Bosnia Remembers Srebrenica Massacre

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Bosnia marks 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, aka the Srebrenica genocide

About 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces, supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), amid the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Thousands of Muslims seeking shelter in a UN refugee enclave in Srebrenica were shot dead by Serbian forces, after United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) failed to protect them.

The besieged enclave of Srebrenica in the Drina Valley, NE Bosnia, had been declared a “safe area” under UN protection in 1993, several months after war in Bosnia broke out. However, in July 1995, the ,UNPROFOR represented by hundreds of Dutch peacekeepers, failed to protect the Bosniak refugees and surrendered them to the Serbian forces in the “safe area.” [The commander of Dutch peacekeepers, Lieutenant-Colonel Thom Karremans, was filmed drinking a toast with General Mladić during the negotiations that decided the fate of the civilian population corralled in Potočari.]

In 2004, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague ruled that the massacre of Srebrenica male inhabitants constituted genocide. The ruling was upheld by the International Court of Justice in 2007. The forcible relocation of about 30,000 Bosnian women, children and elderly which accompanied the massacre further confirmed evidence of the genocidal intent of members of the the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić, who orchestrated the massacre.

Russia vetoes U.N. resolution to condemn Srebrenica massacre as “crime of genocide”

Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Wednesday failing to condemn the 1995 massacre of the Muslims at Srebrenica as a “crime of genocide,” AP reported.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador said Bosnian Serbs and Croats had also suffered during the 1992-95 war that killed at least 100,000 people. However, there’s NO evidence of any Serbs or Croats as being victims of a massacre.