War crimes and the ICTY (10)
EU Should Keep Up Pressure on Belgrade
posted by Julia 15 years ago
Despite "Serbia's newfound appetite for international justice", IWPR correspondant Simon Jennings argues that the "EU Should Keep Up Pressure on Belgrade". "Given the recent arrests (...), it is regrettable that European chiefs are looking to relax their strict conditions on movement towards integration just when they are starting to work", e.g. by initiating a trade agreement with Serbia.
Related stories: a recently published BIRN article on the fate of Sarajevo's Jews during the war and an IWPR article on Visegrad where people "do not know anything" about what happened during the war. A propos Visegrad and the war: if you are looking for an easy-to-read novel for the end of the Christmas/New Years holidays, I can recommend Sasa Stanisic': Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert/How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (click here or here to read an extract in English).
Related stories: a recently published BIRN article on the fate of Sarajevo's Jews during the war and an IWPR article on Visegrad where people "do not know anything" about what happened during the war. A propos Visegrad and the war: if you are looking for an easy-to-read novel for the end of the Christmas/New Years holidays, I can recommend Sasa Stanisic': Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert/How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (click here or here to read an extract in English).
Beqë Cufaj: Seine Taten, unsere Welt
posted by Julia 16 years ago
Reflecting on the role of the ICTY, I remembered an article I had read by Beqe Cufaj on Karadzic's arrest, "an opportunity for justice" as B. Cufaj puts it: "As the victims are condemned to eternal silence, the perpetrators have to speak now" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24.07.08). But we should not believe the "rhetoric of criminals" which denies any responsiblity. Nor should we shift the whole responsibility onto the war criminals - we should rather ask us about our personal responsibility, argues B. Cufaj: We are responsible for shaping the future, while Karadzic can only tell us about the past. Below you will find a copy of the article (in German) which is not available on the FAZ website (any more):
The difficulty to prove what is known
posted by Julia 16 years ago
“You are charged with genocide. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?” Mr. Karadzic, standing, replied: “I will not plead.” (source: NY Times, 29.8.08; more background info by AFP, the ICTY website and on M. Mardell's BBC blog). As M. Mardell remarks in his blog, the main difficulty in cases like Karadzic's is not to reconstruct what happened - because that is widely known - but to provide evidence of personal responsibility of the person indicted:
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 7
posted by julia 17 years ago
La liste de Carla/Carla's List is a new film on Carla del Ponte and the ICTY by the Swiss film-maker Marcel Schüpbach. The blog of the Alternative Film Guide offers a synopsis and critique in English. Go to outnow.ch to see screenshots of the film. Here is the synopsis in French on what seems to be the official site:
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 6
posted by julia 18 years ago
An article of M. Sadovic for IWPR wonders whether showing potential war crimes on public TV serves justice and/or the victims' interests. A video had been released on Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian TV on August 5th, the 11th anniversary of the "Operation Storm" in the Croatian Krajina:
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 5
posted by julia 18 years ago
In a FAZ interview, Carla Del Ponte tells about her fascination of how Milosevic examined witnesses during his trial, and his death meaning a "defeat" [for her, the ICTY, the war-crime victims]. Carla Del Ponte also talks about Mladic ("we know where he is and we know that Belgrade can hand him out to us"), Karadzic (no-one searches for him, as everybody concentrates on Mladic), and about Haradinaj: "He is said to be a security factor for Kosovo. I have never understood that. For me, he is a war criminal. ... The difficulty in Kosovo is that nobody helped us, neither the UN-administration nor the NATO." (On Haradinaj, cf. this blog, 2.7.2006).
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 4
posted by julia 18 years ago
Seven cases involving war crimes committed by Serbian forces in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo have been brought to trial so far. According to Dragoljub Stankovic, one of five deputy prosecutors in Serbia's war crimes department, quoted in the New York Times (8.1.2006) this "points to the readiness of the state and judiciary to face the past." Nevertheless, Bogdan Ivanisevic, the Human Rights Watch representative in Belgrade, reminds us that
the army and the police are powerful, and barely reformed, institutions. Addressing the responsibility of the senior officers would be quite a bite for the prosecutors, something they could do only if they felt supported by the government.
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 3
posted by julia 18 years ago
While the search for Ratko Mladic is intensifying (he is said to be in Serbia currently, and the deadline set by the ICTY is tomorrow... cf. also the East Ethnia blog), you can listen to him in "original version" in audio recordings from the time of the Bosnian war on the RFE/RL webpage. Statements like the following form part of the evidence used by the ICTY to indict him:
"Here we are on the 11th of July1995, in Serb Srebrenica, the day before one of the greatest Serbian holidays. We give this town to the Serbian people. The moment has finally come after the uprising against the Dahi [the Turks] to take revenge against the Turks in this place." (Ratko Mladic after entering Srebrenica on 11 July 1995)
War crimes and the ICTY - Part 2
posted by julia 18 years ago
A week ago the trial against the members of the military unit of the "Scorpions", suspected
to have participated in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and in the genocidal massacre of
Srebrenica started in the Belgrade war crimes court. It is the first trial dealing with the
Srebrenica genocide taking place in Serbia. Parallely, eleven Bosnian Serbs "Scorpions"
suspected of having participated in the massacre of over 1000 Muslim civilians in the
Bosnian village of Kravica (near Srebrenica) in July 1995 have been detained and indicted
before a Bosnian court.
War crimes and the ICTY
posted by julia 18 years ago
In this "blogless" last week, the most outstanding piece of news is the arrest of the
Croatian ex-General Ante Gotovina on the spanish Island of Tenerifa in the night from
Wednesday (7.12.) to Thursday (8.12.). He was transfered to the ICTY on Saturday, and the
first hearing will take place on Monday, 12h45. Ante Gotovina
was accused in July 2001 for war crimes against the Serbian population of the Krajina region
in 1995 (cf. the indictment on the ICTY webpage).
SEE-EU
This weblog is a forum for discussion on the political and social processes linked to EU integration in the Western Balkans. We would also like to use this space to create a virtual network of researchers on this topic. You are most welcome to contribute to this weblog with comments, postings, links, or photos. Please use the "add comment" function at the end of each posting!
All photos by the Photo Arts Collective of Kosovo. First photo by Burim Myftiu (Swimming olympiade in Klina). Second photo by Mimoza. Third photo by Dashmir Izairi.
