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Why has the War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia suppressed forensic testimony about Srebrenica?
by Jared Israel and Max Sinclair (22-6-00)

On June 2, the War Crimes Tribunal or ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) recessed. Just before it recessed, the Tribunal held a week of forensic testimony in the case of Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic. The testimony was duly reported by the ICTY. Those who testified were even named. But none of the testimony was published by the ICTY or leaked to the press. How come?

General Krstic is on trial for his alleged role in what the Tribunal claims was the massacre of thousands of Islamist soldiers which supposedly took place when the Bosnian Serb army took the town of Srebrenica in Bosnian 1995.

We say 'alleged' and 'supposedly' and 'claims' because the only thing the Tribunal has actually proven is that the Serb Army did defeat Islamist forces at Srebrenica in '95.

The rest is accusation unencumbered by evidence.

After four years of press releases full of propaganda and unsupported claims, the Tribunal has not produced a shred of evidence that there was in fact a massacre.

The forensic experts' testimony was the Tribunal's big chance. Finally they could show the public some scientific evidence supporting NATO's claim that General Radislav Krstic's soldiers killed POWs loyal to Nasir Oric in Srebrenica.

Yet there is no news. There is not one article about the testimony. There are no interviews, no emotional statements from forensic experts overwhelmed by the horrors perpetrated by the Serbs. Nothing.

Why not?

Why doesn't the ICTY let the various Forensic Teams publish their findings?

Victims or Villains

Yugoslavia says the whole Krstic trial is an effort to turn matters upside down. That during the period when Islamist forces under Nasir Oric controlled Srebrenica the Islamists killed some 3,000 Serbian civilians in the area. Nasser Oric went public at that time, proudly displaying a video of Serbian civilians his troops had mutilated.

On the other side, what is there? With all the resources of NATO backing the Tribunal, what is there? There is only…a claim. NATO's claim that Gen. Krstic's soldiers killed 8,000 Islamist POWs.

According to the tribunal, forensic scientists have discovered 1,668 bodies 'in and around the Srebrenica area'. Is this true? We have only the Tribunal's word. And if it is true, whose bodies did the forensic experts find?

Now we are told the experts have testified. Why hasn't their testimony been made public?

Could it be their testimony was unacceptable (for NATO)?

Is the ICTY silent because their experts didn't testify the way NATO wanted them to testify?

Because they didn't say thousands of POWs were killed by Krstic's soldiers? Because they did say the bodies they had uncovered were the bodies of Serbian civilians murdered by Nasser Oric's terrorists, allied with NATO?

One might object to this line of reasoning. One might say "Why should a court publicize the testimony in a trial? Why should a court treat testimony as if it were propaganda?"

And that would be fair enough except that since its inception the Tribunal has frequently treated testimony as propaganda. And not only testimony that has actually been given but also testimony that may not have been given (i.e., that we are told was given in secret by witnesses later identified by a letter, as in 'the witness L testified that...,' as if the ICTY was not a Tribunal at all but a team of ghostwriters for Franz Kafka). Indeed the members of this court have made propaganda out of any and every morsel of rumor or gossip, every image that can be manipulated to attack the Serbs. For example, consider this from the 'Associated Press:'

"Chief Prosecutor of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia Carla del Ponte, center, looks at a coffin being removed from a mass grave site by ICTY investigators in the village of Qirez, central Kosovo, on Wednesday, June 21, 2000. Del Ponte is on the second day of her visit to Kosovo where she met with U.N. and KFOR officials as well as Albanian and Serb community leaders." (AP Photo/Visar Kryezium, 6/21/2000)
Aside from the fact that this anti-Serb photo op offers no evidence as to who was actually buried in the graveyard - Serbs killed by the KLA? Serbs, Albanians or 'Gypsies' who died of natural causes? Albanian loyalists assassinated by Albanian secessionists? KLA terrorists shot in battle by the Yugoslav Army? ...

Aside from the question, "Since when do bloodthirsty mass murderers bury their victims in wooden coffins?" (To which the obvious answer is: ''Never.") ...

Aside from these questions there is another: "Since when do serious international courts send their chief prosecutors to make appearances when coffins are being pulled out of the ground in order to stage mass-grave photo ops?"

To which the answer is: "They don't, not if they are indeed serious international courts." Which suggests that the War Crimes Tribunal is indeed not a serious international court. It is the propaganda arm of NATO, organized by Madeline Albright, financed by NATO, designed and groomed and paid very well thank you to prove that NATO has done and is doing the right thing and that the Serbs are monsters.

So how come this War Crimes Tribunal and its Public Relations staff didn't stage any photo ops with the forensic experts who testified about Srebrenica?

Isn't this a case where silence is eloquent?

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/sinclair/why.htm

Rule Number One: Take nothing at face value. Question everything.