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JAMES BISSETT – SREBRENICA GENOCIDE DENIER
Updated Version: July 2nd, 2008.
Rebuttal to James Bissett’s Denial of Srebrenica genocide…
PHOTO CAPTION: James Bissett, Canadian conspiracy theorist and discredited Srebrenica genocide denier. He is a former Canadian ambassador to Belgrade, close friend of a late Serbian dictator Slobodan Miloseivc, and a long time pro-Serbian war crimes apologist…
James Bissett doesn’t seem to realize that Srebrenica genocide is a judicial fact recognized by the two highest U.N. World Courts.
Srebrenica genocide is not a matter of his opinion or anybody’s opinion. Opinion is cheap, everybody has it. Srebrenica genocide is a fact.Many of these so called ‘Serb’ villages were pre-war Muslim villages, from which Muslims were ethnically cleansed. Serbs from surrounding villages blocked humanitarian convoys and bombarded Srebrenica civilians. Furthermore, Serbs around Srebrenica never demilitarized. Instead, Serb military and paramilitary troops continued using surrounding Serb villages as a base for attacks on (and brutal siege of) Srebrenica. The genocide justifiers have consistently ignored the strong VRS (Serb) military presence in Bosnian Serb villages around Srebrenica. For example, the village of Fakovici was used as a military outpost through which Bosnian Serb forces launched massive attacks on Srebrenica civilians.
James Bissett Plagiarizing Other Srebrenica Genocide Denial Sources… Here are some facts about Srebrenica Genocide victims that he doesn’t want to know…
James Bissett uses outdated Red Cross data of 7,079 Bosniak victims of genocide. In fact, on June 5, 2005 Federal Commission for Missing Persons issued a list of the names, parents’ names, dates of birth, and unique citizen’s registration numbers of 8,106 Bosniak Muslim individuals who have been reliably established, from multiple independent sources, to have been killed in and around Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Here is a copy of this list in PDF format. Two years later, on June 21 2007, the Research and Documentation Center released the results of the three year study compiling the largest database on Bosnian war victims in existence – the Bosnia’s Book of the Dead (covering period 1992-95). An international team of experts evaluated the findings before they were released. The team worked for three years with thousands of sources, collecting 21 facts about each victim, including names, nationality, time and place of birth and death, circumstances of death and other data. The commission established that 8,460 Bosniaks died in Srebrenica.
James Bissett’s Diatribe About Naser Oric and One of Favorite Serbian Propaganda Quotes
James Bissett claims that Naser Oric
“proudly displayed to western journalists videos of his forces decapitating Serb civilians.” First of all, those were not Serb civilians, and second of all, Bill Schiller – the Toronto Star journalist who allegedly met Srebrenica defender in 1994 – hadn’t even referred to them as “civilians” in his ’95 Toronto Star story.As Schiller claimed in 1995, “There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing.” Nothing unusual for a war zone.
So we have dead Serb soldiers and severed heads from grenade shrapnels, but no word that many of those so called ‘Serb villages’ were filled with Muslim mass graves; and many of those so called ‘Serb villages’ where in fact villages from which Muslims were ethnically cleansed earlier in 1992? It seems to us that ‘the West,’ and journalists like Schiller, as well as pro-Serbian propagandists such as James Bisset, hoped that the Bosniaks in Srebrenica would sit silent without responding to deadly Serb attacks. So according to this reasoning, Serbs were okay to bombard Srebrenica enclave and cut off humanitarian aid, but Bosniaks were wrong to defend themselves? Naser Oric had every right to attack and recapture those ‘Serb villages,” which were used as a base for attacks on Srebrenica. Schiller failed to focus on a bigger picture, and write a story or two about the human catastrophe facing starving Bosniak population of Srebrenica. Needles to say, in 1992, Serbs expelled Bosniaks from their villages around Srebrenica, and used those villages to set up military bases from which they launched brutal attacks on Srebrenica enclave. It would be beneficial for James Bissett to focus on Serb war criminals, Gen Ratko Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. They are charged with genocide, and still on the run from justice. But of course, James Bissett doesn’t care about them, because he is one of the most pathetic Srebrenica genocide deniers and pro-Serb oriented war crimes apologists in Canada.DUTCH GRAFFITI IN SREBRENICA: SICKENING LEGACY OF THE UNITED NATIONS IN SREBRENICA
Intro: This is the mountain road south of town where Dutch UN troops maintained observation posts. Facing the Bosnian Serb offensive in July 1995, the Dutch retreated without firing a shot. The town was taken, and the genocide of over 8,000 Bosniaks began. The forcible transfer (ethnic cleansing) of tens of thousands of people was assisted by the United Nations.
(can click on images for higher resolution photos)
Almost 13 years after the worst European genocide since World War II, the Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica still serve as a reminder of a shameful Dutch incompetence and a sickening arrogance they had towards their UN mission and people they ought to protect.
PHOTO: XXX-rated Dutch graffiti (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari) in Srebrenica, see right side wall drawing. Man in the photo is Abdulah, one of few who survived the four-day-long march through the forests around Srebrenica while the Serb Chetniks were shelling them with artillery and committing genocide in and around Srebrenica.
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica read “My ass is like a local. It’s got the smell same. Bosnia ’94” (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari). 
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica read “I’m your best friend. I kill you for nothing. Bosnie 94.” (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari). 
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: XXX-rated Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica read “No Teeth…! A Mustache…? Smel Like Shit…? Bosnian Girl!” (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica read “UN, United Nothing.” (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: XXX-rated Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: XXX-rated Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: ” Lick my Ass.” Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: “Nema Problema” translates as “No Problems” in Bosnian language. Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari). 
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
PHOTO: Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica read “No Teeth…! A Mustache…? Smel Like Shit…? Bosnian Girl!” (Dutchbat Camp in Potocari).
CHILD VICTIMS IN ZAKLOPACA MASS GRAVE: THE YOUNGEST CHILD VICTIM 5 YEAR OLD NAIDA HODZIC (FUNERAL PHOTOS)
Quick Intro: The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina started in 1992 when the Serb forces, supported by Belgrade, started attacking Bosniak villages around Srebrenica, in Eastern Bosnia, and summarily executing Bosniak women and children. Zaklopaca village is located just outside of Srebrenica, in Vlasenica area… It’s a place where Bosniak women, children and elderly men were brutally massacred… continue reading:
In May 2004, forensic experts have exhumed remains of 72 Bosniak victims, including 16 children and 10 women, summarily executed by the Bosnian Serb forces in the village of Zaklopaca in Vlasenica area – just outside of Srebrenica – at the outbreak of the 1992-95 war. The bodies were first buried in Zaklopaca, but later dug up, moved about two kilometers away and covered by heavy stone blocks to cover up the crime.
PHOTO CAPTION #1: Bosnian Muslim woman weeps near the coffins of victims exhumed from mass graves during a funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca in Vlasenica area, just outside of Srebrenica, on Saturday, June 21, 2008. Some 5,000 Bosniaks gathered for the funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992.
PHOTO CAPTION #2: Bosnian Muslim woman is comforted as she cries by a grave of her loved one during a mass funeral in Zaklopaca June 21, 2008. Thousands of Bosniaks gathered for a mass funeral for 55 people killed in their village by Serb forces in 1992, whose bodies were then found in different mass graves more than a decade after the end of the country’s war.
PHOTO CAPTION #3: Bosniak men carry the coffin of one of victims exhumed from a mass grave during funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca, on Saturday, June 21, 2008. Five thousand Bosniaks gathered at the funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992. All of the bodies were found and exhumed from mass grave sites.
PHOTO CAPTION #4: Bosniak men carry the coffin of one of victims exhumed from a mass grave during funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca, on Saturday, June 21, 2008. Five thousand Bosniaks gathered at the funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992. All of the bodies were found and exhumed from mass grave sites.
PHOTO CAPTION #5: Bosnian Muslim women watch men bury their relatives during a mass funeral in Zaklopaca June 21, 2008. Thousands of Bosniaks gathered for a mass funeral for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed in their village by Serb forces in 1992, whose bodies were then found in different mass graves more than a decade after the end of the country’s war.
PHOTO CAPTION #6: Bosnian Muslims pray near fresh graves during a mass funeral in Zaklopaca June 21, 2008. Thousands of Bosniaks gathered for a mass funeral for 55 Bosniak women, children,and men killed in their village by Serb forces in 1992, whose bodies were then found in different mass graves more than a decade after the end of the country’s war.
PHOTO CAPTION #7: Bosnian Muslims pray near fresh graves during a mass funeral in Zaklopaca June 21, 2008. Thousands of Bosniaks gathered for a mass funeral for 55 Bosniak women, children,and men killed in their village by Serb forces in 1992, whose bodies were then found in different mass graves more than a decade after the end of the country’s war.
PHOTO CAPTION #8: A Bosnian Muslim priest adjusts one of 55 coffins prepared for a mass funeral in Zaklopaca June 21, 2008. Thousands of Bosniaks gathered for a mass funeral for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed in their village by Serb forces in 1992, whose bodies were then found in different mass graves more than a decade after the end of the country’s war.
PHOTO CAPTION #9: Bosniak men carry the coffin of one of victims exhumed from a mass grave during funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca, on Saturday, June 21, 2008. Five thousand Bosniaks gathered at the funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992. All of the bodies were found and exhumed from mass grave sites.
PHOTO CAPTION #10: Bosnian Muslim woman weeps near the coffins of Bosniak victims exhumed from mass grave sites, during a funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca on Saturday June 21, 2008. Five thousand Bosniaks gathered at funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992. All of the bodies were found and exhumed from mass grave sites.
PHOTO CAPTION #11: Bosniak women weep near the coffins of victims exhumed from a mass grave, during a funeral ceremony in the village of Zaklopaca on Saturday, June 21, 2008. Five thousand Bosniaks gathered at funeral ceremony for 55 Bosniak women, children, and men killed by Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of Bosnian war in May 1992. All of the bodies were found and exhumed from mass grave sites.
SREBRENICA PHOTO STORY: ZELENI JADAR, AREA WHERE MANY CHILDREN WERE SHOT TO DEATH
ZELENI JADAR AREA YIELDS 5TH MASS GRAVE, MORE AWAITING TO BE EXCAVATED
INTRO: Zeleni Jadar is the area where many child victim remains were found. Children were shot to death, dumped into mass graves, and later relocated to secondary mass graves to cover the crime. As reported by the ICMP, children were aged between 7 and 11 years old. What you are about to see is yet another mass grave containing bodies of Srebrenica genocide victims that were summarily executed during Srebrenica massacre…
PHOTO CAPTION #1: A forensic expert from the ICMP (International Commission for Missing Persons) works at a mass grave with the remains of Bosniaks June 16, 2008, discovered in the former UN safe-zone of Srebrenica. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
PHOTO CAPTION #2: EUFOR peacekeepers in Bosnia visit Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari June 16, 2008. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
PHOTO CAPTION #3: EUFOR peacekeepers in Bosnia watch forensic experts from the ICMP (International Commission for Missing Persons) work in a mass grave with the remains of Bosnian Muslims June 16, 2008, discovered in the former UN safe-zone of Srebrenica. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
PHOTO CAPTION #4: Forensic investigator Admir Jugo of Bosnia, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspects body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #5: British forensic investigator Sharna Daly, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspects body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #6: Forensic investigator Admir Jugo of Bosnia, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspects body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #7: British forensic investigator Sharna Daly, left, and Canadian Laurie Shead, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspect body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #8: A forensic expert from the ICMP (International Commission for Missing Persons) explains his work to EUFOR peacekeepers visiting a mass grave with the remains of Bosniaks June 16, 2008, discovered in the former UN safe-zone of Srebrenica. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
PHOTO CAPTION #9: British forensic investigator Sharna Daly, foreground, and Canadian Laurie Shead, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspects body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #10: Bosnian workers, and forensic investigator Sharna Daly, from Britain, foreground, and Canadian Laurie Shead, centre right, of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspect body remains at a mass-grave site in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be secondary mass-grave of Srebrenica genocide victims, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.
PHOTO CAPTION #12: EUFOR peacekeepers in Bosnia take pictures of forensic experts from the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) work in a mass grave with the remains of Bosniaks discovered in the former UN safe-zone of Srebrenica June 16, 2008. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
PHOTO CAPTION #13: EUFOR peacekeepers in Bosnia watch forensic experts from the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) work in a mass grave with the remains of Bosnian Muslims discovered in the former UN safe-zone of Srebrenica June 16, 2008. A Dutch court on Monday began hearing from a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre who says Dutch troops guarding the Bosnian town as part of a U.N. force allowed Bosnian Serbs to murder his family during genocide in Srebrenica.
NETHERLANDS: SREBRENICA GENOCIDE SURVIVORS ATTEND COURT HEARING AGAINST THE DUTCH STATE
PHOTO: Hasan Nuhanovic, Srebrenica genocide survivor.
(Republished for fair use only, as defined by the Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107)
Hasan Nuhanovic and the family of another Srebrenica victim are suing the Dutch state for negligence over its troops’ role in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The court will hear a separate civil suit on Wednesday filed by about 6,000 relatives of Srebrenica massacre victims against the Dutch state and the United Nations.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys were killed at Srebrenica, a U.N. safe haven guarded by a Dutch army unit serving as part of a United Nations force, after Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Ratko Mladic overran it on July 11, 1995.
Nuhanovic, a U.N. interpreter who launched his case in 2002, says his father, mother and younger brother were killed after they were expelled from the town’s Dutch military base. He says he was allowed to stay because he had a U.N. identity card.
“If I had not done this, I would not be able to go on with my life. I am seeking justice,” Nuhanovic told Reuters ahead of the court hearing in The Hague.
Lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, representing Nuhanovic and the family of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician in the U.N. force ‘s Dutch battalion who also died in the massacre, told judges the Dutch state had been grossly negligent and violated human rights through the actions of its soldiers in Srebrenica.
“One life could have been saved, my dad,” Mustafic’s daughter, Alma, told the court. “He was entitled to Dutch protection, this was confirmed to us, but he was not given it. He fell into Serbian hands, since then we have not heard anything about him.”
At a vigil outside the court earlier on Monday, about 50 relatives and Srebrenica survivors held up a long banner inscribed with the names of the 8,106 victims.
Government lawyers said Mustafic was not evacuated because he was a temporary worker and not a U.N. employee.
“The acts of the Dutch battalion are attributable to the U.N. and not to the Dutch state,” the lawyers told the court. “The Dutch state made available soldiers for the peacekeeping mission, to keep apart fighting parties. The fact they didn’t succeed does not mean they are liable for the atrocities.”
The Netherlands has said its troops were abandoned by the U.N., which gave them no air support. The families’ lawyers have said public documents show a network of Dutch military officials within the U.N. blocked air support because they feared their soldiers could be hit by “friendly fire”.
Judges said they would issue their ruling on September 10.
Munira Subasic, head of an association of mothers bereaved by the massacre, and who will be a witness for the suit to be heard on Wednesday, said she hoped for justice for Nuhanovic “and all others who experienced genocide under the protection of the U.N. and before the eyes of the whole world”.
The Dutch government led by Wim Kok resigned in 2002 after a report on the massacre blamed politicians for sending the Dutch U.N. troops on an impossible mission. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Mladic, both indicated for genocide over Srebrenica, are still at large.
WERE MEN AND BOYS ONLY VICTIMS OF SREBRENICA GENOCIDE?
According to the Association of rape victims in Sarajevo, Zene – Zrtve Rata (Women – Victims of War), hundreds of women and underage girls were documented to be raped during Srebrenica massacre. The Serb troops abused women and even children who they had herded into makeshift enclosures. Due to cultural stigma attached to rape, many women refused to testify against the rapists.
There were also reports of babies being taken away from their mothers and killed. Sabaheta Fejzic’s testimony is a sad one [click here to read testimony re-published from German Der Spiegel]. She witnessed Serb soldiers indiscriminately taking girls, boys, and men out of camp. They also took her husband and son. She never saw either one of them again.
According to the Secretary-General’s Report, A/54/549, quote:
“389. The same day, one of the Dutchbat soldiers, during his brief stay in Zagreb upon return from Serb-held territory, was quoted as telling a member of the press that ‘hunting season [is] in full swing’… it is not only men supposedly belonging to the Bosnian Government who are targeted… women, including pregnant ones, children and old people aren’t spared. Some are shot and wounded, others have had their ears cut off and some women have been raped.” (source: The United Nations)
“[W]e saw two Serb soldiers, one of them was standing guard and the other one was lying on the girl, with his pants off. And we saw a girl lying on the ground, on some kind of mattress. There was blood on the mattress, even she was covered with blood. She had bruises on her legs. There was even blood coming down her legs. She was in total shock. She went totally crazy.” (source: Prosecutor vs. Krstic Judgement)
As a result of exhaustive UN negotiations with Serb troops, roughly 20,000 women were forcibly deported (ethnically cleansed) from Srebrenica. Had UN negotiations with Serb troops failed, most Srebrenica women would likely meet the fate of Srebrenica men and boys. Some busses never reached the safety. For example, according to the witness accounts given by Srebrenica Massacre survivor – Kadir Habibovic – who hid himself on one of the first buses taking women and children from the Dutch United Nations base in Potocari to government-held territory in Kladanj, “Habibovic saw at least one vehicle full of Muslim women being driven away from Bosnian government-held territory.” [source: David Rohde, eyewitness]
One of his captors at one point complained that they were not getting a good choice of the Muslim women from Srebrenica. Habibovic’s account corroborates reports from refugees that many Srebrenica women were raped by Bosnian Serb soldiers. Habibovic said the men were taken to a remote location near Rasica Gai late in the evening. When the first group was taken from the truck and shot, he said he leapt from the truck and tumbled down a nearby slope.
Gunfire from the soldiers missed him and he escaped. He later heard a large amount of gunfire, which he believes were the other prisoners being killed. He reached government-held territory on Aug 20, with his wounds still fresh. Hague officials say that the tribunal’s progress in dealing with rape has come from three factors – the courage of the victims and witnesses who testified, the tenacity of the prosecuting lawyers, and the years of tireless lobbying by pressure groups. The breakthrough came when prosecutors established that these rapes were entirely foreseeable.
Judges agreed that the generals in charge should have reasonably predicted that, under these conditions, the sexual assaults were likely. It was concluded that any rapes that took place in Srebrenica were therefore the fault of the commanders. Hague officials say that the tribunal’s progress in dealing with rape has come from three factors – the courage of the victims and witnesses who testified, the tenacity of the prosecuting lawyers, and the years of tireless lobbying by pressure groups.
Here are some excerpts from the ICTY’s (International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia) 260 page-rulling in the case of Prosecutor vs. Krstic which resulted in Srebrenica genocide verdict:
43. Killings occurred. In the late morning of 12 July 1995, a witness saw a pile of 20 to 30 bodies heaped up behind the Transport Building in Potocari, alongside atractor-like machine. Another testified that, at around 1200 hours on 12 July, he saw a soldier slay a child with a knife in the middle of a crowd of expellees. He also said that he saw Serb soldiers execute more than a hundred Bosnian Muslim men in the area behind the Zinc Factory and then load their bodies onto a truck, although the number and methodical nature of the murders attested to by this witness stand in contrast to other evidence on the Trial Record that indicates that the killings in Potocari were sporadic in nature.
44. As evening fell, the terror deepened.Screams, gunshots and other frightening noises were audible throughout the night and no one could sleep. Soldiers were picking people out of the crowd and taking them away: some returned; others did not. Witness T recounted how three brothers – one merely a child and the others in their teens – were taken out in the night. When the boys’ mother went looking for them, she found them with their throats slit.
46. Bosnian Muslim refugees nearby could see the rape, but could do nothing about it because of Serb soldiers standing nearby. Other people heard women screaming, or saw women being dragged away. Several individuals were so terrified that they committed suicide by hanging themselves. Throughout the night and early the next morning, stories about the rapes and killings spread through the crowd and the terror in the camp escalated.
150. On 12 and 13 July 1995, upon the arrival of Serb forces in Potocari, the Bosnian Muslim refugees taking shelter in and around the compound were subjected to a terror campaign comprised of threats, insults, looting and burning of nearby houses, beatings, rapes, and murders.
517. More significantly, rapes and killings were reported by credible witnesses and some committed suicide out of terror. The entire situation in Potocari has been depicted as a campaign of terror. As an ultimate suffering, some women about to board the buses had their young sons dragged away from them, never to be seen again.
For more Questions and Answers click here.
STOJAN ZUPLJANIN IDENTITY CONFIRMED, LIED TO POLICE
As a Bosnian Serb police commander in the city of Banja Luka, a former centre of brutal ethnic cleansing, Stojan Zupljanin controlled the Serb-run concentration camps.
Images from the camps in northern Bosnia shocked the world, when television footage of starving Bosniak prisoners evoked memories of Nazi atrocities.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Zupljanin was a prominent member of Radovan Karadzic’s Bosnian Serb authorities which had organized the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica in which at least 8,000 Bosniaks died.
Zupljanin is charged with crimes against the humanity, including torture and extermination of the Bosniak and Croat population of Bosnian Krajina.
B92 understands that this was his assumed identity, and that Vukadin has been dead for some time. The Hague fugitive’s fingerprints, B92 understands, were filed under the name of Branislav Vukadin, which was why a DNA analysis was necessary. His personal ID card with his assumed identity was issued in Backa Palanka. One other fugitive, Vlastimir Đorđević, was also carrying the identity card of a dead man when he was arrested in 2007.
The U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Zupljanin’s arrest or conviction. The Hague Tribunal is still on the hunt for the remaining Serb political and military leaders from Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and Goran Hadzic.
STOJAN ZUPLJANIN ARRESTED!
Stojan Zupljanin is charged with crimes against the humanity, including torture and extermination of the Bosniak and Croat population of Bosnian Krajina….
Serbian authorities on Wednesday arrested Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Stojan Zupljanin, an official at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said. The U.S. government offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Zupljanin’s arrest or conviction.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Zupljanin was a prominent member of Radovan Karadzic’s Bosnian Serb authorities which had organized the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica in which at least 8,000 Bosniaks died.The indictment also alleges that Zupljanin ordered the unlawful detention of people in prison camps which lacked adequate shelter, food, water, or medical care, and he is also charged with torture.
“Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and other non-Serbs were confined in inhumane conditions and subjected to intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering by beatings, torture, sexual assaults, humiliation, harassment, and psychological abuse in camps, police stations, military barracks, and other detention facilities,” according to the 2004 indictment against Zupljanin.
He and his forces destroyed villages and religious buildings, including Roman Catholic sacred sites, and plundered property, according to the indictment.
Zupljanin was born in Maslovare, a village in the Kotor Varos municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As commander of the Bosnian Serb police during the Bosnian war, Zupljanin had operational control over the police forces responsible for the detention camps where thousands of prisoners were held in horrific conditions and many were murdered.
The United States welcomed the news of Zupljanin’s arrest. “His arrest is another positive step in ensuring that those responsible for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia are held responsible,” U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said.
Hague Tribunal spokeswoman Olga Kavran expressed similar views. “We have been informed by the Serbian authorities that Stojan Zupljanin has been arrested,” said Olga Kavran, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office at the ICTY (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). “The office of the prosecutor welcomes this arrest and the fact that this brings the number of remaining fugitives from four to three.”
She said that she did not know the exact date of Zupljanin’s extradition to the Tribunal, but she expected it to be very soon. At the same time, Kavran said that the fact that Zupljanin had been arrested near Belgrade indicated that the Serbian authorities had known his whereabouts, as Brammertz himself asserted recently.
EU Common Foreign and Security Policy Chief Javier Solana said in Brussels that Zupljanin’s arrest was good news.
Solana said that it was not up to him to say whether the arrest could lead to a positive appraisal at the EU Council of Ministers on Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague, but depended rather on Hague Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz.
“It’s up to him to give the first reaction, but the news is very good,” Solana said. “The arrest of fugitives and bringing them to justice is good for everyone. It is one of the forms of cooperation Serbia has committed to, so this is good news.”
“Zupljanin’s arrest is an important step towards Serbia’s full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, which is the key to lasting reconciliation in the Balkans,” said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, Slovenian media report.
The remaining fugitives are Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and Goran Hadzic, Kavran said. All are wanted by the ICTY for war crimes related to the Balkan wars of the 1990s. A fourth man, Radovan Stankovic, was convicted in Bosnia in November 2006 for crimes against humanity but escaped from a Bosnian Serb prison with the help of Serb prison guards in May 2007, and remains on the run.
SERB VICTIMS OF SERBIAN GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
PHOTO CAPTION: These innocent victims of Serbian terrorism, Predrag (7) and Danka (4) Sekulovic, where killed on Sep. 13, 1992 when their parent’s truck came on an anti-tank mine, which was placed by the Bosnian Serb Army in the village of Bakic on the road to Foca to block communication between largely Muslim villages in the area. These innocent children were conveniently branded as the victims of “Muslim terror,” and their photos were repeatedly featured on Srebrenica genocide denial web sites to justify genocide against the Bosniaks. It is important to note that these children are not even from Srebrenica. It is equally important to note that in Sarajevo alone, over 1,500 children of all ethnicities were killed by the Bosnian Serb Army that used air-modified bombs to bombard Sarajevo citizens.
These types of propagandists will do anything to prove their point, even if that means misusing the photos of slaughtered Bosniak Muslim civilians. Recently, we reported the case of a Serbian nationalist newspaper misusing the photos of Bosniak Muslim victims by presenting them as photos of Serb victims of the so called “Muslim-Croat terror” (
more info). But, they not only misusing photos of Bosniak victims of genocide – they also misuse photos of individual war crimes against the Bosnian Serb civilians. The saddest example of such marketing practice includes photos of two Bosnian Serb children, Predrag (7) and Danka Sekulovic (4) who were killed on Sep. 13, 1992 when their parent’s truck came on an anti-tank mine, which was placed by the Bosnian Serb Army in the village of Bakic on the road to Foca to block communication between largely Muslim villages in the area.The image you see on top of this article was reproduced from the book titled: “The Eradication of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and sold by anti-Semitic
Serbian Defense League web site which claims that Jews committed crimes against the Serbs by “…using ‘holocaust’ analogy to deceive countries in which they live into letting them use their resources in commission of crimes world-wide.” No comment needed to such offensive anti-Semitic allegations.The indicted Serb war criminals and masterminds of genocide, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are still on the run and widely believed to be protected by the Serbian Orthodox Church.
SURVIVORS OF GENOCIDE AT SREBRENICA: MEMORIAL NOT UNDER SERB JURISDICTION
Survivors Condemn Serb Police Presence at Srebrenica Genocide Memorial
Last year, the international administrator for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Christian Schwarz Schilling ruled that the Srebrenica-Potocari Genocide Memorial Foundation, a graveyard where victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide are buried, should be under the direct jurisdiction of the state authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H), and not under the jurisdiction of the Serb entity of Republika Srpska (RS) (read here). The State Agency for Investigations and Security (SIPA) should handle security at the the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, and not the Bosnian Serb (RS) police.
This year, the Republika Srpska (RS) police are due to handle security at the 13th anniversary commemorations of the Srebrenica genocide and the Srebrenica genocide survivors are not happy with it.
They also express their dissatisfaction over Bosnia-Herzegovina Investigation and Protection Agency Director Mirko Lujic’s claims that his Agency does not have the jurisdiction to handle security at the event.
“We are angry because of the numerous injustices imposed on us, Srebrenica survivors,” the statement reads.
Members of the organization claim that such attitudes could be interpreted as encouraging those “who, because of jurisdiction and laws in Bosnia-Herzegovina, will once again laugh in the face of the international media, and set another precedent in the history of human kind—the killer ‘protecting’ its victim.”
The memorial was opened by the United States President, Bill Clinton, on September 20, 2003, when he told thousands of relatives of the Srebrenica massacre genocide victims:
Bad people who lusted for power killed these good people simply because of who they were. They sought power through genocide. But Srebrenica was the beginning of the end of genocide in Europe…. We remember this terrible crime because we dare not forget, because we must pay tribute to the innocent lives, many of them children, snuffed out in what must be called genocidal madness…. I hope the very mention of the name “Srebrenica” will remind every child in the world that pride in our own religious and ethnic heritage does not require or permit us to dehumanize or kill those who are different. I hope and pray that Srebrenica will be for all the world a sober reminder of our common humanity…. May God bless the men and boys of Srebrenica and this sacred land their remains grace.
The annual Srebrenica genocide memorial commemoration is going to be held on July 11th.
Srebrenica Massacre 