Stefan Karganović rides again

It was inevitable that it would come to this, and when it does most people are sickened by the fact that someone would actually write something like that. Then again, most of those people are not familiar with Serb extremist propaganda or simply don´t watch Fox News, or read Breitbart, Russia Today, Sputnik, Global Reaserch, AntiWar, Infowars or any of the other numerous outlets with a global reach that specialize in disinformation and conspiracy theories.

From war cimes denial, genocide denial, climate change denial, anti-vaxxer conspiracies and now COVID-19 conspiracies. These sites and others are go-to hubs for anti-vaxxers, far-left “anti-imperialists”, far-right nationalists, the American “alt-right,” Assadists, supporters of the regimes in Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela and North Korea. They are also sites from where a great deal of content trickels down to Western Balkans, content that is particulary popular with Serb extremists. Both at home and in the diaspora.

And that brings us to the latest outrage written by a man who has contributed to several of those outlets in the past. Stefan Karganović, a Serb-American grifter who has spent years denying the basic facts regarding the genocide in Srebrenica. In a post titled “A Curious Analogy — Coronavirus Misrepresentations Follow Srebrenica Script” for a shady website called “Strategic Culture Foundation,” Karganović tries to downplay the disasterous global effects of the Covid-19 virus by recycling and applying his distortions about the culmination of the three-and-a-half-year long genocidal Serb extremist campgain in Bosnia and Herzegovina in service of those wanting to misrepresent the global scale and suffering brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. And when I say shady website, well that is beacuse as EUvsDISINFO reported last year, “Strategic Culture Foundation” site is managed in Russia. As EUvsDISINFO points out: “site gives no information on owners, editors, visiting address. There isn’t even an e-mail address for contacting the site: only a form for requests.” Glean from that what you will.

To be clear, I don´t have any intention of posting a link, out of respect for both victims of the genocide in Srebrenica and the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. I`ve left a discription above, and a screen shot. Those intrested can google it. I don´t want that vile filth on this site. I will however be posting links to Johns Hopkins as well as links to facts about the Bosnian genocide.

I also have no intention of “dissecting” Karganović´s lies since there is nothing left to dissect. He´s simply shamelessly repeating the same debunked Serb propaganda he´s been repeating for years. I have already written extensively on this topic in my refutation of John R. Schindler´s claims which mirror Karganović´s claims. Which are themselves in fact debunked Serb propaganda. The gist of both Schindler´s and Karganović´s argument is that there is no forensic evidence to support the claims that over 8000 people were executed after the fall of Srebrenica. (As Karganović writes in the Strategic Culture Foundation article) The main diffrence between Karganović and Schindler is that the latter claims “that some 2000 disarmed prisoners of war were executed by elements of the Bosnian Serb Army´s counterintelligence,” while Karganović claims in “Stratigic Culture”that about a thousand people were killed by “rouge elements” of the rebel extremist Serb army. This is of course nonsense, as I wrote back in July 2015:

When it comes to John R. Schindler, the filmmakers and their prolifiration of debunked Serb propaganda Borchgrevink also points to the United Nations 155-page report on the fall of Srebrenica, where former UN-secretary general Kofi Annan says that the Serbs exaggerated the Bosnian Army attacks as way of disguising their real objective; which was an ethnically pure Serb state. That meant that Serb forces killed tens of thousands Bosniak and Croat civilians during the Bosnian genocide. According to Borchgrevink: Srebrenica was not an ordinary military operation as NRK´s expert (John R. Schindler) points out, but the culmination of the ethnic cleansing of eastern Bosnia.

Borchgrevink goes on to say that the documentary´s expert (John R. Schindler) recycles old controversial Serb nationalist claims about 1300 Serb civilians killed around Srebrenica, and that of the Bosniaks killed by Serb forces after the fall of Srebrenica only some 2000 disarmed prisoners of war were executed by elements of the Bosnian Serb Army´s counterintelligence while the rest were killed in combat while trying to reach Tuzla.

This is of course nonsense, even if it´s cleverly packaged. As Borchgrevink writes; John R. Schindler´s claims are refuted by RDC´s findings, which show that of the 567 Serbs killed in the Bratunac area (Where Naser Orić ´s alleged crimes took place) 448 were Serb soldiers, and the rest, 119, were civilians. This is of course a lot, but nowhere near the figures Schindler cites. John R. Schindler himself has used RDC findings in his now debunked rehash of Serb propaganda, called Unholy Terror. British historian, well known Balkan expert and genocide scholar Marko Attila Hoare, who reviewed Schindler´s book pointed to Schindler´s amusing blunders in regards to RDC figures.

While Borchgrevink points out that international forensics experts have identified 6481 individual victims from various mass graves from around Srebrenica and have determend that over 8100 Bosniaks were killed. Subsquent trials that have taken place at the ICTY and ICJ (International Court of Justice) have proven that Srebrenica was an act of genocide, a well planned and carried out mass murder with the intent to destroy the Bosniaks of Srebrenica and Žepa as an ethnic, religous and a political group.

Borchgrevink´s and Norwegian Helsinki Committee critique of “A Town Betrayed” and it´s main “expert” John R. Schindler came in May 2011. Since then figures regarding those found in mass graves has changed, given that Srebrenica is still an active crime scene and that about 1000 of those killed in the genocide still are uncounted for. As of June 2015, the figure of those Bosniaks who have been identified stands at 6930, working from a set of 17,000 human remains located in 93 mass graves. This of course destroys the filmmakers and John R. Schindler´s thesis that the majority of Srebrenica´s Bosniaks were “killed making their way to Tuzla” instead they were captured and taken to various execution sites. For more, see Christian Jennings: Bosnia´s Million Bones- Solving the World´s Biggest Forensic Puzzle)

Karganović, a proven grifter has been running his Srerbenica scam for years. Back in 2012, Foreign Policy Magazine ran a story about funds going from Republika Srpska to a Hague-based “NGO” called “the Srebrenica Historical Project” led by an obscure Serb-American “Stephen Karganovic” who worked as a translator on convicted war criminal Momčilo Krajišnik´s defense team at the Hauge before re-branding himself as the front man of revisionist sewer denying basic facts about the Bosnian genocide.

By then more the a million dollars had been transferred from the RS-entity and it´s tax payers ( many of whom are Bosniak and Croat returnees to that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and survivors of Serb atrocities) to Karganović and his outfit. As Foreign Policy pointed out: a rough analogy of what was taking place would be if German government and parliament were voting every year to fund the research of David Irving and other revisionist Holocaust historians. In an unexpected turn, in 2016 entity authorities in RS launched an investigation into alleged tax evasion and embezzlement of entity funds. According to Balkan Insight, by then Karganović owed the entity some 53.000 euros in taxes. Financial records from the entity showed that Karganović and his NGO received 400.000 euros from the entity´s budget from 2007 to 2009 and an estimated 1.9 million euros from 2007 to 2014. RS allegedly cut funding to Karganović´s NGO in 2014, not because of the nature of the work, which was genocide denial. It was doing it because of the NGO´s alleged tax fraud and embezzlement.

One of the more amusing aspects of the Karganović saga and the one that ultimately showed who he really is was the story that ran in the Balkans in 2014. Someone had dug up an old story from Kargnović´s days as a “Yugoslav Count” who ran a consulate for the Kingdom of Tongo in Chicago. ( Chicago and St Louis have large Bosnian, Serb and Croat diaspora) The story, from 1973 which ran in the Montana Standard and is just as absurd as anything else involving people around Dodik and Serb extremists in particular. According to the article named “Yugoslavian Stamp Collector Loses Job.” The consulate of the Kingdom of Tongo was closed soon after it opened. “Count Stephen Karganovic” had announced the closing of the consulate and his resignation as consul because of a story in the Chicago Daily News that cited other consuls in Chicago who had expressed doubt in the authenticity of the consulate and Karganović himself.

According to the article Karganović admitted that he had appointed himself as consul pending an official approval of his claim by the Kingdom of Tongo. The article goes on to say that Karganović is currently a graduate student of International Relations at the University of Chicago and a “Count” do to his “royal Yugoslav heritage.” Karganović himself stated that he was a stamp collector and that is how he learned about the Kingdom of Tongo. That´s when he decided that the Kingdom was in need of a consulate in Chicago. To promote tourism since the country has according to him no other resources. It´s also worth mentioning that Stefan Karganović obviously does not have royal heritage and is not a Count.

So there you have it, before he was also a genocide denier he was  just a young grifter and a “stamp collector.” I wrote about the methods used by “The Srebrenica Historical Project” and Karganović´s Hauge-based NGO back in 2013. What follows are the paragraphs I wrote then:

Yet that has not stopped Milorad Dodik, in 2011 he announced that he would be setting up a fund in order to help those Bosnian Serbs that were on trial at the ICTY including Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. He also complimented Karadzic, saying he “made mistakes, but should be credited for establishing Republika Srpska. RS was founded because of his courage.” He has during his time in office spent a great deal of tax funds on denying the basic facts about the Genocide in Srebrenica using the help of a group of Hague based pseudo-experts calling themselves The Srebrenica Historical Project and is registered as an NGO ( Non-Government-Organization) sadly for him those experts have yet to present any concrete evidence refuting the facts about the genocide, facts established during a 17-year period. The outfit´s front man is a Serb-American from Seattle called Stephan Karganovic.

Prior to establishing himself as the front figure of “The Srebrenica Historical Project” he had worked as a translator and was member of the convicted war criminal Momcilo Krajisnik´s defense team, in the Hague before promoting himself as a “truth teller” refuting the “myth of genocide” in fact he has as I said before yet to prove anything, but that´s not why he is where he is.

People like Karganovic serve a purpose, in reality nobody, not even Milorad Dodik expects him to actually prove anything, he can´t. If he could you would have heard about it long ago. He is however expected to maintain the illusion that Serbia, and Republika Srpska are innocent victims of conspiracy intended to keep Serbia and Serbs at bay. And that what is going on is a continued aggression against Serbia by “Western Imperialists”, the USA, Great Britain, CIA, the Vatican, IMF, Germany and their agents and “homegrown traitors” the Croats and Bosniaks intent on keeping Serbia and Serbs at heel, one way is to falsely accuse them of committing genocide and hence becoming “a genocidal nation” on par with Germany, a concern expressed by the godfather of contemporary Serb nationalism Dobrica Cosic in 2010 right about the same time as the Serbian Assembly was preparing to vote on European parliament’s resolution condemning the genocide in Srebrenica, Cosic claimed that “Serbia should never accept the lies about Serbs committing genocide in Bosnia’, because this would make the Serbs a genocidal nation on a par with Nazi Germany”. (Pecat, 12 February 2010.)

The most telling example of Srebrenica Historical project’s real purpose could be seen during Pelemis/Simic trial.

The two men were accused of involvement in the mass killings that took place in the villages of Pilica and Branjevo after the fall of Srebrenica. Karganovics neuro-forensic expert Ljubisa Simic participated as an “expert witness” for Slavko Perics defense in order to refute the DNA-identifications that had been conducted on the remains in Branjevo. Under cross-examination by State Prosecutor Erik Larson, neurosurgeon Simic, who testified in his in the role as a medical expert, said that; “his name was not included on the list of court experts, he has not passed a specialist exam and he had not testified at any trial before. He confirmed that no organization had certified him as an expert witness in forensic medicine, pathology, or DNA analysis. He had not participated in any exhumations, had never had performed an autopsy on his own and he had never performed an identification using DNA analysis. Simic confirmed that he worked for the “Srebrenica Historical Project” but could not confirm that his role in the organization was to deny the genocide in Srebrenica. “I deal with medical issues at that organization,” Simic said. (See: Pelemis/Peric trial 2012)

As British journalist and writer George Monbiot pointed out in 2012: “In order for these people to be right the entire canon of serious scholarship, human rights investigations, exhumations and witness statements would have to be wrong. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But they offer little but the recycled claims of genocidaires and genocide deniers, mashed up with their own misrepresentations” In his response to another set of Milosevic apologists and genocide deniers.