Interview with Dr. Srdja Trifkovic on CKCU 93.1 FM
Ottawa - June 28, 2005
"A crime is a crime, regardless who is a culprit and who is the victim. We should follow a natural morality that forbids war crimes and crimes against humanity regardless of the identity of the culprit and the victim."
On The Hague 's "release" of a video depicting Serbian gunmen shooting Muslims.
The video prove that war crimes and crimes against humanity have taken place in the former Yugoslavia , and that such crimes have been committed by all sides. That we have known for a long time. The Serbs need to come to terms with the dark chapters in their own past and with their transgressions that were in violation of what Patriarch Pavle had said way back in 1992, that it is important to remain true to our Christian heritage.
The video does not prove, however, that there was a "genocide" in Srebrenica, or that seven, eight or ten thousands Muslims were murdered. It proves that six Muslims were murdered by a Serbian paramilitary formation. It is uncertain whether it was under the command of the Serbian interior ministry or not. The way in which the video was used and abused by the "international community" indicates that the purpose of the proceedings is to attach collective guilt to the Serbian nation as a whole, to make the Serbs feel guilty for all that has to come to pass in the Balkans over the past decade and a half.
In December 2004 the OSCE office in Belgrade criticized the Serbian media for publishing some graphic pictures of the crimes committed by Ramush Haradinaj in Metohija in 1998-99. At that time some representatives of the so called international community complained that by publishing such vivid reminders of crimes committed against the Serbs, the media was guilty for perpetrating hate and intolerance, whereas its task is to look ahead towards peace and reconciliation. But when this video shows some Serbs as culprits, and Muslims as victims, all that is forgotten. It is played and replayed 24 hours a day on B92, published in "Danas" newspaper and other Soros affiliated media such the weekly "Vreme," and all over the Western world.
A crime is a crime; regardless who is a culprit and who is the victim. We should follow a natural morality that forbids war crimes and crimes against humanity regardless of the identity of the culprit and the victim. When the Serbs are culprit the news the item is amplified to the n-th degree. When the Serbs are victims, it is censored. The shots of decapitated Serbian heads on the Ozren mountain in 1993, the shots of Serbian exhumed bodies in Kosovo and Bosnia , and the victims of Croatian "lightening" offensive in 1995 are censored and not fit to print.
That indicates that the Srebrenica video has a specific political usage: to attach the collective guilt to the Serbian nation as a whole; to use the 10th anniversary of Srebrenica as a means of "denacification," that is to say de-Serbianization of Serbia - and to revise the Dayton agreement, with the objective of liquidating the Republika Srpska and creating a more or less centralized, unified Bosnia. The Republika Srpska made the admission of its guilt for Srebrnica under duress. It was done under the threat of the replacement of elected officials, along the lines of what we've seen with Paddy Ashdown, when he simply removed 56 top officials of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) last year. He still continues to rule Bosnia as his fiefdom.
The Serbian government would be ill advised to make any such apology. Let's face it, for as long as Mesic does not apologize for the murder of five or six thousand Serbs in the process of ethnic cleansing of the Krajina; for as long as untold thousands of Serbs, victims of the Muslim misrule in Sarajevo in the early 1990s, remain unnamed, unknown and unacknowledged, the Serbian side does not need to apologize to anyone. By acknowledging its unique guilt, it would be playing right into the hands of the scenario reflected at The Hague Tribunal. It exist solely in order to proclaim the Serbs, collectively, as the guilty party for everything that has happened in the Balkans. Its purpose is to retroactively justify western policy. They'd love to be able to say, "Well the Serbs themselves are now admitting that they were the bad guys. All that we have done - the sanctions, the bombing of Republika Srpska, the bombing of Serbia , the occupation of Kosovo - was the inevitable consequence of their own actions."
If the Serbs resist such scenario, at least they'll have an opportunity in the long run to reverse the tragic outcome of the 1990s. But if the Serbian government accepts the stigma of guilt, it will also open the door for demands for monetary payments that will greatly exceed any benefits of joining the so called international community. Those demands for reparations will exceed billions of dollars.
On the US Undersecretary for State Nicholas Burns threats that Serbia will never join NATO if it does not condemn the Srebrenica "genocide".
There are no benefits for Serbia in joining NATO. There are only costs. Serbia would be joining a criminal organization that was guilty of premeditated aggression against itself in 1999. If Serbia enters NATO, it would be joining a gang that carried out an aggression that remains to this date unacknowledged and unatoned. Serbia needs to come to terms with all that came to pass under Milosevic, but not at cost of losing it soul; not at the cost of admitting that aggression was right and that the defense of its sovereign territory was wrong. The terms that Mr. Burns is suggesting is the following: You admit that you are guilty of genocide and we will let you join the organization that carried an aggressive war against you, that occupied one part of your sovereign territory, and that ensured the 150 of your shrines will be burned down and 250.000 of your fellow Serbs will be expelled. Mr. Burns should be told in no uncertain terms by the government of Serbia , hat Serbia is not interested in joining such an organization.
After the referendum in Holland and France there will be no extension of the European Union for years to come. Mr. Burns is now desperately trying to pull out an alternative carrot, the promise of NATO as a lure that supposedly has some benefit for Serbia . The only "benefit" for Serbia will be to pay untold billions, which it does not have, in order to update its military and send its kids to join the US-led interventions to "spread democracy" in the Middle-East. NATO is an organization tainted with criminality that has outlived its purpose.
Dr Srdja Trifkovic , director of the Institute For International Affairs at Rockford Institute, Rockford Illinois and the author of the book : The Sword of the Prophet: Islam-History, Theology, Impact on the World.
