Monday, October 05, 2009

Mazowiecki Reports

I had noticed not too long ago that my link to the Mazowiecki Reports no longer worked--the documents had been taken down at the university hosting them.

When Daniel at "Srebrenica Genocide Blog" asked me about them, I realized I needed to actually do something about it--I am happy to report that I've corrected the problem by linking to the UN itself, where hopefully the documents will remain available online for some time.

Thank you Daniel, for motivating me! I hadn't checked that link for some time, so I have no idea how long it was faulty.

5 comments:

Srebrenica Genocide said...

Thank you Kirk. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camp and, later, he became a special U.N. emissary to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

Mazowiecki stepped down in 1995 to protest the world powers' lack of response in stopping the Srebrenica genocide. We know, from the Krstic Appeal judgement and as well as from the statement that Polish-Jewish Judge Theodor Meron (president of the Hague Tribunal) gave in Potocari, I will quote it:

"By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica... "

I have noticed on genocide denial web sites that some commentators continue to blame Mazowiecki for stating that 200,000 people died in Bosnia in his 1993 report. I managed to find his report of February 1993 on the web site of the UNHCR. After reviewing his report, there was nothing to indicate that Mazowiecki came up with that number. Again, genocide deniers lied.

When it comes to the "numbers of killed" controversy, one must remember that it is impossible to count each and every victim. There are various credible information on the Bosnian casualties.

The October 1995 bulletin of the Bosnian Institute for Public Health of the Republic Committee for Health and Social Welfare gave the numbers as 146,340 killed, and 174,914 wounded on the territory under the control of the Bosnian army. Mustafa Imamovic gave a figure of 144,248 perished (including those who died from hunger or exposure), mainly Muslims. A November 1995 unclassified CIA memorandumg estimated 156,500 civilian deaths in the country (all but 10,000 of them in Muslim- or Croat-held territories), not including the 8,000 to 10,000 then still missing from Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves. This figure for civilian deaths far exceeded the estimate in the same report of 81,500 troops killed (45,000 Bosnian government; 6,500 Bosnian Croat; and 30,000 Bosnian Serb).

Unknown said...

The link you have is for only one of the Mazowiecki reports. The UN website does not have all of them online (in the early 1990s electronic archiving was still in its infancy),

An almost complete set of the Mazowiecki reports was assembled by Michael Sells and posted on his war crimes documentation website. That site is now defunct, but is still accessible via the Internet Archive --
http://web.archive.org/web/20060405112812/www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/reports/mazowiecki.html

Another set of Mazowiecki reports, which complements Sells' site, is available on Frank Tiggelaar's Domovina Net website:
http://www.domovina.net/archive/1992/19920828_mazowiecki.php
(use navigation bar at left to access the reports)

sarah correia said...

I used your link to get access to the reports. The last time I used them was I think in March and they were all there. It's a pity that they were taken down.

This case also shows how blogs can be important and useful, no matter how big or small their audience...

Srebrenica Genocide said...

Kirk and Andras:

There is a new document I found, titled "Facts About Srebrenica," and published by the Hague Tribunal's Outreach Programme. I am convinced you will find it both compelling and interesting. I invite you to read it and leave your comments. Thank you in advance.

sarah correia said...

I used the links for the last time last March and they were still working. Let me use this post to thank you for the way you organize your blog. The links, the book reviews in particular are very useful.