Video recordings of Hotel Fontana meetings in Bratunac on July 11 and 12 1995 is key ignored evidence expunged not only from the official Srebrenica narrative, but largely missing as well in court proceedings at the Hague. It obviously suits the prosecution to side-line this evidence, but surprisingly the defense also has been none too diligent to present it and confront the court with its colossal implications.
On the day that Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, on July 11 1995, in the evening two important meetings were held at the Hotel Fontana in nearby Bratunac. The third in this series of related meetings, all focusing mainly on the refugees clustered around the Dutchbat base in Potočari, was held on the following day, July 12.
On this occasion the Serbian side acted with uncharacteristic cleverness and savoir faire, and all three meetings were filmed. As a result, we have a video record of what transpired and was discussed by the participants, as well as an insight into the atmosphere in which these sessions were conducted.
The central issue discussed at these Hotel Fontana meetings is also one of the central issues of the prosecution’s Srebrenica case. ICTY prosecution charges that at these Hotel Fontana meetings the Serbian military and political leadership took decisions that led to the commission of genocide on captured Srebrenica Muslims. The meetings are also used by the prosecution as evidence of the Serb leadership’s plan to ethnically cleanse Srebrenica enclave. That was to be achieved by deporting its civilian population, consisting mainly of women, elderly, and children, after the departure of able-bodied men of the Muslim army’s 28th Division on a trek through the mountains in order to reach Tuzla.
The fundamental question is: How do these claims stack up against the video record of these meetings?
The first and probably most significant of these meetings took place on July 11 at Hotel Fontana, around 9 p.m. according to Dutchbat commander Col. Karremans in his courtroom testimony on June 25 2004. While other officials from both sides were present, the most important participants were Karremans and the Serbian commander, Gen. Ratko Mladić.
The video record of the first Hotel Fontana meeting can be viewed here:
The following are the highlights of the discussion between Karremans and Mladić, with minutes and seconds in the video being indicated:
11:56 – Karremans reports to Mladić that the „BH command“ requested he meet with Mladić in order to “negotiate the withdrawal“ of refugees from Potočari.
12:24 – Karremans informs Mladić that some of the English-speaking Muslim women in the Dutchbat compound were asking Dutch soldiers when the buses would be arriving to evacuate them.
16:00 – Karremans declares to Mladić that he wants the civilian population to be assisted to leave the enclave and go to the destination of their choice.
16:20 – Karremans elaborates by stating that most would like to go to Tuzla.
17:30 – Mladić responds to Karremans’ remarks by stating that all communities had a good life together until the Muslims began to listen to the „Western political mafia.“
20:35 – Karremans states that Gen. Nikolai, chief of staff to UNPROFOR commander Janvier in Sarajevo, was asking for the „release of the civilian population.“
23:08 – Karremans reiterates, speaking on behalf of the civilian population of Srebrenica, that „everyone would like to leave the enclave.“
28:05 – General Mladić declares that he „would like to help“ and states that the target of his military operation is neither UNPROFOR nor the Muslim civilian population.
It should be noted also that at 7:24 minutes Karremans states that during the preceeding several months ARBiH had demanded of Dutchbat to collect weapons from the deposit set up under UNPROFOR control under the 1993 demilitarization agreement, but that each time Karremans had refused to accede to this request. It is noteworthy that on July 6 1995, when the Serbian attack was initiated, Dutchbat offered to the 28th Division access to the weapons depot, but it was they who refused (Dutchbat Debriefing, par. 3.9, p. 22) The possible significance of this particular sequence of events was that during the spring of 1995, when according to Karremans the 28th Division had made repeated requests to collect the stored weapons, it was also conducting frequent military raids on Serb targets outside the enclave. By the time the Serbian attack commenced on July 6, the political priority had changed; it was to not offer resistance and to feign defenselessness in the face of aggression.
Another interesting observation Karremans made during this session is at 1:05 minutes where, coming to the meeting directly from Potočari, he estimates the number of refugees assembled there at “10,000”. Nine years later, however, testifying at the Blagojević and Jokić trial, he was using the refugee figure that by then had become standard, 20,000 to 25,000. [Transcript, page 11274]
The contrast between the straightforward statements Karremans was making to Mladić on July 11 at their Hotel Fontana meeting, and his often convoluted and obfuscating courtroom responses under direct in Blagojević and Jokić, is glaring. Readers are encouraged to view the video in its entirety, read the transcript of Karremans’ courtroom evidence nine years later, and draw their own conclusions. They may also decide for themselves what weight it would be proper to give false witnessMomir Nikolić’s evidence of what he claimed to have heard of this discussion from an adjoining room through a half-open door. One may speculate, of course, about the possible reasons for these drastic changes in position and attitude on Karremans’ part. The media pressure on Karremans to bring his account of the fall of Srebrenica more closely in line with the official narrative must have been immense, as exemplified by this merciless roasting of the Dutchbat commander by a panel of historians and colleagues. The Dutch government, another party keenly interested in what kind of “truth” about these events would ultimately emerge, of course had its own arsenal of bureaucratic weapons to retroactively modify Karremans’ memory, among which advancement, pension, and benefits readily come to mind.
Note should be taken that other than at a Rule 62 hearing in support of the indictments of Karadžić and Mladić, Karremans’ evidence in the Blagojević and Jokić trial was his only courtroom appearance in relation to Srebrenica. Since he was a key figure and ocular witness, that is very odd, to put it mildly. Immediately upon the repatriation of the Dutch battalion in 1995, the Dutch government issued a gag order prohibiting its officers and soldiers from publically commenting on what they saw or experienced while on assignment in Bosnia. The gag order was lifted by the Dutch government in relation to only fewer than half a dozen members of the 300-strong battalion, who subsequently became permanent fixtures in all Srebrenica trials as prosecution witnesses. The question may therefore reasonably be put: Were these particular individuals permitted to give evidence in court because they were disposed to put their testimony in the service of the official narrative? No Dutchbat officer or soldier with a different perspective ever received permission to testify. An attempt by the Karadžić defense to call Karremans as a witness in 2015 was rejected by the chamber based on the most preposterous legal reasoning.
Obviously Col. Karremans’ story is complex and cannot be reduced to a black and white characterization. It is nonetheless abundantly clear that Karremans’ „fossilized testimony“ (as a Dutch historian aptly put it, at 1:54 minutes), i.e. his initial statements made at Hotel Fontana on July 11, as video recoded, is dynamite with the potential to blow up the very foundations of the prosecution case. If the initiative for the evacuation of Srebrenica’s civilian population came down through Karremans’ chain of command and he sought the meeting with Mladić in order to propose that option to the Serb side, what becomes of “Srebrenica genocide” and of the “forcible deportation of Srebrenica civilians” by Serb forces?
That is undoubtedly the main reason for Karremans’ strange scarcity in all but one of the Srebrenica proceedings at ICTY. The Hotel Fontana video is a smoking gun which, but for the six-minute snippet played in Blagojević and Jokić by defense counsel Michael Karnavas, was very oddly never shown in its entirety in any ICTY Srebrenica trial. It was apparently judged by trial choreographers that Karremans’ subsequent obfuscations of what in the video is perfectly obvious were insufficient to repair the damage to the prosecution case the video had caused. Assuming such a judgment had been made and that it would explain the otherwise puzzling side-lining of a key Srebrenica witness such as Col. Thom Karremans, it should be said that such a decision was absolutely correct from the point of view of those who made it.
Karremans’ evidence at the Blagojević and Jokić trial, June 24-25, 2004
Karremans testimony in B and J 24 June 2004
Karremans testimony in B and J June 25 2004
Karremans Rule 62 evidence, June 3-4, 1996
Rule 62 Hearing – Karadzic and Mladic, June 3 1996
Rule 62 Hering – Karadzic and Mladic, June 4 1996
Denial of Karadzic motion to subpoena Karremans