Posted on 12/26/2003 7:37:46 PM PST by optimistically_conservative
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina - The Bosnian Serb republic, facing international pressure to admit atrocities committed during the 1990s, has appointed a commission to investigate Europe's worst massacre since World War II
The government of Bosnia's Serb-run republic said Friday it has appointed a seven-member team to review the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia overrun by Serbs in 1995
"The commission's main task is to establish the complete truth about the events in and around Srebrenica ... in order to achieve permanent peace and trust in Bosnia," the government said in a statement.
The move comes as Bosnian Serbs come under foreign pressure to admit that their forces committed the Srebrenica atrocities, to name the perpetrators and to locate where the victims' remains were buried. Forensics experts have found about 5,000 victims in mass graves, but the fate of thousands of others is still unknown.
Paddy Ashdown, the British diplomat who now oversees the peace process in Bosnia, gave Bosnian Serb authorities in October a six-month deadline to reveal the truth about what happened at Srebrenica, threatening them with "the gravest legal consequences" should they not comply.
Under the peace accord that ended the 1992-1995 war, Ashdown has the power to impose laws and fire local officials as high as presidents 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.
Last year, the Human Rights Chamber — the country's highest court for human rights — ordered Bosnian Serbs authorities to pay about $2.5 million to a foundation for relatives of the Srebrenica victims and to submit a report that would answer families' questions about the massacre.
Authorities drew up an interim report in March that minimized the number of victims and suggested that the victims were soldiers who died in battles. The report was rejected by the court and denounced as a disgrace by international officials.
A second report, submitted in September, acknowledged that the massacre occurred, but offered no answers about the identity of the perpetrators or the victims' whereabouts.
Ashdown then ordered a new commission be formed — made up of experts who would come up with an acceptable report within six months.
The latest commission includes Bosnian Serb judges and lawyers, a representative of the victims' families and an international expert.
Included in the group are Gordon Bacon, the head of the International Commission for Missing Persons and Smail Cekic, a Bosnian Muslim professor who heads the Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law.
I guess the point Im trying to make is,(and I know Im going to get massively flamed for this staement) I wiil take all reports of wrongdoing against Muslims, or persecution against them, with a grain of salt. Especially when the Euros are taking the side of Arabs/muslims/followers of Allah. Is that bigoted? Maybe, but one only has to look at the Euro treatment of the Israel question. They are totally biased agaisnt the Israelis and purely in the corner of people who have no real claim for self autonomy, nor the responsibility to manage it. It is for that reason I want to see more details of the Srebrenica massacre before I will refer to it as such. Especially if the UN or Europe is involved.
It can't.
To own up to the events surrounding the creation of the Republika Srpska would be to eviscerate any claims to its legitimacy as an entity.
Still, it is amusing to watch the amateur hour attempts of its defenders - such ignorance and duplicity aren't usually found outside grade school, at least in my experience.
It doesn't really bother me that FR is afflicted with the now defanged Balkan wolfpack - a good gumming from them every now and then merely gives weight to William Manchester's contention that you cannot recognise that which is good without having something base to compare it to, and so long as FR maintains the ability to self correct, as a community, it remains a healthy microcosm of America, where the good outweighs the bad, however vocal the bad may be.
With that said: nolite te bastardes carborundorum. "don't let the bastards get you down".
Wise choice. The comparison to Jenin is very accurate.
What mass graves? They were claimed to exist prior to invervention, but were never found. After years of digging, the only thing they've really been able to find is some of the soldiers and a handful of civilians killed in all the fighting (it WAS a war zone), and even if we pretend that each and every one of those is really a murder victim and not a combat casualty, there are nowhere near enough to even begin to satisfy the false claims made by the islamists and Clintonistas. It's just like Jenin, nothing but rabid islamist propaganda. Except here it served Clinton's agenda and so it was pushed by his leftist media buddies (as well as muslim and croat sympathizers) as truth, without any proof.
...in a similar way to Bush using mass graves to justify intervention in Iraq.
There ARE mass graves in Iraq, which the media never discusses. But they do still talk about Clinton's mass graves even though they don't exist. Go figure.
Since one can't be wrong if the other is right, it looks like BOTH these interventions were well-justified.
Don't believe CNN and think again. If you can believe they lie now, it should be easy to believe they lied back when Clinton was co-president. Back then, just as now, they pushed the great rapist's agenda. "History" while Clinton was co-president was mostly a PR-inspired lie.
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