The Right to Seek the Truth against the Srebrenica Myth [1]

[The effective work our NGO, Srebrenica Historical Project, is doing in scrutinizing the factual foundations of the Srebrenica propaganda narrative is increasingly receiving half-hearted tributes from unexpected sources. One of them is Michael Dobbs’ blog on Foreign Policy Online. In October of last year, Dobbs made the cardinal mistake of visiting our booth at the Belgrade International Book Fair evidently in the expectation of obtaining easy video confirmation of the way “genocide deniers” distort received wisdom on Srebrenica. What he got, instead, was an interview of such embarrassing quality that he had to subtitle it in order to keep reminding his audience of the party line they were expected to adhere to. Dobbs went on to publish a series of posts obsessively focusing on Srebrenica and General Ratko Mladic in particular. But after (perhaps unwisely) drawing our attention to his writing, Dobbs’ arguments became the subject of intense critical scrutiny by Srebrenica Historical Project staff and associates in the comments section of his blog. Unaccustomed to being the object of anything less than adoration by his readers, and in particular to being contradicted, Dobbs reacted with an “expose” of Srebrenica Historical Project funding. The “bombshell” turned out to be publicly available  information from the Official Gazette of the Republic of Srpska, whose parliament has been voting a grant to our NGO during the last several years to help support our work.  When a government accused of being “genocidal” supports an organization researching the charges against it that is hardly a controversial outlay of public funds. The expose backfired, however, when Foreign Policy Online reader Andy Wilcoxson pointed out in the comments section of Dobbs’ blog that the ultimate sources of Dobbs’ salary are the National Endowment for Democracy and the Holocaust Museum, both of which are funded by grants from the U.S. Congress. The implication was clear: Instead of being concerned about the way the Republic of Srpska spends its money, Dobbs would do better to improve his grasp of Srebrenica issues if that is what he wants to write about. What follows is a reaction to this controversy on the www.serbianroundup.com  website.]

       Our associate Andy Wilcoxson has made mincemeat of the claim that Serbian forces captured 7,000 to 8,000 Muslim prisoners in the aftermath of the takeover of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995[1] , which is what they must have done to be able to execute that many as charged. He demonstrates that viewed in the light most favorable to the Prosecution, evidence put before the Hague Tribunal supports the conclusion that at most about 3,500 Muslims were captured by Serbian forces. That caps the number of illegal executions that could have taken place at a level significantly below the official Srebrenica narrative claim.

   We just completed a readership survey of our website, www.srebrenica-project.com . Months ago, at the height of Michael Dobbs' [Foreign Policy Online, http://dobbs.foreignpolicy.com/ ] and his Balkan shills' campaign against our NGO for doubting their version of Srebrenica, we predicted that the only effect of their trouble would be to increase our readership. We were right. Compared to six months ago visits to our website have risen by 65,4%. Thank you Michael Dobbs, East [Marko Attila Whore?], and the entire inept Srebrenica lobby crew!

   This is not just a question of quantity, but primarily of quality. All Dobbs and his supporters can manage in a debate are authority based claims [e.g. it's a fact because ICTY said so] and ad hominem attacks. [That raises the obvious question: if those who view Srebrenica events differently are "unqualified", why all the name-calling when a few cogent arguments and well-landed factual punches would shut them up for good and settle the issue?]. Bias, however, has blinded Srebrenica lobbyists to a very important fact. With the exception of Srebrenica lobby Einzatzgruppen who regularly patrol the internet to attack with scurrility and venom anyone who questions their propaganda narrative, the majority of Foreign Policy readers are a highly educated and intelligent group of people. If Dobbs and his crew were in touch with reality they could have predicted that it is precisely their intemperate attacks on us that would stimulate readers' interest in who we are and what we have to say. Unwittingly, they have sent thousands of Foreign Policy readers to our website, for which we cannot thank them enough.

     If our associate Andy Wilcoxson is correct in his critical assessment of the evidence at the disposal of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia regarding the number of Muslims captured by Serbian forces in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Srebrenica on 11 July 1995, the implications are staggering. To name just two. First, since Mr. Wilcoxson argues from the logical premise that the Serbs could not have executed more prisoners than they had in their custody, his analysis would tend to show that the maximum number of victims of illegal executions could not have exceeded half the claimed figure of 7.000 to 8.000. Second, that the judges of the Hague Tribunal probably did not even bother to critically read their own evidence before issuing factual conclusions that were at variance with it, as demanded by the Prosecution.

    This is a question that simply must be asked if we intend to deal with Srebrenica in a serious fashion. In light of how events that took place in Srebrenica immediately following July 11th, 1995, have been depicted, there are only two ways to characterise the ensuing executions: (1) as a massacre of significant proportions which is a major violation of the laws and customs of war, or (2) as an act of genocide. For explanation (2), genocide, to be sustainable, a further question must be asked: Was there an intent to execute all Moslems as such who might be captured by Serbian forces? For genocide to be established, the answer to that further question must be unequivocally positive. To the extent that conditionalities are attached to the affirmative answer, the genocide thesis is undermined [1].  Even some sort of “yes, but” answer would tend to distance mass killing from genocide and would ultimately shift the characterisation of what happened to the first option, massacre.  

   The significance of this material for the proper understanding of what happened around Srebrenica after Serbian forces captured the enclave on July 11, 1995 cannot be overestimated. It consists [in the Serbo-Croatian version that has been posted on the Cyrillic side of our website] of several dozen statements of surviving members of the mixed military/civilian column which in the night of July 11/12, 1995, undertook a breakout toward Muslim-held territory in Tuzla over about 60 kilometers of Serbian territory. The column is estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 military age males.  

   It is not a matter of dispute, and the fact was confirmed by ICTY Prosecution military expert Richard Butler, that the mixed column under international law was a legitimate target and that engaging the column in combat was not a war crime. [1] That position was reiterated by Butler during his recent testimony at the Karadzic trial:

   “From an analytical perspective, once I came to the conclusion myself that the column was a legitimate military target for the VRS to engage, the casualties that occurred in that column would not be considered to be casualties from the other Srebrenica-related war crimes.” (Prosecutor v. Karadžić, Transcript, p. 27775, lines 21-25)

By Peter Brock

[With a bit of delay, although it is never too late, we publish this trenchant critique of the Mladić proceedings by author and journalist Peter Brock. The Hague Tribunal and its Sarajevo War Crimes Court clone (and their unconventional modus operandi) are again the focus of attention on several fronts. In the Mladić case the Chamber have apparently reconsidered their initial decision to postpone opening the trial sine die after the Prosecution were caught lying about the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of pages of potentially exculpatory material to the defence. The rush to start the trial has now apparently resumed, whether the defence are ready or not, and opening is scheduled for (what a coincidence!) July 9. Another similar calendar “coincidence” was the recent sentencing in Sarajevo of Franc Kos et al. defendants from the Tenth Sabotage Detachment who were involved in the execution of Muslim prisoners at Branjevo-Pilica. While the finding of guilt and the sentences were undoubtedly supported by the evidence, at the June 15, 2012 sentencing there was no detailed written verdict. Until the verdict is written and published, presumably by the year’s end, neither the Prosecution nor the defence will have a clear idea of the grounds for the Chamber’s decision, which makes it practically impossible to file an appeal. The rushed sentencing on June 15 has, however, served one useful propaganda purpose: it occurred less than a month before the annual July 11 Srebrenica commemorations in Potočari, thus contributing its share to the build up of dramatic tension. Finally, in the meandering Šešelj trial the defendant, who has already been imprisoned for ten years while the proceedings seem to be going nowhere, has now been sentenced to additional two years for “contempt of court,” a charge which he cheerfully accepts since he does not hide the fact that he deeply despises the Hague Tribunal and all its works. The interesting news is that in that trial ICTY judge Stefan Trechel has introduced a legal novelty by stating that parts of the Chamber’s judgment shall be confidential and must be redacted before publication for the general public. A “court” that has given us secret indictments, closed sessions, and masked and disguised witnesses with improvised identities should have been expected to make the next logical evolutionary step to confidential and redacted judgments.]

‘A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.’
—William Cowper, 1782

   Before anyone raises their eyebrows at this obvious oxymoron, there is something we should clarify. The trial of Kos et al. [the et al. being Kojic, alias Savanovic, Golijan, and Goronja] in Sarajevo was a farce, but if the sentence was unjust that was more on the side of leniency. Tenth Sabotage Detachment soldiers Franc Kos and Zoran Goronja were sentenced to 40 years of prison each, Stanko Kojic [alias Savanovic] to 43, and Vlastimir Golijan to 19. The sentences were motivated, as the Chamber under the presidency of judge Mira Smajlovic put it, by the execution on July 16, 1995 of "800 men and boys" on the Branjevo farm near the village of Pilica. Is that all, for such a horrid crime? What exactly is cooking at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and whence is it receiving its operational signals?

[One of the best unintentional publicists for Srebrenica genocide doubters is the official narrative’s most aggressive promoter – Marko Attila Hoare. His vituperative and unbalanced style of writing is largely devoid of factual references. But that is not at all odd. The official story is thin on material evidence while a huge part of the available data (e.g. the massive but legitimate battle casualties of Bosnian Army’s 28th Division during its breakout from Srebrenica to Tuzla) is an embarrassment to the shaky propaganda story and must therefore be swept under the rug. Hoare, a self-styled “brilliant academic” at a provincial British university, does not care about the evidence. His comments are uniformly bombastic and ad hominem. If Hoare’s is the best apologia for Srebrenica “genocide” that the other side has to offer, its prospects do not look good. After more than a decade and a half of tedious overkill, in the face of constantly emerging facts, genocide claims must either be radically revised or risk losing their steam. As it is they are increasingly propped up by repressive “denial” legislation and obviously unspontaneous annual public ceremonies in Potočari. Like the rituals of the Shinto religion by inertia they are still being performed, but almost nobody sincerely believes in them. Hoare is not just a pseudo-scholar, he is not a particularly brave fellow either. A few months ago there was a lively controversy about Srebrenica on Michael Dobbs’ blog on the Foreign Policy website: (http://dobbs.foreignpolicy.com/) Dobbs is a journalistic hack who apparently aspires to the Pulitzer Prize and he is writing a long series of posts on Srebrenica. The most that Dobbs is capable of doing is rehashing received Srebrenica wisdom in a superficial way that is a few notches below what even Hoare turns out. When the editor of this website and other readers challenged some of Dobbs’ assertions, Hoare intervened but he did it under the pseudonym “East”, not having the courage to use his real name. But no matter. Both “East” and his alter ego Hoare got a good thrashing they will not soon forget. We recommend to our readers this article by Professor David Gibbs who also was apparently stalked by Hoare. It speaks for itself.]

For a wide variety of reasons, thoughtful people have tended to be critical of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. John Laughland’s “Travesty! The trial of Slobodan Milošević and the corruption of international justice” [2006] is perhaps the most eloquent indictment of its procedures. The damage to international jurisprudence caused by ICTY is, however, greatly augmented when its flawed practices are eagerly transposed into the setting of domestic courts which are also engaged in the war crimes punishment business and, quite often, in a form that is even more extreme.