LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: Serbia ready to resume dialogue with Pristina (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told the evening news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that Serbia was ready to resume the dialogue with Pristina and hoped this would occur by the end of July. He says that Belgrade accepted the second, amended draft of the Pristina side and it is waiting for their response, pointing out that Serbia is always ready for dialogue. “We will give our positive contribution. All our economic reforms and everything that we are doing will be visible only once we ensure full political stability,” said Vucic.

Djuric: Pristina squandered the status of Brussels’ favorite (Tanjug)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric has stated today that, even though there are many problems in the implementation of the agreed things during the Brussels dialogue, Belgrade continues with the activities within the process of normalization of relations with Pristina, and announced that he will take part this Wednesday in Brussels at the meeting on the implementation of agreements. He said in an interview to Tanjug that Pristina, with the policy of obstruction and constant delays in the implementation of the key elements of the First Brussels agreement, has practically squandered the exclusive status of Brussels’ favorite. “It seems that for the first time since the beginning of the negotiating process, even though some of the most influential EU member states recognized the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo, they are unequivocally transferring the burden and stigma of the brakeman of the process of normalization of relations on Pristina,” says Djuric. Asked when the next round of talks at the prime minister level in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue could be held, Djuric said that, as so many times before, Pristina is now on the move, but the novelty is that Pristina representatives had been clearly told now in Brussels that Belgrade and Serbia’s EU integration process cannot bear the consequences of their tactics and delays. “Belgrade is ready to continue tomorrow where it stopped at the last round of the dialogue at the prime minister level, to finalize and formalize the agreements on telecommunications, and the most important issue for us, the Union of Serb Municipalities,” he said. Djuric explains that the dates of the meetings are determined in Brussels, but that it is necessary to persuade Pristina to implement everything that had been agreed, so we can have reasonable dynamics in the process of normalization of relations, but also in the EU integration process. Referring to the recent visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Djuric explains that the outcome of this visit confirms that the interests of Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija can be preserved only with a rational policy that is responsible towards its people and the region, but also with strong personal credibility and commitment of the people representing Belgrade in the dialogue with Pristina. He noted that Merkel expressed respect to Serbia’s politics and conveyed that she appreciated the constructiveness that Belgrade is showing in the Brussels dialogue with Pristina. “Readiness for compromise that Ms. Merkel recognized in our performance should not be identified as yielding, because we have never made compromises in Brussels with the key interests of Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija,” said Djuric. Belgrade’s policy that rests on the sincere care for prosperity and stability of the entire region, according to Djuric, hasn’t left indifferent the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini as the mediator and guarantor of the implementation of agreements in Brussels. “Still, even though we are glad that our efforts and constructiveness are respected in some of the key world centers of power, we are not relaxing and jubilating, because we know that many more difficult talks and decisions await us in the dialogue process with Pristina. We will continue to behave responsibly towards our EU partners, but first of all towards our own state and people,” concluded Djuric.

Kozarev: Tahiri’s statements on removal of Peace Park irresponsible (Politika/Tanjug)

The spokesperson of the EU High Representative Maja Kocijancic refused to comment claims of the Pristina side that the Peace Park on the main bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica will be removed on 1 October this year. “The issue of barricades has not yet been completed so I can’t give any details,” said Kocijancic. Deputy Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Dusan Kozarev denied yesterday the statement by Kosovo Minister Edita Tahiri that the Peace Park would be removed on 1 October, noting that such claims were irresponsible and contradictory. Kozarev told Tanjug that Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, unlike Tahiri, had stated that the agreement on the Peace Park was in sight.

MPs condemn attack on Vucic (Radio Serbia)

The events at the memorial center in Potocari ruined the dignity of Srebrenica victims and the region is back where it was many years ago. Such an event deserves condemnation and demands urgent investigation in order to identify security gaps, some MPs told the press in the Serbian Assembly. Aleksandar Cotric, MP of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), strongly condemned the attack on Prime Minister Vucic, who came to Potocari with sincere intentions to pay respects to victims and extend the hand of reconciliation so that such events should never happen again. According to Cotric, the incident shows that some peoples are still not ready for reconciliation or to support and encourage efforts to replace poor relations and divisions with mutual cooperation.

Konstantin Arsenovic of the PUPS and Deputy Assembly Speaker pointed out that the incident made him wonder if it is necessary to offer the hand of reconciliation at all costs and to those who do not respond to sincere gestures. President of the Social Democratic Party of Serbia (SDPS) Milorad Mijatovic said that the Serbian Prime Minister wanted to show that Serbia summoned the strength to accept responsibility for what some members of its people did in some difficult and confusing times. However, according to Mijatovic, “many still cannot understand that this is not the Serbia of the nineties, but Serbia that is genuinely committed to reconciliation, the strengthening of good-neighborly relations and cooperation”. Petar Petrovic pointed out that the United Serbia Party has no doubt that “it was a classic attempt to assassinate the Serbian Prime Minister. This event must be investigated,” he emphasized. Dubravka Filipovski of the New Serbia party (NS) stated that the key word is responsibility, which B&H must assume and conduct an adequate investigation. Filipovski pointed out that, despite everything, Serbia is determined to strengthen regional cooperation, to achieve lasting peace and enhance the relations and cooperation. Borko Stefanovic of the Democratic Party (DS) points out that due to the event in Srebrenica, the region is now back where it was many years ago and that the incident was bad for relations between Serbs and Bosniaks. Janko Veselinovic, an independent deputy, said that it was obviously matter of poor coordination between security services of Serbia, the RS and the FB&H, and that this event cannot be justified. However this event, according to Veselinovic, also showed that the citizens are above their own political elite and they will not allow a small group of extremists to destroy relations between Serbs and Muslims.

The other side of Srebrenica (Politika, by Miroslav Lazanski)

Emotions can be an incentive for justice, but rarely its guarantor. The Resolution of the European Parliament that condemns “the genocide in Srebrenica” whereby the authors of the resolution refer to the verdict of the International Court of Justice in The Hague is also interesting in the context of the statement made by NATO representative Jamey Shay on 19 May 1999, recorded in the London Times dated 18 June 1999. Namely, the (to us well-known) Mr. Shay stated with utmost honesty at the time: “As you know, there would be no International Court of Justice in The Hague, or the ICTY, without the NATO countries, because the NATO countries are at the helm of the states that established these tribunals, that finance these tribunals and that are up-to-date with their daily activities.” One could say this is not the justice of the winner; this is not justice at all, because both tribunals are financed by states that waged a war against the Serbs.

I am not bothered here by the minimum of the West’s moral essence when the tragedy of Srebrenica is debated, but the fact that Western intelligence services were intentionally covering up information on what was being prepared in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Of course, this doesn’t absolve the criminals who murdered the imprisoned residents of Srebrenica, even though one should also pose the question, how the Muslim Army operatives operated out of this “protected and demilitarized zone under UN protection”?

Thus, did Western secret services know what was in store for Srebrenica’s residents? Nobody can accuse Western intelligence services of having known what the Republika Srpska Army’s intentions were, if this same Army didn’t know what it wanted, in the first place. This thesis was defended for a long time by The Netherlands Institute of War Documentation, NIOD, dealing with the fall of Srebrenica and the role of the Dutch “blue helmets”. This thesis was contradicted by the report of the correspondent of the Berlin paper Taz, Mr. Andreas Zumach, written in the fall of 1995. Zumach wrote about protocols incurred as a result of interceptions between Ratko Mladic and the leaderships in Pale and Belgrade. The conversations were recorded by Western secret services, primarily the American NSA. According to these recordings, the order of the attack on Srebrenica was issued by Radovan Karadzic on 2 July 1995. The Netherlands Institute of War Documentation claimed all along that Zumach received the protocols from the then wartime Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H) foreign minister Muhamed Shacirbey, and not, as Zumach claimed, from the American secret service. Only later on did Dutch associate of NIOD and the author of the study on Srebrenica Viebs admit there was no evidence for these allegations.

This only opened the debate on the role of the Western secret services concerning the events in Srebrenica. In fact, there are at least three versions of the tragic scenario. The first is that there was a large deficit in electronic surveillance of the field, which is hard to believe since the summer of 1995 was the time of final war operations in B&H and all warring sides were doing their best to take the best possible position before Dayton. American spy satellites were simply hanging above Bosnia 24 hours recording every move, every stone. The other thesis is that there were dramatic mistakes in the secret service information management. Naïve. The third version says that some secret services from the West simply withheld information on the upcoming attack on Srebrenica in order to extract political gain at the negotiations in Dayton, which followed. The Dutch completely excluded this third version for a very long time, considering it cynicism, but now, before the voting on the resolution in the UN Security Council, they suddenly “saw” the light. Cynicism or not, the entire history of American secret services is riddled with pure cynicism.

In the case of Srebrenica there are indications, but also clear evidence, that they knew what was in store for this enclave. After all, why was Naser Oric evacuated by helicopter seven days before the Republika Srpska forces entered this town? The West, first of all the Americans and French, left the Dutch battalion and the UN in the lurch. German expert for intelligence services and official of the Research Institute for Peace Policy Erich Schmidt-Eenboom claims that the German secret service ‘Bundesnachrichtendienst’ knew what was going to occur, because it electronically monitored, at the time, everything that was happening in this region. Naturally, the German secret service immediately rebutted Eenboom’s allegations, but this is not the first case that some secret service rebuts what had in fact occurred. Did somebody expect them to confirm it? At the end of his research, Eenboom concluded that the key information on Srebrenica was intentionally withheld for years. Somebody in the West needed for Srebrenica to happen, and the vengeful anger of the Serbs from the Podrinje region was used, which, of course, does not justify the criminals who murdered the prisoners in Srebrenica.

All stage-managers of the bloody Bosnian theatre are presently more or less known. Some are underground, some are in prison, and some are untouchable. Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright are coming to Potocare. Rome has fallen, the Ottomans have disappeared, and the sun doesn’t shine forever over the British Empire. Is the American sun also beginning to set?

REGIONAL PRESS

Izetbegovic rejects allegations linking his party to attack (Dnevni avaz/Klix.ba)

Bakir Izetbegovic has rejected the claims that he and people close to him were behind the attack that targeted Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic. “I said that I was ashamed by what happened to Prime Minister Vucic,” Izetbegovic told reporters on Monday, adding that he saw in Vucic a hope to improve relations in the Balkans, relations between B&H, Serbia, Bosniaks, and Serbs.

“I still have that hope. I would never, as they say, shoot myself in the foot, or God forbid to something of this kind,” said Izetbegovic, and added he is exceptionally interested in normalization. “Vucic can play an exceptionally important role in that, so I would not do that to anyone, ever, especially not to him.” Izetbegovic added that he attempted to talk to Vucic, sent him text messages – but Vucic is not responding. “There is a certain amount of anger on his end, but we’ll see,” klix.ba reported Izetbegovic as saying. Also on Monday, the Belgrade-based daily Blic reported that Serbian security services had identified Asim S. as the person who organized the attack – and said he was a high ranking official of the SDA party and an associate of Izetbegovic. Dnevni avaz then reported that the person in a photograph published by Blic was, the main attacker on Vucic, was Almir M. from Jelah, near the Bosnian town of Tesanj. The paper said that he is close to the SDA. The report is based on information Dnevni Avaz received from its readers, who sent pictures of Almir M. from Potocari that he and his friends posted on Facebook” ‘In Jelah,” the daily was told, “it is known that Almir M. and his group are very close to some influential people from the SDA”. Furthermore, he is the brother-in-law on Ramiz Hodzic – a former member of the El Mujahid unit in B&H – who was in February arrested in the United States on charges of helping the Islamic State.

Report for attempted assassination of Vucic (Srna)

Republika Srpska (RS) Ministry of Internal Affairs will submit to the Special Prosecutor’s Office a report against persons unknown for an attempted assassination and incitement to assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, and for jeopardizing the security of Slovenian President Borut Pahor at a commemoration in Potocari on July 11, said Internal Affairs Minister Dragan Lukac. He told a press conference in Banja Luka that a report will also be submitted to the RS Special Prosecutor’s Office for an assault on officials while on duty and for causing a public danger. “We will address all security agencies in B&H in connection with information on persons who took part in this attack,” Lukac said. He said that until the identity of persons who took part in the attack is determined in an investigation, the report will be submitted against persons unknown.

RS parliament to discuss the issue of referendum (Nezavisne/Srna)

The RS parliament should discuss at a special session the issue of reactivating the decision to call a referendum on the work of the B&H Court and Prosecutor’s Office. The referendum question should read, “Do you support the unconstitutional and illegal imposing of laws by the High Representative of the international community in B&H, special imposing of the laws on the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office and the implementation of their decisions on the territory of the RS?” The RS President Milorad Dodik sent a request on July 2^nd to the RS parliament to consider adoption and reactivation of the decision on the referendum on the work of the Court and Prosecutor’s Office, at a special session. Referendum on the work of the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of B&H is legally and constitutionally grounded and the Dayton Peace Agreement-based Constitution specifies that judiciary belongs to the Entities, the RS Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic told Srna. “The fact is that the Constitution and what exists in our practice are in collision. We must look the truth in the eye and say what is distorted and what needs to be changed or fixed, acknowledging all realities,” said Cvijanovic when asked by Srna to comment on the statement by Jean Eric Paquet, the Director for the Western Balkans at the Directorate-General for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission, that it would be ideal if the RS left the issue of the referendum on judiciary at the B&H state level aside, and that such a referendum is not based in the constitution and that it encroaches upon the core of B&H. Cvijanovic said that no one needs the judicial institutions for which one half of the country believes to be used for the purposes of the Bosniak policy and for punishing of the Serb people by the international community. “Opportunity to fix all this lays at the disposal of all of us and this should be used as a good opportunity,” said the Prime Minister.

Cvijanovic: B&H judiciary is clumsy experiment (Srna)

The judiciary in B&H, which was formed with imposed decisions of the high representative, is an experiment so clumsy that it cannot become a model, or a matrix or a pattern for some other circumstances or some other countries where it would be applied through an intervention of the international community, says Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic. “It is an experiment clumsy by its formation and its practice which the imposed judicial system applies. We know what it is used for. Its purpose is to accomplish through indictments and verdicts a political goal – to isolate one side in the war and portray it as an aggressor and a criminal. When I speak with foreign nationals – representatives of the international community – they say it wasn’t their intention. We don’t believe that. “If it wasn’t their intention, why did they not make an effort to change it? They rather switched the argument and then blamed us who criticized the work of such judicial institutions of allegedly attacking the state, while they vehemently defended what they had imposed as the most important symbol of the state,” Cvijanovic told Srna ahead of the special session of the National Assembly where a decision to call a referendum on the B&H Court and Prosecutor’s Office is to be reactivated. When asked to comment on the claims by Bosniak politicians and some members of the international community that holding a referendum on judiciary is a violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and an attack on “the state of B&H,” Cvijanovic said that “one should attack every state that politically persecutes an entire people through judicial institutions or the state where judiciary serves the purpose of injustice instead of justice.” “Why should B&H be an exception? Why should we defend such a state? Perhaps a better question is why do those foreigners defend the institutions that are not accepted by at least 50 percent of the people to which they have been imposed? The answer: just in order to cover up their own mistakes because their mistakes are the product of their experiment. In fact, they don’t find the referendum    problematic, because it’s a political instrument favored by the Western democracies in the first place,” said the PM. She pointed out that foreigners do not think the referendum is a problem, they rather think that the problem is that such a referendum is associated with legal violence carried out here by the high representatives allegedly with a good cause – to create a normal state. “You can see what they have achieved. That is why we in B&H are much further away from each other than we were even in the post-war period. That is why our distrust in the international community today is much greater than a few years ago. That is why the European perspective for us is just a foggy path that no one has actually treaded on,” said Cvijanovic. If those foreigners had had a balanced approach to all the peoples and all parts of B&H, we would have had a better environment today, said the PM. “It would be difficult to negotiate within the country but we would be able to reach agreements. We would definitely have EU candidate status. We would have the practices that keep us together, we would have acceptable cohesion, nothing spectacular, but enough to function without challenging every issue. If they want equal partnership with everyone in B&H, it’s still not too late and they still have a chance to see that partnership truly work. Perhaps this referendum offers that chance,” said Cvijanovic.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia’s president condemns ‘savage’ attack on PM at Srebrenica (AFP, 12 July 2015)

Tomislav Nikolić says ‘lynching attempt’ at ceremony to commemorate massacre recalled incidents in 1992 in run up to war

Serbia’s president has spoken out against an attack that targeted his prime minister at the weekend during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, saying it recalled similar incidents prior to the 1990s Bosnia war.

Tomislav Nikolić said the attack resembled a “lynching attempt” and warned adversaries against drawing Serbia into “new quarrels” 20 years after the end of the civil war.

“No one should remain indifferent towards the savagery of that incident, which recalls those of 1992,” and the start of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, Nikolić said in a statement.

An angry crowd hurled stones and plastic bottles, and chased Serbia’s prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, from Saturday’s commemoration of the July 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, which occurred after Bosnian Serb forces overran the town of Srebrenica.

Vučić, whose country supported the Bosnian Serbs during and after the war, was among numerous dignitaries, including the former US president Bill Clinton, and tens of thousands of people attending the commemoration in the eastern Bosnian town. He had earlier condemned the “monstrous crime” in Srebrenica. In Belgrade later, the premier said he had not been hurt by a stone that hit him in the mouth and that only his glasses had been broken in the attack. Nikolić said the incident “clearly shows the opinion of certain Muslim politicians and religious leaders of Serbs”. Vučić was attacked because he came “with his hand extended in a sign of reconciliation,” he said. Though international courts have recognised the Srebrenica massacre as a genocide, this is still denied by Serbia and Bosnian Serbs. Underlining Serbia’s “friendly stance towards other countries and nations”, Nikolić said “others should reflect on what they are doing and what they have done in dragging us into new quarrels 20 years after the civil war” in Bosnia. Bosnia’s presidency strongly condemned the attack and apologised to “all foreign delegations” over it. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the incident “went against the spirit of this day of remembrance”. The Balkans were torn apart by the series of wars that accompanied the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. The bloodiest conflict was in Bosnia between ethnic Croats, Muslims and Serbs, which claimed about 100,000 lives.

EU’s Hahn to Try to Broker Definitive Political Deal in Macedonia (Southeast Europe, 13 July 2015)

The EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn will be visiting Macedonia on Tuesday to try to help the country’s leaders resolve a months-long political crisis. Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, will be meeting with Prime Minister and leader of governing VMRO-DPMNE party Nikola Gruevski, main opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev as well as the leaders of ethnic Albanian parties Ali Ahmeti and Menduh Thaci, the Commission said in a statement.

Members of the European Parliament Ivo Vajgl, Richard Howit, and Eduard Kukan will attend as facilitators. The intention of the team is to reach a definitive deal between the Macedonian political parties to implement the agreement brokered by Hahn on 2 June, Macedonian news agency MIA said on Monday. European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said last week that the discussions between Macedonia’s political leaders are at a critical juncture. “The European Union expects all of them [the leaders] to behave responsibly and constructively,” she said. Meanwhile, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland on Monday urged Macedonian political leaders to move fast to implement the agreement brokered by Hahn. Nuland said that this would open the way for overcoming the political crisis and moving ahead with talks with Athens to settle the issue of the Macedonia’s name and finally have the country admitted into NATO, according to MIA. “Now it’s time to bring this crisis to an end,” the news agency quoted Nuland as saying in Skopje after meeting with the four political leaders

The Srebrenica Massacre was a Gigantic Political Fraud (Global Research, by Edward S. Herman and John Robles, 11 July 2015)

Renowned author Dr. Edward Herman spoke with the Voice of Russia regarding the facts surrounding the Srebrenica Massacre, the pretext for the “humanitarian” invasion of the former Yugoslavia, and takes apart the “official” ; version that has always been promoted by the West.

Dr. Herman reveals that there were in fact multiple massacres at Srebrenica, and that the killing of Bosnian-Muslim soldiers at Srebrenica (the West’s pretext) was in response to the killing of over 2,000 Serb civilians, mostly women and children, at the location.

Robles: My first question is about “The Srebrenica massacre” and the way that the establishment manipulated the media. Can you tell us, or give us some insights, on that?

Herman: The Srebrenica massacre, actually I always put it in quote marks, because actually there were lots of massacres in the Srebrenica area, the one before July 1995 there were vast numbers of Serbs killed by Muslim, Bosnian Muslim, forces who went out of Srebrenica.

One estimate is that there were more than 150 Serbs villages that were totally wiped out and one study gives actually gives the names of 2,383 Serb civilians who were killed between 1992 and July, 1995. So then we’d call that “the first Srebrenica massacre”. Then in July 1995…

Robles: Just to be very clear, these were Serbs, that were being killed.

Herman: Yes! We’re talking about 2,383 Serb civilians killed before July 1995. And the Bosnian Serb Army took over Srebrenica in July, 1995, and there were deaths and executions after that. That’s what’s called in the West “the Srebrenica massacre”, but, in fact, that’s really mainly a political construct.

The numbers executed there were probably in the order of between 500 and 1,000. In other words, less than half of the number of Serbs civilians killed before July, 1995.

And the Western claim is that 8,000 men and boys were executed in the quote Srebrenica massacre, but notice these were men, always men, all men, they were all soldiers, whereas those 2,383 civilians killed included very large numbers of women and children.

We’re talking about the execution in the second massacre of essentially army people. And of course they had never proved that there were 7,000 or 8,000, even men and boys killed. The bodies in the graves added up to something like 2,500.

A lot of those bodies were combat deaths. One of the beauties of the Western propaganda system is that all the bodies they found after July, 1995, they count as executed, even though we know very well that a large number were killed in combat.

Herman: Also another important fact about the Srebrenica massacre is that all those killings of Serbs took place coming out of an area that was supposed to be a “safe haven”. Srebrenica was a safe place, a safe haven. It was supposed to be demilitarized, but it never was.

So the Bosnian Muslim soldiers would come out to Srebrenica and they would kill Serb civilians. This is all completely ignored in the Western media. It’s as if the Serbs came in July and started to kill arbitrarily.

In fact, the U.N. military in that area, a French offical name Phillip Morillon, was asked by the Yugoslav tribunal, “Why the Serbs did it?”

He said he’s absolutely convinced that they did it because of what the commander of Srebrenica’s Bosnian Muslims did to the Serbs before July 1995.

This is the UN Army head, but you won’t see that in the Western press!

In other words, the first massacre is what led to the lesser second massacre of namely military aged people.

The whole business of the Srebrenica massacre is a gigantic political fraud. There was a massacre, but it was a responsive vengeance massacre, women and children were not killed.

One of the features of the “quote” Srebrenica massacre, that is the second one, is that 20,000 Srebrenica women and children were bussed to safety by the Serb army. Women and children were not killed, only military aged people and a very large fraction of those that did die, died in combat.

So my own estimate, as I said, is that maybe there were 500 to 1,000 executions. Vengeance executions.

Robles: I’m sorry. How many?

Herman: 500 to 1,000 I would say.

Robles: 500 to 1,000.

Herman: Yes. So there was a significant massacre, but put it in its context! This was a war, this was an army that had seen their own civilians massacred on a much larger scale. That is completely suppressed in the West, as if the Serbs came in to Srebrenica and started to kill because of a blood lust! It’s absolutely a fraud!

So, I regard the Srebrenica massacre as a tremendous propaganda triumph. The West wanted to go after Serbia and they avoided peace. They needed this massacre.

Robles: You said, about 2,380 civilians, women and children mainly…

Herman: Serbian women and children, yes.

Robles: … were killed initially. This was the Srebrenica…

Herman: The first massacre between 1992 and July 1995. These were Serb civilians. There were also hundreds of Serb military killed in that period, I am just talking about civilians!

Robles: The civilians, right! And then in retaliation approximately 2,500 Muslim… Bosnian Muslims soldiers were killed.

That’s misleading, because the thrust of the 8,000 claim is that they were executed but those 2000-plus that were killed, a very large fraction were killed in combat.

Robles: In combat. Okay, I see. I see.

Herman: Yes, and the executions were, as I say probably in the order of 500 to 1,000.

Robles: Okay. So those were Bosnian Muslims who were found to be directly responsible for killing massive numbers of Serbian civilians. Right?

Herman: The Serbs actually had lists of Bosnian Muslim soldiers they wanted to get, but I can’t honestly say they were the only ones who were executed. But certainly, a significant number of those executed were on those lists, those vengeance lists.

Edward S. Herman is an American economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He’s a Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s also the author of several books, namely “Manufacturing Consent” which he wrote with Noam Chomsky and “The Srebrenica Massacre: Evidence, Context and Politics

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.