Bosnia & Herzegovina: Alexandros Lykourezos

Srebrenica Genocide Blog writes about Alexandros Lykourezos, Ratko Mladic and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

119 comments

  • Christine

    Alexandros Lykourezos is a Srebrenica genocide denier and one of the most fervent supporters of the late Slobodan Milosevic and the indicted war criminal Gen Ratko Mladic. Througout the war in Bosnia, Mr Lycourezos publicly supported Gen Ratko Mladic and the politics of Slobodan Milosevic. Alexandros Lykourezos stated that he does not believe that his friend, Gen Ratko Mladic, slaughtered “7,000 people” in Srebrenica.

    FACTS: Over 8,000 Bosniaks were summarily slaughtered in Srebernica genocide, many of them children, and thousands of women were forcibly expelled (ethnically cleansed) from the enclave, while many women were raped.

  • More of the same misinformative propaganda from the likes of the SGB.

    Saying that 7000-8000 Muslim males were “slaughtered” (as per Wikipedia and other sources) doesn’t clarify how they were killed. These deaths ranged from casualties as armed combatants, collateral damage and summary execution. The latter constituting a war crime. Some of those claimed to have been killed or missing at Srebrenica have been found to be alive and well. Much remains unclear on what did and didn’t happen at Srebrenica. Establishing the facts isn’t helped by propping propaganda outlets like the SGB.

    Recall the now debunked claims of 200,000 or more Bosnian Civil War casualties and mass rapes in the tens of thousands. Bogus propaganda claims put out by supporters of Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic; who supported the Hanschar SS during WW II and wrote a fundamentalist Isalmic Declaration in 1970. There’re ample reasons to question the claim that 7000-8000 Muslim males were summarily executed at Srebrenica. Note who did and didn’t buy into the earlier propaganda claims that were proven false.

    Hundreds and possibly as many as over 3,000 Serbs were earlier (prior to 1995 and from the start point of the Bosnian Civil War) slaughtered by Muslim forces in and around Srebrenica. Many of these Serbs were women and children. There’s evidence showing that many of these deaths were the result of summary execution.

    How come the Bosnian Muslim nationalist SGB doesn’t call Turkey a “genocide denier” for not acknowledging what happened to the Armenians? What constitutes the greater “genocide”?

  • Magia

    Firstly, I’d like to give you my opinion of Lykourezos. The man is the most famous lawyer in Greece; he lives on high-profile high-publicity cases.
    Secondly, the man has done nothing illegal. He is a lawyer, that’s his job. As much as you or I hate him for being friends with Mladic, he is perfectly entitled to do so(although, probably not at the moment) and to be his lawyer. Anyway, the guy is covered. You got nothing on him.

    Secondly.
    Looks like someone here is a Serb apologist. I accept your argument that a lot of those men had died as the result of military fighting which, while inhumane, I GUESS isn’t illegal. However, I’d like to make the following points:
    1) they have found, and are still finding, mass graves in Srebrenica. Thousands of men, of all ages. I doubt the VRS would have bothered to bury dead enemy combatants. THAT MANY dead enemy combatants.
    2) Have you not seen the recently published footage (taken by members of Serb paramilitary) of summary executions in Srebrenica?
    3) by arguing about the EXACT NUMBER of the victims, one is in danger of using the same rhetoric as the deniers of Holocaust who complain that ‘there weren’t 6 million dead Jews, there were only 3 million!’ This is a warning sign in ANY argument about the (alleged) genocide against ANY ethnic or other group. This should indicate, straight away, that someone has a motive for their arguments, which are tendentious at best, atrocious at worst.

    [Recall the now debunked claims of 200,000 or more Bosnian Civil War casualties and mass rapes in the tens of thousands. ]

    These claims are not now debunked. By Bosnian we mean Bosnians of all ethnicities, not just the Bosniaks. Furthermore, unless I’ve somehow managed to miss important recent research, the mass rapes, or rather ‘rape camps’ argument still stands.

    I’d also like to point out that I do realise that the Bosnian government, especially during the war, had an incredible propaganda machine. Which DID feed people half-truths inaccuracies. However, I think it’s important to note that, while in some instances it’s appropriate to take their data with a grain of salt, negating the facts of the Srebrenica massacre is just plain….I really don’t know what to call it.

    [Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic; who supported the Hanschar SS during WW II and wrote a fundamentalist Isalmic Declaration in 1970]

    The Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic did NOT support the Handzar SS during WW II and there is absolutely no evidence at all to indicate to the contrary. The late president Izetbegovic was an outspoken anti-fascist and honoured Yugoslavia’s war effort (despite its communist nature)

    I’d like to say a couple of things about the “Islamic Declaration” – I HAVE read it. YOU have not. In the book Izetbegovic clearly states that an islamic state can only be created in a country where the VAST majority of the population is both MUSLIM and SYMPATHETIC to such a regime. Bosnia clearly isn’t such a country, and he certainly realised it – throughout his presidency, especially during the war, he strived to create a multicultural society based on democratic principles.

    [Hundreds and possibly as many as over 3,000 Serbs were earlier (prior to 1995 and from the start point of the Bosnian Civil War) slaughtered by Muslim forces in and around Srebrenica. Many of these Serbs were women and children. There’s evidence showing that many of these deaths were the result of summary execution.]

    Why is your scope of Serb casualties so wide? Hundreds, and POSSIBLY as many as over 3000?

    It is true that Naser Oric (who has since been convicted of these crimes by the Hague tribunal) and his soldiers DID in fact harrass nearby Serb villages. AND kill innocent civilians. I do believe your claim that among the victims were women and children, and that many of these deaths were the result of summary executions. There can be no excuse for this; I, for one, am very sorry this has occured.

    [How come the Bosnian Muslim nationalist SGB doesn’t call Turkey a “genocide denier” for not acknowledging what happened to the Armenians? What constitutes the greater “genocide”?]

    I for one call Turkey a genocide denier for not acknowledging what happened to the Armenians and, I dare say, what’s still happening to the Kurds. The SGB does not talk about Turkey because Turkey is not the topic. Nobody is denying this for whatever motives you’re accusing them of. These people would just like to point out the very recent injustices that have happened to THEM. That is all. They’re fighting for THEIR rights, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

    It’s interesting to note that you didn’t mention the Greek war of independence and its ‘population exchange’ with Turkey, or its treatment of its Slavic population after its annexation of a part of Macedonia – and current harrassment of Macedonia. OR Russia, its pogroms of its Jewish citizenry, or the Soviet gulags.
    OR…Spain, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Israel, Palestine, China, USA, Australia, [insert country here]…no genocide is excusable. It’s disgusting.

    Calling SGB ‘Bosnian Muslim’ nationalist (the term is Bosniak these days) is not on. Your arguments are not on.

    On a final note, how can you ask what constitutes the greater genocide? How can you compare genocide to another genocide? How is that humane?

  • Looks like someone here is an anti-Serb propagandist and a not so good one at that.

    Many of those mass graves include/included women and non-Muslims. How does one clear that with the very questionable (put mildly) figure of 8,000 Muslim males being rounded up and summarily executed? To prevent diseases from spreading, I don’t think it’s so uncommon for a fighting force to bury the dead as soon as possible.

    It’s quite clear that the 200,000 or more Bosnian Civil War death toll was bloated. It has since been acknowledged as such. For more, see:

    http://www.serbianna.com/columns/averko/007.shtml

    It’s a matter of historical record that Izetbegovic sided with the Hanschar SS during WW II. I didn’t at all misinterpret his 1970 Islamic Declaration. If Izetbegovic was so to the contrary, Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats would’ve supported him. In addition, Izetbegovic was opposed by secular Muslim leader Fikret Abdic.

    My refererencing of the Srebrenica atrocity of Serbs cites numbers that are in dispute. Unlike some others, I try to be very clear on what is and isn’t known.

    At times, the SGB has gone off on other topics. Moreover, some of its seeming supporters hold to the kind of faulty standard that I mentioned.

    BTW, it’s somewhat bigoted to hold Russia responsible for everything that went on wrong with the USSR. The pogroms against Jews was of course wrong. During that period, Blacks and Indians in the US faced similar conditions, while collectively not coming close to the socio-economic successes that some Jews achieved in the Russian Empire.

  • The Srebrenica massacre has been recognised as an act of genocide by two international courts: the International Court of Justice and the UN’s war-crimes tribunal in the Hague. By questioning the fact of the Srebrenica massacre, Mike Averko reveals himself to be a genocide denier with contempt for international law. What he is doing is no different from those neo-Nazis who deny the Holocaust.

    Averko says: “Hundreds and possibly as many as over 3,000 Serbs were earlier (prior to 1995 and from the start point of the Bosnian Civil War) slaughtered by Muslim forces in and around Srebrenica.”

    What right does someone with such a poor grasp of figures have to question the death toll at Srebrenica, or in Bosnia as a whole ? Averko is talking about killings in which he doesn’t even know if ‘hundreds’ or ‘as many as over 3,000’ Serbs were killed. Perhaps he could get his facts straight before he chooses to lecture us about them.

    As it happens, the most comprehensive investigation into Bosnian war-dead, carried out by Mirsad Tokaca’s Research and Documentation Centre, revealed that 849 Serb civilians were killed in the whole of the Podrinje region, which includes Srebrenica, during the whole of the Bosnia war. So claims that ‘as many as over 3,000 Serbs’ were killed in and around Srebrenica are simply lies.

    The investigation by the Research and Documentation Centre confirms the figure of approximately 8,000 dead in the Srebrenica massacre:

    http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/

    If Averko is going to accuse Alija Izetbegovic of having been a supporter of the SS Handzar division during World War II, can he provide any evidence ? Otherwise, can he please refrain from making unsubstantiated allegations ?

    The Soviet Union was Hitler’s most loyal ally for the first two years of World War II; the Soviets joined with the Nazis in destroying Poland, and provided the Nazis with war-supplies while they were conquering Western Europe. Averko should remember his own country’s record before he lectures others on having supported the Nazis.

  • Philip Thompson

    So Michael Averko denies Srebrenica genocide and minimizes numbers of killed Bosniaks?

    Why? It’s because Michael Averko is a Serb apologist writing for Serbianna – website that contains Srebrenica genocide denial material.

    Michael Averko does not seem to understand that opinion is cheap, everbody has it. What people like him think about Srebrenica genocide is irrelevant.

  • The Srebrenica massacre has been recognised as an act of genocide by two international courts: the International Court of Justice and the UN’s war-crimes tribunal in the Hague. By questioning the fact of the Srebrenica massacre, Mike Averko reveals himself to be a genocide denier with contempt for international law. What he is doing is no different from those neo-Nazis who deny the Holocaust.

    Averko says: “Hundreds and possibly as many as over 3,000 Serbs were earlier (prior to 1995 and from the start point of the Bosnian Civil War) slaughtered by Muslim forces in and around Srebrenica.”

    What right does someone with such a poor grasp of figures have to question the death toll at Srebrenica, or in Bosnia as a whole ? Averko is talking about killings in which he doesn’t even know if ‘hundreds’ or ‘as many as over 3,000’ Serbs were killed. Perhaps he could get his facts straight before he chooses to lecture us about them.

    As it happens, the most comprehensive investigation into Bosnian war-dead, carried out by Mirsad Tokaca’s Research and Documentation Centre, revealed that 849 Serb civilians were killed in the whole of the Podrinje region, which includes Srebrenica, during the whole of the Bosnia war. So claims that ‘as many as over 3,000 Serbs’ were killed in and around Srebrenica are simply lies.

    The investigation by the Research and Documentation Centre confirms the figure of approximately 8,000 dead in the Srebrenica massacre:

    http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/

    If Averko is going to accuse Alija Izetbegovic of having been a supporter of the SS Handzar division during World War II, can he provide any evidence ? Otherwise, can he please refrain from making unsubstantiated allegations ?

    The Soviet Union was Hitler’s most loyal ally for the first two years of World War II; the Soviets joined with the Nazis in destroying Poland and provided the Nazis with war-supplies while they were conquering Western Europe. Averko should remember his own country’s record before he lectures others on having supported the Nazis.

  • Maja

    My dear Michael,

    OK fine. I’ll bite.
    How dare you accuse Izetbegovic of fascism when you’re a fascist yourself? First of all, when you present me with evidence from a website called Serbianna (and your own column at that) what do you expect me to do, go and read it and expect it to be impartial?

    [Looks like someone here is an anti-Serb propagandist and a not so good one at that.]

    I am not an anti-Serb – I have nothing against SERBS. I have EVERYTHING against a regime that committed GENOCIDE (and I’m not talking about Srebrenica) and that still continues to deny it 15 years later, for political benefit.

    If I were to feel anything towards Serbs as a RACE, it would be pity – they’re in a situation where they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Just like the rest of us, but a bit worse off.

    But I do NOT dislike races. To quote the great Serb philosopher/poet/comedian/singer/UN ambassador for peace Balasevic – I dislike people one by one and I see how far I get.

    [Many of those mass graves include/included women and non-Muslims.]

    Wow. Who killed these women and non-Muslims? Was it the MUSLIMS THEMSELVES? I’m glad to see the Muslims and the Serbs could agree to bury their victims together. Where did you get your data from, Serbianna? Go fish out a list of names of the people who were identified so far. See how many non-Muslim names there are.

    How does one clear that with the very questionable (put mildly) figure of 8,000 Muslim males being rounded up and summarily executed? To prevent diseases from spreading, I don’t think it’s so uncommon for a fighting force to bury the dead as soon as possible.

    Your argument is extremely weak. I’m imagining an impetuous 8 year old kid stomping his foot and demanding chocolate. Cute. Why did your Serb brethren kill 8000 Muslims, Michael? OH wait. Let me guess! ‘They were all enemy combatants, who had murdered 1000s of innocent Serb women and children in Srebrenica. Threw the children to the lions at the ZOO, they did! As a matter of fact, those mass graves are SERB civilians! Killed by the murderous Ustashe from Jasenovac who somehow made it to Srebrenica 50 years later! And by the Islamic-Extremist-Mujahedin-Terrorist-Al Qaida-Jihadist-Islamist-September 11-Saddam Hussein-Weapons of mass destruction-(insert word here) mercenaries’

    tell me…what do you think of that incredible claim that 6 000 000 jews were killed in WWII?

    If you could, and if that was your fight, you’d deny that too.

    [It’s quite clear that the 200,000 or more Bosnian Civil War death toll was bloated. It has since been acknowledged as such. For more, see:

    http://www.serbianna.com/columns/averko/007.shtml%5D

    It has since been acknowledged as such by who? Don’t tell me; I know already.

    SURPRISE SURPRISE. Why didn’t you SAY you had a column on a Serb nationalist website?

    Unlike some, I don’t twist the truth to suit my twisted mind.

    I like how you call it the Bosnian Civil War. It’s cute! Don’t put capitals in civil and war – the expression is not an official widely-used one. like ‘The Holocaust’. I can think of only one country where this may be the case.

    Yes, I can see how it’s a CIVIL war when Milosevic, and not Karadzic, signed the Dayton Peace Agreement. (see the use of capitals?)

    [It’s a matter of historical record that Izetbegovic sided with the Hanschar SS during WW II.]

    It is NOT a matter of historical record that Izetbegovic sided with the Handzar during WWII. Find me a source. Someone credible. Not your parochial website.
    It’s a matter of historical record that Izetbegovic was involved with a Muslim nationalist group as a young man – i forget their name, young muslims, or something like that – but he was NOT involved with the fascists!

    [I didn’t at all misinterpret his 1970 Islamic Declaration.]

    You didn’t at all READ his Islamic Declaration. As a matter of fact, you probably have no idea what you’re talking about. Which is why you didn’t try to beat my Islamic Declaration argument in my earlier post, isn’t that right? Go on, read it. It’s repetitive, but not that boring!

    [If Izetbegovic was so to the contrary, Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats would’ve supported him.]

    Bosnian Croats DID support Izetbegovic. Until they decided they wanted to carve out a piece of Bosnia for themselves (honourable agreement Milosevic and Tudjman, who was then fighting a war against the Serb secessionists in his own country) Then they changed their mind. Go figure.
    The Croats may not have voted for him, but they certainly didn’t try to shell/snipe Sarajevo to death because of his presidency. He was elected in democratic elections, you know. Did you know that?
    The Serbs didn’t support him because the Serb propaganda machine fed them atrocious lies – you know. stuff like ‘there will be Jasenovac again’ and ‘they want to create a muslims state’ and ‘they’ll throw out 1/3, convert 1/3 and murder 1/3 of the serbs’ – this was to their own detriment as well as everyone else’s.
    And why WOULD they support him?? After all, He WAS a nationalist. He WAS a muslim. But he was also a democrat, and the elected president of the country – I guarantee you one thing – Izetbegovic would not have committed genocide against the Serbs. He could have cleaned RBiH cities, but he didn’t. Not one Orthodox church was destroyed in Zenica, Tuzla, Sarajevo. How many mosques were left standing in Republika Srpska in 1995?

    [In addition, Izetbegovic was opposed by secular Muslim leader Fikret Abdic.]

    Yes, he was opposed by Fikret Abdic. I like how you point out the fact that Fikret Abdic was secular. secular Muslim. OK.
    Secular Muslim Fikret Abdic. Serious political leader.
    (I hope you don’t mind the source?)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agrokomerc_Affair

    In 1980s Agrokomerc, was engulfed in questionable banking deals where the corporation issued numerous high interest promissory notes without the proper financial equity. Such practices were very common in the Yugoslav communist system and many corporations utilized this practice. The difference with Agrokomerc was that the director of the corporation Fikret Abdic lost the sense of scale as the corporation issued in excess of $500 million in “worthless” promissory notes. The problem became more acute as the press reported on it as the biggest economic affair in former Yugoslavia triggering the 250% inflation rate in Yugoslavia.

    Anthony Loyd (Anthony Loyd (b. 12 September 1966)) is a British war correspondent, author, and former British Army officer who saw active service in the First Gulf War) on Fikret Abdic:

    Talking to his autonomist followers was much the same as speaking with cult converts anywhere in the world: a wooden dead-end dialogue hallmarked by the absence of individual rationale and logic.

    (kind of like talking to people like you)

    [My refererencing of the Srebrenica atrocity of Serbs cites numbers that are in dispute. Unlike some others, I try to be very clear on what is and isn’t known.]

    I didn’t want to talk about numbers. I find it distasteful that you’re arguing over how many thousands of Muslims were killed exactly. Or shall we say hundreds? Or tens? Whatever rocks your boat.

    The point I was trying to make in my earlier post – indirectly and sneakily – was that anyone who denies genocide by talking about NUMBERS is a fascist – and that therefore YOU are a fascist.

    [At times, the SGB has gone off on other topics. Moreover, some of its seeming supporters hold to the kind of faulty standard that I mentioned.]

    What? I don’t know. I’ve only been to the website once, after I’d read your post. I don’t care much for it. I haven’t decided whether it’s nationalistic or not, though. I’m sure they’re biased, most of these websites (one of which you write for!) are.

    [BTW, it’s somewhat bigoted to hold Russia responsible for everything that went on wrong with the USSR. The pogroms against Jews was of course wrong. During that period, Blacks and Indians in the US faced similar conditions, while collectively not coming close to the socio-economic successes that some Jews achieved in the Russian Empire.]

    Don’t call me bigoted, you of all people.
    I didn’t say I hold Russia responsible for all that went wrong in USSR. Actually, I don’t have a bizarre, sick obsession with Russia, so I don’t know that much about it. I don’t CARE about Russia or the USSR anyway. I know that 20th century communism was the scourge of that century. I mean, just look what you did to Eurovision. Funny, I didn’t think you were Russian. I thought you’d be Ukrainian or something.
    My point WAS that blacks and indians in the US faced similar conditions. maybe you haven’t understood my post properly?

    [while collectively not coming close to the socio-economic successes that some Jews achieved in the Russian Empire.]

    Yes, Russians are well known for their Zionism, aren’t they? Yes, such socio-economic successes that Russian Jews had to migrate to Palestine en-masse. OHH you said SOME Jews. Fine. There must have been one or two. Until Stalin. Oh he was a Georgian wasn’t he?

  • Owen

    Hello Veronica. Did you reject my post because of the comments I made about the apologists? I think what I said about Lykourezos et al. was fair comment. It was not a personal attack. These are supporters and defenders of an indicted war criminal. I did not talk about Michael Averko personally, I spoke about Serbianna. I’m willing to delete the “blood on the hands” comment if you insist, though I believe again it’s reasonable – those who work to help a a war criminal avoid justice are themselves culpable. However that may be, it is simply wrong for you to reject my post without explanation. If Global Voices is not transparent, its basic philosophy is called into question.

    I’m afraid I’m quite angry about this, having yesterday been reading the writ of summons in the court case currently being brought by the relatives of the victims of the massacre at Srebrenica.

  • Owen

    As something odd seems to have happened to my original comment, I’ll try again:

    It’s simple enough. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has found that the mass killings at Srebrenica – the worst massacre on European soil since the Second World War – constituted genocide. It examined the evidence against the senior officers of the Bosnian Serb Army in great depth of detail. Anyone who wants to read the grim evidence for themselves can do so by examining the individual case judgments at the ICTY case index page, http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/index-e.htm

    The findings of the ICTY were confirmed by the highest authority in international law, the International Court of Justice. Anyone who wants to read their judgment on the issue of genocide at Srebrenica can do so at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/91/13685.pdf

    In the words of the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, when he visited the ICTY in 1997,

    “impunity cannot be tolerated, and will not be. In an interdependent world, the Rule of the Law must prevail.”

    By holding individuals accountable regardless of their position, the ICTY’s work has helped to dismantle the tradition of impunity for war crimes and other serious violations of international law, particularly by individuals who held the most senior positions, but also by others who committed especially grave crimes.

    General Ratko Mladic, the senior commander of the Bosnian Serb Army and in charge of operations at Srebrenica in July 1995, is still a fugitive from justice thirteen years after the massacre, sheltered by friends and.accomplices. When the likes of Alexandros Lykourezos, Darko Trifunovic and the Serbianna grouping deny the reality established by the highest legal authorities they affirm their support for the culture of impunity that Kofi Annan condemned. The blood on Ratko Mladic’s hands is blood on their hands.

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