The extent of the legitimate combat losses of the 28th Division column which conducted a breakout from Srebrenica to Tuzla needs to be sorted out. The armed column traversed about 60 km of territory under Serb control and in the process ran into numerous Serb ambushes. Column losses were never considered as a separate category in Srebrenica exhumations. Consequently, it may be assumed that the remains of battle casualties were comingled with execution victims, misrepresenting the actual facts on the ground. There are serious grounds to suspect that the remains of those killed in combat have been used to augment the purported number of those who were executed. Significantly, there is no official information of where those combat casualties might be interred other than the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Potocari.
The issue of legitimate column losses and how they may have been conflated with execution victims has been dealt with competently, with remarkable precision, and relying mostly on Hague Tribunal evidence by our colleague Andy Wilcoxson in his analysis entitled “Realistically Estimating the Number of Srebrenica Massacre Victims.” We continue where he left off by presenting column survivor statements and other key primary source materials which confirm much of what he wrote. It so happens that most of the key evidence is in the local language, but that should not deter serious scholars. For some statements translated officially into English, see here.
To put these matters in proper perspective, in the evening of July 11, 1995, and the following day, after Serbian forces had entered Srebrenica, meetings were held in Bratunac involving Serbian officers, UN forces (UNPROFOR) stationed in Srebrenica, and representatives of civilians in the enclave. The latter were mostly concentrated in Potočari. At the request of the UN command in Sarajevo (and here and here), conveyed to the Serbian side by Col. Karremans, commander of the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica, it was agreed to evacuate Srebrenica civilians (mainly women, children, and the elderly) to territory under the control of Sarajevo authorities. It appeared at that point that the male portion of the population had virtually disappeared. Over the following several days it was discovered that partially armed military-age males had gathered in the village of Susnjari and, refusing to surrender, embarked in military formation upon a breakout in the direction of Tuzla.
The Dutch government’s NIOD Report (2002) and other sources confirm that practically from the commencement of the breakout the column was engaged in combat with Serbian forces. Initial clashes occurred in the proximity of the village of Kravice and while the column was crossing the road at Konjevic Polje. Combat activity was recorded at approximately twenty other locations on territory under the control of Serbian forces. During combat, which continued for at least a week after July 11, the relatively better armed Serbian forces sustained heavy losses of about 300 soldiers. Estimates put Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina casualties at several thousand.
It is important to recall that according to the laws that regulate warfare, since it was composed of soldiers and civilians the column was a legitimate military target irrespective of its casualties. As a result, no one was ever charged, either at the Hague or in the war crimes court in Sarajevo, with inflicting casualties on the column. Such a charge simply could not be legally sustained, but in addition any attempt to raise it would have drawn the attention of the public to an important but downplayed episode of the Srebrenica chain of events. The defense could scarcely have been prevented from submitting evidence on the legal status and actual casualties suffered by the column. It would have been inconvenient to provoke an inquiry into this and a number of other associated issues that could potentially undermine the coherence of the official Srebrenica narrative. In order to avoid opening this Pandora’s Box, prosecutors at both the Hague and Sarajevo courts avoided raising issue of the column consistently. Except for some casual references, the judgments are largely silent on this matter.[1]
The fate of the column and prisoner executions clearly are closely connected issues. At a distance of only a few kilometres major human losses of an entirely different legal character were taking place. Members of the armed column conducting the breakout eventually suffered enormous but legitimate combat casualties. The practically simultaneous execution of war prisoners, on the other hand, constituted a grave war crime. By failing to distinguish between these two statistically significant, but legally separate events the Hague Tribunal opened ample space for misrepresenting legitimate combat casualties as victims of the criminal execution of prisoners. For political motives, the executions subsequently came to be redefined as genocide.
For sorting out the actual sequence of events in the Srebrenica war zone in July 1995, statements by surviving members of the 28th Division column constitute invaluable primary historical sources. These statements are important for several reasons. Firstly, because they contain direct observations of events as seen by participants and percipient witnesses. Secondly, because most of these statements were recorded shortly after the events to which they pertain, while memory of important details was still fresh in the minds of the declarants. Thirdly, because shortly after the column’s arrival in Tuzla eyewitnesses gave their statements to the military and intelligence officials of what was, in effect, their own side, and also to some Hague Tribunal investigators. An exception was the statement of Hasanovic Senahid, which was recorded by Serbian authorities, but it coincides with the rest in most particulars. All statements but one (Hasanovic Senahid) display Hague Tribunal archival insignia and originate from the Tribunal’s data base. That rules out the objection that the statements were created tendentiously to assist one side in the controversy and disadvantage the other. Fourthly, the fact that the statements were recorded within a few weeks or months after the events to which they refer and before the Srebrenica genocide narrative took shape means that neither the declarants nor their debriefers were under pressure to conform to interpretations which emerged subsequently. Such a combination of circumstances assures the general reliability of these documents to a very high degree.
The common theme in the column survivors’ statements, having presumably been given without compulsion to authorities who were favourably inclined toward the declarants, is that in the course of about a week after July 11, 1995, the 28th Division column sustained horrific human losses. We find in the statements detailed descriptions of locations where combat activity between the column and the Serbian army had taken place. Casualty numbers, as perceived by declarants, are cited and, depending on the location, they range from a few dozens to a few hundred, or even several thousand. Other massive causes of death along the way are also mentioned, such as minefields and suicides. After reading these statements there emerges a general picture that the combat losses of the 28th Division were far from negligible. On the contrary, the number of casualties must have been huge, but as if by magic most references were erased from the official Srebrenica narrative and the fact was barely acknowledged, and only in passing and in diluted form, in the verdicts of the Hague Tribunal.
The key question, where the mortal remains of those who perished in the column breakout have found their eternal repose, was never raised in any court of law nor has it been addressed on the juridical or any other level. Are they being interred at the Memorial Centre every year, to be falsely portrayed as victims of execution later raised to the level of genocide? That hypothetical possibility can by no means be excluded. Srebrenica autopsy reports disclose the presence in mass graves of numerous remains with a pattern of injury from artillery weapons, blast injuries, shrapnel, and other metallic objects not commonly used in executions but which are, rather, characteristic of combat activities. It nevertheless seems that the final destination of all human remains exhumed around Srebrenica always and without exception is the Memorial Centre in Potocari, without any inquiry into the specific circumstances and manner of death of particular individuals.
Based on these considerations, we put these documents before the professional and general public and encourage it to draw its own conclusions.
Statements of 28th Division column survivors may be accessed by clicking here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ss3WKP6XDVrRkyX3sXIZ3p0OQQ4hRQYh
In order to facilitate reviewing these statements, we have made an analytical summary for each one:
Analytical summary of column survivors’ statements
In addition to statements that we acquired by searching the data base of the Hague Tribunal, there is in that data base also another pertinent document created by ICTY Prosecution investigators entitled “July ’95 – Srebrenica Witness Statements,” file no. 00464515:
July ’95 – Srebrenica witness statements
To facilitate searching this document, statements in it where combat casualties are specifically mentioned are listed here:
July ’95 Srebrenica witness statements — synopsis
Statements indicating the locations of combat clashes between the column and Serbian army forces are listed here:
Combat activities along the column breakout route
Statements where witnesses mention artillery attacks on the column:
Statements mentioning artillery attacks
Statements confirming the mixed military/civilian character of the column, making it a legitimate military target for the opposing forces:
Statements confirming the mixed character of the column
Statements which refer to minefields and casualties the column sustained while crossing them:
Statements which refer to suicides as an additional cause of human losses in the column:
Suicides as a cause of human losses
Finally, foreign observers’ estimates of the column’s casualties:
Foreign observers on column casualties
Concluding remarks
What summary conclusions can be drawn about the extent of the likely casualties of the 28th Division column?
The fundamental problem is how to arrive at a realistic estimate. A cautious approach is advisable and should be adopted toward both the statements of witnesses and assessments made by foreign observers. In the chaos of the critical week after Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, it is unlikely that anyone was concerned about counting the dead with any degree of precision. Column members certainly were not doing it because their principal focus was on reaching the safety of Muslim-held territory. The picture which they paint of the carnage that the column experienced as it fought its way to Muslim lines is stark and undoubtedly is relevant to the study of Srebrenica-related events. Their statements constitute important evidence of the magnitude of the disaster that befell the column and shed light on its direct causes, as far as eyewitnesses under great stress could perceive them. For understandable reasons, however, the evidence they provide is more of an impressionistic than precise nature. That hardly derogates from its value but it does urge critical caution. These statements, valuable as they are, can be transformed into reliable data only after careful cross-checking and comparison with other sources. Based on these statements alone, arriving at a satisfactory numerical assessment of total casualties would be difficult, but even so the losses recorded here may justifiably be considered enormous.
Similarly, casualty assessments made by foreign, non-percipient observers must also be treated with caution. It should be noted that assessments made by non-Bosnians generally were not the product of personal observation, but resulted from a process of cross-comparing data from a variety of intelligence and other sources to which foreign (mostly intelligence) personnel in the theatre had access. In order to arrive at credible numbers, assessments made by foreign observers must also be cross-checked and compared. However, their virtue is at least that of having been generated by observers whose physical distance from the epicentre of events was compensated by their disciplined and professional approach to the task at hand.
With all those caveats, the assessments of foreign personnel about column casualties range between 1,000 and 3,000. Even if we went along with the lower or middle number, that would still constitute a sizeable chunk not only of the total number of victims that the Muslim side claims (about 25% of 8,000) but, more importantly, it is a significant number in relation to the total number of exhumed individuals that has so far been established (about 2,000, or slightly fewer). There are practically no more mass graves unquestionably linked to executions, but there do remain unprocessed quantities of human remains along the route of the column’s breakout and at points identified in the witness statements as locations of armed clashes. At a minimum, that suggests that should the exhumation process continue the majority of the victims are likely to be from the category of combat casualties, while very few or a negligible number are likely to be from the category of the executed.
The total number of executed prisoners, to the extent that it may be reliably determined, is a separate subject that calls for special analysis. But if witness statements by column survivors may be taken as satisfactory evidence of considerable legitimate combat casualties occurring in the same time period and in the same small geographical area where executions were taking place, that would necessarily also affect the total number of possible executions.
The number of persons from the enclave of Srebrenica who are missing after July 11, 1995, is framed by the total population of the enclave (about 40,000[2]) and the number of registered surviving refugees who had successfully made it to the territory around Tuzla controlled by their side (about 35,000). The execution victims and combat casualties counts in the aggregate must fit within the difference between those two framing numbers.
The mathematics of this situation virtually rules out the possibility of “8,000 executed men and boys”. If we take it that conservatively the probable number of combat casualties in the course of the breakout was between 2,000 and 2,500, which is what a cautious reading of the evidence suggests, the number of the executed could not be much greater than the figure suggested by the analysis of the ICTY Prosecution autopsy reports, and that would be about 1,000 or slightly more.
Endnotes:
[1] In the Krstic trial judgment, the Chamber laconically claims in par. 75 that “the results of the forensic investigations suggest that the majority of the bodies exhumed were not killed in combat.” Besides being a crass misrepresentation of the forensic evidence, without citing specific numbers this conclusion supports the view that combat casualties were but a minor aspect of total losses on the Muslim side. That leaves executions by default as the major cause.
[2] Srebrenica enclave July 1995 population estimates converging on about 40,000 are sourced in S. Karganovic [ed.], Deconstruction of a virtual genocide (Den Haag – Belgrade, 2011), pages 191 – 192.