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Evidence that the Supposed Srebrenica Execution Video is a Lie
Part 2 -- The Srebrenica “Execution” Video: Mission Impossible

To read Part 1, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/sreb/vid.htm

by Jared Israel
Emperor’s Clothes

[2 July 2005; revised June 1, 2009]

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On June 1st, 2005 Hague Tribunal prosecutor Jeffrey Nice showed some now-famous video footage of a supposed execution. Amazingly, Prosecutor Nice was permitted to do this causally, in the middle of cross-examining a witness in the Milosevic trial. Let us take a critical look at what the video footage allegedly proves, according to The Hague prosecution and the media.

According to prosecutor Nice, the footage was shot by a Serbian paramilitary during the execution of six Muslims. The Hague Tribunal and the media have claimed for years that the Bosnian Serb army massacred thousands of Muslim prisoners of war after they captured the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The video, they say, is the long sought smoking gun proving the Srebrenica massacre happened and showing how it was done.

If this video footage, and particularly the two scenes depicting a supposed execution, were legitimate, this might constitute smoking gun evidence for a massacre. I say might because the Tribunal and their supporters, i.e., most media, would still need to prove the claim they made, that the supposed victims in the video comprise one of many batches of Muslims brought to the same place and murdered.

And what if the video is fraudulent? The Hague Tribunal, pro-NATO governments (including in Serbia) and the mass media have presented the video as legitimate. If we find that they are lying -- grotesquely lying -- then shouldn’t we assume that previous assertions about a supposed Srebrenica massacre, put forth with the same certainty, by mostly the same people, are also fraudulent? That the video is the latest attempt to frame the Serbian people on a fraudulent charge of mass murder?

One might ask, why would powerful institutions attempt such a frame-up? Answer: because the Srebrenica story has had a huge effect on world politics. Srebrenica depicts Muslims as supposed victims of supposedly racist Serbian Orthodox Christians, creating the impression that Muslim violence constitutes revenge. The Srebrenica story has weakened opposition to political Islam around the world. Political Islam, once widely perceived as the most intolerant and repressive force on earth, is now widely perceived as an understandable response to repression and intolerance.

One might call this the “Srebrenica effect,” and it is, I believe, an important component of the Western establishment’s political strategy for controlling political thinking in the post-cold war world. 

We must consider: is the video real or a hoax? Using direct evidence, including prosecutor Jeffrey Nice’s narration while he showed the video, the coverage in the mass media, and the actual footage, I will prove the charge that the Srebrenica video is a sloppy fabrication.

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The Hague spins a tale

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The footage was never introduced in evidence at the Milosevic trial. Rather, prosecutor Nice casually announced:

“I’m going to show you some extracts from a video. The video lasts about two hours but it will only be a few minutes of it that we will show in order to give its context. It comes in several clips.” [My emphasis] [1]

The impression created by the mass media, that prosecutor Nice showed a piece of raw video, exactly as it was (supposedly) filmed by an eyewitness to murder, is manifestly false. Rather, he showed a series of short clips or sequences, filmed in different times and places.  According to Nice, the clips were selected from two hours shot over a period of weeks. So, by his own admission, the film was edited.

As you will see when you watch the Hague footage [2], it is impossible to tell from the clips when or where they were shot or the identity of the people involved.  Instead, prosecutor Nice provides a running narration telling us what we are supposed to see: the movements of people who are supposedly members of a paramilitary group he calls the Skorpions. He tells us that the film clips are in chronological order; he tells us that they span a period of weeks leading up to and shortly after the re-taking of Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serbs; he tells us that the final clips show the execution of six Muslim men, captured in Srebrenica. The effect of this is that we see the video through the filter of what Nice tells us, but in fact we have no way of knowing if he is telling us the truth about anything, including the authenticity of the footage.

What we do know is that prosecutor Nice was not personally a witness to the events that he tells us are captured in the footage. So even if he is not purposely lying, how can he honestly tell us that he knows the film is authentic? Of course, he cannot. This apart from the question of whether some or all of the clips have been staged, or whether illusions have been created through film editing, either old fashioned or digital.

The most important part of the footage is the last two scenes, comprising the supposed execution. Here is what prosecutor Nice tells us as he begins to play those scenes.  My comments are in brackets.

 [Excerpt from transcript of Milosevic trial, 1 June 2005, starts here.]

[This section starts at 2:38:34 of the court session video (see footnote 2)]

Mr. Nice: This is at -- this is at Trnovo [TURN-uh-vo] at the command post of the Skorpions.

[Video footage is played.]

Mr. Nice: This is on the front at Treskavica [TRES-ka-vitza], or was.

[More video footage is played. The picture is quite bad here. Mr. Nice claims it shows some men in the back of a truck.]

Mr. Nice:  Now, this -- pause there.

[The video is paused.]

Mr. Nice: This video, which is potentially distressing viewing and I’m only going to play very small parts of it, reveals, Mr. Stevanovic, if the evidence is in due course admitted, and that’s why I want your assistance, reveals that men were brought from Srebrenica in batches to this group of Skorpions to be executed and they were executed, and what you see here is a lorry load of six young men. [Video is played] This is the same truck with the men in the back. [3]

[Excerpt from transcript of Milosevic trial, 1 June 2005, ends here]

Notice that Prosecutor Nice says, “men were brought from Srebrenica in batches to this group of Skorpions [in the Treskavica mountains near Trnovo] to be executed.”

The media endorsed prosecutor Nice’s unsubstantiated claims without an ounce of critical analysis. The Serbs definitely massacred thousands; the video definitely shows how it was done. 

Here’s The New York Times:

“Almost 10 years after the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian security forces in Srebrenica, a video has surfaced that presents graphic details of their fate. ”

and

 “[The video footage,] shot by a member of the group, shows six emaciated men being removed from a canvas covered military truck driven from Srebrenica to Treskavica, a mountain in Serbian-held territory south of Sarajevo.” [4]

Aside from the fact that nobody in the video looks particularly thin, let alone emaciated, notice that for the Times, Srebrenica is the massacre, not the alleged massacre; the video presents rather than allegedly presents real details. The video surfaced, suggesting that it is authentic rather than fabricated. And how does the Times know who did the filming or whether the supposed victims, men dressed in ordinary civilian clothing, are Muslims?  The Times ‘knows’ because Hague prosecutor Nice said so; the prosecution’s unsupported comments are automatically true. The Times even ‘knows’ that before we see the truck with six men in the back, it was driven from Srebrenica to the Treskavica Mountain. 

Aside from the off-the-charts bias of such coverage, which is typical of the mass media when it covers Yugoslavia, it is remarkable that not one write-up -- not even in supposed alternative sources that have more-or-less raised doubts about the video -- has pointed out that the claim that the Serbs killed thousands of Muslims, in the manner told to us by prosecutor Nice, is manifestly crazy.

Has nobody any shame?

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Location, location, location!

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It is not easy to kill 7000-8000 prisoners of war. It is harder still to do so in a way that keeps the crime secret. Since the Bosnian Serbs have always denied a massacre took place, we know that, even if we were to posit, for the sake of argument, that they were guilty, they certainly did not want it known.

What advice might we give would-be war criminals who wish to murder thousands of prisoners of war and keep it secret?

Well, first they must do the job as quickly as possible. The longer it takes, the greater the risk of discovery.

Second, they should do it as close to where the prisoners were captured as possible. The further they transport the victims, the more time it will take, the greater the logistical problems, and the more likely they will be exposed, due to unforeseen events.

And third, they should murder the victims in territory they control, limiting possibilities of observation and interference.

The town of Srebrenica was famously an “enclave,” controlled by Muslim extremist forces but located deep in Serb-controlled Eastern Bosnia. The map below shows that Sarajevo is 80 kilometers southwest of Srebrenica. It doesn’t show Treskavica Mountain, but, as the crow flies, Treskavica is 20 to 40 kilometers south of Sarajevo, depending where you want to go on the mountain.

Source: (c) Lonely Planet, reproduced for educational purposes.

Below I have linked to a more detailed map, which colors the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) yellow and areas controlled by the Muslim-Croat Federation green, making it clear that Srebrenica is deep inside Republika Srpska: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/bosnia_herzegovina_pol97.jpg Source: Bosnia and Herzegovina (Political) CIA 1997, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

So Treskavica Mountain is 100 to 120 kilometers south of Srebrenica, as the crow flies. In the summer of 1995, heavily loaded trucks would have to make the trip on treacherous mountain roads worsened by neglect and bombing. A Yugoslav writer familiar with the area told me:

“There would be only one reasonable road from Srebrenica to Treskavica, and it would be a circuitous route of about 160 km. Even then the road would be dangerous. Trucks would have to drive slowly, 40 kilometers per hour, or less.”

So the trip would last at least four hours, each way.

Prosecutor Nice says that Treskavica Mountain was at that time part of the military front. That is true. 

So, if we were to believe The Hague Tribunal, the Bosnian Serbs took the already formidable task of killing and disposing of thousands of men and found a way to make it worse, trucking their victims in small groups, over treacherous roads, from an area the Serbs controlled to the front, which they did not.

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Doing the deed

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Murder is a practical affair, so let us be practical. We have to kill 8000 people. We have made the curious decision to truck the victims across war-torn Bosnia, 8 hours round trip. We will need time to load and unload, to refuel, time for maintenance, time for drivers and guards to eat, and waiting time, while the ‘cargos’ are ‘processed,’ so we must add at least two hours more, making ten hours per round trip.

Let us requisition 25 trucks. For the Bosnian Serb army, stretched thin over a 2,000 mile long front, that’s a lot of trucks, but OK.

Let’s dump ten victims in back of each truck instead of six, as suggested by Mr. Nice, the prosecutor at the Milosevic trial. In order to transport 8000 men, each truck would need to complete 32 round trips. At ten hours per trip, that means 320 hours of driving per truck, if things go smoothly.

But would they go smoothly? Srebrenica was seized by the Bosnian Serb army on the 11th of July. What kind of “front” would our caravans of trucks find after driving from Srebrenica south to Treskavica Mountain?

Well, on the 10th of July, 1995 the day before the Serbs took Srebrenica, according to Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina: 

“The information centre of the Bosnia-Herzegovina 4th Corps (based in Mostar) reported that ‘the newly achieved lines of the 4th Corps on Mt Treskavica have been pounded by enemy heavy artillery. They [i.e., the Bosnian Serb army] have also attempted several infantry attacks aimed at recapturing lost territory.” [5]

On the 13th, the same Muslim radio station reported:

“On the Treskavica and Trnovo fronts, the aggressor attacked all the lines of our defence positions with artillery and all types of infantry weapons. On these fronts, the artillery of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (successfully) neutralized the enemy’ s firing positions...” [6]

 On the 14th, the Serbian side reported:

[Report from Yugoslav Telegraph Service news agency starts here]

 Muslim forces Friday again attacked Bosnian Serb positions along the entire line of confrontation on Mount Treskavica south of Sarajevo, Bosnian Serb army sources said...

Muslim units are continuing to open mortar fire on all heights in the area of Treskavica where they had lost positions in heavy fighting in the past few days and are attempting an infantry break-through, the local Bosnian Serb army command said. [7]

[Report from Yugoslav Telegraph Service news agency ends here]

On the 15th and 16th, the Serbs reported continued fighting on Mt. Treskavica. On 21 July, The Washington Post and other papers reported that:

“Since May, government forces evidently have captured 150 to 200 square kilometers of Serb-held territory in the Treskavica Mountains south of Olovo, as well as other territory to the northeast and southeast of Tuzla.” [8]

So according to The Washington Post, since May (actually, it was since April) the Serbs had bitterly fought their enemies over every bit of real estate on Treskavica Mountain, and the fighting continued after the Serbs took Srebrenica on 11 July. Indeed, as late as 5 August, Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army, praised a Bosnian Serb brigade as follows:

“This brigade on 1st August this year, in a powerful thrust, broke through Muslim lines on Treskavica and liberated the strategic peaks of Hum, Cardak and Kragujevac, creating conditions for the further advance of Serb forces.” [9]

And days later, Guardian writer Ed Vulliamy was reporting that, in this area, “the battle lines still move to and fro.” [10]

How many times would one of our trucks drive all the way to Treskavica mountain only to be forced to turn back due to nearby fighting?  How many trucks would be blasted by enemy or friendly fire? How many drivers or guards would be shot by snipers? How many times would the execution site have to be moved, as enemy forces overran it? or seized a nearby peak? or threatened to seize it? or began an artillery barrage?  How long would it take to move the 8000 victims, with all the inevitable delays and losses we would incur?  32 days?  60?  90? How many trucks would we lose? 5? 25? 100? Are we talking about 32 trips by 25 trucks or 50 trips by a hundred trucks, or a hundred trips per truck with trucks constantly having to turn back or risk being destroyed? How many troops would we need to escort our trucks and protect the execution site from enemy attacks? 

It appears that this task assigned to us by prosecutor Nice may become the major preoccupation of the Bosnian Serb Army.

And remember, nobody must find out what we are doing; but how shall we avoid it?  Isn’t it almost inevitable, with our trucks traveling a never-changing, highly predictable route into an ever-changing military front, that the enemy will notice, and our trucks will be seized?  And that we shall see our drivers and the intended victims on the six o’clock news?

The US military says it has spy satellites photographing every square inch of planet earth. In 1995, NATO had UAVs and U2s as well, remote-controlled spy planes equipped with the latest technology, buzzing over Republika Srpska, filming every move made by Bosnian Serb forces.  But, until prosecutor Nice showed his footage ten years after the fall of Srebrenica, nobody is supposed to have noticed a thing. Could their satellites, U2s and UAVs have failed to spot our sizable and continuous convoy of trucks, at a time when they claim their  attention was focused on the area around Srebrenica?

With constant delays and inevitable losses due to trying to murder 8000 unwilling individuals by first trucking them 160 km into a shooting war, our criminal enterprise might well drag on into September.  But at the end of August, NATO began all-out bombing attacks on Republika Srpska, blowing up anything that moved, including chickens. Somehow, NATO planes must not notice and destroy our caravan of trucks, forever creeping along the same route between Srebrenica and Treskavica Mountain.  Neither rain nor treacherous road nor carpet bomb may stop us! The Mohammedans must die in Treskavica!

I submit to you that this is preposterous.

And by the way, I did not mention the bodies. As you shall see when you look at The Hague Tribunal footage, the six supposed Muslim prisoners are marched up a mountainside (or so it appears) and then, in Mr. Nice’s video production, are supposedly shot.  [See footnote 2]

Until now, the media and The Hague Tribunal have claimed that the supposed Srebrenica massacre victims were buried in graves in Eastern Bosnia, not 100-120 kilometers to the south, in Treskavica Mountain. That version of the massacre story was sold to the public starting 10  August 1995, when the US government told the UN it had satellite pictures of freshly turned earth in a soccer field, supposedly constituting proof of the existence of a huge Srebrenica mass grave located six miles north of Srebrenica. (The US has never shown those pictures to the public...) [11]

-- Continued in Part 3 at http://emperors-clothes.com/sreb/moves.htm --