Latest news with #ICTY
LeMonde
15-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
In Srebrenica, 30 years after the genocide, the 'vicious circle' of denial continues
"Welcome to the Las Vegas of Bosnia, we attract at least as much attention [as the American city]." On Wednesday, July 9, the mayor of Srebrenica, Milos Vucic, displayed this peculiar sense of humor, two days before the July 11 commemorations marking the 30 th anniversary of the 1995 genocide in his city. This Bosnian Serb, who is also a cousin of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, said he would not participate in the ceremonies meant to honor the more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks killed in a matter of days by the forces of Serb General Ratko Mladic, in what is considered the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since the end of World War II. "I was not invited, and I do not see why I should go when my deputy [a Bosniak] isn't coming here," said the 37-year-old official during a small counter-ceremony he organized in a predominantly Serb neighborhood of his municipality. Decorated with Serbian flags and set to the Serbian national anthem, the event was dedicated solely to Serb victims of the war, which claimed around 100,000 lives overall between 1992 and 1995. "Serbs were killed in much more horrific ways than the Bosniaks, for example by decapitation, as seen in certain Muslim countries, but have you ever read anything about them in the international press?" Vucic exclaimed, criticizing what he described as a "double standard" from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted Mladic of genocide in 2021. It mattered little that the Serb victims commemorated on Wednesday by a few dozen Serbs gathered around the mayor of Srebrenica did not die on that precise date, or that the local commander of the Bosniak forces, whom they accuse of being responsible for their deaths, has been systematically acquitted by international and Bosnian courts. The main objective was to stage a counter-event ahead of July 11, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of people this year. Several senior European officials, such as European Council President Antonio Costa and French Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad, are expected to attend in this eastern Balkan town.
Al Jazeera
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Why are mass murderers from the Srebrenica genocide still free?
Why are mass murderers from the Srebrenica genocide still free? NewsFeed Thousands of Bosnian Serbs participated in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, killing more than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys in just three days. But only 54 people have ever been convicted. So why are so many killers walking free? Soraya Lennie has the details. Video Duration 02 minutes 14 seconds 02:14 Video Duration 03 minutes 13 seconds 03:13 Video Duration 00 minutes 49 seconds 00:49 Video Duration 00 minutes 35 seconds 00:35 Video Duration 01 minutes 09 seconds 01:09 Video Duration 00 minutes 37 seconds 00:37 Video Duration 01 minutes 47 seconds 01:47
Euronews
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Thousands gather in Srebrenica to mark 30th anniversary of genocide
Thousands gathered in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of Europe's only recognised genocide since the Holocaust. In July 1995, more than 8,000 Bosniak boys and men were rounded up and summarily executed by Bosnian Serb forces over the course of several days after the fall of Srebrenica, which was deemed a UN safe area and meant to be under the protection of UNPROFOR international peacekeepers. Seven newly identified victims, including two 19-year-olds, will be laid to rest in a collective funeral on Friday at the large memorial cemetery in Potočari near Srebrenica, next to more than 6,000 victims already buried there. The burials are held annually for the victims who are still being unearthed from mass graves scattered across the general region of eastern Bosnia. In some cases, relatives can bury only partial remains of loved ones, found after they were relocated to secondary or tertiary mass graves, sometimes at a significant distance apart. This was the case for Mirzeta Karić, who is awaiting her father's burial. 'Thirty years of search and we are burying a bone,' Karić said, teary-eyed next to her father's coffin. 'I think it would be easier if I could bury all of him. What can I tell you, my father is one of the 50 (killed) from my entire family.' The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and courts in Serbia have sentenced 54 people to 781 years and five life sentences for crimes committed in Srebrenica, including genocide. The wartime president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, and the commander of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), Ratko Mladić, were among those sentenced to life sentences. Out of 20 verdicts at the ICTY, seven include verdicts for the crime of genocide. The Court of BiH has issued 33 verdicts for crimes committed in Srebrenica, of which 17, according to the court's data, were for genocide. A total of 6,765 victims have so far been buried in the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre, while 250 victims have been buried in local cemeteries at the request of family members. Around 1,000 more victims are still being sought. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution last year commemorating the Srebrenica genocide on the 11 July anniversary. Scores of international officials and dignitaries, including European Council President António Costa, European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos and Croatian PM Andrej Plenković, are in attendance at the commemoration ceremonies and the funeral on Friday. Furthermore, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — whose Dutch compatriots were tasked with and failed to protect the UN safe area in Srebrenica in 1995 — addressed those gathered via a pre-recorded video message to mark "a tragedy that shocked the world and forever connected my country with yours." "I visited the memorial centre in Potočari as the Dutch prime minister and I met with some mothers of sons who will never grow old," Rutte recalled. "We will never forget the horror of those dark days and our thoughts are with all those who were affected." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took to her social media to mark the occasion and honour the victims, their memory and their families. 'We must remember and preserve the truth, so that future generations know exactly what happened in Srebrenica,' wrote the Commission chief in a post on X.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
How my summer at The Hague shaped a lifetime
In Summer 2006, when I was practising as a junior lawyer, I was accepted for an internship at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). I took leave from my job as a public law lawyer and left for The Hague with lofty ambitions of pursuing a career in international law. Though I knew the work of the ICTY was important, in truth, I knew very little about the war in Yugoslavia. The siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in modern military history, had peppered the news throughout my years in high school, but the facts of this many-sided conflict were resistant to a straightforward description. The ICTY was an ad-hoc tribunal established by a resolution of the Security Council in 1993, intended to prosecute those who had held senior positions in the government and military for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first properly international tribunal of its kind and relied on the principle of international law that certain crimes are so fundamental to our shared humanity that they are binding, whether or not a nation-state has agreed to them. Some said the ICTY heralded a new era in international law and order, in which atrocities would never go unpunished. Others were more circumspect, given the international community's stunning inaction throughout the war. In the mid-2000s, Slobodan Milošević was being tried for his role as a politician for participating in war crimes in an effort to realise his plan for Greater Serbia (which effectively meant using force to connect Serbia with Serbian-held territories in Bosnia and Croatia). A former lawyer, Milošević had, in a colourful fashion, represented himself during these proceedings, consistently denying his guilt and refusing to recognise the ICTY's jurisdiction. But after I had accepted my internship and before I arrived, Milošević died suddenly of a heart attack whilst detained at the tribunal. His unexpected death meant he was never actually convicted of the crimes for which he was indicted. When I arrived at the tribunal two months later, the mood there was distinctly sombre; questions were being asked about what meaningful legacy the tribunal could have in the absence of a final judgment against this man who many regarded as the war's symbolic figurehead. July marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. In 2001, in the first conviction of its kind since the Nuremberg trials, the tribunal found in the case against Radislav Krstić, a military commander, that a genocide had unequivocally occurred. This finding was particularly significant since Srebrenica had been designated a UN 'safe area' and placed under the protection of UN troops. Their mandate was to protect the roughly 60,000 Bosnian Muslims who resided there, many of whom had been internally displaced from other areas of Bosnia. In reality, the UN troops were so effective in demilitarising the area in the lead up to July 1995 that Bosnian Muslims were largely unable to defend themselves when Serb troops advanced and UN troops, ill-equipped to defend the town, watched on. Over less than a week, more than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men between the ages of 16 and 65 were systematically murdered by Serb-controlled forces. To evade the killings, a column of approximately 10,000 Bosnian Muslims escaped into the woods near Srebrenica and survivors refer to these men – husbands, brothers, sons – as those who never returned 'out of the woods'. In some of the most harrowing testimony given at the tribunal, witnesses described Serb soldiers disguising themselves in UN uniforms to lure them out. Later, to conceal the crimes, mass grave sites were moved by excavators to secondary and even tertiary locations. Despite being the location for the adjudication of many of the world's highest-level conflicts, The Hague is a sedate, even serene city. In summer, the weather was temperate. On weekends, I went to the beach and waded out into an ocean that barely mustered a swell. The tulips at that time of year bloom in colours that are vivid and intense. Each day, I cycled along the flat streets, past the distinctive orange-brick houses and the canals to work at the tribunal. I arrived at the aptly named Churchillplein, where the flags of many countries were strung on flagpoles in a colourful row like prayer flags. Although until that point my specialisation and expertise had been in public law, something else quickly drew my attention. At every opportunity, I went to watch the tribunal in session and found myself torn between two conflicting feelings: on the one hand, the defendants appeared so incredibly ordinary, yet had been accused of unimaginable crimes; on the other hand, there was something utterly transfixing about the testimony of witnesses who gave evidence against people who, up to that point, they had lived alongside. Many women, for example, spoke of the last moments of seeing their teenage sons alive before they were transported from the UN base on buses. Despite the enormity of their losses, these witnesses, ordinary people in most cases, found the words to speak compellingly, hauntingly, about experiences that were nothing less than catastrophic. Loading Though debate continues about the tribunal's legacy, particularly because of widespread genocide denial, one of its very valuable achievements was providing a forum for survivors to speak about their experiences. In allowing more than 4000 witnesses to give evidence, the narrative of the war was shifted in a crucial way: the story of the war was told by survivors instead of by the leaders who perpetrated and encouraged mass violence. In retrospect, I think what I recognised in the testimony of witnesses was language operating at its most powerful. In these testimonies, these witnesses were not defeated by the horrific events they had witnessed, but were able to draw some sort of meaning out of the shocking violence and injustice they had observed. It's no exaggeration to say I returned to Australia fundamentally altered by what I had read and observed. In the wake of that experience, I found the strictures of international law far less meaningful than I had before. Not long afterwards, I enrolled in a course in creative writing and my whole life pivoted towards stories.
The Age
27-06-2025
- Politics
- The Age
How my summer at The Hague shaped a lifetime
In Summer 2006, when I was practising as a junior lawyer, I was accepted for an internship at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). I took leave from my job as a public law lawyer and left for The Hague with lofty ambitions of pursuing a career in international law. Though I knew the work of the ICTY was important, in truth, I knew very little about the war in Yugoslavia. The siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in modern military history, had peppered the news throughout my years in high school, but the facts of this many-sided conflict were resistant to a straightforward description. The ICTY was an ad-hoc tribunal established by a resolution of the Security Council in 1993, intended to prosecute those who had held senior positions in the government and military for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first properly international tribunal of its kind and relied on the principle of international law that certain crimes are so fundamental to our shared humanity that they are binding, whether or not a nation-state has agreed to them. Some said the ICTY heralded a new era in international law and order, in which atrocities would never go unpunished. Others were more circumspect, given the international community's stunning inaction throughout the war. In the mid-2000s, Slobodan Milošević was being tried for his role as a politician for participating in war crimes in an effort to realise his plan for Greater Serbia (which effectively meant using force to connect Serbia with Serbian-held territories in Bosnia and Croatia). A former lawyer, Milošević had, in a colourful fashion, represented himself during these proceedings, consistently denying his guilt and refusing to recognise the ICTY's jurisdiction. But after I had accepted my internship and before I arrived, Milošević died suddenly of a heart attack whilst detained at the tribunal. His unexpected death meant he was never actually convicted of the crimes for which he was indicted. When I arrived at the tribunal two months later, the mood there was distinctly sombre; questions were being asked about what meaningful legacy the tribunal could have in the absence of a final judgment against this man who many regarded as the war's symbolic figurehead. July marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. In 2001, in the first conviction of its kind since the Nuremberg trials, the tribunal found in the case against Radislav Krstić, a military commander, that a genocide had unequivocally occurred. This finding was particularly significant since Srebrenica had been designated a UN 'safe area' and placed under the protection of UN troops. Their mandate was to protect the roughly 60,000 Bosnian Muslims who resided there, many of whom had been internally displaced from other areas of Bosnia. In reality, the UN troops were so effective in demilitarising the area in the lead up to July 1995 that Bosnian Muslims were largely unable to defend themselves when Serb troops advanced and UN troops, ill-equipped to defend the town, watched on. Over less than a week, more than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men between the ages of 16 and 65 were systematically murdered by Serb-controlled forces. To evade the killings, a column of approximately 10,000 Bosnian Muslims escaped into the woods near Srebrenica and survivors refer to these men – husbands, brothers, sons – as those who never returned 'out of the woods'. In some of the most harrowing testimony given at the tribunal, witnesses described Serb soldiers disguising themselves in UN uniforms to lure them out. Later, to conceal the crimes, mass grave sites were moved by excavators to secondary and even tertiary locations. Despite being the location for the adjudication of many of the world's highest-level conflicts, The Hague is a sedate, even serene city. In summer, the weather was temperate. On weekends, I went to the beach and waded out into an ocean that barely mustered a swell. The tulips at that time of year bloom in colours that are vivid and intense. Each day, I cycled along the flat streets, past the distinctive orange-brick houses and the canals to work at the tribunal. I arrived at the aptly named Churchillplein, where the flags of many countries were strung on flagpoles in a colourful row like prayer flags. Although until that point my specialisation and expertise had been in public law, something else quickly drew my attention. At every opportunity, I went to watch the tribunal in session and found myself torn between two conflicting feelings: on the one hand, the defendants appeared so incredibly ordinary, yet had been accused of unimaginable crimes; on the other hand, there was something utterly transfixing about the testimony of witnesses who gave evidence against people who, up to that point, they had lived alongside. Many women, for example, spoke of the last moments of seeing their teenage sons alive before they were transported from the UN base on buses. Despite the enormity of their losses, these witnesses, ordinary people in most cases, found the words to speak compellingly, hauntingly, about experiences that were nothing less than catastrophic. Loading Though debate continues about the tribunal's legacy, particularly because of widespread genocide denial, one of its very valuable achievements was providing a forum for survivors to speak about their experiences. In allowing more than 4000 witnesses to give evidence, the narrative of the war was shifted in a crucial way: the story of the war was told by survivors instead of by the leaders who perpetrated and encouraged mass violence. In retrospect, I think what I recognised in the testimony of witnesses was language operating at its most powerful. In these testimonies, these witnesses were not defeated by the horrific events they had witnessed, but were able to draw some sort of meaning out of the shocking violence and injustice they had observed. It's no exaggeration to say I returned to Australia fundamentally altered by what I had read and observed. In the wake of that experience, I found the strictures of international law far less meaningful than I had before. Not long afterwards, I enrolled in a course in creative writing and my whole life pivoted towards stories.
