Srebrenica
Srebrenica is a town in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa.Following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war that ensued, Bosnian Serbs took control of most of eastern Bosnia. Srebrenica was one of the two remaining Bosnian Muslim enclaves in that area. The town was declared to be a 'safe area' by the United Nations.
Some six hundred Dutch peacekeepers were assigned to safeguard civilians in Srebrenica but instead got involved in the local quagmire. The deal was initially for the Bosnian Muslim forces under Naser Orić to disarm and give up their strategic positions to the UN peacekeepers in exchange for the area to be proclaimed a safe zone which would entail NATO bombing Serb positions if they were to cross into Srebrenica. However the Dutch agreed to let the Muslim forces retain their weapons and keep trenches just behind the Dutch positions. This infuriated the Serbs as the Muslims used this to their advantage, setting out in raids against surrounding Serb villages in which none were spared, including women and children, such as in the village of Kravica on January 7, 1993 (Orthodox Christmas). The Muslim forces would then retreat into the UN Safe Zone leaving the Serbs powerless to pursue the offenders and defenceless at the hands of these men who struck mostly at night. The Dutch themselves witnessed the Muslim raids into Serb territory which is estimated to have cost close to 2,000 Serb lives.
On July 7 1995, the Bosnian Serb forces led by general Ratko Mladić occupied the enclave following which Muslim troops chose to breach the Serb encirclement and flee over into Muslim-held territory instead of standing their ground. Orić was evacuated by a UN helicopter to Tuzla just a few days prior to the offensive. The Serb general Ratko Mladić allowed for buses to evacuate Muslim women and children who wished to leave the former enclave. They were transported safely to Kladanj in Muslim-held territory where most continued along to Tuzla.
The Muslim men that surrendered were being singled out and taken away (later, the few remaining witnesses confirmed that they were being executed), so most of them instead tried to cross over the Serb-held territory on their own, which was futile for most. It is reported that a gunfight had erupted between some 2,000 Muslim men and the Serbs. A list of 5,500 missing Muslim men and teenage boys has been established after the events, and several mass graves were found scattered in the woods of eastern Bosnia. Around 4,500 bodies were exhumed to date, around a hundred identified by DNA. As of 2003, new mass graves are still being found.
In 1996, Ibran Mustafić, a SDA (Party of Democratic Action) official from Srebrenica accused the Izetbegović government of trading Srebrenica. He was later shot by Izetbegović sympathizers 1.
Ratko Mladić and the political leader of Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadžić have both been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In 2001, Radislav Krstić, a Serb commander who had led the assault on Srebrenica alongside Mladić, was convicted by the tribunal on genocide charges and received 46 years to life in prison.
After a long-running discussion about the event in the Netherlands, the Dutch second cabinet of Wim Kok chose to resign in April 2002 after the official inquiry and report by the NIOD.
See also: History of Bosnia and Herzegovina, History of Yugoslavia
Sources
1. Slobodna Bosna,/96 according to US Gov Report
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