Ah, Those Journalists

[Sarmatian]

Ah. I see.

As I neither speak Serbian, nor care much for debates about semantics and the exact line between genocide and mass murder, I must rest the subject.

The point is exactly that it is not a matter of semantics. The words "war crime" and "genocide" are not interchangeable. War crime is something that happens often in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in every war that has been fought to this day. Genocide is systematic and organized killing of a nation (or ethnic or religious group) with the point of eradicating it. The word genocide is used too casually nowadays, and not just when it comes to Yugoslavia conflict.

Utter the word genocide and the first thing that comes to mind is the holocaust. Before Srebrenica, there was a concentration camp picture. PR companies were aware of that and were pursuing that direction to make it look like the WW2 and to present Serbs as the nazis.

Thank you for your translation effort!
One more remark struck me: that 'Srebrenica has been abused to present the entire conflict in a black and white manner'.
There is truth in that. Although I would not say abused. Nor 'black and white presentation of the conflict'.
I would say 'featured prominently in Western public opinion'.

This is more like semantics. I'm willing to accept that your phrase is more appropriate. My English is decent, but not quite the level of yours.

If you seek to understand the NATO bombings of 1999, I think here you have one major element. Srebrenica was a disgrace, and a public relations disaster for Serbia. 'No more Srebrenica's', more than any particular sympathy for the Kosovar crooks, or geo-political goals, was the reason behind the NATO bombings.

This is very, very true. In fact, the entire war in Bosnia in Croatia is one huge PR disaster for Serbia. Not only there was not any active propaganda, there was intense dislike for any journalists. They often weren't allowed access to crimes committed against the Serbs. Media and PR as tools were totally ignored. We learned our lesson by 1999, fortunately. I'd dare say that one of the most important reason that 1999 bombing and what happened afterward in Kosovo is seen differently than Bosnia and Croatia in the West is because of that.

Of course, it is a bit worrying, because it appears that most important things in war today isn't who's right but who has better PR. The first thing that Russia did in the conflict with Georgia is to hire a PR firm in the US. There's Georgian military in South Ossetia? Ok, first hire a PR firm in America and then give the orders to the army to respond.

One more link! The Srebrenica genocide:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Malicious Massacre of Men

The executions that followed on July 13-16, 1995, took place in various locations and had various numbers of victims, including men from both the group that was separated from the women and children and the refugees from the column who had been captured (Wikipedia, 2006). A few " men from each site managed to survive and provide details of the horrific events they bore witness to (Haverford, 2006). Their accounts, as well as accounts from some of the soldiers who carried out the horrific acts, provide a glimpse into the events of this tragedy.

In what was a well-planned succession of events, the victims were transported from building to building and held for long periods of time without food or water before they were finally executed. The VRS troops, out of what can only be understood as boredom and brutality, would often barbarically torture individuals items such as crowbars, knives, and axes before killing them during trips from one holding site to another or during the nights (Danner, 1998b). Those not physically tormented were nonetheless emotionally tortured as they heard the agonizing wails of others and desperately prayed that their own deaths would be quick and painless.

Throughout the entire elaborate plan "cleansing" the Muslims, the VRS did they could to keep their prisoners in the dark about what was really happening, repeatedly promising the Muslims . that they were working out negotiations with the UN and that they would all soon be free. The Bosnia Serbs wanted to keep Muslim hopes up m keep them from revolting, something that would have put a damper on their plan (Danner, 1998b). However, the of many of the VRS troops the horrific events the Muslims witnessed while in the hands of the VRS left many of them with little hope.

Some men were killed indiVidually or in small groups, but the majority of the murders took place in mass numbers. The soldiers performed executions by taking the men into fields, lining them up, and shooting them to death. Most of the time the victims were blindfolded and had their hands bound in order to minimize their attempts to resist. Often the soldiers gave the victims a slow and painful death, dragging out their misery for as long as possible before finally taking their lives.

In one of the mass murders, between 1,000 and 1,500 men were crammed into a pitch-black warehouse. Soldiers began throwing grenades into the warehouse and shooting their machine guns into the building. Any men who tried to escape from the building were immediately gunned down by the soldiers (Wikepedia, 2006).

Other gruesome killing sprees took place at schools. On one occasion, the Muslim men were packed into a school gym so tightly that they could not even sit down without being on top of each other. After sustaining these miserable conditions for 2 nights without any food or water, soldiers began taking smaller groups of men out to a farm and shooting them in their backs, often beating and torturing them before finally executing them (Wikipedia, 2006).

What many consider to be the worst of the massacre took place at a soccer field near Nova Kasaba. While at some sites there was grave digging machinery, at the soccer field selected men were forced to dig graves and watch others be shot into those Eventually, these men and were shot into their own graves. When a bulldozer finally did arrive, around 400 men were thrown into a grave and buried alive (Danner, 1998b; GW, 2002).

After all was said and done, between the days of July 11-16, 1995, over 8,000 Muslim men were killed in Bosnia.

The Serbian cover-up:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Following the massacre, a handful of survivors from various massacre sites came forward and offered their testimonies, describing the brutal and horrific murders they witnessed.

After hearing their stories, and based on satellite photos taken of a Serb-held area of Bosnia, on August 10, 1995, the United States made public charges against BosnianSerb forces. One set Of photos displayed a soccer field crowded with prisoners; a second photo taken days later displayed an empty field with disturbed earth (Rohde, 1995).

The Bosnian Serbs maintained that the graves were filled with Muslim soldiers killed during combat and denied the accusations that a massacre took place. However, on October 29, 1995, reporters from the Christian Science Monitor, during an unauthorized visit, discovered a heap of clothing, shoes, and eyeglasses next to what appeared to be a freshly dug grave in the city of Sahanici. There were no signs that a battle took place, and a few canes as well as a crutch were also discovered--evidence that countered the Bosnian Serbs' that the graves contained Muslim combat casualties (Rohde, 1995).

For as long as they could manage, Milosevic, YNA, and Bosnian-Serb forces would not allow war crime investigators access to any of the mass graves. Without being able to freely investigate the land, U.S. spy planes were able to identify additional possible mass grave sites near Srebrenica. Amongst these sites, reporters from the Christian Science Monitor discovered "human remains, documents from Srebrenica, Muslim identity cards, personal photos with Muslim names on them, [and] civilian clothing" (Rohde, 1995).

Finally, almost a year after the massacre, in July of 1996, forensic experts performed exhumations of some of the mass grave sites without the permission of Serb authorities (CNN, 1996a, 1996b). Over the next few months, more graves, and consequently human remains, were discovered in areas surrounding Srebrenica. However, much to the surprise of UN investigators, by November of 1996, they had found less than 10% of the Muslim men who were missing. Each grave contained far fewer bodies than expected. With Milosevic successfully denying access to the grave sites for almost a year, it was suspected that the Bosnian Serbs had taken the necessary actions to cover up the massacre (Swain, 1996).

As time drew on, more grave sites were discovered and extamed, and and more bodies were accounted for, Investigators found many bodies in smaller graves in areas farther from Srebrenica. The Bosnian Serb's cover-up was slowly being revealed one grave at a time. The bodies were easily linked to Srebrenica, as several licenses and photographs of Muslims who had been in Srebrenica were found in the graves (Haverford, 2006). The Bosnian-Serb war criminals were suspected of trying to hide the massacre by digging up the primary burial sites and relocating the bodies in many smaller graves to make it seem as though the graves contained only the victims of small battles (Wood, 2004).

Their findings led investigators to suspect that three types of graves existed: undisturbed primary sites, disturbed primary sites, and secondary sites. The theory was the primary grave sites were sites where Muslim victims had been buried immediately following their executions in July 1995. Some of these graves had been undisturbed while others displayed signs that bodies had been removed and relocated. The secondary sites were suspected as the burial sites containing bodies that were moved from the disturbed primary grave sites in the fall of 1995 (Haverford, 2006).

Even in the large graves with fewer bodies, forensic investigations found significant evidence suggesting that most of the victims were not killed during combat. Hundreds of blindfolds and ligatures were found in the graves and many of the remains displayed evidence of execution-style deaths.

Also, prosthetic limbs, canes, and crutches found in the graves suggested that many of the victims were severely handicapped and would not have been able to fight in combat (Haverford, 2006).

Although it seemed as though there was plenty of proof that the Bosnian Serbs were responsible for the atrocious massacre, investigators still needed forensic evidence to the primary grave sites to the secondary sites. Such evidence would prove that the primary grave sites were originally mass graves resulting from a massacre and reveal the organized efforts the Bosnian Serbs took to conceal the evidence.

Exhuming the Evidence: Proof Grounded in Soil and Pollen

A team from the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia used pollen and soil to help bring justice to the victims of the Srebrenica massacre and their families. From 1997 through 2000, as part of what is believed to be the first war crimes investigation using environmental profiling techniques, the forensic team performed exhumations of primary and secondary mass grave sites to collect and analyze pollen and soil sediments. By analyzing samples from each grave site, investigators were hoping to find conclusive evidence that would link secondary grave sites to primary grave sites.

Over 24 different sites were examined with over 240 samples collected and analyzed (Brown, in press).

Each of the five primary grave sites examined contained distinctive soil, vegetation, and minerals. The investigations were aimed to find traces of soil, pollen, and minerals at each of the 19 secondary grave sites that matched the primary grave sites, proving that soil and pollen sediments were transferred to the secondary grave sites with the bodies (Brown, 2006). If the BosnianSerbs were telling the truth, all of the geological substances found within a secondary grave would have come from the area around... [article continues in link]

Oh yeah, we're up to our ears in witnesses. The lack of witnesses for what happened in Yugoslavia was never a problem. The lack of credible witnesses was. Take a look at this video. You don't have to look the entire video, just look the part between 6:01 and 6:10. You'll see a guy talking about crimes committed by Serbs, one of 5 or 6 guys. They are all presented in a slideshow style, with saying only a few sentences each, to give the viewer the impression there are countless witnesses. Now, take a look at this video, not the whole one again just from 5:15 to 6:54. It shows the exact same guy but it show app. a minute and a half of his testimony instead of just one line.

That's the power of the media. Show just one part and not the whole picture and the person viewing it will get a totally different picture that has little in common with reality.

I think you're beating a dead horse with Srebrenica here. I'm in complete agreement with you about Srebrenica, but you're projecting Srebrenica on everything that has happened from 1991 to 1999, possibly even 2008 (recognition of Kosovo independence).