For nearly a generation, allegations of a Serb massacre in Srebrenica have dominated the image of the Bosnian Civil War, the Yugoslav Civil Wars and indeed the image of Serbs as a people. Serbs have been stigmatized a priori as THE war criminals per se.
A 1998 article entitled “Mass Graves in Bosnia Bolster War-Crimes Cases”[i] in the International Herald Tribune exposed the fundamental dilemma confronting The Hague Tribunal in the “Srebrenica Massacre” case. The author explains that “exhumations in 1996 [the first year of digging] recovered 460 bodies; (…) 7,500 others were still missing from the town of Srebrenica. Finding the others has been the goal of war-crimes investigators for more than two years.” In other words, after they accused the Serbs of the summary execution of 8,000 POWs, 8,000 dead bodies must be found to prove it.
US-American researcher, political analyst and author on Yugoslavia, Diana Johnstone,[ii] offered a word of caution about this approach to justice. She wrote:
“When, in the early months of the war which raged across Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo, seconded by Croatian agencies in Zagreb, presented Western media with reports indicating that the Serbs were pursuing a deliberate policy of genocide, a basic principle of caution, essential to justice was rapidly abandoned. That is the principle that the more serious the accusation, the greater the need for proof, since otherwise accusations will become an instrument of the lynch mob.”[iii]
The alleged summary execution of up to 8,000 prisoners remains the sole “justification” for the charge of “genocide.” The search for justice should therefore begin with an examination of the origin of this number.
The Numbers Game
Srebrenica was turned over to Serb forces July 11, 1995. Serb troops encountered no resistance upon entering the town, since the majority of the defending Muslim soldiers had already fled.
Two months later, September 13, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a press statement affirming:
“The ICRC’s head of operations for Western Europe, Angelo Gnaedinger, visited Pale and Belgrade from 2 to 7 September to obtain information from the Bosnian Serb authorities about the 3,000 persons from Srebrenica whom witnesses say were arrested by Bosnian Serb forces. The ICRC has asked for access as soon as possible to all those arrested (so far it has been able to visit only about 200 detainees), and for details of any deaths. The ICRC has also approached the Bosnia-Herzegovina authorities seeking information on some 5,000 individuals who fled Srebrenica, some of whom reached central Bosnia.”[iv]
When the New York Times (September 15, 1995) published an Associated Press account of what the Red Cross had announced, the mathematics was different:
About 8,000 Muslims are missing from Srebrenica, the first of two United Nations-designated ‘safe areas’ overrun by Bosnian Serb troops in July, the Red Cross said today. (…) Among the missing were 3,000, mostly men, who were seen being arrested by Serbs. After the collapse of Srebrenica, the Red Cross collected 10,000 names of missing people, said Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman. In addition to those arrested, about 5,000 ‘have simply disappeared,’ she said.[v]
The AP/NY Times article simply conflated the 5,000 Muslim men, who had fled Srebrenica before Serb forces arrived, with the 3,000 Muslim men taken prisoner. The 5,000, who, according to the ICRC, had fled, were made to “simply disappear.” That “some of [them had already] reached central Bosnia,” and that the ICRC was asking Bosnia’s Muslim authorities for information on these 5,000, also vanished from the article.
The conflation of the two groups was – and remains – the basis for the allegation that “8,000” were “missing” and “therefore” presumed dead.
The NY Times’ disinformation had not only distorted the contents of the Red Cross’ statement, it had also disregarded information printed only a few weeks earlier in its own pages.
On July 18, 1995, the NY Times reported:
“Some 3,000 to 4,000 Bosnian Muslims who were considered by UN officials to be missing after the fall of Srebrenica have made their way through enemy lines to Bosnian government territory. The group, which included wounded refugees, sneaked past Serb lines under fire and crossed some 30 miles through forests to safety.”[vi]
On August 2, 1995 The Times of London confirmed this with the following:
“Thousands of the “missing” Bosnian Muslim soldiers from Srebrenica, who have been at the centre of reports of possible mass executions by the Serbs, are believed to be safe to the northeast of Tuzla. Monitoring the safe escape of Muslim soldiers and civilians from (…) Srebrenica and Zepa has proved a nightmare for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. For the first time yesterday, however, the Red Cross in Geneva said it had heard from sources in Bosnia that up to 2,000 Bosnian Government troops were in an area north of Tuzla. They had made their way there from Srebrenica “without their families being informed”, a spokesman said, adding that it had not been possible to verify the reports because the Bosnian Government refused to allow the Red Cross into the area.”[vii]
Two weeks before Gnaedinger and Barry provided the press with their Red Cross account of the missing, another ICRC spokesperson in Geneva, Pierre Gaultier, furnished important details about the problems involved in their record keeping. He explained in an interview to the German daily “Junge Welt”:
“All together we have arrived at approximately 10,000 [missing from Srebrenica]. But there may be some double counting… Before we have finished [weeding out the double counting] we cannot give any precise information. Our work is made even more complicated by the fact that the Bosnian government has informed us that several thousand refugees have broken through enemy lines and have been reintegrated into the Bosnian Muslim army. These persons are therefore not missing, but they cannot be removed from the missing person’s lists (…) because we have not received their names.“[viii]
Since the number of “missing” (and therefore “assumed dead”) has remained at roughly 8,000 over the past 2 decades, it can also be reasonably assumed that the Muslim government has never provided the Red Cross with the names of those who had reached Muslim lines.
When Prof. Milivoje Ivanisevic, at the University of Belgrade, studied the Red Cross list of missing persons, he discovered that the list contained the names of 500 persons, who had died previous to Bosnian-Serb troops having entered Srebrenica. And, when he compared them to the lists of registered voters for the 1996 fall elections, he discovered that the Red Cross had counted 3,016 registered voters as “missing.”[ix] Either Bosnian Muslims had dead voters voting – an election fraud – or the voters were in fact alive and voting.
The “Fall” of Zepa
While one contingent of troops remained in Srebrenica under Gen. Ratko Mladic’ command – organizing the evacuation of civilian women, children and elderly to Muslim territory[x] – another contingent, under the command of Gen. Radislav Krstic, continued on to take a second Muslim enclave, Zepa.
Zepa was also captured by Bosnian Serb forces a few days later. Reporting on the Zepa takeover, the New York Times explained:
“The wounded troops were left behind, and when the Bosnian Serbs overran the town on Tuesday [July 25], the wounded were taken to Sarajevo for treatment at Kosevo Hospital. Many of them had begun their journey in Srebrenica, and fled into the hills when that ‘safe area’ fell to the Bosnian Serbs on July 11. These men did not make it to Tuzla, where most of the refugees ended up, but became the defenders of Zepa instead. ‘Some 350 of us managed to fight our way out of Srebrenica and make it into Zepa,’ said Sadik Ahmetovic, one of 151 people evacuated to Sarajevo for treatment today. (…) They said they had not been mistreated by their Serb captors.“[xi]
Does it not seem strange, to say the least, that Zepa’s Muslim defenders would abandon their wounded comrades – or that the 5,000 Srebrenica defenders would abandon their women, children and elderly – to oncoming Serb troops, with a reputation of being sadists and rapists, out to commit “genocide” like the Nazis? Or did they simply know their Serb neighbors better than western propagandists?
* * *
In August 2001, six years after Bosnian Serb troops walked into – and through – Srebrenica, and five years after the ICTY began searching for bodies to fill its count, it was Gen. Radislav Krstic, the commander of the troops that took Zepa, who was indicted for the “massacre in Srebrenica,” even though the ICTY acknowledged that he was nowhere near the town, at the time of the alleged mass executions.
According to the NY Times (August 3, 2001) Gen. Krstic was convicted “of genocide (…) for his role in the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims by Bosnian Serbs at the town of Srebrenica.” At the time of the verdict, the Times reports that the “tribunal investigators ha[d] exhumed 2,028 bodies from mass graves in the region,” and that the tribunal alleged that “an additional 2,500 bodies ha[d] been located.”[xii]
However, tribunal investigators were not interested in the identities of the bodies or the times and circumstances of their deaths. In a region where civil war had raged for four years, all bodies were counted as victims of an assumed massacre at Srebrenica, as if Serbs were doing all the killing and Muslims all the dying.
After 5 years of searching for bodies to fill the 8,000 count fabricated by spin doctors at the Associated Press and trumpeted by the New York Times – the tribunal, at the time of the verdict, was still lacking evidence that the crime – the summary execution of “more than 7,000 people” – had ever been committed.
Usually there is proof of the crime before the examination is begun to determine whether the defendant had been involved in its commission. Here there is not even the evidence of the crime.
Endnotes:
[i] Original NY Times article: O’Connor, Mike, “Bosnia War Tribunal Finds Hidden Bodies of Slain Muslims” NY Times, May 13, 1998 (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/13/world/bosnia-war-tribunal-finds-hidden-bodies-of-slain-muslims.html?pagewanted=1)
[ii] Johnstone is the author of the very well researched work, “Fools’ Crusade, Yugoslavia, NATO and western Delusions” Pluto Press, London, UK, 2002
[iii] Johnstone, Diana, Selective Justice in The Hague: The War Crimes Tribunal on Former Yugoslavia is a Mockery of Evidentiary Rule; The Nation, 22.9.1997 (See: http://sorryserbia.com/2013/fools-crusade/)
[iv] Former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica: help for families still awaiting news; ICRC News 13-09-1995 News Release 37 (http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jmjl.htm)
[v] AP; Conflict in the Balkans; 8,000 Muslims Missing; New York Times; Sep 15, 1995; p. 8. (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/15/world/conflict-in-the-balkans-8000-muslims-missing.html)
[vi] Chris Hedges; Conflict in the Balkans: In Bosnia; Muslim Refugees Slip Across Serb Lines; New York Times; July 18, 1995, p. 7 (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/18/world/conflict-in-the-balkans-in-bosnia-muslim-refugees-slip-across-serb-lines.html). The same day, the Washington Post reported the number closer to the upper estimate: “About 4,000 Bosnian army soldiers trudged for five days through Serb-held territory to escape from Srebrenica and reach a safe haven in Medjedja” (Pomfret, John; Bosnian Soldiers Evade Serbs in Trudge to Safety; Washington Post, Jul 18, 1995)
[vii] Evans, Michael and Kallenbach, Michael; Missing’ enclave troops found; The Times; 02 August 1995 p. 9. (http://www.geocities.ws/mocccc/brs/troops.htm)
[viii] Pierre Gaultier (interview), Wo sind die Vermißten aus Srebrenica? Junge Welt, 30.8.95
[ix] Faux électeurs… ou faux cadavres; Balkans Infos, Paris; Oct. 1996 (No. 6); See also Ivanisevic, Milivoje; “Un Dossier qui pose bien des Questions”; Balkans Infos, Paris; Dec. 1996 (No. 8).
[x] This fact alone – the safe passage of non-combatants – is proof that a genocide could not have been the plan. Genocide, by definition, means no distinction is made between age, gender or whether military or civilian. CNN and other western propaganda organs accuse Gen. Mladic of cynicism for having promised and PROVIDED safe passage to the Muslim lines for the non-combatants.
[xi] Hedges, Chris; Bosnia Troops Cite Gassings At Zepa; New York Times, Jul 27, 1995 (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/27/world/conflict-in-the-balkans-in-bosnia-bosnia-troops-cite-gassings-at-zepa.html?pagewanted=1?pagewanted=1)
[xii] Simons, Marlise, Genocide Verdict for Ex-General, International Herald Tribune August 3, 2001 (A slightly different version appeared in the N.Y. Times: Simons, Marlise, Tribunal In Hague Finds Bosnia Serb Guilty Of Genocide, August 3, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/world/tribunal-in-hague-finds-bosnia-serb-guilty-of-genocide.html)
George Pumphrey, born in Washington D.C. in 1946, holds both French and US citizenship. He is an independent researcher and author as well as a long-time anti-racist and anti-war activist. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany. He has written various articles on the subject of Srebrenica, among them, “Six Sources of the Srebrenica Legend” URL: http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=18077. With his wife, he co-authored the book, “Ghettos und Gefängnisse: Rassismus und Menschenrechte in den USA” Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne, West Germany (1982)
