The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Military Context of the Fall of Srebrenica
erated” were strangely empty of anyone who had welcomed such “liberation.”
The Croats, always more adept at P.R., ensured that the streets
were hosed down of any evidence of blood before they let the TV crews
enter the town.
In an eerie “prequel” to the disgraceful behavior of U.S. troops in
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, “video footage was released that showed Serbian
prisoners being publicly humiliated as they were forced to strip to
their dirty soiled underwear and then remain standing for questioning
by Croatian policewomen, who nonchalantly blew cigarette smoke into
their faces while admiring their discomfort.” 41 The only difference was
that the watching-world had less compassion for Serb prisoners in 1995
than they did for Iraqis in 2004.
The lack of effective intervention by the Bosnian Serbs to prevent
the Croatian seizure of Western Slavonia was widely interpreted as a
sign of either military weakness or political division or both. The Serb
anger at the lack of UN action or even condemnation of the Croat aggression
rapidly spilled over into escalating violence all over Bosnia. In
Sarajevo, mortar attacks on the Muslims’ “secret” supply tunnel under
the airport killed several of the Muslim presidential bodyguards,
prompting furious demands for UN airstrikes from the Izetbegovic Presidency.
At the same time, the SDA Muslims managed to advance out
from Sarajevo, putting their artillery within range of Pale, the Bosnian
Serb political headquarters.
On May 10, the Posavina corridor in the north-east of the country
saw an intense artillery duel between the Croat gunners in the Orasje
pocket and their BSA opponents in Brcko. Although the Serb lines held,
the Muslims piled on the pressure south of the corridor by pushing
north from Tuzla in the areas of Gradacac and the Majevica hills.
In Bihac, the BMA 5th corps had regained its strength to launch another
attack to the southeast causing hundreds of Serb refugees to flee
to Banja Luka and Sanski Most.
While the ECMM reported that increasing numbers of Americans—
defence attaches, former US generals, “training” officers, CIA operatives,
and FBI men—had been observed meeting with the Bosnian
Muslim and Bosnian Croat military and civil organisations, UNPRO-
FOR recorded 4,643 violations of the No-Fly Zone at the beginning of
May. This was all evidence of the rapid rearming and training of the
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