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Serbs Celebrate Srebrenica Victory as Exhumations Continue at Cerska
‘There is no place for Turks in Republika Srpska’
CERSKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Bosnian Serbs celebrated the first anniversary of their conquest of Srebrenica today, while war crimes investigators sorted through the bones of those slaughtered after the Muslim enclave fell.
Most of the exposed grave, in which scientists have uncovered more than 40 corpses, was covered with a green tarp to protect the remains from rain, hail and the steamy air that hung over the hills after a midday storm.
Investigators concentrated on collecting hand bones that had fallen off skeletons and tumbled to the bottom of the embankment - following the path of many of the victims. Investigators surmise they were lined up along the side of a ridge, shot and pushed downhill. "It is a death not to be wished upon anybody -- to be killed, to be discarded, to be covered up," forensic scientist William D. Haglund said today, departing from his usual technical terminology. He added, "how terrible, how horrific it would be to be standing here and meet your death in this beautiful spot."
A refrigerated truck arrived today to take the remains to a forensic laboratory.
The bodies buried near Cerska, about 17 miles northwest of Srebrenica, likely are just a fraction of the more than 7,000 Muslims believed to have been killed then dumped in these hills after Bosnian Serbs overran the Muslim enclave July 11, 1995.
In the Srebrenica area, Serbs marked their victory -- one of their greatest of the war -- and reiterated their goal of keeping the territory ethnically pure. "There is no place for Turks in Republika Srpska," said Bosnian Serb Gen. Milenko Zivanovic, the regional commander who led the assault on Srebrenica last summer. "Turks" is a derogatory term Serbs use for Muslims.
They pleaded, crying and screaming, for help finding out what happened to their loved ones. The women gathered at a gymnasium in Tuzla, about 45 miles northwest of Srebrenica, to meet an international delegation led by Queen Noor of Jordan, U.S. Ambassador to Austria Swanee Hunt, and Emma Bonino, the EU humanitarian aid commissioner.
Sida Mehanovic, 75, said that in her extended family of 35 women there was only one male left -- an 18-year-old grandson. "Why didn’t they just kill us?" she cried. War crimes investigators hope that the exhumations started in the region this week and expected to last three months will uncover evidence of the biggest known massacres of the 3½-year Bosnian war.
The evidence will be used to build a case against suspects indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, including Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. Mladic has been singled out as the man who orchestrated the massacres at Srebrenica, which his indictment called "the most horrendous, unimaginable war crimes committed in Europe since the end of World War II."
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Haglund said the best way for his team to observe the anniversary of Srebrenica’s fall was to keep working to ensure such massacres aren’t repeated. "Anniversaries are for the living. They appreciate it," Haglund said. "The dead no longer appreciate it. That’s why we’re here."
Muslims in Srebrenica held out against a Serb siege for years. When Serbs finally took the enclave, they sought revenge for what they said was a Muslim slaughter of hundreds of Serbs in neighboring villages. Women who survived Srebrenica met today with an international delegation in government-held Tuzla.
Berserkistan, July 10 · Body Count Rises to More than 40 at Cerska
Berserkistan, July 10 · Republika Srpska Forces Finns to Abandon Mass Grave Probe
Berserkistan, July 9 · More Bodies Exhumed at Cerska Grave Site
Berserkistan, July 8 · Cerska Grave Site Yields First Corpse
Berserkistan, July 7 · Excavation Begins at Srebrenica Mass Grave
Berserkistan, July 3 · Mladic Promised Safety to Srebrenica Muslims
Berserkistan, May 29 · Documentary Claims Serbia Provided Srebrenica Arms
Berserkistan, Massacre Hill Jim Bartlett in Bosnia's Killing Fields
Berserkistan, Ghosts in the Woods Team Berserkistan Investigates a Srebrenica Massacre Site
Serbs Massacre Muslims in "Safe Area" of Srebrenica
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Reports concerning human rights abuses in Bosnia Intac Access
Major War Criminals/Suspects CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia CalTech's Bosnia Site
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