photos of excavated bodies of her relatives on 06 August, 2006.

They were now assembled to confront the past. These people were called to The Hague to testify before the first international war crimes tribunal convened since the famous Nuremberg trials that had tried and sentenced so many of the orchestrators of the Holocaust. The tribunal’s founders claimed that Nuremberg, in small part, assigned blame for the unimaginable pain of Holocaust survivors, and even liberated the German people from responsibility for the heinous crimes committed in their name. Now the United Nations sought to employ that process in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the ICTY. The tribunal’s first chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, said he regarded its work as the difference between peace and an intermission before the next round of hostilities.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoners in Omarska concentration camp.

Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, was the first man to be accused at an international court for war crimes since Speer, Goering, Hess and their conspirators. The group having breakfast knew Tadic well, from their lives in both peace and war. When they were asked to point him out, at the end of their testimonies, they did so — some with venom, some with contempt, some barely daring to look him in the eye and still others defiantly. Tadic sometimes looked down or turned his eyes away. Other times he stared back. Once, he looked his accuser in the eye and smiled a devilish grin.

The survivors also testified about Camp Omarska itself. They detailed a place that Western authorities had apparently known about but tolerated and concealed from public knowledge for four long months. It was a place they remembered collectively as well as privately, a place that haunted them now and would follow them forever. After testifying, they walked back to the carpeted lobby and purple uniforms behind the reception desk. Then they took the elevator to wait in room 609, the “witness room.”

The view from room 609 looked out on the North Sea, which rose like a deep blue carpet from the horizon. Beneath the window lay the garden of the modern art museum, landscaped with sculptures. Beyond the museum, people filled bustling cafes, shops and sidewalks lined with flowers. The survivors of Omarska stared out at this for hours, a view across a country whose history was that of the reclamation of land from water. Indeed, the hopeful history of the Netherlands served to deepen the abyss between it and Omarska. It harkened the grotesque proximity, in time and geography, between life in the pretty town below and the camp that we spoke of together for endless hours, smoking cigarettes and remembering. Omarska was a bitter kernel at the heart of both Bosnia’s war and our place in time. A concentration camp in our lifetime, just a few hundred miles down the road from Venice.

Prijedor, Bosnia, August 1992

Though we had been invited to visit the camps by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, it took five days of haggling with other officers to ultimately gain access to Omarska. The final hurdle was a tedious three-hour briefing at the Prijedor civic center with a group of men referred to as the “Crisis Committee.”

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosniak and Croat prisoners in Manjaca concentration camp.

In that meeting, a man who introduced himself as Colonel Vladimir Arsic said it was not possible to go to Omarska. He suggested we visit another camp, Manjaca, which unlike the camps at Omarska and Trnopolje had already been inspected by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Colonel Arsic then gestured to three other men around the table who could grant the necessary permission: Police Chief Simo Drljaca, Mayor Milomir Stakic and his Deputy, Milan Kovacevic. Kovacevic, a bear of a man dressed in a “U.S. Marines” t-shirt, did most of the talking. He was a special expert on concentration camps, he explained, because he had been born in Jasenovac, which was a camp established for Serbs, Jews and Croat dissidents during the Second World War.

After a verbal tug-of-war, the trio of Drljaca, Kovacevic and Stakic agreed we could go. We drove through a ravaged landscape dotted with burned-out houses, but nothing could have prepared us for what we saw as we entered the back gates of the former iron ore mine of Omarska. The scene belonged to some other time. A column of men emerged from a rusty-red hangar, blinking in the sunlight. They were drilled across the yard in single file toward the “canteen” by uniformed guards. The watchful eye of a beefy machine-gunner followed their steps from behind reflective sunglasses. As the men advanced, we could see their skeletal figures, some with shaven heads.

They devoured their watery bean stew, clutching their spoons with rangy fists. They were horribly thin — the bones of their pencil-thin elbows and wrists protruded like pieces of jagged stone through parchment skin. They fixed their huge, hollow eyes on us with hard, cutting stares. There is nothing so haunting as the glare from a prisoner who yearns to tell some truth, but dares not. The guards swung their machine guns, strutting back and forth and listening carefully. “I do not want to tell you any lies,” said one man, his spindly hands shaking, “but I cannot tell the truth.”

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoner Fikret Alic in Trnopolje concentration camp

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Fikret Alic, The Picture that Shames the World.

We had seen very little, but when we tried to see more we were bundled out of the camp and moved on to another vile place: Trnopolje. Here, we met emaciated men crowded behind a barbed-wire fence. They told us of more camps from which they had come, a gulag it seemed. A skeletal man named Fikret Alic told us that at one of the camps, Kereterm, 150 prisoners had been murdered in one night. At Kereterm, he had cried when appointed to load the dead onto trucks.

With the testimony of survivors from a wretched diaspora, the truth that had held the Omarska prisoner silent gradually unfolded. Omarska had been the kind of place where a prisoner was forced to bite the testicles off a fellow inmate who, as he died of pain, had a live pigeon stuffed into his mouth to stifle his screams. One witness at the ICTY trial likened the guards responsible for this barbarism to a crowd at a sporting match. Prisoners, who survived by drinking their own and each other’s urine, were forever being called out of their cramped quarters by name. Some would return caked in blood, bruised and wounded by knives; others would never be seen alive again. Squads of inmates were ordered to load corpses onto trucks. An old man in one makeshift dormitory had tried to keep his son, who had contracted dysentery, alive. But shortly after a beating, the boy died and guards ordered his cellmates to “get rid of this garbage.” Years later, testifying at The Hague, the grieving father would be accused by Dusko Tadic’s counsel of inventing his story. He stared back with righteous outrage: “If I was lying, my son would still be alive,” he said.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Penny Marshall, ITN, 6 August 1992 shakes hand with Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoner Fikret Alic, Trnopolje concentration camp.

The day after we “discovered” Omarska, it was quickly closed and the prisoners transferred so that prying international eyes would not uncover these secrets. At Trnopolje, the barbed wire fence that had penned in Fikret Alic’s group of prisoners was taken down and the camp was renamed “Trnopolje Open Reception Center,” in English, for the benefit of the media circus that descended on the town. Kovacevic was entrusted with the task of explaining to the world what a “reception center” was. He was in a hurry, he said; it was Sunday and he had to go to church.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-96

Bosnian Genocide (1992): Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) prisoners in Manjaca concentration camp near Prijedor.

The camps were just the beginning of the carnage in Bosnia. The ethnic cleansing in camps and villages continued and we saw it from the inside — the “population transfer” alone was terrifying. I accompanied one of the convoys of Muslims from Sanski Most. We were herded in a ramshackle convoy, marshaled by guards brandishing their machine guns, along a mountain road. Knowledge of this route came to be an identifying mark of those who had been in the camps.

We lurched in a convoy of 55 trucks, buses and cars, then cast out on foot across a perilous no man’s land. An hour later our comfortless procession was clambering over a pile of rocks across the road, which marked a makeshift border with the government’s territory, which was surrounded by a carpet of mines. As the guns cracked and crashed around us, we heaved the very young, the very old, their wheelchairs, crutches, babies and teddy bears, over the rocks and carried on. Even the little children were dumb with fear and resolve.

It went on and on — days and weeks stretched into months and years. There was the bloody fall of Jajce, when 40,000 took to the road in flight, under fire, with their herds, horses and carts, arriving in the already swollen town of Travnik. There were the sieges of Maglaj and Bihac, where in 1995 a little seven-year-old girl died in my arms, shot in the head by a Serbian sniper.

There was Sarajevo, and the sight of the scattered, bloody remains of people who, moments before the merciless shell ripped into them, had been lining up for water at one of the few taps left working in the city. Still worse, there was the Croatian siege of Muslim East Mostar, a slither of land into which 55,000 women and children had been herded and which was leveled into the dust of its own stone by a relentless barrage of some 1,400 shells a day. As their innocent bodies were ripped by red-hot shrapnel, their men were incarcerated in another concentration camp which was my sad honor to uncover — Dretelj. This time, the inmates were again Muslim, but their guards Croat. Most of the prisoners were locked in the dank darkness of two underground hangars, dug into facing hillsides. These men had been locked in for up to 72 hours at a time, sitting in their own diarrhea, without food or water, drinking their own urine for moisture. People back home used to ask if it was “really as bad as the media makes out.” The answer was that it was infinitely worse — we saw only the tip of the iceberg.

Silent Response

I am as convinced now as I was in 1991 that all of this could and should have been stopped by the West at any time. Almost every other reporter who covered the war at close range is convinced of the same. Upon the discovery of Omarska, the leaders of the West professed outrage for a few days, but the real response had been worked out in advance: in essence, do nothing. If “appease” is a pejorative term and offends, then “tolerate” will have to do.

 

Bosnian Genocide (1995), Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 men and boys, 30,000 women and children ethnically cleansed, many women brutally raped....

Here is not the place to recount the history of appeasement of the Serbs, for it is the history of the entire war. There were countless moments when the Serbs were told not to cross a line, or face dire consequences if they did. But every time, the bluff was called and the West capitulated with smiles and handshakes. On and on it went, for three long years of empty promises, until the horrible episode at Srebrenica in May 1995 when 8,000 men at a U.N.-designated “safe area” were delivered into the hands of General Mladic’s butchers. Srebrenica is the symbol of our New World Disorder: “Scenes from hell,” said Judge Riad from the bench in The Hague, referring to an old man forced to eat the corpse of his infant grandson, “written on the darkest pages of history.”

Bosnian Genocide (1995), Forensic experts of the International war crimes tribunal inspect remains of the Srebrenica massacre victims in the Pilica mass grave on 24 July 1995.

Deliberate obfuscation by the international community’s spokesmen was essential to international neutrality and constituted the first meddling with the truths of the war to stifle intervention and foster appeasement. The spreading of lies and distortions that would equate aggressor and victim characterized the conflict as a quagmire where civilization would be unwise to intervene. These exercises masqueraded as “neutrality” but transparently advanced the Serbian cause. The term “ancient ethnic hatred” was bandied about as a synonym for “hurricane” or “earthquake,” as if the carnage were a natural phenomenon, inevitable and beyond prevention.

Bosnian Genocide (1994), Markale massacre in Sarajevo.

In addition, there was the insistence that the worst massacres in Sarajevo were the work not of those besieging the city, but of those defending it. For example, in the “breadline massacre” of 27 May 1992, 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured while waiting in line for food. The Serbs claimed that the government had bombed their own side. In response to shocking television pictures that showed victims holding their own blown-off limbs, the Serbs issued a press release claiming that the people filmed were cripples who had been given bloodied extremities to hold for the cameras.3 This was then leaked to gullible newspapers that printed front-page headlines such as: “Muslims Slaughter Their Own People.”4 Serbian propaganda served the international community so long as it postponed, or even avoided, a reckoning.

On the Duty of the Press

“Reckoning” is probably the harshest word in the English language. It is something we do in the aftermath of broken marriages or a death in the family. We also try to reckon in the wake of historical calamity, when reckoning means staring the past in the face, coming to terms with what has occurred, settling accounts and asking not only what happened, but why. In such instances, it has different meanings: for the victim, a bitter counting of the cost; for the perpetrator, an acceptance of responsibility. For entire societies, it means a painful and cathartic process. In politics and diplomacy, reckoning means an adjustment of the balance to restore lasting peace, and for the law it means punishing the guilty so that the aggrieved can find justice and relief. Reckoning is a prerequisite for peace; without it, peace cannot breathe. History without reconciliation is dangerous history. The press and individual reporters have a duty to abandon their so-called “neutrality” in order to avert such danger, to reckon with what we witness and to urge others to do the same.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Penny Marshall, ITN, 6 August 1992 - Trnopolje concentration camp

Reckoning cannot come for victims when peace is merely an absence of war, without justice or homecoming. Today, there is a peace of sorts in Bosnia. But it is a peace that recalls the dialogue between Philip II of Spain and Rodrigo Duke of Ponsa in Verdi’s opera Don Carlos. The cynical king boasts of the peace that reigns across his dominion, but the enlightened Rodrigo objects that it is, la pace della tomba — the peace of the grave. It is a peace that recalls the story of a young boy named Jasmin, whom I came to know after the war.

Jasmin was 13 when the war began and his town Zepa was sealed off from the outside world by a noose of Serbian artillery. He was deemed too young to fight, assigned instead to spend the war by a crook in the Drina River, “to get the bodies out, and to give them a decent burial.” For three years, Jasmin rowed a little boat into midstream to haul the bloated corpses — sometimes headless, sometimes child-sized — out of the river to bury them, often under fire, in a makeshift cemetery. Jasmin said he found the bodies beneath the great Ottoman Bridge, the same bridge that spans the Drina at Visegrad, serves as Bosnia’s emblem and is the title of a great work of literature by Ivo Andric, the country’s most celebrated writer. I followed this trail, only to discover that the Serbs had turned Andric’s bridge into a human abattoir. I last saw Jasmin when he was among the lucky refugees to flee Zepa in July 1995. He was evacuated to a mental hospital in Dublin in 1996, at the age of seventeen.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Ian Williams, ITN, 6 August 1992 - Trnopolje concentration camp

“That bridge will drive me mad,” said a shuddering Hasena Muharenovic, for whom the reckoning can never come. Living in Sarajevo, she recalled how a Serbian squad came for her mother and sister, took them to the bridge, cut them up and threw them off it, along with a carload of others. She bade goodbye to her crippled father, whom she left in an armchair to await his turn and she fled. She was captured and spent the war in a camp with her two young daughters, enduring forced labor and “making coffee” — a euphemism for forced sex with officers. Now, in peacetime, she does not know whether to wait and hope that her husband will return, or give up and leave Sarajevo, killing him in her own mind.

In 1992 14,000 Muslims lived in Visegrad, now there are none. It bothered me that there was apparently no more chance of reckoning among the Serbian victors than among their victims. I remembered the meeting with the so-called crisis committee in Prijedor, with Drljaca, Kovacevic and Stakic on the day we went into Omarska. I recalled the man who had sent us to them, Karadzic’s Vice President, Nikola Koljevic. They were the middle managers of genocide and I wondered what they were thinking. Four years later, I went in search of these men to find out if there was reckoning in Prijedor.

Omarska 1996

“Rudnik Omarska” — Omarska Mine — lay buried beneath a sheet of ice and lies. Snowflakes, which muted all sound and draped the mine in virgin white, also covered over the history of this place. It was seven below zero, but my shivers did not come from the cold. Children played on sleds in the yard that was once a tarmac killing ground. A couple of stray mongrels frolicked in the jaw of the hydraulic door that leads inside to the great rust-red hangar where the prisoners were once packed together.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Armed guards oversee staged lunch at Omarska concentration camp. Ian Williams, ITN, 6 August 1992

Three sentries stopped us as we tried to enter. Two of these men were from the village of Omarska. One of them, age 28, told us, “Nothing happened here.” He worked as a mine technician in 1992. “It was a mine, up to the end of the year,” he said, “so how can it have been a camp in August of that year? I know, I was here.” I believed he had been there, at least. “I blame the journalists,” said his 24-year-old friend. “The Muslims paid the media, and they forged the television pictures, anyone could do that,” he said. We asked them their names and the mine technician was suddenly harsh. “We had a nice chat, but no names. They are a secret. The Muslims know me, and I know them. But they have to produce evidence of what I did. These days, they can just pick you up and take you to The Hague.” We asked if they knew Dusko Tadic and they replied, “Not well. He had a nice cafe…there was no camp here.”

Next to the mine is the Wiski Bar, in the shadow of the accursed hangar, alongside the railway lines. Prisoners were brought here in boxcars that now sat rusting and idle on the tracks. If the Madonna record that was playing had not been too loud, these people, sipping coffee and chatting, would have been able to hear the screams. I thought of Daniel Goldhagen’s book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, which explores the terrifying notion that whole societies — not just select individuals — are complicit in such crimes. The idea that everyone bears some degree of guilt seemed to make sense in this place, but to dwell on this could become the stuff of madness, so I set off in search of the individuals.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Omarska concentration camp prisoners at staged lunch. Penny Marshall, ITN, 6 August 1992.

Four years ago, we were greeted in Pale on our way to Omarska by Radovan Karadzic’s deputy president, the impish professor Nikola Koljevic. After we found the camps in 1992, he looked me up in Belgrade and invited me out for tea and cakes. I thought back on that conversation. “So you found them!” he had laughed, squeakily. “Took you a long time didn’t it? Ha ha! All of that, happening so near Venice! And all you could think about was poor Sarajevo! None of you ever had your holidays in Trnopolje did you?” he asked.

This time, I found him in his office in baleful Banja Luka, overlooking a gray day and a square where a new church will be built when there is money. He stared down at the people trudging through the slush of their town from which the Muslims have been banished. Banja Luka has “won” its war — every mosque has disappeared without a trace. Koljevic talked about the racial memory and epic poetry of the Serbs, and how the latest carnage will go down in Serbian history as “the third great Balkan War.”

Serb leader Radovan Karadzic holds a knife.

In the middle of his monologue, he lost his flow and began to mumble to himself. “Bones,” he muttered, “we were digging up the bones.” His eyes widened and he appeared hypnotized, his imagination ambushed by some memory. “The bones of our dead from 1941…we dug them up, to give them a proper burial,” he said. This was a reference to the macabre prologue to the war — the Serbian cult of exhuming their dead from the Second World War. “We found shoes, children’s shoes and school books. How much more human a shoe is than a bone,” he said. To me, it seemed he was clearly talking about some other bones, more recently buried. This was when mass graves were being hidden from prying Hague investigators. Koljevic suddenly came to his senses. “I was just trying to illustrate the psychology,” he said.

As I watched this man trawling his memory, I imagined that a dark psychodrama was unfolding in his head, that of the restless dead. He was exhuming the bones of his own dead from the Second World War, only to bury his enemies in fresh mass graves. Now he was exhuming them too, to hide them, while disinterring the new Serbian dead for another burial in land assigned to his people by the Dayton plan. By way of farewell, the professor recommended to us his current reading, Daniel Boorstein’s The Image. He read aloud from the foreword: “This book is about self-deception, and how we hide reality from ourselves.” Koljevic had done just that. He had not reckoned with anything, but instead, projected his own obsessive and disastrous racial memory onto his perceived enemies — the Muslims. The Serbian “cult of the victim” demanded that he create victims in the same way the Serbian experience in concentration camps under the Nazis demanded they create new concentration camps. When the perpetrators look into the mirror, they must see someone they can call their enemy, so they do not see themselves. When they look at history, they must contort it, so they do not see their actions. They must rewrite the history they defile. That is the very opposite of reckoning. Some time soon after our conversation, I learned that Professor Koljevic shot himself dead. Perhaps that was his moment of honesty, the moment he suddenly saw himself in the mirror, a reckoning of sorts.

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Prisoners at Omarska concentration camp near Prijedor

As I continued my search for the individuals I had known four years earlier, I looked up Simo Drljaca. He was the police chief who physically escorted us to Omarska and then threw us out again. Now, four years later, he refused a meeting. But Milomir Stakic, a bulldog of a man, granted one. Ironically, he was a doctor and an attentive student of Professor Koljevic. In 1992 he had introduced himself as the mayor of Prijedor, in charge of Omarska. Now, he said there had been no camp at all. He said that ITN’s pictures were of “Serbs in Muslim camps.” An immediate, illogical negation followed, “Omarska was for Muslims with illegal weapons.” “Omarska was not a hotel,” he said as he managed his only smile, which was not an agreeable one, and concluded, “but Omarska was not a concentration camp.” This nonsensical blend of denial and vindication was typical in Prijedor and was the very opposite of reckoning.

Next, I found the final member of the “crisis committee” I had met with years ago, Milan Kovacevic. I found Kovacevic early in the morning at the Prijedor hospital where he now served as director. I was horrified to learn that he, too, was a doctor. In 1992 his eyes had been fiery with enthusiasm. They were still fiery now, but from some other, more haunted emotion. We went to his house where he extracted a bottle of homemade plum brandy from his cupboard. It had been a good year for plums, he explained. I did not remind him that we had met before.

He started to unfurl the psychodrama of his life story. He was not — as he had said in 1992 — born in Jasenovac, but had been taken there as a child. Having been brought up to believe that “all Germans are killers,” he had elected to go to Germany, of all places, to study anesthesiology, of all things. He returned to his native Yugoslavia, practiced medicine, became a fervent Serbian nationalist, deputy mayor, architect of ethnic cleansing and the creator and manager of Omarska, Trnopolje and Kereterm.

Initially, his certainty about the ends concealed his doubts about the means. “We [and the Muslims] cannot live together,” he said. When I asked if all of the burned-out Muslim houses along the road had been necessary, or a moment of madness, Kovacevic proceeded cautiously. “Both things,” he said, emboldened by a glass of brandy, “a necessary fight and a moment of madness…people weren’t behaving normally.” This came as a surprise since Bosnian Serbs, let alone their leaders, did not usually talk like this. I asked if it had all been a terrible mistake and he answered, “To be sure it was a terrible mistake.”

Bosnian Genocide (1992), Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) man prays above Stari Kevljani mass grave where Serb forces massacred 456 Bosniak women, children and elderly in 1992 (near Prijedor)

After a second glass, he continued, suddenly and unprompted: “We all know what happened at Auschwitz and Dachau, and we knew very well how it started and how it was done. What we did was not the same as Auschwitz or Dachau, but it was a mistake. It was planned to have a camp, but not a concentration camp.” Here was one of the men who created the gulag initiating this language. With the help of a third glass, the anesthetist ploughed boldly on; “Omarska was planned as a reception center. But then it turned into something else.” He admitted that he had never had this conversation before, except with himself. Another glass to steel the spirit, and unsurprisingly, his own childhood in Jasenovac came back to mind. “Six hundred thousand were killed in Jasenovac,” he mused, quiet for a moment.

But Jasenovac was run by Croats, I said; why did the Serbs now turn on someone else, the Muslims? Kovacevic straightened himself and said, “They committed war crimes, and now it is the other way around.” In Omarska, he said, “there were not more than 100 killed, whereas Jasenovac was a killing factory.” I suggested that 100 was a low figure. “I said there were 100 killed,” he specified, “not died. You would have to talk to the doctors about how many died.” But you are a doctor, I replied, and then asked again, “How many died?” Kovacevic threw off all caution, “Oh, I don’t know how many were killed in there. God alone knows. It’s a wind tunnel, this part of the world, a hurricane blowing to and fro.”

By now the cheap wood-paneled room was steaming with the exhaled fumes of fast-disappearing cigarettes, a fifth drink and talk of death. I asked the doctor who planned this madness. “It all looks very well-planned if your view is from New York,” he replied. And he edged forward on his seat as if to whisper some intimate piece of personal advice. “But here, where everything is burning, and breaking apart in peoples’ heads…this was something for the psychiatrists. These people should all have been taken to the psychiatrist. But there wasn’t enough time.”

In 1992, Kovacevic did not hide his role in operating Omarska, Trnopolje and the other camps. But, I asked, what about now? Were you part of this insanity, doctor? He replied with surprising calm: “If someone said that I was not part of this collective madness, then I would have to admit that would not be true…but then I would want to think about how much I was a part of it.” He continued, “We cannot all be the same, even within the madness…but, if things go wrong in this hospital, then I am guilty.” He said he had left political life “because I saw many bad things. If you have to do things by killing people, well…that is my personal secret…now my hair is white, now I don’t sleep too well.”

The Hague, July 1998

I was halfway through my first week in the United States, driving in the high desert of New Mexico early one July morning, when I switched on National Public Radio. A news report said that a unit of British soldiers had shot Simo Drljaca dead and had arrested another man, who was apprehended at the Prijedor hospital. The bulletin did not give the second man’s name, but I didn’t need to be told. I had a feeling I would be called back to The Hague again.

The tribunal had changed since its eager, early days in 1996, and so had the atmosphere in The Hague. The institution had become burdened by the kind of bureaucracy that infuses the United Nations like a contagion. Defense witnesses were now holed up at the comfortable Bel Air while the victims testifying for the prosecution were farmed out to cheap boarding houses on the coast. But the committed few were still working hard and the moral outrage of the best prosecutors — some of the finest people in the world — fueled them on. Furthermore, one of the middle managers of the Omarska camp was about to be tried.

It was a look of vitriolic hatred I shall never forget that Milan Kovacevic threw at me across the courtroom last July. He was now a shadow of his former self — bespectacled, yellowed, shriveled, clearly ill. His lawyers made it clear that this was now personal and political as well as legal. One defense lawyer told a reporter from the New York Times that I would be “roasted alive.” The lead lawyer, Dusan Vucicevic, said I would “never work again, and no one will ever read his books.”

As I was cross-examined, over the course of three days, it felt a bit like being in that Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal, in which a man plays chess with death for his soul. In many ways, those three days under intense, but inept, cross-examination were more testing — and certainly lonlier — than any moment of the war itself. At one point during this intended “roasting alive,” I was instructed by the judges to read aloud my notes from the interview with Kovacevic. That seemed perfectly reasonable, but then the lawyers demanded to see all my notebooks and insisted on seeing pages adjacent to the Kovacevic interview to establish “context.” They dove at an address and telephone number written in the margin demanding to know whose details I had jotted down. My colleagues’ warnings echoed in my ear. The phone number was extremely sensitive, indeed — its owner in clear danger from these vultures. Sure enough, questions about fictitious camps came up. Kovacevic’s lawyers called it “the barbed wire question.” This was fortuitous, since it enabled the prosecution to ridicule the argument made by defense lawyer Jovan Stojic with pictures showing quite clearly that Alic and his fellow prisoners were exactly that.

A few days after my testimony, I heard that Kovacevic had died of a heart attack. Only Kovacevic’s God knows whether this was medicine or reckoning. Needless to say, the tribunal’s press office received phone calls from Belgrade calling it murder and in the Serbian press, I was accused of having a part in it.

Both sides in the trial felt Kovacevic’s death had cheated justice. To his own people and the defense, he became an ensnared martyr. To the prosecution, he died a man who robbed them of the first ever conviction for genocide in an international court. To me, he died a man of sufficient intelligence — and maybe, religion — to have had a flash of drunken remorse over the monstrous deeds he had committed. He was dragged back into the fold of his odious ideology by the needs of lawyers and out of his own desire not to spend the rest of his life in jail. I was too hardened now, by war, to have been sad that day. Once you cross the line and disregard neutrality, your hope for justice is invested in this reckoning. It is not a game, nor an academic debate — but part of a constant dialogue with death that extends from war into peace.

To Kovacevic’s victims — the thousands he incarcerated and the tens of thousands whose lives he destroyed forever — he died a war criminal. To them, his rotten soul is drowning in some nether region that is anything but heaven.

Beyond Neutrality

Neutrality, over evils like Omarska, is a pernicious thing and like death, it infuses the peace. The shocking thing in the aftermath is the absence of reckoning, the gnarled desire of spectators from afar to seek excuses for the aggressor. This is what denies peace in the Balkans. It is remarkable, for those of us who witnessed the war, to find “experts,” who have no idea what it is like to see women and children blown to bloody pieces, fussing over minor details of the war. They pick at any particularity that might shore up a case to prove the victims, the Muslim people, in some way culpable, and the Serbian perpetrators of the carnage aggrieved and therefore justified. To suggest that the Muslims of Bosnia should have been protected from the genocidal madness unleashed upon them is now viewed as simplistic and mundane.

Why is this? One would like to believe that the West feels so guilty about not having intervened that a curious alliance of intellectuals, career diplomats and United Nations bureaucrats are desperately striving to convince themselves that it was not necessary to respond. By justifying such a view, they gain absolution. I fear that this is optimistic. More convincing, and more depressing, is the specter of “victim-hatred.” I call it “post-Holocaust stress syndrome.” These days, one has to take the most contrary position possible to be original or interesting. The best way to get attention in this fatuous way, in the wake of such violence, is to blame the victim for his or her suffering and to side with the bully. For some spine-chilling reason, it has become boring to say that right is right, wrong is wrong and evil is evil.

In the small cottage industry that has developed around the carnage in Bosnia, of which The Hague is part, by no means are all of the reflections this pernicious. Some bold and valuable work has been accomplished. John Shattuck, U.S. human rights envoy, swept through Omarska surrounded by a platoon of writers from glossy magazines who produced diligent work. Mass graves and massacres, killers and victims have become the subject of television documentaries, many of them marvelous, and also the estimable movie Welcome to Sarajevo. Law schools and human rights activists pore over the crimes committed, with laudable zeal and commitment. Millions of words are exchanged at conferences, in books and in journals, some by people who know what they are talking about and others by people who don’t.

All this interest is welcome now, but where was it in 1992? During the war, when there was everything to be done, there was little in the way of lasting, serious interest. Now it is too late, and there is nothing really left to do: only to learn and make sure it does not happen again. At the time of writing, there are signs in Kosovo that not only has nothing been learned, but we are in for a repeat performance of yet more grotesque appeasement and “neutrality” from the west.

Nearly three decades ago, closer in time to the Holocaust than now, George Steiner predicted this nightmare of self-deception:

Our threshold of apprehension has been formidably lowered. When the first reports of the death camps were smuggled out of Poland, they were largely disbelieved; such things could not be taking place in civilized Europe, in the mid-twentieth century. Today, it is difficult to conjecture a bestiality, a lunacy of oppression or sudden devastation, which would not be credible, which would not soon be located in the order of facts. Morally, psychologically, it is a terrible thing to be so unastonished.5
Neutrality is still the currency of the Western response to calamity and genocide — nowhere more evident than in the media. It appears that after all the huffing and puffing, the spilled blood and broken promises, the graves and families torn asunder, the whimsy and the caprice, the lying and betrayal, the most urgent thing for the West to reckon with is the fact that almost nothing has been learned.

Bosnian Genocide (1992-1995): Don't Forget.

Court was ready to find Slobodan Milosevic Guilty of Bosnian Genocide

The trial of former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, would end in a guilty verdict on all 66 counts of genocide and war crimes, had he not died in prison.

Slobodan Milosevic was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in indictments covering war in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as Yugoslavia disintegrated.

On 11 March 2006, Milosevic died in his cell while being tried for war crimes at the Hague Tribunal. He suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure. He died only months before a verdict was due in his four-year trial at the Hague. No further action was taken on the case.

However, the Trial Chamber, on 16 June 2004, rejected a defense motion to dismiss the charges against Slobodan Milosevic for lack of evidence, thereby confirming, in accordance with Rule 98bis, that the prosecution case contains sufficient evidence capable of supporting a conviction on all 66 counts, including the genocide against Bosnian Muslims.

In a rule 98bis proceedings on 16 June 2004, the Trial Chamber found, with respect to the specific charges regarding genocide, that:

“(3) the Accused was a participant in a joint criminal enterprise, which included members of the Bosnian Serb leadership, to commit other crimes than genocide and it was reasonably foreseable to him that, as a consequence of the commission of those crimes, genocide of a part of the Bosnian Muslims as a group would be committed by other participants in the joint criminal enterprise, and it was committed;

(4) the Accused aided and abetted or was complicit in the commission of the crime of genocide in that he had knowledge of the joint criminal enterprise, and that he gave its participants substantial assistance, being aware that its aim and intention was the destruction of a part of the Bosnian Muslims as group;

(5) the Accused was a superior to certain persons whom he knew or had reasons to know were about to commit or had committed genocide of a part of the Bosnian Muslims as a group, and he failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the commission of genocide, or punish the perpetrators thereof.”

A Group of 70 Bosniak Civilians Burned Alive by Serbs (14 June 1992)

Face of Evil: Bosnian Serb Milan Lukic was a leader of the paramilitary group responsible for burning to death Bosniak civilians in Visegrad during the Bosnian genocide (1992-95)

On
6
April
1992
units
from
the
Yugoslav
People’s
Army
(“JNA”)
began
bombarding
the
town
of
Višegrad
(adjoining municipality south of Srebrenica) and
its
environs
with
artillery.
Višegrad is located close
to
the
Serbian
border.
The
bombardment
predominantly
affected
Muslim
neighbourhoods
and
villages.

Once the JNA left on 19 May 1992, local Serb leaders, police and paramilitaries began of the most notorious campaigns of ethnic cleansing, rapes, and massacres in the conflict. Thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men, women, and children were killed and dumped around the town or brought to the historic Ottoman bridge, killed and dumped in the River Drina.

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.

American Spy Photos Show Bosnian Genocide Mass Grave: 2,700 Bosnian Muslims believed to be executed

Toledo Blade
11 August 1995.

UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. ambassador showed spy photographs to the Security Council yesterday, saying they were strong evidence that Bosnian Serb rebels executed as many as 2,700 Muslim civilians last month.

The eight high-altitude photos of what appeared to be mass graves, along with witness accounts, are a “compelling case that there were wide-scale atrocities committed … against defenseless civilians,” Ambassador Madeleine Albright said.

“There were high-level Bosnian Serb military people present,” Ms. Albright said. “This is clearly a case that needs to be investigated further by the [U.N.] war crimes tribunal.”

Holocaust Survivor: Forty-thousand Bosnian Muslims Targeted for Extinction in Srebrenica

In 2004, Presiding U.N. Judge Theodor Meron – who is Polish-American of Jewish descent – delivered a historic speech at the Srebrenica Genocide memorial located in Potocari (near Srebrenica). His speech was both moving and inspiring, but also educational. We hope you read it carefully and learn from it. Judge Meron is a holocaust survivor.

It is with honour and humility that I stand today at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery. This place is a daily reminder of the horrors that visited the town of Srebrenica during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The crimes committed there have been well documented and have been recognized – and roundly and appropriately condemned – by the United Nations, the international community in general, and by the people of the region of former Yugoslavia. These crimes have also been described in detail and consigned to infamy in the decisions rendered by the court over which I preside, the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia.

I have had a special wish to visit the Potocari Memorial Cemetery because earlier this year I had the privilege of sitting as the Presiding Judge in the appeal which, for the first time, judicially recognized the crimes committed against the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 as genocide. In that case, named Prosecutor versus Radislav Krstic, the Appeals Chamber of our Tribunal convicted one of the leaders of the Bosnian Serb assault on Srebrenica, General Radislav Krstic, for aiding and abetting genocide. The Appeals Chamber also found that some members of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army harboured genocidal intent against the Bosnian Muslim people who sought safety in the enclave of Srebrenica, and that these officials acted upon that intent to carry out a deliberate and massive massacre of the Muslims in Srebrenica.

The judgment which the Appeals Chamber has pronounced will be of importance not only in acknowledging the crime committed in Srebrenica for what it is, but also in developing and enhancing the international criminal law’s understanding of genocide. By discussing and elaborating the legal requirement of genocide, and by explaining how they applied it in the circumstances of Srebrenica, the Appeals Chamber has facilitated the recognition – and, I hope, the prevention – of this horrible crime.

Many victims of this crime lie here, in this cemetery. In honour of their memory, I would like to read a brief passage from the judgment in Krstic, the passage which discusses the gravity and the horrific nature of the crime of genocide, and states unhesitantly that its perpetrators will unfailingly face justice.

“Among the grievous crimes this Tribunal has the duty to punish, the crime of genocide is singled out for special condemnation and opprobrium. The crime is horrific in its scope; its perpetrators identify entire human groups for extinction. Those who devise and implement genocide seek to deprive humanity of the manifold richness its nationalities, races, ethnicities and religions provide. This is a crime against all of humankind, its harm being felt not only by the group targeted for destruction, but by all of humanity.

The gravity of genocide is reflected in the stringent requirements which must be satisfied before this conviction is imposed. These requirements – the demanding proof of specific intent and the showing that the group was targeted for destruction in its entirety or in substantial part – guard against a danger that convictions for this crime will be imposed lightly. Where these requirements are satisfied, however, the law must not shy away from referring to the crime committed by its proper name. By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity. The Bosnian Serb forces were aware, when they embarked on this genocidal venture, that the harm they caused would continue to plague the Bosnian Muslims. The Appeals Chamber states unequivocally that the law condemns, in appropriate terms, the deep and lasting injury inflicted, and calls the massacre at Srebrenica by its proper name: genocide. Those responsible will bear this stigma, and it will serve as a warning to those who may in future contemplate the commission of such a heinous act.”

Those who drafted, on the heels of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of genocide, were animated by the desire to ensure that the horror of a state-organized deliberate and massive murder of a group of people purely because of their identity will never recur in the history of humankind. The authors of the Convention hoped that by encapsulating the crime of genocide, by declaring unambiguously that it will not go unpunished, and by requiring the international community to do the utmost to prevent it, they will forestall forever attempts to annihilate any national, ethnic or religious group in the world. As the graves in this cemetery testify, the struggle to make the world free of genocide is not easy and is not one of uninterrupted victories. But I would like to think that by recognizing the crimes committed here as genocide, and by condemning them with the utmost force at our command, we have helped to make the hope of those who drafted the Genocide Convention into an expectation and perhaps even a reality. As I stand here today, I can do little better than to repeat the solemn warning sounded by the Appeals Chamber of our Tribunal that those who commit this inhumane crime will not escape justice before the courts of law and the court of history.

Finally, I take this opportunity to call, once again, for the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to meet their obligations under international law to cooperate fully with the ICTY. It is simply unacceptable that the authorities in the Republika Srpska have yet to arrest and transfer any individual on their territory who has been indicted by the Tribunal. This situation cannot be allowed to continue and I would like to see a dramatic change in the Republika Srpska’s level of compliance with its legal obligations. It is hightime that the RS break with its tradition of non-cooperation and obstruction of the Rule of Law.

In this regard, I take note of the findings in the Republika Srpska Srebrenica Commission’s preliminary report, which I see as a step in the right direction. It indicates a new readiness to come to terms with painful events of the past and to constrain revisionist tendencies. However, the process is far from complete.

Bosnian Genocide Survivor of the Karakaj Massacre: "Up to 700 Killed"

Photo: Bosnian workers carry a body bag of human remains as forensic experts of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspect human remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Karakaj near the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik, Sunday, May 25, 2008.

The Spokesman-Review
24 June 1992.

By Dan Stets

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — When the Serbian guards started shooting, Fedhija Hasanovic was so terrified that he fell to the floor. The impulse saved his life. Fourteen of the 16 Bosnian [Bosnian Muslim] men in the room with him died instantly. The 15th, wounded in the stomach, took a bit longer.

Hasanovic, who managed to crawl away over the corpses of his neighbors, is one of a few known survivors of a death camp run by Serbs in a village called Karakaj in northeastern Bosnia near the town of Zvornik.

Serbian fighters herded about 700 Bosnian Muslim men into the technical school in Karakaj on June 1, 1992; when Hasanovic escaped on Jun e8, at least 400 of them were dead. He suspects that Serbian guards have since then killed the remaining 300.

Bosniak witnesses on Serb-run Susica camp near Srebrenica

Bosnian workers, members of the Bosnian commission for missing persons inspect an area for small body parts near the rope used to bind victims hands during an exhumation in a small mass grave found after testimony of an eyewitness, in remote mountain area in the village of Pelemisi, near the Bosnian town Sekovici, 50 kms northeast of Sarajevo, on Monday, May 21, 2007. The forensic team believe that they are body parts of 6 Bosnian Muslims held in the Susica camp in Vlasenica near Srebrenicaand killed in spring 1993 by Bosnian Serb forces.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
13 October 1995.

The Hague, Netherlands — A sobbing survivor of a Bosnian Serb prison camp told a war crimes tribunal Friday that roughly two dozen Bosniak women and girls disappeared without a trace after conquering Serbs took them away.

“They started yelling: ‘We want the Muslims to see what our seed [sperm] is,'” Zehra Smajlovic told an emotion-charged court-room.

Another former prisoner testified this week that victims were lashed to an electricity pylon and beaten to death with baseball bats, batons, rifle butts and chains. Others, they said, were beaten, then shot to death.

One man was said to have been beaten so viciously his eye burst out of its socket. Guards threw his disfigured body back into an empty storage warehouse at the camp, where he died.

Zaklopaca Massacre: Serbs slaughter Bosniak women, children and elderly men

Zaklopaca Massacre Memorial

Zaklopaca is a small village located in the pre-war Vlasenica municipality which bordered with the municipality of Srebrenica [today, Zaklopaca is located in the ‘Serb’ municipality of Milici].

The Zaklopaca massacre occurred more three years before the Srebrenica Genocide, at the time when Serb forces were committing a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Bosniak civilians in the Srebrenica region. According to the Institute for the Research of Genocide, Canada, at least 63 Bosniak women, men and children were slaughtered in the village by Serb forces. According to Helsinki Watch at least 83 Bosniaks were killed including 11 children and 16 elderly persons.

Serbs Kill more than 60 Bosniak Civilians in Glogova Massacre near Srebrenica

The Glogova massacre was the brutal killing of at least 61 Bosniak civilians by Serb forces near Srebrenica, in the first days of the Bosnian war, more than three years before the Srebrenica genocide. The perpetrators of the Glogova massacre consisted of the Yugoslav People’s Army, Bratunac Territorial Defence (TO) and the police in Bratunac.

On the evening of 8 May 1992 Serb forces, consisting of the Bratunac Territorial Defence (TO) and the police in Bratunac, attacked and partially burn the undefended Bosniak village of Glogova in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result more than 60 Bosniak civilians from the village were killed and Bosnian Muslim homes, private property, and the mosque were destroyed and a substantial part of Glogova was razed to the ground.

Miroslav Deronjić, then President of the Bratunac Municipal Board of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal for ordering the massacre. During his trial at the Hague, he apologized. Shortly thereafter, he died from cancer.

Serbs slaughter 700-900 Bosniak civilians in Zvornik massacre

Serbs tortured and killed Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians in Celopek concentration camp near Zvornik.

The Zvornik massacre refers to the killing of 700-900 Bosniaks as well as ethnic cleansing of 40,000 in Zvornik in the first days of the Bosnian war, more than three years before the Srebrenica genocide. Serbian paramilitary groups – “Arkanovci”, Territorial Defence units (TO), White Eagles, Yellow Wasps and others – carried out the acts in Zvornik from 1992 until 1995, during the Bosnian war. It was the second Bosnian city that was forcefully taken over by the Serb forces.

The Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo established a list of 4,127 missed or killed persons in the Zvornik area, which makes it the fifth largest event in the war by death toll, after the Siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, the Siege of Bihać and the Prijedor massacre.

Serbs Sneak and Terrorize Bosniak Civilians in Srebrenica

By Srecko Latal
The Daily Gazette
25 June 1995.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Rebel Serbs sneaked through government lines and opened fire on an eastern city, inflicting numerous civilian casualties, state radio said Saturday.

In the capital of Sarajevo, fighting ebbed to its lowest level since the government launched an offensive June 15, but fierce fighting was reported in northeastern Bosnia.

Government radio said a Serb sabotage unit slipped into the government-held city of Srebrenica early Saturday and committed “a massacre against the civilian population. There are many dead and wounded.”

Cerska massacre, Serbs Cut Throats to Bosnian Muslim Victims

Serb Forces Massacre Bosniak Civilians

By Chuck Sudetic
4 March 1993

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — After overrunning much of a Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia, Serbian forces rained artillery shells today on thousands of Bosniaks Muslims trapped in the snow-covered region, United Nations officials here said.

The reports led the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, to send a message to the United Nations saying that, even based on the most conservative reports, the Bosnian Serbs were committing a massacre. She said most of the Muslim victims were found with their throats cut.

Bosnian Genocide: Gorazde Massacre Death Toll 389 Dead and 1,324 Wounded

The Argus-Press
21 April 1994.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bosnian Serbs raked Gorazde with artillery shells, rockets and heavy machine guns, blasting the hospital from close range as doctors begged for help.

“Please do something that we stay alive. We cannot stand this anymore,” said Dr. Aldijana Rebic, sobbing over ham radio.

Ten people were killed when Serb shells hit the hospital Wednesday.

The hospital’s director said Serb tanks were firing from only 100 yards away at the building which had its roof blown off Tuesday. “This is not war anymore. This is slaughter, massacre,” Dr. Alija Begic said.

The Serbs have openly defied the United Nations over Gorazde, promising truces while advancing into the enclave and shelling the Muslim-held town of 65,000.

At least 44 people, including 15 children, were killed Wednesday

Srebrenica Thanks U.S. Army for Airdrops (1993)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
12 March 1993.

United States Air Force conducted humanitarian air drops to besieged Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.

The United States began dropping food and medicine to Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia on Feb. 28. Muslim fighters issued a public letter this week thanking U.S. officials. The Associated Press in Sarajevo obtained an undated copy. Excerpts:

Attn: Brig. Gen. Donald E. Lorenger Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe

The citizens of Srebrenica, Cerska and Konjevic Polje would like to express to you personally, to the pilots and all the technical crews engaged in the airdrop operation of providing relief for the people of eastern Bosnia, their deepest gratitude for all you have done for them so far…

When the proud and suffering population was facing the agony of starvation, you have, with your courageous, and efficient action, succeeded to provide precious quantities of food and medicines, thus saving from inevitable death thousands of women, children, wounded and diseased.

… [T]he people of Srebrenica will never forget your humanitarian action … When better times of peace come,… you and your brave men will be our dear guests and friends forever….

[Signed] War Presidency of the Srebrenica

250 Muslims Killed in the Cerska Massacre (1993) near Srebrenica

U.N. Commander Treks to Ravaged Bosnian Enclave

A Bosnian Muslim woman who lost her relatives looks at human remains found in a mass grave in the village of Cerska. In March of 1993, more than two years before the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, Serbs overrun the Muslim village and slaughtered up to 250 Bosniak women, children and the elderly men.

Times Daily
6 March 1993.
By George Jahn

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The commander of U.N. troops in Bosnia boldly headed for a besieged government enclave on Friday, hopping to evacuate thousands of desperate Muslim [Bosniak] refugees driven from their homes.

Gen. Philippe Morillon’s trek into the heart of the worst fighting in eastern Bosnia signaled growing international concern over the failure of peace talks and U.S. airdrops to halt the carnage.

Bosnian Muslim man Smajil Hukic, 80, who lost his relatives looks on in front of mass grave in attempt to identify his relatives in a mass grave in the village of Cerska near Srebrenica (formerly in nearby municipality of Vlasenica, now in the Serb municipality of Milici)

President Clinton, referring to the practice of “ethnic cleansing,” said the latest Serb offensive showed that they were succeeding in their campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims from the region. He pledged to tighten sanctions against the Serbs with a further crackdown that a spokesman said would “inflict real pain” on the aggressors.

Dr. Simon Mardel: Horrific Situation Around Srebrenica 2 Years Before Genocide

WHO Doctor: Serbs Target Bosniak Civilians and U.N.

Gettysburg Times
15 March 1993.

By Nada Buric

ZAGREB, Croatia — A British doctor who walked into war-ravaged eastern Bosnia on foot charged Sunday that Bosnian Serb troops are purposely attacking civilians and U.N. aid workers.

Dr. Simon Mardel, an expert with the World Health Organization, told reporters that up to 30 people were dying daily in Konjevic Polje and Srebrenica, two Muslim-held towns he visited over the past week. Most people died from artillery fire, but some starved, he said.

The 36-year-old Briton spoke matter-of-factly of the suffering he witnessed after walking many miles from a Serb checkpoint to Srebrenica and later from there to Konjevic Polje.

Bosnian Muslim Survivor of the Cerska Massacre (1993) Hid Under Corpses

Survivor Tells of Massacre in Eastern Bosnia

Lodi News-Sentinel
6 March 1993.

Bosnian Muslim man Smajil Hukic, 80, who lost his relatives looks on in front of mass grave in attempt to identify his relatives in a mass grave in the village of Cerska near Srebrenica (formerly in nearby municipality of Vlasenica, now in the Serb municipality of Milici)

ZAGREB, Croatia — A Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] refugee in eastern Bosnia told a ham radio operator Friday that he survived a Serb massacre because corpses fell on him and protected him from gunfire.

This and other accounts of a massacre Wednesday of scores of people near the embattled Cerska region could not be confirmed. Ham radio and U.N. officials have cited many reports of Serb atrocities during an offensive that began Sunday, but reporters are unable to enter the Serb-besieged area to investigate.

According to the various accounts, Serb gunmen unleashed a barrage of gunfire and grenades on a group of about 100 refugees near Mount Rogasija.

Cerska Massacre, Serbs Butcher Bosniak Civilians with Knives

Cerska massacre, “They carried out a massacre in the school,” said Mr. Muminovic. “They killed people with knives. Some of the dead and living were butchered.”

Remains of Bosniak civilians killed by Serbs in the Cerska massacre near Srebrenica in 1993

Bosnian Soldiers Report Massacre by Serbs in a Schoolhouse

By Chuck Sudetic,

Published: March 19, 1993

TUZLA, Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 18— The first Bosnian Government soldiers to arrive here from an eastern enclave overrun by Serbian nationalist fighters gave accounts today of the killings of dozens of Bosniak civilians by the advancing Serbs.

Two of the Bosnian soldiers said they witnessed killings in Cerska [near Srebrenica] and the neighboring village of Velici, which were overrun between Feb. 27 and March 1, when poorly-armed, predominantly Muslim locals lost the area to attacking Serbs.

Systematic Rapes of Bosnian Muslim Women, An Instrument of the Bosnian War 1992-95

Introduction by Khadija Husain: Systematic rape is a brutal tactic used in times of war to terrorize women by sexually assaulting them. It has also been used as a means to perform ethnic cleansing by degrading and demoralizing the persecuted ethnic group. According to international law, systematic rape has been declared a crime against humanity as well as a war crime. It is also one of the criteria that identifies a genocide.

The concept of systematic rape was utilized during the genocide in the Bosnian War. During the ethnic cleansing performed by the Serbian soldiers against the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian women and girls were tortured by sexual violence. A United Nations committee determined that the number of women who were raped was around twenty thousand, whereas the Bosnian government estimated that there were in fact fifty thousand rape victims. As a result, war crime tribunals are now allowed to prosecute superior officers and hold them liable for the actions of their subordinate soldiers.

Currently in the city of Darfur in Sudan, the Janjawid militia is systematically raping the women there leading to another human rights crisis. This is similar to the brutality faced by Tutsi people in Rwanda where the women and children today still remain distraught and tormented as the deal with the aftermath of the systematic rape by the Hutu tribe that occurred there 10 years ago. There is no question that rape is a tool of genocide even if it does not result in physical death, it does have a decided impact on the rape victims both mentally and spirtually.

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The following is a report from the Dallas Morning news:

Women: Weapons of War

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serb leaders’ policy of “ethnic cleansing” has allowed – or commanded – Serb troops to terrorize, slaughter and rape. Rape required neither gasoline nor bullets and made a powerful weapon, according to local war-crimes investigators.

By George Rodrigue
Dallas Morning News
9 May 1993.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — First Serb prison guards branded Aziza Osmanovic with iron rods. Then they raped her, along with her 12-year-old daughter.

"Srebrenica wasn't exaggerated. It was the worst place I've ever seen"

Brit thought he knew misery until he rolled into Srebrenica

The Milwaukee Journal
24 March 1993 (2 years before the genocide)

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Larry Hollingworth spent 30 years in the British army, then did relief work in Africa’s worst famine zones. Never, he says, has he seen a place as miserable as Srebrenica.

For eight days, Hollingworth witnessed the suffering of that besieged eastern Bosnian town at close range, holding out there with a 16-member UN team until advancing Serbian forces finally agreed to let a food convoy enter for the first time in three months.

Back in Sarajevo on Tuesday, revived by his first shower in more than two weeks, Hollingworth recalled that reports of calamity in some other cut-off Bosnian towns proved exaggerated when UN relief workers at last arrived.

Srebrenica, Families Starving, "Fetus spilled on the road by the dead mother"

Briton tells of horror in Bosnian town

From TONY BARBER in Belgrade
Monday, 15 March 1993

MUSLIM villagers in eastern Bosnia are dropping dead from starvation or being killed by Serbian artillery shells as they seek food and shelter, according to a British doctor who returned from the region yesterday. Simon Mardel, who works for the World Health Organisation, said that many other Muslim residents and refugees in Serbian-besieged enclaves were suffering from pneumonia, skin diseases and anaemia as a result of malnutrition.