Why do I raise painful questions about the statements of the Serb Bishops in 1992?
According to UNHCR workers, Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, Helsinki Watch, and thousands of pages of testimony by survivors the following was the situation in 1992.
A network of concentration camps had been set up by Serbian nationalist authorities. These camps have since become famous throughout the world for the regular killings, tortures, and rapes that occurred in them. The most notorious camps were Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, and Manjaca (in the Banja Luka area), Batkovic, Brcko-Luka, KP Dom and Partizan Hall in Foca, Susica near Vlasenica. Those held captive and killed in these camps were almost all unarmed civilians, with the exception of Manjaca which held both civilian and military prisoners.
For their activities in these camps, the commandants of Omarksa (Zeljko Meakic), Susica (Dragan Nikolic), Keraterm (Dusan Sikirica), and Brcko-Luka (Dragan Nikolic) have been indicted by the International Tribunal on War Crimes in The Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda for the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The activities in these camps were not only an assault on the Muslim population of the area recognized by the International Tribunal and major human rights organizations as genocidal, but also a crime against Serbian history, Serbian heritage, Serbian religion, and Serbian culture. Those carrying out the genocide pretended to be acting for Serbs, for the Serb Orthodox religion, and out of the deepest Serb traditions.
The persecutions taking place in these areas could not and were not hidden from the view of the Serb priests and bishops who resided there. Overnight, Muslims vanished. Screaming could be heard throughout the villages, as unarmed Muslims were attacked. Militia leaders trucked corpses and wounded bodies openly to various disposal sites and made a point of displaying the gore as a warning. Arkan even allowed a Western reporter, Ron Haviv, to film his men killing elderly Muslim civilians and kicking their bodies. When shown the film, Arkan proudly admitted they were his men and said "he didn't give a damn" about what people thought.
Mosques, some of them architectural masterworks from the 16th century such as the Ferhad Pasha mosque in Banja Luka (1583) and the Colored Mosque in Foca (1561) were dynamited, then dynamited again, then ploughed over and turned into parking lots and parks. The Bishops could not have not seen what was happening.
After cities of Zvornik and Foca were "cleansed" of all Muslims, all the mosques were dynamited and civic celebrations were held, with participation by clerics, the change of the name Foca to Srbinje, and statements were made by the mayors of both cities that "There never were any mosques in Zvornik" and "There never were any mosques in Foca." A Serb Bishop lived just 100 yards from the Brcko-Luka death camp, where thousands of Muslims perished; some are believed to have been cremated in a nearby animal by-products cooker.
During this period, the Serb bishops issued the following statement of denial:
"In the name of God's truth and on the testimony from our brother bishops from Bosnia-Herzegovina and from other trustworthy witnesses, we declare, taking full moral responsibility, that such camps neither have existed nor exist in the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
Father Trbuhovic says of my criticism of the Serb Synod's statement:
""This statement is taken out of context. What the bishops were specifically denying was "the
monstrous accusations against the Serbs of Bosnia and Hercegovina; namely, that those Serbs are
allegedly holding 40,000 Muslim women in camps for their indulgence and rape." (See first
paragraph of the statement in question, Bishops' Communique from December 1992) The
falsehood of the rape camp accusation is seen in that all follow-up investigation efforts to find such
camps and to find the rape victims ended in failure. (Absurd charges against the Serbs were taken at
face value by the media anxious to demonize the Serbs. And do Western Christians protest the
demonization of an entire nation?) The statement makes no other mention of other crimes except for
the following: "We, the Hierarchs of Christ's Church, as men, Christians, and servants of God
above, in these inhuman times condemn every violent act regardless of by whom or in whose name
it is committed."
It is impossible to know how many women were held in camps like the Foca Partisan Hall (the Tribunal has just indicted several Foca religious nationalists for engaging in rape as a deliberate war crime, including the Foca chief of police), Trnopoje (where rape was by all accounts massive and continuous) and the other camps.
Women who are raped, for obvious reasons in a patriarchal, Mediterranean society, are very hesitant to report the crime. But the evidence of organized rape at these camps is very strong. It is not an absurd charge at all. Many of the women who were repeatedly raped, or sold to various militia members, have been damaged in psychological ways that may never be fully healed.
So I would pose the following questions: If the Serb Bishops wished only to deny the accusation about the number "40,000", why didn't they then go on to condemn the camps that I mentioned above? Is it an honest and courageous facing of the issue to simply claim that "such camps" do not exist, when these Bishops must have known about the concentration camps and the acts taking place in there?
As "shepherds" of their flock, these bishops needed to provide guidance; to explain the difference between "fighting for self-determination" and systematically persecuting people of another religion.
Religious Violence and the Stepinac Syndrome
As Father Trbuhovic states, the statement "makes no other mention of crimes" except for a condemnation of all violence on all sides. Yet this is the exact kind of condemnation of violence on all sides that Pope Pius XII and Bishop Stepinac made in WW2.
There are many, myself included, who believe such statements, during times of genocide, are not only inadequate, but in fact are part of a denial that the genocide has occurred and thus serve to allow it to continue. Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Stepinac should have gone beyond general condemnations of all violence and should have openly and specifically condemned the persecution of Jews, Serbs and others, and should have openly named the names of the concentration camps, including Jasenovac, and called them an abomination. Bishop Stepinac should have openly called for the immediate closing of Jasenovac and the arrest and trial of those responsible for it.
Rather than denying that "such camps" exist, the Serb Bishops in 1992 should have named the names of Omarska, Keraterm, Brcko-Luka, Susica, Trnoplje, Foca Partizan Hall, detailed what they knew was happening there, made any corrections they wished to the numbers of women raped, and then called the camps and the acts taking place in those camps allegedly on behalf of "self determination of Serbs" an abomination.
Had they done so, not only would the honor and courage of the Serbian Church have been affirmed, and the creation of future bitterness and conflict been avoided, at least in part. Those Serbs who do not understand why some of use read the 1992 Serb Bishops' statements with extreme disappointment, need only to think of how they feel about the similar statements of Stepinac condemning all violence but refusing to condemn specific, genocidal acts of violence by those in this own flock, and refusing to make clear to his own flock the difference between "fighting for self-determination" which the Ustashe said was their goal, and persecuting those of other religions, which is what they were in fact doing.
Michael Sells