Reactions

After the report was published on 3 September 2002, it was condemned by a wide variety of Bosnian and international figures. A spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia told Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...

 that "any claim that the number of victims after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave was around the 2,000 mark, and most of those killed in battle, is an absolutely outrageous claim. It's utterly false, and it flies in the face of all of the evidence painstakingly collected in the investigation into the tragedy." He described the effort to minimise the number of victims as "frankly, disgusting." Carla del Ponte

Carla Del Ponte

Carla Del Ponte is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in August...

, the chief prosecutor of the ICTY, described the report's authors as "totally blind, profoundly insensitive and clearly willing to obstruct all efforts to find reconciliation, truth and justice." Del Ponte's legal adviser, Jean-Jacques Joris, criticised the report as "a saddening example of revisionism and an element which certainly stands in the way of reconciliation in the region." The ICTY prosecutors subsequently used the report as evidence in the trial in 2004 of Miroslav Deronjić

Miroslav Deronjic

Miroslav Deronjić is a Bosnian Serb who was charged with persecution, a crime against humanity, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his actions related to the attack on the Bosnian village of Glogova.Deronjić held the...

; in their verdict, the judges called it "one of the worst examples of revisionism in relation to [the massacre]".

Paddy Ashdown

Paddy Ashdown

Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, GCMG, KBE, PC , usually known as Paddy Ashdown, is a British politician and diplomat....

, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina

High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina

The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was created in 1995 immediately after the Dayton Peace Agreement to oversee the civilian implementation of this agreement. The High Representative and the OHR represent the...

, condemned it as "tendentious, preposterous and inflammatory" and "so far from the truth as to be almost not worth dignifying with a response." His office issued a statement calling the report "an irresponsible attempt to deceive voters and to abuse the trauma of massacre survivors". Ashdown's spokesman, Julian Braithwaite, noted the report's publication just before elections in the Republika Srpska: "The question for the RS government is why are they publishing this report now, at the time when it could be easily interpreted as irresponsible electioneering. If they are playing down the fact that civilians were massacred and that children are being exhumed from mass graves with their hands tied behind their backs, then that it is outrageous." The European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 issued a statement calling on "all responsible people and institutions" to reject the study. The International Commission on Missing Persons

International Commission on Missing Persons

The International Commission on Missing Persons addresses the issue of persons missing as a result of armed conflicts, violations of human rights and natural disasters...

 issued a strongly worded statement calling the report a gross distortion of the facts:
The British Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane is a British politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Rotherham since the 1994 by-election and served as the Minister for Europe from 2002 until 2005, as well as being a current Policy Council member for Labour Friends of Israel.On 14 October 2010, it was announced...

 condemned the report as "an insult to the memory of those who died. The authors of this report belong in the same category as those who deny the Holocaust took place

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

." The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 embassy in Bosnia urged the Republika Srpska government to withdraw the report, calling it "an attempt to manipulate and divide the public in this country."

The Bosniak media, political parties and Srebrenica survivors were likewise strongly critical. The Sarajevo

Sarajevo

Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....

-based newspaper Dnevni Avaz described the report as an attempt by the Bosnian Serb government to deny that genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 had taken place. The Srebrenica and Zepa Mothers Association condemned the report as "false, shameful and utterly amoral." The Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina is a liberal conservative political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina led by Haris Silajdžić. On the issues of the internal divisions of Bosnia, SBiH wants to eliminate two entities, and establish a "one man-one vote political system" in an unified...

 denounced it as "yet another attempt by the Serb Republic authorities in an unscrupulous and brutal way to negate what probably is the worst crime in Europe after WW2." Alija Behmen

Alija Behmen

Dr. Alija Behmen is the current mayor of Sarajevo and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dr...

, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two political entities that compose the sovereign country of Bosnia and Herzegovina . The two entities are delineated by the Inter-Entity Boundary Line...

, called it "a surprising forgery which is trying to delude the public and especially the Serbs in BiH. I honestly believe that this is the last attempt to enliven the policy which marked the tragic past of BiH. Negating the genocide cannot be a part of the election campaign."

On the Bosnian Serb side, opinions of the report were initially favourable. The Bosnian Serb media largely supported the report, and Republika Srpska president Mirko Šarović

Mirko Šarovic

Mirko Šarović is a Bosnian Serb politician, former Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina....

 (who in October 2002 became the Serb member of the collective presidency

Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the head of state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-Overview:...

) said that the report "should not be dismissed out of hand but merits careful study". A number of Bosnian Serb political figures made public statements denying that war crimes had happened and a government spokesman called the report a bid to promote "truth and reconciliation". The Republika Srpska Socialist Party leader, Lazar Ristić, welcomed the report and accused the Bosniak side of having "hitherto presented only false reports, in which names were listed of persons who are still alive today."

Nikola Špirić

Nikola Špiric

Dr. Nikola Špirić born September 4, 1956 in Drvar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia) is a Bosnian Serb politician and is the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina elected on 4 January 2007....

, the speaker of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, called it "the worst election campaigning I have ever seen." Milorad Dodik

Milorad Dodik

Milorad Dodik , is the President of Republika Srpska, and the president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats political party. He graduated from the Belgrade University of Political Sciences .-Political career:...

, who was later to become prime minister of Republika Srpska, castigated the report as having been "written by an amateur for the purpose of manipulating public opinion" in advance of the elections and said:
The Republika Srpska government was, however, more equivocal. Its prime minister, Mladen Ivanić

Mladen Ivanic

Mladen Ivanić is a Bosnian Serb politician. From 2001 to 2003, Ivanić was Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska, and his leadership is described by many as rather successful...

, accused the Bosniak media of having "made [a] fuss over the report for their own purposes." Nonetheless, the outcry from the international community forced the government of Republika Srpska to distance itself from the report, saying that it had not been fully analysed and endorsed:
The Republika Srpska government subsequently disowned the report with Prime Minister Ivanić saying that it was an "unfinished version" and "not an attitude of the government of Republika Srpska." Two years later, after further pressure from the international community, the Bosnian Serb government issued an official apology for the massacre and admitted that "enormous crimes" had been "committed in the area of Srebrenica in July 1995."

External links

• Report about Case Srebrenica (The First Part), slobodan-milosevic.org.