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 tore her young son from her arms. 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)

A Dutch Bat medical orderly witnessed a rape, quote:

"[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.

source: http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2008/06/were-men-and-boys-only-victims-of.html

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.

Serbian activists have been supplying the internet with photos of slain individuals claiming to be Serb victims of the so called "Muslim terror" around Srebrenica. These activists are no strangers to controversy, as they are also known to misuse photos of dead Bosniaks - who were slaughtered in neighbouring Muslim villages around Srebrenica - and portray them as "Serb victims."

In order to justify Srebrenica genocide, the Serbian government propaganda - under the leadership of right-wing nationalist Milivoje Ivanisevic - claimed that over 3,000 Serb civilians were murdered around Srebrenica. Throughout the internet, followers of this denial 'cult' have been posting and re-posting same old photos of Serbian civilians and soldiers who died throughout of Bosnia-Herzegovina and attributing their deaths to the crimes of "Muslims of Srebrenica." Ivanisevic, who inspired this movement, is well known as an unrepentant Srebrenica genocide denier; we wrote about his distortions of facts extensively (part 1, part 2, part 3).

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.

It is important to know that the Serb allegations of 3,000+ "Serb victims of Muslim terror in Srebrenica" have been discredited on numerous occasions by the International Criminal Tribunal (more info), the internationally-backed Research and Documentation Center (more info), and even Serbia's Human Rights Watch (more info). Not to mention another allegation centred around alleged beheading of a Serb soldier Rade Rogic, who turned out to be Bosnian soldier, Mustafa Hadzipasic, who was ambushed, beheaded and videotaped by the Serbian (para) military thugs during operation Sanski Most in 1995. The "Rade Rogic beheading" video is still extensively used by ultra-nationalist Serb web sites to justify Srebrenica genocide (even though the event did not take place in Srebrenica, and the person beheaded was not a Serb soldier).

One of favorite and most referenced claims used by the Serbian government propaganda is an allegation made by the Toronto Star journalist, Bill Schiller, who allegedly met Srebrenica defender, Naser Oric, in 1994 when Oric. At that time, Oric allegedly boasted about his military victories against the Bosnian Serb soldiers in surrounding ethnically cleansed Muslim villages around Srebrenica. In 1995, Schiller claimed:

"There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing. Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork. 'We ambushed them,' he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the screen. The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: "We launched those guys to the moon,' he boasted."

Dead Serb soldiers and severed heads from grenade shrapnels, but no word that those same villages were filled with Muslim mass graves from which Muslims were ethnically cleansed earlier in 1992? Naser Oric had every right to attack and recapture those villages.

Why hasn't Schiller visited Sarajevo where the Bosnian Serb Army slaughtered over 1,500 children? Had he went to Sarajevo in 1995, he could have seen severed bodies of Bosniak Muslims lying on the street and blown by air modified bombs launched from the Serb positions around Sarajevo. Recently, a former Serb General and a terrorist Dragoljub Milosevic has recently been convicted on 5 counts of terrorism against Sarajevo citizens by the International Criminal Tribunal. Another terrorist and a former Serb General, Stanislav Galic was also convicted on terror charges against Sarajevo citizens by the same UN court.

Every time Bosniaks responded to Serb attacks to defend themselves, there was another 'cavalier' attempting to equalize legitimate struggle of Srebrenica's population with brutal attacks of the Bosnian Serb Army. It seems the West, and journalists like Schiller, hoped that the Bosniaks would sit silent in Srebrenica without responding to the Serb attacks, while Serbs were bombarding Srebrenica enclave and cutting off humanitarian aid?

Schiller failed to focus on a bigger picture and write a story or two about the human catastrophe facing starving Bosniak population of Srebrenica which was bombarded by the Serbs from surrounding ethnically cleansed Muslim villages. 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.

Nonetheless to say, not even one word of Schiller's story was corroborated by the evidence, and Schiller was a "no show" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.

While masterminds of Srebrenica genocide, Gen Ratko Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, are still on the run; the Hague Court managed to convict Naser Oric for failing to prevent individual war crimes with respect to the murders of 4-6 Serbs in Srebrenica. One cannot even compare individual war crimes against the Serbs with the crimes of Genocide against the Bosniaks. At least 8,000 and up to 10,000 Bosniaks perished - among them, many defenceless children.

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.

source: http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2008/06/serb-victims-of-serbian-government.html