The Srebrenica massacre may well be the best documented war crime in history. Teams of international investigators have succeeded in painfully reconstructing the murders of thousands of Muslim males, and the subsequent attempt by the Bosnian Serb authorities to cover up the evidence. Despite this unprecedented international documentation effort, underpinned by more than 6,000 positive DNA matches, there are still people who deny well-established facts about what happened in and around Srebrenica in July 1995.
I ran into one such "expert" at the recent Belgrade book fair. A U.S.-trained lawyer, Stephen Karganovic heads a group called the Srebenica Historical Project, which has received funding from the Bosnian Serb authorities. You can see sections of my interview with him above, along with my own attempts to set the record straight in captions underneath. While he assumes the persona of a sober academic, he makes a series of claims that fly in the face of multiple legal, forensic, and journalistic investigations.
Take his most startling allegation, which is that only "a couple of hundred" Muslim prisoners of war were executed at Srebrenica, in contrast to the 7,000-8,000 figure widely accepted by international investigators. Karganovic does not deny that "something terrible" happened at Srebrenica. Rather, his intent seems to be to demonstrate that the number of Muslim victims was roughly equal to the number of Serbs killed by Bosnian Muslim forces in earlier armed raids from Srebrenica. In other words, the two sides were more or less equally guilty.
In order to reach his magic number, he first claims that investigators have succeeded in tracing the remains of less than 2,000 Muslim corpses (1,920 to be precise.) He then further reduces the number of victims by excluding anybody killed in Bosnian Serb attacks on a mixed column of Muslim soldiers and civilians that attempted to break out of the United Nations safe zone following its capture by the Serbs. He ends up with a figure of 600-800 Muslims "executed" by Serb forces.
Karganovic's figures are completely at odds with the data collected by the International Commission on Missing Persons, which has succeeded in establishing DNA matches for more than 6,000 people killed at Srebrenica. (The process of matching bone samples to missing individuals is still underway.) The vast majority of these people were killed not in military clashes with Bosnian Serb forces, as claimed by Karganovic, but were executed in cold blood as prisoners of war.
While Karganovic's findings have been rejected by international investigators, they offer a preview of the likely defense strategy in the Mladic case.The ICMP has offered his lawyers the opportunity to select a sample of several thousand DNA matches, and examine them in much greater detail, to determine the place and circumstances of death. The defense, following Karganovic, has already signaled its determination to challenge every single DNA match separately.
No one can think about this kind of act..!!
What they are doing ? No body knows about them..!
A READER WRITES TO 4INTERNATIONAL:
Before that letter let’s put this in context
This letter to 4international is based on how reality always works itself out and in the end does contradict the lies of those who construct conspiracies.
As has been noted very often the main lie about Srebrenica was the number 8000. Many have wondered “Why 8000?”
In this sense the number means little. What gives meaning to the whole thing is the non-stop propaganda churned out by the Media around this event
Remember that I looked into how the Irish Times treated the story. For months on The Irish Times there was no mention at all of any massacre, never mind numbers.
Then as if from nowhere this figure of 8000 began to be included in stories.
I noted at that time something like 3 main stories per fortnight on The Srebrenica Massacre. Given that was repeated in all of this worldwide Media you have literally hundreds of thousands, maybe more, of this story of 8000 massacred in Srebrenica, until the point of saturation is reached where it is taken as something akin to the Four Gospels of Christian tradition
But there was a real history in Srebrenica.
The US did need the creation of a “massacre” in order to swing American public opinion behind US full intervention, to attack Serbia and to remove the Serbs as an oppositional force.
And this need to intervene, a neocons project as part of a much wider neocons project, led on to these actions in Srebrenica.
Keep that in mind A MASSACRE HAD TO BE CREATED
It could be a REAL MASSACRE or a VIRTUAL MASSACRE
Remember that I read the official Dutch report on Srebrenica (Dutch report because Dutch Soldiers were widely blamed) and that report made up by very sober Dutch investigative and learned types stated clearly that they found no evidence that the Serb soldiers murdered anybody in malice. I stand by that position.
As to the evidence of Erdymovic, well he was a supergrass, bought, paid for, owned, by the Hague Liars
Remember that if as I think the Serb soldiers killed nobody in malice (in battle of course yes) that the trap was still sprung on the Serbs and then all the liars could go to work
Our reader here for one thing shows that there was a real split in the ranks of the Muslims, that the Muslim leaders in Srebrenica felt betrayed by Izetbegovic and Oric, and that they reacted to this betrayal and slander against them by spilling the beans on that Clinton proposal to Izetbegovic in 1993 to “create” a massacre.
Dear Mr. Quigley,
It’s interesting to go back to these original newspaper articles from the moslem side to see how the Western political and media establishment made pathological lying into an art form.In a January 18th, 1999 interview with (Bosnian Moslem newspaper) ‘DANI’, Nesib Buric, former member of an ARBiH (Moslem) battalion stationed in Srebrenica, and now Deputy Mayor for Social Security of War Veterans and Disabled Persons in Srebrenica, clearly summed-up the perspective of the local Srebrenica (Moslem) faction within the ARBiH:
”Humane Transfer of Population”
Dani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, January 18 1999
by Hasan Hadzic (Moslem reporter)
Nesib Buric: “I know that they are now trying to humiliate people from Srebrenica and spread rumors that we supposedly did not fight and were slain while running away from Srebrenica. No one can deny that in the Srebrenica municipality there are 2,000 buried fighters. No one can deny that we set up a large free territory. However, without assistance from outside we could not hold out for long surrounded by the enemy. You can write that I absolutely support the statement by Hakija Meholjic that we were betrayed. Why does not someone refute his assertions with arguments? Instead they are using slander and saying that Hakija was like this and like that. Hakija was among the first people in Srebrenica to pick up a rifle and work on the organization of the resistance. Therefore, he has the right to speak up. Ibran Mustafic and those women do not have the right to make lists for the Hague Tribunal. They do not have any evidence for that. In Srebrenica, Ibran refused to fight and lead a brigade, but turned to his prewar flirt with politics. As far as Hakija is concerned, you can write that every single child from Srebrenica agrees with his statement.”Note by me: If the moslem side claims 2,000 fighters killed in battle in Srebrenica during the previous months and assuming this is true and the Western establishment say they have found 1,900 bodies so far (lets assume for the sake of argument they were all identified as moslems) then that fits fairly well.
The 3,800 Serbian civilians massacred on the other hand in surrounding villages from the beginning of the war in April ’92 until July ’95 would obviously be ignored.
Take this article for example from the moslem side. It’s no surprise that the Serbs incarcerated at The Hague end up dying of supposed “heart attacks” and “suicide” while under 24/7 video surveillance: Ibran Mustafic: Scenario for the betrayal of Srebrenica was consciously prepared.Unfortunately, the Bosnian presidency and the Army command were involved in this business; if you want the names, figure it out yourself. I understood the situation in Srebrenica and, you can trust me on this, had I not been prevented by a Cruise Agencygroup of criminals, many more inhabitants of Srebrenica would be alive today. Had I received an order to attack the Serb army from the demilitarized zone, I would have rejected to carry out that order without thinking and would have asked the person who had issued that order to bring his family to Srebrenica so that I can give him a gun and let him stage attacks from the demilitarized zone. I knew that such shameful, calculated moves were leading my people to a catastrophe. The orders came from Sarajevo and Kakanj.
(reporter): What were the consequences of the attacks staged from the demilitarized zone for the inhabitants of Srebrenica?
Ibran Mustafic: That was a conscious giving of a pretext to the Serb forces to attack the demilitarized zone. Ibran Mustafic: Those individuals who, in the Summer of 1995, without a scratch left Srebrenica (…). It is well known that that team Host Travel agency managed to get out and take with along the elderly, children and horses. I can only thank God, that a number of honest people and patriots managed to get out with them. (…) According to our custom when someone finishes the foundations for a house, an animal must be slaughtered on top of them. It seems that Srebrenica was a sacrificial lamb for the foundation of this state.
(reporter): Do you think that the events would have been different had Srebrenica truly be demilitarized?
Ibran Mustafic: Had some people then, or later, in 1994 and 1995 accepted to evacuate the people and to concede the territory, that would have represented the public division of Bosnia. It seems that they want to divide this state in a secret, perfidious way.
(reporter): Who are you talking about?
Ibran Mustafic: About the official authorities.
(reporter): Why wasn’t then, as you suggest, Srebrenica surrendered in 1993? What was the goal of such “games” with Srebrenica?
It was a pleasure to meet Michael Dobbs at the International Book Fair in Belgrade last month. I would only advise him in the future not to go out on business assignments without a card because that tends to leave a frivolous impression. I will, however, give him a pass on that, this time. What I cannot give him a pass on, with reference to his article, “The real figures behind Srebrenica” (Foreign Policy Blog, November 23, 2011), in which the work of “Srebrenica Historical Project” figured prominently, are at least two things.
First, in the introductory paragraph he says that “[T]eams of international investigators have succeeded in painfully reconstructing the murders of tens of thousands of Muslim males,” but a few paragraphs down he reaffirms the “7,000 to 8,000 figure widely accepted by international investigators.” Well, which is it? Tens of thousands is an entirely different order of magnitude. Even the prosecutors at ICTY are not making any such claim [which would be absurd anyway, given that the total population of the enclave, the great majority of whom survived, was put in the Krstic judgment at about 40,000]. Perhaps Dobbs has sensational new evidence that after a decade and a half of investigation still eludes the Tribunal. If so, he should disclose it without delay in time to be presented in the Karadzic and Mladic trials.
Second, Dobbs misrepresents some core facts with regard to the DNA issue. The International Commission on Missing Persons [ICMP] has not offered defense lawyers practicing at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY] a “sample of several thousand DNA matches.” In fact ICTY has not produced any material DNA-related evidence (meaning testable samples) at all and it rationalizes its intransigence by invoking the bogus issue of its need to protect [dead] victims’ and their families’ “privacy.” In the still ongoing trial of Radovan Karadzic the trial chamber did agree to permit the defense to review 300 alleged DNA matches, but on condition that it first obtain written approval from the relatives. [See Prosecutor v. Karadzic, “Order on selection of cases for DNA analysis,” ICTY, 19 March, 2010] It is hardly conceivable that Bosnian Muslim relatives should be willing to assist the Karadzic defense even in such a minimal way, and so far they have not. So in terms of being able to test the DNA allegations, which would be a normal procedure in the adversarial system that both Dobbs and I are familiar with, we are still at square one.
The fact is, of course, that the chamber are fully empowered to order ICMP to turn over to the defense all of its DNA evidence, including victim and relative samples, for independent verification. That the chamber has declined to do so reveals its anti-defense bias and given the fundamental significance of this evidence for sustaining the 7,000 to 8,000 victim claim that undermines a major prop of the Srebrenica narrative. In a non-political criminal case in the US, agreement by the relatives would be completely unnecessary. Further, I explained to Mr. Dobbs in “painful detail” that DNA matches, even if correct, are quite useless to “determine the place and circumstances of death,” but unfortunately my point does not seem to have registered with him.
For all the factual flaws of his sloppily written article, however, Dobbs has substantially redeemed himself with the fair editing of the video portion of his interview with me. I do not mind at all the insertion of captions on the bottom “correcting” my statements. I realize that Srebrenica is both a very sensitive issue and a very difficult one for Western commentators to come to terms with it, and also that Dobbs probably has some anatomical features that in this controversy he is anxious to protect.
My reference to "tens of thousands" of Muslim victims being identified at Srebrenica was a typo. I have corrected it. I meant to write "thousands." I accept the ICMP figure of 7,000-8,000 victims. I am grateful to Mr Karganovic for pointing out the error, even if I do not agree with him on the other points.
Please don’t mention it Mr. Dobbs! It was my pleasure to correct you, although I regret that you do not take the rest of my corrections on board. By the way, the 7,000/8,000 victim figure is ICTY’s, not ICMP’s. ICMP claimed in the Popovic trial to have identified 5,336 individuals who are dead (wisely without explicitly specifying the cause) while it was the Chamber, on grounds known to it alone, which asserted in its judgment that the final figure for those executed “could be up to 7,826.” Given the enormous number of casualties that resulted from military operations against the column, it is not a surprise that unfortunately there are plenty of human remains to identify. What is surprising is that a supposedly professional judicial panel should resort to rhetorical legerdemain in its judgment to transform casualties into victims. Legal minds are expected to know the difference, aren’t they?
Instead of complaining about the gaps in Mr Dobbs's article, perhaps Mr Karganovic might simply fill in a few himself. For example he would clarify the objectivity of his comments if he chose to make nature of his connections with the work of various defence teams at The Hague Tribunal clearer.
His contribution to work in and around The Hague should by now have enabled a man so confident in his understanding of identification techniques to understand the specific role of DNA identification techniques as one of a number of mutually supportive elements in the forensic pathologist's toolkit, above all in the circumstances of recovering the remains of the victims of Srebrenica.
Mr Karganovic has demonstrated elsewhere his familiarity with the trial of Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, et al. at The Hague so I would be surprised if he hadn't previously informed himself from contacts and associates at The Hague about the considerable time and effort that was devoted by officers in the Drina Corps to organising the disposal of the bodies in a way that would obliterate contextual information about the time and place of death of the victims and so thwart discovery and identification.
He would have heard again at the Tribunal about the methodical way in which the executioners removed their victims' identifying documentation and personal belongings, and about the way they unceremonially disposed of the bodies through mechanical mass interment. He would have heard about how the remains were mixed and scattered across many kilometres by bulldozed exhumations,burials, reexhumations and reburials. He would also have heard how diligent forensic investigation has now succeeded in finding most of the unmarked mass graves where mingled remains were left to remain in what was anticipated would be permanent obscurity.
He is clearly familiar with the unexpected advances in the development of DNA identification techniques that thwarted the determined those efforts to ensure bodies would never be identified and crimes held to account. And although he challenges the adequacy of the ICMP's identifications he has by now had time to familiarise himself with the quality certification of the ICMP's techniques and procedures provided by international standards bodies. He certainly knows from the Popovic et al. trial that those procedures have now identified the large majority of the missing 8000+ bodies.
So that leaves us with Mr Karganovic's inability to see how DNA identification can be a help in the determination of time, place and criminal manner of death. And yet here again, he must have read through the careful explanations of the ICTY Chamber in the Popovic et al. judgment. So he knows that while DNA does not specify the details of the death, the identification of the body is not the only evidence that is submitted to the court and Mr Karganovic won't have had to read very far into the Popovic et al. judgement before coming across para 12. In para 12 the court describes how, like any other court that Mr Karganovic would be familiar with in his legal practice, the court may in the absence of eyewitnesses (eliminated or culpably tacit) reasonably infer a fact at issue from the cumulative effect of adequate circumstantial evidence.
Plenty of evidence went through the Popovic et al. trial that supported the Chamber in its findings concerning what happened in and around Srebrenica in the week or so after 11 July 1995. Mr Karganovic has a very short memory if he is unable to remember it.
Those of us familiar with Mr Karganovic's writings know him very well for what he is - an apologist for and excuser of barbarity. However little Mr Dobbs may have known of him beforehand and however much Mr Karganovic may look down his nose at Mr Dobbs, it looks as though Mr Dobbs was able to get his measure pretty quickly.
I thank East for drawing my attention in his comment to a number of allegations that I should be, and indeed am “aware” of, but in whole or in part I obviously reject them. That is why we hold divergent views on Srebrenica.
There was a huge number of dead people as a result of the Srebrenica operation in July of 1995. But there were two major causes of death. Combat during the breakout from the enclave of the 28th Bosnian army division column was one and, separately, execution of captured prisoners of war was the other. The casualties in the first category were by no means negligible. They range from about 2,000 (ICTY Prosecution military expert Richard Butler’s estimate in the Popovic et al. trial, later revised upward to 2,500 in his testimony during the Pelemis and Peric trial in Sarajevo) to about 5,000 (U.S. intelligence analyst John Schindler). Debriefings of column members who survived the march confirm that huge casualties were sustained by the 12,000 to 15,000 men column during combat with Bosnian Serb army units on the way to Tuzla. East may note that to date neither ICTY nor the Bosnian state war crimes court in Sarajevo has charged anyone with inflicting casualties on the column, which may be taken as an implicit admission by judicial authorities that he probably respects that the column was a legitimate military target. (Prosecution expert Butler and former ICTY prosecution chief investigator Jean-Rene Ruez have in fact said that explicitly.) DNA identification of these casualties should certainly be pursued for the sake of closure for their families, but if no criminal liability attaches to their death it must be understood that it does little to strengthen the central claims of the prosecution case.
Are we to take it that the 8,000 allegedly executed prisoners constitute losses in addition to the thousands of combat casualties? Given the facts that on July 11, 1995, the population of the enclave was about 40,000 and that the UNPROFOR Displaced persons report of August 4, 1995, states that 35, 632 Srebrenica enclave refugees were accounted for in the Tuzla area, combined losses of the suggested magnitude would seem mathematically unsustainable. Clearly some reassessments and recalculations need to be made and to that end an atmosphere that encourages, instead of suppressing, critical thinking and freedom of inquiry would be most helpful.
How does East propose to distinguish between the huge number of legitimate casualties and victims of execution, a crime for which the perpetrators should be held accountable? Classical autopsy reports do give us information about such important factors as the time, place, and manner of death that DNA cannot provide. Is it not odd that once the use of autopsy methodology, with its detailed forensic information, proved unproductive in reaching the magic number of 8,000 (even after the number of “cases” had been arbitrarily inflated to 3,568) around 2002 that approach was quietly sidelined and the switch was made to DNA identification. Although during some of the Srebrenica-related trials in Sarajevo ICMP did claim that it also does autopsy reports, no one has ever had the privilege of seeing them (when pressed, their standard practice is to offer “death certificates” instead) nor have any of their autopsy reports pertaining to post 2002 exhumations been offered into evidence either at the Hague or Sarajevo war crimes trials. As for DNA identifications, putting aside considerations of their relevance in Srebrenica cases, all that has been produced so far are ICMP generated numbers, but access to samples for independent verification of alleged matches has been steadfastly denied. That is flimsy forensic evidence indeed upon which to build momentous conclusions.
A careful examination of autopsy reports prepared by ICTY prosecution forensic teams between 1996 and 2002, while it was still believed that documenting 8,000 executions would be a relatively easy task, shows the presence not of 8,000 but of about 1920 corpses (as opposed to “cases”) in Srebrenica related mass graves. Even more importantly, the pattern of injury breakdown shows a variety of likely causes of death, not predominantly the one – execution – that would be expected if the prevailing view of what happened in Srebrenica were correct. Execution certainly is one of them, but combat injury on a mass scale, supported by plenty of incontestable forensic evidence, is another. These findings need to be dealt with. A rational explanation for the abundance of combat injuries in Srebrenica mass graves needs to be proposed, and convincing assurances are required that the thousands killed in combat are not being passed off as execution victims, before any facile conclusions about Srebrenica are drawn. Invoking ICTY verdicts to cut off debate when every other rhetorical device has failed simply does not do the trick.
I quite understand East’s impatience to see the hangman’s noose fastened around the necks of both of the principal defendants currently on trial at ICTY. Let us pretend nonetheless, for appearance’s sake, that at the Hague the presumption of innocence is still in effect, though extensive experience with the way ICTY works suggests that verdicts there may well be a foregone conclusion. The salutary effect of engaging in such a pretence would be to concentrate minds on actually proving the case against the defendants instead of resorting to ad hominem assertions at the expense of skeptics [“apologist for and excuser of barbarity”] in order to divert attention from gaps in prosecution evidence and, in the process, render amateur judgments on matters that are still under litigation.
What explains the embittered scolding of skeptics and the remarkable resistance in many quarters to basing Srebrenica charges just on demonstrable facts? Why is critical inquiry viewed as a threat? Why must the Srebrenica narrative be, to paraphrase Voltaire’s general view of official history, “an agreed upon fable”? Is that not a great slap in the face of those who unjustly perished? The execution of several hundred captured prisoners of war, which arguably could be sustained before a fair-minded court, strikes one as quite bad enough, and it should be sufficient to secure lengthy convictions. But for all that it may not be the stuff of which copycat genocides are made.
Are the charged Serbs ashamed of their efforts, and so now seek to decrease their corpse count? I would think they would display pride in their killing, and even claim higher numbers. They tarnish their trophy by now denying, betraying their cause like cowards and self-loathers.
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Odd as it may sound, this is what I consider to be the sign of the superiority of history standards in the West. Instead of preventing views like these from being aired which would give them false credibility, we allow them to be presented and rational historians refute them point by point. This is part of the reason why I trust Western news sources more. To be sure there are times when the journalists and editors skew facts or print stories that probably should be checked more closely*but I live in a part of the world where such stories can be questioned rather than becoming government line.
*See the interesting tale of Mr. Schmidle, the New Yorker magazine that published his odd story and their refusal to question it.
This week marked the 10th anniversary of the United Nations' second greatest failure since its creation in 1945 -- the genocide in Rwanda being the undisputed No. 1. With much fanfare, the ceremonies focused on the massacre of "up to" 8,000 Bosnian men and boys by General Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serb army in Srebrenica in July of 1995.
In the vast majority of recent media reports, the background and responsibilities for the disaster in Srebrenica were absent. Preferred was the simple explanation: a black and white event in which the Serbs were solely to blame.
As someone who played a modest role in some of the events preceding the massacre, perhaps a little background will provide some context. In early 1993, after my release from the Canadian Forces, I was asked to appear before a number of U.S. congressional committees dealing with Bosnia. A few months earlier, my successor in the UN Protection Force, General Philippe Morillon, had --against the advice of his UN masters -- bullied his way into Srebrenica accompanied by a tiny contingent of Canadian soldiers and told its citizens they were now under the protection of the UN. The folks at the UN in New York were furious with Gen. Morillon but, with the media on his side, they were forced to introduce the "safe haven" concept for six areas of Bosnia, including Srebrenica.
Wondering what this concept would mean, one U.S. senator asked me how many troops it would take to defend the safe havens. "Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 135,000 troops," I replied. It had to be that large because of the Serb artillery's range. The new UN commander on the ground in Bosnia, Belgian General Francis Briquemont, said he agreed with my assessment but was prepared to try to defend the areas with 65,000 additional troops. The secretary-general of the day, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, went to the Security Council and recommended 27,500 additional troops. The Security Council approved a force of 12,000 and, six months later, fewer than 2,000 additional soldiers had been added to UNPROFOR for the safe-haven tasks.
Then the Security Council changed the wording of the safe-haven resolution from "the UN will defend the safe havens" to "by their presence will the UN deter attacks on the safe havens." In other words, a tiny, token, lightly armed UN contingent would be placed as sacrificial lambs in Srebrenica to "deter" the Bosnian Serb army.
It didn't take long for the Bosnian Muslims to realize that the UN was in no position to live up to its promise to "protect" Srebrenica. With some help from outsiders, they began to infiltrate thousands of fighters and weapons into the safe haven. As the Bosnian Muslim fighters became better equipped and trained, they started to venture outside Srebrenica, burning Serb villages and killing their occupants before quickly withdrawing to the security provided by the UN's safe haven. These attacks reached a crescendo in 1994 and carried on into early 1995 after the Canadian infantry company that had been there for a year was replaced by a larger Dutch contingent.
The Bosnian Serbs might have had the heaviest weapons, but the Bosnian Muslims matched them in infantry skills that were much in demand in the rugged terrain around Srebrenica. As the snow cleared in the spring of 1995, it became obvious to Nasar Oric, the man who led the Bosnian Muslim fighters, that the Bosnian Serb army was going to attack Srebrenica to stop him from attacking Serb villages. So he and a large number of his fighters slipped out of town. Srebrenica was left undefended with the strategic thought that, if the Serbs attacked an undefended town, surely that would cause NATO and the UN to agree that NATO air strikes against the Serbs were justified. And so the Bosnian Serb army strolled into Srebrenica without opposition.
What happened next is only debatable in scale. The Bosnian Muslim men and older boys were singled out and the elderly, women and children were moved out or pushed in the direction of Tuzla and safety. It's a distasteful point, but it has to be said that, if you're committing genocide, you don't let the women go since they are key to perpetuating the very group you are trying to eliminate. Many of the men and boys were executed and buried in mass graves.
Evidence given at The Hague war crimes tribunal casts serious doubt on the figure of "up to" 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred. That figure includes "up to" 5,000 who have been classified as missing. More than 2,000 bodies have been recovered in and around Srebrenica, and they include victims of the three years of intense fighting in the area. The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed.
Nasar Oric, the Bosnian Muslim military leader in Srebrenica, is currently on trial in The Hague for war crimes committed during his "defence" of the town. Evidence to date suggests that he was responsible for killing as many Serb civilians outside Srebrenica as the Bosnian Serb army was for massacring Bosnian Muslims inside the town.
Two wrongs never made a right, but those moments in history that shame us all because of our indifference should not be viewed in isolation without the context that created them.
This week marked the 10th anniversary of the United Nations' second greatest failure since its creation in 1945 -- the genocide in Rwanda being the undisputed No. 1. With much fanfare, the ceremonies focused on the massacre of "up to" 8,000 Bosnian men and boys by General Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serb army in Srebrenica in July of 1995.
In the vast majority of recent media reports, the background and responsibilities for the disaster in Srebrenica were absent. Preferred was the simple explanation: a black and white event in which the Serbs were solely to blame.
As someone who played a modest role in some of the events preceding the massacre, perhaps a little background will provide some context. In early 1993, after my release from the Canadian Forces, I was asked to appear before a number of U.S. congressional committees dealing with Bosnia. A few months earlier, my successor in the UN Protection Force, General Philippe Morillon, had --against the advice of his UN masters -- bullied his way into Srebrenica accompanied by a tiny contingent of Canadian soldiers and told its citizens they were now under the protection of the UN. The folks at the UN in New York were furious with Gen. Morillon but, with the media on his side, they were forced to introduce the "safe haven" concept for six areas of Bosnia, including Srebrenica.
Wondering what this concept would mean, one U.S. senator asked me how many troops it would take to defend the safe havens. "Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 135,000 troops," I replied. It had to be that large because of the Serb artillery's range. The new UN commander on the ground in Bosnia, Belgian General Francis Briquemont, said he agreed with my assessment but was prepared to try to defend the areas with 65,000 additional troops. The secretary-general of the day, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, went to the Security Council and recommended 27,500 additional troops. The Security Council approved a force of 12,000 and, six months later, fewer than 2,000 additional soldiers had been added to UNPROFOR for the safe-haven tasks.
Then the Security Council changed the wording of the safe-haven resolution from "the UN will defend the safe havens" to "by their presence will the UN deter attacks on the safe havens." In other words, a tiny, token, lightly armed UN contingent would be placed as sacrificial lambs in Srebrenica to "deter" the Bosnian Serb army.
It didn't take long for the Bosnian Muslims to realize that the UN was in no position to live up to its promise to "protect" Srebrenica. With some help from outsiders, they began to infiltrate thousands of fighters and weapons into the safe haven. As the Bosnian Muslim fighters became better equipped and trained, they started to venture outside Srebrenica, burning Serb villages and killing their occupants before quickly withdrawing to the security provided by the UN's safe haven. These attacks reached a crescendo in 1994 and carried on into early 1995 after the Canadian infantry company that had been there for a year was replaced by a larger Dutch contingent.
The Bosnian Serbs might have had the heaviest weapons, but the Bosnian Muslims matched them in infantry skills that were much in demand in the rugged terrain around Srebrenica. As the snow cleared in the spring of 1995, it became obvious to Nasar Oric, the man who led the Bosnian Muslim fighters, that the Bosnian Serb army was going to attack Srebrenica to stop him from attacking Serb villages. So he and a large number of his fighters slipped out of town. Srebrenica was left undefended with the strategic thought that, if the Serbs attacked an undefended town, surely that would cause NATO and the UN to agree that NATO air strikes against the Serbs were justified. And so the Bosnian Serb army strolled into Srebrenica without opposition.
What happened next is only debatable in scale. The Bosnian Muslim men and older boys were singled out and the elderly, women and children were moved out or pushed in the direction of Tuzla and safety. It's a distasteful point, but it has to be said that, if you're committing genocide, you don't let the women go since they are key to perpetuating the very group you are trying to eliminate. Many of the men and boys were executed and buried in mass graves.
Evidence given at The Hague war crimes tribunal casts serious doubt on the figure of "up to" 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred. That figure includes "up to" 5,000 who have been classified as missing. More than 2,000 bodies have been recovered in and around Srebrenica, and they include victims of the three years of intense fighting in the area. The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed.
Nasar Oric, the Bosnian Muslim military leader in Srebrenica, is currently on trial in The Hague for war crimes committed during his "defence" of the town. Evidence to date suggests that he was responsible for killing as many Serb civilians outside Srebrenica as the Bosnian Serb army was for massacring Bosnian Muslims inside the town.
Two wrongs never made a right, but those moments in history that shame us all because of our indifference should not be viewed in isolation without the context that created them. Stand over one of those pits and look at the mumified bodies of Bosnian muslim children with their hands tied behind their backs with bailing wire stacked like cordwood and it becomes hard to listed to the other side of the story. It's also hard to get that smell out of your mind, maybe you never can. Or the smell of that sexy Serbian news reprters perfume as she asks you how many Serb bodies you uncovered today while she pushes a microphone in your face. Good night gents.
Ratko Mladic has been described as "one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally-a charismatic murderer." What drove the Bosnian Serb military commander to order Europe's deadliest massacre since World War II? Could it have been prevented? Michael Dobbs, a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum fellow, investigates.
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