Posted on 06/01/2003 11:04:55 AM PDT by Torie
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Truth at The Hague
By EMIR SULJAGIC
THE HAGUE
I am a Bosnian Muslim from Srebrenica, where more than 7,000 Muslims were killed by Bosnian Serbs in July 1995. I survived because at the time of the massacre I was in Potocari, some 15 miles away from most of the execution sites, working as an interpreter for the United Nations. My uncle, my 70-year-old grandfather, my best friend and almost all of my schoolmates were killed.
Two officers in the Bosnian Serb army, Momir Nikolic and Dragan Obrenovic, last month pleaded guilty before the war crimes tribunal at The Hague for crimes against humanity, admitting they helped plan the Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity committed in Europe since World War II. Both Mr. Nikolic and Mr. Obrenovic have agreed to testify against the other officers indicted for the massacre, which took place in a designated "safe area" under the protection of Dutch United Nations peacekeepers.
The International Commission for Missing Persons for the Former Yugoslavia has collected many of the remains of those killed in Srebrenica. Some 7,500 bags of body parts — many of which may contain pieces of my friends and relatives — are sitting in a warehouse waiting for identification. Yet until the moment Mr. Nikolic confessed, I had never heard a Bosnian Serb admit that the massacre even happened.
In the Serb half of Bosnia, most people claim that the killings in 1995 never took place. When pressed, they sometimes say that the Muslims killed one another in a fight over whether or not to surrender to the Serbs, or that all of those killed were soldiers. Last year, the Bosnian Serb government issued a report claiming that only 2,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in Srebrenica. And of those, the report said, 1,800 were soldiers.
Mr. Nikolic's confession — in which he described in chilling detail how he helped organize the mass execution and burial and an extensive cover-up, all of which he says army superiors ordered him to carry out — punches a big hole in the Bosnian Serb wall of denial. Serbs should have no reason to doubt his admission. Mr. Nikolic has nothing to gain by exaggerating.
I don't expect the confessions by Mr. Nikolic and Mr. Obrenovic to transform Bosnian Serb views. Many of the men he named as co-conspirators are still at large. Some of them still hold senior positions in the Bosnian Serb army; one of them is a member of the Parliament.
But the confessions have brought me a sense of relief I have not known since the fall of Srebrenica in 1995. They have given me the acknowledgment I have been looking for these past eight years. While far from an apology, these admissions are a start. We Bosnian Muslims no longer have to prove we were victims. Our friends and cousins, fathers and brothers were killed — and we no longer have to prove they were innocent.
Emir Suljagic is a reporter for Dani, a magazine based in Sarajevo, and the Institute of War and Peace Reporting.
What planet do you live on?
...but how many thousands around the world have Muslims killed?"
If you're old enough to be able to choose your religion, and you choose to be a Muslim??? Then you opt for a religion espousing murder and death of ALL who disagree with your views. Therefore, you are not an innocent.
Only just this year has the mass murdering Muslim of Srebrenica, Naser Oric, been sent to the Hague.
Weapons, Cash and Chaos Lend Clout to Srebrenica's Tough Guy
SREBRENICA, Bosnia: Nasir Oric's war trophies don't line the wall of his comfortable apartment-- one of the few with electricity in this besieged Muslim enclave stuck in theforbidding mountains of eastern Bosnia. They're on a videocassette tape: burned Serb houses and headless Serb men, their bodies crumpled in a pathetic heap.
"We had to use cold weapons that night," Oric explains as scenes of dead men sliced by knives roll over his 21-inch Sony.
Whether it's European Muslims, African Muslims, or Middle East Muslims, these people have NO credibility at all. About anything.
The detainees in the Hague get along just fine in the prison's canteen - it would appear the whole ethnic hatred thing was for the sheep, not the wolves.
and this is coming from the NY TIMES, from a Bosnian Muslim. Smears with bias and lies through and through.
Serbs have been gang-pressed back in Serbia by the Djindjic crowd to fully cooperate by the time of their arrival in the Hague. This ensures NATO escaping the gun of beating the Serb prisoner into confession. Very simple, as the "key" Serb who was to "put away" Slobo with his confession, stated he was beaten to extort Nato-truth.
Why does this shiptar detail how they decapitated over a dozen Serbian schoolchildren's head and placed their heads on top of their desk for their mothers to see when they did not come home? Where are those bstards who did that? Living in the comfortable protection of IFOR.
The truth you hear from Jamie Shea and the other spin doctors such as Hoplite and yourself who fall for this trash, lasts as long as the cash supply is being fed. When NATO/US has used the Muslims for the last time, you will see how bad the Bosnian Muslims are.
Why was it I was followed by a group of Bosnian Muslims in the Mus-Croat Federation, due to my BG/Beograd plates?
Maybe I should write my own Op-Ed as I did 3 years ago, it went over real well. Maybe Hoplite has it archived somewhere.
My bad, on the RS-Musli Fed/Serbia border. The "co-existance" of the Muslim/Serb border police, what a wonderful idea- woohoo! The Muslim balija guard, for five minutes wanted to know why I had a Serbian first name while I had a traditional muslim last name. The Serb officer did not care as he walked away- bored of his balija partner. Go figure.
should read why did the Muslims in Bosnia maintain a problematic situation on three seperate occassions during my visit in May?
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