NCRBH #559 INTL: JUSTICE FOR SREBRENICA BEFORE RECONCILIATION

National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

ONLINE NEWSLETTER - International

No. 559

July 26, 2008

http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/

CONTENT

1. Karadzic will Tell World What Milosevic Could not

2. SREBRENICA – 13 YEARS AFTER

3. FREE SREBRENICA, THEN WE WILL THINK ABOUT RECONCILIATION

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1. Karadzic will Tell World What Milosevic Could not

24.07.08 11:00

Azerbaijan, Baku, 23 July/ TrendNews, corr E. Tariverdiyeva/ The former President of Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic, who is charged with the massacre of Muslims during the ethnic cleansing in Srebrenica will speak in the International Criminal Tribunal of what his predecessor Slobodan Milosevic could not speak, said Francis Boyle, the attorney of Mothers of Srebrenica organization.

An action was brought against Milosevic because of the all crimes he committed and observers waited for the details of his cooperation with the Western ‘mediators’. He died soon of the heart attack in the prison before the decision of the Hague Court.

“So now we have a second chance with Karadzic,” said Boyle, the former official judicial adviser of Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic and foreign minister Haris Silajdic and representative of the Bosnia government in the International Criminal Court.

The former president of Serbia Radovan Karadzic was arrested on 21 July and the next day the court issued a warrant to bring him before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Everything is ready for his arrival: a cell has been allotted for Karadzic in UN prison of the Hague prison.

The representative of the Attorney General of ICTY Olga Karvan stated that in 1995 ICTY issued an international order to arrest Karadzic, who hided himself from the UN tribunal for 13 years. “Now the Office of the Attorney General waits for the arrival of Karadzic to the Hague prison of UN as soon as possible,” she said.

In summer of 1995, during the civil war in former Yugoslavian republic Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srebrenica in the central Bosnia got under the control of the army of the Bosnian Serbs which was followed by the ethnic cleansing in the occupied town. The ethnic cleansing killed over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. ICTY accused the then leader of the Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic of the massacre in Srebrenica.

The US human rights activist Boyle believes that now Karadzic will know everything about how the so-called Western "mediators" aided and abetted him in his ethnic cleansing of the Bosnians: Cyrus Vance, David
Owen, Thorvald Stoltenberg, Richard Holbrooke, Carl Bildt, Yasushi Akashi, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, etc.

“So I will be keeping a close eye on these war crimes proceedings in order to use this new information against these people on behalf of my clients the Mothers of Srebrenica,” Boyle, the attorney of Mothers of Srebrenica, protecting their interests in the ICTY, said to TrendNews by e-mail.

The task of this NGO is not to fight for women rights. The task is to search for more than 10,000 people missing in European largest massacre, committed by Bosnian Serb army, on July 11, 1995, in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Boyle, there are 2 separate indictments against him: the first for the crimes he committed in Bosnia in general; the second for the massacre at Srebrenica in July 2005.

Boyle is sure that Karadzic He will get a fair trial and an opportunity to defendhimself. In the course of his defense I am sure he will bring out the evidence of complicity by these Western "mediators" in order to absolve his own behavior. That will not make a difference to his own guilt or innocence,” Boyle said.

The lawyer is sure that but he will be able to use his new information against these Western "mediators" and diplomats in order to hold them accountable to my clients the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja for the massacre. At the end of the day Karadzic will be spending the rest of his life in prison, where he should have been for quite some time in any event,” Boyle said.

Boyle was the one who convinced the former ICTY Prosecutor Carla DelPonte to indict Slobodan Milosevic for every crime in the ICTY Statute for the massacre at Srebrenica, including genocide.

According to lawyer, earlier the arrest of Karadzic was undesirable, but possible for West.

In Geneva during the peace negotiations, President Izetbegovic had to go in and shake hands with Karadzic. I walked right past him--I wasn't going to shake his hand because he's a mass murderer and a criminal. And he has been given visas to come and negotiate in Geneva. And in New York. The State Department let Karadzic come to New York to the Vance-Owen carve-up negotiations, with a US visa. The State Department was obliged under the Geneva Convention to apprehend Karadzic, Boyle said. The US had an absolute obligation to apprehend Karadzic if he showed up in New York, and to open an investigation, and to prosecute--instead, they're giving him a visa and secret service protection in New York, he said. “They defended military criminals and those who committed genocide. These are big powers,” Boyle said.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by UN in 1993. It is located in the city of Hague of Holland; therefore it is called the Hague. It was established to try those who committed military crimes during the Balkan conflict in mid-1990s.

In 1994, over 160 people were brought before the Tribunal in Hague including both rank-and-file soldiers and generals with the Serbs and Croatians accounting for the greater proportion of them.

“As Bosnian Prime Minister, Haris Silajdzic stated,if you kill one person, you're prosecuted. If you kill ten people, you're a celebrity; if you kill a quarter-of a-million people, you're invited to a peace conference,” Boyle said.

The correspondent can be contacted at: trend@trend.az
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2. SREBRENICA – 13 YEARS AFTER

Jelko Kacin, MEP,

Member of the European Parliament (LDS/ALDE/ADLE)
Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the EP and
Rapporteur of the EP for Serbia

On Friday, the eleventh of July, I took part in the commemoration on the anniversary of the massacre and burial of 308 Bosniak victims of the Srebrenica genocide that had been identified in the past year. At the cemetery in Potocari, tens of thousands of people gathered and remembered the thousands of innocent victims, and accompanied the remains of the victims on their last journey. Before the burial, many acclaimed figures, mostly politicians, gave a speech, headed by the presiding Chair of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haris Silajdžic, the American Ambassador Charles English, and the high representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Miroslav Lajcák, and the vice-president of the European Parliament (EP) Diana Wallis, together with whom I represented the European Parliament. As many others, we laid down flowers and reflected on Srebrenica today. My contemplations are dedicated to the living that struggle with poverty and dream of a future.

Although the name of the city, linked to silver mining, points to a bright past, the present is not nearly as promising.

On Friday, the President of the Government of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, who could have contributed greatly (and decisively) to the soothing and placating of spirits with his presence, was not to be found in Potocari. The next day, however, he was able to come to Srebrenica and take part in a Serbian gathering in the Cultural House in the center of town. The unfortunate Bosniaks had thirteen years ago found themselves, in great numbers, at the wrong time and in the wrong place, in a protected area, and were cruelly disposed of in the aggressive action of »the liberation of Srebrenica from the Turks«, as the then-commanding Ratko Mladic said coldly, and added a frightening conclusion: »»Now the time has come for us Serbs to remind the Turks of what they had been doing to us for centuries…« …« .

The Bosniaks, of course, never had been Turks, since they are part of the Slavic population, which in Bosnia and Herzegovina adheres to three faiths: orthodox christianity, roman catholicism, and islam. Whereas the situation in Sandžak in Serbia and in the north of Montenegro is completely different regarding the peaceful co-existence of different ethnicities, relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still very tense. How could they be any different? The best illustration of the current situation, in my opinion, is a thought expressed by a young Bosniak during our conversations with the youth of Srebrenica. »I find it impossible to accept the claim that I live in Republika Srpska, because I live in Bosnia and Herzegovina – but my Serbian neighbor and friend, he cannot accept Bosnia and Herzegovina, because he lives in Republika Srpska.«

Serbia's President, Boris Tadic, publicly condemns the crimes, acknowledges the genocide and apologizes, but his colleagues from Republika Srpska are far from this. The statement that Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadžic are most likely (obviously) in Serbia, made by the British Ambassador days after this are therefore important and reflect the evident two-facedness of the countries in the region regarding their arrest and extradition to the Hague. »More light, more action!«, one could paraphrase Goethe. Without full co-operation of all countries in the region with the Hague Tribunal, there will be no settling down and no European future. Is it not perverse that in the previous government of Koštunica, the only non-Serb, a Bosniak, Rasim Ljajic, was the only one responsible for co-operating with The Hague? These countries, and in particular the less developed areas, populated by Bosniaks, are in dire need of development aid and programs for rural development, which can be guaranteed by the EU. Thus the EU is both the means for, as well as the direction to, the future. The only question is – when?

On Tuesday, mothers from Srebrenica and Žepe in Nova Kasaba laid down flowers at the place where Serbs, disguised as members of the UN Peacekeeping forces, tricked Bosniak refugees to gather at a football court by the river. On the road from Srebrenica, they were joined by the most exhausted and despaired, hoping for an end to agony and for safety, by those who were unable to travel over the river Jadar to the hills and onwards to Tuzla. From there, two thousand boys and men were taken to the killing fields.

In the town Kravice, in the neighboring municipality of Bratunac, only a few kilometers away from Potocari, by the building of the former Agricultural Co-Operative, where Bosniaks from Srebrenica were cruelly tortured, they were not allowed to lay down their flowers. The local inhabitants were opposed to this, and so the mothers and widows were stopped by a cordon of RS police.

As long as anywhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, laying down flowers in the memory of those killed in war will be a problem, there will be problems there, as well as in neighboring countries and EU member states.

Diana and I decided to suggest to the President's Conference, which prepares and coordinates the work of the EP, to invite the youth of Srebrenica, from both communities, to Brussels. We hope that days of living together, on the road to as well as in the EU, within the framework of EU institutions, will enable them to discover the history, the mistakes, and the revelations of Western Europe. Perhaps this will create new opportunities for dialogue and understanding. Measures – and much effort – are needed to create trust where there is none. Who could do this, if not the youth?

Source: IFIMES, Ljubljana, Slovenia
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3. JUSTICE FOR SREBRENICA BEFORE RECONCILIATION

Dear Mrs. Wallis and Mr. Kacin,

We hope that your intention was not malicious when you invited "the young people of Srebrenica from both ethnic communities" to gather socially. That is truly a terrible idea because the result of such a gathering can only be that young Bosniaks from Srebrenica will be victimized again. Namely, the majority of young Serbs from Srebrenica idolize Karadzic and Mladic. On the other hand, most of the young Bosniaks have lost their families in the genocide. They are a broken and conquered people, genocide survivors, and they probably would not refuse a request from important people from Europe, although such an event would humiliate them. Justice has not been done in Srebrenica, and you cannot have reconciliation while the victims are still victims and perpetrators have achieved their goals.

Real reconciliation will only be possible when justice is done, and the entity Republic of the Serbs, whose forces committed the genocide in the process of its own creation, no longer rules over Srebrenica; when it no longer is able to cloud the minds of the young people there by making heroes out of war criminals and enemies out of victims; when the lesson that conquest and ethnic cleansing are rewarded is finally shown to be untrue in Srebrenica.

It is humiliating to ask a victim to forgive a horrible crime without first getting those who benefited from it apologize and more importantly do everything possible to correct the effects of that crime. The principal motive for the genocide was to put Srebrenica under the control of Republika Srpska, and until that is corrected, there cannot be reconciliation, only further humiliation of the victims.

Dr. Muhamed Borogovac

No birdsong breaks the silence in woods haunted by the ghosts of mass murder

source: http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2435

Author: Anthony Loyd
Uploaded: Wednesday, 23 July, 2008

Graphic reminder of the terrible, genocidal hatred deliberately ignited and stoked by Radovan Karadzic, by the author of one of the best books written on the war in Bosnia

The fruits of Radovan Karadzic’s hate lay thick in the dense forest west of Srebrenica. Even one year after the July 1995 massacre of more than 7,500 Bosnian Muslims, the ground in the forest was littered with bones.

Some had been killed in ambushes as they attempted to flee the enclave. Their skeletons formed trails along the failed escape routes. Every now and then a single corpse would stand out among the rest. At one point, at a track junction among the trees, the body of a man in a pinstripe suit had been lashed with barbed wire to a concrete post. There were no bullet marks on the post. Knives had been used.

Among many of the local Serbs in those remote eastern Bosnian villages, a cult of the dead still lingered. It was not just the old who believed in vampires and ghosts and there was widespread credence that the spirit remained near the body for at least a year after death. So for the most part only a few woodsmen ventured into the hills where so many Muslims were killed the previous summer, and the forest remained silent, eerie and empty. I can’t remember any birdsong.

Yet if they were frightened of ghosts, the Serbs had little respect for the bodies. The drivers of the timber trucks that worked the forest lanes preferred to grind the corpses under their wheels rather than roll them away.

Most victims lay not among the trees but in mass graves, having been rounded up, executed in batches and bulldozed into the soil. Most had been driven by coach to the execution sites. Blindfolded, their hands tied together, they were mown down in lines by Serb death squads. The coach drivers – civilians – were then ordered to administer a coup de grâce with a pistol, ensuring their complicity and silence.

It was probably not a task they found distasteful. For Dr Karadzic’s greatest success in Bosnia, one that still outlives his failed war strategy, was his genesis of Serb loathing.

It knew no age barrier. I remember one wounded Bosnian soldier who did manage to escape from Srebrenica telling me that an elderly Serb man had discovered him lying in a hedgerow, exhausted, unarmed, and with gunshot wounds to his arm.

The pensioner beat him with a crowbar, then went away to fetch a knife with which to finish him off. The soldier crawled away and saw the man return, crowbar in one hand, knife in the other, beating the hedge line as if searching for a wounded animal.

There was no compassion or quarter given during those terrible July days of 1995. A handful of wounded men crawled out from the mass graves at night, but hardly anyone survived.

If the scale of Srebrenica was unusual, the genocidal passions behind it were by then familiar. From the start of the war Dr Karadzic had conjured a pathological hatred among the state’s Serbs for Bosnia’s majority Muslim population – Balija, as they were pejoratively known. He engendered his rabid brand of nationalism through a combination of fear and history. Harking back through Bosnia’s fratricidal experiences of the Second World War to the days of the Ottoman Empire, he offered the vision of a Greater Serbia as the only sanctuary against the contrived threat of a new Islamic State.

‘Do unto them now as they shall surely do to you tomorrow,’ was his call. Thus it was that 10,000 died in the Sarajevo siege; women and children were killed for sport by snipers; rape became a weapon of war; massacre was established as a necessary component of ‘ethnic cleansing’ – the new euphemism for purge and pogrom; concentration camps reappeared on European soil; and killing begat killing until by the war’s conclusion more than 200,000 were dead.

If only the Srebrenica victims were my most salient memory of that hatred. They are not.

In the last days of the war I saw something in the yawning doorway of a derelict house outside Sanski Most, in western Bosnia, that 13 years later still zips through my mind untouched by time. The garden outside was an overgrown tangle of grass and a hot afternoon sun bleached the colour from the walls of the building, earlier burnt by advancing Serb troops. A sweet stench weighted the breeze. By then I had seen hundreds of bodies, most Muslim, most civilian, murdered out of combat by knife or bullet. Even so, I was unprepared for what waited in that house.

For a few moments after walking through the door I could not understand what I was looking at. The walls and ceiling appeared splattered in black, undefinable lumps, the floor was concealed by a gateau of twisted limbs and swollen torsos. It was as if an abstract charcoal sketch by Goya had come to life. Slowly, as my eyes became accustomed to the light, I could make out that there were 12 bodies. Then I saw their heads, or what was left of them. For these 12 men had been killed with a sledgehammer.

Before and since I have seen greater numbers of victims of execution. But the level of effort and involvement and hatred required to shepherd 12 men into a room, then smash in their heads with a hammer, left more of an impression than the horror of the mutilation itself and transcended the mere scale of murder.

Separated by time and geography from the scene of crime, Dr Karadzic looks an unlikely war criminal. Even the crimes with which he is charged sound clinical – until the memories come back, and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’ stop being words but walls coated in skull fragments and brain.

This article appeared in The Times (London), 23 July 2008

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

By Legalizing Republika Srpska's Constitution Dayton Legalized Genocide

By Legalizing Republika Srpska's Constitution Dayton Legalized Genocide

Author: Edin Sarcevic - interviewed in Slobodna Bosna
Uploaded: Tuesday, 12 June, 2001

Edin Sarcevic of the University of Leipzig's law faculty discusses ways in which the existing constitutional set-up in post-Dayton B-H is in contradiction with principles of international law

Q. What would be the legal procedure for changing the existing constitutional arrangement in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. The Dayton Peace Accord cannot be changed by altering only one part of it. From the point of view of legal science, most of it would have to be annulled, especially Annex 4. The existing constitutional system should be proclaimed invalid, or replaced by a new B-H constitution whose framework should be formulated outside of B-H. The framework could be established by consensus within the international community, or a new one could be proposed by any country in the world by reference to its own constitutional norms which proved effective in similar circumstances. For example, German legal theory can provide valid proposals, given its experience with Nazism and the annulment of the results of the Nazi period. An agreement regarding the content of a new B-H constitution would have to be reached within B-H, however. It would have to be an agreement between the 'constituent nations', citizens and the High Representative.

Q. Your analysis of the Dayton agreement points to a series of systemic legal errors due to which it is impossible to implement it.

A. Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina is based on the premise that it is possible to harmonize extreme nationalism and the civic principle of the legal state. The experience of Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina proves that it is possible to transform the crime of genocide into a fundamental principle of state and legal order, as shown by the existence of Republika Srpska. In other words, the Dayton agreement is internally contradictory from the legal point of view. We have a state created by agreement between three ethnic communities organized into two entities, and which can never lead to a legally consolidated structure. During the past six years the conflict between these two principles has been multiplying the original errors, and cannot develop into an integral state-legal system. The abstract B-H citizens do not exist as political subjects. According the reports produced by foreign legal experts, citizens as political subjects form some 8 or 9% of the total population of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Dayton Accords pretend to base themselves on the principle of legal state, but this principle is in contradiction with the primacy of the ethnic principle. In the Dayton agreement there is no separation between the ethnic and non-ethnic spheres of interests. There is no constitutional protection of the non-ethnic spheres, such as telecommunications, railways, protection of state borders, external trade: in the sea of legal absurdities characteristic of post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina they have all become transformed into ethnic collective rights. We have Serb, Croat and Bosniak railways, electrical power generation, and privatization processes. Annex 4 of the B-H constitution provides no answers to these absurdities, since the constitution expresses simultaneously the demand for the establishment of a legal state and the legal and political diktat of the ethnos.

Q. Which international legal instruments could be used to annul parts or the whole of the Dayton agreement?

A. The Dayton agreement is an international agreement. The B-H constitutional court has established that the Vienna convention of 1980 applies to it, which means that changes or the annulment of the Dayton agreement can be realized only within its framework. It can be annulled only if one signatory country - FRY, Croatia or the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina - were to decide that the agreement, in one of its points vital for the existence of Dayton Bosnia, is contrary to its own internal legal rules; or that there was a fallacy in regard to the subject of the agreement; or that one or more state representatives were acting under coercion or had been bribed or cheated. The case would then be heard by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is at present dealing with the B-H charge of genocide against FRY. In my view there are many grounds for initiating the procedure for the annulment of the agreement, but the B-H state due to its internal arrangement and the political madness which characterizes the politicians and officials of the 'constituent nations' is not in position to take a decision in this regard. The political elites in Croatia and FRY have profited from the Dayton agreement at Bosnia's expense, and have no reason for abolishing it.

Q. The legal and political circles of RS do not wish to talk of change, since in their view Dayton has 'given the Serbs a Serb state'. Can you envisage a possibility of agreement between RS and the Federation regarding the revision or annulment of Annex 4?

A. There are several ways in which the B-H constitution could be changed. One could do so through the legal institutions created by the Dayton agreement. We have in Bosnia the last European Kaiser in the shape of the authority of the High Representative and his camarilla. We are talking of
imperial prerogatives, in that the HR can bring in laws which the B-H parliament can only confirm, but not contest. The will of the citizens to whom the law applies is also excluded. The Bosnian Kaiser is responsible only to God as represented by the international community.
The Bosnian Kaiser does play a positive role when he tries to remove the inconsistencies of the Dayton agreement by strengthening the civic principle of state legitimacy, like for example the decision by the B-H constitutional court regarding the principle of national legal equality in the country as a whole. There are many cases, however, which indicate that the international community is not willing to rectify the mistakes of Dayton. This is visible in their persistent postponement of the necessary changes in the RS constitution, which they have covered up by creating the Commission for Protection of the National Interests of the Constituent Peoples (CPNICP), instead of trying to revise the RS constitution by bringing it into conformity with the institutional norms of the Federation. The RS constitution is the legal heir of the illegal set-up created in 1992, which provided the framework for conducting genocide against the Bosniaks.

Q. Whenever one mentions the crime of genocide to the Western diplomats in Sarajevo, one is told that this is being 'emotional'. What is the legal basis for the statement that the RS constitution is intimately linked to the genocide against the Bosniaks?

A. The present-day RS constitution is a formal codification of the wartime legal setup, which was legalized by the Dayton agreement. The basic premise of the RS constitution, as established by the B-H constitutional court with its decision regarding national equality, is that it protects the results of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Speaking as a German legal expert I could cite the decision of the German federal constitutional court which, in its decision of December 2000 whereby it sentenced a Serb to twenty years in prison for genocide, has established that ethnic cleansing is a legal component of the act of genocide. The International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague has brought charges of genocide against generals Radislav Krstic and Ratko Mladic for war crimes. In this way a logical, political and legal tie has been established between RS and genocide. RS is a product of genocide: those who wish to dispute this should come up with legally valid arguments. The result of genocide can be alleviate in part by allowing the other constituent nations and the national minorities to share power in RS with the Serbs.

Q. Could the Commission for Protection of the Interests of the Constituent Peoples in RS, which was launched by the International Working Group with Petritsch's support, initiate a process leading to the removal of the results of ethnic cleansing and genocide in RS?

A. The establishment of this commission is one of the many absurdities. This procedure will not bring about harmonization of the entities' constitutions at the level of B-H. No amount of legal fantasies can make it equal in status to the parliamentary body which in the Federation is called the Chamber of Peoples, and which does not exist in RS. The Commission is meant to help implement the decision of the B-H constitutional court regarding national equality, which is quite absurd. The only rational way forward is to redraft the RS constitution by establishing there a second Chamber, which would safeguard the equality of the constituent peoples. In doing what he is doing, the HR is in fact undermining the will and intention of the B-H constitutional court.

Q. Some Federation politicians and some Americans believe that banning the SDS would open the path for revision of the Dayton agreement.

A. This is no solution. The banning of a party cannot remove the political mentality which rules in RS. Taken as a whole, RS is today united around the idea that it is the state of the Serb people and that everything is allowed in the defence of its existence. This is the context which allows us to situate the establishment of concentration camps, mass murder and deportation of Bosniaks and Croats as well as the recent events in Trebinje and Banja Luka. The brutal crimes and violence are a consequence of the internal consensus embracing the greater part of the Serb ethnic body. A ban on SDS would not suspend the mentality projected by other parties whose names carry the prefix 'Serb'.

Q. Is there a solution for the problem of implementing the Dayton agreement in Republika Srpska?

A. The Dayton agreement in its key provisions - the return of the refugees and the removal of the results of ethnic cleansing and fascistic nationalist programmes - has proved impotent. After six years of its existence it has become a basis for legalizing genocide and a stimulus for further ambitions aimed at killing policies favouring the social integration of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is why a climate that would permit the implementation of the Dayton agreement could be created in RS in only two ways: by force or by a long-term denazification of the Serb corpus in B-H and FRY. The replacement of officials by OSCE or OHR, or appeals to and evocation of democratic norms, make no sense. I favour denazification through confrontation with and education of the Serb intellectual, religious, military and political elites, in relation to the results of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Srebrenica and Keraterm should become places for the education of young Serb generations concerning the criminal aspects of recent Serb history, not Bosniak memorial centres. The new generations of Bosnian Serbs who would be able to confront Serb crimes and their results would provide a real force also for implementation of the Dayton Accords. The process of denazification of Serb society is also necessary for combating extremist religious and political leaders among the Croats and Bosniaks, those who support the idea of ethnically pure territories and a final division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. What is the potential of the Law on Truth and Reconciliation and of the related Commission?

A. This is a policy of sweeping under the carpet and preventing the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina from facing up to their crimes. It means leaving the Serb people in the conviction that killings, deportations and the destruction of other people's heritage and values are a patriotic duty and heroism.

Q. The leaders of the Alliance for Change are trying to improve the situation by global political activity focussed on integration into the Council of Europe and the European Union. Sead Avdic, one of the SDP leaders, has recently stated that the violence witnessed in Trebinje and Banja Luka would not have happened if B-H had been a member of the Council of Europe.

A. One has to be politically and legally blind not to see that B-H is a completely archaic society in comparison to Europe. European standards are completely alien to us. Europe is not interested in Bosnia. The mentality nurtured by the Bosnian peoples has no place in Europe. Europe needs stability and peace in B-H for its own sake, not for the sake of the Bosnian peoples. This is why Europe is happy with the Dayton agreement which means that it need not be too bothered with the country and its neighbours, other than some formal aid to its institutions. How can Bosnia join Europe when it is easier in it to stone a neighbour than it is to gain permission to shoot a mad dog in Germany.

Q. Do you see among your Bosnian colleagues people capable of creating normal legal institutions in B-H by working through the existing institutions?

A. There are some good young people studying at the departments of law. They are not to be found, however, in the offices of the High Representative, by contrast with those whose only quality is ethnic membership. There you just have highly paid poor legal experts and good demagogues. Those who have the patience to read the separate statements of the judges of the Constitutional Court will note a low level of legal literacy. The judges act here not as guardians of law but as guardians of the ethnos. The legal expert is first of all a nationalist whose competence is measured by his ability to violate legal logic and constitutional standards. The Alliance for Change is also a prisoner of the Dayton system and will meet its fate within the ambit of the Dayton agreement.

Q. By accident you were born and grew up in the same street in Sanski Most as Mladen Ivanic, the current prime minister of RS. Does your knowledge of him help you to understand which way his policy is going?

A. Mladen Ivanic's economic ideas are in contradiction with the policy which he advocates as a politician. The policy which his government is pursuing is a continuation of the Great Serb policy previously pursued by Radovan Karadzic. Regardless of what he himself thinks of the Great Serb policy, the government which he heads has stated that the recent elections were won by patriotic forces, by which it means the SDS; and that the principle of 'one man, one vote' is inappropriate for B-H. Mladen Ivanic, after all, neither during nor after the war has ever publicly denounced the killing and deportation of his neighbours from Sanski Most or of the non-Serbs from RS.

***

Edin Sarcevic teaches at the law faculty of the University of Leipzig. He was born in Sanski Most and studied law at the universities of Sarajevo and Belgrade. He gained a Ph.D. from the University of Saarbrucken on the subject of legal state. His dissertation was proclaimed the best work on the
subject in Saarland and won him a state prize. He became assistant lecturer in the department of public law of the University of Leipzig, where he teaches four subjects including the philosophy of law. He has published four books in German: The Legal State; The Federal State - a Principle; The Final Phase of Constitutional Life in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Religious Freedom and Ezan in German Constitutional Law. He is at present writing a book on whether the establishment of a state's constitution can be realized by way of international law. He is known as a consistent critic of the Dayton Peace Accords and a supporter of the annulment of the Bosnia-Herzegovina's constitution based on Annex 4.
This interview has been translated from Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 24 May 2001

source: http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=1534

Clinton’s envoy Holbrooke with perpetrators of genocide

Clinton’s envoy Holbrooke with perpetrators of genocide

April 29th, 2008

Holbrooke with Milosevic who died in prison during the trial for Genocide in Bosnia.

Holbrooke with dictators from neighboring states tailoring Bosnian constitution.

NCRBH - #545 INTL - WITH FRIENDS LIKE CLINTON, BOSNIA DOES NOT NEED ENEMIES

National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina No. 545

April 29th, 2008

April 27, 2008

CONTENT

1. WITH FRIENDS LIKE CLINTON, BOSNIA DOES NOT NEED ENEMIES
2. Clinton’s envoy Holbrook with perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia
3. Hitchens is raising crucial issues

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1. WITH FRIENDS LIKE CLINTON, BOSNIA DOES NOT NEED ENEMIES

For his personal gains, Clinton rewarded the aggressors and punished the victims of genocide in Bosnia with the Dayton Agreement.

The price for “peace in Bosnia” achieved by the Clinton administration in Dayton in 1995 before his reelection was too high for the victims of genocide. Against the principles of the international law, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a member nation of the UN and a victim of aggression and genocide, was divided into two states (so-called entities). One of the two states “Republika Srpska” was created on the 49% of the ethnically cleansed Bosnian territory, awarding the perpetrators of the war crimes, aggression, and genocide in Srebrenica with their own state.

The genocide committed in Srebrenica was the foundation on which “Republika Srpska” was created. The Dayton Agreement created by the Clinton administration was sold to the public as the peace agreement. However, the reality was that the Clinton Administration used the genocide to black-mail and force the victims to accept the division of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina as outlined in the Dayton Agreement. This was completed against the principles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide and other international treaties.

Clinton knew this very well but went ahead with the Dayton Agreement for his own political gains. In 1992, Clinton criticized George Bush senior for not doing enough in Bosnia. The Dayton Agreement was signed just in time before Clinton’s re-election campaign with the aim to remove reports of genocide in Srebrenica and Bosnia from the news. With Dayton Agreement signed, Clinton kept his promise to bring “peace” to Bosnia, even if it was to be done at the expense of the victims of genocide.

On February 26, 2007, the International Court of Justice in its legally binding judgment in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro ruled that genocide was committed in Srebrenica against the people of Srebrenica and against Bosniaks of the entire East Region of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Podrinje). The ruling states that the genocide was committed by the government and institutions of “Republika Srpska”, specifically the Army (VRS) and Police (MUP) of ”Republika Srpska” - the same “Republika Srpska” to whom the Clinton-sponsored Dayton Agreement awarded the territory on which it committed the genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Under the Dayton Agreement, the unlawful governing power over the victims of genocide in the Municipality of Srebrenica was put into the hands of those who committed the genocide. After the genocide in Srebrenica, the Municipality of Srebrenica was illegally (with genocide) removed from jurisdiction of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and illegally placed under the jurisdiction of the genocidal entity “Republika Srpska.” There are no legal provisions under the international law nor customary laws that can be used as bases to forcefully transfer the local self-governing municipality from one to another jurisdiction against the will of its people. People of Srebrenica were deprived of their will through genocide. Clinton knew this very well and he sponsored the Dayton Agreement anyway for his personal gain.

From the beginning of the aggression and genocide on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1992 until February 1993, the legitimate defense forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Srebrenica successfully resisted the aggression from Serbia and Montenegro (the rump Yugoslavia). In that period, it is estimated that about 1,800 residents of Srebrenica, mostly civilians, died as victims of systematic aggression. Subsequent to a major offensive carried out by three corps of the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) at the beginning of March 1993, UNPROFOR forces came to Srebrenica. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution S/RES/819 by which Srebrenica was proclaimed a UN Protected Zone (so called “Safe Haven”), and at the same time a demilitarization agreement was signed. Unfortunately demilitarization practically meant the disarming of the defenders of Srebrenica, and not the forces of the aggressor. The direct result of disarming Srebrenica is that in July 1995, the people seeking protection in the UNPROFOR compounds were handed over to the Serbs, making Srebrenica the largest killing site in Europe since World War II, where about 8,500 men, women, and children were brutally murdered.

Had Bosnians not been trusting Clinton, the genocide in Srebrenica would not have happened. Bosnians laid down their weapons because they believed in Clinton’s assurances that NATO would protect them in Srebrenica “safe haven”. Otherwise they would have fought with their weapons for their survival and survival of their families. Serbs would have never been able to round up tens of thousands and commit genocide at the level that they did.

Clinton vetoed twice the resolutions of the US Congress to lift the arms embargo on Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the fall of Srebrenica and genocide in July 2005, effectively preventing Bosnians to defend themselves and their country.

With friends like Clinton, Bosnia does not need enemies.

Dr. Muhamed Borogovac
NCR BH

___________________________________________________

2. Clinton’s envoy Holbrook with perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia
http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/
__________________________________________________

3. Hitchens is raising crucial issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHrYeuRLc7s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tX6v6oYDmY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfgXDJhZCko&feature=related

source: http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/?p=518

NKRBH - #534 INTL 0 High Representative Lajcak: Biased and Unprofessional

National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

ONLINE NEWSLETTER - International

No. 534

March 17, 2008

http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/

CONTENT

1. High Representative Miroslav Lajcak: Biased and Unprofessional

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1. High Representative Lajcak: Biased and Unprofessional

By Tarik Borogovac, Boston USA

The regular readers of this column know that until very recently we wholeheartedly supported High Representative Miroslav Lajcak. The Office of High Representative (OHR) wields the Bonn powers -- the only tool that can overcome the crippling ethnic and entity vetoes, which continue to ensure failure and misery in Bosnia. Mr. Lajcak, made strong statements that he would use all the tools at his disposal to push the reforms that strengthen Bosnia's state institutions, and to lead us into the EU. This was a very welcome attitude, especially since his predecessor, Mr. Christian Schwartz-Schilling, was criticized for employing a philosophy of non-interference, and allowing inflammatory statements to go unchallenged.

In the recent episode about parliamentary procedures, Mr. Lajcak did make a good decision, and prevailed in the face of strong opposition to it.

But we now recognize that we were wrong about Mr. Lajcak, after all, and we apologize to our readers. Mr. Lajcak has recently made several questionable decisions, and even a few very shocking public statements, which reveal lack of professionalism. In fact, some of his statements show personal bias and favoritism toward Mr. Dodik, Premier of the entity "Republic of the Serbs" (RS).

Let us first consider some of his statements made on March 14, and reported by the daily "Nezavisne Novine" from Banja Luka.

1. Mr. Lajcak stated that Mr. Dodik is the strongest political leader in Bosnia, and that he does not see any readiness of politicians in Sarajevo (i.e. Bosniak and Croat) to use the good influence of Mr. Dodik.

Our comment: Mr. Lajcak must have been particularly impressed by Mr. Dodik's strength just last week, when Mr. Dodik forbade the use of the Bonn powers
-- as we wrote in our last column. There has been no response by the OHR to that "decision" by Mr. Dodik, and it seems that we know why.

2. Mr. Lajcak also stated that Mr. Dodik has safeguarded peace and stability in Bosnia after the Kosovo independence declaration.

Our comment: Clearly, Mr. Lajcak is ignoring how Mr. Dodik's RS Government and the RS Parliament have responded to the Kosovo independence by making a law which states that the RS can declare independence if it chooses to, which is clearly in violation of the Dayton agreement, and could have caused, and still might cause violence. Contrast Mr. Lajcak's response with Mr. Schwartz-Schilling who was criticized for simply not punishing rhetoric about the RS right to secession to get out of hand in the media. Mr. Lajcak actually allows laws to be passed that state the same thing.

3. In the same interview Mr. Lajcak said: "Dodik is right when he says that he would like his coalition partners to recognize the RS, because they have the right to say: 'Here, we recognize the RS, and now enough of the talk about referendum and secession, because those are all children's stories, and we all know that.' If it is politically unacceptable for Bosniak politicians to say that: 'the RS is a reality' -- then something is wrong.
There is no secession, and everyone knows that, and they are just fooling the people".

Our comment: If such a recognition is so meaningless, why is Dodik insisting that the BiH Parliament must recognize the RS, and threatening with the referendum for RS independence otherwise? Why do Bosniak politicians feel that it is "politically unacceptable" to recognize the RS?

Dodik wants the formal recognition precisely because it would change the status of the RS significantly, cementing its legal existence and even allowing it to secede. Namely, the RS is currently an ethnic territory created by an international agreement, the Dayton agreement, as a concession to Milosevic and Karadzic. The Dayton agreement was never ratified by the Bosnian parliament, and its Annex IV, the Dayton Constitution, was never formally approved as a new constitution of the country. The implementation of the Annex IV constitution in Bosnia only depends on the good will and cooperation of all sides. Bosnia has the right to withdraw from Dayton, and so effectively end the RS at any time. If the RS violates the Dayton Agreement, for example by declaring independence, it will negate the only basis for its own existence. On the other hand, if the Bosnian Parliament confirms Annex IV as the Bosnian constitution, that act would replace Dayton as the basis for the RS, and failure to fulfill Dayton obligations could no longer put the RS into question. Dodik needs the recognition of the RS because without it, the talk of independence truly is just "childrens' stories". If the RS gets that recognition in the Bosnian Parliament, only then would the talk of a referendum and secession become serious.

Bosniak politicians do not dare to recognize the RS in parliament, because the RS is the most important issue for the Bosniak population, and it really would be political suicide to recognize it openly. Among Bosniaks, the existence of the RS is a very real reminder of the genocide committed to create it and ethnically cleanse it of Bosniaks and Croats. Srebrenica is our Aushwitz -- a very painful example in the Bosniak consciousness of the massive injustice that the RS military and police killed thousands of Bosniaks, and in that manner officially created Serb territories. The only reason that the Bosniak politicians ever get elected is because they claim that (A) they never confirmed the existence of the RS in Parliament, and (B) they fight for its abolishment. Although claim (B) is dubious, claim (A) is still technically correct.

Lajcak's argument that "the RS is a reality" is bunk. For a few years, Nazi Germany's occupation of Slovakia was a reality, also, but it was neither legal nor moral -- just like the RS. In connection to Nazi Germany, it has been famously said that forcing the victims of genocide to live with and accept the results of genocide is also an act of genocide. For Lajcak to say that "the Republic of the Serbs", and Srebrenica in it, is a reality that Bosniaks should accept, is morally indefensible.

4. In a speech the day before, on March 13, in Foca, RS, Mr. Lajcak denounced those who are blocking the passage of the new police laws in Parliament, calling them "guilty" of keeping Bosnia outside of the EU, and that their action shows an "unseen brazenness". Contrasting these statements to the manner in which he simply accepted the scrapping of the previous attempt to reform the police, at Mr. Dodik's request, shows partiality.

A little more context is necessary to make this point. The police law drafts, over which Mr. Lajcak is so strongly pressuring lawmakers now, do not respect the very three principles that the EU has set. For example, the EU requires state control of local police forces, and of the budget, yet these proposals instead would only create weak bodies that only coordinate (not control) the entity police structures. We note here that some parliamentarians from the SDA and SDP parties have opposed these laws not only because they do not fulfill any of the three principles, but because they also represent a violation of principle (A) above, i.e. they are an implicit recognition of the entity police forces, including the RS police, which committed the Srebrenica genocide.

In contrast, recall that during Mr. Ashdown's time, the parliaments of both entities and of the state passed a police reform law, under which a commission of police experts was formed, and was led by EUPM chief Vincenzo Coppola, to make binding decisions on the future police structures in Bosnia. After more than a year of work, the commission gave its binding decision, which was comprehensive and did truly respect the three principles, but which Mr. Dodik did not like. Mr. Lajcak consented to Mr. Dodik's request that the original deal should be renegotiated, setting the process back for years.

5. Finally, we have often written about the citizenship law that will (in 2011) take Bosnian citizenship away from hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly Bosniaks and Croats who have settled in western countries after being "cleansed" from areas that are now in the RS. Recognizing the simple truth that the RS politicians like Mr. Dodik have not allowed the changing of this law because they have an interest in taking those citizenships away, the ethnic Croat member of the Bosnian Presidency Zeljko Komsic asked, in a letter, the high representative to modify that law using the Bonn powers. According to Mr. Komsic, Mr. Lajcak responded that he is aware that the citizenship law is discriminatory, but that he will not change it.

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NKRBH - #528 INTL - Serbia Exports "Kosovo Crisis" to Bosnia and Herzegovina

National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

ONLINE NEWSLETTER - International

No. 528

March 2, 2008

http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/

CONTENT

1. Serbia Exports Kosovo Crisis to Bosnia and Herzegovina

1.1 Dodik Unilaterally Takes away Bonn Powers from Europe

1.2 Kosovo is not a legal precedent in international law

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If you do not want to receive this Online Newsletter just reply with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line. Then your e-mail address will be promptly deleted.
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1. Serbia Exports "Kosovo Crisis" to Bosnia and Herzegovina

1.1 Dodik Unilaterally Takes away Bonn Powers from Europe


Republic of the Serbs (RS) Premier Milorad Dodik, dissatisfied with the decision of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) that the Office of Europe's High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina will to hold on to the Bonn powers, decided to take away those powers himself.

Namely, upon his return to Banja Luka from Bruxelles, Mr. Dodik declared to the press that the RS will reject any attempt by the OHR to use the Bonn Powers: "Absolutely, it will not be allowed, that any individual becomes subject to the Bonn powers of the High Representative, except those involved with war crimes and those being processed by the court system, nor will we accept the imposing of any laws or regulations by the OHR."

This is a huge challenge to the authority of OHR and PIC. If the OHR and PIC simply allow such statements to be made without consequences, it would become very clear that the Dayton process no longer applies. Even by simply allowing such rhetoric in the media, the international guarantors of peace in Bosnia would look weak and foolish in the eyes of the free world, and especially in the eyes of the Bosnian people, victims of genocide, who have thus far put their trust in the same international community.

More importantly, this course of action by the RS government represents a unilateral withdrawal from obligations assumed under the Dayton agreement.

The OHR and PIC have two choices for how to respond. They could try to salvage Dayton and call the bluff of the RS, by using the Bonn powers to remove Mr. Dodik. Or they could accept that Dayton has failed and that this decision by Premier Dodik is just a formal confirmation of that.

If the PIC does give up on Dayton, what becomes the legal situation in Bosnia? Do the entities become states? The answer is no. The Dayton Agreement is not different from any other legal agreement in that if the signers withdraw from it, or refuse to adhere to it, the matter reverts to status quo ante, or the last legal state that had existed before the agreement was signed. In the case of the Dayton agreement, status quo ante is the constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, without ethnic entities.

It is important to clarify further this question. This week's PIC conclusion -- an English language document that has been posted on the OHR website -- states that Bosnia's: "... territorial integrity is guaranteed by the Dayton Peace Agreement". This statement is interpreted by some malicious Bosnian politicians and media that the territorial integrity of Bosnia is ONLY guaranteed by the Dayton Peace Agreement. The implication of that false interpretation is that Bosnia and Herzegovina will cease to exist when Dayton inevitably fails. But the PIC statement above is just a simple paraphrasing of the Dayton Agreement Annex 4. Article I.1., which states that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not ended or begun in the agreement, but continued with a modified internal organization, and that the agreement does not put into question its internationally recognized borders. Therefore, if Dayton fails, or if the signers withdraw from it, Bosnia and Herzegovina will revert to status quo ante -- a state within its internationally recognized borders, and without the ethnic entities.

Both Raffi Gregorian, Deputy High Representative to Bosnia, and Charles English, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina have both confirmed this in media interviews this past week. Mr. Gregorian said, in Banja Luka's "Nezavisne Novine" that calling into question the Dayton Agreement is calling into question the existence of the RS itself. Mr. English similarly linked the existence of RS to Dayton, while emphasizing that Bosnia and Herzegovina existed before and independently of Dayton.

This is another attempt at blackmail of the international community by Serbia and Serbia’s proxy in Bosnia – the RS. Hopefully, this time the EU and the world will not give in to blackmail.

Finally, we note that Serbia has been using Kosovo’s independence to both inflame the militant nationalist sentiment inside the RS, and to argue for the separation of RS from Bosnia. Yet, the connection and similarity that Serbia cites between the cases of Kosovo and the RS are not grounded in facts. The following is a brief explanation of the legal argument for the independence of Kosovo, from which it is clear why it is a special case that cannot be compared to the status of RS.


1.2 Kosovo is not a legal precedent in international law

According to the last legal constitution of Yugoslavia, the autonomous province of Kosovo had the same right of self-determination that all the Yugoslav republics used in order to gain internationally recognized independence. In fact, it was Milosevic's forcible and illegal change of the constitution regarding Kosovo's autonomy that led the republics to declare independence in the first place. It was illegal, because it violated constitutionally proscribed procedure for amending the constitution.

Later, Serbia’s military attempted to forcibly remove the two million ethnic Albanian citizens of Kosovo by replicating the campaign of violence, rape, intimidation and murder which had been successfully used to create the RS as an ethnically clean Serb territory on half of Bosnia. It did not succeed in Kosovo largely because of NATO intervention.

Therefore, Serbia never had the legal right to hold Kosovo, and a strong moral argument exists for independence of Kosovo.

Regardless of what people think of Bush administration policies in other parts of the world, recognizing the declaration of independence by Kosovo's parliament is one they absolutely got right.

NCRB&H

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA

On Thursday February 7 2008, Congressman John Olver of Massachusetts made a floor statement in remembrance of the victims of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and eastern Bosnia and the town of Visegrad in particular. The Congressional Record text is below.

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA

HON. JOHN W. OLVER
of Massachusetts in the house of representatives
Thursday, February 7, 2008

Mr. OLVER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of the victims of genocide in Bosnia. I would particularly like to draw the attention of this body to the atrocities perpetrated by Serb forces against the Bosniak and Croat populations in eastern Bosnia. Eastern Bosnia became the site of a number of atrocities long before the name Srebrenica became known worldwide. The aggression perpetrated against the newly independent and sovereign Bosnia and the genocide of its Bosniak population took one of its earliest and most vicious forms with the attacks of Serb forces on eastern Bosnia in 1992. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of eastern Bosnia was systematically destroyed beginning in April 1992.
The historic town of Visegrad epitomizes what happened in eastern Bosnia in 1992. The assault on Visegrad started on April 6, 1992 when Serb military units began shelling Visegrad and several of the nearby Bosnian Muslim villages. With the takeover of Visegrad, Serb forces unleashed a campaign of terror against the Bosniak and Croat population of Visegrad. Every day men, women and children were killed on a famous bridge on the Drina and their bodies were dumped into the river. Many ofthe Bosniak men and women were arrested and detained at various locations in the town. Serb soldiers raped women and inflicted terror on civilians. Looting and destruction of Bosniak and Croat property occurred daily and mosques in Visegrad were destroyed.
As the journalist Ed Vulliamy described in The Guardian: ``For centuries, although wars had crisscrossed the Drina, Visegrad has remained a town two-thirds Bosnian Muslim and one-third Bosnian Serb. The communities entwined, few caring who was what. But in the spring of 1992, a hurricane of violence was unleashed by Bosnian Serbs against their Muslim neighbors in Visegrad, with similar attacks along the Drina valley and other parts of Bosnia. Visegrad is one of hundreds of forgotten names . . . As elsewhere, the pogrom was carried out on orders from the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karaszic and his military counterpart General Ratko Mladic, both still wanted for genocide.'' By the end of 1992, the Bosniak and Croat communities in Visegrad were effectively ``cleansed'' through killings and deportations. Some survivors of the initial attacks on eastern Bosnia found their way into the three Bosnian government-held enclaves and United Nations-declared ``safe havens'' of Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde. The tragic fate of these ``safe havens'' is well known. The fate of Visegrad and the pattern of genocidal violence was similar in other eastern Bosnian towns such as Bijeljina, Zvornik and Foca.
As we prepare to mark another anniversary of the beginning of genocidal violence in eastern Bosnia and as we prepare to commemorate the 13th anniversary of Srebrenica, let us remember the victims of Visegrad and other Visegrads throughout Bosnia.

source: http://www.bosnjaci.net/prilog.php?pid=23125

#518 NKRBiH INTL - BOSNIA VIOLATES OWN CITIZENS' HUMAN RIGHTS

National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

ONLINE NEWSLETTER - International

No. 518

January 31, 2008

http://republic-bosnia-herzegovina.com/

CONTENT

1. BOSNIA VIOLATES OWN CITIZENS' HUMAN RIGHTS BY REVOKING THEIR CITIZENSHIP IN A POLITICAL PROCESS

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1. BOSNIA VIOLATES OWN CITIZENS' HUMAN RIGHTS BY REVOKING THEIR CITIZENSHIP IN A POLITICAL PROCESS

By Tarik Borogovac, NCRBH

Imad al-Husseini is a Bosnian citizen of Syrian background awaiting deportation from Bosnia and Herzegovina, possibly back to Syria, where he could be tortured or executed. His large beard gets much air time these days in the media in Bosnia and the neighboring countries. Namely, he is the media’s poster terrorist. It is constantly speculated that he is a war criminal and even implied that he is somehow connected to al-Qaeda or Osama bin-Laden himself. Finally, it is always noted that he was a soldier in the Bosnian army during the war in the early 1990’s.

Yet, the most interesting thing about Imad al-Husseini is that he is completely uninteresting to any agency of any government that is pursuing terrorism or war crimes. The U.S. never asked to have him. Bosnia always handed over anyone the U.S. asked for, without requiring any answers. For example, in 2002 it gave up six Bosnian citizens, all of Algerian background, who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay ever since, without formal charges. Al-Husseini would have been in Guantanamo Bay if the U.S. had ever asked for him. The War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia at the Hague did not ask for al-Husseini either as a possible perpetrator of a war crime during the Bosnian war, despite wild speculation from the media. Even the Bosnian courts have not charged him with anything, except a domestic disturbance.

Without any charge against him, we have to assume that he is merely a victim of a human rights violation. Namely, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 15.2 "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality". What is meant by this clause is that since citizenship is the basis for realization of various rights, (residence status, property, employment, etc.) cases that put in question citizenship should be treated in an authorized court, and on an individual basis, with some "due process". In Bosnia, there is actually a commission, appointed and led by politicians, that is tasked with taking citizenship away from large numbers of Bosnian citizens, in a process called "citizenship review". This commission originally took away al-Husseini's Bosnian citizenship. He sued, and a Bosnian court ordered the reinstatement of his citizenship, on grounds that the commission disregarded documentation about his military service, and which proved that his citizenship was legal and valid. Amazingly, two days after the court's decision his Bosnian citizenship was taken away again by another purely political body -- the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the government -- which explained that his removal is "of vital national interest". That is truly arbitrary.

Again we come back to the question: why is this guy so important to go to such lengths to strip him of his citizenship so arbitrarily, and to portray him as such a terrorist, but not important enough to charge him with anything, or arrest him while he lived in Bosnia all those long years up to now? Well, he is only important as an example for others. In al-Husseini's case, the politicians are clearly putting their arbitrary commission above the courts, and sending a message that any other court challenges to its decisions are futile. But they have to justify such a drastic move somehow, so through back channels they name him as a terrorist or war criminal in the media.

The commission for review of citizenship is reviewing citizenships of thousands of individuals in a very short time span. In the round that ended just a few days ago, they announced 661 names of individuals that had their citizenships revoked. Most of the names are Arabic, but a great number are Bosnian, and a few are western. Even if we cannot say for sure that al-Husseini has not in some way been connected to a terror ring, we can definitely be sure that not all of those men and women are terrorists. It has been well publicized that when some of them are forced to leave the country, they will leave their own children and spouses behind. Does not marrying Bosnian spouses and having Bosnian children entitle them to citizenship?

Bosnian politicians often use manipulations of citizenship to eliminate individual citizens or whole groups of citizens whom they consider to be undesirable. Years ago, Prof. Francis Boyle, the lawyer for Bosnia who sued Serbia and Montenegro at the International Court of Justice for committing and aiding aggression and genocide in Bosnia, had his citizenship simply erased - probably in retaliation for starting that lawsuit. Another example, as we have explained previously in this newsletter, is that the Bosnian law on citizenship represents a continuation of ethnic cleansing. Namely, those Bosnians who also took citizenship in one of many other countries will lose their Bosnian citizenship in 2011. Due to agreements with the Serbia-Montenegro union and Croatia, the law excludes those countries, and their citizens can have dual citizenship with Bosnia. Consequently, the law disproportionately affects the Bosniak population, which was the primary target of the ethnic cleansing (genocide) campaign carried out by followers of war criminals Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic in order to create a "Republic of the Serbs" in Bosnia. Namely, Bosniak refugees primarily settled in third countries, such as the U.S.A., Australia, Canada, etc. In a few short years they will automatically be denied their Bosnian citizenship only because they accepted citizenship of the host country.

We conclude with the story of how al-Husseini and other volunteers became Bosnian citizens at all. When the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH) declared its independence from Yugoslavia, it was a secular state with an overwhelmingly secular populace. The state hastily formed an Army of the RBiH to defend itself from Serb extremist militias, aided by the Yugoslav National Army, who were brutalizing the population as part of their aforementioned ethnic cleansing campaign. The U.N., led by the U.S. president Bush, Sr., put an embargo on Serbia and Montenegro (rump Yugoslavia) for aggression. A number of foreign men, mostly Muslim, volunteered to fight for Bosnia. Although they were not numerous enough to seriously affect the outcome of the war, if they helped at all in that desperate situation, they were very welcome, and for that all Bosnians should be grateful. Most of those volunteers earned the citizenship that was given to them.

Yet, at the time Serbian propaganda needed to turn the world's perception of the war from one waged between an aggressor state and victim state, to a religious conflict between Christian and Muslim armies. The Arab fighters were a great asset to Serbia in that respect, although not by their own fault. Namely, the presence of any number of Arab volunteer soldiers is not proof that the Army of RBiH was a Muslim militia. Instead, the large numbers of Serb and Croat soldiers in the ARBiH categorically prove that it was not a “Muslim militia”. Among them we can list heroes and commanders at highest levels, including Dragan Vikic, general Jovan Divjak, general Zeljko Knez, general Stjepan Siber and the current Croat member of the BiH Presidency Zeljko Komsic. Nonetheless, the propaganda using the Arab fighters was very effective, especially since the President of Bosnia at the time Alija Izetbegovic went along with it and constantly tried to show off the "Islamic" nature of the ARBiH, even by taking a group of soldiers on a pilgrimage to Mecca, to be photographed while praying. This was a misrepresentation of the secular ARBiH, and it is our opinion that Izetbegovic created it intentionally to help the Serb propaganda machine. Ironically, for this, the Arab fighters loved him the most, because to them he was the only "true Muslim" among their Bosnian commanders. In the Bosnian media, al-Husseini still invokes the name of Alija Izetbegovic in this context.

Alija Izetbegovic later illegally (in violation of the constitution of RBiH) put his name on the Dayton agreement to partition the country, creating the ethnically clean "Republic of the Serbs" (RS). The Serb politicians, and others who work for them, still use the same tactic of labeling Bosniaks as "Islamic terrorists". Long-bearded Arabs, such as al-Husseini, serve as "proof of the radical Islam danger in Bosnia" in the court of public opinion, even if they cannot be charged with anything in a real court. They hope to distract the U.S. and Europe enough from focusing on the real war criminals -- the perpetrators of genocide who created the "Republic of the Serbs".