Talk:Markale massacres

Allegedly
I'll keep this brief: it is simply not right to insert "allegedly" into the article when the views expressed are the mainstream and widely accepted opinion - and the views expressed in the article ARE the mainstream and widely accepted opinion. Live Forever 22:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's widely accepted, noone dares to say that the US was wrong and that it started a military operation because of a lie (just like in Iraq). There is not a single serious scientific analysis that proves that Serbs are to blame, the theory is based on "hmm.. bosnians died, Serbs did it", and thats all. -- serbiana -  talk  22:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

No; no it isn't, and the article clearly shows that through well-referenced facts. The newest scientific evidence presented to the ICTY was enough to have a Serb general convicted beyond reasonable doubt in the 94' massacre, while the 95' massacre was never even seriously in doubt. The claim that the Bosnian government was responsible basically rests on 1.) media speculation, 2.) early calculations which were later proved faulty - not enough to qualify it as a legitimate argument. Live Forever 22:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, but the photo you posted is not from that massacre, it is from a different one. If you are posting wrong photos, how can I believe what you're saying is true? -- serbiana -  talk  22:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the picture I took was the one on the Serbian wikipedia where it said it was of the second Markale massacre. Was there an original mistake on the Sr. wiki? Live Forever 05:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thats right. The thing that interests me is, how come you copy a picture from Serbian Wikipedia, assuming its the right one, but you don't believe anything thats written there? -- serbiana -  talk  05:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination has failed
The Good article nomination for has failed
 * Style issues, really - the article is long enough to need a lead section and table of contents. Suggest sectioning into 'First massacre', 'Second massacre' and 'Subsequent events'.  Otherwise it's all great.  Worldtraveller 17:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination has passed
Minor notes Otherwise, good job.--SeizureDog 14:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Directly cite the dead and injured numbers at the beginning.

Protected
Due to edit warring.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 01:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The point of unprotection is not to let you edit war again. You've already done your two reverts like I said at Talk:Srebrenica massacre and blocks will be enforced in future. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 04:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Fact or Fiction

 * Anatomy of a Massacre by David Binder, Foreign Policy #97, Winter 1994-95
 * Serbs 'Not Guilty' of Massacre by Hugh McManners, The Sunday Times, October 1, 1995
 * Bosnia's Bombers by David Binder, The Nation, October 2, 1995
 * Senior official admits to secret U.N. report on Sarajevo massacre Deutsche Presse-Agentur, June 6, 1996
 * Who was responsible for the market place massacres in Sarajevo? - There is doubt about who is the responsible party of the Markale massacre. It is Bosnian government. But in introduction it was written Republika Serpska. There are many facts that show Bosnian government responsibility.--Medule 20:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm glad that you've at least finally come to the talk page. Unfortunately, your "facts" and argument have more holes than swiss cheese. I'll offer a lengthlier response later today. Live Forever 20:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There should be a "Controversy regarding the Markale Incident" section. If someone doesn't start it soon, I will. Stop The Lies 03:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

Here is another one:


 * “The Unfinished State,” The Other Side of the Story One example was the staged massacre at the Markale market in Sarajevo on 5 February 1994. Yossef Bodansky, author of Bin Laden, The Man Who Declared War on America, wrote in his book Offensive in the Balkans, that the mortar used to bomb the Markarle market place was designed by HizbAllah experts and then most likely dropped from a nearby rooftop onto the crowd of shoppers. Video cameras at the ready recorded this expertly-staged spectacle of gore, while dozens of corpses of Bosnian Muslim troops killed in action (exchanged the day before in a ‘body swap’ with the Serbs) were paraded in front of the cameras to raise the casualty count.” … “This callous self-killing was designed to shock the West especially sentimental and gullible Washington, in order to raise the level of Western sympathy to the Bosnian Muslims and further demonize the Serbs so that Western governments would be more supportive of Sarajevo’s forthcoming aggressive moves, and perhaps even finally intervene military.”

Name
It should be Markale incidents. Just like Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident -- TheFE ARgod (Ч) 23:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:UCK NLA.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 11:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Discrepancy
Why is it written at the beginning that the massacre has been performed by the Army of Republika Srpska, if just a few lines bellow that it is written that there is a controversy about if it was done by ARBIH or RSA?! These two statements are contradictory! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.142.145.7 (talk) 14:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Culpability?
This article states very directly that Republika Srpska was responsible for both massacres. I'm not sure if the sources we have currently are enough to justify that conclusion. Indeed the main source for this assertion is something called the "Srebrenica Genocide Blog" which I do not see as a reliable source.

For the first shelling, the two references are the BBC and ICTY; the BBC piece says that General Rose remembers being told by a senior ARBiH general that ARBiH was behind the shelling, and that "Perhaps the final verdict on the Markale incident lies with the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague". Perhaps. The ICTY of course found the Serbs culpable.

For the second shelling, the sources are the "Genocide Blog" and the ICTY (the other sources don't assign culpability to the Serbs and some of them blame other parties).

Are there better sources from the mainstream media who we can cite instead of the blog? Those sources I can find seem to leave Markale 1 as an open question; "Whoever fired the mortar 12 years ago had a deadly aim", says this BBC piece from March 2006, at least one even blames Bosnian Croats. On the other hand I can see mainstream sources like this from Reuters which clearly assigns blaim to the Serbs. I just don't know if WP:NPOV allows us to state "Serbs did both massacres" as outright undisputed fact. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 20:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. there is also interesting materials exposed by Michel Collon (belge journalist) and Juergen Elsaesser (german journalist), which tend to prove (very convincing evidence - I will use for improving the french page - not the english one since I knoz too bad english) that both massacres was organized by Sarajevo's head (that is, Izetbegovic and Co) itself, so that Serbs seem guilty and OTAN starts bombing. See e.g. Liar's Poker: The Great Powers, Yugoslavia and the Wars of the Future. 193.125.180.8 (talk) 10:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been a bluehelmet in these days,and i remember some of the rumours.And how surprised i was over the accuracy of these very few mortar shells who hit the market area(xtra surprising because of the joy of slibowitz the serbs had...btw the others also). The rumours said the shells were thrown down from house roofs,to make NATO start. Interesting is also that the croat offensives are in this time,maybe something was coordinated? Lives and tricks were cheap in those days.None of the parts were holy saints.It was a sick war,who sickened some of the combatants brains on all sides.The heavy slibowitz(alcohol)consumption made it worse.I was stationed on the serb side,sometimes i feel petty for those common serbs ,who were very hospilate and joyfull people,which were drawn into this madness.

Yes, "Are there better sources from the mainstream media who we can cite instead of the blog?" we should use mainstream western media cuz its just more unbiased than that fascist antiserb blog!


 * HAH who are you kidding, wikipedia is the most antiserb tool out there guys, even if you seek to use mainstream media for a source you cant honestly expect enlightened individuals to be blind to NATO countries / media interest in portraying those evil serbs as untermenchx! were it not for the media markale square massacre would be painted in its true light, being the selfinflicted PR wound that got the serbs bombed to hell! Oh, but no, you think the fucking media is worth sourcing?


 * PS. i removed the source to SrebBlogSpot link and i DO NOT expect to ever see it again on wikipedia, it violates the sources policy - Have fun Rndxcl (talk) 21:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not good with English, please forgive me for that. ... I would like to ask authorities for this article to read what was written yesterday (November 23, 2008) about what other sources say about Markale massacre; there are British, French, Spanish, Russian, U.N. officials, so it sure should fins its place in this article. I am, to make this perfectly clear, a person from that Yugoslavia where this massacre has happened, I am from a mixed marriage, from parents, grand parents and family from all 4 republics involved in Yugoslav war (i.e. Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro; not counting Macedonia and Slovenia), and have no personal interest to schill. However, I do want to see normal article, not the one I see now. We all know there were strange things surrounding this massacre, in short described in Serbian web-site here: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Bosnia/Sarajevo/markale2.html (in English). There are links to other reliable sources that were totally neglected in the article (why?). I am not a writer of Wikipedia, but, please, I did contribute today with other links and other views, hoping someone will make more reliable article by using that information, too. This way it seems that this article is only to support "mainsteream" media; why then we need our heads and independent media, if we can "follow the route" of "mainstream" meadia? This reminds me of article about War in Croatia where Bosnian version is the same as Croatian, and those two have nothing in common with Serbian article about the same thing; the problem is that both (actually - three) sides didn't mention main causes and main problems, roots of all evil in Balcans, and every side kept quiet when it comes to their own faults and negative aspects. I think the right word is "biased". Now this seems to be the same: Serbs did it, because they are claimed to be the bad guys in Yugoslav war. If you read this: "however, in the verdicts against Serb generals Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević, the ICTY concluded that the massacres were committed by the Serb forces" and read its source (Galić verdict- 2. Sniping and Shelling of Civilians in Urban Bosnian Army-held Areas of Sarajevo) you'll find it DOES NOT MENTION MARKALE AT ALL. It mentions Markale only in this sentence: "Hamill recounted an admission by an SRK officer to whom he spoke in relation to the Markale incident in February 1994: ..." and then desribes what Bosnian Serb ellegedly said: "[...]he also said that in the previous year, they had fired 30 to 40,000 rounds into the city and why were we so concerned about one round when they had fired so many". So that counts as proof that Serbs bombed Markale marketplace??? That's what the author was refering to when he backed up his claim wuth this reference? Is that Wikipedia's policy, or just no one read the given reference? Regards, Koja 93.86.44.55 (talk) 01:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, Koja. I think references may well not have been checked properly (or indeed were inserted misleadingly). PS, you are good with English! :-) Jonathanmills (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this should be enough to close the debate about this terrible event. David Harland, prosecution witness at the trial of General Dragomir Milosevic, says in his cross-examination that on 28 August 1995 he advised General Rupert Smith to state that “it is unclear who fired the shells” on the Town Market in Sarajevo in order “not to alarm the Bosnian Serbs”, possibly alerting them to the impending NATO air strikes

David Harland, former head of UN Civil Affairs in BH, admitted today he was responsible for the creation of the myth that UNPROFOR was unable to determine who had fired the mortar shells that caused the Markale 2 massacre on 28 August 1995. Forty-three people were killed and seventy-five injured at the entrance to the Town Market in Sarajevo. Markale 2 is one of the 15 “illustrative examples” of the shelling campaign against Sarajevo listed in the indictment against the then commander of the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, General Dragomir Milosevic.

The myth that has survived for more than ten years, Harland said in response to Milosevic’s defense counsel Branislav Tapuskovic, was created because of a “neutral statement” made by General Rupert Smith, the UNPROFOR commander. On the day when the second attack on Markale happened, General Smith stated “it is unclear who fired the shells, although at that time he already had the technical report of UNPROFOR intelligence section, determining beyond reasonable doubt that they were fired from VRS positions at Lukavica”.

Harland’s responsibility lies in the fact that he himself advised General Smith to make “a neutral statement in order not to alarm the Bosnian Serbs who would be alerted to the impending NATO air strikes against their positions had he pointed a finger at them”. That would have jeopardized the safety of UN troops in the territory under VRS control or on positions where they might have been vulnerable to retaliatory attacks by Serb forces.

In his cross-examination Harland denied claims made by Tapuskovic, Belgrade attorney, that between two and three thousand Serbs had “been killed, had their throats slit and been thrown into Kazani” during the war in Sarajevo. Not denying the crimes committed against Serbs, and Muslims too, by Caco and his men, Harland categorically stated that “the huge majority of the Serbs killed in the town, inside the conflict lines, were killed by artillery and sniper fire originating from the positions of the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps”.

This line of cross-examination prompted Presiding Judge Robinson to ask the defense counsel “what is the point of this defense, even if the figures you’re presenting are correct”. In other words: “what impact will it have on the responsibility of General Milosevic for the crimes he is charged with”. Tapuskovic’s reply was that Caco’s crimes had engendered great fear among the Serbs that the same thing could happen to them if they were to be under Muslim power. They therefore “held the positions around Sarajevo firmly”.

While Tapuskovic claims that the Sarajevo Serbs “feared Caco more than bombs”, Harland believes that “the great majority of Serbs wanted to leave Sarajevo but couldn’t do so”. The reason why they wanted to leave town was “the siege and a great risk they ran of getting killed by shells or sniper fire from Serb positions”.

Louis Fortain took the stand after David Harland. Fortain, a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Army, was UNPROFOR’s liaison officer with the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps. He was stationed in the Lukavica barracks. Source: http://www.sense-agency.com/en/stream.php?sta=3&pid=9050&kat=3
 * It is unfortunate that people still take serbianna at face value or regard it as a reliable source. There may well be folk who want to believe it, but that's not the same thing. bobrayner (talk) 23:35, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

NPOV
The Markale Massacres are controversial events. In the case of the first massacre the UNPROFOR investigation was inconclusive, and the Galic judgment at the ICTY was a majority decision and part of it was overturned by the appeals chamber which ruled that the shell wasn't deliberately fired at the market. In the case of the second massacre the UNPROFOR investigation and the ICTY verdicts in the Dragomir Milosevic and Perisic trials come to two completely different conclusions about where the shell was fired from; Lukavica or Trebevic. Moreover the ICTY appeals chamber ultimately acquitted Dragomir Milosevic on the charges related to Markale and Perisic was acquitted on all charges.

In addition to the official findings of the ICTY and of UNPROFOR, which don't even agree with each other, certain UN personnel and other commentators are of the view that the massacres were staged by the Bosnian government so that NATO would intervene in the Bosnian war against the Serbs, and their views have been published in noteworthy publications like the Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine. Even the Galic judgment conceded that the ABiH occasionally engaged in the practice of shelling their own civilians to garner international sympathy.

The parties involved in the conflict, namely the VRS and the ABiH, both deny responsibility and accuse the other side of firing the shells.

WikiPedia's NPOV policy states that "Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another. As such, the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view, but including all notable and verifiable points of view."

There is no doubt that when it comes to the issue of culpability we're dealing with opinions. Wikipedia's NPOV policy requires editors to "avoid stating opinions as facts." The article stated the opinion that the Bosnian-Serbs fired the shell as a fact. In reality it's the opinion of some of the judges at the ICTY, and the article should certainly say that according to certain ICTY verdicts the Bosnian-Serbs fired the shells, but the article itself should not state that opinion as a fact. Especially when an official UNPROFOR investigation and one of the judges at the ICTY was of the contrary opinion that either side could have fired the first shell, when UNPROFOR and the ICTY don't agree on where the second shell came from, and when the first instance verdicts did not withstand the Appeals process anyway. Moreover, the ICTY judgments themselves frequently use the word "opinion" to describe their own findings.

The only way to handle a controversial subject like this is to describe the controversy and lay out the findings and opinions of the various interested parties and let the reader come to their own conclusion. You have to say: here is what the ICTY found, here is what UNPROFOR found, here is what the Serbs say, here is what the Bosniaks say, and here is what other relevant people have to say on the subject. It is a clear violation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy to take your own opinion that one side or the other is responsible and state that opinion as a fact in the article.

Regardless of whether you believe that the Serbs or the Bosniaks are responsible, there is published research out there that contradicts you and alleges that the other side is responsible. If we go down the road of stating opinions as facts, then we're not going to get anywhere because anyone could come here and cite to published research that says one side or the other did it and state it as a fact in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BalkanResearch (talk • contribs) 18:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Introductory photo
The photo of the market used now is, if I'm not mistaken, taken in 2006. Would it not be better to use an image that relates (even) more directly to the 1994/1995 events? 2001:1C02:1907:9500:E104:E95F:3805:8D1 (talk) 06:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

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