Military-political analyst Miroslav Lazanski told SRNA that the stereotype about Serbs as the main culprits for the BiH war is strong, but that it is slowly “melting away” after the ruling handed down to the first Republika Srpska President, Radovan Karadzic, and details presented about Srebrenica and Markale.
Commenting on the statement of the Chairman of the BiH Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, that he was surprised by claim from the ruling to the first Republika Srpska President, Radovan Karadzic, that the so-called Army of BiH targeted its own territories and UN positions, Lazanski said that it has been clear for years that the Markale massacre is the subject of great manipulation.
“The opinion of ICTY judge Melville Baird, who dissented saying that Bosniaks targeted Markale marketplace and that Karadzic is not guilty of it, is but one in a series of opinions supporting the claim that Serbs did not commit this crime,” Lazanski said.
He said that a Ukrainian officer, who immediately after the explosion came to the crime scene, said that “something is not right,” and that reports and expert opinions on Markale were kept in the drawers of /the then UN Secretary-General/ Boutros Gali, and that other members of the UN Security Council did not see them.
“On the night after the shelling of the Markale marketplace, French First Channel reported that apparently Muslims shot at their own people, but this report was later withdrawn. The then French Prime Minister also said that this was a setup and that Serbs did not bomb Sarajevo civilians,” Lazanski said.
According to him, it is odd that the American MPRI, which organised wars from Croatia to Kossovo, possessed a precise model of the Sarajevo Markale marketplace.
Lazanski said that not a single commission has so far determined that a shell which killed civilians at the Sarajevo marketplace was fired from the Serbian positions.
“This shell was needed. Markale was needed to ban flights of Serbian aircraft above BiH,” Lazanski said.
He added that the public forgets that Sarajevo was not an ordinary city but a military garrison with military units of the so-called Army of BiH.
“We certainly regret civilian victims and every crime needs to be condemned, but I think that the role of the city of Sarajevo as a military garrison is being neglected,” Lazanski said.
He said that the fact is that the crime was committed in Srebrenica, but that it has been inflated.
“The stereotype of Serbs as culprits is still strong, but it is slowly melting away. You see what the Vienna Standard wrote about Srebrenica a day before yesterday. Some Swedish papers and even one Japanese paper wrote about what happened in Srebrenica in an objective manner,” Lazanski said.
He said that he thinks that the crime should be discussed and that the worst thing is to take things for granted, the way they were presented in the first moment.
“The most profitable role in the tragic war in BiH is the role of a victim. When you take the position of a victim, like the Muslim side did, then you are allowed everything. I do not say that they did not suffer, but when you take a total number of casualties in BiH, then the percentage of killed Bosniaks corresponds to the percentage of Bosniaks in the pre-war population,” Lazanski said.
Source: SRNA
