Talk:Trnopolje camp

comment

There has been a lot of contention in recent years about reports from Trnopolje in 1992. The reports, for which ITN's Penny Marshall won a prestigious award, may have been deliberately fraudulent. The British journal LM published an article by the German writer Thomas Deichman in which he made a very convincing argument that the death camp images were fakes, and a video is now available for purchase which uses footage from a Serb television crew shadowing Marshall's to demonstrate how it was done.

More information is available at the following links (working as of March 6, 2006):

• http://www.srpska-mreza.com/lm-f97/LM97_Bosnia.html
• http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9906&L=twatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=P&S=&P=9920
• http://www.truthinmedia.org/truthinmedia/Bulletins2000/tim2000-6-10.html (second article)
• www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3894dad24bbe.htm
• http://emperors-clothes.com/news/film.htm (video available here)

Garbage one-sided links. Can you even consider "Emperor's Clothes," and "Srpska Mreza" as a source for anything but radical apologist propaganda?

I believe that inserting some of this information may be warranted, and also changing the caption of the featured photo on this entry, as it appears to feature subject matter in contention.

22:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC) Tskorick

Regarding the video, now I understand how revisionism and denial machinary is financed. There is a ton of evidence that can shame this garbage back to its rat hole from which it came. However, I am OK with noting that this kind of propaganda exists so some sort of aknowledgement may be added to the article. --Dado 01:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

But before you make any changes I would suggest to check your sources. “Living Marxism” site has been sued and convicted of libel by ITN for disputing the image and report that accompanied it. At least 3 out of 5 links that you provided are basing their stories on same premises. Inclusion of this information may be libelous to Wikipedia as well. Bear it in mind as(if) you consider your(to) edit

Quote: … while researching for the War Crimes trial on the Bosnian war, a German journalist, Thomas Deichmann, discovered that the barbed wire in the photograph was attached to the poles from the inside. He then argued in an article in Living Marxism in 1997 that the Muslims were not standing behind a fence but in front of one-that Trnopolje was not a prison or concentration camp but a refuge camp that the Muslims themselves created. ITN responded with (and won) a libel suit against Living Marxism. According to the courts, the photograph was incontestable evidence of concentration camps in Europe. [1] --Dado 01:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that the video provides more information that just the article -- I'll try to find a copy for review. Timmay 19:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

In light of comments above and regarding the addition:

"[ITN]'s August 1992 coverage of Trnopolje has been subject to considerable scrutiny by independent media observers in Europe and the United States."

Provide sources on which independent medias, other than nationalist medias, have scrutinized the issue

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/BOSNIA_PHOTO/bosnia.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11052005.html

"Allegations have been made that the infamous video-still of Fikret Alic (shown above) was misrepresented as evidence of deliberate starvation by the Bosnain Serbs. Extant video evidence of the ITN film crew in action includes an explanation by a fellow English-speaking refugee, Mehmet, that Alic had some form of long-standing deformity. "

What deformity?? Provide evidence. There were dozens of detainees who looked even worse than Alic.

"The video evidence also shows that the reporters were inside a barbed-wire and chicken-mesh enclosed maintenace yard (i.e. the detainees were not enclosed in barbed wire). "

Provide evidence.

"Some critics believe that ITN and the other Western journalists present were manufacturing evidence of Serb attrocities to back the positions their respective news organisations had already taken."

Yes, and same were sued by ITN and rulled against by the court.

Edits, to say the least lack credibility and commonly accepted sources. Reverting for now.--Dado 01:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree at this point. The video casts some doubt on certain aspects of ITN's story, but not to the extent represented in the article. I think that it would, however, be appropriate to add a mention of the fact that there is controversy regarding ITN's story on the camp, but then again I can't imagine a Western opinion on this war that wouldn't be contested by some side. Timmay 18:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Make a suggestion here and we can work from there. --Dado 05:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

According to subsequent testimony from witnesses, Trnopolje was a minimal-security staging area for the forcible deportation of non-Serbs from the Prijedor area, and detainees were fed only sporadically, but were allowed to forage for food outside the detention area's perimeter (http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/kvo-ai001026e.htm), which explains the widely varying nourishment condition of the inmates in the video that I've just finished watching for the third time. There were some reported killings from the camp, but far more reported incidents of systematic rape of female detainees. I believe the Deichmann article should be referenced as a footnote with a link to the ITN libel lawsuit results, but it doesn't belong in the main article body as the ITN story probably wasn't a deliberate fraud.

What do you mean it wasn't a deliberate fraud? There was clearly a sutained effort to give a false impression of a Nazi-style death camp, which was clearly not the case here. The detainees were not even being incarcerated.

Timmay 21:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I generally agree with you. One element that may become problematic is that there is a comparison between rapes and murders where one is overstating another. I would keep them separate. According to ICTY there were about 300 killed at Trnopolje. Personally I don't think it is a small number but for ICTY it was small enough to reduce the indictment against one of the accused by eliminating the charge of genocide. Perhaps we can add this:

"According to subsequent testimony from witnesses,compared to other detention camps in the region, Trnopolje was a relatively minimal-security staging area for the forcible deportation of non-Serbs from the Prijedor area, and detainees were fed only sporadically, but were allowed to forage for food outside the detention area's perimeter (http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/kvo-ai001026e.htm), which explains the widely varying nourishment condition of the inmates. There were about 300 reported killings in the camp, and far more reported incidents of systematic rape of female detainees."--Dado 22:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The ICTY is hardly a non-partisan bastion of the truth here. The ICTY rules allowed the prosecution to introduce hearsay evidence, leaving the defence teams with very limited opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.

That is thorough and concise, I'm on board. Timmay 00:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The video is actually downloadable here http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/judgement.rm

The nutritionally deprived ie very emaciated status of some of the inmates at Trnopolje was also due to their recent arrival from Omarska with its starvation regime (eg Fikret Alic). --Opbeith 17:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, Alic had just arrived from Keraterm, with its similar starvation regime. Opbeith (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Barbed wire thing

Um, didn't Living Marxism lost a case after "The picture that fooled the world"? So much they had to close their paper? --HanzoHattori 16:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

They lost the case because they couldn't prove ITN intended to fool people. As Mick Hume, editor of LM, writes: Perhaps the most surreal thing of all was that we lost the case, even though the central fact in Thomas Deichmann's article, 'The picture that fooled the world' - that the barbed-wire fence at Trnopolje surrounded the ITN journalists - was never seriously questioned. Indeed, Gavin Millar did such an impressive job of proving it through cross-examination that Justice Morland had to concede in his summing up, 'Clearly Ian Williams and Penny Marshall and their TV teams were mistaken in thinking they were not enclosed by the old barbed-wire fence', before adding in his even-handed way, 'but does it matter?'.

As defendants under England's repugnant libel laws, we were deemed guilty unless we could prove our innocence not only by proving the actual facts in the LM article, but by justifying an implicit meaning that a reader might take from it. Summing up, the judge asked the jury to consider one question: 'Have the defendants established that Penny Marshall and Ian Williams had compiled television footage which deliberately misrepresented an emaciated Bosnian Muslim, Fikret Alic, as being caged behind a barbed-wire fence at the Serbian-run Trnopolje camp on 5 August 1992 by the selective use of videotape shots of him?' With the judge repeatedly emphasising the word 'deliberately', which never actually appeared in the article, we were being asked to prove not only what the ITN journalists did in 1992, but what was going on in their heads at the time. It is difficult to see how that could have been achieved without the aid of a time machine and a mind reader. The law demanded that we prove the unprovable. It was no real surprise when the jury decided, after four hours of deliberation, that we had failed to do so. [2]

What ever else may be said about Trnopolje, saying that the camp was surrounded by barbed wire is just blantantly false. Enden 22:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The question was whether the nature of the enclosure was that significant when the prisoners were already under threat from the intimidatory and intermittently murderous violence of the camp regime and the prospect of being killed if they ventured outside the camp into the area from which the non-Serb population was being cleansed. The evidence that Idris Merdzanic gave was so strong that LM's lawyers chose not to cross examine him. So yes - the physical nature of the enclosure did not matter. Fikret Alic, who had been starved and beaten in Omarska, from which he had just been transferred, was not the only emaciated detainee, as anyone who has seen Ron Havib's photographs is aware. As I understand it after the British journalists left Alic's life was saved by his brothers who hid him when other prisoners who had spoken to the journalists were killed. Alic has since thanked penny Marshall and Ian Williams because he believes that it was thanks to their report drawing the attention of the international public to what was going on in the Prijedor concentration camps that his life was saved. --Opbeith 16:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, it was in Keraterm that Alic was starved and beaten. Opbeith (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who's interested in an analysis that's more respectful of the truth and more humane than the emperors-clothes version of the ITN-LM dispute would find it useful to read Prof. David Campbell's "Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus Living Marxism"[3]. A search on "Living Marxism" "Spiked Online" and "Revolutionary Communist Party" will provide more information about where the controversy about Trnopolje and Omarska comes from. --Opbeith 17:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The article's section on "Discovery" includes the claime that "the wire fence was removed when the camp was discovered. Is this correct and where does the information come from?? Regards, 80.202.103.192 (talk) 00:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

This is described and shown in the ITN reporting when Penny Marshall returned with her camera crew a week after the first visit (will try to find a link). Opbeith (talk) 07:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

POV

This article is so seriously POV it's ridiculous.

Trnopolje was a collection centre for refugees and not a death camp. All the evidence points to that basic fact. The only "evidence" of atrocities presented in the article is one solitary link, which by itself amounts to no more than mere allegations by the ICTY prosecutor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trac63 (talk • contribs) 14:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This article needs fact checking. Things presented as facts, may turn out to be judgements or interpretations. Because of this I tagged the whole article. 158.37.104.16 (talk) 14:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe YOU, Serbian war crimes apologists, need some fact checking?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/27/radovankaradzic.warcrimes2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.123.192.82 (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In the Kvocka judgment at http://www.un.org/icty/kvocka/trialc/judgement/index.htm the ICTY Trials Chamber found at para 115 in the section dealing with Keraterm and Trnopolje, that

"Trnopolje was also a notoriously brutal camp, although a few witnesses testified that conditions in Trnopolje were more bearable than in Omarska and Keraterm.276 Food, water, and hygiene facilities were far less than adequate, and violence was pervasive throughout the camp.277"

At para 116, in the Conclusions, it concluded that "The evidence is overwhelming that abusive treatment and inhumane conditions in the camps were standard operating procedure. Camp personnel and participants in the camp’s operation rarely attempted to alleviate the suffering of detainees. Indeed, most often those who participated in and contributed to the camp’s operation made extensive efforts to ensure that the detainees were tormented relentlessly. Many detainees perished as a result of the inhumane conditions, in addition to those who died as a result of the physical violence inflicted upon them.

At para 117 "The Trial Chamber finds that the non-Serbs detained in these camps were subjected to a series of atrocities and that the inhumane conditions were imposed as a means of degrading and subjugating them. Extreme brutality was systematic in the camps and utilized as a tool to terrorize the Muslims, Croats, and other non-Serbs imprisoned therein."

The facts have been checked and established. There is no neutrality issue involved here. The violence and abuse meted out to the camp inhabitants have been confirmed (on more than one occasion) by an international court of law.

Just to be clear, in the above "camps" refers to Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje. There is no indication why in para 116 "camp's" should have been used rather than "camps'" as no distinction is made here between the camps. It is not unreasonable to assume that the misplaced apostrophe is a typographical mistake.

--Opbeith (talk) 21:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Rename to Trnopolje Concentration Camp

Trnopolje was a concentration camp, no matter what Serbian and pro-Serbian war crimes apologist say. Here is a witness, Ed Vulliamy, who witnessed Trnopolje Concentration Camp: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/27/radovankaradzic.warcrimes2 Update: Even Human Rights Watch classified it as a concentration camp: http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/prijedor/helsinki.html

Human Rights Watch: "Despite the absence of real non-Serbian threat, the main objective of the concentration camps, especillay Omarska but also Keraterm, seems to have been to eliminate the non-Serbian leadership," the U.N. Commission of Experts found. "From the time when the Serbs took power in the district opf Prijedor, non-Serbs in reality became outlaws. At times, non-Serbs were instructed to wear white arm abnds to identify themselves...according to Serbian regulations, those leaving the district had to sign over their property rights and accept never to return, being told their names would simultaneously be deleted from the census."

Disagree. These are judgments by some actors (I do not necessarily disagree with HRW). Better leave the neutral title as it is and instead include judgments by respected organizations like HRW in the introduction and main text. The word "concentration camp" carries too many connotations in Europe since world war 2 and will only provoke an edit war. It will also open up similar discussions on other articles related to the war in Bosnia. Better let fact speak for themselvs rather than imposing a frame in the title. Mondeo (talk) 22:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In the Kvocka judgment at http://www.un.org/icty/kvocka/trialc/judgement/index.htm, Section II Factual Findings, Sub-Section 2., the ICTY Trials Chamber records events in the Prijedor Region in May 1992.

"13. The acts of discrimination and the resulting increase in tension between the Serb authorities and the other local ethnic groups, culminated in attacks on sections of the non-Serb population where the new regime was resisted. On 23 May 1992, Serb forces attacked and gained control of the largely Muslim village of Hambarine, eventually resulting in the displacement of approximately 20,000 non-Serbs. The following day , a successful attack was launched on the town of Kozarac, which was again situated in a predominantly Muslim area (approximately 27,000 non-Serbs lived in the wider Kozarac area and of the 4,000 inhabitants of the town itself, 90% were Muslim). A large number of Muslim citizens of these areas who did not succeed in fleeing in the face of the assaults were rounded up, taken into custody and detained in one of the three camps which are the subject of this case.

14. This scenario was repeated in Prijedor town on 30 May 1992, following an unsuccessful attempt by members of the non-Serb population there to regain control of the town . Muslims were ordered by radio to hang white sheets outside their homes to indicate loyalty to the Serb authorities,21 to tie white ribbons around their arms and to head towards the centre of town. Emir Beganovic was among those who obeyed the instructions and he testified to seeing several dead bodies on his way to the center of town. On arrival, he joined a group of an estimated 2000 people, mainly Muslim but also containing some Croats, gathered in front of some high rise buildings. This group was separated into two subgroups : men 15-65 years of age in one group, and women, children, and elderly men in the second group.22 Others were directed to the “Balkan Hotel”, also in the center of town, where they too were separated into two groups.23 Men from both locations were loaded onto buses, which headed first towards the police station (the “SUP” or Secretariat of the Interior building) in the town. Some individuals were arrested later in the summer on the basis of a pre-designated list of intellectuals and prominent members of society. These community leaders were routinely taken to the Prijedor police station and beaten.24"

In Sub-Section 3. The Creation of the Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje Camps, the court finds:

"15. All non-Serb men arrested and taken to the SUP were then bussed to either the Omarska camp or the Keraterm camp. Women, children, and the elderly tended to be taken to the Trnopolje camp.

16. The Omarska camp was located at the iron ore strip mine outside the Omarska village. The Keraterm camp was established in the premises of a ceramics factory and the Trnopolje camp was based in a variety of buildings in the village of Trnopolje, including a former school, a theatre, and the municipal centre."

There is no reference to the people being sent to any of these camps being "refugees". They are the remaining non-Serb members of the populations of Hambarine, Kozarac and Prijedor, being removed from their homes and detained in camps.

These camps are clearly being used as concentration camps in the sense of the term as originally used during the Boer War - centres for the concentration of a population fomerly occupying a much wider territory. The World War II concentration camps were so called because they served to "concentrate" the Jewish population and other population groups of Germany and the occupied territories. These camps were violent, brutal places but they were not the extermination camps.

Mondeo, if you look up the Wikipedia entry on Extermination camps at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camps you will find that:

"Extermination camp (German: Vernichtungslager) and death camp (Todeslager) are usually interchangeable and specifically refer to camps whose primary function is or was genocide.

In a generic sense, a death camp was a concentration camp that was established for the purpose of killing prisoners delivered there. ...

Nazi-German extermination camps are different than concentration camps such as Dachau and Belsen, which were mostly intended as places of incarceration and forced labor for a variety of “enemies of the state”—the Nazi label for people they deemed undesirable. In the early years of the Holocaust, the Jews were primarily sent to concentration camps, but from 1942 onward they were mostly deported to the extermination camps."

That article further elaborates on the distinction.

You choose to disregard the "Trnopolje camp" article's mention of the Bassiouni Commission's description of Trnopolje as a concentration camp. The Bassiouni Commission's report is United Nations - Security Council Document S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. I), of 28 December 1994. "Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established pursuant to security council resolution 780 (1992). At http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/ANX/V.htm#I-VI you will find Annex V, "The Prijedor report", Section VI of which, under the heading "Concentration camps and deportations", mentions Trnopolje as follows:

"In an interview of Simo Drljaca (Chief of the Serbian secret police in Prijedor), he stated that:

«In the collection centres 'Omarska', 'Keraterm', and 'Trnopolje' more than 6,000 informative talks were held. Of this number 1,503 Muslims and Croats were sent to the camp 'Manjaca', on the basis of solid documentation of active participation in the fighting against the Army of Republica Srpska, and also participation in genocide against the Serbian people. Instead of letting them get their deserved punishment, the powerful men of the world expressing disdain forced us to release them all from Manjaca.» *2

As the «informative talks» or interrogations basically took place in the Omarska and Keraterm camps, it can be concluded that more than 6,000 adult males were taken to these concentration camps in the short period they existed (from the end of May to the beginning of August 1992). Since only 1,503 were moved on to Manjaca camp according to Mr. Drljaca, a limited number transferred to the Trnopolje camp, and almost none released, it may be assumed that the death toll was extremely high, even by Serbian accounts. The concentration camp premises were sometimes so packed with people that no more inmates could be crammed in. On at least one occasion, this allegedly resulted in an entire bus-load of newly captured people being arbitrarily executed en masse. Some 37 women were detained in Omarska, whilst no women were kept over time in Keraterm.

The women's groups (almost all the females, the boys under the age of sixteen and the elderly men) were normally taken to the Trnopolje camp. Here the regime was far better than in Omarska and Keraterm; none the less harassment and malnutrition was a problem for all the inmates. Rapes, beatings and other kinds of torture and even killings were not rare. Some of these detained women were released after a few days as there was a lack of space in the Trnopolje camp as well."

Mondeo, I'm pretty sure that is more than enough justification for calling Trnopolje a concentration camp and preserving any reference to such in the article. Where I agree with you is that I don't think it's necessary to change the title. As has been said before, the facts can speak for themselves. But please don't argue that they're not there. --Opbeith (talk) 22:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am not ignoring anything. I just noted that somebody added POV question at the top of the article and that a number of statements seemed to lack clear reference to a source. It is very difficult to check claims like "comprised the majority of some 6,000 forcibly interned persons who passed through Trnopolje" when no specific source is given. The article is also rather short. Let me suggest that Opbeith (clearly knowledgeable) improves the article by adding appropriate references. Mondeo (talk) 23:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no need to change the title (see comments elsewhere). Agree. Also there is no need to insist on calling it a concentration throughout the article, as one anonymous editor did. The word "concentration" camp has lost it's tehcnical meaning after WW2, and it is sufficient to quote that HRW or other respected organizations classified it as a concentration camp. Again, this is not about facts, but about avoiding misleading presentation of facts. See discussion on the word "children" under Srebrenica genocide. Mondeo (talk) 23:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way. The introduction now is a bit heavy, while the rest of the article is a bit short. Let me suggest that we move some content the main text. Mondeo (talk) 00:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Mondeo, I may have been been a bit over-emphatic in my answer to you, but I'm sure you're aware of the controversy over the status of Trnopolje which has not abated despite the ITN libel case victory over LM. The designation is a very significant issue, going to the heart of the truth of reporting and the accuracy of public perceptions of the nature of the conflict in Bosnia. Hence the need to establish it as being more than just the judgment of some actors.

I agree that the introduction may now be a bit heavy and some of the text can be reassigned to the main article, and once the authority of the designation as a concentration camp is established I see no need for unnecessary repetition of the full expression "concentration camp" instead of "camp" subsequently or for the title to be expanded. I'll try and revise another day. -- Opbeith (talk) 19:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Because this is still controversial, it is crucial that we get the facts straight and that citations are easily checked. At present there is a list of links and references, and little specific information about where facts were gathered. Mondeo (talk) 21:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

No, the debate between ITN vs LM was about the presentation of facts. The Fact still stands that Trnopolje was a concentration camp, there is no controversy about that fact. Either proven by the Dusko Tadic case or massive report of "Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts". The controversy issue was dismanded by David Campbell's article on www.virtual-security.net about the manipulative techniques Deichmann used in his allegations that Trnopolje was merely a "refugee camp". Please adjust the article according to facts and not about how it is preceived. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.208.220.62 (talk) 17:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

POV edits reversed

An editor on IP 66.41.7.135 introduced the word "concentration" in the second paragraph of the introduction. This adds to the articles possible POV and I removed it. Mondeo (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As per my explanation in the section above, use of the description "concentration camp" is adequately justified. -- Opbeith (talk) 22:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The reason I removed the word "concentration camp" was that the editor that introduced insisted on using "concentration camp" throughout the article, instead of the neutral word "camp". The introduction already states that for instance HRW believes that the label "concentration camp" is justified. Technically it was probably a concentration camp, but today that label is mostly associated with nazi extermination camp. The Wikipedia article on concentration camp acknowledges this. Mondeo (talk) 23:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Please explain changes

The article has improved notably during the last weeks. But please include a summary of your changes, and substantial changes can also be described in more detail here to allow other editors to relate to what is happening to the article. Thanks again for your contribution. Regards, Mondeo (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality ?! - OUTRAGEOUS !

In title of this article, and in other articles about concentration camps in Bosnia for that matter, you write "camp" not concentration camp ?! What camp, no realy - for young scouts, for outdoor activities, picnic ?! Is this some tourist destination for those enjoing nature, open sky, late night gathering around camp fire and tell scary tales, etc.

Sarcasm, irony and joking aside; what about consistancy - all other articles about these facilities, for example in Europe during WWII, are under proper names in titles as well as in text. Let's see some of the articles and titles here on en.wikipedia :

• List of Nazi-German concentration camps
• Auschwitz concentration camp
• Buchenwald concentration camp
• Flossenbürg concentration camp
• Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

or

• Treblinka extermination camp
• Sobibor extermination camp

No one write or say "Auschwitz camp", "Buchenwald camp", etc. After all Merriam-Webster Dictionary provide this clear definition:

• Camp - a place usually away from urban areas where tents or simple buildings (as cabins) are erected for shelter or for temporary residence (as for laborers, soldiers, or vacationers);
• Concentration camp - a camp where persons are detained or confined (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees).

Who ever came up with this idea, to change Concentration camp to Camp, is absolutely and nothing but sinister apologist and war crime denier. To change a very definition of what this place, and many other concentration (and death) camps through out of Bosnia was, to more "neutral"(!?) name camp (how about changing Holocaust to "Mass executions" just for the sake of "neutrality" ?!), is not just transparent deception but also deeply disturbing for victims or victim relatives as well as for those who sympathize with them. This brazen arrogance, presumptuous shamelessness is disgusting. It is obvious attempt to relativize purpose of these facilities, to confuse oblivious readers with "neutral" title, as if there are many clearly distinguishable differences between "camp" and those horrific places known as concentration camps. WOW !!! This reasoning to put it more "neutral" is mind-blowing - so please, explain (!) : who need and why, to call, describe or define committed, proven and documented crime (against humanity) more "neutral"? Despicable !

So, I appeal to everyone conscience - change this "neutral" term in titles of all articles on concentration camps in Bosnia to a proper expression !--Santasa99 (talk) 10:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Misleading image

The fact is, that Trnopolje was a concentration camp. But not necessarily an extermination camp, which is one of many connotations the word concentration camp has. As an ordinary young adult from Belgrade which has only Internet or other public media as sources, i can't really contribute, in a serious way, in shedding light to this case. But i did find something very interesting which nobody seems to mention. On an interview with Fikret Alic, which can be found on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2sO-XcI9FQ ), he said he was in Trnopolje camp from August the 5th to August the 14th. The famous photo which appeared on the cover of the Time's magazine was taken on the same day of his arrival. So it would be appropiate to assume that he was already in that "emaciated" state when he came to Trnopolje. Everybody else seems normal (as normal as a man in war can be). I am not certain about many things, but there is something that i have no doubts about. Portraying Fikret Alic as the proof that Trnopolje was, without a doubt, a death-camp; and as a symbol of the ethnic-cleansing perpetrated by the Serbs, knowing the outrage would it cause among the west can be labelled as media manipulation.

And just in case, i state that i am not a genocide denier. I do not think that Radovan K. and Rako Mladic were heroes, and i will be most satisfied when they catch the latter. I participated in every demonstration in 1999 and 2000 against the regime.

I apologize for any mistakes i might have made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.216.145.113 (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello 89.216.145.113. I think if you follow up the links to David Campbell's two articles examining the issue of the Fikret Alic image and the LM libel case, [4]. or – more readably – [5] and [6] You'll find a careful analysis of the Trnopolje arguments as advanced most determinedly by LM magazine and Thomas Deichmann.

Campbell's analysis will help you understand why Trnopolje can be considered a concentration camp in the wide sense of the term as used by the Nazis to concentrate the members of a minority group population and also in the narrower sense - Trnopolje was an integral part of the Prijedor camp system, Trnopolje, Omarska, Keraterm and Manjaca, which was a concentration and extermination system used to remove the non-Serb population of the Prijedor area and to eliminate the leadership of the non-Serb community. Trnopolje was the least atrocious of the camps and incomparable to Omarska but nevertheless it still was a death camp - prisoners were taken out and killed, in addition to dying as a result of brutal mistreatment.

From the time of the Bassiouni Commission report in 1993 the Prijedor camps were being described by investigators as a concentration camp system. That was confirmed in evidence submitted to the ICTY, for example the Stakic trial, as well as trials of various individuals associated with camps themselves, like Tadic, Kvocko et al, etc. (judgments at [7] - ICTY Judgments List, or [8]).

In the case of Trnopolje and Omarska you have presumably seen the ITN footage, along perhaps with the Serb televison footage at Emperor's clothes. If you're not sure which to believe, you'll find some of the photographs that Dr Idriz Merdzanic smuggled out of Trnopolje via Penny Marshall illustrating Campbell's commentary. For example Figure 13.

Dr Merdzanic was responsible for treating the victims of torture and rape in the camp. You can compare the difference in the way he responds to questions in the ITN footage and the RTS/emperors-clothes footage. Have you checked out the outcome of the LM libel trial? LM accused the ITN journalists of deliberating misrepresenting the situation. The jury in the English High Court heard Dr Merdzanic’s that confirmed the true nature of Trnopolje – a camp where prisoners were kept under guard and beaten, tortured, raped and murdered - and LM abandoned their defence of the action.

If you're really that unaware of the reality of Trnopolje and the other elements of the Prijedor camp system you can go to YouTube and first watch the ITN rough footage (broadcast footage is at David Campbell's site) on YouTube at Srpski logori smrti - Prijedor [9] followed by the subsequent footage at Srpski logori smrti - Prijedor 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 (links at YouTube). Note the influx of emaciated prisoners in the second ITN visit. Alic and other prisoners were early arrivals at Trnopolje, and they were followed by a lot more as prisoners were cleared out as those camps were closed following the international uproar.

Once you've watched the ITN footage you can follow up the interviews with Dr Merdzanic in particular by deepening your knowledge of what when on by looking at clips of “A Town called Kozarac”, Ed Harriman’s 1993 film for the Channel 4 Dispatches Programme (made a year later, when witnesses were out of harm's reach). The programme can be watched in five clips at YouTube: [Part 1/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0T6_EbWdnA] [Part 2/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQHwcmk8qs] [Part 3/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qs6Pa1hw4c&NR=1] [Part 4/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz6Y1QXex2k] [Part 5/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT1gP1fd_cc]

That provides a brief overview of what happened in Kozarac and the role of the camp system in securing the ethnic cleansing of the Prijedor area.

It’s worth comparing Dr Merdzanic’s interview at the end of Part 3 / beginning of Part 4 of the Dispatches film (filmed in a place of safety) with a discussion he has with the reporter from Serbian television (RTS) filming at Trnopolje “by chance” at the same time as the ITN team.

That can be seen in the middle clip of the emperors-clothes.com/RTS joint production “Judgment” (a purported expose of the Bosnian “Death Camp” accusation) – at [10].

It’s worth watching Dr Merdzanic’s stance and attitude, then carefully listening to the emperors-clothes.com voiceover comments about him and Trnopolje.

Then go and watch Dr Merdzanic when Penny Marshall returns a week later, after the world’s press have publicised the existence of the camps. She shows him the inside page of a British newspaper that has published one of the photographs of severely brutalised prisoners he gave her to smuggle out when he spoke to her off-camera on the first visit. [11] (I think this is the photograph of Nedzad Jakupovic that he talks about in the Dispatches film, where Jakupovic is interviwed about his beatings in Omarska and Trnopolje).

“Judgment” is informative in an unintentional way. For example it shows a line of prisoners beyond the ITN crew who are obviously contained by the fence, irrespective of barbed-wire, and not free to roam around or clustering round the ITN camera crew as the apologists suggest.

It’s also interesting how RTS and the apologists neglect to mention at least four other emaciated prisoners visible near Fikret Alic in the same footage – as well as a lot more in Penny Marshall’s footage from Trnopolje a week later as Omarska and Keraterm are closed down and cleared.

The footage of Omarska included in Judgment is also worth comparing with the ITN footage – somehow all the gaunt, haunted looking prisoners seen by Marshall, Williams and Vulliamy in the canteen have all vanished, along with the guards refusing the ITN film crew access to the rest of the camp.

The reason why Fikret Alic looked so grim was that as you say that same day he had just arrived from Keraterm - whose inhumane regime was similar to that at Omarska - see any description of conditions at Omarksa, where some prisoners were not fed for a week, water was contaminated and sanitation conditions were abysmal - with prisoners experiencing body weight loss of 20 kg or more. Alic was lucky in that he was not one of the prisoners subjected to the systematic routine of interrogation and murder. He recovered, but his health has been left irreversibly damaged.

Fikret Alic was not himself proof that Trnopolje was a death camp, he was proof that Trnopolje was more than a refugee camp, it was an integral part of the Prijedor concentration camp system. We're leaving aside for the moment the issue that Trnopolje was the camp to which most of the women and children being expelled from the Prijedor area were sent, hence not unsurprisingly it was characterised by numerous rapes.

If you're not a genocide denier please don't try to defend the indefensible. This has all been discussed numerous times. Opbeith (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Trnopolje refugee center

This article seems to be complete crap. Just look at the 30-minute video, three parts, at YouTube - [12] is the first part. Penny Marshall's report was fraudulent beyond any reasonable doubt. The video shows details - authentic videos - how the report was made. The thin guy had a genetic disorder. The fence wasn't confining the "prisoners". Quite on the contrary, the TV crews were confined behind a fence. This was all deliberate distortion. I think that a person must be really mentally deficient not to be able to understand this point.

I propose the article to be renamed as Trnopolje refugee center because this is the only thing the facility is known to have been. --Lumidek (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Lumidek, you clearly couldn't be bothered to read through the detailed reply I made directly above under the heading "Misleading Image". I see no need to go through it all again point by point. Suffice it to say that the Jared Israel was put together with the assistance of the Serbian Government propaganda machine at RTS and ignores the evidence of multiple exposure and examination of the Marshall report, most notably Dr Merdzanic's evidence to the Dusko Tadic trial and the LM libel trial. Just compare Merdzanic in the Jared Israel film, the Marshall clips and the Kozarac documentary - his face will tell you everything you need to know about who to believe. Opbeith (talk) 09:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

And Lumidek, as a medical expert how would you explain the extraordinary prevalence of this type of genetic disorder that broke out in the Prijedor camp system in the summer of 1992? Your medical history-taker seems to be a bit erratic right - the standard apologist explanation is to claim that Fikret Alic had a history of TB, without reference to his stay in camps where weight loss of 20 kg in a few weeks was not unusual and some prisoners lost up to 35 kg. At least get your stories consistent. Maybe you can tell us which diagnosis Dr Karadzic is going to go for? Alic and the many other "rib-cage" inmates had been starved and kept in conditions of minimal hygiene, without mentioning the general brutalisation, torture and murder that was an essential part of the concentration camp system operated at Omarska, Keraterm, Manjaca and Trnopolje. Opbeith (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Lumidek, a report of Karadzic's first prosecution witness in The Hague, Ahmet Zulic, describes his body weight loss of 35 kg at Manjaca[13]. If you don't give people food and you keep them in filthy conditions that promote dysentery they lose weight, no need for genetic conditions to explain that. Opbeith (talk) 23:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

???? 1. Someone who disagree with you is not automaticaly Serbian nationalist. Thats exactly and typical Wester propaganda methods 2. Again and again you are quoting ICTY, and Western media that are prety much compromited about all this. There is even article on Wikipedia about it. 3. Even curent general secretary of UN is pretty much American man, that Americans even do not deny. One UN envoy does not necessary represent UN opinion. You forget to mention there were other UN officials who shared way different views and some were crussified in their own countries with aid of your lobbies and all this machinery of propaganda for daring to think differently. Do I need to remaind you what are their names? 4. To say that whole world think something you need more then NATO countries sources. Go for expamle to Russian PRAVDA and you will see article that shine very different light on the war. It is relatively new, few days old. Then serach for for some leading American scolars elaborating on this, there are some documented even on google video easily accesible. Does Nelson Mandella means anytihig to you. Or he matters only to be given Nobel prize and silenced. Did he raised voice not to cover the crimes, but to fair and unbiased judgment for all. What about Romanians and Bulgarians, who know that region for sure better then Swedish, and who against NATO obligations of their coverment are writing and speaking their views. All of them for you are Serbian nationalist, Serbian foes, Serbian Allies. It is exactly example of media totalitarizam exercized on many nations starting after the WW2 till today. Russians say something that justify the Serb action they are Pro-Serbs. Americans BOMB Serbs in thre sequnetial wars, and they are neutral. And this is LOGIC??? If you think differently then labeling comes. That is so primitive for someone filling entitled to WRITE EXCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES AND COMBAT GENOCIDE DENIAL. If you really care about ganocide lets shine some light on Armenian genocide. Lets shine some light on what SS Bosnian muslim units where doing in Russia and what is your stand on it... But you do not care... For you, and those who perpetrate such an propaganda, genocide is merely way of achieving political goals. They see it where it is and were it isn't, as long as it suits them to be there and vice versa. So they stay blind on suffering on people in Africa, on Kurdish people in Turkey (yet go wild when same happens to Kurds in Iraq) but any crime done by those they do not like REZONATE with infinite aplitude in their voices 5. Torure and minimal hygiene, even ocasional murder is not proof of CONCENTRATION CAMP. Can you really undestand the difference between kiliing of 80%-90% of European Jewry with Nazi casaulties inflicted by Jews, not by Alies, of 0.0000001% of its population and 3% of Bonsina Muslims (according to Bonsian Muslims and NATO numbers) when 2% of Serbian population was killed by your side at the same time. Not tometnion in your cynical way that there was war between Bosnian Muslims in Western aras + heavy conflich in 93-94 with Croatians and not all this 3% were killed by Serbs. Using your logic every war known to man kind can be compared to genocide. In almost every there are wast records of torture, murders and lack of hygine. NO ONE DENIES THE WAR IS HORRIBLE. Do you have TV and can you check what is happening in any war today. What one would say on wars in Viethnam, Iraq, Avganistan. Shell we mention that there are plenty of evidence of similar torutre and murders excersised by your Muslim compatriots on Serbs, testimonies and trials. Again why do not you answer what the hell they were doing on Russian front 1941-1945? How did they defend themselves then? Could you also explain why there are almsot NO SERBS in Sarajevo in reflection to your horifing comment on Serb victims of other Serbs, conceling what even Bonsian Muslim goverment does not denies case of KAZANI. Why Serbs left city just after war was over and left to live lifes of refuges. Where is logic to do it AFTER THE WAR, if their life in Muslim part of Saraejvo is not endangered by those you said they were dying with? Why 15 years after vast majority of them do not return and those who do, do it just to SELL THEIR PROPERTY and leave again. And they can do it only after pressure from outside(Intenratnional court as you like to say) on those who took it from them to give it back. Do you know recent court rullings on hundreds of homes STOLEN from their owners who were Serbs in Sarajevo. What is obvous is that you are Bosnina Muslim. You hide behind abudance of Western propaganda, and power to demonize anyone who dares to disagree with you. Conforneted with any question you resort in labeling, offending those you disagree with. Again, challange the facts mentioned

This is not forum. So please keep up with facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 00:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Trnopolje WESTERN (NATO) WIKI VIEWs

It is hard to be objective in case of Trnopolje: 1.) All refrences are NATO biased. There are no independent views but only from NATO countries 2.) Western media can present something 100 times severe than it really was. If you challange them, they will bring you cases that are true and you will find yourself as insnsitive person (regardless that there is plenty invented and inflated ones). Similarly they will downgrade suffering of those they do not like and if they ketch you in one mistake they will skream on all speakers that you are bogus and lier.

So lets use only thing one have left in such case - LOGIC!

LOOK AT EVERY ARTICLE AND EVERY PHOTO and following will be NOTICED:

1.) In 80% of articles it is one and the same guy. Irronically next to heam stands another person compeltly normal in worker pants. All other have shirts. Why? How? If anyone knows photography, I am not an expert I admit, it should be as someone wanted to focus viewer on one and only one boddy. Now look any photo from real concentraion camps. They are all naked, all starved, and focus is on all of them.

2.) In remaing photos you will see one or two guys in front (standing solo). Again pure art of photography and using focus. Yet if you look at background, again completly normal people.

just type in google "TRNOPOLJE" and go to immages

exmaple 1 (famous one): http://samaha.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/trnopolje10b.jpg (look at the guy on the right and one immediatly behind.) example 2: http://www.offiziere.ch/wp-content/uploads/detainees-at-the-Trnopolje-Camp-near-Prijedor-Bos-Herz.jpg exmaple 3: (we are looking between the backs of people who look starved (or have some disorder) directly in the guy in similar condidion. That is the focus. But then look next to that center of the focus guy and you see completly normal man. Look then all the way in backgroung. Completly normal people. Yet well taken from the focus.

AND THEY KEEP SCREAMING. AND WE DO NOT THERE TO SAY ANYTHING. BECAUSE ANGLO-SAXONS HAVE RIGHT TO CLAIM! WE ALL HAVE ONLY RISK IN CHALLANGING IT! IF THEY ARE 99% WRONG BUT 1% RIGHT, THAT ONE PERCENT WILL MAKE US WHAT EVER THEY DECIDE TO PORTREY US! AND IF THEY MANAGE TO WIN, THEY WILL REPLACE ONE CLOWN (BLAIR AND BUSH) WITH ANOTHER (CAMERON AND seams to be with grate UNFORNTAELLY, OBAMA) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 01:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

"People who looked starved" and "completely normal man". People were being brought to Trnopolje at different times and from different places. If you bothered to read anything that has appeared here before you would know that Fikret Alic had been brought from Keraterm with a group of others the day before where he had undergone severe brutality that had badly damaged his internal organs. Dysentery was rife at Keraterm, so was brutality extending to torture and murder and so was a starvation diet. According to Maggie O'Kane Trnopolje was the best of the camps to be in, but that wasn't saying much. A number of the people in the camp were finding shelter there - from the marauding Serb paramilitaries. Trnopolje was where most of the women were - there was a correspondingly high incidence of rape and mistreatment of women inmates. Trnopolje was part of a system of thuggish concentration camps intended to achieve the goal of a demographic transformation of the strategic Prijedor region. 66.119.190.138, you and your apologist ilk haver said a lot too much already in your attempts to deny the substance of what happened in the Prijedor camps. Anglo-Saxon "claiming" is a fatuous way to describe the mountain of evidence available to you if you chose to follow up any of the outside investigations rather than continue to indulge in your determination to parade this spurious notion of Serb victimhood in place of the genuine suffering of the victims of Greater Serbia. Your "logic" seems to be based on the premise of overlooking reality. Opbeith (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In that reference to "spurious notion of Serb victimhood" I'm not referring to those Serbs who did suffer genuinely along with their non-Serb compatriots during the Bosnian war, I'm referring to the likes of 66.119.190.138 who complain about an international conspiracy that persists in denying them the opportunity to promote their somewhat partial version of the truth about the war. Opbeith (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

What mountain of evidence. If there was mountain of evidence you would not repeat one and single photo all over and over again. No one claims there were no brutalities in the war. But it was nothing like concentration camps in WWII or Wars in South Africa. It was exaggeration. At the same time all crimes against Serbs in that extent are minored and ignored.

"...any of the outside investigations..." - Really? Please show me at least one lead by some of non NATO countries. There must be some independent one were Chinese, Russians, Braisilans, Argentinians, Sout Africans, Ukraninas, Indians were participating. Since you are so certain you will not have a problem to refer to at least one? Will you? All your reference will stay in magic circle of NATO media and NATO investigations and NATO ICTY that could not "trial" NATO crimes for some very interesting reasons because it is INTERESTINGLY AD HOC (read politically motived) COURT.

And this was the best one :"In that reference to "spurious notion of Serb victimhood" I'm not referring to those Serbs who did suffer genuinely along with their non-Serb compatriots during the Bosnian war" You mean on those killed by Muslim forces in Muslim part of Sarajevo in neighborhood of their homes by Muslim army like in Kazani THAT EVEN BOSNIAN MULSIM GOVERMENT DOES NOT DENY ANY MORE. Or those mutilated by Mujaheddin that no one denies TODAY participated in war (HOWEVER, during the war all WESTERN MEDIA somehow could not notice it. Lets not forget that US was funding Taliban at that time till 9/11 made them change their mind). Or those that left the city as soon as they were ALLOWED TO. Or by this you mean on those Serbs that were used by Bosnian-Muslim forces as human shields while they were digging trenches. Or those forced to fight Serbs on the other side having Bosnian Muslims "guarding their backs" and "taking care" of their families while they were gone. There is abundance of those testimonies. You for sure have explanation for following quesiton: While immediately after end of war (at first instance of time they were allowed to) Serbs left Sarajevo so that umber of them reduced from approximately 35% to few percent in several weeks. If Serbs were those killing them, why such a sudden change in mood? Were they not supposed to stay with their "PRETECTORS, SAVIOURS OF BOSNIAN STATHOOD". LOGIC is ABSURDY DENYING ALL THOSE NONSESRY.

What you are doing is utter cinicism to the Serbian victims that Serbs are killing Serbs. Yes they were probably dying along side with those http://www.leksikon-yu-mitologije.net/files/mujb.jpg. Question is have they had a chance to get away from them before the moment of execution.

Great Serbia was something that Nazi used to destroy Serbs justifying their actions under pretext of Serb desire to create empire. Similarly as they were blaming Jesw for paralel creation of state based on secret society. Great Serbia is much broader term. This way you can call everything as "Great Serbia" denying them them right to create their statehood even where Serbs are clear majority. Using this principle you can blame more Bosnian Muslims for "Great Bosnia" because in this way they are trying to put under its control more people that oppose that state then Serbians ever tried. Actually "Great Bosnia" that exist today have more then 55% of population that do not identify themself with such a state and want badly to Separate. Namely Croatians and Serbs. This is present in every media, thus in Bosnian Musim too. And talking about Nazi, could you explain what "so victimized" Bosnian Muslims were looking on Russian front in 1941-1945 same time when Nazi were fighting "Great Serbia" ambitions. Were Serbian, Jewish and Russian genocide consequence of their diying alongside with those guys 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) or http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://chromatism.net/current/images/handzarsoldier.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/10/ss-division-handzar-revived-in-bosnia.html&h=215&w=150&sz=8&tbnid=_Ovtgh4kuee3qM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=74&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhandzar&zoom=1&q=handzar&usg=__lE3YC8TgC7P8rE6iAhlT_tgchyI=&sa=X&ei=ZliOTKfAHoOosAP2tuHgBA&ved=0CDUQ9QEwCA

Great Serbia is idea that was abandoned long time ago. Since then every attemp of Serbs to choose their destiny is asociated with it and unfortunatelly some looney Serbs use that term that their enemies egarly quote. It is common for all movements of middle and late XIX century Europe and beyond. Very attempt of Serbs to liberate themself and chose their destiny is since then depicted using this propaganda terminology that is intendend to create sentiment of their overly ambition, again and interestingly, very much as Nazi did when they occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia and conductede TRUE AND ONE OF THE BIGGEST GENOCIDES in XX century (or better saying in all time) Europe

Is this history in its repeating cycle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 17:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

All the talk about the motives for the establishment of the ICTY doesn't vitiate the quality of the evidence offered to it. There are various photographs and film taken of Trnopolje that tell you what sort of a place it was - including the RTS/Emperors' Clothes collaboration in which they ignore their own cameras show. Plenty of Ron Havib photographs as well as the Marshall and Traynor filming. You too see what you want to see. And more importantly you don't see what you don't want to see. And you don't discuss what you don't want to discuss. Like Omarska. The jewel in the crown of the Prijedor concentration camp system. Concentration camps were what they were already being called by the United Nations Bassiouni Commission in 1993. A concentration camp system designed to achieve the demographic transformation of an area that was crucial to Serbia's territorial ambitions, turning an area with a Serb minority to one approaching a homogeneous population. And there was no Gojko Klickovic to orchestrate the exodus of the Bosnian Muslims in the way that the Bosnian Serb regime scared the Serbs of Sarajevo into leaving and consolidating the newly created Serb majorities in Republika Srpska.

This is an article about Trnopolje. Deal with all the evidence about Trnopolje and its role in the Prijedor system. Ask yourself why there weren't many photographs of Omarska or Keraterm. There are plenty of references in this Talk page for you to evaluate and if you really want a non-NATO investigator will Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the UN Special Rapporteur, do you? [14]. Relish your ill-gotten gains of genocide as you consolidate them, but don't treat the rest of the world as fools who don't know how they were achieved. The world knows only too well how Republika Srpska came into being, and Trnopolje, Omarska, Keraterm and Manjaca were part of that. This discussion has been held too many times. Come up with something of substance to refute the evidence but don't waste time going over old ground.Opbeith (talk) 23:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Just go back up the page to the section Misleading Image in which another hit-and-run Serb nationalist 89.216.145.113 got a long and detailed list of references to consult and refute and - as is usual here - simply disappeared. Show the confidence to deal with David Campbell's essay on concentration camps or Idris Merdzanic's and Fikret Alic's evidence. Deal with the finding in the Kvocka case judgment http://www.un.org/icty/kvocka/trialc/judgement/index.htm in the section dealing with Keraterm and Trnopolje, that ""Trnopolje was also a notoriously brutal camp, although a few witnesses testified that conditions in Trnopolje were more bearable than in Omarska and Keraterm. Food, water, and hygiene facilities were far less than adequate, and violence was pervasive throughout the camp." ... "The evidence is overwhelming that abusive treatment and inhumane conditions in the camps were standard operating procedure. Camp personnel and participants in the camp’s operation rarely attempted to alleviate the suffering of detainees. Indeed, most often those who participated in and contributed to the camp’s operation made extensive efforts to ensure that the detainees were tormented relentlessly. Many detainees perished as a result of the inhumane conditions, in addition to those who died as a result of the physical violence inflicted upon them." ... "The Trial Chamber finds that the non-Serbs detained in these camps were subjected to a series of atrocities and that the inhumane conditions were imposed as a means of degrading and subjugating them. Extreme brutality was systematic in the camps and utilized as a tool to terrorize the Muslims, Croats, and other non-Serbs imprisoned therein."

Serb nationalist apologists come and Serb nationalists go and they have yet to leave any evidence that the Prijedor system was not a barbarous tool in a barbarous endeavour. 66.119.190.138, let's see if you are any different or whether you're just another unwitting witness to the truth of the matter. Opbeith (talk) 23:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

???? 1. Someone who disagree with you is not automaticaly Serbian nationalist. Thats exactly and typical Wester propaganda methods 2. Again and again you are quoting ICTY, and Western media that are prety much compromited about all this. There is even article on Wikipedia about it. 3. Even curent general secretary of UN is pretty much American man, that Americans even do not deny. One UN envoy does not necessary represent UN opinion. You forget to mention there were other UN officials who shared way different views and some were crussified in their own countries with aid of your lobbies and all this machinery of propaganda for daring to think differently. Do I need to remaind you what are their names? 4. To say that whole world think something you need more then NATO countries sources. Go for expamle to Russian PRAVDA and you will see article that shine very different light on the war. It is relatively new, few days old. Then serach for for some leading American scolars elaborating on this, there are some documented even on google video easily accesible. Does Nelson Mandella means anytihig to you. Or he matters only to be given Nobel prize and silenced. Did he raised voice not to cover the crimes, but to fair and unbiased judgment for all. What about Romanians and Bulgarians, who know that region for sure better then Swedish, and who against NATO obligations of their coverment are writing and speaking their views. All of them for you are Serbian nationalist, Serbian foes, Serbian Allies. It is exactly example of media totalitarizam exercized on many nations starting after the WW2 till today. Russians say something that justify the Serb action they are Pro-Serbs. Americans BOMB Serbs in thre sequnetial wars, and they are neutral. And this is LOGIC??? If you think differently then labeling comes. That is so primitive for someone filling entitled to WRITE EXCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES AND COMBAT GENOCIDE DENIAL. If you really care about ganocide lets shine some light on Armenian genocide. Lets shine some light on what SS Bosnian muslim units where doing in Russia and what is your stand on it... But you do not care... For you, and those who perpetrate such an propaganda, genocide is merely way of achieving political goals. They see it where it is and were it isn't, as long as it suits them to be there and vice versa. So they stay blind on suffering on people in Africa, on Kurdish people in Turkey (yet go wild when same happens to Kurds in Iraq) but any crime done by those they do not like REZONATE with infinite aplitude in their voices 5. Torure and minimal hygiene, even ocasional murder is not proof of CONCENTRATION CAMP. Can you really undestand the difference between kiliing of 80%-90% of European Jewry with Nazi casaulties inflicted by Jews, not by Alies, of 0.0000001% of its population and 3% of Bonsina Muslims (according to Bonsian Muslims and NATO numbers) when 2% of Serbian population was killed by your side at the same time. Not tometnion in your cynical way that there was war between Bosnian Muslims in Western aras + heavy conflich in 93-94 with Croatians and not all this 3% were killed by Serbs. Using your logic every war known to man kind can be compared to genocide. In almost every there are wast records of torture, murders and lack of hygine. NO ONE DENIES THE WAR IS HORRIBLE. Do you have TV and can you check what is happening in any war today. What one would say on wars in Viethnam, Iraq, Avganistan. Shell we mention that there are plenty of evidence of similar torutre and murders excersised by your Muslim compatriots on Serbs, testimonies and trials. Again why do not you answer what the hell they were doing on Russian front 1941-1945? How did they defend themselves then? Could you also explain why there are almsot NO SERBS in Sarajevo in reflection to your horifing comment on Serb victims of other Serbs, conceling what even Bonsian Muslim goverment does not denies case of KAZANI. Why Serbs left city just after war was over and left to live lifes of refuges. Where is logic to do it AFTER THE WAR, if their life in Muslim part of Saraejvo is not endangered by those you said they were dying with? Why 15 years after vast majority of them do not return and those who do, do it just to SELL THEIR PROPERTY and leave again. And they can do it only after pressure from outside(Intenratnional court as you like to say) on those who took it from them to give it back. Do you know recent court rullings on hundreds of homes STOLEN from their owners who were Serbs in Sarajevo. What is obvous is that you are Bosnina Muslim. You hide behind abudance of Western propaganda, and power to demonize anyone who dares to disagree with you. Conforneted with any question you resort in labeling, offending those you disagree with. Again, challange the facts mentioned

Not to mention that is it REALLY ASTONISHING that someone who is fighting genocide denial can believe is such a nonsesry: "And there was no Gojko Klickovic to orchestrate the exodus of the Bosnian Muslims in the way that the Bosnian Serb regime scared the Serbs of Sarajevo into leaving and consolidating the newly created Serb majorities in Republika Srpska." What kind of inhumane person one should be to claim that more then hundred of thousand of people (almost all that lived there) would leave their homes and not to come back just because someone told them propaganda stories. AND THOSE HUNDRED OF THOUSAND AND MORE WOULD KEEP UP WITH THIS NEXT 15 YEARS EVEN THIS MAN IS NO IN POWER AT LEAST LAST 10 YEARS? And you are fighting GENOCIDE and GENOCIDA DENIAL. DO YOU HEAR yourself?! WOULD YOU LEAVE YOUR HOME FOR 15 YEARS JUST BECAUASE SOMEONE TOLD YOU SOMETHING ON TV. Are you implying they are stupid.

This is not forum. So please keep up with facts AND STOP OFFENDING. I have right to challange the views and sources even about such a horrible things because this is supposed to be encyclopedia and search for turth. But you have no right to OFFEND and you did not offend me only but someone speaking before.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 01:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC) 

Deal with the substance. Your apologies for genocide and lesser barbarities are offensive. Trnopolje was a concentration camp - not an industrially organised extermination camp like Auschwitz, but a camp like other Nazi camps where a population was concentrated as part of the process of removing them from the area of origin and where rape, torture and murder was unexceptional. I suggest you read David Campbell's essay before establishing your own definition as a part of the defence. Marek Edelmann and Elie Wiesel among other Holocaust survivors had no problem identifying the reality of the concentration camps in Bosnia. As Marek Edelmann, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance, pointed out, what happened in Bosnia was a posthumous triump for Hitler - the promise Never Again had been shown to be meaningless.

Trnopolje, Omarska, Keraterm and Manjaca were an organised system. Yesterday in the trial of Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin in The Hague (where incidentally witnesses give evidence for the defence as well as for the prosecution), Radomir Rodic, who was a member of the State Security Service in Prijedor and conducted interrogations at Keraterm said that the Service didn’t investigate the massacre in Room No. 3 in which more than 150 persons were killed. According to the witness, the investigation ‘was under the jurisdiction of the public security service, and not the state security service’

In theory prisoners were released after interrogation if it was established that there were no grounds for their continued detention. This practice was later abandoned. Rodic saw previously released prisoners back in the camp. He could see that interviewees ‘suffered from lack of hygiene and food, and had to sleep on wooded boards’. (The prisoner in the photo currently illustrating the article is not Fikret Alic, whose photo is normally seen and presumably the one you originally referred to. This man was one of the other emaciated prisoners moved to Trnopolje like Alic after Roy Gutman's reports brought the previously secret camps to international attention. You can see his grim interview on YouTube, when Penny Marshall made her second visit to Trnopolje after international outrage secured drastic changes, including access for the previously barred International Committee of the Red Cross).

On the night of 25 July 1992 VRS soldiers massacred over 150 persons in Room 3 at Keraterm. The camp guards did not prevent them. Some police officers joined in the killing. Yesdterday Rodic told the court that the next morning he saw ‘two or three bodies’ in the yard. Later he heard that 150 to 170 persons were killed that night. He was never ordered to investigate the massacre in Room 3 and never reported on the massacre because he claimed the State Security Service was not responsible for security at the camp.

What precise evidence do you need before you will acknowledge the systematic brutality of the camp system Republika Srpska used to adjust the composition of the population of the area under its control? Certainly brutality was committed against some Serbs, but not in the same systematic way or on anything approaching the scale that it was when used to achieve the Strategic Goals.

What more are we supposed to know before we're allowed to condemn this vile system and those responsible for it? Can you tell me where Nelson Mandela ever made any comment that he considered that the Bosnian Serb regime and its agents were unfairly blamed for the crimes perpetrated between 1992 and 1995? Opbeith (talk) 14:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

You are first making reasonable statements, that Mandela also never judged. But you are making unreasonale conclusions, that he raised the vioce against. You know well there was even pressure on Mandela related to World cup that really looked like attempt to compromit him and I will not go further on this. It is well documented in media.

Here are your unreasonable conclusion. First you say it was not like major Nazi camps (and world indentifies "Nazi" camps exacly as you described for Auschwitz, because that was "Nazi" about that camps, that industrial mas killing that happen in them and list of them is very long) to later conclued it was like other nazi camps. When you say Nazi camps then it is exacty what reader will associate it with. No one will think on some other camp but exactly on those what you describe for Auschwitz. Because if tere were Nazi camps were people are not killed in fashion they were killed in Auschwitz, there is nothing particluary Nazi about them. Do you know how many camps were in wars in XX century that are of that type you show Trnopolje was or way worse. Do you know that in American Revolution huge part of those who felt loyal for Brits were forced to leave, and before that torutered, and beaten, deprived of land and possetions. And by whom? By other Brits who decided not to be that anymore and to build their own state. But you could not restrein yourself from frazing them so that they directly associate to Dachau, Auzshwitz, Mauthausen... You used "NAZI" and you keep doing it so it shows clear intention. Even some of the photos from Auschwitz were added to articles about Trnopolje. It is not accidental as it was not accidental with ITIN Reports who intentionlalu wanted to creat such an immigry (photogralies).

AND THAT IS THE CRUCIAL POINT OF ALL WHAT I AM STATING HERE OF ALL ANALYSIS OF THIS PHOTOS. YOU ARE TESIMONY OF SUCH AN AMBITION YOURSELF. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY THIS IS PROPAGANDA. And when I say Neslon Mandela I am talking on his voice and stand that crimes should be treated eqauly for all people and not being used as mean of MANIPULATION by exagerating crimes of one side and closing eyes of another in ULTIMATE DESIRE TO ACHEIVE pure policitacal and strategical goals under cover of humanitarian reasons. This is why he did not supported many so cold "humanitarian" acts and resolutions of NATO goverments. You must know that if you are deep in not only Balkan Matters.

And what is astonishing that you keep avoiding to challange yourself expaling your UTTERLY INHUMAIN statemtns on absence and reasons of departure of Serbs from Sarajevo. Your focus is rather on justifying it and this is so clear from any article you write. You have no other expalnation for exodus of more then 100000 people from their homes for now as lon as 15 years without desire to come back nor you seek to find one. What you do is this "...Certainly brutality was committed against some Serbs, but not in the same systematic way or on anything approaching the scale that it was when used to achieve the Strategic Goals." Really? How many of them returned to FBIH, or how many of them where there before the war and how many after and why did they left? I mean hear yourself. You are not here to expalin Trnoplje. You are clearly making poitical stand. It is not about victims. It is all about SERBS and SERBS as people only. You simply want them to want only what you find pleaseble. And this is EXACLTY SAME impression I get from those photos, that ITIN or ITN was on busniess to "make something" rather then to REPORT SOMETHING. This is what the scolars are against, what the World that does not have 80% of total GDP of this planet is against.

You present eveidence of hundred of people killed. Torturing and kiling several hundred inocent people is crime and it is horrible crime. Would you think that killing of 2% NATO sources - 3% (Serbian claims) of total Serbian population in BiH is not a crime (and this is a way bigger number then hundreds). Would you consider that killing of 3% of Bosnian Muslim is also not a crime and this is again way bigger number. What it shows is that war was ugly and Geneve coventions was abused by some people who were WAR CRIMINALS. BY ANY MEAN IT DOES NOT SHOW THERE WAS SYSTEMATIC GENOCIDE. You say I want to see what I want to see. Then you quote over and over again ICTY, even I do pointed out you will need additional sources. However, even ICTY said except in case of one and one city only (Which is presendant in such a rulling since genocide is confined to one city only. Ineresting will be to extend such an rulling to other casses of similar and larger extend comitted in XX and XXI centuriy. For some reason there seams to be no interest in such a doing) there was no CLEAR INTENT OF BIOLOGICAL ELIMINATION, GENOCIDE of any population. And then you continue it was INTENT OD SUCH ELIMINATION in Trnopolje. You have no numbers that can prove it, even court you refere to does not comply with it and you are telling me I SEE WHAT I WANT TO SEE.

WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE IS THIS Serbs are genocidal nation. They were killed by the Serbs themselves, however ocassionaly but without systematic intent, rather sporadicaly, sometimes by some of Bosnin Muslims. They left their homes, major cities like Srajevo, Mostar, Zenica and Tuzla because they persuaded themself someone is up to get them, and then brutaly expeled others (apart Coratians and Bonsnian Muslims I do not know what can be others? Probably one of propaganda tricks to show how Serbs are up to get all the world). Craotians where brutaly expelled and killed by Serbs from Serbain dominated areas, and voluntarely for some God known reason left Bosnian Muslim dominated areas, and were also ocasionally killed by some Bonsina Muslims, without real intention esepcially not systematic one. Not to forget that also there were bad Croatians who were killing Craotians that were dying alongside with their Bosniain Muslim Brothers. Eventully they also persuaded themself that they do not want to go back so now more then 55% of population of Bosnia, that Serbs and Craots consitute, are just ill spirithed and with their own propagnda poisoned and (I add this) who simply are so stupid that even after 15 years and 4 high foregin (mostly Germans, British) representatives with dictatorial powers and what not still trust people who are without any authority over them and vote for some criminals"

And this is exaclty what WESTER media are projecting to WESTERN audience. That is why you need Trnopolje, and why you see Nazi everywhere like fellow friend GLENN BECK

It is written in commical way but this is exaclty what you want to PROJECT. This is really what you believe in. You would just phrase it differently, like to be less comic and more serious and ...

Let anyone read this and makes his own conclusions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 01:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The set-up at Trnopolje was more relaxed than at the other Prijedor camps. Its main role was as a transit centre. Nevertheless it was a place of brutality and fear and most importantly it played a key role in the Prijedor concentration camp system whose purpose was to reconstruct the population composition of the Prijedor area. I don't have any problem comparing the way in which this task was undertaken by Republika Srpska with the way that the Nazis conducted their operations. There was a difference of scale and organisation but I don't see why you believe that the intent and the inhumane violence used should be considered anything dissimilar in kind. If anything the RS authorities had nothing to learn from the Nazis in the speed and effectiveness with which they put their plans into operation.

You are throwing the discredited allegations of Living Marxism, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Emperor's Clothes and RTS at me. I have read their claims along with a lot of other evidence readily available and found them unconvincing and dishonest. I'm not clear why you consider anyone should be swayed by your unfocused rhetoric when you choose not to examine the detailed evidence about Trnopolje yourself. Opbeith (talk) 11:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

In spite of your concern over the photo shown in the article and your criticism of ITN's filming of Fikret Alic, you don't seem over-interested in examining the evidence. So you may or may not be interested in the ITN interview with the Trnopolje prisoner shown in the picture - but perhaps you might give it a listen before further comments about imagery and reality [15]Opbeith (talk) 11:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

What you Opbeith have problem or not problem to do and name is something that really does not matter. But if you want to write article on encyclopedias (or someting that claims to be so) you should understand you need arguments more then your personal sentiments and problems. Of course you have not problem to calls Serbs NAZI, becuase anyone who analysis your rethoric cannot fail to see that you do HATE THEM. But then step out and say it. I did not threw anything on you because most of things you refer I have never heard about. What I am throwing at you are your own words and this is why I put QUOTE to remaind you and you can trace them above. Look above.

Instead of talking about evidences you should present them. But there are no evidences. This is why ICTY, all you have refer to, SAID THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE, NOR SUCH AN INTENNTION, THERE WAS NO NAZISM (Actually the only Nazi member I know wa actualy Alia Izetbegovic, Bosnian Muslim president. Was he part of some SS unit in WW2). Thus they are discrediting no one else but all those who were using this photos and events, to present things way worse than they were . Not to mention other NATIONS outside of NATO.

Facts: 1. According to NATO and B. Muslim sources Serbs lost aprox 2% and B. Muslims 3% (B. Mulsims waged wars between themself in Western Bosnia and much sever fights with Croatian forces in BiH then Serbs) Having that in mind it is way different then ratio in many wars of Genocide nature. Using your standards follwong of definin this as NAZI following wars can be defined as NAZI allias genocide: Avganistan, Iraq, Viethnam, Korea, Avgnaistan again, American Civil War, American Revolution, Napoleon wars, WWI, Greek-Turkish wars, Iraq-Iran war, almost all wars in Africa,... actually it would be easier to say what wars according to you are not NAZI becasue it would be very short list. Maybe Fakland war and Cold war.

2. Serbs left most of big sities like TUZLA, ZENICA, MOSTAR and SARAJEVO. Reference for this you can find even in your own place. Your explanation was they left because someone told them (I qouted to you). Of course if you HATE THEM it is easy to belive that people can be so stupid and will abandon their lives for 15 years, even last 10 of those 15 years after those who lied them were not in power, even 10 years after dictatorial power of NATO/EU/UN REPRESENTATIVE. They still do not come back.

3. Serbs and Croats almost all clearly want to separate from Bonsian statehood. Enogugh is to see public support for socer team of BIH among them. Resentment for this could not even hide your and Wester media. There must be a reason beyond some "NAZI". They cannot be all NAZI.

4. About discredidation of sources, I recommend you to watch Comedy Cetral, and abundace of Western Scolars mockering Wesetern propaganda and lies told. You only belive to those anyhow, though I am afraid as long as they speak what you want to hear.

5. Killing of hundreds of people does not make camp NAZI. There were many camps of such a kind in XX and XXI centuries war. Stating that Serbs wanted but "were not efficient enough" is unfortunately domein of speculations. Encyclopedia is ment to record the facts. Having someone who has previoulsy declared statement and belives that you made, speculating on Serbian intentions does not take much to see where it would lead.

6. There is no politican among Serbs and Croats in BiH that has significan support that believes in what you are saying. Even there are bilions of dollars pured by NATO to create such an setiment, and many leaders where overtrhown forceably by foreighn elemnt (OHR office and KFOR)

7. It was those same media that you use as reference that were reporting 200000 killed muslims in the first 3 months of war. Today we learn that not after 3 months but after 5 years total dead count was close to 100000 out of which third or fourth were Serbs. How can it be? Is this credible to you? It is amzing that reports of killed B. Muslims are thousends of hours long, yet there were no reports of killed Serbs that can fit in one hour. How the hell such disproportion when almost a third or fourth of vitims were Serbs according to your own counts

8. It is also established by Bosnian Muslims and NATO investigators that number of killed B. Muslims soldgers was equal to number of killed B. Muslim civilians. For Serbs, of course they had "slighlty" more disporoportion, hm guessing why... Just for comparision, in Viethnam ratio was more then 10:1 civilins vs military. Korean similar story, etc...

There is much more in common of what happend in BiH with Indian-Pakistan conflict then it has with any NAZI idea. In one case there were Moguls and in another there were Ottoma Turks who left their legacy. In XX century, legacy evolved in something else, from religion to national determination and division and animozity. There were foreign factor, and there was economical crisis. But you do not want to see this because you cannot achieve your clear political ambitions seeing that. You need NAZI, you need fire, something the makes emotions preceed senses.

Say which of facts 1 - 8 is propaganda.

Someone who is against GENOCIDE DENIAL should know that using genocide to achieve political goals is clearly immoral and worse then denial itself. And you see NAZI where you want to see because NAZI induce attention and manufacture consent for your clearly POLITICAL AMBITIONS. You do not care for genocide, becasue if you do you would care why B. Muslims where in Russian front 1941-1945. And this is what ITIN photos were about. Not to expalin the problem emergin but to MANUFACTURE CONCENT to pave the way for political ambitions, to find simple story with clear agenda of bad and good guys, with simple yet not true analogy (NAZI) to mobilize public outcry and support for political ambitions. Because if world today is NAZI then Serbs for you will be COMMUNIST (you know that NAZI hate the COMMUNISTS). If the WORLD was COMMUNISM then Serbs would be CAPITALIST. That is the point. And I do belive you would not have problem to call them or their state in any of those ways.

But I am not here to deal with you. I will put another post relative to subject. Please write your own one and do not make my so long that no one will be willing to read it. Let me say what I thing and you say what you in your own section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 06:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

66.119.190138, none of the above is about the substance of Trnopolje and its role within the Prijedor concentration camp system. Opbeith (talk) 08:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Not only that is about substance, but it is about esence. I am not challanging there was Trnopolje, I am challenging way it was portreyed and intentions behind it. I am questening objectivity of sources. This is why I said, if we challange their standings they will make us feel power of true cases and try to present us insestive with those, hiding scale of it and most then anythign intentions behind presenting it. I think more PHOTOS ARE REQUIED that mach reality. Then further can be stated that there were cases of brutality and torture and list cases of brutality. Instead of creating an immgry of Aushwitz, immigry of real Trnpolje should be presesnted. Balanced and fair. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.190.138 (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed rewriting

The content of the article is not structured in a very coherent way. The following is a rewritten version which I propose substituting if there are no substantive objections.

"(Introduction)

Trnopolje camp was a concentration camp established in the village of Trnopolje near the city of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first months of the Bosnian War. After the camp's existence was discovered by the international media in July 1992. and footage of Trnopolje and of the Omarska camp was shown around the world, the pressure of public outrage led to the camps' closure.

The Trnopolje camp was operated as part of a network of camps in the Prijedor area. Located close to the Trnopolje rail station, it served primarily as a transit camp for the forcible deportation of members of the non-Serb population of the Prijedor area. It was also used to hold prisoners transferred from "investigational" camps prior to release or exchange. Several hundred inmates were killed at Trnopolje and others killed after being transported away from the camp, notably in the Koricani Cliffs massacre. Rapes, beatings and other forms of torture were not uncommon.

(Section)The camp

The local Bosnian Serb authorities claimed that Trnopolje was "a transit camp" for members of the non-Serb, mainly Bosniak, population of the Prijedor region where members of the non-Serb (Bosniak and Bosnian Croat) civilian population found "innocent" after "investigation" in the other Prijedor camps, Omarska, Keraterm and Manjača, were confined and detained. It was operated by the Republika Srpska authorities and local paramilitary police

Trnopolje has been described variously as a ghetto, a prison and a detention camp but according to the United Nations Commission of Experts (the Bassiouni Commission) in their Report to the UN Security Council "Logor Trnopolje", as they described it, was "a concentration camp" that functioned as a staging area for mass deportations of non-Serbs, mainly women, children, and elderly men, while the Omarska and Keraterm camps to which the adult men were taken were death camps. The Report used the Bosnian word "logor" in relation to the Prijedor camps to distinguish from the wide range of other institutions covered by the English term "camp" and indicate the inhumane nature of their regimes.

"... the regime at the Trnopolje camp was far better than in Omarska and Keraterm; none the less harassment and malnutrition was a problem for all the inmates. Rapes, beatings and other kinds of torture and even killings were not rare. ... Albeit Logor Trnopolje was not a death camp like Logor Omarska or Logor Keraterm, the label «concentration camp» is none the less justified for Logor Trnopolje due to the regime prevailing in the camp."

The majority of detainees were Bosniaks from north-west Bosnia but Croats and other non-Serbs were also held at Trnopolje. Most of the camp inmates were women and children who had been expelled or fled from their homes and whose male family members had been detained in other locations. Others were prisoners transferred into the camp from other camps in the Prijedor camp system. Reports place the number of detainees at between 1,500 and 7,000 during the summer and early fall of 1992.

(Section)Conditions

The camp, which was situated on the grounds of a school and a community center ("dom"), was enclosed by wire fencing, including barbwire, and surrounded by machine gun emplacements, although according to testimony of witnesses, compared to other detention camps in the region security at Trnopolje was relatively low-level. Detainees were fed only sporadically, but were allowed to forage for food outside the detention area's perimeter.

The Stakić Trial Judgment described the conditions as follows:

"The detainees were provided with food at least once a day and, for some time, the families of detainees were allowed to bring food. However the quantity of food available was insufficient and people often went hungry. Moreover, the water supply was insufficient and the toilet facilities inadequate. The majority of the detainees slept in the open air. Some devised makeshift [...] shelters of blankets and plastic bags. While clearly inadequate, the conditions in the Trnopolje camp were not as appalling as those that prevailed in Omarska and Keraterm."

Rapes, beatings and other kinds of torture and even killings were not uncommon. In its Judgment in the Brđanin case, the ICTY's Trial Chamber found that in the period from 28 May to October 1992:

"numerous killings occurred in Trnopolje camp. A number of detainees died as a

result of the beatings received by the guards. Others were killed by camp guards with rifles. The Trial Chamber also [found] that at least 20 inmates were taken outside the

camp and killed there."

The bodies of people killed in the camp were usually removed soon after by other camp inmates who were ordered to take them away and bury them.

The first period was allegedly the worst, with the highest numbers of inmates killed, raped, and otherwise mistreated and tortured. The Serb soldiers used baseball bats, iron bars, rifle butts and whatever they had at their disposal to beat the detainees, including their hands and feet. Individuals taken out for questioning would often return bruised or injured.

Several witnesses testified that women who were detained at the Trnopolje camp were taken out of the camp at night by Serb soldiers and raped or sexually assaulted. There are reports that young girls between 10 and 14 years old were also raped. A victim of rape in the camp confirmed that several women and young girls, including a 13 year old one, were raped in the camp or taken out at night for this purpose. The rape of 30-40 prisoners on 6 June 1992 is reported by both the Report of the Commission of Experts (Vol. IV, Ann. VIII, pp. 251-253) and a publication of the United States State Department.

In August 1992, during the closure of the camp, some 200 former male inmates were separated and killed in the Koricani Cliffs massacre.

(Section)The LM controversy

Claims published subsequently by the British magazine Living Marxism (LM) that footage filmed at Trnopolje deliberately misrepresented the situation in the camp eventually prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to sue LM for libel. Following ITN's victory in a court case in which the evidence given by the camp doctor led LM to abandon its defence, the magazine declared itself bankrupt, avoiding payment of the large damages awarded.

(Section)The Judgment of the ICJ

The ICJ presented its judgment in Bosnian Genocide Case on 26 February 2007, in which it had examined atrocities committed in detention camps, including Trnopolje, in relation to Article II (b) of the Genocide Convention. The Court stated in its judgment:

"Having carefully examined the evidence presented before it, and taken note of that presented to the ICTY, the Court considers that it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps. The requirements of the material element, as defined by Article II (b) of the Convention are thus fulfilled. The Court finds, however, on the basis of evidence before it, that it has not been conclusively established that those atrocities, although they too may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were committed with the specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy the protected group, in whole or in part, required for a finding that genocide has been perpetrated."

" Opbeith (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

References

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:04, 20 January 2018 (UTC)