Byzantine Blog

Genocide Covered With Silence

“After years-long research, we have established that 5,515 Serbs were killed in Sarajevo during the reign of Alija Izetbegovic, which is considerably more than the number of Serbs who perished in this city at the time of Pavelic's Independent State of Croatia. The veil of silence is cast over this gruesome crime as it cannot be ascribed only to the orgies of Bosnian Muslim criminals run amok,” says Milivoje Ivanisevic, Director of the Centre for the Investigation of Crimes Committed Against the Serbian People.

During the last war, Sarajevo was a ruthless infernal camp for tens of thousands of Serbs. From 1992-1995 5,515 of them were murdered there. Around 20,000 Serbs passed through monstrous torture chambers in 123 Muslim camps in Sarajevo.

Hundreds of Serbian girls and women were raped by Alija's army troops. As an epilogue of the ethnic cleansing and genocide, 150,000 Serbs were expelled from Sarajevo. The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is today ethnically “purest” capital in Europe.

Appeals Ignored

As early as 13 July 1992, the citizens of the municipalities of Rajlovac, Vogosca, Central Sarajevo, Ilidza and Ilijas sent an appeal to the peace-loving International Community for the salvation of the Serbs incarcerated in Sarajevo.

Not only was the appeal ignored, but the media hype against the Serbs followed because of the suffering of Sarajevo Muslims! Along with a distorted media picture began a systematic persecution and extermination of the Serbs in accordance with Alija Izetbegovic's position that no peaceful coexistence is possible between Islam and other faiths.

It is not enough to say that all international “humanitarian” and non-governmental organizations - and there were dozens of them with several thousands of representatives - should be ashamed of themselves for not confronting Muslim crimes and the pogrom of Serbs. And they did what they did because they were paid to work for the interests of those who committed crimes against Serbs. They were amply rewarded for their service. They went on to make television specials and portrayed victims as criminals and vice versa.

Minimizing Serbian Victims

You cite the names of 5,515 murdered Serbs, while the Bosnian Muslim press recently published the information that 768 Sarajevo Serbian civilians lost their lives during the war.

Under the pressure of facts and amidst requests to set up a special commission which would establish the truth about the suffering of the Serbs, it is my impression that someone from the international community compelled the authorities in Sarajevo to accept some of the blame.

The number of Serbian victims is constantly falsified and reduced. We do not play with numbers. We have detailed lists of all Sarajevo municipalities and neighborhoods with full names and information about the victims. They contain the information about 5,515 Serbian civilians killed by the Muslims. We have patiently collected the evidence about Muslim atrocities. That is why we have the exact names of the victims, places of their birth and places of their death.

The number of victims, unfortunately, can only be higher than those listed so far. The list of another 500 murdered Serbs is currently investigated, so we can expect that the exact number of victims is at least that much higher. And not all mass graves have been discovered yet.

Muslim Executioners

In the case of the Bosnia and Hercegovina lawsuit against Serbia for genocide, nobody on the side of our defense has even mentioned the suffering of the Serbs inflicted by Bosnian Muslims.

The leader of our defense team, Radoslav Stojanovic, for instance, keeps parroting that “Serbs committed many crimes against Muslims, but not a genocide.” And when “many and many” is added up, we'll come to genocide, too. At the same time, Stojanovic never uttered a word about at least part of the truth about the suffering of the Serbs. And now we have the situation that people hear about the Serbian victims for the first time, genocidal actions of the proponents of an Islamic state with the capital city of Sarajevo. Alija Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration has been lost out of sight, too.

Why are, in your opinion, the Serbian Sarajevo victims being minimized?

Although it is being repeated time and time again that it “makes no difference” whether 100 or 5,000 innocent people have been killed because, as it is said, it is a crime to kill a single innocent person, clearly the smaller number of victims means lesser responsibility for those who ruled the city and the state.

At the same time, the number of those responsible for the killing of 300 and 600 people cannot be the same as the number of those who killed 5,515 civilians. Our data and the statements collected on over 10,000 pages about the crimes committed by the Muslims point to genocide and cannot be subsumed under the orgies of dissolute Muslim criminals. In the documents on perpetrators of crimes, we have recorded 3,350 names mainly of outright executioners. Surely, the names of the city of Sarajevo officials, along with those in charge of its municipalities in which terror over the Serbs reigned should be added to the list.

The Bosnian Muslims portray their soldiers as innocent civilian victims, and Serbian civilians as occupation soldiers killed in action?

The majority of Sarajevo Serbs were in the areas in which they had constituted the majority before the war, so they could not occupy themselves. Besides, they obviously were not organized militarily, but were held captive instead. The Muslims registered a part of Serbian victims as “defenders of the city,” as “victims of Serbian shelling” or as Bosnia-Herzegovina Army members killed in action. The Muslims forced the captured Serbs to dig trenches along the division lines. They used them as human shields in operations against the Army of the Republic of Srpska, so that it retreated in many cases not wanting to shoot at its own people. At the same time, the Serbs were continual targets of Muslim snipers entrenched on the outskirts of Sarajevo.

Deviant Ploys

In what way do the Bosnian Muslims deny the victims of 123 Sarajevo camps?

In the arsenal of Bosnian Muslim deviant ploys, one of the most depraved was to release the captive Serbs and let them go home few days before they die, after their torturers had taken turns to vent their crudest instincts, starve them and beat them for a long time, in order to register them, with proper medical documents, as persons who died in their homes from natural causes. Also, “death by natural causes at home” was the most frequent citation of the cause of death of those who were brutally killed in their own homes.

It is our impression that the question of Serbian victims in Sarajevo would not be raised even now had the Bosnian Muslims failed to “admit” it themselves. Why this long silence about the Serbs that were killed?

Well, let me ask you why was the lawsuit against the Muslims for the genocide over Serbs withdrawn? As many as 10 books have been written about the plight of the Serbs in Sarajevo, the governments of the Republic of Srpska and Serbia have been given all the relevant documentation along with survivors' statements, criminal evidence, names of both victims and their executioners, but silence prevailed and continues to prevail. That is an outrage! The policy of hiding the suffering of one's own people is unacceptable. I personally presented the evidence of genocide against the Serbs in Sarajevo on the silver platter to the representatives of some political parties in Serbia and the Republic of Srpska. They did not bother to answer and you ask me why. We collected tons of data, and no interest has been shown by the media, either. Evidently, it does not suit some Serbian politicians that the truth comes to light.

Ten a Day

You made comparisons between the sufferings of the Serbs in Sarajevo during World War Two and in the period from 1992-1995.

The life of Serbs in Sarajevo in the last war was not different from the life of the Jews in Berlin during Hitler's rule. What the Gestapo was for the Jews, Sanjaklis, most of them citizens of the FRY, i.e. Serbia and Montenegro, were for the Serbs in Sarajevo and they were never called to account for their crimes. In the period from 1992-1995 during the Muslim reign of Alija Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, more Serbs were killed than in the period of the same length by the Ustashe and Germans during World War Two. At the time of the Independent State of Croatia 2,278 Sarajevo Serbs were killed in direct terror, mass slaughters and prisons. Only in the nine months of the first year of the war -- 1992, 2,647 Serbs were killed. 10 a day! More Sarajevo Serbs were killed during nine months of 1992 than in four years of Ustasha terror in the same city, in the Second World War!

No Memorial for Sarajevo Serbs

Bosnian Muslims fiercely opposed setting up of the commission for establishing the truth about the suffering of Serbs in Sarajevo, since it was bound to disprove their falsifications. No memorial to Serbian victims is allowed to be erected, either. Whether and when will Serbia and the Republic of Srpska insist that the truth be known I do not know.

Article from Vecernje novosti (Evening News), by Vlastimir Popovic; Translated by Angelina Markovic