MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 12:04 am
  What does one say to people who are conditioned by 19th and 20th century thinking? Here I refer to JP and Eosphorus who seem to be in the same orbit. JP states that “National values in conflict with international good are not the path to world peace and environmental sanity” since he believes that “individual trumps the state, the state trumps the country and the country trumps the international 'good'. It's the essence of freedom.” Welcome to Adam Smith and the invisible hand Mr. JP, welcome to “rugged individualism” welcome to conditioning that goes on every day ( I pledge allegiance) in American schools. Welcome to democracy of the Dixie Chicks who dare not tell it as it is.

  Islamic Jihad is a reaction to America’s manifesto of world domination. The Serbs paid for this manifesto. You, sir, refuse to acknowledge that your vision of the world is not everyone’s vision. You refuse to see that American vision is not everyone’s vision.

  You claim that the UN is American enemy. Yes according to Bush’s “ if you are not with me you are against me”.

  How arrogant can you be??? You state that “banana republics” should have no say in the UN. This means that a “down and out” American should not be able to vote. Is this your version of democracy???? If you don’t like the regime bomb it and kill as many of its citizens in the first strike so that they will run and hide. I would suggest to you Sir that this, in your own words is “blackmailing by violence”

  You name those who are with you; Italy the international fence sitter has finally decided to follow, I wonder did USA promise them the return of Istria and Dalmatia?? What will they do when this promise is broken??? Elect Oriana Falacci or Mussolini’s niece? I would prefer the Lady of the night that was elected by exposing all that she had.

  Will USA give Spain Gibraltar? How can they do that when Blair has been such an ASS kisser to the point where he has stopped breathing?? As for Japan they are polite and besides they depend for sixty percent of their oil from that region.

  As for Chirac making sense, this is the first time since he became a leader of France that he has made sense. The problem with the Spanish they have not paid any attention to their history. Their king Charles XII, I thin, said “I speak to my God in Spanish, my mistress in Italian, my horse in German and to diplomats in French. Mr. W speaks Spanish but I think he needs to learn to speak in French.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 12:28 am
  JP, <[>The American empire is world-wide and enormous, and includes every country whose petty dictator we installed and approved of and later turned on when it became expedient (e.g. Saddam Husein) and every country we pressganged into complliance (e.g. Macedonia during Kosovo) and each and every one of these places thoroughly resents having been forced to play along and is lying in wait to get its own back. You cannot make a people subservient and/or indebted AND make them love you.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 12:39 am
  So the American public is being invited to participate in Franco-bashing. How is it that Britain is considered OK when virtually the only Brit that is siding with Bush is Blair? This petty (and pathetic) demonizing of anyone who doesn't follow our government's lusty fervor for war would be laughable were it not lamentable. Had the French been gung ho, we would have had the wonders of French bread extolled, I suppose, instead of French toast decried. Interesting that French toast was invented not by the French, but by a Mr. French, an American. That's what you get Mr. French for having that name. Now...when are we sending back the Statue of Liberty, our symbol for American democracy, given as a gift by those (oh, my God!) French!

  As to French fries, everywhere else in the world calls them pommes frites or chips and that's always suited me. Perhaps one should suggest one of those terms to our ever so intellectually stimulating congressmen. And egg toast. Freedom toast, Freedom fries, Freedom bread? Throw them all at the our Lady Liberty and show the world America's disdain for democracy and independent opinion.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 1:12 am
  A very good report on Dr Ranta's testimony, Pythagoras; thank you. You've understood correctly her position: an expert not testifying about professional findings, but rather about personal politicised opinions. What kind of an expert feels the need to give conclusions of her inconclusive findings to the press in vague layman terms, and then explain this to be her 'personal statements', not necessarily reflecting the consensus within the team and that she was 'unaware of the political significance of such statements'? Shouldn't the 'documents speak for themselves'? She should've not made such statements at all, that was not the job of an expert. The reason why she did that was very simple: too many investigative journalists have by that time voiced loudly and coherently their utter disbelief in the 'Racak pretext', so Ranta was used to try and dissuade the impact of that or at least to muddle things a bit.

  Here's the link that you've asked for - the interview that she gave to the NRC HANDELSBLAD (a Dutch newspaper) on 10 March 2001, titled 'The Bloodbath in Racak Was a Massacre': http://racak.homestead.com/files/ranta.htm.

  The thing that first strikes the reader is almost total absence of quotations from Ranta: editor Petra de Koning retold what Ranta had to say, so that if anything went wrong, it could be dismissed on account of journalist's imprecise interpretation.

  Here are the sole 5 quotations in a one-page article.

  When she criticised BERLINER ZEITUNG, BBC, Dutch TV VPRO ARGOS, German TV WDR, Ranta was quoted to complain about 'all the nonsense that has been said on the subject', confirming thus the reason for the interview.

  When she talked about her 10-month delayed visit to the site and still finding there some bullets, bullet shells and a body part of one of the victims, she said: "If we had found nothing in the ditch, then it would have been entirely a set-up by the Albanians"; what has been proved by that, eludes me; anybody could spray laying cadavers with bullets.

  She claimed: "We have found no indication that it did not have to do with unarmed citizens", which is a muddling double negation, and actually a lie: there was no criminal investigation, so they could not find indications of anything, because they just examined few corpses already moved away from the site, and not corpses on the site.

  She said: "In the pockets of the dead, we encountered no munitions, but only banknotes", which is a naïve statement from a forensic dentist, that would be ridiculed by any detective - the easiest thing in staging a crime scene is to empty pockets.

  When she spoke about the shooting distance, she said: "What difference does it make if it was one or two meters? It was not in the battle", which was again a blatant lie, because according to her team's report, only one victim was shot at close range; and what info Ranta has to be able to claim it was not in the battle? Most of the victims were shot horizontally, through the crown of their head, like someone laying on the ground facing the enemy during the battle, and not like someone executed.

  Concluding with the praise of the non-existent real investigation, she said this was a 'best investigated matter in the history of the tribunal; I think that we are probably very close to the truth', which speaks volumes about the overall quality of investigations - if this is the best, imagine the others; and what does this mean, being very close to the truth? Are they still investigating?

  So, this is all that Ranta had to say after two years of silence. The editor hinted Ranta was somehow prevented to speak up before, by being afraid that she would harm a possible lawsuit against Milosevic?! Well, Ranta said more immediately afterwards, at the press conference in Pristina, than in this garbled interview.

  In order to avoid muddling, and without ever entering into intricacies of forensics, the most simple thing was to see the photographs of the victims taken by the Walker's team immediately after he visited Racak: before he left, he gave the orders to his team to take as much photographs as possible, and these photographs were shown during the testimony of one of the Walker's men (an ex-police officer, his name slipped my mind - can someone provide it?). I remember he said he personally took those photos. Just one look at them is enough: many bodies were stiffened in a grotesque, impossible way, arms and legs vertically up in the air, some with arms twisted at improbable angles, as if broken while dragged and/or underwent clothes changing.

  AP Vucelic: Here's the link for the testimony of one Shukri Buja, the KLA commander in Racak: http://www.un.org/icty/ind-e.htm ; Milosevic ; Tanscripts ; 5-6 June 2002.

  Re Racak fortifications the following has been said. Nice: "The bunkers and the like in the area of Racak starting when, please, Mr Buja?" Buja: "It started in December 1998." (So, there were bunkers and a whole network of trenches built way back in 1998!) Buja actually said there was a Lluzhak gorge close to Racak, with a route going through it, which was 'important because we kept continual contact with the General Staff, and then had links with Pashtrik operational zone so we could co-ordinate operations when necessary, and supplies and logistics operated along this route, and the whole life of our operational zone depended on this road.' (So much about a peaceful Kosovo village, attacked without any reason by the vile Serb police.)

  When asked by Nice about the KLA positions in Racak, Buja said that 'the KLA was positioned in this gorge, and from here there was a KLA guard which didn't allow civilians to go in. There were several buildings, about five or six houses, that were used for accommodation. The civilians were not allowed in this area.' He confirmed that 'a lot of civilians of Racak left' and 'there were very few inhabitants. So some houses were given over to us voluntarily.' (Here's a confirmation from the horse's mouth that Racak was virtually empty of civilians.)

  Concerning the day of the battle, 15 January, Buja said 'there were 47 soldiers in the Racak zone', meaning KLA soldiers. At 7 a.m. the morning of the Serb attack, 8 KLA soldiers were immediately killed and left there. There was a short fight, with mortars from the KLA side, no less, and around 11 a.m. two more KLA got killed. The battle lasted for the whole day, then the Serbs withdrew, the KLA got back to their original positions, collected their wounded and dead, burying the latter subsequently in the nearby village. Buja said there were also some civilians dead, 'but their bodies were not retrieved because the order that we got was to retrieve the bodies of the KLA.' He claimed they heard some rumours 'that a massacre had occurred' in the evening, but they were unable to investigate the rumours 'because it was winter, there was lot of snow.' (The man is lying. On the video showing Walker walk through Racak the next day, there was no snow at all and it was sunny, almost springtime, with dry clean ground all around.) Buja said: 'We didn't even venture towards that direction. Instead, we decided to undertake this the next day when the OSCE verifiers were to go, and Fehmi Mujota was the man in charge of political affairs in the KLA zone command was to go with them.' (So, the point Buja wanted particularly to stress: there was no KLA in Racak that night, before Walker was 'to go' - who told him that he was to go? The civilians who were not in Racak, as he testified earlier?)

  Nice played the famous video to Buja and he 'confirmed' that none of the dead were KLA, that the KLA had uniforms. The next piece of that video depicted Buja himself, in uniform, accompanied with two other KLA men, speaking on the camera how he believed 'you have seen what face the enemy has, the enemy that kidnapped these Albanian civilians, and brought them here to be massacred.' (This was really overplaying it.) The third clip was also shown to Buja, one made by the Serbian authorities, showing weapons seized at Racak, and he said it was too large a quantity, they could've seized only 9 rifles from their dead and they did not have so many hand grenades in their bunker.

  Towards the end of the examination-in-chief, Nice asked whether any advice was given to the villagers in advance. Buja said: "We never gave them orders to go, but they themselves, the majority of the inhabitants of Racak, decided to stay in the village." Buja has a really short memory span: at the beginning he said exactly the opposite, that the majority of the villagers left and Racak was almost empty!

  A document was presented, a daily report of the Serb police, describing the action in detail, where they said that at the beginning '15 suspect terrorists killed; no one in the village; weapons found in bunkers; 'at the beginning of the OP saw men in black uniforms using women and children as a shield; during the operations some 60 members of Shiptar terrorist band were liquidated'. Buja denied everything.

  When Milosevic got to cross-examine, he put to Buja: "Was it your tactics to tell villagers to leave their village and then to fortify that village and use it for attacks against the army and the police and then, after that, to portray that as an attack on the village and the civilian population?" Buja denied, but most clumsily: "No, this is not true. We villagers -- the villagers were warned and they were free to go and stay as they wished. We warned them of the danger facing the civilian population… Our strategy was to fortify ourselves in places where there was no civilian population so as not to endanger civilian population." (Interesting answer. It means, then, that the most fortified and most important Racak was without civilian population! Or, that it was with civilian population, some of whom were massacred, but that it was not fortified with bunkers and trenches, as claimed before - and shown on the video!)

  So, there is a strong implication that some Racak villagers were pressed by the KLA to remain there, serving them as a shield (2-3 were lightly wounded, as OSCE reported before the 'massacre' was revealed), but there were only few of them, as Buja himself testified at the beginning. Later on, he forgot what he said and changed the story, saying that the majority stayed. Just imagine what other lies this 'witness' must have uttered, when he contradicted himself in something so obvious.

  Another interesting number-game: Milosevic put to Buja that in the zone of 3 villages including Racak in mid January there were some 1,400 KLA fighters. I was sure Buja would vehemently deny it and present a drastically smaller number, but he actually said that 'at the time of the Racak massacre, the entire zone counted about thousand soldiers'! And Milosevic read to him his own written statement, where he said that only in Racak they had 1,000 soldiers, and in the entire zone 1,400! And remember, Buja himself testified they fought back with mortars, grenade-launchers and heavy anti-aircraft guns! Was it not a real war zone? Milosevic reminded Buja that he previously claimed only 47 men were in Racak, in 6 houses and mocked him 'Does that mean that every soldier had a room to himself?'

  Buja also 'forgot' what he said in his written statement about 2 policemen shot from their base and tried to deny it, but Milosevic quoted from the statement and it was obvious that Buja proudly showed the ICTY investigator the KLA headquarters 'from where, on the 15th of January 1999, two Serb police officers were shot and killed.' Ah, those damned written statements, nobody bothers to read them, except Milosevic. And you know what else he found there? A name of one of the KLA commanders (Mehmet Mustafa) who got killed that day, as Buja confirmed, but who mysteriously appeared on the Prosecution's list of 'massacred civilians'! The reaction of May? "We can check it out. No need to look it up now… Let's move on." Did anyone ever checked the list of those 'massacred civilians'?

  The written statement also confirmed that 2 KLA soldiers were one Mujota, aged 61 and one Mustafa, aged 62, which largely contradicts the claims that KLA soldiers were young, and that men laying dead in the ravine were old civilians. And 15-year old daughter of one of them got killed while running to him when he was shot, and she was not 'massacred' later on, as claimed. The written statement, again. Buja tried to muddle things claiming there were two sets of people with identical names.

  Buja got more and more confused. When asked by Milosevic to confirm it, Buja again reverted to the original story how most of civilians left Racak, forgetting again that the last version with Nice was that most of them stayed. When asked to describe how the fight begun that morning, he added so many new and contradicting details, that Robinson had to ask him 'You appear to be saying that for the first time. Why is that?' and this totally confused witness tried to lie directly to Robinson that this is not so, 'because this exists in my statement'. Robinson just coldly said: "Proceed, Mr Milosevic." But, you can read for yourselves the end of the cross-examination (6 June 2002), it's quite amusing throughout.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 3:13 am
  I agree with APV on Srebrenica. There is nothing to suggest that the BSA committed the massacre. Certainly there is no case against Mladic, if we are allowed to consider his "pattern of conduct". Everything shows he knew Srebrenica was a trap. He took Dutchbat hostages knowing this, and however unorthodox his decision was, it worked, and there seems to be nothing criminal in that.

  From A to Z Mladic's conduct is simply elegant. He took great care to comply to the humanitarian norms of warfare. How do I know this? Because the indictment itself says so, although making the idiotic conclusion that since this guy had so much power, he must be responsible for the crimes as well.

  If Mladic knew it was a trap, why would he have massacred hundreds of people to give the Muslims the propaganda tool they were looking for? That argument seems to exclude any official Serb involvement. Besides, Mladic was heading for Zvornik at the time of the massacre, so he wasn't there when it happened (thanks for correcting me DJ).

  The tribunal has tried to build the Srebrenica case against Mladic (and ultimately Milosevic) through Krstic. I really don't know this is done, but I think there were some isolated members of the BSA units involved in the massacre, like the mentally disturbed Erdemovic.

  No, I don't think the BSA massacred 800 people. Neither do I think the bodies fell apart because of careless excavation. The excavation must have been careless, because the bodies had already disintegrated, which is why the body parts got mixed up.

  A Muslim is unlikely to have done this. The high degree of mutilation suggests this. Besides, to carry out such a large-scale massacre, some superior military mind must have been there on the scene to take care of the timing etc. Naser Oric was in Sarajevo, and without him the Muslim troops may have been incapable of any meaningful organization.

  So I think it is safe to assume that the suspect must be someone who was there, which means he cannot have a valid alibi, and that may be one way to find him.

  But before the conspiracies start circulating, you know what I think? I think nobody knows the answer. The Dutchbat was there, and still the Dutch government had to commission the Dutch War Documentation Institute to conduct a study, which didn't provide any answers (I don't know how much exactly it attributed to Mladic and Karadzic, but at least Milosevic had nothing to do with it). The Americans have shown often enough that their satellite photography doesn't amount to much. In the end the Americans may know just as little as everybody else. Chirac can't have done it, judging by his conduct during the Kosovo bombing: he was the first to throw in the towel when the Montenegrin ports were to be besieged. He doesn't like blood.

  And to give you all the massacres in a nutshell, let me give you the big picture. In Croatia, the JNA did some pretty horrible things, but it seems to have acted always in response to what the Croats did. This is evident in Dubrovnik and Vukovar. The Croats then had the excuse to consider these attacks as part of a Greater Serbia plan, because after the Croatian independence, the JNA had suddenly changed into the Serbian army. The rump-Yugoslavia did nothing to dispel these prejudices by its sluggish foreign policy.

  But is there a case against Milosevic? Absolutely not. When one hears the Serbs, the complaint always is that Milosevic didn't do much, if anything, in Croatia to help the Serbs. I hope the tribunal doesn't go too far to challenge the common sense of justice this time. We already have one dead Prime Minister, because it has.

  And here comes in the real difference between criminal and civil responsibility (apart from the standard of proof): civil responsibility can be incurred because of the person's official position, whereas the criminal responsibility has to be strictly individual. In the Secretary-General's report on the ICTY Statute, this is mentioned explicitly.

  The Kosovo indictment is simply rubbish. The schedules at the back have stayed the same since the initial indictment, and even if the subsequent investigations have shown that the schedules don't correspond to reality (for the most part), nothing indicates that in the indictment. The tribunal justifies this by saying that these are "reported" incidents, and when it uses the word "confirmed," it doesn't mean that the schedules were shown to be true. (I am not kidding!) Where the schedules have some truth content, the KLA fingerprints are unmistakeable, like the killings of whole families, and killings in places where the KLA was known to have held the "loyalists" as hostages.

  And the thought of the day: When Arkan said on TV during the Kosovo bombing that he would send the Nato ground troops back in body backs, was he alluding to some earlier massacre where he had been involved, and if he was, was there some specific incident he was bragging about? This statement is the closest thing to the admission of guilt, and it was made on the official media, which may implicate some people that we already know.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 3:26 am
  I listened to Robin Cook's speech and his resignation. It was quite remarkable as it was unexpectedly quite brilliant.

  However, it's a sad day for the British Empire that he, as the author of the "British ETHICAL Foreign Policy", has now become a moral giant in the context of the attack on Iraq.

  What disgusts me no end is his sudden conversion "on the road to Jerusalem". At least Blair has remained the guttersnipe that he's always been.

  It's politicians like him who make this world a sad place indeed. He was no less aware of the issues on Kosovo than he is on Iraq. Perhaps he can redeem himself by telling the truth on Kosovo as well, or is he still smarting over the fact that Milosevic kicked his ass out of Belgrade when he came to preach his masters' sermons.

  As for the war-mongers, they should all be reclassified into war-mongrels and booted out of office. Some 80% of our population in Australia do not support our Prime Minister's commitment to war in Iraq without UN resolution but he still went and committed us.

  So our servants have now become our masters. Sounds like democracy to me. And he'll stay in power because Bush will send him enough US tax payers' fund through his corporate donors and spin meisters to run media and propaganda campaigns to brainwash us sufficiently to make sure he does.

  Now we have our politicians saying that Saddam Hussein is no longer putting Kuwaiti babies in microwaves, he's now too busy feeding his own Iraqi dissidents through paper shredders or cutting their tongues out in public for badmouthing him.

  Do these people have no limits! Go ahead, someone PLEASE tell me Milosevic fed the Srebrenica "victims" through an electric blender to hide the evidence?
  
  David
  Australia

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 3:29 am
  Really big news is coming from Holland. The district court in The Hague has decided that the former PM Kok, as well as the former Defense and Foreign Minister, have to appear as witnesses in an interlocutory hearing. This is the case where the Dutch State was sued by the survivors of the RTS bombing and the cluster bombing in Nis.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 4:42 am
  I don't think Racak is any longer a problem for Milosevic. There is sufficient uncertainty to negate any negative effect it may have on his position. That makes Srebrenica a more interesting issue, particularly as other cases have "confirmed", so to speak, the alleged massacre.

  The problem is the lack of bodies! Whose bodies? Muslims or Serbs? It's not enough to say 8000 men just disappeared. They could have disappeared anywhere. We either need the bodies or the names of the alleged victims. It is not enough to say SOME 8000 men.

  One explanation could be that they simply hitailed it out of there as the Serbs went in because they feared retribution for what they were doing to the local Serb population. Another could be that they were redeployed to assist the attempted breakout from Sarajevo. The Muslims from Sarajevo were to attack from the city and the ones from outside Sarajevo were to attack from behind the Serb lines, thereby trapping the Serb forces in a sandwich position.

  If anyone has any info on that attempted breakout, where several thousand Muslims launched an offensive to break the Sarajevo siege, and were caught in a trap by the Serbs and killed, I'd appreciate it if you could post a link or whatever. The incident was not broadly publicised, no doubt for good reason.

  Apparently the operation was planned by the US retired warriors from Virginia and was such a monumental disaster that the Muslims were furious and thought the Americans had set them up. The bombing of the Serbs in Bosnia followed shortly thereafter in order to appease and convince the Muslims that it was no setup.

  It could be interesting to compare the identities of victims in that incident with the identities of victims from Srebrenica or who were known to be in Srebrenica just previously. It may be a dead end exercise or maybe not, but in any event, several thousand men don't just disappear without a trace unless they were air lifted by little green men from Mars.

  Does anyone know what happened to the alleged application by the Prosecution to extend their presentation another 12 months? I missed that session.
  
  David
  Australia

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 5:46 am
  

  Walter,

  He was a Hapsburg Charles I of Spain and Emperor Charles V of Germany. The same person and all things considered not a bad ruler. HERE

  As always nothing is simple, despite the little hitlers.

  Vera,

  I think the photographer in question is Police Officer Hendrix, who had not idea, as a forensic, of what he was doing or was deliberately messing up the site with his stupidly taking pictures and moving corpses to "show" what he wanted.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 6:15 am
  

  JP

  How big is our 'empire'. Of what does it consist? What are you talking about? We don't want a world govenment, re our opposition to the ICC. The devil has come in the guise of Nazism, Communism, Liberalism and now Islamism.

  Didn't you forget globalism in you evaluation of world evils? And if globalism is acceptable to you how can you reject a world global government?
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 6:23 am
  Jari: You write “And the thought of the day: When Arkan said on TV during the Kosovo bombing that he would send the Nato ground troops back in body backs, was he alluding to some earlier massacre where he had been involved, and if he was, was there some specific incident he was bragging about? This statement is the closest thing to the admission of guilt, and it was made on the official media, which may implicate some people that we already know.”

  This statement was simply taunting by Arkan to the Americans. He was calling them gutless for indiscriminate bombing. He said once you meet us on terra firma we will see how brave you are. The body bags is simply a way of telling Americans that is how you will end up if you dare to put ground troops into Kosovo. This was the same reason that the Americans refused to use their helicopter gunship, which by the way were stationed in Albania. They knew full well that the JNA would knock them out of the sky. Arkan’s statement is no “smoking gun” just an I dare you I double dare you kind of statement.

  Great article Vera.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 6:36 am
  Gogol: Thank you for the history of Charles I and V I enjoyed it. Also your point about Poland.Ironic but well made.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 7:03 am
  What an interesting article:

  http://www.monthlyreview.org/0203herman.htm

  Walter...

  re Arkan sending ground troops in body bags... Jari's thought of the day regarding the above being closest to an admission of guilt and alluding to an earlier massacre... Everyone knows that when Arkan made the statement there were only phantom Nato ground troops in Kosovo. LOL

  Jari...

  Are you pulling our legs here, or were these Nato troops massacred in Srebrenica and shipped out to Kosovo in freezer trucks. Gee whiz! More people gone missing! No wonder Mr May gets confused. LOL
  
  David
  Australia

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 7:31 am
  Come to think of it, I should have thought of it previously. There is a clear explanation for the contorted rigormortis and frozen condition of the bodies in Racak.

  The JNA or MUP or whatever, must have executed the 40 peasants (who were sitting in their homes with 5 jumpers and 5 pairs of pants and Austrian military boots which their cousins sent them for Ramadan from Germany) and due to the cold and the power interruptions caused by KLA recreational activity (which explains why the peasants were so warmly dressed) the JNA or whoever had to leave them in the open air to freeze as they couldn't process them cryogenically prior to shipping them to Belgrade to bury them in the police training school grounds where they could be appropriately recovered 2 years later when Milosevic was kicked out and a compliant, pro Western government came to power so they could present the bodies as evidence of how Serbia has come to terms with the atrocities it has committed in Kosovo.

  Next to ethnic cleansing, nothing beats a little soul cleansing at the ICTY. Very Nice, if I May say so.
  
  David
  Australia

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 7:52 am
  
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  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 8:34 am
  David

  re Moslem attack on the Sarajevo Serbs.

  20,000+ Moslems launched a co-ordinated offensive against the Sarajevo Serbs in the summer of 1995.

  The attack came as no surprise to the Serbs who prepared their cannons for the onslaught.

  The attack lasted less than 2 days after which surviving Moslem troops returned to barracks and nothing more was said about this military disaster.

  At the time I recorded an interview on British TV with a British army officer who described the scene after the attack. He said it was difficult to estimate the number of Moslem dead because they had been blown to pieces by Serbian artillery. He said that the battlefields around Sarajevo were strewn with body parts and guessed that at least 3000 Moslems had perished.

  A Bosnian Serb officer told me that he though 6000 Moslems had been killed; he also said that many Serbs had also been killed.

  Have the Moslems ever admitted to this military disaster? Have they given figures for their dead?
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 8:52 am
  Vera

  many thks for the clarity on the Racak Firefight.

  
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 9:02 am
  Vera,

  I think the name of that man of Walker's you were refering to was Karol Drewienkiewicz.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 9:02 am
  I find some notable change. Reporting on the current Milosevic illness, Yahoo news from AP sources uses a very guarded language. I think I see for the first time a word “alleged” used.

  http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&ncid=732&e=1&u=/ap

  Milosevic Illness Delays War Crimes Trial

  THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Slobodan Milosevic 's war crimes trial was delayed

  The ousted president, 61, is defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes ALLEGEDLY committed during a decade of Balkan wars in the 1990s. He has refused legal assistance in court, and his trial is not expected to conclude before 2005
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 11:42 am
  

  The ICTY posted this:

  MILOSEVIC CASE TO RESUME TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2003

  Please be informed that the Milosevic case will resume on Tuesday 25 March 2003 at 9.00a.m. in Courtroom I. Please note that no hearings were scheduled for Friday 21 March and Monday 24 March 2003.

  
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 12:09 pm
  As to Arkan's taunting, why did the Serbs need him to taunt the Americans? All the explanations given here by you all make his statement seem less than taunting. And whatever it was there are at least two or three things to consider: 1) Arkan is dead, 2) Milosevic knew who killed him, and 3) at some point the prosecution thought of "joint criminal enterprise," and I think this might be one of the occasions they might have thought about it.

  It is true that thousands of Muslims don't disappear just like that, but it is equally true that about a 1,000 mutilated bodies don't just appear like that. There has to be an explanation, and the less conspiracy stuff there is, the better. I think Legija's background in the Foreign Legion would account for the (implausible) tales about the French, but that is where it should stop. Besides, you don't need MI6 to explain how Milosevic knew who had killed Arkan.

  People here seem to make the war sound like a battle between knights in shining armour. Get real. The Serbs have accused the Croats of using heroin to boost their military prowess. Now, how long would it have taken for the Serbs to borrow that trick, if they even needed to borrow it? And if the heroin explains everything, I think it explains such incidents as in Srebrenica.

  About the 8,000 missing in Srebrenica, David, I think the most common theory is that the 38th Infantry Brigade in Tuzla was waiting for 8,000 Muslim fighters to retreat from Srebrenica. Later, most of them were reported found, but in the meantime the wildest stories could of course be begotten, only to die very hard. Shipping bodies from Sarajevo to Srebrenica is just as crazy a theory as any other that we have debunked here, although I must admit the fact that they were blown to pieces by artillery fire has some appeal.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 1:00 pm
  I checked the Erdemovic and Krstic indictments. Erdemovic was waiting in Pilica Farm near Srebrenica for bus loads of Muslim men to execute them.

  The Krstic indictment is more complicated. It mentions the bus loads from Potocari, as well as the fact that Mladic had vowed to look after them. One is of course expected to make here the connection to the Erdemovic case to realize how well he really "looked after" them. But suddenly the bus loads are not needed, because there was a huge column of Muslims retreating to Tuzla throught the woods. It is said that the Bosnian Serbs who lay in ambush were under the command of Krstic and Mladic, but this is getting more and more implausible, as the prosecution doesn't know what it wants.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 1:01 pm
  The American empire is worldwide and enormous

  Influence yes, due to, lousey movies, psuedo music, quick order food, loans, outright gifts etc. In other words, they pick up on our life style including representive open government.

  Empire no. From where I sit, Canada's Cretien, Mexico's Fox, Cuba's Castro don't considerthemselves part of our empire. Germany , Japan, and S.Korea where we have troops or China? Even the Phillipines kicked us out of subic bay.

  Help me out, I don't see empire, other than maybe Grenada and Peurto Rico, and even then I'm not sure.

  Your example of Macedonia, Kosovo and I'll add Bosnia, Slovenia Croatia, and with Serbia in the crosshairs are IMO part of an empire attempt by the EU. And like you say, that will fall apart.
  
  J P
  USA.Wis

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 1:01 pm
  Jari and David: I am not sure what I said in my comment that is confusing. Arkan was well known for showmanship. His wedding was a show and bravado. Don’t mistake it he was also very brave. I think he had a son who fought along side more than we can say of the American Senators and the president or even Milosevic. They have no children of their own in the Middle East. One Senator I think is an exception.

  The body bag taunting was done during the debate in the West on putting soldiers on the ground in Kosovo. This issue was very controversial here because they knew that putting ground forces in Kosovo would be costly in American dead.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 2:08 pm
  
  On Evil

  “Wherever men are denied freedom, there is a threat to peace. Whenever we leave them in bondage, there is a threat to our own dignity. Whenever we fail to act in the face of evil, a shadow is cast across the future of humanity.

  Today the world is faced with the age-old question: Do we stand united in the face of evil, or do we close our eyes and hope for the best? We Kosovars stand with the forces of freedom. We know that when confronting evil, there is no compromise.” Bajram Rexhepi, Prime Misister of Kosovo.

  “Freedom”: Under his premiership a quarter of a million of Kosovo’s minorities are denied access to their centuries old homes. “Bondage”: Almost a hundred thousand live in ghettoes from which they dare not move without guards. “Evil”: Many have been assaulted, abducted, tortured and murdered and their churches destroyed.

  Blair, Clinton, Bush (Election promise to get out of the Balkans) and now Bajram Rexhepi. Is there no Leader with “dignity”?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

  Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 2:10 pm
  

  
  
  HTML Correction
  Hopefully

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 4:25 pm
  Vera,

  thank you very much for your post and all your posts, which distinguish themselves as among the most relevant to the board's topic.

  As was made clear numerous months ago, the Prosecution has no case, and the appearance of Helena Ranta only serves to confirm this (as though several days of testimony from the Croat museum worker and the Bosnian victim of a Croatian prison camp weren't enough).

  As AP V pointed out, Helena Ranta is a forensic dentist, which means she might know something about the consequences of gunfire on victims' jaws and teeth, but certainly not enough about the use of the paraffin test, for example, to warrant the sort of political grandstanding and "personal statements" which highlighted her role as head of the OSCE appointed Helsinki University forensic team. As part of her new career as a OSCE political propagandist , Ranta denounced the forensic investigative services of Yugoslavia and Belarus, and in a manner remarkably similar to OSCE chief Knut Vollebaeck who insisted on the Helskinki University team in the first place. Ranta went on to protest any and all findings of the Yugoslav and Belarus specialists, notably decrying the positive paraffin test on the "victims" found at Racak, arguing that it was not fair to use it on persons from a farm community where chemical fertilizers might be handled (in late winter!). To this day, it is not clear whether Ranta actually knows what a paraffin test is, nor whether it was just the simple fact a majority of "victims" tested positive which so troubled her. Ranta even attacked the Yugoslav and Belarussian forensics for "rushing" to perform autopsies, arguing that a "cooling off" period was required (!) and thereby trying to suggest that the Finns' counterparts were somehow politically motivated in carrying out their professional duties. The Finns, led by someone all to comfortable with her new calling as some sort of political commissar, insisted that bodies actually be taken to Finland, where they could receive better and more "neutral" analysis - and more time to cool off. Ranta then refused to make public Helsinki University's inexplicably delayed final report, claiming she had given it to the OSCE, which just so happened to make it easier for her by refusing to publish the report. She denied there was a passing of the buck, or that she was operating under any political pressure, although admitting she had been in consultation with the OSCE the entire time. When pressed, political commissar Ranta said: "This question should be put to German diplomat Christian Pauls, to whom this report was submitted and who should take decisions what would be done with it." And while refusing to make public the details of the report, Ranta happily volunteered to go to press conferences to make a "personal statement" where she declared that the "victims" of Racak were ordinary civilians, and :

  "While it is not clear who was responsible for the deaths of the victims, it clearly was a crime against humanity."

  Most western news agencies, such as Canada's national broadcaster, actually dropped the first half of the sentence and showed Ranta, already introduced to the gullible viewer as this brave "neutral" forensic with something to say about Racak, merely uttering the last few words. And so we see breach of conduct of any and all professional ethics was not simply limited to forensic science in the West, as the Hague Tribunal makes painfully clear every day. But it's not everyday your local propaganda service is assigned the task of trying to justify open aggression pursuant to the rejection of imperialist ultimatums. Nor is it everyday that your propaganda agency tackles the job of selling a war with the alleged "massacre" of something like 25-42 "victims" as a cassus belli, while disregarding this number was much lower than the massacre in Waco, Texas (curiously unrecognized as a center of international terrorism to this day) to cite but one example.

  Many months after the bombing of the civilian industrial and transport infrastructure of Yugoslavia and the massacre of thousands of civilians, and in which her own "neutral" President gladly participated, "neutral" Ranta was asked by a German newspaper, Berliner Zeitung about this stand of hers against the paraffin test, and what tests the Finns eventually conducted for the handling of arms on the "victims". The "neutral" forensic candidly admitted the Finns conducted no such tests, which very likely would have contradicted the "neutral" view of the victims as "innocent civilians".

  
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CANADA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 5:00 pm
  

  Purges begin in Serbia

  First the coup now the reprisals.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 5:03 pm
  JP. WIS

  You are right, the hopes for American empire are fading. CIA lies are not acceped anymore. Witness world rejection on your Iraq adventure. NATO fell for Jamie's lies of rape camps and thousands dead in mine shafts, but even Colin Powell could not convince the world, that Saddam eats babies.

  Slobo will be heard,and Clinton will confess to his unjust war. Albright will go to jail, sharing a cell with Condie Rice.

  I can dream can't I ?
  
  Pertti Lindroos
  Quesnel
  BC Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 5:28 pm
  Nico, Mr. Nice did not know that the Ranta's team has not performed an alternative test. He taught that they have. He asked here during her testimony what were the results of the test that her team has conducted. She answered:" This is misunderstanding. An alternative test was never done. It was too late for it."
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 5:44 pm
  How ironic that we should be discussing Helena Ranta's "testimony" at the very time that UNMOVIC is moving out of Iraq, and as I all so easily predicted so many weeks ago, having accomplished nothing more than an immoral campaign of disarmament; espionage and intelligence gathering on behalf of the 300,000 foreign invaders poised to strike on Iraq's border. For Helena Ranta was a key player, along with CIA agent William Walker, in supporting Albanian terrorists in Kosovo-Metohija back in 1999 while serving as a member of the Helsinki University forensic team which was all part of an OSCE-NATO coordinated effort to provide a "smoking gun".

  Certainly a ditch filled with corpses, at least in times of peace, should cause more alarm than say, a battered passenger propeller aircraft held together with duct tape, otherwise known as an Iraqi UAV. However, as the Finnish forensics under Ranta discovered, the corpses were not victims of a massacre, nor were they killed in the absence of a civil conflict (a fact not requiring forensic investigation), and in this context their status becomes not at all unlike that of one duct-tape secured aircraft. As absurd as it sounds this is, after all, the comparison drawn by the world's leading imperialist power, which sees either case as a suitable and legitimate pretext for dumping hundreds of thousands of bombs on a civilian population.

  Political-forensics, of the sort demonstrated by the "neutral" Ranta and her team, was imposed on the government of Yugoslavia by the same foreign powers which were already arming and supporting Albanian terrorists in Kosovo-Metohija. Among the Kosovo Verification Mission's tasks was to demand compliance with conditions on the dutiful conduct of local police (!), with no other purpose than to allow Albanian terrorists to seize areas where they had previously lost control. Albanian terrorists, once reestablished in these zones, would be free to conduct the kinds of murderous activities which demanded a strict political response in the first place (but hardly comparable with the daily conduct of police and military agencies in any number of countries, quite accurately evaluated as US client states.) Among the Albanian terrorists' crimes conducted in the presence of OSCE "observers" was the abduction and brutal murder of the mayor of Kosovo Polje, and the outright massacre of 6 teenagers at a cafe in Pec. No forensic investigation was demanded by the OSCE in either case, a situation remains today with the hundreds upon hundreds of Serbs who have fallen victim to the combined terrorism of the Albanians and the so-called "international community".

  Sure, it's unfair to stretch things too far in comparing the KVM to UNMOVIC, or the Racak corpses to a wreck of an aircraft. The KVM led by William Walker and Helena Ranta hardly ever attempted to exhibit the sort of neutrality, however false, demonstrated recently by Hans Blix or UNMOVIC (as if you can call disarming Iraq with 300,000 soldiers on its border as a "neutral" activity). For the OSCE rarely attempted to disguise the fact it was in Kosovo to support terrorists or to find a pretext for NATO bombers. That's not to say KVM didn't try. There were some lame stunts which involved collaboration with the terrorists, such as arranging for the abduction and subsequent release of Yugoslav Army soldiers, the murder of which was praised in several KVM statements as "professional military operation(s)", and which had been largely enabled through the OSCE's aforementioned "liberation" of wide areas on the terrorists' behalf. And while it's true the KVM rarely condemned Albanian terrorist activities (seen as "professional" and "military", it did politically attack any and all legitimate forms of conduct on the part of the Serbian police and Yugoslav Army. The KVM even attacked police merely for setting up checkpoints, and this is proved by their own sketchy and unprofessional reports, most of which were soon removed from several US government websites, perhaps for simply including some limited mention of Albanian terrorist activities. The KVM repeatedly accused Yugoslav security services of firing on their staff, even claiming the backfire of a tank close to observers was that of a weapon intended for them instead, only to make a detraction much later. Interestingly, the KVM hardly raised a murmur when Albanian terrorists shot one observer and his Albanian interpreter after they entered one of the areas turned over to the terrorists by the OSCE in a clearly marked vehicle. The Rambouillet Ultimatum was merely a formality, or closing act in a prolonged performance, to find a "smoking gun" or cassus belli and impose a campaign of disproportionate violence against the civilian population of an entire state - in the name of human rights, no less. Having fulfilled what was it's role all along, the KVM team of liars and spies left for the Former Yugo-Commie Republic of Macedonia, their mission objectives completed.
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CANADA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 9:24 pm
  

  France and Germany said on Wednesday it was illegal for the Bush administration to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Russia maintained there was no proof Iraq posed a threat to the United States.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday March 19, 2003 at 10:34 pm
  laying the groundwork for a ICJ suit.......
  
  ap v
  ny
  ny

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 12:45 am
  Sen. Robert Byrd: 'Today I Weep for My Country' Reuters Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 9:57 PM By Thomas Ferraro

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The oldest voice in the U.S. Congress rose on Wednesday to offer a final pre-war warning that President Bush's march to battle is dangerously misguided.

  "Today I weep for my country," said West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd. "No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. ... Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

  "We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance," Byrd said, adding: "After war has ended the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe."

  Byrd, a leading foe on Capitol Hill of war with Iraq, spoke in a nearly empty Senate chamber about four hours before Bush's 8 p.m. EST deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion.

  "May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us," Byrd said.

  As the white-haired senator concluded his remarks, a number of people in the visitor's gallery rose and applauded before they were admonished to be quiet.

  At 85, Byrd is now the oldest member of Congress as well as the longest serving. He was first elected to the Senate in 1958, after six years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Byrd was among those who voted last year against the congressional resolution that authorized Bush to use force in his showdown with Saddam, and the senator has given frequent floor speeches since then warning against war.

  YOU CAN READ THE REST ON WASHINGTON POST

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 2:41 am
  I thought the Yugoslav government had called the Finns to do the research on the Racak victims, so there is no need to keep repeating the word "neutral", which has already been used by this obsessed individual calling himself Tarzan to discredit me personally. As to the politically correct findings of the team, all of the resulting pusillanimity was to be expected, when the Finns are allowed compose a politically correct and gender-wise balanced team. I have made no secret about that. I have not spared my criticism of the University of Helsinki in this discussion either. I know all of this, because I have been hit by the slanted policies myself. Why would I keep writing here? I find Tarzan's allusions absolutely distasteful. Come here and fight like a man, or get back to the jungle, apeman. Or do you still have some delusions about your own "neutrality", psycho?

  The Ranta team was officially an EU team. When the preliminary testing was made, Germany was the president of the EU Council, which means that the reports were indeed handled by the Germans. That means that the German diplomat was responsible When the final report came out in late 1999, Finland was the president of the EU Council. That made the then Finnish foreign minister the EU foreign minister as well. She is now the president of the republic, Tarja Halonen. Don't ask me to comment on her.

  But no matter how much propaganda there is against the Serbs, I would still ask the people to give me an explanation of the 1000 mutilated bodies near Srebrenica. The Muslims columns were made of infantry, which means they were very mobile. There can't have been some impromptu massacre within the column itself, because the perpetrators would have been besieged themselves. The busloads would explain a whole lot in terms of how the Muslims were taken to the place of execution, but my understanding is that there were not so many men taken from Potocari by bus anywhere. This has to be a well-planned operation designed by someone who was probably independent of the BSA.

  I am not angry at those men who did it. They are haunted by the scenes for the rest of their lives, and I believe many are tuned in for this discussion. Who would blame them for keeping quiet? On the other hand, it does them no favour to tell them what they saw never happened. That is the fate of the veterans all too often all over the world. At this point, this can't be written off as something typically Serb, either. Everybody did it.

  What I am angry about is the tribunal itself. Considering that the dead people will haunt the perpetrators, there is no sense in punishing them. I am also angry about the poor professionalism of the prosecution. Nice's exploits leave no place for doubt. If you want to learn about the events, the last place to look in is the indictment and the judgment. You could try reading the transcripts, if you have time. And when the prosecution has no clue who did what, it charges those in the official position on the basis of command responsibility, punishing men of honour for fighting for their country.

  I have never doubted Arkan's bravery. I found him a captivating personality, which is one of the reason I talk so much about him. Without the personalities that they have, none of these people would have been where they were. Arkan made no secret about being a family man, with the large family that he had, so his family values were in place. But does that mean he couldn't have broken some rules when in action? Just don't you tell me that Srebrenica has nothing to do with this discussion, now that some are doing their best to talk about Iraq. No-one said North Korea was beside the topic.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 2:50 am
  Michael Thomas,

  Thanks for the info on the Sarajevo breakout. I've been puzzled for quite some time that no one seems to have made much of it. Maybe because the Americans were involved in staging it or maybe it was more convenient to "shift" the losses/damage to the Muslims to other areas like Srebrenica. The body parts everywhere scenario is interesting, and it may well be related to what Jari has suggested as mutilation or poor excavation.

  Walter...

  You didn't say anything confusing, I was just having a go at Jari for insinuating that Arkan's taunt referred to an already committed massacre, which of course could not have been committed as there were no NATO troops on the ground (officially). Unless one counts the tens of body bags that ended up in Greece which are mostly to do with the rescue missions of downed pilots (of which we are told there are none but one).

  Jari...

  I wasn't suggesting that the bodies were shipped from Sarajevo to Srebrenica. Where are the bodies, I believe the bits and pieces are unidentified and have been sent to Tusla. They do not necessarily all come from Srebrenica. All I was saying was that it is possible that the numbers of Muslim fighters killed in the Sarajevo breakout attempt may have been listed as having been killed in Srebrenica to cover up the disastrous military exercise, while at the same time providing a nice pretext for bombing. The bodies excavated from Srebrenica could be just as easily Serbs as Muslims, courtesy of Oric. How come no one is too keen to do some identification after all this time. Doesn't fit into the script maybe?
  
  David
  Australia

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 3:18 am
  David, I have gone out of my way earlier to prove that more than half of the bodies in the Podrinje Identification Center are Serbs, and no-one is willing to identify them. The Dutch troops verified the killings of Serbs in the Podrinje region, when the Dutchbat arrived in Srebrenica. Naser Oric's exploits are no secret. The Dutch know it, everybody knows it, because he just can't shut up.

  I didn't insinuate that Nato troops had been massacred by Arkan in Kosovo. It seems Arkan wasn't in Kosovo at all, which is one of the reasons the war in Kosovo remained relatively clean. I meant that Arkan was bragging about his fame as an expert in massacre, and he seemed to have confirmed this reputation by going public on TV.

  No matter how excruciatingly slanted the tribunal's policies are, no matter how miserable the prosecution's strategy is, we are know defense lawyers. I think the primary merit of this discussion is that people are free to discuss things without professional entanglements, search for the truth, if you like, and I am pretty sure that the Srebrenica massacre is part of the truth, no matter how small a part. It was Milosevic himself that admitted that a massacre had taken place. So even if we were defense lawyers, we shouldn't be more Milosevic than Milosevic himself.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 7:53 am
  Jari about your Srebrencia question. In some way it cannot be answered with accuracy. Clearly the ones who claim nothing happened and ones who say that over 8000 were killed have their own agenda.

  It is important to remember that if many civilians were killed the ethnic group of ones doing killing is less important, they are criminals. They are ones who enjoy killing and if there was no law they would kill in peace also. As a Serb I refuse to take responsibility for actions done by criminals. If JNA as it was when I did service did some attrocity then it would be different story. However there is different levels of guilt and people should not feel they have to defend criminals on battlefield any more than criminals on street.

  Going again to Srebrenica the Republika Srpska government statistics are closer to the truth than figures said here so far in my opinion but really we are all playing with numbers. The fact is many criminals were fighting in our wars and it should not be suprise to anybody that they like to kill and steal from innocent.

  Arkan was a criminal. Maybe he was brave but crazy ones are often brave. A brave man does not need to boast about bodybags. Jari your comment about Arkan being family man had me laughing. That I dont mean in insulting way but do you know how many children from different women this man had? Do you know how some of them were left without money after he moved on to next woman? That at least is not American definition of family values. Arkan in his time was Boss of Bosses in Belgrade. He used to just go to shops in centre and take what he wanted and just leave shop without paying, that I saw with my eyes. It is true Arkan was not on Kosovo but ask someone living in Belgrade who Arkan was and you will see how much of a man he was.
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 8:11 am
  to prove that more than half of the bodies in the Podrinje Identification Center are Serbs, and no-one is willing to identify them. The Dutch troops verified the killings of Serbs in the Podrinje region, when the Dutchbat arrived in Srebrenica. Naser Oric's exploits are no secret. The Dutch know it, everybody knows it, because he just can't shut up.

  and the other part ( at least 600) of the bodies found by the forensic teams are those of members of the 28th BiH killed in a fair fight according to the ICTY Krstic hearings.

  To repeat the obvious, the after action pursuit of the 28th BiH by the BSA was a abject failure on the BSA's part. The BSA failed miserably in its attempt to annhilate the 28th BiH. If it had been the US Military instead of the BSA, not one fighter of the 28th BiH would have survived.
  
  ap v
  ny
  ny

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 9:26 am
  OK. I guess the Krstic trial had some bodies to show for the genocide charges too. Were they taken to the Podrinje Identification Project in Tuzla? I could say "alleged" bodies, but let's quit semantics: at least the prosecution knew where they thought they had stored these bodies (or bits of bodies).

  Now that we are talking about a massacre, one should realize that a massacre doesn't have to be qualified as a genocide per se, and that is one of the things where the tribunal is giving too much to the public outcry. One of the witnesses in the Milosevic trial said that Arkan's troops fought alongside Fikret Abdic's Muslim troops, so if the Srebrenica massacre had something to do with Arkan, I think calling it "genocide" is too sweeping.

  But let's say that "someone" did "something". It may be that the pursuit got out of hand, and some desperate measures were taken as a result. The Krstic indictment says that some heavy weaponry was used, which must mean: courtesy BSA.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 9:49 am
  Please anybody!

  I see that Mr. J.N. refers to a thousand mutilated bodies rather often. Without doubting him I still would like to know where are these bodies from? Where they were found and where these are kept?

  I seem to have missed reading about that detail. Any referemces?
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 10:35 am
  D. Jovanovic,

  1,200 is the number of massacre victims that were refered to by the authorities of the FRY, but I agree it would be good if a comprehensive list of the victims were to be published.

  Here is an article from Politika on the subject:

  Press Conference of Federal Information Minister Goran Matic Massacre Near Srebrenica was Staged by French and Muslim Agents
  by M.Galovic

  Politika, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, February 12 2000

  What happened before the slaughter of about 1,200 Muslims, which took place on July 20 1995 at the farm "Pilice"? Meetings of intelligence agents in Zvornik, Tuzla and Vlasenica. Executioners, among whom were Croats, Muslims, Slovenes and Serbs, were paid two million German Marks. Suspicious behavior of the Dutch battalion. The group "Pauk" [spider] abducted Stevo Todorovic in Yugoslavia and handed him over to the Hague. About the murder of the Defense Minister, Pavle Bulatovic. Media, the opposition, and Albright The massacre of about 1,200 Muslims, which took place on July 20 1995 at the farm "Pilice" near Srebrenica, was staged by the French and Muslim intelligence services. Federal Information Minister Goran Matic emphasized at yesterday's press conference that there is evidence for these claims. This crime was committed by recruiting the locals, and the evidence is based on the statements of the participants in the spy affair "Pauk".

  "The solving of the crime near Srebrenica is our debt to the truth," emphasized Matic.

  This massacre, according to Matic, was used for huge media manipulation, with the goal of demonization of the Serb side and its top political and military leaders. "For example, that summer the TV show 'Good Morning America' produced by ABC TV broadcast pictures of 'Muslim refugees from Srebrenica' clambering through snow in the middle of July," Matic gave an example.

  Multiethnic Gang

  "In order to find the truth it is necessary to discover who prepared and who committed the crime, what was the purpose of staging of the crime, and how was that crime abused by the Hague Tribunal. The same participants organized similar crimes in other places, especially during the NATO aggression against FR Yugoslavia," said the Federal Information Minister. First indications that the massacre near Srebrenica was carried out by the Western intelligence services and extremists surrounding Alija Izetbegovic surfaced immediately after the crime. Specifically, said Matic, Jugoslav Petrusic and Milorad Pelemis (group "Pauk") are responsible for the crime, on behalf of the French intelligence service, as well as General Morillion, who returned because of this to Bosnia-Hercegovina where General Jeanvier was in charge of the UN troops, agent of the Sarajevo government Alija Delimustafic and the commander of Srebrenica Naser Oric.

  Their meetings took place during 1994 and 1995 in Vidikovac near Zvornik, in a military base in Tuzla and in Vlasenica. The last meeting took place in Zvornik in July 1995, in the house of the former mayor, a Muslim, and the security for the meeting was provided by Milan Jovovic. The tactical situation around Srebrenica was worked out on a British map, which was found on Milorad Pelemis during the investigation in connection with the affair "Pauk".

  "At that meeting, it was agreed that Srebrenica would surrender without fighting, that Naser Oric would leave the town, and that U.N. forces would also withdraw. It was agreed that the members of the Tenth Commando Unit carry out the massacre, for which they were promised DM2 million," explained Matic.

  He reminded journalists of the suit filed by Srebrenica Muslims against the Netherlands, whose soldiers withdrew, allowing the massacre of the Muslims, as had been planned in advance.

  Serbs are blamed for the massacre, although it was committed by a multiethnic gang, whose members were Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, and several Serbs. Matic charged Milorad Pelemis, former special forces policemen Franc Kos and Zijad Zigic, also known as Zivko Micic, with murder. Drazen Erdemovic, who is supposed to testify against Karadzic and Mladic in the Hague, was with them.

  Murderers Controlled by the West

  "The Hague needed him for some other things, so that he was sentenced to only four years in prison for the murder of 120 people, while his wife and the child were moved to the Netherlands. On the other hand, Goran Jelisic, a Serb, was sentenced for 12 murders to 40 years in prison. However, we'll discuss doubtful criteria of that Tribunal on another occasion," said Matic.

  He said that Milorad Pelemis, mentioned in numerous Hague indictments, has without problems obtained a Schengen visa and then fought for the French in Zaire.

  "The West keeps under its control murderers and criminals who serve its interests. What is the West offering us? Democracy of paid murderers?" wondered Matic, emphasizing that exactly the case of Milorad Pelemis proves a lot.

  Naser Oric himself confirmed in a letter the existence of a conspiracy with the goal to frame Serbs for a massacre near Srebrenica. In a memorandum to Alija Izetbegovic he says that he did not agree with the plan to surrender Srebrenica, regardless of all the consequences, but that he did take the money promised for the implementation of that plan at the Yellow Bridge near Bratunac.

  Goran Matic publicized another previously unknown detail, related to the activities of the group "Pauk" in Yugoslavia.

  "When the Hague prisoner Stevo Todorovic saw footage from one of our first press conferences on the Dutch TV he recognized Jugoslav Petrusic. He exclaimed: 'That is the man who arrested me!' Petrusic, Rade Petrovic and Branko Vlaco kidnapped Todorovic in Yugoslavia and took him to Bosnia," said the Federal Information Minister, emphasizing that the Hague Tribunal uses criminals to arrest "unsuitable" individuals.

  The goals of the French agents, according to Matic, were to enable president Chirac to convince the British to support a more radical attitude towards the Serbs and to finish the war in Bosnia by a NATO entry to that country. That would justify the staging of the massacre near Srebrenica, for which the Serb side was supposed to take blame in order to condemn general Mladic and the leadership of the Republic of Srpska.

  About the Murder of the Minister of Defense, Pavle Bulatovic

  "It is too early to talk about the information related to the murder of the Minister of Defense, Pavle Bulatovic. It is a complex investigation. I am convinced that this case will be fully solved, since that is in the interest of all of us," said Goran Matic. He reminded that as early as last year, in connection with the affair "Pauk" it was established that western intelligence services, lacking other means for pressure, use more radical methods.

  Media, the Opposition, Albright

  "There are newspapers in this country for which a majority of voters is not legitimate, which in specific moments give contribution to the continuation of the aggression. There are magazines which write lies about their country, and try to destabilize it," said Matic, replying to the question about what he thought about the criticism of some media by Vojislav Seselj, stated at a press conference held by the Serb Radical Party.

  About the relationship between Madeleine Albright and the opposition Matic said the following: "Madeleine Albright, if she wants to lead the opposition, should have used the time she spent in Yugoslavia, when Serbs saved her from the Nazis, to obtain our citizenship. Then, she could be active in politics in this country, but only after she served a sentence for her war crimes".
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:23 am
  Andy, that was space well spent. I think I have read this piece somewhere and dismissed it as plausible but improbable. Anyway, we have the admission that there was a massacre of about a thousand. That is extremely important to recognize, the rest is negotiable. In this JURIST discussion the same figure of about a thousand was mentioned, and I think the reference was the Bosnian authorities: it was there that the detail was added that the exact number is difficult to establish, because the bodies are in small pieces. This is something that can be read in the FRY statement as well. However, the Krstic trial should have said where these bodies were.

  There can be no doubt that the operation was extremely well planned. I still can't figure out how it was carried out in the first place. The Muslim men were proceeding in a column, but separating a thousand men from the rest is an awesome task. And if the operation was so well planned, it is also possible that it could have been kept secret. Besides, all the key players are there: Erdemovic and the "Serbs," who could have been detached from the BSA unit or from the neighbouring villages, who had had enough of Oric's terror. The Croats are also mentioned, which leads me to the hallucinogens once again: I find this a necessary element: without them slicing even one person to pieces would be enough for anyone for one day.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:25 am
  The U.S. government is cleverer than I had given it credit for, even after the deviousness shown by the Clinton administration in the former Yugoslavia. There are some extremely savy manipulators implanted (imbedded, latest term!) in government circles. Just look at how cleverly the U.S. USED the U.N. They knew the U.N. would not allow itself to have its arm twisted this time to attack a sovereign coutnry, but the U.S. played along all the same. While making it look like they wanted U.N. backing, U.N. members and officials scrambled to achieve the "stated" end of disarmament peacefully. The U.S. never had any intention of accepting a peaceful solution, but it used the U.N. to get as many weapons out of Iraq and out of the U.S. military's way as possible prior to going in to attack Iraq. Now they have a much more defenseless Iraq to deal with then before -- no wonder they are so sure of "success" in yet another of their infamous euphamistically-named aggressions, this time Operation Liberate Iraq.

  I heard a reporter from Democracy Now who had just returned from Iraq, Jeremy Scahill (?) who did such great reporting from Belgrade in 1999, say that it's very different listening to foreign media about this situation compared to American media. Even International CNN (apparently that's a different division of CNN) sound quite different from domestic CNN. The words Scahill used were (I paraphrase), "...there appears to be an actual dumbing down by CNN for its American reporting." Quelle surprise!
  
  Anna P
  California

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:29 am
  Jari you write “I meant that Arkan was bragging about his fame as an expert in massacre, and he seemed to have confirmed this reputation by going public on TV.” I saw that interview and I did not get that interpretation from it. I saw it as ‘braggadocio’ no more no less.

  You also write “So even if we were defense lawyers, we shouldn't be more Milosevic than Milosevic himself.” I am not sure if I agree with this point either. If I were a defendant the lawyer defending me better be head and shoulders better than I.

  A comment on Iraq. Rumsfeld in his briefing stated that those in Iraq who destroy oil production fields will be treated as war criminals. The Americans, the environmental terrorists, had no problem destroying Yugoslav oil producing facilities and storage sites, but since they were doing the destroying that is considered legal.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 12:31 pm
  

  To all:

  Several months ago there was a report on Srebrenica issued by the Republic of Srpska government. Everybody in the West attacked this report. Under the pressure that sanctions on Republic of Srpska would be imposed any reporting on it stopped. Does any one know more details on this report and is there a link to it anywhere?
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 12:40 pm
  Gogol, I am glad that France, Germany, Canada and few other members of the Common Criminal Enterprise involved in bombing Serbia are against illegal war against Iraq. They are even saying that it is against the international law. I am just wandering does this amounts to the admission of guilty of bombing Yugoslavia? In my view it is good news for Mr. Milosevic and Serbia since there is a case against NATO countries filed in the International Court of Justice in Hague. It would be interesting to see if international justice in this case recognizes that 2+2=4.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 12:59 pm
  KL
  Did Senator Byrd 'cry for his country' when the Democrats attacked Serbia, taking the side of anachists and Islamists, instead of taking on Iraq as Clinton had congressional approval for at the time?

  KKK Byrd prides himself on always carrying a pocket copy of the Constitution, but he doesn't follow it. Byrd is the consummate party hack and stold more money for "his" constituents than anyone living or dead. His opinion means nothing, it's all pure selfserving politics.
  
  J P
  USA.Wis

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 1:12 pm
  FYI

  I have received a statement from SLOBODA (Freedom Association) in Belgrade.

  Slobodan Milosevic is extremely ill. Apparently he is so sick that his family was denied visitation on the grounds that he was too sick to be moved from his cell.

  See the statement at the following URL:

  http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/sloboda032003.htm
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 1:16 pm
  

  My feeling is that NATO will be the other shoe to drop. The US wants and Germany has agreed, NATO troops sent to Afghanistan where a major Taliban revolt is under way and over 1,000 US troops are involved in suppressing it. Belgium has opposed the move. Turkey's refusal to allow land troops goes in a way in the same direction.

  During the attack against Yugoslavia NATO allowed itself to bypass the UNO and beside Russia there was little opposition. But I think it left a bad impression among many and this is evident very much now. There is only, as everything with W Bush, divisions and divisions of opinion and of course of action.

  I can only hope these divisions will render many of the absurd arrangements made within the NATO members to come to an end including the ICTY.

  The oil refineries in Yugoslavia were using Russian oil and therefor were a good target for the American to bomb, oil in the Middle East is another matter and every liter Iraq wastes makes Wall Street to jitter. I think scorched earth as a defence strategy is perfectly legitimate in face of an invading enemy. It is a classic.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 1:23 pm
  Jari,

  You're right, it is indisputable at this point that Muslims were massacred at Srebrenica. Milosevic has said so, and Goran Matic the Yugoslav Information minister said so.

  What is in question however, is the scope of the massacre and the purpetrators of the massacre. Who was behind the massacre? What was the purpose of the massacre? Who EXACTLY was killed in the massacre? i.e. a list of victim's names.

  It is amazing that they convicted Krstic of no less than GENOCIDE and these questions are still open.

  I think this answers your question about wether or not Milosevic is getting a fair trial. The trial chamber can be as proceduraly fair as they want to be, but the fact remains that Milosevic is on trial at a tribunal that convicts people of genocide with no proof.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 1:30 pm
  

  The prosecutor's case has collapsed and the lack of willing witnesses of any credibility will be fatal for the case. Normally, nothing of the sort to be expected here, the tribunal shall dismiss the case if a prosecutor can't produce witnesses, it is elementary. But either judge May (NATO) doe not get the hint, it is unwilling or allowing another year of witness-less prosecution will eventually render a fatal heart attack on the accused and relieve this court of spineless criminals, (wolves under red capes of the international law) of assuming the least of any responsibility.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 2:50 pm
  

  Gogol, You say: "The prosecutor's case has collapsed and the lack of willing witnesses of any credibility will be fatal for the case. "

  Will this be FATAL for the case of for Mr. Milosevic or him PERSONALLY remains to be seen?
  
  Pera bora
  Ottawa
  canada

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 4:35 pm
  Anna P,

  Very good point about the US deception at the UN, which has really been going on since the inception of that absurd institution which does not even care about its own charter. Perhaps one of the best examples which illustrates this point has to do with the US disdain for other permanent members of the SC and their right of veto, knowing that it is the United States which has exercised this privilege more than anyone, and often in contempt of not only majority opinion in the SC, but the GA or General Assembly as well.

  As for the US manipulation of UN institutions as cover for its stupefyingly incredible record of invasions for the last 50 years, this has all been documented as going back to the Korean War, and with all the tragic consequences which have resulted from that intervention and continue to this day.

  But there's plenty of blame to go around, and along with sharing a disdain for the UN Charter with the world's only superpower, the various overpaid bureaucrats appear obsessed only with an awareness that outright political confrontation, and as allowed by procedure, would risk the dissolution of the institution which provides them with cushy employment. And while there is plenty of open condemnation by various (lesser) powers of the current US aggression against Iraq as noted by Gogol above, the likeliehood of seeing this extended to the SC, and in the form of a resolution condemning the invasion, is extremely remote indeed.

  And so it was incredibly disturbing to witness certain posters above insist that Serbia, or Serbs throughout the former Yugoslavia, should observe and respect obligations to the same UN which expelled the SFRJ, without any legal grounds whatsoever, and in contempt of its own charter. These actions were soon followed with the UN's recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, and their seizure of territory delineated as the purely administrative and internal divisions of the SFRJ, and in spite of the fact neither of those parties applied to the UN for mediation in place of warfare and other acts of open treason. In so doing the UN engaged in aggression against the SFRJ, and the loyal citizens of that country and who as a consequence, found themselves to have no more status in Europe than the stateless Romany, or gypsies, if you will. And this point should not be lost on anyone here, for the simple fact, as evinced by 12 years of aggression against Serbs in every manner conceivable show that nation to be Europe's most oppressed race, ahead of even the aforementioned Romany. The situation is in fact that bad, and it's made worse by the fact that most Serbs cannot even bring themselves to admit as much, as though the current harsh realities can find improvement simply through delusion and denial.
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CAN

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 6:11 pm
  I think Serbian people are facing dilemma: Side with Europe or US.

  In the last 20 years, since decision to destroy USSR, (I think at the same time it was set the similar goal to destroy SFRJ) Europe saw, only, enemy in SFRJ, and it did everything possible to get rid of it.

  On the beginning, France, German and Vatican played a major and initiative role to destroy Yu - Why? What role Russia played? Regardless what happened during that period; US expressed much more principles and standards, than three named above.

  Even in Kosovo; Finish Helena Ranta caused much harm to Serbs people than many others. In the whole SFRJ case I saw US just as executive power. Political decision where already made by European “allies”. Europe expressed position of the old lady, seeing shortsighted, and bringing harm to Serbian people, as part of Europe, seeing and portraying them as lower race and barbarians (Even though, Serbs as part of the Europe had their major contribution to the civilization of the Europe - religion, alphabet, architecture, laws)

  Now; what these geographical European allies have to offer Serbs to be anti-American? And why Serbs should be anti-US? The stories about how US failed to bring peace, are just nonsense - The failure lays on the European side.

  NO ONE can say that nazi symbols, as initial ignited point of war in 1990 in Yu, were brought or admitted to Croatia, from or by US, nor guns to HDZ or KLA, neither they had something to do with Alija’s Islamic declaration..

  Fifteen years later Europe wants to act integrally (with no Trojan horses), desperately trying to raise its voice, to protect its interests - too late - Whose interests? It showed only their impotence and incompetence.

  Europe traced the path- and it is certainly not that everybody shall to follow.
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 6:43 pm
  Anna P.,

  It's very nice to see you understand and exercise your right of free speech as an American citizen for what it is, and to offer criticism of the Iraq invasion without lengthy sighs; apologies and other expressions of regret in the form of posts amounting to impersonations of Julie London singing "Cry Me A River" if you know what I mean. That's what Ari Fleischer, like Jamie Rubin before him, is paid for, and as you already know, neither one of them, nor anybody else in the Clinton and Bush administrations, was apologetic or regretful for the various well-documented crimes and acts of aggression against a long list of countries since the dawn of the New World Order.

  It hardly comes as a surprise to see more displays of outright hostility and open invective issued from the board's "neutral". You know, it's hard to take pleasure from witnessing such rudeness and language more appropriate to a drunken street brawler, especially coming from someone who claims to be a "defense lawyer", and "angry about the poor professionalism of the prosecution." Perhaps this was intended only as comic relief, but it's not at all clear, and in any case somebody needs to either take this board a lot less personally or find some medication for his apparently all too thin skin.

  While not nearly as objectionable, there is something disturbing about this curious obsession with the case of "Srebrenica" on the part of the "neutral", as well as the repeated and inconsistent use of the word "massacre" to describe Republika Srpska military actions against military targets. And while these same remarks are prefaced with recognition of the use of (false) allegations against the aforementioned military, and the Serb nation as a whole, denunciation of this abusive propaganda is not so apparent, nor the determination to raise the same issue day after day. And while this same poster openly confesses his "angry" attitude towards the tribunal, this we find has more to do with his disappointment in "the poor professionalism of the prosecution" than anything else. A criticism which is a dime a dozen in the West, offered up readily by so-called "moderates" in the "West" such as Canadian lawyer Ed Greenspan and so many others. There is no question of the legitimacy of the tribunal, however, and like Eddie G. there is no question of legitimacy of the role of the United Nations and NATO in "Srebrenica" or anywhere else for that matter (such as the massacres committed in front of the UN at the Medak Pocket or the Krajina), and the expression of which can be issued without any emotional sentiments, "angry" or otherwise - perhaps more befitting of a true and honourable "neutral".

  Speaking of neutrality, it's interesting to see the persistent appearance of the Djindjic supporter who initially joined this board to accuse all participants as playing a role in the brutal and horrifying assassination of the former Prime Minister. Such accusations are made all the more disturbing in the context of the ongoing news out of Serbia, where a de facto dictatorship comprised largely of Djindjic loyalists have recklessly issued similar and equally false charges, and accompanied by the needless censorship and unwarranted arrest of thousands. And while it is some comfort that most contributors are not based in Serbia, there is an appreciable amount of concern here for those which are. You would hardly know the DOS loyalist from his most recent post, however, in which he makes a determined effort to exhibit the sort of evenhandedness and objectivity which he apparently sees in the posts of the "angry neutral", from whom he has already received declarations of support, no matter how undeserved. Now if only the DOS dictatorship could skillfully carry out the same sort of deception as this accomplished student of slander through computer correspondence, Serbia might very well find "neutral" support for a seat at the Council of Europe.
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CAN

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 10:54 pm
  You're right, it is indisputable at this point that Muslims were massacred at Srebrenica

  beg to differ, they has been virtually no bodies id'd, nearly 1/2 were found in anti-Oric villages where is execution squads operated.

  indisputable is hardly the term to use.....perhaps 'it is likely that'
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:20 pm
  Thanks, Andy, for directing me to your site's search engine for transcripts; I managed to find what I needed. Gogol nearly got the name of that OCSE verifier in Racak - it was not Hendrix, but one Ian Robert Hendrie. I simply typed in 'Racak' and 'photographs' and with a little reading I managed. And Karol Drewienkiewicz was the former British General within OSCE who was walking that day with Walker, but it was Hendrie that remained and took photographs. Thanks again to both of you for assistance.

  You can read for yourselves the transcript of the Hendrie's testimony (7 June 2002). The reason his testimony remained with me were his photographs, as I already explained. Not only did they show those improbable rigor mortis positions of the dead people in the Racak ravine, they also clearly demonstrated other curious and illogical things. On one photo there's a dead man laying on the ground, wearing a shallow national Albanian cap and the man was hit by at least two bullets right through his head; people shot that way would have not only lost a cap, but would have been kicked out of their shoes, as Milosevic rightly remarked. The other pair of photographs showed another dead man, at the same spot (the same stones beside him) but in two different positions, without blood on the first photo and with a pool of blood around him on the second. Obviously, there was some heavy tampering with the 'crime scene'. And the photographs were so numerous (around one thousand!) so that these showing something fishy was done to the corpses obviously slipped among the multitude. Again, the quantity that the Prosecution is so desperate to provide is damaging their case's quality.

  The other proof of the Walker's team misconduct in Racak was the very testimony of Hendrie. He was a detective in both the Royal Hong Kong and the London Metropolitan Police, was in the UN International Police in Bosnia in 1997-98 and joined OSCE in 1998. With such a background, one would presume this detective would know better than he did around Racak corpses. Read for yourselves, but here are just few of shiny gems of his conduct.

  When describing the scene in Racak, the positions, circumstances of killing and the identity of the victims, Hendrie claims in his statement that he got most of those info from 'well-armed' people with KLA insignia milling about the scene, some in black and some in camouflage uniforms, but 'it is correct that I do not know or cannot recall the identity of some of the sources'. A great police detective, who was lead around by KLA and who meekly scribbled all they have told him, without ever asking for their names!

  Another example that a police detective is not a police detective when he is an OSCE verifier. Listen to this exchange from the cross examination. Milosevic: "Did you move the bodies you examined?" Hendrie: "Some of them, yes, sir." Milosevic: "And do you know that it is a basic rule of the profession to which you belong that on the scene nothing should be touched or moved until an official investigation is conducted?" May: "Is it a basic rule?" Hendrie: "In normal circumstances, yes, sir." Milosevic: "And why were these abnormal?" Hendrie: "You Honour, I was not there as a police officer. I was there as a member of the OSCE to observe what had occurred and to draw some conclusions." What does it mean, that an OSCE observer is allowed to destroy the crime scene? So far, Hendrie was bragging about his police expertise, acting like a detective on the crime scene, but when faced with his obvious tampering with evidence, he suddenly becomes merely an OSCE member, who innocently walks among bodies, moving them carelessly about, observing and even drawing conclusions, without any proper investigation.

  The 22 bodies in the ravine are not the only Racak victims - there were several other smaller groups in other places, that were duly shown to Hendrie by his KLA escorts and he reported that he didn't observe any traces of blood at the scene where 2 men were laying, with numerous gunshot wounds. When asked by Milosevic to explain such illogical thing, the police detective became the OSCE observer again, and to a direct question 'can that mean that these people did not lose their lives in the location their bodies were found?' he seriously answered: "No, your Honour." Milosevic ridiculed him: "Where's the blood?" to which Hendrie pretended first he didn't understand the question and then answered with a nonsensical "Sir, I did not observe any blood. It does not mean that there wasn't any there." What could he possibly mean by that? That somebody removed the blood? That the blood was not shown to him deliberately? That the blood was invisible?

  Another instance when this police detective acted like layman observer. Milosevic: "And do you have any photographs or video footage showing a single case from a rifle that you mentioned a moment ago?" Hendrie: "I don't recall actually photographing any empty cases. As you might appreciate, sir, I had limited film and in actual fact, I did run out." So, nobody has any proof of any cases found where people were allegedly executed, some witnesses were just mentioning it, but there's no photos or videos of it, and why - because the OSCE was unable to provide sufficient quantity of film and our detective/non-detective ran out of it because he took too many photos of the bodies and none of the actual evidence at the 'crime scene'. Interesting method of verification.

  Tapuskovic came up with the problem of virtually no blood on or around the victims in the gully, and particularly no blood from one person spraying onto another, having in mind they were laying closely together, and all shot in their heads, so blood should have spurted and splashed in different directions. Hendrie reported only a little bit of blood on the seventh corpse. The great detective had to say that 'the examination was, I admit, hurried' and 'yes, I would have expected to see traces of blood on the other deceased. However, I did not record that. That does not mean it was not there.' Oh, again that funny formula. Could someone provide the explanation as to its meaning? Or could it be simply that those people were not shot in their heads all together, execution-style, in that ravine? Where's the blood?

  Mr Hendrie with all his 20-year homicide detective background could have been easily replaced by any little old lady, the results of the 'findings' would have been the same: all that the anonymous KLA members told him was dutifully put to paper, all the 'right' conclusions made and our detective even invented a new saying re blood not observed but still there, which could be also applied to him: We did not observe any detective expertise in Mr Hendrie. It does not mean that there wasn't any there. The man just conveniently didn't apply it.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:51 pm
  AP V.

  You're right, I stand corrected. Without knowing who the people are that have been dug up at Srebrenica ANYTHING is possible.

  Vera,

  Thank you for your post, it was interesting and informative, but your posts always are. :)

  I know that the transcript search engine dosn't have the most user-friendly interface, but once you understand its logic you can use it to find practically anything you want.

  Since you used it successfully, can you give me your opinion of the directions I posted on how to use it? Were the directions clear enough, or do you see any way to improve their clairity?

  
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Thursday March 20, 2003 at 11:57 pm
  I think we need to decipher here the term Srebrenica Massacre. Officially in the media and the propaganda bulletins we have approx 8000 Muslims slaughtered in an act of genocide. That, INDISPUTABLY, has not been shown to be the case. Therefore, what we have come to identify as the Srebrenica Massacre, most PROBABLY is a red herring.

  Now, what Milosevic may have referred to as a massacre organised by the French, and effected by renegade Serbs, is not THE Srebrenica Massacre, although it does suggest a massacre of some kind did occur in Srebrenica.

  But, at the risk of sounding more Milosevic than Milosevic himself, can we note that Milosevic is NOT talking about THE Srebrenica Massacre at all but another massacre which was then blown up into THE Srebrenica Massacre through imputation and genocidal ascriptions to the BSA and Mladic etc.

  To this end, no doubt, figures representing dead Serbs, dead Muslim fighters and massacred Muslim's, civilian or armed, were aggregated to magnify the criminal deeds of whoever committed such deeds into GENOCIDE and to spread convenient propaganda which would enable the achievement of political objectives.

  On the subject of Iraq, which is an extension of the YU approach, for those contributors who are somewhat keen to buy any nonsense the media and the spin doctors spew forth, consider this... "Operation Iraqi Freedom". Does anyone here genuinely believe Bush et al are bombing Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people? You wanna buy the Sydney Harbour Bridge too?
  
  David
  Australia

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 12:15 am
  Vera

  Re Racak and no blood... I'm surprised that Hendrie forgot to mention that there was probably no blood because those bloodthirsty Serbs must have sucked it out of the victims before they killed them.

  As for interfering with the scene of the "crime", as he said, he was there for political reasons, not as a policeman. And it is well known that in politics evidence is what you make of it. Which makes you wonder why the other side brought him in as an expert witness in the first place. Still, his actions go a long way towards negating his credibility as a professional and the quality of his evidence as an expert.
  
  David
  Australia

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 3:00 am
  David, that official FRY statement on the Srebrenica massacre made the massacre quite specific. The communiqué starts with this sentence: "What happened before the slaughter of about 1,200 Muslims, which took place on July 20 1995 at the farm 'Pilice'?" Notice that this gives the date, the place, the ethnicity of the victims and their approximate number. And it must be this communiqué that Milosevic that had in mind when he talked about the senseless massacre.

  This massacre has been attributed to the French, and I still find this unlikely. The French are the first to oppose senseless massacres, as we have witnessed recently, and in fact it is all too easy to accuse them of advocating a genocide just as a result of that. Something like this "staging" has happened prior to the Srebrenica massacre as well.

  Much has been made of Morillon's contribution. He said he had told Milosevic to stop the genocide, and according to Vergès, that is why the massacre didn't happen. So, the Serb propaganda retaliates and says that Morillon was in the conspiracy and complicit in the massacre. Such lies seems to be the fate of all those who are labelled "neutral" by those who just want an excuse to say someone is not neutral.

  It may be that Morillon was not neutral: he may have acted as Chirac's messenger, which he shouldn't have done as one of the UN staff. This alone would explain why the UN has closed its files on Srebrenica.

  The Serb propaganda also said that the Dutch may have done something to promote the massacre. This has been shown to be untrue from the reverse side, when the Muslims insisted that the Dutch government research its contribution in the massacre.

  So in the Serb communiqué there is a lot which is, if not lies, then at least mere conjecture. On the contrary, when it says "Serbs" it doesn't have to mean an unruly Serb bunch. It may also refer to Serb paramilitary troops. Staging a massacre would still take some considerable organization, which some of the paramilitary leaders would be capable of. If one is allowed to read something to the Croats and the French, one might remember that Arkan had his base in Croatia, Legija had served in the Foreign Legion. It has been said that Arkan may have been a double agent, which would have explained why was released by the Croats.

  In short, I don't think the Serb communiqué is quite reliable. I also think that Milosevic knows more than he says. He has had more than five years after the massacre to find out, and he was in the best position to find out. If one is allowed to believe Morillon and Vergès, he might have known something even in advance.

  If the Serb propaganda admitted the body pieces, and then the body pieces are shown not to have existed, the Krstic trial notwithstanding, then there is something really fishy going on.

  And a final word on the Apeman, as you might have expected. He is the only one who has called me "neutral" here, as if I were bound by some government, only to be able to accuse me of not being neutral. When I say we are not defense lawyers, he says that I have said I am a defense lawyer. This would explain the character assassination of Vergès, by the way, who was accused of saying that he was Vergès defense lawyer.

  I would like to borrow Ms Morningstar's question here: what good do you think these lies do to your argument? Talking about provocateurs and agendas, it shoud be obvious that the Apeman is one. In particular, why does he want to keep the discussion away from Srebrenica? Isn't that important?

  One correction, if I may: Yugoslavia was not expelled from the UN. It was shut off from the activities of the General Assembly, because the government didn't apply for separate membership. It was not until the ICJ ruling on Legality of Use of Force that it became clear Yugoslavia had lost its membership.

  Obviously there are people who think that Yugoslavia was quite right to stick to its guns and do its best to keep Croatia in the Federation. In other words, Yugoslavia was quite right to teach the UN a lesson. But wasn't it then good that Nato started the bombing without a Security Council resolution, because that taught the UN a lesson too?

  Very important news has been ignored here. The former PM Kok will have to appear as a witness in the case of the bombing victims against the Dutch state. Do you really think that is unimportant? Obviously that shows to some that the world is one big conspiracy.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 3:21 am
  To clarify: why would there be something really fishy going on if the body parts in Srebrenica have not been found, if they existed at all? I will answer with another question: how could the Serbian government have known everything about the maps on which this plan was drawn on, without checking if a massacre had indeed taken place, as it said?
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 4:14 am
  It took some time to even begin to find an answer to the question. Suppose there was no massacre. Then there would be something to the claim that Morillon had averted the genocide by talking Milosevic out of it. These tales about the maps show that the Yugoslav government had participated in, or at least knew all about, the planning. They can say they found out about it afterwards, but they may mean in advance.

  But why would Milosevic go on perpetuating the tale about the massacre? That seems a perfectly legitimate question: even no neutrality is required. Maybe Milosevic thought he would be more of a hero by blaming it all on the French, rather than admitting that the planned massacre, which he knew about, was aborted.

  On the other hand, people here are right: if Krstic was sentenced, without the body parts being even presented as evidence, it is almost irrelevant if the massacre took place or not. But I would still maintain that if the body parts are found somewhere, one needs a massacre to explain them, they can hardly be attributed to a normal combat situation. The act of aggregation is possible, but it seems unnecessary, when the prosecution can get away with something a lot worse.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 7:01 am
  Let me just add my voice to Jari's to say. Why is this character the only one to keep going back to my initial comment. Is it because it was very close to the truth in his case? That this Tarzanovic rejoiced at the death of Djindjic as some did here in Serbia. (There are reports of these guys being arrested but thats too much for me, they are just sick). There is no good reason for Tarzanovic to not be able to engage his brain because of one comment I made, other than comment in his case was true. I pity you Mr Tarzanovic and dont have problem to admit that I was wrong in big majority of people here but not about you. By the way if not being Radical or SPS supporter makes me DOS supporter then Im with 66 percent of population. You are not.Thank god we dont have to listen to extremism any more.

  On the point about Srebrenica if you dont want to talk about it then please go somewhere else. This is thread for adults. Mr Tarzanovic please do not address me either indirectly or directly because pathetic argument doesnt interest me. On the other hand if you have something to say about my arguments. But I cant believe I have to say this anyway. Its waste of time.

  Pera Bora there is report about the report by Republika Srpska here http://www.signupforpeace.com/%5Carticle.asp?art=31

  Original report is difficult to find but maybe some NGO might have done translation from Serbian to English

  My own opinion is that there were over thousand people killed in Srebrenica and some civilians. Again this action had nothing to do with me or any other ones apart from criminals that took part. It should not be difficult for grown up to talk about Srebrenica unless they are hiding something. It is very hard to believe that many years after so many women say they lost their men. There is no propoganda values for them to doing this now.

  In link I posted could somebody tell me what it means when it say that 3000 bodies are available to see in Tuzla?
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 7:08 am
  

  http://www.oneworld.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?root=129&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ernw%2Enl%2Fhotspots%2Fhtml%2Fsre020904%2Ehtml

  This is again report about report but it talks about 3500 bodies being in factory in Tuzla. What is the position of ones who say no killing happened? Where are the bodies from?
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 8:17 am
  Arandjel

  close reading of the HumWarrior agit-prop on the 4,000 bodies at the Tuzla morgue reveals the following

  There are some 1,800 bodies from 'in and around Srebrenica' at the morgue which are collected in 4,000 body bags; some bodies having body parts in multiple bags.

  As for your question "where are the bodies from ?"

  That is a question we all have been asking. We do know from the Krstic hearings that the forensic experts determined that at least 1/3 of the bodies were soldiers fo the 28th BiH killed in a fair fight. About 1/2 of the remaining bodies were found in areas where Oric's execution squads operated.

  The full forensic reports are supressed and the HumWarriors refuse to publish them

  Only a handful of bodies have DNA which matches those of Iztbegovoic loyalists. One can only conclude that the unidentfied bodies are mostly victims of Nasir Oric.
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 8:36 am
  Here is an International Red Cross Report about Srebrenica you can see from it that according to the Muslim witnesses "Bosnian Serb forces" arrested 3,000 people and the Red Cross concluded that at least 200 of these 3,000 were alive. So you can see that if you use the Muslim's own numbers the MAXIMUM possible number of people who could have been possibly "killed by Serbs" at Srebrenica is 2,800 any number higher than that is an impossibility.

  The media and the Hague Tribunal see that 8,000 are missing from Srebrenica and blame the Serbs for all of the 8,000, but they ignore the fact that 5,000 out of that 8,000 were missing BEFORE any Serbs ever got there.

  ------------------------------

  13 September 1995 - ICRC News 37 Former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica: help for families still awaiting news

  The ICRC´s head of operations for Western Europe, Angelo 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 forces. 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-Herzegovina authorities seeking information on some 5,000 individuals who fled Srebrenica, some of whom reached central Bosnia.

  After the fall of the enclave, the ICRC received over 10,000 requests for family news from civilians who were transferred to Tuzla in central Bosnia. About 2,000 of these requests were from different family members seeking the same individuals. An in-depth analysis has shown that the remaining 8,000 requests fall into two categories: about 5,000 concern individuals who apparently fled the enclave before it fell, while the remaining 3,000 relate to persons reportedly arrested by the Bosnian Serb forces.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 11:00 am
  The Dutch confirmed there were 2,800 bodies of Serbs in the Podrinje region. There are about 4,000 bodies in Tuzla, and it is my understanding the bodies of the Serbs are included in this number, as AP V also agrees. I believe the grief of the Muslim women is real too, but you don't need a massacre to explain that. Not all the Muslim bodies are identified, in pieces or not. And if the are only some body parts in Tuzla - and that is the only place the bodies from Srebrenica were taken - then the case for a massacre is becoming very weak.

  And the really bizarre thing is that the Yugoslav government was adamant that 1,200 Muslim men were slaughtered (and yes, the word "massacre" was used). I have thought about this the whole day, and I have the following theory. The Bosnian war was decimating the Bosnian population even without any massacres. Maybe the number was about half a million, but the worrisome thing was that it was rising all the time, and with the Bosnian Serb intransigence, there was no end in sight. So the Bosnian Serb leadership had to incapacitated, and the indictment was the way to do it (this is common knowledge, by the way).

  Milosevic wanted to see the war end too. So people put their wise heads together, and thought that a massacre in time would save an internecine war in the long run. The massacre would have seemed justifiable at the time!

  At least the Bosnian Serb morale had to broken somehow. It is impossible to say how serious these plans of a massacre were. Probably the paramilitary troops heard about it and were quite elated.

  The French heard about it too, and talked the guys out of it. The French said that all the paperwork could be done to "prove" the massacre and hence to get the Bosnian Serbs indicted, without having to resort to unnecessary killings. Morillon was the messenger. Chirac certainly had nothing against it, if he knew.

  So the massacre happened, either in reality or on paper, but it is the indictments that count. Nato may have made a deal to hid Karadzic and Mladic, as long as the indictment looked natural and the Bosnian Serb leadership remained incapacited. Only last week Paddy Ashdown said that the whereabouts of Karadzic and Mladic are a public secret. And while Karadzic was away, the Dayton agreement could be signed in a record time.

  However, as Shattuck has said, the whole thing was a trap for Milosevic too. It became time to get Milosevic out of the way.

  Now Milosevic has to stick to the massacre story to avert the Serb anger. That is why the Politika published Matic's article as late as 2000, and Milosevic sticks to the version still.

  He can't tell his people the whole thing was a trick to get Mladic and Karadzic away. On the other hand, he knows he is too involved not to get sentenced. Luckily, in the original version the blame was placed on the French, and he hopes it will work.

  The UN closed the files on Srebrenica. There may not be anything sinister in that. Morillon may have overstepped his mandate. But the main thing is that the UN material might undermine the validity of the massacre story.

  And back to the question. In this light: Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial? Who knows, he may be getting what he deserves.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 11:32 am
  Before anything comments on "Milosevic may be getting what he deserves," let me say that getting the Bosnian war to an end was would have justified a whole gamut of means, otherwise repugnant (although this begins to smack of a "humanitarian intervention"). Milosevic may just as well accept that the trial is the negative fallout of the plan he had prepared for Karadzic (my conjecture, N.B.). It is also possible that some of the paramilitary troops couldn't be stopped once they thought the massacre was a good idea, so maybe there was some massacre, in whatever scale.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 11:56 am
  To quote a friend in Swahili the Yugoslav people have “kula chingi nengi” eaten much salt in their life. Srebrenica is more salt both eaten and rubbed into the gaping wound and used by the world community to justify their criminality and by the Muslims to show that they were the victims. The Serbs who question and I say question Srebrenica are seen as deniers, excusers and historical revisionists. Srebrenica is used to justify The Hague Tribunal, Kosovo, Krajina and any action against the Yugoslav side that might go contrary to the master plan of NATO. This is similar to anyone criticizing events in Palestine. As soon as voices are raised against Israeli action in Palestine mention of the Holocaust justifies everything.

  There is no question that many people were killed in this conflict including Srebrenica. According to my information some 15000 men retreated from Srebrenica towards Tuzla and 5000 had weapons. They retreated “in columns protected by Bosnian Moslem soldiers, who were shooting at the Serbs as they fought their way through the lines at Srebrenica, trying to reach their own enclave.” A British SAS sergeant, Nicholas Cameron, has stated in the London Sunday Times that many marchers were killed and he also states “that the Moslems were not exactly an innocent group of by-standers. He states that “The Moslems had already killed one Dutch soldier” and that “We ourselves had been held at gunpoint the night before”. Cameron states that he “had taken up a position over the town to direct NATO air raids, and while he was relating detail by detail what was happening, that the Bosnian Serbs were taking the town and firing on Bosnian Moslem positions, the air raid, when it came half an hour later, consisted of two Dutch F-16s which fired some rounds at two tanks.”

  Cameron further states that the Muslims paid a price in Srebrenica in the same way Serb villagers, women and children, in the surrounding areas paid a price “but in the Balkans wars the real story is often as confused and distorted as the ethnic and geographical reality on the ground. It appears there was not only one set of good guys and bad guys. However, they have their scapegoat and he’s on trial. Now the others can all breathe a huge sigh of relief, because Carla del Ponte has already publicly declared the defendant (Milosevic) guilty.”

  Just one example of this reality can be found in Facovici a village close to Srebrenica where Aco and Darko lost 20 of their neighbors and relatives. At the same time one must not lose sight of the fact that Muslim villagers were expelled from their villages in that area. I have provided a letter on this post to Time magazine by a British officer who questions events as presented by the media. He asks “What happened to the 40% of the Serb population that lived in Srebrenica before the war?” In the letter he describes the killing fields around Srebrenica where Serbian village after village was torched, people killed, and livestock slaughtered by Oric’s forces using Srebrenica as a safe heaven protected by NATO.

  “Bosnian Muslim forces located in Srebrenica frequently raided the surrounding Serbian villages (NY Times, 6/26/95; The Economist, 7/15-21/95). Ibran Mustafic, Bosnian Muslim MP and founder of SDA (the main Muslim political party) in Srebrenica, claims that these attacks represented purposeful provocations by the Sarajevo government to encourage the Serbian attack on Srebrenica (Interview in Sarajevo daily, Slobodna Bosna, 7/14/96). UN did not stop either side from attacking.”

  The following web page from where the above quote is taken may help some Doubting Thomases understand that the number game is just that. Put one man in boiling water and another in cold water on the average they will be comfortable. Welcome to the statistics on Srebrenica. http://sane-boston.org/articles/srebrenicaqa.html

  To get back to Slobodan Milosevic and his guilt for Srebrenica BBC quotes the Netherlands Institute for War report which states that “former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is not linked” to Srebrenica “No evidence had been found that suggests the involvement of the Serbian authorities in Belgrade”

  Peter I loved the poem the Louse. I saw him speak today and he said that burning oil wells in Iraq is a war crime. I wonder where he was when he was burning the Yugoslav oil wells and facilities???

  I wonder how Robert Burns would see the quest for Iraqi oil? Would he see it as he sees meat.

  Some hae meat an canno eat,

  Some wat eaat an want it

  But we hae meat ,and we can eat,

  And let the lord be thank it.

  
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 12:53 pm
  Arandjel, tank you for your effort to find links on the Report of Republic of Srpska Government on Srebrenica, but no tank you for the links on comments on Report of Republic of Srpska Government. I have seen a lot of these rebuttals. In my case a link to an original report will do in Serbian or English. You must understand that any suppression of public access to such a document presents infringement on my right to free speech and access to infromation. Do not get me wrong it is not your responsibility. I doubt that any of the humanitarian organizations will ever make effort to translate it. The humanitarian organizations are non-profit by definition, but they have to make money to survive. In order to inspire donors they are guessing what is good to report and what is not i.e. what is profitable. I have made extensive effort to find a copy of the real report without a success. It appears that it is better buried that corpses of Srebrenica.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 12:58 pm
  Jari, a number of perished people in Bosnia is far less than half a million. Some numbers that I have seen reported from various international organizations involved in Bosnia are going between 25 000 to 50 000. Can anyone help with confirming this data.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 1:12 pm
  

  Belgraders should feel relief perhaps even thankful the Yanks were not free to destroy their city as they are doing at this moment the ancient city of Bagdad.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 1:49 pm
  Gogol,

  This bombing campaign on Iraqi cities causes all kinds of horrific feelings to well up again, which I first felt in 1999. I am completely and utterly disgusted, not to mention horrified and only wish Rumsfeld and his ilk a few weeks in a city that has bombs raining on it.

  As an aside, isn't it interesting, in a black humor kind of way, that one cruise missle costs as much as paying the salaries and all benefits to 38,000 American elementary school teachers. Of course, what we have seen in California lately is a massive cutback on school spending and many teachers are waiting anxiously to find out if they will have a job next year because redundancies are in the works.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 1:53 pm
  Jari,

  //The French are the first to oppose senseless massacres, as we have witnessed recently..//

  Although I am glad that the French have opposed this current war, I will refrain from being impressed by it since, as with Germany, there is a very high and VOCAL muslim population in France. Whether this stance on Chirac's part is noble and moral remains to be seen - it could be simply politically expedient. Whatever the reason, for now I'm just glad they have this position but let's not be so overly simplistic as to make the French out to be morally superior on the basis of this.
  
  Anna P
  Califoria

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 2:07 pm
  Pera Bora

  You are right of course it was wrong of me to post link that is so easy to find. But maybe the way to find the report is to ask it from Republika Srpska government. Maybe they have an email address or something, just idea. Maybe magazine Reporter based in Banja Luka also have something about it either in back issue or again idea to contact them direct.

  In this case probably the motif of humanitarian organisation is not profit but case of not believing what is written and therefore not worth translation or comment. In fact after outcry of Bosnian Serb report, what really was the point of it since nobody was satisfied? When doing numbers game it sound closer to what might be true total to me but then who knows really?

  Jari your speculation sounds possible. Milosevic would for sure have made himself very well informed on subject of Srebrenica. This not to say he ordered it, dont think even prosecution say this, or are they? But ironic in some way that out of few people who might know real truth he is one of them but he wont tell for whatever reason. This sitting on truth does make him look guilty, he would be better to just open it all up even if he hurt his case. He could then (at least in eyes of some Serbian people) have more respect. Respect isnt born from his attitude just to defy charges at tribunal. His whole time as ruler of Yugoslavia must be judged. He knows this very good. It is one reason why he gets involved in 'political' (as May says) argument all the time. Dont get me wrong it doesnt make trial right but when you wrote he may be getting what he deserves first thing comes to my mind is so many mistakes he made as leader, economic black hole, war, refugees and so on. When I look at it in this way there should be no sympathy. When look at in other way - lying witnesses, genocide charges, propoganda against Serbs, not enough charges against Albanians, Bosnians, Croat political leaders, US, Britain, Germany then it is a different story.

  That is why there is space between Serb view abroad and Serb view at home, though of course there are others who feel same way like Vera for example. This is to be understood but sometimes bitter attitude toward Serbs with different opinion is goes too far.

  Maybe I was lucky but my wound closed up so its time for me to find the truth. It is understood for others is more difficult to discuss Srebrenica. We have duty now if we ignore this history will accept western view as complete truth.

  If we must use saying of putting salt in wounds. Let us to be ones to put salt in our own wounds. It is better than somebody else to do it. Course I would say its better to look at your wound to make it better than to look somewhere else to tell somebody they have bigger and more dirty wound than we do.
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 2:12 pm
  This attack make me very miserable. Nobody forgot siren sounds in Belgrades.

  Poor Iraqis, but its very difficult not to fall into trap of wanting American casualtys. Its very difficult. The same feelings come back. This is a war where people can only be hurt physicaly and mentaly.

  
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 2:14 pm
  Arandjel,

  In my opinion, you should be less offended by reaction to the hard-hitting remarks of your debut (?) message here the day of Djindjic's assissination than some of us are who were truly offended by what amounted to an accusation from you, albeit unfounded. Now that you have to some extent explained yourself, as having been (understandably, I think) carried away by the moment in a situation where emotions ran extremely high, specially, of course, with those who are in Serbia, you would like the matter dropped. However, you must have the same understanding for those you offended as you would like them to have for you.

  I haven't seen anyone here gloating over Djindjic's untimely demise. The fact that some very intelligent and articulate persons here have discussed Djindjic's "reign" (wasn't it just that?)does not categorize those persons as supporting or taking pleasure in political assassination. I would say, without fear of much contradiction after what I have been reading on this site, that these commentators would have taken much more pleasure in seeing a civilized electoral removal of Djindjic, by the people of Serbia and Montenegro, and probably a subsequent criminal trial since the man was undeniably a criminal as well as a political force. His charisma is not debatable, he appears to have harbored some ideals for Serbia, but this does not negate the facts that the man was conniving, unscrupulous and looking to promote himself as much, if not more, than the country he was leading. I cannot shake off the very bad gut feeling that there is something unsavory about the fact that Djindjic had such a strong link with Germany (as did Arkan, I believe). I'm sorry, I suspected the man's motives and really resented his betrayal of Kostunica, whom he obviously used to put himself in the position he he finally had. All this considered, it still does not mean that I "rejoiced" in his assassination. I did not. I want, more than anything for Serbia to prosper and grow stronger and find it's rightful position in the world.

  There is a saying, Those Who Live by the Sword Die by the Sword. This seems to have been true in Djindjic's case. Please don't blame us out here for his choices.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 2:27 pm
  Arandjel,>p>I completely agree with your viewpoint on the Srebrenica question. Serbs SHOULD pour salt into their own wounds and take a long, hard look at what actually happened in Srebrenica in order to come up with the definitive truth of the matter. Then those who are guilty should be tried and punished. As far as I am concerned any Serb who committed an atrocity should be jailed and the key trown away. It would benefit all Serbdom if we cleansed any such horrific misdeeds by with the truth, whatever it is. We Serbs should take a lead in the Balkans in rooting out (not witchhunting) war criminals and putting them on trial for all to see. It would help Serbia, not hurt it.

  Quite honestly, I believe that finding the truth about this matter is hampered by not only the secrecy of the UN and the US about it, especially the US which is happy for the current lie to stand unaltered and continue demonizing Serbia, but by the actual pain most Serbs feel at the very idea that their own could have committed a massacre. This is not what we expect from our people, even though every nationality has its aberrations types and sickos. Nevertheless we have to face it and search it out. I feel confident that it will turn out better for Serbs if we do that and insist on bringing the facts out for the world and insist on making the world look at them than if we stay quiet and avoid thinking about it because it hurts too much.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 3:28 pm
  Anna you are talking about 2 things. First is irrelevant for terms of this discussion. It is not interesting for people to read about abuse about me being some kind of spy or me being upset about Prime Minister dieing. The matter can continue as long as Mr Tarzanovic wants but it isnt of any interest to others who have more important thing to think about than Mr Tarzanovic being upset by a comment I made and talking about it without end.

  Why is it Anna that the rest of people here are ok but Mr Tarzanovic is not? He is busy either attacking me or Jari in his high hand way. People want to talk about issue not Mr Tarzanovic feelings. So enough.

  Second is point about Djindjic - yes fine. Say what you want about him, I always did but it was not right during period of morning which I respected. By the way Anna gloating is strange word. I would call gloating false accusations made by that idiot Clark in Guardian in article he says most Serbs would pull the trigger to kill Djindjic. That is disgusting. First because to say this says that Serbs are bloody butchers with no respect for life of their enemy whoever it is. Second because it was a lie. That article was post here and said to be good article by some. Im sure just because somebody doesnt write here they were happy Djindjic died does not mean they were not happy. They might rejoyce but we will never know. But again big majority here I was wrong about but not you or me can say all. I dont want to be boring any more for others. He's dead, he was imperfect but at least he didnt sit on the side doing nothing but criticise. By the way Djindjic did not use Kostunica. Kostunica used Djindjic in this way. Djindjic made the decisions Kostunica thought it would be smart to move out from DOS. He was right. On this serious subject if you want to debate we can. There is probably some information I have that people might not known.

  About Srebrenica my post is already there. Generaly agree with you.
  
  Arandjel P V
  Srbija

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 4:25 pm
  Arandjel,

  Yes, I would like to know more about the wheelings and dealings that went on between Djindjic and Kostunica at the time that Milosevic was brought down. I remember that Kostunica was in the forefront, but as soon as he was put into his position it seemed that he was pushed out of the way by Djindjic and curtailed by him in everything he would have liked to do. I attributed it to Djindjic's powerful friends and Kostunica's deliberate lack of underworld and Western connections which tied his hands when competing against a street-smart tough like Djindjic. Anything you can tell me to enlighten me about this period I will appreciate.

  As for this old issue of who was happy or not that Djindjic was killed, it is not irrelevant to this forum. Whether one supports a Wild West type of justice is important to one's agenda in debating the issue of the fairness of Milosevic's trial. In any case, I think Jari and you are also continuing to flog that horse, so the issue is apparently not dead yet.

  I think it would be better for you not to take comments too personally, as I do not when Jari makes a snide aside about me, since the Internet is a very anonymous place and everyone is entitled not to accept anyone's identity as it is presented, at face value. The fact is that when you have a discussion on the Internet, although most times you will be talking with honest people, there are those who are not going to reveal who they really are, for whatever reason, and it is not unreasonable for a seasoned forum participant to have his antennae out and to be initially sceptical.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 5:02 pm
  

  Arandje said: "In fact after outcry of Bosnian Serb report, what really was the point of it since nobody was satisfied?"

  Arandjel, are you saying that only reports that satisfy somebody or everybody should be published or allowed to be accessed publicly and ones that don't should be allowed to disappear? Where have you seen that everybody rejects the Report on Srebrenica of the Republic of Srpska Government? How a report that is nowhere to be seen publicly can be rejected by everybody? Have you read the report? Do you personally agree that for this report one can say that nobody was satisfied with it? Do you believe that publishing such a report justifies threat of sanctions if it is not with held? Does a threat of sanctions means that the report was going against the official truth on Srebrenica? My expectations on the Humanitarian organizations are very low. Most of them treated and still are treating Serbs as scum. I do not take their opinions seriously.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 5:03 pm
  There is ample evidence in the public domain that France was not a naive party in the massacres in Rwanda.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 5:09 pm
  Arandjel ! - I promise - That's the last time i' m touching Djindjic again at least on this board..........

  - The guy was a TRAITOR! - without any stretch or exaggeration.....- Fits the definition better than any politician in recent history......

  anybody who joins the OUTSIDE POWERS for the REGIME CHANGE .....- the same HUmanitarian bunch that terrorized HIS COUNTRY for 78 days for no f-- ng reason and on a very lame excuse........ - IS a TRAITOR! - And so were 1000ds of others who got any cut of that $100.000.000 allowance given by the US congress ( officially) - Add to that all the CIA activity for the DOS coalition,- add all the MASS propaganda of the " free world", - add the 10 years of real economical sanctions , add all the devastated infrastructure that caused 40% unemployment......... and you get a REAL CLOSE ELECTION!- Feel free to point out any stretch in my description of that "REGIME CHANGE" ......

  .......- And You Have a PUPATE to run the new territories......._ PUPATES who will never push for the investigation of NATO CRIMES committed against Yugoslavia, who will never bring up any LAWSUITS again perpetrators.......- and who will deliver the scape goat to cover up all the MASTERS crimes........_ and if the puppets does not perform according to your expectations.... - You replace THE PUPPET! .......and you don't need elections for THAT!

  - NOW if SOME evil OUTSIDE POWERS would "join" the US election compaign with with $3.000.000.000 to support the "right fellow" ,- if that outside POWER would manage to bring out all the other deciding factors that i touched up above ...... - in an adequate proportion....- Luis FARACAN or AL SHarpton would win hands down ! - ( we could skip the part where WE "are forced " to take over the congress)
  
  vytas a
  phila
  USA

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 5:17 pm
  Mr. Wilcoxon,

  Thank you for your post. It does give an interesting twist to the information I had about who were the executioners of the Muslims. Even then, I find it hard to believe that a small ( relatively speaking) band of” foreigners” and Serbs could have conducted such a massive enterprise.

  And then, if all this was done at a farm Pilice were all the bodies found there? If not, why would the Serbs undertake to transport the dead bodies and burry them in different places? It would take minimum of 10-15 trucks to do that job. Bosnian Serb Army was short of gas and trucks and I can not believe they would have undertaken this.
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 6:09 pm
  Yes. The alleged killing at Srebrenica would have taken so much time and resources that the Serbs would have had no time left to fight the Croats and Muslims for real. I suppose that between the alleged raping and the alleged massacaring, and body moving, not to mention dissecting(!), our Serbian soldiers must have gone completely, for months on end, without sleeping ever, or eating anything, or drinking anything, or washing, or talking, or going to the bathroom, or lighting a single cigarette (this is really unbelievable) since absolutely every second of every minute of every day, round the clock, would have had to have been devoted to raping and killing.

  Give me a break.
  
  Anna P
  California

• Friday March 21, 2003 at 9:49 pm
  Anna P., I share your frustration, but that's what happens when you allow the discussion to be hijacked by intellectually dishonest, propagandistic, and otherwise abusive parties. Let's all recognize this inevitably follows as a consequence of addressing the same old propaganda from years ago, which the same familiar anti-Serb and anti-Yugoslavia forces insist on as "truth". I see more determination to keep the "Srebrenica" issue alive, and in the same dishonest manner I found objectionable yesterday, especially noting that yesterday's propagandistic use of "massacre", has largely been replaced with "genocide" today. Does everybody here consider such overt provocation and malicious baiting a legitimate form of encouraging discussion or what? It's interesting that those who have defended such devious methods of, allegedly, encouraging "input" are only interested in responding with Julie London impersonations of the "Cry Me A River" variety, written by semi-retired imperialists of an earlier day.

  The main questions surrounding the issue of Srebrenica, like Racak, are the same concerning most aspects of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and later in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija. These questions, for the most part, have to do with the issue of whether armed anti-Serbian and anti-Yugoslavia forces concentrated their troops in a civilian area, surrounding themselves with civilians, and exploiting the protection forcibly insisted upon by international forces (NATO-0SCE-UNPROFOR = same thing) to engage in terrorist activities against Serbs and loyalists, both civilian and military, and without any sanction whatsoever from that elusive entity, "the international community". Indeed documented evidence shows imperialist powers, as expemplified by the personage of Gen. Morillion, going out of their way to not only feed, arm, and protect anti-Serbian and anti-Yugoslav terrorists in the Balkans, but also to militarily intervene on their behalf as well.

  All of this irrefutable evidence serves to support the unavoidable conclusion that in all cases of the past 12 years, the wars in the Balkans were not civil conflicts at all, so much as aggression conducted on the part of foreign powers, in alliance with secessionist Yugoslav proxies, against the SFRJ and its loyalist population, all of which were lumped together, in a deliberate and malicious falsehood of the "genocide" sort already noted, as "Serbs". And to state the obvious, the so-called "humanitarian bombers" were promoting exactly the sort of ethnic and racial hate-politics they were claiming to oppose, and excusing their intervention in the process.

  
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CAN