Massacre in Srebrenica in 1995: reasons

Massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995 was one of the most notorious episodes of the Bosnian war. By decision of the United Nations, this city was declared a security zone, where civilians could calmly wait out the bloodshed. In two years, thousands of Bosnians moved to Srebrenica. When it was captured by the Serbs, the army made a massacre. According to various estimates, between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnians died, mostly boys, men and old people. Later, the international tribunal recognized these events as an act of genocide.

Prerequisites

Massacres of civilians were not uncommon for the Bosnian war. The massacre in Srebrenica was only a logical continuation of this inhuman attitude of the opponents to each other. In 1993, the city was occupied by the Bosnian army, which was commanded by Nasser Oric. So there was a Srebrenica enclave - a small piece of land controlled by Muslims, but completely surrounded by the territory of the Republika Srpska.

Hence the Bosnians began punitive raids on neighboring settlements. During the attacks, dozens of Serbs were killed. All this added fuel to the fire. Two warring armies hated each other and were ready to take out their anger on civilians. In 1992 - 1993 years. The Bosnians burned Serbian villages. About 50 settlements were destroyed.

In March 1993, Srebrenica was paid attention to the UN. The organization declared this city a security zone. Dutch peacekeepers were introduced there. For them, there was a separate base, which became the safest place for many kilometers around. Despite this, the enclave was in fact under siege. "Blue Helmets" could not affect the situation in the region. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 occurred exactly when the Bosnian army surrendered the city and its surroundings, leaving the civilian population alone with the Serbian brigades.

The capture of Srebrenica by the Serbs

In July 1995, the Army of the Republika Srpska began an operation to establish control over Srebrenica. The attack was conducted by the forces of the Drin Corps. The Dutch almost did not try to stop the Serbs. All they did was shoot over the heads of the adversaries in order to frighten them. About 10 thousand soldiers took part in the attack. They continued to move to Srebrenica, which is why the peacekeepers decided to evacuate to their base. Unlike the UN forces, NATO aviation tried to shell Serbian tanks. After that, the attackers threatened to crack down on a much smaller peacekeeping contingent. The North Atlantic alliance decided not to interfere any longer with the liquidation of the Bosnian enclave.

July 11 in the town of Potočari about 20 thousand refugees gathered near the walls of a military unit belonging to UN peacekeepers. The slaughter in Srebrenica did not affect those few Bosniaks who managed to break through to the protected base. Not enough places were all. Only a few thousand people took refuge. The rest, waiting for the Serbs, had to hide in the surrounding fields and abandoned factories.

The Bosnian authorities understood that with the advent of the enemy the enclave would come to an end. Therefore, the leadership of Srebrenica decided to evacuate civilians to Tuzla. This mission was assigned to the 28th division. It had 5,000 military personnel, about 15,000 more refugees, hospital personnel, the city administration, etc. On July 12, this column was ambushed. Between the Serbs and the Bosnian military, a battle ensued. The civilians fled. Later on they had to make their own way to Tuzla. These people were unarmed. They tried to avoid the roads, in order not to run into Serbian roadblocks. According to various estimates, before the massacre in Srebrenica, about 5,000 people managed to escape to Tuzla.

Massacres

When the Army of the Republika Srpska established control over the enclave, the soldiers began mass shootings of Bosniaks, who had not managed to escape to safe areas. The reprisal lasted several days. The Serbs divided the Bosnian men into groups, each of which was sent to a separate room.

The first mass shootings occurred on July 13. The Bosnians were taken to the valley of the Cerski River, where large-scale executions took place. Also, executions took place in large barns belonging to the local agricultural cooperative. The Muslims, who were waiting for imminent death, were held captive without food. They were given only a little water to support life until the moment of execution. July heat and crowded halls of abandoned premises have become an excellent environment for unsanitary conditions.

At first the dead bodies were thrown into the ditches. Then the officers began to allocate technology specifically to take the corpses to specially prepared places, where huge mass graves were excavated. The military wanted to hide their crimes. But with such a scale of atrocities, they were not able to hide enough to get out of the water. Later investigators collected a lot of evidence of reprisal. In addition, the testimony of numerous witnesses was summarized.

Continuation of the massacre

For the murders, not only firearms were used, but also grenades, which were filled with barracks full of trapped Bosniaks. Later investigators found in these warehouses the remains of blood, hair and explosives. An analysis of all these facts allowed the identification of some victims, the type of weapons used, and so on.

People were caught in the fields and on the roads. If the Serbs stopped buses with refugees, they took all the men with them. Women are more fortunate. Representatives of the UN began negotiations with the Serbs and persuaded them to be sent from the enclave. From Srebrenica, 25 thousand women left.

Slaughterhouse in Srebrenica was the largest civilian casualty in Europe after the Second World War. There were so many dead that their burials were found many years later. For example, in 2007, a common grave of Bosniaks was accidentally discovered, in which more than 600 bodies rested.

Responsibility of the leadership of Republika Srpska

How did the events in Srebrenica in 1995 become possible? For several days in the city there were no international observers. They could at least replicate information about what happened to the whole world. It is significant that rumors of reprisals began to leak out only a few days after the incident. No one knew the extent of the massacre in Srebrenica. The reasons for this were also the direct protection of criminals by the authorities of the Republika Srpska.

When the Yugoslav wars were over, the Western countries set a condition for Belgrade to extradite Radovan Karadzic to an international tribunal. He was president of the Republika Srpska and commander-in-chief of the officers, because of which the massacre in Srebrenica began. The photo of this person constantly got on pages of the western newspapers. For information about him was announced a major award of five million dollars.

Karadzic was caught only many years later. For about 10 years he lived in Belgrade, changing his name and appearance. The former politician and the military filmed a small apartment on Yuri Gagarin Street and worked as a doctor. Special services managed to escape to the fugitive only thanks to a call from the exile's neighbor. The Belgrade advised to look at the obscure because of his suspicious similarity with Karadzic. In 2016, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of organizing mass terror against the peaceful Bosnian population and other war crimes.

Denial of crime

In the first days after the tragedy, the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs in general denied the fact of large-scale executions. It sent a commission, which was to investigate the events in Srebrenica in July 1995. In her report, she spoke of a hundred dead POWs.

Then the Karadzic government began to adhere to the version that the Bosnian army tried to break through the encirclement and escape to Tuzla. The bodies of those who died in these battles were opposed by the opponents of the Serbs as evidence of "genocide". The slaughter in Srebrenica in 1995 by the Republika Srpska was not recognized. An objective investigation at the scene of the events began only after the end of the Bosnian war. Until then, the enclave continued to be controlled by the separatists.

Although the slaughter in Srebrenica in July 1995 was condemned by the Serbian authorities, the current president of this country refuses to recognize what happened as genocide. According to Tomislav Nikolic, the state must find criminals and punish them. However, he believes that the wording "genocide" would be incorrect. In Belgrade, they actively cooperate with the International Tribunal. The extradition of criminals to the court in The Hague is one of the most important conditions for the inclusion of Serbia in the European Union. The problem of integration of this country in the common "family" of the Old World remains unresolved for several years. At the same time, neighboring Croatia joined the EU in 2013, although it was also affected by the Balkan wars and the obscurantism of bloodshed.

Political implications

The terrible massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 had direct political consequences. The seizure of the zone by the Serbs, which was under the control of UN peacekeepers, led to the beginning of NATO bombing in the Republika Srpska. The intervention of the North Atlantic Alliance accelerated the end of the war. In 1996, Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats signed the Dayton Accords, which put an end to the bloody Bosnian war.

Although the slaughter in Srebrenica in 1995 occurred long ago, the echoes of those events are still being given in international politics. In 2015, a meeting of the UN Security Council was held, at which the draft resolution on the tragedy in the Bosnian enclave was considered. Great Britain offered to recognize the massacre of Muslims as genocide. This initiative was also supported by the United States and France. China abstained. Russia opposed the resolution and vetoed it. Representatives of the Kremlin at the UN explained this decision by the fact that too sharp assessments of the events in Bosnia can lead to another round of interethnic conflict in the Balkans today. Nevertheless, the wording "genocide" continues to be used in some instances (for example, in the Hague Tribunal).

Srebrenica after the war

In 2003, the US president in 1993 - 2001, Bill Clinton personally arrived in Srebrenica to open a memorial to the victims of war crimes. It was he who made decisions during the wars in the Balkans. Every year thousands of Bosnians visit the memorial - relatives of the dead and injured and simple compatriots. Even those residents of the country who were not directly affected by the massacre understood and understood the horrors of the war. A bloody conflict tore the entire territory of Bosnia without exception. The slaughter in Srebrenica in July 1995 only became the crowning of that inter-ethnic confrontation.

This city got its name due to local deposits of minerals. Even the ancient Romans knew about silver here. Bosnia has always been a poor country and deaf corners (under the Habsburgs, in the Ottoman Empire, etc.). Srebrenica for her for many centuries remained one of the most adapted to the comfortable life of cities. After the civil war, almost all residents (both Bosnians and Serbs) left this region.

Trial of criminals

The International Tribunal has established that General Ratko Mladic became the person who authorized the massacres. Already in July 1995, he was accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. On his conscience were not only the events in Srebrenica in 1995, but also the blockade of the capital of Bosnia, the seizure of hostages working in the UN, and so on.

At first the general lived peacefully in Serbia, which did not extradite the commander to the international court. When the Milosevic government was overthrown, Mladic had to hide and live on the run. The new authorities arrested him only in 2011. The trial of the general is still pending. This process was made possible by the testimony of other Serbs accused of involvement in the massacre. It was through Mladic that all the officer's reports passed, in which reports were reported on the murders of Bosniaks and their burials.

Approximate general chose places where huge mass graves were excavated. The investigators found several dozen graves. All of them were chaotically located in the vicinity of Srebrenica. The carriages rode around the former enclave not only in the summer, but also in the autumn of 1995.

Recognition of guilt

In addition to Mladic, many soldiers of the Army of the Republika Srpska were accused of crimes in Srebrenica. The first in 1996, his term in prison was a mercenary Drazhen Erdemovich. He gave a lot of testimony, on which further investigation was lined up. Shortly thereafter, arrests of high-ranking Serbian officers - Radislav Krstic and his entourage. Responsibility was not only personal. In 2003, the new authorities of the Republika Srpska, part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, acknowledged the blame for the massacres of the peaceful Bosnian population. In the 90-s the war with Muslims was held with the active participation of Belgrade. The independent Serbia in the face of its parliament in 2010 also condemned the massacre.

It is interesting that the Hague court did not leave without consequences connivance of the Dutch peacekeepers, located on the base near the place of bloodshed. Colonel Carremants was accused of extraditing part of the Bosnian refugees, knowing that the Serbs would kill them. For two decades of endless processes and court sessions, a significant evidence base of those atrocious crimes was collected. For example, in 2005, through the searches of Serbian human rights defenders, a video was found and published, which recorded the facts of the shootings.