Do not forget

Series 3

This series is based on scientifically verified knowledge and the essential results of scientific research, of the many eminent researcher institutions of genocide and other crimes against humanity and international law in Europe and the world.

Genocide in Srebrenica

The Serb aggressor (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia and Montenegro) with the participation of their (Serb) collaborationists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in and around Srebrenica – UN safe area in July 1995, during one week killed thousands of Bosniacs and buried them in the mass graves; buried alive hundreds; mutilated and slaughtered men, women, and children; killed children in front of their mothers; forced a grandfather to eat liver of his grandchild; raped women and girls; deported around 30,000 people, mainly women and children, played the scenes from the Dante hell. There are numerous pieces of evidence in support of this, including mass graves, covered by grass, while the beasts carried away the bodies left on a surface or shallowly buried. According to the ICTY, these are “the scenes from hell, written in the darkest pages of the human history”.

Genocide against Bosniacs of Bosnia and Herzegovina in and around UN safe area Srebrenica in July 1995, by its extent is a paradigm of the suffering of Bosnia and Bosniacs. The character of armed conflict and the nature of crimes were particularly expressed in Srebrenica – UN safe area in July 1995. The aggression (international armed conflict) was heinous, brutal – and of conquering and genocidal character. In the presence and complicity of the UN soldiers (Dutch battalion) the genocide against Bosniacs was committed.

On 11 July 1995, “Republika Srpska Army” took over Srebrenica, UN safe area. Dutch battalion “did not fire a single bullet at the coming Serb forces”. At 16:20 hours, “Srebrenica was full of Serbs”. Around 16:30 hours, thousands of refugees tried to escape towards Potočari. In late afternoon hours, Generals Ratko Mladić, Milenko Živanović, Radislav Krstić, and other officers of Republika Srpska Army “victoriously” walked along Srebrenica streets, while thousands of refugees walked towards Potočari, desperately asking for the protection of the Dutch battalion. At the main square in Srebrenica, General Ratko Mladić stated: “Here we are, 11 July 1995 in Serb Srebrenica. In the eve of the Serb holiday, we give Serb people this town as a gift. Finally, the time has come that we can revenge here to Turks after the rebellion against the invaders.” Karadžić personally (“marketing purposes”, “he needs it for some reasons”) ordered that a Greek flag be raised next to the Serb flag in Srebrenica, whose citizens (Greeks), in addition to Russians and other, took part in the attack and the take over of Srebrenica.

On 12 and 13 July 1995, Serb military and police forces, including the units from Serbia and “Republika Srpska Krajina”, in summary proceedings, in various places around the UN base in Potočari liquidated Bosniac men, including children and women.

During 12 and 13 July 1995, “Republika Srpska Army” organized and executed the planned deportation of women, children, and the elderly from Potočari towards Kladanj. Around the noon of 12 July 1995, according to the previous plan, a number of buses and trucks, including vehicles from Serbia, started arriving to Potočari to deport women, children, and the elderly.

On 12 and 13 July 1995, in Potočari, there was the most systematic separation of men and boys from women and children. In the morning of 12 July, the great Serbian forces, in the presence started in the presence and upon the order of Ratko Mladić, and with the participation of police officers with dogs, picked and separated men and children from other refugees and took them, apprehended, and kept them in separate places in and around Potočari. On one side there were women and children who cried and screamed, especially children who watched their father being taken away, and on the other side the screaming, crying, yelling and shots were heard. This continued throughout the night of 12 July 1995. They took the separated individuals to a location in front of the Zink factory, and then during the same night they transported them on trucks to other places of incarceration. Once the refugees started embarking the buses, Serb police officer and soldiers systematically separated men who tried to sneak into the buses, depriving them of their personal property (personal documents and valuables). They also took those people to a building known as “White house” (in the immediate vicinity of the UN base), where they made them, before entering the building, leave their personal belonging, including money, personal ID’s, which they burnt later on. All the separated men were kept in very inhuman conditions, while some of them were tortured and killed. There were boys among them. The separation continued during the embarking the vehicles and the deportation.

The largest number of separate Bosniacs in Potočari (over 1,000), starting on the 12 July afternoon throughout 13 July 1995, were loaded into separate vehicles and they were transported from Potočari to the places of incarceration in Bratunac. There, they also brought people who tried to escape on a column, and from there they took them all to the site of execution.

On 13 July 1995 in late afternoon, between 1,000 and 1,500 captives from Sandići were taken to Kravica and they were forced to enter the Farming cooperative, where a huge massacre was committed. Around 18:00 hours, they were all executed (RPG, hand held rocket launchers, hand grenades, bullets).

A large number of captives were killed in the Vuk Karadžić school in Bratunac and in other locations along the road Kravica – Milići, as well as Konjević Polje.

In the late evening hours, on 13 July 1995, he started with the execution of the instruction which he received from Radovan Karadžić and the order of General Mladić to take all the captives to Zvornik and kill them. During the night between 13 and 14 July 1995, around 2,000 – 5,000 men, previously separated in Potočari and elsewhere, were transported from Bratunac (in around 30 buses) to the gym of the elementary school in Grbavci (near Orahovac) and other schools, where some of them were killed behind the school while others were taken elsewhere and killed. On 14 July 1995, in the early morning hours, soldiers of the “Republika Srpska Army” blindfolded men in the Grabovica school, about 1,000 of them, loaded them on trucks and took them to a neighboring field near Orahovac, ordered them to come down from trucks, and killed them in summary execution from the automatic weapons. They were all blindfolded. General Ratko Mladić personally observed the execution. Immediately after their execution, the killed were buried in mass graves (14 and 15 July).

On 14 July 1995, Republika Srpska Army and/or police took between 1,500 and 2,000 captives from Bratunac and took them to Petkovci, imprisoned them in the gym of the elementary school, where they beat them up, ill-treated and shot at them from the automatic rifles. They tied the hands of the captives behind their back, make them take off their shoes, and during the night of the 14th and in the morning of 15 July 1995 transported them a place near the Dam by Petkovci. There were already many killed people there, with their face down and hands tied behind their back. They gathered these people below the dam, and killed in the summary execution in groups of 5-10. In the morning of the 15 July 1995, “Republika Srpska Army” used the diggers and other machines to bury the victims, while the executions were still in progress.

On 16 July 1995, at the Military Farm Branjevo, following this pattern, around 1,200 captives were killed, who were taken to Pilice on 14 July 1995. Then, they called them out of the school, loaded them on trucks with the hands tied behind their back and transported them to the Military Farm Branjevo, where they lined them up in groups of ten and then killed them. Then, the digger picked the bodies of the killed.

On the same day (around 15:00 hours) another execution was carried out. The soldiers of the Bratunac brigade, together with other members of the “Republika Srpska” army and police, in the building of Cultural center in Pilice in summary execution killed with the automatic weapons about 500 people. The following day, soldiers of the Zvornik brigade collected the mortal remains, transported them to the military farm Branjevo and buried them in a mass grave.

Also on 16 July 1995 “Republika Srpska Army” killed several hundreds of captives (around 500) in an isolated location near Kozluk and buried them in a nearby mass grave.

“Republika Srpska” armed forces, in cooperation with the units from Serbia and “Republika Srpska Krajina”, foreign mercenaries, following the great Serbian ideology, politics and practice deported “all Muslim women and children” from Potočari, while they captured, imprisoned and killed thousands of men and boys, who tried to escape after the fall of Srebrenica, UN safe area, and buried them in mass graves in hidden locations.

In this ruthless “operation of killing”, mainly during four days, with the intention and based on exactly defined pattern, in a horrific way, more than 8,000 captured and detained Bosniacs were killed, which was motivated by their national, ethnic, religious background and the attempt to take over their living space, marked in great Serbian plans as territory of strategic relevance. Three generations of men were exterminated. This is the biggest individual and in short time committed massacre and a complete persecution of people in Europe ever since WWII. Exactly fifty years since the end of the Nazi Holocaust, the same crime was repeated in Europe, whose brutality and lack of reaction is “a synonym of huge failure of the international community”.

The takeover of Srebrenica, deportation of civilian from Potočari and the operation of capturing, detention, and execution of Bosniacs are the acts of genocide, well planned, envisaged, efficiently organized, widespread, ordered from the top political and military leadership, and executed systematically according to the plan.

Number of the killed and the short period of execution, quick formation of mass graves, quick burials in mass graves, dislocation of mortal remains to secondary and tertiary mass graves suggest that the political, military, administrative, and police potential of the Serb forces supported by a large number of disciplined perpetrators took part in the plan, preparation, execution and the cover up of genocide. According to the research of the Republika Srpska Government, more than 25,000 people took part in the genocide against Bosniacs of Bosnia and Herzegovina in and around the UN safe area in July 1995. Ideological, political, and military leader in genocide was the state Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and the great Serbian regime of Slobodan Milošević, while the key executors were the Army of (Federal Republic) Yugoslavia, Republic of Serbia Ministry of the Interior, collaborationist units of the great Serbian aggressor in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (“Republika Srpska Army”, “Republika Srpska Ministry of the Interior” and other organs of the executive and administrative authorities of the para-state Republika Srpska), mercenaries from Greece and alike.

The massive crime against Bosniacs of Islamic religion was committed in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. That crime is an act of genocide against Muslims. The area were the crimes were committed, speed of execution of several thousands of people, territory in which the bodies were buried, multiple transfer of mortal remains, and the number of individuals who took part in the execution and the covering of the crime absolutely indicate that the crimes were known to a large number of people and that they were persistently concealed. Imprecise mandate of the UN is one of the elements of proof that there was no political will to protect lives of civilians and prevent the worst crime, so that the UN could act decisively in accordance with the UN Charter and the spirit of the international law.

Sources of scientific knowledge:
1.Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law, University of Sarajevo
2.Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada
3.The International Criminal Tribunal for areas of the former Yugoslavia
4. The International Court of Justice