{"id":78,"date":"2016-05-02T19:09:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T19:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/?p=78"},"modified":"2016-05-02T21:01:19","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T21:01:19","slug":"justice-delayed-deferred-denied-injustice-at-the-hague-in-the-karadzic-and-seselj-verdicts-see-more-at-httpblog-oup-com201605hague-karadzic-seselj-icty-verdicts-genocidesthash-8rpl3rck-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/blog\/2016\/05\/02\/justice-delayed-deferred-denied-injustice-at-the-hague-in-the-karadzic-and-seselj-verdicts-see-more-at-httpblog-oup-com201605hague-karadzic-seselj-icty-verdicts-genocidesthash-8rpl3rck-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice delayed, deferred, denied: Injustice at the Hague"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice Delayed, Deferred, Denied: Injustice at The Hague
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

BY JOHN COX<\/p>\n

May 2, 2016<\/p>\n

Late last month — more than two decades after their crimes — the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Radovan Karad\u017ei\u0107, chief political leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the wars and genocide of 1992-1995,\u00a0 guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to 40 years. It could be said that justice was delayed and deferred, if not outright denied. While the 70-year-old Karad\u017ei\u0107 will probably never leave the (surprisingly comfortable<\/a>) confines of The Hague\u2019s UN Detention Unit, the verdict concluded that his forces had committed genocide in only one case — the July 2015 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) males in Srebrenica. The ICTY\u2019s denial of genocide in other cases was greeted with dismay and indignation by Bosnians and others throughout the globe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Evstafiev-bosnia-cello\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In an act of cultural genocide, Bosnian Serb forces directed led by Karad\u017ei\u0107 destroyed Sarajevo\u2019s National and University Library<\/a> (aka Vije\u0107nica) during the 1425-day Siege of Sarajevo. The cello player in this 1992 photograph is Vedran Smailovi\u0107, a Sarajevan who often performed at funerals during the lengthy siege.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following week, on March 31, the ICTY\u2019s reputation descended further, acquitting Vojislav \u0160e\u0161elj<\/a> on three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes. \u0160e\u0161elj was the leader of another ultra-right Bosnian Serb party, and like Karad\u017ei\u0107 held various political offices and collaborated with military commanders such as Ratko Mladic to create a \u201cGreater Serbia\u201d at the expense of Bosniak and Croat populations. This map<\/a> indicates the extent of their ambitions. For this blog post I will concentrate on Karad\u017ei\u0107; in the near future I\u2019ll comment further on \u0160e\u0161elj and on the ongoing trial of Mladic<\/a>, who is no doubt gratified by these two verdicts.<\/p>\n

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon praised the Karad\u017ei\u0107 conviction as a \u201chistoric day\u201d for international criminal justice. In a scathing commentary published two days later, British journalist Ed Vulliamy wrote<\/a>, \u201cI do not share this triumphalism, and take my cue from the survivors of Karad\u017ei\u0107\u2019s violence.\u201d During the war, Vulliamy managed to cajole Karad\u017ei\u0107 into allowing him into the infamous Omarska camp<\/a>, one of the more notorious and brutish of the hundreds of camps established by Serb forces. Vulliamy recalled the sight of \u201cmen, some skeletal, drilled across a Tarmac yard into a canteen where they gulped watery soup like famished dogs. The escorts bundled us out at gunpoint when we asked to enter the dark door from whence they had come \u2013 which turned out to be a factory of murder, torture and mutilation. Above the canteen, women were kept for systematic violation.\u201d (Many Serb camps were established specifically for the purpose of systematic, mass rape<\/a>). Vulliamy bitterly observed that the ICTY\u2019s verdict amounted to genocide-denial:<\/p>\n

What happened in Vi\u0161egrad<\/a> on the river Drina, where thousands were butchered on a bridge, locked in houses and burned alive or kept in a rape camp was not genocide. What happened in the town of Fo\u00e7a where all Muslims were killed or expelled and another rape camp established was not genocide. What happened to the razed towns of Vlasenica, Bijeljina, Klju\u0107, Sanski Most, Brcko \u2013 I could go on \u2013 was not genocide. The total and systematic erasure of mosques, libraries, cultural and religious monuments across Bosnia was not genocide.<\/p>\n

\"800px-Graves_srebrenica_bosnia_and_herzegovina\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

July 11, 2010: New graves being dug on the fifteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Not all the remains of the victims have yet been discovered.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My city, Charlotte, is home to about 3,000 Bosniaks, and I have had the honor of working closely with this community. Mirsad Hadzikadic, Director of our university\u2019s Complex Systems Institute and with his wife Mirzeta prominent members of the community, told me:<\/p>\n

Giving a sentence of 40 years in prison to someone who participated in the development, overseeing, and brutal implementation of the idea of genocide will only come back to haunt those who influenced the reduction of the sentence from \u201clife\u201d to \u201c40 years.\u201d Subordinating moral values to practical, mundane, cynical politics will eventually undermine the societies that opted for such \u201cpragmatization\u201d of values. The corrosive effect of such moral compromises leaves societies defenseless against the barbarity of force.<\/p>\n

Hamdija Custovic, Immediate Past President of the Congress of North American Bosniaks, asserted that \u201cwhen you talk about thousands of innocent civilians who were murdered and raped as a result of his command and orders,\u201d 40 years is inadequate, regardless of Karad\u017ei\u0107\u2019s age. Custovic also pointed out that the travesties at The Hague are only one aspect of the betrayal of Bosnia and Herzegovina by \u201cthe West\u201d from the early 1990s to the present:<\/p>\n

It is also disappointing that he was not convicted of genocide in municipalities other than Srebrenica. At the same time, it is significant that he was convicted of 10 out of 11 charges, including the Srebrenica Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. The Hague Tribunal\u2019s conclusion that the genocide in Srebrenica was orchestrated by the highest level of the so-called Republika Srpska government means that the legacy of what is now the RS entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be considered illegal and abolished. [The Republika Srpska or \u201cSerb Republic\u201d was carved out of Bosnia and given to Serb nationalists by the terms of the terms of the 1995 Dayton Agreements, thereby rewarding \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d The RS consumes <\/em>half the territory<\/em><\/a> of Bosnia and Herzegovina; <\/em>Karad\u017ei\u0107 served as its first president.<\/em> – JC<\/em>]<\/p>\n

\u201cThis verdict,\u201d concluded Custovic, \u201cis an opportunity to make the case for abolishment of this modern day apartheid establishment in Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/a>. My friend was sadly unsurprised by the latest betrayals of Bosnia by the \u201cinternational community.\u201d As we approach the 21st<\/sup> anniversary of Srebrenica, it is worth remembering that this most infamous massacre was not inevitable, nor did the Yugoslav wars result from \u201cage old hatreds\u201d and intractable ethnic strife, as US news media ceaselessly argued at the time. This is how Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde<\/a> summarized the betrayal by NATO and the UN of the people of Srebrenica:<\/p>\n

The international community partially disarmed thousands of men, promised them they would be safeguarded and then delivered them to their sworn enemies\u2026. The actions of the international community encouraged, aided, and emboldened the executioners. … The fall of Srebrenica did not have to happen. There is no need for thousands of skeletons to be strewn across eastern Bosnia. There is no need for thousands of Muslim children to be raised on stories of their fathers, grandfathers, uncles and brothers slaughtered by Serbs.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally published here: http:\/\/blog.oup.com\/2016\/05\/hague-karadzic-seselj-icty-verdicts-genocide\/<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> David Rohde, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica<\/em> (New York: Penguin, 2012), 351, 353.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

July 11, 2015 commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, Shahid Mosque, Charlotte; photos by author (JC)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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Justice Delayed, Deferred, Denied: Injustice at The Hague BY JOHN COX May 2, 2016 Late last month — more than two decades after their crimes — the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Radovan Karad\u017ei\u0107, chief political leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the wars and genocide of 1992-1995,\u00a0 guilty of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-updates"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jdw9-1g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/john-cox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}