4.2.
July 12th, 1995
The Fall of Srebrenica Safe Zone
Hotel “Fontana” third meeting
At the last meeting held at noon on the next day, Mladic announced that the civilians would be expelled on buses provided by him while all able-bodied men would be immediately separated and retained. The Dutch battalion Commander responded that he had no diesel to provide the BSA and requested that he be allowed to put one of his soldiers on each of the buses evacuating the population.
Order issued by the Drina Corps
“All available buses and vans belonging to the Bosnian Serb Army must be made available to the Drina Corps command, which will provide specific instructions and locations for refuelling.”
“Lt. Col. Popovic told me that (…) the able-bodied Muslim men would be separated from the crowd, detained temporarily in Bratunac, and killed shortly thereafter. (…) We discussed the appropriate locations to detain the Muslim men prior to their execution.”
- Momir Nikolic, Deputy Commander and Chief of Intelligence, BSA Bratunac Brigade
Bosnian Serb Army arrival to Potocari
In the early morning, the Bosnian Serb Army entered Potocari with 40 to 50 vehicles, including vans, trucks and small military vehicles, and took up tank and artillery positions surrounding the Dutch battalion compound. Television cameras filmed scenes of the soldiers handing out bread and water to the refugees. Mladic tossed out candy. A few hours later, the active campaign of terror started. Some were shot and wounded, others had their ears cut off and some of the women were raped.
Reconstruction: Establishing the facts about the executions
“During the night between the 12th and the 13th a number of murders occurred in Potocari. The Potocari area was not designed to be a murder place, but all these murders were done with the intent to scare the population and make them rush towards the buses and the trucks in order to be evacuated. On the course of this transportation there were checkpoints where the men were taken out and in case some additional men were still able to go up to the end, they were separated.“
- Jean-René Ruez, Chief Superintendent at the French National Police, former Head of the Hague Tribunal Investigative Team for Srebrenica
UN Base Potocari
Deportation – Separation
At around noon buses and trucks began to arrive. Women, children and elderly men were separated and boarded on buses. Separation and deportation was organized under the control of the special police and Bosnian Serb Army, with the help of members of the Dutch battalion.
Bratunac Brigade
Fuel for the Buses
The Bratunac Brigade was responsible for monitoring fuel disbursements to the buses and trucks. According to handwritten records regarding the issuing of fuel, at least 42 buses from various Bosnian Serb companies arrived in Potocari and were fueled up.
UN Base Potocari
General Ratko Mladic mingled among the crowd of women, children and elderly, reassuring them that nothing would happen to them. All of this occurred while nearby-soldiers began their crime spree in scattered spots just out of view of UN officials.
“Don’t be afraid. Easy. Women and children should go first. Thirty buses will come. We will transport you to Kladanj. From there you will cross over to the territory under the control of Alija’s forces. Don’t panic and let the children and women through. We do not want any child to get lost. Don’t be afraid, no one will harm you.”
- General Ratko Mladic
Mapping genocide
“I start with the ABC of genocide:
a) Genocide is a crime of the state and state institutions and resources. On the frist place, on the base of the monopoly of violence, this means army, police and para-military troops.
b) Denying genocide in the post-genocide time. Denying genocide is a strategy of the state.
c) Genocide is not an event. Genocide is a process with three main phases: pre-genocide, genocide and post-genocide.“
- Dr Janja Beč-Neumann, Sociologist, genocide researcher, author and lecturer
Dossier 5000 - Report
- Genocide: Deliberate, Systematic, Organized
- Situation of displaced population of Srebrenica at Tuzla Airbase
- United Nations, protective force UNPROFOR
- Staff Sector North-East, Tuzla-Civil-Military Operations G5
“This was not a spontaneous project but considering the personnel, the routes and the provision of buses and fuel (which was immensely scarce in Eastern Bosnia at this time; fuel was ‘liquid gold’) - it was a well-planned and efficiently executed operation, all carried out according to a precise schedule set for the transfer of the population.”
The Role of the UN
“The UN safe area was created for us, not for the Dutch or the UN. So, what the Dutch or the UN did, was that they actually evicted the people from the last remaining space of the UN safe area. They evicted them, they sent them out and this all happened under two fags that were still standing on top of the tallest building there – the UN fag and the fag of the Netherlands. The people walked straight to their deaths, as you know, and the number of men and boys in Potocari, both inside and outside the compound, summed up together, was about 2,000.”
- Hasan Nuhanovic, MA, Expert Researcher, Srebrenica Survivor
UN Base Potocari
“The white house”
The Dutch Deputy Battalion Commander had initially protested to the Bosnian Serb Army about the separation of the men, but relented when the latter claimed that the men would not be harmed and would simply be treated as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
UN Base Potocari
Evacuation - Deportation
When major Robert Franken, deputy commander of the Dutch battalion was asked why the Serb appropriated the UN vehicles, he answered: “Because they didn’t want us to witness whatever would happen.”
Intent and Denial
“So, the way to battle the denial and those in academia who ‘innocently’ deny, claiming that genocide intent is difficult to prove, is to actually quote them what the perpetrators themselves were planning and openly talking among themselves long before 1995. Perpetrator-based research is the best strategy to counter genocide denial.“
- Dr Edina Becirevic, University of Sarajevo
UN Base Potocari
Evacuation - Deportation
“The first convoys to leave Potocari included a few men on the buses as part of a propaganda exercise. This was for the benefit of the Dutch troops and the Serb TV cameras, but these men were later separated at checkpoints.”
- Momir Nikolić, Deputy Commander and Chief of Intelligence, Bratunac Brigade BSA
By July 12th, Bosnian Serb forces had expelled approximately 25,000 people who had lived in the enclave. Amid an atmosphere of terror, women, children, and the elderly were boarded onto overcrowded buses and transported across the frontlines into territory controlled by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).
UN Resolution 1004
UN Security Council Resolution 1004 demanded that “the Bosnian Serb forces cease their offensive and withdraw from the safe area of Srebrenica immediately”.
UN Security Council Resolution 1004 *July 12th, 1995):
Punishment and justice: ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia)
“And in addition, there is the aspect of fear. If you add demonisation to fear you get the recipe for genocide, other crimes against humanity and war crimes. It was the fear and the demonisation in Rwanda that led to genocide, it was the demonisation of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia in particular, and of Jews, Gipsies and Homosexuals in Nazi Germany that enabled people to be killed en masse. You need those two ingredients, but particularly the first one – the demonisation – and that is common to all the situations of genocide.“
- Richard Goldstone, the first Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal