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My tone as well as my human judgment was critical of Serb Mosque burning in Bosnia in the above blog. I am also critical of the Srebrenica massacres, even though I dispute the facts as presented by the Western press.
But I am especially critical of the fact that you seem to be focusing entirely on Serb "wrong-doing" in the Balkans and systematically oversee, omit or otherwise disregard the context in which events unfolded in ex-Yugoslavia in the early 1990's. You seem to know nothing of Muslim atrocities committed against Serbian civilians in Bosnia, nor do you know anything of the Croat Nazi insignia that is embroidered on Croatia's flag that flies in front of the UN today - under which over 600 000 Serbs were exterminated just over 70 years ago. That's tantamount to a New United Germany placing a swastika on its flag - and being surprised to hear the Jews complain. I won't go into Croat politics prior to the outbreak of hostilities, but will instead focus on Bosnia and the Muslim Jihadist adventure that Alija Izetbegovic was preparing at the time.
Alija Izetbegovic was always known as a Muslim extremist. In 1970, he authored and published a book entitled "Declaration" in which he explicitly states his political objective of creating a fundamentalist Muslim pro-Turkish and pan Islamist Bosnia and Herzegovina. He believed that (quote from book) "There is no peace, no coexistence between Islam and non Islamic social and political institutions [...] The Islamic movement can and must take power as soon as it is numerically strong enough in order to not only destroy non Islamic power but also to represent The New Islamic Power". In 1983 he was convicted and sent to jail for propagating violent Muslim fundamentalism in then Yugoslavia. After serving his term, he organized a tour of the Middle East raising funds for his "enterprise". Funds, arms and many Mujahedeen he did receive. Encouragement from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States (brothers in arms) he also received. In 1993, Izetbegovic was awarded a high Muslim distinction: the Islamic Prize of Jihad delivered personally to him by King Faisal in Riyadh.
Estimates of the number of burned Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries ranges from 200 to 400 (depends on which source you take) with another 350 to 400 damaged. Now that's a lot of cultural heritage sites. Of the 125 000 or so victims, 40 000 were Serb. And last, but not least, you need to know that Serbs make up the largest refugee population in the Balkans: 500 000 from Bosnia during the war, 250 000 from Croatia and another 150 000 from Kosovo. That's close to 1 000 000 Serb refugees.
Now, given this context, can you understand the motives behind the Bosnian Serb nation building effort? I'm not asking you to condone them - just understand.
I am also aware that atrocities were committed on both sides during the recent conflict. But it's kinda like the Irish problem we had here. It become tiresome to listen to people trying to claim a monopoly of victimisation by citing ever more obscure actions in history to justify who is at absolute fault.
The reason why people like myself seem to criticise the serbians more than others in the conflict is not because the serbians are especially guilty, but because the serbians appear to be in denial about what was done by their armies and militias. Other groups have accepted that their people have done such atrocites that cast shadows over their endeavours. Of course that is does not lead to forgiveness but you can move forward from such a position. We can't do that with serbia yet.
I understand, it's all human nature, grubby as it is. But some have this Bart simpson thing going on; it never happened, it wasn't us, you didn't see it, you can't prove it was us. keep to the Fen Causeway
The reason why people like myself seem to criticise the serbians more than others in the conflict is not because the serbians are especially guilty, but because the serbians appear to be in denial about what was done by their armies and militias. Other groups have accepted that their people have done such atrocites that cast shadows over their endeavours.
My view is that if EU/NATO support this independence movement and intend to militarily guarantee it, then KSs should not just be protected but compensated generously. If they wish to leave then they should have equivalent land and shelter bought for them on our dollar in serbvian territory. Peaceful transition in a hot zone is expensive and this sounds a lot cheaper than any war to me. not that it will happen as I'd wish, we are short-sighted like that, but it should if we are to claim any high ground. the serbians have genuine fears and peacekeeping ain't good enough. keep to the Fen Causeway
Now, it is very funny to find someone seriously proposing a compensation scheme in a case where potential losses are much larger than even a long unemployment spell for a Barby maker whose job has moved to China. Do you really believe anyone would think about compensating the losers, especially the losers who fought under "Hitler of our times" and thus deserve everything they've got?
I don't really understand your argument in the first paragraph. Majority of ethnic cleansing has been accomplished already, and Mitrovica could be lazily dealt with once the international community declares victory and leaves. Of course serious politicians would not contemplate war-like events now - they are simply not needed.
However, we are getting into the realms of strange hypotheticals where we end up with what the meaning of "is" is.
My position in this situation was clearly stated. keep to the Fen Causeway
Audio here: http://www.yugofile.co.uk/mp3s/20071211_today_kosmet_boundary.mp3 Transcript follows: BBC (Sarah Montague): One of the things you have suggested is possibly changing the boundaries... General Sir Michael Jackson: Well, I put that forward for what it's worth. I'm sure Mr Ahtisaari will have looked at it, but it does seem to me that northern Kosovo, north of the river Ibar, Mitrovica, the town of Mitrovica, that area is almost entirely Serb. My understanding is that that area - which is relatively small - was, is not part of historic Kosovo. It was "moved" from Serbia to Kosovo by an administrative order of Tito sometime, I think, in the mid sixties.
The Turks are in denial about their role in the Armenian genocide (not to mention the Greek genocide), yet that doesn't stop your country's government from having a cozy relationship with Ankara, nor from promoting their entry into the EU at every available forum. Could that be an example of double standards?
Out of the "war criminals" indicted by Del Ponte's Kangaroo Court (financed in large part by the US and Saudi Arabia) the overwhelming majority are Serbian who were delivered to The Hague by the Serb government. Also, a number of top government officials in both Serbia and Republika Srpska publicly apologized to the Croats and the Muslims for atrocities committed by Serb forces. In my books, that's about as contrary to denial as a national government can go.
But to people like you, that's not enough. It's never enough. There's always a "yes but the Serbs..." You know when it'll be enough? When Serbia kneels, kisses Empire's boot and give up its sovereignty to NATO.
Besides, I don't recall the Bosnian Muslims, Croats or NATO (heaven forbid) ever apologizing to the Serbs for their atrocities against civilians. Did the English ever apologize to the Irish? To the Indians? To the Boers? To the Germans for wiping out Cologne's unarmed women and children? And who's going to apologize to the Iraqis for their 800 000 dead? Or will your government deny and say it was all an American adventure (as is often hinted on the BBC)? What about the dead Afghan civilians? Where does that leave the UK in terms of European values?
So many questions :-)
Yes, they are in denial, which is pathetic cos it was under another government (the Ottomans) entirely and long before the Attaturk rule which changed Turkish society completely. Equally, anybody who was involved is dead and their children are dead as well. There is nobody who carries guilt to apologise to anybody who was directly affected.
However, the reason why it's a problem that Turkey can't bring themselves to admit their crime is because it causes them to commit injustice today. Not because of what was done long ago.
The recent indulgences of politicians in apolgising for atrocities committed by ancestors to people who barely remember except for history books annoys me in the extreme, so your litany of crimes of the British Empire doesn't really bother me. I'm far more interested in protesting the crimes of today (such as Iraq) or those where the living are still suffering from the injustice (Diego Garcia, Kenya etc). Apologising for 250 years ago is pointless and cheap, apologising for 25 years ago, let alone 250 days seems a lot more difficult.
So we go back to the mess of the Balkans. Everybody in the Balkans seems to have committed some sort of atrocity on somebody else in the last 20 years, and those who suffered seem to have exacted gruesome reprisal at some stage. I thought the serbians alone were in denial, Sargon assures me that is not so. I apologise.
So two wrongs make a right ? Not really. Can confession make things right ? No, of course not. But if two sides in a conflict refuse to accept responsibility for the suffering they caused others then we end up where we are; with the (probably) unnecessary partition of a country and further future suffering as the now minority KSs are, if not forcibly displaced, then likely to flee certain future penal discrimination.
That cannot be a good thing. I don't knock the serbs cos I want them in the EU or NATO (despite my diary I don't actually care that much), nor do I suspect do our elites have the imperial ambitions you ascribe to them. No, I do it because I trhink peace would be good and in a situation such as the serbs and the other states find themselves, a little humility and a lot less nationalist chauvanism just to get on with the neighbours would be better than the alternative. keep to the Fen Causeway
You also haven't touched my recent question. Where are your modern numbers that the Srebrenica mass graves total some 1500 bodies?
I find your accusations that the ICTY would be a "kangaroo court", your consistent harping on the crimes that others did rather tiresome and unnecessary. Throughout my readings on the Yugoslavian War I've hacked my way through the press images that were dominating my memories on the war. I think I'm aware enough to know that there were no angels on any side and everyone is to blame. Can you stop now with your litany how bad others were?
You are Serbian are you not? If you defy modern numbers, if you consistently point out how bad others are, you will get the argument of Serbian war crimes back, over and over again. Don't make it so hard on yourself.
And why the endless list of historic apologies? Why did you leave out Mesić apology? Or the nationalistic backlash when Tadić apologised? You're starting to become an example of Westerman's conclusion.
European Tribune - Bridge Across the Tara: A Review
Yet: because he's become entangled in the web of his own history, he's become powerless to look ahead neutrally. That's his tragedy. The Balkan-man marches with his back first into the future.
And you're British? Or are you American? I've met smart Americans and dumb Americans. Which one are you? What does it prove if I'm Serb??
I invite you to do a search on BBC - which, surprisingly, has not stooped so low as to lie about dead bodies. You will see that the BBC is very cautious when it gives body counts.
Latest BBC story on Srebrenica: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6560961.stm Quote: "Serbs killed thousands of Muslim men and boys" - no more mention of 14K, 8K, 7K, ... 2K?
Here's another one on BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4350840.stm Quote: "Thousands of bodies have been recovered from mass graves around Srebrenica over the past few years". Do you really think that the BBC would have omitted printing the figure 8K if there had been 8K bodies? or 7K? 6K? 5K? 4K? So how many K does that make?
Then there's the fantastic Sunday Times piece I mentioned (Nov. 3, 1996 by Jon Swain)
I could keep searching... but then so can you. Apart from different sources on the Internet, I wasn't in Srebrenica, I didn't sleep with Mladic and I didn't count the dead bodies. So my numbers could be wrong. Where's your truth from?
Why is my harping tiresome and unnecessary? We've had constant deafening harping about Serb crimes on all Western media for 20 years now. Is that unnecessary? Is it tiresome? To you, probably not.
How on earth do you imagine discussing political developments in Kosovo, Bosnia and the Balkans without discussing relations, wars and suffering among Moslems, Christians, Serbs, Croats and Albanians over the past 20 years? World War 2 was an obsession in France and French politics for 20 years after 1945 - that's one of the reasons why the Communists had such enormous political and popular clout at the time. What do you suggest - that everyone just accept the standard propaganda without questioning, without offering the other side's story?
Extensive forensic investigations of the Srebrenica massacre sites has so far turned up some 3,000 bodies. Only a few have been successfully identified. They are held at a combined memorial and mortuary in Tuzla
The red cross lists 7,079 missing from Srebrenica, although they acknowledge that that number could be an underestimate as they only take reports of missing people from family members. if an entire family has been killed they do not include them
Srebrenicas missing form 38% of the entire number missing from the entire war. and I know people who were there and did have the job of digging up mass graves and recovering the remains. The idea that we're part of a western anti-Serb campaign is frankly insulting, If you look back over past postings here you'll see that we have been as forcefull in condemning and calling for the prosecution of people involved in the Iraq campaigns. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Regarding the Red Cross, I've read a number of (disputable) reports which question their neutrality. In particular, they were accused, by the Serbs, of ferrying soldiers and arms to and from Bosnian Muslim controlled areas.
This reeks of bovine excrement. The 'they're ferrying soldiers/terrorists/partisans around in ambulances' is standard propaganda fare. Every time some overly nervous/shell-shocked/trigger-happy gunner somewhere massacres a medevac team we get the same old sh/t about kalashnikovs in the ambulance. Sorry, but I don't buy that anymore.
Regarding the claimed excessive hounding of the Serbian government and/or people over the Balkan war atrocities, I got pretty much the same line from a Croatian I talked with at a conference last year. Except, of course, that in his version of history the Croatians were the ones that were being unjustly maligned, while the international community was coddling and appeasing Serbia. The two recurring themes were that yes, the Croatian generals had committed war crimes, but they had done so defending their country - an argument that was not hard to dismiss - and "the US is committing war crimes too. Is the US ever going to hand one of its generals over to the Hague?" (which I must admit was somewhat harder to come up with a good answer for on the fly).
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
You're still not giving modern numbers. An -absence- of the 8K number is not exactly a verification for your quoted 1500 bodies from an article, which I will repeat, is from 1996.
Your harping and groundless accusations is tiresome because you're dealing with an audience that's more than willing to consider your viewpoint, but not one that beats the same horse over and over again. That gets old real quick. Most, if not all, of the commenters have already expressed their awareness that Serb atrocities did not form the whole pie of the war. Five posts later, we don't need to read it again. And again.
I can't speak for the years prior to Srebrenica, but I'd say we've had Serbian atrocities in the Western limelight for some 10+ years because Serbian forces committed the largest and best known mass-killing on European soil since WWII, no matter how the number game plays out. Doesn't really make Serbs the most popular guy on the field, I'm afraid, and kinda overshadows the other bite-size clips the press machine churns out. It takes slightly more in-depth reading to find out that it wasn't all that black and white.
Again, you've that audience here. Rubbing people's faces in your alternative view at every opportune moment, doesn't really set conditions to sway minds.
Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both - from their book entitled: Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime:
Quote: Oric and his cronies were also responsible for much of the trouble with the Serbs, which stemmed from Muslim raids on Serb communities just outside the enclave. Also, Oric's men had the disconcerting habit of taking up positions close to the Dutch and then opening fire on the Serbs, hoping to entice them and the Dutch into a firefight. (pp. 132-133.)
Two other journalists, Laura Silber and Allan Little, who will never be accused of being sympathetic to the Serbs, note in their book Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, that
Quote: on January 7, 1993 (the Orthodox Christmas), Oric's forces launched a surprise attack on Serb positions to the north, killing Serb civilians and burning their villages.(pp. 265-266). Serb sources claim Oric massacred as many as 2,500 Serbs on this occasion.
In his report issued on 30 May 1995, the UN Secretary-General had this to say about the Bosnian Government's provocations from the safe areas:
Quote: In recent months, (Bosnian) government forces have considerably increased their military activity in and around most safe areas, and many of them, including Sarajevo, Tuzla and Bihac, have been incorporated into the broader military campaigns of the government side. The headquarters and logistic installations of the Fifth Corps of the government army are located in the town of Bihac and those of the Second Corps in the town of Tuzla. The Government also maintains a substantial number of troops in Srebrenica (in this case, a violation of a demilitarization agreement).
Srebrenica: Manipulating a Tragedy. Project Director: Ed Herman. Chief Participants and Contributors: Ed Herman, Jonathan Rooper, George Bogdanich, Michael Mandel, George Szamuely, Tim Fenton, Philip Hammond. With Foreword by Phillip Corwin
Quote : There can be no equivocation about that. At the same time, the facts presented in this report make a very cogent argument that the figure of 7,000 killed, which is often bandied about in the international community, is an unsupportable exaggeration. The true figure may be closer to 700.
BBC reporter Jonathan Rooper Quote: the number killed in Srebrenica was most likely in the hundreds, not in the thousands.
On July 14, 2005 edition of Canada's The Globe and Mail, under "The Real Story Behind Srebrenica", General Lewis MacKenzie stated:
Quote: Evidence given at The Hague war crimes tribunal casts serious doubt on the figure of "up to" 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred. That figure includes "up to" 5,000 who have been classified as missing. More than 2,000 bodies have been recovered in and around Srebrenica, and they include victims of the three years of intense fighting in the area. The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed.... It's a distasteful point, but it has to be said that, if you're committing genocide, you don't let the women go since they are key to perpetuating the very group you are trying to eliminate. Many of the men and boys were executed and burried in mass graves.
8,106 with the official report here. >7,800 by Bosnian Serb acknowledgement. 7,079 from the ICRC with still 5,500 missing in 2005. Numbers which probably mean nothing to the likes of Jonathan Rooper.
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