Topic: Crime and Punishment
Radovan Karadzic in Court: Be Careful What You Wish For Radovan Karadzic's arrest and subsequent extradition to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague promises to shed light on our news media's misrepresentation of the Bosnian civil war.by Andy Wilcoxson
(Libertarian)
Monday, August 4, 2008
After evading capture for thirteen years, former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic made his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague last Thursday.
Our media and our political establishment have portrayed his arrest and extradition to the Tribunal as a great triumph. They have spent the last sixteen years promoting the thesis of Serbian guilt and Muslim victimization in the Bosnian war and in their minds Karadzic's arrest validates their politics and their policies.
Ever since Karadzic's arrest was announced our political establishment has been engaged in an orgy of childish name-calling. Karadzic has been portrayed as evil incarnate; various journalists and public figures have called him a "monster", a "demon", and a "butcher". Former Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke called him "Europe's Bin Laden". While this kind of name-calling might give self-important journalists and politicians the opportunity to portray themselves as virtuous crusaders for international justice, it does very little to shed light on what actually happened in Bosnia.
The people who cheer Karadzic's capture today might regret it tomorrow. These people built their professional careers on the premise of saving "innocent" Bosnian-Muslims from Karadzic's "genocidal Serb aggression". Their credibility and professional reputation depend on his guilt. Until now, they've been able to accuse him with impunity because he was in hiding and couldn't defend himself. Now that he's in the Tribunal's custody, he will be given a high-profile public trial where he will have the opportunity to challenge their accusations and present his own evidence.
One of the most famous "crimes" that Karadzic is accused of is the Siege of Sarajevo. Most of us can remember the scenes of pockmarked apartment blocks in Sarajevo and the images of Muslim civilians maimed and killed by Serbian artillery fire. Karadzic's trial promises to give much-needed context to that imagery.
Without a doubt, the Serbs shelled Sarajevo several times during the war. The Karadzic trial will reveal why they did it. The evidence has already been presented during other trials at the Tribunal, but the Karadzic trial will be the highest profile presentation of that evidence.
The Serbs fired on Sarajevo because the Muslims were in the city shooting at them. The so-called "siege" began as an operation to rescue soldiers that the Muslims were holding hostage in the Marshal Tito Barracks. It continued because the Muslims wouldn't agree to a cease-fire and they wouldn't stop shooting at the Serbs.
Muslim troops in Sarajevo deliberately attacked the Serbs from built-up civilian areas of the city in order to increase the likelihood that civilians would be hit when the Serbs returned fire. UN military observers stationed in Sarajevo have already testified at the Tribunal that they witnessed this practice many times.
David Harland, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping in Bosnia, is on record testifying at the Tribunal. He said, "The Muslims certainly understood that when they fired out of the city that [it] would provoke incoming Serb fire, which would make normal life in the city impossible." According to his testimony the Muslims violated 514 attempts by the UN to implement a cease-fire.
Philippe Morillion, the French general who commanded the UN force in Bosnia from 1992 to 1993, is on record testifying that the Muslims "very frequently used mortars at Kosevo (the main hospital in Sarajevo) for provocation purposes".
Morillion's protest letters to the Bosnian-Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic are already exhibits on file at the Tribunal. One letter dated January 11, 1993 reads: "[an] 82-milimeter mortar had been set up on the western side of the Kosevo Hospital within the hospital grounds. This mortar and its crew then proceeded to fire nine rounds using the hospital as a screen. The direct consequence of this disreputable and cowardly act was that shortly afterward the hospital came under fire from anti-aircraft gunfire, artillery fire, and mortar fire ... You will, I'm sure, be aware that the firing of weapons from the hospital is against the Geneva Convention."
The siege of Sarajevo wasn't a genocidal Serb attack on defenseless peace loving Muslims like our news media led us to believe. The Muslims deliberately put their civilian population in the crossfire so that NATO would intervene against the Serbs on "humanitarian" grounds.
NATO took the bait because our news media shamelessly shilled for the Islamic cause. Our journalists dutifully reported that Muslim civilians were killed in Sarajevo by Serb artillery fire, but they failed to report that the Serbs were provoked by Muslim artillery fire emanating from the city.
The story of Srebrenica is similar. We've been told the half-truth that the Serbs over-ran a UN safe area and killed thousands of Muslims, but we weren't told that the Muslims of Nasir Oric's 28th Infantry Division used that safe area as a base to launch attacks from. They massacred the Serbian villages surrounding Srebrenica and they fled back into the warm bosom of the UN Safe Area when they were done safely behind the UN's skirts and out of reach of Serb retaliation.
In July 1995, when a column of 15,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica ventured out of the safe area to attack the Bosnian-Serb frontlines in an operation to break-through to Tuzla, the Serbs weren't inclined to be friendly. The Serbs shot and managed to kill thousands of their Muslim attackers, and now we're being told that they committed a so-called "genocide".
One has to wonder what kind of "genocide" it was when most of the bodies being pulled from the mass graves around Srebrenica are military aged men. Thousands of bodies have been exhumed and there isn't a single woman among them. Can you think of any other "genocide" that spared women and children? If exterminating Muslims was the goal, why not kill the women and children? The story of Srebrenica doesn't make a lot of sense until you realize that it wasn't genocide at all. What happened in Srebrenica is simple: the Muslims attacked the Serbs so the Serbs shot and killed them, some died in battle and others were executed. It might not have been pretty, but it's ridiculous to call it "genocide".
Only a fool would believe that the Muslims were striving for a democratic and multi-ethnic Bosnia. Alija Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, was seen in the company of Osama bin Laden by Der Spiegel's Balkan correspondent Renate Flottau and by London Time's war correspondent Eve-Ann Prentice in 1994. According to the 9/11 Commission report, four of the 9/11 hijackers, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were veterans of the Bosnian jihad against Radovan Karadzic and the Serbs.
A report published in 1996 by the US House Committee on International Relations says, "Iran ordered senior members of its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ("IRGC"), the elite force used to advance militant Islam, to travel to Bosnia to survey the military needs of the [Izetbegovic] government. IRGC trainers taught the Muslims how to use anti-tank missiles and helped with troop logistics and weapons factories. The IRGC also incorporated religious indoctrination into military training. Iran used this leverage to urge Hizballah to send foreign fighters to the region as members of the Mujahideen. The effort was successful and a force of thousands drawn from several pro-Iranian groups and other Islamic Opposition movements assembled in Bosnia."
Radovan Karadzic was fighting the good fight in Bosnia. He was fighting to keep his people from being subjugated by an Islamic regime in Sarajevo that had ties to Osama bin Laden and the Iranian government. Anybody who believes that the Muslims enlisted the help of Osama bin Laden and the Iranians for the sake of multi-ethnic democracy is hopelessly delusional.
Radical Islamic groups supported Izetbegovic's regime because he shared their fundamentalist views. In 1990, two years before the war started, Izetbegovic published his book "The Islamic Declaration" in Sarajevo. In that book Izetbegovic advocates Sharia law and the establishment of "a united Islamic community from Morocco to Indonesia". He wrote that the establishment of an Islamic order was his "incontrovertible and invincible aim". In Izetbegovic's view "the Islamic movement should and can, take over political power as soon as it is morally and numerically so strong that it can not only overturn the existing non-Islamic power, but also build up a new Islamic one". He branded Western feminists "a depraved element of the female sex" and said, "There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political institutions".
Under the circumstances, the Bosnian-Serbs had every right to break away from Bosnia and re-join what was left of Yugoslavia. To call the Serbian war effort an aggression for "Greater Serbia" is grossly dishonest. The Bosnian-Serbs had the same right to leave Bosnia and re-join Yugoslavia that West Virginia had to break away from Confederate Virginia and re-join the Union during the civil war.
The rhetoric that our media and our political establishment have used to describe the Bosnian civil war is some of the most malicious propaganda ever conceived. To illustrate the point I'll use their "Bosnia rhetoric" to describe the American civil war: "In 1861 Abraham Lincoln committed an aggression against the Confederate States of America. Over the course of the war, Lincoln's thugs systematically seized Confederate territory in a genocidal quest for Greater America'. Lincoln's war killed more than 600,000 people and left millions homeless. Lincoln, better known as the butcher of Gettysburg', was not brought to justice for his crimes until he was slain by a Confederate loyalist named John Wilkes Booth in 1865."
Obviously, that tendentious description of the civil war is one of the most intellectually dishonest things ever written. Unfortunately, our news media and our political establishment describe what happened in Bosnia in precisely that fashion. It is time to call these people out, the next bleeding hart that bemoans "Karadzic's genocide in Bosnia" and smugly applauds his capture as "a victory for international justice" needs to be put in their place.
No matter what you've been told, there was nothing especially evil about the 1992-95 war in Bosnia compared to any other war. The war killed about 100,000 people including the civilians and soldiers from each side. While that's a lot of people it's not a remarkable death toll for a war. It certainly isn't indicative of genocide or anything even close.
When the United States firebombed Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 we killed 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night of bombing alone. Does that mean Franklin Roosevelt was a genocidal monster? Coalition forces estimate that they killed 100,000 Iraqi troops during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91. Does that make George H.W. Bush guilty of genocide? If it's absurd to accuse Bush and Roosevelt of genocide, then it's equally absurd to accuse Radovan Karadzic.
Radovan Karadzic's fight to keep his people from being ruled by Islamic extremists is no less valid than the U.S. war against Imperial Japan or the U.S. campaign to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. If anything Karadzic had more of a right to stand and fight on the territory where his people lived than the United States had to take the fight halfway around the world to Japan and Iraq.
If Radovan Karadzic marshals the evidence already on record at the Tribunal, and if he supplements it with the documents and evidence that undoubtedly came into his possession as the President of the Bosnian Serbs he will bury his opposition. The people who are pointing their self-righteous fingers at him today could very well regret the day they ever put him on trial. Then again, his accusers have been dishonest from day one. They will probably keep repeating their story no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. They've been lying for sixteen years and there's no reason to think they'll stop now. It is time to call these people out and start applying some common sense to our understanding of the Bosnian war.
Andy Wilcoxson administers a website where he covered Milosevic's trial in The Hague. He recently finished writing a book about the break up of Yugoslavia based on the information that came to light during the course of Milosevic's trial. He was a founding member of Milosevic’s defense committee in The Hague. He can be reached via e-mail.
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Published: Monday, August 4, 2008
Last modified: Monday, August 4, 2008
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Posted By: Jake, the champion of the constitution
Date: 2008-08-04 22:15:00
Andy -
very interesting point of view and thanks, i am pretty ignorant of the yugoslavian deal since I was still learning how to ride a bike. What's the name of your book? I just recently finished A Shattered Peace by Andelman where he explains that Yugoslavia was basically doomed from the start in Paris 1919, and the solution that was called for by the people is similar to modern borders
have a slight issue with your wording on "Does that mean Franklin Roosevelt was a genocidal monster?" No, but bombing innocent civilians can be a war crime. And there was quite a bit of racial hatred against the 'Japs' at the time, including concentration camps with American citizens of Japanese descent + immigrants on American soil. Btw, would the Tokyo fire bombing+either of the 2 nuke attacks be construed as war crime or not? From your background you are probably more familiar than I am
Posted By: Emir from Sarajevo
Date: 2008-08-04 23:20:15
Nice twisting of facts and insertion of fabricated tales. Everyone has a right to opinion. Some opinions are more educated, some are less. This OpEd piece is one of the more ignorrant and canned, compared to ones I have read in the past decade and a half.
Many of your facts have been confirmed by General Lewis McKenzie. Unfortunately, the minute the General said that all sides were committing atrocities, he was immediately replaced by General Rose from England (who then was also replaced immediately upon making similar factual statements). Interesting enough, then the Muslims called General McKenzie a "rapist".
So many UN Peacekeepers will tell you (upon my conversations with them), that the Muslims could never be trusted, where the Serbs always followed their "word" especially when it came down to exchange of POWs and ceasefires.
How could the Hague release someone like Nasir Oric? With such biased judgement, that court is a "farce". Clearly, biased against Serbs. And it's so unfortunate the current Western influenced Serb government would give up Karadzic to such a biased & Western Media influenced court.
It's refreshing to see that there still are some journalists who provide educated and common sense reporting.
Im pleased to read this article. It seems we almost hear the opposite everywhere else. there are so many instances that can easily be proved. Take for instance the so called "bread line massacre" when serbs supposedly shelled innocent muslims waiting in line for bread. however, none of the windows were broken during the shelling. This is important because it meant that the explosion occured outward and below from the windows, which implies that the explosives were planted to create the effect of a serb offensive on innocent muslims. This was one of many instances that the bosnian muslims was trying to seek sympathy from the outside world. It did however work, at the price of killing your own people though. So if you cant beat the enemy, kill your own and hope someone else does.
Andy Wilcoxson, you're wrong. Sarajevo was shelled EVERY SINGLE DAY, not just "several times during the war" as you claim. You're not only ajoke, you're also a Srebrenica genocide denier. Opinion is cheap, you can't change facts.
It gives hope that Bosnian propaganda will meet with valid arguments and facts. By the way, Sarajevo was NOT bombed every day as some of the commentators imply. Thank you Andy for great work.
Posted By: Nermin from Sarajevo
Date: 2008-08-05 14:33:17
I have not read more lies in one article in a long time. I cannot believe that 13 years after the Bosnian war, people still can write such blatant lies.
I was in Sarajevo during the siege from 1992-1995. More than 12.000 civilian were killed in Sarajevo during the siege. More than 1.500 children were killed in Sarajevo during that siege. A lot of my friends and members of family were also killed.
For God's sake, you are not writing an article about an event that happened 2000 years ago, it happened little more than a decade ago. Read some facts before you try to write another apologetic article of Karadzic’s crimes. If you want real facts about what happened in Bosnia, you better read this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo
Posted By: David, Dobrinja 3, Sarajevo
Date: 2008-08-05 19:16:56
I simply cannot believe the level of denial some of my countrymen, or - ex-countrymen live in. I lived on Dobrinja 3, Sarajevo myself, and barely escaped this new "government" who pushed a lot of my friends into real death camps that were all over Sarajevo.
My ex-countrymen Nermin, Emir and "Alexa" have forgotten that, it appears. I am very sorry for the losses on both sides, but the only way to make peace is to face the truth. And the truth is far from claims like "there was genocide"... truth is - my countrymen have been importing terrorists for years to fight their brothers and sisters (same nation, different religion). They will not be able to face the truth for as long as they keep their eyes closed and for as long as they keep feeding themselves with hate... that came from I don't know where. Well - we are where we are, and we can either choose to spit on one another or face the facts. And Andy here is bringing out the facts, gentlemen.
You may like or dislike the truth, but that is not it's purpose.
Serbia Win-Loss Record 1389 Battle of Kosovo BIG LOSS 1593 Austrian–Turkish War LOSS--->Ottomans retaliated by burning the relics of St. Sava- the most sacred thing for all Serbs 1690 &1737-1739 Great Serb Migrations Kosovo became underpopulated as Serbs were leaving what was once the core of their Serbian Empire for Vojvodina and other parts West. LOSS--->If serbs love Kosovo so much, why did they leave and never come back? Are they willing to exchange Vojvodina for Kosovo? 1804 Slaughter of the knezes LOSS 1805 First Serbian Uprising WIN 1806-1812 Russo-Turkish War LOSS 1813 Ottomans reconquer Serbia LOSS 1815 Second Serbian Uprising WIN 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War LOSS 1912 First Balkan War PUSH 1913 Second Balkan War PUSH 1914 World War I LOSS-->nice job starting the conflict 1941 World War II PUSH-->TITO might have chosen Belgrade as capital, but he was not a Serb 1991 Slovenian Independence War LOSS 1991-95 Croatian Independence War LOSS-->Caused the third and fastest Great Serb Migration. 1992 Bosnian War PUSH----> Ended up with 51% of the land, and Karadzic and Mladic as their heros. 1999 Kosovo War LOSS-->78 days of US Bombs? Ouch! 2006 Montenegro declares Independence LOSS 2008 Kosovo declares independence LOSS 2008 Doctor Dave is captured--->Hundreds of his new Alternative Medicine followers attempt suicide en masse, by trying to overdose with a mixture of tofu and St John's wort
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-06 03:14:00
An interesting mix of facts and fabrications. Yes, the Serbs felt threatened when Bosnia started to fall apart in 1992. They weren't going to give legitimacy to a referendum on independence they were sure to lose, so they chose to boycott it. Rather than through democratic means, they preferred to further their goals through military means. Their struggle wasn’t one of self defense though, but one of conquest. Propaganda spread in Foca, Zvornik and Bijeljina about the Muslims compiling death lists of Serbs helped mobilize the Territorial Defense units, and seize the weapons from the local depots. Karadzic inflammatory speeches about wiping Bosnian Muslims of the face of the earth; Plavsic’ well publicized opinion on the Bosnian Muslims being “genetically spoiled material” and them “deserving eradication” leaves little doubt that Karadzic wasn’t quite “fighting the good fight” that Andy Wilcoxson would have us believe.Still, I agree that the Court erred on the qualification of Srebrenica as “genocide”. It was a tragedy, a mass murder, a war crime, an unjustified and brutal slaughter of non-combatants, but not genocide. Indeed, the mere fact that women were not among the victims proves that genocidal intent was not present.I must disagree, as other readers have, about Wilcoxson’s classification of the Sarajevo siege. Yes, ABiH played the public relations card cunningly. Yes, they have purposely attracted fire to places and at times of their choosing, in order to maximize press exposure on the siege. However, to say that Sarajevo was shelled on “several occasions” is a gross and deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
I am so thankful for journalist like Andy Wilcoxson, who are not afraid to uncover the truth. The facts are there and the only way to disagree is to prove or show other facts. Every war is a tragedy and every side suffered but the media keeps blaming the serbs for almost all of it. We are not as bad as we are portrayed. I am very glad when light is shed on some truth. Thanks Andy the article is awesome!
Posted By: Andy Wilcoxson
Date: 2008-08-06 13:25:58
Thank you all for commenting on the article. I will try to answer all of your questions.
I regret that the word "several" is imprecise. I am not suggesting that Sarajevo was shelled infrequently. I agree that Sarajevo was shelled a great many times during the war. I also accept that thousands of civilians died in Sarajevo.
The point I am making is that the Izetbegovic regime deliberately provoked the shelling. Izetbegovic, not Karadzic, is responsible for the civilian deaths because his troops deliberately drew fire into heavily populated civilian areas of the city by breaking literally hundreds of cease-fire attempts and by firing at the Serbs from built-up civilian areas of the city.
What happened in Sarajevo is the same thing that Hamas was caught doing in Lebanon. Hamas fired rockets at Israel from heavily populated civilian areas so that Israel would be condemned for “targeting civilians” when it returned fire. The only difference was that the Israelis had better PR people than the Serbs so Hamas couldn’t get away with it like the Bosnian-Muslims did.
As far as the Bosnian referendum for independence is concerned. It was illegal. The Bosnian parliament was not in session when the vote was taken to have the referendum in the first place. In the absence of the Serbian deputies, the Croat and Muslim deputies voted to hold the independence referendum, they voted on it in the wee hours of the morning after the parliament had been adjourned.
Even if the referendum hadn’t been illegal, the 62nd amendment of the Bosnian Constitution stipulated that a two-thirds voter turnout was required for any referendum on Bosnia’s territorial status. Voter turnout in that referendum was 64.31% (two-thirds is 66.6%) so even if the referendum had been legal the results were invalid because the voter turnout fell short.
On top of the fact that the referendum was a violation of Bosnian law, it was also a violation of Yugoslav law. Article 5 of the Yugoslav Constitution stipulated that there couldn’t be any changes to Yugoslavia’s federal borders unless all of the republics and autonomous provinces agreed. Bosnia never had the legal right to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia in the first place.
Karadzic’s statements that the Muslims would be destroyed were warnings. He was warning them that they would suffer the consequences of their actions if they opted for war. He wasn’t calling for their extermination; he was warning what would happen to them if they used force to follow through on Bosnia's illegal secession from Yugoslavia against the will of the Bosnian-Serbs.
From a legal point of view, the law is on the Bosnian-Serbs’s side but even if it wasn't Alija Izetbegovic was an Islamic fundamentalist. That can be proven with the things that he wrote, it can be proven by his criminal record, and it can be proven by the fact that his regime was supported by the government of Iran and by various Islamic terror groups that he integrated into his military. Even if Bosnia’s secession from Yugoslavia had been legal, which it wasn’t, Radovan Karadzic still had a moral obligation to keep his people from being governed by Islamic radicals.
As a rule Bosnian-Muslims aren’t Islamic fundamentalists, but Alija Izetbegovic stands out as a glaring exception to that rule, and unfortunately he was internationally recognized as Bosnia's president. In the 1990 elections the Bosnian electorate voted for Fikret Abdic. Abdic got the most votes, but Izetbegovic managed to take over the Bosnian presidency anyway.
Ethnically, Abdic was half Muslim and half Croat. Abdic led a faction of moderate Bosnian Muslims in Western Bosnia. Abdic and his followers wanted out of Izetbegovic’s Bosnia just as badly as Karadzic and the Serbs did. In fact Karadzic and Abdic had a military alliance and they cooperated together in war operations against Izetbegovic’s regime. Do you really think those Muslims in Western Bosnia would have fought on the same side as Radovan Karadzic if they thought for a minute that his goal was to exterminate Muslims and commit genocide? Radovan Karadzic was absolutely fighting the good fight.
Posted By: Proud Muslim Bosnian
Date: 2008-08-06 16:22:50
This article is the largest piece of crap I've ever had the horrible misfortune to allow my eyes to read. I was born in Bosnia during the war, my mother and my fatheer both faught in it as did all the males (and some females) in my entire family. I listen to the stories my dad tells of the atrocities that the Serbs comitted. Some of those stories include how on several occasions, I was inches from being hit by a Serb bullet or being blasted by a grenade or God knows what else. I'm telling you, anyone that believes this atrocious crap that some uneductaed, absolutely stupid man who cannot even be called a journalist, has writen is living in some weird dream world of their own. Thank God the rest of the world, or at least the people who matter, know the truth because as far as I'm concerned, this article should be taken off the internet immediately, it's pure, lying trash!!!!!
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-07 04:16:25
Oh, I’m quite sure that Karadzic was convinced that he was fighting the good fight, and I know many islamophobes are likely to agree with him. I‘m not one of them. I have been in the Balkans long enough to have seen things with my own eyes.
Not every instance of shelling on Sarajevo was in response to provocations. In fact, I'd venture a number of 99% of the cases unprovoked. You may be familiar with Mladic orders to his troops around Sarajevo: “Shell them until they don't sleep, don't stop until they are on the edge of madness”. Karadzic invited Russian poet Limonov to take some shots on the citizens in Sarajevo through a high powered sniper rifle. Please tell me how these are examples of fighting a good fight?
Karadzic said in 1991: “If the Republic of Bosnia votes for independence, the Serb paramilitaries will make the Muslim people disappear, because the Muslims cannot defend themselves if there is war”. You may call that a mere warning. I call it a threat and a prediction. It wasn’t the Muslims who opted for war, it was the Serbs. They established the Crisis Committees, mobilized the Territorial Defense and continued with the practice of ethnic cleansing that they had done in Croatia before. The Croats later proved good students later in the Krajina, but ethnic cleansing was first committed by the Serbs.
If Muslims and Croats in Bosnia wanted to know what fate had in store for them, they needed to look no further than what Serbs were doing just north of the border with Croatia. With Croatia and Slovenia gone from the Yugoslav federation, BiH remaining in Yugoslavia would mean Muslims and Croats would be far outnumbered by Serbs. No wonder they opted for independence. Constitutional provisions on the technicalities of the secession procedure would mean little to me, under those circumstances.
As I said before, the Serb-initiated war in Bosnia was one of conquest and not of self defense. Looking at the 1991 census, you’ll notice that many municipalities with a Muslim majority were subject to attack and (attempted) ethnic cleansing by the Serbs. Visegrad, Rogatica, Prijedor, Foca, Gorazde, Ilidza, Vogosca to name just a few.
Fikret Abdic was a fraud and an opportunist, and certainly not an ideologue. His interest was power, and he clearly believed that “the enemies of my enemies are my friends”. Hence his fleeting alliance with just about every warring party.
Certainly mujahideen fighters were present in BiH, and yes, Izetbegovic received support from Iran and other islamic countries. That in itself is not enough to imply that Bosnian post-war society would likely be Islamic fundamentalist. The international arms embargo left the Muslims with their hands tied against the JNA-supplied VRS. Hardly surprising that they accept military support wherever they can get it, isn't it?
Posted By: Andy Wilcoxson
Date: 2008-08-07 18:44:46
Arjen,
You have a right to your opinion that the shelling of Sarajevo was unprovoked, but the reports that the UN Military Observers in Sarajevo filed with the UN are on record at the Tribunal and they tell a different story. Watch the Karadzic trial and you'll see all of that evidence come out.
As far as Limnov is concerned. I seriously doubt that he was firing into Sarajevo. There is a video of the whole thing: [link edited for length]
You can't see what Limnov is shooting at in the video, but I can guarantee you that the soldiers on that mountain would not have let him fire into Sarajevo even if he had wanted to. Even if they were the blood-thirsty murderers that you think they are, they wouldn't have been stupid enough to let him fire into the city and draw enemy fire onto their position -- especially not while Radovan Karadzic was up there with them. In all probability Limnov was shooting at a tree or a rock somewhere else on the mountain.
I don't know if Mladic said, "Shell them until they don't sleep, don't stop until they are on the edge of madness" because people have a tendancy to make-up stories about him. But even if he did say it, he was fighting a war for Christ sake. The whole point of any war is to inflict so much death and destruction on your enemy that they capitulate. War is Hell, it is the most evil thing immaginable. Death, suffering, and destruction are features of EVERY war that has ever been fought in human history -- Bosnia was not unique at all. Compared to Vietnam or the Second World War where millions of people were killed and cities much larger than Sarajevo were totally leveled to the ground, the Bosnian war was like a holiday at Club Med. The way you're going on you would think there was something uniquely evil about it compared to other wars, when there isn't.
Your attitude that "Constitutional provisions on the technicalities of the secession procedure would mean little to me" is the reason why wars get started in the first place. Disputes can be settled two ways: by legal means according to the law, or through violence. When you discard the law, violence is the only option left. It is hypocritical for you to complain about the death and destruction that come with war while taking the position that it's OK to ignore the law.
Your suggestion that the Muslims were reacting to what you claim the Serbs did when Croatia broke-away in 1991 is nonsense. The first unit of the Patriotic League was established on August 1, 1990 in Foca, which is BEFORE Croatia broke away and BEFORE the Serbs set-up any Crisis Staff or activated any TO units. You can't explain the fact that the Muslims were setting up armed paramilitary groups in 1990 as a REACTION to something that allegedly happened in 1991.
Your whole argument is stood on its head. You say "the Serb-initiated(sic) war in Bosnia was one of conquest". The definition of conquest is "territory appropriated in war". It was impossible for the Serbs to have fought a war of conquest in Bosnia, because Bosnia was part of Yugoslavia and the Serbs wanted it to stay that way (which is obvious from that Karadzic quote that you keep going on about). The only ones who could have fought a war of conquest were the Croats and the Muslims because they were fighting to take that territory away from Yugoslavia and establish their own state on it.
Anyway, I'm done responding to comments on this article. I hope I've answered the questions of the people who took the time to post serious comments.
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-08 02:09:45
Andy,
Thanks for responding. We clearly don’t agree on the facts, and we don’t agree on the interpretation of the events. That’s fine. I was there in Sarajevo during the war with a monitoring mission, closely linked with the UNMO’s. I know what I have seen. I’ve tried to share some of it so that open-minded people can make an informed opinion on the war in BiH. I will certainly follow the Karadzic trial closely and I trust the truth will emerge.
I’m a bit puzzled by your comments on Limonov. You think the Serbs set up a heavy powered sniper rifle to shoot at rocks and trees? If that was so, then who was shooting at civilians in Sarajevo on a daily basis? Angry squirrels and rabbits perhaps? The gun was there for one single purpose: to sow death and destruction. You’ll see from the video that it was taken right above Bistrik. Snipers were shooting there all the time, apparently not too concerned about drawing return fire. Furthermore, the sound of the gun could have drawn return fire regardless of whether Limonov was killing rocks or children. Your excuses don’t make sense, and you know it. Karadzic was simply inviting friends over for some target practice on Sarajevans. I don’t think he was fighting the good fight. I think he was having a good party.
Yes, Mladic was fighting a war. Believe me, I know that death, suffering and destruction happen during wars. I’m surprised though that you, apparently so interested in blindly following rules and laws, appear unaware of the Geneva conventions. You may be interested to read it, to find out how non-combatants are to be treated. That includes the civilians in Sarajevo and the prisoners in Srebrenica. It also includes the women in KP Dom Foca and other rape camps. Please read through the records of the ICTY before you start a fan club for the Serbs.
If Karadzic wanted to “protect his people”, then what business did he have committing ethnic cleansing where Serbs were not the majority? Conquest it was, and nothing else. Karadzic was never interested in preserving Bosnia for Yugoslavia as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural territory. He saw an ethnically clean Bosnia, without any “genetically spoiled material” [Plavsic]”, where he could be President.
Although discussions on the establishment of the Patriotic League started in December 1990, it was not established until Spring/Summer 1991.By that time, the JNA has long seized the equipment of the Bosnian TO. That, as you may recall, largely explained the difference in the level of armament between the ABiH and the VRS.
I believe in rules and laws as well, but I wouldn’t need a lot of time to make a choice between following the proper constitutional procedure for secession and saving my life. There is no violation of constitutional procedures that justifies taking the life of even a single person, let alone Karadzic’ wholesale campaign of terror. Calling rape camps, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, mutilations and purposefully targeting civilians with mortars and sniper rifles all part of Karadzic’ good fight is cynical at best.
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-08 02:19:15
One more thing: look at the UNMO statistics for incoming fire on Sarajevo. You'll discover that it was busier in the weekends. Any idea why that was? Weekend warriors from Romanija, Upper Drina region and Serbia.
There's nothing quite like targeting defenseless civilians if you want to relax from a busy week in the office, is there?
And you still think they were not blood-thristy murderers?
Good work Andy! It is good to finally see an article that does not always take the islamist side in the Balkans. I am tired of having reporters tell me that a picture of some skinny guy behind a barb wire fence is actually some poor muslim in a Serb run concentration camp. The lies were and still are endless there.
Posted By: Andy Wilcoxson
Date: 2008-08-08 14:14:00
You're an interesting guy, you see a video of Limnov shooting a gun and you can't conceive that he could have been doing anything other than murdering a child with it. There were 45,000 Muslim soldiers in Sarajevo; it was hardly "defenseless". Do you honestly think the Serbian soldiers on that mountain would have let him fire into Sarajevo where somebody might start shooting back at them - especially at that particular moment when Radovan Karadzic was up there with them? Do you think those guys were so dumb that they wanted to get their president shot?
Perhaps you need to brush-up on the Geneva Conventions too. Article 58, subparagraphs (a), (b), and (c), of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention state that "The parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible: (a) without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavor to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives; (b) avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas; (c) take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations".
The Muslims troops in Sarajevo did exactly the opposite of what they were obliged to do under the Geneva Conventions. They deliberately intermingled themselves with the civilian population and that they fired out of the city from densely populated civilian areas in order to draw Serbian artillery fire onto the civilian population so that NATO would interviene against the Serbs on their behalf. A great deal of evidence to this effect was presented in the Dragomir Milosevic and Stanislav Galic trials at the ICTY, and I fully expect that Karadzic will make use of it in addition to calling his own evidence.
The Muslims were obliged to keep civilians away from their military operations and they chose not to, the Serbs weren't under any obligation not to shoot back. Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention says, "The presence of a protected person (i.e. civilians) may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."
There is no doubt that the Muslims started the war. I am sure you are aware that Nikola Gardovic, a Serb, was the first civilian to be killed in the war. Eyewitnesses saw Ramiz Delalic shoot him at point-blank range. Delalic was the commander of a Muslim Green Beret paramilitary unit in Sarajevo, and he went on to become the commander of the 9th Mountain Brigade of Izetbegovic's army -- inspite of the warrant that the BH Interior Ministry had issued for his arrest in 1992 for the Gardovic murder.
You my also be interested to learn that Halid Chengic (Hasan Chengic's father and a co-founder of the SDA) gave an interview to “Ljiljan”, the official party newsletter of the SDA (Izetbegovic's party). In that interview he said that the first Patriotic League unit was established in Foca in 1990. Chengic said, “Already on August 1, 1990, we had a platoon armed with automatic weapons, a machine-gun and a mortar. They all had camouflage uniforms and they pledged their allegiance in the Ustikolina mosque, with their hands on the Koran. The deceased Husein Cavrk, a BH Army major decorated with a Golden Lily award was the unit commander. He was killed on Preljuca near Gorazde.”
Of course the JNA siezed the Bosnian TO's equipment. The JNA had every right to take-over that equipment. JNA was the only lawful armed force in Yugoslavia and the Bosnian TO was legally subordinated to it. The Muslims were setting-up armed paramilitary groups and it was obvious that if TO's equipment fell into their hands that it would be used to attack the JNA -- in fact the Muslims did go on to attack the JNA. I am sure you remember that they ambushed and massacred JNA soldiers in Tuzla and on Dubrovacka street in Sarajevo as the JNA was trying to withdraw from Bosnia.
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-12 04:34:23
Thanks for the compliment, I guess. The same could be said of you though.
You see a guy, who throughout his life has been a staunch nationalist, racist, xenophobe, and who has always been obsessed with violence. This guy sits behind a heavy powered sniper rifle in the hills around Sarajevo, on the very spot from where that very rifle has been used to shoot at Sarajevo’s civilians. Yet, the only thing you can imagine is that he was shooting at rocks and trees?
You look at Sarajevo, a city under siege. Medicine and food has to be flown in by humanitarian missions to keep the citizens from starving. The city is being shelled on a daily basis and snipers are terrorizing the streets. The VRS has Sarajevo in a deadly stranglehold. Yet, you think the Serbs up in the hills around Sarajevo were –defending– themselves?
You look at Yugoslavia in 1991, where Serbs for years have tried to increase their dominance over the other groups. Serbs in the Krajina declared autonomy from Croatia. Kosovo and Vojvodina lost much of their independent status with the September 1990 Constitution of the Republic of Serbia. In referendum after referendum is became clear that nobody wanted to be associated with the Republic of Serbia any more. Yet the problem was always with the others?
You look at Izetbegovic, who has until the very end tried to find a peaceful way to keep Yugoslavia together, especially with Gligorov. Their plan, which would have the preserved territorial integrity of the country, had widespread international support. Yet you call him the warmonger?
You look at all the violence, threats, inflammatory statements, preparations for ethnic cleanings. You look at the fact that Karadzic’ snipers killed six people from the Holiday Inn in April 1992. Yet you call the murder of Gardovic the beginning of the war?
You look at the Geneva conventions, which says that a party may not use its civilian population to protect military targets, and see the ABiH’s violations of that provision as a justification for Karadzic wholesale campaign of terror, death and destruction against all civilians of Sarajevo?
Posted By: Andy Wilcoxson
Date: 2008-08-12 11:42:55
Gardovic was shot in March by a Muslim paramilitary leader and you're claiming that the beginning of the war was in April. Secondly, it wasn't Karadzic's snipers who shot those people from the Holiday Inn in April 1992. KOS agents intercepted radio communications from the Green Berets (Muslim paramilitary) and they videotaped members of the Green Berets fleeing from the scene after the shooting. On the occasion that you identifed as the beginning of the war, the Muslims shot their own civilians.
You know what Tudjman and Izetbegovic wrote in their books. If you've read "Wastelands of Historical Reality" (Tudjman's book) you will have no doubt that Tudjman was an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. The fact that Izetbegovic was an Islamic fundamentalist is proven by his writings in "The Islamic Declaration". Of course the problem was with them, neither Karadzic or Milosevic ever said anything half as incriminating as what Tudjman and Izetbegovic wrote and published in their books.
Izetbegovic wasn't interested in peace. If he had been he wouldn't have renegged on the Cutileiro Plan in March of 1992 after he and Radovan Karadzic had both signed it. If he had respected the agreement that he signed in Lisbon there wouldn't have been any war in Bosnia at all. Nothing would have been shelled and nobody would have been killed.
In answer to your question: "You look at the Geneva conventions, which says that a party may not use its civilian population to protect military targets, and see the ABiH’s violations of that provision as a justification for Karadzic wholesale campaign of terror, death and destruction against all civilians of Sarajevo?"
My answer is this. I see the ABiH's violations as a reson to reject the thesis that Karadzic was waging the "wholesale campaign of terror, death and destruction against all civilians of Sarajevo" that you allege. I claim that the terror, death and destruction that was undoubtedly suffered by the civilians of Sarajevo was unavoidable because of the ABiH's wanton violations of the Geneva Conventions. It wasn't so much that the Serbs wanted to terrorize the civilians in Sarajevo, but its impossible to fire artillery into a major city like Sarajevo without terrorizing the civilians.
Yes, the Serbs were defending themselves. Fire was eminating from Sarajevo, and there is no doubt that it hit Serbian civilians outside of Sarajevo on numerous occasions. Of course the Serbs fired back into the city. I think its too bad that the Muslims wouldn't abide by the cease fires, if they had there would have been much less loss of life and things would have been a lot nicer for the civilian population both inside and outside of Sarajevo.
Posted By: Arjen de Winter
Date: 2008-08-14 01:50:03
Oh right, Karadzic just neglected to inform the Muslims that they were being starved, slaughtered, raped, tortured and terrorized as part of him “fighting the good fight”?
Sarajevo was getting pummeled by the VRS and you’re blaming the ABiH for getting a couple of punches in. Oh yes, the Muslims should have just thanked Karadzic and turned the other cheek, I guess.
What is next? Serb soldiers taking Muslim women to court for fighting back while they were being gang-raped?
Karadzic’ trial will show what I have seen with my own eyes.
GREAT ARTICLE.... about time someone speaks the TRUTH. Its awesome that people, like you, who are non Serb can research, uncover the truth and want to speak out to help others change their thoughts and horrible impressions of Serbs. Its just sad that when Serbs have been stating these facts for years, it is not even considered to be the truth, let alone anyone actually listening to it. We have be portrayed as such monsters yet we've been through so much and I stress SO MUCH worse from the muslims in Bosnia, the Ustasa's in Croatia, and now the shiptars in Kosovo! When will the world see this and help us?
Wow, it is just to much of the facts here, I also want to add that as a POW that spent one year in a muslim prison camp in Visoko (central Bosnia) I have to say that I witnesed all a lot of things that Arjen may not agree with. However, I should say(for Arjen) muslims did not have PRISONS especialy where they been killing serbs????? well Arjen I'm sorry that you hate Serbs so much, it seem to me that you spent some time studyding Bosnian muslim history or you maybe one of them, but let me tell you something, if somebody wouold bombard me with so many facts (like it just happened to you) the best thing you can do here is to HIDE-not SAY anything ELSE or better yet you should re-read books or find some new ones because it seem to me that you are getting confused here.
Nice job Andy and I wish that I can get you some more details about Serbs in Muslim prison camps. Thanks
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