George Pumphrey is a thoroughgoing researcher of the phenomenon that has come to be known as “Srebrenica” and also an incisive critic of the received narrative that surrounds it. His mastery of the subject is impressive. The texts that follow were written by him between 1999 and 2015. The fact that Srebrenica is an…
The “Srebrenica Massacre” Reader
The “massacre of Srebrenica” is alleged to have been carried out by Bosnian Serb troops in the Bosnian Muslim enclave of that name in July 1995. It is possibly the “propaganda cow” that has given the most milk in the aftermath of the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s. According to the well-known narrative,…
Joyce van de Bildt: Srebrenica – a Dutch national trauma
ABSTRACT: “The Srebrenica genocide of 1995 and the failure of Dutch peacekeeping troops to protect the enclave have brought about a lingering, painful national debate in the Netherlands. Almost two decades after the fall of Srebrenica, the issue remains sensitive in Dutch society. From the extensive amount of Dutch writing, analyses and investigations into what…
Lt. Col. Peter Jan de Vin, Royal Netherlands Marine Corps: Srebrenica – “The impossible choices of a Commander.”
The text below is the author’s Master of Military Studies paper presented in 2008 at the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College. The author is a Dutch officer, presumably training in the US as a NATO exchange student. The paper is not remarkable either in its analysis or its conclusions, but it faithfully reflects…
Thomas C. Mountain: Rwanda indicts French generals for 1994 genocide (2017)
Late in 2016, the Rwandan government indicted several senior French Army generals for crimes against humanity, including genocide for their role in the 1994 Rwandan holocaust. Rwanda events do not necessarily tie in with those in Srebrenica, but many rough analogies may be drawn. One potential analogy, subject to the acquisition of further specific evidence,…
Konstantin Kilibarda: Refuting the Srebrenica Myth – An Islamist Perspective
“The international press…made the battle for Srebrenica sound like Stalingrad. There is a kind of dialectical relation between the attention of a great power and the power of the media. It creates a distortion in our work. What I am trying to do, without great success, is to correct this distortion.”– Comments by UN Secretary General…
Background sources on the “Srebrenica: a town betrayed” controversy (2011)
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…
Aleksandar Pavic: Angelina Jolie and CNN Perpetuate Srebrenica Fake News Narrative
Long before Donald Trump successfully hung the “fake news” label on CNN, more discerning observers of the wars of the Yugoslav succession of the 1990s came to similar conclusions regarding the network’s news coverage of that tragedy. Headlined by Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s reporting, especially from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, showed a clear pro-Muslim, anti-Serbian bias, painting the conflict in stark…
George Pumphrey: Five Sources of the Srebrenica Legend (2010)
George Pumphrey’s analysis of the factors which contributed to the shaping of the official Srebrenica narrative as it is known today was written in 2010, in response to the controversy in Serbia at that time over a government-sponsored parliamentary resolution acknowledging the country’s responsibility for the massacre. In opposition to the government’s initiative, a number…
Srdja Trifkovic: “Srebrenica” and the power of reason (2011)
“Truth and reason are eternal,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to Rev. Samuel Knox in 1810. “They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail . . . ” Jefferson was wrong. His belief that “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it” was naive. As Patrick J. Buchanan proves in a passing reference…