The massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995 was one of the most infamous episodes of the Bosnian War. By decision of the UN, this city was declared a security zone, where civilians could calmly wait out the bloodshed. Within two years, thousands of Bosnians moved to Srebrenica. When she was captured by the Serbs, the army staged a massacre. According to various estimates, from 7 to 8 thousand Bosnians died - mostly boys, men and the elderly. Later, an international tribunal recognized these events as an act of genocide.
Background
Mass killings of civilians were not uncommon in the Bosnian War. The massacre in Srebrenica was only a logical continuation of this inhuman attitude of the opponents towards each other. In 1993, the city was occupied by the Bosnian army, commanded by Nasser Oric. This is how the Srebrenica enclave arose - a small piece of land controlled by Muslims, but completely surrounded by the territory of the Republika Srpska.
From here, the Bosnians launched punitive raids on neighboring settlements. Dozens of Serbs were killed in the attacks. All this added fuel to the fire. The two warring armies hated each other and were readytake out their anger on civilians. In 1992 - 1993 Bosnians burned Serbian villages. In total, about 50 settlements were destroyed.
In March 1993, Srebrenica was brought to the attention of the UN. The organization has declared this city a safe zone. Dutch peacekeepers were introduced there. A separate base was allocated for them, which became the safest place for many kilometers around. Despite this, the enclave was effectively under siege. The Blue Helmets could not influence the situation in the region. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 took place exactly when the Bosnian army surrendered the city and its environs, leaving the civilian population alone with the Serb brigades.
Serb Capture of Srebrenica
In July 1995, the Republika Srpska Army launched an operation to take control of Srebrenica. The attack was carried out by the forces of the Drinsky Corps. The Dutch practically did not try to stop the Serbs. All they did was shoot over the heads of the attackers in order to scare them. About 10 thousand soldiers participated in the attack. They continued to move towards Srebrenica, which is why the peacekeepers decided to evacuate to their base. Unlike UN forces, NATO aircraft tried to fire on Serbian tanks. After that, the attackers threatened to crack down on a much smaller peacekeeping contingent. The North Atlantic Alliance decided to no longer interfere with the elimination of the Bosnian enclave.
On July 11, in the town of Potocari, about 20,000 refugees gathered near the walls of a military unit that belonged to UN peacekeepers. Massacre in Srebrenicaaffected those few Bosniaks who managed to break through to the guarded base. There wasn't enough room for everyone. Only a few thousand people found shelter. The rest, waiting for the Serbs, had to hide in the surrounding fields and abandoned factories.
The Bosnian authorities understood that with the advent of the enemy, the enclave would come to an end. Therefore, the leadership of Srebrenica decided to evacuate civilians to Tuzla. This mission was assigned to the 28th division. It included 5,000 soldiers, about 15,000 more refugees, hospital staff, the city administration, etc. On July 12, this column was ambushed. A battle ensued between the Serbs and the military Bosnians. The civilians fled. In the future, they had to get to Tuzla on their own. These people were unarmed. They tried to bypass roads in order not to stumble upon Serbian checkpoints. According to various estimates, before the Srebrenica massacre began, about 5 thousand people managed to escape to Tuzla.
Mass killings
When the Army of the Republika Srpska took control of the enclave, the soldiers began mass executions of Bosniaks who did not have time to escape to safe areas. The massacre continued for several days. The Serbs divided the Bosnian men into groups, each of which was sent to a separate room.
The first mass executions took place on 13 July. Bosniaks were taken to the valley of the Cerska River, where large-scale executions were carried out. Executions also took place in large barns owned by a local agricultural cooperative. Muslimswho were waiting for imminent death, were held captive without food. They were given only a little water to keep them alive until the moment of execution. The July heat and crowded halls of abandoned premises have become an excellent environment for unsanitary conditions.
First, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the ditches. Then the officers began to allocate equipment specifically to take out the corpses to specially prepared places where huge mass graves were dug. The military wanted to hide their crimes. But on such a scale of atrocities, they could not hide enough to get away with it. Investigators later gathered a we alth of evidence of the massacre. In addition, the testimonies of numerous witnesses were summarized.
Massacre continues
For the killings, not only firearms were used, but also grenades, which were thrown at barracks full of captured Bosnians. Investigators later found traces of blood, hair, and explosives in these warehouses. The analysis of all these material evidences made it possible to establish some of the victims, the type of weapons used, etc.
People were caught in the fields and on the roads. If the Serbs stopped buses with refugees, they took all the men with them. Women are more fortunate. UN representatives began negotiations with the Serbs and persuaded them to be expelled from the enclave. 25,000 women left Srebrenica.
The massacre in Srebrenica was the largest massacre of civilians in Europe since the Second World War. There were so many dead that their burials were found many years later. For example, inIn 2007, a mass grave of Bosniaks was accidentally discovered, in which more than 600 bodies were buried.
Responsibility of the Republika Srpska leadership
How did the events in Srebrenica in 1995 become possible? For several days there were no international observers in the city. It was they who could at least disseminate information about what happened to the whole world. It is significant that rumors of reprisals began to leak out only a few days after the incident. No one had information about the extent of the massacre in Srebrenica. The reasons for this were also in the direct patronage of criminals by the authorities of the Republika Srpska.
When the Yugoslav wars were left behind, Western countries set a condition for Belgrade to extradite Radovan Karadzic to an international tribunal. He was the president of the Republika Srpska and the commander-in-chief of the officers who started the Srebrenica massacre. The photo of this person constantly got on the pages of Western newspapers. A large reward of five million dollars was announced for information about him.
Karadzic was caught only many years later. For about 10 years he lived in Belgrade, changing his name and appearance. The former politician and military man rented a small apartment on Yuri Gagarin Street and worked as a doctor. The secret services managed to reach the fugitive only thanks to a call from the exile's neighbor. Belgradets advised to look at the unknown because of his suspicious resemblance to Karadzic. In 2016, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of organizing mass terror against the peaceful Bosnian population andother war crimes.
Deny crime
In the first days after the tragedy occurred, the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs generally denied the fact of large-scale executions. It sent a commission to investigate the events in Srebrenica in July 1995. Her report spoke of a hundred POWs killed.
Then the Karadzic government began to adhere to the version that the Bosnian army tried to break through the encirclement and escape to Tuzla. The bodies of those killed in these battles were exhibited by the opponents of the Serbs as evidence of "genocide". The massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 was not recognized by the Republika Srpska. An objective investigation at the scene began only after the end of the Bosnian War. Up to this point, the enclave continued to be controlled by the separatists.
Although today the massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995 is condemned by the Serbian authorities, the current president of this country refuses to recognize what happened as genocide. According to Tomislav Nikolic, the state must find the criminals and punish them. At the same time, he believes that the wording "genocide" would be incorrect. Belgrade is actively cooperating with the International Tribunal. The extradition of criminals to the court in The Hague is one of the most important conditions for the inclusion of Serbia in the European Union. The problem of integrating this country into the common "family" of the Old World has remained unresolved for several years now. At the same time, neighboring Croatia joined the EU in 2013, although it was also affected by the Balkan wars and obscurantism of bloodshed.
Political Consequences
The horrific massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 had direct political consequences. The capture by the Serbs of the zone under the control of UN peacekeepers led to the start of NATO bombing in the Republika Srpska. The intervention of the North Atlantic Alliance hastened the end of the war. In 1996 Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats signed the Dayton Accords, which ended the bloody Bosnian War.
Although the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 happened a long time ago, the echo of those events is still echoed in international politics. In 2015, a meeting of the UN Security Council was held, at which a draft resolution on the tragedy in the Bosnian enclave was considered. The United Kingdom proposed to recognize the massacre of Muslims as genocide. This initiative was also supported by the United States and France. China abstained. Russia opposed the resolution and vetoed it. Kremlin representatives at the UN explained this decision by the fact that too sharp assessments of events in Bosnia could lead to another round of interethnic conflict in the Balkans today. Nevertheless, the wording "genocide" continues to be used in some instances (for example, in the Hague Tribunal).
Srebrenica after the war
In 2003, the President of the United States in 1993 - 2001. Bill Clinton personally arrived in Srebrenica to open a memorial to the victims of war crimes. It was he who made decisions during the wars in the Balkans. Every year the memorial is visited by thousands of Bosnians - relatives of the victimsand the victims and ordinary compatriots. Even those residents of the country who were not directly affected by the massacre perfectly understood and understand the horrors of war. The bloody conflict tormented the entire territory of Bosnia without exception. The massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995 only became the crown of that inter-ethnic confrontation.
This city got its name from the local mineral deposits. The ancient Romans knew about silver here. Bosnia has always been a poor country and a dead corner (under the Habsburgs, in the Ottoman Empire, etc.). Srebrenica for many centuries remained one of the most adapted cities for a comfortable life. After the civil war, almost all the inhabitants (both Bosnians and Serbs) left this region.
Trial of criminals
The international tribunal found that the person who authorized the massacres was General Ratko Mladic. Already in July 1995, he was accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. On his conscience were not only the events in Srebrenica in 1995, but also the blockade of the capital of Bosnia, the taking of hostages who worked in the UN, etc.
At first, the general lived quietly in Serbia, which did not extradite the commander to the international court. When the Milosevic government was overthrown, Mladic went into hiding and lived on the run. The new authorities arrested him only in 2011. The trial of the general is still ongoing. This process was made possible thanks to the testimony of other Serbs accused of involvement in the massacre. It was through Mladic that all officer reports passed, in which they reported on the killings of the Bosnians and theirgraves.
The general's entourage chose places where huge mass graves were dug. Investigators found several dozen graves. All of them were randomly located in the vicinity of Srebrenica. Corpse trucks traveled around the former enclave not only in the summer, but also in the fall of 1995.
Confession
In addition to Mladic, many more servicemen of the Republika Srpska Army were accused of crimes in Srebrenica. Back in 1996, the mercenary Drazen Erdemovic was the first to receive his term in prison. He gave a lot of testimony, which lined up further investigation. The arrests of high-ranking Serbian officers soon followed - Radislav Krstić and his entourage. Responsibility was not only personal. In 2003, the new authorities of the Republika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pleaded guilty to the massacres of the civilian Bosnian population. In the 90s, the war with Muslims was fought with the active participation of Belgrade. Independent Serbia, represented by its parliament, also condemned the massacre in 2010.
It is interesting that the Hague court did not leave without consequences the connivance of the Dutch peacekeepers, located at the base near the place of bloodshed. Colonel Karremants was accused of handing over some of the Bosnian refugees, knowing that the Serbs would kill them. Over two decades of endless trials and court hearings, a significant evidence base of those atrocious crimes has been collected. For example, in 2005, thanks to the search for Serbian human rights activists, avideo recording of the executions.
