On 27 June 2017, a Dutch appellate court in the Hague ruled that the Dutch State is liable for the deaths of a certain number of Muslim Srebrenica enclave residents who had taken refuge at the UN compound in Potočari under the control of the Dutch Battalion but later fell into Serb hands. The Plaintiffs,…
Dutch Debriefing on Srebrenica
The Dutch Debriefing on Srebrenica is a primary source document of extraordinary value. It is based on the questionnaire given by the Government of the Netherlands to each individual member of Dutch armed forces (Dutchbat) who served as part of the UN mission in the Srebrenica enclave. The time frame includes July 1995 when the…
DNA evidence and its uses in ICTY Srebrenica cases (2011)
It is time for some serious attention to be given to the important but largely neglected issue of DNA analysis. After 15 years and much digging it has proved impossible to meet the 8,000 “men and boys” quota (even by splitting up human remains and treating a few bones as a “case”, or implicitly as…
Lt. Col. John Sray: Selling the Bosnian Myth to America
Lt. Col. John Sray’s trenchant observations are significant not only because they are mostly accurate, but also because they were penned in 1995, as the conflict in Bosnia was drawing to a close. Whatever impact the narratives concocted by hired PR agencies may have had on public opinion, judging by this sober appraisal of the…
General Philippe Morillon: Mladić walked into a trap in Srebrenica
Gen. Philippe Morillon was commander of UN forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 and 1993. As a direct observer of important episodes during the conflict, in 2004 Morillon testified as a witness at the trial of Slobodan Milošević conducted by the ICTY in the Hague. In the excerpted transcript that follows the Defendant…
G. Lorin de la Grandmaison and M. Durigon: Forensic investigations of mass graves and their limitations
War crimes perpetrated during conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo prompted investigations of mass graves for the purposes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In spite of natural and methodological boundaries, these investigations were able to identify the victims and uncover important clues relevant to court’s task. However, it is…
ICTY and the forensic pathologist
In this study some serious issues concerning the integrity of the work performed by forensic pathologists engaged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) are highlighted. Since 1991, war crimes in the former Yugoslavia have been the subject of several international medico-legal investigations of mass graves within the framework of inquiries led…
Maj. Ramiz Bećirević’s debriefing statement (August 11, 1995)
Ramiz Bećirević was an important, but largely neglected, Srebrenica player. He was deputy commander of Sarajevo forces within the enclave and in the Spring of 1995, upon commander Naser Orić’s departure from the encalve shortly before it was overrun, Bećirević assumed command of 28th Division forces within it. In contrast to Orić, he was a…
Redefining “militant” to include 15-year olds: Can standards practiced in Iraq be applied in Srebrenica?
Practically every mainstream reference to Srebrenica is accompanied by the “8,000 executed men and boys” refrain. Although ICTY exhumation statistics reflect a scant presence of underage males among the victims, the inclusion of “boys” is clearly meant to prejudice the issue by framing it in frankly emotional terms. The implication is that males in their…
Definition of UNPROFOR Bosnia mission, 1994
This definition of the scope of the UNPROFOR mission, as defined in a 1994 UN resolution, with regard to civilians is noteworthy because its stated aim is to “protect the civilian populations of the designated safe areas against armed attacks and other hostile acts.” The ethnically neutral reference to “populations,” in the plural, raises the question…