Research of Genocide Victims With A Special Emphasis On Bosnia and Herzegovina by Prof. Smail Cekic
Research of Genocide Victims With A Special Emphasis On Bosnia and Herzegovina by Prof. Smail Cekic
Research of Genocide Victims With A Special Emphasis On Bosnia and Herzegovina by Prof. Smail Cekic
Sarajevo, 2009
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CIRCULATION: 500
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CONTENT
I n t r o d u c t o r y r e m a r k s .................................................... 7
I
SCIENTIFIC AND THEORETIC POSTULATES AND
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE RESEARCH
OF GENOCIDE VICTIMS
II
A CRITIQUE OF THE THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF
EXISTING RESEARCHES OF THE VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE
IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
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III
CONCLUDING REMARKS
IV
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
A) S O U R C E S ........................................................................ 193
B) B I B L I O G R A P H Y ........................................................... 202
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Introductory remarks
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PART ONE
The research into the total and integral scope of grave violations of
international humanitarian law demands the determination of the overall
number of victims of genocide and other forms of crimes against humanity
and international law, and their naming, marking and precise definition,
in order to discover and identify the historic truth in this field, which is a
key basis to judicial and social justice. We mostly speak of grave violations
of international humanitarian law, or rather, the most severe forms of
crimes of relevance for the international community as a whole, whereas
certain subjects – in particular, protected persons and objects – carry
the bulk of the harsh consequences. The determination of the categories
of victims, their status, the forms of crimes, and the manner of commission
of crimes, as well as the definition of basic notions, must be based in
relevant and currently applicable sources of international humanitarian
law, the laws of war, and scientific findings, which demonstrate an
authentic understanding of social and other phenomena by a majority
of global academic authorities in law, demographics, history, military,
social and political studies, and other fields of science. Therefore, while
defining the basic concepts, we must rely on a combined, analytic-syn-
thetic approach.
The categories of victims of genocide and other forms of crimes
against humanity and international law, as well as their status, and the forms
of crimes and the modes of commission of crimes, have been determined
in relevant documents in the field of international humanitarian law:
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a) CIVILIANS
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- Enslavement
- Persecuted persons
- Forced laborers
- Individuals in “human shields”
- Persons used as hostages
- Victims of a deliberate imposition of difficult conditions of life
calculated to bring about the full or partial physical destruction
of the group (victims of harsh conditions of living due to and
during an armed conflict)
- Victims of the use of prohibited methods of warfare
- Victims of the use of prohibited means of warfare
- Victims of the imposition of measures intended to prevent
births within a group
- Increased mortality (deaths due to harsh conditions of war)
- Significantly and essentially reduced natural birth rate (due
to armed conflict)
- Victims – members of international peacekeeping forces
- Victims – members of international humanitarian, medical,
charity, and other organizations
- Other victims
- Medical personnel
- Hospital and hospice personnel
- Clerical personnel
- Parlementaire
- Combatants – prisoners of war
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- Combatants – wounded
- Combatants – sick
- Combatants – shipwrecked
- Combatants – missing
c) CIVILIAN OBJECTS
- Residential buildings
- Buildings necessary for use by population
- Buildings of humanitarian purpose
- Buildings of charity purpose
- Buildings of education, science and the arts
- Buildings of culture
- Buildings of civil defense
- Buildings of medical and social welfare
- Religious buildings
- Sports objects
- Economic objects (excluding, explicitly, physically separate
military industries)
- Facilities of communal infrastructure
- Buildings and installations which contain dangerous
natural forces
- The environment /(Natural heritage)
- Buildings of international peacekeeping forces
- Buildings of international humanitarian, medical, charity,
and other organizations
- Other objects.
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Each and every one of the five mentioned acts, either separately
or together, committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such, constitutes genocide,
which is legally primarily defined by its intent; therefore, we speak of
a specific intent (dolus specialis). If the perpetrator has had the intent
(mens rea) to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole
or in part by a single act of genocide such as, e.g., inflicting of bodily harm
(actus reus) and this is proven, then we can confirm that genocide has
been committed.4
In every armed conflict, including the aggression against the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the 20th century, the
number of wounded persons (with serious bodily harm) habitually
outnumbers the number of killed individuals by three to four times.
Therefore, when researching, discovering and noting the overall number
of victims, seriously injured persons who were inflicted upon serious
bodily injuries with the intent to be destroyed, in whole or in part, being
a member of a certain national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such,
must never be excluded.
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2. Categories of Victims
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Members of the armed forces and other individuals listed in Art. 13 of the FIRST
GENEVA CONVENTION and Art. 13 of the SECOND GENEVA CONVENTION “who
are wounded or sick” and “persons wounded, sick and shipwrecked at sea“, enjoy
respect and protection on all occasions and in all locations. They must not be deliberately
attacked or exposed to combat operations (Arts. 12 and 13 of the FIRST and SECOND
GENEVA CONVENTION; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 10, Para. 1; SECOND
ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 7, Para. 1) These persons must, at all times, “be
treated humanely and cared for by the Parties to the conflict in whose power they
may be, without any adverse distinction founded on sex, race, nationality, religion,
political opinions, or any other similar criteria. Any attempts upon their lives, or
violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not
be murdered or exterminated, subjected to torture or to biological experiments; they
shall not willfully be left without medical assistance and care, nor shall conditions
exposing them to contagion or infection be created.“ (Ibid).
Reprisals against wounded, sick, shipwrecked and other persons protected by the
FIRST and SECOND GENEVA CONVENTIONS are prohibited (FIRST GENEVA
CONVENTION, Art. 46, SECOND GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 47). Against persons
which have carried out or ordered certain grave breaches (“wilful killing, torture or
inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering
or serious injury to body or health, and destruction and appropriation of property,
not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly“),
legal measures will be undertaken to provide for proper criminal sanction (FIRST
GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts. 49-50; SECOND GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts.
50-51; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 11, Para. 2; SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 8).
8 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 14; THIRD GENEVA CONVENTION, Art.
1-3; 4A, Para. 1, 2, 3 and 6; 5, 7, 12, 13, 15 et al.; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL,
Art. 45, Para. 1-3.
Wounded and sick combatants “of a party in conflict which have fallen into the
power of the opponent shall be considered prisoners of war, and rules of inter-
national law related to the prisoners of war shall apply to them“ (FIRST GENEVA
CONVENTION, Art 14).
Combatants which have been imprisoned (with or without surrender) are prison-
ers of war and shall not be subject to further attack. (THIRD GENEVA CONVEN-
TION, Arts. 5, 13, 18, et al.; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 44).
Prisoner of war marks, by rule, every combatant which has fallen into the power of
the opposing party (CONVENTION WITH RESPECT TO THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS
OF WAR ON LAND, IV (The Laws and customs of War on Land), 1, Moscow, 2002;
THIRD GENEVA CONVENTION, Art 4; ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL I, Art. 44).
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a white flag. The parlamentaire and his suite enjoy full protection of their personality
and they are inviolable during the execution of their duties, if they respect the rules of
the law of war and the terms set by the other party to the conflict for potential reception.
No deliberate fire may be opened against the parlamentaire and his suite (flag carrier,
translator, driver, signal officer and loudspeakers, trumpeter or drummer, etc.) (Ibid).
12 FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 27, Para. 1. The rights of protected
persons in occupied territory are inviolable (Ibid, Art. 47).
13 Ibid, Art. 27, Para. 2; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 76, Para. 1.
Pregnant women and mothers with infants who are arrested, detained or interned for
reasons related to the armed conflict, shall have their cases considered with the
utmost priority. (FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 76, Para. 2).
14 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 77, Para. 1.
15 FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 27, Para. 2.
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medical services; medical vehicles; trains, sea and air vessels;22 transports
of medications, medical material, food, clothes and religious items;23
medical transports – medical vehicles;24 hospital ships and coastal rescue
craft (vessel lifeboats or lesser boats);25 medical planes;26 buildings
and materials (equipment, supplies and means of transport) belonging
to civil defense, and warehouses serving the civilian population.27
It is prohibited to attack buildings, materials, and warehouses of
mobile civilian medical institutions and units of armed forces,28 medical
units and institutions (fixed establishments or mobile medical units of
Medical Service),29 hospital vessels,30 medical zones and sites,31 military
hospital ships and lesser vessels,32 ship hospitals,33 vessels authorized to
transport medical materials,34 medical planes35 and medical transports.36
It is prohibited to undertake any enemy activity against objects
of culture (historical movements, works of art, or places of common
22 Ibid, Arts. 21-22; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 12, Para. 1 and 2,
and Art. 23, Para. 1.
23 FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 23.
24 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 21.
25 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 22.
26 Ibid, Arts. 24-31.
27 Ibid, Art. 61, Para. 3 and Art. 62, Para. 3.
28 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts. 33-34; SECOND ADDITIONAL PRO-
TOCOL, Art. 11.
29 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Art.19; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL,
Art. 85 Para 2; SECOND ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL Art. 11 Para. 1-2.
30 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts. 20 and 46; SECOND GENEVA CON-
VENTION, Art. 47.
31 Ibid, Art. 21.
32 SECOND GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts. 22-25, 27, and 43.
33 Ibid, Art. 28.
34 Ibid, Art. 38.
35 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Arts. 35-36; SECOND GENEVA CON-
VENTION, Arts. 39-40.
36 FIRST GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 35; FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL,
Art. 85, Para. 2; SECOND ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 11, Para. 1-2.
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37 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Arts. 52-53 and 85, Para. 4 (d); SECOND
ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 16; INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, STATUTE,
Art. 8 (2)(b)(ix); INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, ELEMENTS OF CRIMES,
Art. 8 (2)(b)(ix). Objects of culture are all objects which represent a high cultural value
and serve the civilian population for the fulfillment of its cultural, educational,
scientific, religious and sportive needs, as well as other civilian objects used for those
purposes (FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 53; SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 16; D. Fleck-M. Bothe, THE HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW IN ARMED CONFLICTS, New York, 1999).
38 An object of culture under general protection represents an object of major
significance for the cultural heritage of every nation, such as:
a) monuments of architecture, art or history, archaeological sites; groups
of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest;
b) buildings whose main and effective purpose is to preserve movable
cultural property, such as museums, major libraries, archive treasuries, artifact
depositories; and
c) centers containing a large number of non-transferable cultural artifacts
(THE HAGUE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL PROPERTY
IN THE EVENT OF ARMED CONFLICT OF 14 MAY 1954, 1).
39 An object of culture under special protection represents an object of extreme
value, such as
a) artifact depositories,
b) centers which contain non-transferable cultural artifacts, and
c) other cultural objects of very great importance (THE HAGUE CONVENTION
FOR THE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL PROPERTY IN THE EVENT OF ARMED
CONFLICT OF 14 MAY 1954, 1, 8).
40 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Arts. 52-53; SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 16.
41 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 53; SECOND ADDITIONAL PROTO-
COL, Art. 14.
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međunarodnog prava Univerziteta u Sarajevu, Sarajevo, 2000, pp. 43-72 and 297-313. The
long discussion to establish UN “safe areas” in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
“saved from any armed attack or any other hostile act”, has been implemented through
UN SC Res. 819 of April 16, 1993, adopted on the eve of the “Srebrenica crisis” (an armed
offensive by regular armed forces of the Army of Yugoslavia and their collaborationists
from ‘Republika Srpska’ against Kamenica, Cerska and Konjević Polje), in early 1993.
On April 16th, the Security Council, referring to Chapter VII of the United Nations Chapter,
proclaimed the area of Srebrenica and its surroundings a safe area, “which must be
saved from any armed attack or any other hostility“, and ordered the immediate
withdrawal of the Greater Serbian aggressor and its collaborationists from the Srebrenica
area (REZOLUCIJE VIJEĆA SIGURNOSTI UN O BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI, Press
centar AR BiH, Sarajevo, 1995, pp. 62-64; S. Čekić, M. Kreso, B. Macić, paragraphs of
pp. 43-72 and 297-313; ICTY, Trial Chamber Judgment KRSTIĆ, The Hague, August 2,
2001, Para. 18).
The United Nations Security Council has used the Resolution to, among other
things, demand that “the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)
immediately cease the supply of military aims, equipment and services to the
Bosnian Serb paramilitary units in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina“
(Ibid.) Unfortunately, even this request by the Security Council is opposed to relevant
documentation which clearly confirms that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is one
of the aggressors against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose armed forces
have directly taken part in genocide and other forms of crimes against humanity and
international law.
Resolution 824 of May 6, 1993, apart from reiterating the statements from Resolution
819, also sees the Security Council demanding that “any taking of territory by force
cease immediately”, proclaiming that “the capital city of the Republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, and other such threatened areas, in particular the towns
of Tuzla, Žepa, Goražde, Bihać, as well as Srebrenica, and their surroundings should
be treated as safe areas by all the parties concerned and should be free from
armed attacks and from any other hostile act”. The Security Council of the United
Nations has also proclaimed that, “the following should be observed:
(a) The immediate cessation of armed attacks or any hostile act against these
safe areas, and the withdrawal of all Bosnian Serb military or paramilitary units
from these towns to a distance wherefrom they cease to constitute a menace to
their security and that of their inhabitants to be monitored by United Nations
Military Observers; (b) Full respect by all parties of the rights of the United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and the international humanitarian organizations
to free and unimpeded access to all safe-areas in the Republic of Bosnia and Herze-
govina and full respect for the safety of the personnel engaged in these operations“
(REZOLUCIJE VIJEĆA SIGURNOSTI UN O BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI, Press centar
AR BiH, Sarajevo, 1995, pp. 72-74; S. Čekić, M. Kreso, B. Macić, paragraphs of p. 307.)
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57 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51, Para. 4; Ibid, Art. 85, Para. 3 (b).
Unselective attacks are: “(a) attacks not directed against a certain military object;
(b) attacks in which a method or way of combat is used which can not be directed
against a certain army object, or (c) attacks during which a method or mean of
combat is used whose action cannot be delimited as provided by this protocol“
(FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51, Para. 4).
Unselective attacks “in every such case“, by nature, “hit military objectives
and civilian and civilian targets without distinction.“ (Ibid).
58 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 85, Para. 4 (a); SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 17; see.: FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 49, Para. 1-6;
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, STATUTE, Art. 8 (2)(b)(viii); INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL COURT, ELEMENTS OF CRIMES, Art. 8 (2)(b)(viiii).
59 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 85, Para. 4 (b).
60 Ibid, Art. 85, Para. 4 (c).
61 Ibid, Art. 85, Para. 4 (e).
62 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 15; INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL
COURT, STATUTE, Art. 8 (2)(b)(xx).
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3. Status of Victims
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takes part directly in the hostilities (“…they have the right to partic-
ipate directly in hostilities”), which openly carries weapons and a
permanent sign of distinction, is under direct command responsibility,
and is not protected from attacks which is accorded to civilians.78
armed forces, groups and units, which are under a command responsible to that
Party for the conduct of its subordinates, even if that Party is represented by a
government or an authority not recognized by an adverse Party. Such armed forces
shall be subject to an internal disciplinary system which, inter alia, shall enforce
compliance with the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict.” (Ibid,
Art. 43, Para. 1).
78 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 43 and 44; SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 13, Para. 3; THIRD GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 4 and 19, Para. 2;
FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 15, Para. 1a; INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL
COURT, STATUTE, Art. 8 (vi), as per: Službeni glasnik Bosne i Hercegovine, br. 2,
Sarajevo, March 6, 2002, nos. 21 – 24; UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MIDDLE
DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, TAMPA DIVISION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v.
SAMI AMIN AL-ARIAN ET AL.,, No: 8 : 03-CR-77-T- 30-TBM, of April 21, 2005, Tampa
(Florida) 2005, pp. 7-8; William Abresch, A HUMAN RIGHTS LAW OF INTERNAL
ARMED CONFLICT: THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHECHNYA,
Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper Extrajudicial Executions Series,
No. 4, New York, 2005, p. 18; David R. Rothwell, LEGAL OPINION ON THE STATUS
OF NON-COMBATANTS AND CONTRACTORS UNDER INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN LAW AND AUSTRALIAN LAW, Canberra, December 2004, p. 2.
For example, when speaking of the international armed conflict which happened
in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the end of the 20th century, this includes
combatants from the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosniacs, Serbs, Croats, and others),
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia and Montenegro (Serbs, Montenegrins, and
others), the Republic of Croatia (Croats, Serbs, Bosniacs, and others), as well as Russia,
Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Algeria, Iran, and other
countries. By excluding combatants from other countries from the overall count for the
1991-1995 period, who got killed in the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
no (complete) findings on the overall number of victims may be presented.
Numerous nationals of neighboring countries have, according to available data, taken
part in the aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina, the genocide against the Bosniacs
and other forms of crimes against humanity and international law. Data on this issue,
in relation to the participation by nationals of Serbia, was given by the Republic of
Serbia minister for labor and social welfare, Rasim Ljajić. With this in mind, he stated
the interesting conclusion that “approximately 400.000 Serbian citizens took part in
the wars of the nineties”, of which, according to him, “[as] research demonstrates, 40%
are direct participants in wars.” (http://www.danas.co.yu/20070811/hronika2.html,
Predstavljen projekat pomoći osobama sa posttraumatskim stresnim poremećajem, 10.
august 2007.). This means that 160.000 Serbian citizens directly took part in these
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warfs, meaning that these are combatants who had taken part in hostilities (in a war of
conquest and aggression) on the territory and against other states where they had, among
other things, committed genocide against the Bosniacs.
79 A. Pellet, DROIT INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC, Paris, 2003, Paragraph 580;
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS, World campaign
for Human Rights, No. 13, Washington, DC, 2007, pp. 1-6; William Abresch, A HUMAN
RIGHTS LAW OF INTERNAL ARMED CONFLICT: THE EUROPEAN COURT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHECHNYA, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working
Paper Extrajudicial Executions Series, No. 4, New York, 2005, pp. 18. The relevant factors
on determining the perpetrator’s awareness of the victim’s status included, in the ICTY
charges against Stanislav Galić, the following:
“(1) the physical appearance of the victims, including their gender, a g e ,
ph y sical condition, clothes and the character of the objects in their possession or
close to them; and
(2) the actions of the victims at the time they are killed or injured.” (ICTY,
Trial Chamber Judgment in the case Galić, Para. 35).
80 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 43, Para. 2 and 51, Para. 3; SECOND
ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 13, Para. 3; ∴ МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЕ ПРАВО В
ДОКУМЕНТАX, Москва 2001.; UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MIDDLE
DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, TAMPA DIVISION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v.
SAMI AMIN AL-ARIAN ET AL., No: 8 : 03CR77T-30-TBM of April 21, 2005, Tampa
(Florida) 2005, pp. 3-8; ROUNDTABLE ON CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN LAW AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR THE INTEROPERABILITY
OF ARMED FORCES, Geneva, February 1-2, 2007, pp. 1-3.
As in every legal term, the “direct participation in hostilities” is subject to a
variety of interpretations as there is no precise, authentic definition of that term and
concept. Therefore, the International Committee of the Red Cross has in 2003 initiated
a series of expert meetings to clarify the concept of direct participation in hostilities
(THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS, International REVIEW
of the Red Cross, Volume 87, No. 857, Geneva, March 2005, p. 190).
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82 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Arts. 48-58. Art. 51, Para. 1 of the First
Additional Protocol clearly states that the “civilian population and individual civilians
shall enjoy general protection from the dangers arising from military operations”.
In order to give effect to this protection, “additional rules, which complete other
applicable rules of international law” must be respected at all times. Instruments of
international law, which determine rules for the protection of civilians include, among
others, the CONVENTION WITH RESPECT TO THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF
WAR ON LAND, IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land, and the FOURTH GENEVA
CONVENTION (IV GENEVA CONVNETION RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION
OF CIVILIAN PERSONS IN TIME OF WAR OF AUGUST 12, 1949.
83 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51, Para. 2.
84 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51, Para. 2; SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 13, Para. 2.
85 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51, Para. 6 and Art. 85, Para. 3 (a).
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with this, only direct their military operations against military objects
(targets)”.86
Article 48 of the First Additional Protocol proclaims the principle
of distinction between civilians and combatants as its basic rule. The
International Court of Justice has, in its Advisory Opinion on the Legality
of Nuclear Weapons, confirmed that the principle of distinction, and the
principle of protection of the civilian population, are “key principles
contained in texts which make the corpus of international law”, and
pointed out that “states must never make civilians the targets of
their attacks…”.87
Civilians and the civilian population enjoy protection from an attack
only as long as they are civilians, or rather, “unless and for such time as
they take a direct part in hostilities.”88
Because of the nature of their action during armed conflicts,
combatants cannot enjoy the rights which civilians enjoy – i.e. they do
not enjoy protection from attack. Combatants and other individuals directly
involved in hostilities are considered legitimate military objectives.
The status of combatant does not only make persons legitimate military
objectives, but it also gives them the right – in legitimate military
operations – to kill or wound other combatants or individuals involved in
hostilities, as well as entitles them to a certain special treatment beyond
military operations, i.e. in the case of surrender, captivity or injury.89
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Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper Extrajudicial Executions
Series, No. 4, New York, 2005, p. 18.
Recognizing, however, “that there are situations in armed conflicts where,
owing to the nature of the hostilities an armed combatant cannot so distinguish
himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations,
he carries his arms openly:
(a) During each military engagement, and
(b) During such time as he is visible to the adversary while he is engaged in
a military deployment preceding the launching of an attack in which he is to parti-
cipate.“ (FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 44, Para. 3).
93 ICTY, Trial Chamber Judgment in the case BLAŠKIĆ, Para. 214.
94 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 44, Para. 1. According to Art. 4 of the
Third Geneva Convention, Prisoners of War, “are persons which belong to one of the
following categories, and which have fallen in the power of the opponent:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members
of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including
those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and
operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided
that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements,
fulfill the following conditions:
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and
customs of war.
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government
or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power (...)
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy
spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time
to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and
respect the laws and customs of war.” (THIRD GENEVA CONVENTION, Art. 4,
Para. 1, 2, 3 and 6.)
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international law.95 Prisoners of war are in the power of the opposing party,
“but not of the individuals or military units who have captured
them. Irrespective of the individual responsibilities that may exist,
the Detaining Power is responsible for the treatment given them”.96
Prisoners of war “must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful
act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously
endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited,
and will be regarded as a serious breach” of the Third Geneva Con-
vention. No prisoner of war “may be subjected to physical mutilation
or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not
justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner
concerned and carried out in his interest.” Prisoners of war “must
at all times be protected, particularly against all acts of violence or
intimidation, against insults and public curiosity”. Furthermore,
“measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited”.97
Combatants who are involved in military operations in an armed
conflict which is not international in character, “who have laid down
their arms, as well as persons incapable of fighting due to sickness,
injury, deprivation of freedom, or for any other cause”, are protected
by the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.98
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these are civilians, and these were civilians at the time of their execution,
nor does this stand in any relation to the genocidal motive of their murder,
which has happened before their social status was accorded (and
recognized as such). From the legal and factual perspective this is an
illicit act, because when determining the status of victims (civilian –
combatant), their specific true condition at the time of commission of
the crime – execution of victims – has not been taken into account.
Numerous victims who were civilians at the time of their execution, for
the mentioned reasons, with the absolute impossibility of them having any
say whatsoever over the issue, were accorded the status of combatants.
The consequences of this illegitimate107 act upon the determination
of the status category and number of victims are disastrous, because
they favor those who, exaggerating the proportion of combatants in the
overall victim count, reach scientifically inadmissible conclusions on
the nature of the armed conflict, or rather, on the gravity of the crimes
committed. This phenomenon must be – the sooner, the better – subjected
to due scientific study.
Another specifically important question is that of determining –
discovering, identifying, assessing forced disappearances in the overall
victim count. Certain quasi-forms of research which present and include
data on “the killed and missing” include, among other things, the theoretic-
logical and methodological error, because the overall victim count makes
no difference between to the killed and missing persons, in which case
it is impossible to find out what the total number of the killed and the
total number of the missing victims is.
When determining the overall count of victims, it is absolutely
permitted and appropriate to exclude forced disappearances from it.
In analogy, a proposal for a (probable) solution of the problem is reflected
in the inclusion of victims of forced disappearances into the status category
of civilians, and in the inclusion of the members of armed forces which
disappear during direct armed operations into the status category of
combatants, or a protected category of members of the armed forces.
107 Apart from violating provisions of national legislation which provides for the
particulars in the status of all members of the armed forces, status forgery also violates
explicit provisions of international humanitarian law.
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4. Forced Disappearances
108 Arts. 32-34 of the FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL determine the conduct
of parties to an armed conflict related to missing persons, i.e. their identification and
the exhumation of their post-mortem remains. (FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL,
Art. 32-34)
109 UNITED NATIONS, GENERAL ASSEMBLY, RESOLUTION ON DISAP-
PEARED PERSONS, A/RES/33/173, December 20, 1978.
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Appalled “by the continuing reports of widespread, massive and grave violations
of human rights perpetrated within the territory of the former Yugoslavia and
especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including reports of summary and arbitrary
executions, forced disappearances, torture, rape...”, the General Assembly of the
United Nations, by Resolution 46/242, of August 25, 1992, has condemned the mass
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (UNITED NATIONS,
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, RESOLUTION, A/RES/46/242, dated August 25, 1992, THE
SITUATION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA).
The Human Rights Commission (1994), the Security Council and the General
Assembly of the United Nations (1995) have condemned forced disappearances in “the
former Yugoslavia” (Ibid). The General Assembly of the United Nations has, in 2000,
condemned forced disappearances in Sudan (UNITED NATIONS, GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
RESOLUTION, No. 55/116/200, December 4, 2000).
112 EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, in cases: Kurt versus Republic
of Turkey (Case –24276/94, Judgment of May 25, 1998); Tas versus Republic of Turkey
(Case –24396/94, Judgment of November 14, 2000); The Republic of Cyprus versus
Republic of Turkey Case –25781/94, Judgment – May 10, 2001) et al.
113 ICRC, XXIV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE RED CROSS –
1981, RESOLUTION II
114 ICRC, XXV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE RED CROSS –
1986, RESOLUTION XIII
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127 Službeni glasnik Bosne i Hercegovine, br. 2, Sarajevo, March 6, 2002, pp. 21-24.
The ELEMENTS OF CRIMES are an obligatory document of legal interpretation
for the ICC Statute. The fact that the “Elements of Crimes” are a recent document indicates
that, among other things, they represent the most current international legal dogmatic
findings in the field of international criminal law. Given that we are referring to inter-
nationally relevant acts and categories of victims, their status, the forms of crimes and their
methods of commission, we are obliged to seek all rules, concepts, definitions, meanings,
and elements in international law; a fact which, in this case, had been ignored by Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
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132 LEGAL ASSISTANCE ITEMS, in: THE ARMY LAWYER, No. 1, 1973, p. 15;
ZAKON O NESTALIM LICIMA BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE, Službeni glasnik Bosne
i Hercegovine, br. 50, Sarajevo, November 9, 2004, pp. 5221-5225.
133 ZAKON O NESTALIM LICIMA BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE, Službeni glasnik
Bosne i Hercegovine, br. 50, Sarajevo, November 9, 2004, pp. 5221-5225.
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- Starvation
- Expulsion into refuge
- Displacement
- Forced disappearance
- Abduction
- Persecution
- Extermination
- Burning
- Use as “human shield”
- Forced labor
- Faked executions
- Whipping/flogging/hitting
- Enslavement
- Forced false testimony
- Severing, breaking or removing organs or other body parts
- Denial of medical assistance
- Starvation by deprivation of basic life needs (water, food,
hygiene, sleep, and other)
- Increased mortality of population
- Decreased natural growth of population
- Other.134
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- Hostage-taking
- Forced disappearance
- Abduction
- Rape
- Sexual slavery
- Forced prostitution
- Forced pregnancy
- Sexual violence
- Forced sterilization
- Threatening to murder family members
- Threatening to torture family members
- Threatening to wound family members
- Threatening to torture others
- Bondage, in particular painful bondage
- Hanging
- Electro-shocks
- Burning body parts (using cigarettes etc.)
- Mutilation
- Crushing and removing healthy teeth
- Pouring salt over fresh wounds
- Forced stay in extremely hard conditions
- Body scarring (tattooing)
- Terrorization
- Harassment
- Denial of medical assistance
- Starvation by deprivation of basic life needs (water, food, hygiene,
sleep and other)
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- Contamination
- Increasing mortality of population
- Decreasing natural increase of population
- Other135
135 Ibid
136 Ibid
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can only reach findings which can be given the status of scientific data,
that is, of the scientific truths. The scientific truth in genocide victim
studies is considered as the human finding on the subject of scientific
thought and scientific research, which objectively understands and
perceives the subjects of a given social reality for what they truly are.
Reliable data for processing and analysis is only data collected from
relevant documentation of differing provenience, which provides important
findings on the phenomenon and its basic features. This is particularly
true of data related to the status of victims of crimes committed in the
period from 1991 to 1995, in which case one must not forget the fact that
the subject of research are, mostly, persons and objects protected by
international law.
Sources of data140 are an important factor for the validity and
reliability of data. Having this in mind, one can immediately notice the
difference between empirical data, which include people as individuals
and their collectivities, as well as their actions, statements and creations,
and scientific sources as a specific form of human creativity. In empirical
research, both sources play an important role, whereas scientific sources
play a dominant role in theoretical research.
In the research in question, documents play an important role and
they may be classified following a complex criterion determined by the
author, source, reliability, and time of origin. Starting from the basic
concept included in the previously mentioned criterion, documents as
sources of data can be classified as primary and secondary.
Primary documents as data sources include those which relate
data which is complete and/or as complete as possible and relevant, whose
authors are institutions, organs of government and other relevant and
competent individual and collective subjects, both national and inter-
national. This includes: military unit lists (manpower of the units), payroll
lists of the units, the military registration form (VOB-8), wartime and
operational logbooks of military units, the regular and extraordinary
combat reports, orders by unit commands and army institutions, bulletins
of daily events, various situation reports, working reports, dispatch
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PART TWO
A THEORETIC-METHODOLOGICAL CRITIQUE
OF EXISTING RESEARCH
OF THE VICTIMS OF THE GENOCIDE
IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
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Murat Prašo, “of the gross reduction of population (2.07 million), some
328 thousand have been killed, fatally injured or gone missing”,
some 218 thousand of which were Bosniacs.3 Vladimr Žerjavić has
published that 220 thousand persons were killed in Bosnia-Herze-
govina, among them 160 thousand Bosniacs, 30 thousand Croats and
25 thousand Serbs.4 In 1995, the Commission of Experts Investigating
Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Former Yugoslavia
(also known as the Bassiouni Commission) determined the number of
“killed and missing” at around 200,000,5 whereas the International Peace
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the conflict in Bosnia, 174 thousand were wounded, 2.5 million expelled
and 1.1 million went into refuge into other states…”16 Dr. Ivo Goldstein
(2003) claims that “the most realistic estimate of the victims of the
entire war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is that of
215 thousand deaths, including 160 thousand Bosniacs - Muslims
(8.4% of the 1991 total), 30 thousand Croats (4% of the 1991 total)
and 28 thousand Serbs (2.1% of the 1991 total).”17
“The war in Yugoslavia”, according to Bernard Bruneteau, “has
caused 250 thousand deaths, two thirds of which were civilians,
and 2.8 million refugees and displaced persons”.18 According to a
November 2005 United Nations Resolution, 260,000 persons were
killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.19 Bora Radović considers the “number
of 250,000 killed and missing” more realistic than other estimates.20
in the Balkans and formulate long-term measures which could contribute to the
establishment of permanent peace in that area. The institutions, which have
financed this project have acted so “as they were convinced that the existing hardships,
and the dominating mentality in the Balkans, are a permanent threat to the peace, an
astounding example of intolerance, and a shame for Europe”. (NEDOVRŠENI MIR -
Izvještaj Međunarodne komisije za Balkan, Hrvatski Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava,
Zagreb, Pravni centar, Zagreb; FOF BiH, Sarajevo, 1997, p. IX-XII)
The Report of the International Commission on the Balkans has been published
by the Croatian Helsinki Committee under the title “NEDOVRŠENI MIR - Izvještaj
međunarodne komisije za Balkan“, Zagreb, 1997.
16 ∴ NEDOVRŠENI MIR: Izvještaj Međunarodne komisije za Balkan, Hrvatski
helsinški odbor za ljudska prava, Pravni centar, Zagreb; FOF BiH, Sarajevo, 1997, p.
7, as per the original: UNFINISHED PEACE, REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMISSION ON THE BALKANS, Washington DC, 1996. I.
17 I. Goldstein, HRVATSKA POVIJEST, Novi Liber, Zagreb, 2003, p. 409.
18 B. Bruneteau, LE SIÈCLE DES GENOCIDES, Violences, massacres et processus
genocidaires de l’Armenien au Rwanda, Armand Colin, Paris, 2004.
19 Oslobođenje, Sarajevo, November 23, 2005, p. 5.
20 B. Radović, JUGOSLOVENSKI RATOVI 1991.-1999. I NEKE OD NJIHOVIH
DRUŠTVENIH POSLEDICA, in: TORTURA U RATU, POSLEDICE I REHABILI-
TACIJA, Beograd, 2004, p. 51.
While asserting the issue of the “HUMAN PRICE OF WARS IN THE FORMER
YUGOSLAVIA”, especially the “killed” in the “War in Bosnia (April 1992 - November
1995)“, Bora Radović, apart from other things, points to the existence of articles in the
Serbian press “which consider the number of victims of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina
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to be much lower“. With this in mind, he mentions an article titled “Godine tragičnog
življenja“ Danas, April 5-6, 2003, p. 2), which, among other things, reads “various
estimates which consider that the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has taken the lives
of between 150 and 200 thousand people”. Such estimates, according to B. Radović,
“cannot be taken seriously“, “as there are no sources to the article whatsoever“.
Simultaneously, Radović warns of the question on “the methodology and sources of
data for the ‘estimates’ which differ up to as much as 50 thousand people“ (Ibid,
pp. 49-51).
21 E. Tabeau and J. Bijak, WAR-RELATED DEATHS IN THE 1992-1995. ARMED
CONFLICT IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: A CRITIQUE OF PREVIOUS ESTI-
MATES AND RECENT RESULTS, European Journal of population, Springer, 2005.
22 Oslobođenje, December 17, 2005, p. 3; Dnevni avaz, December 17, 2005, p. 12;
DANI, No. 445, December 23, 2005, pp. 13-15. 4,284 persons are listed as “status unknown”.
23 Oslobođenje, June 21, 2007, p. 2; June 23, 2007, p. 11; Dnevni avaz, June 22,
2007, p. 10; DANI, June 29, 2007, pp. 18-21.
24 Rony Blum, Gregori H. Stanton, Shira Sagi, and Elihu D. Richter, ‘ETHNIC
CLEANSING’ BLEACHES THE ATROCITIES OF GENOCIDE, European Journal
of Public Health, Oxford, 2007, pp. 1-6.
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The previous part of the text has given a concise overview of the
existing results of research by individual scientists, institutions, and some
civic associations, which have dealt with the assessment of victims in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this context, we will not carry out a detailed
analysis of all research so far, but shall rather concentrate on results of
research (or estimates) of the ICTY Demographic Unit, made from 1998
to 2003 by Dr. Ewa Tabeau and Dr. Jakub Bijak, as well as the data by
the Association “Research and Documentation Center” in Sarajevo. Of
all mentioned research results given in the overview, only these two
subjects have taken the identity of the victims into account, but neither
has ever publicly presented a list of the names of the victims.
Dr. Ewa Tabeau and Dr. Jakub Bijak are authors of a text titled
“WAR-RELATED DEATHS IN THE 1992-1995 ARMED CONFLICT
IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: A CRITIQUE OF PREVIOUS
ESTIMATES AND RECENT RESULTS”, where they give an overview
and critique of the previous estimates and present “the most recent ICTY
estimates”, published in the European Journal of Population in the spring
of 2005.1
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Dr Ewa Tabeau has a B.Sc. and M. Sc. in econometrics and statistics (1981), and
a doctorate in mathematical demographics (1991) from the School of Economics in
Warsaw, Poland. She taught statistics and demographics at the mentioned faculty for several
years. Also, she was a researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographical
Institute (NIDI), in The Hague, working to develop models and predict mortality based on
the causes of death and life expectancy analysis, which are her main fields of research.
Since September of 2000, Dr. Tabeau has worked as a demographer and the
Demographics Project Manager in the Prosecutor’s Office at the ICTY, where she studied
demographic consequences of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, and ensured statistical
depictions of crimes required for the trials and OTP investigations. The main subject of
her work involves statistics and war-related death estimates (killed, missing, exhumed,
identified, etc), injured persons, internally transferred, and refugees. During her work for
the Prosecutor’s Office, she authored more than 20 expert reports including, among others,
reports for the cases: Slobodan Milošević (Bosnia), Biljana Plavšić (Bosnia), Momčilo
Krajišnik (Bosnia), Generals Stanislav Galić and D. Milošević (Siege of Sarajevo),
Blagojević and Popović and others (Srebrenica), Prlić and others (Herzeg-Bosnia), and
testified as an expert – witness at the Tribunal, on various occasions.
Dr. Tabeau is an author of 5 monographs published worldwide, 25 articles in academic
international and national journals, 19 conference papers, presented at international
conferences, and more than 60 research reports and working documents. She was a
supervisor to researchers who presented their master’s and doctoral theses, and she has
worked as a reviewer for academic journals and publishers such as European Journal
of Population, Journal of Peace Research, Mathematical Population Studies, Springer,
Thela Thesis, etc.
Dr. Jakub Bijak has a degree in quantitative methods and information systems
from the Warsaw School of Economics, where he has received his Master degree cum
laude in the field of mathematic population studies. His doctoral dissertation results
were presented at the European Population Conference, in August 2003. In 1999, he was
a guest researcher at the Interdisciplinary Demographics Institute in The Hague. From
1999 to 2000, Jakub Bijak has worked at the Institute of Statistics and Demography of the
Warsaw School of Economics, where he taught statistics and advanced statistical methods
for the senior students. During 2001, he was a research assistant at the Demographic
Unit of the Prosecutor’s Office in the ICTY where, during October 2002, he has been
employed as a young professional. During his work, he has cooperated on seven different
research reports.
While still studying, he has authored many research papers. As a student, he attended
various conferences of young researchers, presenting thus numerous interesting theses.
He was a leader for the Unusually Talented Research Group at the Warsaw School of
Economics. Also, he participated in various Polish and international research projects
related to the demographic and economic aspects of society, and authored several papers.
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(S. Power, A PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE,
New York, 2002, p. 358; M. Mennecke - E. Marcusen, THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL
TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE,
in: GENOCIDE: CASES, COMPARISONS AND CONTEMPORARY DEBATES, The
Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Copenhagen, 2003, p. 296).
Strategic denial of genocide, according to R. Lemarchand, is dramatically illustrated
in American politics during the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, which has represented
a clear intention to excuse the United States of America from intervening, in accordance
with the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide. With this in
mind, he states that there were two contradictory processes going on: the intent by some
officials who insisted, back in 1992, on the use of the trem of the Bosnian genocide, and
the other, which has seen the term genocide systematically removed from official murder
reports (R. Lemarchand, p. 144).
The United States of America has repeatedly refused to identify Serb attacks and mass
crimes in Bosnia as genocide. For certain officials, such as Marshall Harris, Stephen
Walker, John Western, George Kenny and others, who resigned after the USA failed to
act to prevent genocide in Bosnia (because of their disagreement over State Department
policies), this non-action represented a significant unacceptable element of US policy.
The attitude of such US policy towards the genocide in Bosnia has been described by
M. Harris in the following way: “While State Department lawyers and career officials
were convinced that genocide was going on, the administration was passing a political
decision, not only not to refer to the United Nations Genocide Convention, but also not
to use the word ‘genocide’ in describing Serb atrocities – without a political qualification.
In line with this, administration leaders stated in various formulations that Serb crimes
‘border genocide’, are ‘akin to genocide’ or constitute ‘acts of genocide’.
Calling this genocide would imply that there are victims, not “warring parties” in
a “civil war” instigated by “ancient ethnic hatred” whose results are “atrocities on all sides”.
This would also imply that we have a moral imperative to prevent genocide, if necessary
even by force, including the right of the Bosnian people to self-defense. The administration
was always careful not to allow too much pressure for taking action to build up, and
recognition of genocide would create exactly that kind of pressure.” (Francis A. Boyle,
THE BOSNIAN PEOPLE CHARGE GENOCIDE: PROCEEDINGS AT THE INTER-
NATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE CONCERNING BOSNIA V. SERBIA ON THE
PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE, Amherst,
Massachusetts, 1996)
Even official United Nations reports, as well as those from Western European
countries, avoided the use of the term genocide (M. Mennecke – E. Marcusen, p. 295).
It must however be said that the United Nations General Assembly referred to the
obnoxious policy of “ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by Serb and Montenegrin forces
and their collaborationists during the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, “with the aim of forceful expansion of their territory”, a form of genocide
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The general consent points to the fact that sources are basic factors of
the validity and reliability of data. Having in mind that the authors of
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the text did not carry out their own scientific-empirical research, not
even a predominantly theoretical work of research, but have – as they
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intent suffices to prove genocide - and also has the intent to terrorize a population
into flight or forced deportation” (Ibid).
The acclaimed Holocaust and genocide researcher, Prof. Dr. Israel Charny, claims
that the concept of “ethnic cleansing” is one of (the nine) ways to prove the intent to
commit genocide. Prof. Charny thereby compares cases, based on an analogy between
the Nazi term “Judenrein“, used by the Nazis for territories “cleansed” (German, rein
- cleansed) from the Jews, and the contemporary use of the term “ethnic cleansing”, primarily
related to the crime of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina (I. Charny, GENOCIDE -
THE CAPTIVATING LEMKIN WORD THE WORLD HAS LEARNED TO USE AS AN
OVERARCHING GENERIC CONCEPT WITH DEFINED MULTIPLE SUBCATE-
GORIES, Hiroshima, 2004, pp. 1-79).
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8 For example, by pursuing the prohibited siege form of warfare in Sarajevo, the
Yugoslav People’s Army/Army of Yugoslavia, and its collaborationists (Army of Republika
Srpska and others), have carried out a coordinated, long-term, widespread and systematic
campaign of shelling civilian areas, buildings and populations from artillery weapons,
mortars and infantry armaments, “bringing it into a state of severity reminiscent of the
middle ages, and in perpetual fear of death”. With shelling and sniper fire, thousands
of civilians of both genders were killed, including persons of all ages – children and old
people. Thus, the civilian population was terrorized, causing it bodily and mental harm,
because of which a large part of the civilian population lived in fear, causing many to die.
By destroying utility and other infrastructure, by interrupting electricity supplies,
by blocking public transportation and other communal services, the civilian population
of Sarajevo was continuously tormented. The lack of the most basic necessities was
evident, leading the population of Sarajevo into a fight for biological survival – thirst, hunger,
lack of sleep, feeling of insecurity and lack of perspectives, lack of basic medication,
medical treatment, etc.
The civilian population was deliberately targeted when dealing with existential affairs
or while located in civilian sites. The attacks were of such nature that they involved the
deliberate shooting of civilians with firearms for direct action. Civilians were shot at funerals,
in ambulances, hospitals, trams and busses, while driving cars or riding bicycles, at home,
while gardening, while queuing for water, bread and firewood, and in other tasks. Even
children in schools or playgrounds were targeted (ICTY, the Prosecutor vs. Stanislav
Galić, Judgment and Opinion, The Hague, December 5, 2003).
Civilian objects were often “targeted or under siege”, which, according to Tadeusz
Mazowiecki, represents a violation of international humanitarian law:
“103. Hospitals in towns such as Goražde, Srebrenica and Sarajevo, which
have suffered for months under siege, are reported to be under constant shelling
and artillery and rocket fire. A team of European Community monitors who
visited Gorazde on 20 January 1993 has reported that there are about 70,000
people living there, of whom about 35,000 are displaced persons. The town has
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able to register and state the cause of death in each individual case.
The cause of death is not included in any of the other sources used
by the authors, which is a fact well known to Dr. E. Tabeau. The Access
Database of the “Bakije” burial society, compiled by the ICTY Prosecutor’s
Office, does not include information on the cause of death (or the
place of commission of crime).9 Empirical research by the Institute for
the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the
University of Sarajevo on the victims of the siege of Sarajevo, from
mid-199410, which has been used by the authors, lists identification data,
the date and place of the murder, injury or disappearance alongside the
method of commission11 en lieu of the cause of death. The “Casualty
Declaration” of the Association “MAG” (Muslims against Genocide
had no electricity or water since May 1992 and many people live in cellars or in
the remains of burnt houses. Telephone lines are cut and all roads are closed. The
only communications possible are through amateur radio operators. The use of
the “Red Cross” symbol is now widely regarded by medical and aid workers as a
disadvantage as it seems to attract attacks instead of helping to protect these
humanitarian and medical activities
104. A medical doctor from Sarajevo has emphasized that 15 per cent of the
wounded he treats are children. Furthermore, his testimony describes the absurd
situation whereby those in the hospital, who have already been injured by shooting
and shelling are shot at and shelled again. He refers to this as ‘the wounding of the
wounded’.” (UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, SITUATION
OF HUMAN RIGHTS THE TERRITORY OF FORMER YUGOSLAIVA, Report on the
situation of human rights in the territory of former Yugoslavia by Mr. Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
E/CN 4/1993/50, February 10, 1993)
9 ICTY, The Prosecutor vs. Stanislav Galić, E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski and J. Bijak,
Human Losses during the ‘Siege’ of Sarajevo, from September 10, 1992, through August
10, 1994, Case investigation report for the case against STANISLAV GALIĆ, IT-98-29-I),
The Hague, May 10, 2002.
10 List of Households on the Free Territories of the City of Sarajevo in 1994 (Popis
porodičnih domaćinstava na slobodnim područjima grada Sarajeva u 1994. godini),
Institute for the Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law of the
Sarajevo University, Sarajevo, 1994.
11 ICTY, The Prosecutor vs. Stanislav Galić, E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski and J. Bijak,
Human Losses during the ‘Siege’ of Sarajevo, from September 10, 1992, through August
10, 1994, Case investigation report for the case against STANISLAV GALIĆ, IT-98-29-I),
The Hague, May 10, 2002.
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12 Ibid. E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski and J. Bijak claim that MAG had collected data
on the causes of death too. However, this is not correct, as we can see from looking into
its data collection form – under “Immediate cause of death”
13 Ibid, p. 191, “Regular causes of death” are in the authors’ opinion, “usual medical
categories of mortality due to illness, ageing, or accident”. “Extraordinary deaths”, include
those deaths which are of “exclusively related nature (…” of exclusively conflict –
related causes”), particularly extraordinary deaths of civilians due to war operations or
harsh living and working conditions during the war”. (Ibid, p. 191, italics as in original)
14 In Sarajevo under siege, for example, apart from continuous systematic shelling
of the civilian population, civilian areas, and objects, “every day civilians are facing
a dire shortage of food, water, gas, and electricity, which is aggravated by the
constant sense of threat pervading the city. The whole fabric of ordinary life has
been destroyed by the siege” (NATIONS UNIES, SITUATION DES DROITS DE
L’HOMME DANS LE TERRITOIRE DE L’EX YOUGOSLAVIE, Troisiéme Rapport
Periodique ...., E/CN. 4/1994/6, August 26, 1993, Par. 2). The civilian population in
Sarajevo, particularly the wounded, sick and immobile persons, as well as pregnant women
and children were victims both to “direct attacks as well as the shortages caused by
hostilities” (Ibid, Para. 24).
In harsh conditions of the siege of Sarajevo, and other towns in the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as during attacks (by heavv artillery and sniper fire) against
civilians in towns including Maglaj, Zavidovići, Travnik, Tešanj, Žepče, Visoko, Vareš,
Zenica, Gradačac, Tuzla, Srebrenica, Žepa, Goražde, Kladanj, Olovo, Bihać, and Mostar
(“starvation of the civilian population, and deliberate killing and injuring of individual
civilians; temporary or permanent interruption of electricity, water and gas
supply; preventing the supply of food and of the provision of medical materials
necessary for the survival of civilians; constant shelling of hospitals, and hostage
situations involving civilians”), the psychological and physical condition of the
population has significantly deteriorated, thus increasing suffering and intensifying the
pain (NATIONS UNIES, SITUATION DES DROITS DE L’HOMME DANS LE
TERRITOIRE DE L’EX YOUGOSLAVIE, Sixieme rapport periodique..., E/CN.4/1994/110,
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the crime of causing and spreading fear among (spreading terror) civilian
populations,15 the authors lose count of the important fact that, in such
extraordinary conditions, only in a very few cases can we actually speak
of “regular causes of death”, given that “extraordinary deaths” dominate
the scheme.
February 21, 1994, Para. 5-79; Ibid, Neuviéme rapport periodique..., A/49/641-S/1994/1252,
November 4, 1994, Para. 146, 154, 166, 172, 186, 192, 199, and 205). The alarming
disturbance in the psychological and physical condition of the population of Sarajevo
has significantly worsened its overall health conditions, Thus, for example, the pre-war
figure of 10,000 new-born babies has dropped to 2,000, and the percentage of innate
infant anomalies has tripled. (NATIONS UNIES, SITUATION DES DROITS DE
L’HOMME DANS LE TERRITOIRE DE L’EX YOUGOSLAVIE, Rapport periodique...,
E/CN.4/1994/6, August 26, 1993, Par. 29).
15 FIRST ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL, Art. 51(2); SECOND ADDITIONAL
PROTOCOL, Art. 13 (2).
Determining the responsibility of Stanislav Galić, the Commander of the Sarajevo-
Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, that is, of the Army of Yugoslavia,
for shelling and sniper fire against civilians in Sarajevo under siege, the ICTY had
developed elements of crimes in “acts of violence and threats thereof, whose
predominant aim was to spread fear among the civilian population”, or rather, “of
the crime of terrorizing the civilian population as a violation of the laws and
customs of war”, on which no Judgment had ever been passed before, nor had another
court provided a similar opinion. The crime of terrorizing civilians is limited to the
attempt of terrorization of civilians during armed conflict (ICTY, PROSECUTOR VS.
STANISLAV GALIĆ, JUDGMENT AND OPINION, The Hague, December 5, 2003;
ICTY, Statement by the ICTY President Fausto Pocar, Den Haag, October 31, 2007).
The Serb shelling and sniper campaign against civilians in Sarajevo had, among
its aims “to terrorize the civilian population of the city, ... the aim of the attack was
to terrorize the civilians..., cause terror..., lead psychological warfare against the
civilians..., that they were ‘truly terrorized and in war’ ..., terrorizing the civilian
population and causing it to suffer...” (ICTY, PROSECUTOR VS STANISLAV GALIĆ,
JUDGMENT AND OPINION, The Hague, December 5, 2003, Para. 65-66, 74-75, 121,
595 and other). By terrorizing civilians, shelling, and sniper campaign, whereby the main
targets of the terrorization, among others, were women and children, the “psychological
pressure was pursued against the civilians in the city” (Ibid).
In the Galić case, the ICTY Appeals Chamber has, inter alia, confirmed its jurisdiction
over the “crime of terrorization” and pointed to the character of the prohibition of
causing fear among civilian population (ibid), which can be found in Art. 51(2) of the
First Additional Protocol as well as Article 13(2) of the Second Additional Protocol
(“The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the
object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to
spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.”)
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21 Ibid, p. 190.
22 Ibid, pp. 191-209. It is surprising fact that the authors misinterpreted certain
data from certain sources, for reasons known merely to them. The instruments of empirical
research from the Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International
Law of the University of Sarajevo, from mid-1994 (“Popis porodičnih domaćinstava
na slobodnim područjima grada Sarajeva u 1994. godini”), define the status of victims
correctly using a double marker: that of CIVILIANS, and that of COMBATANTS.
However, E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski and J. Bijak, in their Report on “Human Losses
During the ‘Siege’ of Sarajevo from September 10, 1992 to August 10, 1994“ prepared
for the ICTY in the Galić case (IT-98-29-I) of May 10, 2002 (ICTY, PROSECUTOR
VS STANISLAV GALIĆ, E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski, J. Bijak, Human Losses During
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the ‘Siege’ of Sarajevo from September 10, 1992 to August 10, 1994, Stanislav Galić Case
Research Report (IT-98-29-I) The Hague, May 10, 2002), largely use the abovementioned
research of the Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International
Law of the University of Sarajevo, and differentiate two concepts CIVILIAN and
SOLDIER. In that way, contrary to their “principal source” as they referred to the Institute’s
research, they mistakingly introduced the term SOLDIER, which does not correspond
with the state of facts and made a cardinal mistake.
E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski and J. Bijak have in the same way used the term
DECEASED. Namely, the term which is supposed to stand for one category of victims
according to the Institute empirical research, was suddenly expanded to include “DE-
CEASED OF NATURAL DEATH CAUSES” (ICTY, PROSECUTOR VS STANISLAV
GALIĆ, E. Tabeau, M. Zoltkowski, J. Bijak, Human Losses During the ‘Siege’ of Sarajevo
from September 10, 1992 to August 10, 1994, Stanislav Galić Case Research Report,
IT-98-29-I, The Hague, May 10, 2002). However, the authors forget or overlook the
important fact that, in the occupied territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the cities
under siege, which were exposed to a coordinated, long-term, widespread and systematic
campaign of shelling civilians, which led to the murder and injury of many civilians
and where, among other things, there were no conditions, not even for existential survival
(water, food, gas, medicine and other), one can only speak of an indeed insignificantly
small number of persons who died of natural death causes.
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*
* *
E. Tabeau and J. Bijak have adopted and used data from the
following sources:
1. “military records of fallen soldiers” from the Army of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, taken from the Ministry of
Defense of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – 28,027
(“all war-related”)
2. “military records of fallen soldiers” from the Army of Republika
Srpska, taken from the Ministry of Defense of Republika Srpska
– 14,237 (“all war-related”)
3. “military records of fallen soldiers” from the Croat Defense
Council, taken from the Ministry of Defense of the Federation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina – 6,689 (“all war-related”)
4. Missing persons in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995, list com-
piled by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the
American NGO “Physicians for Human Rights” – 20,621 (“all
war-related”)
5. Mortality database from the Federal Institute for Statistics in
Sarajevo – 74,402, of which 25,103 “war-related”
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25 Ibid, pp. 198-215. The authors claim that their estimate is “more accurate than
any other presented thus far”, whereas they also advise that it is not complete, because
all the war-related deaths have not yet been included in it (pp. 209-210).
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
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29 Ibid, p. 198.
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112
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113
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114
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115
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the whole archive and other property of the State Commission for the
Collection of Facts on War Crimes.
The IDC took over the “project” titled “POPULATION LOSSES
IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 1992-1995” from the State Commission,
where it was “in an advanced stage, but was terminated for lack of
finances”3. This “taking over” also included by then collected “around
humanitarian law, or rather, crimes against humanity and international law. What is known
and apparent is that M. Tokača, former Secretary of the State Commission for the Collection
of Data on War Crimes (hereinafter referred to as State Commission) is trying to
formalize, for his own needs, the basis to carry out research on crimes against humanity
and international law, for which he has neither the training nor the scientific experience,
nor the legality of the State Commission, so as to achieve not only the content and essence
but also the formal continuity of the Commission. As the association cannot deal with
researching crimes against humanity and international law, as is apparent from the
Founding Act, that attempt was made impossible by the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (“Oslobođenje”, February 11, 2006, POGLED, p. 5). Regardless of the
multiple illegal basis, from its founding until today, the association has carried out activities
contrary to the applicable normative and legal acts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, opening up
doors for various forms of manipulations and wrong interpretation on the collection,
processing and analysis of original empiric data on the grave breaches of international
humanitarian law, including the crime of genocide. Given the sensitivity of the mentioned
themes, particularly in a society such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authority, first
and foremost, of scientific and judicial institutions must prevail and take over a key role
in the process of research, to be able to present created and formed results of research
to all the different segments of human society.
3 http://www.idc.org.ba/projekti//gubicistanovnistva.html, “GUBICI STANOV-
NIŠTVA 91-95”, January 17, 2006, pp 1-3.The State Commission was formed by the
Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on April 28, 1992, and its first
president was Stjepan Kljuić, then member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Two departments were formed within it; one led by Prof. Dr. Zoran Pajić, and the other
by Prof. Dr. Smail Čekić. The Commission had involved a number of affirmed and
renowned lawyers and scientific workers, such as Ekrem Galijatović, Mladen Šutej,
Zijo Hadžimuratović, Azra Smajović, then Dr. Zvonko Tomić, Dražen Petrović M.A.,
and so on. The Secretary of the Commission – i.e. the person in charge of technical and
administrative affairs of the Commission – was Mirsad Tokača (“Oslobođenje”, February
11, 2006, POGLED, p. 5).
With the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord and due to, among other things, the
lack of necessary finances for its work, the Commission had functioned in difficult
conditions for a certain period of time, after which it ceased working. However, the
Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not pass a decision on its closure, nor did it
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75 thousand names of the killed and missing persons”, and the conti-
nuation was justified as being “cost-efficient, particularly in terms of costs
related to the research methodology, development of the information
system, staff training and other material and technical costs”.4 The conti-
nuation and completion of this “project”, started by the Commission –
for which Mirsad Tokača demanded 605,394 Bosnian Convertible Marks
as the “amount necessary to meet the Commission’s costs in the appli-
cation of project” – was deemed to be of “extreme importance for the
entirety of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as its full implementation would prevent
all future random, false, malevolent, and thus dangerous manipulations
with the number of wartime victims”.5
The IDC Association claims that it is implementing its research
on the basis of a project.6 One can neither say nor accept the fact that this
is a real project in question as an idea of discovering true findings on a
certain question of a social reality. Starting from the definition of research
and its classification, contemporary research methodology in social
take over the significant documentation which belongs to it. The members and experts
of the Commission continued with their activities on other tasks and businesses, whereas
Mirsad Tokača appropriated the documentation which belongs to the State, and brought
it in the IDC, an association where he is the President.
The mentioned association continued collecting facts on crimes, which is in violation
of its basic activity, for which the association had actually been formed - thus confirming
the illegitimacy of its activities.
Mirsad Tokača, even once the Commission had stopped working, by registering the
IDC Association, kept using the Commissions letterhead and seal, signing documents
as the Commission Secretary. Therefore, abusing authority previously vested in him,
he continued collecting data on “the killed and missing” from municipal associations
of missing persons’ on behalf of the Commission (Oslobođenje, February 11, 2006,
POGLED, p. 5).
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. Having in mind that the State Commission had stopped working and that
the IDC, as an Association, collected data on the “killed and missing” the question arises,
among other things, as to how the IDC President still used the name of the Commission
in the process of fundraising for that project, or rather, sought funds for the work of the
Commission.
6 Ibid.
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11 “Oslobođenje”, POGLED, December 21, 2005, p. 4. After the first critical remarks
on such research by esteemed scientists, M. Tokača abandoned the position that research is
in a “final phase”.
12 S. Čekić, ”STATISTIKA ŽRTAVA” MIRSADA TOKAČE NIJE NAUČNO
RELEVANTNA, Utvrđivanje ljudskih i materijalnih žrtava, “Oslobođenje”, POGLED,
January 14, 2006, pp. 8-9.
13 “Oslobođenje”, January 21, 2006, p. 6.
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The data presented by the IDC President, from the viewpoint of the
debate on the source of data and the data collection methods, demon-
strate his lack of elementary knowledge on data sources, their role in the
process of scientific inquiry, and critical perceptions of data, having in mind
the diverse sources of data and their nonselective, non-systematic utilization.
He speaks of the collection of “a series of other relevant information
sources”,14 which demonstrates that he does not distinguish between the
authenticity and reliability of sources and the authenticity of reliability
of data itself. Not all the sources he lists are reliable enough, and they are
particularly not complete and integral, but as partial they only allow
for incomplete findings, which is a task that demands verification and
confirmation. One must particularly bear in mind that this data stems
from non-primary sources and that the conditions, criteria and validity
evaluation of verification procedures must be defined, having their
character in mind. The case in essence involves secondary, even tertiary
sources of data, rather than data obtained by the IDC through application
of their own research. Therefore, the basic form of data is that of taken-
over lists, even burial site markings, and the engagement of Serb police
officers in the process of collecting data related to the murdered Bosniacs.15
IDC’s lists mostly come from “official institutions”.16 This includes
lists of killed soldiers (i.e. military data records on killed combatants)
from the armed formations (the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the Army of Republika Srpska, and the Croat Defense
Council) which any interested citizen may electronically obtain in the
course of a single day and simply add them up to get some 58,000 names.
These lists include hundreds, even thousands of persons who are civilians
and have nothing to do with combatants, or soldiers in this case according
to the IDC.
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17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
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*
* *
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25“DANI”, January 20, 2006, p. 16; February 3, 2006, p. 16; “SLOBODNA BOSNA”,
January 19, 2006, p. 5; February 2, 2006, pp. 4-5.
26 Nagorka Idrizović, GRAĐANSKI RAT NA MALA VRATA, Prilozi za biografiju
IDC, “Oslobođenje”, February 11, 2006, POGLED, p. 5. The interviews and public claims
by Mirsad Tokača on the 93,837 “killed and missing” in Bosnia and Herzegovina have
been presented by the Legal Team of Serbia and Montenegro and presented to the Inter-
national Court of Justice around the end of January 2006, with the aim of improving
Serbia and Montenegro position at the Court. The Agent of Serbia and Montenegro,
Professor Stojanović had considered data from Mirsad Tokača as relevant and final,
particularly in relation to the ratio between “military” and civilian victims (Azhar Kala-
mujić, BROJ UBIJENIH NE MIJENJA DOKAZE O GENOCIDU, “Oslobođenje”,
February 10, 2006, p. 2, Sarajevo, 2006.; www.icj_cij.org/docket/index.php ?p1=3αp2=
3αcode=bhyαcase=91αk=f4).
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number of victims between 1992 and 1995 is, after all, only half of the
number of the often quoted number of 200,000 victims.”27
The perception that the incomplete results by Ewa Tabeau and
Jakub Bijak, on the one hand, and Mirsad Tokača’s soon after, on the
other, are highly similar, implies to a high degree of probability that the
“results” of research and the “research” itself by M. Tokača can only be
understood, as we have said, as an interest-oriented, targeted, manipulative
research. If we add the time of publication of results to this and the
way they were used as arguments in court, our claim becomes ever
more probable.
*
* *
27 www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/91/10685.pdf?PHPSESESSID=bfc893d9f7cf101
f58fc2b3612b65f3, TESTIMONY BY JEAN-PAUL SARDON before the International
Court of Justice in The Hague, March 24, 2006. Professor Sardon had, among other things,
stated that the research by E. Tabeau and J. Bijak, in terms of quality, stands out and
represents the “most serious work” and that their estimate of 100,000 is “completely
realistic”. (Ibid).
28 “Oslobođenje” June 21, 2007, p. 2; June 23, 2007, p. 11; “Dnevni avaz”, June
22, 2007, p. 10; “DANI”, June 29, 2007, pp. 18-21.
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29 Thus the IDC, between April 19, 2004, and December 16, 2005, i.e. in twenty
months, had collected 18,837 names, and from December 16 to June 21, 2007, i.e. in a
year and six months, only 3,370 names of victims.
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out would be based should have started from the same method used in
this research, which here has no feature to mark it as scientific.
- Third, the social and research practice largely glorifies the power
of statistical techniques and procedures, which plays its part in establishing
a certain mysticism. Every quality has its quantity and it is well known that
there is no quantity to nothingness. Every human being individually, and
as part of the community and society, demonstrates certain qualities,
features and characteristics which can be demonstrated, and are demon-
strated in quantitative terms. What does, in the specific context of research,
the term soldier imply, and what civilian? What are the direct and what
the indirect causes of death? In the end, what, at all – as implied by the
title of the “project” (“HUMAN LOSSES IN BOSNIA AND HERZE-
GOVINA 91-95”) – do “human losses” mean when seen only through
one category of victims?31 What does it mean, and is research at all
possible, without defining the basic terms and depicting them in certain
terms in the theoretic determination of the subject of research, based
on which certain classifications have been created and systems thereof
established, which are at the basis of creation for research instruments in
the process of gathering data? The role and significance of definitions is
well known in the process of scientific discovery. In science and research
work, the whole process happens through the definition and redefinition
of terms, whereupon the definition of terms is the initial form, but also
the ultimate factor of the manifestation of scientific findings, and is in
the function of creating a system of classification, with classification
being the initial form of measurement;
- Fourth, every research project first establishes the research problem
and from there, the research subject, which is bi-dimensional. The first
dimension demonstrates a theoretic determination of the subject of research,
and the operational dimension includes factors of the contents of the
research subject, the time of research, the space of research, and the
disciplinary determination of the subject of research. In this case, of the
IDC, the theoretic determination of the research subject does not exist
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138
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139
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140
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141
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142
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the factors of the research subject contents, i.e. the conditions, subjects,
motives, interests and aims, the activities and actions, methods and means
and effects - the results and consequences. In the case of the IDC, there
has been no paradigmatic initial point for the overall content of the
research subject content, but rather a multiple reduction thereof, in which
case the mentioned factors of the content of operational determination
have been reduced to subjects - individuals as victims of crimes, and this
in merely one form of crime.
The author of the “project” “HUMAN LOSSES IN BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA 91-95”, in the part titled “Research subject”, defines
human losses as “fatalities from among the citizens of the Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of their ethnic or religious
identity, political preference, or social origins and regardless of their
ideological convictions and membership in armed forces), as well as
missing persons…, whose death/disappearance was caused by direct
military operations… or whose death occurred as a consequence of
(various forms of) torture and inhuman treatment during or related
to imprisonment”.32 Based on the presented perception of the subject
research, we have to point out the following:
- First, how are “fatalities” (i.e. dead citizens) supposed to give us
data on their political preference or ideological conviction?
- Second, the way in which the understanding of the contents of the
subject of research was presented, implies that the sole subject of
study were “soldiers” which, as a status category, are not included
within international humanitarian law, which knows combatants,
not to mention the fact that civilians and other protected persons
are not even mentioned;
- Third, the concept of “fatalities” is too broad, implying that it
cannot possibly be concretized and made operational in research
practice, and as such, is not even known to international law. As
the author of the “project” did not even defined or determined the
meaning of “fatalities”, it is not possible make a classification
32 Ibid.
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33 Ibid.
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crimes and methods of commission of crimes, which is the basis for any
serious scientific research in the subject matter. Having this in mind, the
presented fundamental ignorance of the author in the field of research of
crimes against humanity and international law has contributed to some
strategic errors with potential various longterm consequences, which has
again lead to catastrophic research results and thus contributed to the faking
of history and the deception of the national and international public.
In every research project, the basis of the scientific thought includes
the aims of the research which stems from the subject of research and
presented as scientific and social. Not wanting to discuss scientific aims
at large on this occasion, or their various classifications, we will keep to
one usual division of scientific aims which present the possible level of
achievement of scientific inquiry, ranging from scientific description,
scientific classification and typology, scientific discovery, scientific
explanation all the way to scientific prognosis. The complexity, the subject
of research and the aims of research also determine the type of scientific
research, as well as the probability and possibility of the collection of
new findings on a certain phenomenon, problem, or subject of study.
The more complex the subject matter, the more disperse and subtle it
is, and the less scientifically verified findings there are about it, the
more it is possible to determine the scientific aims using a scientific
description, classification and typology.
Unfortunately, there is no single generally accepted codification
and classification of social aims from the perspective of the utility and
purposefulness of the results of research in social practice. Contemporary
methodological literature, however, gives us a classification of social
aims we can accept, and which leads us to the use and application of
research results by subjects – research commissioners and result users.
We can therefore speak of the results whose use is up to the choice or
option of individual users, which give an access to the solution of the
problem, which suggest a solution to the problem or which can be used
as a direct solution to a certain social problem.
The “research” project “HUMAN LOSSES IN BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA 91-95” does not distinguish between the scientific
and social aims of research, whereas the accent is obviously positioned
on social aims (“preserves the memory of citizens – fatalities of the
145
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34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
146
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147
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what, apart from the geographic definition of research, the precise temporal
timeframe means in research.
The part of the text on the estimates of the overall number of victims
sees the IDC presenting, in a table, sources and subjects of estimates,
as well as the victim count and the period of time this count is related
to, excluding research by E. Tabeau and J. Bijak. It is not clear as to why
the IDC has left out the estimate on the overall “number of war-related
deaths in Bosnia” by E. Tabeau and J. Bijak, published in 2003, and based
on an analysis and comparison of data taken over from other, indirect
sources. Our indications and thoughts on the reasons as to why this data
was excluded lies in the fact that the mentioned authors have a number
of civilian deaths larger than the one presented in IDC data, which also
has a smaller number of civilian victims in relation to the count of killed
soldiers i.e. combatants.
Every research project includes plans of material and financial
funds and means necessary for completion. This part is usually referred
to as the project’s budget. The “project” “HUMAN LOSSES IN BOSNIA
AND HERZEGOVINA 91-95” has been mostly financed by the Govern-
ment of the Kingdom of Norway, the United States Department of State,
the Swiss Government, the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP), and the Swedish Helsinki Committee.36
The ACOFF scheme of research includes actors of research, acts of
research, and relations in research. When we speak of actors (subjects),
they are treated either as commissioners, scientists, field workers – re-
searchers, and subjects – sources (i.e. research objects). Starting from
the mentioned scheme, the division of tasks and roles in the process of
research, the relations and links of subjects in the process of research,
and the responsibility for the results of research and the processes of their
application in the social and scientific practice provide for a responsibility
for implemented tasks – results of research, established between those
who commission and those who implement the research. Therefore, we
may rightfully ask the following questions: how come the mentioned
IDC “project” has such a wide scope of funders, and in analogy, who
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actually has commissioned this research and what exactly is the res-
ponsibility – if there is any – in the relation of those carrying out the
research and those commissioning it, as well as what is the purpose of
research from the perspective of the ones having commissioned it? Who is
the real user of the results of research and their consequences and purposes?
In its database titled “THE BOSNIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD” of
December 16, 2005, the IDC had a list of 300 thousand names, clearly
stating that this is not the “victim count”37. This data remained unchanged
until June 21, 2007.38 Having this in mind, we are surprised that the
number of names in the database remained identical (300,000) on
December 16, 2005 and on June 21, 2007. Furthermore, a question: how
was the IDC able, based on this unchanged number in the database, to
present different estimates of the overall count of the missing and killed
(in 2005 – 93,837 and in 2007 – 97,207)? It would have made perfect
sense to expect the number of names in the IDC database to be larger by
several thousand by June 21, 2007 in raltion to the number of December
16, 2005, as the name of those killed and missing, according to the IDC,
increased by 3,370 names.
With an available number of 100 thousand different names of “killed
and missing persons”, the total database of such a massive number
of names should have been much larger than the 300 thousand names
available to the IDC. The Commission (of the Republika Srpska Govern-
ment) for the Establishment of the Events in and around Srebrenica of
July 10 to 19, 1995, while determining the number of victims of genocide
in the UN Safe Area of Srebrenica in July of 2005, entered over 150,000
names in the database. An analysis and comparison of data for more
than 150,000 names from various sources (including 30 lists of various
social subjects and documentation from other sources) determined that
there are 13,569 different names of victims of crimes which appear in
37 “DANI ”, December 23, 2005, p. 14.
38 “DANI ”, June 29, 2007, p. 20. In relation to this, M. Tokača had, in an interview
for “DANI”, stated: “The research has seen us register 300,000 names of victims“ ”
(Ibid). However, this is not true, as the evaluation by P. Ball, E. Tabeau and Ph. Verwimp
puts that number (total number of “all gathered cases”) at a smaller figure, at 246,736
names (P. Ball – E. Tabeau – Ph. Verwimp, THE BOSNIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD:
DATABASE ASSESSMENTS, SUMMARY REVIEW, June 14, 2007).
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various sources and refer to the 1992-1995 period “for the wider Sreb-
renica area”.39
The Commission discovered, identified, selected and determined
significant sources of data and sources of findings on the presented
number of genocide victims, with a database of over 150,000 names.40
The following data sources have all been used:
1. Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia-Herzegovina;
2. Applications to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina;
3. List of Submissions to the Human Rights Chamber;
4. ICTY – the Hague – Srebrenica Missing Persons in July 1995;
5. ICRC – Ante-mortem Data Base;
6. List of persons for which the ICRC received notice of death, and
whose mortal remains were not turned over to families;
7. ICRC, Discovered and Identified Individuals;
8. ICRC, Confirmation of Disappearance – enclosed disappearance
forms in individual applications;
9. Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and Inter-
national Law of the University of Sarajevo;
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151
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41 Ibid.
42 “DANI ”, June 29, 2007, p. 21.
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43 Ibid.
153
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154
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155
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156
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47 “DANI ”, June 29, 2007, p. 20; Association “IDC” Sarajevo, Project Results
Presentation ”HUMAN LOSSES IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 91-95”, Sarajevo, June
21, 2007.
48 ICTY, Office of the Prosecutor, H. Brunborg-E. Tabeau and A. Hetland, NESTALI
I MRTVI IZ SREBRENICE: IZVJEŠTAJ I SPISAK IZ 2005, Izvještaj vještaka u predmetu
Vujadin Popović, Hag, November 16, 2005.
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the blood base (of the Tuzla laboratory), which has been provided input
by families up to October 2007, the number of victims is 7,789.
The Republika Srpska Government Commission for the Research
of Events in and around Srebrenica from July 10 to 19, 1995, has deter-
mined the count at 8,742 victims of genocide (which includes 7,108
names whose dates of disappearance or death belong to the period from
and including July 10 thru July 19; 698 names are listed with at least one
date of disappearance beyond the July 10-19 period, and 936 individuals
with at least one date of disappearance within the subject period, i.e. July
10-19, 1995, and the other dates are located outside of July 1995).49
The most recent research results by the Institute for the Research
of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the University
of Sarajevo demonstrate that the number of genocide victims in the UN
Safe Area of Srebrenica equals 8,657.
Not even the number of “killed and missing” persons in Srebrenica
(?) “92-95” provided by the IDC as 8,945 (4,537 killed and 4,408
missing), which includes 8,460 Bosniacs and 480 Serbs, is not accu-
rate. The Republika Srpska Government Commission for the Research
of Events in and around Srebrenica July 10-19, 1995, has registered
13,569 names which are related to the period of 1992-1995 “for the
wider Srebrenica area”.50
The IDC data (8,877) on the “killed and missing persons from the
Podrinje region 91-95” in Srebrenica (?) is also not correct. According
to it, the number of “killed and missing” persons in Bratunac is 1,741,
which is also not correct. Namely, results of research so far by the Institute
for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of
the University of Sarajevo estimated that number to be 1,898 only for
July of 1995. Furthermore, the number of “killed and missing” persons
from the Vlasenica area in 1991-1995, according to the IDC, is 729,
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of victims in the area of Sarajevo. IDC in its data of “killed and missing
“persons in the territory of ten Sarajevo municipalities in the period 1991-
1995 was 14,011, of which 8,407 soldiers and 5,604 civilians. ICTY data
on the number of victims in the siege of Sarajevo – parts of six Sarajevo
municipalities in the period 1992-1995 suggested that “the total number
of dead” was 18,889, of which “9,502 were the direct victims of the
siege” of which 4,954 were civilians and 4,584 were soldiers.
The IDC directory of deaths in the Sarajevo area is not confirmed
by data from E. Tabeau, J. Bijak and N. Lončarić. The IDC’s figure of
killed “soldiers” (8,407) is larger than that of killed civilians (5,604),
both in terms of Bosniac (5,600) and Serb (2,464) victims, as opposed
to the data by the mentioned ICTY investigators, who claim that the
“number of war-related civilian deaths” in the siege of Sarajevo (4,954)
is larger than the number of “war-related soldier deaths” (4,548).
The number of “war-related” civilian deaths is, in fact, much higher
than has been determined by the ICTY experts. The number of 8,285 dead
civilians who, according to Tabeau, Bijak and Lončarić, have died a
natural death not related to the war, is opposed to their position on the
“age pattern” of victims, as they demonstrated the difference between
early mortality and natural mortality and the factual aging of the true
social reality, conditions and way of life of the population of Sarajevo
under siege in 1992-1995.54
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Upon request by the IDC and the Embassies of Norway and Swit-
zerland, Patrick Ball, Ewa Tabeau and Philip Verwimp55 were contracted
to give their opinion on the IDC’s expert report titled “THE BOSNIAN
BOOK OF THE DEAD: IDC DATABASE EVALUATION”. Their June
14, 2007 Report relates to the IDC database, “THE BOSNIAN BOOK
55 Patrick Ball – Ewa Tabeau – Philip Verwimp, THE BOSNIAN BOOK OF THE
DEAD: DATABASE ASSESSMENTS, SUMMARY REVIEW, June 14, 2007, pp. 1-9.
Dr Patrick Ball is the Head of the Technical Department of the Benetech Initiative.
He also manages the Human Rights Programs at Benetech, including the Martus projects
and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). His doctoral degree in sociology
comes from Michigan University (1998). Since 1991, Ball had designed systems to manage
information, and carried out statistical analysis of major human rights databases for NGOs,
tribunals, truth commissions and UN missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti,
South Africa, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Peru, Timor Leste, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
and Chad. He is currently involved in Benetech projects in Sri Lanka, Colombia, Burma,
Liberia, Guatemala and other countries throughout the world (Ibid, p. 7).
Basic biographic and curricular data on Dr Ewa Tabeau were given on page 94
of the study.
Dr Philip Verwimp had studied economics and sociology at the universities of
Antwerp, Leuven and Göttingen, and had worked in the field of Political economics and
genocide study at Yale University. He received his doctoral degree (2003) at the Catholic
University of Leuven on the “Political economics of development and the Rwandan
genocide“. He teaches research methods and development economics at the Universities
of Leuven, Antwerp, Utrecht, and the Social Studies Institute at The Hague. He worked
as an aconomist of the World Bank and he dealt with the issues of poverty in the world
(2004-2005) In 2004, he was awarded the Jacques Rosenberg Foundation Auschwitz
Prize for his dissertation, and in 2006 for the best article published in the Journal of
Peace Research. His works were published in the Journal of Development Economics,
Journal of Peace Research, Population Studies, European Journal of Population, Journal
of Conflict Resolution, European Journal of Political Economy, and other journals. His
research interest includes political economics of the development and conflicts, poverty,
inequality, demographics, dictatorships, human rights and genocide. He regularly reviews
papers for academic journals, and participates and organizes conferences and workshops.
Dr Verwimp is a co-founder and one of the directors of the Households in Conflict
Network (www.hich.org), and also Deputy Director to Microcon, a major European Union
research project dealing with conflict issues (Ibid).
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56 Ibid. P. Ball, E. Tabeau and Ph. Verwimp finished their evaluation “upon request
of those which have invited us to take part, as well as the general public, and all others
interested in the victims’ aspect of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including
families of victims possibly interested in the DATABASE, historians trying to determine
the truth on the Bosnian war, politicians who have questions related to victims in their
political programs, NGOs who work on the prevention of human rights violations in the
Balkans, observers of the process of reconciliation in the region, international and national
courts prosecuting individuals responsible for violations of international humanitarian
law and the laws and customs of war, in the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the
period 1992-1995, as well as media. All those who intend to consult this largest victim
information database related to the 1992-1995 war victim data, for their own interest
or research, will find this evaluation to be useful and didactic.” (Ibid.)
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167
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Based on the presented point of view, one can conclude that the Database
is good, yet the problem was created during data collection, and that the
missing data in the Database is a consequence of collected data, and
within it, of the lacking complete coverage of certain positions.
The previously presented position acknowledges that the Database
was not created on the basis of instruments for data collection, as a clear
content for the research project, as well as that the data was not collected
on the basis of own instruments based on reliable and valid theoretical
and logical definitions of terms and their categories, and determined
variable indicators and research subjects. We present all of these as serious
drawbacks which would not have happened had the research been
achieved on the basis of a proper scientific research project, and had
the data been collected based on the instruments as an integral part of
the research project, as the basis for creation of a database, including
the plan for data alignment and processing. This way, the evaluation is
partial, segmented, unrelated etc., so that the evaluation which says that
the IDC Database is good is unacceptable, yet that the data which it has
is incomplete, where even the percentage of data - in numerical terms
- for the lacking data, is given?! It is clear that the analysis is based merely
on the dissolution of the whole into individual segments - parts, and that
these are being evaluated. However, it cannot be acceptable as a finite
judgment on the Database itself and the quality of data within it, having
our serious critique in mind. We are under the impression that the Database
has been constructed independently from the project itself, as a basis
of its construction, and that the data obtained from various sources had
merely been “inserted“ into it. The main reason of this serious drawback
in the Report is the lack of proper, own scientific research, but rather the
uncontrolled - unverified acceptance of data from other secondary and
even tertiary sources, and their introduction into the mentioned Database,
which ultimately leads to a finite number called, by the authors, the
minimum estimate of the death toll, with the application of simple compa-
rison and selection by means of eliminating the duplicates of victims’ names.
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*
* *
P. Ball, E. Tabeau and Ph. Verwimp have devoted special attention
to the status of victims. Just as E. Tabeau and J. Bijak in 2003, and the
IDC in 2005 and 2007, they distinguish civilians and soldiers, which is
not in line with the provisions of international humanitarian law.
The authors of the evaluation point out that the IDC report, when
determining the status of victims (“civilian-military status”), which in
the database is referred to as the “wartime status”, “based on official
military records and other relevant sources”, imply also that IDC
personnel has visited “366 military and civilian cemeteries and collected
records and photographs of soldier memorials”, and other relevant sources
“used to determine the individual’s status”. In this case, the authors stress
that the “wartime status was apparently strictly based on available sources,
and no random decisions were made related to the proper attribution.”
Speaking of sources, the authors distinguish military and civilian
sources, and conclude that the “’wartime status’ demonstrates the
report on the individual victim in military, as opposed to civilian
sources”, where, according to them, “some 40% of the victims were
listed as civilians, and some 60% as soldiers (including police officers).”
The result of the use of such sources, mostly official “military” lists where
the basic criterion is the registration of individuals on the basis of their
status (civilian/”soldier”) is the increased number of the “military” victims,
which is an evident, obvious forgery based on gross simplification and
obvious falsification.
The authors seem to forget the fact that official, “military” records
of certain armed formations were created once the aggression had been
terminated, and thus cannot represent primary, relevant sources. They
do, however, point out that the IDC had used “other relevant sources”
apart from military lists. However, they do not list these relevant sources,
which could lead us to conclude that even “official military records”
are considered as relevant sources which, essentially, are not accurate.
Certain important sources (i.e. regular and extraordinary combat reports)
are at the basis of “official military records” and have the status of primary
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Starting from the assessment that the supreme priority is the “impro-
vement of the register of civilian victims”, the evaluators claim that
the IDC Database evaluation “based on the ‘wartime status’ must be
postponed until the point when more complete data is available on
civilians”. “Military records and civilian sources must be reviewed
again and, if possible, revised”, in the authors’ opinion. Although the
authors have, in an academically correct manner, pointed out the serious
drawbacks of the IDC database, and the need to revise it, the results
were presented – through some Sarajevo-based media outlets – as the
pinnacle of scientific work58 and the final reach of research, which has
led us to rightfully ask whether some media representatives are in the
position to give out such evaluations on the scientific validity of given data.
Well aware of the errors and drawbacks in the IDC “population loss
register” and acquainted with the provision on the status of victims in
international humanitarian law (CIVILIAN and COMBATANT, as opposed
to CIVILIAN and SOLDIER), the authors have especially pointed out
“the importance of stressing out how the” IDC “information on
‘war status’ does not present accurate insight in the relation to the
victims fallen in conflict and non-conflict situations”. The use of
such a “wartime status” marker by the IDC “does not inform us of the
legitimate victims, according to the international humanitarian
law or the laws of war, as the ‘wartime status’ is merely a measure
of whether a certain person was a member of a military or police
formation at the time of death or not, or whether he or she was in
general a civilian or combatant”, and, “as such it offers a good basis
for further, more specific research into the question of the totality of
victims in conflict, or the proportional amount of civilian victims”,
claim the authors.
According to P. Ball, E. Tabeau and Ph. Verwimp, the IDC database
authors were “fully aware of the mentioned distinctions”, and tried “to
throw certain light into the issue of ‘combatant vs. non-combatant’”.
However, this attempt, “at this stage, cannot be successfully completed
as the quantity of missing values in the status of combatant (i.e. level
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173
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*
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60 Ibid.
174
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61 Ibid, p. 6. With this in mind, the authors state: “Only those which have been
identified by DNA comparison methodology have recently reached the 8,000 mark in
Bosnia-Herzegovina”.
62 Ibid. This refers to empirical research by the Institute for the Research of Crimes
against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo.
63 Ibid. The authors refer to data from the MAG Citizens’ Association from Sarajevo,
archived at the Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International
Law of the University of Sarajevo.
175
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64 Ibid, p. 6. With this in mind, the authors also claim that the IDC Database is a
“unique and valuable source, and it deserves its place among the sources on the victims
of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995” (Ibid, p. 7). The part of the text which
recommends the IDC Database also lists it as a source of data on the victims.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid, p. 7. The IDC Database is recommended by the authors as it “advances
the process of reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina by presenting transparent,
methodologically correct statistics on the victims of the war in Bosnia-Herze-
govina”, for which – when statistics are being presented – “one needs to stress the
distinction between minimum figures and more complete assessments”. (Ibid)
176
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67 Ibid.
177
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PART THREE
CONCLUDING REMARKS
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Concluding remarks
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182
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183
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184
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*
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185
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of the armed conflict, whereas from the perspective of social life, the
status of the victim contributes to the realization of certain entitlements
and benefits for the victim’s family.
While determining the status of victim(s), or rather determining
whether the killed or injured person was a civilian or a combatant (or
vice-versa), relevant documentation from the time of the armed conflict
(either international or internal in character) is of crucial importance and
without it, one cannot fully, accurately and truthfully present status-related
findings. In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, exempli gratia, these are
regular and extraordinary combat reports. In relation to this, let us pro-
vide a concrete, empiric example, which relates to the Army of Republika
Srpska, a collaborationist army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,
or one of three strategic-operative components within the Yugoslav Army.
Namely, the Command of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps (Forward Command
Post – IKM-1, village of Nišići), Strictly Confidential, File No. 20/15-2/47/2,
has delivered, on October 3, 1994, to the Main Staff of the Army of Republika
Srpska, the Headquarters of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps in Lukavica and
the Headquarters of the Drina Corps the following Extraordinary combat
report, which reports that their forces, “using all available methods, have
carried out an attack against the Polom structure, which they have
occupied, and carried on with attacks in the direction of Moševačko
Brdo. The mentioned attack had inflicted upon the enemy significant
losses, and various weaponry and ammunition was confiscated.68
68 Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law
of the University of Sarajevo, SRK [Sarajevo-Romanija Corps] HQ, IKM-1, village of
Nišići, strictly confidential No. 20/15-2/47/2, October 3, 1994, Extraordinary Combat
Report as of 2200 hrs – to the VRS (Army of Republika Srpska) Main Staff and others.
There are many such relevant documents, also accessible through other armed
forces. In relation to the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we can point
out, exempli gratia, the “Evening Reports” of the 502nd Famed Mountaineer Brigade
of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of January 14th and February
17th, 1994, which state that the “units have carried out active combat activities”, on the
occasion of which several combatants were injured or killed (Institute for the Research
of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo,
502nd Famed Mountaineer Brigade, January 14, 1994 – to the HQ of the 5th Corps;
Ibid, Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 502nd Famed Mountaineer
Brigade, February 17, 1994 – to the HQ of the 5th Corps).
186
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69 Ibid.
187
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colleagues, and the IDC, one cannot confirm their status of combatant
– unlike the case of the relevant source mentioned above – , i.e. they
cannot be confirmed to be, in Tabeau’s/Bijak’s or IDC words, soldiers,
as these are individuals which have civilian status. We have seen that
this is not only a scientific impermissibility, but also a legal mistake.
*
* *
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190
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IV
A) SOURCES
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203
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B) BIBLIOGRAPHY
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