Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Evidence of fraud by Nato at Srebrenica exhumation site

Tom Young | 09.12.2003 23:02 | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | World

The Kamencia exhumation supposedly uncovered more than 500 victims of the Srebrenica massacre. However, publicity in the SFOR publication seem to suggest that this mass grave was little more than a public relations hoax. This has not stopped it being used in War Crimes proceedings.

In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave, American officials claimed they had satellite evidence of mass executions of Bosnia civilians at a soccer field nearby. When two photos were released it showed some white patches alledged to be disturbed earth, but no footage of executions. Subsequently no exhumations have been done at that site, nor have forensic investigations been performed to ascertain if bodies had been present and since been removed, as SFOR is fully empowered under the Dayton agreement.

Since then it has become accepted that Bosnia Serbs have dug up graves from a Srebrenica massacre and moved them to other locations. Hence the distinction is made between primary graves, ones that have been undisturbed, and secondary graves, containing bodies that have been moved from another location. One problem with a secondary grave is that it becomes difficult to ascertain exactly the origin of the remains, and so it is easily open to fraud should any organisation be so inclined. Especially in a country that has had 200 000 war dead.

This article from the forces magazine, the SFOR Informer 2002, discusses the discovery and exhumation of one such secondary grave from Srebrenica located at Kamenica.
 http://www.nato.int/sfor/indexinf/147/p12a/t02p12a.htm
This grave was finally determined to hold over 500 remains making it the biggest grave to date.

Nevertheless, even a cursory examination of the accompaning photos raises questions. By clicking on the top photo, captioned "Bulldozer tracks are visible at the exhumation site.", an enlarged version is obtained that completely undermines the accompanying claims.

Firstly, it becomes very clear where the bulldozer tracks come from, not from Serb earth moving equipment moving bodies 8 years ago, but from the backhoe situated in the background of the photo. Backhoes, for obvious reasons, are never used in forensic exhumations.

Secondly, the tracks lead into the pile of remains, suggesting that whatever made the tracks also was responsible for depositing the bodies. Given I think it unlikely that this type of exhumation is going to uncover bulldozer tracks from beneath compacted earth after a period of 8 years, we can assume that the remains have been recently added to the site.

Thirdly, even in the remote possibility the remains had been buried and recently uncovered in a forensic exhumation, it would look nothing like as pictured. A forensic exhumation would slowly remove thin layer after thin layer of dirt from the top of the grave. As remains were exposed they would examined in situ and then removed piece by piece. If we are to believe this picture then excavators came in from one side and miraculously managed to remove all dirt from over and even from BETWEEN the remains - and just happen to have revealed a pile of human remains that looked like it had been dumped recently.

Fourthly, the obvious explanation is that the backhoe dug out the hole in the picture and then the remains were dumped into a pile inside. And that this event occured in the last few days.

What is amazing is not that this is a fraud, but that it is such a clumsy one. Even more worrying is that fact that this very "forensic" exhumation is and has been used as evidence before the Internatiton Tribunal of War Crimes in Yugoslavia. It raises the questions if NATO is prepared to fake one mass grave, how many of the others have been tampered with or are unreliable.

I contacted the ICTY over this issue and requeasting the procedure of obtaining access to photographic evidence and forensic reports used at the Tribunal. The response has been a deafening silence.

Tom Young
- e-mail: tombo_combo@lycos.com

Comments

Display the following 9 comments

  1. really? — sceptic
  2. Really! — Tom Young
  3. Really! — Tom Young
  4. Really!!! — Tom Young
  5. Really!!!? — sceptic
  6. Forensic and archaelogical expertise — Tom Young
  7. When is a 'sceptic' not a sceptic? — Mad Monk
  8. An official response — Tom Young
  9. SFOR EXAMINATION — Me
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech