LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Serbs were provoked to attack Srebrenica
The Washington Times Online Edition 7 June 2011
Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s “Ethnic cleansing’s ghosts” (Commentary, June 2) seems to me unduly harsh toward the Serbian people.
Mr. Kuhner writes about Srebrenica being a “safe haven” but ignores the fact that the Serbian attack on Srebrenica was in response to ongoing attacks by Muslim forces from Srebrenica on surrounding Serbian villages. Yasushi Akashi, former United Nations representative in Bosnia, admitted in The Washington Times in November 1995, “It is a fact that the Bosnian government forces have used the ‘safe areas’ [that were supposed to be demilitarized] of not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Gorazde for training, recuperation and refurbishing their troops.”
In other words, the so-called “safe areas” were used as military posts to train mujahedeen fighters from the entire Islamic world, free to attack Serbian villages and return to the safety of the city while their U.N. protectors conveniently looked the other way. These “holy warriors,” led by warlord Naser Oric, described by Bill Schiller of the Toronto Star in 1996 as “blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield,” attacked 42 surrounding Serbian villages. Thousands of Serbian villagers were brutally slaughtered, yet when Serbs retaliated against the Muslim assaults from these “safe areas,” they were condemned by the entire world.
STELLA L. JATRAS
Camp Hill, Pa.
Following is my letter the way it was submitted:
The Washington Times
Letter to the editor(s)
5 June 2011
The Washington Times may be hesitant to publish a letter critical of one of their own, but in my opinion, Mr. Kuhner’s “Ethnic cleansing ghosts, despite Mladic’s arrest, the quest for a greater Serbia lives,” of May 31, can only be described as a further attempt to incite hatred of the Serbian people, collectively.
Mr. Kuhner writes about Srebrenica’s being a “safe haven,” but ignores the fact that the Serbian attack on Srebrenica was in response to on-going attacks by Muslim forces from Srebrenica on surrounding Serbian villages. Yasushi Akashi, former UN Representative in Bosnia, admitted in The Washington Times of 1 November 1995, “that it is a fact that the Bosnian government forces have used the ‘safe areas’ [that were supposed to be demilitarized] of not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Gorazde for training, recuperation and refurbishing their troops.” In other words, the so-called safe areas were used as military posts to train mujahedin fighters from the entire Islamic world, free to attack Serbian villages and return to the safety of the city while their UN protectors conveniently looked the other way.
These “Holy Warriors of Islam,” who were led by warlord Nasir Oric and described by Bill Schiller of the Toronto Star in 1996, “as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield,” attacked 42 surrounding Serbian villages. Thousands of Serbians villagers were brutally slaughtered without fear of being reprimanded or punished by the UN, yet, when Serbs were provoked to retaliate against the Muslim assaults from these so-called “safe areas,” they were condemned by the entire world.
As for Mr. Kuhner’s accusation that on Mladic’s orders “Serbian troops separated and then executed about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in front of freshly dug mass graves,” that unproven claim is in the same category as the unforgettable image of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s waving a CIA satellite photo of a mass grave, proof positive, she claimed of the genocide of Bosnian Muslims, a claim debunked when journalists from all over the world went to Bosnia to look for bodies and found – nothing.
However, Madame Secretary’s accusation did serve a purpose: It grabbed all the headlines and overshadowed Croatia’s brutal killings of 14,000 Serbian men, women and children in Operation Storm and their ethnic cleansing from the Krajina region of Croatia, a war crime act which Mr. Kuhner has yet to condemn.
The Germans have a saying, “God save us from the Plague, Hunger and the Croats.”
Stella L. Jatras
For your information: The Croatian Serbs: Anniversary of Operation Storm
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