Widespread and systematic attacks on Serbian settlements which were taking place between 1992 and June 1995 have largely been swept under the rug. It is not exactly a taboo subject, but nobody gets a pat on the back for mentioning it either. These attacks which left just under a thousand recorded deaths and widespread destruction are inconvenient for two main reasons. Firstly, they knock the props from under the fiction that the Muslim-controlled Srebrenica enclave was unarmed and militarily helpless. Secondly, they raise the uncomfortable question of the relative numerical parity between the prisoners executed in July of 1995 and Serbian villagers, who were genuine civilians, murdered during the preceding three-year period. One crime does not justify another, but it is helpful to view both in a broader perspective. And the outrageously different ways they are treated certainly leaves a bad taste, to put it charitably.
We offer some testimonies in English about the marauding attacks on Serbian villages originating from the militarized enclave of Srebrenica prior to July 1995 precisely to help our readers obtain a better grasp of that broader picture.
- Milosevic trial synopsis: DUTCHBAT Deputy Commander Robert Franken saw no executions in Srebrenica
- Mirjana — a documentary about the cruelty of the Bosnian war, 1992.