The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Introduction
exact provenance of the 7,500 bodies gathered at Tuzla is also uncertain
(see Chapter 4). There have been repeated claims of secret body
exhumations and reburials to more distant locales, pushing the total
number of putative mass graves as high as 70 by late 2008. 8 But the evidence
for this structure of primary, secondary, and even tertiary mass
graves is weak and the rationale unconvincing: That the Bosnian Serbs
would have had the resources in the midst of a war and when under serious
military pressure to carry out mass executions and mass burials,
and then subsequent to this, mass exhumations and mass reburials, is
implausible; and that they could hope to do all of this unobserved would
be foolish, and strains credulity. In early August 1995 Madeleine Albright
even warned them that “We will be watching,” 9 but no satellite
or aerial photos have yet been offered for public examination that show
executions in progress, graves being dug, trucks carting off bodies, or
bodies exhumed and reburied (see Chapter 4).
Despite the media focus on “mass graves” and witness evidence, it is
mainly the lists of the missing and DNA matching that underpin the
claims for 7,000 - 8,000 fatalities. However, now more than 15 years
after the event, these lists contain evident flaws, with some names appearing
twice and a signal lack of transparency about the criteria for
adding a name to the list and whether the data relating to where the
people were last seen was corroborated. There are unknown but possibly
large numbers who were killed in action or escaped to Bosnian lines
or elsewhere and assumed new lives (see Chapters 4 and 5). The DNA
identifications suffer from both technical problems and their inability
to identify the mode and timing of deaths.
The events of Srebrenica and claims of a major massacre were extremely
convenient to the Clinton administration, the Bosnian Muslim
leadership, and Croatian authorities. The Clinton administration
had been pressing for more forceful action in favor of its Bosnian Muslim
allies, and Clinton officials rushed to the Srebrenica scene to confirm
and publicize the claims of a massacre, just as William Walker did
at Racak. 10 Walker’s immediate report to Madeleine Albright caused her
to exult that “spring has come early this year.” 11 Srebrenica allowed the
“fall to come early” for the Clinton administration in the summer of
1995.
The Bosnian Muslim leadership had been struggling for several years
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