By Beti Bilandzic
Reuters
Friday, June 3, 2005; Page A15
BELGRADE, June 2 -- A video that prosecutors said shows Serb paramilitary troops murdering six Bosnian Muslim prisoners near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995 stunned Serbia on Thursday and led to the immediate arrest of eight suspects.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the video, which came to light at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague and was aired on Serbian television Thursday, showed "brutal, callous and disgraceful crime against civilians."
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President Boris Tadic told Serbs in a television statement that the images were proof of the "monstrous" crimes committed in Serbia's name during the Balkan wars of the early and mid-1990s. "Those seen in these pictures committing murder were free men until yesterday. They were walking our streets," a visibly shaken Tadic said on state television. They must face justice, he added.
Tadic said he was ready to go to Srebrenica in July on the 10th anniversary of the massacre.
The video was shot near the scene of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, U.N. prosecutors said. About 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the area and their bodies bulldozed into mass graves over several days.
The images were shown by the prosecution during the war crimes trial of the former Serbian and Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, on Wednesday.
It was the first such graphic material from the massacre in Srebrenica to be seen in Serbia, where an opinion poll last month showed that over half of those surveyed did not believe the massacre took place.
The video begins with a Serb Orthodox priest blessing the camouflaged paramilitary troops in a boot camp in Bosnia. Later, it shows members of a paramilitary group called the Scorpions taking six emaciated young men out of a truck with their hands tied behind their backs. They are led to a clearing where at least three are shown being shot at close range.
The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the scared young Muslims can be clearly heard. The video was shot by a member of the Scorpions.
Many senior Serbs have been convicted by the U.N. tribunal or are on trial. But the prime suspects in the Srebrenica massacre, the Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic and the Bosnian leader, Radovan Karadzic, remain at large 10 years after the war's end.
Their handover to the U.N. tribunal is the main condition for Serbia and Bosnia to be allowed to have closer ties with the European Union and NATO.
Kostunica announced Thursday's arrests at a joint news conference with the visiting U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte. "It is important for our public that we reacted immediately," he said. Serbia has often been criticized abroad for doing nothing to curb hero-worship of indicted war crimes suspects.
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13 comments:
BS. Why didn't neither Tadic nor Kostunica say anything when the genocide was happening. Why didn't any Serb politician say anything when all this was happening. Why didn't the Serb popullation say anything. All of them were part of it, they knew what was happening and they didn't want to stop. They thought they were commiting the perfect crime.Their reaction is fake, just so they can look good on the cameras.
I am appaled at this hypocracy, it is well known what was happening in Bosnia, Croatia and later in Kosova. Shame.
What I am most appalled by is the orthodox priest blessing the soldiers before they commit the crimes. This is proof that the Serbian Orthodox church was a big part of the Serb aggression and genocide in the Balkans. Shouldn’t they also take part of the blame.
This video was given to the Serbian government and other senior officials, including the President Tadic, on May the 27th.
Guess what was the reaction? You guessed it, silence. Not a word!
Only when the video was made public and the whole world saw these barbaric crimes, did the Serbian president get "shocked" and believe it or not "surprised"!
All the statements from Tadic and Kostunica are a complete farse. They need to take some more acting lessons.
And I have one message for them: actions speak louder than words, so if you're so sorry why don't you bring the responsible people, i.e. Mladic and Karadzic, our of their safe bunkers in Belgrade and let them face justice in the Hague.
God bless the souls of innocent civilians and freedom fighters who gave their lives so that their people can live in peace.
Wasn't Kostunica brandishing his kalasnikov in suport of this war? He changed his mind now?
No, Serbs are not sorry. They never were. Otherwise they would not have repeated them. Look who is in parliament today: Kostunica, Seselj, SPS. They are not sorry over Kosova either - thank's God there is NATO, or else...
But of course, Serbs have to feed their children and they are so poor... They cant' afford to care about making a mess out of the Balkans.
P.S.
Finally the West has gotten a glimpse at the real face of Orthodox priests. You will soon see the Greek ones as well.
What can you say to this! Then people express shock when people in Kosova burned Serb Orthodox churches in March 2004. I hope they find that priest, sever all his limbs and let that son of bitch live like the rat that he is. As far as the others in the video. . . well everyone know what Iam thinking at this point.
What can you say to this! Then people express shock when people in Kosova burned Serb Orthodox churches in March 2004. I hope they find that priest, sever all his limbs and let that son of bitch live like the rat that he is. As far as the others in the video. . . well everyone know what Iam thinking at this point.
The fact that they are reacting in such a manner to what already was known to the Serb people, let alone the serb goverment, should not be taken as a suprise.
Every single serb should look in the mirror and accept the fact that their nation is an immoral, shameless , and a terrorist.
As for the rest of us? We should tackle these issues and let the world know.. how do the serbs and the so called islamist states like Taleban? Taleban was a regim of the past and so are the serbian people, who take pride in their succes-killling inocent children and women. As for the serbian church i let that to our neighburs, the macedonians, to give a more detailed view, since most of them are of the same religon.
Stand up and be counted...
Regards,
A Kosovar
The fact that they are reacting in such a manner to what already was known to the Serb people, let alone the serb goverment, should not be taken as a suprise.
Every single serb should look in the mirror and accept the fact that their nation is an immoral, shameless , and a terrorist.
As for the rest of us? We should tackle these issues and let the world know.. what do the serbs and the so called islamist states like Taleban have in common? Taleban was a regim of the past and so are the serbian people, who take pride in their success-killling inocent children and women.
As for the serbian church i let that to our neighburs, the macedonians, to give a more detailed view, since most of them are of the same religon.
Stand up and be counted...
Regards,
A Kosovar
The above comments made by some people are a disgrase!!! How dare you accuse me (a Serb from Beograd) of supporting genocide in Bosnia, Croatia or Kosovo??? I was on every single possible protest held against Slobodan Milošević and the brutal wars he was involved in????
In addition to that, POLITICIANS - NOT PEOPLE were responsible for the wars and it was money-hungry politicians from ALL sides that wanted a profit from wars.
According to the latest polls people like you constitute 2-3 percent of the Serb popullation. That is there are 200 at most 300 thousand of people in Serbia who share somewhat the same opinion with you. 2-3 persent means that there is a greater chance of being hit by a lightning while typing from your home then finding a Serb who thinks like you in the streets of Belgrade. You are a rare species man. You are like an albino in Mali, Nigeria, Congo etc etc.
Serbs still wanna equate what they did onto others with their victims. I read and interview of Kandic on B92. Even in this case the TV channels around Serbia where unhappy because according to them "the Srebrenica video showed only one side of the story". The world has been dealing with you for almost 20 years and bombed you because there is only one side of the story. That is the Serbs committed a genocide and the overwhealming majority of people in Serbia where the facilitators of this genocide. Today things haven't changed much in Serb politics.
Srebrenica Crime – Serbia’s Ticket Out of the Civilized World
Veliborka Staletovic
06 June 2005
Professor Dimitrijevic
The indifference that the political and intellectual elites demonstrates on the release and broadcasting of the video taped execution of six young men from Srebrenica will have crushing effects, says Vojin Dimitrijevic, director of the Belgrade Human Rights Centre.
The fifteen years under the Milosevic regime has caused huge damages on Serbia, and it will take at least twice that time to get over it, Dimitrijevic believes.
"We won’t be able to say, any more, that the ethnic cleansing and the genocide were a product of a regime that had little connections with us, for it seems now that, although aware of the facts, many people still back those crimes, or refuse to understand that they were, indeed, crimes against humanity”, Dimitrijevic commented for “Dnevnik”, Novi Sad based daily.
"I am afraid that we will have to be held accountable collectively, in front of the International Court of Justice and other institutions… The claims that we just defended ourselves and that the others did the same would be of little help…
This is our ticket out of the civilized world", emphasized Dimitrijevic.
Source: http://see.oneworld.net/article/view/112656/1/
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