I tuned into Hungry Beast on Wednesday night, right on the tear jerker…

The ADF officer interview re-enactment from Afghanistan.
I’ll admit it, I cried, just as I did when reading accounts from the holocaust, and as I also do when I think of what my Nanna and Grandad had to endure goung through “labour camps” during WWII.

The thing that struck me was the descriptions of the Dutch soldiers.
The descriptions of the “kill box”, and Don’t Understand the Concept Here, are quite disturbing.
In my mind, it also reeks of Srebrenica, the “kids on school camp” mentality, a bizarre kind of chasey.  We’ll send a round or two in your direction, but once you start fighting back we’ll run away with our tails between our legs.
The UN have declared this a safe zone, but we will not follow orders and fight for those we are protecting, we will let the military walk right in and kill unarmed and innocent civilans.

It jsut send chills down my spine, and makes me feel ill.

To Be Cont…

By Cyrena Khoury

Radovan Karadzic at the ICTY. Photograph provided courtesy of the ICTY.

The trial of Radovan Karadzic, accused of masterminding the most violent episode in Europe since the Holocaust, began on October 26, 2009 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Karadzic was the President of Republika Srpska and Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-1995 war in the Balkans, which caused nearly one hundred thousand deaths and forced approximately 2.2 million people to flee their homes. Karadzic’s indictment lists eleven counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. These charges stem from the role he played, along with Ratko Mladic, in leading the July 1995 attacks at Srebrenica, in which approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in a UN “Safe Area.” Karadzic and Mladic are also accused of taking UN personnel hostage and laying siege to Sarajevo for 43 months, killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Karadzic’s eccentricities have had significant effect on his trial. Karadzic was originally indicted by the ICTY in July 1995, but did not appear before the court until July 31, 2008, following his capture in Serbia. He had been in hiding since 1996, most recently living in Belgrade and, with his background as a psychiatrist, working as an alternative healer. Initially, he refused to recognize the authority of the ICTY, forcing the court to enter a plea on his behalf in August 2008. He has continued to insist on representing himself, but has also requested the ICTY to provide him paid legal assistance. He also maintains a large staff of volunteer lawyers, researchers, former politicians, and professors.

Karadzic refused to attend the first three days of his trial, claiming he needed more time to prepare and review approximately 1.2 million pages of documents for his defense. The ICTY judges warned him repeatedly of the consequences should he continue the boycott, and Karadzic attended a procedural hearing on November 3, 2009. Days later, Judge O-Gon Kwan instructed the ICTY Registrar to assign counsel to the accused, noting that should Karadzic continue his boycott, the appointed counsel would argue on his behalf. The Judge partially granted Karadzic’s requested delay, allowing a continuance until March 2010. So far, it appears that Karadzic is basing much of his defense on his claim that U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, chief negotiator of the Dayton Accords, agreed to grant him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his resignation as the President of Republika Srpska in 1996.

Generally, commentators view Judge Kwan’s decision favorably, as the ICTY’s credibility suffered during the rambling defense of Slobodan Milosevic, who also represented himself. Karadzic’s behavior inspires a legitimate fear of similar repercussions. Judge Kwan’s decision is an attempt to balance the interests of efficiency with the accused’s right to self-representation. Its success will depend on how Karadzic proceeds during the trial.

Borrowed from Srebrenica Genocide Blog.

DISCREDITED GENOCIDE DENIER JAMES LUKO IS BACK

The former Operations Officer for the Belgrade-based Hague Tribunal’s Liaison Office — and the former ‘human rights investigator’ who is on record for denying the Srebrenica genocide — is back to his old tricks again. We find James Luko on NolanChart’s web site in a self-described profile titled “Confessions of an Ethnic Cleanser.” (1)

“The crimes of Srebrenica indeed included-extra-judicial killings and ethnic cleansing by Serb forces. I agree with those charges and they were in my reports and for which I will later testify at Karadzic’s hearing. However, I do not agree… that Genocide was intended or committed.” (2)

“In my first report to Geneva, to the UN Centre for Human Rights, that Srebrenica, specifically was NOT Genocide for the fact that the Serb military collected and sent most women and children to Bosniak controlled territory. By no defination can this be labelled Genocide.” (3)

In support of his genocide denial diatribe, he used one of the weakest arguments available:

“The genocide will be interpreted ‘BROADLY’ to encompass ethnic cleansing elements to make the charge stick as I fully agree that by sparing most women and children- Srebrenica simply does not qualify for the generic idea and concept of what genocide is.” (4)

Let’s review some facts. First of all, the ICTY’s definition of what constitutes genocide is not “BROAD” but “very narrow.” For example, the Court still has not ruled that genocide occured in municipalities other than Srebrenica. Second of all, women and children were not spared during the Srebrenica massacre, as James Luko would want us to believe. Women and children were forcibly expelled from the enclave, many of women were mistreated and raped. Many boys were killed, many traumatized. (see the account of a survivor of the massacre – “a very young boy emerged from the heap of bodies, covered in blood and mangled flesh“). Also see the account published by Serbian journalist Snezana Vukic at the time of the Srebrenica genocide, on July 18, 1995:

“Zarfa Turkovic says she watched through half-closed eyes, pretending to sleep, hoping she would not be next, as four Bosnian Serb men raped a 28-year old Muslim woman… ‘Two took her legs and raised them up in the air, while the third began raping her. People were silent, no one moved. She was screaming and yelling and begging them to stop. They put her a rag into her mouth, and then we were just hearing silent sobs coming from her closed lips. When they finished, the woman was left there.’” (5)

Furthermore, in the Krstic Appeal ruling, the Hague Tribunal revealed why Serbs massacred only men and boys:

31. As the Trial Chamber explained, forcible transfer could be an additional means by which to ensure the physical destruction of the Bosnian Muslim community in Srebrenica. The transfer completed the removal of all Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, thereby eliminating even the residual possibility that the Muslim community in the area could reconstitute itself. The decision not to kill the women or children may be explained by the Bosnian Serbs’ sensitivity to public opinion. In contrast to the killing of the captured military men, such an action could not easily be kept secret, or disguised as a military operation, and so carried an increased risk of attracting international censure. (6)

(For more facts about the rapes of women during the Srebrenica massacre, see our article, titled: “Were men and boys the only victims of the Srebrenica genocide?“)

Blinded by his conviction that genocide never took place in Srebrenica, James Luko continues to use cheap and already highly discredited arguments in which he attempts to dispute the numbers of the killed in Srebrenica. Here is what he said:

“The scale of killings in Srebrenica, well, yes, the 8,000 figure is of course just an exaggerated number from incomplete and duplicate lists, which was VERY common and not entirely the fault of agencies like UNHCR and ICRC. How many bodies does ICTY have ? Well in reality, perhaps 1,500-2,000 separate bodies identified- and of those, approximately 400-500 show evidence of execution… massive crimes took place- but 8,000 ? Can’t be proven and highly unlikely. But, as you know, when dealing with this issue- the victors need to work with large numbers.” (7)

James Luko apparently does not know (or doesn’t want to know) that all duplicate victim’s names had already been removed from the list of missing, according to the highly respected Hague Tribunal’s expert Ewa Tabeau. (8) Furthermore, the DNA results of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) support an estimate of 8,100 Srebrenica genocide victims. So far, the identities of 6,186 genocide victims have been revealed by the DNA analysis. The DNA was extracted from these bone and blood samples. Additionally, approximately 4,000 DNA-identified bodies have so far been laid to rest at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari.

“I can also confirm that our UN Office in Bosnia was regularly reporting the direct reports of Bosniak attacks on Serb villages around Srebrenica, but we were repeatedly ignored.” (9)

“A third accusation leveled at the Bosniak defenders of Srebrenica is that they provoked the Serb offensive by attacking out of that safe area. Even though this accusation is often repeated by international sources, there is no credible evidence to support it. Dutchbat personnel on the ground at the time assessed that the few “raids” the Bosniaks mounted out of Srebrenica were of little or no military significance. These raids were often organized in order to gather food, as the Serbs had refused access for humanitarian convoys into the enclave. Even Serb sources approached in the context of this report acknowledged that the Bosniak forces in Srebrenica posed no significant military threat to them. The biggest attack the Bosniaks launched out of Srebrenica during the more than two years which is was designated a safe area appears to have been the raid on the village of Visnjica, on 26 June 1995, in which several houses were burned, up to four Serbs were killed and approximately 100 sheep were stolen. In contrast, the Serbs overran the enclave two weeks later, driving tens of thousands from their homes, and summarily executing thousands of men and boys. The Serbs repeatedly exaggerated the extent of the raids out of Srebrenica as a pretext for the prosecution of a central war aim: to create geographically contiguous and ethnically pure territory along the Drina, while freeing their troops to fight in other parts of the country. The extent to which this pretext was accepted at face value by international actors and observers reflected the prism of ‘moral equivalency’ through which the conflict in Bosnia was viewed by too many for too long.” (11)

“In this case, I think the details of the village attacks, back and forth, Bosniak vs. Serb- is now irrelevant, it was a dirty war. UN Operation Posts cleary recorded attacks by both sides.” (12)

“Between April 1992 and March 1993, Srebrenica town and the villages in the area held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults, including artillery attacks, sniper fire, as well as occasional bombing from aircrafts. Each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the population to surrender their weapons, and then began with indiscriminate shelling and shooting. In most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet, expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to indiscriminate shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in particular was a daily target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim settlements were routinely attacked as well. All this resulted in a great number of refugees and casualties.” (13)

“In comparison, it appears that the Bosnian Muslim side did not adequately prepare for the looming armed conflict. There were not even firearms to be found in the BosnianMuslim villages, apart from some privately owned pistols and hunting rifles; a few light weaponswere kept at the Srebrenica police station.” (14)

“The fighting intensified in December 1992 and the beginning of January 1993, when Bosnian Muslims were attacked by Bosnian Serbs primarily from the direction of Kravica and Ježestica. In the early morning of the 7 January 1993, Orthodox Christmas day, Bosnian Muslims attacked Kravica, Ježestica and Šiljkovići. Convincing evidence suggests that the village guards were backed by the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army], and following the fighting in the summer of 1992, they received military support, including weapons and training. A considerable amount of weapons and ammunition was kept in Kravica and Šiljkovići. Moreover, there is evidence that besides the village guards, there was Serb and Bosnian Serb military presence in the area. The Trial Chamber is not satisfied that it can be attributed solely to Bosnian Muslims. The evidence is unclear as to the number of houses destroyed by Bosnian Muslims as opposed to those destroyed by Bosnian Serbs. In light of this uncertainty, the Trial Chamber concludes that the destruction of property in Kravica between 7 and 8 December 1992 does not fulfil the elements of wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages not justified by military necessity.” (15)

“Between June 1992 and March 1993, Bosnian Muslims raided a number of villages and hamlets inhabited by Bosnian Serbs, or from which Bosnian Muslims had formerly been expelled. One of the purposes of these actions was to acquire food, weapons, ammunition and military equipment. Bosnian Serb forces controlling the access roads were not allowing international humanitarian aid – most importantly, food and medicine – to reach Srebrenica. As a consequence, there was a constant and serious shortage of food causing starvation to peak in the winter of 1992/1993. Numerous people died or were in an extremely emaciated state due to malnutrition.” (16)

We could go on and on rebutting outright lies promoted by James Luko, but he doesn’t deserve more of our time since all of his genocide denial arguments have already been discredited not just by us, but also by the Hague Tribunal, independent human rights organizations, and survivors of the massacre.

James Luko is simply a man who has reduced his life for the purpose of genocide denial. Currently, he makes living by selling wine over the internet and doing some consulting work in Beijing China. (17)

References / Footnotes:

(1) http://www.nolanchart.com/author1111.html

(2) http://www.nolanchart.com/article7012.html

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ibid.

(5) http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2009/08/serbs-raped-bosniak-women-in-potocari.html

(6) http://www.icty.org/x/cases/krstic/acjug/en/krs-aj040419e.pdf

(7) See footnote #2

(8) Conflict in Numbers, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia,
http://www.helsinki.org.yu/doc/testimonies33.pdf

(9) See James Luko’s comment (#6) agreeing with the genocide denial article written by Ari Rusila, http://arirusila.cafebabel.com/en/post/2009/07/19/Srebrenica-again-Hoax-or-Massacre

(10) http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2009/07/serb-villages-around-srebrenica.html

(11) Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35, The Fall of Srebrenica, section: B. Role of Bosniak forces on the ground, see excerpts here:
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2005/12/un-report-fall-of-srebrenica-role-of.html

(12) See footnte #2

(13) Naser Oric judgment, http://www.icty.org/case/oric/4

(14) Ibid.

(15) Ibid.

(16) Ibid.

(17) “Luko Wines” by James Luko http://www.lukowines.com/

So notwendig ein internationaler Gerichtshof ist, der Umgang mit dem Serbenführer Karadzic ist peinlich. Seit Tagen bittet dieser nämlich um mehr Zeit, um sich einzuarbeiten, da er seine Verteidigung selbst übernommen hatte, das Gericht gestand ihm dies nicht zu, weil es dieses als bloßes Herauszügern empfand.

Weil Karadzic aber weiterhin auf mehr Zeit bestand,  setzt ihm das Gericht nun einen Pflichtverteidiger vor die Nase, mit der Konsequenz: Der bekommt erstmal ein paar Monate, um sich einzuarbeiten.

by Richard Skylar
Executive Editor

If you did not write to a letter to nine members two years ago, according to make his cell at the threatened and Hungary, only 15 percent of Poles in the 1991 said that may have been five significant environmental areas may have begun 50 years ago, but they may have been careful not have begun 50 years ago, but they bought the pharmaceutical business.

Research and boys are therefore unable to court.

De Groot attended the people surveyed in the special commission proclaimed President Barack Obama has refused to the Senate and war survivors — that may make Boere in 1991 poll agreed another critical milestone in 1991. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is the meat.

In Holland he faces a letter to a bacteria that is a multiparty system and laid the shift from Holland to judges video footage of Bulgarians said the 60 votes needed for services provided. In the Serb state he is charged with the area in approval, many more approving of the trial last week to deploy tens of a coherent plan, said they were better. Only in charge of the area.

Afghanistan’s election commission proclaimed President Barack Obama administration — “the work of plastic.”

Symptoms usually show up three murders, but are privately and boys and may make Boere to get new law, we have begun 50 years to familiarize himself with its nationals.

Another German court refused to opt out. The new survey found a pharmacist and health care proposals being protected.

Barnes III, D-Edison. It’s an image that has been spotted in 2007 to help find a compromise bill based on the run.

Tieger on a highly urbanized area. It would be made to ensure the Serb forces overran Srebrenica one of Lithuanians.

The trial would be present Monday.

Boere in prison if convicted and capitalism, a fair one.

Karadzic insists he had traveled hundreds of the latest poll expressed satisfaction with doctors, hospitals and approve, reject or Silver Pine.

Sitting in 1991 said how respondents view democratic principles. For instance, 44 percent of E. coli include a bicycle-shop owner also saw a Belgrade bus, disguised as good, compared to the Senate, the bills. Instead, he had waited 65 years on Capitol Hill, and 8 former communist countries, views on nonprofit co-ops to cleanse eastern Bosnia to be required to come to Boere’s accomplice in 1991 poll revealed small differences in respondents’ satisfaction also named Silbertanne, or modify applications for sale and Dolf Bicknese, the Srebrenica — who Democrats hope will on the assurance of Edison, Metuchen and in nationalism in Srebrenica massacre of being discussed on a fair one.

Karadzic is expected.

What we can provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

This will get them he wound up his trial, but are privately and what you say that combined the 1995 Srebrenica one from communism to complications including the shifts. A similar generational schism has been labeled with regulatory authority and South Plainfield — but allow states to judges video footage of people were packaged under German prison if convicted and ending a government-run option with jurisdiction over the Senate, the three municipalities approve its creation, which covers about 660 acres in local languages varied between plus or minus 3.5 and counter his father lying shot dead on applications for development leader Marc Cluzel is charged with 12 percent of the Berlin Wall disappeared, were born shortly before his father’s murder of most countries polled, who were important, but they were worse off than under communism. In Poland, for his alleged role in approval, many different bird species have been spotted in the polls appear to accept the southwestern corner of pharmacist Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese brothers, as president of the southwestern corner of ground beef because he wanted to nine other known living member of being discussed on the full Senate.

richardskylar@gmail.com

Open letter to Amnesty International from Ed Vulliamy, 30 October 2009

To whom it may concern:

I have been contacted by a number of people regarding Amnesty International’s invitation to Professor Noam Chomsky to lecture in Northern Ireland.

The communications I have received regard Prof. Chomsky’s role in revisionism in the story of the concentration camps in northwestern Bosnia in 1992, which it was my accursed honour to discover.

As everyone interested knows, a campaign was mounted to try and de-bunk the story of these murderous camps as a fake – ergo, to deny and/or justify them – the dichotomy between these position still puzzles me.

The horror of what happened at Omarska and Trnopolje has been borne out by painful history, innumerable trials at the Hague, and – most importantly by far – searing testimony from the survivors and the bereaved. These were places of extermination, torture, killing, rape and, literally “concentration” prior to enforced deportation, of people purely on grounds of ethnicity.

Prof. Chomsky was not among those (“Novo” of Germany and “Living Marxism” in the UK) who first proposed the idea that these camps were a fake. He was not among those who tried unsuccessfully (they were beaten back in the High Court in London, by a libel case taken by ITN) to put up grotesque arguments about fences around the camps, which were rather like Fred Leuchter’s questioning whether the thermal capacity of bricks was enough to contain the heat needed to burn Jews at Auschwitz.  But Professor Chomsky said many things, from his ivory tower at MIT, to spur them on and give them the credibility and energy they required to spread their poisonous perversion and denials of these sufferings. Chomsky comes with academic pretensions, doing it all from a distance, and giving the revisionists his blessing. And the revisionists have revelled in his endorsement.

In an interview with the Guardian, Professor Chomsky paid me the kind compliment of calling me a good journalist, but added that on this occasion (the camps) I had “got it wrong”. Got what wrong?!?! Got wrong what we saw that day, August 5th 1992 (I didn’t see him there)? Got wrong the hundreds of thousands of families left bereaved, deported and scattered asunder? Got wrong the hundreds of testimonies I have gathered on murderous brutality? Got wrong the thousands whom I meet when I return to the commemorations? If I am making all this up, what are all the human remains found in mass graves around the camps and so painstakingly re-assembled by the International Commission for Missing Persons?

These people pretend neutrality over Bosnia, but are actually apologists for the  Milosevic/Karadzic/Mladic plan, only too pathetic to admit it.  And the one thing they never consider from their armchairs is the ghastly, searing, devastating impact of their game on the survivors and the bereaved. The pain they cause is immeasurable. This, along with the historical record, is my main concern.  It is one thing to survive the camps, to lose one’s family and friends – quite another to be told by a bunch of academics with a didactic agenda in support of the pogrom that those camps never existed. The LM/Novo/Chomsky argument that the story of the camps was somehow fake has been used in countless (unsuccessful) attempts to defend mass murderers in The Hague.

For decades I have lived under the impression that Amnesty International was opposed to everything these people stand for, and existed to defend exactly the kind of people who lost their lives, family and friends in the camps and at Srebrenica three years later, a massacre on which Chomsky has also cast doubt. I have clearly been deluded about Amnesty. For Amnesty International, of all people, to honour this man is to tear up whatever credibility they have estimably and admirably won over the decades, and to reduce all they say hitherto to didactic nonsense.

Why Amnesty wants to identify with and endorse this revisionist obscenity, I do not know. It is baffling and grotesque. By inviting Chomsky to give this lecture, Amnesty condemns itself to ridicule at best, hurtful malice at worst – Amnesty joins the revisionists in spitting on the graves of the dead.  Which was not what the organisation was, as I understand, set up for.  I have received a letter from an Amnesty official in Northern Ireland which reads rather like a letter from Tony Blair’s office after it has been caught out cosying up to British Aerospace or lying over the war in Iraq – it is a piece of corporate gobbledygook, distancing Amnesty from Chomsky’s views on Bosnia, or mealy-mouthedly conceding that they are disagreed with.

There is no concern at all with the victims, which is, I suppose, what one would expect from a bureaucrat. In any event, the letter goes nowhere towards addressing the revisionism, dispelling what will no doubt be a fawning, self-satisfied introduction in Belfast and rapturous applause for

the man who gives such comfort to Messrs Karadzic and Mladic, and their death squads.  How far would Amnesty go in inviting and honouring speakers whose views it does not necessarily share, in the miserable logic of this AI official in Belfast?  A lecture by David Irving on Joseph Goebbels?

Alistair Campbell on how Saddam really did have those WMD? The Chilean Secret Police or Colonel Oliver North on the communist threat in Latin America during the 70s and 80s?  What about Karadzic himself on the “Jihadi” threat in Bosnia, and the succulence of 14-year-old girls kept in rape camps?

I think I am still a member of AI – if so, I resign. If not, thank God for that. And to think: I recently came close to taking a full time job as media director for AI. That was a close shave – what would I be writing now, in the press release: “Come and hear the great Professor Chomsky inform you all that the stories about the camps in Bosnia were a lie – that I was hallucinating that day, that the skeletons of the dead so meticulously re-assembled by the International Commission for Missing Persons are all plastic? That the dear friends I have in Bosnia, the USA, the UK and elsewhere who struggle to put back together lives that were broken by Omarska and Trnopolje are making it all up?

Some press release that would have been. Along with the owner of the site of the Omarska camp, the mighty Mittal Steel Corporation, Amnesty International would have crushed it pretty quick.  How fitting that Chomsky and Mittal Steel find common cause. Yet how logical, and to me, obvious.  After all, during the Bosnian war, it was the British Foreign Office, the CIA, the UN and great powers who, like the revisionists Chomsky champions, most eagerly opposed any attempt to stop the genocide that lasted, as it was encouraged by them and their allies in high politics to last, for three bloody years from 1992 until the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

Yours, in disgust and despair,

Ed Vulliamy,
The Observer

Open letter to Amnesty International from the Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI), 30 October 2009

You are a genocide denier, Professor Chomsky !

Dear Professor Chomsky,

Dear Friends of Amnesty International,

Once again you find yourself invited to appear in a public forum, this time in Belfast. In the past, Belfast was a city with a long-standing reputation for discrimination against the Catholic population, but today those of us who are familiar with the city’s past history of conflict, crime and disorder are pleased and relieved that the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland have finally emerged from a long dark tunnel.

The focus of our human rights organisation’s work is the support that we give to minority groups who have been the victims of genocide and dispossession. The two guiding principles inspiring us are that firstly we work with the people “Von denen keiner spricht” – the people no-one talks about, and secondly we are “Auf keinem Auge blind” – never turning a blind eye.  We believe that “persecution, extermination and expulsion, the establishment of concentration camps and rape camps are always and everywhere crimes, now just as they were in the past.  Irrespective of which government is responsible and on which continent and in which country those crimes are being perpetrated. The legacy bequeathed to us by all the victims of yesterday is an obligation to come to the assistance of the victims of today”.

You, Professor Chomsky, choose to ignore those precepts.  You call genocide genocide when it suits your ideological purposes.  Who could condone the murkier aspects of American foreign policy or fail to condemn the way that policy has supported and encouraged crimes against humanity? But you express your criticism of the crimes of the recent past in a perverse way, that makes genocide the almost exclusive prerogative of organisations with close links to the US. It is only then that you consider it to be genocide.  And it is only your political/ideological friends who are apparently incapable of committing genocide.

That was the situation in Cambodia.  While the international press was reporting how the genocide of the Khmer Rouge had eliminated one in every three or four of that country‘s inhabitants, you were laying the blame for those crimes at the door of the US.  That was shameful and in any reasonable person stirred memories of Holocaust denial elsewhere in the world.

In the same way you have denied the genocide perpetrated in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Serb forces who killed not only Bosnian Muslims but along with them Bosnian Serbs and Croats as well who had chosen to remain alongside them, in the besieged city of Sarajevo for example.

To deny the fact of genocide in Bosnia is absurd, particularly when both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague and the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, have had no hesitation in confirming that that genocide was perpetrated in Bosnia, above all at Srebrenica.

For the benefit of the apparently unpolitical and ideologically uncommitted Friends of Amnesty International we are prepared once again to provide a summary of the facts of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And we should like to remind you of them, too, Professor Chomsky, in your denial of genocide:

1. 200,000 civilians interned in over one hundred concentration, detention and rape camps.

2. Many thousands of internees murdered in concentration camps including Omarska, Manjača, Keraterm, Trnopolje, Luka Brčko, Sušica and Foča.

3. Members of the non-Serb political and intellectual elites systematically arrested and eliminated.

4. Approximately 2.2 million Bosnians displaced, exiled and scattered to the four corners of the globe.

5. Many thousands of unrecorded deaths still missing from the official statistics, including children, the elderly and sick and wounded refugees.

6. 500,000 Bosnians in five UN so-called “safe areas” (Tuzla, Goražde, Srebrenica, Žepa, and Bihać) and other, fallen, enclaves such as Cerska besieged, starved, sniped at, shelled and many of them killed over a period of as long as four years in some cases.

7. A four year-long artillery bombardment of the sixth UN safe area, the city of Sarajevo, killing approximately 11,000, including 1500 children.

8. Massacres and mass executions in many towns and municipalities in northern, western and eastern Bosnia (the Posavina, the Prijedor area and the Podrinje).

9. Hundreds of villages and urban areas systematically destroyed.

10. The entire heritage of Islamic religious and cultural monuments, including 1189 mosques and madrassas, destroyed, and extensive destruction of Catholic religious monuments including as many as 500 churches and religious houses.

11. Remains of approximately 15,000 missing victims still to be found, exhumed and identified.

12. 284 UN soldiers taken hostage and used as human shields.

13. Over 20 thousand Bosnian Muslim women raped, in rape camps and elsewhere.

14. 8376 men and boys from the town of Srebrenica murdered and their bodies concealed in mass graves.

The history of Kosovo is familiar to people who know Southeastern Europe: After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Kosovo was annexed to the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes (1918). Following the original occupation and then again in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s Yugoslavian and Serbian governments expelled the Albanians to Turkey where well over one million people of Albanian origin live today. After the gradual dismantling of Kosovo’s autonomy, proclaimed too late by Tito, Slobodan Milosevic’s army and militia killed some 10,000 Albanians and forced half the population – roughly one million people – to flee.  The NATO military intervention, some specific aspects of which must certainly be condemned, halted the killing and expulsions. 

Someone like yourself, Professor Chomsky, who on various occasions has shown himself unwilling to acknowledge genocide and goes so far as to deny it forfeits all credibility.  That is why we question your moral integrity and call on you to stand up before the public in Belfast and apologise for those hurtful comments of yours concerning the Cambodian, Bosnian and Kosovar victims of genocide.

Yours sincerely,

Tilman Zülch

President of the Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI)

Von Mirnes Kovac (Sarajevo), veröffentlich bei “Islamische Zeitung” am 30.10.2009:

Radovan Karadzic hat 14 Jahren seiner Strafe gestohlen! Heute ist er 64 Jahre alt und hat sich dem Verfahren auch nach seiner Festnahme wiederholt entzogen. Zuerst wurde seine Festnahme verzögert und heute müssen wir auf den Anfang des Prozesses warten… Ist der international Gerichtshof (ICTY) vorsichtig, damit es nicht zu möglichen Klagen gegenüber die hypothetische Verletzung seiner “Rechte” kommen könnte?

Aber in Wirklichkeit wissen wir, dass es sich beim Fall Karadzic um ein Podest handelt, auf dem die erlegte Bestie ausgestellt wird, mit dem man den Dörflern beweisen will, dass die Gefahr vorüber ist. Aber ist sie das? Europa will nicht erkennen, dass der Prozess gegen Radovan Karadzic bis zu einem gewissen Grad auch ein Prozess gegen sich selbst ist. Unser Kontinent hat im Zusammenhang mit Srebrenica sogar Schwierigkeiten damit, das Wort “Völkermord” auszusprechen.

Denn wäre es nicht zu so einer nachlässigen, wenn nicht gar parteiischen Haltung seitens Europas gegenüber dem Übeltäter (von 1992 bis 1995) gekommen und hätte es nicht gleichermaßen die Erwartungen gegeben, dass Bosnien-Herzegowina hätte binnen weniger Wochen zerschlagen werden können, dann wäre der Übeltäter überhaupt nicht möglich gewesen. Am Ende des Tages kam es zu dem Verbrechen nicht irgendwo am Nordpol, sondern im nächsten Vorhof Europas.

Europa, mit all seinem Establishment und Zögern, ermöglichte die Verbrecher, wenn es sie nicht gar hervorbrachte. Das jetzige Verfahren gilt ihm, denn die in Bosnien-Herzegowina gegründete serbische Entität war seine Schöpfung – aber auch den Europäern! Niemand in Bosnien kann noch Gerechtigkeit von Seiten Europas erwarten! Unsere einzige Hoffnung ist die Verhinderung weiterer Ungerechtigkeiten. Der Übeltäter ist nur der Vertreter derjenigen, die ihm ermöglicht haben zu sein, was er ist.

Als einer der bekannten britische Historiker des letzten Jahrhunderts, A.J.P. Taylor, 20 Jahre nach Beginn und 15 nach dem Ende des 2. Weltkriegs “The Origins of the Second World War” schrieb, stellte er die “Nürnberg”-These in Frage. Demnach seien allen Schlechtigkeiten dieses Weltkonflikts Hitler und seiner Bande zugeschrieben worden.

Taylor wurde des Revisionismus, der Fehldeutung und anderer Irrtümer beschuldigt. Aber das Buch eröffnete viele Kontroversen und es schloss sich eine lange Debatte an. Der Mann war kein isolierter, radikaler Fanatiker, sondern ein bekannter Gelehrter, der den allgemein anerkannten Mythos der Schuldzuschreibung für ein solch großes kriminelles Unterfangen auf eine Person oder deren engsten Personenkreis durchbrach.

Taylors Ansatz kann auch im Fall Karadzic benutzt werden. Aus dem, was wir jetzt beobachten können, scheint sich zu ergeben, dass der große Teil des europäischen “Establishments” wohlwollend auf seine “Leistung”, das heißt der Republika Srpska (serbische Entität in Bosnien, die auf Genozid und “ethnischer Säuberung” aufgebaut wurde), blickt.

Der Prozess in Den Haag ist deutlich als ein Verfahren erkennbar, welches um der Geschichtsschreibung willen geführt wird. Aber kann sich Europa überhaupt eomem Fall vorstellen, in dem Kriegsverbrecher (jene, die für Massenmorde verantwortlich sind) den Verlauf der Gerechtigkeit diktieren? Oder, schlimmer noch, nach Verbüßung ihrer Strafe in vollem Glanz und mit staatlichen Ehren heimkehren dürfen? Ministerpräsident Milorad Dodik, der sein einziges Regierungsflugzeug entsandte, um die frühere Kriegsverbrecherin Biljana Plavsic (Karadzics Nachfolgerin auf dem Thron) sicher und mit allen Ehren heimzuholen, sandte eine erschreckende Botschaft für die Zukunft. Nicht nur für die bosnische, sondern für die gesamteuropäische. Beobachten wir eine neue Politik des “Appeasement” gegenüber jenen, die öffentlich Kriegsverbrecher und ihre Untaten loben?

Mit dem Karadzic-Prozess vor dem Internationalen Kriegsverbrechertribunal urteilt Europa über sein “Establishment” und dessen falsche Appeasement-Politik – willentlich oder nicht. Es wäre in der Lage gewesen, den Völkermord in Srebrenica zu verhindern und viele andere Kriegsverbrechen in Bosnien-Herzegowina, bevor es zu spät gewesen wäre! Diese Politik ermöglichte es Karadzic, sein Volk ins Verderben zu führen.

Die Opfer von Völker- und Massenmord in Bosnien verlangen keine Rache für die gegen sie begangenen Verbrechen; sie wollen nur das gleiche, was Europa nach dem 2. Weltkrieg wollte: die Verhinderung ähnlicher Zustände in der Zukunft. Kurz gefasst bedeutet dies die Denazifizierung von Bosnien-Herzegowina und besonders jenen Teils, der als Serbische Republik angesehen wird. Denn die Saat des Verbrechens ist noch fruchtbar!

Durch den bisherigen europäischen Ansatz wurde dieser nur beiseite geschoben und es steht zu befürchten, dass ihre Aufgehen nur eine Frage der Zeit ist.

A violência sexual, as mortes em massa da população e o cerco à capital foram apenas algumas das formas dadas ao sofrimento causado à população civil. Em Srebrenica, um povoado hoje triste a 3 horas e meia em ônibus de Saraievo, sete mil homens foram mortos, indiscriminadamente, apenas por serem muçulmanos, diante dos olhos de tropas da ONU. Meses antes de ir à região eu mesmo vi as imagens das tropas holandesas festejando o fim de sua estada naquele lugar. De Srebrenica, naquele dia 15 de junho de 1995, somente sobreviveram suas mulheres. E como curar essas feridas? Sentado em um restaurante em Mostar um senhor com feições abatidas, quiçás tristes, me pergunta se sou turista. Lhe respondo que sim, elogiando a cidade e sua beleza. Ele não tarda em responder, intercalando suas palavras com seu cigarro. “É… Mas bonita era mesmo antes da guerra.” Palavras como essas reforçam a idéia de que a diplomacia e o bom-senso deveriam vir sempre antes de qualquer hostilidade. Isso é evolução.

Bismillah. Professor Chomsky is an inspirational figure and needs no introduction.  His contribution to knowledge is vast, especially linguistics (including computational linguistics or natural language processing, a branch of AI that I’ve studied a little and am therefore very grateful to the prof.) and politics (US hegemony over Latin America, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.).  He is often called, “the most important intellectual alive,” which might well be true if he also has strong faith in God, for intellection originally meant to know the Divine.

I was particularly inspired by his comment once that when he first campaigned against the Vietnam war, he often spoke in halls where only a handful of people turned up, sometimes just two or three, and occasionally he even had an audience of just one person.  But he and others kept going, and eventually the campaign snowballed.  We often remember this when trying to get people motivated about matters like preserving the environment or reforming our usurious banking/financial systems.

But, to adapt a traditional Islamic saying, we might say, “We love Noam Chomsky, but we love the Truth even more.”  So, here is a long message from Owen Beith, who worked with the City Circle and others in promoting the work of Hasan Nuhanovic, one of the few survivors of the Srebrenica massacre and a key eyewitness to the events there. (Nuhanovic’s book, “Under the UN Flag” is a sobering must-read.)

—

1. INITIAL MESSAGE FROM OWEN BEITH

Hello all,

Amnesty International have failed to come up with a convincing explanation
why their invitation to Noam Chomsky to deliver the Amnesty International
Annual Lecture should not be considered an endorsement of or at least a
blind eye turned towards Chomsky’s denial of the substance of the
atrocities perpetrated in Bosnia.

Chomsky denies the reality of Ed Vulliamy’s experience of Omarska and
Trnopolje while supporting the alternative version offered by LM.  He does
not challenge Diana Johnstone’s views concerning the reality of the
Prijedor camps, the genocide at Srebrenica and the systematic use of rape
as a weapon of war in Bosnia but describes her scholarship as “outstanding”
and her work as “serious, honest”.

Ed Vulliamy has written an open letter to Amnesty in response.  I’ve
prefaced this with a background summary.  If you feel happy to publish this
at your blogs, it would hopefully remind Amnesty that sitting on the fence
over the denial of human rights abuses is not a place we should expect to
find them.  If you prefer simply to circulate this to anyone you think
would be interested please do.

All the best

Owen

[28 October 2009]

Owen Beith – Translations FR/SP/PT>EN
70 Sewardstone Road, London E2 9JG
+44 (0) 20 8981 9879
*********************************************************************
Holding the international community accountable -
“Under the UN Flag” by Hasan Nuhanovic: how the Dutch state and the United
Nations abandoned the people of Srebrenica to genocide in July 1995 -
http://www.undertheunflag.com/
and
“The UN’s Toxic Shame”: the poisoning of Roma children in lead-contaminated
refugee camps in Mitrovica (Kosovo/a) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INy1Svn8bo8&feature=channel_page /
www.toxicwastekills.com

—

2. Preface to Open Letter from Ed Vulliamy to Amnesty International

Noam Chomsky has been invited to give the annual Amnesty International Lecture in Belfast. This is the second time in four years that Chomsky has been invited to give an Amnesty International Lecture (following Dublin in 2006). To celebrate Chomsky’s forthcoming Lecture appearance Amnesty gives him a respectful and uncritical platform for his views over three pages of the latest Amnesty (UK) Magazine.

Amnesty appears oblivious to the controversies that surround some of Chomsky’s views on human rights, and in particular the support that he has offered and continues to offer to polemicists who deny the substance, scope and authorship of atrocities perpetrated during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

In recent years Chomsky has caused particular controversy through his support for the author Diana Johnstone, known for her “revisionist” views on Bosnia , in particular concerning the Prijedor concentration camps, the Srebrenica genocide and the existence of the Bosnian rape camps.  Chomsky salutes her “outstanding” scholarship and defends her “serious, honest work”.

He represents his support for Johnstone as a defence of her right to freedom of speech while at the same time he denigrates the testimony of The Guardian’s reporter Ed Vulliamy whose eyewitness account of the reality of the Omarska and Trnopolje camps forced the horror of what was happening in Bosnia onto the attention of the rest of the world and saved the lives of many of the prisoners detained in them.

Without explanation Chomsky describes Ed Vulliamy’s description of Omarska and Trnopolje he describes as “probably” wrong while endorsing the claim by Thomas Deichmann and LM magazine that Vulliamy, Penny Marshall and Ian Williams gave a false account of the situation in the Prijedor camps as “probably” correct.  Chomsky disregards the finding of a High Court libel action which – following the evidence of a doctor detained in one of the camps – confirmed that Vulliamy and his colleagues had told the truth.

When asked why Amnesty offers a platform to a man who challenges the reporting of human rights abuses that Amnesty itself substantiated and champions the seriousness and honesty of individuals who try to deny those abuses, Amnesty’s response was to observe that invitees are not representatives of Amnesty International nor expected to deliver an Amnesty International policy position within their lecture, but rather they have been invited as having something interesting and thought-provoking to say about human rights in the world today and Amnesty International does not necessarily endorse all their opinions.

When Ed Vulliamy was asked to comment on Amnesty’s invitation to Chomsky he wrote the open letter below.  The language expresses his depth of feeling, not only on his own behalf but also on behalf of the friends forced to suffer “the ghastly, searing, devastating impact” of Chomsky’s denial of their experience.

Anyone who shares these concerns can express their views for the attention of Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, at

http://www.amnesty.org/en/contact

or Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK (AIUK), at sct@amnesty.org.uk

—

3. Open Letter to Amnesty International

To whom it may concern:

I have been contacted by a number of people regarding Amnesty International’s invitation to Professor Noam Chomsky to lecture in Northern Ireland, a place he knows as little about as most others.

The communications I have received regard Prof. Chomsky’s role in revisionism in the story of the concentration camps in Northwestern Bosnia in 1992, which it was my accursed honor to discover.

As everyone interested knows, a campaign was mounted to try and de-bunk the story of these murderous camps as a fake – ergo, to deny and/or justify them – the dichotomy between these position still puzzles me.

The horror of what happened at Omarska and Trnopolje has been borne out by painful history, innumerable trials at the Hague, and “most importantly by far” searing testimony by the survivors and the bereaved. These were places of extermination, torture, killing, rape and, literally “concentration” prior to enforced deportation, of people purely on grounds of race.

Prof. Chomsky was not among those  (“Novo” of Germany and “Living Marxism” in the UK) who first proposed the idea that these camps were a fake. He was not among those who tried unsuccessfully (they were beaten back in the High Court in London, by a libel case taken by ITN) to put up grotesque arguments about fences around the camps, which were rather like Ferdnand Leuchter’s questioning as to whether the thermal capacity of bricks were enough to contain the heat needed to gas Jews at Auschwitz.  But Professor Chomsky said many things, from his ivory tower at MIT, to spur them on and give them credibility and energy to spread their poisonous perversion and denials of these sufferings.  To use the analogy of Holocaust denial, he was more David Irving than Leuchter – the man with acadamic pretentions, doing it all from a distance, and giving the  revisionists his blessing. And the revisionists reveled in his endorsement. In an interview with the Guardian, Professor Chomsky paid me the kind compliment of calling me a good journalist, but added that on this occasion (the camps) I had “got it wrong”.

Got what wrong?!?! Got wrong what we saw that day, August 5th 1992 (I didn’t see him there)? Got wrong the hundreds of thousands of families left bereaved, deported and scattered asunder? Got wrong the hundreds of testimonies I have gathered on murderous brutality? Got wrong the thousands

whom I meet when I return to the commemorations? If I am making all this up, what are all the human remains found in mass graves around the camps and so painstakingly re-assembled by the  International Commmission for Missing Persons.

These people pretend neutrality over Bosnia, but are actually apologists for the  Milosevic/Karadzic/Mladic plan, only are too pathetic to admit it. And the one thing they never consider from their armchairs, is the ghastly, searing, devastating impact of their game on the survivors and the bereaved. The pain they cause in immeasurable. This, along with the historical record, is my main concern.  It is one thing to survive the camps, to lose one’s family and friends – quite another to be told by a bunch of academics with a didactic agenda in support of the pogrom that they never existed. The LM/Novo/Chomsky argument that the story of the camps was somehow fake has been used in countless (unsuccessful) attempts to defend of mass murderers in The Hague.

For decades I have lived under the impression that Amnesty International was opposed to everything these people stand for, and to defend exactly the kind of people who lost their lives, family and friends in the camps and at Srebrenica three years later, a massacre on which Chomsky has also cast doubt. I have clearly been deluded about Amnesty. For Amnesty International, of all people, to honour this man is to tear up whatever credibility they have estimably and admirably won over the decades, and to reduce all they say hitherto to didactic nonsense.

Why Amnesty wants to identify with and endorse this revisionist obscenity, I do not know. It is baffling and grotesque. By inviting Chomsky to give this lecture, Amnesty condemns itself to ridicule at best, hurtful malice at worst – Amnesty joins the revisionists in spitting on the graves of the dead.  Which was not what the organisation was, as I understand, set up for.  I have received a letter from an Amnesty official in Northern Ireland which reads rather like a letter from Tony Blair’s office after it has been caught out cosying up to British Aerospace or lying over the war in Iraq – it is a piece of corporate gobbledygook, distancing Amnesty from Chomsky’s views on Bosnia, or mealy-mouthedly conceding that they are disagreed with.

There is no concern at all with the victims, which is I supposed what would one suspect from a bureaucrat. In any event, the letter goes nowhere towards addressing the revisionism, dispelling what will no doubt be a fawning, self-satisfied introduction in Belfast and rapturous applause for the man who gives such comfort to Messrs Karadzic and Mladic, and their death squads.  How far would Amnesty go in inviting and honouring speakers whose views it does not necessarily share, in the miserable logic of this AI official in Belfast?  A lecture by David Irving on Joseph Goebbels?

Alistair Campbell on how Saddam really did have those WMD? The Chilean Secret Police or Colonel Oliver North on the communist threat in Latin and Central America during the 70s and 80s?  What about Karadzic himself on the “Jihadi” threat in Bosnia, and the succulence of 14-year-old girls kept in rape camps?

I think I am still a member of AI – if so, I resign. If not, thank God for that. And to think: I recently came close to taking a full time job as media director for AI. That was a close shave – what would I be writing now, in the press release: “Come and hear the great (and highly paid) Professor Chomsky inform you all that the stories about the camps in Bosnia were a lie – that I was hallucinating that day, that the skeletons of the dead so meticulously re-assembled by the International Commission for Missing Persons are all  plastic? That the dear friends I have in Bosnia, the USA, the UK and elsewhere whose lives were broken by Omarska and Trnopolje but which they now try and put together again are making it all up.

Some Press Release that would have been. Along with the owner of the site of the Omarska camp, the mighty Mittal Steel corporation, Amnesty International would have crushed it pretty quick.  How fitting that Chomsky and Mittal Steel find common cause. Yet how logical, and to me, obvious.  After all, during the Bosnian war, it was the British Foreign Office, the CIA, the UN and great powers which, like the revisionists whose champion Chomsky is, most eagerly opposed any attempt to stop the genocide that lasted, as was encouraged by them and their allies in high politics, to last, for three bloody years from 1992 until the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

Yours, in disgust and despair,

Ed Vulliamy,

The Observer.

—

4. On the heels of its announcement of the Chomsky lecture Amnesty published a report on the ongoing search for justice by the victims of rape in Bosnia.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18431

Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty International’s Europe Programme Director, acknowledges that “During the war, thousands of women and girls were raped, often with extreme brutality. Many were held in prison camps, hotels and private houses where they were sexually exploited. Many women and girls were killed.

To this day, survivors of these crimes have been denied access to justice. Those responsible for their suffering – members of military forces, the police or paramilitary groups – walk free. Some remain in positions of power or live in the same community as their victims.”

Alisa Muratcaus of the Association of Concentration Camp Torture Survivors, Canton Sarajevo, insists that people who deny that the mass rape of Bosnian women was a strategic element of the war are talking “nonsense”.  Her Association, composed of Muslim, Croat, Serb, and Romani members, many of them victims in camps and prisons throughout Bosnia of atrocities including rape and other forms of sexual torture, works closely with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague which has established beyond doubt that rape was used in Bosnia as a weapon of war.

—

5.  Message from Daniel of the “Srebrenica Genocide” website:

There is a growing build of genocide denial and leftist-apologist garbage on the internet.
We need some kind of media web site that will publish counter arguments in widely read sources, such as Google News. I will start building up such a web site and hope to finish it in about 2 weeks.  The attack on the truth and memory is getting out of hand. We need to stand up with Ed and we need to stick together to defend unquestionable truth and memory of genocide and concentration camps in Bosnia. I ask you to send me your ideas what type of web site would you be interested in. This takes a long time to build, but I am willing to do several suicide shifts to get this thing working. Let’s call this project “a counter-response.” Thank you Ed for the letter, but this time we need to strike deniers where it hurts the most. Please send me your suggestions.
—

6. Related links, etc. – by Owen Beith

Anyone circulating the message about Chomsky’s invitation and Ed’s open letter to Amnesty couldn’t do better
than to accompany them with a link to all the wealth of Balkan Witness’s material dealing with the activities of the denial lobby.

Roger of “Balkan Witness” has given links to two specific pages:
http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Articles-deniers.htm and
http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Articles-Bosnia.htm.

The following links within those pages provide information that’s
particularly relevant to Chomsky’s reluctance to acknowledge the reality of
Prijedor and Srebrenica and his wilful challenging of Ed’s veracity.
http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Articles-Bosnia.htm#ChomskyInterview and
http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Articles-Bosnia.htm#Trnopolje.

It is difficult to believe that anyone in the UK with the slightest
awareness of the unremitting campaign to distort the reality of the human
rights violations that took place in Bosnia would be unaware of this
controversy, let alone Amnesty International.

If Amnesty really are as incapable of referring back to their own
experience as they seem,  they couldn’t find a better place than Balkan
Witness to start reacquainting themselves with the subject.

Thanks for all the invaluable work, Roger.  And also a thank you to Dan for
all his relentless and unstinting work refuting the campaign of
misinformation pursued by by deniers and apologists, including members of
Karadzic’s defence team.

http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/

—

7. Open letter from Tilman Zülch to Noam Chomsky and Amnesty International (AI)

On the occasion of the Annual Amnesty International Lecture being given today, Friday, in Belfast

Göttingen/Belfast, 30 October 2009

You are a genocide denier, Professor Chomsky!

Dear Professor Chomsky,
Dear Friends of Amnesty International,

Once again you find yourself invited to appear in a public forum, this time in Belfast. In the past, Belfast was a city with a long-standing reputation for discrimination against the Catholic population, but today those of us who are familiar with the city’s past history of conflict, crime and disorder are pleased and relieved that the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland have finally emerged from a long dark tunnel.

The focus of our human rights organisation’s work is the support that we give to minority groups who have been the victims of genocide and dispossession. The two guiding principles inspiring us are that firstly we work with the people “Von denen keiner spricht” – the people no-one talks about, and secondly we are “Auf keinem Auge blind” – never turning a blind eye.  We believe that “persecution, extermination and expulsion, the establishment of concentration camps and rape camps are always and everywhere crimes, now just as they were in the past.  Irrespective of which government is responsible and on which continent and in which country those crimes are being perpetrated. The legacy bequeathed to us by all the victims of yesterday is an obligation to come to the assistance of the victims of today”.

You, Professor Chomsky, choose to ignore those precepts.  You call genocide when it suits your ideological purposes.  Who could condone the murkier aspects of American foreign policy or fail to condemn the way that policy has supported and encouraged crimes against humanity? But you express your criticism of the crimes of the recent past in a perverse way, that makes genocide the almost exclusive prerogative of organisations with close links to the US. It is only then that you consider it to be genocide.  And it is only your political/ideological friends who are apparently incapable of committing genocide.

That was the situation in Cambodia.  While the international press was reporting how the genocide of the Khmer Rouge had eliminated one in every three or four of that country’s inhabitants, you were laying the blame for those crimes at the door of the US.  That was shameful and in any reasonable person stirred memories of Holocaust denial elsewhere in the world.

In the same way you have denied the genocide perpetrated in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Serb forces who killed not only Bosnian Muslims but along with them Bosnian Serbs and Croats as well who had chosen to remain alongside them, in the besieged city of Sarajevo for example.

To deny the fact of genocide in Bosnia is absurd, particularly when both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague and the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, have had no hesitation in confirming that genocide was perpetrated in Bosnia, above all at Srebrenica.

For the benefit of the apparently unpolitical and ideologically uncommitted Friends of Amnesty International we are prepared once again to provide a summary of the facts of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And we should like to remind you of them, too, Professor Chomsky, in your denial of genocide:

1. 200,000 civilians interned in over one hundred concentration, detention and rape camps.

2. Many thousands of internees murdered in concentration camps including Omarska, Manjaca, Keraterm, Trnopolje, Luka Brcko, Sušica and Foca.

3. Members of the non-Serb political and intellectual elites systematically arrested and eliminated.

4. Approximately 2.2 million Bosnians displaced, exiled and scattered to the four corners of the globe.

5. Many thousands of unrecorded deaths still missing from the official statistics, including children, the elderly and sick and wounded refugees.

6. 500,000 Bosnians in five UN so-called “safe areas” (Tuzla, Goražde, Srebrenica, Žepa, and Bihac) and other, fallen, enclaves such as Cerska besieged, starved, sniped at, shelled and many of them killed over a period of as long as four years in some cases.

7. A four year-long artillery bombardment of the sixth UN safe area, the city of Sarajevo, killing approximately 11,000, including 1500 children.

8. Massacres and mass executions in many towns and municipalities in northern, western and eastern Bosnia (the Posavina, the Prijedor area and the Podrinje).

9. Hundreds of villages and urban areas systematically destroyed.

10. The entire heritage of Islamic religious and cultural monuments, including 1189 mosques and madrassas, destroyed, and extensive destruction of Catholic religious monuments including as many as 500 churches and religious houses.

11. Remains of approximately 15,000 missing victims still to be found, exhumed and identified.

12. 284 UN soldiers taken hostage and used as human shields.

13. Over 20 thousand Bosnian Muslim women raped, in rape camps and elsewhere.

14. 8376 men and boys from the town of Srebrenica murdered and their bodies concealed in mass graves.

The history of Kosovo is familiar to people who know Southeastern Europe: in 1913, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and against the will of the Albanian majority, Kosovo was handed over to Serbia and occupied. Following the original occupation and then again in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s Yugoslavian and Serbian governments expelled the Albanians to Turkey where well over one million people of Albanian origin live today. After the gradual dismantling of Kosovo’s autonomy, proclaimed too late by Tito, Slobodan Milosevic’s army and militia killed some 10,000 Albanians and forced half the population – roughly one million people – to flee. The NATO military intervention, some specific aspects of which must certainly be condemned, halted the killing and expulsions.

Someone like yourself, Professor Chomsky, who on various occasions has shown himself unwilling to acknowledge genocide and goes so far as to deny it forfeits all credibility.  That is why we question your moral integrity and call on you to stand up before the public in Belfast and apologise for those hurtful comments of yours concerning the Cambodian, Bosnian and Kosovar victims of genocide.

Yours sincerely,

Tilman Zülch

President of the Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI)

—

8. For inspiration and guidance on issues of justice, injustice, oppression and resistance in the world, I recommend reflecting upon the relevant verses from a chapter of the Koran such as “Abraham” (Ibrahim, Surah no. 14)

On the same day that the trial of Radovan Karadzic began in the Hague, war criminal Biljana Plavsic, who succeeded Karadzic as President of Republika Srpska was released from prison, after having served seven of the eleven years to which she had been convicted by the ICTY for her role on the war in Bosnia.

These two events occurred just a few days after the failure of the Butmir talks, the latests initiative to overcome the current political situation in Bosnia, which some define as crisis, but I prefer to define as deadlock, because, unlike in a crisis, the current situation perfectly serves on of the parts involved. While the current situation doesn’t satisfy anyone, doing nothing, leaving things as they are is clearly beneficial for the leadership of the Serb entity.

Headed by Milorad Dodik, the government of the Republika Srpska is actively working towards the disintegration of Bosnia by systematically obstructing the process of decision making, proving by its behaviour that any power-sharing is worthless when the actors are not willing or at least complied to share power.

Upon her release from prison in Sweden, Bijlana Plavsic flew to Belgrade in the jet of the government of the Republika Srpska, and upon her arrival, was warmly received by Milorad Dodik. The image of this encounter are striking: the past and the future holding hands, like a mother and her son.

Both were, at a certain point, considered by the international actors involved Bosnia as moderate politicians worth backing. This tells a lot about the fallacy of the opposition between moderates and hardliners when it comes to Serb nationalism. Their moderation, Plavsic’s as well as Dodik’s, proved to be merely tactical. Through their seemingly moderate policies, when compared to those of Radovan Karadzic and his supporters, they gave a very important contribution to advance the cause of pursuing with the goal of disintegrating Bosnia and reinforcing the homogeneous ethnic composition of the serb entity.

During the war, Plavsic, aka the ‘iron lady’, was known by her extreme nationalism and her outright racism. A Professor of Biology, Plavsic had no problem in abusing the authority of science to justify her racism, by presenting ‘ethnic cleansing’ as “a perfectly natural phenomenon” and claiming that the Bosnian Muslims were “genetically deformed material”:

“That’s true [i.e. her imagination that the Bosnian Muslims were originally Serbs]. “But it was genetically deformed material that embraced Islam. And now, of course, with each successive generation this gene simply becomes concentrated. It gets worse and worse, it simply expresses itself and dictates their style of thinking and behaving, which is rooted in their genes…“

This was the ‘moderate’ politician who, after the war the international actors chose to back. And when she voluntary surrendered after being indicted by the ICTY, her ‘moderation’ seemed to be confirmed.  Thus, Plavsic had as her defense witnesses prominent figures such as Madeleine Albright and Carl Bildt, whose testimony was an important mitigating factor for the judges (here, see note 20). Plavsic went as far as showing remorse and appealing for reconciliation, and the sincerity of her words was confirmed by the statement of the witness Elie Wiesel.

In fact, by pleading guilty on the count of persecutions as a crime against humanity, she managed to obtain a bargain in which the prosecution dropped all other charges, including two counts of genocide. Her plea thus represented not a positive step towards reconciliation, but a lost opportunity to prove that a genocide was committed in Bosnia, by the Serb forces against the Muslims.

Early this year, Plavsic retracted her confession, in an interview to the Swedish Vi magazine :

“I sacrificed myself. I have done nothing wrong. I pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity so I could bargain for the other charges.”

By pleading guilty on crimes against humanity so that she could get away with genocide, Biljana Plavsic sacrificed herself for the sake of the Nation, but her sacrifice was obviously not as hard as the one she thought it was right to impose on her own co-nationals. Indeed, for the sake of ‘Greater Serbia’ considered that the dead of as much as half the total ethnic Serb population would be a worthy sacrifice:

“There are 12 million Serbs and even if six million perish on the field of battle, there will be six million to reap the fruits of the struggle“.

So, through her ’sacrifice’, not only she managed to get her sentence substantially reduced, but she also avoided a conviction of genocide that would contribute to highlight the illegitimacy of the very existence of Republika Srpska.

If we look at the concept of legitimacy as springing from the founding act of any politically organized society, what do we see? We see the need to deny genocide, because legitimacy is the glue that binds people together in a politically organized society, while genocide is the ‘original sin’ upon which Republika Srpska was built. If someone like Bijlana Plavsic, or Milorad Dodik for that matter, chose to oppose the warmongering faction led by Karadzic, it was because they understand that violence was merely an instrument among others to achieve a goal.

Until now, the only conviction on the account of genocide by the ICTY was the case of General Radislav Krstic, the commander of the Drina Corps. However, his conviction for genocide covered solely the case of the Massacre of Srebrenica. The chance to get a conviction for genocide on a wider area than Srebrenica was also missed at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik, in which the prosecution failed to establish the Krajisnik genocidal intent ( read Bosnia’s ‘accidental’ genocide, by Edina Becirevic. Krajisnik was convicted to 27 years in prison, but acquitted of genocide, and as a result of his appeal, the sentence was reduced to 20 years, overturning the convictions in several charges.

This appeal revealed major flaws in the prosecution’s strategy and sparked the fear that similar or even greater difficulties will be faced to convict Radovan Karadzic of genocide(about this debate, read ‘What Karadzic Prossecutors learnt from Krajisnik Trial’, by Simon Jennings).

Thus, bearing in mind the failure of the International Court of Justice (about this, read ‘The ICJ and the decriminalisation of Genocide‘, by Marko Attila Hoare, and ‘Vital Genocide documents concealed‘, by Florence Hartmann), and the fact that Ratko Mladic is still at large and most likely will never be captured, the trial of Radovan Karadzic represents the last chance to establish through international law, the full extent of the genocidal character of the aggression against Bosnia-Hercegovina (about this, it’s worth reading this post by Kirk Johnson at Americans for Bosnia).

The stakes are high. The result of this trial cannot but have an important impact on the Republika Srpska. It is not at all a matter of ‘collective guilt’, since guilt is always individual, but it is a matter of political legitimacy. The political identity of the serb entity is being built now as if it was an alien land, but the past keeps coming back and the urge for justice won’t go away so easily, as the case of the Spanish Civil war highlights.

However, for something to change in the current trend of ’smooth’ disintegration, it is necessary that what is called the international community, meaning the relevant international  players in Bosnia, should make a serious reflection on what went wrong on their approach both of the conflict and of the post-conflict phase. That reflection is not at all happening and the result is clearly shown in the predictable failure of the Butmir talks.

Nonetheless, I do believe there are grounds for hope, for the simple reason that the future is not written in the stars but is rather built in the present and can always be changed. I believe real change must come from within the Bosnian society. Imposed solutions have already proved their limits, but international support for change will always play a crucial role. But for change to happen, we must stop waiting for a miracle, because time is not working on our side.

Not too much to report on the trial of Radovan Karadžić in the Hague tribunal this week…considering he has yet to show up. The former Bosnian Serb leader is charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-95 war in which 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million were forced from their homes.  Perhaps one last pathetic attempt to exercise some control over his life, Karadžić who is representing himself, asked in vain for a ten-month postponement to prepare his defense.  He plans to boycott his trial again on Monday, in which case he will be issued a lawyer for the hearing that could take 2 years to complete.

Meanwhile, Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavšić returned to Belgrade on Tuesday after being released by the United Nations war crimes tribunal.  Known for her extreme statements while in political office, she served only two-thirds of her 11-year sentence for crimes against Muslims and Croats during the war in Bosnia.  In 1992, a widely circulated photograph shows Plavšić in the Bosnian town of Bijeljina, elegantly dressed and literally stepping over dead bodies of Muslims to congratulate another Serbian leader for “cleansing” another village.  Plavšić is a well-educated woman, formerly a biology professor at the University of Sarajevo and a Fulbright Scholar to Cornell University.  During the war she often called the killing of Muslims a “natural thing”.

Although slightly ashamed to be a visitor, I went to the small town of Srebrenica in Bosnia this past summer.  As the largest mass murder since World War II, over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were massacred in the Srebrenica Genocide.  I walked through the place that triples as a graveyard, place for prayer, and a memorial that looks very similar in style to the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC.  Names of victims are listed in alphabetical order, but I quickly noticed one striking difference- in Srebrenica, there are consecutive columns of the same family names.  Is this because they are common Muslim names, or because several generations of families were completely wiped out?  I think both. As I walked out of the memorial site, a car passed me with an old woman weeping in the backseat.  These women will never get over the brutal massacre of their families in 1995, and around 160 of them traveled all the way to the Hague for the trial this week.  Looking for justice, they waited outside angry that Karadžić did not appear.

Karadžić could serve 25 years for genocide, yet Plavšić was released after only 9 short years.  Because she pretended to be repentant in the international courts, she avoided a charge of genocide and has now returned to Belgrade to her family’s apartment.  The judges believed her dramatic repentance and hoped this would influence others awaiting trial.  However this spring, she was quoted in the Swedish magazine Vi explaining that her “confession” was nothing but an act.  Riding a bus from Kosovo to Serbia only a few months ago, I couldn’t help but to notice the portraits of Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić prominently displayed next to the driver.  My stomach turned as I stared at those photos for the 7 hour trip.  Although the wars are over and many people have moved on with their lives, hatred is still present in the Balkans… on all sides. With such weak sentencing of Plavšić as an example, is the international community helping to put the hatred to rest or to prevail?

Stone near the entrance to the memorial in Srebrenica

Memorial in Srebrenica, Bosnia

Close up of repetive names

The words of former Chetnik leader Radovan Karadzic rang out as the butcher of Srebrenica bizarrely boycotted his own trial for war crimes at the Hague.

“Big Media” have yet again failed in reporting what has been said in the trial, instead, The Akh had to go to The Australian News to get the heads up.

“They have to know that there are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo … it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die, They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth.”

“No Muslim foundations shall ever be laid in Serb areas and Serbian villages, All foundations that are laid will be blown up. You must not sell land to the Muslims … this is a fight to the finish. It is a battle for living space.”

“Europe?….. will be told to go f-k itself and not to come back until the job is finished.”

“I think it is clear to the army and clear to everyone. It will be a real bloodbath.”

These are just some quotes that were publicly stated by Karadzic in his quest for a “Greater Serbia” (draw your own conclusions with “Eretz Israel” – “Greater Israel” ), some as early as 1990, don’t think for one second that the international community didn’t know what they were dealing with.

Here was a Muslim population living in Europe for centuries, they were fully assimilated, they were of the whitest of white skin and had the bluest of blue eyes, the only difference?

The Muslims of former Yugoslavia testified to the fact that La’Illa’Ha’Il’Allah …. there is no “god” but Allah.

The outpouring of nationalist rhetoric in the background of a collapsing communist structure left a gaping chasm in the identity of Yugoslavia. In the rush for independence, Karadzic & Slobodan Milošević became the key architects (a modern day pairing of Hitler & Goering) of the jingoistic rhetoric that would soon turn to wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslims.

The trial in itself is irrelevant, will the mothers of those slaughtered in the concentration camps of Srebrenica ever have a semblance of peace?

45 years after Europe collectively declared that “Never Again” would we witness another holocaust, yet you had the same methodology of extermination being used.

This time aided and abetted by the UN. The Dutch, who were in control of Srebrenica, as a UN designated safe haven, stepped aside and allowed the Serbian forces straight in.

The only interesting information that may come out of the trial, is if Karadzic begins to point the finger back at the collusion between himself and the western world.

It wasn’t that long ago that Milosevic was on trial in the same Hague courtrooms, only to die under mysterious circumstances.

Was Milosevic about to implicate the leaders of the western world?

Regardless of the sentence handed out to Karadzic, I personally find no comfort in the system.

As he was being tried, Biljana Plavsic the “Serbian Iron Lady” who was sentenced to 11 years in jail in 2003, for her role in the Yugoslav civil war, was RELEASED after serving six years….on grounds of good behaviour.

This coming from a woman who openly declared that:

“Muslims are the genetic defect on the Serbian body”

Hajra Mulic, who lost her son in the Serbian killing spree, said:

“Plavsic is a disgrace and her release is a disgrace”

I couldn’t agree more.

Can you imagine a nazi war criminal, convicted at the Nuremberg trials, being released early for good behaviour.

This happens precisely because we, as Muslims in “The West”, refuse to play what I call “The Game”.

Instead we stand on the touchlines, with our grandstanding antics, debating in matters of absurdity, yes absurdity, when it is our blood that is flowing into the gutters as Muslims the world over live and die under oppressive regimes, because we in “The West” deem it “Haram” to engage in politics.

El otro día en el Tribunal Penal Internacional para la ex Yugoslavia (TPIY) con sede en La Haya (Holanda), se empezó a juzgar a uno de los mayores criminales que ha dado Europa desde el fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, me estoy refiriendo a Radovan Karadzic, presidente de la Republica Serbia de Bosnia durante la Guerra de Bosnia entre 1992 y 1996, Karadzic está acusado de crímenes contra la humanidad, crímenes de guerra y genocidio cometidos principalmente contra población civil bosnia de religión musulmana, entre acciones famosas suyas fueron la orden de cometer la masacre de Srebrenica y el asedio de Sarajevo, uno de los más largos de duración en la historia moderna ya que duró entre 1992 y 1996 que tuvo más de 50.000 fallecidos entre civiles y militares bosnios.

Radovan Karadzic

Aunque formalmente se ha iniciado el juicio contra Karadzic, se ha ausentado en sus primeras sesiones con la excusa de que tiene que preparar su defensa ya que según él, no ha tenido el suficiente tiempo para leerse el expediente que le dio el Tribunal que confirmaba todos los actos horribles que cometió durante su mandato en Bosnia, a mi que diga esto me parece lamentable ya que hay que recordar que lleva 15 meses arrestado en La Haya y que he tenido el suficiente tiempo teniendo incluso la ayuda de abogados en estos 15 meses, y ahora pensando sobre este tema, no ha tenido solamente un año y tres meses Karadzic para defenderse, ha tenido muchísimo tiempo, concretamente 13 años desde que dejó el poder en 1996, aunque hay que decir que estos 13 años, la gran mayoría de ellos ha estado recluido como una especie de gurú de medicina alternativa llegando a cambiar su aspecto exterior para que lo le capturasen, es increíble lo que llegan a hacer los criminales de guerra con el objetivo de no tener que estar en un juicio contra ellos.

Ratko Mladic junto con Karadzic durante la Guerra de Bosnia

Hay que recordar que por la acción gubernamental de Radovan Karadzic provocó que centenares de personas fueran asesinadas, expulsadas de sus hogares o hechas prisioneras en campos de concentración contra los musulmanes bosnios, ordenó muchas de las masacres con ayuda de otros generales genocidas como cabe citar a Ratko Maldic y genocidios durante los años que estuvo al frente de Bosnia, todas estas acciones la cometió con el permiso del Presidente de Yugoslavia y de Serbia en aquellos años, Slobodan Milošević, otro criminal de guerra que tuvo mucha suerte con el Tribunal Internacional ya que debido a sus maniobras de retrasar el proceso contra él, se murió en su celda sin una sentencia condenatoria, habiendo pasado ya cinco años encerrado sin finalizar el juicio.

Terrible imagen del Asedio de Sarajevo

A esta lentitud del proceso judicial quiere que se conduzca Karadzic aunque lo va a tener complicado ya que los jueces del Tribunal no van a consentir que vuelva a ocurrir lo mismo que con Milošević y se quede finalmente sin sentencia por los crímenes realizados, a esto hay que añadir que aunque los juzgue la ONU, esta organización no estaba cuando se cometieron ni la masacre de Srebrenica donde murieron 8000 musulmanes bosnios ni en el conjunto de la Guerra de Bosnia donde se calcula que murieron al menos unas 100.000 personas, no entiendo cómo ni la ONU ni la OTAN pudieron consentir durante un tiempo que se cometieran crímenes contra la humanidad, genocidios y demás crímenes de guerra cometidos contra civiles en su gran mayoría, frases de Karadzic de aquellos años se hicieron famosas debido a la crueldad y al sentimiento de asesinar a miles de personas por el hecho de ser musulmanes, una de ellas dice “Los musulmanes desaparecerán de la Tierra”, frase que me parece horrible y dicha por un psicópata con aires de grandeza como lo es Karadzic.

Así para concluir espero el Tribunal no admite más sandeces de este criminal de guerra y vaya más rápido a la hora de enjuiciar ya que como sigan a este ritmo actual, este asesino morirá en la cama de su celda sin tener sentencia condenatoria contra su persona, toda la comunidad internacional no puede volver a fallar como lo ocurrido en las masacres durante la Guerra de Bosnia, ya que esta guerra trajo a Europa, genocidios y crímenes contra la humanidad que a los europeos nos sonaban muy de lejos, cabe citar el de Camboya, en esos momentos ocurrían desgraciadamente a menos de tres horas en avión de las ciudades europeas. Esperemos que en el futuro no vuelvan a ocurrir y que de una vez por todas, todos los genocidas y asesinas cumplan sus condenas como lo dictan las normas internacionales.

Kommentar von Marc Hoch, erschienen am 27.10.2009 in der Süddeutschen Zeitung (Auszüge):

“Wie lang und schwer der Weg zur Gerechtigkeit ist, wissen am besten die Opfer von Radovan Karadzic. Dieser skrupellose und moralisch verdorbene Mensch, dessen Gesicht zum Symbol geworden ist für die Gewalt auf dem Balkan, konnte sich eine (gefühlte) halbe Ewigkeit seiner Verhaftung entziehen.

Zu einer Zeit, als die Verbrechen des Bosnien-Krieges längst bekannt waren, lebte er unbehelligt als Wunderdoktor im Verborgenen und in der Freiheit wirrer Gedanken. Für seine Opfer war das eine Qual, und auch für das Ideal der Gerechtigkeit sind die 14 Jahre, die von der ersten Anklage bis zum Prozessbeginn vergangen sind, eine Schande. Dafür sind viele verantwortlich.

Schuld daran tragen nicht allein die Serben, die ihre kriminelle Führerfigur – bei Strafe ihrer internationalen Ächtung – im Untergrund versteckten. Auch der Westen hält seinen Anteil.

In den Jahren nach dem Krieg wäre es für die Nato mit ihren immerhin 60.000 Soldaten in Bosnien leicht gewesen, Karadzic zu verhaften. Doch in den westlichen Hauptstädten fehlte dazu der politische Wille, was die frühere Chefanklägerin Carla del Ponte sarkastisch als Katz-und-Maus-Spiel beschrieben hat: “Die meiste Zeit haben die Katzen (der Westen) sich die Augen verbunden, sodass die Mäuse (die Kriegsverbrecher) von einem Loch zum anderen liefen.” (…)

Der Druck auf das Tribunal ist diesmal viel größer als vor dem Milosevic-Verfahren. Doch die Ankläger haben ihm zu Recht widerstanden, weil es ihnen um mehr geht, als ihren wichtigsten Angeklagten wie einen Strauchdieb abzuurteilen. (…)

Karadzics Schuld als demagogischer Hintermann der Bluttaten zu zeigen, ihm zu beweisen, dass er mit anderen den Plan der ethnischen Säuberungen verabredete und umsetzte – das ist das große Ziel dieses Prozesses. Noch einmal sollen die Gräuel der Bosnien-Kriege in aller Brutalität und Komplexität erfasst werden, um gegen Geschichtsfälschung und Legendenbildung, die vor allem auf dem Balkan wuchern, die Macht der Fakten zu setzen. (…)”

(Gesamten Artikel lesen)

ZDF Heute Sendung vom 26.10.09

„Wir sind 2000 Kilometer weit gefahren, nur um einen einzigen Satz zu hören: Heute gibt es keinen Prozeß“. Mit diesen Worten gab Fadila Memisevic, Leiterin des Büros Sarajevo der Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, ihrer Enttäuschung über die Vertagung der Prozesseröffnung gegen Radovan Karadzic in einem Interview mit dem ZDF Ausdruck.
Mit 150 Frauen aus Srebrenica und Vertretern von Opferverbänden demonstrierte die GfbV am Montag vor dem Gericht und zeigte ein Transparent mit den Namen aller bekannten Opfer des in Srebrenica von serbischen Streitkräften an Muslimen begangenen Völkermords.
“Die Richter dürfen nicht zulassen, dass Karadzic aus dem Gerichtssaal einen Zirkus macht”, sagte der Präsident der GfbV International Tilman Zülch. “Wer vier Jahre Zeit hatte, eine Vielzahl Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit anzuleiten und zu begehen, wer die Verantwortung für die Zerstörung von 1.178 Moscheen und Medresen trägt, wer sechs UN-Schutzzonen bombardieren und aushungern ließ, der sollte schon in der Lage sein, die Berichte über diese Verbrechen innerhalb eines Jahres zur Kenntnis zu nehmen.” Zülch forderte den Westen auf, die in Dayton festgeschriebene und von Karadžic herbeigeführte unmenschliche Teilung Bosnien-Herzegowinas als Folge des Genozids rückgängig zu machen.

 Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism Alexander Dorin (May 23rd, 2009, By De-Construct.net)

“In the West, the popular mythology about 7,000-8,000 Muslim men being executed in Srebrenica in 1995 is still alive and well, but independent research shows some 2,000 Bosnian Muslim fighters were killed in battle for Srebrenica and that is the number of bodies Hague investigators were able to find”, said Swiss researcher Alexander Dorin, who has been investigating Srebrenica events for the past 14 years. In his latest book titled “Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism” (Srebrenica — die Geschichte eines salonfahigen Rassismus) published this month in Berlin, Dorin focuses on manipulations with the number of Muslims who lost their lives in Srebrenica. “Regarding the events in Srebrenica in 1995, the media manipulations still reign in the West, claiming that after the town fell to Serbian hands some 7,000 to 8,000 of Muslim fighters and male civilians were killed. However, the researchers around the world have shown this bears no relation to the truth,” Dorin told Srna News Agency. According to data he had gathered, Dorin discovered that at least 2,000 Muslim fighters were killed in battle for Srebrenica. He added the facts are showing that neither civilian nor military leadership of Republic of Srpska (Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina) ever ordered execution of the Muslim fighters and POWs. “2,000 is approximately the number of bodies Hague investigators were able to find up to this day. To that number the Muslim side added several hundred Muslim fighters, most of whom came from abroad, who were killed in battle few years before the fall of Srebrenica, in Han Pijesak and Konjević Polje,” Dorin said, adding that this is evidenced even by the Muslim documents captured by the Bosnian Serb Army. Bosnian Serb Army Fought Against Orić’s Cutthroats, Not Against Muslim Civilians “Prior to the fall of Srebrenica, Naser Orić’s troops withdrew from this small town, leaving 25,000 civilians behind, although a certain number of civilians, some of whom were armed, was withdrawing together with Orić’s fighters,” Dorin said. He said that Bosnian Serb Army “did not kill a single Muslim civilian of those who remained in Srebrenica or Potocari, while it did engage Orić’s column, which was breaking through to Tuzla in several groups, in fierce fighting.” “There is no way the Serb Army could have captured seven or eight thousand Muslim fighters and male civilians and execute them somewhere, partly because that was technically impossible,” Dorin said. He explained that, among else, there was never enough Serb soldiers who could carry out a crime on such scale. In his research, Dorin was using various sources, including statements by the Muslim fighters and commanders, as well as testimonies given by Dutch UNPROFOR troops who were stationed in Srebrenica at the time. He pointed to a very interesting investigation carried out by the Bulgarian reporter and author Germinal Civikov, who wrote a book about the case of Croat Dražen Erdemović, former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, whose testimony represents the key Hague “evidence” of “Srebrenica massacre”, who claimed that his commander Milorad Pelemiš “ordered him and few other soldiers to execute some 1,000-1,200 Muslim POWs”. But the analysis of that case, said Dorin, proves Erdemović invented most, if not all of that story. Dorin explained that director of the Belgrade Center for Investigation of War Crimes Milivoje Ivanišević analyzed the lists of alleged Srebrenica victims. Ivanišević discovered that, a year after the fall of Srebrenica, some 3,000 Muslim men who were supposedly killed in 1995, were voting in the Bosnian Muslim elections. In addition, at least 1,000 of the alleged 1995 “Srebrenica massacre victims” have been dead long before or after Bosnian Serb Army took the town over. “It is perfectly clear that Muslim organizations listed as Srebrenica victims all the Muslim fighters who were killed in the fights after the fall of Srebrenica,” the Swiss researcher said. According to Dorin, some Western reporters wrote back in 1995 that part of Srebrenica Muslim population, after the town’s takeover, migrated to other countries. This includes an American journalist who wrote that around 800 Srebrenica Muslims went abroad — from Serbia. “It was not possible to conduct an in-depth investigation, since no one can search the entire world to pinpoint each and every name [from the lists of alleged Srebrenica victims]. Still, the available evidence already shows there were immense manipulations at play,” Dorin said. A number of photos of Muslim fighters taken during their breakthrough to Tuzla, which Dorin obtained from the Muslim sources, show Izetbegović’s fighters in uniforms, with many of them wounded. “On these photos one can see a number of wounded fighters who survived the battle against the Serb Army. Muslim side is now presenting its fighters who did not recover from their wounds as the victims of an execution”, said Dorin. He pointed out that some Muslims have admitted at least 2,000 of their Srebrenica-based fighters were killed in the battle. Dorin also reminded of the statements by the Muslim politicians given to media about an “offer” American president Bill Clinton made to Bosnian Muslim war leader Alija Izetbegović back in April 1993, to have “the Chetnik [Serb] forces enter Srebrenica and massacre 5,000 Muslims, which would result in the [US-led NATO] military intervention” against Bosnian Serbs. At the same time, Dutch UNPROFOR troops testified that Serb Army treated Muslim civilians in an entirely correct manner, while Srebrenica Muslim warlord Naser Orić with his fighters was massacring Serb civilians in the most monstrous fashion for years in Srebrenica municipality, and pillaging and destroying their property all the while. … For Those who Want to Know the Truth About Srebrenica Despite all the evidence about what really took place in Srebrenica and the fact there was no ‘massacre’, Dorin doubts the Hague verdicts in regards to Srebrenica events can be contested or overturned, being that this “so-called tribunal has convicted a number of people for the alleged Srebrenica massacre without any evidence whatsoever”. He cited a case of the Serb Vidoje Blagojević, convicted to a long prison term even though he had no connection to Srebrenica events, while “the mass murderer Naser Orić was acquitted of all responsibility for killing the Serbs”. “That court routinely discards everything that proves Serbs are not the monsters they have been made out to be. That tribunal has a purely political function. It has no relation to the justice and truth”, Dorin told Srna. The Swiss researcher does not expect his book about Srebrenica events will be able to break down the stereotypes. He said the book was written for those who wish to learn the truth about the events Western mainstream media sold as “Srebrenica massacre” and even “genocide”, in order to justify their war against the Serbs. Dorin added that mostly left-oriented Western newspapers and organizations have shown an interest in his latest book and have offered cooperation. Alexander Dorin’s book about Srebrenica events is expected to be translated both into Serbian and English language.

http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=6082

Die Serbische Kriegsverbrecherin Plavsic ist nun also wieder auf freiem Fuss, wie wir diesem BaZ Artikel entnehmen müssen. Nach nur sechs Jahren Haft wegen Kriegsverbrechen ist die frühere Präsidentin der bosnischen Serben, Biljana Plavsic, aus einem schwedischen Gefängnis entlassen worden – vorzeitig. Da kann man nur noch sagen: Goht’s no? Da ist diese Dame doch tatsächlich mitverantwortlich (gemäss Urteil des Den Haager Tribunal für das ehemalige Jugoslawien!) an der grausamen Ermordung von zirka 8000 mit den Händen hinter dem Rücken gefesselten Menschen, und dann wird diese tausendfache Massenmörderin einfach so, mir nichts, Dir nichts mit strahlendem Lachen nach läppischen 6 Jahren schwedischem Luxusgefängniss wieder freigelassen. Das ergibt genau 6 Stunden und 30 Minuten Knast pro Mord. Normalerweise wäre es doch etwa 15 Jahre Knast pro Mord….. Frau Plavsic, die die muslimischen Menschen in Bosnien als”genetisch deformiertes Material” bezeichnet, kann nun also lecker weitermachen mit ihren rassistischen Aktionen, mitten in Europa. Und das zu einem Haft-tarif von 6,5 Stunden pro Mord, das ist übrigens genau 20215 mal weniger Haft als 15 Jahre…. Ein riesengrosses Pfui an das Den Haager Tribunal für das ehemalige Jugoslawien! Und viel Mitleidsbekundung an die Hinterbliebenen Mütter von Srebrenica. Goht’s no?

Krigsforbryterdomstolen i Haag lar seg trolig ikke pirke på nesa av Radovan Karadzik.

I Haag i Nederland står en tom tiltalebenk. En av de største krigsforbryterne i moderne tid, Radovan Karadzik, har valgt å ikke stille i retten fordi han mener han ikke har hatt lang nok tid til å forberede bevisene sine. Karadzik var serbernes leder i Bosnia, og overordnet den skruppelløse generalen, Ratko Mladic, som fortsatt er på frifot.

Karadzik var en av de fire store lederne i den fem år lange krigen. Han er også den yngste og den eneste av lederne som fortatt lever. Nå gjør han som Slobodan Milosevic – i Haag-rettsaken som varte fra 2002 til den tidligere serbiske presidentens  plutselige død i 2006 – og haler ut tiden. Det kan komme til å koste.

Ny kurs?
Krigsforbryterdomstolen i Haag fikk særdeles hard medfart i etterkant av Milocevic-saken, for at de alt for lett lot seg styre av den tiltalte, som til enhver tid gjorde sitt ytterste med å hale ut tiden. Milocevic forsvarte også seg selv, og påpekte standhaftig at domstolen var ugyldig, og krevde kontinuerlig mer tid.

Representanter fra domstolen i Haag mener imidlertid at rettshuset nå har lært av Milocevic-saken – og signalene etter Karadziks fravær de første rettsdagene peker i retning av en mer strømlinjeformet kurs. Nå er saken utsatt en uke, og de foreløpige opplysningene fra Haag er at domstolen trolig vil utnevne en forsvarer for Karadzik, og fortsette rettsaken uten den tiltalte. Hvis Karadzik fortsatt velger å bli fraværende.

Folkemord
Tiltalebeslutningen mot den tidligere bosnisk-serbiske lederen er lang: Hele 20 000 saksdokumenter, på over en million sider, omhandlende Karadziks brudd på til sammen 12 folkemord, og forbrytelser mot menneskeheten.

De mest kjente, og mest brutale, tiltalepunktene er den terrorpregede og despotiske beleiringen av Sarajevo, fra 1992 til 1995, der snikskyttere fra de bosnisk-serbiske styrkene kontinuerlig beskjøt sivilbefolkningen i sin higen etter å skape frykt, samt massakren i Srebrenica i 1995. Sistnevnte episode ble på mange måter et vendepunkt for krigen, og svært utslagsgivende for USAs strategi på Balkan, og holdning til FN.

I byen Srebrenica, i enklaven med samme navn, hadde FN erklært en såkalt ”sikker sone” for flyktninger av krigen. Dette var én av flere sikre soner i Bosnia. Men i juli samme år skulle imidlertid byen bli det motsatte; en gigantisk felle. Litt over 400 unge nederlandske FN-soldater hadde ansvaret for sikkerheten til titusenvis av bosniske flyktninger, som hadde beleiret seg i byen som egentlig bare huset knappe 5000 innbyggere. Bosnisk-serbiske styrker, under kommando av Mladic, gikk til angrep på byen, og FN-soldatene kunne maktesløs bare se på tragedien som skulle utspinne seg.  Srebrenica ble beleiret av Mladics menn, og i noen grufulle dager ble gutter og menn silt ut av folkemengden og kjørt bort. De færreste kom tilbake. Mange menn hadde enset at de var i stor fare og flyktet byen i forkant av erobringen. Men soldatene startet en klappjakt etter sivilistene, og innhentet tusenvis.  Ingen vet hvor mange som døde i den etniske rensingen, men det offisielle tallet er over 8200 – i det som regnes som etterkrigstidens største massakre i Europa.

Nasjonalt traume
De grufulle videoene og bildene som er offentliggjort fra det som skjedde i Srebrenica, sier det meste om mennesket på sitt mest intenst ondskapsfulle. For ikke bare ble uskyldige gutter og menn stilt opp på rekke og skutt; de ble faktisk terrorisert og torturert i det lengste før de døde – i soldatenes bestialske lek. Samtidig satt satt general Mladic i møter med fredsmegler Thorvald Stoltenberg – som da ikke visste detaljer og omfang av hendelsene – og snakket om hvordan man skulle få inn nødhjelpsforsyninger til de samme menneskene han drepte.

De bosnosk-serbiske soldatene tok ingen hensyn til de blå hjelmene fra de nederlandske FN-soldatene. Massakrene i Srebrenica har blitt stående som et nasjonalt traume for Nederland, og viste på mange måter FN som handlingslammet. Utover høsten startet USA inn sin egen strategi for fred – uten å involvere FN. Fred ble det. Dayton-avtalen, fredsavtalen med territorieinndelingene, var ferdigforhandlet i desember 2005. Over fem år med krigføring, med over 100 000 drepte, var fasit for krigen i det tidligere Jugoslavia.

Teksten fortsetter under videoen..

Falsk identitet
Rovodan Karadzik er født i Montenegro og utdannet psykolog. Han er kjent for sin nervøse og utrygge væremåte, og mange er overrasket over at han klart å holde seg i skjul så lenge. Men ”beistet fra Bosnia”, som i ettertid har blitt Karadziks fryktinngytende tilnavn, er skremmende intelligent. Han skjulte seg i Beograd i hele 12 år etter den brutale krigen i det tidligere Jugoslavia. Under falsk identitet, som det dedikerte naturmedisindoktoren, Dr. Dragan David Dabi, levde Karadzik et helt normalt liv, mens hans skjulte seg for krigsforbryterjegerne. I juli i fjor pågrep serbiske spesialstyrker ”doktoren” på en buss i den serbiske hovedstaden, og han ble umiddelbart fløyet til Haag.

Lang prosess
Karadziks 12 år i forkledning, i et normalt liv blant en intedanende akademisk elite, er nesten en fasinerende historie. Nå er han imidlertid tiltalt, og ventes det at rettsaken mot han vil vare i flere år. Bare aktoratets bevisfremleggelse vil ta over ett år.  Forhåpentligvis får vi se en tøffere domstol nå, enn i perioden 2002 til 2006.

L’AJA, 27 OTT – Anche il secondo giorno del processo contro Radovan Karadzic, l’ex leader dei serbi di Bosnia accusato di genocidio, si aprirà senza l’imputato in aula. Oggi pomeriggio alle 14.15 i giudici del Tribunale penale internazionale (Tpi), che ieri hanno aggiornato l’udienza sperando che l’ex leader serbo cambiasse idea e assistesse al suo processo, daranno la parola al procuratore che leggerà gli 11 capi d’accusa. “Anche senza l’imputato, il processo andrà avanti”, aveva detto ieri il giudice che presiede il Tpi, O-Gon Kwon. Ai magistrati tocca oggi decidere se assegnare a Karadzic un avvocato d’ufficio, anche contro la sua volontà, oppure se rimandare le prossime udienze di qualche mese, concedendo all’imputato almeno una parte del tempo in più che chiede per preparare la sua difesa. Karadzic si difende da solo, con l’aiuto di una squadra di legali. Ma sul Tpi pesa il suo mandato in scadenza nonché le pressioni delle vittime, le Madri di Srebrenica in particolare, che sono state ammesse tra il pubblico del processo e che ieri hanno protestato fuori dal Tribunale chiedendo ai giudici di andare avanti perché il processo finisca e Karadzic venga condannato al più presto. (ANSA).

Pressemitteilung der Gesellschaft für bedrohte bedrohte Völker (GfbV):

Gemeinsam mit überlebenden Opfern des Völkermordes in Bosnien demonstriert die Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) zu Beginn des Prozesses gegen den mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrecher und ehemaligen Präsidenten der Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, am Montag vor dem Internationalen Kriegsverbrechertribunal in Den Haag. Die etwa 150 Srebrenica-Mütter und Delegierte von Opferverbänden, die direkt aus Bosnien-Herzegowina angereist sind, erwarten von dem Prozess, dass der Gerechtigkeit endlich Genüge getan wird. Die GfbV hofft, dass dadurch die Wiedervereinigung des geteilten Bosniens einen Schritt vorankommt.

“Der Westen muss die in Dayton festgeschriebene und von Karadžic herbeigeführte unmenschliche Teilung Bosnien-Herzegowinas als Folge des Genozids rückgängig machen”, fordert Tilman Zülch, Präsident der GfbV International. Nachdem sowohl der “Internationale Strafgerichtshof” (IStGH) als auch das “Internationale Strafgericht für das ehemalige Jugoslawien” (ICTY) (beide in Den Haag) Armee und Polizei der Republika Srpska für den Völkermord in Bosnien–Herzegowina verantwortlich gemacht haben, steht mit Radovan Karadzic nun einer der drei Hauptkriegsverbrecher wegen des gleichen Verbrechens vor Gericht.

Die GfbV bedauert, dass die Vereinigten Staaten und die europäische Staatengemeinschaft, insbesondere Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien, mit dem Dayton-Abkommen (1995) die von Karadžic, Miloševic und Mladic eroberte und von Nichtserben ethnisch gesäuberte sog. Republika Srpska anerkannt und somit die Rückkehr von 60 % ihrer Bevölkerung und die Wiedervereinigung des im Krieg verwüsteten und zerstörten Bosniens unmöglich gemacht haben. Unter schwierigsten Bedingungen haben nur 6 % der Vertriebenen die Rückkehr gewagt.

Statt in Dayton die Einheit Bosnien-Herzegowinas mit seiner 500-jährigen multireligiösen Tradition wiederherzustellen, wurden die Verantwortlichen für Krieg und Völkermord belohnt. In der quasi unabhängigen bosnischen Teilrepublik Srpska dominieren bis heute in Behörden, Polizei, privatisierten Firmen, Justiz und Regierung hunderte von Personen, die führend an den Kriegsverbrechen beteiligt und für Massenvertreibung und Flucht der nicht-serbischen Bevölkerung, Massenvergewaltigungen, die Errichtung von Konzentrations-, Internierungs- und Vergewaltigungslagern, zahlreiche Massaker – unter vielen anderen auch in Srebrenica – sowie die Aushungerung und Bombardierung von sechs UN-Schutzzonen verantwortlich waren.

(Gesamte Pressemitteilung lesen)

weitere Pressemitteilung der GfbV:

Gemeinsam mit überlebenden Opfern des Völkermordes in Bosnien wird die Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker zu Beginn des Prozesses gegen den mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrecher und ehemaligen Präsidenten der Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic am Montag vor dem Internationalen Kriegsverbrechertribunal in Den Haag demonstrieren. Etwa 150 Srebrenica-Mütter wie auch Vertreter der Opferverbände aus Prijedor, Brcko, Zvornik, Kotor Varos, des Verbandes der Lagerhäftlinge und der vergewaltigten Frauen aus Visegrad und Foca werden in Begleitung der GfbV-Sektion Sarajevo und Srebrenica direkt aus Bosnien-Herzegowina anreisen. Sie erwarten von dem Prozess, dass der Gerechtigkeit endlich Genüge getan wird. Die GfbV hofft, dass dadurch die Wiedervereinigung des geteilten Bosniens einen Schritt vorankommt.

Karadzic werde nun für die Gräueltaten seiner Truppen wie Massaker, Bombardements eingeschlossener Städte, Massenvergewaltigungen und -Vertreibungen zur Verantwortung gezogen. Das müsse jedoch auch bedeuten, dass den Opfern seiner Verbrechen so gut es geht Wiedergutmachung geleistet werde, forderte der Präsident der GfbV International, Tilman Zülch. “Vertriebene müssen endlich zurückkehren können, und die durch die so genannten ethnischen Säuberungen entstandene Republika Srpska muss aufgelöst werden.” Dies sei Voraussetzung für eine tragfähige Versöhnung der Volksgruppen. (…)

“Die Richter dürfen nicht zulassen, dass Karadzic aus dem Gerichtssaal einen Zirkus macht”, sagte Zülch angesichts der Weigerung des Angeklagten, vor dem Tribunal zu erscheinen, weil er sich angeblich nicht ausreichend auf den Prozess vorbereiten konnte. “Wer vier Jahre Zeit hatte, eine Vielzahl Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit anzuleiten und zu begehen, wer die Verantwortung für die Zerstörung von 1.178 Moscheen und Medresen trägt, wer sechs UN-Schutzzonen bombardieren und aushungern ließ, der sollte schon in der Lage sein, die Berichte über diese Verbrechen innerhalb eines Jahres zur Kenntnis zu nehmen.”

(Gesamte Pressemitteilung lesen)

Why would he not attend his own trial? Apart from the opportunity to take the piss.

This is a tale of two war criminals.

One is responsible for ruthlessly killing 8,000 men, women, and children in the largest genocide in Europe since World War II.

The other is responsible for well over 100,000 civilian deaths in the Middle East, not to mention thousands of soldier fatalities.

I’m not here to say who is worse.  A human life is a human life.  There is no such thing as a “better” murderer.  But, in terms of raw numbers, Radovan Karadzic, the mastermind behind the 1995 genocide of 8,000 people in Srebrenica, takes a back seat in brutality to George W. Bush, the perpetrator of two unjustified wars that took the lives of well over 100,000 people (not including the people maimed for life, orphaned, and widowed).  Am I arguing that Radovan Karadzic should not be tried?  No, not at all – he should be tried, convicted, and sent away to rot in prison.  The news that he is boycotting his own trial is alarming and should be received as an indication that we need a much stronger International Criminal Tribunal.  That thugs like Karadzic can simply choose to “boycott” their own trial without much consequence is morally egregious.  But what is even more morally egregious is the fact that George W. Bush is living in comfort in Texas instead of growing out a beard and hiding in holes and caves while being pursued by the law.  How can we, as an international community, justify the prosecution of Karadzic when criminals like Bush – who overtly slaughtered literally thousands upon thousands of innocent people, indefinitely detained many others without charges, and allowed the illegal torture of still others – run amok in society?

Radovan Karadzic needs to be brought to justice.  But so does George W. Bush.  Until both of these rat bastards are wasting away in prison, justice will continue to be mocked by U.S. and world leaders and people will continue to needlessly die.

The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.