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ELECTION FRAUD – ANOTHER WAY TO LEGALIZE RESULTS OF SREBRENICA GENOCIDE AND ETHNIC CLEANSING
Short Background: In 1992, Bosnian Serb terrorists with the logistical support from Serbia attacked predominantly Bosniak Muslim region of Eastern Bosnia, killing civilians and ethnically cleansing the area of its inhabitants. Thousands of Bosniak civilians poured into Srebrenica only to find themselves besieged by the Serb Army. Serb terrorists from militarized Serb villages around Srebrenica started terrorizing Bosniak Muslim population, bombarding the enclave, and blocking humanitarian convoys. In 1995, Serb fascists with the logistical support from Serbia committed genocide at Srebrenica killing between 8,000 and 10,000 Bosniaks – men, children, and elderly; at the same time, they expelled 20,000 women from the enclave in a UN-assisted ethnic cleansing. In 2008, same fascists are trying to legalize the results of genocide by committing widespread elections fraud in Srebrenica…
The Office of the Prosecutor confirmed it will investigate all complaints received from the Central Voting Commission (CIK), including cases of fake forms issued to Serbia’s citizens for the purpose of committing election fraud in Srebrenica. SREBRENICA TO SECEDE FROM SERB ENTITY
Responding to an ICJ [International Court of Justice] ruling that found the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica constituted genocide, Bosniak and Croat leaders have been calling for the town to be removed from Bosnian Serb Entity Republika Srpska’s [RS] authority.
By Vlatko Vukotic
The International Criminal Court of Justice’s ruling earlier this month on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) genocide case against Serbia has fueled tension on the BiH political scene. The court found that the mass killings at Srebrenica in 1995 constituted genocide and that Serbia had breached the genocide convention by failing to prevent them. However, it acquitted Serbia of direct responsibility.
In the aftermath of the ruling, Bosniak leaders are calling for Srebrenica to secede from the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska (RS).
“The territory of the Srebrenica municipality needs to have the status of district and as such should be taken out of the jurisdiction of the Republika Srpska institutions,” the Bosniak and Croat members of the BiH presidency, Haris Silajdzic and Zeljko Komsic, said in a statement.
“We are entitled to justice.”
A special meeting on the issue, held March 12th, was attended by ambassadors and representatives from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and the Palestinian Authority. Participants concluded that state and entitiy institutions are obliged to make decisions to implement the ICJ verdict.
RS authorities say any attempt to change the status of Srebrenica would be a violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the RS Constitution. They charge that state politicians are exploiting the issue in order to gain a better position in negotiations on police and constitutional reforms.
“Some politicians [are trying to] destroy RS. It is time for them to change their opinion and to turn to economic development that will lead this country towards Europe,” says RS President Milan Jelic.
According to the Peace Implementation Committee, municipal status in BiH is determined by constitutions and relevant state and entity legislation. Any changes, it says, would have to take place within this framework.
German Ambassador Michael Schmunk, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said he did not attend the meeting in Srebrenica because he thought it would not be wise in a situation that is “emotionally heated”.
Prior to the conflicts of the 1990s, Srebrenica’s population was over 75% Muslim, while Serbs constituted just over 22%. Today, however, it is mostly a Serb town. Bosniaks who have remained say the ICJ ruling means that the Serbs should not have authority and that the town should handle its own affairs. The group has threatened to leave if their demand is not met.
Serbian representatives in Srebrenica oppose the secession, and request that international donors pledge more support. Even though they represent the majority in Srebrenica, the Serbs say they receive less financial support that the Bosniak residents.
Both RS and the Federation of BiH have pledged additional support.
The Office of High Representative [OHR] says the Srebrenica municipality resolution on separation from the Republic of Srpska (RS) was unconstitutional.
The resolution adopted by Bosniak members of the municipal assembly was a legal act which exceeded the responsibilities of the municipality as defined by the RS Constitution and the RS Law on Local Self Government and the Municipal Statute, the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia said in a statement published on its web site.
“Institutions at the various levels of Government have the capacity to address the situation and should do so without delay,” the statement added.
“The OHR is particularly concerned about the threat to unilaterally pass a decision on separation of the Municipality from the RS. If the municipal assembly were to act on this, the High Representative would have no choice but to take robust action,” the statement continued.
The statement added that any change to Srebrenica’s status was a matter for the RS and Bosnia-Herzegovina authorities, as well as that the OHR would be informing the municipal, entity and Bosnian authorities of its view on the matter.
REASON WHY KRAJISNIK GOT AWAY WITH GENOCIDE
As Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic pointed out:
‘People are not little stones, or keys in someone’s pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that… Therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only Serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. I do not know how Mr Krajisnik and Mr Karadzic will explain that to the world. That is genocide.’
Author: Edina Becirevic
The acquittal of Krajisnik on genocide charges challenges the very definition of this gravest of all crimes, according to a leading Sarajevo criminal justice authority writing for IWPR’s Tribunal Update 470
On 27 September 2006 Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb leader accused of being one of the architects of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian 1992-95 war, was found guilty of most of the charges against him and sentenced to 27 years in prison. The tribunal judges said it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that he was responsible for the extermination, murder, persecution and deportation of non-Serbs during the war, adding that his role in the commission of these crimes was crucial. However, rather surprisingly, Krajisnik was acquitted of the most serious charges – genocide or complicity in genocide.
On first reading, this finding sends a somewhat confusing message. According to the summary of the judgement, read by Presiding Judge Alphons Orie on 27 September, genocide did take place in Bosnia – however, it was not possible to prove the intent of the perpetrators. ‘The Chamber finds that in spite of evidence of acts perpetrated in the municipalities which constituted the actus reus of genocide, the chamber has not received sufficient evidence to establish whether the perpetrators had genocidal intent, that is the intent to destroy, the Bosnian-Muslim or Bosnian-Croat ethnic group, as such,’ says the summary. The only reasonable conclusion that could be taken from this formulation is that genocide took place in Bosnia merely by accident.
The term genocide carries a heavy political burden, and scholars of genocide quite often disagree on the interpretation of the 1951 genocide convention. However, theorists from Raphael Lemkin – the Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide – to any other contemporary scholar in this field, would agree that it simply does not happen by accident and requires organised action. In his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in 1944, Lemkin specifically says that genocide could – but does not necessarily – mean destruction of a whole nation. However, he says that genocide requires organised planning aimed at destroying the basic foundations of the life of the national groups. That kind of plan would target ‘political and social institutions, culture, language, economic existence, as well as the personal security, freedom health, dignity, even lives of individuals that belong to those groups’.
Another recognised expert on the subject, Helen Fein, considers that the process of proving genocide involves establishing continuity in attacks aimed at destroying members of a group in an organised manner. Fein also says that two of the preconditions for genocide are the absence of sanctions for the perpetrators and the existence of ideologies that promote the idea of genocide.
Irvin Louis Horowitz, meanwhile, suggests that genocide is the structural and systematic destruction of innocent people.
None of the leading scholars in the field mentions ‘accidental genocide’.
The judgement against Krajisnik says, ‘The common objective of the joint criminal enterprise was to ethnically re-compose the territories targeted by the Bosnian-Serb leadership, by drastically reducing the proportion of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats through expulsion.’ It is important to note that this conclusion relies on the ‘six strategic aims of the Serb people’, which were adopted by the Bosnian Serb parliament at a session held on 12 May 1992. The first of these goals – to ‘separate Serb people from another two national communities’ – was announced by Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader also indicted for genocide by the tribunal. As parliamentary speaker, Momcilo Krajisnik presided over this session, and he emphasised the importance of the first strategic goal, which he said should be supported by ethnic division on the ground.
It is noteworthy that at this meeting, both Karadzic and Krajisnik were warned by Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, also indicted on genocide charges, that their plans could not be committed without committed genocide. ‘People are not little stones, or keys in someone’s pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that… Therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only Serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. I do not know how Mr Krajisnik and Mr Karadzic will explain that to the world. That is genocide,’ said Mladic. It was obvious to Mladic that the plan envisaged by the Serb politicial leadership could not be put into practice without a genocide. Even though the general had no qualms about executing this genocidal plan, this quote from the parliamentary transcript shows that Serb military and political leaders were aware of the likely consequences of their actions.In short, Krajisnik’s judgement seems to go against established definitions of genocide, as well as what General Mladic believed the crime to be. The judges in the Krajisnik case said they had established that genocide took place, but were not convinced the Serb leadership intended to commit it. They appear to lean toward a school of thought which sets extremely high standards of proof for genocide. To them, the Srebrenica massacre was one ‘genocidal incident’ in the broader ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. In his book States of Denial, Stanley Cohen says that avoiding the use of the word genocide in situations of armed conflict gives other countries an excuse not to intervene. This may help explain why the term was so studiously avoided during the Bosnian war.
Edina Becirevic is senior lecturer at the Faculty of Criminal Justice Sciences in Sarajevo. This comment appeared in IWPR’S Tribunal Update No. 470, 29September 2006, see
http://www.iwpr.net/Bosnia’s Accidental Genocide – republished from Bosnian Institute.
MOMCILO KRAJISNIK SENTENCED TO 27 YEARS
Bosniak woman Munira Subasic watches on TV the verdict on Momcilio Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Bosniak women survivors of the Srebrenica massacre gesture as they watch on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica women in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Bosniak woman Munira Subasic survivor of the Srebrenica massacre reacts as she watches on TV the verdict on Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-ranking Bosnian Serb politician accused of genocide over the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, at the Union of Srebrenica woman in Sarajevo on Wednesday, Sep. 27, 2006. The U.N. tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Sabra Kolenovic, a Bosnian Muslim survivor of 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslims reacts, during the live TV coverage from the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, from her office in Sarajevo September 27, 2006. Relatives of victims of the Srebrenica massacre blasted the U.N. war crimes tribunal’s verdict on Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik on Wednesday as too lenient, despite his sentence of 27 years’ jail.”
INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL JAILS FORMER BOSNIAN SERB POLITICIAN FOR 27 YEARS
“It’s a minimal punishment for what he has done,” said Zumra Sehomerovic, of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” association.“It doesn’t matter that he may not live long enough to walk out. What matters is that his acts are properly punished,” she said. “This Hague tribunal has also become a circus. God, is there justice anywhere in this world?”
The UN Yugoslav tribunal today jailed the former speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament for 27 years for war crimes, but acquitted him of Bosnian genocide.
Momcilo Krajisnik, 61, one of the highest ranking politicians in wartime Bosnia, was convicted of five counts of war crimes, including persecution, extermination, and the murder of Bosniaks and Croats in the early stages of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, which left more than 100,000 dead on all sides, mostly Bosniaks.
Reading a litany of killings, plundering and forced transfers in a summary of the judgment, presiding judge Alphons Orie said Krajisnik’s “role in the commission of the crimes was crucial.”
The judgment said Krajisnik “knew about, and intended, the mass detention and expulsion of civilians. He had the power to intervene, but he was not concerned with the predicament of detained and expelled persons.”
Orie said the judges were unconvinced by the evidence that the Bosnian Serb leadership had deliberately intended to destroy the non-Serb population in whole or in part – a key element in winning a conviction for Bosnian genocide.
The court has ruled in other cases that genocide occurred at Srebrenica, Bosnia, in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb troops killed at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the worst civilian massacre in Europe since the Second World War II (see preliminary list of dead and missing).
“Krajisnik wanted the Muslim [Bosniak] and Croat populations moved out of Bosnian-Serb territories in large numbers, and accepted that a heavy price of suffering, death, and destruction was necessary to achieve Serb domination and a viable statehood,” the judgment said.
Krajisnik listened to the reading of the verdict gravely, with downcast eyes, then stood as the sentence was read. His lawyers had asked for acquittal, and said they would appeal the ruling. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence.
Several family members were in the gallery to hear the verdict. “I know my brother is certainly not guilty, at least not to such an extent.” said Mirko Krajisnik.
Victims of the Bosnian Serbs decried the sentence as too lenient.
“It’s a minimal punishment for what he has done,” said Zumra Sehomerovic, of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” association.
“It doesn’t matter that he may not live long enough to walk out. What matters is that his acts are properly punished,” she said. “This Hague tribunal has also become a circus. God, is there justice anywhere in this world?”
Krajisnik’s case was of the most important remaining for the tribunal, which is due to begin its last trial in 2008, and may be the last chance to apportion blame among the leadership of the breakaway Bosnian Serb leadership for atrocities carried out by troops on the ground.
The two remaining key suspects, former Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, both indicted for genocide, are fugitives.
The ruling did not mention former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who prosecutors claimed had pulled the strings from neighbouring Serbia during the war. Milosevic died of heart attack in his cell in March, before a verdict could be rendered in his case.
A third figure in the Bosnian Serb leadership, Biljana Plavsic, confessed and is serving an 11-year sentence. She testified unwillingly against Krajisnik, saying he wielded almost as much power as Karadzic.
Krajisnik’s indictment covered events July 1991-December 2002, including the period when ethnic Serbs seized two-thirds of the territory in Bosnia and evicted non-Serbs. The judgment described what happened to Bosniak detainees at Zvornik, just one of the dozens of towns listed in the indictment.
“One man had his ear cut off, others had their fingers cut off, and at least two men were sexually mutilated,” it said. “About 160 detainees were later removed in small groups and executed by the Serb guards.”
Taken together, what was done to Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia would be enough to constitute the act of genocide, but “the chamber has not received sufficient evidence to establish whether the perpetrators had genocidal intent,” Orie said.
The judges rejected the argument by Krajisnik’s lawyers had argued he was only a small player in the Bosnian Serb government, They said he was part of its executive authority and bore responsibility.
SREBRENICA GENOCIDE SURVIVORS RECEIVE THREATS
THREATS AIMED AT SREBRENICA MASSACRE SURVIVORS
Survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica war crimes have been receiving vicious threats on their lives recently
The threats have come as a reaction to the published list of police officials who are suspected of having been involved in the Srebrenica massacre, according to Sarajevo daily
Oslobođenje.One woman from Srebrenica was threatened that she would be killed with pleasure the same way in which her sons were killed, according to the daily, which released some of the 810 names located on the list of those suspected of aiding and abetting the Srebrenica war crimes.
President and Vice President of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Association, Munira Subašić and Kada Hotić, said that they received such threats from the Republic of Srpska (Serb entity in Bosnia) directly after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but that it has not happened recently; not until this list was published.
“We were threatened by a 065 number again. However, we are getting the angriest calls from hidden numbers. I am not afraid because I have nothing left to lose, so that is why I have not reported the threats to anyone.” Subašić said.
She said that at one time, she regularly received threatening calls from the wife of Republic of Srpska military general Radislav Krstić, who was convicted of genocide in Srebrenica before the Hague Tribunal.
Republic of Srpska Police Chief Uroš Pena said that police officials of the RS that participated in the 1995 war crimes will be criminally prosecuted and released from the police force immediately.
Pena said that those who did not participate in the war crimes have no reason to fear for their status and protest the appearance of their names on the list.
Srebrenica Massacre 