Bologna, Saturday, 17 January 2026
 

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: A CHIMERA

Seminar, videos and images 30 years after the Dayton Agreements

SPEAKERS' ADDRESSES:

Andrea Martocchia (Jugocoord): Introduzione. Smembramento della Jugoslavia e secessione bosniaca

Andrea Martocchia: Smembramento della Jugoslavia e secessione bosniaca – intervento al seminario BOSNIA-ERZEGOVINA, UNA CHIMERA  

Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti (giornalista e saggista): L'islamismo nel calderone bosniaco e gli incendiari esterni

Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti: L'islamismo nel calderone bosniaco e gli incendiari esterni – intervento al seminario BOSNIA-ERZEGOVINA, UNA CHIMERA 

Stefan Karganović (Srebrenica Historical Project): Srebrenica and Its Toxic Legacy

[IN ITALIANO: Stefan Karganović: Srebrenica e la sua eredità tossica – intervento al seminario BOSNIA-ERZEGOVINA, UNA CHIMERA]

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed friends,

Three decades ago, on 21 November 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, marking the official end of the ethnic conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is important to bear in mind that, contrary to the popular but false narrative promoted at the time, it was not a “war of aggression” against Bosnia by neighbouring Yugoslavia. Neither was it a civil war in the proper sense of that word because divisions at the root of the conflict were not political or ideological, but purely ethnic.

What made it far more complicated than, for instance, the ethnic conflict in Rwanda, is that in Bosnia it was a tripartite war involving mutually hostile ethnic groups, Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. Each of those groups in the course of the conflict fought against the other two, but also at times switched sides forming tactical alliances with one opponent against the other. Thus, there was at one point a temporary Serb – Croat alliance against the Muslims. In the final stages of the war a more permanent alliance was arranged between Croats and Muslims against the Serbs. It was forged not spontaneously but under strong pressure from the collective West. It was brought about for the political benefit of the Western coalition to hamper the Serbs rather than for the advantage of the native combatants.

The post-Dayton period brought an outward normalisation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but there was no real peace or cessation of mutual distrust or animosity, which persisted in the hearts of members of all three ethnic groups. I would set apart two reflections of this latent internal discord. Even after three decades of formal peace they make Bosnia an unstable society, always on the verge or either renewed conflict or disintegration. One of those reflections is Srebrenica. The other is the collective West’s apparent determination to unilaterally reformat the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement to suit its own geopolitical purposes, ignoring the perceived interests of the three local parties. The locals, and here that means primarily the Serbs and the Croats who together constitute more than half of the population, are being compelled to accept an arbitrary new arrangement and to give up their autonomy in favour of a centralised Bosnian state structure governed from Sarajevo. That was not contemplated at all by the Dayton Accords of 1995, and it serves exclusively foreign geopolitical interests, in this case of the collective West.

I will focus on the cancerous issue of Srebrenica, which has been poisoning relations between the two largest groups, the Serbs and the Muslims, practically from the time the military conflict ended in the mid-1990s to the present day.

You all know what I am referring to. There is no dispute that a large number of Muslim prisoners of war were summarily executed in July 1995 after Serbian forces took over the enclave of Srebrenica. But Srebrenica since then has become more than just a terminological or even conceptual dispute, the issue being whether the war crime that took place there should be classified as a genocide or as a massacre of prisoners. Of course, the Serbian victims from the surrounding villages who were killed in continuous raids from the enclave of Srebrenica between 1992 and 1995 are neither mentioned nor counted.

Over the years, Srebrenica has been turned into a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to the post-war normalisation of relations between the two largest single ethnic groups in Bosnia, the Serbs and the Muslims, and deliberately so. That was one of the primary “uses of Srebrenica,” as Diana Johnstone has pointed out. That deliberately nurtured enmity impedes even a minimum of civility and cooperation between those two key groups on whose mutual goodwill Bosnian peace depends. Conveniently for the interests of the collective West, that makes Bosnia and Herzegovina ungovernable without the “mediation,” but actually overlordship, of a consortium of foreign powers – all Western, of course. Their rule, or Raj if we wish to use the terminology of British colonial governance in India, which was also mediated by native satraps, is symbolised in the Office of the High Commissioner. That office which was set up after Dayton to last for one year but has continued indefinitely, with limited authority to settle constitutional disputes, now claims extraordinary powers superior to local laws and customs, and is not in any way bound or limited by Bosnia’s Constitution. The version of events that misrepresents what happened in Srebrenica as the “first genocide in Europe after World War II” has served directly to rationalise this foreign interference in Bosnia. It has perpetuated Bosnia’s lamentable status as a fictionally sovereign country with the unique status as the only colonial protectorate of the collective West in Europe.

There is a drastic discrepancy between what the evidence shows and what the officially sanctioned narrative claims about Srebrenica. The standard figure of 8,000 victims, “men and boys” for greater emotional effect, is entirely made up and unsupported by the available forensic evidence. From a legal standpoint, the allegation of genocide is groundless on its face because about 20,000 women, children, and elderly from Srebrenica were evacuated by Serbian forces without being mistreated in any way. The number of males who were provably executed, up to a 1,000 by a generous estimate, falls far short of the eight thousand victims that are alleged in the popular narrative. They were all arms bearing war prisoners captured by Serbian forces. That is a war crime, but it bears no resemblance to the indiscriminate extermination of all members of a designated ethnic group, such as occurred in World War II or is occurring presently in Gaza.

A few hard data points will put these facts in bold relief.

The exhumation of human remains – performed under the supervision of the Hague Tribunal Office of the Prosecutor it should be remembered – recorded a total of 3,568 “cases,” [1] or individual Srebrenica related autopsy protocols, and they tell the following story:

• Only 442 exhumed bodies could be classified as indisputable execution victims, because they had either blindfolds or ligatures;
• 627 bodies had shrapnel or other metal fragment injuries, which points to death in combat rather than execution;
• 505 bodies had bullet injuries, which may indicate death by execution, but also death in battle;
• Cause of death could not be determined for 411 bodies;
• 583 of the "cases" presented only body fragments, and Hague Tribunal forensic experts concluded that cause of death could not be determined for 92.4% of them.

Finally, in order to make the most accurate possible estimate of the number of individual bodies amongst the 3,568 "cases", forensic analysts used a method by which left and right thigh bones (femurs) were matched. That gave a total of 1,919 right femurs and 1,923 left femurs, which means that in July of 1995 the total number of bodies associated with Srebrenica was under 2,000. Their deaths, as the forensic evidence indicates, resulted not just from execution but also from a variety of other causes, notably including combat. In total, they do not come even close to the 8,000 execution victims claimed by the official Srebrenica narrative.

The factual matrix of Srebrenica fully bears out the observation of the late Prof. Edward Herman who said that Srebrenica was “the greatest triumph of propaganda at the close of the twentieth century.” It also confirms the sensible view of Prof. Noam Chomsky who stated that “if Srebrenica was genocide we must invent another word to describe what happened in Auschwitz”.

In the domain of foreign policy, the consequences of the misdesignation of Srebrenica as genocide have been immense and deplorable.

The implementation of the infamous doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect,” or R2P, was inspired directly by the false Srebrenica narrative and has done nothing to improve the human condition. On the contrary. That criminal project conducted by collective West predatory powers was promoted using the duplicitous refrain of “never again Srebrenica.” It was initially launched by intellectual clowns of the ilk of Bernard-Henri Lévy and picked up by governments eager to rationalise their military operations against resource rich but politically disobedient weaker countries. Its practical results have been disastrous. Under a moralistic façade, the predatory campaigns in Iraq, Libya, Syria inspired by Levy’s pompous slogan have resulted in the destruction of independent countries and the killing of millions of their innocent, as it happens mostly Muslim, inhabitants. In every instance where R2P was invoked with references to Srebrenica, the real motive for intervention was never the alleviation of a humanitarian crisis. It was to overthrow a government which had insisted too vocally on its right to sovereignty. The secondary motive was always as nefarious as the first: to occupy a country in order to strip it of its natural resources.

I hope that you have found this overview of the Bosnian situation and its larger impact on geopolitics informative and helpful. I regret not being able to discuss these matters with you in person and I wish all of you a happy and productive New Year and a successful conference.

NOTE:

^[1] See: http://us.srebrenica-project.org/2021/07/01/icty-srebrenica-autopsy-reports/

Chiara Nalli (esperta di geopolitica e politica serba): La Repubblica serba di Bosnia e il "mondo serbo" nel contesto attuale

 IN CORSO DI TRASCRIZIONE, IL TESTO SARÀ DISPONIBILE A BREVE