tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/radovan-karadzic-26073/articlesRadovan Karadžić – The Conversation2021-11-04T16:02:26Ztag: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/880942017-11-24T10:59:46Z2017-11-24T10:59:46ZRatko Mladić convicted – but justice hasn’t entirely been served in the Hague<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196279/original/file-20171124-21801-12li83b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Convicted for genocide and other crimes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbaileymbe/6892194912/in/photolist-9Mgq4q-oMbmvS-bv3iqL-9MHbyF-GQnVnF-9SqZ6C-GQnVvB-Dpbets-21rZs4G-ZqwwKn-QmyYtM-9Qf31o-GQnV18-GQnVEp-21rZtkE-ZqwwVT-GQnWgz-GQnVNR-GQnVdT-GQnWpF-Dpbex5-ZqNupP-Dpbefm-57FJbJ-7uTBvq-21Nzjq2">David Bailey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal">conviction</a> of Ratko Mladić in The Hague for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian War hardly came as a big surprise. The evidence was strong and stacked up against him. Nearly 600 people gave evidence during his five-year trial including many of his victims. So any robust defence of the charges was always going to be a challenge for Mladić even with the support of a defence team comprised of the most talented lawyers in the world.</p>
<p>Of course, his conviction has been widely hailed in the media as an important
milestone for international criminal justice, since he was one of the first people to be indicted by an international criminal tribunal since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials">Nuremberg</a>. But his conviction also showcases how slow the cogs of international criminal justice seem to turn. Despite being <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/ind/en/kar-ii950724e.pdf">indicted by the tribunal in 1995</a> he managed to evade the clutches of the court <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/europe/27ratko-mladic.html">until 2011</a> leading to much speculation about whether the tribunal really possessed much sway in the early days of its existence and whether the international community supported its mission. It was only following political pressure on Belgrade from the European Union that the government renewed its appetite to apprehend him.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196278/original/file-20171124-21858-150m91d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Prosecution team in the case of Ratko Mladić, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, at Mladić’s initial appearance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/icty/38362818296/in/photolist-9Mgq4q-oMbmvS-bv3iqL-9MHbyF-GQnVnF-9SqZ6C-GQnVvB-Dpbets-21rZs4G-ZqwwKn-QmyYtM-9Qf31o-GQnV18-GQnVEp-21rZtkE-ZqwwVT-GQnWgz-GQnVNR-GQnVdT-GQnWpF-Dpbex5-ZqNupP-Dpbefm-57FJbJ-7uTBvq-21Nzjq2">UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mladić, dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, commanded the Bosnian Serb
forces during <a href="https://theconversation.com/ratko-mladics-conviction-and-why-the-evidence-of-mass-graves-still-matters-87976">the massacre</a> of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and the three-year <a href="https://theconversation.com/ratko-mladic-orchestrator-of-the-brutal-siege-of-sarajevo-87969">Siege of Sarajevo</a> which caused nearly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17617775">10,000</a> civilian deaths.</p>
<p>Aside from one genocide charge he was found guilty of all the other ten counts
including a separate count of taking UN personnel hostage in an effort to thwart NATO airstrikes. Delivering yesterday’s verdict the presiding judge, Alphons Oria, <a href="http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2017/11/news-in-brief-22-november-2017-geneva-am/#.WhfnjbSFg6g">held</a> that the crimes, “rank among the most heinous known to humankind” and rejected his mitigation pleas of good character, ill-health and diminished mental capacity. </p>
<p>Dogged by health problems Mladić shakily occupied the defendant’s chair on Wednesday morning but following a toilet break he was quickly removed again from court after a tirade of abuse aimed at the judges. His sentence of life imprisonment was handed down in his absence.</p>
<h2>Ethnic tensions</h2>
<p>Only time will tell whether his conviction will bring closure to the families of his victims who are still searching for the remains of loved ones nearly three decades after the war. Ethnic tensions still persist in the former Yugoslavia and many there regard Mladić <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-bosnia-camps-mass-murder-torture-rape-serbian">as a hero</a> who defended his people and believe that Wednesday’s judgment is a verdict against them as well. </p>
<p>US attorney Christopher Hale, who has worked at the tribunal, has gallantly <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/11/22/565672709/tribunal-finds-ratko-mladic-guilty-of-genocide-crimes-against-humanity-in-bosnia">argued that</a>: “the weight of empirical evidence demonstrates that justice is one of the most vital components to achieving durable peace”. But in reality there is very little evidence to suggest that the trials have brought meaningful reconciliation to the region.</p>
<p>Whatever view we choose to adopt the statistics clearly speak for themselves.
Division between ethnic communities has grown since the end of the war. For
example, Banja Luka was once ethnically diverse - nearly 50% of its population
were Bosnian Serbs while Muslims and Croats represented 19% and 15%
respectively. In 2017, Banja Luka is almost <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/bosnia2/">90% ethnic Serb</a>. Hard questions need to be asked about whether such trials can truly bring about meaningful reconciliation and durable peace to this post-conflict region when the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/bosnia2/">data</a> suggests that ethnic tensions are becoming more deeply entrenched in communities long after the conflict has ended.</p>
<p>The trial of Mladić will be the last at the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) before it closes its doors at the end of this year, having arrested and tried more than 161 persons, including Slobodan Milosevic – who controversially <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/mar/13/guardianobituaries.warcrimes">died during his trial</a> in 2006 – and the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadžić who was convicted <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-radovan-karadzic-case-56767">for his role</a> in the Srebrenica genocide last year. </p>
<p>So on the face of it the tribunal seems to have achieved rather a lot. But some would argue, myself included, that the tribunal sidestepped the prosecutions of high-ranking commanders of the opposing armed factions in the war for alleged crimes. So ultimately it must be questioned not only whether justice has been achieved but also whether the tribunal has laid down an accurate historical record of the events that occurred.</p>
<p>We are right to question the success of these institutions that market themselves as beacons of international justice – but the process by which individuals are selected by these institutions for investigation and prosecution also needs to be placed under the spotlight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna-Marie Brennan 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>Last of the big trials for UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, but what about high-ranking officials from the other side?Anna-Marie Brennan, Lecturer in Law, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567782016-03-24T15:19:06Z2016-03-24T15:19:06ZRadovan Karadžić sentenced to 40 years, but peace is still a work in progress<p>Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić has been sentenced to 40 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).</p>
<p>The court found the former president of the Bosnian Serb republic guilty of one count of genocide and <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-radovan-karadzic-case-56767">nine war crimes</a>, all relating to the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He is criminally responsible for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/international-court-upholds-srebrenica-massacre-verdicts-37003">Srebrenica</a> massacre in 1995.</p>
<p>This marks the final chapter in three interlinked stories of hubris, war and retribution in Europe at the turn of the millennium.</p>
<p>The first of these stories is a personal journey of an ambitious intellectual – a psychiatrist and a poet who rose from poverty and obscurity to eventually join the political elite. It’s the story of a man who went on to lead a nationalist movement responsible for some of the most heinous crimes seen on the continent since 1945.</p>
<p>Karadžić held political authority over the Bosnian Serb forces that perpetrated the crimes for which he was charged by the ICTY. Ousted from power after the conclusion of the <a href="http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/BA_951121_DaytonAgreement.pdf">Dayton Peace Agreement</a>, he remained a fugitive until 2008. He was found living on the outskirts of Belgrade disguised as a new-age healer. It’s a tale that could have been taken from a Yugoslav surrealist film.</p>
<p>He will undoubtedly spend the remainder of his life in prison – an apt ending to this extraordinary trajectory.</p>
<p>The intriguing question that remains is how an apparently tolerant and convivial man, who worked and associated with Bosnians of different religious backgrounds and exhibited no particular nationalist leanings prior to 1990, became a ruthless political ideologue who oversaw a policy of mass murder, torture, rape and the forced removal of non-Serb populations for the sake of creating an “ethnically cleansed” Serbian state in Bosnia.</p>
<h2>A new kind of justice</h2>
<p>The second story is that of the international tribunal itself. Set up by the UN in 1993 to investigate the war crimes that took place in the Balkans in the 1990s, the ICTY has undergone several metamorphoses over its 20-year existence.</p>
<p>The tribunal began as an ineffectual and underfunded institution. It was unable to press Western governments into capturing the more important war criminals. But from 2001 it went on to score some remarkable successes. All its indictees were eventually arrested, including the big fish, such as Serbia’s former president <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/8538575/Serbian-war-criminals-Slobodan-Milosevic-profile.html">Slobodan Milošević</a> and the Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Karadžić and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/14-years-fugitive-hunt-for-ratko-mladic-butcher-of-bosnia">Ratko Mladić</a> (who is currently on trial).</p>
<p>This success was due largely to new governments coming to power in the post-Yugoslav states and the West’s policy of making financial aid and accession to the EU conditional on co-operation with the tribunal. </p>
<p>The ICTY has provided impressive evidence of the worst crimes committed in the Yugoslav wars. It identified those involved and charted the chains of command. It set some important milestones in international law, paving the way to the creation of a permanent <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/international-criminal-court">International Criminal Court</a>. Without the ICTY, it is unlikely that some of the worst perpetrators in the Yugoslav wars would have been brought to justice or that we would have such detailed knowledge about the conduct of those wars. </p>
<p>However, the tribunal has been very controversial in the region. It has ultimately made little headway in its mission of contributing to reconciliation. </p>
<p>Nationalist politicians have sought to portray the ICTY as <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/un-debate-turns-as-criticism-of-the-icty">victimising</a> their individual national groups. They present the indictments of their own former political or military leaders as disproportionate and unjust.</p>
<p>The tribunal has remained insular and remote from the region, making little attempt to explain its indictments, procedures and judgements to the war-ravaged and traumatised populations for which it was meant to provide justice.</p>
<p>Often relatively short sentences issued for capital crimes have rankled with victims and some of those tried by the tribunal have now returned home and were welcomed as war heroes. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icty.org/en/press/jovica-stani%C5%A1i%C4%87-and-franko-simatovi%C4%87-acquitted-all-charges">acquittals</a> of high ranking military and security figures from Croatia and Serbia in 2012 and 2013 produced consternation even among the greatest champions of the tribunal. Even some <a href="http://hrbrief.org/2013/03/acquittals-for-croatian-generals-raise-questions-about-the-icty-and-its-legacy/">ICTY judges</a> publicly protested. </p>
<h2>An international journey</h2>
<p>The Karadžić judgment (along with those pending for Mladić and a few others) also marks the end of a third story – that of external involvement in the region’s reckoning with its legacy of war.</p>
<p>Without <a href="http://research.gold.ac.uk/1899/">international intervention</a>, there would probably have been little justice. However, the actions of external actors sometimes had counterproductive effects, undermining the reformist political forces seeking genuine change in their countries. And, ultimately, real reckoning with a difficult past cannot be orchestrated from outside. </p>
<p>If the Karadžić judgment is to have any longer-term resonance in the region, it will need to be part of a sustained internal and introspective process in those states where the crimes were perpetrated.</p>
<p>That usually implies the presence of both genuine political commitment and a propitious socio-economic context. Unfortunately, neither of these conditions are on the horizon yet anywhere in the region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasna Dragovic Soso 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>Former Bosnian Serb leader guilty of one count of genocide and numerous war crimes after 18 months of deliberation.Jasna Dragovic Soso, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567672016-03-24T10:59:06Z2016-03-24T10:59:06ZFive things you need to know about the Radovan Karadžić case<p>The <a href="http://www.icty.org">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</a> is issuing its judgment in the case of Radovan Karadžić, arguably its most high-profile accused since the trial of Slobodan Milošević, which ended in 2005. Here’s all you need to know about this landmark decision.</p>
<p><strong>1. Who is Radovan Karadžić?</strong></p>
<p>He’s the former president of Republika Srpska, an autonomous region established in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/bosnia-and-herzegovina">Bosnia and Herzegovina</a> in 1992 at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17212376">the outbreak of war</a> in the region. It ended in December 1995 and Karadžić lost power. He then went into hiding and wasn’t captured until 2008, when he was found in Belgrade. He had apparently been working as an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26karadzic-t.html">alternative medicine practitioner</a> for several years. His neighbours were unaware of his true identity.</p>
<p><strong>2. What is he charged with?</strong></p>
<p>Karadžić is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war. The tribunal has already convicted a number of defendants for their role in the genocide in the enclave of <a href="https://theconversation.com/international-court-upholds-srebrenica-massacre-verdicts-37003">Srebrenica</a> where more than 7,000 men and boys were separated from their families and killed, while women, young children and some elderly men were forcibly removed from the enclave. Karadžić is charged with this genocide. He denies the charges. </p>
<p>He is also charged with genocide committed in seven other municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Earlier in the case, the Trials Chamber was found that there was not sufficient evidence about what happened in these seven municipalities for it to be considered genocide against Bosnian Muslim and/or Bosnian Croat groups, and the charge was dropped. However, the Appeals Chamber found that the evidence did reach the threshold, and it reinstated the charge. </p>
<p>Another interesting charge is the war crime of taking hostages. This is the first time that the tribunal has charged anyone with this crime. In 1995, Bosnian Serb forces detained UN peacekeepers, purportedly in an attempt to stop the NATO bombing that was going on at the time. <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/karadzic-s-appeal-on-hostage-taking-rejected">Karadžić argued</a> that, because of NATO’s involvement and the peacekeepers’ link thereto, the peacekeepers were lawfully detained prisoners of war. This argument has been unsuccessful to date, and is unlikely to hold sway in the Trial Chamber’s judgment. </p>
<p><strong>3. How long did the trial last?</strong></p>
<p>Karadžić’s trial ran from 2010 to 2014. The Trial Chamber has been deliberating on its much anticipated judgment since October 2014. Over the course of the trial, the chamber heard evidence from almost 600 witnesses, received thousands of pages of evidence and received filings from both the prosecution and defence totalling 90,000 pages. Karadžić has received almost 3m pages of disclosed evidence from the prosecution. Right up <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/tdec/en/160314.pdf">until last week</a>, the chamber was deciding on motions where the prosecution had failed in its obligation to disclose exculpatory (in other words favourable) evidence to the accused. </p>
<p><strong>4. Did he get a fair trial?</strong></p>
<p>Karadžić chose to represent himself at trial and as a result, received less legal aid than he would have if he were represented by a lawyer. There have been issues with the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8325096.stm">adequacy of time</a> and <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/presdec/en/120131.pdf">financial resources</a> for the preparation of the defence case throughout the trial, only some of which were resolved by the Trial Chamber.</p>
<p>Karadžić has been critical of the use of written witness statements in the place of full oral testimony, and of the doctrine of <a href="http://humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/did-karadzic-get-fair-trial.html">judicial notice</a> which admits previously adjudicated facts from other cases into the record in this case. Furthermore, one of Karadžić’s key witnesses, his wartime ally and former military leader <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27464998">Ratko Mladić</a> (who is currently also standing trial in The Hague) refused to answer any questions when called to testify. Although the tribunal issued a subpoena for Mladić to appear, it failed to take any further action to compel him to testify, such as charging him with contempt of court, so Karadžić missed out on this testimony. </p>
<p><strong>5. What sort of sentence will he get, if convicted?</strong></p>
<p>Unlike many legal systems, international criminal courts do not have sentencing guidelines, so it is hard to predict. However, if convicted of even some of the charges, it’s likely that Karadžić will spend the rest of his life in prison. </p>
<p>His good behaviour and co-operation with the tribunal throughout the trial will be acknowledged as a mitigating factor in sentencing, but his refusal to surrender to the tribunal will likely act against him. Furthermore, if he is found guilty, his leadership position is likely to be an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne McDermott 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>A four year trial and several years of deliberation later, and an international tribunal is to decide on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.Yvonne McDermott, Senior Lecturer in Law, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/483962015-10-01T15:22:36Z2015-10-01T15:22:36ZThe families of missing migrants and refugees may never know their fates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96792/original/image-20150930-5834-1wqh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chartno3/5651315510/sizes/l">chartno3/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2015, <a href="http://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/Mediterranean_Update_29_September.pdf">almost 3,000 people</a> died trying to cross the sea and start a new life in Europe. It was the shocking images of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi – who drowned as his family tried to flee the Syrian conflict for the safe haven of the EU – that <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-one-terrible-image-change-the-direction-of-a-humanitarian-crisis-47067">sparked a global outcry</a> over this tragedy. </p>
<p>International media attention made it possible for Aylan to be identified, his family informed and his body repatriated to Syria for a decent burial. But the vast majority of migrants and refugees who drown in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas are never identified. Their unnamed bodies are deposited without ritual or respect in graveyards on Europe’s periphery. </p>
<p>This is hardly a new phenomenon. The inhabitants of Greek and Italian islands have been dealing with the human tragedy of finding bodies on their beaches for many years now. One result of this epidemic of anonymous death is that migrants simply disappear from the lives of the families they have left behind. For every body that is washed ashore in Italy or Greece, there is a family waiting for news from their missing loved one. Families want to know what has happened to those who left for Europe: they want to know whether their loved ones are dead or alive. </p>
<h2>Searching for answers</h2>
<p>As it stands, the states of Europe have consistently failed to provide such answers. That’s why we decided to investigate the outcome of shipwrecks, in an effort to understand what’s being done to arrange the collection, identification, burial and repatriation of migrant bodies at the EU frontier. </p>
<p><a href="http://iosifkovras.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Policy-Brief-Addressing-migrant-bodies-in-the-EU.pdf">Our research</a> focused on the Greek island of Lesbos, which is now the <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-responds-greece-rivals-italy-point-entry-eu-sea-borne-migrants">leading entry point</a> to the EU for
sea-borne <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-difference-between-asylum-seekers-refugees-and-economic-migrants-45615">refugees and migrants</a>. What we found was a fundamental lack of planning about how to deal with the problem of dead and missing migrants. </p>
<p>Both EU and national authorities seek to avoid responsibility for the identification or proper burial of the dead by using language that deflects blame. By characterising deaths as “accidents”, or dead migrants as “victims” of smuggling networks national and EU authorities deflect any legal or moral responsibility for the identification or proper burial of the dead. They devote more rhetoric and resources to targeting alleged traffickers than to preventing deaths or addressing their consequences. It’s difficult to imagine that this lack of accountability would be acceptable if the bodies found on beaches were those of Europeans. </p>
<p>Rather than dedicate its considerable political and economic power to this humanitarian challenge, we found that the EU relegates responsibility to local municipal authorities. Although there needs to be a local response, these authorities do not have the resources or capacity to deal with the task at hand. This is where national governments and EU authorities have a responsibility to step in and help to collect data from bodies or contact families who are waiting for news. And there is no consular aid available to most migrants. </p>
<p>While living migrants are some of the most heavily-monitored individuals in the EU, dead migrants merit almost no attention from the authorities. </p>
<p>These factors have led to shocking scenes in cemeteries in Lesbos and Lampedusa. The bodies of unidentified migrants are buried in common graves, only lightly covered by earth. The only markers are broken stones – often recycled from older graves – on which is written the purported nationality of the deceased, a number, and a date.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96790/original/image-20150930-5804-1qwxxy6.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An unnamed grave in Mytilene, Lesbos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since most bodies are unidentified, this nationality is typically based on an informed guess or information from survivors, rather than any real investigation. The techniques of forensic anthropology and DNA identification, which have proven so valuable in identifying those who have disappeared in conflict and political violence in the past, are largely absent here. We found that in some contexts, authorities may collect samples from bodies. But there is rarely anything to compare them with, so this useful tool is largely neglected. </p>
<p>The management of the missing in the aftermath of the war in Bosnia is a good example. In 2001, the International Committee on Missing Persons (ICMP) <a href="http://www.icmp.int/?resources=missing-persons-from-the-armed-conflict-of-the-1990s-a-stocktaking-on-the-effort-to-locate-and-identify-missing-persons-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina">started using</a> DNA-based identification of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre. Since then, it has identified almost 80% of the approximately 7,000 people who went missing in the biggest mass killing in post-World War II Europe. Austrian authorities are <a href="http://m.gulfnews.com/news/europe/italy/authorities-struggle-to-identify-dead-in-refugee-tragedies-1.1579555">using similar techniques</a> to identify the 71 migrants who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34083337">suffocated to death</a> in an abandoned lorry earlier this year. </p>
<p>To identify the migrant dead, information needs to be collected from bodies: these data include both documents and information taken from the body - such as identifying marks, and tissue samples that can be used for DNA testing, which can be matched with that of family members. Those who made the journey with them, and survived, may also have valuable information about their identity. </p>
<p>Next, there must be a route for families in migrants’ countries of origin to report missing people and provide details about them to the European authorities. Finally, data from families – potentially including DNA – must be matched to the information collected from and about bodies found at the EU’s Mediterranean shores. </p>
<h2>Affront to human decency</h2>
<p>The current, ad-hoc approach means that even when a family can confirm that their relative has died in a shipwreck, they have no way of locating their loved one’s remains among the unnamed graves. The very few families who have been able to claim remains are those with significant political or economic influence. </p>
<p>One local from Lesbos who we interviewed told us that of one shipwreck in which 22 migrants died, only two bodies were repatriated. This was the result of their family relationship to an Afghan minister, who mobilised the Afghan embassy in Athens. The other victims were buried at the local cemetery. As an 18-year-old from Afghanistan aptly put it: “Only the rich get back, the poor stay here.”</p>
<p>Most governments are now agreed: the images of European cemeteries filling with unidentified bodies are an affront to the conscience of humanity. Both the EU and the national authorities of its member states have a <a href="http://search.proquest.com/openview/ecb9ad2df40d2d18fa582d02644b5d03/1?pq-origsite=gscholar">moral and legal obligation</a>; not only to stop the deaths, but also to identify and appropriately manage the dead at their borders. </p>
<p>This can and should be decoupled from the broader and <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-at-sea-scant-hope-for-the-future-from-europes-history-of-failure-on-migrants-40596">more contentious issue</a> of border control. Organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Commission for Missing Persons have the experience, means and capacity to support EU states to address this urgent humanitarian issue. Now, they must be given the mandate and the resources to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iosif Kovras & Simon Robins received funding from British Academy/Leverhulme (Small Research Grants)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Robins receives funding from The Economic and Social Research Council of the UK. </span></em></p>Migrants and refugees are placed under constant scrutiny once they arrive in the EU. But what happens to those who don’t survive the journey is a different story.Iosif Kovras, Research Fellow, Queen's University BelfastSimon Robins, Research Fellow, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/443962015-07-10T16:28:59Z2015-07-10T16:28:59ZProtecting the memory of Balkans tragedy from political opportunism<p>Bosnia and Herzegovina is preparing to mark the 20th anniversary of the coldblooded extermination of more than <a href="http://www.rferl.org/fullinfographics/infographics/27114531.html#">7,000 Muslim men and boys</a> in the small mining village of Srebrenica in the east of the country.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/world/europe/srebrenica-genocide-massacre.html?_r=0">massacre</a> was one of the worst atrocities to be committed on European soil since World War II and the only internationally recognised <a href="http://www.icty.org/sid/8434">case of genocide</a> in the Bosnian conflict.</p>
<p>There will be an influx of visitors to Srebrenica over the anniversary. Survivors, relatives and returning nationals will memorialise the men and boys killed in 1995 with the burial of 136 victims at the <a href="http://www.sitesofconscience.org/members/srebrenica-potocari-memorial-center-cemetery/">Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center</a>.</p>
<p>Others, though, have been using the opportunity to fuel divisions in the fragile country. The complexities and mess of war and post-war recovery are not limited to Srebrenica. A multitude of experiences of conflict as well as sites marking scenes of violence exist across Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/1992/aug/07/warcrimes.edvulliamy">Omarska</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/27/radovankaradzic.warcrimes2">Trnopolje</a> – which were concentration camps established near Prijedor to imprison non-Serbs.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://iwpr.net/global-voices/prlic-trial-shown-images-war">Helidrom</a>, people remember the internment of Muslims near Mostar and in <a href="https://iwpr.net/global-voices/former-firefighter-recalls-sarajevo-siege">Sarajevo</a>, they remember the longest siege in modern history.</p>
<h2>Admitting guilt</h2>
<p>In the run up to the 20th anniversary, the international and political nature of Srebrenica has come to the fore. National governments have <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-pledges-12-million-to-remember-victims-of-srebrenica">reflected on their involvement</a> and appear to be <a href="http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Regions-and-countries/Bosnia-Herzegovina/The-Netherlands-and-Srebrenica-the-burden-of-guilt-162201">making small acknowledgements of their blame</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/un-shares-blame-for-srebrenica-genocide">UN</a> has admitted to failing to protect Srebrenica and recently sought to pass a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/08/russia-vetoes-srebrenica-genocide-resolution-un">resolution</a> condemning the events there as genocide. The resolution was vetoed by Russia, but it shows willingness by other UN members to acknowledge the severity of what happened.</p>
<p>This came against the backdrop of revelations that the fall of the town was not the unexpected tragedy so often portrayed. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/04/west-true-role-in-srebrenica-massacre-bosnia">Recently released documents</a> suggest the UK, US and France in fact sought to cede Srebrenica to the Bosnian Serbs in a bid to end the conflict in the Balkans. </p>
<p>Within the region, admitting blame is still difficult. Serbia’s prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, a nationalist and supporter of the idea of <a href="http://www.suedosteuropa.uni-graz.at/sites/default/files/publications/ofre2www_csee_3.pdf">Greater Serbia</a>, will <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/07/07/uk-bosnia-serbia-srebrenica-idUKKCN0PH2FM20150707">attend the commemoration</a> – but it will be under a cloud of political dispute. Serbia recently issued an arrest warrant for war crimes allegedly committed by the former Srebrenica commander, Naser Orić. This even though Orić had already been aquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2008 of crimes against Serbs in the Srebrenica area.</p>
<p>Orić’s recent <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnian-army-wartime-commander-naser-oric-arrested">arrest</a>, and subsequent release, have created tension between both Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has also caused division domestically within Bosnia and Herzegovina, further heightening ethnopolitical tensions between the Muslim Croat Federation and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. Nationalist politicians have been calling for a referendum to decide if Republika Srpska should break away from Bosnia and Herzegovina – and the arrest has only fuelled their campaign.</p>
<p>This has led other nationalist political parties to appropriate the 20th anniversary of Srebrenica. The massacre and the politics surrounding it are being used to foment divisions in the country in an effort to further political and often divisionist agendas.</p>
<h2>Reclaiming remembrance</h2>
<p>This political appropriation of Srebrenica does not help the process of healing and the building of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But there is resistance and a movement to reclaim the memorialisation of Srebrenica and other sites of violence. These movements do not take away from the pain and suffering of Srebrenica but rather encompass and recognise the complexities of the war experience. The aim is to take a human rights-based view rather than use the massacre as part of a political battle.</p>
<p>This was seen at a recent event in <a href="http://instituteforgenocide.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/THE-PRIJEDOR-GENOCIDE-1.pdf">Prijedor</a> – where 5,200 non-Serbs from the town and 14,000 non-Serbs from the surrounding area were either killed or are missing. The event called for <a href="http://instituteforgenocide.org/?p=9990">an end to genocide denial</a> and aimed not only to raise awareness of what took place in Prijedor in 1992, but also protested the lack of the right to pay tribute to the children killed in Prijedor during the Bosnian conflict.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://balkanist.net/twenty-years-since-srebrenica-no-reconciliation-were-still-at-war/">Refik Hodzić</a> reminds us, the legacy of violence and war are still present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Srebrenica is the main battlefield.</p>
<p>Maybe it is only through the act of challenging the appropriation of remembrance at the international, regional, and local levels that Bosnia and Herzegovina can begin to deal with the past.</p>
<p><em>Martin Avila, Marija Sarić, Nicola Ovenden and Mike Lipari also contributed to this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michaelina Jakala 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>In the run up to the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, nationalists are fuelling divisions.Michaelina Jakala, Research Associate, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/444542015-07-10T10:18:37Z2015-07-10T10:18:37ZWho gets to forget? What the tragedy of Srebrenica says about Europe<p>Saturday marks <a href="http://www.srebrenica.org.uk">20 years</a> since genocide returned to Europe. In 1995, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/bosnian-genocide">Bosnian Serb troops</a> under the command of general Ratko Mladić, with the collaboration of a paramilitary unit from neighboring Serbia, murdered more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. They dumped the bodies into pits. They videotaped some of the killings.</p>
<p>In 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia declared that Serb forces had committed genocide in Srebrenica. But on Wednesday, July 8, Russia <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/russia-vetoes-un-draft-resolution-srebrenica-genocide-150028528.html">vetoed</a> a British draft resolution that called for recognizing genocide as “a prerequisite for reconciliation.” Serbia <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33445772">vehemently rejects</a> calling the atrocities “genocide.” Along with Bosnian Serb leaders, Belgrade lobbied Moscow to block the resolution. </p>
<p>They got their wish. “<a href="http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2015&mm=07&dd=08&nav_id=94684">We are grateful to everyone who helped us</a>,” said Serb premier Aleksandar Vučić. “China and Russia and Venezuela and Angola and many others who contacted us and were ready to help.” </p>
<p>That the resolution died at the UN serves as a painful déja vu: Srebrenica has always symbolized the weakness of the “international community.” At the time of the mass killings, the area was under UN protection. A force consisting of hundreds of Dutch peacekeepers were stationed to keep the town safe. That ended up meaning nothing; Mladić and his henchmen took control anyway.</p>
<p>The international diplomatic squabbles, however, should not obscure the fact that Srebrenica was a distinct European failure. Choosing to mislabel this horrendous act will not strengthen European bonds. Rather, acknowledging failure is a step forward in forging new resolve to avert future tragedies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87933/original/image-20150709-10879-19oparz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gravestones at the Srebrenica massacre memorial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Srebrenica_massacre_memorial_gravestones_2009_1.jpg">Michael Büker/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The graves help tell the story</h2>
<p>I remember standing at the Srebrenica <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_Genocide_Memorial">memorial</a> over a decade ago. I was 22 years old, born and raised in the Balkans. A college student, I was working with the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was preparing to prosecute war crimes at home.</p>
<p>Yet, I had trouble processing what was happening. There were open graves all around, with numbered coffins lined side by side. Hundreds of women sobbed. Some fainted. It kept raining, so the freshly dug earth quickly turned into mud.</p>
<p>Bodies have continued to be buried because mass graves have kept turning up. It has also taken decades to identify the remains. So the anguish returns to Srebrenica every July, as thousands gather at the site to remember the victims. Hundreds are still unaccounted for.</p>
<p>The Srebrenica memorial reminded me of countless other war memorials across Europe designed to achieve the impossible: capture the sense of loss. How do you visualize entire generations wiped out? A beginning is to name the names. That is what author Dzenana Halimovic does, movingly, by documenting every victim’s face. (You can scroll through thousands of photos <a href="http://www.rferl.org/fullinfographics/infographics/27114531.html">here.</a>)</p>
<h2>Why do some refuse to call the killings ‘genocide’?</h2>
<p>Denial can serve many purposes, but it is also made possible by the stubborn insistence that what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s was a reflection of mutual age-old hatreds. Historians have <a href="http://eep.sagepub.com/content/23/4/461.abstract">rejected</a> this view energetically. If hatred is endemic, responsibility falls everywhere – and so nowhere.</p>
<p>Still, this belief <a href="http://qz.com/287923/what-a-surprise-drone-and-a-soccer-brawl-reveal-about-the-balkans/">persists</a>. Whenever the Balkans briefly pop up in the news these days, we are quickly reminded that wars stemmed from complicated ethnic divisions. But what wars are not complicated? </p>
<p>In fact, the Balkan conflicts reflect profoundly European problems. In remembering Srebrenica, it is worth considering three of these.</p>
<p><strong>First</strong>: We like to teach our students about “the lessons of the Holocaust,” but forgetting has been central to the idea of a united Europe. So remembering Srebrenica will require more than memorials and speeches. It will be a long-term battle.</p>
<p><strong>Second</strong>: The destruction of Yugoslavia had its undeniable peculiarities, but, in retrospect, the conflicts of the 1990s seem like a foreshadowing of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102505601.html">radicalism</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/21/378845062/anti-muslim-protesters-in-germany-plan-massive-rally-in-leipzig">anti-Muslim campaigns</a> that we have seen more recently across Europe. The ghosts of the Balkans are European ghosts. These were Europeans delivering unspeakable suffering upon Muslim Europeans.</p>
<p><strong>Third</strong>: European states have been good at devising mechanisms for an integrated Europe but terrible at saving Europeans in times of tragedy. The idea of European unity has been incredibly captivating. But in matters of life and death, European powers have often been impotent. Take the example of
<a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nato-bombs-yugoslavia">Kosovo in 1999</a>, when Serb forces unleashed another human tragedy. It was NATO’s <a href="http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm">intervention</a> that proved decisive. The EU has since directed massive resources to Kosovo, but the problem of timely EU decision making in times of urgent crises remains. </p>
<h2>Who gets to forget?</h2>
<p>Past events in the Balkans, or in Ukraine today, reveal something obvious but not fully appreciated: East and south of the continent, lives have often been disposable. Some of the most impoverished Europeans also live in geopolitically threatened borderlands. In light of this insecurity, some will continue to look uncritically to the United States for protection. Others will look uncritically to Russia. </p>
<p>It is too easy to bash the EU, especially now. Further enlargement of the union appears to be unpopular. From <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/world/anti-immigrant-party-gains-in-denmark-elections.html?_r=0">Denmark</a> to the United Kingdom, anti-immigration parties have gained ground. Moreover, the EU is an ambiguous target: there are the officials in Strasbourg passing resolution after resolution. And then there are a handful of powerful national leaders who worry about domestic voters. Who cares, after all, about Bosnia?</p>
<p>Yet the battle for Europe is likely to play out on the margins. Yes, it will be about the built-in tensions between political and economic integration. Yes, it will be about immigration controls and the inevitable contradiction between opening borders and building new walls. </p>
<p>But the battle for Europe will also be about who gets to remember and who gets to forget. That is also why Srebrenica is a European tragedy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elidor Mehilli receives funding from the Research Foundation of CUNY. </span></em></p>Twenty years after the mass killings of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 during the Balkan War, Europeans still grapple with the legacy of genocide.Elidor Mehilli, Assistant Professor, City University of New York, Hunter CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/443762015-07-09T16:00:03Z2015-07-09T16:00:03ZTwenty years after Srebrenica, ethnic cleansing has become a defence to genocide<p>It has been 20 years since Bosnian Serb forces killed and secretly buried more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys over three tragic days in Srebrenica. The awful event is the only legally recognised genocide to have taken place in Europe since World War II.</p>
<p>But as the world prepares to mark the incident, Russia has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-veto-on-srebrenica-infuriates-us-and-allies-at-the-united-nations/2015/07/08/7458df6c-25a8-11e5-b72c-2b7d516e1e0e_story.html">vetoed</a> a UN resolution to acknowledge that genocide took place at Srebrenica. Its ambassador dismissed the resolution as a politically motivated attempt to blame one side for the terrible events that took place in the Balkans in the 1990s.</p>
<p>This is just the latest twist in a dispute about whether the killings were genocide and, if they were, why other terrible war crimes committed during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia were not.</p>
<p>It is fairly clear that people do not like genocide – not enough to stop committing it, but just enough to protest vehemently if they or their ancestors are accused of it. Take for example, how Turkey reacted to claims by Pope Francis that Ottoman Turks had engaged in “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/12/pope-boosts-armenias-efforts-to-have-ottoman-killings-recognised-as-genocide">the first genocide of the 20th century</a>” when they killed 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in World War I.</p>
<p>There has been a similar reluctance to accept the magnitude of what happened in Srebrenica. The day after being sworn in as president of Serbia in 2012, Tomislav Nikolic went on Montenegrin TV to say that the Srebrenica killings were a war crime, by people who should be brought to justice – but that the events <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18301196">were not genocide</a>. A year later, he made an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/10017552/Serbian-president-in-historic-Srebrenica-massacre-apology.html">historic apology</a> for the killings but maintained that it had not been proven to be genocide.</p>
<p>All this despite the fact that the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have both accepted that genocide has, in fact, been proven in relation to Srebrenica.</p>
<p>Aleksandar Vucic, the current prime minister of Serbia, is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33209147">reportedly preparing</a> to attend the official 20th anniversary commemorations of the massacre, but this has angered some people because there is still no official acceptance by Serbia that genocide took place.</p>
<h2>Narrow definition</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most staggering thing about this debate, though, is that Srebrenica is the only incident <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?pr=1897&code=bhy&p1=3&p2=3&p3=6&case=91&k=f4">legally classified as genocide</a> in the Yugoslav conflict, despite all the other atrocious war crimes and crimes against humanity that are known to have taken place.</p>
<p>The difference with Srebrenica was that the massacre was an end in itself. The Bosnian Serbs targeted the Bosnian Muslims as a specific ethnic or religious group. In legal terms, there was, at Srebrenica only, the special intent to destroy an ethnic or religious group.</p>
<p>This sets it apart, according to the <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%252078/volume-78-I-1021-English.pdf">1948 Genocide Convention</a>, which is where genocide and its special intent are defined. Or, more specifically, according to how the convention has been interpreted by high-profile courts and tribunals.</p>
<p>It would seem that, according to the ICJ, trying to make a geographical area “ethnically homogenous” does not show the special intent required for genocide because it does not single out a specific protected group.</p>
<p>Likewise, forced displacement, even when accompanied by mass killings, does not count as genocide because it does not “destroy” the protected group. The same conclusion was reached by the International Commission of Inquiry on <a href="http://www.un.org/news/dh/sudan/com_inq_darfur.pdf">Darfur</a>. The commission’s 2004 report found that “generally speaking” the policy of attacking, killing and forcibly displacing members of some tribes in Sudan did not display the special intent needed for genocide. Instead the people who planned and organised attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive the victims from their homes. </p>
<p>What’s more, the threshold for implying special intent has been set at a very high level. It must be shown that there is a pattern of conduct from which “the only reasonable inference to be drawn” is an intent by the relevant authorities to destroy the protected group.</p>
<h2>When ethnic cleansing becomes a defence</h2>
<p>The effect of this is that if a case goes to the ICJ via the Genocide Convention, reparations or other remedies can only be given if genocide is proven. If the abhorrent actions do not carry that special intent, they might still be war crimes and crimes against humanity but the ICJ is powerless to act against states that commit the actions. The individual perpetrators might face trial, but there can be no sanctions against the state they served.</p>
<p>The unfortunate consequences of this were brought into stark relief earlier in this 20th anniversary year in the case of <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=1&case=118&code=cry&p3=4">Croatia v. Serbia</a>.</p>
<p>In this case Serbia did not contest the “systematic and widespread” nature of certain attacks against the Croatian people. It argued that the attacks “were intended to force the Croats to leave the regions concerned”.</p>
<p>The ICJ accepted this, and repeated the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which had found that various war crimes and crimes against humanity were aimed at forcing the Croats out of certain regions rather than destroying the group. The Serbian defence was that it was not committing genocide because, instead, it was carrying out ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>It cannot be right that ethnic cleansing has become a defence to genocide. When mass killings accompany massive forced displacement, with a goal of creating an ethnically pure state, then let’s be frank and call those mass killings genocide. At least then, we might stand an outside chance of being able to give support to victims and their family, and to rehabilitate those who deny, or even celebrate, their role in or support for genocide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have consulted to Agencia Consulting (with RIPA International and / or the UK Foreign Office) on projects where I have trained the Ukrainian Supreme Court (2011); helped to establish a legal research syllabus for the Kosovo Judicial Institute (2014); and convened workshops for the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court of Kosovo (2013-14). In the past I have given expert advice to the Council of Europe on projects in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Georgia.
</span></em></p>Russia is the latest to deny 1995 massacre was genocide. Why is it so hard to agree on this issue?James Sweeney, Professor, Lancaster Law School, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/370032015-01-30T17:49:00Z2015-01-30T17:49:00ZInternational court upholds Srebrenica massacre verdicts<p>In 1995 the Bosnian Serb army killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in what was known as the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31053503">Srebrenica massacre</a>. And after nearly 20 years and a ten-year legal battle, the <a href="http://www.icty.org/">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</a> (ICTY) has upheld its guilty verdicts against five of the men involved, confirming sentences of between 18 years and life for what has been judged to be a crime against humanity involving genocide.</p>
<p>Despite being declared a “safe area” by the United Nations and protected by around 450 Dutch UN peacekeepers, Srebrenica became the stage for a nine-day attack against mainly men and boys. As women were forced into buses and sent outside the enclave, men were left to face their death.</p>
<p>The memory of Srebrenica has been difficult to handle as Bosnia-Herzegovina tries to rebuild in the wake of its conflict. It has been particularly challenging for the different ethnic groups living in the country. </p>
<p>Not only does it emphasise the need for extensive efforts in truth-telling and fact finding, but also the need for a political commitment to acknowledging the atrocities committed during the war. It has equal implications for the role of justice and the legal system in the country.</p>
<h2>The original trial</h2>
<p>As part of the strategies for dealing with genocide and grave violations of human rights in the country, ICTY was established as a transitional justice mechanism to investigate and prosecute those responsible for atrocities such as the ones committed in 1995.</p>
<p>It issued its first judgement on the Srebrenica genocide in 2004. Radislav Krstic, deputy commander of the army of the Bosnian Serb forces, was charged with “aiding and abetting” genocide and given 35 years in prison.</p>
<p>Then in June 2010, five more men – Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Vinko Pandurevic and Radivoje Miletic – were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Nikolic was sentenced to life imprisonment and Nikolic to 35 years. Pandurevic was sentenced to 13 years, Miletic to 19 years and and Gvero to five years. All five had played central roles in the military operation that led to the massacre.</p>
<p>The defendants all appealed their sentences, arguing that errors and misjudgements had been made in their indictments, and that the credibility of some of the witnesses against them was shaky. They also questioned evidence about the number of people killed in Srebrenica.</p>
<h2>Firm stance</h2>
<p>But now the court has upheld its ruling and reinforced its conclusion that Bosniaks, as Bosnian Muslims are also known, in Eastern Bosnia were victims of a strategy of genocide and ethnic cleansing planned and implemented by the Bosnian Serb forces during the war.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70668/original/image-20150130-25927-1x3fp32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The defendants await the court’s ruling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Due to the role of the ICTY in the transitional justice process of Bosnia and its impact on judicial institutions established in the country, the decision opens up questions around issues of truth, justice and reconciliation and their impact in the rebuilding of Bosnia-Herzegovina.</p>
<p>Back in 2012, the European Union <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/eu_condemns_serbian_presidents_denial_of_genoside_in_srebrenica/1147055.html">condemned statements</a> by Serbian president Tornislav Nikolic, who openly rejected the existence of a Serb genocide strategy during the war in Bosnia. The decision by the international court in these cases can be interpreted as a further blow to regular attempts by politicians in the region to deny that genocide took place. </p>
<p>It can also be seen as a push for rethinking transitional justice mechanisms in the country as it reopens debates at the local, national and international levels around the need for truth-telling mechanisms and discussions on justice and reconciliation between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks.</p>
<p>The decision is important in the ongoing process of post-war reconciliation between the different ethnic groups that live in the region. These groups are still divided and mistrustful of one another. This ruling is a reminder that dialogue about the past and future is needed at all levels. The different groups need to agree on what happened during the war and what type of justice should be pursued. Then there are issues such as missing people, mass graves and the return of refugee and internally displaced minorities to the country after the war.</p>
<p>The message from the court is that genocide took place and that those responsible will not get away with it. Now that message needs to be heard by politicians and people back home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Monroy-Santander 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>In 1995 the Bosnian Serb army killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in what was known as the Srebrenica massacre. And after nearly 20 years and a ten-year legal battle, the International Criminal Tribunal…Louis Monroy-Santander, PhD student, International Development Department, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/298032014-08-01T11:03:59Z2014-08-01T11:03:59ZDutch court ruling on Srebrenica could have ramifications for future UN peacekeeping<p>The Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 is one of the most horrendous atrocities of post-war European history. The mass killing of 7,000 to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims accompanied by the deportation of 25,000 to 30,000 civilians has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/03/warcrimes1">been classified as genocide</a>. One of the most shameful facts is that, at the time of the attacks, the victims had been in a so-called “safe haven” under United Nations protection. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this sorry chapter of European history is far from finding closure. Nearly 20 years after the slaughter, mass graves are still being found and survivors and relatives still have to fight for recognition and compensation.</p>
<p>On 16 July, a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28313285">Dutch civil court in the Hague ruled</a> that the relatives of some 300 men and boys who were killed after being evicted by Dutch peacekeepers from the Potočari compound could receive compensation from the Dutch state. The relatives of the thousands of men and boys who had fled into the woods where they were hunted down and summarily executed by the Serbs, received nothing.</p>
<p>A key question is whether this legal decision will have any impact on other UN peacekeeping missions. </p>
<h2>“Effective control”</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie/Hoge-Raad/Supreme-court/Summaries-of-some-important-rulings-of-the-Supreme-Court/Pages/Ruling-Dutch-Supreme-Court-Mothers-of-Srebrenica.aspx">court ruled</a> that there is a shared accountability between the UN and the state which contributed the troops to the peackeeping mission. As long as the contributing state has “effective control” over its troops, it is responsible, even though the overall command lies with the United Nations.</p>
<p>“Effective control” not only includes giving orders, but also the capacity to prevent certain actions. Considering the many <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/892592.stm">failings of peacekeeping operations</a> around the world – most notoriously in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/06/un-admits-sudan-peacekeepers-failure">Sudan</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/dec/19/theobserver3">Rwanda</a> and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/04/20-years-genocide-rwanda-central-african-republic">Central African Republic</a> – this might open a floodgate of civil lawsuits around the world.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Dutch court restricted the liability to the victims within the Potočari compound and not those who had fled from Srebrenica to the surrounding woods. Other national courts could choose a similarly narrow reading on the duties and responsibilities of peacekeeping forces. </p>
<p>In spite of the fact that <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/reform.shtml">UN peacekeeping has been reformed</a> considerably in the past 20 years, this case shows the need for a precise definition of the duties of peacekeeping operations.</p>
<h2>Questions of UN immunity</h2>
<p>This decision will also have an impact on other cases dealing with the question of UN immunity. The most important example is the civil law suit currently brought in <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/cholera/cholera-litigation/">a civil court in the United States against the UN</a> for introducing cholera to the Caribbean, which has already claimed 8,500 deaths, injured more than 700,000 people and has now spread to the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Mexico. </p>
<p>The Dutch court’s reiteration that the UN itself is immune against national court claims (confirmed last year <a href="http://www.humanrightseurope.org/2013/06/court-rejects-un-immunity-srebrenica-massacre-complaint/">by the European Court of Human Rights</a>) might encourage the American court to reject the victims’ claims. On the other hand, the strengthened principle of UN immunity might increase the pressure on the UN to finally provide a settlement mechanism for victims. </p>
<p>This case is yet another example of victims looking to national civil courts to address their human rights concerns. In another case, <a href="http://www.ionglobaltrends.com/2010/02/liberia-charles-chuckie-taylor-jr.html#.U9tN7E3Qd3w">human rights activists successfully sued</a> and convicted the son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor in the Southern District of Florida in 2010 on behalf of torture victims and were awarded damages of more than $22m. </p>
<p>The disadvantage of civil lawsuits is that national courts are limited in the scope of their examination. In the case of the Srebrenica genocide, there is no shortage of candidates to blame alongside the Dutch government, who had not equipped and armed the Dutch peacekeeping force sufficiently to accomplish their mandate. </p>
<p>A national civil court cannot, for example, look at the UN which was in overall command of the peacekeeping operation, nor NATO which rejected the peacekeepers’ desperate pleas for air support. Nor can they consider the actions of the Dutch commander Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Karremans, who <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/grossbild-364902-444963.html">was photographed</a> having a drink with Serb general, Ratko Mladić, amid the fall of Srebrenica, or of French general, Bernard Janvier, the overall commander of the UN peacekeeping operation, who repeatedly denied air support for the Dutch on the ground.</p>
<h2>Peacekeeping fatigue</h2>
<p>The most far-reaching consequence of this decision is that, if followed by other national courts, it might contribute to the increasing of peacekeeping fatigue. States are even less likely to contribute to dangerous and expensive peacekeeping operations if there is the risk that they might now find themselves subject to a flood of civil compensation claims. But the allocation of risks and costs between the UN and national states is for the international community to decide and of no concern to the national courts, who address compensation claims.</p>
<h2>Other victims</h2>
<p>On a final note, it is important that the discussion of the responsibility of the failed peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica should not forget the other victims of the conflict. Long before the fall of the enclave, its population had suffered inhuman conditions, including a number of deaths by starvation. </p>
<p>In addition, many of the civilians who <a href="http://srebrenicagenocide.wordpress.com/2007/11/25/were-women-also-victims-of-srebrenica-genocide/">were later taken away in buses</a> were never seen again. It is likely that they were either killed or sent to <a href="http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/women-srebrenica-massacre.html">rape camps</a>. A hierarchy between differences of suffering, with some being compensated and others not, should be avoided. The decision of the Dutch district court will be appealed against and it is hoped that the higher courts will address at least some of these concerns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina E Rauxloh 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>The Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 is one of the most horrendous atrocities of post-war European history. The mass killing of 7,000 to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims accompanied by the deportation of 25,000 to…Regina E Rauxloh, Senior Lecturer, Law School, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.