The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Securing Verdicts: The Misuse of Witness Testimony at The Hague
armed prisoners. Despite the order’s extraordinary brutality and its conflict
with all previous orders, Erdemovic and his seven colleagues unquestioningly
carry out the killings. Details of the execution, however,
remain vague. The killings at Branjevo farm, according to Erdemovic,
went on for four hours. Since he and his colleagues supposedly killed
1,200 men, they would have had to kill about 300 every hour—or
about five every minute. That is surely an enormous undertaking for
eight men. So many questions cry out for answers and remain unasked.
Were the unarmed Muslims shot at close range? What happened to the
wounded? How did the people who were taken off the bus respond to
the sight of so many dead bodies, not to mention the sound of the gunshots?
Did anyone try to resist or escape? What happened to the bodies
while all this was going on? What happened to the bodies after the
killings were over? When Milosevic tried to probe him for details, Erdemovic
refused to answer and the judges would not allow him to be
pressed.
In addition to his vagueness about the mechanics of the killings,
Erdemovic was also hazy about the sequence of events. At times, he
claimed that the sinister lieutenant colonel appeared out of nowhere.
At other times, he claimed that he had been ordered to report to that
lieutenant colonel. Initially, he even gave different dates for when the
massacre supposedly took place. During his Hague appearances, he
claimed that he was ordered to carry out the killings on July 16. However,
earlier he had said it was July 20. Milosevic pointed to these obvious
contradictions during his cross-examination:
Milosevic: Then you have another statement that you gave on
the 6th….And you say there: “On the 20th of July, 1995, in
the morning we received orders from the commander, Lieutenant
Milorad Pelemis to go to Zvornik and to report to a lieutenant
colonel of the military police whose name I don’t know.”
So again this differs from what you stated, because you stated
that you—that a lieutenant colonel came to you with two men,
and here you say that you were ordered to go to Zvornik to report
to a colonel of the military police, and again the date given
is the 20th of July, 1995. 73
In his interview with Le Figaro, Erdemovic had claimed that the bus
drivers helped carry out the executions: “Some of the bus drivers were
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