The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Numbers Game
satellites and U-2 planes. 57
Later, in The Sunday Times, Jon Swain hypothesized:
In several months of digging at mass graves in the macabre
hinterland around Srebrenica, the investigators recovered far
fewer bodies than they had expected. Of the thousands of men
and boys from the UN safe area who were executed by Bosnian
Serbs in July 1995, only a few hundred—less than 10% of the
7,000 Muslims missing—have been dug up.
The empty graves speak volumes about the conspiracy by
Bosnian Serbs to cover up the massacre at Srebrenica. Their
leadership claims that few bodies have been found because the
stories of atrocities there were exaggerated. The more plausible
theory is that bodies have been made to “disappear.” 58
Swain’s “less than 10%” was actually a mere 3.5%, but more significant
is that he simply takes it as a premise that 7,000 allegedly missing
were executed. If they aren’t in graves there must be a cover-up. This is
standard procedure.
It is not at all clear when the first serious, detailed claims were made
that the Bosnian Serbs had sought to “cover-up” massacres at Srebrenica.
All the indications are that when Physicians for Human Rights began
their investigation of suspected mass grave sites in the summer of 1996,
they started work in the sure belief that they would find the bodies in
the sites identified by the U.S. surveillance photographs which
Madeleine Albright had shown to the UN in August 1995. This is consistent
with the fact that in April 1996, a senior US military spokesman,
Colonel John Batiste, publicly confirmed that U.S. satellite, aerial, and
on-the-ground surveillance had not given any indication that the suspected
mass grave sites had been tampered with. 59
Despite Colonel Batiste’s remarks and a categorical denial from the
UN Peacekeeping Force, IFOR, 60 a small group of “International Investigators”
who visited the Srebrenica area in April 1996 suggested in
press interviews that tampering had taken place. But the accounts were
confused and sometimes contradictory. The Boston Globe reported, on
April 22, 1996, that “IFOR officials say there is no evidence that any of
the mass graves have been disturbed since NATO troops arrived last
December. Sources have told the Boston Globe that US satellite imagery
reveals that tampering occurred at two sites last September and Octo-
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