[Text/Stephen Calganovich Translation/Filippo Editor/Observer Network Li Huanyu]
"Genocide," a new hat that the West has tried to put on China since last year, has left many people scratching their heads. In fact, it was just a "human rights trap" commonly used in the West, and they first "practiced" it in the Balkans more than two decades ago – the Srebrenica incident that came to be known as the "genocide".
Although the differences between Xinjiang and Srebrenica are very large, the fact is not the focus of the Western method of persecution. Therefore, it is not difficult to find that the West is using similar logic to build a narrative framework for both, that is, to construct a human rights incident that is not real, to smoke eyeballs, and then to carry out subsequent political operations and a series of sanctions based on the constructed story.
There is also a very "unexpected" similarity between the two events: the prosecutor who tried Serbs in the Hague court is the same person who is now spreading rumors of Chinese "genocide" in London , who has been officially sanctioned by China, British judge Jeffrey Nice.
In addition to Xinjiang, the so-called "massacres" in the Ukrainian city of Bucha or provocations such as the "White Helmets" in Syria are almost identical to those in Srebrenica, where the Former has accused Russia of the West and Assad against the latter.
Russia, which has a clear understanding of all this, directly named those "(Western) people who directed the Srebrenica incident" in a speech by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova in April this year.
So, what really happened to Srebrenica?
In July 1995, toward the end of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, active pro-Western military personnel organized the execution of hundreds of Muslim prisoners of war in the Srebrenica region.
Later, in order to reinforce the impression of the so-called "reckless and mass killing of prisoners of war", this figure was subsequently inflated to about 8,000 by various means. The West has used its absolute dominance over the global media and film entertainment industries to declare the act a "genocide" and shift the blame to the Serbs.
By now, the behind-the-scenes operations of these operations have either been made public or are about to be made public. Unfortunately, after the Srebrenica incident, it was Serbian officers and politicians who had nothing to do with the killing of prisoners of war in Srebrenica who were brought to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the Netherlands. The Tribunal, specially established and under full control by the West, is tasked with placing war crimes almost exclusively on the Serbian side. There, the Cypriot personnel who were taken to court were punished extremely severely for being falsely accused.
When the West invokes lofty moral and humanitarian principles, there is often a motive behind it that is completely contrary to humanity, and it is even more brazen to elevate this propaganda offensive to the level of justice. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, they want to create a permanent rift between Muslims and Orthodox Christians in order to later impose themselves as permanent arbiters and dominant forces in this strategic Balkan stronghold.
But more importantly, they pioneered the U.N. "responsibility to protect" through the fictional Srebrenica "genocide" – enabling the West to then militarily intervene in sovereign states that refuse to submit to the West's will under various human rights pretexts. The goal of these actions, which are distinctly imperialist, is not to protect the people, but to destroy these countries in order to seize their resources.
Therefore, for China, Russia and many other sovereign independent countries in the world, what happened in Srebrenica more than two decades ago is definitely not as simple as "the human tragedy of a small marginal country".
Point A is Srebrenica
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bloody civil war
The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s was mainly due to radical separatist and nationalist sentiments that were activated and amplified within the multi-ethnic state. The macro background is the End of the Cold War and the new globalist order promoted and dominated by the West. At its core is the global expansion of Western interests and the dismemberment of non-Western sovereigns by the West, with the aim of dividing them into weak, easily manipulated states that depend on the West.
In this context, the first to arrive was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the irrational state borders after the dissolution of the country did not fully reflect the geographical extent of the real lives of different ethnic groups at the practical level.
The collapse of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union bear many similarities in this regard. The large-scale civil war first broke out in Croatia in 1991, when there were about 1/4 of the Serbs in its territory. The civil war then spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where in addition to Croats and Muslims, there were also about 1/3 of the Serbs. Soon, the so-called "international community" took advantage of the situation to intervene in the hope of achieving its geopolitical objectives at the expense of the local population.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main two sides of the conflict are Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. Both groups belong to the Southern Slavs and are essentially of the same ancestry and language, except that the latter converted to Islam during centuries of Ottoman rule. The Catholic Croats, as the third ethnic group within Bosnia and Herzegovina, have been allies with Bosnian Muslims for the most part under the direct influence of the West.
In the shadow of history and the political realities faced at that time, a relatively small minority of Serbs did not want to live in the same country as Muslims who wished to control all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so in 1992 the Serbs established the (Bosnian) Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and established their own army and institutional institutions. But the West immediately sided directly with the Bosnian Muslims and Croats and began to pull the strings. All Serbs could count on at the time was limited political and material support from the drastically weakened Russia and the neighboring country, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
Pink represents Republika Srpska, while green and yellow represent Muslim and Croat-controlled areas
The civil war that broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina lasted until 1995, and the fighting was relentless and brutal in every way. In the course of the war, within the Serb-controlled area, Muslim armed forces formed a Bosnia-Herzegovina Muslim enclave controlled by the local warlord Nasser Al-Olić around Srebrenica. During the three years of the civil war, its troops frequently attacked surrounding Serb villages and settlements, and killings and looting of civilians, as well as their lives and property, were not uncommon. Even after the United Nations entered the Srebrenica area and declared it a "safe zone", such attacks have not abated in the slightest, as the demilitarization of the area has not been completed.
In three years, more than a thousand Serb civilians have been killed, including a number of very violent and brutal ravaging methods. The findings of Serbian pathologist Zoran Stanković documented the manner and extent of these acts of abuse, and later confirmed Stankovic's investigation in a 2002 report by the Dutch War Research Institute "NIOD". The report states:
Muslim soldiers in Srebrenica attacked a total of 79 Serbian villages, mainly in Srebrenica and Bratunac. The way they behave generally follows a similar pattern. First, they will drive Serbs out of mixed villages, secondly they will attack small Serb villages surrounded by Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims, and finally even full-scale invasion of pure Serb villages. After local residents are killed, their houses are looted and then burned or blown up.
Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims generally want to launch attacks during Serbian Orthodox festivals (such as St. George's Day, Vydov Festival, Petrov Festival and Orthodox Christmas) because of the lax awareness of the Serbian side during these periods, but this behavior in turn fuels Serb hatred and anger against the Muslim side. A large proportion of these attacks were extremely bloody, with some victims being cut off in the neck, stabbed to death by agricultural tools, or burned to death.
An estimated 1,000-1,200 Serbs were killed and about 3,000 injured. Of the 9,390 Serbrenica residents, only 860 remained in four villages: Skelani, Crvica, Petrica and Lijesce. ”
General Philippe Morillon, then commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Bosnia, once said that the hatred between the two communities caused by these crimes was pervasive and on the verge of erupting, and that the desire for revenge had become ubiquitous, and that hatred was directed at everything.
During the testimony of Milosevic on 12 February 2004, during Milosevic's trial, Morillon said: "I was afraid that the local Serbs would want revenge for the actions attributed to Nasser Orich. But Nasser Orich is no longer the only target of the Serbs, who also want revenge for those who were killed earlier in Kravica (an attack on Christmas Day 7, 1993). ”
When Judge Robinson asked if the liquidation of Muslim prisoners of war was related to previous terrorist attacks on the Serbian population, Morillon replied: "Yes, yes, Mr. Judge." I'm sure it is. This does not mean that the perpetrators of these crimes should be pardoned or lessened, but I am sure that this is the case (i.e. their actions are linked to revenge for attacks). ”
At the same trial, General Morillon also said that, in his view, the Serbian commander, General Mladic, had "walked into a trap in Srebrenica". He then added meaningfully that what happened later in Srebrenica "was in the interest of some of the more powerful people in New York and Sarajevo." (v. Milosevic, Cod., 12 February 2004, p. 32029)
A illogical withdrawal
In mid-1995, when the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was on the verge of ending, the ongoing military provocations carried out by the Muslim army of Bosnia and Herzegovina behind the Serb army had reached the point where the Serbian side could not bear it. Muslim troops from the Srebrenica enclave have launched uninterrupted attacks on Serb villages and blocked the supply chain of supplies for the Serb army.
These attacks culminated in a complete loss of patience on the Serbian side on 26 June 1995, when Muslim troops from Srebrenica attacked the nearby Serbian village of Višnjica, where the Muslims looted and burned the village, and finally killed all villagers who had not been able to escape the village. The Serbian army command decided to remove Srebrenica, a military enclave for the Muslim army, in order to completely address the threats that Serb civilians and the army may face in the future.
In early July 1995, a ten-day military campaign was effectively advanced, and the Serbian side successfully occupied the city of Srebrenica. The Muslim army in Bosnia and Herzegovina began to retreat with little resistance and abandoned some 20,000 women and children in the Srebrenica region, as if deliberately leaving bait for the Serb armed forces in the hope of luring the Serbs into violence against them and thus later as propaganda materials. It was later confirmed that the militaryly capable men who had abandoned Srebrenica directly tried to cross the Serbian-controlled zone of nearly 60 kilometers, through the Cypriot encirclement, to the Muslim-controlled area of Tuzla.
This adventurous retreat was virtually illogical. There have even been cases where Muslim deserters were about to reach areas controlled by the Muslims, and Mu shot at his own people.)
Map of the situation in the Bosnian war in 1994 Two red dots are Srebrenica and Tuzla
Subsequently, the Serbian army, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, at the request of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force Command in Sarajevo, agreed to evacuate women and children abandoned by the Muslim army there to a safe area outside the front line. In the process of organizing the evacuation of women and children from serbia, the Muslim army, which also tried to reach the Muslim-controlled areas, began to take the opportunity to retreat through armed attacks. A large number of them were killed in the process of retreating, and another eventually surrendered to the Serb army.
It is important to note that Muslim armies attempting to escape from Srebrenica are legitimate targets for the Serb army as an enemy still at war. According to later survivors' accounts, the Muslim army did suffer heavy casualties during the retreat.
Thus, there is good reason to believe that most of the so-called Muslim "victims" were in fact those who lost their lives in legitimate hostilities, but who were later deliberately included in the list of victims of shootings and so-called "genocide").
Subsequently, according to statistics from the United Nations and other international organizations responsible for the resettlement of refugees, as of 4 August 1995, some 35,632 of the inhabitants of the less than 40,000 Srebrenica enclaves had been successfully transferred or successfully evacuated to the Muslim-controlled area of Tuzla. These proven figures are sufficient to overturn the so-called "genocide" propaganda of the Serb massacre of "more than 8,000 captured men and boys" (data can be found here, four reports in total).
Subsequent autopsies showed that in mass graves where Muslim victims were believed to have been buried, up to a few hundred and not more than a thousand died by firing squad, depending on the characteristics of their wounds. Readers interested in the detailed information can consult a total of 3568 documents on the website "Project Srebrenica". These documents were prepared by forensic experts from the Office of the Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal specifically for the needs of the Tribunal, see here.
The documents ultimately point to the fact that there are about 1,920 bodies in the Srebrenica mass grave, far less than the more than 8,000 bodies claimed by the propaganda. An analysis of wounds and patterns of death concluded that only up to 1,000 of them could be considered dead by firing. The rest died either in battle or for other reasons.
The "casualty figures" that come and go
When examining people who died in combat and those who died by firing, the analysis of John R. Schindler, a U.S. intelligence officer, is one of the more prominent. During 1995, Schindler was an intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA) and was based in Sarajevo. According to him, some 2,000 prisoners of war in the Bosnian army died by firing squad, and the other casualties were killed in an exchange of fire during the retreat (see here). Arguably, the remarks of this top-secret intelligence officer also directly refuted the narrative that more than 8,000 men and boys were "genocide."
In constructing and exaggerating the figure of 8,000 people, even the West itself has long been unable to reach a consensus. The numbers have been changing, and the numbers on the final verdict have not been scientifically confirmed. The figures in the judgements and documents of the Hague Tribunal in various cases are also uneven:
From the alleged 4,970 victims in the trial of Serbian General Zdravko Tolimir to the 5,336 victims in the verdict of Colonel Vujadin Popovic, to the official "7,000 to 8,000 people" in the verdicts of the President of the Republika Srpska, Karadzic and General Mladic. Has not been proven).
Former President of the Republika Srpska karadzic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and former commander-in-chief of the republika Srpska army in The Hague, Mladic
In all the judgements in The Hague involving Srebrenica, the witnesses appeared in the court largely the same and the evidence used was essentially the same. But why is there such a big difference between the numbers in terms of the most critical facts, namely the number of casualties, from the documents to the witnesses to the verdicts? All this seems so unnatural and confusing.
When Western countries consider things, they have long abandoned the principle of basing themselves on facts, but instead preconceived that their own ideas and stories will be disseminated as "facts" by default. Such stories may be politically profitable, but they are ultimately fictional. Such stories are disseminated by various large Western-monopoly media outlets and international organizations, repeated thousands of times, and ignored or even prevented the voices of the other side from appearing in the field of public opinion.
This mechanism of creating a fictional reality is once again confirmed in today's Russian-Ukrainian conflict and in the hysterical but consistent anti-Russian propaganda of the West, as well as in the suppression of Russian voices. The Western public can only see one version of the story, and public opinion can only allow one voice, even if this sound is completely different from the actual situation that took place on the scene.
Under the fictional guilt, neglected Serb victims
The So-called "Srebrenica Genocide", constructed by the West, hopes to attribute all responsibility to the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to constantly challenge the substantive status enjoyed by the Republika Srpska on the basis of international treaties, and to instill in the Serb people guilt so that it can more easily achieve control over them. All this is a constituent element of the psychological warfare and political propaganda warfare that the West habitually uses against countries that are unwilling to submit to their will.
This situation of counter-sufficiency and pressure on the entire Serb nation is clearly visible throughout the Hague farce that has lasted for almost 20 years. Of all the former Yugoslavian personnel, 110 Serbs were convicted of war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with cumulative sentences of up to 974.5 years. In contrast, there are only 12 Croats, accumulating 277 years, and there are only 5 Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, accumulating 43.5 years.
However, as noted above, thousands of Serb civilians have already died in the area around Srebrenica alone as a result of various killings, looting and atrocities, not to mention the thousands of civilian casualties caused by NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Isn't their life not their destiny? Shouldn't those who ordered their killing be judged? The reality, however, is that the leaders of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo Albanians and others are not at all responsible for the crimes they have committed, and no one has even forced them to say any words of apology.
Instead, they were given the right to continue politics, while Serbia's leaders were either handed over to The Hague or forced to apologize for what they hadn't done.
In 2003, Serbia's White Paper on Ethnic Albanian Terrorism and Organized Crime in Kosovo gave a brief introduction to The Former Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj
The so-called "massacre" in Srebrenica became a tool for Western countries to extort Serbia, so even the Serbian government will be swaying left and right in the face of this pressure. If this is not recognized as a massacre, countries and leaders will be sanctioned and labeled, and if they are recognized, the label will only be heavier. The Serbian Government is therefore generally very cautious, even somewhat timid, about the events in Srebrenica, fearing that a more specific and firm position would lead to further rifts in Serbia's relations with the "international community".
27 years after the events in Srebrenica in July 1995, many facts have surfaced, completely refuting the Western insistence on imposing narratives. Even some of the judges who tried Serbs in The Hague, such as Prisca Nyamba, a prominent lawyer from Zambia, and even Jean-Claude Antonetti, from France, were deeply skeptical of this unconvincing story. In their respective opinions, they made a fundamental critique of the credibility of the official interpretation of the Srebrenica incident from the legal level.
Although a similar script occurred in different parts of the world after Srebrenica, Srebrenica remains unique and iconic as a seminal example of a pseudo-flag operation aimed at satisfying the geopolitical interests of other countries. The principles and templates developed for Srebrenica in 1995 have since been adapted and applied around the world – a standard set of human rights intervention templates that emerge when the West decides to attack or plunder one of its own eyepoints.
The fictional events in Srebrenica and the defamation of the execution of "8,000 men and boys" by the Serbian people in Srebrenica are a warning to all sovereign States of the world. Behind this we can see what dirty means hegemonists use to maintain their domination of the world or to try to subjugate those who refuse to obey their orders.
(Translator's note: If the reader is interested in the details and further developments of the events in Srebrenica, please refer to the English version of the explanatory handbook written by the author of this article on the occasion of the 20th anniversary seminar of the events in Srebrenica in 2015: http://predstavnistvorsbg.rs/pdf_dokumenti/2015/info_knjizica_srebrenica_engl.pdf or see" Srebrenica Historical Project "Website: http://us.srebrenica-project.org. ）
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