Disputed Atrocities

From the earliest stages of the Balkan conflicts, there were many claims of atrocities and war crimes.

A small number of these claims proved to be,  in one way or another, turning points in the various conflicts.

Pictures of large numbers of refugees apparently fleeing their homes with only a few scant belongings prompted harrowing headlines around the world.  So did allegations of brutality in detention camps in Bosnia.  The main effect of this coverage was to shape public opinion towards support for the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Markale massacre in Sarejevo on 5 February 1994 introduced a new variation.  68 people died when a mortar shell hit a crowded marketplace.  The Bosnian Serbs were immediately blamed, but vigorously protested their innocence.  A secret and still unpublished UN report was reported to have concluded that the mortar shell came from Bosnian Muslim positions.

The second Markale massacre occurred abou 18 months later, at around 11:00 on 28 August 1995. In this attack, five shells were fired, but casualties were fewer—43 dead and 75 wounded. Republika Srpska authorities, as in the 1994 incident, denied all responsibility and accused the Bosnian government of bombarding its own people to incite international outrage and possible intervention.  Within days NATO launched operation Deliberate Force, a sustained air campaign designed to cause maximum degradation of the Bosnian Serbs Military capability.  Once again, strong rumours circulated that another secret UN report had concluded the attack came from the Bosnian Muslim side.

Lord David Owen, one of the EU peace negotiators for Yugoslavia, shed further light on this in an interview for the BBC’s Panorama programme:

It now seems clear that the second Markale incident was deliberately staged by the Bosnian Mulsim government to provoke the USA into open support for its cause.

The 1992 bread queue massacre was followed within days by the imposition of harsh sanctions on Serbia / Montenegro. The day after the 5 February 1994 Markale 1 incident, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali urged NATO to approve air strikes on Serb positions in Bosnia: NATO gave the Serbs a 10-day ultimatum to withdraw their heavy weapons from the hills around Sarajevo. The August 1995 Sarajevo atrocity was used to justify over 3,000 NATO air attacks on the Bosnian Serbs carried out in early September 1995.

During his testimony in defense of Radovan Karadzic,  a former Bosnian Muslim policeman stated before the Hague Tribunal that the grenade that murdered 66 and left 140  persons injured at Markale market in Sarajevo, was actually fired by the Muslim Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina , by order of Bosnian President  Alija Izetbegovic.

Under the coded pseudonym KW -586, the witness, hidden behind the adjusted voice , stated that he was member of the Bosnian Muslim special unit “Pearls “, (1992-1994) , when he was in charge of  securing the Presidency in period when the Body held sessions at the National Bank building in Sarajevo .

The Witness KW -568 claimed that due to his duty he have had the opportunity to hear what the then – Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, together with his son Bakir  and the head of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina Reis- ul- ulema Mustafa Ceric and other officials spoke at meetings . The witness accused Izetbegovic  for planning terrorist attacks on Bosnian Muslims, in order to cause civilian casualties in Sarajevo,  Markale as well as in Srebrenica in order to accuse Serbs and extort NATO intervention in favor of the Muslims.

KW -586 testified that he heard Izetbegovic and religious leader Ceric to consider ”what would happen if a shell would hit the Markale market” .
“Only few days later , on  February 5. 1994 , it really happened “, said the witness , arguing that the ABiH (Muslim army) fired a grenade at Markale from area of the village Mrkovići;
“It  was done by orders of General ABiH (Bosnian Muslim army, NATO protege) Sefer Halilovic, and the Unit who accomplished the task was under the command of  General Mustafa Hajrulahović called the Italian.”

https://thesaker.is/bosnian-muslim-witness-confirms-that-the-markale-massacre-was-a-false-flag/

The 1992 bread queue massacre was followed within days by the imposition of harsh sanctions on Serbia / Montenegro. The day after the 5 February 1994 Markale 1 incident, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali urged NATO to approve air strikes on Serb positions in Bosnia: NATO gave the Serbs a 10-day ultimatum to withdraw their heavy weapons from the hills around Sarajevo. The August 1995 Sarajevo atrocity was used to justify over 3,000 NATO air attacks on the Bosnian Serbs carried out in early September 1995.

It wasn’t only single incidents that proved to be tipping points in the shaping of international opinion.  In 1992 in Bosnia there were rumours that large numbers of people were being held in transit camps in very poor conditions.  There were also allegations of torture and brutality.

All sides – Croatians, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims – had camps of this kind.  For the most part it seems they came into existence because the food supply chain in Bosnia had broken down because of fighting and economic sanctions on Serbia.  The camps enabled what food there was to be used most effectively.

Independent Television News in the UK secured a promise from Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karajdzic to give them access to Omarska and Trnopolje camps.  An ITN team, accompanied by Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy, filmed in the camps in early August 1992.  This is the report aired on 6 August:

Omarska Trnopolje News at Ten 6 August 1992

The following day, the story was eagerly picked up by broadcasters in other countries:

ITN report 7 August 1992

 

But was everything as it seemed?  Both the Croatians and the Bosnian Muslims had chains of similar camps, but refused to grant access to the media.  And even the team that had visited the two Bosnian Serb camps seemed uncertain whether what they had seen really justified the horrified responses their report provoked.  Ed Vulliamy of The Guardian, speaking on the BBC’s Late Show on 21 January 1993 said this:

Ed Vulliamy on Late Show

Tadeusz Mazoviecki, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, said in his 1994 report that “…As of December 31, 1993, there were 5,500 detainees on the active register. According to reliable estimates around 40% of detainees are held by Bosnian Croat authorities, 25% by the Government (Muslim) and 13% by the Bosnian Serbs and the remainder by the forces of the so-called ‘autonomous’ province of western Bosnia”. There is little evidence to suggest that one side’s camps were better than another’s. But with the media highlighting Bosnian Serb-run camps and largely ignoring the others, non-Serb camps existed for periods of several years whereas the Bosnian-Serb camps had been closed down. It is also worth noting that ITN was invited, under challenge, to go to the camps by Radovan Karadzic; the Croats and Muslims did not extend similar facilities.

Claims that substantial numbers of people were held in camps (Muslims imprisoned 117,000; Serbs imprisoned 40,000) and killed (Muslims 12,000+; Serbs 6,000) have never been substantiated and look like little more than crude propaganda.

When Alija Izetbegovic was on his deathbed some years later, he admitted to Bernard Kouchner, the former UN High Representative in Kosovo, that there had been no death camps in Bosnia (Bernard Kouchner, Les Guerriers de la Paix (Paris: Grasset, 2004), pp. 372-4.)

For further information, see sections 5.1 – 5.7 of this 1998 paper