The Christian Science Monitor, by David Rohde

Eyewitness Report Supports Charges by US of Killings

By David Rohde

NOVA KASABA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA --An on-the-spot investigation by The Christian Science Monitor has uncovered strong evidence that a massacre of Bosnian Muslim prisoners took place last month.

A Monitor reporter, traveling without the permission of rebel Bosnian Serbs, looked into charges by American officials that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Muslims were killed by the Serbs after they overran two UN-protected "safe areas."

The Serbs deny the US charges, which were based on spy-satellite photos.

The visit by this reporter was the first by a Western journalist to the sites of the alleged atrocities near the former safe areas of Srebrenica and Zepa. The physical evidence was grim and convincing:

• At one site shown in the spy photos this reporter saw what appeared to be a decomposing human leg protruding from the freshly turned dirt.

• Large, empty ammunition boxes littered the open fields where the ground recently had been dug.

• Diplomas, photos, and other personal effects of Srebrenica Muslims were scattered near the areas of disturbed earth.

• At a soccer stadium in a nearby town, human feces, blood, and other evidence indicated large numbers of persons were confined, and perhaps shot.

UN officials estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 Muslim men are still missing in the wake of the Srebrenica and Zepa assaults. So far there is little indication that these men are being held prisoner. Dozens of local Bosnian Serb civilians and soldiers, most of them unaware they were speaking to a foreign journalist's translator, said they had heard nothing about a large group of captives from the former enclaves.

According to Bosnian Serb troops, all Muslims captured in the area are being summarily executed. One soldier, reporting to his commanding officers in Nova Kasaba, said a group of more than 300 Muslims who were armed with only 50 guns are still hiding in the hills around the village of Cerska, near Zepa.

The soldier proudly declared that his unit had captured seven of these Muslims last Saturday and killed two. "We're going back to catch the group tomorrow," said the soldier. "We just talk to them and then shoot them."

US officials first made public charges about alleged atrocities by Bosnian Serbs in this area on Aug. 10. In a closed session of the UN Security Council, US ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright said that as many as 2,700 Bosnian Muslims might have been hastily executed and buried in shallow graves.

In a dramatic presentation of evidence, Ms. Albright displayed spy plane and satellite photos of an area in the small farming village of Nova Kasaba, about 14 miles west of Srebrenica. "Before" photos showed prisoners crowded into a soccer field and undisturbed earth in an empty field a half mile away. "After" photos from a few days later show no prisoners and three areas of disturbed earth in outlaying fields that resemble mass graves.

In addition, US officials cited the account of an elderly Muslim refugee, who said that he had been one of 600 men held at the Nova Kasaba soccer field. Bosnian Serb soldiers trucked the Muslim men in groups of 20 to a nearby field and machine gunned them, said the refugee, who escaped when he was left for dead among the corpses. The bodies of hundreds of men were then bulldozed into mass graves, according to the refugee's account.

During a reporter's visit to the site this Wednesday, three areas of fresh digging were clearly visible. On the edge of the smallest of the three alleged mass graves, what appeared to be a human femur and tibia surrounded by bits of tattered fabric jutted from rich brown dirt.

One hundred yards from the second-largest grave, handwritten notes from a March 14, 1995, local government meeting in the village of Potocari, located inside the former UN "safe area" of Srebrenica, were found. Twenty feet from the same grave, a 1982 elementary school diploma and what appeared to be washed-out personal photographs of a Muslim youth from the village of Kravice, also near Srebrenica, were found.

Approximately a quarter mile from the three sites, Muslim prayer beads, clothing, and still legible receipts and election ballots from Srebrenica were found.

Two empty ammunition boxes, each of which appeared to hold several hundred rounds, were seen near the three sites. A handful of shell casings was found across the street from one of the sites, but few shell casings were found on the graves themselves. Truck and bulldozer tracks leading to the alleged graves were visible.

The largest alleged grave measured roughly 300 feet by 300 feet, the second 250 feet by 200 feet, and the smallest 100 by 50 feet. And about a half mile from the sites, two large piles of fresh earth had been dumped near a small stream.

No guards were posted in the area, which consists of homes that were destroyed when the village was captured by the Bosnian Serbs in 1992. One group of soldiers questioned why a car was parked in the area, but moved on.

A second charge of Bosnian Serb atrocities involves the village of Bratunac, 10 miles northwest of the Srebrenica area.

In the first few days after the fall of Srebrenica, residents on the Serb side of the Drina River reported hearing gunfire coming from Bratunac.

According to published accounts, Serbs who crossed into Bratunac during the period were told that Muslims were being executed in the local soccer stadium.

During a visit to the site on Saturday, evidence that prisoners were held, tortured, and possibly killed was found in an abandoned building on the stadium grounds.

Dozens of piles of feces line the floor of the three-room, one-story building, and in two places it appeared that someone or something had been repeatedly rubbed through the waste. Several dozen bullet holes pocked the interior walls, and what appeared to be dried blood stains dotted the floor and one wall.

In an interview with a Serbian magazine at the time, Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic said captured men from Srebrenica were being taken to Bratunac for screening as potential war criminals. Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey alleged last month that 1,600 prisoners were killed in the stadium.

What occurred in the building is unclear, but the squalid conditions found there fit what captured Muslims from Srebrenica described in published accounts. Several Muslim prisoners have reported being crammed shoulder-to-shoulder into small rooms and being unable to move or go to the bathroom. Others reported torture, including being rubbed in feces.

An attempt to enter Srebrenica itself from Bratunac was blocked by Bosnian Serb police who said special permission from the party of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was needed.

Bratunac residents interviewed Saturday said they had seen no traces of Muslim refugees or prisoners in the town since the fall of Srebrenica. No prisoners were held in the soccer stadium either.

After interviewing dozens of Bosnian Serb civilians and soldiers over a 300-mile swath of Serb-held territory in Bosnia, the fate of 4,000 to 6,000 men that UN officials say are still missing from the enclaves remains unclear.

Of the 10,000 men believed to be in Srebrenica before its fall, roughly 6,000 are believed to have made it to government lines, leaving 4,000 unaccounted for.

Over 3,000 people, including 1,500 armed men, refused to surrender to the Bosnian Serbs after the July 18 fall of Zepa. Six hundred have crossed into neighboring Serbia, leaving 2,400 people unaccounted for.

Statements by Bosnian Serbs, and limited inspections of Bosnian Serb prisons by the International Red Cross last month, indicate that the 4,000 to 6,000 missing Muslims are not in Bosnian Serb custody. Dozens of soldiers and civilians interviewed gave accurate descriptions of the 30-mile flight of 6,000 Bosnian government soldiers from Srebrenica to government-held Tuzla last month.

But no civilians or soldiers interviewed between the Bosnian Serbs' headquarters in Pale in eastern Bosnia to the city of Banja Luka in western Bosnia said they had even heard rumors of new Muslim prisoners.

Bosnian Serbs vehemently denied that any massacres had occurred and said that once men from Srebrenica were screened for potential war criminals, they were allowed to rejoin their families in government-held territory.

Contradicting this assertion, one Bosnian Serb soldier from the Srebrenica area said over 500 Muslim soldiers were shot by Serb forces after the fall of Srebrenica. He said at least 4,000 Bosnian government soldiers had been captured, and he believed they were imprisoned somewhere near the town of Bijeljina.

But civilians and soldiers in the Bijeljina area said no Muslim prisoners were there except for a few being held in nearby Batkovic. Limited inspections by the ICRC last month of the Batkovic detention center and other prisons in eastern Bosnia resulted in the discovery of only 164 prisoners from Srebrenica and 44 from Zepa.

One possibility is that more Muslims are alive in the hills of eastern Bosnia than believed. Serb soldiers and civilians, a Yugoslav Army soldier, and residents of scattered villages painted menacing pictures of hundreds of armed Muslims still roving the woods around the former safe areas.

Limited fighting, including one brief gunfire exchange in Nova Kasaba Wednesday, were witnessed. Two patrols of a half-dozen men were being conducted outside the town. A larger encampment of about 50 soldiers was observed near Nova Kasaba.

© 1995, The Christian Science Monitor

By David Rohde

TUZLA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA -- Bosnian Serb soldiers systematically executed as many as 2,000 Muslim prisoners after taking the UN ''safe area'' of Srebrenica in July, according to credible eyewitness accounts newly obtained by The Christian Science Monitor.

Nine Muslim men who say they are survivors of mass executions gave separate, corroborating accounts of what could be one of the greatest single war crimes of Bosnia's brutal 3-1/2 year conflict. Executing prisoners is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention.

In interviews that were conducted without the supervision of the Bosnian government, the nine men gave compelling accounts of mass executions in five locations.

A pattern of hundreds of Muslim soldiers and male civilians being taken to the Serb-held villages of Nova Kasaba, Kravica, and Bratunac - near Srebrenica - on July 13 emerged from the accounts. Last month, the Monitor uncovered evidence that a mass grave containing hundreds of bodies exists in Nova Kasaba.

The largest execution appears to have occurred near Karakaj. Up to 2,000 prisoners were taken from the three villages to a remote location near the Serb-held town, 25 miles northwest of Srebrenica, and executed on July 14, according to the survivors.

Srebrenica, a refugee-packed mining town nestled in the thick forests and rolling hills of eastern Bosnia, fell to the Bosnian Serbs on July 11.

The conquest of the town and subsequent Bosnian Serb ''ethnic cleansing'' of its 40,000 Muslim residents sparked events that led to a more muscular Clinton administration policy in Bosnia, which soon may bring peace.

Bosnian Serb officials have repeatedly denied that any atrocities were committed by their forces following the fall of Srebrenica, but mounting evidence of widespread executions is again turning Srebrenica into a test of President Clinton's resolve.

Guaranteeing that the Bosnian Serbs allow access to the sites of the reported executions and that indicted Bosnian Serb war criminals - including Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic - are prosecuted could fall victim to the administration's desire to establish any peace in Bosnia before the 1996 election campaign enters full swing.

The nine survivors, four of whom have never been interviewed by a journalist before, paint a chilling picture of a far vaster killing field around Srebrenica than previously imagined:

• Along with the execution of as many as 2,000 prisoners in Karakaj, hundreds of prisoners were executed in a warehouse in the village of Kravica, according to a survivor. At least three other executions involving 15 to 30 men occurred near the villages of Kuslat, Zabrde, and Rasica Gai, according to other survivors.
• Between 300 and 400 elderly and infirm men who were either ordered by Dutch peacekeepers to leave the UN compound at Potocari or prevented from entering it were seized by Bosnian Serb soldiers and later executed in Karakaj on July 14, according to a Karakaj survivor. Surem Huljic, a man who says he was seized with other men in Potocari but survived the massacre by playing dead, believes all the men seized in Potocari were killed.
• Another Karakaj survivor, Smail Hodjic, said he was told by several prisoners before the executions began in Karakaj that they had been taken captive by the Bosnian Serbs in Potocari.
• Two massacre survivors reported seeing Bosnian Serb soldiers driving a UN armored personnel carrier after the fall of Srebrenica. Mevludin Oric, a Karakaj survivor, said a UN APC driven by men in UN uniforms who spoke fluent Serbo-Croatian escorted six buses of Muslim prisoners from the town of Bratunac to Karakaj on the morning of July 14. Oric believes the men were Serbs masquerading as UN soldiers to make prisoners believe that they were headed for a prisoner exchange in Karakaj, not a mass execution.
• Eight of the survivors reported either being robbed, beaten, and tortured themselves or seeing other prisoners beaten or tortured by Bosnian Serb soldiers. More than 50 Muslims, most of whom were prominent political or business figures before the war, were singled out for torture and execution by Bosnian Serb soldiers and civilians on the night of July 13 when thousands of prisoners were held in the towns of Bratunac and Kravica, according to four survivors.
• General Mladic, who US officials are currently negotiating with, spoke to prisoners or was seen at five sites - Potocari, Bratunac, Nova Kasaba, Kravica, and Karakaj - hours before executions were carried out, according to five survivors. Two Karakaj survivors say they saw Mladic riding in a car on the way to the execution site and getting out of a car at the Karakaj site as the killings occurred.

In separate interviews, the survivors described a similar sequence of events involving Mladic. According to the accounts, the general introduced himself or was introduced by his troops to prisoners. Mladic first mocked Bosnian government leaders and then promised the prisoners they would not be harmed and would be exchanged for Bosnian Serb prisoners.

Assuming all the accounts are true, the scope of the atrocities, and the logistics needed to carry out the executions, indicates that the decision to execute prisoners was made at the highest levels of the Bosnian Serb leadership. Bosnian Serb commander Mladic and self-styled Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic were indicted by The Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal in July for atrocities committed earlier in the war.

Officials from the International War Crimes Tribunal would not comment on their ongoing investigation, but seven of the nine alleged survivors said they had been interviewed by tribunal investigators. All, including the five who say they saw Mladic, said their Bosnian Serb guards and executioners made no attempt to hide their identities. All of them also said they are willing to testify before the tribunal.

A senior UN official familiar with the ongoing investigation by the tribunal said a large amount of evidence indicating Mladic's involvement had been amassed by the tribunal. The official called the figure of nine credible survivors and as many as 2,000 executed accurate.

To test the credibility of the accounts, the men were not told during the interviews that the Monitor recently visited many of the sites they were describing.

In seamless narratives, the survivors gave detailed descriptions of locations visited by the Monitor in mid-August - such as a temporary Bosnian Serb troop encampment on a soccer field near the village of Nova Kasaba - while describing the mass executions.

All of the men publicly stated the names of dozens of friends and neighbors they said were killed in the mass executions. The survivors said they were willing to publicly name the victims - at the risk of inflicting grief on dozens of families - because they know they are right.

None of the men the survivors say died in the executions has been accounted for by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has recorded names of men imprisoned by Bosnian Serbs and taken to Serb territory.

The survivors and more than 100 Srebrenica men who made it to government-held territory were interviewed over a two-week period in and around the government-held city of Tuzla in northern Bosnia last month.

The accounts of two additional men who claimed to have survived mass executions were deemed not credible by the Monitor and dismissed.

According to dozens of men who made it to government-held territory, a column of more than 10,000 men - approximately half of whom were armed - left Srebrenica on the evening of July 11 and headed west.

The group, many of whom were civilians, hoped to sneak through 60 miles of Bosnian Serb-held hills, forests, and farmland to arrive in government-held central Bosnia.

A Serb ambush on July 12 near Kamenica killed several hundred and split the column roughly in half, the men said. Chaos ensued, with small groups of men wandering the forests, caught in a box between wide asphalt roads to the north and west patrolled by Bosnian Serbs in armored personnel carriers and Serb troops occupying the Srebrenica area to the east and south.

To make it to government-held territory, the men from Srebrenica had to cross the asphalt road to the west, which runs between the Bosnian-Serb held villages of Konjevic Polje and Milici. Many of them never did.

Approximately 4,000 men, the first section of the column, began crossing into government-held territory near Kladanj on July 16. An estimated 1,500 others have arrived in government-held territory in August and September, and as many as 800 Muslim men - including some from the fallen UN safe area of Zepa - have crossed into Serbia, according to Bosnian government and Red Cross officials.

But with only a few hundred men believed to be still hiding in the woods and the Serbs blocking access to the area, the whereabouts of the remaining 3,700 is unknown, UN officials say.

Revenge as motive

The Bosnian Serbs actions appear to have been motivated in part by revenge. In 1992, Muslim forces under the command of Nasir Oric systematically burned Serb villages and killed civilians in raids around Srebrenica. During the Monitor's tour of the area in August, Bosnian Serb soldiers expressed contempt for Srebrenica Muslims and accused them of attacking civilians.

In schools around government-held Tuzla that have been turned into refugee centers, few men can be seen. Women plead for information regarding missing husbands, sons, and fathers.

The family of one of the Muslim survivors, who asked to be called the common Muslim name of ''Haris'' because he feared retribution against missing relatives, illustrated how many men are missing. Haris's only brother, his brother-in-law, three of his uncles, and three of his cousins are missing. In his wife's family, her only brother and 23 other relatives are missing.

© 1995, The Christian Science Monitor

By David Rohde

TUZLA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA -- A field just outside the Bosnian Serb-held farming village of Nova Kasaba is a mass grave holding the bodies of hundreds of Muslim men from the fallen United Nations ''safe area'' of Srebrenica, according to eyewitness accounts newly obtained by The Christian Science Monitor.

The new evidence - combined with a decomposed human leg and documents from Srebrenica found at the site by the Monitor on Aug. 16 - confirms Clinton administration allegations that Muslim prisoners were gathered on a nearby soccer field, addressed by Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, and executed on July 14 or 15.

Senior UN officials close to The Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal say indictments for war crimes following the fall of Srebrenica, possibly involving General Mladic, could be issued within weeks. The officials also confirmed that the findings of a Monitor investigation, which concluded that more than 2,000 Muslim prisoners were executed and at least four mass graves exist around Srebrenica, are accurate.

Along with the mass grave in Nova Kasaba, three other mass graves exist around Srebrenica, according to Muslim men who arrived recently in government-held territory. In their first interview with a journalist, six men gave detailed descriptions of a grave near the village of Cerska, one man described a grave near Burnice, and three others a grave site at Karakaj.

The senior UN officials say an overwhelming amount of physical evidence of what could be the single largest war crime in Europe since World War II lies along a 20-mile network of roads in eastern Bosnia. But with the Bosnian Serbs saying the graves are filled with Muslims who died in combat, exhuming the bodies to examine how the men died is crucial.

Zagreb-based UN officials are concerned that if more leverage is not brought to bear on the Bosnian Serbs by the Clinton administration, the execution of thousands of Muslims could go unpunished. In the two months since US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright made a dramatic and unusual presentation of classified US spy-satellite photos to the UN Security Council and accused Mladic of ''extraordinary cruelty,'' US officials have not publicly raised the issue.

UN officials in Zagreb warn that the Clinton administration is following a policy based more on political expediency than pursuing justice.

And the senior UN officials close to the Tribunal say that two months after Ms. Albright's presentation, the US government still has not turned over all of the photos it has of the Srebrenica area.

In August, senior US officials said they had more satellite photos that showed other graves, which along with the Nova Kasaba site could hold between 2,000 and 2,700 bodies.

US Interest Has Waned

UN officials have long accused the Clinton administration of releasing the Nova Kasaba photos to deflect criticism from its tacit approval of the Croatian Army's forced removal of 150,000 Serbs from the formerly Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia in early August. The issue of Srebrenica has been dropped, they say, because it no longer fits the administration's agenda.

The issue of war crimes is a crucial one for the Bosnian government and could scuttle the US-brokered peace talks. The Muslim-led Bosnian government is demanding that accused war criminals be turned over to the Tribunal, and access to what the human rights group Amnesty International says are 143 mass graves in Serb territory, be part of any peace agreement.

But without US backing, the demand is unlikely to be met. UN officials predict that the Clinton administration will try to ignore the issue as it hammers out a de facto partition of the country.

Mladic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have both been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, a man who critics say should also be indicted as a war criminal and has the power to turn over Mladic and Karadzic, is refusing to cooperate with the Tribunal.

The Bosnian Serbs deny that any mass executions occurred following the fall of Srebrenica, and human rights groups, and investigators from the Tribunal have been denied access to the area.

The Nova Kasaba grave, which is large enough to hold 600 to 800 bodies, lies at the center of a killing zone created by Bosnian Serb forces as they hunted down more than 10,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica, only half of whom were armed, who tried to sneak through 60 miles of Serb territory to government-held central Bosnia.

The grave is located along a four-mile stretch of asphalt road between the villages of Nova Kasaba to Konjevic Polje that Muslims had to cross to make it to government-held territory. Thousands of them never did.

The Bosnian Serbs placed armored personnel carriers and patrols all along the picturesque road, which follows the meandering Jadar River and lies in a small valley. Muslims easily could be seen trying to cross farm fields and clearings around dozens of burned Muslim homes.

New evidence, obtained through interviews with nine men who say they survived mass executions and others who arrived from Srebrenica over the last three weeks, confirms that the site is a mass grave. The evidence includes:

• Smail Hodjic, and another man taken to another location after Mladic spoke at the Nova Kasaba soccer field, say dozens of friends, relatives, and acquaintances from Srebrenica that they saw on the field on July 12 and 13 are now missing and presumed dead. The two men, who both survived a later mass execution near the town of Karakaj, say hundreds of men held at the soccer field were executed and buried in the nearby grave.
  Both men who say they were at the soccer field gave correct, detailed descriptions of the soccer field, which was visited by the Monitor in August.
  The men also accuretely described the way prisoners and their Bosnian Serb guards were configured on the field according to the US spy-satellite photo taken on July 12 or 13. But US analysts estimated that there were only 600 prisoners in the field, not the 1,000 to 1,500 the two men say.
  In separate interviews, both described Mladic addressing the prisoners at around 3 p.m. Mladic derided Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, told the prisoners they would not be harmed, and said they would soon be returned to their families.
  According to a report released by UN investigators on Aug. 22, a peacekeeper and a woman from Srebrenica transitting the Nova Kasaba area saw hundreds of prisoners in the soccer field.
  On the following day, July 15, another UN peacekeeper reported seeing shoes and rucksacks of 100 men on the soccer field and a tractor pulling a cart with corpses on it. Closer to the grave site, he saw another row of shoes, 20 to 40 people, and a truck carrying corpses, as well as an excavator.

• Another credible eyewitness, who was hiding in the woods in the area on July 14 and 15, reports seeing 40 Muslim prisoners being tortured and executed one mile north of the grave site. A truck was loaded with bodies and drove south toward the grave.

• Two documents found at the grave site by the Monitor last month have been identified by relatives and friends as belonging to two men from Srebrenica who are missing and presumed dead.
  Dervis Smajic, the brother of Murat Smajic, a man whose 1982 elementary school certificate of merit was found only 50 feet from one of the mass graves, gasped when he was shown the document. ''He was carrying it with him for identification,'' stammered Mr. Smajic, who stared blankly at the certificate then quietly faded into a crowd of soldiers. ''My father and I were separated from him in an ambush.''
  Photographs washed out by rain with handwritten Muslim names written on the back were found at the grave site, next to the certificate. Smajic, before being told that photographs had been found, stated that his brother was carrying family photos.
  The other document found at the grave site, a piece of paper with handwritten notes on it found 200 feet from one of the graves, was identified by soldiers from the Srebrenica enclave as belonging to Mehmed Vejzovic, a man who is also missing.
  The paper contains handwritten notes from a March 14, 1995, community meeting in the village of Potocari inside the former Srebrenica ''safe area.'' In another section of the paper are notes on how to load and use various weapons. Vejzovic, the soldiers said, was involved in civil defense in Potocari.

• Survivors of the execution also said a large number of prisoners were held overnight in the village of Bratunac on July 13. A small building on the grounds of the Bratunac soccer field filled with human feces, blood stains, bullet-pocked walls, and indications of torture discovered by the Monitor in August was only a few hundred yards from where prisoners were kept, according to the survivors. Small groups of men were taken away during the night, according to the survivors, and never returned.

• Rejha Gabeljic, a Muslim woman who crossed into government-held territory on Sep. 10, said that she had been released, but that nine Muslim men are being held in a forced labor camp in Milici.

There was no way to confirm her report. Bosnian Serbs interviewed by the Monitor in the Srebrenica area in August denied that Muslim prisoners were being held.

© 1995, The Christian Science Monitor

President Slobodan Milosevic, who will be in Ohio next week for US-backed peace talks, may be behind a major war crime.

By David Rohde

''I have no doubt he directly approved or tacitly approved of the taking of Srebrenica,'' the diplomat says. 

Muslim witnesses say that an officer from Serbia was directing the roundup of Muslim prisoners in the village of Konjevic Polje, and that a Serb officer captured by Muslim forces was following orders issued from the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

''[The Serb officer] said they were under orders from Belgrade not to allow any men to escape from Srebrenica,'' says Bosnian soldier Dzemal Malovic.

''All Muslim men were to be captured or killed,'' said Mr. Malovic, one of three Bosnian soldiers who say they spoke to and looked at identity papers of the captured Serbian captain.

In a separate interview, a Muslim officer confirmed that the Serbian officer had been captured. The Serbian officer's whereabouts are unknown, and he may have been killed later by Muslim forces.

Western diplomats have long suspected that the Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica in mid-July was approved by Belgrade, but the government of President Slobodan Milosevic has vehemently denied it.

Mr. Milosevic's involvement would be an embarrassment for the Clinton administration, eager to portray Milosevic - who will be attending peace talks in Ohio next week - as a peacemaker in the Balkans, not a war criminal.

''Whether by commission or omission, [Milosevic] is responsible, no question,'' says a senior UN military official based in Zagreb, Croatia. ''He had plenty of sources on the ground there. He had to know what was happening, and either approved of it or did nothing to stop it.''

A senior Western diplomat in Zagreb also says Milosevic is responsible for what is quickly emerging as one of the darkest hours of Bosnia's 3-1/2 year conflict.

''I have no doubt he directly approved or tacitly approved of the taking of Srebrenica,'' the diplomat says. ''Whether Milosevic knew [about the executions] or not, he knows what kind of man [Bosnian Serb Army commander Gen. Ratko] Mladic is and how he operates.''

Reports of Mass Executions

Over 2,000 Muslim men were executed by Bosnian Serb forces following the fall of Srebrenica, according to nine survivors interviewed by the Monitor last month.

War-crimes investigators now have evidence that as many as 3,000 to 4,000 men were executed by the Bosnian Serbs, according to a senior UN official close to the investigation. ''Wait until everything comes out,'' he says. ''Then, people will understand how big this is.''

The UN official close to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague said mass graves ring the area around Srebrenica, and confirmed the existence of a new set of United States spy photos showing a new group of apparent mass graves near the village of Karakaj, as reported by the Boston Globe on Oct.3.

The photos confirm the accounts of five men interviewed by the Monitor who say over 2,000 Muslim prisoners were executed near the town of Karakaj on July 18. The photos may be the basis for new indictments against General Mladic expected to be issued by the Tribunal.

Bosnian Serb officials have said that mass graves in the village of Nova Kasaba captured in US spy photos and visited by the Monitor in August contain the bodies of Muslim soldiers who were killed in combat and not executed.

But the Karakaj site is too far from the route that Muslim men would have followed to escape from Srebrenica, according to the UN official.

Mevludin Oric, a survivor of the Karakaj execution, said in an interview that one of the officers directing the roundup of prisoners in Konjevic Polje was a 40- to 45-year-old officer from Serbia. Mr. Oric is considered by war-crimes investigators to be one of their most credible witnesses. The Serbian officer was not present at the later execution, Oric added.

Who gave the order to execute thousands of prisoners remains unknown.

But evidence of Milosevic's involvement in Srebrenica has been mounting for months, and it is not known if Mladic would execute such a large number of men without at least the tacit approval of Serbian leaders in Belgrade.

Mladic, who eyewitnesses interviewed by the Monitor said was at Karakaj and three other executions sites during or just before executions began, had been visiting Belgrade regularly for weeks prior to the attack.

Dutch peacekeepers reported seeing members of paramilitary groups from Serbia, and Muslims say they saw Belgrade-based paramilitary leader Zeljko ''Arkan'' Raznjatovic in Srebrenica.

The Washington Post reported seeing Muslim soldiers driving a jeep with Yugoslav Army license plates on July 17. The Muslims said they had captured the jeep from forces involved in the attack on Srebrenica.

New York Newsday reported on Aug. 12 that Western intelligence officials captured radio intercepts of Yugoslav Army chief Gen. Momcilo Perisic, directing Mladic on how to attack Srebrenica during the offensive.

Serb Denials

Yugoslav officials have strenuously denied the accounts, but the Yugoslav Army and Arkan are believed to be tightly controlled by Milosevic, who holds an iron grip over Serbia's military.

Despite the growing evidence, Srebrenica survivors remain skeptical that Milosevic - whom the Clinton administration is depending on to force the Bosnian Serbs to agree to a peace deal - will be tied to or punished for Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

''It all depends on the politicians,'' Malovic says. ''They could punish them, or reward them, for doing this.''

© 1995, The Christian Science Monitor