In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave, American officials claimed they had satellite evidence of mass executions of Bosnia civilians at a soccer field nearby. When two photos were released it showed some white patches alledged to be disturbed earth, but no footage of executions. Subsequently no exhumations have been done at that site, nor have forensic investigations been performed to ascertain if bodies had been present and since been removed, as SFOR is fully empowered under the Dayton agreement.

Since then it has become accepted that Bosnia Serbs have dug up graves from a Srebrenica massacre and moved them to other locations. Hence the distinction is made between primary graves, ones that have been undisturbed, and secondary graves, containing bodies that have been moved from another location. One problem with a secondary grave is that it becomes difficult to ascertain exactly the origin of the remains, and so it is easily open to fraud should any organisation be so inclined. Especially in a country that has had 200 000 war dead.

This article from the forces magazine, the SFOR Informer 2002, discusses the discovery and exhumation of one such secondary grave from Srebrenica located at Kamenica.
 http://www.nato.int/sfor/indexinf/147/p12a/t02p12a.htm
This grave was finally determined to hold over 500 remains making it the biggest grave to date.

Nevertheless, even a cursory examination of the accompaning photos raises questions. By clicking on the top photo, captioned "Bulldozer tracks are visible at the exhumation site.", an enlarged version is obtained that completely undermines the accompanying claims.

Firstly, it becomes very clear where the bulldozer tracks come from, not from Serb earth moving equipment moving bodies 8 years ago, but from the backhoe situated in the background of the photo. Backhoes, for obvious reasons, are never used in forensic exhumations.

Secondly, the tracks lead into the pile of remains, suggesting that whatever made the tracks also was responsible for depositing the bodies. Given I think it unlikely that this type of exhumation is going to uncover bulldozer tracks from beneath compacted earth after a period of 8 years, we can assume that the remains have been recently added to the site.

Thirdly, even in the remote possibility the remains had been buried and recently uncovered in a forensic exhumation, it would look nothing like as pictured. A forensic exhumation would slowly remove thin layer after thin layer of dirt from the top of the grave. As remains were exposed they would examined in situ and then removed piece by piece. If we are to believe this picture then excavators came in from one side and miraculously managed to remove all dirt from over and even from BETWEEN the remains - and just happen to have revealed a pile of human remains that looked like it had been dumped recently.

Fourthly, the obvious explanation is that the backhoe dug out the hole in the picture and then the remains were dumped into a pile inside. And that this event occured in the last few days.

What is amazing is not that this is a fraud, but that it is such a clumsy one. Even more worrying is that fact that this very "forensic" exhumation is and has been used as evidence before the Internatiton Tribunal of War Crimes in Yugoslavia. It raises the questions if NATO is prepared to fake one mass grave, how many of the others have been tampered with or are unreliable.

I contacted the ICTY over this issue and requeasting the procedure of obtaining access to photographic evidence and forensic reports used at the Tribunal. The response has been a deafening silence.