Posted on 06/11/2004 8:11:55 PM PDT by nuconvert
Bosnian Serbs Admit for First Time Security Forces Massacred Thousands of Muslims During War
Samir Krilic/Associated Press
Jun 11, 2004
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Bosnian Serb officials have acknowledged for the first time that their security forces carried out the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, according to an investigative report Friday. An official commission examining Europe's worst massacre since World War II "established participation of (Bosnian Serb) military and police units, including special (police) units" in the deaths, international administration spokesman Vedran Persic told The Associated Press, quoting from the commission's report.
During the height of the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war, Serb troops overran a U.N.-declared safe zone in Srebrenica and slaughtered up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The Bosnian Serbs have long been blamed for the 1995 killings, which the U.N. war crimes tribunal has declared an act of genocide. But until now, no Serb official has clearly acknowledged that Bosnian Serbs were the perpetrators.
"In July 1995, several thousand Muslims were liquidated in a way that represents grave violations of international humanitarian law," said Persic, quoting from the report. Persic is a spokesman for Paddy Ashdown, Bosnia's international administrator.
U.N. and Muslim experts have found the remains of about 5,000 of the victims from mass graves across eastern Bosnia and find new remains every month. The fate of the others is still unknown. Nearly 1,200 Srebrenica victims have been identified through DNA analysis.
Dutch peacekeepers charged with protecting the Srebrenica enclave failed to prevent the massacre. The Dutch government acknowledged the failure and resigned in April 2002.
Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader, has been indicted by the war crimes tribunal for genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre, along with his wartime top general, Ratko Mladic. Both remain at large.
The 1992-1995 war claimed about 250,000 lives and left around 20,000 missing and presumed dead. The remains of around 18,000 victims from different ethnic groups have been exhumed from more than 300 mass graves across the country.
The Srebrenica Commission was formed last year by Ashdown to investigate who was involved in the massacre and where victims' bodies were buried. It's composed of Bosnian Serb judges and lawyers, a victims' representative and international expert.
The report said that the perpetrators of the massacre "undertook measures to cover up the crime by moving the bodies" to other locations, said Persic.
The Bosnian Serbs had long refused to acknowledge that their forces committed the worst civilian massacre on European soil since World War II. The work of the Srebrenica Commission, too, initially was obstructed by some of its members and authorities who refused to provide information.
Only after Ashdown fired several Bosnian Serb officials and threatened others with dismissal was information made available.
Under the 1995 peace accord that ended the war, Ashdown has the power to impose laws and to fire officials who fail to comply with the peace process. The same agreement also divided postwar Bosnia into two mini-states, a Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation.
Persic said Ashdown welcomed the report, saying that "a dynamic of obstructionism on war crimes issues is being replaced by a dynamic of greater cooperation" on the part of Bosnia's Serbs.
Infidels practicing Al Taqiyya to cover their Clymers!!
Already posted here.http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1151866/posts Another poster states that Paddy Ashdown would fire any Serb that failed to agree with him.
When I was in Bosnia in 1995, prior to the ratification of the Dayton Accords, I saw clear evidence of atrocities. These includes atrocities by Serbs against Croats and Bosniacs, Croats against Bosniacs, and Serbs, and Bosniacs against Croats. I saw no evidence of atrocities by Bosniacs against Serbs, but I have no doubt that they occurred. The Serbs, being better equipped and more competently led, were far more efficient in their efforts. No side suffered from lack of trying.
((((ping)))) we need some truth on this board!
Does Michael Savage know Serbians killed thousands of Bosnians???
You wrote the truth - the NATO overlord of Bosnia made the ruling Serbs say what the West wants to hear or the Serbs would be starved into submission. The Serbs WILL be made to wear the mark of the Beast or starve to death.
Thank you for confirming that all sides commited atrocities against each other. Certain posters on these threads seem to believe that only one side was the aggressor while the others were innocent victims. As you say the serbs were better equiped and from this the natural conclusion would be that the better equiped party would be more efficient as you stated.
Call me harsh, but it sounds to me like the Serbs were involved in the War on Islamic Terror long before we were.
And they were doing it right.
(I should watch myself - the last time I posted on FR when I was drunk, I got BANNED for excessive brutality! LOL)
Before we damn the Serbs, we should remember that Serbia was the FIRST country to recognize the United States when we declared our independence from Great Britain.
It's a shame. Really.
I thought it was Morocco?
Interesting that this news is released only a few days after Putin denounced the Democrats for NATO's non-sanctioned action in Yugoslavia.
??????????
Serbia had not been a country for over 300 years at the time of the American Revolution. After some uprisings in the early 19th Century, the Ottomans gave the Serbs a degree of autonomy, but Serbia did not gain full and internationally recognized independence until the Congress of Berlin in 1878(?). USA-Serbian diplomatic recognition and relations date from shortly after that time. You were off by about 100 years, but no problem, in Balkans-time that's like yesterday.
Call me harsh, but it sounds to me like the Serbs were involved in the War on Islamic Terror long before we were.
And they were also involved with the little War on Slovenian Catholic Terror plus the big War on Croatian Catholic Terror. Lots of fighting going on in the Balkans during the 1990s and Serbia was in the middle of most of it--whether it be with other Christians or with Muslims. Trying to transform the fighting accompanying the break-up of the former Yugoslavia into a Serbian "War on Islamic Terror" is a favored tactic of Serb apologists, but it does not square with the facts.
The Serbs fought other Christians (Croats & Slovenes). The threatening Serb posture toward Macedonia (primarily Christian) in 1993 caused the very first U.S. troop deployment into the Balkans--an American battalion positioned on Macedonia's northern border with Serbia to serve as a "trip-wire" or deterrent to Milosevic. In the Serbian province of Vojodina, ethnic attacks"aginst Christian minorities are escalating.
Then, even when the Serb opponents are Mulsim (Bosniacs) or majority Muslim (Albanians), the nature of those conflicts was primarily nationalistic, not religious. The Kosovo conflict included sizable numbers of Christian Albanians, to include leaders, and reflects a long-running Kosovar Albanian drive for independence from first the Muslim Ottoman Turks and later the Orthodox Serbs.
And of course, describing the murders of thousands of non-combatants as part of the "War on Islamic Terror" is gross distortion of the term--murder is a crime, not a war.
The Slovenian war was like 10 days of basically Slovenes attacking Yugoslav army border posts, cutting off electricity to Yugoslav barracks and blockading them. Some of the Yugoslav officers killed were Slovenes: a Yugoslav helicopter which Slovenians shot down to deliver bread to the starving and blockaded soldiers in the barracks killed two SLOVENE pilots.
The Croats were allied with the Muslims, at the beginning and the end, and were shipping IRANIAN arms and moving MUJAHEDEEN fighters through their territory into Bosnia. The amount of weapons sent from Iran was huge and Croats creamed off a large share for themselves.
Croats were enablers and harborers of Muslim terrorists.
Where and when exactly in 1995 were you? You seem to be unaware that the BOSNIAN ARMY 5th Corps participated in Operation Storm, AUGUST 1995, against Serbs in Croatia and northwestern Bosnia.
They committed atrocities against Croatian Serbs trying to flee the attacking Croats. They left a big mess of "road pizza" - Serbs killed, ambushed, mortared, etc. on the roads. In the villages, they even killed the animals - stacking the slaughtered sheep into pyramids. "Wonders" was a UN official in Croatia and witnessed the handywork of Bosniacs in Croatia.
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