[Prishtina-E] Elusive truth of genocide in Srebrenica

[kosova at jps.net]

FYI:

Elusive truth of genocide in Srebrenica
http://www.mediamonitors.net/sarhadi1.html

by Zia Sarhadi

The arrest last month in Serbia of Slobodan Milosevic on corruption charges
has aroused hopes that he might one day be brought to the Hague to face war
crimes charges. He has already been indicted as a war criminal. Similarly,
hopes have risen about getting to the bottom of what really transpired in
Srebrenica in July 1995, now that two Serbian war criminals, Dragan
Obrenovic and general Radislav Krstic, have been brought before the Hague
tribunal. The chances of Milosevic being tried for war crimes may be slim,
but they still appear better than those of finding out the truth about the
complicity of French and Dutch officials in the genocide of Srebrenica, let
alone that of the UN as a whole. The massacre in Srebrenica was facilitated
by the Dutch contingent which was responsible for protecting Srebrenica and
Zepa in eastern Bosnia. The French role is even more despicable because UN
forces at the time were commanded by the French general, Bernard Janvier,
who was very close to the Serb general, Ratko Mladic, another indicted
war-criminal, who ordered the Srebrenica massacre.

Srebrenica and five other Bosnian towns were designated by the UN in May
1994 as "safe havens," and put under the United Nations Protection Force
(UNPROFOR). The Bosnians were first completely disarmed. Initially the US
had ridiculed the "safe havens" idea; US secretary of state Warren
Christopher had described them as shooting galleries and too dangerous even
for US troops, but later agreed to them. It is interesting to note that the
so-called safe havens were not considered safe for fully armed western
troops, yet still supposed to be safe for unarmed civilians. Within a year
Srebrenica was attacked and overrun by Serbian forces. In the massacre that
followed, an estimated 20,000 civilians, all of them Muslim, were murdered,
including children as young as 10 years old. Hundreds of women were raped,
although many of them were let go because the Serbs were on a killing spree
and wanted to eliminate as many Bosnian men as possible.

Some of the massacre was video-filmed by a Serb cameraman, but the Dutch
confiscated the recording because the area lay under their jurisdiction. The
video-footage clearly showed Dutch complicity in the massacre. In September
1995 general Hans Couzy, then commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, openly
admitted that he had ordered that the video-footage be destroyed because it
identified Dutch soldiers. The reason, though not stated, was that they had
stood by and done nothing to protect Bosnian civilians; the evidence of the
video-tape made them liable to prosecution. In 1999, UN secretary general
Kofi Annan belatedly admitted: "We committed unforgivable mistakes in
assessing the extent of the evil that we were facing, and because of that we
did not succeed in protecting the inhabitants of Srebrenica from the planned
attack and massacre." Annan was being less than honest: the UN forces were
complicit in the murder of civilians; the Dutch even helped the Serbs to
separate the very young boys from those who were 10 years and older.

Equally dishonest have been the French, who resisted attempts to clarify the
role played by general Janvier. There was pressure from a number of
organisations, especially the charity Médécins Sans Frontieres, which
suspected that Janvier was acting on instructions from the highest levels in
the French government, especially then prime minister Alain Juppe, and
demanded that his role in the Srebrenica massacre be investigated. Last year
the French government reluctantly set up a commission of inquiry. Juppe, who
appeared before the commission, denied that he talked about Srebrenica with
Janvier. The general, however, gave his testimony behind closed doors after
the media and public had been cleared out. Why, if Janvier really had
nothing to hide?

The fact is that Janvier gave the Serbs the green light to invade
Srebrenica, provided that the UNPROFOR soldiers being held hostage by the
Serbs, of whom a large number were French, were released unharmed. Janvier
had met Mladic a number of times before the Srebrenica massacre and assured
him there would be no UN intervention. This is not mere speculation. When
the Serbs surrounded Srebrenica and started to bomb the town, the Dutch
contingent called for air-strikes, according to the UN’s "safe heavens"
mandate. Janvier obstructed every effort to bomb the Serbs. This is in sharp
contrast to the spurious allegations made by French troops at the time: that
Bosnian snipers were targeting their own people in order to gain western
sympathy! The report was submitted to Boutros Ghali, then UN secretary
general, but published only on August 2, 1995, in the New York Times. The
timing of the report’s release could not be accidental.

The Dutch cannot be exonerated either, but at least they have shed some
light on the role played by Janvier. Two senior Dutch officials, ex-defence
minister Joris Voorhoeve and ex-foreign minister Hans van Mierlo, appeared
before the French inquiry and insisted that, contrary to Janvier’s claims,
the Dutch did not block requests for intervention despite some Dutch
soldiers being taken hostage by the Serbs in Srebrenica. The Dutch have now
admitted that their troops capitulated to the Serbs, but they are refusing
to accept further responsibility.

The Dutch version of Janvier’s role amounts to his being guilty of criminal
collusion with the Serbs. But the French inquiry is unlikely to allow the
whole truth to emerge. Such commissions are intended to cover up the
wrongdoing of high officials in the west, rather than expose them. The
Bosnians were put under an arms embargo to prevent them from defending
themselves against the marauding Serbs; why should the same west allow the
truth to emerge six years later, when the issue has largely been forgotten?


Source:

by courtesy & © 2001 Crescent International & Zia Sarhadi