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Mysteries at The Hague
Toronto Sun ^ | August 25, 2004 | PETER WORTHINGTON

Posted on 08/25/2004 3:12:36 PM PDT by joan

Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard admits to being confused -- and angry. He has rejected Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to use him as a witness at his war crimes trial, but Pritchard says The Hague now wants him as a witness -- but not against Milosevic.

Instead they want him as a witness for atrocities and human rights abuses committed by Croats when they overran the centre of Knin, capital of Serbian-occupied Krajina, which Croatia attacked and conquered in 1995.

"I don't get it," says Pritchard. "Film footage I shot for the National Film Board around 1995 was turned over to prosecutors at The Hague, as evidence of massacres of people and all livestock in Knin. My tapes and testimony mysteriously disappeared -- were supposedly lost. Now they are found. Equally mysteriously."

After a report in the Sun last weekend, Pritchard says he was phoned yesterday by the RCMP working in The Hague, saying his video footage has since been found and he's wanted to testify.

"Something seems fishy," Pritchard says. "The Sun article was quoted, and I was told my tapes and testimony had been turned over to the Croats for prosecution."

He said RCMP officer Tom Steendoordan phoned him from The Hague, reported finding his "lost" material and it was now intended to investigate what happened in Knin.

Pritchard has fretted over the ignoring of Knin atrocities for years -- one of the Balkan war's horror stories.

When the Croats -- re-armed by the Germans -- occupied Krajina, attention focused on the Medak pocket where Canadians came under Croat fire.

"I was in Knin, where Maj. Gen. Alain Forand was in command of some 32 Canadians and gave sanctuary to about 800 Serbian refugees, feeding and protecting them for close to two months."

The UN insisted these Serbs were not refugees and should not be protected. "We all knew they'd be killed if we didn't protect them. Forand told the world 'not on my watch' will they be turfed out to be killed. In my eyes, Forand is a hero for refusing to turn these people over to the Croats."

Eventually the 800 were safely delivered to Serbian territory, and Knin was relegated to the Memory Hole.

"But I had it all on video," Pritchard says. "Livestock slaughtered, women eviscerated, raped, burned."

He says Steendoordan told him 82 bodies were found in Knin, and that the Croats want to follow up on war crimes.

"That makes me suspicious," says Pritchard. "Croats investigating Croat war crimes in Knin? They've got to be kidding. It smells of coverup." As for Kosovo, Pritchard says, Steendoordan corrected his claim of only 3,000 bodies found, not the widely accepted 200,000 dead in mass graves.

"He said 3,000 was accurate then. Now 5,080 bodies have been found -- but still no mass graves." Pritchard is pleased that some of the truth is beginning to come out. Pritchard told the Sun that Milosevic could "rot in hell" before he'd testify on his behalf that there were no mass murders in Kosovo.

Bosnia, yes, but not Kosovo.

"Yes, I want the truth to come out, but as a journalist I have no intention of testifying on behalf of Croats either. They only got my video footage in the first place because the film board owned it and gave it to them."

A test of The Hague's sincerity in exposing war crimes in Knin will be if Gen. Forand, now retired, testifies.

"This is a man whose courage and integrity saved the lives of 800 Serb refugees, when his Canadian superiors and the UN wanted them sacrificed to expediency." He adds: "Frankly, I don't trust much that happens at The Hague."


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: balkans; canada; croatia; globalistagenda; icty; kangarookourt; knin; soros; un
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To: CPC
You had two groups within the VRSK.

? 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.

21 posted on 08/27/2004 4:02:29 AM PDT by wonders (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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To: ma bell

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.


22 posted on 08/27/2004 4:10:30 AM PDT by wonders (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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To: pythagorean

Very thoughtful post.

As to how RSK came into being, I think Misha Glenny's Fall of Yugoslavia describes it best.


23 posted on 08/27/2004 4:24:34 AM PDT by wonders (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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To: Wraith

THIS is the thread I meant to ping you to :-)


24 posted on 08/27/2004 6:04:14 AM PDT by getoffmylawn (Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.)
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To: wonders
It does irk me that all the people hear about on Arkan is the dark side. People do not realize how much he gave back to the Church, to the people. To this day, his party continues giving financial aid to all war widows of his unit.

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.

25 posted on 08/27/2004 6:44:46 AM PDT by ma bell (Niti cemo se pokoriti, niti ukloniti We shall neither yield or submit.)
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To: wonders
You guys wishing you'd left them twisting in the wind now?

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.

26 posted on 08/27/2004 10:02:34 AM PDT by Diocletian
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To: ma bell
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.

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.

27 posted on 08/27/2004 10:05:33 AM PDT by Diocletian
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To: wonders
wonders:

Do you regret not being in Croatia during 1991 so that you could get a better understanding of the entire situation?

28 posted on 08/27/2004 10:06:42 AM PDT by Diocletian
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To: wonders
wonders:

Do you regret not being in Croatia during 1991 so that you could get a better understanding of the entire situation?

29 posted on 08/27/2004 10:06:45 AM PDT by Diocletian
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To: wonders

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.


30 posted on 08/27/2004 11:47:33 AM PDT by marron
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To: Diocletian
The Serbs were within sight and could smell the cevapci on the grill.

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.

31 posted on 08/27/2004 11:53:59 AM PDT by CPC (HHC OJF the Pocket - Banja Luka--Brcko AO)
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To: getoffmylawn
Thanks for the ping Mr. Lawn. Was reading this one and having dealt with the ICTY in the past on other matters. It does not surprise me that things go missing then are found. The UN are notoriously UN organized and this happens very often. I am surprised they have not misplaced Mr. Milosevic. It will be very interesting to see what Milosevic produces in his defense. Not my favorite roll model but I do believe the Serbs as a whole got the wrong end of the stick.
32 posted on 08/27/2004 1:49:05 PM PDT by Wraith (Your village called, the idiot is missing.......)
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To: CPC
The Serbs were within sight and could smell the cevapci on the grill.

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.

33 posted on 08/27/2004 2:35:42 PM PDT by Diocletian
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To: Diocletian
Yes and much like you deny US Army Rangers were directly involved with ground operations.

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

34 posted on 08/27/2004 3:13:03 PM PDT by CPC (HHC OJF the Pocket - Banja Luka--Brcko AO)
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To: Balkans; wonders; joan; kosta50; Jane_N; All
Just general information:

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 .

35 posted on 08/27/2004 4:14:52 PM PDT by CPC (HHC OJF the Pocket - Banja Luka--Brcko AO)
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To: Balkans
The Dail Telegraph, 20 May 1995

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."

36 posted on 08/27/2004 4:21:02 PM PDT by CPC (HHC OJF the Pocket - Banja Luka--Brcko AO)
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To: CPC

Reprinted without permission, for "fair use" only



Panorama, BBC1 TV 23 January 1994 21:30 GMT

Now on BBC1 in tonight's Panorama the BBC's Foreign Affairs Editor, John
Simpson, follows the controversial peacekeeping mission of General Sir
Michael Rose through some of the worst scenes of fighting experienced in
Bosnia.


Simpson: The Bosnian government regards everything that is happening here
in the clearest moral terms. This was a small, undefended, multi-racial
society which was brutally attacked by a well-trained army. Only those who
actually support the aggressors, the Bosnian Serbs, could possibly
question that.

Rose: But the government here, predominantly Muslim, and increasingly good
at getting its message across abroad, has a particular agenda. To get the
international community to intervene on its side.

.....

Rose has always maintained that Gorazde wasn't too badly damaged in the
fighting. Further proof, his enemies say, that he's pro-Serb. As we
flew over, it seemed completely devastated. Once again, though, things
weren't quite what they seemed. Even though a Pentagon adviser
criticised Rose recently and said that satellite pictures showed that
practically every house here had been damaged.

Rose: "The answer to that is, yes - practically every house in Gorazde
has been damaged. But most of the damage that was done to Gorazde had
taken place in the fighting some two years before when the Bosnian
government forces drove the Serbs from this town. And there were 12,500
Serbs living here at that time and they were all driven off. The way to
distinguish a house that's been damaged by fighting, where a shell has
hit it, and a house that's been damaged by ethnic cleansing is: if it's
got no roof, no doors, no window frames, nothing in the house at all and
there are burn-marks up it and bullets sprayed around the walls, that is
a house that has been damaged by ethnic cleansing. A house that has
been damaged by shelling has a shell-hole in it and there are still
people trying to live in that building with their furniture, because
they've got nowhere else to go. That's something you can't see from
satellites and of course at that time the international image of what
was happening in Gorazde was very different from the reality. What was
dangerous was that policies were beginning to be put together, on both
sides of the Atlantic, about what we should do in Gorazde, but these
policies were being put together on totally flawed information."

....

There's a propaganda war going on between the Bosnian government and the
UN and the UN isn't winning it. The journalists who make the daily
pilgrimage to the press centre of the UN's redoubt in Sarajevo often
have a particular sense of commitment. It's hard to live and work in a
city which's gone through such suffering without identifying strongly
with it.


[Journalist to Silajdzic: "You've used the word appeasement before
now..."]

The Bosnians don't have many weapons in this war, but one of the most
effective of them is the soundbite.

Simpson: "Do you feel you've ever manipulated the media in any way in
your own interests?"

Silajdzic: "The question is whether we have told the truth. I think we
told the truth. Yes, it's true that you can tell the truth in many
ways, and of course we always chose the way the most beneficial for us.
There's no doubt about it."

Up to now, General Rose has been inclined to keep his disputes with the
Bosnian government to himself. But at the end of his time as UN
commander he's decided to make a few things public. He's taking us up
to a UN position in an old Turkish fort overlooking Sarajevo. He's got
a remarkable story to tell.

Last September, inside this armoured personnel carrier, a British team
was operating an elderly but effective piece of equipment called
Cymbeline, which tracks the firing of mortars.

Soldier: "We started locating, rounds, to start with it was five or six
at a time, then it was going on to 30-plus. In total we located about
250 rounds which lasted for about half hour, the actual bombardment,
[indistinct] actually small arms fire hitting the sides of the fort."

It was, by far, the worst outbreak of violence since the ceasefire in
February seven months earlier. Nobody knew who was responsible, but
they assumed it was the Serbs.

The UN, though, realised it was Bosnian government troops. Firing
mortars from closed beside some of the most sensitive places in the
city, including Rose's headquarters and the hospital.

Soldier: "We could actually locate this to smack on the firing
baseplate, depending on how good the operator is who is actually on the
equipment at the time."

Simpson: "Smack on, I mean literally [Soldier: "Yes."] you could
actually know precisely ["Yes."] where it was."

Rose: "By demonstrating who was firing and from where people were
firing we were able to go down and see President Izetbegovic and
explain to him the consequences of what his army were doing. Of course,
one doesn't necessarily say that President Izetbegovic had anything to
do with this strategy but he looked sufficiently concerned to stop the
firing immediately and indeed it stopped the firing and we got no more
mortar or artillery fire again."

Simpson: "But what was the purpose of firing out of the city like
that?"

Rose: "Well I can only suppose it was to try and create images of war
which would help some political purpose. And it was the demonstration
of where the firing positions were coming from, ie that it was mainly
the Bosnian government forces that had provoked this action that caused
President Izetbegovic to take immediate action to stop it.

Simpson: "But the idea was to get the Serbs to fire back."

Rose: "I guess that would have been one of the purposes of opening
fire, yes."

The UN found the timing of this sudden outbreak suspicious. The Bosnian
president was going to America the next day to lobby for an end to the
arms embargo. It all looked like more ammunition in the propaganda war.

Simpson: "Do your forces do that kind of thing?"

Silajdzic: "Well, everything is possible in the war. But not the
intention. So we shell them so they will shell us. To do what? Why
should we get them kill us?"

....

Silajdzic press conference on meeting Rose: "So we can say now, I will
talk to General Rose here right now. Mr Akashi is responsible for the
death of 70,000 people in Bihac right now. There is no call for the
airstrikes from General Rose here, from Mr Akashi. Those are the
responsible people. If a lot of people die in Bihac it is because of
them."

...

So what really happened in Bihac. Rose went there a few weeks later.
The Serbs hadn't captured it after all. These were the first pictures
of it since the fighting, but they were so peaceful scarcely anyone
broadcast them.

This town has clearly been through a terrible time. But the degree of
suffering and damage does seem to have been exaggerated.

The number of casualties here is a matter of serious dispute. So much
so, that UN workers in Bihac who reported low figures have been
threatened with death.

The Bosnian government has now revised its estimate of deaths downwards
to 16,000. The UN told Panorama this afternoon that it thought fewer
that 1,000 people had died, most were soldiers.

Simpson: "Can you tell me what happened that night in November when you
accused General Rose and Mr Akashi..."

Silajdzic: "I would like to ask you not to elaborate on that, I thought
I answered those questions."

Simpson: "There was an occasion when you blamed specifically blamed
Akashi..."

Silajdzic: "It's true but I would not like to elaborate, I said what I
wanted to say."

Simpson: "One of the things that you accused them of was the deaths of
70,000 people..."

Silajdzic: "Very good, very good, again I will repeat, if you don't
have any more questions then I'll go to my office and work."

Simpson: "But I do have more questions..."

Silajdzic: "Thank you very much."

Simpson: "They are relevant questions..."

Silajdzic: "No, no, I will not elaborate on that as I said. I will not
talk about, there's so many things to talk about here, not
personalities, that's not my job..."

Simpson: "I'm not asking..."

Silajdzic: "I was very clear that day, and that's it."

Simpson: "Do you regret what you said?"

Silajdzic: "I'm sorry I said I would not elaborate any more on that
question."


37 posted on 08/27/2004 4:31:41 PM PDT by CPC (HHC OJF the Pocket - Banja Luka--Brcko AO)
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To: vooch
vooch :)

Sgt Major

I got a promotion? How did that happen? I used to just be "Sarge."

38 posted on 08/28/2004 3:04:32 AM PDT by wonders (If vegetarians eat vegetables, then what do humanitarians eat?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: ma bell

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.


39 posted on 08/28/2004 3:12:35 AM PDT by wonders (If vegetarians eat vegetables, then what do humanitarians eat?)
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To: marron

Sounds like the Canadians I've known.


40 posted on 08/28/2004 3:25:33 AM PDT by I_dmc
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