After the airing of Ole Flyum and David Hebditch’s documentary “Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed” in 2010, first in Norway, then in Sweden, the international Srebrenica Lobby was outraged. It did not matter that the main feature of the documentary was not advocacy for one side in the Bosnian conflict (1992-1995), as was the case with practically all similar ventures up to that point, but merely an attempt to redress the balance by focusing also on the suffering of civilians on the other side, interspersed with critical observations on Srebrenica affairs that did not strictly follow the Lobby’s narrow script. The documentary paid much attention to the Christmas 1993 attack emanating from the enclave of Srebrenica on the Serbian village of Kravica, just outside the enclave’s borders, and its impact on civilians living there. As the producers explained in their Response to criticisms leveled at the documentary by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, they selected Kravica not to favor it but as a convenient paradigm for dozens of such attacks on civilian targets orchestrated from the enclave of Srebrenica, where a large and armed military unit of the Army of Bosnia/Herzegovina was stationed. Whatever insights they had to offer on the nature of the conflict, in their Response the producers show that these were amply supported by evidence and they accept that, like all assertions, these also are subject to criticism. Bitter comments by some members of the Bosniak community in Scandinavia posted in 2015, long after the film’s first airing, betrayed an insecure and knee-jerk reaction to the slightest and even the most dispassionate departure from the prescribed Srebrenica script. The exchange between the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (ironically, a body one of whose primary functions is defense of the freedom of expression) acting as a proxy for the Srebrenica Lobby, and the documentary’s producers Flyum and Hebditch, is significant on many levels. In response to the Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s statement of objections to the documentary’s content (pages 1 – 6), the producers submitted a detailed and reasoned reply in defense of their work (pages 7 – 43). The Norwegian Helsinki Committee then responded critically to their explanation. The controversy as it unfolded shed much light on fervent attempts to keep Srebrenica outside the bounds of critical inquiry. Interestingly, the Hague Tribunal also felt compelled to become involved, claiming that the Norwegian film “undermines its judgements.” In addition to the aforementioned documents, we also post “Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed,” the film at the center of this controversy, so that readers can arrive at their own conclusion concerning the merits of the case.
Norwegian Helsinki Committee Complaint and producers’ response
Norwegian Helsinki Committee comment on Response (IN NORWEGIAN)
“SREBRENICA: A TOWN BETRAYED,” A NORWEGIAN DOCUMENTARY