http://serbianna.com/analysis/?p=100
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN SREBRENICA
The HagueTribunal has stretched the definition of genocide to such extent that
the term loses the terrible dignity of describing the most gruesome crimes of
extermination of the entire population. In Srebrenica, during the Bosnian war
between 1992 and 1995, roughly one fifth of the region’s entire Muslim
population perished in fighting or by other means. To claim that an area in
which some twenty percent of the allegedly targeted population lost their lives
has been subjected to genocide is absurd. To its designers and perpetrators,
this accusation serves the legal purpose of denying the legitimacy to the
Republika Srpska, and the political and propaganda purpose of demanding its
abolition.
July 2009 - Diana Johnstone says that everyone who “retains a capacity for
critical thinking should regard the lavish public breast-beating over
‘Srebrenica’ with certain skepticism.” Her warning is apt: there is the
regrettable tendency in Western media reporting and analysis to look at events
in the eastern Bosnian enclave in isolation from the time continuum.
“What happened in July of 1995 is a matter of record. Srebrenica fell rather
unexpectedly to Bosnian Serbian military forces,” explained Dr. Srdja Trifkovic
in his interview for CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa.
“A considerable number of Bosnian Muslims of military age, most of them armed,
retreated in the direction of Tuzla. Some got through; some were killed while
fighting their way; and some were taken prisoner and executed by the Bosnian
Serb army. Between seven and eight thousand Bosnian Muslims departed Srebernica
in the hope of reaching the town of Tuzla. There is no conclusive research to
tell us how many of them survived, how many of them were killed in the fighting
while trying to reach Tuzla, and how many were executed by the Bosnian Serb
forces after being taken prisoner.”
The much hallowed number of 8.000 still a matter of dispute
In Potocari, the village just outside Srebrenica, where the monument to the
victims of the alleged massacre is situated, you can see the names of over
8.000 Muslim men. “That list covers not only Srebrenica, but seven or eight
other municipalities in the region,” says Trifkovic.
“The Muslims themselves, when erecting the shrine to the victims of the events
of Srebrenica, couldn’t come up with the magic number of Eight Thousand – short
of resorting to the inclusion in that total of people from many surrounding
municipalities, which had nothing to do with Srebrenica itself and most of them
military victims of fighting. This in itself indicates that the myth of mass
executions simply does not stand scrutiny.”
What did Muslims do to Serbs?
One cannot understand what happened in Srebrenica in July of 1995 – Trifkovic
insists – without looking at the events of previous three years, between late
spring of 1992 and summer of 1995. During that period Srebrenica was an armed
camp used by the Muslim forces to terrorize the surrounding Serbian communities
and kill hundreds of unarmed civilians. That facts are not denied even by the
ICTY at The Hague.
The Memorial Centre in Bratunac, the Serbian town not far from Srebrenica, has
hundreds of photographs of Serbs killed by the Muslims during that period. All
of them were killed by the armed Muslims belonging to Naser Oric’s forces
coming out of Srebrenica.
“A particularly gruesome crime happened on Serbian Orthodox Christmas in
January 1993 in the villages along the Drina valley, such as Kravice, when
children as young as 5 and 6, as well as elderly women of 80, were killed by
having their throats split or having clubs smashed into their heads,” explains
Trifkovic.
“At the time of the fall of Srebrenica there was considerable bitterness in the
Bosnian Serb ranks against the Muslims in the town. On the one hand Srebrenica
was the headquarters of the 28th Muslim division and the hotbed of terrorism
that was the springboard for offensives against the surrounding Serbian
communities in which hundreds of Serb civilians were gruesomely slaughtered. At
the same time Srebrenica was supposedly immune from attack because it was a
designated UN ‘safe heaven’.”
“The record of Srebrenica as described by the UN Tribunal at The Hague is
neither legally nor logically coherent,” according to Trifkovic:
“Srebrenica was proclaimed to be a genocide in the trial of Bosnian Serb
General Radislav Krstic, on the strength of the claim that even the deportation
of children, women and elderly men from Srebrenica was an act of genocide. Even
though there were no written or oral orders to the effect that a genocidal
intent was existent and even though no such orders actually exist.”
Muslims of Srebrenica sacrificed by Izetbegovic and Clinton
In his interview for the Sarajevo newspaper Dani, Hakija Meholjic, president of
the SDA (Stranka demokratske akcije) for Srebrenica, declared in June 1998 that
Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic had told a delegation from
Srebrenica something very interesting four years previously: “I was told by
Clinton in April 1993 – Izetbegovic said – that if the Chetniks [Bosnian Serb
forces] enter Srebrenica and carry out a slaughter of 5,000 Muslims, then
there will be a Western military intervention.”
“I wrote an article exploring this same possibility in late July 1995,” says
Trifkovic. “It was headlined ‘Is Izetbegovic scarifying a pawn in order to win
the game?’ although Miholjic’s account was not yet known at that time.”
“When something so unexpected and apparently illogical happens as the sudden
fall of Srebrenica, we should immediately ask the question who gains – cui
bono. It is obvious that in case of Srebrenica it was the Muslim side.
Miholjici’s account offers the explanation for what is otherwise inexplicable.
For over three years Srebrenica has resisted Serbian attacks. It was saved in
the nick of time from falling to the Serbs in spring of 1993 when the French
General Philippe Morillon rode into Srebrenica in an armed personal carrier.
And yet in the summer of 1995 it suddenly falls almost without any fighting.”
The quote by Miholjic is a serious indictment against Izetbegovic, says
Trifkovic, but it is not surprising.
“Why should we be surprised that Izetbegovic was prepared to sacrifice
Srebrenica if we know, as we do by know, that he staged a number of the
so-called massacres in Sarajevo, including the famous ‘breadline massacre’ in
the spring of 1992 and the Markale market explosion in February of 1994. These
were stage-managed stunts done by Muslims themselves in order to create
suitable images of blood and gore that would be presented around the world as a
result of Serbian atrocities, and thus contribute to political decisions
favourable to the Muslims.”
“Such cynical exploitation of human life for political purposes is the hallmark
of the Muslims in general, notably in the West Bank and Gaza, and of the
Bosnian Muslim strategy in the 1990s in particular,” says Trifkovic.
“Both NATO and the Bosnian Muslim leadership needed Srebrenica – not only for
the bombing of the Bosnian Serbs in August of 1995, not only for the subsequent
support to the combined Muslim - Croatian offensive against the Serbs, but also
for the continuous claim that the Bosnian Serb Republic [Republika Srpska] is a
flawed entity that does not deserve to exist.”
Manipulation of reality
Srebrenica will be used as an anti-Serb trump card for a log time to come,
Trifkovic warns:
“In the record of the wars of the Yugoslav disintegration there are several
similar myths which need to be debunked, including the so-called Racak massacre
in January of 1999. It was cooked up by the KLA Albanian terrorists, aided and
abated by the U.S. ‘diplomat’ William Walker. The events in Vukovar in the fall
of 1991 are in the same league. These are supposed to atone for, and even
eliminate any collective memory of the real genocide committed by the Croatian
Ustase against the Serbs during World War Two between 1941 and 1945.”
“Srebernica” is an ongoing brazen manipulation of reality in order to obtain
certain short-term political goals. That manipulation is still continuing, 14
years after the event. This only testifies to the lack of ability of the
Western media class to think critically and to analyze Balkan events
objectively, concluded Trifkovic.
Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is historian, author and former foreign affairs editor of
Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture —
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?cat=4 and www.trifkovic.mysite.com
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
