ABSTRACT
Stjepan Mesic Professor Mahmutcehajic's presentation has clarified many things, but I should still like to ask a question. I had a conversation with a highly placed official from the international community about Srebrenica, during which he told me that there was a tape recording made in Srebrenica when the town had fallen and the rest of the population and the soldiers from the ARBiH were surrounded. General Mladic and his officers lined up the troops and said: 'Now we're going to take our revenge on the Turks.' My informant told me that international politicians knew there was going to be a massacre. When I asked him why they had not reacted, why they had not threatened to strike the Serb command positions, concentrations of mechanized troops or artillery sites, of which they knew the precise locations, he explained: 'If we had submitted a request for action to the United Nations, if we had requested a session of the Security Council, then while the Council was in session and while we were justifying and documenting our request, those people in Srebrenica would have ceased to exist anyway. And that's why there was no intervention.' As far as I am concerned, that is no explanation at all. I thought then and still think now that there were political reasons behind such behaviour, reasons which he did not refer to. So I would like to ask you, who have been involved in the war in BosniaHerzegovina in all its aspects, how you explain the case of Srebrenica.
