Free Republic

The United States has done much to keep alive the memory and learn the lessons from the genocides of the 20th century. The Jewish Holocaust, the Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda, Srebrenica, and the Armenian Genocide – most recently recognized by the Biden administration - are seared in the minds of us all. When discussing genocide, commentators typically focus on terrifying headline numbers – thousands, sometimes millions of victims. But the definition of genocide is not a numerical one. The United Nations defines this crime as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group”....

A Bosnian Serb leader has wrongly called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops, “a fabricated myth.” The comments defy international court rulings that say genocide was committed in the eastern Bosnian enclave. Both the International Court of Justice and the U.N. war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, have ruled that the killings in Srebrenica were genocide. The Bosnian Serb wartime political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, have been sentenced to life in prison for the Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes...

Bosnia’s war crimes court on Monday acquitted the wartime commander of Srebrenica, who was accused of committing atrocities against Serbs during the 1992-95 Balkan conflict. The acquittal of Naser Oric immediately prompted anger from Serbian leaders, with Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin saying the court ruling “threatens security, trust and reconciliation in the whole of the Balkans.” Oric was accused of war crimes against three Serb prisoners of war who were slain in villages around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in the early days of the conflict. A panel of judges presiding over the trial ruled Monday the prosecution did...

A Serbian appeals court on Thursday stopped a landmark trial against eight former Bosnian Serb police officers charged with taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The court in Belgrade said it has accepted defense complaints that the charges against the eight are invalid because they were filed when Serbia did not appoint the chief war crimes prosecutor. The ruling means the whole proceeding will have to start over from scratch, which could take months or years. …

Tensions rose overnight in the east Bosnian town of Srebrenica after preliminary results of Sunday’s local elections showed a Serb candidate may win the mayor’s race. […] Results show Monday that Nikola Grujicic is far ahead the current Bosniak mayor Camil Durakovic, although absentee ballots are not yet counted. Dozens of Serbs swamped the town center overnight, chanting “victory” and “Serbia”. …

The relatives of three Bosnian Muslims killed 20 years ago in the Srebrenica massacre are taking their long-running legal battle against the Dutch government to the European Court of Human Rights. The group is seeking criminal prosecution of three senior Dutch peacekeepers who were stationed in the U.N.-protected enclave at the time of the murders. Dutch prosecutors in 2013 declined to bring charges against the three officers and a court upheld that decision on appeal in April. …

The U.N. Security Council delayed a vote on a British-drafted resolution that would condemn the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war as “a crime of genocide” until Wednesday after Russia informed council members it would veto the measure. Supporters of the resolution had been hoping for its unanimous approval to mark the 20th anniversary of the slaughter by Bosnian Serbs of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge at what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected site. But leaders of the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, who have close religious and cultural ties to Russia, have...

Less than two weeks before the Srebrenica massacre’s 20th anniversary, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Serbs in the Bosnian town are as divided as ever. Serbs put up anti-European Union posters on Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s portrait on them and the words “Eastern alternative” and “Republika Srpska,” or “Serb Republic.” Most of them were plastered on the bullet-riddled walls of a warehouse in the nearby village of Kravica, where Serb forces executed Muslim Bosnians during the 1995 genocide.Bosnia’s Muslims want the country to join the EU, while Serbs would like their half—called Republika Srpska—to secede and stay close to...

The mayor of Srebrenica, the site of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, has accused Bosnian Serb authorities of harassing Muslims under the pretext of investigating Islamic extremists. Camil Durakovic, a Bosnian Muslim, said Thursday that Serb police from outside town stormed the homes of Muslims who returned after Bosnia’s 1990s ethnic war, and carried out arrests without explanation. He called it a “form of repression.” “Terrorism is a serious global problem and we must all fight against it, but you cannot use it as an excuse to send masked, armed men to search houses of Bosnian Muslims and...

US officials were preparing to deport at least 150 Bosnians suspected of having played a role in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Serbs during the war that raged in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the New York Times reported. Authorities identified 300 suspects in all, which included those who allegedly hid their involvement in war crimes when they came to the US as war victims fleeing the violence in the Balkans. As many as half of these were believed to have played a role at the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serbs killed 8,000 Muslim boys and men. The...

A court in the Netherlands ruled Wednesday that the Dutch state was liable for the deaths of over 300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II. Families of the victims had brought a case the Dutch government over the 1995 killings, accusing Dutch UN peacekeepers of failing to protect the 8,000 slaughtered by ethnic Serb troops just a few months before the end of the Bosnian war. The judgement was greeted with a mixture of satisfaction and dismay by relatives after the court found the state was liable...

Angelina Jolie, is like the criminal in a low budget film who always returns to the scene of the crime. Jolie is shameless in returning to Bosnia after her propagandized rape movie entitled, In The Land of Blood and Honey—an irresponsible piece of film footage costing $50 million to produce that has failed miserably at the box office earning less then $5 million. Did she return to Srebrenica to mourn the dead or to rehabilitate her damaged career? Bringing with her William Hague, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is like bringing a fox to a...

Sensational confession of Ibran Mustafic, Bosnian Muslim war veteran and politician: "We were killing our own people in Srebrenica."At least 1,000 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica were killed by their compatriots during the breakthrough to Tuzla in July 1995, because there were lists of those who ” have to be prevented from reaching the freedom,at any cost” said one of the founders of the SDA in Srebrenica, Ibran Mustafic. ** Ibran Mustafic is the author of the book “Planned Chaos” whereas some of the crimes committed by soldiers of the (Muslim) Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbs are for the...

Serbia’s president apologized Thursday for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, but declined to characterize the killings as an act of genocide. “I kneel and ask for forgiveness,” President Tomislav Nikolić told Bosnian TV. “I apologize for the crimes committed by any person in the name of Serbia.” Nikolić came under fire last year short after he was elected by declaring, according to published reports, there was no “genocide” in Srebrenica. …

(AFP) Serbia's nationalist President Tomislav Nikolic on Thursday personally apologised for the first time for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims, but stopped short of calling it genocide.

What Is Samantha Power Thinking?The charismatic Obama adviser believes that stopping "genocide" is the United States' top foreign-policy priority. On March 18, President Obama explained his decision to mobilize the United States military for international intervention in Libya. “Left unchecked,” he said, “we have every reason to believe that Qaddafi would commit atrocities against his people. Many thousands could die. A humanitarian crisis would ensue. The entire region could be destabilized, endangering many of our allies and partners.” (As if it hasn’t been already?) That last sentence was a Realpolitik, national-interest justification for the U.S. intervention. But it rang hollow....

The government of Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic who was the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and some people are claiming that this will end the chapter of this brutal civil war. However, Srebrenica is complex because events did not happen because of one factor but were based on the cold reality of a complex civil war where innocents were killed on all sides. However, which Srebrenica is “real” and which is “unreal?” Srebrenica in all its complexity This topic is very complex and it is abundantly clear that the mass media is still playing a...

The government of Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic who was the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and some people are claiming that this will end the chapter of this brutal civil war. However, Srebrenica is complex because events did not happen because of one factor but were based on the cold reality of a complex civil war where innocents were killed on all sides. However, which Srebrenica is “real” and which is “unreal?” ——————————————– Srebrenica in all its complexity ——————————————– This topic is very complex and it is abundantly clear that the mass media is still...

Ratko Mladic, wanted for genocide during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, has been arrested in Serbia. Serbian President Boris Tadic said the process to extradite the former Bosnian Serb army chief to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague was under way. Gen Mladic is accused over the massacre of at least 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. He was the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large since the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008. The detention, the Serbian leader said, closed one chapter in Serbian history, bringing the country and the...

"In a single week, we prevented a potential massacre, stopped an advancing army (loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi) and expanded the coalition," Clinton said... "The situation is painful. There's no place to sleep, there's no water, electricity, there's shooting everywhere," the rebels say... "The fact is that we have reached a solid and sustainable consensus about our goals among all NATO members, which is necessary in order to achieve them. I have spoken in detail with many colleagues regarding concrete steps and we all need to make an effort in order to isolate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and protect...