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At the trial’s first hearing on 26 October, Dr Karadzic refused to leave his cell, claiming he needed more time to prepare his defence. Presiding judge O-gon Kwon stated a day later that the trial could continue without Dr Karadzic present. The Chamber appointed a stand-by council to represent him if he continues to boycott the proceedings, and postponed the trial until 1 March 2010 to give the stand-by council enough preparation time.
It is a common complaint from ICTY defence lawyers that there is not enough time to prepare a proper defence. Dr. Karadzic has received over a million pages of evidence, thousands of exhibits and hundreds of hours of video- and audiotapes.
Now, Dr Karadzic and his council have started a strategy of denial. He tries to portray himself as someone looking for the truth about the war in Bosnia. The defence claims that Bosnians transported bodies from elsewhere to make the savageness of the Serbs seem much larger than it truly was. It is said that UN representatives had knowledge of this practice, and the defence also showed photos to base this. Dr Karadzic’s tactic now seems to be painting a new picture of the situation, saying that the Muslims were the actual aggressors. Thus, having been threatened, the Serbian government could have reacted no different than it has.
The 1992-95 Bosnian war was the bloodiest conflict in Europe since WWII. In 1992 a majority of the Croat and Bosniak (Muslim) population voted in a referendum for independence. As a result, the so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, later the Republika Srpska, was formed. In December 1992, Dr Karadzic seized power as the Republika Srpska’s sole president and Chief Commander of its armed forces, keeping tight relations with President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. Mr Milosevic earlier stood trial for the ICTY, but died before a conclusion could be reached. Dr Karadzic’s rule was remarkably Serbian-nationalist and focused on establishing a territory for Bosnian Serbs, while cleansing the country of Croats and Bosniaks. This is something Dr Karadzic now explicitly denies.
On 21 July 2008, Dr Karadzic, then living as a New Age healer under the alias Dragan Dabic, was arrested in Belgrade, Serbia. He was virtually unrecognisable, having a long beard, pony tail and thick glasses. He was then transported to the same high-security prison in Scheveningen, near The Hague, as Mr Milosevic.
The three main accusations Dr Karadzic faces are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICTY learns us that allegedly ‘he participated in a joint criminal enterprise to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed as Bosnian Serb territory.’ A concrete example of genocide is the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and deportation of 23,000 women and children at Srebrenica. Srebrenica was supposed to be a UN safe area, but the lightly armed Dutch UN peacekeepers did not manage to protect these civilians. The role of the Dutch armed forces, or rather, their lack of action, has been highly controversial in the Netherlands, up to the point of forming a national trauma.
The accusations connected to crimes against humanity (persecutions, extermination, murder, deportation and inhumane acts) are closely related to genocide. In many villages in the Serb-claimed territories, the Serb-controlled army actively sought to cleanse the area of Bosnian Croats or Muslims.
The allegations of war crimes include acts of violence to terrorise civilians. During the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo the army adopted a tactic that involved the sniping of inhabitants of the city, killing and wounding thousands. Also, the army held hostage about 200 UN peacekeepers and military observers in mid-1995.
Above is only a very small selection of the allegations made against Mr. Karadzic, but they make it clear how complex this case is. Despite the difficulties, it is important to review the evidence carefully, for the victims and their next-of-kin. The first ICTY president, Antonio Cassese, has said that ‘criminal justice is among the most civilised responses to such violence.’
Many, however, doubt the impact of the trial on current domestic politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 1995 Dayton Accords, whilst ending fighting, left Bosnia with major problems, as a ‘two-headed, three-hearted, 12-legged monstrosity,’ Timothy Waters writes. Bosnia consists of a Croat-Bosniak and a Serb state, but Croats, Muslims and Serbs still form three very different ethnic and social entities.
Dr. Karadzic’s arrest was celebrated in Croat-Muslim dominated Sarajevo, whereas in the Serb-Bosnian town of Banja Luka the streets were empty. In the Serbian parts of Bosnia, as well as in Serbia, a rather strong Serb-nationalism persists. In the market you can buy t-shirts with the pictures of Dr Karadzic and his right-hand Gen. Ratko Mladic, still at large, and the text ‘Serb Heroes. Is it a crime to defend Serb people?’ Not only Serbs, but also many other Balkan ethnicities remain strongly nationalist. This forms a core problem that administrations in the former Yugoslavian states face.
Sceptical about the trial, some Bosnians have even said that there will be no one left to blame if Dr Karadzic is convicted. Benjamin Ferencz, chief prosecutor at the 1946 Nuremberg Einsatzgruppe process, said, though, that ‘law is always better than war.’
Very well written and informative.
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