Srebrenica Casualty Numbers Challenged by Experts as Politicized and Ethnically Divisive

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WASHINGTON, DC, September 18, 2003: On the eve of the dedication of a monument to Muslims killed at Srebrenica, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1995, a group which includes a former UN official, intelligence experts, and journalists, released a statement challenging the alleged casualty number of 7,000 victims as "vastly inflated and unsupported by evidence".

They asserted that one-sided interventionist policies permitted al-Qaida forces and radical Islamists backed by the Iranian clerical government to take root during the Bosnian war, clouding the future of the region. As well, they agreed that the "memorialization" of false numbers in the monument actually appeared to be intended to perpetuate regional ethnic hatred and distrust and to deliberately punish one of the victim groups in the Bosnian civil war. Former US President Bill Clinton is expected to attend and legitimize the dedication of the monument at Srebrenica, which was constructed using one million dollars of US Embassy funds at the request of High Representative Paddy Ashdown. But former BBC journalist Jonathan Rooper, who has researched the events in Srebrenica since 1995, says that the region was a graveyard for Serbs as well as Muslims and that a monument to inflated casualties on one side "serves neither truth nor the goal of reconciliation".

Phillip Corwin, former UN Civilian Affairs Coordinator in Bosnia during the 1990s, said: "What happened in Srebrenica was not a single large massacre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a series of very bloody attacks and counterattacks over a three year period which reached a crescendo in July of 1995." Mr. Corwin is author of Dubious Mandate, an account of his experiences during the conflict. He points out that Srebrenica, which was designated a safe zone, was never demilitarized as it was claimed to be, and that Muslim paramilitary leader Nasir Oric, who controlled Srebrenica, launched repeated attacks on surrounding Serb villages. He noted: "I was the United Nations" chief political officer in Bosnia the day that Srebrenica fell. Coincidentally, it was the same day that the Bosnian Government tried to assassinate me as I drove over Mount Igman on the way to Sarajevo."

Intelligence expert and strategist Gregory Copley, President of the International Strategic Studies Association and the ISSA's Balkan & Eastern Mediterranean Policy Council, accused US Ambassador Donald Hays, who serves as Deputy High Representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina, of using the power of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) governing Bosnia "to force Bosnian Serb elected officials to sign a fraudulent document accepting the official version of events in Srebrenica. The leaders of Republica Srpska [the predominantly Serbian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina] invited the office of the High Representative to join their investigation of the events in Srebrenica. Instead they were told they were told to sign a statement drafted by OHR endorsing casualty figures they publicly disagreed with." Copley added: "It is significant in that the former US Clinton Administration fought this war unquestioningly supporting only the Croat and Muslim factions and disregarding the historic alliance of the Serbian peoples with the US. Then, after the war, the Clinton Administration failed to follow US tradition in helping to heal the wounds of war, but, rather, perpetuated ethnic divisions and hatreds. This differs from the US role in all other wars."

"Unfortunately, all of the policies and officials put in place in the region by the Clinton Administration remain. The current Bush Administration has neglected the Balkans and has, instead, allowed the Clinton policies to continue, which has meant that divisive politics continue. This, then, requires the ongoing commitment of US peacekeeping forces in both Bosnia and in the Kosovo province of Serbia."

Copley added that, according to intelligence obtained from Islamist sources, that the monument was intended to become a shrine for radical Islamists in Europe and site for annual pilgrimages. He added: "Deputy High Representative Donald Hays forced the Republica Srpska Government to issue a statement which accepted the radical Islamists" version of the Srebrenica affair, despite the fact that the Office of High Representative does not have any investigative capability of its own to make a valid assumption on the matter. As well, the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague " no friend of the Serbs " has itself not completed its investigation of Srebrenica, and nor has the office of the Government of Republica Srpska which has been working with the ICTY."

Amb.. Hays and OHR chief Paddy Ashdown forced the Republica Srpska statement merely to ensure that the opening of the "shrine" " to be attended by Clinton " would vindicate Clinton Administration policies of support for the radical Islamists." Yossef Bodansky, who has written several books on the war in Yugoslavia and also serves as Research Director of ISSA, calls the 7,000 figure "disinformation" and notes that "all independent forensic evidence points to Muslim casualties in the hundreds, possibly the low hundreds. Continued emphasis on such allegedly high numbers of Muslim deaths at Srebrenica also obfuscates the Muslim murders in that city, earlier, of Serb civilians." Bodansky also wrote extensively on the link between Osama bin Laden and the Bosnian Islamists in numerous articles and special reports and three books, including Offensive in the Balkans: the Potential for a Wider War as a Result of Foreign Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995), Some Call it Peace: Waiting for War in the Balkans (1996), and Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (1999).

Rooper says that at least 1,000 Serbs, mostly civilians, were killed by forces led by Oric who did not bother to hide his crimes, even showing videotapes of slaughtered Serbs to Western journalists. Meanwhile a group of academic experts and journalists from the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Serbia, and the United Kingdom has been organized by Professor Edward S. Herman of the University of Pennsylvania to examine the evidence regarding events at Srebrenica in July 1995 and earlier, how the media reported these events, and the political role of claims about Srebrenica. It is expected that a report from this group will be available in June 2004. Rooper points out that the 40,000 inhabitants the UN used in July of 1995 before the capture of Srebrenica roughly matches the number of former residents accounted for in the aftermath. A commander of the Muslim-dominated Army of BiH (Bosnia-Herzegovina) later confirmed to parliament in Sarajevo that 5,000 BiH troops escaped largely intact to Tuzla while the UN registered some 35,632 civilian survivors.

While the capture of Srebrenica was reported in July 1995, as it unfolded, an international outcry only took place a month later, after Madeleine Albright, then US representative to the UN, held up a photo which she said provided evidence that thousands of Muslim victims had been buried at field near Nova Kasaba, 19 kilometers from Srebrenica. Excavations which took place following the war, however, yielded 33 bodies at Nova Kasaba. Two years after the event, a total of 400 bodies had been found at 20 sites near Srebrenica, an area which had seen bloody fighting over a three year period. Instead of acknowledging that there was no support for the original figures, Rooper says a various means were used to prop up the official story.

"Spokesmen for the Clinton Administration suggested that Serbs might have moved the bodies to other locations. Rooper points out that excavating, transporting and reburying 7,000 bodies was "not only beyond the capabilities of the thinly stretched, petrol-starved Bosnian Serb Army, but would have been easily detected under intense surveillance from satellites and geostationary drones.

By 1998, thousands of bodies excavated from all across Bosnia were stored at the Tuzla airport. Despite state of the art DNA testing, only 200 bodies have been linked to Srebrenica. Around 3,000 names on a list of Srebrenica victims compiled by the Red Cross matched voters in the Bosnian election in 1996. "I pointed out to the OSCE that there had either been massive election fraud or almost half the people on the ICRC missing list were still alive," says Rooper. "The OSCE finally responded that the voting lists had been locked away in warehouses and it would not be possible for them to investigate."

The inflated Srebrenica statistics are part of a larger picture that intelligence experts such as Bodansky and Copley find troubling. They say US policymakers have been slow to recognize that Bosnia is viewed as a strategic base for operations in Europe by al-Qaida and the HizbAllah. In 1993, when the Clinton Administration was strongly backing the Muslim President of Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic, Osama Bin Ladin was regular visitor to his office, according to Renate Flottau of the German weekly, Der Spiegel. The Bosnian daily, Dani, reported that the Vienna Embassy of BiH issued a passport to Bin Ladin in 1993.

A special report by Copley, issued Tuesday, September 16. 2003. noted that Bosnia-Herzegovina Ambassador Huso Zivalj, who issued the passport to Bin Ladin, later served as Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations in September 11. "It is becoming increasingly clear that the movement of Zivalj to the New York post just before (and his departure just after) the September 11,2001 attacks was not coincidental."

"To refer to US Bosnia policy as a success story is to disregard substantial evidence to the contrary. Instead of misplaced symbolism in Srebrenica, US policymakers need to take a hard look at assumptions which have guided US actions in the region," Copley said.

I know what you mean about the Serbs standing up to clinton. Anybody who will do that, goes to the top of my "LIKE" list.

What came as a real shocker to me was that those mujahadeen came from all over the muslim world and fought Christians in the Balkans. And, some were al querda. Plus, the muslims in the Balkans received funding from TERRORISTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

JUST DAMN.

clinton was on snooze control when the muslims were sneaking in the FRONT door of the USA and he is the reason those terrorists succeeded on 9/11.

HE IS AT FAULT!

Hanging is too good for people like him... but since he is akin to satan... he gets away with it.... for now. But not for eternity.

The only thing that makes your hatred of Muslims tolerable is the fact that you don't have the same means of expressing it that certain Serbs did during the war.

Here's a challenge for you. I dare you to go back through my entire history of postings and find even one sentence that I've written that be interpretted as hatred of Muslims. Good luck.

I was born and raised in the shadows of the steel mills on the southeast side of Chicago. If I really hated someone, all I'd have to do is make a phone call and they go bye bye. Fortunately my grandmother taught me that it's wrong to hate another human being. Hell, I don't even hate Jerry Manuel.

Not exactly.

All the "most recent" information - including the amazing "success" the US Air Force had against their "civilian and military targets" in the Kosovo/Serb areas was fabricated.

Clinton/Clark's NATO (previously PEACEKEEPERS! in Europe) bombers had spent months blowing up dummy (rubber) tanks and wooden (fake) trucks and anti-air guns from high altitude.

But killing thousands of civilians.

Not exactly what?

Tell me - are you going to parrot the anti-American left when they tell you of the horrific casualties (exaggerated, just like in your example) in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Mind where you get your information - Milosevic's State Prosecutor wound up using HRW's casualty count for civilians during Allied Force - 504, rather than toeing the line and using whatever numbers sounded good, as you are doing here.

It remains to be seen how effective our airstrikes were - Serbia has not, to this day, posted an accurate tally of either civilians or military casualties during Allied Force that I am aware of.

Something tells me you don't have any better information on the subject, do you?

What I do know is that during the eight-year reign of terror of the Clinton administration, only two groups of people to my knowledge ever tried to stand up to the beast and face it down, and that was Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbs, and the Mormons in Utah. That has to rate respect.

You left a few people out, judy: bin Laden, Aideed, & Saddam Hussein. In fact, Aideed not only faced down Clinton, he won. And bin Laden & Hussein could make a good argument that during the Clinton administration they were winning, too. Those guys must send the needle on your respect-meter way off the scale!

We cannot even have a nice posting between us without that horrid pest interjecting a personal attack against us. We are not even the Serbs he hates so much. Heck, like you I don't know any.

You and I, are BUSH supporters. My late wife thought the Bush family was one of the finest in the entire country. She had met some of them years and years ago when she visited members of her family in Maine. She was for the elder BUSH back in the 1970s. She always tried to convince me but a I was a Reagan supporter back then. Oh, well that is history now.

clinton is such an evil monster. clark is one of his minions.

When I think of how billjclinton left the USA so open to attack by some of the same people who helped his allies, the bosnian and albanian muslims.... it is enough to make me ill.

BUSH will use this against clark... and by default the clintons.

please, God... don't let the Cubs win the World Series. I don't want to have to leave Chicago

Plan to live your entire life in Chicago!

are as sure that Racak was a set up as you claim Ranta is sure that Serbs murdered Albanians under their control

Not just Ranta, but HRW,witnesses,international police, etc. Not going to go over all the evidence again--its been beat to death. But as to the premise that it was Albanian on Albanian, the behavior of the relatives and friends who were witnesses is inconsistent with that theory.

In other cases of Alb on Alb killings, witnesses who were family to the killed use some roundabout way of informing on the killers or work the blood feud. They don't blame the Serbs.

If some unrelated Albs from down the road or the KLA boys come forward and tell you that the Serbs did it, then have some skepticism. But as those who know the Albanian culture understand, the ties to the clan trump all other loyalties. They will do what they can to get at the killers.

At Racak, the relatives who witnessed what happened are not in feud with other Albanians over those killings. None have directly or indirectly named other Albanians. Instead, they have told a consistent story of what the Serbs did on that day. The Albanian adherence to established cultural patterns of behavior is well known--in this case it provides strong backing to all the other evidence of Serb guilt at Racak.

there's been much too much "the Serbs are evil" and not nearly enough criticism of their incompetent and outdated tactics of counter-insurgency

Great point; although when you look at the Serb paramilitaries, its hard to see any daylight between them and evil. However, you are right on the mark when it comes to the Yugo army.

When fighting the KLA, their outmoded doctrine & poorly trained small unit leaders prevented them from executing the precise fire and maneuver necessary to close with and destroy guerilla forces. Instead, they stood off and used high volumes of fire--usually of little effect against the KLA who slipped away, but likely to cause significant damage to civilians and their homes and livestock and so on. And of course that had the effect of nudging the affected locals further along the spectrum from staying out of the way to sympathizers to supporters to fighters.

I observed many of the same problems, but even more pronounced, at first hand when the Macedonian military was fighting the ethnic Albanian extremists in FYROM in 2001.

Interestingly, Serb tactics the year before last in the Presevo region seemed much improved--constant day & night operations, dispersed small unit patrolling & ambushes. So they're studying lessons learned and getting better. Hopefully they'll next use that stuff for real working with us in the Mid-East!

Would it shock you that I dated a practicing Muslim woman and even brought her to my Church on our Eastern Orthodox Easter services?>>

I could call you a liar, like you call me every time I say something, but I won't. Fact is, I believe you. Moral consistency has never been your strong suit. Besides, I'm well familiar with the old Southern attitude: "OUR blacks are OK, its all them OTHER blacks that are the problem." Serbs had the same attitude toward the Muslims. Generally speaking, the Serbs in the war didn't kill the Muslims they knew, living next door. Outsiders came and did it.

An unfortunate side effect of sending an unprepared military to fight a guerilla opponent is that frustration rises rapidly with realization of the ineffectiveness of your tactics; especially if you are also taking casualties. And that frustration provides a fertile breeding ground for atrocities--especially when combined with a lack of professional junior leaders who can enforce discipline. Think My Lai. >>

'Ceptin My Lai was never *policy.* Fact is, about three or four weeks before the fall of Srebrenica, the BSA strategic leadership gathered together for a staff meeting that went something like this: "This briefing concerns Plan Black, our operation to carry out the total elimination of the Bosnian Muslim military capabilities, which will be commenced upon completion of the fall of Srebrenica. It involves a battalion of special police units who will execute the prisoners and use 25 pieces of earth moving equipment to bury the corpses. Next slide please."

The thing generating the "Serbs Are Evil" posts (which they aren't; only those who committed the war crimes are--but thems a LOT of people) is the YOU'RE A MUSLIM! YOU'RE A MUSLIM! YOU'RE A MUSLIM! chant that certain twits scream here anytime anyone doesn't type the lyrics to the Serbian national anthem.

For clarity:

inhabited by SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS of amoral monsters who killed huge numbers of people for no reason other than to steal the fridge.

Sounds to me like the Serbs had basically made a realistic assessment of what they were dealing with, and were trying to deal with it in a rational manner.

Aside from that, I've got $20 says "Ronly Ronly" is your real name.

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