Special: Indicted Mass-Rapist, Mass-Murderers, and Other War Criminal Sheltered in Putin's Russia: Vujadin Popovic, Milan Lukic, Dragan Zelenovic. Others Hiding Velibor Ostojic, V Maksimovic, Mladic, Gotovina, Karadzic.

* New: Corpse Mining as International Commerce. Putin Turns KGB into Wanted War-Criminals Protection Force for accused Mass Rapist of Foca and Two Accused Principals in Srebrenica Genocide: 15 March 2005 Press Accounts. Also: IWPR 11 March 05, Novoseoce Murderers at large in Sokolac? Karadzic aide and accused war criminal Rajko Kusic said to be fighting for Russia in Chechnya. New: Jeff Spurr, Bosnia Library Project Final Report [Word document] Project Tolerance and Tradition: Rebuilding the Mosques of Stolac [Word document] and: Peto Pismo biskupu Ratku Pericu Other New Postings: Consecrating Genocide: Bishops and War Criminals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Stanislav Galic Convicted and Sentenced for Strategy to "kill, maim, wound and terrorise the civilian inhabitants of Sarajevo." RS army guilt in Market Massacre Established. Click here for articles on Galic conviction Pavle Strugar Convicted for Attack on Dubrovnik. See IWPR Tribunal Watch 392, 5 February 02 for Strugar Conviction. Savo Todovic, the Disappearer of Foca, to the Hague. Andras Riedlmayer, Crimes in Brisevo, Prijedor Municipality. 8 Nov 04[ Interview with Mustafa ef. Ceric, "Happy to be Muslims in Europe," New Europe Review; Also: Extremist Orthodox Bishop in Ceremony in Honor of Radovan Karadzic; 30 April 2004, Macedonia Charges Four with Murder of Innocent Men in al-Qaeda Arrest Fabrication. Atrocity Denial on Bosnia (with new article by Alan Kocevic). "Packet Man": Ljubisa Beara, Srebrenica's Academician of Death. Savo Todovic, the Disappearer of Foca, to the Hague.

Human Rights Archives on the Genocide in Bosnia (and attempted genocide in Kosovo)   Supplementary Documentation for Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) New Ed. with Preface on Kosovo (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1998)

1996. ISBN 0-520-20690-8 (Cloth) $19.95; ISBN 0-520-21662-8 (Paper, 1998 Edition) $14.95. Order Info: 609-883-1759 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            609-883-1759      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Bosnian Lanugage Edition: Iznevjerni Most, translated by Zoran Mutic (Sarajevo: Sedam Press, 2002)
1997 American Academy Religion Award, Excellence in Historical Studies
Table of Contents and Books Reviews for The Bridge Betrayed,
Correction

New, February 04: Brdjanin genocide trial sees witness recant Deichmann-Trnopolje hoax, along with a call to indict clerics who incite genocide. Also, Diego Enrique Arria on the UN, Milosevic, and slow motion genocide; and: Krajisnik's SDS hired murderers. Oct 03: Deronjic confesses to massacre of Muslim civilians in Glogova, near Bratunac, for which he received applause of Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and Velibor Ostojic:Karadzic clapped as Muslim village burned. 23 Oct 03: Former Yugoslav PM testifies that Tudjman and Milosevic agreed to partition BiH at Karadjodjevo meeting in 1991.

	Nov 2004: On the spring 2004 criminal destruction of Orthodox Serb cultural heritage in Kosovo. See Damage to Churches and Other Cultural/Religious Properties on March 17-18 2002, Cultural Heritage Without Borders. . See also the article by Paul Hockenos in the Bosnia Report April-July 2004 of the Bosnian Institute; the summary the ICG Report #155, Collapse in Kosovo (click the pdf option at the top for the full report), and the full IDF report (63 pages in pdf). Left thumb: fire damage to the 14th century Church of the Holy Virgin of Ljeviska.
	Dec 2003. Dragan Nikolic, commander of the Susica concentration camp near Vlasenica in southeast Bosnia was sentenced to 23 years by the ICTY on 18 December 2003. Nikolic murdered and tortured unarmed prisoners and beat them to death with ax handles and metal pipes, sometimes beating them over a period of several days before they died. Nikolic also organized the rape and gang rape of women and girls. ("Female detainees were sexually assaulted at various locations, such as the guardhouse, the houses surrounding the camp, at the Panorama Hotel, a military headquarters, and at locations where such women were taken to perform forced labour." From count 21). The sentence for this convicted mass murderer, torturer, and rape organizer was more than the prosecutor had recommended. ICTY Amended Indictment (for those with strong stomachs). Sentencing Judgment. IWPR report on D Nikolic.
	Original Text, English Translation; International Criminal Tribunal Indicts Slobodan Praljak, Jadranko Prljic and Five Others for Criminal Conspiracy in the destruction of Stari Most and much of Herzegovina, for organizating the "ethnic cleansing" campaign of the HDZ and HVO in the Mostar region. Former President Tudjman, Gojko Susak, and Mate Boban (all deceased) were cited as co-conspirators.
	October 2003: My draft of an Open Letter to Pope John Paul II appealing for reform of Catholic Church position in the Mostar diocese of Bishop Ratko Peric. (The thumbnail on the left shows a large cross constructed in triumph underneath Pocitelj after the historic town's Islamic monuments were dynamited and burned in 1993). This letter details the situation in the Mostar area, Bishop Peric's rejection of pleas for interreligious cooperation and harsh attacks on returning refugees. Previous appeals had been directed by refugee returnees to the papal nuncio Giuseppe Leanzo but were rejected, leaving Bishop's Peric's policies intact as the apparent Vatican policy in the area.
	Special (May 2003): Zitomislici Revival. Photodocumentation of the renewal and reconstruction of the ancient monastery complex at Zitomislici that was destroyed in 1992 as part of the HVO campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against non-Catholic peoples and their heritage. For a photo-essay on the destruction, carried out by HVO units from the pilgrimage center of Medjugorje, see Zitomislici (1566-1992): Meaning, History, and Tragic End. Revise to Zitomislici (1566-1992-): Meaning, History, Tragic End, and Rebirth.
	Updated (Nov 2004) The Stolac Page Updated: History, Culture, Art, War-Crimes, Reconstruction, with human rights reports, documentation on Bishop Ratko Peric and Don Rajko Markovic's opposition to reconstruction, the superimposition of triumphalist "blood shrines" on the ruins of destroyed non-Catholic sites of worship, and the rebuilding of the Careva dzamija (Emperor's Mosque), also known as the Carsijska dzamija, built in 1519 and dynamited by the HVO in 1993. New sets of images trace the rebuilding of the Careva dzamija and a new report is up on the Podgradska damija, also known as the Dzamija hadze Saliha Bure (Ali-pasina), built in 1732, destroyed in 1993. Newly added to Stolac Page: Rebuilding the Mosques of Stolac and Peto Pismo biskupu Ratku Pericu
	Mladen Naletilic (Tuta) and Vinko Martinovic (Stela) convicted at The Hague of crimes against humanity, sentenced to 20 and 18 years respectively for organized murders, tortures, and expulsions of Orthodox Christians and Muslims in the Mostar area and for inhumanity at Mostar area concentration camps under the control of the Catholic nationalist HDZ party. With the deaths of Gojko Susak and Mate Boban and the sentencing of Dario Kordic and Tihomic Blaskic, these two mid-level mass-murderers were among the highest officials held to account for the organized atrocities in Herzegovina.
	Milomir Stakic, former mayor chairman of the Crisis Group in Prijedor was convicted of crimes against humanity, crimes against the laws and customs of war, and extermination. Stakic was sentenced to life imprisonment, the most severe sentence handed down in the ICTY trials. Stakic was a lead organizer of the killing and the concentration camps system, along with Milan (Mico) Kovacevic and Simo Drljaca. Kovacevic died awaiting trial in The Hague and Drljaca was killed resisting arrest by British SFOR forces. See prosecutor Nicholas Koumijan's meditation on cruelty and courage in Prijedor.
	Ivica Rajic, long-time fugitive from the central Bosnian area near Busovaca was arrested in Croatia and sent to The Hague, 24 June 03. Rajic--considered a favorite of Markica Rebic, an advisor to former Croatian president Franjo Tudjman--was protected by officials in the Croatian government and by police in Split where he lived for impunity for years after his indictment. Rajic was indicted by the International Tribunal for particularly depraved crimes against humanity, but received protection from SFOR troops who were obliged by the Dayton accords to arrest him. (French SFOR had also protected those indicted for organized rape in Foca).

New: Andras Riedlmayer's Testimony against Slobodan Milosevic at the ICTY genocide trial in The Hague.
______________________________________________________________________
Andras Riedlmayer, Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-1996: A
Post-war Survey of Selected Municipalities.
(Expert report prepared for the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia, submitted February 2003).
______________________________________________________________________
"Expert Testifies to Systematic Destruction of Cultural Monuments"
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
Milosevic Trial - The Hague - Court Room One - Day 213, 8 July 2003 (report by Judith Armatta)
Online video of Andras Riedlmayer's 8 July 2003 testimony at the Milosevic trial, Transcript
For video of all Milosevic trial testimony, see the Bard Archive
______________________________________________________________________
The release of the above expert report by the ICTY resulted in what may be the first article in the Serbian press with a straightforward report on
the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in Bosnia in 1992-1996, including the August 1992 burning of Bosnia's National Library:
Davor Pasalic, "U Sarajevu najvecce namerno spaljivanje knjiga u modernoj istoriji: Unissteno 1,5 miliona knjiga"
(In Sarajevo the largest deliberate book-burning in modern history: 1.5 million books annihilated),
Glas javnosti (Belgrade), 26 March 2003

---

Nested levels of Milosevic's atrocity machine collapse. Suspected war-criminals Jovica Stanisic, chief of Serbia's state security secret police force and Franko Simatovic (Frenki), commander of the Red Berets, were arrested following the assassination of Serb President Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2003. They are now subject to hearings in Serbia on their deportation to the Hague.

 

• 1) UN on the UN Betrayal of Srebrenica / Implications for NATO in Kosovo
• 2) A. Herscher and A. Riedlmayer, Destruction of Kosovo's Cultural Heritage
• 3) 7 Misconceptions about Atrocities in Kosovo and NATO's Response
• 4) Short Summary of the Bridge Betrayed
• 5) Selected Reports on Organized Atrocities in Kosovo
• 6) 8 Detailed Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia
• 7) Information on Andras Riedlmayer, Killing Memory
• 8) Boltzmann Institute Report on War-Crimes in Zvornik
• 9) Final Report and Annexes of the Commission of Experts
• 10) Reports of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur
• 11) Helsinki Watch Reports on Bosnia-Herzegovina
• 12) Centers of "Ethnic Cleansing" and Organized Cultural Annihilation in BiH
• 13) Indictments/International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
• 14) IFOR-Protect War-Criminals and Location of War-Criminals
• 15) Genocide and Complicity at Srebrenica and Zepa/Documentation
• 16) Letter of Jeff Spurr to the Economist, on misrepresentations of Bosnia
• 17) History, Culture, and Destruction of Foca
• 18) Culture and Literature of Bosnia under the Ottomans
• 19) The Rabbi of Stolac by Stephen Schwartz and Complete War-Crimes Report
• 20) Links to Sites of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Human Rights
• 21) How to Help/Humanitarian and Reconstruction Projects in the Balkans
• 22) Articles by Michael Sells on U.S. Right Wing and pro-Milosevic Policies
• 23) The Serbian Orthodox Church's Attack on the The Hague
• 24) Michael Sells on Serbian Orthodox Church Claims that NATO Targeted Serbian Monasteries
• 25) The SANU Memorandum
• 26) Svetlana Broz's Good People in an Evil Time

Captives from Srebrenica being held by Serb soldiers in the view of UN protection force soldiers. Almost all of them were murdered a few hours later. The vast majority of male captives between 15 and 60 years of age, shown in photos or video, have either never been seen again or have been indicated only by forensic identification of remains from mass graves.

---

2) Riedlmayer and Herscher: Destruction of Kosovo's Cultural Heritage

 

Left : Close-up of the Hadum Mosque in Gjakova (Djakovica), built in 1594. The surrounding old bazzar historic district was burned and the mosque suffered extensive damage after being set on fire by Serbian police and paramilitaries at the end of March 1999. The photo shows the fire-scarred base of the minaret, the destroyed wooden portico, and (on the right) the burned-out manuscript library of Hadum Suleiman Efendi. (The top of the minaret was shot off by Serb soldiers using a shoulder-launched missle on May 8, 1999). Photo taken October 1999 by Andras Riedlmayer for the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey (Harvard University).

These images are among those featured in Burned Books and Blasted Shrines: Cultural Heritage Under Fire in Kosovo Exhibition, April 15, 2000 through August 15, 2000, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University. The exhibit featured photographs and other materials documenting the systematic destruction of cultural heritage during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo. The photographs, by Andras Riedlmayer, Aga Khan Program bibliographer at Harvard's Fine Arts Library, and Andrew Herscher, a practicing architect and Ph.D. candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, were taken as part of a post-war survey of the state of cultural heritage in Kosovo in October 1999. The survey was supported by a grant from the Packard Humanities Institute. See the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey, sample images

---

---

Kosovo: The Destruction of Cultural and Religious Heritage,
introduction by Andras Riedlmayer, 20 September 2000.

In October 1999, the architect Andrew Herscher and I traveled to the Balkans to conduct a post-war survey of damage to Kosovo's cultural and religious heritage---historical architecture, houses of worship, museums, libraries and archives. Our survey was funded by the Packard Humanities Institute and sponsored by Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.Below is our latest report, summing up our findings on architecture. An edited version of the report appears in the July-August 2000 issue of US/ICOMOS Newsletterand in the October-December 2000 issue of Bosnia Report (London), which also published our two previous survey reports:

"Libraries and Archives in Kosovo: A Postwar Report"
"Museums in Kosovo: A First Postwar Assessment"

We found that architecture, manuscript collections, and archives of the period of Ottoman rule in Kosovo (mid-1400s to 1912) had been singled out for destruction during the 'ethnic cleansing' campaigns of 1998-99. Among the most serious losses of manuscript materials was the burning of the Central Archive of the Islamic Community of Kosovo (KBI), which included the records of the religious endowments (evkaf), of the Islamic law courts, and of other Islamic religious and educational institutions in Kosovo going back to the 17th century. The archive was set ablaze by Serbian policemen on June 13, 1999, and was completely destroyed. Several regional archives of the KBI, and manuscript libraries in Peja (ipek, Pec), Gjakova (Yakova, Djakovica) and other towns in Kosovo, were also burned. An estimated half of the holdings of Kosovo's public and academic libraries---nearly a million books---were also destroyed.

Major architectural losses include 219 mosques (1/3 of all mosques in Kosovo), three of Kosovo's four well-preserved historic urban centers, as well as hundreds of other monuments. There was widespread and systematic destruction during the war of traditional residential architecture in Kosovo's towns and villages, especially the mansions (konak, kulla) of the old Albanian families.

Although Kosovo's famous medieval Orthodox churches and monasteries remain intact and are well-guarded by UN peacekeeping forces (KFOR), following the end of the war in June 1999 scores of less well-known Serb churches in rural areas were damaged or destroyed in revenge attacks by returning Albanian villagers.

Subsequent to our survey, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International Council on Archives (ICA) sent their own expert missions to Kosovo which confirmed and expanded on our findings. Their reports are available on the web:

"Libraries in Kosova/Kosovo" by Carsten Frederiksen and Frode Bakken
"General Assessment of the Situation of Archives in Kosovo" by Bruce Jackson and Wladyslav Stepniak

Sample images from our survey of damage to architectural heritage in Kosovo can be retrieved here.

A satellite photo taken at the end of March 1999, showing the historic urban center of Gjakova being set ablaze by Serb police, can be seen here.

Andras J. Riedlmayer,
Fine Arts Library, Harvard University

Also posted by Andras Riedlmayer on JUSTWATCH: Rexhep Boja Condemns Reprisal Attacks against Serbs in Kosovo

Updates: Fr Sava Janjic and Qemal Morina, Constructive Religious Leaders Discuss the Causes of Violence in Kosovo, RFE/RL 7 Oct 04; Natasa Kandic, Humanitarian Law Center, Acknowledged and Unacknowledged Albanian Graves, 11 November 2004;

=======================================================================

 THE AUTHORS:

Andrew Herscher is an architect, PhD candidate in architectural history and theory at Harvard University, and co-director of the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project. Andras J. Riedlmayer directs the Aga Khan Program's Documentation Center for Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard's Fine Arts Library and is co-director of the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project. 

4) Short Summary of The Bridge Betrayed Followed by Full War-Crimes Documentation:

Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, new printing with a preface on Kosovo, 1998).

The Bridge Betrayed portrays from a human perspective assault on Bosnia and the resistance by Bosnians. It shows how the genocide was motivated and justified through the manipulation of the mythology of Kosovo which culminated at the 600th anniversary passion play of Kosovo, the remembrance of the death of Prince Lazar--portrayed as a Christ-figure, fighting the Turks at the battle of Kosovo in 1389, the "Serbian Golgotha." Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian religious nationalists, including the leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church, worked to militarize the Kosovo story. Through exploiting the powerful symbols of Kosovo, Milosevic came to power, overthrew the governments of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina, broke apart Yugoslavia, and carried out genocide in Bosnia, and then Kosovo.

The Bridge Betrayed also demonstrates the activities of Croat religious nationalists in destroying non-Catholic culture and communities throughout Herzegovina and especially in the Mostar Region, culminating in the deliberate destruction of the ancient bridge that symbolized the bridge of cultures, religions, and peoples in Bosnia throughout the centuries.

At the Kosovo commemoration of 1989, Serbian religious nationalists combined four symbols into a lethal mythology: (1) a militarized portrayal of the sacred time of 1389, (2) the sacred space of Kosovo or the "Serb Jerusalem," (3) the historical memory of WW2 atrocities against Serbs, and (4) false accusations that Albanians were carrying out WW2 style genocide against Serbs. Through media control they generated a mass psychology of fear and hate. The militarized mythology of Kosovo was instrumentalized by the militias, religious leaders, and secret police of Serbia throughout the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Kosovo story had become ideology of Christoslavism, the view that Slavs are Christian by essence and that conversion from Christianity entails a race transformation and a race betrayal. Most ominously, the militarized mythology maintains that those who converted to Islam became "Turks" and are responsible, along with their descendants, for the killing of Prince Lazar, the Christ-prince of the "Serbian Golgotha" of 1389.

To understand the genocidal intentions of militant Serb nationalists we must understand Kosovo. But the cliché that the conflict is "age old and inevitable" is false; and indeed, it reflects the distorted history of the "ethnic cleansers" rather than historical reality. The abuse of the Kosovo legend to motivate genocide has been carried out by Serbian religious, intellectual and political leaders, and there was nothing inevitable about such manipulation. Serbia will retrieve its greatness when it finds a vision of Serbian heritage, including the Kosovo story, focused upon building community rather than destruction. New leaders such as Father Sava Janjic, quoted at the beginning of the new edition of The Bridge Betrayed, offer a more inclusive and humane vision of Serbian religious heritage.

			Peja (Serbian: Pec). Mosque of Sultan Muhammed the Conqueror (Xhamia e Carshise, Bajrakli Xhamia). Built 1471, it is one of the oldest mosques in Kosovo. On June 11, 1999, just two days before the arrival of the first NATO peacekeeping troops, eyewitnesses saw Serbian policemen set the interior ablaze using canisters of gasoline. The mosque's prayer carpets, the women's balcony and other interior woodwork, and scores of Qur'an manuscripts were consumed by the flames. The carved surface of the 15th-century marble minbar (pulpit) was partly calcinated (turned into powdery burned lime) by the heat.

Selected Reports, from March-April, 1999

• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 14 / Mass Killings Around Velika Krusa, Kosovo
• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 15 / Mass Deportations viewed from Kukes, Albania
• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 16 / Organized, Mass Atrocities by Serbian Police at Dakovica
• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 17 / The Emptying of Prishtina and Organized Atrocities
• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 27 / Massacre of More Than 60 Villagers in Bela Crvka
• Human Rights Watch Kosovo Report 28 / Killings and Atrocities in Southern Kosovo
• Open Society Institute Report 59 / Mass-Killings and Organized and Atrocities
• Open Society Institute Report 60 / Mass-Killings and Organized Crimes Against Humanity in Bosnia
• International Crisis Group Reports on Bosnia and Kosovo

---

---

6) Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia
Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 771
 

	Left: Milan "Mico" Kovacevic and Simo Drljaca	Indicted for genocide in the Prijedor area of Bosnia-Herzegovina.	Reports Numbered and Indexed by Michael Sells and Aida Premilovac
Index	1st report	2nd report	3rd report, part I
3rd report II	4th report I	4th report II	5th report
6th report I	6th report II	7th report I	7th report II
7th report III	8th report I	8th report II	8th report III

---

---

7) Summary of Andras Riedlmayer's Killing Memory

Bosnia's National Library in Sarajevo, shelled and burned by Serb military forces on August 25-26, 1992 in the largest book burning in history.

Andras Riedlmayer: Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and Its Destruction (Philadelphia: Community of Bosnia, 1994), vhs, 55 minutes.

"Ethnic Cleansing" genocide involves the systematic annihilation of sacral monuments, libraries, museums, and all other traces that the targeted people ever existed. In this gripping and lucid presentation of Bosnia's history, heritage, and the systematic attack on it by religious nationalist militias, Andras Riedlmayer presents traces the deliberate burning of the Sarajevo National Library on August 22, 1992 by the Serb army (the largest book burning in modern history), the burning of the Oriental Institute on May 17, 1992 in which the largest collection of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Aljamiado manuscripts in Southeast Europe went up in flames; the attack on the National Museum of Sarajevo; the dynamiting of the great mosques and churches of Bosnia, including the sixteenth century Ferhad Pasha mosque in Banja Luka and the Aladza (Colored) Mosque in Foca, masterworks of Balkan architecture; the destruction of entire ancient towns such as Pocitelj, Stolac, and Zitomoslici, the annihilation of the Mostar bridge and attempt to destroy all of Serbian and Islamic heritage in Mostar by Croat religious nationalists, and the campaign to rewrite history by claiming that there "never were any mosques" in Zvornik and Foca, after Serb religious nationalists destroyed dozens of mosques. Presented with a clear narrative and a brilliant summary of Bosnian history, with slides of the monuments before and after their destruction, this work is a key resource in the understanding of cultural genocide. It is also a compelling introduction to Bosnia for those who do not know its history and wish to understand the current situation, valuable for small groups, large groups, public education, and classroom use. For information on ordering this internationally praised video click above. 

New 2003: Hundreds of Bodies Found in Mass Grave at Glumina, near Zvornik, the 294th mass grave discovered in BiH. (See also here, here, and here.)

9) Final Report and Annexes of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council resolution 780 (1992) The Report and Annexes can be found at this University of the West of England (UWE) site The Report and Annexes can also be found at this Bosnet site (Note, the CIJ version of the Reports once posted by J.L. Maillot is no longer on line)

 

 

10) Reports of Tadeusz Mazowiecki Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, pursuant to paragraph 32 of Commission resolution 1993/7 of 23 February 1993, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Commision in September 1992.   General Ratko Mladic, Indicted for Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Still At Large

 

 

11) Summaries of Helsinki Watch Reports on Bosnia-Herzegovnia and Information on How to Obtain These Reports. (Formerly at http://www.hrw.org/research/bosnia.html)   Zeljko Radznatovic (Arkan), indicted by the ICTY for crimes against humanity in Croatia and BiH, assassinated in Belgrade 19 January 2000

 

Complete Indictments, Press Releases, and Decisions can be found at the ICTY Web site, along with some transcripts of the trials and other critical information. Go to the ICTY website and click on the box that says "Tribunal Cases". This will take you to a listing of of all ICTY proceedings. I have downloaded some major documents below:

From the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ),
Eye Witness Survivor Testifies About Executions in Bosnia

International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), Milosevic Trial - The Hague - Court Room One, Day 193, 29 May 2003. This article offers a vivid sense of one person's experience in the genocide machine in Bosnia-Herzegovina. One person who survived the exterminations at Dom Kultura, known simply as Witness B-55 at the Milosevic genocide trial. Here is how the article begins: "THE HAGUE - Witness B-1455 was one of the 91 men and 150 women and children taken by Serb forces from his village to the Dom Kultura in Drinjaca, Bosnia-Herzegovina on May 30, 1992. He was one of three men to survive. His father and three brothers were murdered after a day of beatings, during a night of executions. Though shot twice, he managed to escape. As a result of his wounds, B-1455 is permanently disabled, unable to find more than menial work for low pay. With psychological treatment, the nightmares he experienced for many years have subsided. He told the Court he was lucky to be alive, to have his mother, wife and children with him." Click hypertext for full article.
 

15) GENOCIDE AT SREBRENICA

 

In mid-July, 1995, the UN proclaimed "safe havens" Srebrenica and Zepa were handed over by UN commanders to the Serb nationalist army, after being besieged, shelled and starved for almost three years. After the fall of Srebenica and Zepa, approximately eight thousand men and boys disappeared, and are feared dead. The surviving Muslim population was expelled to Bosnian goverment-held territories, with atrocities and maltreatment throughout the expulsion process. For an archive of reports on Srebrenica, see the Community of Bosnia Foundation Srebrenica page.  Another Secondary Mass Grave from Srebrenica Discovered PHOTO [no longer available]: Bosnian Muslim Sabaheta Fejzic looks on while a Bosnian forensic expert Murat Hurtic inspects clothes in an attempt to identify remains of her husband Saban and son Rijad, missing since July 1995, at a mass grave site in the village of Bljeceva, near the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac, 50 kms north of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004. Forensics experts believe this mass grave contains over 200 body remains and it is considered to be a secondary mass grave. Most of the remains are believed to be those of Muslims from Srebrenica killed in July 1995 during the fall of Srebrenica. A so-called secondary grave is where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) PHOTO: Bosnian Muslim Kada Hotic looks at body remains in an attempt to identify her brother missing since July 1995 at a mass grave site in the village of Bljeceva, near the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac, 50 kms north of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004. Forensics experts believe this mass grave contains over 200 body remains and it is considered to be a secondary mass grave. Most of the remains are believed to be those of Muslims from Srebrenica killed in July 1995 during the fall of Srebrenica. A so-called secondary grave is where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)   Marko Boskic: Alleged Srebrenica mass killer found in Boston. Identified in part because of the reporting of the late Elizabeth Neuffner who was killed later in Iraq. See the Boskic articles. Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic, Senior Bosnian Serb commander after General Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide at Srebrenica and sentenced to 46 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Among the unarmed captives from Srebrenica, most of whom were never seen alive again.. Radislav Krstic indictment Radislav Krstic conviction   New as of September 2003. Srebrenica: apparatus of denial collapsing. 1) Momir Nikolic, pleads guilty. 2) 20 May 2003: Dragan Obrenovic pleads guilty, details exterminations. Excerpt: "He {Ostoja Stanisic} was angry as the last group of prisoners were not taken to the dam to be executed, but were executed right there at the school and that his men (the 6th Battalion Rear Services) had to clean up the mess at the school, including the removal of the bodies to the dam." See also the IWPR report on the Obrenovic plea. New: 29 September 2003, M. Nikolic admits false testimony on his responsibility for Kravica massacre (IWPR Tribunal Update).

 

 

16) Letter of Jeff Spurr to The Economist refuting the anti-Islamic stereotypes and distortions of Brooke Ungar's article on Bosnia, "A Ghost of a Chance" 1/24/98, stereotypes disturbingly similar to those used by the government of John Major to justify its abandonment of Bosnia-Herzegovina to "ethnic cleansing" and aggression.

 

 

17) Foca     For an illustrated history of Foca's culture and its destruction, follow this link.  Left: Exterior Aladza mosque, constructed in 1551, Dynamited in 1993.       Early in the spring and summer of 1992, Serb religious nationalists captured the predominantely Muslim town of Foca on the banks of the Drina river in the eastern Bosnia. Only few days after entering the town, the religious nationalists started a systematic campaign of annihilating every trace of Bosnian Muslim civilization. The famous Aladza (Colored) mosque, built in 1551, was dynamited, and on its place, today, there is a bus parking lot. The state-run prison and the Partizan Sports Hall, and other sites were transformed into rape centers where Muslim women and girls were held and rape for days, sometimes weeks. In a historic trial, three Serb militia leaders were prosecuted for particularly depraved and systematic rape and sexual abuse crimes and were convicted at The Hague for rape as a war-crime, establishing a precedent for the prosecution of organized rape in international courts.

 

 

18) On the Literary Culture of Bosnia-Herzegovina One aspect of the ideology of "ethnic cleansing" is the claim that groups such as Bosnjaks had no culture, a claim made insistently by nationalists such as Ivo Andric, who asserted the point in his doctoral dissertation (see the discussion of Andric in The Bridge Betrayed). For an antidote for such stereotypes, see the the fine work by by Edin Hajdarpasic: Herceg-Bosnia and Eastern Scholarship, Translated by Edin Hajdarpasic from the appendix of Kratka Uputa u Proslost Bosne I Hercegovine (A Short Instruction in the Past of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1463-1850); Sarajevo: Vlastita Naklada, 1900, Safvet beg Basagic Redzepasic.

 

 

19) Community and Its Destruction in Stolac For a moving and illuminating essay on the history, significance, and deliberature destruction of the culture of Stolac, Herzegovina by the Croat Defense Council, see Stephen Schwartz, The Rabbi of Stolac. Updated (May 2003) The Stolac Page Updated: History, Culture, Art, War-Crimes, Reconstruction, with human rights reports, documentation on Bishop Ratko Peric and Don Rajko Markovic's opposition to reconstruction, the superimposition of triumphalist "blood shrines" on the ruins of destroyed non-Catholic sites of worship, and the rebuilding of the Careva dzamija (Emperor's Mosque), also known as the Carsijska dzamija, built in 1519 and dynamited by the HVO in 1993. New sets of images trace the rebuilding of the Careva dzamija and a new report is up on the Podgradska damija, also known as the Dzamija hadze Saliha Bure (Ali-pasina), built in 1732, destroyed in 1993.

 

20) Links to:

The Ghostbuster--Razbijaci Duhova--Briseurs de Spectres Project on the Construction of Public Memory in Bosnia-Herzegovina " Despite the important changes in government in Croatia and Yugoslavia, the views of history dominant in various parts of BiH continue to differ radically, originating, as they usually do, in Zagreb, Belgrade, or Sarajevo. Rather than attempt to achieve a shared history, the Ghostbusters attempt to apply, in the most professional and critical way, relatively new methods and new questions to evidence about how these separate histories have been told, narrated, symbolically communicated, represented, and shaped in the years since 1992." Balkan Witness, with documentation and excellent links to other Balkan human rights and war-crimes documentation sites. Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) The above page features the past issues of Tribunal Update, written by Mirko Klarin, the authoritative and ongoing account of all the trials of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, along with issues of War Report, one of the finest journals on human rights issues in the Balkans and other regions. Office of the High Representative (OHR) Human Rights Reports on Bosnia These OHCC reports include details of efforts at refugee resettlement and abuses of returning refugees in each area of Bosnia, along with any OSCE measures to counteract the terror.  Human Rights Review An important new journal for the exploration of major issues such as genocide and civil war, with links to human rights sites around the world and examples of the latest scholarship. BiH Commission to Preserve National Monuments Zeljko Peratovic, Investigate Reporting, War and Organized Crimes in Southeastern Europe International Crisis Group (ICG) The Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) European Stability Initiative on Bosnia International Criminal Tribunal on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) International Crisis Group "Crisisweb" Page This Week in Bosnia-Herzegovina The BosNet "Milosevic War Crimes" Page The TRP Indict Milosevic Appeal Mario Profaca War Crimes Reports Page Women For Women in Bosnia (formed in response to systematic rape as a tool of "ethnic cleansing"). Greek Helsinki Watch/Bosnia-Herzegovina (with links to 8 major sites for human-rights reports on BiH). International Court Page International Court page: Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia Genocide Case The Tile Project, Destination: The World (with three Bosnian artists among those exhibiting, Alma Suljevic, Marko Pasalic and Cazim Hadzimejlic) Stephen Schwartz on the Sefardim of Sarajevo and What Sefardic Studies Could Offer

 

 

21) How to Help How To Help Kosovar and Bosnian Refugees and Sources of Information on the Kosovo Situation FOB director Glenn Ruga's Visit to Refugee Camps in Macedonia and Albania ZaMir Peace Network in the War Zone / People Search / Data Base for Kosovar Albanians Women For Women Sponsorship Program for Refugees From Kosovo