Human rights activist Zarema Mukusheva’s documentary Crying Sun: The Impact Of War In The Mountains Of Chechnya is available for viewing on Google video. The 26 minute film, which is the first film produced by Memorial and the US based human rights group Witness, documents the effects of the Chechen war on the village of Zumsoi. In an interview with RFE/RL, Mukusheva said that the film
Especially follow[s] one man [Myahdi Muhayev] — during the war, his 15-year-old brother was abducted by Russian troops. Another brother was also detained, and after very cruel torture, became handicapped. Then our character himself is thrown into jail. After his detention by the federal services, he disappears for several days, and then there is an attempt to accuse him of serious crimes.
The other main character in the film is a schoolteacher in Zumsoi whose father is 103 years old. After everyone abandons the village, she starts to work for a human-rights organization and on the cases of disappeared people.
The film shows the lifestyle of these people, their situation, and how they are treated by the [Russian] military troops. It also shows the environment of the village — which is a result of the war; aerial attacks on the village, mop-up operations, and about how the families, one after another, gradually have to leave the village until the village is finally abandoned.
Shout out to A Step at a Time for bringing attention to it.
You quoted mathematic formula has NOTHING to do with the reality of the subject matter.
Mike,
Be honest — you have no idea what those 119 and 100 are. You haven’t read the report, have you?
Fred:
That’s a vey dishonest characterization on the part of Lyndon Allin. I posted much more than that. It included at least two cut and pasted articles with links.
That’s Lyndon Allin for you. He has been awfully quiet on some of the prolonged faulty commentary from Vladimir Socor.
Be hones db, you frequently engage in crank like antics against me because you apparently don’t agree and like a good deal of what I say and can’t successfully reply.
Mike, did you actually click on the links in my last comment? I linked to both of the “cut and pasted articles” which you posted (n.b., which you posted not by hyperlinking to them as most people do, but by pasting them into the comments section in a rather obtrusive fashion), so I’m a bit disappointed to see you falsely suggest otherwise. And I’m not sure what the relevance of Socor is to this discussion.
Based on some of my prior experiences with you, I don’t bother clicking into your links Lyndon.
All can see what you chose to highlight. Sticking to the raw subject matter, there’s ample reason to reject the mass rape claim during the Bosnian Civil War.
Socor has everything to do with this Lyndon. You’ve suggestively challenged my credibility. Socor comments on subjects which you discuss. You’ve yet to offer any criticism of his faulty commentary over the course of time. Meantime, you’ve made greater efforts to find anything that can be potentially hustled as negative against some others not having your slant.
Mike, out of four links in my next-to-last comment here, three were links were to comments by you. People had asked about your earlier comments on this blog on a particular issue, and I provided links. I guess your comments are what I “choose to highlight.”
Socor has zero to do with your “Bosnian rape hoax” argument, which is what I was addressing.
Hyper hyperlinking Lyndon.
To get to specifics, the reported casualties in Bosnia have been shown to be a hoax. Trumped up death and rape figures to better serve an interventionist agenda.
Lyndon said: “To make the history clearer for Frederik, here’s a brief compilation of Averkisms about the “Bosnian rape hoax”“
Thank you for the quote and the links, I’m especially happy about the black baby anecdote, it’s almost to good to be true managing to invoke such classic sexual stereotypes as the lying whore, and also what might be the most dangerous of all beings, the sexual black man (and if the colour of his skin didn’t show his evil soul, then the colour of his helmet does…)
Averko said: “Based on some of my prior experiences with you, I don’t bother clicking into your links Lyndon.“
I can see why that is, I followed the links and they lead to utter nonsense, except the last link actually.
Averko said: “Sticking to the raw subject matter, there’s ample reason to reject the mass rape claim during the Bosnian Civil War.“
There might be, and could you please provide the reading public with just one of those ample reasons? And no Vladimir Socor or the initial very high death estimates from Bosnia does not count as reasons to reject the rape numbers, because they are what we call different things.
Averko said: “To get to specifics, the reported casualties in Bosnia have been shown to be a hoax. Trumped up death and rape figures to better serve an interventionist agenda.“
Specifics? Is that what you mean by specifics? Again my terrible English must take the blame, I thought specifics meant something else entirely.
I thought maybe you would start criticizing Mazowiecki’s report since apparently you all ready read that one. If you need to refresh your memory here’s a link leading you directly to it, the big hoax. And now scroll down to Annex II, where the number of rapes and the methodology used are discussed at great length, it’s also here we find the explanations for that mysterious “mathematic formula” db brought up.
Now both Lyndon and I have spared you some of that “added time and effort“, so now you can fell free to dazzle us with fact based details on the great mass rape hoax.
And speaking of Lyndon thanks for the warning on him, but I had already myself noted that he has been suspiciously quiet on Socor in this discussion of rapes in Bosnia, “what is he hiding about those rapes by not mentioning Socors commentary on unrelated subjects” I’ve been thinking to myself, I too smell a cover up and I bet we’re not the only two. Plus Lyndon does indeed seem like a vicious man, quoting and linking to what you have written just isn’t fair in a discussion.
All the best
Frederik
The two of you carry on like unsuccessful propagandists.
Both of you haven’t addressed the material I posted which confirms the Bosnian rape hoax.
Socor was referenced to show Lyndon’s bias when second guessing others who haven’t provided dubious analysis.
Hi Mike
Thank you for your long, fact based, detailed and thought provoking response. I’m sorry i haven’t replied in kind earlier, but please bear with me and i will try to do just that now.
First of i must admit that I’m not quite sure what material you are referring to, but I’ll hazard a guess that it’s the article RAPES: NUMBERS IN QUESTION by Jacques Marlino which you describe as “A slam dunk on the Bosnian rape hoax” (I take that to be in the George Tenet meaning of the term), if this is not the material in question please let me now.
Since my own knowledge of the EC report is somewhat hazy, I’ll focus on the Mazowiecki report, which i understand that you are very familiar with as well and which can be read in full here.
On this report Marlino has this to say:
“A second fact-finding commission, sent this time by the United Nations and headed by Tadeusz Mazowicki, continues the work from January 10 to 17. The commission’s report is given to the Security Council on February 10 under the reference E/CN4/1993/50. This reports mentions thirty direct witnesses’ accounts of raped women, specifying that the women in question are Croat, Muslim and Serb. It evaluates to 19 the number of pregnancies after rape and, estimating that there would be one pregnancy for 100 rapes (on what criteria are these estimates based?), it gives the number, a total of 12,000 of rapes.
Since this is very much a numbers game I’ll focus a bit on them. But first the smallest little bit of nit picking, the mans name is not spelled Mazowicki, but Mazowiecki. Second some more nit picking, the actual work done by the team of experts concerned with rapes, did not take place from january 10 to 17, but from january 12 to 23, an insignificant detail i agree, but still amazing Marlino manages to fuck that one up considering it’s in the report i think at least three times. Third and much more important the report does not evaluate to 19 the number of pregnancies after rape, what the report does is
“Through interviews with physicians and a review of medical records from six major medical centres in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Zenicaand Belgrade, the team of experts was able to identify 119 pregnancies resulting from rape during 1992.” a very small but significant difference in the amounts of 1′s in that number, and please note they do not “evaluate to that number, they identify it as what you would probably call “ a fact based detail“
Fourth, the question of that mysterious factor 100, it’s not really that mysterious, the report claims that “Medical studies suggest that of every 100 incidents of rape, one will result in pregnancy“, they do not say which medical studies that is, and i don’t have the time to find these medical studies now since Denmark is playing Sweden in a euro qualifier in half an hour, so this of course could be wrong, the report nevertheless goes on to say that “This suggests that the 119 documented cases were likely to have been the result of approximately 12,000 incidents of rape“
And it goes on to say that “Since it is clear that women experienced multiple and/or repeated rape, this figure should not be construed as a direct indication of the number of women who were raped in the populations using the medical facilities visited by the team of experts but may only serve as a guide to the general scale of the problem. Nevertheless, because the under-reporting of rape is so profound and the source of documented cases was only six hospitals, the 119 documented cases suggest that the incidence of rape in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia has been widespread.“
So while I’m away watching football i’ll suggest that you concentrate your amazing analytical powers on that factor 100, and then off course that you read- oh but excuse me – reread the report – since it’s actually a very nuanced, thoughtful and well written piece of work – focus on Annex II, which is the part most concerned with the rapes – oh but excuse my again – concerned with the great hoax.
Since i’ve noticed you’re not that happy about links but seem very fond of thorough copy/pasting, i’ll do some of that myself here and copy/paste some of the reports general considerations on the issue of rape, rape reporting and rape in warfare.
From the Mazowiecki report
“Rape is among the most under-reported crimes in peacetime throughout the world. Because of the stigma attached to rape, shame and secrecy often silence the victims. According to many physicians and psychologists whom the team of experts met in the former Yugoslavia, even in peacetime women rarely disclosed that they had been raped, whether Croatian, Muslim or Serbian. This was so even though early abortions were readily available and accessible. This clinical observation is supported by the very low rate of charges brought for rape or attempted rape in the former Yugoslavia.“
“Rape continues to be under-reported during wartime. Women who are raped by soldiers see it as useless to press charges or demand justice. “There is no one to complain to,” one woman who had been raped by a soldier told a member of the team of experts. Soldiers who have licence to rape because of their military association is a form of institutionalized violence that leaves victims with little recourse. Rape by soldiers is increasingly used as a weapon of war against women and girls.“
“Many women will not talk about their experience of rape for fear of reprisals. Many women interviewed by the team of experts personally knew, or knew the names of, the men who had raped them. Some were reluctant to tell the experts the names of the perpetrators because of fear for their own and their family’s safety.“
I’m looking forward to reading even more “fact based detailed slam dunks on the mass rape hoax” from your hand shortly
All the best
Frederik
Fred
That report is bogus in relation to the detailed material I’d posted.
The point you raise was previously raised by Newman as well. Too bad you missed the whole sequence of what I posted on the subject.
TM offers a copout excuse. Rape victims regularly come out and press charges in more difficult circumstances. In this situation, there’s a sympathetically created kangaroo court, with nothing in believable proof offered to support the claimed numbers. From 80,000 to 40,000 to 20,000 to 5,000. Nothing coming close to conclusive in each instance.
Much like the reported absurd death tolls of that whole war itself.
One should be careful in reaching conclusions on such matter. During WW II, the reason why some didn’t believe the Nazi death camp claims was because of the bogus WW I propaganda about German soldiers throwing babies up in the air and having them land on their bayonets.
Salut!
Mike
Hi Mike
Many comments ago I said I would write you of as a dumb tasteless swine if you didn’t make a coherent argument for the “Bosnian Mass Rape Hoax”. I think we’re at that point in time now.
I’ve actually been reading some of your earlier writings on the subject(that Norm thread), which Lyndon was so nice to provide links for. It strikes me as extremely difficult to converse or discuss with you, because it’s almost impossible to find one single, coherent and meaningful utterance in your dumb mumblings.
To repeat again and again and again and again and again that what one has claimed is correct does not in fact make it so. It does not make it wrong either, it just doesn’t move anything anywhere, which makes it completely meaningless to have a discussion with you.
It’s so very difficult for me to understand why anyone would run around all over the internets yelling “mass rape hoax” with absolutely nothing to back it up but pure stupidity.
Which again leads me to the conclusion that you are indeed a dumb tasteless swine. Or off course that you live in a strange parallel dimension.
I personally think there could be hours of fun and fascination in your take on who killed Kennedy, what happened with the “moon” landing and exactly why pictures of Nessie is always blurred, but your absurd ramblings on Bosnia (and a number of FSU topics) is a waste of time.
If you’re not in fact the dumbest person I ever encountered on this amazing net you’re by far the one most persistent in you stupidity. I comes from my heart and out of consideartion for your well being, when i hope for you, that you will never truly realize just how dumb you actually are.
And so i sign off and return to my life as a lurker, but before i do that I’ll say thanks to the rest of you for making this blog a very informative and intellectually stimulating read, I’m sorry about fucking that up my self with polemics and bad language, my only excuse is that I sincerely think that Michael Averko is a dumb tasteless swine.
All the best
Frederik
oh and pardon the misspell…
Fredrik,
its a pity you’re not going to keep commenting, as you had some pretty coherent stuff to say. You should reconsider. These battles with Mike take place all the time, and no matter what evidence you put in his way, he’s not interested if it goes against his cases. He says himself he’s got a ‘Russocentric’ bias, which by definition means he cant be an analyst(as surely an analyst is not supposed to be biased), which he claims to be also.
Cyber crank shit like Frederik are part of the worldwide web.
The same goes for numb minded dopes like the Irishman.
They counter with no evidence to the contrary, as they launch one insult after another.
A provacatively stated last set of points in reply to some baseless dribble from two people posting bullshit.
Scuze the misspell.
Here’s another example of an unsubstantaited claim, which in the bloew instance has been acknowledged as such:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/06/01/4225601-sun.html
CNEWS (CANADA)
June 1, 2007
Ex-soldier acquitted of rape
By DEAN PRITCHARD, SUN MEDIA
A former soldier acquitted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl because
he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder will have to wait awhile
longer to learn if he will go to trial again on the charge.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal reserved its decision in the case of Roger
Borsch after hearing Crown and defence submissions yesterday morning.
Borsch was a prison guard in The Pas when, in 2004, he broke into the home
of a fellow guard and sexually assaulted her daughter at knifepoint in her
bedroom. Borsch taped the girl’s mouth shut and threatened to kill her if
she screamed.
At his trial last spring, Borsch claimed he had no memory of the attack and
was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a six-month tour of
duty in Bosnia in 1994.
Borsch claimed he was traumatized by his experiences in Bosnia, which he
said included killing a Serbian soldier he caught raping a young girl and
seeing another young girl killed after she dropped a landmine.
In appealing the verdict, Crown attorney Don Knight argued Justice Nathan
Nurgitz erred in accepting the testimony of defence psychiatrists without
evaluating the credibility of Borsch’s wartime claims.
NO RECORDS KEPT
No one corroborated Borsch’s war stories and no records were kept of the
incidents, Knight said.
“All we have, in effect, are opinions that are worthless because they are
not based on findings of fact,” Knight said.
Knight also argued Nurgitz should have agreed to hear the testimony of a
last minute Crown witness who served in Bosnia with Borsch.
If he had been allowed to testify, Cpl. Craig Price was expected to say his
tour of duty was a quiet one and that he was unaware of several acts of
violence Borsch claims to have witnessed or participated in.
Borsch’s lawyer Mark Wasyliw said the Crown had plenty of time to come up
with rebuttal witnesses before the trial started.
“They clearly couldn’t,” Wasyliw said outside court. “You can be believed on
your own evidence and acquitted on your own evidence, which (Borsch)
obviously was.”
*****
Big difference between some rape versus mass rape. Some US soldiers raped in Vietnam.
Yeah yeah I know I promised to shut up in my last comment – and thanks a bunch to the Irishman for his sweet words of encouragement, if I had to be anybody’s sock puppet I hope I could be yours, but enough of that, courtship is not my reason for returning.
Partly inspired by Johns comment in another thread about some of the exchanges being unhelpful and distressing, I must say that I agree, and that I feel I myself crossed the line in my last comment. I wasn’t just rude, I wasn’t constructive either, so apologies for that.
So I’ll try to finish off once again, this time with fewer insults, and more fact based details and references.
Hi Mike,
Thank you for at long last posting something more concrete, but I must say that i’m still a litlle bit disappointed in your fact based details, since I really can’t see how that story is very helpful. Please note that i’m not saying the story isn’t true, just that it doesn’t really make a difference. And yes I can see how you would say that it is showing a tendency of false reporting regarding the rapes, but it’s not really conclusive is it?
I personally can’t imagine anyone that has until now been believing for instance the Mazowiecki report, suddenly changing their mind after reading that story, because they find it to be more conclusive – I know it hasn’t rocked my world.
So I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re not going after the Mazowiecki report(or something else with a little bit more substance) instead, although I have this sneaking suspicion that you’re happy about that article partly because it has a UN peacekeeper on record saying he had a peaceful tour in Bosnia, thus showing even the “war” to be a hoax (and trust me this is a point I have absolutely no intention of discussing with you.)
But I digress. As I said, I think especially the factor 100 the Mazowiecki report use to get the 12,000 could be attacked. As others have said as well, rape is a very difficult topic not lending itself easily to conclusive research, and hard numbers are difficult to come by. I did some fast googling on it, and couldn’t find that factor 100 anywhere. I did manage to find some numbers though, sadly i can’t link since my computer crashed and all disappeared, but somewhere it was claimed that 8% of rapes result in pregnancies(a big difference from the 1%). It didn’t say how that number was found, but if true it would in one quick sweep reduce the number of rapes to somewhere around 1500(and even doing it on the reports own premises, and please note the report does itself mention several problems regarding the factor 100. To that one could reply that since not all rapes were vaginal or done with anything that can make anybody pregnant the factor should be higher. Pushing it down again would be the fact that many rape victims were very young girls with the accompanying high fertility levels, then again some were so young that they couldn’t get pregnant at all, (but that was not common as far as I know), and off course some were killed before any pregnancy would have shown it self).
But it also seems clear that the 119 pregnancies due to rape identified in the report is an absolute minimum number, it’s only from 6 hospitals and only covering a period of less than a year.
All this somewhat tasteless back and forth to show that you could have chosen to engage in a discussion concerned with the so called “fact based details”, which would seem more fruitful – to me at least – than just claiming that the report is bogus and that everybody that disagrees with you are lying or at the very least being subconsciously duped by those with agendas.
And then to some questions,
you said that “That report is bogus in relation to the detailed material I’d posted.“
First your use of bogus here confuses me, i’m not sure what “bogus in relation to” mean, does it mean the same as irrelevant?
Please Mike if the article that Lyndon linked to and which you posted and called “A slam dunk on the Bosnian rape hoax” is not a part of “the detailed material” you posted, please tell me what is.
I ask because the report seems to me to be very relevant to at least that article. It’s claim of trumped up rapecharges is based mainly on it’s criticism of two “official” reports, one is the EC-thing that I can’t find and the other is the Mazowiecki report, on which it uses a paragraph. And I do think, that I showed that what it writes about the report is mainly wrong (the authors name it’s Mazowiecki not Mazowicki, the dates it was made was january 12 to 23, not january 10 to 17, and off course by far most important the number of pregnancies after rape identified in the report is 119 and not 19(and it mis characterizes the number as an estimate, which it is not, at least not in your everyday usage of the word) which in my opinion does call the rest of the articles trustworthiness into question.
And finally I slide back into childish behavior and ask what kind of person copy/pastes his own comments, including misspells and all here and here, thats just strange.
All the best
Frederik
Like yourself, that report doesn’t address the lengthy material I’d posted on the subject.
Furthermore:
Going to a select choice of hospitals and noting claimed rape instances without fully confirming who did the raping doesn’t acknowledge a complete review of the claim in its totality. Like checking into Serb claims of being raped during the same period.
Oh but I just can’t stay away now, you’re a drug to me Mike, plus otherwise I would just have to write my dissertation(or what ever you English speakers call it). So I’m back with yet another absurdly long comment, but there’s just so much to set straight on this rather important subject.
“Like yourself, that report doesn’t address the lengthy material I’d posted on the subject.“
As for the report, I agree that it IS a fatal flaw that it does not address stuff posted by you, but isn’t it a little bit excused since it was published in early 1993?
I on the other hand can’t use that excuse. But Mike I really am trying to do that by addressing material which is lengthy, posted by you and on the subject. So Mike I beg of you, I’m on my knees now, please please tell me where that mysterious lengthy material is to be found. Please Mike, have some mercy and tell me.
But if it’s the Norm thread don’t bother, I took a second look at that one, and it seems clear that I must offer my apologies to among others Tim Newman, Irishman and Lyndon for repeating some of their arguments, but imitation (even the unwilling one) is a very sincere form of flattery. So considering I’ve been writing absurdly long comments repeating not only myself but also others I’ll try with two last points.
On of your main arguments (if not the only thing you say that could almost be described as such) seem to be, that the “NATO kangaroo court” – which most people know as ICTY – is not focused on rape, and you take that to prove that the whole thing is a hoax. Tim Newman does a good job of trying to explain to you whats wrong with that reasoning:
“The reason that rape cases have not been brought before the various courts dealing with the Balkan wars is because proving rape is a notoriously difficult thing to do, especially once a few years have passed. An absence of rape charges considered in a court is not not evidence that accusations of rape in the Balkan wars is a hoax.
To this I’ll just add that the individual nature of most rapes place them below the scope of ICTY.
But it still seems that we’re all wrong on this anyway, the thing is the premises is wrong (not surprising since it’s one set by Averko). As a matter of fact it’s absurd to claim that rapes have not been brought before the court or that it’s not a big issue(although one might claim that it should be given even more attention). A quick count can tell you that at least 21 indictments is directly concerned with rapes out of a total of 161, here you could add all the prison camps indictments where rape or some other form of sexual violence is a part the indictment, and that will push the number close to 30, which means that almost 1/5 of every indictment is about rape. Add to this the landmark Foca conviction, and you might understand why there seem to be a consensus that ICTY, together with ICTR, is breaking new ground when it comes to rape as a war crime and not just as the soldiers usual spoils of war. As I said, it was only a quick count, so I would be happy if you would please check the data here, here and here.
And then back to your last post:
“Going to a select choice of hospitals and noting claimed rape instances without fully confirming who did the raping doesn’t acknowledge a complete review of the claim in its totality. Like checking into Serb claims of being raped during the same period.“
This is just so funny and sad at the same time. I’ll only note that you earlier claimed that you actually did read the report. So please tell me how it escaped you that the report did check into Serb claims?
“Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
14. At one specialist maternity hospital in Belgrade, there were five recorded cases of pregnancy due to rape. Medical records were obtained regarding these cases, which included three late terminations of pregnancy and two deliveries (see details below). “
And off course it checks serb rape victims. This might be distressing to you, but everybody is not just arguing a biased case, a lot of people is simply interested in knowing what actually happened, regardless of the victims possible Russian, Chechen, Bosniak, Croat or Serb background.
Sadly your lie about having read the report, is the final proof that you’re not arguing in good faith. So with this I’ll consider this “discussion” with you finished. I will only return to this subject in the very unlikely event that you have anything slightly interesting to add, or maybe in the much more likely event that some outrageously silly stuff you post force me back just for the fun of it.
All the best
Frederik
The lies are from you Fred. I read it and it doesn’t authoritatively confirm a war related mass rape figure as was uncritically parroted by many Eng. lang. mass media folks during a good segment of the conflict.
Yes yes we can all agree on that I’m sure.
The black baby story, reminded me of Jackie Arklöv. He’s a Swedish neo-Nazi doing a life sentence for the murder of two Swedish police officers, then last year he was convicted for war crimes(the first ever in Swedish history) committed against Muslims in Bosnia in 1993, while fighting as a mercenary for the Croats.
The things is that he’s black – born in Liberia(black father, white mother) and adopted by a Swedish couple – and call me a racist but at black neo-Nazi just ain’t natural.
Sweden is one amazing country, if that’s not integration of immigrants I don’t know what is.
All the best