MASS GRAVES FOR TRUTH: SREBRENICA - July 10, 2009  

Commemorating another anniversary without the truth or accountability of those who betrayed Srebrenica.
 
Srebrenica is about to commemorate another anniversary on July 11 of the start of the massacre, “genocide,” (as judged by both the International Court of Justice, ICJ, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY), that culminated in the murder of 8,000 or perhaps more of its citizens. Bodies are still being unearthed. There are modest gravestones to mark the resting place of some of the victims and even a monument to remind the living. However, the truth still remains obscured, by both the perpetrators and those who were to defend Srebrenica as a United Nations and NATO “safe area” but betrayed it. General Ratko Mladic, the commander and architect of the genocide remains free. Perhaps more troubling, those from the international community who undertook the obligation to defend but then betrayed Srebrenica are not being held accountable. Impunity not only seems the order of the day, but those who should be asked why Srebrenica was not defended are now holding new positions of power. Richard Holbrooke is now President Obama’s special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, (and in the process avoiding a Senate confirmation hearing). Carl Bildt, then EU mediator, is now Foreign Minister of Sweden, currently holding the EU presidency. 
   
We speak with Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey, who 9 years earlier had raised the allegation before a United Nations public symposium that Srebrenica was purposefully betrayed by those who were to protect it as mandated by both UN Security Council and NATO Resolutions:
   
Following is an excerpt from the Associated Press Report from 9 years earlier of Ambassador Sacirbey’s allegations before a United Nations public commemoration that he organized, the first of its type back then on Srebrenica and the reply of Carl Bildt:

Excerpt from the AP Report from July 11, 2000

“July 11, 2000

Negotiator Implicated in Massacre

Filed at 10:06 p.m. EDT

By The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Bosnia's U.N. ambassador implicated top international negotiator Carl Bildt on Tuesday in the failure to defend the U.N. "safe haven'' of Srebrenica.

Bildt countered that Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey's recollection of their meeting on July 11, 1995, as Srebrenica was falling was wrong. And he reiterated that the U.N. Security Council was primarily to blame for not providing enough troops to defend the enclave in eastern Bosnia.

Starting on that fateful July 11, just a few months before the end of the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war, Bosnian Serb forces overran Srebrenica, which was designated a U.N.-protected zone. When the slaughter was finished, as many as 8,000 men and boys older than 14 were missing.

At a symposium Tuesday to mark the anniversary and discuss Secretary-General Kofi Annan's 155-page report on the massacre issued in November, Sacirbey for the first time described what he called ``a
reprehensible meeting'' with Bildt as the Bosnian Serbs were overrunning Srebrenica.

Sacirbey, who at the time was Bosnia's foreign minister, recalled that Bildt told him on July 11 there were no plans to defend or liberate Srebrenica or defend Zepa. The smaller, less-protected U.N. "safe
haven'' fell to the Serbs days later.

Bildt, who wrote about a meeting with Sacirbey in his book about Bosnia, said in a telephone interview from Sweden that Sacirbey's "rather sensational information'' is "somewhat strange.''

"And I can say it's wrong because I was there ... If any of this were remotely true, it would have been well-known and documented by now,'' he said.

Sacirbey told the symposium that a few days before the Bosnian Serbs attacked Srebrenica, Bildt met Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic in Belgrade. At the time, Bildt was representing the "Contact Group'' that oversees the Balkans: the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

"I don't know what happened at that meeting,'' Sacirbey said, but he speculated that the prospect of imminent attacks on Srebrenica and Zepa were mentioned and Bildt didn't object, which was viewed as a green light.''

Bildt, who is now Annan's Balkans envoy, said his meeting in Belgrade dealt almost entirely with a possible cease-fire. Srebrenica was mentioned only in a discussion about trying to get supplies to the
beleaguered enclaves, he said.

"The key problem with Srebrenica was that the members of the Security Council never gave enough troops to even have the possibility of defending Srebrenica,'' he said. "If the U.N. had been given an army on the ground by its member states, everything would have been different. But the U.N. was given words, and they didn't count for much in the brutality of the Bosnian war.''

Srebrenica's inhabitants believed that the presence of 150 Dutch U.N. peacekeepers and the might of NATO airpower would ensure their safety. But NATO never responded to repeated Dutch requests for airstrikes, and the peacekeepers failed to prevent the Serb massacres.

 

INTERVIEW

Are you satisfied with the efforts to bring the perpetrators of the Srebrenica genocide to justice?

MS: My answer has to be limited, since I will continue to testify before the ICTY and by order of the Chamber I’m prohibited to now speak of the matter addressed in my testimony. While keeping with that order, I feel obliged to mark the date and to call for justice which still remains not only elusive but also incomplete as to the whole truth.

You speak of Mladic and the recent home videos still showing him free and enjoying what appears normal retirement.

MS: The US has just recently sent a very old John Demyunek to answer for his purported crimes as one of many guards at a Nazi concentration camp now over 60 years earlier. How can we forget about Ratko Mladic, the commander of not only the Srebrenica massacre but also genocide throughout Bosnia & Herzegovina?
 
Of course you have also alluded to the culpability of “international officials,” including Richard Holbrooke and Carl Bildt, for giving the “green light” to then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic as well as Ratko Mladic to assault and take over Srebrenica and the other “eastern safe areas” as Zepa and Gorazde?

MS: I have been for a long time not only asking for these international officials to account, but I have gone on the record 10 years earlier in my evidence and allegations.

You are alluding to the report of the Associated Press from 9 years earlier, July 11, 2000, when you made such allegations in the UN symposium that you organized then to mark the 5 year anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre?

MS: I believe that article puts into perspective the issue and my consistency on this issue for well over a decade. After our efforts to secure a UN Report on the failures of UN and NATO in Srebrenica, we felt that we received only a sanitized version and only a part of the complete truth. We needed to press ahead for the whole truth and counter revisionism. The July 11, 2000 Commemoration was to remember the victims but also to remind of the truth as well as justice still owed to them. Almost 9 years after that unprecedented event at the United Nations, I’m proud of the initiative that we brought forth but I believe many of the goals for the whole truth as well as justice remain elusive.

Is your persistence the reason for your “legal issues” and allegations directed at you?

MS: That is for you and others to assess; however what is troubling to me is that 9 years earlier we appear not much closer to bringing out the whole truth and accountability.
 
What should be done next?
 
MS: I always follow the example, the precedent of other victims who suffered genocide, particularly the Holocaust. It would be my hope that the genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina would also serve as a deterrent to the human rights abuses and genocides occurring now or in the future. The ICTY helped deliver the new International Criminal Court. There is progress, but to borrow a phrase from previous victims: We should be prepared to forgive, but not forget. Unfortunately some do not want us to remember or even to gain the whole truth.