Talk:Sjeverin massacre

External link to information sourced from Sandzak Committee for Protection of Human Rights

Hello Ckatz, I see your interest in matters relating to the Bosnian war has been aroused again by a link to the Srebrenica Genocide Blog. With plural authority you announce the removal of the link, on the basis that the criterion for the validity of information is the Wikipedia status of an editor rather than the substance of the information the editor helps make available.

As I have pointed out on various occasions, however partisan and sometimes intemperate that blog is, sourced information there is as reliable as most sources cited as references in Wikipedia articles and usually more, and this is an external link not a reference. It is important because it provides relevant background for ongoing issues associated with the failure to investigate the crime adequately.

"Furthermore, the status of national minorities in Serbia has been determined by the crimes and atmosphere of fear, which governed the country in the 1990s. During Slobodan Milosevic’s reign, grave crimes against minority communities were committed, not only in neighboring countries, but also in Serbia.

The most serious crimes were committed in Sanjak, against members of the Bosniak minority, in Vojvodina against the Croats, and in southern parts of Serbia, against Albanians. During the 1990s, Serbian authorities and various armed groups killed, persecuted and tortured the Bosniaks from Sanjak.

One of the consequences of these actions is drastic decrease of the number of Bosniaks in Sanjak.

The most serious crimes committed in Sanjak are the abduction of 17 citizens (nb - I'm not clear about the origin of this discrepancy - 16 is the generally accepted number) from the bus from Sjeverin to Priboj on October 22 1992(note 3); ...

Note 3: On crimes committed in Sanjak, see: publications of the Humanitarian Law Center, the Sanjak Human Rights Committee and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights"

This is on page 5 of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights report "Report number 20 - Human Rights Protection Program - Minority and Elections - Report on Status of National Minorities in Parliamentary Election Campaign 2007"[1]

Youth Initiative for Human Rights is along with Humanitarian Law Center one of the principal internationally respected human rights organisations in Serbia. It acknowledges the status of the Sanjak Human Rights Committee cited in the external link.

On page 6 of the report it goes on to say

"Not a single mass crime committed in Serbia in the 1990s has been fully investigated, nor have the persons responsible for them been prosecuted and appropriately punished. Court proceedings have been completed in the case of Sjeverin, where four perpetrators have been pronounced guilty and given long prison sentences.

However, Serbia has done nothing to help the victims and their families, or to acknowledge the state responsibility for the actions of top state offcials in the past. This is largely conducive to minorities’ mistrust and lack of confidence in the Serbian state."

Later on in the report (page 25) Goran Miletic of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights:

"The second most important issue is that of dealing with the past, or short – justice. This was apparent in all multi-ethnic municipalities I have worked in. Imagine that you belong to any of the national minorities in Serbia. Imagine yourself as Bosniak and remember only the weapon-search raids throughout Sanjak. Remember Sjeverin, remember everything that happened there. Do you think that enough people have been held accountable? How many have been punished? These were serious violations of human rights. ... The perpetrators have not been punished yet. Instead, they remain in police forces and still walk by the same people in Pazar, Tutin, Sjenica, and so on. I saw it myself. ..."

The Sjeverin massacre remains a live issue in Serbia because of the fundamental issues involved.

Unless there is a specific reason to question the accuracy of the information cited at the blog, denying its authenticity and usefulness only serves the purpose of constructing the availability of significant information, which is always problematic in relation to non-Anglophone issues.

Given the number of times you have intervened in matters involving Bosniak I'm clear you have a good idea of the value of the information he links to, not just the problems posed by his behaviour (and some of the contributory causes of it). What I find depressing about Wikipedia is the way a necessary structure of rules ends up being applied without an eye to the ultimate object of the exercise. Even though you will presumably continue to impose these "we Wikipedia's views" ad infinitum you're not going to convince me that everything associated with Bosniak is so contaminated that it must be assumed to undermine the integrity of these hallowed pages. Opbeith (talk) 09:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)