Smail Čekić is director of the Institute for the investigation of crimes against humanity and international law in Sarajevo. Čekić is a high-profile advocate of the genocide narrative, coordinates closely with the Bosnian Muslim political leadership, and his Institute is part of Sarajevo University. Since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina the task of the Institute has been to document not only evidence for the alleged genocide in Srebrenica, but a number of other historical episodes as well that are also presented as examples of genocide, forming part of a continuous plan over the centuries to exterminate the Muslim people of Bosnia.
Čekić’s „The Aggression on Bosnia and Genocide Against Bosniacs, 1991 – 1993“, published originally in Sarajevo in 1994, and in English translation a year later, is presented here not for its scholarly value but primarily for its political interest. It is an excellent illustration of how – even while the Bosnian war was still in progress – and before a single prisoner of war was executed in Srebrenica in July of 1995 the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo was single-mindedly setting the stage for eventually playing its „genocide card.“ Smail Čekić is an old propaganda warhorse of the Sarajevo authorities, occupying a number of prominent academic and war crimes „research” posts. The posted treatise comprises the chapter “A Historical review of the genocide against Bosniacs” from the book referenced above. Čekić claims that Bosnian Muslims have been the victims of about a dozen genocides over the last two centuries.
His ideas do not merit much attention or critique because they are intellectually self-destructive. If his historical matrix is correct only two conclusions seem possible. Bosnian Muslims have been blessed with enemies who are incredibly inept and were demonstrably incapable of implementing their genocidal plan even after a dozen tries over a 200 year period. Or, Bosnian Muslims collectively have more lives than the proverbial cat. Either way, the story about continuous genocides is difficult to take seriously. The identity of the culprits in the overwhelming majority of the instances enumerated by Dr. Čekić is indeed predictable, but most Serbs will at least breathe a sigh of relief to learn that the first of these genocidal undertakings was not the work of their kin but of the Austro-Hungarians during their 1683 – 1699 war with the Ottoman Empire (p. 13). We encourage our readers to read Čekić’s account of previous Bosnian genocides and to assess critically the quality of his arguments because in many ways his narrative is a precursor to the Srebrenica story. If we are correct in assuming that this was a stage setting exercise for Srebrenica in July of 1995, that would seem to strengthen the hypothesis that what happened there probably was not spontaneous. Mr. Čekić’s involvement in the propaganda build-up anticipating „Srebrenica genocide” also assumes a certain significance when considered in light of the fact that in 2003 Bosnia’s High Representative Jeremy Ashdown named him as the Muslim member of the Republic of Srpska Srebrenica Commission that Ashdown himself had ordered to be formed to write a report about the relevant events. Commission members affirm that Čekić was not at all shy to assert his patron’s authority in the various phases of the Commission’s work and to make specific demands about what the report was expected to say. The resulting document that the Republic of Srpska Srebrenica Commission issued was written under the High Representative’s duress and with Čekić acting as his chief operational enforcer. It is posted elsewhere on our Serbian page. Readers will also find there an alternative text which is our rewritten version of the Report as it should have been composed. Our version dispenses with the propaganda and sticks to verifiable facts. We encourage our Serbian speaking readers to review these documents and, as always, we urge them to form their own independent conclusions.