Mladic in Srebrenica - Day 1

Posted By Michael Dobbs Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - 12:42 PM Share

The video above shows Ratko Mladic entering the United Nations "safe area" of Srebrenica around 16:15 on July 11th, 1995. Trailed by his personal video crew, he paraded down the main street, and boasted that "the time has finally come to take revenge on the Turks in this region." "Turks" was a derogatory expression frequently used by Bosnian Serb forces to describe the Bosnian Muslims, Slavs who converted to Islam following the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463.

It is ironic that Mladic himself has supplied much of the most incriminating and authoritative evidence for his own war crimes trial. Evidence that rests on the testimony of a single eyewitness can be contested in court -- but it is hard to argue with videotape that you ordered to be recorded for your own purposes. Back in 1995, of course, the Bosnian Serb commander did not feel at all threatened by the newly-formed Yugoslav war crimes tribunal; to the contrary, he was openly contemptuous of it. His goal in documenting his own actions was to bolster his image as one of the greatest heroes in Serbian history.

 

The map below shows Mladic's movements on the afternoon and evening of July 11th, following the fall of Srebrenica to Bosnian Serb forces. I have used a red icon to identify events that are confirmed by indisputable video evidence, and a yellow icon for events confirmed by documents and eyewitnesses. (In future posts, I will use a blue icon to denote incidents that rely on contested evidence.) Click on individual icons for more detailed explanations of the events, and hyperlinks to the evidence.


Use Sat view and zoom for precise locations. View in a larger map.

As you can see by clicking the icons, following his triumphant walk through Srebrenica, Mladic drove past the Dutch peacekeeping base at Potocari (yellow icon with dot), where thousands of Muslim refugees from Srebrenica were already beginning to congregate. He spent the evening in the town of Bratunac, five miles to the north, summoning Dutchbat commanders to a meeting in the Hotel Fontana at 2000. See video here of Mladic angrily dressing down the Dutchbat commander, Colonel Thom Karremans, before drinking with him. (2:40 in the video.)

According to documents and eyewitnesses, Mladic met with his own staff at the Bratunac Brigade HQ at 2200, to congratulate them on the fall of Srebrenica and outline plans for an attack on another United Nations "safe area" at Zepa. He returned to the Hotel Fontana (video here) at 23:30 for a second meeting with Dutchbat commanders and Muslim representatives from Srebrenica. 

Mladic and his supporters orchestrated an atmosphere of extreme intimidation around the second Hotel Fontana meeting. Former Dutchbat officers recalled that the Serbs slaughtered a pig outside the window at the beginning of the meeting -- a crude message to the Muslim representatives that they risked a similar fate. Mladic told the Muslims that they faced a terrible choice: "to survive or disappear."

A key question at the trial will be precisely when Mladic decided to kill his Muslim male prisoners rather than forcing them to leave Srebrenica. Investigators believe that he took the final decision on the night of July 11-12th. During the first Hotel Fontana meeting at 20:00 on July 11th, he asked Karremans whether the United Nations could arrange transportation for the refugees. (2:19 in this video.) By the morning of July 12th, he announced that he would arrange transportation himself -- and would separate the men from the women in order to identify alleged war criminals. By assuming responsibility for transporting the refugees out of Srebrenica, he was also assuming responsibility for their ultimate fate.

I will examine the events of July 12th in a further post.

EXPLORE:THUMBS, EASTERN EUROPE, HISTORY, HUMAN RIGHTS, LAW
 

TOONSIE12

3:46 PM ET

January 11, 2012

Origins of Evil?

Where was Gotovina on trial? I must have missed that blog.

 

DAVE84BRADY

1:29 AM ET

January 12, 2012

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AJAB4

5:01 AM ET

January 14, 2012

good

AFP - Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic insists he was not responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, his son said, as thousands protested in Belgrade against the ex-army chief's arrest.

Minor skirmishes broke out after up to 10,000 people peacefully protested in central Belgrade, with small gangs of mostly young demonstrators throwing stones and flares at riot police.

But police quickly said they had the situation under control.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told Serbian state television that 111 people -- 37 of them minors -- were detained after the riots.

"Ten people and 26 policemen suffered injuries, mostly minor," Dacic said.

Earlier, Mladic's son Darko had said his father not only said he had nothing to do with the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys -- the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II -- but that he had actually saved lives.

"He said that whatever was done in Srebrenica, he had nothing to do with it," Darko Mladic said after visiting his father in a detention centre at Serbia's war crimes court.

"He saved so many women, children and fighters... His order was first to evacuate the wounded, women and children and then fighters. Whoever did what behind his back, he had nothing to do with it."

Mladic, 69, may be transferred in the next few days to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he has been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Sunday's protest saw between 8,000 and 10,000 people rally in front of parliament in central Belgrade, police said, with around 3,000 police and anti-riot officers assembled nearby.

Protesters carried flags of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Posters, banners and t-shirts declared, "Mladic is a Serbian hero!".

"We demand that Serbian President Boris Tadic and his government be dismissed," SRS lawmaker Lidija Vukicevic told the crowd.

"With their pro-Western policies and fulfilling orders from Brussels and Washington, the regime of Boris Tadic has crushed all the interests of Serbia and the Serbian people, and we are telling him to stop with this betrayal."

Milenko Nikolic, a 52-year old protestor, accused Tadic of "betraying our biggest hero to satisfy Western demands."

"Mladic has already gained eternal glory among us, his people, I do not care what others think," said 35-year old Ljiljana Krtic.

The arrest of Mladic on Thursday has sparked some anger in Serbia, where many still consider him a national hero.

Mladic's lawyer said the ex-general had urged his supporters not to provoke unrest following his detention.

In July 2008 after the arrest of Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic, thousands of ultra-nationalists staged a violent protest in Belgrade, leaving one dead.

Some 3,000 people, mostly Bosnian Serb former soldiers, also angrily protested Sunday against Mladic's arrest in his birthplace of Kalinovik, in southeastern Bosnia.

A fugitive for nearly 16 years, a Serbian judge on Friday ruled Mladic fit to be transferred to the UN tribunal.

Darko Mladic said he expected his father to remain in Belgrade at least until Tuesday as he sends an appeal notice by mail on Monday.

"Mladic might come Monday or Tuesday," said Mehmet Guney, acting president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), quoted by Turkey's Anatolia news agency.

Serbian authorities have said that the time and date of the transfer would be kept a secret to avoid incidents.

The ICTY indictment holds Mladic responsible for a number of atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre and the 44-month siege of the city of Sarajevo, during which 10,000 were killed.

Serbia has also vowed to track down those who helped protect Mladic during his years on the run, amid questions over why it took so long for him to be captured.

Mladic's lawyer Milos Saljic and family have argued that he is too ill to be transferred to The Hague court. In a rare interview Sunday his wife Bosilijka said he had suffered three strokes.

After meeting his client on Sunday, Saljic said he was also not in a fit mental state.

"It was impossible to have a coherent conversation with him or to talk of his defence," he said.
thanks
Ghana news | project server

 

SSTOP

8:45 AM ET

February 3, 2012

Srebrenica Future

As the situation is far better now we hope everything goes well

Servicing Stop Blog

 

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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