The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

U.K. Media Coverage of Srebrenica
Where the Bosnian Muslim attacks on surrounding Serb villages—
launched from within the supposedly demilitarised “safe area” 5 —were
reported, these tended to be minimized. On July 13, 1995 The
Guardian’s Ian Traynor reported that “The villages under Bosnian Serb
control are poorly defended. By taking Srebrenica, they would neutralise
the Muslim threat, free manpower and remove an obstacle to their longstanding
aim to enjoy full control of eastern Bosnia.” However, he noted
that “The Bosnian Serb high command organised visits for foreign journalists
to the nearby village of Visnjica, which had just come under Muslim
attack,” implicitly presenting this as a deliberate propaganda move
by the Serbs, unlike the way that official Bosnian Muslim efforts to draw
Western sympathy were usually taken at face value. Traynor also minimized
the significance of the Muslim attack on the village by suggesting
it was merely “an attempt by the Muslims to sully Serb enjoyment
of a symbolic day in their calendar, St Vitus’s Day on June 28,” and
writing mockingly of General Ratko Mladic’s vision of a “pan-Serbian
paradise.” 6
In the same edition of The Guardian, columnist Martin Woollacott
noted that “The Serbs could have taken Srebrenica…any time these last
two years,” asking “Why have they chosen this moment to play a card
they have always kept in reserve?” He argued that “Minor attacks out of
Srebrenica by the local Muslim forces were not a serious problem,” suggesting
that the Serbs’ aim may have been to free up troops to send to
Sarajevo, “where Bosnian government forces are stronger.” He also suggested
that “it may be that the Bosnian Serb leaders could think of nothing
else to do….This was something that could be done, so it was
done.” This is a weak explanation, but again it contrasts with later reports
of a premeditated campaign of genocide. Woollacott also undercut
any suggestion that the Bosnian Serbs may have been responding to
Bosnian Muslim attacks by remarking on the “monstrous self-pity”
which allegedly led the Serbs to “cast themselves as martyrs” defending
“Serbdom.” 7
Perhaps the most interesting explanation was that offered by The
Times’s Defense Correspondent, Michael Evans, in a July 14 front-page
report titled “Muslim soldiers ‘failed to defend town from Serbs’,” 8
which relied on military and intelligence service sources. The article
noted that Bosnian Muslim forces in Srebrenica “put up only a brief
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