Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

POTOCARI
338
million Gypsies were killed, and proportionately they suffered losses greater than any
other group of victims except the Jews.
Potocari. Potocari is a small industrial town about five kilometers north of the Bosnian
city of Srebrenica. During the Bosnian War of 1992–1995, the United Nations, on April
16, 1993, decreed the establishment of six so-called safe areas in Muslim territory that it
guaranteed to protect from Bosnian Serb attacks. Srebrenica was one of these, and it was
the Dutch army that was given the task of providing the garrison. Codenamed Dutchbat
(short for “Dutch Battalion”), the Netherlands troops set up their base in an abandoned
factory at Potocari. In July 1995, Serb units of the Drina Corps led first by General
Milenko Zivanovic (b. 1946), then by General Radislav Krstic (b. 1945), under the overall
command of General Ratko Mladic (b. 1942), advanced on the Srebrenica safe area
with the full intention of conquering the town for Republika Srpska. Between twenty
thousand and twenty-five thousand refugees fled before the Serb assault, nearly all heading
for the Dutchbat base at Potocari, where they sought sanctuary and protection. In
what is now generally recognized as a classic symbol of the United Nations’ ineffectiveness
throughout the entire Bosnian conflict, the Dutchbat troops (out-manned and outgunned)
at Potocari stood by helplessly as the Serbs moved in, evacuated the women and
children in a convoy of buses, and systematically rounded up and hunted down the Muslim
males (some seven thousand to eight thousand boys and men) and murdered them in
what became the biggest single massacre on European soil since the Holocaust.
Today, Potocari is the site of a large memorial and cemetery for those victims of the
massacre who have been identified and reinterred. The memorial is situated immediately
opposite the former Dutchbat base, now a complex of mostly abandoned buildings.
Potsdam Conference. Between July 17 and August 2, 1945, the Allied leaders—President
Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) of the United States, Premier Josef Stalin (1878–1953) of
the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) of Great Britain—
met at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin, to discuss a wide variety of post–World War II issues,
often without agreement, among which was the establishment of the International Military
Tribunal (IMT) to try the Nazi leadership for war crimes. This conference was a continuation
and resolution of work previously done at their meeting at Yalta. Also discussed were
strategies for the continuing war with Japan, including a declarative call for “unconditional
surrender.”
The “Protocol of the Proceedings” or “Potsdam Declaration,” as it has come to be
called, contained the following sections: (1) Establishment of a Council of Foreign
Ministers (to include China and France); (2) The Principles to Govern the Treatment
of Germany in the Final Control Period—Political Principles; Economic Principles;
(3) Reparations from Germany; (4) Disposal of the German Navy and Merchant
Marine; (5) City of Koenigsberg and the Adjacent Area; (6) War Crimes; (7) Austria;
(8) Poland—Declaration; Western Frontier of Poland; (9) Conclusion of Peace
Treaties and Admission to the United Nations Organization; (10) Territorial
Trusteeship; (11) Revised Allied Control Commission Procedure in Rumania,
Bulgaria, and Hungary; (12) Orderly Transfer of German Populations; (13) Oil Equipment
in Romania; (14) Iran; (15) The International Zone of Tangier; (16) The Black
Sea Straits; (17) International Inland Waterways; (18) European Inland Transport
Conference; (19) Directives to Military Commanders on Allied Control Council for
Germany; and (20) Use of Allied Property for Satellite Reparations or War Trophies.