It was checked how the three main statements of Milorad Dodik regarding the genocide in Srebrenica, made during the parliamentary debate on the report on the war events in this town, differ from the facts established in The Hague.
The President of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, made several claims during a special session of the National Assembly of RS (NARS) where the report of the Independent International Commission on the Suffering of All Peoples in the Srebrenica Municipality from 1992 to 1995 was adopted. These claims contradict the judicially established facts, which we verified through multiple Hague judgments.
Dodik, besides denying the genocide, which is punishable under the amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) imposed three years ago by former High Representative Valentin Inzko, also disputed the existence of genocidal intent, which was established through judgments by multiple Hague panels that tried cases related to Srebrenica. In this context, he alluded to the evacuation of women and children to Tuzla in July 1995, until making claims that those who were killed were trying to break out of the military encirclement.
Some of the claims made by Dodik during the session of the NARS were mentioned in the report of the International Commission for Srebrenica, and it was previously verified how several stances in this document contradict the conclusions reached in multiple judgments of the Hague Tribunal, although the commission refers to these judgments in its work.
The commission was established in 2019 at the initiative of the NARS and Dodik, who was also serving as the president of RS at the time, and in mid-2021, the Government of this entity, also at a special session, acknowledged the report, which was then unanimously adopted by the deputies from all parties of this entity.
The Hague Tribunal has convicted seven individuals for genocide in Srebrenica, sentencing them to five life imprisonments each and two sentences of 35 years each. For other crimes in Srebrenica, an additional 12 individuals have been convicted in The Hague.
The genocidal intent to partially destroy Bosnian Muslims as a group
Before the vote, Dodik made statements that were not supported by the judgments of the international court, one of which was challenging genocidal intent.
“The basic assumption for genocide is that one national group or ethnic group intends to biologically eliminate another ethnic group. Isn’t that right? That’s what it says. Where was the intent, do you have any decision?” Dodik said in the NARS, but he also repeated some of his denial claims at the event “Srpska te zove” held on April 18th in Banja Luka.
Hague documents state that genocide refers to any criminal enterprise aimed at using certain means to wholly or partially destroy a specific group. According to the same documents, specific intent requires genocide to consist of two elements: the act or acts must be directed against a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, and they must aim to destroy all or part of that group.
In the case against Radislav Krstic, former commander of the Drina Corps of the Army of RS (VRS), who was the first to be convicted of genocide and sentenced to 35 years in prison, it is stated that the killing of all members of a group located within a smaller geographic area, even if resulting in fewer casualties, will be classified as genocide when carried out with the intent to destroy a part of the group as such located in that smaller geographic area.
“The target of physical destruction can only be a geographically limited part of a larger group because the perpetrators of genocide consider intentional destruction sufficient to destroy the group as a separate entity in the geographic area in question,” the Krstic judgment states.
In this case, the Council concluded based on evidence “that the VRS forces wanted to eliminate all Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica as a community.”
“The Council concludes that the intention to kill all military-aged Bosnian Muslim men in Srebrenica represents the intention to partially destroy Bosnian Muslims as a group, which must therefore be qualified as genocide,” the Council’s conclusion in the Krstic judgment.
In the case of “Popovic and others,” which tried officers of the Main Staff of the VRS, Drina Corps, Zvornik Brigade, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS, it is stated that Serbian forces intended to destroy part of the protected group.
It is further explained that, although the population of Srebrenica before its fall to the VRS represented a small percentage of the total Bosniak population of BiH at the time, the significance of the community is not determined solely by its size.
The Council then states that a plan was made to kill men gathered in Potocari and that the scope and scale of the killing operation gradually increased, and the circle of victims expanded to those who surrendered or were captured during the pursuit Serbian forces undertook as they attempted to escape to territory controlled by the Army of the Republic of BiH (ARBiH).
“The Trial Chamber finds that the killing operation – from the separation through detention to execution and burial – was a carefully orchestrated strategy of destruction directed against the Muslim population of eastern BiH. Through this killing enterprise, the basic acts of killing and causing serious bodily and mental harm were committed. The Trial Chamber is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that these acts were committed with genocidal intent,” the judgment in the “Popovic and others” case states.
VRS forced the population to leave Potocari
Continuing to speak about the existence of genocidal intent, Dodik asked members of the NARS: “How is it possible then that during that period, in July, women and children were separated and sent to Tuzla or some other places, how is that possible?”
Thousands of Srebrenica residents, as stated in the judgments, fled to Potocari seeking refuge at the UN base, from where on July 12th and 13th, 1995, women, children, and the elderly were “packed” onto buses and taken to the territory controlled by the ARBiH.
Soldiers from the Dutch UNPROFOR, as determined by the Hague Councils, tried to accompany buses from Potocari carrying civilians. In the judgment against former President of RS Radovan Karadzic, sentenced to life imprisonment, among other things, for genocide in Srebrenica, it is concluded that UNPROFOR members managed to escort the first convoy on July 12th, 1995, but afterward, they were stopped on the road, and their vehicles were stolen at gunpoint.
This, as well as judgments handed down against the commander and officer of the VRS Main Staff Ratko Mladic and Zdravko Tolimir, sentenced to life imprisonment, established that by the evening of July 13th, 1995, approximately 25.000 to 30.000 women, children, and elderly who sought refuge in Potocari after the fall of Srebrenica – except for the wounded – were taken from the UN base as part of an operation organized by the VRS leadership, with the help of the police.
“The Trial Chamber finds that on July 12th and 13th, 1995, the civilians from Srebrenica transported by bus from Potocari were not free to choose to leave the area of the former enclave. The Drina Corps personnel who participated in the transport operation knew that the VRS had forced the Bosnian Muslim population to leave the area,” the Council stated in the Krstic judgment.
The Council further found that the separation of men began in Potocari on the morning of July 12th, with men being held in separate places, and they were also separated when boarding buses, after which they were taken to detention sites in Bratunac.
In the judgment “Popovic and others,” it was established that men aged between 15 and 65 were separated in Potocari, then transported and held in captivity in intolerable conditions, and later executed, predominantly civilians, including boys and the elderly.
“The fact that these people sought refuge in Potocari was, as was the case with women, children, and the elderly, a direct consequence of the military attack on the enclave. These men and boys were not separated because they were considered members of the ARBiH or some other armed forces, nor were any real efforts made to verify and determine whether there were any war criminals among them, or to limit the separation to such individuals,” The judgment states.
Disputing that between 7.000 and 8.000 Bosniaks were killed
Continuing his address in the NARS, Dodik asked for the name of a single killed Bosniak in Srebrenica.
“Those who were killed were those who were breaking through. It was a military task to break through the encirclement. They were followed by a part of the people, and those people were killed,” Dodik said, adding that there were also crimes committed by Serbs, and it is impossible to justify that someone came among the captives and shot them just because they belonged to another ethnic group.
Hague judgments state that a column was formed with the aim of breaking through to the territory controlled by the ARBiH and that one-third of the column consisted of soldiers, although not all were armed, and that the presence of some armed members of the ARBiH personnel in the column was not disputed.
According to the judgments, Serbian forces launched an artillery attack on the column crossing the asphalt road in the area between Konjevic Polje and Nova Kasaba, and only about one-third of the men successfully crossed that road, and the column was split in two. Subsequently, Bosniaks from the rear of the column were captured, persuaded to surrender, and shot at with anti-aircraft weapons and other firearms, or they used stolen UN equipment to make the men think they were representatives of the UN.
“The largest groups of Bosnian Muslim men from the column were captured on July 13th, 1995. Several thousand of them were gathered in a meadow near Sandici, or in its vicinity, and on a football field in Nova Kasaba,” it is stated in the judgment against Mladic.
Afterward, the captives were transferred to detention sites, where they were killed.
The judgments state that the killings on July 13th, 1995, were carried out on the Jadar River, in the Cerska Valley, in the warehouse in Kravica, on the meadow in Sandici, and in the school in Luke, and continued in the following days in Orahovac, at the dam near Petkovci, in the school in Rocevic, in the school in Kula, in Kozluk, at the Military Economy Branjevo, in the Cultural Center in Pilica, near Nezuk, the wounded from the hospital in Milici were killed, and the killings continued in Snagovo and Trnovo.
Many judicial panels have accepted that between 7.000 and 8.000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica and its surroundings were killed in July 1995.
The Hague Tribunal, the Court of BiH, and the judiciaries of Serbia and Croatia have so far convicted a total of 54 individuals to 781 years and five life sentences – for genocide, crimes against humanity, and other crimes committed in Srebrenica in July 1995.