“Balkan Battlegounds, A military history of the Yugoslav conflict, 1990-1995, Vol. I” was published in 2002 as a retrospective analysis of the war in the Former Yugoslavia and an attempt to explain its causes. The CIA openly acknowledges authorship, or at least sponsorship of the volume. On p. 2, however, generous credit is given to Laura Silber and Allan Little, authors of “The Death of Yugoslavia,” 1996, for “numerous extracts.” Readers of “The Death of Yugoslavia” will indeed find many familiar passages and contentions in the present volume.
Information about Srebrenica is presented on pages 316 – 360. There is much of interest there, especially considering that the source is one of the most influential agencies of the US government. The assertions made there range from basically correct to problematic. A summary of the main issues covered and pages where they are located follows.
317 – description of Srebrenica’s physical landscape and Naser Oric’s guerrilla operation to eject Serbs in May 1992. Why were similar tactics not used in July 1995?
318 – estimated 3,000 Serb soldiers and civilians killed around Srebrenica
319,320 – terms of protected status, basically correct
320 – seizure of Dutchbat personnel by ARBiH forces in Bandera Triangle
321,322 – ARBiH strength in Srebrenica downplayed but clearly sufficient for guerilla resistance against cited Serb forces
325 – Serb motive for massacre – revenge
327, 328 – Karremans’ assessment that Serbs lacked resources to take enclave
328 – speculation that Karremans and superior command failed to notice the Serb buildup, therefore underestimated intentions. Where were the satellites which a few days later would allegedly record mass gravesites?
331 – Karremans offered stored arms to Becirovic on July 9 (According to Dutchbat Debriefing that happened on July 6) but Becirevic declined and asked for airstrikes instead
341 – recounting the phony pig slaughter incident to intimidate Karremans. In other versions the pig was not slaughtered in Karremans’ presence but outside while the Mladic-Karremans meeting was in progress. [“Through the open window came the sounds of a pig being slaughtered” – Krstic trial verdict, http://www.icty.org/en/press/radislav-krstic-becomes-first-person-be-convicted-genocide-icty-and-sentenced-46-years ]
343 – “Fewer than half [of those who went for the breakthrough, estimated at 12,000] would survive the trek.” Were there over 6,000 combat casualties along the way?
“Military age males could only loosely be called a fighting force” – downplaying the military component of the column, alleging that barely 1,200 were armed, contrary to other estimates of 4,000 to 5,000.
343, 344 – Serb forces thinly stretched between the Bratunac-Konjevic Polje road and “frontiers southeast of Tuzla. Unwittingly, the Drina Corps had left its back door open.” What accounts then for huge combat casualties?
344 – hundreds of dead and wounded in Kamenica ambush
347, 349 – executions
351 – Muslims absolved for not offering guerrilla resistance, report goes to great lengths to justify flight, to the point of inflating number of Srebrenica enclave residents to 60,000 [p. 352] although earlier the number was stated as 44,000 [p. 318]