The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Military Context of the Fall of Srebrenica
ties, as they undoubtedly could have done given the heavy weaponry at
their disposal. The UNPROFOR hostages were taken, but none were
harmed.
The Bosnian Serbs‘ enemies were seemingly following a strategy of
keeping the BSA engaged over as wide an area as possible to take advantage
of its lack of manpower and to make the deployment of the
BSA’s heavy weaponry as difficult as possible. At the same time the increased
supplies of arms was levelling the balance of power even in this
area. The eastern “safe areas” in fact held considerable numbers of BMA
troops and represented a heavy drain on defensive resources for the BSA.
In a situation of all-out conflict, it was almost inevitable that the BSA
would feel forced to “roll them up” rather than watch as their defenses
weakened to the point of collapse elsewhere in the country.
Even in the exceptional case of Srebrenica, the women and children
came to no harm and were transported to safety. The military-aged men
of Srebrenica in the column had refused to surrender, and although not
all were armed they were travelling as a band of armed men who had engaged
Serb forces and indeed had successfully broken through to reach
Tuzla. Such a column could only be viewed as combatants. The proportion
of those who were executed after surrender as opposed to falling
in combat situations is not known, but the commonly used figures make
no distinction in this regard, treating all as executions. It is not clear
what happened to the mostly older men who were taken prisoner at Potocari
but in Zepa, the lives of the men who surrendered were spared.
In the end, only the commanders themselves could fully explain the
motivations and plans lying behind the events in those closing days of
the war in Bosnia. They are still largely unknown, and may well remain
so. However, by looking at the military context one can at least hope to
understand the positions of the opposing parties.
The name of Srebrenica seems destined to loom much larger in the
historical record than its actual military significance would suggest.
Notes
1 See Ewa Tabeau and Jakub Bijak, “War-related Deaths in the 1992 - 1995 Armed
Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent
Results,” European Journal of Population, Vol. 21, No. 2-3, June, 2005, pp.
187-215, . The
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