Month: March 2018

Lt. Col. John Sray’s trenchant observations are significant not only because they are mostly accurate, but also because they were penned in 1995, as the conflict in Bosnia was drawing to a close. Whatever impact the narratives concocted by hired PR agencies may have had on public opinion, judging by this sober appraisal of the…

  Gen. Philippe Morillon was commander of UN forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 and 1993. As a direct observer of important episodes during the conflict, in 2004 Morillon testified as a witness at the trial of Slobodan Milošević conducted by the ICTY in the Hague. In the excerpted transcript that follows the Defendant…

Ramiz Bećirević was an important, but largely neglected, Srebrenica player. He was deputy commander of Sarajevo forces within the enclave and in the Spring of 1995, upon commander Naser Orić’s departure from the encalve shortly before it was overrun, Bećirević assumed command of 28th Division forces within it. In contrast to Orić, he was a…

Practically every mainstream reference to Srebrenica is accompanied by the “8,000 executed men and boys” refrain. Although ICTY exhumation statistics reflect a scant presence of underage males among the victims, the inclusion of “boys” is clearly meant to prejudice the issue by framing it in frankly emotional terms. The implication is that males in their…

This definition of the scope of the UNPROFOR mission, as defined in a 1994 UN resolution, with regard to civilians is noteworthy because its stated aim is to “protect the civilian populations of the designated safe areas against armed attacks and other hostile acts.” The ethnically neutral reference to “populations,” in the plural, raises the question…