Posted on 08/25/2004 3:12:36 PM PDT by joan
? I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you elaborate? Do you mean the regular guys vs. the "political appointees"? The regular guys being the ones who fought so valiantly to protect their people and the political appointees being the goons who ran across the border with their DM the day before Oluja?
There were many individual units who fought not for the RSK Government, but for their peoples very lives.
Yes, I know there were groups of them protecting the civilians. And they were heroic and self-sacrificing.
All of those soldiers were killed holding open the fork
Fork? I'm not sure what you mean here. Yes, I can be dense sometimes (blush)! There was also a group at Turanj holding back HV until most of the civilian "refugees" had passed to the south and east, and they fought very hard.
the day-day readiness was non-existant
True. That's certainly what I saw.
They turned-to Rescue Force by holding open roads, corridors and bridges so civilians can pass.
We had credible reports that Arkanovci were seen actually carrying wounded civilians across the bridge over the Una at Dvor. One of my colleagues cracked, "Fancy that. Arkan the humanitarian." I've seen Arkan's dark work, though, in Eastern Slavonija. Real dark. Revenge on an ethnic Hungarian village.
Thank you very much, CPC, for your very helpful and informative post. I really do appreciate hearing the story from your side. And it confirms some things for me.
Do you know what happened at Brubno? Especially the bus. There was no one left to tell the tale, and it was, well, a scene I'll never forget. I'd just like to know what really happened there. I'm certain it was ABiH 5th Corps who did it.
Great find, ma bell! Thank you!!!
Do you know whether the full HHO report is available on the web? I just checked their site, but couldn't locate it so far. Will keep trying.
Hmm. Some things in this are confusing. I know the MiGs attacked the column near Maja.
Very thoughtful post.
As to how RSK came into being, I think Misha Glenny's Fall of Yugoslavia describes it best.
THIS is the thread I meant to ping you to :-)
Fork meaning a split road. One to RS, the other where the bad guys are.
Yes, many of the VRSK abandoned the Slobo hope and then fought like Serbian Knights, piercing the self-proclaimed "vuanted" Croatian Army into two on its drive towards Karlovac. They were within spitting distance of that town. With the 4 B's nearly gone, they had no choice so they broke off into small groups and made their way back before they too were slaughtered by the HVO.
The Serbs left us no choice: we couldn't let Bihac fall into their hands.
The better result would have been an Abdic victory over Dudakovic, but that didn't happen.
No they weren't.
Secondly, it was the HV, not the HVO. The HVO was solely in BiH.
Lastly, Turanj was well dug in. To suggest that the VRSK was about to enter Karlovac is quite humorous.
Do you regret not being in Croatia during 1991 so that you could get a better understanding of the entire situation?
Do you regret not being in Croatia during 1991 so that you could get a better understanding of the entire situation?
I accept your criticism of my remarks. My comment about Dallaire was unfair. I have heard him speak, and I agree that he is a very thoughtful man, and in fact I was impressed with him.
My criticism of him was unfair because I was using him as a symbol for other things I dislike, when he was struggling against those very things.
The interview with Marchal, his #2, is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/marchal.html
The general tone of fecklessness is, I think, notable, but the antidote to that is to read the interview with an American involved in it from our side:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/marley.html
Marley makes Marchal look like George Patton. You will note that weeks were spent arguing about the dictionary definition of "genocide" while people were dying. The same kinds of discussions and evasions were going on at UN HQ, and in Europe, as everyone twisted and turned to avoid using the "g" word.
We now know that France was effectively allied with the Hutu government, they had provided weapons and training for the militias, and during the genocide they intervened essentially in response to the Tutsi counterattack, to provide a safe zone for the Hutus.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/842957/posts
"The Akazu death squads had received military training from the French; Hutu extremists were always assured of a warm welcome in Paris and the flow of French arms to the Hutus continued throughout the genocide. Whenever the Tutsis regrouped sufficiently to threaten Hutu power, France mounted a discreet military intervention to save its friends. The French troops who arrived towards the end of the 1994 massacres were thoroughly confused by the reality of the million Tutsi dead: they had been told they were coming in to prevent a massacre of Hutus by the Tutsi minority."
And here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/readings/french.html
Dallaire was betrayed from all sides. He was ordered not to intervene by New York, as to intervene would violate their "neutrality". While France was fairly openly allied with the Hutu, Boutros and Annan seem also to have been sympathetic to them. This would be similar to the present situation in the Sudan, where Paris, Ottowa, Brussels, and UN HQ are all aligned with Khartoum, which in part explains the lack of response to the killing that has gone on there.
In any event, the Hutu believed that if they hit the UN force, they would fold, and that seems to have been the result. Ten Belgians were taken and tortured to death, and within a few days Belgium withdrew its forces leaving Dallaire with little to work with. It was Belgian forces that were in control of Don Bosco school, where the refugees under their protection were killed.
I appreciate the overall measured tone in your reply to me, it must be annoying, experienced as you are in these kinds of operations, to read criticism from someone who has not been involved. And I withdraw my criticism of Dallaire. I do not withdraw my criticism of UN policy or overall incompetence in Rwanda, but I recognize that, as you point out, the UN is a proxy for actual nations. If the UN is unable to focus it is because the countries behind it are unable to focus.
And you are right, as the interview with Marley makes ever so clear, the US was completely unwilling to get involved.
The Croatians were nothing special. They couldnt make a move til they had NATO air support and more advanced and accurate weaponry. The US Army Rangers provided great spotting for you guys.
Are you telling me that the ARSK crossed the Kupa? LOL
That sounds similar to the Muslim fairy tale about them purposely retreating back to Bihac after breaking out of the pocket in '94 and being driven back by your guys. The Croatians were nothing special. They couldnt make a move til they had NATO air support and more advanced and accurate weaponry. The US Army Rangers provided great spotting for you guys.
Your statement is proven false by the actions around Kupres, Western Slavonia, and up the Livno Valley towards Glamoc and Grahovo.
They were not an organized unit, tropo. They were thrown in together ad hoc and drove to split the formation. Slobo's boys began laying down arty on them and cut off all support that was given to them. They fell back and that was the end of their counteroffensive.
The distance was approximately 10 miles to Karlovac. When you are ambushed, you attack and that is what they did. Kinda like the half-dozen "Americans" in utilities that were found with zero I.D. They wre later released with no questions asked as my point is proven
SECULAR OR ISLAM FUNDAMENTALIST MUSLIMS OF BOSNIA? Countless times, in a typical propaganda fashion, Western media claimed that Bosnian Muslims are tolerant, secular Europeans. (I.e .
the Serbs are the ones who "occupied" and disturbed this idyllic world.) "Islamic Affairs Analyst" publishes studies about Islamic world since 1935. IAA is published 45 times a year, in Great Britain.. .
With the beginning of the civil war in Bosnia, in 1992, they wrote: [Quote from issue of IAA entitled "MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISM IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA": ] Traditionally, Bosnians were among the most militant in the Muslim world. A ruling minority, they were proud of being the spearhead of the jihad into Europe, part of the two-pronged drive along Sava and Danube with Rome as its final objective. Occupation by the Habsburgs in 1878 caused some of them to emigrate, but others waited for fate to redeem them. In post-Versailles Yugoslavia, a few became free-thinkers, Communists or 'South Slav of Muslim faith', but most remained waiting in their closed world .
[end quote] We can check the above claim in Encyclopedia Britannica. Here is one episode of Bosnian Muslim religious fervor described by the Encyclopedia (Britannica, Edition 1910, Volume 4, page 284) .
(That's true: Edition 1910, i.e. before WWI, when the memories were fresh!) To understand the text: Servia = Serbia Ottoman = medieval Turkish empire Porte = Turkish government of the time janissaries = special Turkish army formed from the local Muslim population Constantinople = Istanbul, the capital of the empire Karageorge = Serbian patriot who liberated portions of Serbia from the Turkish occupation .
[Quote from the above mentioned encyclopedia .
Entry: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moslem rebellions ] The reform of the Ottoman government contemplated by the sultan Mahmud II. (1808-1839) was BITTERLY RESENTED in Bosnia, where Turkish prestige had already been weakened by the establishment of Servian autonomy under Karageorge. Many of the janissaries had married and settled on the land, forming a strongly conservative and FANATICAL caste, friendly to the Moslem nobles, who now dreaded the curtailment of their own privileges. Their opportunity came in 1820, when the Porte was striving to repress the insurrection in Moldavia, Albania and Greece. A first Bosnian revolt was crushed in 1821, a second, due principally to the massacres of the jannissaries, was quelled with much bloodshed in 1827. After Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, a further attempt at reform was initiated by the sultan and his grand vizier, Reshid Pasha. Two years later came a most formidable outbreak: THE SULTAN WAS DENOUNCED AS FALSE TO ISLAM, AND THE BOSNIAN NOBLES GATHERED IN BANJALUKA, DETERMINED TO MARCH TO CONSTANTINOPLE, AND RECONQUER THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE FOR THE TRUE FAITH. A HOLY WAR WAS PREACHED BY THEIR LEADER, HUSSEIN AGA BERBERI, A BRILLIANT SOLDIER AND ORATOR, WHO CALLED HIMSELF "ZMAJ BOSANSKI", AND WAS REGARDED BY HIS FOLLOWERS AS A SAINT. The Moslems of Herzegovina, under Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic, remained loyal to the Porte, but in Bosnia Hussein Aga encountered little resistance. At Kossovo he was reinforced by 20,000 Albanians, led by Mustapha Pasha, and within a few weeks the united armies occupied the whole of Bulgaria, and large part of Macedonia. Their career was checked by Reshid Pasha, who persuaded the two victorious commanders to intrigue against one another, secured the division of their forces, and then fell upon each in turn .
The rout of the Albanians at Prilipe and the capture of Mustapha at Scutari were followed by an invasion of Bosnia. After a desperate defence, Hussein Aga fled to Esseg in Croatia-Slavonia, his appeal for pardon was rejected, and in 1832 he was banished for life in Tribizond .
The power of the Bosnian nobles, though shaken by their defeat, remained unbroken, and they resisted vigorously when their kapetanates were abolished in 1837, and again when A MEASURE OF EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW was conceded to the Christians in 1839 .
In Herzegovina, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic reaped the reward of his fidelity. HE WAS LEFT FREE TO TYRANNIZE OVER HIS CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS, a king in all but name .
[end quote] If you wonder WHO were the "tyrannized Christian subjects", i.e .
who was slaughtered by local, Muslim janissaries - here is the clue from the same text .
[Encyclopedia Britannica, Edition 1910, Vol 4, page 282, Entry Bosnia and Herzegovina, Religion .
Quote] In 1895 43% of the population were Orthodox Christians [i.e. Serbs], 35% Moslems and 21% Roman Catholics [i.e. Croats] .
[ end quote ] .
You can only wonder how the local, Bosnian Muslims, who are actually ex (and local) Christian Slavs who converted to Islam, got to be more fundamentalist than their masters. (The collaborators of the Turkish occupiers got to be worse than the occupiers themselves) .
There is a Serbian proverb from those times: "Poturica - gori od Turcina" (Made-Turk is much worse than a Turk) .
...And they did it for a benefit of being a privileged class .
Another Serbian proverb says: "Prodao veru za veceru" (He sold his faith - for supper) .
"Yes" you can say "but untold and indescribable suffering of Serbs is in a relatively distant past. Moslems of Bosnia are now secular Europeans" .
But the story goes on. Only fifty years ago Serbs were subject to a genocide in Bosnia. The geographic district, under Nazi occupation, was part of Nazi Independent State of Croatia.. .
For decades Encyclopedia Britannica had the following sentence when talking about WWII in Yugoslavia: "...IN BOSNIA... THE CROATIAN FASCISTS BEGAN A MASSACRE OF SERBS WHICH, IN THE WHOLE ANNALS OF WORLD WAR II, WAS SURPASSED FOR SAVAGERY ONLY BY THE MASS EXTERMINATION OF POLISH JEWS"!!!!!!!! I found the sentence in the versions of Britannica from 1971 to 1986 .
And who joined Nazi Croats in slaughtering the Serbs? You've guessed it: The Muslims! [Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Edition 1990, Volume 2, Pages 706 and 707, entry Husseini, Hajj Amin Al <- The main Hitler's supporter among Palestinian Arabs.. .
Quote:] It so happened that Husseini made his contribution to the Axis war effort in his capacity as a Muslim, rather than as an Arab leader, by recruiting and organizing in RECORD TIME, during the spring of 1943, BOSNIAN MUSLIM BATTALIONS in Croatia comprising some twenty thousand men! These MUSLIM VOLUNTEER units, called Hanjar (Sword), were put in WAFFEN-SS, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia, and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. THEY PARTICIPATED IN THE MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS IN BOSNIA and VOLUNTEERED TO JOIN IN THE HUNT FOR JEWS IN CROATIA... The Germans made a point of publicizing the fact that Husseini had flown from Berlin to Sarajevo for the sole purpose of giving his blessing to the Muslim army and inspecting its arms and training exercises .
[ end quote ] .
A photograph, on page 704, shows al-Husseini inspecting Muslim troops in Bosnia .
Today, Muslims and Croats - united in hatred of Serbs, are once again at task of slaughtering Serbs. Having no knowledge of the history of the region, and having no sence of shame, "democratic" West is supporting the union (and the slaughter) .
Back to the article from "Islamic Affairs Analyst": [Quote:] There is a great reluctance in the West to recognize that the fighting in Bosnia is a resurgence of the conflict between Islam and Christendom which shaped five centuries of Balkan history .
Disbelief in the West regarding Muslim fundamentalism in Bosnia stems from several causes, among which there is a pervasive, compulsive, complacency which holds that things can never be as bad as they seem, hence European officialdom refused to believe that Hitler meant what he wrote in Mein Kampf .
President Alija Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration, first published in 1970 when it earned him a prison sentence, demanded a fully-fundamentalist Muslim state in Bosnia without scope for non-Muslim institutions or any division between religion, politics, and economics .
The book was republished in 1990 in Sarajevo (by Mala Muslimanska Biblioteka). It scathingly attacks Attaturk's reforms and holds up Pakistan as a model to be followed .
[end quote] Photo copies of the above texts available. Quotes from Mr .
Izetbegovic's book also available .
Analysis
By Patrick Bishop
HOW many people have died since the war in Bosnia broke out more than three years ago? Two hundred thousand if you believe the figure routinely pumped out by news agencies, newspapers and television .
Not so, according to the estimate of a controversial former American diplomat. George Kenney, who resigned from the State Department in protest over US policy towards Bosnia, puts the figure at anything between 25,000 and 60,000 .
Computing war casualties is always an inexact science given the confusion of conflict. Political considerations also intrude, with victims tending to exaggerate their losses and aggressors wishing to minimise the scale of the violence they have perpetrated. In the case of Bosnia the figures have an added significance. If the figure of 200,000 is believed it lends weight to the Bosnian government's claims that the country's Muslim population is the victim of a genocide .
If it is then taken as a harbinger of what can be expected if full-scale war resumes, it makes it all the harder for the international community to turn its back on Bosnia and withdraw the "peacekeeping" troops .
The total of 200,000 seems to be based largely on Bosnian government figures. As long ago as December 1992 the then foreign minister, Haris Silajdzic, told journalists with suspicious precision that there were 128,444 dead on the government side, including loyal Croats and Serbs .
Eighteen months later the figure has advanced to 144,450. Add a notional 60,000 for the dead on the Serb side and you reach 200,000 .
Mr Kenney says these figures are grossly inflated. Writing in the New York Times Magazine he observed: "For Bosnia, an area slightly larger than Tennessee, to have suffered more than 200,000 deaths would have meant roughly 200 deaths per day, every day for the three plus years of war But the fighting rarely, if ever, reached that level" .
No one will ever know exactly how many people died when Serb bands moved in to murder and expel the Muslim and Croat populations of northern and eastern Bosnia .
But thereafter the tempo of death slowed down. The most intensive and prolonged Serb bombardments were aimed at Sarajevo, where more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed. Elsewhere shelling has been intermittent .
The war is static by nature, with both sides facing each other from long-tenanted lines. The combatants save their energies for occasional operations that rarely last more than a week or two .
Mr Kenney says the CIA estimates casualties in the tens of thousands .
Asking around military intelligence officers with experience in Bosnia and relief workers, he arrives at a number of deaths of 25,000 to 60,000 .
The crudeness of the figure reflects the reluctance of impartial organisations to get involved. Neither the United Nations nor the International Committee of the Red Cross will venture any statistics .
The Bosnian charge d'affaires in London, Mugdin Pasic, said yesterday: "Our figures are accurate if you can talk about accuracy in war. There is no propaganda element to them." The Bosnians are puzzled. Mr Kenney has a reputation as a principled man who in the past has been seen as a friend of Bosnia, to the point of being partisan. He resigned from the State Department in August 1992 because he felt America was not doing enough to help .
With Balkan inevitability, his raising of the numbers question is being given a sinister interpretation .
Mr Kenney says accurate counting matters. "As long as the world tosses around words like 'genocide' so loosely," he writes, "the present tragedy will revolve endlessly."
Reprinted without permission, for "fair use" only
Sgt Major
I got a promotion? How did that happen? I used to just be "Sarge."
Thanks for the reply. I thought it might mean fork in the road. But I can think of lots of forks where other roads lead INTO the Glina-Dvor road (the Brubno road, the Bojna road, for example), but not any where they lead out... it's a straight shot all the way down from Glina into Dvor and over the river to Bos. Novi.
And thanks again for posting the Nacional article. I was very interested to read it, and to know that there has some reporting of that area.
Sounds like the Canadians I've known.
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