APPEAL TO PRESIDENT BORIS TADIĆ AND THE SERBIAN PARLIAMENT: DO NOT GAMBLE WITH YOUR COUNTRY’S FUTURE! NO TO THE SREBRENICA RESOLUTION.

APPEAL TO PRESIDENT BORIS TADIĆ AND THE SERBIAN PARLIAMENT: DO NOT GAMBLE WITH YOUR COUNTRY’S FUTURE! NO TO THE SREBRENICA RESOLUTION.

Dear Mr. President and honorable deputies,

As concerned American and European intellectuals and citizens, we call on you to seriously reconsider the plan to adopt a parliamentary resolution that would treat the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 as a paradigmatic event of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in doing so to use language that could be interpreted as Serbia’s acceptance of responsibility for “genocide.”

The execution of Moslem prisoners in July of 1995, after Bosnian Serb forces took over Srebrenica, was a war crime, but it is by no means a paradigmatic event. The informed public in Western countries knows that, at that time, forces attributed to the Republic of Srpska executed in three days approximately as many Moslems as Moslem forces, raiding surrounding Serbian villages out of Srebrenica, had murdered during the preceding three years. There is nothing to set one crime apart from the other, except that its commission was more condensed in time. In a vicious civil war, in which all sides commit crimes, all innocent victims are entitled to compassion but the victims of one ethnic group should have no special moral claim to unique recognition. Putting the suffering of one group on a pedestal necessarily derogates from the right of the other group – in this case Serbian non-combatants in the devastated villages surrounding the enclave of Srebrenica – to an equal measure of sympathy.

More importantly, what really happened in Srebrenica in July of 1995 is an issue that is still not settled, or why it occurred, and who was behind it. The accepted version of events, shaped mainly by war propaganda and hyperbolic media reports, is becoming increasingly obsolete because it is being vigorously questioned and reassessed by critical thinkers in the Western world. Much reliable information on these events is still unavailable and needs to be researched, but without it responsible conclusions on the nature and scope of the Srebrenica massacre cannot be drawn. Both the event’s alleged scope and its legal description as “genocide” are intensely in dispute. It would therefore be very unwise for Serbia and its parliament to formally commit themselves to a version of events that is thin on evidence but long on moral and political implications that are extremely detrimental to Serbia and its people.

We are also troubled by the prospect of Serbia and its parliament might accept the thesis that the massacre in Srebrenica, regrettable as it may be, amounts to “genocide.” That would unpardonably diminish genuine genocide as a phenomenon of the 20^th century, of which the Holocaust of the Jewish people and the mass extermination campaigns against Armenians, Kurds, and the Roma are some outstanding examples.

We are concerned that the politicisation of human suffering and the frivolous usage of the grave legal category of genocide greatly cheapens these important concepts and constitutes an undeserved insult to innocent victims of political violence everywhere in the world.

Not only would Serbia, by an act of its own parliament, put itself in the same league with Nazi Germany if such a resolution were passed. It would also sanctify at Serbia’s extreme disadvantage a propaganda narrative whose key components are factually unsupported. It would implicitly endorse the view that the Republic of Srpska was built on genocide and thus endanger its further existence and play into the hands of those pressuring for the centralisation of Bosnia. Finally, it would expose Serbian taxpayers to the possibility of a multi billion euro suit for damages which they are ill equipped at the present moment to pay [and have no obligation to do so, for that matter].

For all these reasons, we appeal to you to refrain from passing the projected Srebrenica resolution. If you feel it your duty to perform an act of public compassion toward the victims of the Bosnian war, we recommend as the only proper method that you pass a single resolution, written in ethnically neutral language, encompassing all of the victims and honoring them equally.

Signed:

Prof. Edward Herman,  academic, United States

Jurgen Elsaesser, author and journalist, Germany

Germinal Čivikov, author and journalist, the Netherlands

Alexander Dorin, author, Switzerland

Prof. Alexander Mezyaev, Russian Federation

Eckart Spoo, journalist and publicist, Germany

Diana Johnstone, political analyst and writer, United States and France

Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, philosopher and humanist, Belgium

Klaus von Raussendorff, ex-diplomat and publicist, Bonn/Germany

Klaus Hartmann, Chairman of the German Freethinkers Association,

Vice president of World Union of Freethinkers, Germany

Cathrin Schütz, journalist, political scientist, Author of „Der NATO-Krieg gegen Jugoslawien. Hintergründe, Nebenwirkungen und Folgen“ (Braumüller Verlag, Wien), Germany

Prof. Dr. Velko Valkanov, president, National Peace Council of Bulgaria, Bulgaria

Nikola Zivkovic, author and political analyst, Germany

Dr. Patrick Barriot, political scientist, France

Michele Altamura, journalist and political commentator, Italy

Christopher Black, barrister, Canada

Jonathan Rooper, ex-political analyst for BBC, independent journalist, Great Britain

Danilo Zolo, professor of Philosophy of International Law, Law Department, University of Florence, Italy

Theodosios Kyriakidis, Director of the St. George Peristereota Research Centre, Greece

Ing. Bernhard Frerichs, Nemacka

Dirk Frerichs, student elektronike u Nemackoj Darmstadt

Ing. Jan-Hendrik, Frerichs, Nemacka

Ing. Ina Frerichs, Arhitekta, Nemacka

Ing. Seidel Klaus, Rüsselsheim, Nemacka

Reiner Bingel, tehnicar, Taunusstein, Nemacka

Hödt Otti, med. sestra, Groß Gerau, Nemacka

Ing. Dirksmeier Klaus, Berlin, Nemacka

Ing. Davide Braga, Italy

Ing. Marco Bellini, vice-president , European Development Centre, independent think-tank, Italy

Lina Bertorello, Italy

Ing. Antonio Tassone, Belgium

Additional remarks suggested by Professor Edward Herman:   “(1) When is the EU going to insist on an apology to Serbs from Croatia and the United States and UN for Operations Flash and Storm, which involved the greatest ethnic cleansing operations in the Balkan wars, and ones where, in contrast with others, the victims have never been able to return?; (2) when will the EU and NATO apologize to the  Kosovo Serbs for the greatest „proportionate“ ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslav wars carried out under NATO auspices after June 10, 1999? (and to the Roma for their ethnic victimization in the same period?); (3) when will the EU and United States apologize for introducing Al Qaeda into Bosnia and Europe to fight (and behead) Serbs, as described in detail in „Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al Qaida, and the Rise of  Global Jihad,“ by John R. Schindler, Professor at the U.S. National War College and former National Security Council specialist in Bosnia?”

Additional remarks suggested by Prof. Daniel Salvatore Schieffer:

“Io firmo certo questo appello, in nome della giustizia per tutti popoli della Bosnia-Herzegovina, e quindi anche dei Serbi, che hanno certo diritto allo stesso trattamento morale et legale degli altri. Questo principio fa parte dell’articolo numero 1 della carta dellle Nazioni Unite dei diritti dell’uomo.”

Additional remarks suggested by Prof. Alex Mezyaev:

„Та форма и методы, которые использованы МТБЮ и Международным судом ООН для признания геноцида в Сребренице в июле 1995 года лишь подчёркивают отсутствие реальных доказательств вины сербских военных и сербских властей. В этих условиях принятие резолюции означает выступление на стороне антисербских сил. “

Additional remarks suggested by barrister Christopher Black:

“It is necessary to include a demand for an admission by all Nato countries that they committed war crimes against the people of Serbia in the massive aerial

bombardment of the spring of 1999 in which all rules of war were broken

and that the final agreement to cease that bombardment by allowing Nato

forces to occupy Kosovo was forced on the Serbian government under threat

of the mass murder of the the people of Belgrade by American B52’s which

threat was made to president Milosevic and others by Mssrs. Athisaari and

Chernomyrdin as agents of the USA; a threat in which they promised to kill

500,000 people in Belgrade and flatten the city unless the terms they

presented were accepted. Srebrinica, even if the Nato propaganda were true

(which I do not accept) pales in comparison against such terror.”

Additional remarks suggested by Professor Velko Valkanov:

“Решително не мога да се съглася, че това, което стана в Сребреница, може да бъде квалифицирано като геноцид. Това бе трагичен епизод от една гражданска война, която враждебни на сръбския народ сили разпалиха. Заставам твърдо зад един протест срещу евентуалното признаване на някакъв геноцид в Сребреница.”

Проф.д-р Велко Вълканов,

председател на Българския национален съвет за мир