[Our first edition of the new year is off the press. It is a carefully researched study of a little known episode of the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the assault on the Serbian community of Bukvik, comprising eight villages located several kilometres from the town of Brčko. The analogies with Srebrenica are striking. There was a final assault, involving pillage and destruction of personal property and killing and expulsion of the inhabitants, which took place after a siege that lasted six months. What follows is the summary of the monograph in English. So far there have been virtually no prosecutions of perpetrators and no compensation to the victims, an all too familiar pattern in cases where the targeted community was Serbian. The monograph is richly corroborated with primary source materials. Serbian speaking readers can download the entire monograph from the Serbian side of our website.]

The past year has been challenging but it was also successful for “Srebrenica Historical Project”. That does not mean that we have moved mountains or reversed the widespread perception of what happened in Srebrenica. What it does mean is that we have made significant progress and that the Srebrenica lobby has been on  the defensive more than it has ever been before.

Our recent remarks concerning the credibility of some of the key evidentiary claims upon which the Srebrenica narrative is based [“Karl Popper Looks at Srebrenica,” 14 December 2011] have elicited lively commentary, and not just in the arcane field of philosophy of science. One reader in particular has taken the trouble to research what space-based photographic surveillance technology can and cannot do and, more importantly, what quality images it is capable of producing.

Controversy continues to swirl around the Norwegian documentary “Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed”[1],  by producers Ola Flyum and David Hebditch.  In the latest twist, the Norwegian Appeals Commission, PFU, has critcised Norwegian Television, NRK, for broadcasting the documentary about Srebrenica in April 2011.
“The film is framed by two far-reaching claims that are not documented nor proven, which shift the responsibility for the genocide from those who actually committed it (Bosnian Serb forces) to the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegovic) and the American President, Bill Clinton,” it was alleged in the complaint that was filed before PFU by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.[2]
In its response, Norwegian Television said that “[T]he entire documentary investigates the role of Alija Izetbegovic and the Bosniak leadership in the fall of Srebrenica. (...) We never meant to participate in a debate about the genocide in Srebrenica. The film is about Bosniak allegations that Srebrenica was betrayed by Izetbegovic and Bosnian Government. The betrayal directly led to the fall of that town”. [3]

We owe to Karl Popper the invaluable insight that for a hypothesis, proposition, or theory to be considered potentially true it must be falsifiable, or refutable. To be refuted, something must first be tested. It must be possible to produce a reproducible result that is in conflict with a claim, or that claim might as well be disregarded.

On November 24, 2011, Nerma Jelacic, head of Outreach at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, addressed to Ms. Eva Hamilton, Chief Executive and Editor-in-chief of Swedish Television [SVT] a letter containing a number of demands and criticisms in relation to SVT’s decision to broadcast the documentary, “Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed.”. The following are some of the more disputable points made in that letter:

[1] Jelacic letter, p. 3, example (b):   Evidence from the exhumations that the Trial Chamber reviewed in the Krstić case shows that most of the victims were not killed in combat but in mass executions. In the mass graves exhumed so far, Tribunal investigators found 448 blindfolds on or  with the victims' bodies as well as 423 pieces of cloth, string or wire that were used to tie the victims' hands . People who were blindfolded or had their hands tied behind their backs were obviously not killed in combat. [Reference: Par. 75, Krstić judgment]

Everyone involved in Srebrenica research is aware of the NIOD Report which was published in 2002 by the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie [Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, http://www.niod.nl/] in 2002. The Report, which focuses on the tragic events in Srebrenica in July of 1995 is universally regarded as a first rate research and documentation tool. It has been relied on by historians, commentators, and legal experts.

[THIS YEAR ALSO, SREBRENICA HISTORICAL PROJECT WILL HAVE A BOOTH IN BUILDING IV AT THE BELGRADE INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR, OCTOBER 23 – 30, 2011. ALL OUR PUBLICATIONS WILL BE AVAILABLE THERE AND READERS ARE INVITED TO VISIT US. IN ADDITION TO AN IMPORTANT NEW VOLUME PUBLISHED THIS YEAR IN SERBIAN TRANSLATION, “MASSACRE IN SREBRENICA: EVIDENCE, CONTEXT, POLITICS,” BY PROFESSOR EDWARD HERMAN AND HIS ANGLO-AMERICAN SREBRENICA RESEARCH TEAM,  THE EXPANDED SECOND EDITION OF OUR MONOGRAPH SUMMARISING THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE CONTROVERSY, “DECONSTRUCTION OF A VIRTUAL GENOCIDE,” IN SERBIAN, WILL ALSO BE PRESENTED TO THE PUBLIC OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. IN THE MEANTIME, THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE VERSION OF OUR SREBRENICA MONOGRAPH IS ATTRACTING INCREASED INTEREST AND  IS REACHING A CONSTANTLY EXPANDING PUBLIC OF INQUISITIVE AND INFLUENTIAL READERS. WE PRESENT HERE A REVIEW OF THAT VOLUME WRITTEN BY US BALKAN ANALYST AND PUBLISHER, MILO YELESIEVICH, WHICH IN OUR OPINION NOT ONLY OFFERS EXCELLENT INSIGHT INTO THE ISSUES COVERED IN OUR MONOGRAPH BUT, EQUALLY IMPORTANT, ELOQUENTLY PUTS EVERYTHING IN  PROPER CONTEXT.  WE ENCOURAGE READERS TO DOWNLOAD THE BOOK FROM THE LINK BELOW AND TO SEND IT ON TO THEIR FRIENDS AND CONTACTS.]

Filmmakers and investigative journalists Ola Flyum and David Hebditch, authors of noted documentaries, “Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed” and “Sarajevo Ricochet,” have been subjected to furious denunciations by interested parties in Bosnia and in the Bosniak diaspora for presenting evidence and raising issues that completely recast the nature and course of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the nineties. Their local colleagues, Bosniak investigative journalists Esad Hećimović and Mirsad Fazlić, have been subjected to a rather worse treatment – physical and even death threats. To top it all off, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee has filed against them an official complaint to the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission and Broadcasting Council for allegedly making a number of untrue statements in their controversial documentaries. In Norway, that agency monitors compliance with journalistic standards.

Much has happened on the Srebrenica front since our last reflexion of this nature about a year and a half ago. The time has come to assess these developments before moving on.