Keeping the Wound Raw: Political exploitation of history in Bosnia for power and profit and the EU's role - Moore Institute NUI Galway Keynote Address Nov 2008 (original) (raw)
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Monumenta Srebrenica, vol. 11, 2022
Ratko Mladić, the former Commander of the Headquarters of the Republika Srpska Army, was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for participating in a) crimes of genocide against the Muslim (Bosniak) population in Srebrenica in July 1995, b) certain crimes against humanity (persecution, murders, extermination, deportation and forcible transfer) carried out against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats in the following municipalities: Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Foča, Kalinovik, Ključ, Kotor-Varoš, Novi Grad, Prijedor, Rogatica, Sanski Most, Sokolac and Vlasenica, and Sarajevo (muder as a form of this crime), and c) certain acts (terrorism and illegal attacks on civilians) committed as part of the sniping and shelling campaign in Sarajevo, as well as hostage-taking (members of the UN peacekeeping force), and which constitute alternative acts of committing (forms) of crimes of violation of the laws and customs of war. The ICTY's competent judicial councils have founded Ratko Mladić's criminal responsibility for his participation and significant contribution to the realization of the four Joint Criminal Ventures (JCEs), whose creators and participants were representatives of Bosnian Serbs, who used positions of the highest-ranking political and miliatry authority and encouraged members of the Republika Srpska Army, Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska, and in some cases members of some of paramiliatry formations, Territorial Defense and regional and municipal authorities of the Republika Srpska to commit systematic apocalyptic crimes against the population of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the period from 1992 to 1995. Because of all of the above, Ratko Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment. This sentence brought some satisfaction to the victims of the mentioned crimes, but unfortunately a significant part of the public in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity Republika Srpska, as well as in neighboring Serbia, considers the verdict unjust, as well as the entire legal legacy of the ICTY, perceiving it as “part of a global conspiracy against the Serbs”. Furthermore, during the last decade in the public space of the Republika Srpska and neighboring Serbia, planned campaigns and monstrous narratives of denying the nature and scale of the mentioned crimes, especially the genocide in Srebrenica, have been observed by the intellectual and political elites, but also by the common people. In certain cases, this denial of crime turns into an even more ominous phase of triumphalism, which is reflected in the glorification of Ratko Mladić, as well as other convicted criminals, and the glorification of their criminal heritage, while at the same time humiliating the victims. One of the more credible ways of debunking that orchestrated revisionism and denialism is to confront with the same path the formal judicial truth contained in final judicial decisions of independent and impartial courts, such as (was) the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, established by the United Nations. In the text that follows, the chronology of Ratko Mladić’s trial before this court is given, as well as the most significant conclusions of the ICTY Trial Chamber about his criminal activities during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1992 to 1995, which were legally confirmed by the Appellate Council. Key words: genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, joint criminal enterprise, ICTY
Historical Revelations from the Milošević Trial
Southeastern Europe, 2012
brill.nl/seeu 1) I use 'Serbia' or 'Belgrade' in this article as shorthand for the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, unless the context requires otherwise. Milošević was president of Serbia and de facto head of the FRY from its inception until July 1997 when he became president of the FRY. 2) Some issues will reach a final judicial decision in other trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and in domestic courts in the region. See for example, trials of Momčilo Perišić, Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, Vojislav Šešelj, Radovan Karadžić, and Ratko Mladić. The ICTY convicted former JNA Chief of Staff General Momčilo Perišić of aiding and abetting the murders and forcible transfer of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, among other crimes and sentenced him to 27 years in prison. He was acquitted of aiding and abetting extermination in Srebrenica, however, as the Chamber held the evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew his assistance to the VRS would likely result in the systematic killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims. ICTY, Prosecutor v. Perišić Judgement (IT-04-81-T), 6 September 2011. Serbia's involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, including Srebrenica, is a focus of the Stanišić & Simatović trial. The trial of Sainović, et al. convicted top FRY officials for the ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo.
Prosecuting Atrocity Crimes In National Courts: Looking Back On 2009 In Bosnia And Herzegovina
Northwestern Journal of Human Rights, 2010
Bosnia and Herzegovina. † I am grateful to my national colleagues in Bosnia and Herzegovina for accepting me and giving me the opportunity to lead them for a time as the Head of the Special Department for War Crimes. A more committed, professional, and courageous group of prosecutors would be hard to find anywhere in any prosecution service. They are not often well served by their national government and the institutions in which they work, but they persist and they get the job done in spite of it all. I admire and respect them. My comments are meant especially for the prosecutors in the Special Department for War Crimes and the judges in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and prosecutors and judges in the Cantons and Districts who have already caught the vision of what needs to be done to make a meaningful difference in dealing with the nation's war crimes predicament. My hope is that they will take what I write seriously, use it, adapt it, or reject it in favor of something better, but not simply ignore it.
A Judgment on Judgment: Milosevic On Trial
2014
Michael Christoffersen’s award-winning film Milosevic on Trial (2007), documents the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Court at The Hague for war crimes committed in the course of the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.1 The highest-profile case of its kind since Nuremberg, the trial marked a critical moment in the history of international justice.2 The charges brought against Milosevic, relating to the period of his presidency of Serbia (1989) and later of Yugoslavia (1997), consisted of three separate indictments conjoined for the purposes of the trial. The charges included: “crimes against humanity involving persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds; extermination; murder; imprisonment; torture; deportation; and inhumane acts (forcible transfers),” grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the laws and customs of war, including the killing of unarmed civilians, and “genocide and complicity in genocide” (Scharf and Schabas 2002, 5...
Situated within a vibrant scholarly debate on the question of wider (extra-legal) social impacts expected from the ICTY in the region of former Yugoslavia, this paper tackles the issue of relations between facts established at the court and acknowledgement of those facts in the public domain of the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Imbued by the tradition of transitional justice, many authors (and practitioners) invested in belief that the Tribunal will create an authoritative narrative of the war which will fortify future peace among the nations. However, recent studies have demonstrated that the ICTY judgements have not led to outright change in the public perceptions of the war on the ground (e.g. Stover
Some Kind of Justice: The ICTY's Impact in Bosnia and Serbia
2018
Diane Orentlicher’s Some Kind of Justice is an impressive book. It examines, comprehensively and in much detail, the impact that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has had on the ground in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly with regard to whether the Tribunal’s accounts of the facts of specific crimes committed during the Yugoslav conflicts are believed by local audiences as well as the Tribunal’s catalysing effect on domestic war crimes prosecution. Diane Orentlicher’s book contributes to a growing literature on this subject1 and builds upon two earlier studies she had conducted a decade ago in Bosnia and Serbia, which were commissioned by the Open Society Justice Initiative.2 In line with other literature on the subject, the book argues that the ICTY’s impact in both Serbia and Bosnia has been modest in the near-to-medium term and is unknowable in the long term, but it potentially lays deep foundations for some future reckoning with the pas...