from the killing fields to the courthouse

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22 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 Independent World report

During the war in Yugoslavia in the1990s, the United Nations decidedto establish a court for prosecuting

those who were at that time committingwar crimes. Considering the role of theUN in that war, this seemed a bit odd.

The UN had, for instance in 1991,imposed an arms embargo on theYugoslav republics, that only preventedBosnians from defending themselves –thus, falling victim to war crimes. The UNhad also, in 1995, proclaimed the town

of Srebrenica a safe areaand vouched forthe Bosnian civilians’ lives – only to handthem over to the Serb military which thencommitted genocide against the helplesscivilian population. UN peacekeepersevenparticipated in separating Bosniak boysand men from the women. In short, theUN had made many bad things worse forthe civilians in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The UN war crime tribunal wasnamed the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. It is in many

ways a continuation of the UN’s rolein the war. The ICTY has charged over160 persons, of which more than sixtyhave been convicted. Currently morethan forty people are in different stagesof prosecution. The tribunal deals withcrimes such as murder, rape, genocide,torture, enslavement, and destruction of property.

The ICTY is very distant from those itis supposed to bring justice to. The courtbreaks the tradition of its predecessors,

REPORT

From the killing fields

to the courthouseGenocide in Bosnia and the betrayal of the ICTY.By Amila Jašarevic

Bodies of people killed in April 1993 around Vitez: Photo courtesy ICTY.



Independent World report NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 23

Goran Jelišić shooting a victim in Brčko: Photo courtesy ICTY.




the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, by

being situated very far from the countrieswhose wars it is supposed to deal with. Thetribunal is set in The Hague, almost 1400KM from Bosnia-Herzegovina where mostof the atrocities of the war during the1990s took place. Its international judgeswork in the prosperous Netherlands, faraway from the daily struggle of survivingvictims of war crimes, still uncoveredmass graves, concentration camps andland mines.

The access that regular Bosniancitizens have to the tribunal is verylimited. Survivors can appear beforethe ICTY only if they are chosen aswitnesses. And who can travel 1400 KMto attend a hearing or protest in front of a courthouse? Televised transmissions of selected court sessions are the only waymost Bosnians can ever get to see whatgoes on in the tribunal. Interestinglyenough, the ICTY presents on its website“a groundbreaking series of events in2004 and 2005 entitled Bridging the Gap.”These were one-day events in ve townsof Bosnia-Herzegovina, where some of the

most serious crimes took place. Five one-

day events can hardly be seen as enoughto bridge this gap.But the problem is not only the very

unfortunate geography of the tribunal.There is even a bigger gap between thesense of justice of the survivors and theverdicts we have seen so far from theICTY.

One of the worst examples is the caseof Dražen Erdemović, a soldier who waspart of an execution squad in Srebrenicain 1995 which murdered hundreds of Bosnian Muslim civilian men betweenthe age of seventeen and sixty. He hadhimself killed about a hundred people.In 1996, he was sentenced to ten years inprison. In 1998, his sentence was reducedto ve years. In 1999, he was granted earlyrelease and was thus a free man, longbefore many of his victims had probablyeven been identied.

The ICTY seems to be reducing itsown sentences quite often. For instance,in 2001, General Radislav Krstić of theSerb armed forces was convicted of genocide and sentenced to forty-six

years of imprisonment. This was quite

sensational, as he was the rst personconvicted of genocide at the ICTY. Sadly,it was less noted by the press when theappeals chamber found General Krstićnot guilty of genocide, and instead foundhim guilty of aiding and abetting thegenocide, reducing his sentence to thirty-ve years.

Another ofcer of the Serb armedforces convicted of crimes committed inSrebrenica in 1995 is Momir Nikolić, whowas originally sentenced to twenty-seven years of imprisonment, but then had hissentence reduced to twenty years. Hehad admitted that he was involved incoordinating and organising the BosnianSerb army operation to kill over 7000Bosnian Muslim men and boys, and deportmany thousands of women and children.

High ranking Serb politician MomčiloKrajišnik had also been sentenced totwenty-seven years of imprisonment forcrimes against humanity, murder andgenocide. His sentence was also reducedto twenty years, and earlier convictions of murder, extermination and persecution

A Kosovar refugee camp, presented as evidence in the Milošević trial: Photo courtesy ICTY.



Independent World report NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 25

dropped.

In 2003, a close colleague of Krajišnik’s,Biljana Plavšić, one of the leaders of Bosnian Serbs, was sentenced to nomore than eleven years for crime againsthumanity: persecutions on political,racial and religious grounds, whichshe had pleaded guilty to. Her originalindictment had contained numerousother counts, including genocide, murderand extermination, but these very severecounts were dropped in a plea bargain.

The trial chamber took into accountthat Biljana Plavšić had “confessed toa crime of utmost gravity, involving asit did a campaign of ethnic separationwhich resulted in the death of thousandsand the expulsion of thousands more incircumstances of great brutality,” yet, itproceeded to rule a mere eleven yearsof imprisonment as a t punishment forsuch crime.

Plavšić was transferred to Sweden toserve her time. This year she was grantedearly release according to Swedish law,which is after serving two-thirds of hersentence. In his decision, Judge Patrick

Robinson of the ICTY noted that Plavšić

had “participated in the institution’swalks and also occupied herself withcooking and baking.” Thanks to such goodbehaviour, she was released on October27, and is now a free woman.

The sum up: one of the highestranking Serb politicians went to TheHague, bargained with the prosecutor tohave her indictment notably shortened,pleaded guilty to a crime against humanity(a campaign of ethnic separation whichresulted in the death of thousands andthe expulsion of thousands more), andgot off with a little more than seven yearsof prison.

“It might be in line with internationallaw, but it has nothing to do with justice,”Murat Tahirović, head of an associationof Muslim and Croat war camp prisoners,told news agency AFP.

The trial chamber mentioned Plavšić’guilty plea as a mitigating circumstanceseveral times in its ruling. However, herdisplay of remorse is questionable, as shelater went on to write a book from herSwedish prison cell in which she describes

General Ratko Mladić, the man in charge

of the killing squads that committedgenocide in Srebrenica, as a great man.In an interview she gave to the Swedishmagazine Vi earlier this year, Plavšićsaid she had “done nothing wrong,” buthad pleaded guilty in order to have theremaining charges against her, includingthose of genocide, dropped. The judgeswho granted her early release apparentlywere not aware of this.

Plavšić is not the only one whoseindictment has been shortened. The ICTYis a temporary institution establishedin 1993 and has a completion strategy,according to which it is set to nish itsactivities by mid-2013 (latest estimatesby the ICTY). Because of this deadline,some feel the need to hurry up and nishtheir cases – sometimes at the expense of justice by shortening the indictments.

In its recent report, Whose Justice? Thewomen of Bosnia and Herzegovina are stillwaiting, Amnesty International expressesconcern that “since the announcementof the completion strategy in 2003,in some cases, certain charges were

UN peacekeepers collecting bodies from Ahmići, Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1993: Photo courtesy ICTY.




reduced in the indictments in order toexpedite the prosecution of cases. Forinstance, charges related to crimes of sexual violence were excluded from someindictments. Exclusion of those chargesfrom the indictments resulted in the lackof access to justice for the survivors of these crimes and in impunity for thoseresponsible for their perpetration.”

Meanwhile, former President of Serbiaand Montenegro Slobodan Miloševićwas allowed to drag his case for yearsby insisting on representing himself and calling in countless witnesses, untilnally dying in his cell, thus deprivingthe survivors of his war for a GreaterSerbia of a verdict.

It is because of cases and verdicts likethese that there is little regard for theICTY among surviving Bosnians.

It did not help matters either whenchief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, in Maythis year, conrmed that the tribunal haddestroyed around 1000 pieces of evidencefrom mass graves in the Srebrenicaarea. Ofcials gave several differentexplanations for this – rst it was becausethe evidence was in a bad condition,then because of public health and nallybecause it had smelled bad, as UN sourcestold reporter Michael Montgomery fromthe Center for Investigative Reporting.

These were personal items found in massgraves, items of invaluable importanceboth historically speaking and for thesurviving family members, and they weredestroyed by the very institution formedto punish the perpetrators and bring justice to the victims.

There is also the case of FlorenceHartmann, former spokesperson forCarla del Ponte, former chief prosecutorat the ICTY, who wrote a book about someof the goings on at the tribunal – and wasindicted of contempt. In her book, Peaceand punishment , Hartmann argues thatICTY judges kept away key material fromthe public, for the sole purpose of shieldingSerbia from responsibility before anotherUN court – the International Court of Justice, that handled the case Bosnia-Herzegovina vs. Serbia.

According to Hartmann, the ICJ wouldhave not cleared Serbia of genocide atSrebrenica as it did, had it “possessedevidence that Serbia was ‘in control’ of the Republika Srpska authorities or of the Bosnia Serbian Army.” Hartmannfound the actions of the judges in conictwith the very purpose of the ICTY. Shewas ned €7000 for contempt. What isinteresting though is the fact she wasnever accused of lying – just of disclosingsecrets of the tribunal.

The more one looks, the more reasonsone nds to be less than enthusiasticabout the ICTY. The verdicts alone arestunningly low. Several verdicts of thetrial chamber end with a conclusion,“that no sentence which the trial chamberpasses can fully reect the horror of what occurred or the terrible impact onthousands of victims,” but most often itdoes not even seem to try.

Sentencing a man to a few yearsof imprisonment for killing about ahundred unarmed boys and men...making deals with people who organisedethnic cleansing and shortening theirindictments... granting war criminalsearly release because they were so kindas to cook and bake in prison... destroyingevidence... trying to silence those whospeak up about the goings on at the

tribunal...It is, indeed, a long list. �

Ligature used to bind victims hands, unearthed during exhumation in Srebrenica: Photo courtesy ICTY.

Amila Jašarević is a Bosnian human rightsactivist currently based in Copenhagen.Sixteen years ago, at the age of twelve,she escaped the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a refugee to Denmark.Weblog: amilabosnae.wordpress.com

from the killing fields to the courthouse

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