Monday, July 11, 2005

International News Article | Reuters.com

International News Article | Reuters.com: "SREBRENICA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Families grieved over the skeletal remains of Srebrenica victims on Monday at the 10th anniversary of the massacre, as the West acknowledged its failure to prevent Europe's worst atrocity in 50 years.
Women in white headscarves wept and touched some of the 610 green-draped coffins lined up under a gray sky at the Potocari cemetery, now a muddy field after an overnight storm.
The dead had lain for years in hidden pits where they were flung by Bosnian Serb troops in July 1995 after the systematic slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys taken from what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected 'safe area.'

What the article doesn't say: the Serb army felt very much that they'd been publicly humiliated on an international stage. A reasonably-well-equipped military force posessed of ancient hatred and a huge chip on their shoulders just looking for a reason.

Identified by DNA analysis, their bones came home for burial in narrow, cylindrical boxes tagged with a number and a name.
'Srebrenica was the failure of NATO, of the West, of peacekeeping and of the United Nations. It was the tragedy that should never be allowed to happen again,' said former U.S. Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke.
A message from U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan repeated that Srebrenica would haunt the world body forever. Some 400 lightly armed Dutch troops guarding Srebrenica's Muslims were swept aside by Bosnia Serb forces while the U.N. rejected appeals for air strikes by NATO to halt their advance."

The Dutch troops weren't just swept aside; the Commander was bluntly told, "If you resist we'll kill everyone, women and children, boys and men, and peacekeepers."