What's in a 'mass grave?
Ever since the small town of Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs last
summer, the international media has reported that 8000 missing Bosnian
Muslims were massacred there. US human rights envoy John Shattuck stated
categorically that 7000 were massacred after he visited the alleged mass
graves discovered by journalists around Srebrenica. The genocide indictment
issued by the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague against the
Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, claims they
were involved in killing 6000 at Srebrenica.
The Srebrenica story is symptomatic of what has happened since the start of
the war in Bosnia. There has been a degradation of investigative journalism,
with a ghoulish search for bodies substituting for professional rigour.
There has been duplicity by journalists and officials about what has
happened to people on all sides. There has been a manipulation of death
tolls without any evidence to substantiate the numbers. The claims of 8000
slaughtered in Srebrenica have no more credibility than the claims of 250
000 dead in the whole of Bosnia. And there has been an abandonment of the
concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'.
Number-crunching
Many people have died on all sides in Bosnia. But there is no way of knowing
how many have been killed. Yet instead of circumspection we have had
prejudgement of one side--the Serbs. The 'fact-finding missions' and
investigative reports look more like the work of the US intelligence
services, which have sought to orchestrate hysteria about genocide and
Holocausts as part of their propaganda war against the Bosnian Serbs.
Where do the figures for the dead in Srebrenica come from? They are based on
misrepresentations of information from the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC). On 13 September 1995, the ICRC released the following
statement: 'After the fall of the enclave, the ICRC received over 10 000
requests for family news from civilians who were transferred to Tuzla in
central Bosnia. About 2000 of these requests were from different family
members seeking the same individuals. An in-depth analysis has shown that
the remaining 8000 requests fall into two categories: about 5000 concern
individuals who apparently fled the enclave before it fell, while the
remaining 3000 relate to persons reportedly arrested by the Bosnian Serb
forces.' (ICRC News, No37) In other words, the maximum number of people who
could have fallen foul of the Bosnian Serbs according to the ICRC's research
was 3000. But an illiterate or innumerate media seized on the figure of 8000
as the putative death toll.
The ICRC believes that at least 5000 of the 8000 escaped to Bosnian
government territory without their families being informed. After intensive
pressure from the ICRC, the Bosnian Muslim authorities in Sarajevo finally
admitted months later that thousands of fighters from Srebrenica had been
redeployed in central Bosnia. The government justified its decision not to
inform the soldiers' families or the ICRC on the grounds of operational
security. This fact was hardly reported.
So what happened to the 3000 reportedly 'arrested' by the Bosnian Serb Army?
This is where the story begins to get murky. Only about 200 men from
Srebrenica have been found by the ICRC in Bosnian Serb prisons. There is
evidence to suggest that some Bosnian Muslim soldiers and civilians were
killed in fratricidal fighting between those who wanted to battle on and
those who wanted to surrender or leave. In New Republic in August 1995,
Charles Lane, a committed supporter of the Bosnian Muslim cause, reported
that there were at least two firefights between Muslims Journalists reported
that bodies of dead soldiers and civilians were strewn in the streets when
they entered the town.
However, a few fratricidal firefights cannot account for the 3000 presumed
missing by the ICRC. In February, Bosnian Serb officials in Srebrenica told
the new UN human rights envoy, Elizabeth Rehn, that the missing men had been
killed in battle. There was intensive shelling and fighting on the front
lines and in surrounding villages for days before the town fell. There may
also have been more fighting after the fall of the town, as Bosnian Muslim
soldiers moved to government territory, and it is likely that some were
ambushed and killed. This scenario has been disputed by journalists and
international investigators who insist that the missing thousands were
slaughtered en masse by the Bosnian Serbs. Let us look at the evidence they
have assembled to substantiate these claims of mass murder.
The first evidence of large-scale killings cited by journalists and human
rights investigators came from the refugees who arrived in Tuzla. In the
many media and official reports about the alleged massacres in Srebrenica,
however, testimonies based on hearsay and double hearsay outnumber the scant
eyewitness accounts many times over. This has not prevented rumours being
accepted as hard evidence by international journalists and investigators.
Contradictory stories
The international war crimes tribunal in the Hague is also counting on small
numbers of witness testimonies to carry the indictments against Bosnian Serb
leaders accused of genocide in Srebrenica. One survivor, Hakija Husejnovic,
told investigators that on 13 July 1995, 2000 men trying to escape from
Srebrenica were caught by the Bosnian Serbs, crammed into a warehouse in the
village of Kravica and killed with grenades and machine guns fired through
doors and windows. Husejnovic said he survived by playing dead and covering
himself with bodies. His story contradicts that of another witness who
claimed that 2000 men surrendered in the village of Kravica and were taken
by truck at night to an outdoor location, thought to be near Zvornik (quite
a distance from Kravica), lined up and shot by Bosnian Serb soldiers. The
witness said he pretended to be dead and then escaped. It is impossible for
both of these stories to be true.
The second source of evidence cited in support of the claims of mass
killings is the US intelligence services, which provided satellite
photographs, purporting to identify a mass grave near Srebrenica, which were
printed around the world (see below). They are supposed to show a football
field at Nova Kasaba which was used as a collection point for Bosnian Muslim
prisoners of war. But they could have been taken over any field, anywhere,
any time. There is not a single satellite photograph showing hard evidence
of a massacre near Srebrenica. Claims by the US intelligence services to be
in possession of damning tapes of intercepted telephone calls about
Srebrenica between Serbian officials are unfounded. John Shattuck admitted
in an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel that there is no evidence
that tapes exist.
These spy stories are the stuff of Cold War propaganda once scorned by
journalists. But today they seem to be accepted on the nod. Few journalists
even thought to question the timing of the release of the pictures--in
August, a month after the fall of Srebrenica, but within days of the
expulsion by the Croats of 200 000 Serbs from Krajina. It looked like a
classic diversionary tactic by the US authorities, which had given full
backing to a mass 'ethnic cleansing' operation by the Croats. In all the
excitement about the alleged mass graves in Srebrenica everybody forgot
about what had just happened in Krajina.
The eager media consumption of the CIA photographs turned the search for
'mass graves' into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Journalists scurried to
eastern Bosnia in search of bodies. In August 1995, teams from CNN, CBS,
BBC, France 2, TG 1 (Italy), TV Netherland and others streamed in. They
found little. Many crews did not even bother to search out the site shown on
the CIA satellite photograph, because it had generally been agreed in media
circles that it was not a mass grave. This revelation did not grab the
headlines like the original story. Indeed, it was not deemed worthy of
mention. A bandwagon effect had been created. More journalists set off in
search of 'the evidence'.
Find the corpse
By mid-February this year, journalists led by David Rohde of the American
Christian Science Monitor and Julian Borger of the Guardian claimed to have
discovered five mass graves linked to the Srebrenica killings. The only
physical evidence they had come up with was some bones and clothing. For
Borger, that was enough; reporting that he had found some rotting body
parts, he endorsed claims by US war crimes investigators that Kravica 'is
the site of one of the worst atrocities in Europe since the Holocaust'
(Guardian, 22 January 1996). It seems that any patch of ground in Bosnia
where earth has been moved can qualify as a mass grave, and any evidence of
death in the war-zone can be put alongside the Holocaust.
Some might think that bodies would come in handy as evidence when charges of
genocide are being levelled. There must be tens of thousands buried all over
Bosnia. Yet not one had been uncovered at the alleged 'mass graves' near
Srebrenica at the time of writing. All sorts of excuses were given for the
lack of bodies--they had been covered by snow, dismembered by machines,
destroyed by chemicals and moved elsewhere by the Bosnian Serbs. It almost
seems like nobody wants to dig around in case they discover the 'mass
graves' are empty. This is what happened when British divers went into the
flooded mine at Ljubija, in north-west Bosnia, alleged to hold the bodies of
8000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats. They found nothing.
There is no hard evidence that 3000, let alone 8000, Bosnian Muslims were
massacred in Srebrenica. The Dutch troops who were based in the area at the
time testified to the war crimes tribunal that they saw no evidence of mass
killings. The first official report into the Srebrenica events, the last
written by the UN human rights envoy, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, before he
resigned, provided no conclusive evidence. The latest investigation by his
successor, Elizabeth Rehn, turned up no new evidence. The troupe of foreign
journalists have discovered nothing more. Officials examining the 'mass
graves' have yet to find one body. Not a single photograph of a 'mass grave'
taken with a terrestrial camera has been forthcoming.
Reasonable doubt
The war in eastern Bosnia was brutal. In 1992-93, more than 1000 Serbs from
the villages around Srebrenica were killed by Bosnian Muslim fighters. These
events were the subject of an award-winning film, The Unforgiving, by Clive
Gordon. They have been well-documented and the graves are there for all to
see in Bratunac. So there is good reason to think that local Serbs may have
sought vengeance after the fall of Srebrenica. But this is still surmise and
conjecture. As long as there is no hard evidence, there must be doubt about
whether or not Bosnian Muslim soldiers were massacred.
Yet on 7 February 1996, a senior ICRC official, Jean de Courten, stated
that, after five months of silence from the Bosnian Serb authorities in face
of repeated requests for information, he believed the 3000 had been killed.
Coming from the one international organisation which has remained neutral
throughout the war in Bosnia, this statement carries more weight than the
media's loose talk. What made the ICRC take the unprecedented step of
accusing one side of conducting a massacre?
Was it because the ICRC had obtained conclusive evidence of a massacre? Or
was it because the ICRC had its arm twisted at a time when the USA is
turning the hunt for war criminals into a crusade? A climate of hysteria has
been created around the mass grave stories that recently resulted in the
ICRC offices in Tuzla being wrecked by refugees from Srebrenica. This
climate has been created by the USA with the help of the media. Allegations
of mass killings in Srebrenica are big news because the USA has an axe to
grind on the subject of war crimes.
American interests
Since the start of the year Washington has been making all the running on
the war crimes issue--sending troops to escort war crimes investigators,
pushing Nato forces to play a role hunting down alleged war criminals. And
it has piled pressure on Serbia to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal or
face perpetual ostracism. The US secretary of state, Warren Christopher,
told Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in February that Belgrade would
get no ambassador, no financial aid, no recognition and no permanent lifting
of sanctions unless it handed over suspected war criminals. This is not a
noble crusade by Washington, but a self-serving attempt to occupy the moral
high ground in international affairs. Before they take it at face value,
journalists would do well to consider the implications.
They might learn the lessons of Pakracka Poljana, an alleged mass grave in
Western Slavonia which was said to contain the bodies of 1700 Serbs. The
figure of 1700 came from a UN officer who guessed that there were 17 graves
in the area, each with approximately 100 people. He did not see the graves,
but observed evidence of digging. The official investigation found 19 bodies
in nine small graves. The 'mass graves' were just military trenches. The
report by the UN war crimes tribunal Commission of Experts concluded that
on-site investigations are absolutely necessary to confirm the validity of
allegations. 'Some groups have expressed their displeasure at the
investigation establishing that people in those numbers are not buried
there. Presumably for propaganda purposes 1700 is a more useful number than
19.'
Why have war crimes investigators not shown the same circumspection before
jumping to conclusions about 'mass graves' in eastern Bosnia? Surely not
because the bodies in question are said to be those of Muslims rather than
Serbs; or because the USA finds 8000 a more useful number for propaganda
purposes than 800.
Additional information from Bill Hawk
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