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.

You do not think the young Serb soldiers who saw what the Oric Muslim soldiers did to the local inhabitants, decaptiated heads did not affect them? >>

The executioners were secret policemen from killer units made up of specially chosen criminals, with a scattering of Croat draftees. What you're saying is like comparing SS camp guards to German draftees. For shame.

I was there.

So, being there is all that necessary to prove claims? Let's see, all the unsupported claims you made: you "counted" the 4,000+/-15, you have pictures but you won't show them, you give dead links, and so on, as your "proof."

Last, but not least, I "just want to cover up war crimes." Fat chance. But, then you seem to be fabricating them, and not too skillfully I might add.

or because they are too clumsy to operate the trigger so as to only fire one round at a time?

Hoplite, maybe your delicate fingers can touch an M-16 trigger set on automatic and fire a single round. That will be the day. The weapon in question was desinged for 10-round bursts minimum, 25 maximum.

Single bullet is an option, but that's not what your "sniper" pictures shows. It shows a machine gun on a tripod that has a tailstock and is obviously not a .50 cal as you and some others claimed, and a whole bunch of ammo attached to it. The clip shows Radovan firing indiscriminantly on buildings which appear but are not necessarily empty. I didn't see any evidence that he was aiming at any civilians. I have already said that his firing in the direction of the city was reprehensible.

What seems to be the disagreement? The fact that you called someone a sniper when it was not a sniper, or that you mistook a 7.62 mm machine gun for a .50 cal?

Again, civilians were targetted on both sides. Not all people targetted were civilians. Is there a problem with that? Or are you simply denying that the Muslim side ever did anything wrong?

Let me rephrase what you wrote: "However, what occurred at My Lai was organized and deliberate mass murder of civilians committed by American forces--very different than a mistake made by a stressed out young soldier on a battlefield trying to make life or death decisions in a split second."

Concur. In either case, the guilty should be judged. If we are to take the American example of justice, one low level (junior) Serb commander should be sentenced to life, then his sentence reduced to 10 years, then he should be placed in a house arrest and then finally pardoned by the president three years later. That's what happend to Lt Calley. See any parallels?

Like I said, can we expect others to be better than we are?

Concur. In either case, the guilty should be judged. If we are to take the American example of justice, one low level (junior) Serb commander should be sentenced to life, then his sentence reduced to 10 years, then he should be placed in a house arrest and then finally pardoned by the president three years later. That's what happend to Lt Calley. See any parallels? >>

He was and is an evil swine and guilty of mass murder. I'd love to see him tried for his crimes even now.

But even Lt. Calley was not guilty of genocide. Which is what Srebrenica was *ab initio.*

There's a radical difference between the two, even now.

Like I said, can we expect others to be better than we are?>>

No. But we can expect them not to commit genocide. Which is what Srebrenica was *ab initio.*

Let's review, Kosta.

1. Visiting a war somewhere and taking potshots has been termed "Sniper Tourism".
2. I can and have fired single shots from an M-60 and M-249 though the simple expedient of trigger control, but, again, this does not speak to the core issue here.
3. Nobody said the weapon in the picture was a .50 cal. You said automatic weapons could not be used in the sniper role, and I corrected you, though that effort is looking to be a complete waste of time, leaving you just as ignorant of the capabilities of automatic weapons as when we started this discussion.

Of course, I keep thinking that gaining knowledge is a good thing, but if I were in your shoes and looking to excuse the seige of Sarajevo and the criminal nature of it's prosecution by Bosnian Serb forces, ignorance would probably seem attractive.

So your behavior is understandable in that context.

If we are to take the American example of justice, one low level (junior) Serb commander should be sentenced to life, then his sentence reduced to 10 years, then he should be placed in a house arrest and then finally pardoned by the president three years later. That's what happend to Lt Calley. See any parallels?

No parallel with Srebrenica. Calley & his platoon acted on their own--that's why Calley--the "one low level" commander you referred to was convicted. Calley's company commander, IMO, should have been charged & convicted of failure to perform his duty--but the prosecutors over-reached & tried to charge him with murder & he was found not guilty. The division commander was later relieved, administratively demoted in rank, and ushered out of the Army for failure to properly follow-up on indicators that a crime had occurred at My Lai.

However, unlike Srebrenica, My Lai was an isolated incident, not a program of criminal acts deliberately planned & coordinated by HQ & executed by various subordinate units.

deliberately planned & coordinated by HQ & executed by various subordinate units

Maybe you didn't hear that Nikolich retracted his story. This is no different than trying to prove the complicity of Croatian HQ in the Medak Pocket. You don't know what the commanders of Lt Calley knew, what they should have known even if they didn't know -- it was on their watch and that's the whole little blame game all the way up the ladder -- they should have known.

I mentioned M-16, not M-60 or M-249, and I assume you handled M-16 in your Basic Training and beyond. In either case, they all fire at about the same rate -- 600-700 rounds per minute, or more, which is 10 rounds or more per second. If your delicate hands could squeeze off one round on automatic setting, more power to you. I could barely touch the trigger on an M-16 without letting off three rounds. Okay, we beat that horse enough and it's not that important.

What I said to Joan, and what prompted your reply was the following:

"There is no such thing -- anyone who has been in the military knows that anything firing on automatic (see the stacked bullets) is not a precision weapon."

Anything firing on automatic (see the stacked bullets)...Hoplite. I stand by what I said. This hole discussion has evolved from you jumping the gun (no pun intended) and not reading carefully what I wrote.

If you bothered to view the footage you would have realized that the idiot was firing on automatic all over the buildings. My comment therefore was in context of the post in question.

"Sniper tourism" is misleading and misses the point. "Machine gun maniac" would have been a much better one.

You don't know what the commanders of Lt Calley knew, what they should have known even if they didn't know -- it was on their watch and that's the whole little blame game all the way up the ladder -- they should have known.

Well, there were a couple trials by court martial and an investigative commission with published results. So we know that the company had three platoons in action that day and only one--Calley's--committed crimes. We know that the company commander gave all his subordinates the same orders at the same time prior to the operation, but only one--Calley--led his men in massacring civilians. Besides all the testimony, its pretty clear from those circumstances alone that the problem was with Calley and his platoon, not with the entire organization.

Again, the company commander, IMO was negligent in his duty & should have been court-martialed for that. It was clear, based on the sound of firing and the situation reports plus the body count & # of weapons captured and the lack of calls for fire support that there was a major diconnect in the normal patterns of either a battle against a fighting enemy or else just a routine search of a civilian village. And later, similar incongruities in reports should have been spotted as they went up the chain of command. The failure to do so is in essence why Major General Koster was eventually relieved and demoted.

Having said that, there is a HUGE difference between not spotting a report that should have cued some questions or an investigation to uncover a crime versus the actions of Serb senior leadership in planning & coordinating the commission of a crime.

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