Srebrenica Massacre
The Srebrenica massacre has become the symbol of Serbian evil and has been described as ‘a horror without parallel’. It was a cold-blooded execution of over 8,000 Muslim men and boys, while the international community and UN peacekeepers simply looked on. The massacre took place between 10 and 19 July, 1995, in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, when Serb forces segregated civilian men from the women and killed them en masse.
The events that took place at Srebrenica mark the climax of a civil war in Bosnia–Herzegovina, a country that lies on the Balkan peninsula of southern Europe. It has an estimated population of around four million people and is the homeland to three ethnic groups – Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. The conflict began in 1992 and has been described as one of the most violent and genocidal periods in the history of the war. Atrocities were committed by all sides and against all sectors of the population, but the Serb strategy of gender-selective mass executions of non-combatant men, was the most severe and systematic atrocity of all.
One of the largest massacres during the early part of the war took place at a gymnasium in the village of Bratunac in April 1992. An estimated 350 Bosnian Muslim men were literally tortured to death by the Serb paramilitaries and special police. Bratunac was not far from Srebrenica, but although they were able to capture Bratunac, the city of Srebrenica was heavily defended by Naser Oric. Oric was a former Bosnian military officer who commanded the army of the Republic of Bosnia forces in Srebrenica with the help of associated squads of civilian torbari (or ‘bag people’). He has been described as a ‘Rambo-like’ figure with a reputation for carrying out atrocities on Serb villagers.
In April 1993, the Serb forces managed to close in on Oric and succeeded in overcoming his army, taking control of Srebrenica. The leader of the Serb forces, General Ratko Mladic, had already made it quite clear that he disliked the menfolk of Srebrenica, whether they were involved in the war or not, and in horrific scenes that soon captured the world’s attention, he started to segregate the inhabitants of the village. Literally hundreds of women and children were evacuated from Srebrenica before he finally tightened the noose and stemmed the flow of any further refugees.
Worried about what was happening in the village, the international community declared Srebrenica to be one of five ‘safe areas’, the other four being Zepa, Gorazde, Tuzla and Sarajevo. However the term ‘safe area’ was never really defined, and sufficient forces were never supplied to ensure the occupants safety. As the events at Srebrenica two years later proved, they were probably among the most ‘unsafe’ places in the entire world.
Srebrenica was the home to tens of thousands of civilians who had taken refuge there from earlier Serb offensives in the north-east of Bosnia. They had been placed under the protection of about 600 lightly armed Dutch infantry troops when it had been designated a United Nations ‘safe area’. Supplies in the village were running low as nothing had been brought into the enclave since early May.
In July 1995, Serb forces, in an effort to ethnically cleanse the area of the Muslims living in the enclaves, tightened their noose further on the so-called ‘safe areas’. Serb forces started shelling Srebrenica, and Muslim fighters in the village asked for the return of their weapons that had been surrendered to peacekeepers. Their request was denied.
The commander of the Dutch forces requested for backup after shells and rockets fell close to the refugee centres, but help was slow in coming.
On 9 July, the Serbs stepped up their bombing and mass panic took hold of the civilian population. Thousands of refugees fled into the village centre ahead of the advancing Serbs, who attacked the Dutch observation posts, taking approximately 30 hostages. By the evening around 4,000 refugees were in the village and large crowds had gathered around the Dutch positions. The Dutch tried to pacify the crowd by telling them that NATO planes would launch massive attacks on the Serbs if they had not withdrawn from the safe area by 6.00 a.m. the following morning.
However, the Serb forces did not retreat, and the Dutch request for backup had been denied, as they said it had been ‘submitted on the wrong form’! The promised NATO planes, which had been airborne since 6.00 a.m., had to return to refuel, and the citizens of Srebrenica feared the worst. By midday, more than 20,000 refugees had gathered at the UN base at Potocari.
At 2.30 p.m. two Dutch fighters dropped bombs on the Serb troops surrounding Srebrenica. They responded by saying they would kill their Dutch hostages and continue with the shelling of the refugees. Taking their threat seriously, the Dutch decided not to attack further.
By mid-afternoon the Serb commander, Ratko Mladic, entered the village, accompanied by Serb cameramen. In the evening Mladic demanded a meeting with the Dutch Colonel Karremans, at which he delivered an ultimatum that the Muslims must hand over their weapons to guarantee their safety.
The next day, 12 July, buses arrived to transport the women and children to safety. Meanwhile, the Serbs started to round up all the men aged between 12 and 77 for what they called ‘interrogation for suspected war crimes’. In the next 24 hours, it is estimated that as many as 23,000 women and children were deported, while the men were held hostages in trucks and warehouses. Around 15,000 Muslim fighters managed to escape Srebrenica and fled to the hills in their effort to get to Muslim protected territory, but they were shelled in their attempt and the majority were killed.
The first massacre of unarmed Muslims took place in a warehouse in the neighbouring village of Kravica. In return for the release of the 14 Dutch officers, peacekeepers handed over about 5,000 Muslims who had been sheltering at the Potocari base. Following talks between the UN and the Serbs, the Dutch were eventually allowed to leave the enclave as long as they left their weapons, food and medical supplies behind.
In the five days that the Serb forces occupied Srebrenica, it is believed that more than 7,000 Muslim men were brutally massacred. Many of them were killed in the school gymnasium in Bratunac, the site of an earlier genocide of Muslim men. Many more were slaughtered at a football pitch near Nova Kasaba, which turned out to be the worst killing ground in the period of the massacre. It is alleged that some of the refugees were forced to dig their own graves, after which they were simply lined up in front of them and shot one by one. In a radio broadcast, which was intercepted by westerners, the Bosnian Serb commander, General Radivoj Krstic, told his forces, ‘You must kill everyone. We don’t need anyone alive’.
Muslims who had fled to the hills had become trapped by the Serb bombardment and, through lack of food, water and sleep, many of them succumbed to hallucinations and paranoia, which resulted in them turning on one another. Some even resorted to shooting themselves, believing that the Serbs would take pity on the wounded. Others simply committed suicide in an attempt to escape the nightmare they found themselves in. Thousands, with the promise of safe passage, surrendered to the Serbs, only to be taken to nearby fields and warehouses, where they were brutally executed and buried in mass graves.
The estimated number of men killed range from 7,000 to as high as 10,000, but that doesn’t account for the 18,406 Muslims, Serbs and Croats who are still listed as missing. It has certainly gone down in history as one of the worst cases of concentrated genocide in Europe during the past 50 years. As to who is responsible – the executions were reportedly carried out under the orders of General Ratko Mladic and Radislav Krstic, who ironically was promoted to general within a few days of the killings.