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  • ANKARA: 'People Focus on Armenian Issue, Ignore Srebrenica Massacre'

    Zaman, Turkey
    July 11 2005

    'People Focus on Armenian Issue, Ignore Srebrenica Massacre'
    By Foreign News Desk
    Published: Monday July 11, 2005
    zaman.com


    The commemoration ceremonies for the 10th anniversary of the
    Srebrenica massacre open the wounds of people who witnessed the
    bloodbath. In the Srebrenica carnage, 8,000 Muslim Bosnians were
    massacred towards the end of Bosnian War in Srebrenica, under the
    United Nations (UN) protection.

    A cover page article titled "Witnesses Tell about Srebrenica Genocide
    on Its 10th Anniversary" published in the Aksiyon weekly news
    magazine relates accounts by those who witnessed the butchery. The
    massacre, which took place before the eyes of Dutch soldiers who were
    commissioned in the UN Peace Force, is told related by eyewitnesses
    as follows:

    Bosnia Herzegovina Losses Commission President Amur Marsovic: 27.734
    citizens were lost during the war. Ninety-two percent of them were
    Bosnians, 6 percent Bosnian Serbs and 1.7 percent Bosnian Croatians.
    A Macedonian Turkish citizen, Saban Huseyinov was also among the
    victims. Thirteen percent of the fatalities are women. Ninety percent
    of the victims were civilians. The data shows that it was a planned
    annihilation. We discovered 366 mass graves.

    'Bones belonging to one person can be found in three different mass
    graves'

    All the graves are in the Serbian region. We have found the corpses
    of 20 thousand citizens so far by deduction. I say 'by deduction',
    because a corpse belonging to a single person was pieced together
    from three different graves in a 30-kilometer radius of each other.
    In addition, we encountered corpses, which had changed places few
    times. We found bones cut to pieces by heavy construction equipment.
    Even the Nazis were not so brutal. The Western world wants to ignore
    the massacre and not accept responsibility for it. This is what hurts
    us most. If we must live together again, they should accept this.
    They pressure Turkey to accept the Armenian genocide but the
    parliamentarians themselves to not discuss this. Political decisions
    are taken, but Srebrenica massacre occurred ten years ago and all of
    its witnesses are here. They want to burry Srebrenica into history
    and cover it up.

    Srebrenica Massacre architect remains in office

    Hasan Nuhanovich translates for the Dutch soldiers, "The Serbs
    occupied the villages near the city and bombarded them. Despite the
    occurrence of these incidents, United Nations (UN) commanders said,
    "Do not worry, you are under our protection until a political
    solution is found. If the Serbs attack, we will bomb them by planes."
    The Serbs attacked the city from four different directions on July 6.
    The Dutch troops did not shoot even a single bullet. They collected
    the Bosnians together who wanted to defense themselves and seized
    their weapons already less in number. The biggest massacre occurred
    from 11-12 July 1995. Serb soldiers occupying the city separated the
    men from the women. They killed some of the men at point blank and
    took others to the forest. The Dutch soldiers watched the incidents
    and some of them even helped the Serbs. They took about 5,000
    Bosnians including my brother out of the concentration camp on July
    13 and killed men in full view of the others. I lost both my father
    and mother at the same time. The biggest injustice the Dutch soldiers
    did to the Bosnians was keeping the developments secret. The world
    did not learn about what was going on here for a long time. Mane
    Curic, the Srebrenica police chief chose people to be killed in front
    of the UN troops. He is still the security chief in Srebrenica.
    Neither the European Union (EU) nor the US has done anything on the
    issue. Despite knowing Mladic's whereabouts, US soldiers have not
    apprehended him.

    Nura Alispahic: When I turned on the television to watch the news
    last month, I saw my little son for whom I have cried for during the
    past 10 years. These were the first images of the Srebrenica massacre
    broadcast by The Hague. My son had lost a lot of weight. The Serbs
    took them out of a car. Then, they executed four of them by shooting
    them. I saw my son later. When they killed the person next to him, my
    son returned to view. He looked as if he was asking for help. I
    rushed to the television from where I sat and fainted at the second
    step. They shot my son. I saw him for the last time when the Serbs
    entered the city. Thousands of Bosnians like us had taken shelter in
    a factory where the Dutch soldiers had camped. The soldiers handed us
    over to the Serbs. My son was looking for an escape exit from the
    forest to flee the impending execution. I cannot forget the moment I
    embraced him for the last time.

    Nura Alispahic's daughter Makbule: The Serbs planned everything in
    advance. The UN soldiers silences us. While we were awaiting death,
    they were amusing each other. Even the drivers of the buses bringing
    us to Tuzla were Serbs. When the Chetniks stopped the buses on the
    road, the drivers opened the doors and said to them, "Take whichever
    one you like!"

    Vice President of Srebrenica Mothers Foundation Kada Hotic: "I lost
    my husband, children and many of my relatives on July 11. The bones
    of my husband and his relatives were found in a mass grave recently;
    but still there is no news of my children. I do not think that there
    will be fair trials at the War Crimes Trial in Lahey. Will the
    Western World, which condoned the war crimes during the war, find the
    criminals and judge them? No! Everything we experienced is so
    transparent; but we cannot find any addressee to apply. No Western
    foundation wants to accept the events we experienced, as genocide.
    1042 children are still lost. 570 girls were violated and killed.
    They executed men by shooting them in front of my eyes. They killed a
    little child, who was crying out of fear of being executed by
    snatching him from his mother's arms. There are thousands of
    eyewitnesses to these events; but no one listens to them.

    Elvisa Lokman: When the war started, my childhood ended.

    My father was never with me when I needed him most. I will never
    forget how the Serbs decapitated Akif and played football with his
    head. I thought my childhood would be returned to me after Srebrenica
    was made secure. I will never forgive myself for not embracing and
    kissing my father. I did not want to believe that it would be the
    last time I saw him. But, I never saw him again. Today, I am still
    afraid of the dark. I jump out of bed screaming at the slightest
    sound in the house.

    Our Serbian neighbor was shouting: Kill for me too

    >From the Srebrenica memoir of Sevliya Feyzic: Early in the morning,
    we all went to the factory where the UN troops were camped. We were
    15,000 people in and around the factory. The UN soldiers did nothing.
    The Serbs raped young girls. Some men were shot before the factory.
    On July 12, in the morning, trucks and buses arrived. Among the Serb
    soldiers, I saw two of my neighbors, Zlatan and Cvetin. They were
    shouting as they kicked us. The bus driven by the Serbs headed
    towards Bratunats. On the road, there were Chetniks who stopped the
    buses, chose some men and shot them. Our neighbor Milan Micic driving
    the car opened the door and shouted, "Kill for me too". The Serbs got
    down and raped young girls among who was my aunt's daughter.

    The Bosnian Major of Srebrenica: Before the war, the population of
    Srebrenica was 36,000, of which 20,000 was Bosnian, 8,000 Serb, and
    the remaining part consisted of Croats and other ethnic groups. Only
    3,000 Bosnians could return to the city. There are currently 10,000
    people living in the city 6,000 of whom are Serb.
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