The Truth About “A Town Betrayed”
July 19, 2015
[Retrieved from a
blog post by an unnamed author whose blog, Bosnienbloggen, has been
deleted.]
Srebrenica
Most people outside of
Scandinavia, more precisely Norway and Sweden, have never heard of
A
Town Betrayed, a revisionist take on the genocide
in Srebrenica and the events that led up to it. It first aired in
Norway in the spring of 2011 and later in Sweden in fall that same year. On the
surface, it looked like a typical Norwegian documentary with high production
values packaged as a “new truth” about the genocide in Srebrenica and the events
that led up to it, however it didn't take long before most people with basic
knowledge of the events in and around Srebrenica and the Bosnian genocide to
see that this “new truth” was in fact old lies and discarded conspiracy
theories that the filmmakers Ola Flyum and David Hebditch had repackaged as a
“new truth”.
I
have written extensively on the documentary on my blog (1 2 3,
in Swedish) along with a long host of others. This list includes some of the
most noted experts on the Balkans in Scandinavia. As well as journalists and
human rights groups who were exposed to the same type of recycled Serb
propaganda and conspiracy theories that the filmmakers were peddling as a “new
truth.”
However I never considered writing about it in English. I honestly saw no need
for it, until now. By the spring of 2012 the documentary had been widely
perceived as recycled Serb nationalist propaganda. Swedish journalist, of
Croatian origin, Tonchi
Percan who had covered the wars in Bosnia and Croatia for Swedish
press, wrote several times about the documentary saying that Swedish Television
should apologize to the victims and survivors for broadcasting what were
essentially discarded Serb nationalist conspiracy theories that had been
floating around in the Balkans and had been debunked by amongst other things the
court proceedings at ICTY in Hague. Percan compared it to Swedish Television
broadcasting a documentary about the 9/11 attacks being a false flag, without
showing any actual evidence.
Still, in time of the 20th anniversary
of the genocide in Srebrenica, the documentary floated up again on twitter,
spread by Serb nationalists, propagandists and their sympathizers,
including far-right loons, in other words; people like: John
R. Schindler.
By
the fall of 2011 the documentary had been debunked in Norway and exposed as
recycled Serb propaganda and conspiracy theories with one of the journalists
working on the documentary, the Bosnian Mirsad Fazlić publicly distancing
himself in interviews in Norway and Bosnia from
it, saying that he protested in several e-mails to the filmmakers that they were
in fact trying to distort the what had happened in Bosnia. According to Fazlić
once he saw the finished results of several years of work he was shocked, the
documentary was clearly pro-Serbian and in it went out of its way to downplay
and shift the blame for the genocide from the Serbs.
The
documentary was the first program to be brought
down in both the Press Complaints Commission (PFU) in the fall of
2011 and the Investigation
Committee , the Swedish equivalent of PFU in the spring of 2012. The
Norwegian PFU wrote that the documentary leaves out some of the most basic facts
about the Bosnian war.
Aage Borchgrevink, the senior advisor at
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee wrote
back in 2011 that the documentary described the Bosnian war in a way
that reminded him of the way Serbian state media used to report from Bosnia when
Slobodan Milošević was president.
According to Borchgrevink : ”the documentary was historical revisionism
disguised as groundbreaking journalism. Using factually incorrect information,
selective use of sources, fringe experts and biased portrayals of events, NRK
had described the genocide in Srebrenica the same way Serbian state media had
reported from Bosnia when Slobodan Milošević was president. Ratko Mladić, the
general indicted for genocide is portrayed as a decent soldier while Izetbegović
who didn't bother answering Srebrenica's calls for help is responsible.”
Borchgrevink also pointed to the fact that the Bosnian Army's attack on Kravica
in January 1993 is described as a “massacre” in the documentary, however the
ICTY cleared the Bosnian commander Naser Orić of any wrongdoing during the
attack. Several civilians were killed in the attack. Though most of those killed
were Serb soldiers and the village of Kravica was according to the ICTY a
legitimate military target. According
to RDC (Research and Documentation Centre) 35 Serb soldiers and 11
civilians died in the fighting. An additional 36 Serb soldiers were wounded.
This information was collected from offical Bosnian Serb documentation, a
document entitled: Warpath of the Bratunac Brigade.
According to the ICTY's
verdict against the Bosnian Army commander in Srebrenica, Naser Orić :
Between April 1992 and March 1993, Srebrenica town and the villages in the area
held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults,
including artillery attacks, sniper fire, as well as occasional bombing from
aircrafts. Each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and
paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the
population to surrender their weapons, and then began with indiscriminate
shelling and shooting. In most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet,
expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and
destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to
indiscriminate shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in
particular was a daily target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a
sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim
settlements were routinely attacked as well. All this resulted in a great number
of refugees and casualties.(Orić , par.103)
In comparison, it appears that the Bosnian Muslim side did not adequately
prepare for the looming armed conflict. There were not even firearms to be found
in the Bosnian Muslim villages, apart from some privately owned pistols and
hunting rifles; a few light weapons were kept at the Srebrenica police station.
(Oric, par.94)
Between June 1992 and March 1993, Bosnian Muslims raided a number of villages
and hamlets inhabited by Bosnian Serbs, or from which Bosnian Muslims had
formerly been expelled. One of the purposes of these actions was to acquire
food, weapons, ammunition and military equipment. Bosnian Serb forces
controlling the access roads were not allowing international humanitarian aid –
most importantly, food and medicine – to reach Srebrenica. As a consequence,
there was a constant and serious shortage of food causing starvation to peak in
the winter of 1992/1993. Numerous people died or were in an extremely emaciated
state due to malnutrition. (Orić , par.104)
In
regards to Kravica, the verdict says:
The
fighting intensified in December 1992 and the beginning of January 1993, when
Bosnian Muslims were attacked by Bosnian Serbs primarily from the direction of
Kravica and Ježestica. In the early morning of the 7 January 1993, Orthodox
Christmas day, Bosnian Muslims attacked Kravica, Ježestica and Šiljkovići.
Convincing evidence suggests that the village guards were backed by the VRS
[Bosnian Serb Army], and following the fighting in the summer of 1992, they
received military support, including weapons and training. A considerable amount
of weapons and ammunition was kept in Kravica and Šiljkovići. Moreover, there is
evidence that besides the village guards, there was Serb and Bosnian Serb
military presence in the area. The evidence is unclear as to the number of
houses destroyed by Bosnian Muslims as opposed to those destroyed by Bosnian
Serbs. In light of this uncertainty, the Trial Chamber concludes that the
destruction of property in Kravica between 7 and 8 December 1992 does not fulfil
the elements of wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages not justified by
military necessity. (Orić , par.662,)
A
report from the Bosnian Serb Army's Bratunac Brigade dated January 4th 1993
says that combat operations in the area Bratunac – Kravica will continue until
Serb forces have control over that area. Meaning that far from being on the
defensive, the VRS were in fact on the offensive. Lazar Ostojić , the Bosnian
Serb commander in Kravica during the attack says in his book, “Bloody Christmas
in Kravica” (Krvavi Božić Sela Kravica) that he had at his disposal 50 elite
soldiers from Bjelijna and a so-called Internventni Vod ( a commando unit)
along with 400 soldiers. According to his account he decided to evacuate the
village around 9 o'clock in the morning, leaving only soldiers in Kravica. Last
group of Serb soldiers left Kravica at around four in the afternoon. That day he
signed off on 22 cases of infantry ammunition and more than 400 artillery shells
along with 5000 anti-air craft rounds to his soldiers, proving that Kravica was
a highly militarized village and one of the staging points for Serb attacks on
Srebrenica.
The
Trial Chamber also found that there was evidence that in Kravica and Ježestica,
Serbs fired artillery from houses and other buildings, which led to
house-to-house fighting between Bosnian Army soldiers and the Serb
rebels. Furthermore, according to the Trial Chamber; Serbs located on hills
north and northeast of Kravica fired artillery in the direction of Kravica and
Ježestica. A witness observed shells landing on houses in the villages, causing
fire. (Orić, par.665)
According to the RDC, the number of Serbs from Central Bosnia buried in Bratunac
was consistent with the population movements after the war, especially the Serb
population from the Serb-held parts of Sarajevo, which had under the Dayton
Peace Accords became part of a re-integrated Sarajevo, having previously been
held by Bosnian Serb forces. The political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs
called on the population to leave those areas and even take the graves of their
loved ones with them. According to RDC such a large percentage of Sarajevo Serbs
followed the instructions that parts of the city that had been under occupation
remained deserted for months. Most importantly though, the RDC notes that the
Serb dead from Sarajevo who were later re-buried in Bratunac area are
represented as results of actions taken by the Bosnian Army units from
Srebrenica.
The
RDC also concluded from their investigation of the military cemetery in Bratunac
that 139 of the dead soldiers buried there had lived and fought elsewhere in
Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, but where nevertheless buried at the
Bratunac military cemetery. According to the RDC: 48 victims buried in Bratunac
fought and died in Hadžići; 36 fought and died in Srebrenica; 34 and died in
Vogošća; 3 in Konjic and 3 more in Ilijaš; 2 fought and died in Sarajevo, two
more in Ilidža; one in Trnovo, Pale and Tuzla each. All of these figures are
presented as results of Naser Orić's actions as well ( the only ones actually
being the 34 Serb soldiers who died in fighting around Srebrenica).
Bosnian Serbs in Ilijaš digging
up their dead in winter of 1996
In
January 1996 HRW's Emma Daly reported from
Sarajevo about the removal of bodies from cemeteries and Serbs burning their own
houses rather then let it fall into the hands of the “Muslim enemy” as well as
the fact that Bosnian Serb forces were still firing into the city, and killing
civilians months after Dayton Peace Accords had been signed. (Daly reported for
The Independent during the Bosnian war)
Borchgrevink also points to the United Nations 155-page report on the fall of
Srebrenica, where former UN-secretary general Kofi Annan says that the Serbs
exaggerated the Bosnian Army attacks as way of disguising their real objective;
which was an ethnically pure Serb state. That meant that Serb forces killed tens
of thousands Bosniak and Croat civilians during the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
According to Borchgrevink: Srebrenica was not an ordinary military operation as
NRK's expert (John R. Schindler) points out but the culmination of the ethnic
cleansing of eastern Bosnia.
Borchgrevink goes on to say that the documentary's expert (John R. Schindler)
recycles old controversial Serb nationalist claims about 1300 Serb civilians
killed around Srebrenica, and that of the Bosniaks killed by Serb forces after
the fall of Srebrenica only some 2000 disarmed prisoners of war were executed by
elements of the Bosnian Serb Army's counterintelligence while the rest were
killed in combat while trying to reach Tuzla.
This
is of course nonsense, even if it's cleverly packaged. As Borchgrevink
writes; John R. Schindler's claims are refuted by RDC's
findings, which show that of the 567 Serbs killed in the Bratunac
area (Where Naser Orić 's alleged crimes took place) 448 were Serb soldiers, and
the rest, 119, were civilians. This is of course a lot, but nowhere near the
figures Schindler cites. It should be added that John R. Schindler himself has
used RDC findings in his now eviscerated propaganda tract Unholy Terror. British
historian, well known Balkan expert and genocide scholar Marko Attila Hoare,
who reviewed
Schindler's book pointed to Schindler's amusing blunders in regards
to RDC figures. Hoare writes:
One
of the more amusing of Schindler’s blunders concerns the scientific calculation
of the figure for Bosnian war-dead carried out by Mirsad Tokaca’s Research and
Documentation Centre in Sarajevo, which placed it at about one hundred thousand.
Schindler seems to endorse this figure wholeheartedly, seeing it as proof that
earlier estimates of Bosnian war-dead had been ‘grossly exaggerated’, and
complaining that Tokaca’s result ‘got minimal attention in Bosnia or abroad’ (p.
317). The reason this is amusing is that Tokaca’s figures disprove several of
the figures for Serb dead at the hands of Bosnian forces that Schindler himself
cites. Thus, Schindler claims that ‘more than 3,000 Bosnian Serbs, some soldiers
but at least 1,300 unarmed civilians, had been killed by Muslim forces based in
Srebrenica’ (p. 228).
Borchgrevink also points out that international forensics experts have
identified 6481 individual victims from various mass graves from around
Srebrenica and have determined that over 8100 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were
killed. Subsequent trials that have taken place at the ICTY and ICJ
(International Court of Justice) have proven that Srebrenica was an act of
genocide, a well planned and carried out mass murder with the intent to destroy
the Bosniaks of Srebrenica and Žepa as an ethnic, religous and a political
group.
It
should also be added that Borchgrevink's and Norwegian Helsinki Committee
critique of “A Town Betrayed” and its main “expert” John R. Schindler came in
May 2011. Since then figures regarding those found in mass graves has changed,
given that Srebrenica is still an active crime scene and that about 1000 of
those killed in the genocide still are uncounted for. As
of June 2015, the figure of those Bosniaks who have been identified
stands at 6930, working from a set of 17,000 human remains located in 93 mass
graves. This of course destroys the filmmakers and John R. Schindler's thesis
that the majority of Srebrenica's Bosniaks were “killed making their way to
Tuzla” instead they were captured and taken to various execution sites. For
more, see Christian Jennings: Bosnia's
Million Bones- Solving the World's Biggest Forensic Puzzle)
Borchgrevink also dismisses Schindler's claim that the reason Ratko Mladić
wanted to take the town was due to arms smuggling into Srebrenica. Schindler and
the filmmakers remain quiet about the notorious Directive
7 order issued out by Bosnian Serb leadership in March 1995, four
months before the genocide in Srebrenica. Directive 7, signed by Radovan
Karadžić called for the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims from the safe
areas. The safe areas included Srebrenica and Žepa. On March 8th 1995, Radovan
Karadžić issued Operational Directive 7 from the Supreme Command of the VRS.
The Directive ordered the VRS (Bosnian Serb Army) to “complete the physical
separation of the Srebrenica and Žepa enclaves as soon as possible, preventing
even communication between individuals between the two enclaves. By planned and
well-thought-out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total
insecurity, with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of
Srebrenica or Žepa.”
As Ed Vulliamy and Florence Hartmann point
out in a new report published by The Guardian, Mladić had told the
Bosnian Serb assembly, “My concern is to have them vanish completely”, and that
Karadžić pledged “blood up to the knees” if his army took Srebrenica.” Directive
7, was of course known, or should have been known to the filmmakers and John R.
Schindler, yet it does not appear anywhere in the documentary. A pretty big
omission in my opinion…
But
the most telling sign of what this documentary's objective really was, is the
fact that behind the scenes, the documentary's advisors and consultants were
made up of what Swedish daily Eskilstuna-Kuriren's political editor Alex Voronov called “a
Serb nationalist propaganda centre and a revisionist sewer.”
This
sewer included Zorica Mitić, a physician from Belgrade who had since 2000 lived
in Norway. In Serbian media, like Pecat and
various Serb
Diaspora sites she had repeatedly denied that what had happened in
Srebrenica was an act of genocide and had highly recommended sites and
organizations that had “exposed the myth of genocide” (go ahead, just read the
link from Pecat and Glas Dijaspore) among the sites she had recommended was a
Hague-based NGO called “Srebenica Historical Project” led by a Serb-American
lawyer Stephan Karganović who was in 2012 compared to Holocaust denier David
Irving by USHMM
and Foreign Policy Magazine. Srebenica Historical Project is funded
in part by Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik as USHMM and Foreign Policy
explain. Dodik is one the most fervent
genocide deniers in the Balkans, as late as June 2015 he called the
genocide in Srebrenica “the biggest sham of the 20th century.”
Another “consultant” to the documentary was a man named Ozren Jorganović, who
for a while worked for Norwegian State Television. (NRK) I don't know how he
got the job in Norwegian State Television, but what is known is that during the
Bosnian war Jorganović was station manager of Radio Ozren, a Bosnian Serb
propaganda station near Doboj, as well as Radio Doboj during the war. He was
also a long-time correspondent for various news sites in Bosnia's Republika
Srpska entity as well as for SRNA.
Aside from Borchgrevink's critique, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee also sent
the Norwegian Television an 18-page report listing 25 (!) factual errors in the
documentary. Here
is the full report, in Norwegian (PDF)
It
would be simply impossible to list and translate all the inaccuracies and
falsehoods in the documentary; the Norwegian Helsinki Committee's report is 18
pages long (!) so here are just a few of the most important ones. (Within the
first ten pages!) However the points that NHC raises show the real intent of the
filmmakers and the level of deception that they engage in.
1
(3) the documentary claims that Bosnia's Muslim majority declared independence
(in the spring of 1992) and that a civil war erupted as result of that. This is
misleading. There was a referendum on March 1, 1992 about the independence where
Bosniaks, Croats and some Serbs voted for independence. A large number of Serbs
voted against or boycotted the referendum. What happened after was that Bosnian
Serb forces along with Serbian forces (both regular and paramilitary) attacked
the Bosniak civilian population and representatives of the Bosnian authorities
in April 1992. After the initial attack on Bosnia, Serbia officially tried to
distance itself from the war, but Serbian authorities continued to support and
exercise control over those forces. This has also been established by the ICTY
and the ICJ. (International Court of Justice)
2
(4) 6:32 The documentary says that “two years later (1992) there is a civil war
in Eastern Bosnia” The documentary does not explain how that war played out in
that part of the country. During the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Bosnia
thousands of civilians were killed and the surviving Bosniaks expelled to
Bosnian-government controlled territory or forced into the enclaves of Goražde,
Žepa and Srebrenica where they were subjected to artillery attacks. These areas
were declared “safe areas” by the UN Security resolution on 16 of April 1993.
One of the main problems with that was that the despite the Security Council's
decision there was a lack of willingness from the UN-member states to send
enough soldiers to protect the area.
3
(8) 25:20 The documentary says that the Bosniaks promised that they would not
attack Serb villages from Srebrenica and not harass the Serbs the area of
Sarajevo in connection to the establishment of the safe areas. It's true that
both sides broke the agreement on demilitarization, but the documentary avoids
mentioning that the situation was asymmetrical and that the Serbs did not remove
their heavy artillery from around Srebrenica. Instead Serbs used it to shell the
area. In addition to blocking aid to the enclaves and taking UN-personnel as
hostages on several occasions. A delegation from the UN-Security Council, led
by Diego Arria arrived in Srebrenica on April 25 1993 and in its report the UN
condemned the Serb forces for carrying out that what was called a “slow-motion
process of genocide” The report concluded “that Serb forces must withdraw to
points from which they cannot attack, harass or terrorize the town”. In the end
the Serbs captured two of the enclaves, Žepa and Srebrenica.
And
lastly, the report points out that it has been proven in the Krstić verdict that
Srebrenica had immense strategic importance for the Serb war effort. Being
situated as it is in the middle of what was planned to be a Greater Serbia.
”Srebrenica (and the surrounding Central Podrinje Region) were… of immense
strategic importance to the Bosnian Serb leadership. Without Srebrenica, the
ethnically pure Serb state of Republika Srpska they sought to create would
remain divided into two disconnected parts, and its access to Serbia proper
would be disrupted.”
NHC
concludes that is the reason why Srebrenica was attacked and that the decision
to kill the male population of Srebrenica has to be viewed in that context.
Note: As
I wrote above, the full report is 18-pages long and points to in total 25
similar falsehoods and factual errors which show that this is not a question of
innocent mistakes, but a deliberate deception on the part of the filmmakers and
the “experts” and “consultants”.
For
my Bosnian readers, I can highly recommend Sanjin Pejković dissection (in
Bosnian) of the documentary. Sanjin has written extensively about it
in Swedish. He, along with Alex Voronov and others were engaged in a debate
with the filmmakers, a debate which the filmmakers lost.
There is of course plenty more to be said about this documentary, and a lot of
it explained by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee's 18-page report as well
Pejković's dissection of the methods used by the filmmakers and what they were
alluding to.
As
for me, I can only say that I am proud to have been a small part of a larger
group of dedicated people who worked on exposing the lies told in the
documentary.
Furthermore for those not interested in recycled Serb nationalist lies and
propaganda, I can highly recommend the following documentaries on Srebrenica:
Srebrenica - A Cry From The Grave, from 1999. Full Documentary.
As
well as the new Dutch documentary: Why
Srebrenica had to Fall
This
post has been edited and updated on 19/07/2015
P.S.
I had previously (erroneously) written that 448 Serbs died in the Bratunac area
in total. That has been corrected. The correct figure is; 567, of those 448 Serb
soldiers and 119 civilians. Follow the
RDC link for full information.