Bosnian Serbs Apologize For Srebrenica Massacre

10 November 2004 -- Bosnian Serb authorities today apologized for the first time to relatives of around 8,000 Muslims killed by Serbian forces in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

A statement posted on the government's official web page said "the government of Republika Srpska sympathizes with the pain of relatives of the Srebrenica victims and expresses sincere regrets and apologies over the tragedy which has happened to them."

The Bosnian Serb government accepted last month a local report by a special investigative commission acknowledging that almost 8,000 Muslims were killed in the massacre, in the final stages of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Today's statement said "the report shows without any doubt that in July 1995 huge war crimes took place in the area of Srebrenica."

These are quotes of a former Srebrenica soldier, Hamil Becirovic, from the book I mention above:

"Srebrenica's fall was very sudden. We were in our village when the attack began. There were strong points, strong defenses all around...

Around 7:30 in the evening, we got the news that women and children should go in one direction and that men should go in another direction because of the possibility of attack.

The order came from the brigade commander in Srebrenica and people followed that direction... About 11:15 P.M., the men started to get together and we went to a nearby village where the men were also gathering, I was with my family, friends, and neighbors. At one point, there were, I think, something like eighteen thousands men together in that one place...

People started leaving about 1:00 A.M. It wasn't our time to go until about 6:00 A.M....

We crossed the Serb line and it immediately became more difficult because we were in their territory...

The first attack came in Sitkovici...

I arrived in Tuzla on the seventh day...

I found my wife and child at the airport in Tuzla...

My comments: The bulk of the separation of men from children was accomplished before the Serbs came, and done by orders of the acting commander (Bosnian Muslim) and the UN. Hamil Becirovic's estimation of 18,000 men gathered in a village is higher than most which usually range from 12,000 to 15,000. However, this shows that that many men had separated themselves, and the women had gone to the UN base by the thousands.

By the time the Serbs got there, only a small percentage of men or youths who didn't follow the orders would be at the UN base.

This soldier was puzzled, as were they others. He said: there were strong points, strong defenses all around. He was one of those soldiers who seemed to have left his position to gather in a "nearby village". No mention of Serbs being there as they gathered. No Serbs mentioned as arriving as they waited from 1:00 a.m - 6:00 a.m. to leave (the number of men was so large they had to leave in shifts). No mention of them encountering fighting with the Serbs until they "crossed the Serb line".

>>>>>>They even told the Wahabbis to go home because they didn't need those morons telling them how to practice Islam.<<<<

Mohammed Atta and his flight crew would beg to differ

Atta trained in Bosnia in 1999.

FRee Republic is a treasure trove of information of Al Qaeda activities in Bosnia. HAMBURG Cell, MADRID cell, and the most likely AMSTERDAM cell are linked to Bosnia.

As the saying goes, WHEN IN DOUBT, FOLLOW THE GOLDENCHAIN

Btw, is your nick this kind of Snapple?

>>>>>Well, maybe it is EUROPES worst event since WWII. <<<<<<

It is not: Titini (Communist forces command of Croatian Tito) murdered thousands of Italians during the 42 days of their occupation of Trieste (May 1945)

Hundreds of thousands of ethic German civilians died during ethnic cleansing from their historical lands

Communists in Eastern Europe murdered hundreds of thousands of political opponents.

This is all known and documented historical fact. The question is: Why the guideline containing the fraudulent information ("the worst attrocity in Europe since WWII") is the part of EVERY report on Srebrenica? Why it is not contested?

This simple question opens the door for investigating the SREBRENICA CASE.

Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, I'm still waiting for the U.S. and the UN to get on their soapboxes and DEMAND an apology from the Croatian government they openly supported and ARMED during the '92-'95 civil war for the underreported (due to an anti-Serb agenda) and equally heinous ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Republic of Krajina on May 1, 1995. Thousands of Serb civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee for their lives during this horror, dubbed "Operation Flash" by the Croat government.

I'm sure anyday now the UN will try In Absentium the late Croatian dictator Franco Tudjman for his brutal actions in Krajina. Uh, huh. That'll happen right after hell freezes over and before a few dunderheads on this thread can get over their rabid hatred of the Serbian people and see that most every action we took in the former Yugoslavia in the '90's was a blunder.

At least noone brought up the national disgrace we call the Kosovo War, when we (meaning Klintoon) bombed and killed 2,100 civilians of Christian Serbia for the benefit of the infamous Islamo-Fascist terrorist organization known as the KLA.

the UN will try In Absentium the late Croatian dictator Franco Tudjman for his brutal actions in Krajina

That sounds real useful--what sentence do you propose for a man who's been dead for 5 years?

we (meaning Klintoon) bombed and killed 2,100 civilians of Christian Serbia

No, "we" means the USA with funding provided by by Congress and moral backing from such as Governor Bush of Texas who backed the Kosovo intervention, but castigated Clinton for taking ground troops off the table.

And the total Yugoslav civilian casualties according to the study conducted by the decidedly not-sympathetic-to-the-USA Human Rights Watch were about 500. Here are some quotes from their study (Conducted with cooperation from Serbian authorities):

"Despite precautions, including the use of a higher percentage of precision-guided munitions than in any other major conflict in history, civilian casualties occurred. Human Rights Watch has conducted a thorough investigation of civilian deaths as a result of NATO action. On the basis of this investigation, Human Rights Watch has found that there were ninety separate incidents involving civilian deaths during the seventy-eight day bombing campaign. Some 500 Yugoslav civilians are known to have died in these incidents."

And over half of the casualties occurred in Kosovo, meaning as many as half of the civilian dead were of Albanian ethnicity, not Serbian.

"Attacks in Kosovo overall were more deadly-a third of the incidents account for more than half of the deaths...between 278 and 317 of the dead-between 56 and 60 percent of the total number of deaths-were in Kosovo. In Serbia, 201 civilians were killed (five in Vojvodina) and eight died in Montenegro"

BUSH: I supported the U.S. involvement in Kosovo, because I was afraid that the thug Mr. Milosevic would destabilize NATO. I felt it was in our strategic interest -- I thought it was in our strategic interest to become involved. I did not appreciate what the president did when he took ground troops off the table. I thought that was a -- I cannot imagine a commander-in-chief saying to an enemy, we're not going to use the full force of the United States to achieve an objective.

"That sounds real useful--what sentence do you propose for a man who's been dead for 5 years?"

Retroactive international condemnation would do, and an apology from the U.S. and Eurpoean governments who provoked the UN into conflict with Serbia on behalf of the tyrant Tudjman.

A few other notes on your rabidly anti-Serb parade of lies:

a.) Wrong is wrong, whether committed by a Dem or a Pubbie. Yes, Klintoons criminal actions in Kosovo were supported by Bush and many members of the U.S. Congress. This is an eternal black mark on many otherwise fine records of public service.

b.) The total Yugolslav civilian casualties in the 1999 NATO/U.S. bombing were just over 2,100. My source is the official UN estimate for the bombing (the source is admittedly shaky, but the UN are no more or less an enemy of the U.S. than Human Rights Watch, heh heh). No stipulation is provided as to how many of those killed were in Serbia or...Serbia. I'm pleased to remind you that Kosovo was then and is still a province of Yugoslavia/Serbia, and was never a seperate nation.

c.) Bush was simply wrong about the so-called "threat" of Milosevic, as were many other good politicians practicing "politics that end at the waters edge" and informed only with the MSM's oft-false reports of atrocities in the region. 5 years on, they never found the mass graves that Clinton claimed provoked us into war against Serbia. Where are the 100,000 victims? The 10,000 victims? the 5,000 victims? The best report sofar of "mass graves" found in the region revealed that the sum total was just over 4,000 people, over 1,000 of which were SERBS, and no way to identify who were soldiers and who were civilians.

Oh, but Milosevic (and his band of Christian soldiers who dared,DARED to fight the encroachment of radical Islam and the KLA into Serbia) was a "bad man", so that's justification enough. You want to believe that, then I'll let you. On those grounds, I guess I can patiently await the bombing of far worse Muslim tyrants in Sudan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Nigeria, etc., all of which I'm sure you'll avidly support.

Right mark? Mark? Mohammed? (echo) (echo).

Yugolslav civilian casualties in the 1999 NATO/U.S. bombing were just over 2,100. My source is the official UN estimate for the bombing

Post it on here & let’s all see it. UN documents are on the web, but the one you’re talking about may be somewhat obscure. After all, the ICTY, a subordinate organization of the UN, used no such “Official UN Estimate” when it was required to rule on the legality of NATO action. Instead it used the Human Rights Watch figure of 500 civilian deaths as corroborated by the 495 deaths recorded in the FRY Ministry of Foreign Affairs publication “NATO Crimes in Yugoslavia”. Look at paragraph 53.

Bottom line: every innocent civilian death is a tragedy, but given the total number of sorties; our Air Force, Navy, and Marine pilots did a wonderful job of hitting their designated targets while avoiding civilian casualties. Just like Saddam’s Baby Milk Factory, the Serbs were propagandizing as hard as they could to discredit our airmen and gain sympathy from the gullible.

I'm pleased to remind you that Kosovo was then and is still a province of Yugoslavia/Serbia, and was never a seperate nation.

Well, Kosovo was a part of the Ottoman Empire invaded by Serbia in the first Balkan War in 1912-13. Although it had not been part of Serbia for almost 500 years at that point, it was severed from the rest of the Albanian populated lands and awarded to Serbia by the Great Powers as part of the post-war settlement. The Albanians had been in revolt against the Ottomans just prior to then and, when the Serbs took over, the revolt started up again and in one form or another has continued for the next 80+ years. To the Albanians, the Serbs are occupiers and oppressors who were unjustly awarded possession of Kosovo in violation of the principle of self-determination.

You can say that happened 90 years ago—get over it. But, of course, the Serbs based their claim on events of five centuries ago. Memories are long in the Balkans.

Milosevic (and his band of Christian soldiers who dared,DARED to fight the encroachment of radical Islam and the KLA into Serbia) was a "bad man”

As to “encroachment … into Serbia”, see the post above.

As to radical Islam, that’s a joke. The elected president of Kosovo is a Catholic. The Albanians are decidedly secular as I and everyone else who’s actually been there knows. When bin Laden sent his emissary to Kosovo in 1998, he was arrested in Albania and here’s a news report on what happened: He [Al Kader] confessed to being a member of one of bin Laden’s groups and told investigators he had been sent to give weapons to the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, then beginning their war against the Serbs. The KLA had promised US officials it would not co-operate with fundamentalists. Mr Kader said the KLA had turned him down and that he had returned to Albania, still with his weapons.

So, yeah, in between drinking raki, refusing to take bin Laden's weapons, ogling the girls in mini-skirts, and volunteering at our consulate in Pristina to go fight the Taliban , those guys are real “Islamists”. Serb propagandists are selling the "Islamist" angle very hard, counting on the lack of first hand knowledge most people have of the real situation in the Balkans combined with our war on Islamist terrorism to gain them sympathy & support. It does seem to work on some folks.

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