By George Pumphreywww.tenc.net [emperors-clothes] Introduction by Jared Israel (5-8-00) Trial by Media Two years ago, George Pumphrey wrote "Srebrenica: Three Years and Still Waiting..." That was a ground breaking article because it convincingly challenged the universal line (that is, the almost unanimous position of the Western mass media, on the left, the right and the center) that the Bosnian Serb Army had slaughtered 7000 (or, as it was sometimes reported, 3000, and other times 8000) POWs or civilians or both when the Serbian forces re-took the town of Srebrenica. Now Pumphrey has produced an entirely new analysis. Though shorter, the new article includes new information and new arguments. How to frame a General This article is particularly important right now because General Radislav Krstic is on trial. General Krstic commanded the Serbian troops who re-captured Srebrenica in 1995. The trial, being staged by the NATO-controlled War Crimes Tribunal (about which see footnote 19a) in the Hague, in Holland, illustrates the two uses of the Horror Story of Srebrenica. First it is used to neutralize the Bosnian Serbs by putting some of their leaders on trial and threatening to arrest others whose names may be on (or, if they misbehave, may be placed on) a secret list. Second it is used to demonize the Serbs, both leaders and ordinary people. The demonization goes on worldwide and the War Crimes Tribunal plays a central role, acting as a kind of pro-NATO political theater, violating the supposed judicial norms of the Western world. The War Tribunal - an ad agency Perhaps "political theater" is the wrong description. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the Tribunal functions as a central ad agency, producing advertising copy which is then distributed to media outlets in various markets. With most advertising, the sponsor has to pay all the media outlets and the ad agency gets a commission, but in this case NATO, the sponsor, pays only the Tribunal, the central ad agency. Nevertheless, the media outlets dutifully advertise what NATO is selling. It is a good deal for NATO. Do I exaggerate? Let's look at a few examples. Example One Consider how a San Diego
newspaper described the man on trial at the War Crimes
Tribunal, the accused, Gen. Radislav Krstic. 'Accused' is
not supposed to mean 'guilty', is it? A person is
supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but this
does not apply to General Krstic:
The 'Union-Tribune' uses the qualifying phrase, "according to prosecutors," but that is at the end of the sentence. Moreover it seems to apply to the statement about Krstic being the commander. We are left with the impression that mass murder definitely took place. The 'Tribune' immediately strengthens this impression by referring to "direct testimony from survivors of the massacre." How could there be "direct testimony from survivors of the massacre" if no massacre had taken place? Nowhere have I seen a Western newspaper mention the most important counter-argument: that the alleged mass killings at Srebrenica never happened. (For more on that, see Pumphrey, below.) Nor are we told that the supposed 'direct witnesses' mentioned by the 'Union-Tribune' a)testify in secret and b) are not identified by name. Example Two On April 15, the 'Toronto Star' reported the testimony of a witness in the Krstic case. Since the witness testified in secret, the 'Star' could only have derived its story from a press handout from the Tribunal. This fact is not mentioned in the story. Isn't the newspaper's failure to mention the partisan character of its source as misleading as publishing a press release about a new car from Honda without mentioning the source? The 'Star' story had the following headline: "Brothers Picked Suicide Over Serb Execution." When you read the story you discover that the supposed witness is identified as "P". No name. Just 'P'. Studies have shown that only a minority of people read more than the headline of any given article. Wouldn't the headline have had a strikingly different effect if the 'Star' had composed it accurately? Something like: "Secret Witness 'P' Says Brothers Picked Suicide Over Serb Execution" A bit different, no? Example Three The April 15th 'Los Angeles Times' headline dealt with the same testimony - if 'testimony' is the proper word. I mean what is the meaning of 'testimony' when an anonymous witness appears in secret after which a supposed transcript is handed out by a Tribunal which has already decided the defendant is guilty? In any case, here is the 'LA
Times' headline:
Now that is a heck of a headline. A lot of work went into that headline. The 'LA Times' people must have taken the same Journalism 101 class I took, because they clearly understand that most people read only the headline, and they have forced a lot into a small space. And note the elegance of the thing, if not the honesty: the inclusion of the compelling detail that the witness ('P', I presume) survived by playing dead. The 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' Argument Including the phrase "survived by playing dead" is an example of a technique I call the 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' argument. It is used by the more sophisticated NATO apologists, on the political Right and Left. Here's how it works. Let us assume that someone wants to convince me the Yugoslav government is terrible. We shall call this someone 'C' to protect his privacy. Now if 'C' said to me: "The Serbs committed atrocities against Albanians in Kosovo," I could argue; I could demand facts. What atrocities are you talking about? When? Where? What is your evidence? But "C" knows that I am critical of the government, so what if instead of being straight forward, 'C' was to say: "The US government is responsible for the carnage in Kosovo because it had to have known that when NATO bombed Kosovo the Serb government forces would escalate their atrocities against Albanians." Do you see what 'C' has accomplished? He has confused the issue with his 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' argument. I am likely to focus on Washington's responsibility and overlook the fact that 'C's statement assumes the truth of what he is really trying to get me to believe - that there was carnage, that 'the Serbs' did commit atrocities against Albanians and that these supposed atrocities worsened after the onset of bombing. 'C' is completely dishonest, but is he effective? I think so. It takes a lot of mental effort to resist his argument. It is like stopping an express train. I have to say, "Hold on now! Let's put aside Washington's responsibility. You are acting as if you had proof that the Serbs committed atrocities. I think you are just parroting the pro-NATO media. Where's your evidence?" Were I to expend the effort necessary to make this argument, "C" would be out of luck, poor thing. Because there is no evidence. That's why all the smarter NATO apologists, whether on the right or, as in the case of 'C', on the Left, argue in this fashion. No mass graves were found in Kosovo, though NATO expended thousands of person-hours digging up the province, looking for graves, not to mention miles of newsprint and hours of TV time reporting on the grave-hunt and promising to find thousands of bodies which somehow never materialized. Of course, the point of all this coverage of a non-event was to give people the impression that the atrocities had taken place. The 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' argument takes advantage of the way our minds work. We like to fill in missing details in a story. When someone makes a statement that only makes sense if certain other things are true - our minds fill in the missing details. We love figuring out the missing details. The 'LA Times' headline which I posted above is an example of the 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' argument.
Note the phrase that is in large type. In what sort of situation would a person survive by playing dead? Only in a massacre, correct? Reading this, our minds conjure up a story: soldiers hunting among the bodies for signs of life; the witness holding his breath, trying not to flinch when a soldier prods him with an assault rifle. Isn't this a scene from some movie? Fooled by the 'Does-He-Still-Beat-His-Wife?' argument we suspend our critical sense. Despite zero proof, we have accepted that there was a massacre. We settle back in our seats and fill in the details. The Mystery of 'P' Any criminal lawyer will tell you that even if you know something about a prosecution witness, even if you can see no reason for him or her to lie - even then it is still impossible to be sure the witness is telling the truth. That's why members of a jury study a witness looking for a clue: is he lying? But what do we have here? We have, first of all no jury. The War Crimes Tribunal never has a jury. We have second of all a witness about whom we know nothing. Does this witness (he? she?) really come from Bosnia? Who knows? Not us. Was he or she actually near Srebrenica when the supposed events took place? We don't know. Has he or she been bribed to lie, with the promise of money or position by NATO or the Islamist government of Izetbegovic in Sarajevo? Has he or she been coerced by threat of prosecution for crimes committed against the Serbs and anti-Islamist Muslims or blackmailed in some other way? Is he or she a fanatical supporter of Izetbegovic who would gladly lie to help the cause? Does he or she exist? We don't know. Only the bureaucrats who run the War Crimes Tribunal know and they have already publicly declared that General Krstic is guilty. So what kind of a trial is this? Isn't this in fact a Show Trial? Our free press refuses to touch that question. The mass media - whether the establishment NY Times or the conservative National Review or the communist L'Humanite - refuses to publish critical questions about the Radislav Krstic trial in the same way that they refuse to publish critical questions about their automobile or lingerie ads. Nor has the mass media so much as mentioned the charge, made by the Bosnian Serbs and also by Dutch UN troops who were stationed in Srebrenica,(see footnote 19b) that the town was used by Islamist forces under Commander Naser Oric to wage a campaign of terror against Serbs and others in surrounding villages. Islamist Commander Naser Oric was open about these war crimes. Indeed, he went so far as to boast about them, showing a Washington Post reporter video footage of the mutilated bodies of Serbian civilians whom his troops had slaughtered. The Western media has avoided this subject. As far as I know, no newspaper has ever published an editorial demanding that Naser Oric be put on trial. This is a scandal. Given that Srebrenica was a terrorist base for Islamist forces, one could argue that General Krstic is a hero for driving the terrorists out. Or is terrorism OK when the victims are Serbs? Instead of discussing such politically incorrect stuff, the media sticks to the story of 'P'. Because 'P's credibility derives from the central ad agency itself , from the War Crimes Tribunal. NATO Boasts: The War Crimes Tribunal Does Only What We Let it Do! Consider this amazing exchange between a reporter and NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. It is most revealing:
-- Jared Israel Scandal in the
Hague Part I The "massacre of Srebrenica", where 8,000 Muslim males of military age are reported to have been summarily executed by Bosnian Serbian troops in the aftermath of the takeover of the town, has been termed the worst war crime in Europe since World War II. Most significantly, it has been deemed not merely a crime of war, but evidence of a campaign of genocide, the worst war crime imaginable. The case of Srebrenica, and the subsequent genocide indictment, can be seen to have brought about a major change in the political and social rules of conduct in international relations, and not only for this region of Europe. A new set of factors have been introduced into world politics. Some of the most important changes are:
In short, with Srebrenica important mainstays in the international political order of the post-war period were ushered out the door. This has all been made possible through a massive propaganda campaign spreading the story of a yet-to-be-proven massacre, which has become the key piece of evidence for an also yet-to-be-proven campaign of genocide. Momentous political decisions have been based upon and justified by the supposition that a huge massacre took place in Srebrenica, decisions determining the welfare of the peoples of this region and beyond. Three years later, in 1998, the effort to find evidence was still underway, as yet more areas in the vicinity of Srebrenica were being dug up in search of the "mass graves" presumed to contain the remains of the victims of the "Srebrenica massacre." As with previous years' excavations, representatives of the UN Security Council's ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia held its press conference at the beginning of the dig. Information from this press conference, as reported in the New York Times, provokes questions about the basis of the juridical work of this ad hoc tribunal. Mike O'Connor, reporting on the beginning of a dig in the village of Kamenica, in the spring of 1998, writes that "Exhumations in 1996 [the first year of digging] recovered 460 bodies, (...) 7,500 others were still missing from the town of Srebrenica. Finding the others has been the goal of war-crimes investigators for more than two years." Anonymous investigators (investigators for the Tribunal spoke to the reporter "on condition of anonymity") say that what they hope to find "will bolster the cases against [the] 2 Bosnian Serb leaders" Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Radko Mladic, indicted for genocide by the tribunal.1 Two months later, the NY Times reported that the total number missing was 7,300, that 1,000 bodies had been found, but that "only about 15 bodies have been identified.2 Other reports have given similar, though slightly inconsistent, figures.3 This inconsistency is based on the different sources of the figures given. Whereas O'Connor sticks to the quasi-official (because least partisan) figures given by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the author of the second Times article, David Rohde, relies on figures from the "survivors" of Srebrenica, meaning Muslim (usually government) sources. That the Muslim authorities have every reason to exaggerate the number of victims on their side of the conflict is without question and therefore to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Already throughout the course of the war their estimations of the numbers of dead - widely reported in the press without verification - have had to be revised downward.4 For this paper, the Red Cross figures will be taken. But if finding the other 7,000 has been the goal of war crimes investigators for more than two years, the question should be raised: on what did the Tribunal base its charges of "genocide" if they did not even have the proof that the massacre for which the two Serb leaders are charged ever occurred? If they now - three years later - are still trying to scrape together enough bodies to make their indictment plausible, on what was their indictment based? O'Connor writes that they now have to try to "prov[e] that the soil around the bodies came from the original mass graves."5 Does this mean that what they had considered to be "the original mass graves" were either empty or sheltered too few bodies to justify their charges? Under such circumstances, it appears that the Tribunal charged Karadzic and Mladic according to the principle: "Indict now. Look for evidence of a crime later". And even when the evidence is not found, there is no suggestion that perhaps the proper course would be to revise the indictment or drop the charges. Diana Johnstone, who has been closely following the developments in the Balkans noted in The Nation:
In the media, each succeeding generation of speculation - even falsification - is built upon preceding generations of unproven reports, many of which were set in motion as deliberate disinformation by secret services and public relations agencies. Once they have been repeated over and over as certainty, anyone who would dare to venture upstream to the source and demand substantiating evidence runs the risk of being verbally lynched for having denied something as obvious as the earth's surface being flat. Given the fact that the number of persons alleged to have been summarily executed could make the difference between a charge of "genocide" and a charge of "war crime", and faced with the difference between the 8,000 alleged to have been killed and the 460 dead bodies actually found, the first step in beginning to sort out fact from fiction would be to clear up this discrepancy in numbers. Playing the Numbers: The International Committee of the Red Cross published a press statement on September 13, 1995, in which it was stated:
The September 15, 1995, New York Times gives another accounting:
Aside from simply adding the 3,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica upon arrival of the Bosnian Serb military (who the Serbs then took as prisoners of war) and the 5,000 Muslim men, reported to have left Srebrenica before the arrival of Bosnian Serb forces, to inflate the figures - and therefore the gravity of the accusation - this report makes no mention of the fact that by mid-September 1995 a sizable portion of the group of 5,000 had already reached Muslim territory and safety. And the fact that the Red Cross was asking the Bosnia-Herzegovina [Muslim] authorities for information about the 5,000 (the original figure) - "some of whom [had already] reached central Bosnia" - has completely disappeared from the news. The entire 5,000 of the one group and the 3,000 of the other are still today - 3 years later - being counted as "missing" and therefore presumed dead. The Red Cross report was, itself, lacking the objectivity that one would have hoped for from a non-partisan organization. Its very off-hand "some of whom reached central Bosnia" gives the impression that only a handful could be accounted for by mid-September. But again the press gave another picture. Within a week of the takeover of Srebrenica (July 18, 1995) one learns that:
Similar reports appeared in other journals at the time. On August 2, 1995, The Times of London published the following:
The Washington Post explains: "The men set off at dawn on Tuesday, July 11, in two columns that stretched back seven or eight miles."11 Two weeks before the Red Cross representatives Angelo Gnaedinger and Jessica Barry gave their numbers to the press, another spokesperson for the International Red Cross in Geneva, Pierre Gaultier, provided an important detail. In an interview given to the German journal Junge Welt, he explained:
Since the number of "missing" (and therefore assumed dead) has remained at roughly 8,000 throughout the past 3 years, it can be reasonably assumed that the Muslim government has never furnished the Red Cross with the names of those who reached Muslim lines. Also to be noted is that when Prof. Milivoje Ivanisevic at the University of Belgrade took a close look at the Red Cross list, he discovered it contained the names of 500 people who were already deceased before Bosnian-Serb troops entered Srebrenica. Even more interesting, when comparing the Red Cross' list with the electoral list for the 1996 fall elections, he also found that 3,016 people listed by the Red Cross as "missing" were on the electoral lists the following year.13 This leads to one of two possibilities: either the Muslims were having their dead vote, meaning that the voters were bogus, and the election a fraud; or the voters were in fact alive, in which case, here is an additional piece of evidence that the massacre is a fraud. Early in the war, journalists of Time magazine saw through the game being played on the press and international organizations. They wrote: "Bosnian Muslims, fighting at the raw level of their rivals, are likewise guilty of barbarism--and of inflating horror stories about the Serbs to win sympathy and support."14 It appears that they were not without success. With deliberately inflated figures clearly being used to fuel a major propaganda campaign to make "Srebrenica" a symbol of Serbian "genocide", some Red Cross spokespersons in effect became a party to the conflict by failing to bring important information to public attention. It is difficult to understand how correspondents such as Mike O'Connor and their editors could be unaware of the extremely misleading and inaccurate content of the reports they published. Both Red Cross and UN officials knew that thousands were safe. Yet neither corrected the communique given in September. And both failed to report that Ms. Barry's 5,000 who "simply disappeared," had simply disappeared back into the ranks of the Bosnian army. The propaganda put into circulation by representatives of the Bosnian government was allowed to stand uncontested even by organizations otherwise seen as non-partisan. Within days of the take-over of Srebrenica, Zepa, a second Moslem enclave (and UN Safe Area), was also captured by Bosnian Serb forces. Among the defenders of Zepa were hundreds of the "missing" soldiers from Srebrenica. The New York Times recounts:
It might seem strange that the Muslim soldiers of Zepa would abandon their wounded comrades and that 5,000 Srebrenica soldiers would abandon their women and children to an enemy with a reputation - at least in the media - of being sadists, and rapists seeking to commit "genocide". Could it be that these Muslim soldiers knew that they need not be particularly worried about their women, children and wounded comrades falling into the hands of their Serbian countrymen? The Serbian forces had the wounded Muslim soldiers evacuated behind Muslim lines to their Muslim hospital in Sarajevo. Is this how one goes about committing genocide? Is this the military force compared to Nazis? What a trivialization of Nazi barbarism! The London Times article quoted above mentions that 2,000 Srebrenica soldiers made their way to the north of Tuzla "without their families being informed". Were their families ever informed? Other than the very few articles that took notice of their resurrection from the presumed dead, the public at large was never informed that they were in fact alive. On the contrary. And the women of Srebrenica continue to demonstrate demanding information about their loved ones, whom they believe are still alive. To maintain the hoax, it is not only necessary to create the illusion that the proof of a massacre exists, but it is also necessary to suppress any evidence that it did not happen. Not only must the 5,000 never be accounted for, but not too many of the 3,000 listed by the Red Cross as prisoners of war must be allowed to return "from the dead." On January 17, 1996, the British daily "Guardian" published an article concerning one group of the former Muslim POWs from Srebrenica and Zepa, who, once liberated from a POW camp, were flown directly to Dublin:
Why would prisoners of war, whose normal first wish upon being freed would be to be reunited with their families and to restart their interrupted lives in peacetime, be rushed off to Dublin, with "papers to remain in Ireland"? Why would the Red Cross - usually known for reuniting families - be seeking to secretly spirit them out of their homeland, away from their family and friends? Were their families ever informed? The ex-prisoners were widely dispersed. To a second country...:
Why have neither the Red Cross (which has been visiting the prisoners since August), nor the Tribunal (in its search for evidence of a "genocide" in Bosnia, for which Srebrenica is slated to be the key incriminating evidence), nor the American government made mention since August 1995 of these men being held as war prisoners? And a third country... The pro-government [Muslim] news agency TWRA reports:
It seems as though the Red Cross, the UNHCR, and a host of "western" governments around the world were engaged in hiding the fact that these men were not massacred. Who stood to gain? As a result of the Srebrenica hoax, a new order of the world is beginning to take shape, where the UNHCR assists in creating refugees, where the Red Cross helps separate families and where tribunals indict first and look for crimes later. Before discovery of conclusive evidence that the alleged crime has even been committed, the indictment alone is made to serve as punishment. This reverses the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and amounts to inquisitorial "justice". For three years the Tribunal has been searching for evidence of an alleged "genocide" which has already largely served its political purpose. Now the search is on for a retrospective judicial fig leaf. Notes:1) O'Connor, Mike; Mass Graves in Bosnia Bolster War-Crimes Cases; IHT (NYT-Services), 14.5.98 2) Rohde, David; "In Bosnian Town Where Thousands Died, Ethnic Hate Overwhelms Small Kindnesses" New York Times, July 25, 1998. 3) As noted below, early reports used the figures 10,000 and then 8,000. The Washington Post gives 12,000 as the original number of missing. 4) "News organizations and specialists, after three years of war, talk of 200,000-250,000. The Bosnian government in April 1995 lowered its previous estimate to just over 145,000, about 3 percent of the pre-war population."(my emphasis, gp) David Owen, Balkan Odyssey, Harcourt Brace, 1995, pg. 80; 5) ibid 6) Johnstone, Diana, Selective Justice in The Hague: The War Crimes Tribunal on Former Yugoslavia is a Mockery of Evidentiary Rule; The Nation, 22.9.97 7) Former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica: help for families still awaiting news; ICRC News 37 8) AP; Conflict in the Balkans; 8,000 Muslims Missing; New York Times; Sep 15, 1995; p. 8. 9) Chris Hedges; Conflict in the Balkans: In Bosnia; Muslim Refugees Slip Across Serb Lines; New York Times; July 18, 1995, p. 7. 10) Evans, Michael and Kallenbach, Michael; Missing' enclave troops found; The Times; 02 August 1995 p. 9. 11) Dobbs, Michael/ Spolar, Christine; 12,000 Muslims Massacred In July Srebrenica Exodus; Washington Post, October 27, 1995. 12) Pierre Gaultier (interview), Wo sind die Vermißten aus Srebrenica? Junge Welt, 30.8.95 13) Faux électeurs... ou faux cadavres; Balkans Infos, Paris; Oct. 1996 (No. 6); See also Ivanisevic, Milivoje; "Un Dossier qui pose bien des Questions"; Balkans Infos, Paris; Dec. 1996 (No.8). 14) McAllister, J.F.O. et al; Specters of barbarism in Bosnia compel the US and Europe to ponder: Is it time to intervene?; Time Magazine Aug. 17, 1992. 15) Hedges, Chris; Bosnia Troops Cite Gassings At Zepa; New York Times, Jul 27, 1995 16) Vulliamy, Ed; Bosnia: The secret War - Serbs 'run secret camps': Men freed from clandestine detention tell Ed Vulliamy of random beatings and 'mobile torture machines'; Guardian, 17.1.96 17) S.K., Another Two Mass Graves Discovered, Press TWRA, Jan 19,1996 18) A.S.; Bosnian Soldiers in Australia Against Their Will; Press TWRA, Feb 6, 1996 19) A.S.; Investigation on Deportation of Bosniaks Requested; Press TWRA, March 9, 1996 19a) See UN War Crimes Tribunal Delivers a Travesty of Justice by Prof. Robert M. Hayden at http://globalresistance.com/analysis/unwar.htm 19b) See Still More Evidence - Was the Srebrenica Massacre a Hoax? by René Grémaux and Abe de Vries at http://globalresistance.com/analysis/falsely.htm |