by Edward S. Herman

It has become an annual ritual each July to commemorate the "Srebrenica massacre," which dates back to July 11-16, 1995.  The now institutionalized characterization is that "8,000 [Bosnian Muslim] men and boys" were executed by the Serbs at that time, in "the worst mass killing in Europe since the Second World War."  This memorial is attended to each year by marches and "a line of weeping relatives" (in Bosnia), interviews with the families of victims, discussion groups, conferences, and numerous media articles and statements of diplomats and political leaders recounting the story and expressing regrets at alleged UN, Dutch, and Great Power failures to prevent the killings.  This year the President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, was in attendance, showing the contrite face of the New (defeated, and supplicant) Serbia.  President Obama declared the massacre "a stain on our collective consciousness" in violation of our promise of "never again" after the Nazi atrocities of World War II, and he stated that "there can be no lasting peace without justice." [1]

The judgment delivered by the ICTY Trial Chamber in Popović et al. on June 10, 1995, is of some interest in the ongoing Srebrenica controversy. While it affirms all the principal positions of ICTY jurisprudence in this important area of the Tribunal’s judicial practice, it does so in some ways that do not follow mechanically the pattern set by its predecessor cases.

In two areas, in fact, the Popović judgment marks noteworthy departures from previous ICTY Srebrenica cases which suggests that the Tribunal has taken some account of criticisms that have been raised of its handling of key evidence used to buttress the official Srebrenica narrative. These are the method of arriving at Srebrenica death toll figures and definition of the character of the retreating 28th Division column in terms of criminal liability for the Srebrenica massacre, including the impact of its extraordinarily high casualty rate on the overall calculation of culpable deaths. But in another, equally contested area, the evidence of the so-called „crown witness“ Dražen Erdemović, the Chamber has apparently chosen to ignore compelling criticisms of his credibility and to continue the practice of its predecesors by continuing to draw important conclusions from his questionable testimony.

Just as the manuscript of our new monograph, “Srebrenica: the deconstruction of a virtual genocide”, was ready to go to press on June 10, the Hague Tribunal announced its trial verdict in Popović et al. There is always a delay before the Tribunal publishes the full text of its verdicts. As a result, what we have at this time are a few excerpts and an official Summary that was posted on the Tribunal’s website.[1]  But even that much is sufficient for some preliminary comments.

[This is a somewhat edited version of the Memorandum which Srebrenica Historical Project recently submitted to the Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels about reconstruction and development issues that the Serbian community in Srebrenica faces.]


The memorandum that we have the honour to submit to you focuses on socio-economic and material conditions in the municipality of Srebrenica, in Bosnia and Herzegovina,  and solicits your help to increase awareness and mobilize support for overcoming the effects of ethnically discriminatory policies in the district of Srebrenica. 

А. General considerations

1. Srebrenica is a region of particular interest not only for the Republic of Srpska, but also for the international community. It has significant symbolic value as the place of intense combat between the two major communities, Serbian and Muslim, during the 1992 - 1995 conflict in Bosnia. Just as it has had a polarizing effect, it may also exhibit potential for reconciliation if the work of reconstructing homes, villages, and – most importantly – mutual trust is pursued wisely and equitably.  The record shows that both communities in Srebrenica have suffered grievously. However, due to the fact that it has been the object of continuous international attention, the Muslim community has for the most part laid successfully the foundations of a successful recovery. With regard to the Serbian community, that has not been the case at all. Neglected after the war’s end in 1995,  and virtually unrecognized as the victim of massive human and material suffering, the Serbian community has not managed to regain its equilibrium either in the political, material, or social dimensions.  While the Muslim community shows not just signs of physical revitalization, but also a lively thrust to affirm and expand its presence, the Serbian community is just hanging on – barely.

The government of the Republic of Srpska was ordered in 2003 by Bosnia’s then High representative, Paddy Ashdown, to form a commission to report on some events “in and around Srebrenica” in July of 1995. The order was triggered by a suit filed by the survivors of 49 missing Moslems who – quite understandably – were anxious to learn something about the fate of their relatives. The narrow mandate of the commission was to provide information on these 49 missing persons, joined later by an additional 1800 who made a similar application. Its broader (if unspoken) mandate was to furnish a self-incriminating description of Srebrenica events that would be satisfactory to Bosnia’s notoriously anti-Serb High representative.

Just about all serious Srebrenica researchers, whatever their particular view may be, will agree on at least one point: when we are talking about Srebrenica – termed by Professor Edward Herman as the greatest triumph of propaganda at the end of the twenthieth century – nothing is really clear and few things are as they as represented to be.

Everything that we “know” about Srebrenica can be reduced to a construct consisting of a series of interdependent assertions, every one of which is questionable and barely sustainable. Not a single one of them is documented so persuasively that it could withstand a thorough critique or sustain the credibility of the story as a whole. Whenever, by the application of deeper and critical analysis, we neutralise one of the key components of the Srebrenica story, the narrative as a whole is inevitably undermined. It seems that the overall stability of that shaky construction always depends on the reliability of each single brick that went into its making.

Srebrenica Historical Project takes great pleasure to announce the publication of the Proceedings of the scholarly symposium which was held under the Project’s auspices on 22-23 April 2009 in Moscow, at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Proceedings are entitled: “International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – activity, results, impact.” Scholars from several countries assembled in Moscow to take part in the symposium. Until now, the complex issues of ICTY and Srebrenica were not the subject of such comprehensive and objective scholarly analysis. The Moscow symposium is but the first step in the systematic work, which lies ahead, to remove these issues from the context of the media and propaganda and to raise them to a scholarly level, where they belong. The text which follows is the Foreword, authored by the president of Srebrenica Historical Project, which summarizes the topics dealt with at the symposium and discusses some future tasks.

An intense debate is currently in progress in Serbia about the adoption of a parliamentary resolution on Srebrenica that would be modeled after the January 15, 2009, Resolution that was passed by the European Parliament. The controversy has revealed widespread ignorance of basic facts about events in Srebrenica in 1995 and their background. To fill that gap, a “Fact Sheet” was created and it was published by Belgrade daily “Politika” on February 11, 2010:

Dear Mr. President and honorable deputies,

As concerned American and European intellectuals and citizens, we call on you to seriously reconsider the plan to adopt a parliamentary resolution that would treat the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 as a paradigmatic event of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in doing so to use language that could be interpreted as Serbia’s acceptance of responsibility for “genocide.”
The execution of Moslem prisoners in July of 1995, after Bosnian Serb forces took over Srebrenica, was a war crime, but it is by no means a paradigmatic event. The informed public in Western countries knows that, at that time, forces attributed to the Republic of Srpska executed in three days approximately as many Moslems as Moslem forces, raiding surrounding Serbian villages out of Srebrenica, had murdered during the preceding three years. There is nothing to set one crime apart from the other, except that its commission was more condensed in time. In a vicious civil war, in which all sides commit crimes, all innocent victims are entitled to compassion but the victims of one ethnic group should have no special moral claim to unique recognition. Putting the suffering of one group on a pedestal necessarily derogates from the right of the other group – in this case Serbian non-combatants in the devastated villages surrounding the enclave of Srebrenica – to an equal measure of sympathy.

Orthodox Christmas is a good time to keep refreshing Mr. Mirsad Tokača’s memory of war crimes.[1] On January 7, 1993, armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Srebrenica, under the command of brigadier Naser Orić, attacked and devastated the Serbian village of Kravica, about 10 km from Bratunac. The human cost of the attack (or shall we call it „incident“ in deferrence to the terminology preferred by Mr. Tokača in his Bosnian crime Atlas?) was at a minimum 34 persons, if we exclude rumors and confine ourselves just to the bodies which were subsequently located and on which a proper autopsy was conducted on March 18, 1993.

Given modern technology most things today are practically impossible to hide. There are still those with such vested interests that they are scarcely in a position to discuss wartime suffering in a frank and open manner, and even if they were so inclined their mentors would never allow them to do so in a professional and honest way. As a result, we still cannot take assertions made by Mr. Mirsad Tokača of the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Center at face value. We must always keep checking and rechecking whether Mr. Tokača is really prepared to apply the same standards to all victims of the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[Ari Rusila is a Finnish blogger and political commentator. The fact that the controversy of Srebrenica has engaged the attention of an analyst in far-off Finland is interesting enough. We recommend his comprehensive and thoughtful critique of the Srebrenica evidence to our readers—Editors of Srebrenica Historical Project]

The “Srebrenica massacre” is the greatest triumph of propaganda to emerge from the Balkan wars. (Edward Herman)

http://arirusila.blogactiv.eu/2009/07/19/srebrenica-again-hoax-or-massacre/

The Srebrenica case is in the headlines again – like during every anniversary – and also the story seems to repeat itself from year to year. More light is however coming and the real (political) context is gaining space also in mainstream media. Former Hague Tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann referring to the arrest of Radovan Karadzic told earlier, that as “Karadžić has finally been arrested, he can tell a lot about secret deals that led to the fall of Srebrenica. His testimony represents a great risk for the great western powers.” (SourceB92)

Although almost 15 years have passed since the end of the war, it seems that traces of hatred have not yet dissapeared. Not only have they not disappeared, but they seem to be gaining in intensity. What follows hardly requires sophisticated analysis since everything there is crystal clear. All the reader needs is a bit of additional information to complete the picture of what is going on 14 years after the war’s official end.

If there is any uncertainty whether a new war would bring on an avalanche of new crimes, the incident we are about to describe will remove the doubt. The number of sick brains and those who would be happy to unearth their hatchets, assuming that in their own minds they were ever buried in the first place, is unfortunately increasing from one year to the next.

Readers may recall our comments of several weeks ago about the “Bosnian war crimes atlas” created by the Research and Documentation Center [RDC] in Sarajevo, headed by Mr. Mirsad Tokača.[1]  Those comments were published before Mr. Tokača presented his findings to the public in their final form. For that reason, as is appropriate for a comment about something that we had not had an opportunity to examine fully, our reaction was rather restrained. But in the meantime, on November 4, Mr. Tokača did make his Atlas available to the general public,[2] and we are now at liberty to share our impressions with far less ambialence than was the case then.

Road to Ratkovići village

Having visited a number of villages in the Drina River valley, and observed a wide variety of horrors inflicted on their Serbian inhabitants, we thought that few surprise lay in wait for us. However, this time also it has turned out that for every evil there is another one which is greater still and even more striking. It had taken us a long time to take the decision to sit down and to write a few sentences about this village because of the strong impressions produced by what we saw and the feeling that they could  be conveyed, if at all, then only with utmost difficulty. It is a challenge to describe so much horror concentrated in a single place. Ratkovići is simply something that a person needs to see. Ratkovići is a village which compells you to reflect and to pose innumerable questions for which there do not seem to be any answers.

A few days ago[1], Mr. Mirsad Tokača, director of the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Center (RDC), announced that on November 4 he is planning to unveil the results of several years’ work: “The Bosnian Crime Atlas.” Mr. Tokača’s institution, with the assistance of the Norwegian government, has been working for some time to set up a comprehensive data base about missing persons as a result of the 1992—1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina from all the ethnic communities. Our NGO, Srebrenica Historical Project, supports Mr. Tokača’s efforts and considers it on the whole quite invaluable for an objective determination of facts about some essential segments of the Bosnian conflict.

By Diana Johnstone

Srebrenica Revisited

     (This remarkable analysis of the Srebrenica issue was written four years ago, but it is as topical now as it was then. In a brief and reasoned overview, all the major abuses and dilemmas of the official Srebrenica narrative are noted. We recommend it warmly to our readers and we invite them to form their own opinion on this complex issue. This was originally published  in Counter Punch, October 12, 2005: http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone10122005.html   –Srebrenica Historical Project)  

    Last summer, almost the entire political spectrum in the Western world joined in a chorus of self-flagellation on the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The dominant theme was "nostra culpa": "we" let it happen, "we" didn't want to know about it, and "we" mustn't let it happen again.

    It seems that the last few weeks have been none too kind to the “Srebrenica genocide affirmers” [to coin a phrase]. Some common sense questions about their thesis have been raised and it has been the topic of professional scepticism from the most unexpected quarters. Serious cracks are appearing in the Srebrenica genocide argument.

    The years of fragile peace and cohabitation in Bosnia and Hercegovina have often been undermined in the recent past, and that was reflected in wall grafitti which appeared in Potočari (Republic of Srpska) a few days ago. As if looking for a pretext to provoke their Serbian neighbors, Moslems are taunting Serbs on their own land with one of the most odious criminals of the recent war, Naser Orić. Do they think that, using Srebrenica (about which we still to this day do not know the complete truth) as cover, they can get away with anything, without accountability? Must Serbs quietly, on their own land, tolerate praise for Naser Orić? Or should Serbs also build some sort of monument to Orić for failing to exterminate them all, for lack of opportunity if not for any other reason?

    This month’s annual July 11 events in Potočari followed the same tired, indistinguishable, pattern of  previous years.  But there is a problem.
    Every single Broadway show in history, regardless of how brilliant and successful it was and no matter how many runs it may have had, always inevitably came to an end. It is just as certain that the Srebrenica show, staged annually in Potočari, will sooner or later experience the same fate.  The actors will not be around forever, the stage extras will find the gathering an increasing imposition as their lives develop in different directions, the audience will ultimately become annoyed and will be turned off by the  sheer slickness of the monotonous performance. New facts will inevitably emerge to cast doubt on the credibility of the plot.  Old tricks will become threadbare and useless. The show will attract a steadily decreasing  amount of interest. At that point, the tent will have to fold and everyone will have to admit that the show is over. Is the Sarajevo leadership ready for that moment, and how will it explain it, when it comes, to the callously misled and manipulated Moslem people?

The beginning of the 90s and the maelstrom of the war inflicted  many misfortunes upon Serbian villages in the Podrinje region, the strip of land adjacent to the Drina river on the Bosnian side. Out of control gangs devastated and ravaged Serbian villages, extinguishing all signs of life in them, thus expressing their intolerance toward those who only the day before were their neighbors. Although the madness of the war is long over, its traces—evident in the current condition of Serbian villages—have not been removed to any significant extent. Serbian villages continue to be frozen in time, in much the same state in which they were left by Moslem neighbors in the early 90s after a series of savage and unprovoked attacks. While walking through those villages, you unmistakably feel the horror and mayhem that its inhabitants must have gone through. The houses, or more correctly exposed hearths and ruins [in some villages barely a house is left standing] still exhibit seemingly fresh traces of violence, as if all that had happened yesterday and not 15 years ago.

    The tragic massacres which are taking place in Pakistan and Sri Lanka are related to Srebrenica in a way that may not immediately be apparent.
    They both represent human catastrophes of epic proportions, with verified numbers of victims greatly exceeding the most extravagant claims that have been put forward for Srebrenica. In the case of Pakistan, the victims are Moslem, just as were those of Srebrenica in July of 1995. The provisional totals of these slaughters make it clear that each of them is a Srebrenica multiplied by several orders of magnitude and there is little dispute that the majority of the victims at both locations are civilians. In Sri Lanka, the brutal suppression of the Tamil Tigers has claimed an estimated 20,000 lives.[1] The equally merciless fighting in the Pakistani region of Swat has cost about 100,000 lives, while 2,3 million people have been left destitute and homeless.[2]

On April 22 and 23, 2009, in Moscow, at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Slavic Studies, co-sponsored by the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation and Srebrenica Historical Project, a Netherlands non-government organization, an international scholarly conference was held on the topic: “Operation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY]: its scope, results, and effectiveness.” More than 30 scholars from Russia, Serbia, Republic of Srpska [Bosnia/Hercegovina], Bulgaria, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the US, took part in the proceedings. It was the first time that legal scholars, historians, forensic specialists, demographers, and researchers from other disciplines came together to analyze the legal principles upon which the work of the Tribunal is based and to assess its effectiveness and objectivity. An analysis of past and current ICTY cases was conducted based on the ethnic background of the accused, length of imposed sentences, legal principles relied upon, etc. The issue of Serbian and Moslem victims in and around Srebrenica was also discussed, bearing in mind that this was an episode of the war in Bosnia/Hercegovina which is critical to many ICTY indictments of Serb defendants.

          An international conference entitled: “The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: direction, results, effectiveness” was held in Moscow, on April 22-23, 2009. The conference was co-sponsored by the Institute for the study of Balkan crises of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation and Srebrenica Historical Project. Participants at this inter-disciplinary conference included scholars from the United States, Great Britain, the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia and Hercegovina. The intense two-day discussion was a retrospective on ICTY and a critical review of its accomplishments. Issues pertaining to Srebrenica received particularly close attention.

Edward S. Herman | April 6, 2009

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5973

Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco

          This is part of a strategic dialogue on Yugoslavia. See John Feffer's opposing argument here, and their respective responses here.

         The successful demonization of the Serbs, making them largely responsible for the Yugoslav wars, and as unique and genocidal killers, was one of the great propaganda triumphs of our era. It was done so quickly, with such uniformity and uncritical zeal in the mainstream Western media, that disinformation had (and still has, after almost two decades) a field day.

         The demonization flowed from the gullibility of Western interests and media (and intellectuals). With Yugoslavia no longer useful as an ally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and actually an obstacle as an independent state with a still social democratic bent, the NATO powers aimed at its dismantlement, and they actively supported the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Kosovo Albanians. That these were driven away by Serb actions and threats is untrue: they had their own nationalistic and economic motives for exit, stronger than those of the Serbs.

         The Mothers of Srebrenica undoubtedly need a new public relations advisor. On Wednesday, March 4, 2009, in Srebrenica, before an audience of local people, victims and representatives of the media, the Dutch NGO Srebrenica Historical Project announced its suit against the UN and Holland for failing to protect Serbian and non-Muslim civilians in the region of Srebrenica during the 1992—1995 conflict. Shortly thereafter, the Tuzla organization called Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa distributed a public statement according to which its members were “bitter.” The following reason is given for their bitterness:
         “This is the way Serbs are trying to minimize the genocide that had been committed over the Bosniaks in Srebrenica, while turning criminals into victims. The name of the organization which prepared that nebulous lawsuit [Srebrenica Historical Project] speaks for itself,” as reported by Fena and BH Telekom news agencies on 6 March 2009. [PDF - 208 KB]

Interview with Phillip Corwin by Cathrin Schütz, Junge Welt
American Phillip Corwin was the highest UN official in Bosnia from spring to summer of 1995, serving as Civil Affairs Coordinator and Delegate of the Special Representative for the UN Secretary General. Previously, from 1994 to the spring of 1995 he held the same office for the region of Eastern Slavonia in Croatia. Duke University Press published his memoirs: Dubious mandates - A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia, Summer 1995.
Q: Richard Holbrooke, Paddy Ashdown and many other Western representatives who were involved in the Yugoslav tragedy, unanimously assessed the arrest of Radovan Karadzic's as the capture of one of the most brutal war criminals of our time. What is your opinion?

Dmitar Stoyanov, Bulgarian EU parliament deputy

         The pressure to do the right thing sometimes can indeed be great. So great, in fact, that one’s own institutional procedures are hastily violated, not to mention disregarding such marginal principles such as allowing time for calm deliberation or giving all interested parties an opportunity to have a say.
          It was done with such irreproachable politically correct haste that on January 15, 2009, the European Parliament by a lopsided Supreme Soviet majority of over 500, with 22 abstaining and only 9 opposed, voted to declare July 11 a day of remembrance of the genocide in Srebrenica. The curious thing is that the various drafts of the Srebrenica genocide resolution had been tabled barely three months earlier and that under the circumstances the normal legislative path of the initiative would have been not just the draft reconciliation process but—more importantly—public hearings that should have been called by committee with broad participation of all interested parties to discuss its merits. That such a course should have been followed is, at least, the distinct impression left by Rule 114 (2): “Such proposals shall be referred to the committee responsible for consideration. Where appropriate, the Committee shall refer the matter to Parliament in accordance with the procedures laid down in these rules.”