Byzantine Blog

ICJ: Serbia Owes No Apology to Anyone

Yesterday’s “landmark ruling” by the International Court of Justice that has cleared Serbian state of all five counts of Bosnian Muslim charge of “committing, conspiring, helping, instigating and collaborating in genocide” is of immense significance since it has shattered some of the main Western mainstream media myths and outright lies regarding the Bosnian war (1992-1995).

After fourteen years of collecting evidence and ten months of deliberation, the World Court has confirmed most of what Serbia has been saying all along:

1. Bosnian war was a civil war, waged by three sides: Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
2. The civil war in Bosnia cannot be regarded as “Serbian aggression” in any way, shape or form.
3. Bosnian Serbs were and are a constitutive nation in Bosnia, living on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina for centuries, and therefore under no terms could be considered an “aggressor” in the country that belongs to them at least as much as to the other two ethnic/religious groups. As a matter of fact, two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina were rightfully owned by Bosnian Serbs before the war broke out; Republika Srpska today represents a significant reduction in size in comparison to the land owned by Serbs before the war.
4. Neither the Bosnian Serbs (Republika Srpska), nor Serbs from Serbia, have planned or intended to commit a genocide over either Bosnian Muslims, or Croats in Bosnia. It was an internal conflict, waged against Islamization and secession of the radical Islamic regime in Sarajevo, not a one sided “aggression” or “genocide”.
5. Bosnian civil war resulted in approximately 100,000 victims on all three sides: Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims — not “200,000” or more, and Muslims certainly were far from being the only victims. After all, they have killed their fair share and soaked their hands in Serbian blood sufficiently to drop the victim act already.
6. Serbia has not sent its army, nor has taken part in Bosnian civil war (unlike Tudjman’s Croatia, that has been sending its troops directly from Croatia, to wage the war against Bosnian Serbs and Muslims during the entire Bosnian war).
7. Serbian Government did not control Bosnian Serb leadership, i.e. neither political nor army leaders of Bosnian Serbs were at any point “an instrument” of Serbia’s Government, or under the control of Serbian Government.
8. Except for the redefined “act of genocide” charge to fit Srebrenica conflict (based on the two utterly flawed, purely political rulings of the Hague Kangaroo Court), the International Court of Justice has confirmed no other “act of genocide” was committed by the Bosnian Serb army throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, during the entire civil war.
9. Being that the World Court has found that Serbian Government did not participate in Bosnian civil war, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic is posthumously exonerated of the Bosnian part of the Kangaroo Court’s indictment, by the actual UN Court.
10. Being that the ICJ has found that “Decision on Strategic Goals” issued in May 1992 by Momcilo Krajisnik, the President of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, does not contain an intent to expel, ethnically cleanse or destroy Muslims, the Kangaroo Court’s sentence of Momcilo Krajsnik based entirely on that single act should be annulled and void.
11. Being that the ICJ has issued a partially contradictory verdict, claiming that on the one hand, Belgrade could not have known that Bosnian Serbs will enter Srebrenica, and on the other, that it has “failed to prevent” Bosnian Serbs’ taking Srebrenica over (how can you prevent something that you don’t know will happen?!), Serbia is only deemed responsible for not handing Serbian general Ratko Mladic over to the Kangaroo Court.
12. Serbia does not owe one penny to Bosnian Muslims and Croats (they’ll have to continue hoping the Pyramid Hoax and Satanic Medjugorje will bring them revenue).
13. Serbia does not owe an apology to anyone, since it is not guilty of anything.
14. Western mainstream media has been biased, dishonest, doggedly anti-Serbian, hateful and wrong all along.

Opening a Can of Worms: Should the Other Wars Be Reevaluated Based on the New Definition of “Genocide”?

Regarding Srebrenica, Aleks offers another excellent analysis.

According to the Summary on the ICJ website:

“The Court turns to the findings in the Krstic case, in which the Appeals Chamber endorsed the findings of the Trial Chamber in the following terms:

“In this case, having identified the protected group as the national group of Bosnian Muslims, the Trial Chamber concluded that the part the VRS Main Staff and Radislav Krstic targeted was the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica, or the Bosnian Muslims of Eastern Bosnia. This conclusion comports with the guidelines outlined above. The size of the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica prior to its capture by the VRS forces in 1995 amounted to approximately forty thousand people. This represented not only the Muslim inhabitants of the Srebrenica municipality but also many Muslim refugees from the surrounding region. Although this population constituted only a small percentage of the overall Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, the importance of the Muslim community of Srebrenica is not captured solely by its size.”

The Court sees no reason to disagree with the concordant findings of the Trial Chamber and the Appeals Chamber.”

So, the ICJ agrees with the ICTY’s rejection of the Krstic appeal whereby it redefines the meaning of ‘genocide’. This avoids having to mention that there was (as in the Dutch NIOD report) a break out from Srebrenica to Tuzla by the Bosnian army in which these men not only were ambushed along the way by the ArRS, but that the men fired upon each other in the confusion and a substantial portion made it to Tuzla.

The devil is in the detail and the ICJ saw it safer (or maybe because they couldn’t be bothered to look at it in detail) to ignore the details. Funny how the Media talks of 7,000 Bosnians massacred, but don’t ask, 1: how many were members of Bosnian army; 2: how many were killed in ambushes and amongst themselves on the way to Tuzla; 3: how many of them were armed (NIOD report proves they were not ‘disarmed’); 4: How many were actually executed and if this was a result of summary justice in the field, i.e. for war crimes committed against Serb civilians in the surrounding area since 1992. These are details that have to be found out and publicized as this is the weakest part of the ICTY’s (and thus the ICJ’s) ruling that ‘genocide occurred in Srebrenica’.

Also, applying the same redefinition of ‘genocide’ as employed by the ICTY, we can look back at a number of conflicts during the 19th and 20th century that can now be reclassified as ‘genocide’ or where ‘act of genocide have occurred’, starting with the British during the second Boer War. So if there is talk of ‘revisionism’ in history, the ICTY and the ICJ are a clear support for it. The can of worms is opened.

Supporting Brothers Facing Annihilation

Finally, concerning an absolutely ridiculous claim that Serbia should have withdrawn its financial and moral support from Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian civil war, one must ask: in a war where Bosnian Serbs are fighting for their survival against Islamofascists represented by the radical Islamic regime in Sarajevo, with proven connections to al-Qaeda and Bin Laden on the one side, and resurrected Croat Nazism represented by the Ustasha regime of Franjo Tudjman on the other, who are the Serbs from Serbia supposed to support? One would think it would be rather alarming for Serbs to fail to support their brothers and sisters, especially when they are facing virtual annihilation, partly from within, and largely from the outside, by the same Western powers who have designated themselves a judge, jury and executioner.