tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/srebrenica-46712/articlesSrebrenica – The Conversation2023-09-18T12:22:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127282023-09-18T12:22:09Z2023-09-18T12:22:09ZGenocide fears in Darfur are attracting little attention − have nations abandoned their responsibility to protect civilians?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548147/original/file-20230913-29-frdmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C4500%2C2930&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A military convoy on the way to Port Sudan on Aug. 30, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fighters-ride-in-a-vehicle-moving-in-a-military-convoy-news-photo/1633929430?adppopup=true"> Photo by AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mass atrocities are once again plaguing the people of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/29/sudan-darfur-genocide/">Darfur, Sudan</a>, with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sudan-war-military-rsf-darfur-6e13139742d52564e47847cb9bd4d2a5">talk of a genocide</a> taking place.</p>
<p>Twenty years after <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/sudan/case-study/violence/enormous-loss-of-civilian-life">genocide</a> began in the region, recent conflict and targeted violence have forced <a href="https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/sudan/">over 5 million people</a> to flee their homes across Sudan in just five months. In Darfur, non-Arab unarmed civilians have been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/africa/darfur-sudan-geneina-massacre-account-cmd-intl/index.html">hunted down</a> and massacred, according to eyewitnesses and survivors. Women and girls have been subjected to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/08/un-experts-alarmed-reported-widespread-use-rape-and-sexual-violence-against#:%7E:text=Reportedly%2C%20hundreds%20of%20women%20have,been%20particularly%20vulnerable%20to%20violence.">systematic rape, sexual violence</a> <a href="https://sihanet.org/kidnapping-and-slavery-the-rsf-is-committing-more-dangerous-rights-violations-in-this-malign-war-against-civilians-in-sudan/">and trafficking</a>.</p>
<p>With genocide and crimes against humanity once again taking place and so little international attention, one wonders if the international community has completely turned its back on a decades-old commitment to protect civilians from mass atrocities, known as the “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml">responsibility to protect</a>.”</p>
<p>I’m an <a href="https://humanrights.uconn.edu/person/mike-brand/">adjunct professor</a> of genocide studies and human rights at the <a href="https://humanrights.uconn.edu/">University of Connecticut</a>, and the question of how the international community should confront genocide is an issue my students and I grapple with every semester.</p>
<p>Before unpacking that question, let’s look at why the expectation of civilian protection even exists. </p>
<h2>An important question</h2>
<p>In 2000, then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/413745?ln=en">asked the international community</a>, “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica — to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?”</p>
<p>It was an important question. For centuries, the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803121924198">principle of sovereignty</a> reigned supreme in international relations. It was largely understood that what happens within a country’s borders is that government’s responsibility. Governing authorities were pretty much free to do what they pleased, without fear of meddling from other international actors. </p>
<p>In the post-World War II era, states began to willingly give up some of their sovereignty to join the newly created <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un">United Nations</a> and engage in various agreements outlining common rules they would follow – collectively, these rules are now known as international law. However, even after witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust and pledging “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2018/09/genocide-never-again-has-become-time-and-again">never again</a>,” the world watched genocide unfold in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">Rwanda in 1994</a> and <a href="https://www.irmct.org/specials/srebrenica/timeline/en/">Srebrenica the following year</a>. Annan’s question needed an answer if the international community were to effectively prevent or intervene to stop another genocide.</p>
<p>In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty sought to answer Annan’s question by presenting a new concept known as the “<a href="https://www.walterdorn.net/pdf/Responsibility-to-Protect_ICISS-Report_Dec2001.pdf">responsibility to protect</a>.” The framework re-imagined state sovereignty and the responsibility of states to protect their people from mass atrocities like genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. In cases when a state was unwilling to live up to its responsibility to protect civilians or was itself the perpetrator of mass atrocities, then the responsibility shifted to the wider international community through the United Nations.</p>
<h2>A revolutionary idea</h2>
<p>The commission outlined three key responsibilities for implementing the responsibility to protect: the responsibility to prevent, react and rebuild. </p>
<p>The responsibility to prevent focuses on addressing the root causes of conflict and preventing mass atrocities before they break out. </p>
<p>The responsibility to react refers to the international community’s response to ongoing mass atrocities through diplomatic interventions, sanctions and sometimes military intervention. </p>
<p>Finally, the responsibility to rebuild includes assisting a country in its recovery from conflict and any damage caused by external interventions in an effort to stabilize a post-conflict country and prevent future atrocities.</p>
<p>Often, it is the responsibility to react, and more specifically military intervention, that people associate with the responsibility to protect. However, the “responsibility to protect” framework clearly states that military intervention is to be used only as a <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/publications/evans-interview-r2p-after-libya/">last resort</a>. As the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/prevention.shtml#:%7E:text=Therefore%2C%20prevention%20not%20only%20contributes,or%20dealing%20with%20their%20aftermath.">has said</a>, “Prevention is much less costly than intervening to halt these crimes, or dealing with their aftermath.” </p>
<p>The concept of the responsibility to protect was in many ways revolutionary. Member states adopted the principle at the U.N.’s <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/newyork2005">2005 World Summit</a> just four years after the concept was introduced. World leaders pledged in a joint statement: “We are prepared to take collective action … should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”</p>
<p>While it was a major accomplishment to get world leaders to endorse the responsibility to protect, it was not binding international law. There were no requirements that states live up to its provisions, and there were no penalties if states failed to protect populations from mass atrocities.</p>
<h2>The first test</h2>
<p>The urgency for responsibility to protect was evident in the fact that while the principle was being discussed and adopted, <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040909-10.html">genocide was underway in Darfur</a>. Just 10 years after <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">the genocide in Rwanda</a>, which was the impetus for the creation of the responsibility to protect, non-Arab civilian populations in western Sudan were being systematically targeted for destruction.</p>
<p>Some sanctions and strong words from the United Nations and several countries followed. But little direct action was taken for the first few years of the Darfur genocide. It took the United Nations four years to authorize and deploy a hybrid peacekeeping mission in the form of the <a href="https://unamid.unmissions.org/">United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur</a>. Even after this mission was finally deployed, violence continued. In all, between <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-07-24">200,000 and 400,000</a> Darfuris were killed, and millions were displaced. Many fled to <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/chad/they-gave-us-two-options-leave-chad-or-be-killed">neighboring Chad</a>, where they remain today. The exact death tolls are disputed because of limited humanitarian presence and a lack of investigative capacity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Sudanese mother with scarf on her head is holding her malnourished son in a hospital." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548197/original/file-20230914-27-bvbwf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millions of Darfuris were displaced in the mid-2000s, many to Sudanese refugee camps in neighboring Chad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ida-ibrahim-holds-her-malnourished-son-ahmad-saleh-13-news-photo/691913736?adppopup=true">Lynsey Addario/via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Responsibility-to-Protect-in-Darfur-From-Forgotten-Conflict-to-Global/Lanz/p/book/9781032570686">books</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26298897">academic articles</a> analyzed the response – <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4541909">or lack thereof</a> – to genocide in Darfur within the context of responsibility to protect. It has become the quintessential case study.</p>
<p>Yet most view the international community’s response to Darfur in the early 2000s as a <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Unwilling-and-Unable-The-Failed-Response-to-the-Atrocities-in-Darfur.pdf">responsibility-to-protect failure</a>, despite the peacekeeping mission, public attention and diplomatic engagement. Not only was there a failure to protect civilians, there was also a failure to hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes. Many of the <a href="https://medium.com/@atrocitiesprevention/sudan-genocide-warning-letter-ea8e78b671b1">same perpetrators</a> of the genocide in the early 2000s <a href="https://progressive.org/latest/genocide-is-once-again-plaguing-darfur-brand-230710/">are committing atrocities again now</a>, observers say, in a testament to the dangers of impunity. </p>
<h2>Even worse than before</h2>
<p>But there is an important distinction between today and the early 2000s – today there is little appetite among the international community to engage in a meaningful way that would protect civilians and bring an end to the slaughter. <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/tension-between-sudan-kenya-s-ruto-impedes-igad-mediation-effort-in-sudan/7195894.html">Kenyan President William Ruto</a> has called for a new peacekeeping mission to be deployed, but neither the United Nations nor the African Union has supported him. The UN’s former mission in Darfur ended in 2020.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates <a href="https://geneva.usmission.gov/2023/06/19/joint-statement-on-sudan-by-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-united-kingdom-and-united-states/">publicly called for peace</a> while <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-u-s-ally-promised-to-send-aid-to-sudan-it-sent-weapons-instead-82d396f">privately sending arms</a> to the very militia committing mass atrocities.</p>
<p>The United States has <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases?title=sudan&publication-start-date=&publication-end-date=">sanctioned</a> elements of the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese armed forces and has <a href="https://www.state.gov/statement-on-atrocities-in-darfur-sudan/">repeatedly</a> called for <a href="https://www.state.gov/on-civilian-casualties-in-sudan/">accountability for perpetrators of atrocities</a>. The United States ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, Beth Van Schaack, has stated that the violence in West Darfur “serves as an ominous reminder of the horrific events that led the United States to determine in 2004 that a genocide was underway in Darfur.” But she stopped short of saying genocide was happening again. Historically, United States genocide determinations have been political decisions that are often <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/the-g-word-paradox-genocide-islamic-state-john-kerry/#:%7E:text=When%20used%20correctly%2C%20the%20word,or%20%E2%80%9Ccrimes%E2%80%9D%20ever%20can.">delayed by State Department lawyers</a>. </p>
<p>The question of the viability of the “responsibility to protect” principle goes beyond the crisis in Darfur. Over the past two decades, the international community has failed to protect civilians in <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/1370/2015/en/">Syria</a>, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-sudans-civil-war-spirals-genocide-leaving-ghost-towns-wake">South Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/">the Democratic Republic of Congo</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/saudi-war-crimes-yemen/">Yemen</a>, <a href="https://www.state.gov/burma-genocide/">Myanmar</a> and <a href="https://www.state.gov/war-crimes-crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-in-ethiopia/">Ethiopia</a>. The responsibility to protect does not have a great track record. </p>
<p>It would appear that even the secretary-general of the United Nations has lost faith in the doctrine. In António Guterres’ recently released policy paper, <a href="https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/our-common-agenda-policy-brief-new-agenda-for-peace-en.pdf">New Agenda for Peace</a>, which outlines his vision for creating a more peaceful world, the term “responsibility to protect” does not appear once in the 40-page document.</p>
<p>Perhaps after two decades of limited success, flagrant violations and overall apathy, it is time to retire the responsibility to protect and find a new way to answer Annan’s question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Brand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The international community has also failed to protect civilians in Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Myanmar and Ethiopia, a genocide expert writes.Mike Brand, Adjunct Professor of Genocide Studies and Human Rights, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1710682021-11-04T16:02:26Z2021-11-04T16:02:26ZBosnia and Herzegovina: world leaders risk renewed violence if the country breaks apart<p>A quarter of a century since the end of the Bosnian war, Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/threats-to-re-establish-republika-srpska-army-risk-undoing-dayton-agreement">perilous position</a>. People who live there are worried. After all, in the conflict that engulfed the country between 1992 and 1995, more than 100,000 people were killed or went missing. Among them were around 8,000 men and boys murdered in the genocide after <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol12/iss2/5/">the fall of Srebrenica</a> in July 1995.</p>
<p>Since the signing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-war-in-iraq-unintentionally-helped-stabilise-bosnia-91856">Dayton Peace Agreement</a> and the end of the war, much has been done to resolve the legacy of widespread violence. Many of the missing have been found. Some of those responsible for killing, raping and beating thousands of people have been prosecuted and jailed. </p>
<p>It seems, however, that what has been achieved is not enough. Fears are now mounting that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/02/bosnia-is-in-danger-of-breaking-up-warns-eus-top-official-in-the-state">violence could break out again</a>. </p>
<h2>A state of dysfunction</h2>
<p>Since the end of 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been stuck in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/radicalisation-in-bosnia-old-wounds-reopened-by-an-emerging-problem-63534">dysfunctional constitutional setup</a>. The peace agreement created two entities: Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Together with the small but strategically located Brčko district, these constitute the nation state. </p>
<p>The Federation is run jointly by representatives of the Bosniaks (formerly referred to as Bosnian Muslims) and the Bosnian Croats. Establishing an independent Republika Srpska, meanwhile, was the political project envisioned and championed by former leaders <a href="https://theconversation.com/radovan-karadzic-sentenced-to-40-years-but-peace-is-still-a-work-in-progress-56778">Radovan Karadžić</a> and General <a href="https://theconversation.com/ratko-mladic-convicted-but-justice-hasnt-entirely-been-served-in-the-hague-88094">Ratko Mladić</a> along with their sponsors in Serbia. The latter include Slobodan Milošević, who provided the funding and arms necessary to wage war.</p>
<p>Karadžić and Mladić were convicted in The Hague to lifelong prison sentences for crimes committed in the pursuit of their territorial and demographic ambitions. It was during the armed campaign to create this independent Republika Srpska, which would be free of non-Serbs, that many of the horrific crimes were perpetrated.</p>
<p>The system established under the Dayton Agreement brought the war to an end but divided the country. It created incentives for politicians to stoke the flames of ethnic tensions and made it possible for them to indulge in widespread corruption without losing office.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the international community – mainly the US and the European Union – has gradually lost interest in funding state-building efforts in the region. Many commitments were made in the immediate aftermath of the conflict but since that time, crises in Syria, Ukraine and, most recently, Afghanistan have required both responsiveness and resources.</p>
<p>This has seen promises to integrate Bosnia and Herzegovina into the EU lose momentum. For the past 15 years, there has been no vision, no enthusiasm and little hope for a better future. Most recently, the country’s COVID-19 response made painfully apparent that the state has become dysfunctional, with deadly consequences. </p>
<h2>The threat of a new army</h2>
<p>In this complicated context, Bosnian Serb leaders, primarily the long-dominant politician Milorad Dodik, have raised tensions by threatening to establish a Bosnian Serb Army, pull out of joint state institutions – effectively dismantling the state – and declare independence. Dodik’s plans threaten to destroy the very system that keeps Bosnia together and at peace. </p>
<p>The last time nationalists tried to have an independent Republika Srpska, there was bloodshed and the widespread, systematic persecution of non-Serb communities. The Bosnian Serb Army was the force that shelled and sniped the civilians of Sarajevo for four years. Its security and intelligence officers were largely behind the <a href="https://theconversation.com/srebrenica-25-years-later-lessons-from-the-massacre-that-ended-the-bosnian-conflict-and-unmasked-a-genocide-141177">Srebrenica genocide</a>. </p>
<p>Criminal accountability at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in the Hague, as well as in the courtrooms around the country, was supposed to provide justice and deterrence. Bosnians facing this current crisis are not feeling confident. The pace of trials to convict war criminals has slowed in recent years, leaving killers and rapists at large. </p>
<p>In early 2022, it will have been 30 years since the original version of the Republika Srpska emerged as a consequence of a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The approach of that anniversary, alongside the wider geopolitical context – with the US, the UK and the EU distracted and an emboldened Russia – makes for an anxious winter. Russia comes encouraged with experiences from <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-and-russia-why-troop-build-up-unlikely-to-lead-to-all-out-war-157634">eastern Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/crimea-is-lost-now-ukraines-future-depends-on-a-delicate-power-game-in-the-east-24556">Crimea</a>, where it has expanded influence and control through cooperation with local actors. It could, analysts agree, do the same by <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/06/russia-s-game-in-balkans-pub-78235">supporting Bosnian Serb plans</a>. </p>
<p>This context is compounded by recent tensions in the region in the border areas with Kosovo. And in Montenegro, there are concerns about a radicalised community wishing closer ties with <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/montenegro-violent-clashes-church-independence/">Serbia</a>.</p>
<p>People in Bosnia and Herzegovina remember the early 1990s. Many of them felt abandoned, not without reason, by the international community, who watched on the evening news as Bosnians were rounded up, put in camps with their property looted or burned, and shot at by snipers from the hills around Sarajevo.</p>
<p>This crisis, as a culmination of years of decay, is a call to action to ensure a reasonable way forward, without violence and with safety and prosperity for all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of background. For that, local political will and commitment are crucial. But even before that, what Bosnia and Herzegovina now desperately needs is attention from politicians abroad and a sense that someone – anyone – in a position to help cares.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iva Vukušić has previously received funding from The Dutch Research Council (NWO). </span></em></p>Recent threats by the Bosnian Serb leadership of dismantling the shared state institutions endanger the stability and security of Bosnia and Herzegovina.Iva Vukušić, Lecturer, Department of History and Art History, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1411772020-07-08T12:17:05Z2020-07-08T12:17:05ZSrebrenica, 25 years later: Lessons from the massacre that ended the Bosnian conflict and unmasked a genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345841/original/file-20200706-3992-1dz43r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3598%2C1726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bosnia's memorial cemetery of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which is still receiving new remains as more genocide victims are identified. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bosnian-muslim-woman-prays-near-graves-of-her-relatives-at-news-photo/1155046846?adppopup=true">Elvis Barukcic/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe’s worst massacre since World War II occurred 25 years ago this July. From July 11 to 19, in 1995, <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/file/Outreach/view_from_hague/jit_srebrenica_en.pdf">Bosnian Serb forces murdered 7,000 to 8,000 Muslim men and boys</a> in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica. </p>
<p>The Srebrenica massacre occurred two years after the United Nations had designated the city to be a “safe area” for civilians fleeing fighting between Bosnian government and separatist Serb forces, during the breakup of Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/1995/10/15/fall-srebrenica-and-failure-un-peacekeeping/bosnia-and-herzegovina">20,000 refugees and 37,000 residents</a> sheltered in the city, protected by fewer than 500 lightly armed international peacekeepers. <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/08/it-was-hell-dutch-troops-recall-failure-to-stop-srebrenica-deaths/">After overwhelming the UN troops</a>, Serb forces carried out what was later documented to be a carefully planned act of genocide. </p>
<p>Bosnian-Serb soldiers and police <a href="https://undocs.org/A/54/549">rounded up men and boys ages 16 to 60</a> – nearly all of them <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/file/Outreach/view_from_hague/jit_srebrenica_en.pdf">innocent civilians</a> – trucked them to killing sites to be shot and buried them in mass graves. Serbian forces bused about <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/bosnia-herzegovina/srebrenica/violence/systematic-executions">20,000 women and children</a> to the safety of Muslim-held areas – but only after raping <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2010/07/08/silence-and-shame-shield-srebrenica-rapists-from-justice/">many of the women</a>. The atrocity was so heinous, that even the reluctant United States felt compelled to intervene directly in – and finally end – Bosnia’s conflict. </p>
<p>Srebrenica is a cautionary tale about what <a href="https://depaul.digication.com/tom_mockaitis1/Publications">extremist nationalism can lead to</a>. With xenophobia, nationalist parties and ethnic conflict resurgent worldwide, the lessons from Bosnia could not be timelier. </p>
<h2>Perpetrators must be held accountable</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314449/the-bosnia-list-by-kenan-trebincevic-and-susan-shapiro/">Bosnia’s civil war</a> was a complex religious and ethnic conflict. On one side were Bosnian Muslims and Roman Catholic Bosnian Croats, who had both voted for independence from Yugoslavia. They were fighting the Bosnian Serbs, who had seceded to form their own republic and sought to expel everyone else from their new territory.</p>
<p>The carnage that ensued is epitomized by one street in one town I visited in 1996, as part of <a href="https://depaul.digication.com/tom_mockaitis1/Publications">my study of the Bosnian conflict</a>. In Bosanska Krupa, I saw a Catholic church, a mosque and an Orthodox church on a narrow stretch of road, all left in ruins by the war. Fighters had targeted not only ethnic groups but also the symbols of their identities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345846/original/file-20200706-4008-19g7jf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bosnia’s conflict was part of the Yugoslavian Civil War, which destroyed a nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-war-in-yugoslavia-news-photo/539998516?adppopup=true">David Brauchli/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>It took more than two decades to bring those responsible for the atrocities of the Bosnian civil war to justice. Ultimately, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, a <a href="https://www.icty.org">UN court that ran from 1993 to 2017</a>, <a href="https://www.icty.org/sid/24">convicted 62 Bosnian Serbs of war crimes</a>, including several high ranking officers. </p>
<p>It found Bosnian Serb Army Commander General Ratko Mladić guilty of “<a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/cis/en/cis_mladic_en.pdf">genocide and persecution, extermination, murder, and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica</a>” and convicted Bosnian Serb <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/acjug/en/130711_judgement_summary_rule98bis.pdf">leader Radovan Karadžić of genocide</a>. The tribunal also indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloŝević on charges of <a href="https://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/ind/en/mil-ii011122e.htm">“genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, and violations of the laws or customs of war</a>” for his role in supporting ethnic cleansing, but he died during his trial. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Though many other people have never been tried, the criminal indictments that followed Srebrenica show why the perpetrators of wartime atrocities must be held accountable, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/17/former-auschwitz-guard-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison/">no matter how long it takes</a>. Criminal convictions provide some closure for victims’ families and remind the guilty they can never be certain of escaping justice. </p>
<p>It also emphasizes that guilty individuals must be held accountable after war – not entire populations. “The Serbs” didn’t commit genocide. Members of the Bosnian Serb Army and Serbian paramilitaries, led by men like Mladić, did the killing.</p>
<h2>Denialism is dangerous</h2>
<p>Despite the landmark international convictions and painstaking documentation of the crimes against humanity that occurred in Bosnia, some in Serbia <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/srebrenica-massacre-bosnia-anniversary-denial/398846/">still claim</a> the genocide never happened. </p>
<p>Using arguments similar to those made by deniers of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/europe/turkeys-century-of-denial-about-an-armenian-genocide.html">Armenian genocide</a> and <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-holocaust-denial">the Holocaust</a>, Serbian nationalists insist the number of dead is exaggerated, the victims were combatants, or that Srebrenica is but one of many atrocities committed by all parties to the conflict. </p>
<p>During wartime, it is true, belligerents on both sides will do terrible things. But evidence from Bosnia clearly demonstrates that Serb forces killed more civilians than combatants from other groups. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20164302?seq=1">At least 26,582 civilians died</a> during the war: 22,225 Muslims, 986 Croats and 2,130 Serbs. Muslims made up <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/bosnia-herzegovina/case-study/background/1992-1995">only about 44% of Bosnia’s population</a> but 80% of the dead. <a href="https://www.icty.org/sid/24">The Hague tribunal convicted only five Bosnian Muslims of war crimes</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, the president of Serbia apologized for the “crime” of Srebrenica, but <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22297089#:%7E:text=Serbia's%20President%2C%20Tomislav%20Nikolic%2C%20has,up%20of%20Yugoslavia%2C%20including%20Srebrenica.&text=He%20was%20criticised%20after%20his,was%20no%20genocide%20in%20Srebrenica.%22">refused to acknowledge that it was part of a genocidal campaign</a> against Bosnian Muslims.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345843/original/file-20200706-4008-18ruwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A funeral for 175 newly identified victims of the Srebrenica massacre, July 11, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anniversary-of-the-slaughter-of-srebrenica-bosnia-where-news-photo/524306738?adppopup=true">NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Indifference is complicity</h2>
<p>Srebrenica is a stark warning that any effort to divide people into “them” and “us” is cause for grave concern – and, potentially, for international action. Research shows that genocide starts with <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-of-genocide">stigmatization of others and, if unchecked, can proceed through dehumanization to extermination</a>.</p>
<p>Srebrenica was the culminating event in a yearslong campaign of genocide against Bosnian Muslims. In 1994, over a year before the massacre, <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aa2138.html">the U.S. Department of State</a> reported that Serb forces were “ethnically cleansing” areas, using murder and rape as tools of war and razing villages. </p>
<p>But the Clinton administration, fresh from a humiliating failure to stop a civil war in Somalia, wanted to avoid involvement. And the United Nations refused to authorize more robust action to halt Serb aggression, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/16/world/un-details-its-failure-to-stop-95-bosnia-massacre.html">believing it needed to remain neutral for political reasons</a>. It took the slaughter in Srebrenica to persuade these international powers to intervene. </p>
<p>Acting sooner could have saved lives. In my 1999 book, “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/911e/99accb514df2bd51103281d0c83af4c6b6aa.pdf">Peacekeeping and Intrastate Conflict</a>,” I argued that only a heavily armed force with a clear mandate to halt aggression can end a civil war. </p>
<p>The U.S. and UN could have supplied that force, but they dithered. </p>
<h2>Massacres continue</h2>
<p>Remembering past genocides like Srebenica will not prevent future ones. Marginalized groups have been brutally persecuted in the years since 1995, including in <a href="https://www.jww.org/conflict-areas/sudan/darfur/">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/11/whats-happening-syria-is-genocide/">Syria</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/14/6700-rohingya-muslims-killed-in-attacks-in-myanmar-says-medecins-sans-frontieres">Myanmar</a>. Today, the Uighurs – a Muslim minority in China – are being rounded up, thrown into Chinese concentration camps <a href="https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c">and forcibly sterilized</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, remembrance of past atrocities is critically important. It allows people to pause and reflect, to honor the dead, to celebrate what unites humanity, and to work together to overcome their differences. Remembering also preserves the integrity of the past against those who would revise history for their own ends. </p>
<p>In that sense, commemorating Srebrenica 25 years later may, in some small measure, make us more willing to resist the evil of mass murder going forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Mockaitis received a USIP grant in 1995 to fund research on the book "Peacekeeping and Intrastate Conflict: The Sword or the Olive Branch?" (Praeger, 1999), which has a chapter on the Bosnian Conflict. Some small DePaul grants and paid leave also supported his book project.</span></em></p>In July 1995, Serb forces murdered at least 7,000 Bosnian Muslims – an act so heinous it forced the US and UN to intervene in Bosnia’s war. What has the world learned since then about ethnic violence?Tom Mockaitis, Professor of History, DePaul UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017792018-08-19T17:00:44Z2018-08-19T17:00:44ZKofi Annan: his legacy is not perfect, but he helped improve millions of lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232572/original/file-20180819-165940-b5iavn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kofi Annan in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Kofi_Annan%2C_World_Economic_Forum_2009_Annual_Meeting.jpg">World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The passing of Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been met with tributes from all around the world. His home country, Ghana, declared a week of national mourning.</p>
<p>Annan rose through the ranks of the UN to become the first black African to head the organisation, and his many achievements are rightly being celebrated. Under his tenure, human rights and development were put at the forefront of all UN work, ensuring that the organisation focused on all people in all parts of our global society. Courageously, he was also the first UN Secretary-General to recognise and condemn the UN’s disproportionate focus on <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/9702/annan-made-the-nations-a-little-less-united-agains/">Israel</a> as a human rights violator compared to many other similar or worse offenders.</p>
<p>It is also right to remember that on his watch, the UN’s reputation was tarnished by two of its worst stains. He was head of UN peacekeeping at the time when genocides were perpetrated in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/kofi-annan-rwanda/567865/">Rwanda</a> and the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/09/the-shame-of-srebrenica-bosnia-iraq-war-libya-syria/">Former Republic of Yugoslavia</a> while UN peacekeepers stood by and did nothing, and he was in charge of the UN during the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq.</p>
<p>But as a whole, Annan’s life and work will nonetheless be celebrated for a long time to come.</p>
<h2>A life well lived</h2>
<p>Kofi Annan was born on April 8 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana, which was, at the time, part of the British Empire and known as the Gold Coast. His family were traditional rulers and his father a provincial governor. Ghana’s independence was secured when Annan was in his final year of secondary school. He attended a national university, followed by studying in the United States on a Ford Foundation scholarship. After his studies, Annan took a job at the World Heath Organization and began his lifelong career at the UN. </p>
<p>There are many ways in which he changed and improved the world through his work at the UN, and indeed in the positions he took after his retirement. During his tenure as Secretary-General he reformed <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2005/04/134122-without-reform-human-rights-body-un-credibility-stake-annan-says">the UN’s human rights system</a>, in particular by establishing the modern <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-left-the-un-human-rights-council-and-why-it-matters-98644">Human Rights Council</a>. His commitment to ensuring development around the world and to establish the principle that no-one be left behind culminated in the <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/">Millennium Development Goals</a>, the forerunner of today’s <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300">Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p>
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<p>Annan focused intensely on peace and security, ensuring that UN member states accepted the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.html">Responsibility to Protect</a> doctrine. This political mandate emphasises that the UN, and particularly its peacekeeping personnel, must prioritise protecting civilians in conflict and crisis zones. Its creation was a direct response to the UN’s failure to protect civilians in Rwanda and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, where genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity were perpetrated while peacekeepers stood and watched. At that time, Annan was Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping, and it raised eyebrows when he was appointed Secretary-General immediately afterwards. He replaced <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35590039">Boutros Boutros-Ghali</a>, who was not reappointed for a second term – in no small part because of the terrible failures under his leadership.</p>
<p>Annan further strengthened the role of the UN Secretary-General’s role in <a href="https://peaceoperationsreview.org/interviews/good-offices-means-taking-risks/">peacefully settling disputes</a> and came close to securing a settlement in Cyprus. He spoke out against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But as Secretary-General, he also oversaw the staff members at the heart of the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, a scheme intended to get food and vital supplies to Iraqi citizens but which also fell prey to corruption on a grand scale. While he was cleared of direct involvement, questions continue to be asked as to what he knew and when, and whether he could and should have done more. </p>
<h2>The good and the bad</h2>
<p>All in all, this makes for a complicated biography. While his appointment as the first black African Secretary-General was undeniably a breakthrough moment for representation at the UN’s top echelons, he failed just as his predecessors did to bring about the long-promised parity of gender, ethnicity and class that the UN structure badly needs. And those failures – particularly to appoint more than a few women to senior roles – undermine the UN’s claim to uphold the obligation under its own Charter to represent “we the peoples”. Still, he did more than his predecessors or immediate successor, for example appointing Mary Robinson as High Commissioner for Human Rights and Edward Mortimer to assist with his UN reform agenda – an agenda far more wide-reaching than any before or since.</p>
<p>After retirement, Annan continued his work for the UN, including as Special Envoy on the Syrian crisis and Chair of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, Myanmar. This body played a major part in keeping the peace there in ways that seem tragically elusive today. He was also a member of the <a href="https://theelders.org/kofi-annan">Elders</a>, a group of senior people from around the world that has included Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela, Ela Bhatt and Jimmy Carter, all of whom use their reputations to attempt to bring peace to troubled parts of the world.</p>
<p>Tributes are being paid to Annan from within the UN and from leaders and peoples around the world. As Secretary-General he used his platform to effect meaningful change for billions of people across the world. His was a life well lived, and his legacy will live on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosa Freedman has received funding from the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aoife O'Donoghue receives funding from the AHRC.</span></em></p>While his appointment as UN Secretary-General was a huge breakthrough, Kofi Annan also led the organisation through some of its ugliest moments.Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of ReadingAoife O'Donoghue, Professor, Durham Law School, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017912018-08-19T14:18:16Z2018-08-19T14:18:16ZKofi Annan: a complicated legacy of impressive achievements, and some profound failures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232565/original/file-20180819-165952-y9y6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan left a mixed legacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Martial Trezzini</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45232892">Kofi Annan (80)</a> was an important historical figure who played a critical role in many key events of the 1990s and 2000s. His death is therefore an opportunity to both celebrate his life and to begin honestly assessing his contributions to the world.</p>
<p>The Ghanaian diplomat’s legacy is complicated. He served as both head of the United Nations peacekeeping and as Secretary General of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/index.html">UN</a>. His tenure in these high offices – from 1992 to 2006 – were marked by great human tragedies as well as episodes of progress. His role in these events raises difficult questions about individual responsibility and the role of international organisations and their leaders in creating a more peaceful and just world.</p>
<p>On the plus side, his contributions were impressive. He was an effective diplomat, a shrewd negotiator and an intelligent strategist. He was such a successful bureaucratic operator that he was the first UN employee to rise to the position of Secretary General. </p>
<p>When he took over the organisation it was facing numerous challenges. They included a tense and often hostile relationship with its most powerful member state, the US, a difficult budgetary situation and what appeared to be an inability to fulfil its core peacekeeping, <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf">human rights and development functions</a>. </p>
<p>By the end of his term, things looked very different. Relations with key member countries had been restored, the UN had a sound fiscal position and both he and the organisation had <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/kofi-annan-dead-former-un-secretary-general-nobel-peace-prize-laureate-a8497171.html">won the Nobel Peace Prize</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the organisation had launched some important new initiatives. It had adopted the <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/">Millenium Development Goals</a>, which contributed to significant gains in health, education and human welfare in many countries around the world. The initiative was so successful that it was succeeded by the even more ambitious <a href="https://una-gp.org/the-sustainable-development-goals-2015-2030/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, the international community had established the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/pids/publications/uicceng.pdf">International Criminal Court</a> and had begun prosecuting war criminals for their deeds in the wars in the former <a href="https://www.law.kuleuven.be/iir/nl/activiteiten/documentatie/OldActivities/Francqui2003/David6.pdf">Yugoslavia and Rwanda</a>.</p>
<p>He had also initiated the process of getting corporations to recognise and accept their responsibility for the environmental, social and human rights consequences of their activities. This process moved slowly. But his efforts ultimately led to the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsing the <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/library/2">Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011</a>. These have now been incorporated into the human rights policies of many companies and have led to a number of countries adopting national action plans on the human rights responsibilities of business.</p>
<p>After he left the UN, <a href="https://theelders.org/kofi-annan">Annan</a> continued to do good work with both the <a href="https://theelders.org/about">Elders</a>, a group of global leaders working for peace and human rights, and his own <a href="http://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/">foundation</a>. In these capacities he had some notable achievements. He helped resolve the post-election violence in Kenya, helped ensure peaceful elections in Nigeria and a number of other countries, and helped promote more productive and sustainable agriculture and good governance across Africa. He also tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to end the civil war in Syria and the campaign against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.</p>
<p>But there’s also a darker side to Annan’s record. </p>
<h2>The tragedies</h2>
<p>Annan was the head of UN Peacekeeping operations in the 1990s when two of the biggest failures in UN history happened. Under his watch both the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13431486">Rwandan genocide</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Srebrenica-massacre">massacres in Srebrenica</a> took place. </p>
<p>In both cases his commanders on the ground requested authority to take stronger action to limit the risk of tragedy to those under their protection. In both cases he declined their request –with tragic results. </p>
<p>In addition, under his leadership UN peacekeepers in a range of countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, were found to be sexually exploiting those they were charged to protect. The UN failed to respond promptly to these actions and they continued into the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/16/u-n-fails-stem-rapes-peacekeepers-africa-victims-cry/1016223001/">2000s</a>. </p>
<p>In most organisations, a leader who is responsible for such profound failures would be held accountable. If not fired, or forced to resign, they would at the very least be moved to a position of lesser authority. But this didn’t happen because the UN has poor mechanisms and a weak culture of accountability. In fact, the UN and its member states, decided to promote Annan, selecting him to replace the first African Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, who was deemed to be too <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/boutros-boutros-ghali-un-secretary-general-who-clashed-with-us-dies-at-93/2016/02/16/8b727bb8-d4c1-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html?utm_term=.afb97dbcaab1">independent minded by the US</a>.</p>
<p>Annan continued relying on the UN’s lack of accountability once he was in office. His son was implicated in the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/impact-un-oil-food-scandal">infamously corrupt food-for-oil programme</a> that was initiated to help the Iraqi population during the period of sanctions against Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>Eventually, under pressure, he appointed the independent Volcker Commission to investigate the programme. It concluded that, although Annan himself was not guilty of any wrong doing, <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/sc8492.doc.htm">his actions in response to the abuses were inadequate</a>, including that he had failed to refer the matter to the UN’s independent watchdog agency. </p>
<p>He also tolerated sexual harassment within the UN Secretariat, protecting the former head of the UN refugee agency when he was accused of sexual harassment, penalising his accuser and then relying on the UN’s legal immunity to avoid having to respond to her efforts to <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/54/brzak-v-united-nations/">seek justice</a>. The adverse publicity eventually forced the guilty official to resign.</p>
<h2>Lessons to be drawn</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that running a complex international institution like the UN is difficult and requires leaders who are willing to compromise. Given the Secretary General’s weak position, it may also be inevitable that its leaders will have to turn a blind eye to some acts and omissions that have tragic and possibly evil consequences in order to advance higher priorities. </p>
<p>Annan showed throughout his career that he was a master at playing this game. As a result, his record includes both some impressive achievements and some profound failures. It will be up to history to decide if he made the right choices and struck the correct balance between doing good and tolerating evil.</p>
<p>In the meanwhile, we should all draw lessons from the life of this important historical figure about the importance of holding leaders and the institutions that govern our world accountable for their actions and decisions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Bradlow's SARCHI chair is funded by the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Kofi Annan was the first UN employee to rise to the position of Secretary General but his tenure also had a darker side.Danny Bradlow, SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/991222018-07-11T12:31:34Z2018-07-11T12:31:34ZRemembering Srebrenica, more than 20 years on<p>One of the darkest hours in recent human history, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has plenty of unpleasant parallels in today’s world, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrias-latest-chemical-massacre-demands-a-global-response-94668">Syria</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rohingya-crisis-this-is-what-genocide-looks-like-83924">Myanmar</a>. 23 years after the massacre in and around the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, remembrance of what has been <a href="http://www.icty.org/en/press/radovan-karadzic-and-ratko-mladic-accused-genocide-following-take-over-srebrenica">described</a> as “scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history” is as important as ever.</p>
<p>The events in and around Srebrenica between July 10-19 1995 are well known. In those few days, an estimated 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces. Efforts to find, recover, identify and repatriate the victims’ remains are ongoing – and the task is a hugely complex one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/11/srebrenica-massacre-commemorated-with-burial-of-recently-identified-bodies">Every year</a> at the <a href="https://www.srebrenica.org.uk/lessons-from-srebrenica/srebrenica-potocari-memorial/">Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre and Cemetery</a>, more victims are laid to rest. This year, <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/sarajevo-honours-convoy-carrying-srebrenica-dead-07-09-2018">35 people</a> have been identified and will be buried. Of the 430 Srebrenica-related sites where human remains have been recovered, 94 are graves and 336 are surface sites with human remains scattered on the ground. Pathologists and anthropologists examined more than 17,000 sets of human remains related to Srebrenica, resulting in around 7,000 identifications, most of them via DNA. To gather enough DNA to make those identifications, more than 20,000 DNA samples had to be collected. </p>
<h2>Slow justice</h2>
<p>It was only in autumn 2017 that Ratko Mladić, a former general of the Bosnian Serb forces, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">convicted</a> of the crimes that took place in Srebrenica – genocide and persecution, extermination, murder, and the inhumane act of forcible transfer. Mladić is one of relatively few defendants to have appeared before the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) charged with genocide. </p>
<p>This is because for a conviction on the grounds of genocide, the prosecution has to prove a catalogue of things. To be convicted of the crime of genocide, the accused must have <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/file/Legal%20Library/Statute/statute_sept09_en.pdf">deliberately intended</a> “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such”. Punishable under Article 4(3) of the ICTY Statute are also conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide, attempts to commit genocide and complicity in genocide. Two things have to be proven: the <em>actus reus</em> (the actual killings, serious bodily or mental harm and deliberate infliction of conditions designed to bring about the destruction of the group) and the <em>mens rea</em> (the specific intent to destroy the group).</p>
<p>Mladić’s 2017 conviction did not bring an end to all aspects of his case. In March 2018, both the defence and prosecution <a href="http://jrad.unmict.org/webdrawer/webdrawer.dll/webdrawer/search/rec&sm_recnbr&sm_ncontents=mict-13-56&sm_created&sm_fulltext&sort1=rs_datecreated&count&rows=100">filed their notices of appeal</a>. Though not in relation to Srebrenica, the prosecution submits that the trial chamber erred in two of its findings: first, that Bosnian Muslims in the areas of Foča, Kotor Varoš, Prijedor, Sanski Most and Vlasenica did not constitute a substantial part of the Bosnian Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and second, that Mladić (and others) did not intend to destroy those Bosnian Muslims. As a result, the <a href="http://www.unmict.org/en/cases/mict-13-56">proceedings</a> are ongoing.</p>
<p>During the 530 days of Mladić’s original trial, 377 witnesses appeared in court, some of them victims of war crimes. Victims often have <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24977/">many needs</a>: to tell their stories, to contribute to public knowledge and accountability, to publicly denounce the wrongs that were committed against them and others, to bear witness on behalf of those who did not survive, and to receive reparations, public acknowledgement or apologies. They may wish to confront the accused, to find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones, to contribute to peace goals or to help prevent the perpetration of further abuse. Many risk their own personal safety to tell their stories, or those of victims who did not survive.</p>
<p>And yet, a recent <a href="https://www.impunitywatch.org/docs/Keeping_the_Promise_%5BFINAL%5D.pdf">report by international NGO Impunity Watch</a> paints a bleak picture stating that “Western Balkan states have done very poorly when it comes to victim participation in [transitional justice] processes. Victims’ voices are marginalised and their rightful claims have been politicised by the different sides.”</p>
<h2>Remembrance and responsibility</h2>
<p>Impunity Watch describes a continuing “battleground of conflicting narratives, in which each side claims victimhood and blames the other for past abuses”. This does not bode well for the future.</p>
<p>The divisions in Bosnia are hard to ignore; Srebrenica’s Serb mayor, Mladen Grujičić, <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/srebrenica-s-serb-mayor-repeats-denial-of-genocide-04-13-2017">denies that the genocide occurred</a>, as does <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/thousands-mourn-at-srebrenica-anniversary-commemoration-07-11-2016">Milorad Dodik</a> the leader of Bosnia’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpska. Many Serbian nationalists regard Mladić as a war hero. To many people, his conviction would therefore be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/bosnians-divided-over-ratko-mladic-guilty-verdict-for-war-crimes">effectively meaningless</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, plenty of civil society activities, interventions and educational programmes have been devised. In Bosnia, <a href="https://balkandiskurs.com/en/2018/02/11/youth-united-in-peace-25-years-of-seaside-peacebuilding/">Youth United in Peace</a> and <a href="http://www.yihr.org/">Youth Initiative for Human Rights</a>, to name but two, offer young people the chance to hear different perspectives about the past through workshops and visits to commemorative places of all sides. Such projects try to counter ethnic <a href="https://www.osce.org/mission-to-bosnia-and-herzegovina/education">segregation</a> to offer shared space for dialogue.</p>
<p>In a speech to the United Nations in 1958, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/universal-declaration-human-rights-UDHR">Eleanor Roosevelt</a> famously said:</p>
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<p>Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works.</p>
<p>Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.</p>
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<p>All too often this is forgotten. But with stark societal divisions palpable in many parts of the world, we have to keep reminding ourselves that all others are above all else human beings. Only if we do that will the idea of human rights be meaningful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The massacre of 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks in a few days in 1995 must never be forgotten.Melanie Klinkner, Principal Academic in International Law, Bournemouth UniversityGiulia Levi, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/879272017-11-23T00:40:44Z2017-11-23T00:40:44ZRatko Mladic, the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’, to spend life in prison for genocide and war crimes<p>The former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladić, has been found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and sentenced to life in prison. </p>
<p>Mladić was convicted by the <a href="http://www.icty.org">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</a> of crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/tjug/en/171122-summary-en.pdf">The tribunal declared</a> that the crimes he committed were “among the most heinous known to humankind”.</p>
<p>Trials of former high-ranking war criminals are often peppered with drama, and this week’s verdict announcement was no exception. Disruption of trials is a way for previously powerful people – usually men – to reclaim some of their lost power. </p>
<p>Halfway through the verdict summary announcement, Mladić requested a break. After a lengthy break, the court was informed that Mladić had high blood pressure, but on medical advice, deemed it appropriate to continue. At this point, Mladić refused to sit and began shouting at the judges: “this is a lie” and “shame on you”. </p>
<p>He was thrown out of court, and watched the rest of the proceedings from another room. This unfortunately meant that victims were unable to see his reaction to the long-awaited verdict and sentencing.</p>
<h2>Long road to justice</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.icty.org/en/node/10764">First indicted</a> by the tribunal in 1995, Mladić stayed in military resorts, protected even though a fugitive. He later went into hiding until his arrest in Serbia in 2011. Mladić’s trial began in 2012, concluded in 2016, with the verdict delivered on November 22.</p>
<p>Mladić, who came to be known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, rose through the ranks to become the commander of the Bosnian Serb army in 1992, participating in atrocities committed under Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević’s regime. Milošević was also tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but died before he could be convicted.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/bosnias-25-year-struggle-with-transitional-justice-75517">Bosnia's 25-year struggle with transitional justice</a>
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<p>Mladić played a leadership role in these atrocities, commanding the army as it committed crimes across the regime. He has been convicted of “Joint Criminal Enterprise” – the international equivalent of conspiracy – alongside other leaders such as Milošević and Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić. The tribunal found that Mladić was instrumental in the crimes and they would not have taken place without his involvement.</p>
<p>The atrocities included the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted for 44 months from 1992-95. Some 10,000 people died during the siege, including many children. Some of Mladić’s other crimes were committed at internment camps such as Omarska and Foča, where thousands were tortured and raped. He has also been held responsible for the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in order to leverage NATO to stop air strikes.</p>
<p>Convicting the high-ranking Mladić is symbolic and momentous, as he was the commander of the soldiers who carried out these actions.</p>
<p>Perhaps most significant is the conviction for genocide over mass killings at Srebrenica in July 1995. Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed and buried in mass graves.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0iT4mSK0I">Identification of remains</a> is ongoing, with thousands of bones and personal belongings still being analysed in hope of a match for families that continue to seek the whereabouts of loved ones. Identification is hampered by the fact that two months after the killings, bodies were moved to alternative mass grave locations.</p>
<h2>A welcome day for survivors</h2>
<p>The many survivors have waited a long time justice, both for themselves and for their lost loved ones. Some victims <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2017/11/20/families-of-bosnia-victims-head-to-the-hague-for-mladic-verdict">travelled to The Hague</a> to hear the verdict first hand.</p>
<p>It is particularly poignant, given that some of the war criminals convicted by the tribunal have already served their sentences and returned to Serbia and Bosnia, now living in communities with their victims. A life sentence for Mladić is a source of satisfaction to the victims; a minimum justice for their suffering and loss.</p>
<p>Legal consequences of this ruling are also substantial. Proving genocide in court is challenging for prosecutors, with the requirement of a “special intent” to eliminate part or whole of a specific population. </p>
<p>Convictions for genocide are rare; only a handful of convicted perpetrators at the ICTY were found guilty of genocide, including Karadžić and Radislav Krstić, a deputy commander in the Bosnian Serb army. </p>
<p>The confirmation that the Srebrenica massacre was indeed a genocide is important, because many Bosnian Serbs continue to deny the fact. Victims hope the ruling will contribute to a broader acknowledgement, which in turn could help the reconciliation process. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/11/bosnia-war-victims-speak-ratko-mladic-verdic-171120142218960.html">others have little hope</a> that the ruling will change things. Srebrenica’s Serb mayor Mladen Grujičić still denies the genocide, and many Serbian nationalists still laud Mladić and his fellow war criminals as heroes.</p>
<p>Mladić was found not guilty of one count of genocide, in reference to a broader spate of killings throughout Bosnia. This is in keeping with previous decisions where Srebrenica has been deemed genocide, but the overall objective of the leadership for the whole of the Yugoslav territory has not.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ratko-mladics-conviction-and-why-the-evidence-of-mass-graves-still-matters-87976">Ratko Mladić's conviction and why the evidence of mass graves still matters</a>
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<p>This verdict is the final judgement to be delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, slated to close at the end of this year. Since it was established in 1993, the tribunal has indicted 161 individuals and convicted 84 perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.</p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.icty.org/en/content/infographic-icty-facts-figures">4,650 witnesses have appeared</a>, more than 1,000 of whom testified about the Srebrenica genocide. There are only seven proceedings remaining, with the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals finalising cases. The tribunal has undoubtedly contributed to justice and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.</p>
<p>However, success has not been absolute, with criticism that sentences have been too short. There is also inevitable post-atrocity denial of crimes committed by perpetrators and their communities, with continued rejection by Serbian communities and politicians of the validity and decisions of the Tribunal.</p>
<p>These 84 convictions are clearly only a small proportion of the thousands of perpetrators. With the wind-up of the tribunal, remaining perpetrators will continue to be tried at local war crimes courts in Bosnia.</p>
<p>Throughout Europe, 14 countries have housed convicted tribunal war criminals in their prisons. Mladić will serve his sentence in a country yet to be determined. </p>
<p>While it may not bring their loved ones back, survivors can have some comfort in knowing the man who ordered and oversaw the atrocities will spend the rest of his life in prison.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87927/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie O'Brien is a member of the Australian Red Cross Queensland International Humanitarian Law Committee, and the Second Vice-President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. </span></em></p>Former commander of the Bosnian Serb army Ratko Mladic has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Survivors of the atrocities have today welcomed the long-awaited news.Melanie O'Brien, Research Fellow, TC Beirne Law School, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/879692017-11-22T21:41:10Z2017-11-22T21:41:10ZRatko Mladić: orchestrator of the brutal siege of Sarajevo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195861/original/file-20171122-6031-94dh5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">General Ratko Mladić – convicted of war crimes and genocide.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ssoosay/5763104078/in/photolist-9Mgq4q-oMbmvS-bv3iqL-9MHbyF-GQnVnF-GQnVvB-Dpbets-21rZs4G-QmyYtM-ZqwwKn-GQnV18-21rZtkE-GQnVEp-ZqwwVT-GQnWgz-GQnVdT-GQnVNR-GQnWpF-Dpbex5-ZqNupP-Dpbefm-57FJbJ-7uTBvq-9SqZ6C-9Qf31o">Surian Soosay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ratko Mladić’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">sentencing for genocide</a> in Srebrenica will doubtless be the headline in the plethora of press coverage that has accompanied judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). But Mladić was also sentenced for his role in executing <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/it/book/9781137577177">the siege of Sarajevo</a>, the longest siege in modern European history during which citizens were targeted by mortar, shell and sniper fire and the city’s water and electricity was cut off. It was a brutal campaign to break the city’s resistance, and there was no distinction made between military and civilian targets. </p>
<p>Bosnia and Herzegovina was the most multi-ethnic of former Yugoslavia’s six republics. The population of its capital, Sarajevo, mirrored this ethnic complexity and the city itself. But the first multi-party elections in Bosnia in 1990 had brought a tenuous coalition of nationalist parties to power. This coalition, comprising the (Bosniak) Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) were elected with a Bosniak, Alija Izetbegović, as president. </p>
<p>As the Yugoslav state continued to disintegrate, with Slovenia and Croatia both pursuing independence, Bosnia’s situation became increasingly dangerous. In short, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/radovan-karadzic-26073">Radovan Karadžić</a>’s SDS wished to remain in a Yugoslav state, whatever form that would take, while both the SDA and the HDZ pursued independence. During heated exchanges in October 1991, the SDS walked out of parliament and set up a parallel Bosnian Serb assembly and <em>de facto</em> headquarters in the nearby Holiday Inn hotel. </p>
<h2>Sliding into war</h2>
<p>On February 29 and March 1, a referendum on independence was held. The SDS, arguing that the decision to hold a referendum was unconstitutional because it was not reached by consensus, called on Serbs to boycott the vote. Those who did vote, largely Bosniaks and Croats, opted for independence. The result initiated the “war of the barricades”, during which the SDS (and later the SDA) erected barricades in areas of Sarajevo they claimed as theirs. War was avoided then, but on April 6, 1992 shots were fired from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24730400">the Holiday Inn</a> by snipers into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators who were assembled outside the Bosnian parliament. In the chaos that followed, Karadžić fled. The Bosnian Serb leadership established their wartime base in nearby Pale and heavy weapons were placed on the hills surrounding Sarajevo. Intermittent shelling and sniping began.</p>
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<p>Whether interested in politics or not, the siege imposed itself on ordinary people’s lives in increments. Many continued going to work, despite the sporadic sniper and mortar fire and fierce battles in Ilidža, just west of Sarajevo. They refused to believe it could happen in their city, which was civilised, cultured, part of the European mainstream. But any existing illusions were shattered by the summer of 1992. Mladić assumed command of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) in May 1992, promising to “blow the minds” of the citizens of Sarajevo. Throughout the subsequent months the city was heavily shelled, causing significant civilian casualties and the destruction of many important buildings, such as the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bosnia-cityhall/sarajevo-reopens-landmark-city-hall-and-library-destroyed-in-war-idUSKBN0DP0XO20140509">Vijećnica</a>, which housed thousands of rare books and manuscripts. </p>
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<span class="caption">General Mladić (centre) arrives for UN-mediated talks at Sarajevo airport, June 1993.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratko_Mladi%C4%87#/media/File:Evstafiev-mladic-sarajevo1993w.jpg">I, Evstafiev</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>It was, however, the first winter of the siege that brought real privation to Sarajevo. No running water, no electricity and limited amounts of food (UN aid and anything that could be purchased for inflated prices on the black market) meant the challenges of surviving were manifold. And the extremities of life under siege had a significant impact upon people’s ability to stay sane. Daily shelling and sniping – sometimes in a slow and methodical manner – and constant danger of death placed citizens of Sarajevo in an unimaginable psychological position. Some withdrew into themselves, while others found survival mechanisms and a way of facing the realities of their lives. Otherwise normal activities became vital mechanisms for survival – dressing well, attending theatre performances or going to <em>ad hoc</em> gigs. Humour, albeit of the rather dark variant, was equally important. Preservation of one’s dignity was a serious matter. </p>
<p>The construction of a tunnel (built by the Bosnian Army) underneath Sarajevo airport in 1993 eased the situation somewhat, with arms and food being brought into the city – breaking somewhat the over-inflation of basic goods. But life under siege became a reality with no end in sight. The international community’s efforts to bring the siege to an end had failed, though <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force">NATO airstrikes on VRS</a> positions, following the two mortar attacks (in February 1994 and August 1995) would eventually help to do so. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195934/original/file-20171122-6013-14qe5iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sarajevo Tunnel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/26781577@N07/15840660490/in/photolist-9fD5ai-9fD5cM-9fGevw-8trhr7-q8Mwu3-qqgH75-C8kFuT-HjxHfD-qqgGwh-wDpDRX-oZtdwu-buTb32-buTNtz-buTNNr-buTMbP-buTN26-bsCwiv-9kav2S-9fJnfS">Clay Gilliland</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The war in Bosnia ended with the signing of the <a href="http://www.osce.org/bih/126173">Dayton Peace Agreement</a> in November 1995, though the siege of Sarajevo was not lifted until February 1996. As part of the peace agreement, the vast majority of the city – with the exception of Istočno Sarajevo (eastern Sarajevo) – became part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the country’s two entities (the other being Republika Srpska). This initiated the departure of the majority of the city’s Serb population. </p>
<p>By the lifting of the siege over 11,000 people, 5,000 of whom were civilians (2,000 were children), were killed during the siege of Sarajevo. In the context of the charges relating to Sarajevo, Mladić’s sentencing is no surprise – his colleagues, <a href="http://www.icty.org/case/galic/4">Stanislav Galić</a> and <a href="http://www.icty.org/case/dragomir_milosevic/4">Dragomir Milošević</a> both commanders of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the VRS had previously received lengthy sentences. Mladić’s sentencing for the siege of Sarajevo (not to mention his other crimes) will never compensate for the destruction of a city and the targeting of civilians, but it may go some way to bringing a close to a dark chapter in Bosnia, and Sarajevo’s, history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth Morrison is author of four monographs on the Balkans, including Sarajevo’s Holiday Inn: On the Frontline of Politics and War (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016).</span></em></p>Bosnian Serb general found guilty of genocide.Kenneth Morrison, Professor of Modern South-East European History, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/879762017-11-22T17:21:41Z2017-11-22T17:21:41ZRatko Mladić’s conviction and why the evidence of mass graves still matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195903/original/file-20171122-6061-czl9t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former general Mladić during proceedings in January.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/icty/31737888363/in/photolist-9Mgq4q-oMbmvS-57FJbJ-bv3iqL-GQnVnF-9MHbyF-7uTBvq-9SqZ6C-GQnVvB-QmyYtM-9Qf31o-Dpbets-21rZs4G-ZqwwKn-21rZtkE-GQnV18-Dpbex5-Dpbefm-GQnVEp-GQnWgz-ZqwwVT-GQnVdT-GQnWpF-GQnVNR">UN ICTY</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ratko Mladić <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">has been convicted</a> of genocide and persecution, extermination, murder and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica in 1995. He was also found guilty of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and inhumane act of forcible transfer in municipalities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and of murder, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians in Sarajevo. </p>
<p>In addition, the former Bosnian Serb army general was convicted for the hostage-taking of UN personnel. But he was acquitted of the charge of genocide in several municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.</p>
<p>The events that occurred in and around the Srebrenica enclave between July 10-19 1995, where an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, lost their lives, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/11/reviews/970511.11grimont.html">are well documented</a>. These atrocities, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yugoslavia-Death-Nation-Laura-Silber/dp/0140262636">culminating in</a> the “biggest single mass murder in Europe” since World War II, not only resulted in a tremendous loss of life and emotionally scarred survivors, it also left behind a landscape filled with human remains and mass graves.</p>
<p>Forensic investigations into the Srebrenica massacre <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24750/1/Karadzic%E2%80%99s%20guilty%20verdict%20and%20forensic%20evidence%20from%20Bosnia%E2%80%99s%20mass%20graves%20Sci-Justice%202016.pdf">assisted</a> in convicting Mladić, who stood accused for his involvement in implementing and orchestrating the forcible transfer and eventual elimination of the Bosnian Muslim population from Srebrenica. For the Srebrenica investigations, between 1996 and 2001, the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) conducted exhumations at 23 sites, while a further 20 mass graves were probed to confirm that they <a href="http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/P642-1a.pdf">contained human remains</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195909/original/file-20171122-6016-4ntuqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Srebrenica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/martijnmunneke/2653413838/in/photolist-53trus-53tuFf-53pecX-53trZG-53tuRh-53tuzf-53tuLW-53pcec-53pcsF-53tvwJ-53pgY6-53tvtd-53pezt-53pdXF-53tsNy-53trCJ-53pftF-53tsru-53tu8y-53tvpG-53trfJ-53phoB-53pe4X-53pffz-53tr4w-53ttaW-53pfn4-53peXP-53tsUY-53tqTq-53pdB4-53pfai-53pgLr-8A4MLN-53pgkx-53tviA-53ph1r-53tvd3-53tuPq-o9UYVS-obNR8L-a5ypHx-53tvaL-53tv93-53pgNn-53pfGX-vSB5KV-a3tvtf-Xefv6v-a3tuw3">Martijn.Munneke/ Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The investigative objectives for these investigations were to:
* Corroborate victim and witness accounts of the massacres;
* Determine an accurate count of victims;
* Determine cause and time of death;
* Determine the sex of victims;
* Determine the identity of victims (a process that is ongoing with the help of DNA analysis); and
* Identify links <a href="http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/P642-1a.pdf">to the perpetrators</a>.</p>
<p>The task of locating and exhuming mass graves in Bosnia continues, as does the general quest of locating the missing in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. And this evidence still matters for the ICTY. Evidence on hundreds of bodies exhumed from the Tomašica mass grave near Prijedor in the north-west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was <a href="http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/what-post-mortems-of-tomasica-victims-showed.29.html?cat_id=1&news_id=16662">presented in the Mladić trial</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/tjug/en/171122-summary-en.pdf">summary judgment</a> read out in the court room in The Hague made this very clear:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During several weeks in September and early October 1995, senior members of the VRS [Army of the Bosnian-Serb Republic] and the MUP [Ministry of the Interior] attempted to conceal their crimes by exhuming their victims’ remains from several mass graves, and then reburying those remains in more remote areas in Zvornik and Bratunac municipalities. Their attempt to cover up the Srebrenica massacres ultimately failed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such attempts at hiding crimes by digging up mass graves only to dispose of the bodies in so called “secondary mass graves” results in commingled and mutilated body parts rendering identification and repatriation of human remains all the more difficult. This causes further and prolonged distress to the survivor population and can be seen as intent to cause suffering.</p>
<p>Properly investigated forensic evidence from mass graves, the presentation of such physical evidence, the testing of expertise, independence and impartiality of the accounts in court, is likely to result in more reliable findings. In the case of Bosnian Serb leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/radovan-karadzic-sentenced-to-40-years-but-peace-is-still-a-work-in-progress-56778">Radovan Karadžić</a> forensic evidence helped confirm the crimes committed – it can be assumed that the same is the case for Mladić; at the time of writing the judgment in its entirety is not available yet. </p>
<p>It is well worth remembering that the information from forensic mass grave investigations has another purpose and does not only speak to a court of law. The work on the ground through organisations such as the <a href="https://www.icmp.int/">International Commission on Missing Persons</a> will continue <a href="https://www.ictj.org/news/karadzic-bosnia-herzegovina-criminal-justice#.VwvL_wtXbgc.twitter">as there are</a> “too many people who are still searching for their children’s bones to bury”. Those forensic findings will have a value and meaning for family members and survivors that judgments such as the Mladić one cannot have. It offers them information on their lost loved ones and, hopefully, the return of their human remains.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Klinkner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forensic science of the dead helps to convict the living responsible.Melanie Klinkner, Senior Lecturer In Law, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.