Archive
SERBS CELEBRATE, BOSNIAKS BURY GENOCIDE VICTIMS
PHOTO: A poster in Bratunac calling on all local Serbs to throw a party on the day of Srebrenica Genocide, 11 July 2009. Bratunac was a town with pre-war Bosnian Muslim ethnic majority. Now, it’s ethnically cleansed town controlled by Serbs who organized numerous massacres against the local Bosniak population in 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995.
While family and friends of the Srebrenica genocide victims spend time grieving and burying more than 500 DNA-identified victims this July 11th, Serbs in the nearby Ljubovija Municipality will celebrate “Drinska Regatta” along the River Drina, reports Sarajevo Daily Dnevni Avaz.
According to the Bosniak Representative Šefket Hafizović, Vice-President of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, this is just another indicator of how the official policy of Belgrade failed to distance itself from the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
“They never departed from Milosevic’s policy. Criminals return to the place where they committed crime – this time not to grieve, but to celebrate genocide. And all this happens at the same time when the democratic world, throughout Europe, is honoring victims of the genocide in accordance with the European Parliament’s Srebrenica Genocide Resolution… the resolution which proclaimed 11th of July as a Day of Commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide throughout the European Union (EU). At the same time, followers of Slobodan Milosevic will organized a party on the River Drina,” said Hafizovic.
Families of the genocide victims feel bitter. They feel that the act of organizing this regatta on the day when the Srebrenica genocide victims will be buried is nothing more than a carefully planned provocation to cause anger among relatives and survivors of the genocide.
“This is a great shame and one more humiliation, among many humiliations that families of genocide victims and survivors have to go through. Serbs will rejoice in celebrations when we – mothers, and other people of conscious – cry? Obviously, they are still looking forward to the crimes they committed in 1995,” said Munira Subasic, president of the Association “Mothers of Enclaves Srebrenica and Žepa.”
PHOTO: Local Serbs use July 11th to mock the Srebrenica genocide victims and to party on the River Drina, where thousands of Bosnian Muslims have been slaughtered and dumped.
AUSTRALIAN POLICE RELEASE SECURITY IMAGES OF 5 SERBIAN THUGS
Australian Police want to speak to five Serbian thugs who knocked out Srebrenica refugee by chair following the tennis match between Serb player Novak Djokovic and Bosnian-born Amer Delic. Police have released security images showing faces of suspects that participated in a brawl at the Australian Open.
Take a close look at the security images below. If you recognize any of these thugs, please call your local Australian Police immediately.
According to Herald Sun, “After being hit by the chair the girl, 18, from St Albans, lay on the ground for some time being comforted by friends. She was later treated by St John Ambulance and fled home to her mother. Family friend Senada Softic said the girl was a Bosnian refugee whose father was killed in the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia.”
Serbian thugs were taunting Bosnian tennis supporters with genocidal rants. “The tension was so great. When you hear a group of youths between 16 and 20 years of age chanting, ‘Knife wire Srebrenica’, it’s absolutely appalling,” she said.
The 1995 Srebrenica genocide claimed lives of at least 8,372 men, children, and elderly, and resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 25,000 people under the United Nations’ protection.
KNIFE, WIRE, SREBRENICA
During the game, Rad’s fans shouted slogans such as “Knife, wire, Srebrenica” and “Serbia for the Serbs, out with the Turks.”
Among those arrested there were 47 Rad supporters who are under the age of 18.
Vuksanovic told B92 that he is concerned by this behavior shown by young people and that they have gone astray or have been disregarded at some point in their upbringing.
Vuksanovic said that the state institutions must react strongly to this racist behavior seen frequently at sporting events.
“Without strong reactions from the judicial institutions, quick processes and strict punishments, you cannot expect to have order. We should not make up and guess what the cure will be – we need to do what everyone in the world is doing in the fight against the same exact type of occurrences, which are obviously a problem in many societies.” Vuksanovic said.
Police arrest 152 Belgrade fans for racism
Belgrade police arrested 152 fans for racist insults at a Serbian second division match between local team Rad and Novi Pazar late on Wednesday .
“Police officers have arrested 152 Rad supporters, including 47 juveniles,” police said.
“The offenders shouted slogans inciting racial, ethnic and religious hatred and intolerance.”
The home fans shouted anti-Muslim slogans at Novi Pazar players and police moved in to remove them from the stadium.
Novi Pazar is a Bosniak-majority town in western Serbia. Some ultranationalist Serbs are hostile to Muslims, often glorifying the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Bosniaks by Bosnian Serbs.
It was a second outbreak of racism at Serbia’s soccer grounds in four days after a black player was abused during a first division match on Saturday.
Borac Cacak’s Zimbabwean striker Mike Tawmanjira was insulted by the club’s fans who wore white hoods with Ku Klux Klan insignia, did a Nazi salute and held a banner saying the player was unwelcome in Serbia.
Eight of them face charges of spreading racial hatred and prison terms up to five years if convicted.
Serbia’s sports and education minister Slobodan Vuksanovic strongly condemned the incidents and said “decisive action must be taken to deal with these people who have lost their way.”
“There will be no order unless the judicial authorities react swiftly and impose harsh penalties on the offenders,” he told B 92 television.
“We don’t need to invent any new solutions, we just have to implement what the whole world already has in order to combat this deviation many societies are obviously prone to.”
Mosque goers threatened in Niš (Serbia)
The Niš police have arrested two individuals from Pirot for threatening and insulting mosque goers in Niš.
Željko C. (21) and Saša Đ. (19) from Pirot, according to the police, “urinated on the walls of the Hadrović mosque building in a visibly intoxicated state” at around midnight last night. After several mosque goers confronted them, the two began to insult and threaten the Muslim individuals and threw stones at the mosque.
The two youths were taken into custody by the Niš police.
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 BUTCHERS STILL ADMIRED IN SERBIA
BELGRADE, Serbia – The general still has his admirers.
In the musty headquarters of the Center for the Investigation of War Crimes Against Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, his portrait is prominently displayed on the wall behind Ljubisa Ristic’s desk. There were about 2,000 Serb civilian casualties in the war which Serbia waged against Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 [source – as of Dec 15, 2005 data].
“My personal opinion is that he is a true soldier and a hero of the Serbian people,” Ristic said.
It is not clear how many other Serbs feel that way about Gen. Ratko Mladic, the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army and chief executor of its ethnic cleansing campaign.
“I’d say 75 percent of the Serbs see him as a war hero,” said Aleksandar Tijanic, who heads the state-run television network in Serbia. “But if you ask them if he should he go to The Hague to save the Serbs from more suffering, 75 percent would say yes.”
Mladic, who has been charged with genocide by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, has been on the run since the collapse of Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in October 2000.
Last month, the European Union broke off talks with Belgrade aimed at preparing Serbia for EU membership after President Vojislav Kostunica’s government missed another deadline for delivering Mladic. The United States followed suit this month, canceling a $7 million aid package to the Serbian government.
Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, has claimed repeatedly that Mladic is in Serbia and within the reach of Belgrade authorities. She says the government simply lacks the political will to arrest him.
That appeared to be the case in February when there were feverish media reports that the general had been cornered at a hiding place near the Bosnian border.
“But instead of arresting him, they started negotiating with him,” said Bratislav Grubacic, a political analyst who publishes a widely respected newsletter.
The negotiations came to nothing. “And now they really don’t know where he is,” Grubacic said. “For this government, I think they prefer not to know.”
Vladan Batic, the former Yugoslav justice minister who ordered the extradition of Milosevic to The Hague in June 2001, agrees with Del Ponte that the present government lacks the political will to deliver Mladic.
“Kostunica was hoping that Mladic would surrender himself,” said Batic. “He knows Mladic is our ticket to Europe, but he’s afraid that if he gives up Mladic, he’ll lose a lot of votes and won’t be seen as a so-called patriot.” Batic, who heads a small opposition party and who retains good police and security contacts, believes Mladic is holed up at the Topcider military base, a large complex amid a forest outside Belgrade that has an elaborate network of tunnels.
State TV boss Tijanic, who is close to Kostunica, disputes the Topcider theory and also the suggestion that Kostunica is afraid of arresting Mladic.
“Today, Kostunica’s government is willing to send him to The Hague, but they don’t know where he is hiding,” Tijanic said.
Citing the recent arrests of about a dozen people thought to be part of Mladic’s support system, Tijanic claimed that Mladic has cut all of his contacts with the military and security forces and is hiding on his own.
The international community’s focus on Mladic has diverted attention from Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader, also charged with genocide and still on the run.
There are three explanations.
The first is The Hague’s experience in prosecuting genocide cases, which argues that it is much easier to obtain a conviction against military officers, who answer to a clear chain of command, than it is against their political bosses. A second explanation is that Karadzic, who is believed to be in Bosnia, has done a better job hiding himself.
The last, based on a persistent rumor echoed by nearly every diplomat and expert in the Balkans, is that at the time of the Dayton peace agreement, Karadzic cut a deal that he would completely withdraw from politics if authorities would not try too hard to find him. Little has been heard from him since.
A year ago, public opinion in Serbia was shaken by a video recording that came to light during the Milosevic trial. It shows members of an Interior Ministry death squad known as the Scorpions executing six handcuffed Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were massacred in 1995, allegedly on orders from Mladic.
The video [source], shot by one of the participants, was shown on Serbian television and the government, for the first time, acknowledged that Serbs were guilty of atrocities. The killers, who were identifiable on the video, have been arrested and are being tried in Serbian courts.
Ristic, from the center for war crimes against Serbs, said the trials were appropriate, but insisted that the Scorpion tape has not shaken his faith in Mladic’s innocence.
“I was not there (Srebrenica), so I can’t tell you whether he ordered anything or not. But after our clear-cut victory, it was not in Serbia’s interest to do something like that,” he said.
Milan Protic, a historian who served as Yugoslavia’s first ambassador to the United States in the post-Milosevic era, said that only “stupid minds” in Serbia continued to view Mladic as a hero, but that it also is wrong for the EU and the United States to hold all of Serbia hostage to his arrest.
“He is an obsolete symbol, this dirty little Serbian commander from Bosnia,” he said, “but the West is using him to complicate all kinds of things for Serbia.
SERBIAN SONG PRAISES SREBRENICA MASSACRE
NEW SERBIAN SONG PRAISES SREBRENICA GENOCIDE
Srebrenica Massacre 