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Europe
The Rocket's Red Glare: Mladic and Mayhem
2011-07-07
We've recently discussed the genocide of Srebrenica by the Serbs in the Bosnian civil war, and how it was organized by the Serb commander, Ratko Mladic. In case you're wondering whether or not it was really genocide, whether the UN was complicit, and whether the world would really like to forget the whole thing and move on, read this article.
Posted by:Steve White

#4  Despite some fine British and American trial work, the prosecution erred by insisting that all his crimes should be tried in one endless proceeding, and by the end of four years both the presiding judge and the defendant were dead, with no verdict taken.

Four years at the Hague and they couldn't pin a single crime on Milosevic? Fine trial work? Sounds like a monumental failure to me. Sounds like a miscarriage of justice. You keep a guy locked up for four years while you try to get your facts straight? How long are they gonna take with Mladic?

All during the 90's when these wars were being fought all I ever heard from the TV and newspapers was how bad those Serbians were. Only years later did I start to hear little bits and pieces that indicated there might have been two sides to the story. Then I started learning about the historical context going all the way back to the Middle Ages, the Crusades and the Turkish invasions of Europe. Then 9/11 happened. Then I started wondering if perhaps the Serbians know their enemy better than we do.

I guess my biggest problem here is that I don't believe the MSM will ever give us the whole truth about the Balkan Wars. This article is no better. It is obviously slanted toward assumptions of Mladic's guilt when the trial hasn't even started yet. And why the tie in with the Fourth of July? Mladic probably never even heard of it. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-07-07 13:18  

#3  ...enforce the laws of war...

That's where they lost me. It's an oxymoron. You're going to tell someone who is fighting for his life that he has to obey some law? War is a crime. There can be no law in war. Not if you're fighting to win.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-07-07 12:12  

#2  "The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac and stayed there for eight days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped. Everybody is parroting everybody, but nobody shows hard evidence. I notice that in the Netherlands people want to prove at all costs that genocide has been committed. If executions have taken place, the Serbs have been hiding it damn well." - Dutch UN Officer Captain Schouten

Captain Schouten was the only UN military officer in Bratunac at the time the alleged genocidal transport from Srebrenica to Bratunac was supposed to have taken place.

"Naser Oric was the Islamist Commander at Srebrenica, who met with journalists, showed them videos of the bodies of Serbian civilians decapitated by his troops during raids on nearby villages."

"The supposed eyewitness reports of Serbian revenge killings at Srebrenica which have been much trumpeted by the mass media, are thoroughly contradictory. Not only do different witnesses give contradictory accounts but witnesses tell contradictory stories to different reporters."

"Serbian observers have been falsely quoted as admitting the massacre took place. Their objections to these supposed confessions have been refused for publication."

"The Muslims burned 192 villages in Eastern Bosnia, slaughtering many Serb civilians." - Dutch UN officer LTC Karremans

Serb cameraman and journalist Zoran Petrovic-Pirocanac is considering legal measures now that his work is being falsely used as legal evidence concerning mass murder.

The German weekly magazine Stern of 16 November 1995, placed the following caption under a picture taken from his videotape:

"Seconds before the murder: Armed Serbs contain a group of Muslims near Konjevic Polje. A Serb cameraman shot the scene until the first rounds were fired."

But Petrovic says he spent plenty of time at the scene, before as well as after he filmed. And he did not see or hear any gunshots, nor witness any crimes. As such, the Stern caption is pure fabrication, attached to his video stills, yet is now being used as evidence in criminal trials.

He also complains about the words Frank Westerman and Harm van den Berg of the Dutch daily 'NRC Handelsblad' put in his mouth: "In total, our forces have massacred two thousand Muslims." According to Petrovic, he did not say that, nor did he see evidence that Muslims were massacred, though many did die while armed and fighting.

One witness appearing at the trial about mass murders with two thousand or more victims is Mevludin Oric, from a town not far from Srebrenica. He has turned out to be a relative of Naser Oric.

Mevludin Oric left as a volunteer to Croatia in January 1992, getting military training there. After serving in the notorious Croatian volunteer brigade 'King Tomislav', he went to the city of Posavina, where the first mass murder took place – and the war hadn’t even started. Its victims were Serbs.

Mevludin Oric was captured by Serbs near Kravica and claims the Serbs took him via Bratunac to a school gymnasium in the town of Glumina, west of Zvornik. From there, the men were supposedly transported in lorries to the site of execution.

But his story has changed three times. The first time he was allegedly taken to "basketball stadium near Bratunac". In an interview a month later, he said it was at "soccer stadium in Nova Kasaba," from where he and others were moved to be killed, "probably in a town called Grbavce."

Two months after that, in yet another interview, he said he was taken to "a school in Krizevci".

Human Rights Watch has not been "able to trace survivors of this crime." But they still assert a crime has been committed.

In 1991, the SDA, the Muslim party of [Islamist leader] Alija Izetbegovic met in Congress held in December. The party decided to implement a radical ethnic policy with the ultimate goal the dzamahirija or Islamist State of Bosnia.

Muslims had to settle in Serb majority lands in Eastern Bosnia in large numbers. Thus, on the orders of the SDA, thousands of Muslims from Sandzak migrated to Bosnia, and descendants of Bosnian Muslims who had settled over a period of time in Turkey received an appeal to return.

In 1992, Serbs were shocked again as invitations were distributed throughout the republic for a mass meeting of Muslims at Bratunac, to be held at the first day of the Bajram, the celebratory end of the Ramadan.

The initiative for this event at the "geographic centre of Muslims from entire Yugoslavia" came from the National Muslim Council which openly advocated arming people and establishing a Muslim state within the Bosnian boundaries. Armed Muslim gangs, some of them factions of the Patriotic League – which was formed in the neighboring Vlascenica – started to intimidate and drive out Serb inhabitants of smaller towns with Muslim majorities.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2011-07-07 11:54  

#1  Goebbels lives!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2011-07-07 05:21  

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