Forum

David C

US-based writer and activist David Peterson has written the following and asked for it to be posted.

The Eds

===

To the Editors at Media Lens:

In regards to the “External Ombudsman Report,” John Willis, May 8, 2006 (as posted to The Guardian, May 25, 2006):*

Whatever their relative interest in and devotion to issues pertaining to the former Yugoslavia, none of the 25 signatories to the Open Letter to The Guardian drafted in December by Marko Attila Hoare,[1] nor for that matter David Aaronovitch (he being the one member of the Aaronovitch – Oliver Kamm – Francis Wheen who, for whatever reason, did not also lend his name to the names of the other 25)[2], the one and only signatory to both of these documents whose obsession with denigrating Noam Chomsky distinguishes him from the rest is Oliver Kamm.

As I’ve shown previously[3] and can update here (i.e., at least through May 29, 2006)[4], since August 24, 2003, when Oliver Kamm’s current weblog came online, the name ‘Chomsky’, whether used by Kamm himself or mentioned by someone quoted by Kamm, has appeared in Kamm’s weblog a total of 1,350 times!

2003 (Aug. 24 -): 25
2004: 462
2005: 608
2006 (through May 29): 255
Total: 1,350

Now. I haven’t run a count for every other possible term that Kamm may have used during the history of his current weblog. (FYI, the name of the Media Lens group has appeared a total of 8 times.) But it is a fair bet that no other person’s name has appeared with such repetitive frequency in the Kamm weblog as that of Noam Chomsky’s. And it is a fair bet that the reason Chomsky’s name has appeared as frequently as it has rests in the nature of this particular writer’s peculiar obsession with the man and his work.

What The Guardian did by reopening the Readers’ Editor’s attempt to close the Chomsky aff air as early as last November[5] was to permit Oliver Kamm’s obsession with denigrating Noam Chomsky set its agenda for it.

I find it reprehensible that The Guardian permitted Oliver Kamm not only to keep this matter open, but also to adopt the extreme course of calling on an “External Ombudsman” to adjudicate it for them.

Sincerely Yours,
David Peterson
Chicago, USA
davidepet@comcast.net

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/readerseditor/story/0,,1782133,00.html
1. For a copy of the Marko Attila Hoare letter, see “Srebrenica – defending the truth,” http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=3054&reportid=170 .
2. For a copy of the Aaronovitch – Kamm – Wheen letter, see “Chomsky, The Guardian, and Bosnia,” http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/chomsky_the_gua.html .
3. See “Ollie Kamm,”ZNet, December 12, 2005, http://blog.zmag.org/ee_links/chomsky3 .
4. That is, at least through “Reaction on Guardian/Chomsky,” May 29, 2006, http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/05/one_more_ on_gua.html .
5. Ian Mayes, “Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian and Noam Chomsky,” The Guardian, November 17, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,1644017,00.html .

______________________________
_________________
David Cromwell
co-editor
Media Lens
www.medialens.org

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Oliver Kamm is indeed a strange one but the same cannot be said about the majority of signatories on the BIRN letter.

They are variously, academics or journalists with specialist knowledge or witnesses to the events in Bosnia.

Their letters should be judged on their merits, and on the substance of what they say.

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

David Peterson · Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 19 Location: Chicago, USA

Ian70:

You may be confusing two separate letters. What you refer to as the “BIRN letter”[1] was in fact submitted to The Guardian and had 25 signatories; but it was merely posted to and circulated by BIRN, not drafted under BIRN’s auspices. In his May 8 report ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/readerseditor/story/0,,1782133,00.html ), The Guardian’s External Ombudsman did not consider this letter.

The letter the External Ombudsman did consider was the one drafted by Aaronovich, Kamm, and Wheen---though I suspect largely Kamm.[2]

It is worth noting that there also was a third letter, also submitted to The Guardian, though virtually ignored.[3] If you read this document closely, particularly in comparison with the other two, I believe you will immediately recognize why it was ignored.

The External Ombudsman did not consider this third letter, either.

Whether there were any similar undertakings, I do not know.

1) “Protest to The Guardian over ‘Correction’ to Noam Chomsky Interview,” Marko Attila Hoare et al.: http://www.birn.eu.com/insight_15_8_eng.php
2) “Chomsky, The Guardian, and Bosnia,” Aaronovitch, Kamm, and Wheen: http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/chomsky_the_gua.html
3) “Open Letter to The Guardian,” James Bisset et al.: http://www.electricpolitics.com/2006/01/open_letter_to_the_guardian.html

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Not confused them David. I refer to the BIRN letter because it was circulated by BIRN and that will be how many of the signatories became aware of it.

As you say, Oliver Kamm signed both letters, and he himself (and his Chomsky obsession) is not really the issue.

The issue is revisionism and is to an extent addressed in the letter from Chris Black et al.

Let's address some points

"(c) that she does not accept at face value the conventional figure of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims summarily executed there, but actually evaluates the evidence for it. For this she is libeled as a "revisionist" and a "denier" as if she were a neo-Nazi lying about the Holocaust."

Johstone claims that the thousands of men that escaped to Tuzla are included in the 8,000 or so killed/missing. It would be charitable to describe this as merely idiotic. In fact its outright disinformation. It's revisionist in that it is sophistry designed to minimise and mislead as to what took place.

They go on to cite research by Mirsad Tokaca, and ask this rhetorical question

"Are these researchers also "revisionists" and "deniers" of the "Bosnian genocide"? And if not, why not? Similarly, if the estimate of overall war-related deaths in Bosnia can be subject to legitimate analysis, then why can't the comparable estimate for the Srebrenica massacre also be critically evaluated?"

The straight answer is no, they are not revisionists.

The reason why is that this is honest research without deliberate sophistry. Included in the numbers dead are about 8,000 muslims from Srebrenica. Of course one can critically evaluate the evidence relating to Srebrenica, but claiming, as Johnstone does that thousands of live people who escaped to Tuzla are included is disinformation, not critical evaluation. Claiming (as she does in Fools Gold) that the evidence presented at Krstic in 2001 only provided evidence (through blindfolds and ligatures) for the execution of 199 men is disinformation and sophistry, not critical evaluation.

They continue, point 2) to repeat the escaped to Tuzla and still counted as dead canard. This is getting predictable. Then they cite the ICTY judgement in the Krstic case, but selectively, only focusing on the forensic evidence and the inherent uncertainty. If they read the rest they'll see additional reasons to believe that the great majority of the 8,000 or so missing men were systematically murdered. And it should not be forgotten that not one prisoner has ever been released. The logical conclusion, given

A question for them, do they, like the Serbian govt representatives in the ongoing ICJ case, accept the basic 'findings of fact' in this judgement whilst disagreeing that it amounts to genocide? I ask this because if they do then they will face no accusations of revisionism from me. The answer is of course that they do not and instead peddle disinformation whilst pretending that those who point out the disinformation are engaged in some kind of New World Order plot to silence dissenters.

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Whoops, forgot to finish a sentence in the above post.

Second to last paragraph should finish

The logical conclusion, given the accumulation of other evidence (witness testimony, intercepted military communications, satellite evidence etc) other than the compelling forensic evidence can only be that they were murdered.

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Thanks for joining the thread, David. I hope you'll be addressing Ian's points.

As he stresses, it's striking how catching this fallacious argument about the Red Cross statements has become: from Johnstone to Herman to Serbian bloggers and the much-cited Major-General Mackenzie, they're at it to a (wo)man.

Of course, if there were any substance to the claim, it would be possible to go down this list, point out who escaped and provide evidence for what happened to them after they survived the fate their families say they met:

http://www.domovina.net/srebrenica/page_006/Preliminarni_spisak_Srebrenica_1995.pdf

Asked to do just that (in light of her published arguments), Johnstone said she'd ignored the topic after publishing her book - despite continuing to write articles on the subject citing the same old misrepresented "evidence" recycled by Herman: "Since [my book came out], I have not been following the matter. Some people who have been are the "Srebrenica research group" whose papers are available on the web, I believe. Try google."

Do you have any evidence to back up claims that the death toll was significantly different to the widely accepted estimate?

If not, I think you owe it to the readers of Znet to publish an unambiguous clarification, as per Chomsky's position referenced above, that you do not dispute the established historical record in any substantive way (debates about what constitutes genocide notwithstanding).

Given the tone of some of the articles published by Znet about undercounts of the death toll in Iraq, I should have thought that the moral imperative to do so would have become overwhelming by now.

Best wishes,

Raoul

David C

Diana Johnstone sent this to The Guardian (where it was, she said, "totally ignored") last December in response to the accusations of the Aaronovitch, Kamm, Wheen trio. She has offered it to Media Lens to publish on our site.

To:

seumas.milne@guardian.co.uk

ian.mayes@guardian.co.uk

Dear Mr Milne, dear Mr Mayes,

Satisfied that you both handled the unfortunate Brockes-Chomsky interview affair fairly, I had hoped and believed that the matter was settled. I have no wish to trouble you further. However, I have just learned that a group of writers known for their strong views on the Bosnia problem and "humanitarian intervention" are insisting on reopening the question, in a protest dated December 8.

If I write to you now, is is not to harass you further, but to offer a certain number of comments intended above all to reassure you that you were not mistaken in the way you handled this matter.

The main point of contention is as follows:

-- Mr Mayes concluded that "Neither Prof Chomsky nor Ms Johnstone have ever denied the fact of the massacre."

-- The protesters allege that: "It is untrue that Johnstone has never denied the Srebrenica massacre."

First of all, I would observe that the prime authority as to whether a person denies something is the person him/herself. Otherwise, we are dealing with some sort of Inquisitorial proceedings in which the self-proclaimed judges claim to be able to read the hidden guilty thoughts of those whom they consider heretics. Thus, if Professor Chomsky states, and if I state, that we do not deny the fact of the Srebrenica massacre, ordinary courtesy would suggest that these statements should be accepted.

However, the Inquisitors prefer to search for signs of hidden thoughts.

First accusation: use of quotation marks:

"Johnstone puts quote marks around the words ‘Srebrenica massacre’, implying that it was not a real massacre (pp.106, 115).

My comment: The use of quotation marks does not signify denial: it signifies that someone other than the author has used the expression. Anyone who bothers to read my book may observe that I make quite liberal use of quotation marks when citing various statements and accusations made by one or another party. This may be considered a stylistic fault. But it is certainly not a crime.

Example: in the passage on page 115 referred to above, I wrote:

"The accusation of a ‘Srebrenica massacre’ was used by the Clinton administration to focus world attention on Serb misdeeds at precisely the moment when some 200,000 Serbs were being driven out of the Krajina by the Croatian army, supported by the United States. [...] This successfully diverted attention from the main business on the agenda that day: the drafting of Security Council Resolution 1000 on the Croation ‘Operation Storm’, which was then ‘ethnically cleansing’ the Krajina of its large Serb population."

In this single paragraph, I put quotation marks not only around "Srebrenica massacre", but also around "Operation Storm" and "ethnically cleansing"... Now, if this punctuation indicates denial of the Srebrenica massacre, doesn’t it logically also indicate denial of the "ethnic cleansing" of the Krajina Serbs by the Croats? But in that case, whose side am I supposedly on?

There is another, accurate, interpretation of this lavish use of quotation marks: I am writing about a conflict in which highly emotional accusations were hurled back and forth, and I tend to try to take a certain distance from the highly-charged rhetoric which, to my mind, gets in the way of objective analysis and understanding of the basic political and psychological roots of the tragic Balkan conflict. It is true that, unlike certain of my critics, I am uncomfortable with blanket terms such as "ethnic cleansing", "genocide" and even (to a lesser extent) "massacre"; and prefer more precise formulations such as "executions"; "murder"; "driving out"... That again is a stylistic matter, not a matter of affirmation or denial of facts.

Second accusation: questions about numbers:

"She rejects the claim that 8,000 Muslims were killed at Srebrenica, claiming that most of these had not been killed, but had merely ‘fled Srebrenica’ and ‘made it to safety in Muslim territory’ (p.114)."

My comment:

That is a contentious summary of the following passage in my book, published by Pluto in 2002, written in 2001, based on information available at that time, giving the original sources of the figure of 8,000:

"Two months [after Bosnian Serb troops captured Srebrenica on July 11, 1995], the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that it was trying to obtain information from Bosnian Serb authorities about 3,000 persons who witnesses said had been detained, and from Sarajevo authorities about some 5,000 individuals ‘who fled Srebrenica, some of whom reached central Bosnia.’ The total of these two figures was the original source of the oft-repeated estimate that 8,000 Muslims had been massacred. However, from the start it was understood that the missing 5,000 had not all been killed. On July 18, the New York Times had reported that ‘some 3,000 to 4,000 Bosnian Muslims who were considered by U.N. officials to be missing after the fall of Srebrenica have made their way through enemy lines to Bosnian government territory. The group, which included wounded refugees, sneaked past Serb lines under fire and crossed some 30 miles through forests to safety’."

Here I am quoting the ICRC and the New York Times. The protesters do not refute these sources. Rather, they treat the figure of 8,000 as though it were a sacred text from which any deviation is in itself heretic, to be condemned without refutation or argument.

What is the point? In my book, I observe that in many instances, journalists (such as a number of those who have signed the protest against me, notably David Rieff), seized upon, and endlessly repeated, the highest of whatever figures of Bosnian casualties were offered, without demanding any material evidence. This is a tendency that can be explained either by sensationalism (bigger figures make better headlines) or (a common motive in the case of Bosnia) by an emotional attachment to one side. I argue for a certain skepticism about large unproved figures uttered by belligerents during bitter wars.

This is not the same as denying the existence of atrocities.

For years, the media and politicians have constantly cited the figure of 200,000 killed in Bosnia -- sometimes raised to over 250,000, sometimes implying that the figure refers only to Muslim victims. Many years ago, George Kenney traced the original source of this figure to the Sarajevo information ministry -- not a neutral source, obviously. Now, in recent months, news agencies have reported on the first truly scientific estimate of victims, based on nominal lists, carried out by experts on behalf of the Hague Tribunal and a Sarajevo agency. The final result lists about 100,000 dead, of which some 68 percent (that is, about 68,000) were Muslims and 28 percent were Serbs, about evenly divided between military men and civilians. I consider this study, the first to sound serious, a reasonable basis for my statement that I consider Muslims to be the primary (although not sole) victims of the war in Bosnia.

However, although the results of this study, endorsed in Sarajevo, have been thoroughly reported, I observe that writers and politicians go right on repeating the 200,000 figure.

This is the sort of attachment to large numbers that made me skeptical of the 8,000 figure concerning Srebrenica. The number seems to me implausibly high, for a number of reasons, not least that the United States claimed to be watching events closely by satellite, and yet has never publicly produced photographic evidence of such large-scale executions. But I am perfectly ready to accept such proof once it is produced, and meanwhile I have no fixed opinion as to the number of victims of Bosnian Serb exactions following the capture of Srebrenica. Is it a crime to await material proof before being convinced of a particularly large number? What difference does my doubt make to the course of history?

The protesters write accusingly: "And she admits only to the Serb killing in cold blood of 199 Muslims, or less than 2.5 per cent of the accepted total (p.115). This is denial."

The passage to which they are referring reads:

"Six years after that summer of 1995, ICTY forensic teams had exhumed 2,361 bodies in the region, and identified fewer than 50. In an area where fighting had raged for years, some of the bodies were certainly of Serbs as well as of Muslims. Of those bodies, 199 were found to have been bound or blindfolded, and must reasonably presumed on the basis of material evidence to have been executed."

Again, I was not "admitting" anything, since it is not up to me to "admit" anything about such events. I simply cited the facts at the time I wrote that passage, in 2001. There have been many more exhumations since, and the figures have changed.

However, since my interest is in the political and historical aspects of the Yugoslav wars of disintegration, and not in military and paramilitary operations, I have not tried to keep up with all these exhumations and body counts, and I am of course ready to accept any eventual authoritative conclusion. Meanwhile, incomplete reports continue to emerge, and I leave evaluation of these to others. Thus, I declined an invitation from Professor Edward S. Herman to take part in the Srebrenica Research Group, currently preparing a published report, explaining that I had said all I had to say on the subject and did not believe I had the means to pursue a serious investigation of the material facts.

In any case, there is certain limited evidence that is sufficient to convince me that crimes were committed, whatever the dimensions. To start with, there are Dutch eye-witness accounts of summary executions by Bosnian Serb soldiers of Muslim prisoners. Such acts are clearly criminal, whatever their number and whatever the circumstances.

From their statement cited above, it is clear that the protesters have their own particular definition of "denial", equating it with doubt about numbers. However, doubt is not denial. One can perfectly well have doubts about the total number of victims of an event without in the least denying that the event took place.

David Rohde himself, one of the signatories of the protest and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his reports on the Srebrenica massacre, concluded his own 1997 book "Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II", with the following statement concerning numbers:

"Barring secret labor camps and the Bosnian government massively inflating the ICRC missing figure, Bosnian Serb Soldiers systematically slaughtered 7,079 mostly unarmed Muslim men in ambushes and mass executions between July 12 and July 16, 1995.

"[...] But even if the number of victims proves to be no higher than the roughly 500 found so far at four execution sites and 150 found to date at one ambush site, what occurred in Srebrenica was unprecedented in postwar Europe. Srebrenica is unique because of the international community’s role in the tragedy."

Rohde himself prudently allowed for the possibility that the Bosnian government may have inflated the ICRC missing figure, as we now know that it inflated the figure of total deaths by a factor of about two. His point is political: regardless of the figures, Srebrenica was significant because of "the international community’s role in the tragedy". This role was indeed ambiguous, to say the least, and certainly did nothing to prevent the tragedy. On that we can all agree. But there is sharp disagreement both as to what the international community did wrong, how it actually contributed to the tragedy by promising more than it delivered, what it should have done, and what are the lessons for the future.

Those are the real issues on which opinions differ. They are the issues I raise in my book, issues I consider more significant in political terms than the debate over numbers.

The term "genocide" is not objective. In the Krstic trial (which took place after my book was written), the Hague Tribunal made extraordinary efforts to describe the Srebrenica massacre as "genocide" by coming up with an original definition, based on the notion that because the Srebrenica Muslims were a patriarchal society, killing the men was a way to prevent the Muslim population from returning to the town. That seems to me to be stretching the term considerably from its usual acceptance. The general public, when it hears the term "genocide", naturally thinks of a plan to eliminate a particular population, not the massacre of the male residents of a small town of some 40,000, either for reasons of vengeance or to opportunistically eliminate potential enemy troops. Having been brought up to believe in freedom of thought, I continue to dispute the use of the term "genocide" to apply to such a limited case, regardless of the ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, whose procedures I criticize in detail in my book. Otherwise, we must accept a proliferation of "genocides", mostly but not exclusively committed by the United States. I believe this inflation of language is unhelpful in the search for understanding of contemporary conflicts, as it tends to dismiss any analysis of political motives (mostly misguided, in my view) in favor of a Manichean identification of "evildoers" who undertake to wipe out whole populations out of sheer wickedness. This Manichean view posits only one solution: "humanitarian war" to rescue victims, waged by the only power able to do so: the United States.

In my view -- and I am by no means alone -- this is the central political issue raised by the notion of "humanitarian war", justified by a certain interpretation of the Bosnian conflict and applied in Kosovo, setting a precedent of unilateral war leading directly to the subsequent United States invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq -- with more to come, in all likelihood.

Rather than engaging in sober debate of these difficult issues in a respectful manner, my critics prefer to shift the grounds to the emotional issue of "sympathy for the victims" (meaning Bosnian Muslim victims exclusively). I am accused of "causing pain to the victims" by questioning numbers and terminology. I wonder whether I am "causing pain", or whether my critics are doing so by ostentatiously "defending" Muslim acquaintances from an alleged "revisionist" woman who is "denying their suffering": this possibility comes to mind because of some letters I receive from Bosnian Muslims who seem to have heard about me from third parties rather than from reading my book.

To me, there is something indecent about competitive compassion and competitive victimhood. Like competitive piety, it is a contest too easily won by hypocrites.

There is much more I could say, but this is already too long. You may do what you wish with this text, and I remain available to reply to any questions you or others may care to ask me.

Sincerely,

Diana Johnstone

Paris, France

December 30, 2005
_________________
David Cromwell
co-editor
Media Lens
www.medialens.org

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Johnstone says

"Six years after that summer of 1995, ICTY forensic teams had exhumed 2,361 bodies in the region, and identified fewer than 50. In an area where fighting had raged for years, some of the bodies were certainly of Serbs as well as of Muslims. Of those bodies, 199 were found to have been bound or blindfolded, and must reasonably presumed on the basis of material evidence to have been executed."

Again, I was not "admitting" anything, since it is not up to me to "admit" anything about such events. I simply cited the facts at the time I wrote that passage, in 2001. There have been many more exhumations since, and the figures have changed. "

Johnstone is not citing facts at all even as they were in 2001, its sophistry. In a serious work of scholarship it is customary to provide a reference when one cites facts.

Here is the reference she doesn't provide

http://www.domovina.net/archive/2000/20000516_manning.pdf

The number 199 refers to corpses found with a blindfold still in the face, not those 'bound and blindfolded'. As you can see from the above reference, 314 still had their wrists bound, 1424 definately died of gunshot wounds etc

And remember that Dean Manning, whose report Johnstone grossly misleads you about had only various bits of people all mixed together to work with in finding out the cause of death because they had been moved and mixed from site to site in an effort to hide the evidence. Yet, despite this, 199 corpses still had a blinfold directly round the face, more than 300 still had their hands bound behind their back. And what about evidence of execution sites where the murdered were not bound or blindfolded, such as the Kravica Warehouse?

As well as the 199 figure, she says some of them 'must' be Serbs due to the fighting in the area over the previous years. I challenge the Editors to locate any evidence of this at all, never mind that it 'certainly' must be so from the Manning report. And if you think about it, only for a moment, its inherently implausible that executed muslims would be mixed up with Serbs killed previously. How have they got mixed up? She suggests, by implication, that Mladic's men chucked their countrymen into mass graves and then tried to hide the evidence.

Lastly, Johnstone says at the time (2001) fewer than 50 of these individuals had been identified. Does this fact pass the simple test of checking? See Annex B in the Manning report above.

Is it really too much to ask that just one fact, in a whole paragraph when one states that they are simply citing the facts, be actually true?

gpumphrey · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 5

Dear Ian70

In your answer, there seems to be one mistake after another. You raise accusations against Diana Johnstone, author of Fools CRUSADE, (first mistake), without having verified her sources (second mistake).

Mistake 3:
You claim that Ms. Johnstone's books – and more particularly – her comments on Srebrenica do not consist of "critical evaluation". You even go so far as to allege it is "merely idiotic, (...) outright disinformation, (...) and revisionist in that it is sophistry designed to minimize and mislead as to what took place." But you provide not a single fact that disproves the facts and sources given by Ms. Johnstone.

It would be in order to ask you – the author of such accusations – on what you base YOUR accusations, that this non-official appraisal of the events in Srebrenica in July 1995 amounts to "disinformation" and historical "revisionism." You confront scientific research with your (uninformed?) opinion. And we are supposed to take your word for it?

In fact Ms. Johnstone deals more with the context in which the propaganda campaign was waged around the question of Srebrenica. For the events immediately involving the events around the hand-over of Srebrenica to Bosnian Serb forces on July 12, 1995, she relies in large part on research that I had made. This research you have not consulted to draw your own independent conclusion.

Rather than beat around the bush, I enclose here my research on the origin of the number "8,000 missing and presumed dead" and evidence of their whereabouts at the time the campaign began – one month later. So just for the record, would you refute the following facts with your facts.

* * *
In a separate mail I will send an extract of my research concerning the origin of the number "8,000 missing and presumed dead" and information concerning their whereabouts.

George Pumphrey
(gpumphrey)

gpumphrey · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 5

"The Srebrenica Massacre": A Hoax?
George Pumphrey
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bip/docs/kosovo_polje/srebrenica_hoax.html

(an excerpt)

Playing the Numbers:

The International Committee of the Red Cross published a press statement on September 13, 1995, in which it was stated:

"The ICRC's head of operations for Western Europe, An-gelo Gnaedinger, visited Pale and Belgrade from 2 to 7 September to obtain information from the Bosnian Serb authorities about the 3,000 persons from Srebrenica whom witnesses say were arrested by Bosnian Serb for-ces. The ICRC has asked for access as soon as possible to all those arrested (so far it has been able to visit only about 200 detainees), and for details of any deaths. The ICRC has also approached the Bosnia-Herze-govina authorities seeking information on some 5,000 individuals who fled Srebrenica, some of whom reached central Bosnia." (Former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica: help for families still awaiting news; ICRC News 37)

The September 15, 1995, New York Times gives another accounting:

About 8,000 Muslims are missing from Srebrenica, the first of two United Nations-designated 'safe areas' overrun by Bosnian Serb troops in July, the Red Cross said today. (...) Among the missing were 3,000, mostly men, who were seen being arrested by Serbs. After the collapse of Srebrenica, the Red Cross collected 10,000 names of missing people, said Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman. In addition to those arrested, about 5,000 'have simply disappeared,' she said. (AP; Conflict in the Balkans; 8,000 Muslims Missing; New York Times; Sep 15, 1995; p. 8.)

Aside from simply adding together the 3,000 Muslim men, arrested in Srebrenica (as prisoners of war) upon arrival of the Bosnian-Serb military, and the 5,000 Muslim men, reported to have left Srebrenica before the arrival of Bosnian Serb forces, to inflate the figures - and therefore the gravity of the accusation - this report makes no mention of the fact that by mid-September 1995 a sizable portion of the group of 5,000 had already reached Muslim territory and safety. And the fact that the Red Cross was asking the Bosnia-Herzegovina [Muslim] authorities for information about the 5,000 (the original figure) - "some of whom [had already] reached central Bosnia" - has completely disappeared from the news. The entire 5,000 of the one group and the 3,000 of the other are still today - 11 years later - being counted as "missing" and therefore presumed dead.

The Red Cross report was, itself, lacking the objectivity that one would have hoped for from a non-partisan organization. Its very off-hand "some of whom reached central Bosnia" gives the impression that only a handful could be accounted for by mid-September. But again the press gave another picture. Within a week of the takeover of Sre-brenica (July 18, 1995) one learns that:

"Some 3,000 to 4,000 Bosnian Muslims who were conside-red by UN officials to be missing after the fall of Srebrenica have made their way through enemy lines to Bosnian government territory. The group, which inclu-ded wounded refugees, sneaked past Serb lines under fire and crossed some 30 miles through forests to safety." (Chris Hedges; Conflict in the Balkans: In Bosnia; Muslim Refugees Slip Across Serb Lines; New York Times; July 18, 1995, p. 7. The same day, the Washington Post reported the number closer to the upper estimate: "About 4,000 Bosnian army soldiers trudged for five days through Serb-held territory to escape from Srebrenica and reach a safe haven in Medjedja" (Pomfret, John; Bosnian Soldiers Evade Serbs in Trudge to Safety; Washington Post, Jul 18, 1995))

Similar reports appeared in other journals at the time. On August 2, 1995, The Times of London published the following:

"Thousands of the "missing" Bosnian Muslim soldiers from Srebrenica who have been at the centre of reports of possible mass executions by the Serbs, are believed to be safe to the northeast of Tuzla. Monitoring the safe escape of Muslim soldiers and civi-lians from (...) Srebrenica and Zepa has proved a nightmare for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. For the first time yesterday, however, the Red Cross in Geneva said it had heard from sources in Bosnia that up to 2,000 Bosnian Government troops were in an area north of Tuzla. They had made their way there from Srebrenica "without their families being informed", a spokesman said, ad-ding that it had not been possible to verify the re-ports because the Bosnian Government refused to allow the Red Cross into the area.« (Evans, Michael and Kallenbach, Michael; Missing' enclave troops found; The Times; 02 August 1995 p. 9.)

The Washington Post explains: "The men set off at dawn on Tuesday, July 11, in two columns that stretched back seven or eight miles" (Dobbs, Michael/ Spolar, Christine; 12,000 Muslims Massacred In July Srebrenica Exodus; Washington Post, October 27, 1995.).

Two weeks before the Red Cross representatives Angelo Gnaedinger and Jessica Barry gave their numbers to the press, another spokesperson for the International Red Cross in Ge-neva, Pierre Gaultier, provided an important detail. In an interview given to the Ger-man journal Junge Welt, he explained:

"All together we arrived at the number of approximately 10,000 [missing from Srebrenica]. But there may be some double counting... Before we have finished [weeding out the double countings] we cannot give any exact information. Our work is made even more complicated by the fact that the Bosnian government has informed us that several thousand refugees have broken through enemy lines and have been re-integrated into the Bosnian Muslim army. These persons are therefore not missing, but they cannot be removed from the lists of the missing (...) because we have not received their names." (Pierre Gaultier (interview), Wo sind die Vermißten aus Srebrenica? Junge Welt, 30.8.95)

Since the number of "missing" (and therefore assumed dead) has remained at roughly 8,000 throughout the past 11 years, it can be reasonably assumed that the Muslim government has never furnished the Red Cross with the names of those who reached Muslim lines.

Also to be noted is that when Prof. Milivoje Ivanisevic at the University of Belgrade took a close look at the Red Cross list, he discovered it contained the names of 500 people who were already deceased before Bosnian-Serb troops entered Srebrenica. Even more interesting, when comparing the Red Cross' list with the electoral list for the 1996 fall elections, he also found that 3,016 people, listed by the Red Cross as "missing," were on the electoral lists the following year. (Faux électeurs... ou faux cadavres; Balkans Infos, Paris; Oct. 1996 (No. 6); See also Ivanisevic, Milivoje; "Un Dossier qui pose bien des Questions"; Balkans Infos, Paris; Dec. 1996 (No. 8).) This leads to one of two possibilities: either the Muslims were having their dead vote, meaning that the voters were bogus, and the election a fraud; or the voters were in fact alive, in which case, here is an additional piece of evidence that the massacre is a hoax.

Early in the war, journalists of Time magazine saw through the game being played on the press and international organizations. They wrote: "Bosnian Muslims, fighting at the raw level of their rivals, are likewise guilty of barbarism--and of inflating horror stories about the Serbs to win sympathy and support." (McAllister, J.F.O. et al; Specters of barbarism in Bosnia compel the US and Europe to ponder: Is it time to intervene?; Time Magazine Aug. 17, 1992.) It appears that they were not without success.

With deliberately inflated figures clearly being used to fuel a major propaganda campaign to make "Srebrenica" a symbol of Serbian "genocide", some Red Cross spokespersons in effect became a party to the con-flict by failing to bring important information to public attention.

Both Red Cross and UN officials knew that thousands were safe. Yet neither corrected the communiqué given in September. And both failed to report that Ms. Barry's 5,000 who "simply disappeared," had simply disappeared back into the ranks of the Bosnian army. The propa-ganda put into circulation by representatives of the Bosnian government was allowed to stand uncontested, even by organizations otherwise seen as non-partisan.

Within days of the take-over of Srebrenica, Zepa, a second Moslem enclave (and UN Safe Area), was also captured by Bosnian Serb forces. Among the defenders of Zepa were hundreds of the "missing" soldiers from Srebrenica. The New York Times recounts:

"The wounded troops were left behind, and when the Bos-nian Serbs overran the town on Tuesday, the wounded were taken to Sarajevo for treatment at Kosevo Hospi-tal. Many of them had begun their journey in Srebre-nica, and fled into the hills when that 'safe area' fell to the Bosnian Serbs on July 11. These men did not make it to Tuzla, where most of the refugees ended up, but became the defenders of Zepa instead. 'Some 350 of us managed to fight our way out of Srebrenica and make it into Zepa,' said Sadik Ahmetovic, one of 151 people evacuated to Sarajevo for treatment today. (...) They said they had not been mistreated by their Serb cap-tors." (Hedges, Chris; Bosnia Troops Cite Gassings At Zepa; New York Times, Jul 27, 1995)

It might seem strange that the Muslim soldiers of Zepa would abandon their wounded comrades and that 5,000 Srebrenica soldiers would abandon their women and children to an enemy with a reputation - at least in the western media - of being sadists, and rapists seeking to commit "genocide". Could it be that these Muslim sol-diers knew that they need not be particularly worried about their women, children and wounded comrades falling into the hands of their Serb countrymen? The Serb forces had the wounded Muslim soldiers evacuated behind Muslim lines to THEIR Muslim hospital in Sarajevo. Is this how one goes about committing genocide? Is this the military force compared to Nazis? What a trivialization of Nazi barbarism! Even the fact that the Serbs provided safe passage to women and children is interpreted as sinister, when it was proof that "genocide" was not being carried out.

The London Times article, quoted above, mentions that 2,000 Srebre-nica soldiers made their way to the north of Tuzla "without their families being informed". Were their families ever informed? Other than the very few articles that took notice of their resurrection from the presumed dead, the public at large was never informed that they were in fact alive. On the contrary. And the women of Srebrenica continued to demonstrate demanding information about their loved ones, whom they believed to be still alive.

To maintain the hoax, it is not only ne-cessary to create the illusion that the proof of a massacre exists, it is also necessary to suppress any evidence that it did not happen. Not only must the 5,000 never be accounted for, but not too many of the 3,000 listed by the Red Cross as prisoners of war must be allowed to return "from the dead."

On January 17, 1996, the British daily "Guardian" published an article concerning one group of the former Muslim POWs from Srebrenica and Zepa, who, once liberated from a POW camp, were flown directly to Dublin:

"Hundreds of Bosnian Muslim prisoners are still being held at 2 secret camps within neighboring Serbia, ac-cording to a group of men evacuated by the Red Cross to a Dublin hospital from one camp - at Sljivovica. (...) A group of 24 men was flown to Ireland just before Christmas [1995] (...). But some 800 others remain in-carcerated in Sljivovica and at another camp near Mi-trovo Polje, just three days before the agreed date for the release of all detainees under the Dayton peace agreement on Bosnia (...). The Red Cross in Belgrade has been negotiating for several weeks to have the men released and given sanctuary in third countries. A spo-keswoman said most were bound for the United States or Australia, with others due to be sent to Italy, Bel-gium, Sweden, France and Ireland. (...) Since late Au-gust, the Red Cross has made fortnightly visits from its Belgrade field office. (...) Teams from the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague have been in Dublin to question and take evidence from the men." (Vulliamy, Ed; Bosnia: The secret War - Serbs 'run secret camps': Men freed from clandestine detention tell Ed Vulliamy of random beatings and 'mobile torture machines'; Guardian, 17.1.96)

Why would prisoners of war, whose normal first wish, upon being freed, would be to be reunited with their families and to restart their interrupted li-ves in peacetime, be rushed off to Dublin, with "papers to remain in Ireland"? Why would the Red Cross - usually known for reuniting families - be seeking to secretly spirit them out of their homeland, away from their family and friends? Were their families ever informed?

The ex-prisoners were widely dispersed. To a second country...:

[The] US decided to accept 214 Bosniaks who, (...) had been detained in Serbian camps and give them refugee status. (S.K., Another Two Mass Graves - Discovered, Press TWRA, Jan 19,1996.)

Why have neither the Red Cross (which has been visiting the priso-ners since August), nor the Tribunal (in its search for evidence of a "genocide" in Bosnia, for which Srebrenica is slated to be the key incriminating evidence), nor the American government made men-tion since August 1995 of these men being held as war prisoners?

And a third country... The pro-government [Muslim] news agency TWRA reports:

"[One] Hundred-three Bosnian soldiers who were recently released from prisons in Serbia, were sent to Australia against their will", claims their commander, Osmo Zimic. Zimic also criticizes the UNHCR, whose spokesman claimed these sol-diers demanded departure to Australia and by no means re-turn to Bosnia for they would allegedly face criminal char-ges as deserters there. "This is not true", says Zimic. Au-stralian immigration & ethnic affairs office spokesman says he was informed [of] Zimic's allegation from the Bosnian embassy in Canberra and that the investigation was initia-ted." (A.S.; Bosnian Soldiers in Australia Against Their Will; Press TWRA, Feb 6, 1996.)

"The Bosnian Embassy in Australia requested the Hague International Tribunal (ICTY) to start an investigation on the deporta-tion of Bosniaks (800 persons) from Serbia to Australia and Europe in which, supposedly, UNHCR assisted, instead [of] invol-ving Bosniaks in the exchange of prisoners, esp. for they had been in the camps in Serbia which claimed not to be in-volved in the war in Bosnia. The principal witness for the pro-secution is Osmo Zimic, a Bosnian Army Officer, one who had been deported to Australia against his will." (A.S.; Investigation on Deportation of Bosniaks Requested; Press TWRA, March 9, 1996)

It seems as though the Red Cross, the UNHCR, and a host of "western" governments around the world were engaged in hiding the fact that these men had not been massacred. Who stood to gain?

As a result of the Srebrenica hoax, a new order of the world has taken shape, where the UNHCR assists in creating refugees, where the Red Cross helps separate families and where tribunals indict first and look for crimes later.

Before discovery of conclusive evidence that the alleged crime has even been committed, the indictment alone is made to serve as punishment. This reverses the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and amounts to inquisitorial or fascist "justice". For ten years the Tribunal has been searching for evidence of an alleged "genocide" which has already largely served its political purpose. They have long since been working on a retrospective judicial fig leaf. (See Krstic and Milosevic ICTY show-trials)

* * *

I expect a FACTUAL refutation to the facts presented here. These sources are, for the most part, available over internet. That will determine who really is dealing in disinformation and historical revisionism.

George Pumphrey,
(independent researcher)
Berlin, Germany

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Ah, good to see someone such as Mr Pumphrey is here to debate. Let no one pretend there is no issue of revisionism here. What everyone else considers a mass killing of some kind, including the Serbian govt, even the Radical Party, Mr Pumphrey describes instead as a 'hoax'.

Mr Pumphrey has posted an article he wrote in 1998, which contains no original research that I can find, of a scientific, or any other nature. Merely his own interpretation of some news reports from 1995 and 1996. You would have thought, given the trials and reports since 1998 that Mr Pumphrey would consider he had to address them in some way, rebut them in some manner. But no.....even what he has posted here contains not a single reference after 1996. Extraordinary!

Given that he does not take issue the mass of publically available evidence his post, and so called research, is entirely worthless.

Since 1996 more than 42 mass graves have been examined and exhumed, 6,000 full or partial corpses recovered, and more than 2,000 people buried following DNA tests. More graves are regularly found and exhumed. Here for example, on May 31st 2006, 25 men with their hands tied behind their backs with telephone wire prior to execution.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060531/481/4e1f76e0635040aeb30f9229aaf713d1

At some point, the publically available evidence has to be disputed in some manner. Until that is done, there is nothing to discuss other than what it is that motivates the disinformation he chooses to spread.

As a useful aid for Mr Pumphrey, he can find here several reports that answer his questions here

http://www.domovina.net/srebrenica/page_006.php

The Republica Srpska commission in 2004 in particular goes into great detail about those missing and the methodology used. See the addendum, part 2

http://www.domovina.net/srebrenica/page_006/rs_final_srebrenica_report_add.pdf

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

In addition, 2 minor points. I did indeed make a typo in referring to 'Fools Gold' instead of 'Fools Crusade....', however

Mr Pumphrey's says

"But you provide not a single fact that disproves the facts and sources given by Ms. Johnstone.

It would be in order to ask you – the author of such accusations – on what you base YOUR accusations, that this non-official appraisal of the events in Srebrenica in July 1995 amounts to "disinformation" and historical "revisionism." You confront scientific research with your (uninformed?) opinion. And we are supposed to take your word for it? "

Ms Johnstone herself gives ICTY forensic evidence as the source for her claim that 199 were 'bound or blindfolded'. You do not need to take my word for it that she misrepresented this report. It is already posted here for all to check themselves. In fact, she managed 3 falsehoods in a single paragraph.

You can also compare terminology. For Mr Pumphrey, a few misinterpretted news reports counts as 'scientific research' whilst a full forensic report is merely opinion that he appears to consider 'uniformed'.

Extraordinary, no?

gpumphrey · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 5

The term "revisionism" (inaccurately used) has become the fig leaf to cover intellectual impotence. Slander is no substitute for evidence. Counter the information furnished by Chris Hedges, (NYT), Christine Spolar, John Pomfret and Michael Dobbs (Wash. Post), Michael Evans, and Michael Kallenbach (Times UK) or even Ed Vulliamy (Guardian) (...) .

I did not want to overburden you. It makes little sense to delve into the infinite details that prove that this is part of a campaign to vilify Serbs, as a people, to justify their subjugation by West European/US powers. But it should be noted that evidence of a "massacre" – the original accusation was SUMMARY EXECUTIONS – is not to be found in the lynch mob type of proclamations of 1, 2, or 10 years after the fact, but in the reports at the time of the events.

Ian Cresswell writes "at some point, the publicly available evidence has to be disputed in some manner".

It is indicative that he would attempt to limit the debate to ONLY the cries of the mob. To limit oneself to the hysterics of the campaign, rather than return to the roots, is to abdicate to a fascist, new world order, where "conviction" or "innocence" is determined by ethnic membership and not by concrete evidence of an act.

All of the information that he says that I don't mention, is information that became part of the EU/USA campaign to criminalize Bosnian Serbs. It is no accident that the very day that Madeline Albright pulled off her peep-show in the Security Council, was exactly the day, that the UNSC was scheduled to debate the crimes in the process of being committed by Croats in "Operation Storm". She sidetracked the discussion onto alleged crimes committed by Serbs.

In my original article I wrote the following, worth remembering for the sake of historical coherence:

"The day Ms. Albright made her exhibit at the Security Council, the New York Times shed light on the intentions behind the scenes.

"The timing of the Administration's disclosure of the photos, (...) coincided with a new American plan to broker peace in the Balkans. Anthony Lake, the President's national security adviser, arrived in London today to begin talks with European allies. (Schmitt, Eric; "Spy Photos Indicate Mass Grave at Serb-Held Town, US Says," NY Times, Aug. 10, 1995)

"Alongside Lake's trip to London, a second reason for Ms. Albright's spectacular stage management became apparent: "Ms. Albright's presentation today came as thousands of Serbian refugees fled their homes after a Croatian military offensive, carried out with tacit American approval, overran an area of Croatia previously held by rebel Serbs." (Crossette, Barbara; U.S. Seeks to Prove Mass Killings; NY Times, Aug 11, 1995)

"To distract attention from the largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Yugoslav civil war, with not only "tacit American approval" but with active American assistance, the Clinton Administration put on a spy photo "peep show" for the UN Security Council. A supplementary objective must have been to dissuade Security Council members from seeking to impose sanctions against an ally of the United States for a criminal offensive in the Krajina on a far greater scale than the Serb capture of Srebrenica. The US government hoped to spare itself the politically embarrassing situation of having to veto any such initiative. A US veto would have meant giving up its official position of impartiality, which it needed to be a credible chaperon for the negotiations. "

Once the accusation was made, and a campaign was launched, few DARED return to the time of the takeover, a month earlier, to see what had really happened. Hardly anyone knows this information and those who do, but still disregard the impact of the facts held therein, have another agenda than seeking justice or peace.

Cresswell writes:
"Since 1996 more than 42 mass graves have been examined and exhumed, 6,000 full or partial corpses recovered, and more than 2,000 people buried following DNA tests. More graves are regularly found and exhumed. Here for example, on May 31st 2006, 25 men with their hands tied behind their backs with telephone wire prior to execution."

Isn't it strange that mass graves in a region where a civil war raged for nearly 4 years has produced ONLY Srebrenica Muslim corpses and no Serbs? Who were the more than 1,000 corpses in the Tuzla catacombs, that remained unclaimed? Tuzla is Muslim controlled so why are the bodies not being claimed?

The résumé presented by the longtime UN forensic specialist, who also worked extensively on the Srebrenica case, Dr. Zoran Stankovic is as follows:

Between 1996-2000 17 mass graves in Eastern Bosnia were exhumed by the ICTY
1883 persons were found
1656 of them were masculine, 1 feminine and 212 undetermined
1424 died of gunshot wounds
169 probably of gunshot wounds
5 killed by artillery
4 died through other means
for 1374 no cause of death could be established
199 had been blindfolded
25 blindfolds were found on bodies
47 blindfolds were found in the graves separate from the bodies
314 persons carried marks on the wrists of binding
64 means of attaching were found on the bodies
47 means of attaching were found in the graves separated from the bodies
ONLY 45 WERE IDENTIFIED AND WERE FOUND ON THE SREBRENICA "MISSING" LISTS.

The question remains: Then who were the other 1838 bodies? When, and by whose hands did they die?

(I would warn against jumping to the conclusion that because there were blindfolds, and tied hands that this signals a massacre. This COULD signal a massacre as much as it could signal arrest under war conditions [the blindfolds for example, to prohibit escape and communication]. There is no indication of who did the killing: Serbs or Muslims. Were the bodies Serb victims of Muslims or Muslim victims of Serbs? This nuance does not interest inquisitors, "the Serbs did it, regardless who pulled the trigger.")

On Friday, May 26, 2000, Dr. Stankovic testified before the ICTY, where he criticized the work of his colleagues. But this testimony was censored from the ICTY protocols that are available on the internet. In fact in his testimony, he criticizes his colleagues' arbitrary way of declaring that a death was caused by execution. "The blindfolds and the cuffs, that had not been found on the bodies, cannot be considered significant. Only 199 persons had been found wearing blindfolds and having their hands tied. One person also was tied at the feet. The corpses that had worn blindfolds, or [showed] evidence of being tied, at the same time as showing signs of having been shot at close range, are the only ones to be qualified for having been executed" he told the ICTY.

Obviously Mr. Cresswell does not care about these details. For him the verdict is clear – even before evidence is heard.

The ICTY always parts from the premise that "more than 7,000" Muslim males were killed in the "massacre" in Srebrenica. This was the basis of the accusation during the "trial" of Gen. Radislav Krstic. But Aug. 3, 2001, the day the "conviction" was announced, the ICTY could only account for "2,028 bodies exhumed" from mass graves in the region and an additional 2,500 bodies that had been "located." (Marlise Simons, "Genocide Verdict for Ex-General," Aug. 3, 2001, IHT/NY Times)

This should have posed a particular problem for JURISTS: On the one hand, how can you convict someone of a crime – in this case the summary executions of more than 7,000 males – if you don't have the absolute proof, that "more than 7,000 males" have been executed? On the other hand, if those 2,028 exhumed bodies – and even less the 2,500 "located" bodies – had never been proven to have been Muslims, summarily executed in or around Srebrenica in mid-July 1995? This is what can be called "conviction on account" – convict now and hope to find the proof later.

During the Bush administration a new element has come to play a significant role in the propaganda campaign. Given the fact that the ICTY proves incapable in its plausible "production" of sufficient Muslim corpses, the US State Dept. decided to lend a hand. A new "'N'GO" appeared on the scene: the "International Commission on Missing Persons" whose chairperson, Jim Kimsey, was named by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, personally. (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2001/2865.htm) This "commission," it is to be expected, simply creates arbitrarily, the "evidence" that more people were killed/died than can be concretely proven otherwise. (We've seen how it works with WMDs in Iraq.)

I take it that Ian Cresswell knows that the DNA "tests" are carried out by this US government propaganda organ, to strengthen the hand of its inquisitor henchmen in the Hague. One can produce "DNA vials" at will, just to come up with a higher number than what can plausibly be shown with bodies and identification. And there is no independent counter-check of their findings. This is the propaganda that Ian Cresswell was referring to in his letter.

(See Part II)

gpumphrey · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 5

Mr. Cresswell even has the chutzpah to put the 2004 Republika Srpska Srebrenica Report on the witness stand. The title alone ("Addendum to the Report of the 11th June 2004 On the Events in and Around Srebrenica Between 10th and 19th July 1995") demonstrates the absurdity of his criticism of my using sources directly connected to the timeframe of the events around Srebrenica.

He is willing to accept this analysis of "Events (...) between July 10, - 19, 1995." The difference is that the conclusions in the RS document were extorted by the EU/US colonial governor, Paddy Ashdown, and are certainly anything other than "original" or "scientific." They were dictated.

One need compare the first part of the report issued in Sept. 2002 with the 2004 document to recognize the difference. The 2002 document expresses in its summary:

" Aid, which has recently begun to trickle down into Republic of Srpska due to its apparent willingness to cooperate with western countries, carefully avoids Srebrenica area not to make it a beneficiary. The reason is the alleged massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995. For the countries insisting that the bad guys, Serbs, carried out cruel ethnic cleansing of poor Muslims in Srebrenica area, the emotional conscience is so convincing that they do not want to hurt Muslims by rewarding Serbs, no matter how many refugees and IDPs are living in Srebrenica area. IN GENERAL, HOWEVER, EMOTION IS OFTEN SHAPED BY TEMPORARY HYSTERIA AND BIASED OR UNCONFIRMED INFORMATION. CONSCIENCE DRIVEN BY EMOTION, THUS, TENDS TO BE DECEIVED FAIRNESS. The case of "alleged Srebrenica massacre" is not an exception." (Emphasis added.)

The EU/USA hit the ceiling and dictated that this report be withdrawn from the public domain. (Too late, it was already out.) In a September 03, 2002 press release, the Office of the High Representative of Bosnia Herzegovina, condemns the Srebrenica report:

"The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, today condemned a report issued by the RS Government Coordination Bureau with the ICTY. “Srebrenica was not the only massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 but it was Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War,” the High Representative said.

“'Pretending it didn't happen is an insult to people of all ethnic groups in BiH. If the accounts given in the media are correct, the report published today is so far from the truth as to be almost not worth dignifying with a response. It is tendentious, preposterous and inflammatory, and I would hope no responsible politician would allow their name to be associated with it, particularly in advance of an election that should be about BiH's future, not about rewriting its past.'"

* * *

The succeeding reports, including 2004, were extorted, even under threats that the entire Republika Srpska will be dissolved, if the government does not accept total responsibility for the alleged massacre of Srebrenica. In countries where rule of law still reigns, documents obtained under extortion would be inadmissible as evidence in a court of law. But Mr. Cresswell prefers the 2004 report over the 2002 for obvious reasons.

Consider the following:

In an article entitled "US Official Implicated With Bosnian High Representative Ashdown in Attempting to Force Fabricated Report on Srebrenica" (September 8, 2003), the Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily writes:

"Very reliable sources within the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other sources in Sarajevo, have told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily that a seconded US official, Amb. Donald S. Hays, the Deputy High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been actively engaged in attempts to force a fabricated report to be published on the controversial wartime fighting at the city of Srebrenica.

"Amb. Hays, presumably at the insistence of High Representative Paddy Ashdown, the former British politician, has demanded the publication of a so-called “final report” on an alleged mass-killing of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, during the Bosnian civil war, by the Government of Republica Srpska, the predominantly Serbian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In essence, Amb. Hays and Lord Ashdown are attempting to force the Government of Republica Srpska (RS) to admit that Serbs were responsible for killing thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica.

"On October 15, 2004, Republica Srpska Pres. Cavic issued a statement — known to be totally against his personal knowledge and convictions on the Srebrenica affair, and totally at odds with the forensic research by several European governments and international forensic experts — which said that Bosnian Serbs had proven their political maturity by admitting for the first time that their forces slaughtered more than 7,000 Muslims in the 1995 “Srebrenica massacre”. Pres. Cavic told Republica Srpska’s SRNA news agency the report was “proof” of the Serbs’ “political maturity to face up to the bad things in the wartime past”.

"Pres. Cavic was known to have been told that he would be removed from office by HR Ashdown if he refused to accept the “findings” of the so-called Commission on Srebrenica which had been sponsored by Ashdown, and dominated by his appointee, the head of the Muslim dominated Commission on Missing Persons. The firing of almost 60 elected and appointed Republica Srpska Government officials on June 30-July 1, 2004, while leaving Pres. Cavic in place, obviously reinforced the fact that they would not be able to speak the truth about Srebrenica or any other issue that clashed with the view of the OHR and still remain in their jobs." ("Ashdown Forces Srebrenica Statement on Bosnian Serb President Under Threat to Destroy Bosnian Serb State," Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily - Volume XXII, No. 168 – Wednesday, October 20, 2004)

On this forum, it had been asked of those, who have doubts about the official death toll, to furnish information concerning the whereabouts of the survivors. But it is for those raising – or accepting – the accusations that 7 – 8,000 Muslims had been summarily executed in Srebrenica, to first of all bring evidence that they in fact were killed. This is yet to be proven. What in essence is demanded, is an inversion of the weight of proof, from the accuser to the "accused." This shows the degeneration of the notion of rule of law.

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

gpumphrey · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 5

A forum is a lieu of DISCUSSION. There are a certain number of shared standards that make a DISCUSSION even possible. It is clear that with Raoul and Ion that there is no common ground on the questions of colonialism, ethnic chauvinism, rule of law nor what constitutes historical fact.

But after all the experience of how lies are churned out in order to justify wars and the subjugation of peoples, I assume that there may be others, who are still seeking to learn if and to what extent they have been deluded into supporting going to war against Yugoslavia and colonizing Bosnia. For these members of the "forum" it might be interesting to consider the following information about the background to the Annan Report mentioned by Raoul.

A hoax is like every other lie: it always breeds new lies to cover up the original one.

In the Annan Report on Srebrenica, one reads, for example:

"115. Representatives of the Bosniac community gathered in Sarajevo on 28 and 29 September [1993] to vote on the peace package. A delegation of Bosniacs from Srebrenica was transported to Sarajevo by UNPROFOR helicopter to participate in the debate. Prior to the meeting, the delegation met in private with President Izetbegovic, who told them that there were Serb proposals to exchange Srebrenica and Zepa for territories around Sarajevo. The delegation opposed the idea, and the subject was not discussed further. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people. President Izetbegovic has flatly denied making such a statement."

Annan does not give a source for this statement. And it turns out that this version of the story is incomplete.

The whole story is told in an interview with Hakija Meholjic, president of Social Democratic Party for Srebrenica and former police chief of the enclave under Nasir Oric. In an interview in the Bosnian (Muslim) journal, Dani, entitled, 5,000 Muslim Lives for Military Intervention; Interview with Hakija Meholjic, president of Social Democratic Party for Srebrenica, he recounts:

"Dani: In your accusations of the state leadership, and particularly of President Izetbegovic, over a share of the Bosniak blame for the Srebrenica tragedy, the departure of the Srebrenica delegation to Sarajevo in September 1993 for talks on the fate of this enclave cannot be avoided?

"Meholjic: The invitation came from President Izetbegovic. At a meeting of the municipal war presidency we designated the delegation for Sarajevo. We immediately had some premonition that big issues would be resolved there because it was the first time we were leaving Srebrenica and we were provided transport in two helicopters. We exited safely, yet ever since we had became a demilitarized zone not a single civilian or military delegation had come to us. It was envisaged that Naser Oric would be going also, but he did not want to go. We were transported in armored personnel carriers from Sarajevo airport to the Holiday Inn hotel. That was the time of the Bosniak Convention, where a decision was being made on the peace plan and the division of Bosnia. We were received there by President Izetbegovic, and immediately after the welcome he asked us: "What do you think about the swap of Srebrenica for Vogosca [a Sarajevo suburb]?" There was a silence for a while and then I said: "Mr. President, if this is a done thing, then you should not have invited us here, because we have to return and face the people and personally accept the burden of that decision."

"Dani: So you rejected Izetbegovic's decision?

"Meholjic: We rejected it without any discussion. Then he said: "You know, I was offered by Clinton in April 1993 (after the fall of Cerska and Konjevic Polje) that the Chetnik forces enter Srebrenica, carry out a slaughter of 5,000 Muslims, and then there will be a military intervention." Our delegation was composed of nine people, one among us was from Bratunac and unfortunately he is the only one not alive now, but all the others from the delegation are alive and can confirm this. (...)", http://www.ex-yupress.com/dani/dani2.html

In other words Clinton had offered Izetbegovic – in exchange for another of Ganic's friendly fire "massacres" (bread line, Markale I & II, sniper alley, etc.) – a US/NATO military intervention on the side of the Muslim fundamentalists. The ensuing press campaign would be strong enough to guarantee international support.

This offer was made nearly 2 years before a peace deal finally was brokered using a scenario similar to the previously planned one. The "peace deal" came just in time to weigh in favorably for Clinton's re-election in 1996.

it is no mere coincidence that Annan's report was issued at the moment, Albright got the US to pay up on its UN dues. The US bought this biased account on events around Srebrenica with US tax payers' money.

Regardless of how many lies are brought to the fore and subserviently rehashed, the truth is stubborn...

gpumphrey

David Peterson · Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 19 Location: Chicago, USA

Both “Ian70” and “Raoul Djukanovic” keep insisting that those who express doubts about the standard view that some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims (almost exclusively males) were captured and executed by Bosnian Serb forces following the fall and evacuation of the Srebrenica enclave in July, 1995, ought to put up or shut up, as the saying goes.

But since my initial post to this Media Lens Forum (May 30, http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1578 ) dealt with an entirely different matter—namely, the pronounced and peculiar nature of Ollie Kamm’s obsession with Noam Chomsky—and in particular, Kamm’s perverse compulsion to denigrate everything related to Chomsky’s work—I thought I’d bring everybody up to date about this Kamm character instead:

* “’Pernicious and anti-journalistic’,” June 4, http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/pernicious_and_.html
* “Yahoos,” June 6, http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/yahoos.html
* “Free money,” June 7, http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/free_money_.html

As for the peculiar obsessions of “Ian70” and “Raoul Djukanovic” (i.e., judging by the fact that they would hijack a post about some other person’s obsessions and turn it into a forum for separating (a) those who believe in the genocide in Bosnia and the massacre near Srebrenica from (b) those who do not), I would only add here that multiple evidential bases for skepticism do exist. And, indeed, that one can even be found in the August 2, 2001 Judgment in the trial of the former Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic.[1]

Thus in the sections of the Judgment that pertain to “The Execution of the Bosnian Muslim Men from Srebrenica,” “Forensic Evidence of the Executions,” and “The Number of Men Executed by the Bosnian Serb Forces Following the Takeover of Srebrenica in July 1995,” we read that expert testimony during the Krstic trial was “able to conservatively estimate that a minimum of 2,028 separate bodies were exhumed from the mass-graves” (par. 73); that the “results of the forensic investigations suggest that the majority of bodies exhumed were not killed in combat; they were killed in mass executions” (par. 75); and that, according to the principal demographic study upon which the Office of the Prosecutor relied during the Krstic trial, by Helge Brunborg et al.,[2] researchers concluded that a “minimum of 7,475 persons from Srebrenica are still listed as missing, based on the cross-referencing of ICRC lists and other sources and that it is likely that the vast majority of these missing people are deceased” (par. 80). Though I hasten to emphasize here (a) that the Brunborg research is demographic in nature, not forensic; and (b) that in Brunborg et al.’s own words, the “major task for the project was to present evidence of the likelihood that the persons listed as missing actually had died” (p. 242)—in plainer English, that whatever else it was, Brunborg et al’s research also was political in nature, and that in fact its agenda was driven by the needs of the Office of the Prosecutor, not simple demographics. (About which, I invite everyone to consider Edward S. Herman’s “The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre,” ZNet, July 7, 2005, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8244 .)

“There is some serious inconsistency in the [Krstic] judgment on the question of the actual number of victims,” York University’s Michael Mandel observes, contrasting the forensic evidence for the estimated number of bodies exhumed (2,028) against Brunborg’s demographic evidence for the number of person’s “reported as missing and…presumed dead after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave” (between 7,475 and 7,536) and, ultimately, against the Trial Chamber’s Judgment that the “total number [of Bosnian Muslim men executed by Bosnian Serb forces] is likely to be within the range of 7,000 – 8,000” (par. 84).

“The evidence,” Mandel continues, “was found only ‘to support the proposition that the majority of missing people were, in fact, executed and buried in the mass graves’. A majority of a maximum of 7,000 – 8,000 would put the maximum executed closer to 4,000”—or roughly one-half that of the standard view. At least according to the Trial Chamber’s reasoning from the evidence then at its command.

As Mandel coolly concludes:[3]

The mass murder of 4,000 people is a horrifying crime, whether committed by Serbs in Bosnia or the Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq. It’s the kind of thing that happens in war, and that’s precisely why the crime against peace is the ‘supreme international crime’. For murdering 4,000 people, they could have sent Krstic (not to mention Clinton) away for a lot of life terms, so why exaggerate the numbers? Because the tribunal wasn’t really interested in the murder charges. They were after the big prize of genocide, a much more difficult case to make in these circumstances, so the higher the number of dead the better.

1. Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic, Judgment (IT-98-33-T), August 2, 2001, http://www.un.org/icty/krstic/TrialC1/judgement/krs-tj010802e.pdf .
2. Helge Brunborg, Torkild Hovde Lyngstad, and Henrik Urdal, “Accounting for Genocide: How Many Were Killed in Srebrenica?” European Journal of Population, 19: 3, 2003, pp. 229-248, http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/eujp/2003/00000019/00000003/05121253 .
3. Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity (Pluto Press, 2004), pp. 155-156, http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=115021 .

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Hi Dave (I presume from your repeated references to "Ollie" that this is how you'd prefer to be addressed). You write:

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Mr Pumphrey writes:

David Peterson · Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 19 Location: Chicago, USA

Let us all (at least those who have visited this particular Media Lens Forum, initiated on May 30, http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1578 ) be clear about something—and let “Raoul Djukanovic” above all get something straight right away.

You are not in control here. Therefore you can stomp your feet and hold your breath until your mommy rushes to your side to plead how sorry she is, and how much she loves you. But I’ll be damned if I permit you little pseudonymous Internet bullies run this fishbowl. Forget it.

So go ahead and throw tantrums, fellas. And taunt and bait the innocent over their beliefs about the genocide in Bosnia and the massacre near Srebrenica all you like. “Raoul Djukanovic” couldn’t even keep it together long enough to make his first post to this particular forum (Tue May 30, 2006 8:01 pm) without stooping to these tactics. Such is his devotion to “play[ing] the ball rather than the man.”

For the record (and my apologies for repeating myself before all of the honest and upfront people who stumble across this forum): My post (Tue May 30, 2006 4:38 pm) dealt with the disgraceful decision of The Guardian to reopen the inquiry into the Emma Brockes – Noam Chomsky affair, allegedly (i.e., here sticking to the version of it reported by the External Ombudsman, John Willis[1]) on the basis of a complaint dated December 2 and subsequent correspondence with the complaint’s authors, David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm and Francis Wheen. My post made the point that since one of the authors of the complaint, Ollie Kamm, has a track record that betrays a perverse obsession with denigrating everything related to Chomsky, this fact alone ought to have disqualified the complaint in the eyes of The Guardian.—Didn’t The Guardian recognize with whom it was dealing? The Guardian should have dismissed the complaint instead.

So why then was the Brockes – Chomsky affair reopened, ultimately? Why did The Guardian permit this kind of perverse obsession with denigrating Chomsky and his work set its agenda for it? Particularly given that, in the incredible words of the External Ombudsman’s report (par. 17):

The original interview was tape recorded but unfortunately the tape has been partially recorded over. A transcript of sorts exists but the most contentious section of the interview was not available on tape. No one seems to doubt that this was genuine.

Now there’s an inquiry worth opening. At last.

1. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/readerseditor/story/0,,1782133,00.html . Esp. pars. 9 – 11, and pars. 22 – 24.

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

David Peterson says

"Ollie Kamm, has a track record that betrays a perverse obsession with denigrating everything related to Chomsky, this fact alone ought to have disqualified the complaint in the eyes of The Guardian.—Didn’t The Guardian recognize with whom it was dealing? The Guardian should have dismissed the complaint instead. "

But this is irrelevant David. There were many other signatories to the 2 letters. They have just as much a right to complain as you do. Many of them are academics in the field, and witnesses to the events and so speak with a degree of authority.

By the way, it was myself, not Raul, that suggested the issues be addressed, not one of the men making them.

I haven't simply dismissed the letter from Chris Black et al merely by rubbishing the individuals involved- even though that would be relatively simple.

My interest is in moving Balkan debate beyond these sterile and nonsensical attempts to pretend that major events either did not take place, or have been greatly exaggerated. It serves no purpose at all to spread disinformation and there is so much more of importance and interest that should be the subject of public discussion. The current situation of Serbs in Kosovo and the moves towards independence this year for example.

However, instead a small group with loud voices and little knowledge insist on spreading poison and lies, the very least they should expect is to be challenged about it.

Ian70 · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 15 Location: London

Mr Pumphrey at least he attempts to address an issue of substance, but its the same old disinformation.

He says

"On Friday, May 26, 2000, Dr. Stankovic testified before the ICTY, where he criticized the work of his colleagues. But this testimony was censored from the ICTY protocols that are available on the internet. In fact in his testimony, he criticizes his colleagues' arbitrary way of declaring that a death was caused by execution. "The blindfolds and the cuffs, that had not been found on the bodies, cannot be considered significant. Only 199 persons had been found wearing blindfolds and having their hands tied. One person also was tied at the feet. The corpses that had worn blindfolds, or [showed] evidence of being tied, at the same time as showing signs of having been shot at close range, are the only ones to be qualified for having been executed" he told the ICTY.

Obviously Mr. Cresswell does not care about these details. For him the verdict is clear – even before evidence is heard. "

Dr Stankovic did not testify on May 26th 2000, after all, he wasn't a part of the forensic team employed by the prosecutors office.
http://www.un.org/icty/transe33/000526it.htm

He was the specialist employed by the defence, and so of course paid by the ICTY. He did challenge the prosecution case, as a defence witness.

So why does Mr Pumphrey pretend that he was censored in some fashion and mislead you as to his role? Perhaps to put some apparent flesh on the desperately thin argument that blindfolds and ligatures don't strongly suggest large scale executions.

Raoul Djukanovic · Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 385 Location: UK