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GOVERNMENT TROOPS ATTACK BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE
By Stephen Kinzer
The New York Times News Service
June 26, 1995
(NYT-06-26-95 2020EDT)
The text, in its entirety, is presented on the green stickers.
For fair use only
Published under the provision of
U.S. Code, Title 17, section 107.
| VISNJICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina In a raid before dawn that again illustrated the weakness of U.N. forces here, Bosnian government soldiers apparently slipped past U.N. posts on Monday and attacked this isolated Bosnian Serb village, burning several houses, stealing livestock, and leaving a dozen families homeless, a Bosnian Serb spokesman said. |
Notice the style. Whenever an atrocity is perpetrated on the defenceless Serbian population the facts are not presented as an actual event but as a Serb allegation. Thus: "Bosnian Serb spokesman said..." And who would trust those damn Serbs!?
Follow this link to see how exactly the same method was used by the New York Times some three years later, in August 1998, to inform the readership (but only on page 15!) that the Serbs caught Albanian Muslim KLA terrorists red handed. In Kosovo village of Klecka the Serbian police caught Albanians who admitted to have burned Serbian civilians in an oven. World war two - revisited.
| Although the assault had no great military significance, it reflected both the growing frustration of government troops and the inadequacy of U.N. peacekeepers who have pledged to prevent them from leaving supposedly demilitarized enclaves in eastern Bosnia. |
The facts are eased in. "Government troops" i.e. armed Muslims who enjoy safety of UN protection are for some reason frustrated. Everyone is frustrated it seems - everyone but the Serbs who just got to be subject of the vicious attack.
The "U.N. peacekeepers" are actually NATO forces faking inadequacy. In the months to come the same troops will take off their blue U.N. helmets and put on their original NATO ones. Suddenly -- but now as NATO occupying troops -- they will become adequate.
|
Visnjica is a miserable settlement perched on a mountainside a
few miles from Srebrenica, one of the Muslim towns in eastern
Bosnia which the United Nations has designated as demilitarized
"protected areas." But Monday's raid was apparently launched by
troops based inside Srebrenica, leading Bosnian Serb officers to
denounce the United Nations for failing to comply with its promise
to keep the town free of soldiers and weapons. "There have been a number of incidents like this in the last 15 to 20 days," said Lt. Col. Milovan Milutinovic, chief spokesman for the Bosnian Serb army. "The Muslim soldiers who carried out this attack crossed lines patrolled by Dutch U.N. troops whose job it is to prevent just this kind of action. We therefore conclude that the U.N. forces are aligning themselves with the Muslim army." |
The event is still at a level of allegation: "raid was apparently launched."
Notice also that the quotation marks in the text are put round "protected areas" (as if the armed Muslims were not protected - and fed - by the NATO troops). It is obvious that the quotation marks have to be around "demilitarized" though. That is the fact that is clashing with the reality. The events to follow will show that THOUSANDS(!) of armed Muslims were enjoying safety in Srebrenica.
Next, to make the Serb accusation of the "U.N." bias even less relevant, the NYT has to claim that the Muslim side is leveling the very same accusations against the "peacekeepers." In retrospect it is ridiculous claim as NATO powers provided not only food but also weapons and intelligence - even PR for the Muslim side. At the end NATO became Bosnian Muslim aviation as it was Serbs and the Christian Serbs only that were targeted and bombed by NATO armada.
|
Milutinovic's assertion was the mirror image of accusations that
the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government has been making for months.
It has been denouncing the peacekeepers for their failure to
prevent Bosnian Serbs from bombarding the enclaves, and asserting
that this failure constitutes de facto support for the Serbs. Attempts to reach the U.N. headquarters in Srebrenica for comment on today's raid were unsuccessful. (U.N. officials in Sarajevo reported only that the Bosnian Serbs had shelled Srebrenica and Goradze, The Associated Press reported. It was unclear whether the Serbian shelling was in retaliation for the Bosnian government attack on Visnjica.) |
And finally - the description of the event the whole article is supposedly about. Only the most patient reader will get to this part of the text.
|
Several of the impoverished farmers who live in Visnjica said
they had assumed they were safe here because of U.N. pledges. "We thought that no one could attack us from Srebrenica because the town was demilitarized and surrounded by U.N. soldiers," said Ljubomir Vukovic, 67, as he stood in the smoldering ruins of the house he shared with two other families. "But they came from right over that hill." Vukovic pointed toward a peak separating his village from Srebrenica. A U.N. post there is supposed to prevent soldiers from passing in either direction. Villagers here said they were awakened at 4:30 on Monday morning by the sound of small-arms fire. They fled into the surrounding forest, watching helplessly as their homes were set afire and their cattle driven away, evidently to feed government units. Asked why he and his neighbors had been targeted, one villager, Savo Madzarevic, paused to reflect for a moment and then replied: "I suppose it is because we are Serbs." "We lived so well here," Madzarevic lamented. "We had two beds and a table. Now we will have to become refugees somewhere." |
The next section is to serve as some kind of broader framework for the story. This also a rare place where NYT admits that Serbian "ancestors have lived in these places for generations." Actually the Serbs settled in Bosnia in seventh century (i.e. more than 1,300 years ago!) and were the largest ethnic group of Bosnia ever since.
| Visnjica is one of hundreds of Serbian towns and villages in Bosnia that are among the principal prizes in this war. The Muslim-dominated government is determined to assert control over them, insisting that they are integral parts of its internationally recognized territory. But Serbs whose ancestors have lived in these places for generations pledge to hold them at all costs, and vow never to allow them to be governed by non-Serbs. |
This way when both history and geography are ripped from the chest of the Truth the western reader is (purposely) left to belive that the Serbs are simply non-tolerant people who can not stand to be governed by some Muslims. If only NYT mentioned that only 50 years prior the same Bosnian Serbs were subject to some of the worst atrocities in the whole annals of WWII or that Bosnian Serbs were for more than 400 years(!) subject to atrocious Islamic rule of the Turks then the Serbian reluctance to live under Muslim rule again would be easy to understand.
But of course the New York Times' task is not to inform you but to brainwash you.
|
Monday's attackers may have chosen Visnjica as a target because
it is isolated and undefended. When Serb soldiers arrived to repel
them, they withdrew in the direction of Srebrenica, killing one
Serb soldier and wounding three civilians but making no attempt to
hold the village. Government troops and their nominal Croat allies have been engaged in an offensive for more than a month, trying to break through Serb lines in various parts of the country. They have not made any substantial progress, and their principal goal, ending the Serb siege of Sarajevo, has eluded them. But as Monday's raid showed, they are still able to strike fear into the hearts of Serb villagers. |
Ah, just like during World War II both Croats and Muslims were able to betray the common dream of South Slavs. They are always ready to ally themselves with foreign intruders into Balkans and then -- with protection of foreign armies -- they are able to strike fear into the hearts of defenceless Serbian civilians. Just peek at the appalling atrocities Croats and Muslims perpetrated on the Serbs the last time around. That time they were free to slaughter the Serbs as they were under Nazi German protection.
No we are not talking ancient history here. The atrocities the Serbs suffered are still in LIVING MEMORY.
|
Their goal may be to terrorize these villagers into abandoning
their homes, thus leaving formerly Serb areas uninhabited. With both government forces and rebel Serbs losing confidence in the ability of U.N. peacekeepers to protect them, the fighting here seems likely to increase. The recent arrival of a U.N.-backed "rapid-reaction force" has done little to calm either Muslim or Serb fears, and has in fact led to assertions that the force is plotting to help one side or the other. "It doesn't do any good to obey the rules of the U.N.," said a Serb soldier who was among those who drove off Monday's attackers in Visnjica. "There's a war going on here, and each side has to do what it has to do. Right now there is no peace to keep. Maybe it's time for the peacekeepers to go home and let us fight this out among ourselves." |
And that is exactly what "neutral" (actually NATO) "peacekeepers" will not do. Instead NATO aviation will bomb the Serbs. The NATO artillery on the ground (known as "rapid-reaction force") will join in.
NATO will finally - and completely openly - take the side of Bosnian Islam fundamentalists and Nazi Croats against the Serbian people.
The above article while still providing a glimpse to the true events dilutes them and wraps them into misconceptions. We believe that even this little truth was geared toward telling the Serbs that Muslim atrocities are known to the West and that (maybe!) the Serbs have green light to deal with Muslim terrorists of Srebrenica.
NEXT: [ July 1995: The Serbs finally intervene ]
BACK TO: [ Srebrenica - mujahedin safe heaven! ]
[ Srebrenica "massacre" ]
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