There are too many anomalies and unanswered questions in the so-called Srebrenica massacre.  There was ethnic cleansing on all sides.  Opinions of people on the scene (UN forces, American soldiers etc.) have been ignored.  Clear statements and admissions of war crimes by Albanians and Kosovars are ignored and get a slap on the wrist.

The whole thing has been politicised beyond belief and there were warnings that the bombing by NATO of Serbia would make things worse - it did.  Milosevic agreed to everything beforehand that he did at Dayton.  Etc. etc.

Madeleine Albright told the Serbs "we are watching you" and with multiple daily high resolution satellite imaging there was never any evidence of bodies being removed as has been claimed to explain the lower numbers than originally claimed.  Finding a body or part does not indicate cause of death nor whether soldier or civilian, Kosovar or Serb.

Countries have strategic interests and are not moral actors.  If I thought Mladic could get a fair non-political trial I'd applaud it.  And the Serbs like all small powers know when they are beat and must submit to the master (German led EU) and hence the desire of some to join the EU and bow to their wishes.

http://www.srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm

There might be anomalies and unanswered questions as it happens in every conflict but the Srebenica massacre did well occur.  The "Mothers of Srebenica" are the most reliable source of information we can rely upon regarding this massacre.

http://www.srebrenica.ba/index.en.php?link=articles&p=2

Yes anomalies and questions arise in every conflict. But that doesn't let off the hook the prosecutors, defense and judges from their duty to try and decide the truth. Already today I read in the BBC that 7000 were killed at Srebrenica and the website you cite talks of 10,000. Is someone right and someone wrong in their estimates? Or is it so political that numbers don't count, the truth of the tragedy doesn't matter and we may never know the 'truth'? Do numbers matter? Yes and no. But truth absent of agendas'of politics matters more in my opinion.

The Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina who want to know what happened to their children, not involved in any war or insurrection are more believable than mothers of soldiers and civilians caught up in a globally politicised civil war where crimes appear to have been committed on all sides.

Yes, that is what the Hague Tribunal was created for, so that prosecutors, defense and judges could do their duty towards the truth.

I am not denying that crimes appear to have been commiited on all sides during the Yugoslavia war but comparing the credibility of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina (some of which had been involved in guerrilla warfare) to the Mothers of Srebenica is in my opinion unjust to both of them.  What are we comparing?  Their suffering? 

I wonder, does this cold-blooded scheming mass-murderer feel some kind of remorse for his bloody past when he visits his daughter's grave, who is said to have committed suicide with her father's pistol in 1994 aged 23, appalled at his role in the war.

That is the first time I have heard that any of the Argentinian disappeared were involved in guerilla warfare. I'm not denying it but could you please provide a source of information on that please.

As for anomalies, the full report can be found here: http://www.srebrenica-report.com/index.htm

We cannot be comparing suffering if we don't know that suffering ocurred.

I don't see why the Mothers of Srebrenica are the most reliable source of information as opposed to military personnel, poliiticians etc. Guilt should be proven beyond reasonable doubt and currently there is reasonable doubt about the existence of a massacre. Just today the BBC in one report says more than 7000 were killed and in another report says close to 8000 and the Mothers say 10,000. The BBC report of May 27 on how Mladic was caught says at least 7500. I don't put much credence in BBC reporting or analysis but they must be getting their figures from somewhere or someone. That creates doubt in my mind.

The original post in this forum referred to Mladic as a warlord and fugitive. Again a judgement is being passed before he has been tried. As for being a fugitive he might well have suspected he would receive no justice and thus chose to hide. He was apparently found at a home of relatives with the same family name. It is also interesting as noted that some in Serbia want to join the EU and that Mladic was caught at just the moment that EU Foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was in Belgrade the Thursday before Mladic's arrest discussing with the government the conditions for Serbia's acceptance into the EU. One of the prime conditions was the arrest and extradition of Mladic.

Even if Pinochet had been prosecuted in a Spanish court and knowing all what I know about the coup, I would reserve judgement before calling him guilty until it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

You are convicting him even before the ICTY has tried him.

As for the death of his daughter Mladic says she was murdered. If you found out your father was a mass murderer would you kill yourself? i wouldn't. So if she did kill herself because she found out or believed he was a mass murderer then I would question her mental health.

By June 1999, with the bombardment over, international forensic teams began subjecting Kosovo to minute examination. The American FBI arrived to investigate what was called "the largest crime scene in the FBI's forensic history". Several weeks later, having not found a single mass grave, the FBI went home. The Spanish forensic team also returned home, its leader complaining angrily that he and his colleagues had become part of "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not find one - not one - mass grave".

In November 1999, the Wall Street Journal published the results of its own investigation, dismissing "the mass grave obsession". Instead of "the huge killing fields some investigators were led to expect . . . the pattern is of scattered killings [mostly] in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army has been active". The Journal concluded that Nato stepped up its claims about Serbian killing fields when it "saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrary story: civilians killed by Nato's bombs . . . The war in Kosovo was cruel, bitter, savage. Genocide it wasn't."

One year later, the International War Crimes Tribunal, a body in effect set up by Nato, announced that the final count of bodies found in Kosovo's "mass graves" was 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army. Like Iraq's fabled weapons of mass destruction, the figures used by the US and British governments and echoed by journalists were inventions - along with Serbian "rape camps" and Clinton's and Blair's claims that Nato never deliberately bombed civilians.

http://www.johnpilger.com/articles/reminders-of-kosovo

FYI, website of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

http://www.icty.org/

The Montoneros and the ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) were active in guerrilla warfare during Perón's last government). Many of their members were murdered by the Junta.

Thank you for the report; I'll take the time to read it.

Suffering did ocurred in any case judging by the little I have read of the report you quote.

I respect your serenity at not judging him until he has been tried. And it seems to me a logic chain of events that if Serbia wants to join the EU then the arrest of Madlic is a small price to pay considering he still has many followers.

As for Pinochet, I would call him "guilty as hell" without waiting for any judgement on him. But that happens to be my way of looking at things.

I did not know about Mladic's daughter apparent suicide until I read Goodrider post today.  I was shocked when I read it and could not help myself thinking about Hitler's niece who committed suicide.

Mladic says she was murdered. Well, could a General of the Serbian Army (or Croatian or Bosnian for that matter) admit her daughter had taken her own life?  No, that would have implied questioning himself and his actions so it is much easier to say she was murdered.

If you found out your father was a mass murderer would you kill yourself? i wouldn't.

I have no idea what I would do if I found out my father was a mass murdered. I guess it would depend on the kind of relationship I have had with him.

So if she did kill herself because she found out or believed he was a mass murderer then I would question her mental health.

To be brought up by a father believed to be a mass murdered must have an undeniable influence on your pshyche. My tendency would be to question her father's mental health.

I see no reason why an American General commanding troops of agression in Viet Nam would have trouble admitting his daughter committed suicide!

It might depend on the type of relationship she had with him but I find that highly speculative and dubious. To be brought up (if indeed he was present much -who knows?) by someone 'presumed' to be a mass murderer having an "undeniable" influence on your psyche is again pure speculation based on no facts. It is also logically weak to state that a father "believed" (not proven yet) would have an "undeniable influence on one's psyche.

Let us not jump to conclusions except this one - he will be found guilty because that is the purpose of ICTY (to demonise Serbia and hence give retroactive justification to the immoral actions of NATO.

I can see plenty of reasons and there all speculative and based on life experience as well as on numerous readings on the subject of authoritarian parents.

As for "not jumping to conclusions" you already have.

Marksist, you seem to trying to confuse the issue by bringing in the lack of mass graves in Kosovo. The Mladic case refers to the Srebrenica massacre which was four years earlier and for which mass graves have been found and documented.

As for the testimony of soldiers, the Dutch peacekeepers have not denied that a massacre took place, even though it would surely be more comfortable for them to have claimed that the Bosniaks were armed and fighting.

I generally support your anti-imperialist stance on these forums (fora?) but being anti-imperialist doesn't mean that we have to accept that the 'victims' of imperialism must be the good guys. Often, the people who the West takes actions against are murderous b***ards. The fact that the West may have other motives, and may replace them with equally murderous b***ards, does not change this. Nor, in my opinion, does the fact that we might not be able to prosecute all sides equally mean that we shouldn't prosecute anyone.

As for pre-judging:

I hope that Mladic gets a fair trial and that the judges keep an open mind. As I'm not in charge of the case, however, I have no problem believing already that he's guilty and saying so. If he gets off I may or may not change my mind.