Posted on 06/02/2005 8:54:24 PM PDT by Hoplite
Agencies in Belgrade
Friday June 3, 2005
The Guardian
They are the images that have finally, 10 years later, shocked a nation. A man, several men, are unloaded from a truck, marched to a wooded hillside and shot, one by one, in the back. Two prisoners are ordered to carry the bodies to a barn. They too are then executed. The murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 is well documented. But a video that emerged this week during the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has provoked a bout of soul-searching in Serbia, parts of which are still in denial over the horrors of the Bosnian war.
The footage was the first such graphic material from the massacre in Srebrenica to be shown in the country, where more than half of the population refuses to believe it even took place, according to a poll last month. "Serbia is deeply shocked," President Boris Tadic said. "Those images are proof of a monstrous crime committed against persons of a different religion. And the guilty had walked as free men until now."
Eight alleged former members of a Serb paramilitary group, the Scorpions, filmed actually carrying out the murders, have been arrested on the strength of the footage, officials said yesterday.
The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the Muslims heard. The film was shot by a member of the Scorpions.
"The killers had walked freely among us, on our streets, behaving as if they were ordinary, honorable citizens," Mr Tadic said. "All those who committed war crimes must be held accountable; only in this way will we be able to have a future. We must not close our eyes to the cruelty that took place."
He added that the crimes at Srebrenica "were carried out in the name of our nation".
"But crimes are always individual and the perpetrators of these monstrous crimes must be punished."
Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, with UN peacekeepers powerless to stop their advance. Some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were led away to their deaths, survivors telling of how they were lined up and shot in several batches, then buried in mass graves.
The prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, called the executions a "disgraceful".
UN prosecutors say the killings in the video footage took place on Mount Treskavica near the wartime Bosnian Serb capital, Pale, which is south-west of Srebrenica. The Scorpions were allegedly under orders from Serbian police in Belgrade and the link could directly tie Mr Milosevic with the crimes committed in Bosnia.
This latest revelation is no so much pertinent to Milosevic's trial, in which the prosecution has already finished it's case, as it is to Bosnia's upcoming suit against Serbia in the International Court of Justice - Belgrade's defence has always been that it was not involved directly in Bosnia's war, but that stance has become well nigh unsupportable.
Wonder if this will finally put to rest the apologists and nay sayers on this board who deny crimes were committed by the Serbs.....
not likely is my guess
Actually the more recent spin from the apologists is it happened, but every single Bosnian was a rabid fundamentalist Al Queda member by 1995, so it was necessary.
every single Bosnian was a rabid fundamentalist?
Really? Even the children?
It took me a while to grasp the idea that bosnians were actually capable of perpetrating massacres against their own people in order to pull gullible American and NATO weenies into their schemes.
And why was Milosevic more of a threat to our natl. security than Sadam?
How stupid do you think the world is?
Sensible people have never argued that Milosevitch was a nice guy, or that the Serbs never committed any atrocities. Atrocities have been committed by all the various nationalities in former Yugoslavia.
But in Bosnia the Muslims committed more atrocities than the Serbs, and in Kosovo the Albanian terrorists committed, and continue to commit, more atrocities than the Serbs.
I still think it's clear that we fought this war on the wrong side.
Where's the reference, and Milosevic response?
Until then, my BS detector is on high alert.
Amazing how the MSM can report something, but the public is never allowed to view the evidence.
So, is there a video that I can watch, or was this another fiction created by the MSM?
True, though imo we should have just taken a pass on this conflict.
Just wrong - the Serbs not only won the civilian bodycount sweepstakes in all their lost wars, but courtesy of their campaign against Croat Catholic churches, they won the title for Church destructions, and debased any subsequent claims as to their being "Christian" victims.
Seriously Cicero, who do you think you're going to fool with your revisionist garbage, other than fools?
Now this should be easy to verify. At this location, 8,000 bodies should be in a mass grave. It should be trivial to exhume the bodies and validate what this article reported.
What were the autopsy reports for these exhumed bodies? If so, can we read these autopsy reports?
I say this with respect: Serbian Mr. Voinovich better be watching this stuff so he knows how incompetent that so-called organization, the UN, is at solving ANY world problem.
Lets see what R. Holdbrook would have had to say about this. Do I hear crickets?
Scorpions arrested after video showing
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=12&nav_id=32124&order=priority&style=headlines
One they wouldn't have won on their own.
If there are actual autopsy reports, video archives, and other factual sources of information, I would love view this information.
Your statements may be correct, but so far, I have been unable to see any supporting factual evidence. Your help would be most appreciated.
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