The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Introduction
(and Yugoslav territory) safely, but large numbers were killed in combat,
and the Bosnian Serbs themselves claimed to have sustained the loss of
as many as five hundred soldiers (see Chapters 2 and 3).
The uncertainty as to the number and causes of the deaths provided
an outstanding opportunity for fudging the data, helped along by the
fact that the Bosnian Muslim government refused to provide the Red
Cross with lists of those who had escaped to Bosnian Muslim lines.
While this tactic was harsh on the soldiers’ relatives back in Srebrenica
and elsewhere in Bosnia, it facilitated the inflation of the numbers missing
and possibly executed. The figure of 8,000 executed was initially
based on an alleged 3,000 detained by the Bosnian Serbs, plus 5,000
who fled Srebrenica toward Central Bosnia (see Chapter 4). It was reported
at the time that a great many of the 5,000 did in fact reach their
goal, but the refusal of the Bosnian Muslim government to give names
made it possible to sustain the 8,000 number, which has held sway up
to today.
Subsequently, the figure of 8,000 was maintained by official assertions,
backed by the testimony of witnesses, the evidence of grave sites,
a rising number of DNA identifications, and newly adjusted lists of the
missing (with the total remaining unchanged). But few if any witnesses
who testified before the Tribunal saw actual executions—most provided
hearsay evidence and most or all had a political or self-interested motive
in making their claims. The most featured witness, Drazen Erdemovic,
a Croat from Tuzla who served with the Bosnian Serb army, cited by
name in the 1999 UN report on Srebrenica, and who, in May 1996, became
the first person ever found guilty at the Tribunal on the basis of a
plea-agreement, had initially avoided trial on the ground of mental instability—which
did not rule out his testifying for the Tribunal, free of
cross-examination, only weeks later. 5 Erdemovic was otherwise badly
compromised, and gave testimony that was contradictory and unsupported
by any hard evidence (see Chapters 4 and 5).
An estimated “43 known Srebrenica related mass graves” had yielded
some 2,600 bodies between 1996 and 2001. 6 The 448 blindfolds and
423 ligatures reportedly recovered along with these bodies by forensic
experts of the ICTY, genuine evidence of likely executions, represented
a rate of roughly one for every six bodies, 7 but how many of the rest
were executed or killed in fighting has never been established, and the
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