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The town remained surrounded by Bosnian Serb troops. According to the UN Security Council resolution that established UN Safe Areas, they should be demilitarised. Srebrenica, however, remained fully armed. This is discussed by both the ICTY, and the 2002 report by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, which was sponsored by the Dutch government to investigate the fall of Srebrenica and the role of Dutch troops stationed there under the UN. This report argues that the Bosnian army (AbiH) 'followed a deliberate strategy of using limited military actions to tie up a relatively large part of the Bosnian Serbian army (VRS)…. This was also done from the Srebrenica enclave…. They (AbiH) provoked fire by the Bosnian Serbs and then sought cover with a Dutchbat unit (the Dutch Air Battalion sent there by the UN).' (9)
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On 6 July 1995 the Bosnian Serb Army began to advance into the surrounding area after sustained shelling from the town (10).
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At this point, and for reasons unknown, all of the Bosnian Muslim military commanders left the town (12). As the Bosnian Serb force of 200 soldiers and five tanks advanced, they encountered little resistance and entered Srebrenica (13). The capture of the town seemed to be the result of a lack of resistance rather then anything premeditated (14).
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Women and children were evacuated from the town and men of military age were detained. Some men engaged the Serbs in fighting, and a large number of soldiers broke out of the enclave and fought with the Serbian army. There is no doubt that some of the Bosnian Muslim prisoners of war were executed in cold blood.
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The extent of the massacres has not been fully established; the figure of 8,000 murdered is not proven but an estimate made up from various lists of missing people. To date, the ICTY has identified 2,032 bodies from the 5,000 exhumed (15). While some bodies bear signs of having been killed rather than shot in battle, wounds on many bodies are consistent with battle deaths. Moreover, given that the area had been the scene of heavy fighting since 1992, it is to be expected that there were substantial casualties on both sides, and that many would have been buried in graves where they fell
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It was reported that the Red Cross had received news that up to 2,000 of the missing Bosnian Muslim troops from Srebrenica were in Tuzla, although the families of the soldiers had not yet been informed (16). Other articles cynically suggested that the complete lack of defence of the area suggested that the Bosnian Muslim government had 'sacrificed' Srebrenica in order to force the West's hand.
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The 2002 Dutch report, however, denied that any atrocities had taken place in front of Dutch troops.
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General Krstic, the commander of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb army that took Srebrenica, was the first person to be tried and convicted of genocide in the ICTY. Given the supposed extent of and notoriety of the genocide, it might have been assumed that this would be an open and shut case. However, the actual charge wasn't so straightforward. Krstic has been convicted of the intent of a 'joint criminal enterprise' to commit genocide (20).
Joint criminal enterprise is a new category that does not entail proving that the accused had any direct intent to commit, or knowledge of, the crime. At Krstic's trial it was established that Krstic did not know of any murders that were being committed, and in no way participated. Moreover, the ICTY also accepted that Krstic had personally given orders that Bosnian Muslim civilians were not to be harmed (21). His conviction was based on the grounds that he had participated in a 'criminal enterprise', the capture of Srebrenica
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In order to establish genocide the ICTY firstly argued that the Bosnian Serb army had targeted all of the Bosnian Muslim inhabitants of Srebrenica and the surrounding area, some 40,000 people, not just those murdered (23). This leads to a strange situation whereby those who were not murdered contribute to the verdict of genocide.
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Moreover, even the fact that the women, children and elderly from Srebrenica were not murdered but transferred to areas controlled by the Bosnian Muslim army does not disprove genocide, but rather proves it (25).
PING
Bump