War Crimes

As Daniel noted, Radovan Karadzic was arrested yesterday by Serbian authorities. Karadzic, who PBS once described as the world’s most wanted man, was President of the Republika Srpska, and ICTY alleges that he is guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Perhaps most importantly, Karadzic is accused of ordering the genocide at Srebrenica, and his arrest comes shortly after the thirteenth anniversary of the genocide.

Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, commanding general of the Army of the Republika Srpska, were the two highest-profile defendants indicted by ICTY who remained at large. With Karadzic’s arrest, one of the most significant barries to Balkan reconciliation - and European integration for Serbia - has been removed. With his eventual trial, his myriad victims may yet receive justice.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men for his part in civilian massacres, was arrested on Monday, Serbian President Boris Tadic’s office said on Monday.

JNA General Pavle Strugar was sentenced to 7 and 1/2 years in prison for his role in the shelling of Dubrovnik, Croatia, during the conflict accompanying the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Dubrovnik, known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic” for its historic and beautiful old city, was subjected to a 7-month siege during the war. 2/3 of the buildings in the old city were damaged, and the ICTY alleges that the Serbian and Montenegrin high commands intended to conquer Dubrovnik and make it part of Montenegro.

Warning: This post contains offensive language.

This post was originally published July 11, 2007.
Today marks the 12^th 13th anniversary of the massacre in Srebernica.  In July 1995, in the United Nations mandated ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica, Serbian forces summarily executed some 8,000 Bosnian men.  The forces of the Army of Republika Srpska, led by General Ratko Mladic (still at large in Bosnia for war crimes), “stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.”, according to a press release by the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Judge Theodor Meron.

The majority of the atrocities were committed by the paramilitary force, the Scorpions.  During the trial of Slobodan Medic, the Scorpions unit commander, video tape of various incidents surfaced.  These videos are part of much larger video diary of the Bosnian war.  In one incident, 6 men are shown being taken from the back of a military vehicle and led to a field.  The men are then forced to march single file to meet machine gun fire – one man at a time - by the Scorpions.  In the video, the soldiers are making comments to the camera - “Did you get that?  Did you film me shooting that mother fucker?”  Only 4 of the captured men were initially murdered and the remaining two were forced to drag the bodies to another area.  According to testimony, the soldiers were mocking the scene to make it appear the prisoners were killed in combat.  The two remaining men are then killed in an outbuilding.  During the video, a soldier is shown emptying his entire magazine into the head of one of the prisoners, protesting “I have a few more shells left!”

In conflict characterized by ethnic rivalries, just and unjust may become blurred.  Media portrayal in the affected countries during the Bosnian war inspired many of the men to embrace conscription and few were refused, especially by the Scorpions.  In 1995, the United Nations forces, UNPROFOR, were overwhelmed by Serbian forces after establishing the safe zone in Srebrenica.  Dutch UN forces had attempted to turn back enclosing forces by firing warning shots, but never directly engaged the attacking brigades.  UN peacekeepers had made repeated requests to NATO for air support over the area, but the mission was called off due to poor visibility.  Further sorties were aborted after Serbian forces threatened to kill captured Dutch personnel and Serbian forces effectively captured the town of Srebrenica on July 11^th, 1995.  After initial indiscriminate killings of woman and children, many of the men were separated from the rest of the community according to age.  Military prisoners were detained based on perceived age of conscription; mostly men deemed old enough for combat.   When the situation was complete, over 8,000 civilians were massacred in the worst episode of ethnic cleansing since the extermination of the Jews in World War II.

Writing for the European Courier, former ICTY spokeswoman Florence Hartmann slammed Western powers and international courts for not adequately protecting the victims of the Srebrenica genocide, either in the runup to the genocide or in the recent litigation. In her first book, Peace and Punishment, Hartmann accused Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France of sheltering Serb war criminals.

The general facts of the attack on Srebrenica are relatively uncontroversial. Srebrenica had been a hotly contested area throughout the conflict. It was declared a United Nations Safe Zone in 1993, and peacekeepers were stationed there. The Bosnian Serb militia (VRS) lay siege. As of early 1995, it was held by the Bosnian government, along with two neighbroing municipalities - a vulnerable island amidst Bosnian Serb-controlled territory. Nonetheless, VRS attacked on July 6 and conquered the area on July 11. Subsequently, VRS and a paramilitary group called the Scorpions killed every Bosniak man and boy in the Srebrenica enclave, engaging in a string of mass killings over the next few days. Dutch peacekeepers present were ineffectual (though a Dutch report effectively exoneratedthem, blaming political and military leadership for putting them in an untenable position where they quickly became de facto hostages) and NATO air support was unsuccessful.

ICTY and the International Court of Justice have both determined, in separate cases, that genocide was committed in Srebrenica. However, the ICJ found that Serbia was not liable, lacking sufficient control over the Bosnian Serb VRS, and the leading VRS commanders remain at large. Srebrenica itself remains in the Republika Srpska.

To this body of fact, Hartmann adds allegations that Western powers knew the attack was coming, and implies that they also knew a genocide would result. Though she offers no conclusive smoking gun, the allegations will certainly be controversial in the still-tense Balkans.

Unlike in the cases of its neighbors Bosnia and Croatia, the Yugoslavian government made no extended attempt to reconquer Slovenia when it seceded in 1991. The military conflict was ten days long and created less than 100 total casualties.

One colonel in the Yugoslav National Army has been indicted by the Slovene government for his role in the conflict. The Serbian war crimes division and the Helsinki Monitor watchdog group both expressed considerable skepticism about the indictment, and Slovenia has not issued an arrest warrant.

WARNING: THE “SLAUGHTER” LINK CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

A case before a Dutch court will determine whether Dutch peacekeepers operating under the flag of the United Nations are liable for the 1995 massacre of thousands of Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.

In July 1995, forces from the paramilitary group The Scorpions, oversaw the detention and subsequent slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males determined to be of military age.

The families of roughly 6,000 victims killed by the paramilitary force are suing the United Nations because the Dutch peacekeeping force did not intervene in the massacre. Srebrenica at the time was a U.N. mandated safe haven.

The United Nations, supported by Amsterdam, claims immunity in the case.

Taking an apparent page from claims supporting the U.S. decision to not sign onto The International Criminal Court, Amsterdam’s lawyer Bert-Jan Houtzagers said the United Nations must be permitted to conduct peacekeeping operations without facing prosecution, the BBC said Wednesday.

“The Bosnian Serbs are the ones who are to blame, especially General (Ratko) Mladic. He is a war criminal,” he said.

BELGRADE (AFP) — Stojan Zupljanin, wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in connection with atrocities against Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war, has been arrested near Belgrade, officials said Wednesday.He was among the most-wanted Serbs indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — alongside Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, who remain at large.

“One of The Hague indictees, Stojan Zupljanin, was arrested on the outskirts of Belgrade” shortly after noon (1000 GMT), Bruno Vekaric, prosecution spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes court, told AFP.

Zupljanin, 56, was armed, but there were no casualties during his arrest, according to a source who requested anonymity.

In The Hague, the UN tribunal confirmed the arrest, but was unable to say when he would be transferred to its custody.

“That will depend on a number of formalities in the country where he was arrested,” said ICTY spokeswoman Olga Kavran.

“Once in the detention unit, within a day or two, he will make his first appearance before the judges, and he will be given the opportunity to enter a plea,” she explained.

Zupljanin has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged central role in the hostilities and the destruction of the Muslim and Croat communities in northwestern Bosnia during the 1992-95 war.

The ICTY had also fingered him for genocide, but that indictment was later dropped.

Zupljanin was a former aide to Karadzic, who remains at large along with Mladic and another ICTY indictee, Goran Hadzic, wartime president of the self-proclaimed Croatian Serb republic of Krajina.

His indictment accused him of participating in the planning, ordering or committing of the “execution of a campaign designed to destroy Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, in whole or in part”.

Thousands were held in horrific conditions in Serb-run camps during the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated.

Many did not survive — and in the Prijedor area alone, more than 1,500 people were murdered in three notorious camps.

The Serbian war crimes office said the arrest of Zupljanin was headed by its chief prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic, and carried out by police and Serbia’s police intelligence agency.

“Zupljanin was arrested in a flat” less than 10 kilometres (five miles) from central Belgrade, said Vekaric, adding he would be handed his ICTY indictement and likely be transferred to the Hague within three days.

The ICTY has been seeking Zupljanin since 1999, and having over the four Serb war crimes fugitives to its custody is the main condition for Serbia’s integration into the European Union.

Zupljanin’s arrest comes just days after chief UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz urged Serbia to do more to locate and arrest the remaining indictees.

“We strongly believe that the remaining fugitives — Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Stojan Zupljanin and Goran Hadzic — are within reach of the authorities in Serbia and that the Serbian authorities can do more to locate and arrest them, ” Brammertz told to the UN Security Council.

“With the exception of a genuine but, alas, failed attempt to arrest Stojan Zupljanin, there has been no notable progress in this critical area of cooperation within the past six months.”

In the historic first case transferred to Croatian courts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), General Mirko Norac was convicted and General Rahim Ademi acquitted of war crimes on theories of command responsibility.

The historic conviction is a major step forward for Croatia, whose government long resisted responsibility for war crimes committed by ethnic Croats during the conflict and whose EU accession has been conditioned on successful prosecutions of Croatian war criminals. The court has been less active than its Bosnian counterpart, but more successful prosecutions should help facilitate international confidence in the Croatian government and, eventually, EU accession.

Serbian media reports that the Serbian government is investigating accusations by former ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Serbian Kosovars were kidnapped and murdered and had their organs harvested by Kosovar Albanian paramilitaries during the 1998-99 war. The tribunal itself has refused to reinvestigate the allegations, averring that a 2004 investigation had not turned up any reliable evidence.

The allegations, and ICTY’s refusal to investigate, which roughly coincided with the surprise acquittal of former Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj (which the Prosecutor’s office is appealing), have sparked a firestorm of controversy in Serbia. The controversy threatens to further complicate the delicate politics of the region, and further undermine the Tribunal in Serbia.