Ratko Mladic Goes on Trial for Genocide

May 16, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Correspondents*

DOHA, Qatar, May 16, 2012 (IPS/Al Jazeera) – The trial of General Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief accused of orchestrating war crimes and a campaign of genocide, has begun at a special U.N. court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia made their opening statements against Mladic on Wednesday almost a year after his arrest in Serbia and subsequent deportation after years on the run.

Mladic is accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including orchestrating the week-long massacre of over 7,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica in 1995 during the Bosnian war.

Prosecutor Dermot Groome said the prosecution would present evidence showing "beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes".

"The world watched in disbelief that in neighbourhoods and villages within Europe a genocide appeared to be in progress," said Groome, describing the beginning of the war in 1992.

"By the time Mladic and his troops murdered thousands in Srebrenica … they were well-rehearsed in the craft of murder," Groome told the court.

Older but defiant

Dressed in a dark grey suit and dark tie, Mladic, now 70, flashed a thumbs-up and clapped his hands as he entered the courtroom in The Hague.

In the packed public seating area, a mother of one of the Srebrenica victims whispered "vulture" several times as prosecutors opened their case.

Later, Mladic made eye contact with one of the Muslim women in the audience, running a hand across his throat, in a gesture that led Presiding judge Alphons Orie to hold a brief recess and order an end to "inappropriate interactions".

"Ratko Mladic is clearly not the stocky, physically imposing, bullish man that we remember from images of the early ’90s," Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips reported from The Hague.

Phillips added, however, that even with his age, the general remained as defiant as ever.

"You could really sense his contempt for this court, which he calls the ‘NATO’ court," he said.

Axel Hagedorn, a lawyer for many of the mothers of those killed in Srebrenica, said that many of his clients had travelled to The Hague, where they were relieved to finally see Mladic stand trial.

"I think he looks much more healthy than last year, when he appeared, that is good for us, because we hope that he can survive this trial and face imprisonment," he said.

The Mladic trial would also help build a separate case by the Srebrenica families against the United Nations, he said.

In April, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the U.N. could not be prosecuted in the Netherlands for failing to prevent genocide in Srebrenica, but the families’ lawyers plan to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

"This case is very linked to our case, on the failure of the United Nations to protect the people of Srebrenica," Hagedorn said.

There are concerns that Mladic’s trial could be disrupted by the defendant’s poor health. He is believed to have suffered at least one stroke while in hiding and was admitted to hospital for pneumonia last October.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, died of a heart attack in detention in 2006 before a verdict in his trial could be reached.

‘Biggest butcher’

Outside, protesters held up placards including one that said "we want justice for the victims of Srebrenica".

Mladic, who was arrested in a village in northern Serbia last May, is also charged over the 44-month siege of Sarajevo during which more than 10,000 people died.

Mladic has refused to enter a plea and rejected the charges against him as "monstrous" and "obnoxious" in a preliminary hearing last June. He says he was defending his country and his people as leader of the Bosnian Serb army. The court entered a "not guilty" plea on his behalf.

He is the last of the main protagonists involved in the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia to go on trial in front of the special court established by the United Nations to prosecute crimes committed during the conflicts.

"This is the biggest butcher of the Balkans and the world," Munira Subasic, 65, told the AFP news agency. She lost 22 relatives to Bosnian Serb military forces when Srebrenica was overrun in July 1995.

"I’ll look into his eyes and ask him if he repents," said Subasic, who said she would watch the trial’s opening from the public gallery at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The case has stirred up deep emotions in the Balkans and Wednesday’s proceedings were broadcast live on big screens in Sarajevo, where thousands died between 1992 and 1995.

"I hope that many of those who are disillusioned and believe that Mladic is a Serb hero will change their minds, and that the trial will demonstrate that he was just a criminal and a coward," Fikret Grabovica, president of the association of parents and children killed in the siege of Sarajevo, said.

"Even if Mladic lives until the verdict, it will bring only mild satisfaction for the victims of Srebrenica and hundreds of other places in the Serb Republic," Grabovica added, referring to the entity that rules Serb majority areas of Bosnia.

‘Not satisfied’

Since the end of the war, Bosnia-Herzegovina has been divided into a federation of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, and the Serb Republic.

Mladic’s lawyers last week attempted to have the trial pushed back as the court pondered their request to have presiding judge Alphons Orie removed from the bench. They had argued that Orie would be biased against Mladic because he had already condemned several of his former subordinates.

But Theodor Meron, the president of the court, denied the request.

"I am not satisfied that Mladic has demonstrated that a reasonable observer … would reasonably apprehend bias. I accordingly find Mladic’s request for Judge Orie’s disqualification to be unmeritorious," he said in a statement.

Mladic is being held in the same prison as his former political leader Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested in 2008 and is now about halfway through his trial on similar charges to Mladic.

Mladic’s lawyers on Monday night filed another request to have the trial adjourned for six months, saying they had not had enough time to prepare, due to "errors" by the prosecution in disclosing documents.

Groome said on Wednesday he would not oppose a "reasonable adjournment".

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Europe, Human Rights, Justice, Report Tagged With: ,

Once, There Was Yugoslavia

June 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jun 24, 2011 (IPS) – For decades, the former Yugoslavia was a communist country with a human face, whose nations enjoyed high standards of living compared to other Eastern Europeans, visa-free travel abroad, and participatory government. Twenty years ago, on Jun. 25, all that ended.

It ended for a country where private property was allowed, be it homes or small business. Education and healthcare were free, jobs were secure, and Yugoslavia had a firm reputation as one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement.

On Jun. 25, 1991, the most developed republics of Croatia and Slovenia made unilateral declarations of independence. They saw the Serbian leader at the time, Slobodan Milosevic, as the incarnation of evil who wanted their nations to remain under what they saw as the iron rule of Belgrade in a world that had changed after the fall of Berlin wall in 1989.

Milosevic was acting as the protector of all Serbs, who lived outside present day Serbia in hundreds of thousands in Croatia and Bosnia. He publicly declared "the need for all Serbs to live in one country."

"Those two things set the stage for the wars of the 90s," historian Predrag Markovic tells IPS. "After the human loss of some 150,000 people and enormous economic losses, it is hard to say what the benefit of independence was for some 24 million people who lived in former Yugoslavia. Yes, they are proud of having their own countries, but the essential substance of serious states is lacking in almost all when compared to former federation."

Slovenia with a population of two million, Croatia with 4.6 million, Bosnia-Herzegovina 4.2 million, Serbia 7.5 million, Montenegro 650,000 and Macedonia with two million people are quite different places now. The three leaders that led nations in wars of the 90s, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, Bosniak leader Alija Izetbegovic and Milosevic are all dead.

The most developed Slovenia is so far the only member of the European Union (EU), since 2004. Croatia stands next in line for membership in 2013. Montenegro and Macedonia are candidates; Serbia awaits its status by the end of the year, while Bosnia-Herzegovina is unable to recover from the 1992-95 wars.

"The EU was our only and natural choice," Slovenian economist Joze Mencinger tells IPS. "But we have a tiny say in the EU, smaller than ever in former Yugoslavia."

Apart from human losses and direct war damages in the 1991-95 period, sociologist Milan Nikolic singles out "the collapse of values such as empathy, solidarity, intolerance of crime – organised or other etc…But the world has also changed so much since 1991. We all have to look into future."

Of the many devastating effects of the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, the economic crisis is striking. The debt crisis is hitting all former Yugoslav nations hard due to the economic consequences of the war (particularly in Bosnia), as production is low, imports are high and transition into a market economy has taken its toll in a massive loss of jobs. A lack of substantial foreign investments since the global economic crisis is also hitting hard.

Unemployment in Slovenia is the lowest – around 10 percent. It reaches a staggering 40 percent in Bosnia.

The foreign debt of the six new nations is 171 billion dollars, compared to former Yugoslavia’s debt of 24 billion dollars. Macedonia has the lowest, 2.5 billion dollars, and Croatia the highest, 64 billion dollars.

Production level (except in Slovenia) has not reached the level of 1989, the best year prior to wars. All former Yugoslav statisticians use that as a benchmark.

"Had we not fought in wars, Yugoslavia would have been in the EU long ago and the development level could have been at least double compared to 1989," Nikolic says.

But for many people, such ideas mean little. Many young people are almost unaware there was a Yugoslavia once, as history books differ and give only a superficial overview of the past.

"I don’t know what Dubrovnik is," 22-year-old Bojan Stancic from Kraljevo in Serbia tells IPS, when asked about the most prominent tourist spot on the Croatian Adriatic coast. "It’s Croatia? Well, that’s a foreign country I plan to visit one day."

Many older people still have connections that date to the days of former Yugoslavia.

"I have family in Belgrade and we go to visit," says Dara Buncic (65), a pensioner from Zagreb in Croatia. "It still has the outlines of the capital of a big country. We are all small now (new nations) but I tell friends to go and see it (Belgrade)…it’s part of our common history no matter how proud we are being independent Croatia."

"Until 20 years ago, I spent two months each year on Croatian coast since the age of two," says Belgradian Sasa Jaksic (55). "We had family there. So, in the 35 years of former Yugoslavia I can say I spent a total of almost six years living in Croatia. No one can take that from me, or the memories of good times we had in former Yugoslavia."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Analysis, Conflict, Europe, History, Peace, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Arrest Takes Serbia Towards Reconciliation, and the EU

May 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 26, 2011 (IPS) – "Nothing can bring back our husbands or children, but this means so much for us; the man who ordered them killed is finally going to face justice," says Hajra Catic, head of the Women of Srebrenica Association, following the arrest in Serbia of the former head of the Bosnian Serb army Ratko Mladic.

Mladic, the most wanted fugitive from the wars of the nineties in the Balkans, had been indicted by the United Nations-founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based in The Hague for genocide and war crimes. He was indicted for the massacre of 7,500 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 and for the three-and-a-half year siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo that took 10,000 lives in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Hajra Catic told IPS that she and other women in the Association only believed that Mladic had been arrested when they saw Serbian President Boris Tadic address a press conference in Belgrade, aired by almost all television channels in former Yugoslavia.

Tadic revealed few details on Mladic’s arrest in Lazarevo village in the northern Serbian province Vojvodina. He said the extradition process to the ICTY was already "under way".

"Today we closed one chapter in our recent history that will bring us one step closer to full reconciliation in the region," Tadic said. "We have also met all the expectations from the European Union (EU). All its expectations."

Tadic was referring to two different issues that burden Serbia. One is the slow reconciliation process, burdened by the shadow of atrocities against non-Serbs that left about 150,000 dead. The fact that Mladic had escaped arrest for 16 years limited reconciliation.

The other is Serbia’s ambition of EU membership since the toppling of the warmongering regime of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

"Now we see Serbia opening doors in two directions with the arrest of Mladic," professor of international law Vojin Dimitrijevic told IPS. "One is the badly needed reconciliation, if the region wants to move further. The other is the EU membership prospect. One can only salute such developments."

Leading human rights activist in Serbia Natasa Kandic says the arrest of Mladic is "one of the most important historic, political and judicial events in the recent past.

"There has been no more important event than this," Kandic told IPS. "The fact that the President has announced it, that he said he was proud of it, speaks about its significance. This will open the doors for reconciliation, the message that supports justice and need for justice among families of victims."

Kandic believes the arrest will have a long-term effect in changing relations between Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

Security analyst Zoran Dragisic says the arrest of Mladic had been expected. "It happened at the almost calculated right time – when the EU said Serbia cannot join the EU without Mladic being sent to The Hague, and when the chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said his report on Serbia’s cooperation with the ICTY was negative.

"But if Mladic decides to testify before the tribunal, maybe we’ll hear some different views and descriptions of wars," he told IPS.

Croatian analyst Zarko Puhovski says the developments after the arrest of Mladic will mean a different political position for Serbia. In an interview with the B92 radio and TV station, Puhovski said that "Serbia obtained many positive points" and that "Tadic has enforced his influence in the region.

"Croatia is due to join the EU in 2013, and after that Serbia will become the leader here in the region," Puhovski said. "The arrest of Mladic removes so many obstacles in relations between nations here."

But the arrest of Mladic brought no joy to Serbian nationalists, who still regard Mladic as a war hero who defended Serbs in Bosnia.

Commenting on possible protests by such nationalists, Tadic said "everything will be done in order for Serbia to remain a stable country."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Europe, Human Rights, Justice, Report Tagged With: , ,

UN Funds Gender Equality in Bosnia-Herzegovina

July 17, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By J. Chandler

IDN-InDepth News Analysis

TORONTO (IDN) – The United Nations has decided to help advance gender equality and women’s rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country in South-Eastern Europe whose Constitution assures gender equality but women in the country are still restricted in the exercise of their fundamental rights and freedoms because of entrenched tradition.

The situation has been aggravated as a result of the country going through a phase of transition and the job market shrinking that affects women much more than men.

Announcing the award to SNV, the Netherlands international development organisation, Petra Burcikova, UNIFEM Programme Specialist, said that UN Fund for Development of Women was honoured to support this important work.

The joint proposal of SNV and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Gender Centre emerged as one of 13 "exceptional, promising and innovative programmes from around the globe to receive support" of the UNIFEM Fund for Gender Equality.

Šemsa Alić, SNV Country Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said in a media note on July 14 that this was an exciting opportunity that re-affirmed SNV’s strengths in capacity building for governments, businesses and civil society organisations in the region.

"We are proud and excited to be given this opportunity to implement such a progressive idea as empowerment of women at local level in BiH," she said. "It is a mark of the high level of professionalism of our team and good partnerships with national and local stakeholders in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This programme has been designed following the core principles SNV attaches worldwide to its activities including gender equality, and especially the promotion of income earning opportunities for women."

The award, comprising 1.47 million U.S. Dollar, will develop a highly coordinated framework to put into action gender-based needs assessments and secure the implementation of the national Women’s Empowerment Action Plan in ten rural and urban municipalities.

"ENGEDERING" POLICIES

The programme will increase the number of Municipal Gender Commissioners equipped to "engender" municipal policies and operating procedures and hold Multi-Stakeholder Platforms, composed of representatives from public, business and civil society sectors in each municipality.

It will also establish an effective coordination mechanism for more than 25,000 women — including Roma, displaced and young women — to participate in the audit of existing legislation and in the subsequent formulation of local policies to enhance women’s political and economic rights in areas such as land use, transportation planning, gender-responsive budgeting and provisions for physical security.

More than 27.5 million dollar was announced by The Fund for Gender Equality to support national laws and policies advancing gender equality in 13 countries.

"These grants are an important step to address what is now widely acknowledged: that despite commitments to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, there has been consistent under-investment," said Ines Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM.

"With only five years left to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and continuing concerns about the global economic crisis, it is more important than ever to focus funds directly on implementing practical actions that will make a difference in the lives of women and men on the ground," Alberdi said.

Goal 3 among a total of eight goals aims at promoting gender equality and empowering women.

MDGs are the most broadly supported, comprehensive and specific development goals the world has ever agreed upon. These eight time-bound goals provide concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty in its many dimensions.

They include goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development.

The importance of the UNIFEM funded project is underlined by the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) of the OECD Development Centre. Reporting on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the index points out that the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina explicitly prohibits all direct or indirect discrimination, whether on the grounds of sex, race, language, politics, religion or national or social origin. The country ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in September 2003.

Women in the country, however, are still restricted in the exercise of their fundamental rights and freedoms. Tradition dictates a gender-based division of chores and responsibilities within the family: the main role of women is to raise children and manage family life. Traditionally, girls receive less education than boys and have higher illiteracy rates. Bosnia and Herzegovina is going through a phase of transition and the job market is shrinking; these factors affect women much more than men.

FAMILY CODE

Acording to SIGI, women in Bosnian and Herzegovina have a moderate degree of protection within the family context. The minimum legal age for marriage is 18 years for both men and women, and early marriage is rare. The courts can authorize marriage for a minor over 16 years of age if the person is deemed physically and mentally capable of assuming the related responsibilities. Most women marry between the ages of 20 and 24 years.

Polygamy is illegal in Bosnia and Herzegovina and there is no evidence to suggest that it is practised.

Men and women share parental authority over their children (whether born in or out of wedlock), and have equal rights in relation to adoption or child custody (in the case of divorce). A traditional division of household chores remains evident, with financial and technical responsibilities falling to men and the upkeep of the home and children to women, but men do play a significant role in educating their children. In recent years, there seems to be a shift towards more balanced role-sharing; the younger generation is quite opposed to the notion of patriarchal households.

"Legally, women and men have equal rights in regard to inheritance. Women are free to make a will without their husband’s consent. Despite the legislation, tradition can be an obstacle; women often surrender their inheritance rights in favour of men," states SIGI

PHYSICAL INTEGRITY

SIGI points out that additional effort is needed to protect the physical integrity of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Violence against women remains quite common. Current legislation does not specifically address domestic violence; rather, it is dealt with indirectly under the country’s general criminal law.

One-third of women are victims of domestic abuse, but they are very unlikely to report it — in part, because the local police are generally inactive when asked to deal with violence perpetrated against women by their husbands or partners.

Traditionally, the highly patriarchal society considers this type of violence as inevitable. Rape, including spousal rape, is considered a criminal act, but the legislation is unclear about the evidence required to bring a prosecution. It should not be overlooked that the recent war in Bosnia was marked by a high incidence of rape.

Female genital mutilation is not a common practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it is not a country of concern in relation to missing women.

OWNERSHIP RIGHTS
Theoretically, Bosnian women have the same ownership rights as men, and any assets can be individually or jointly owned. Assets owned by a spouse prior to marriage remain his or her individual property, but those acquired during the marriage are considered joint property.

There is no legal discrimination against women in regard to access to land or access to property other than land, but tradition generally favours men over women in these areas. The government has established a programme to help women independently manage small and medium enterprises, whether newly created or already in operation.

In theory, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina have unrestricted access to bank loans, but statistics show that in 1998 women held less than one-third of loans in the country. Women seldom have access to loans that require guarantees because, within couples, husbands often hold a larger share of property than their wives. It does appear, however, that women in Bosnia and Herzegovina have good access to micro-credit schemes.

Formerly one of the six federal units constituting the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina gained its independence during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Bosnia and Herzegovina are described as a Parliamentary democracy that is transforming its economy into a market-oriented system, and it is a potential candidate for membership in the European Union and has been a candidate for NATO membership since April 2010, when it received a Membership Action Plan at the summit in Tallinn.

Additionally, the nation has been a member of the Council of Europe since 24 April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment on July 13, 2008. (IDN-InDepthNews/17.07.2010)

Copyright © 2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Development, Human Rights, Report Tagged With: , ,

BALKANS: Economic Crisis Takes Harsh Toll

July 11, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic

SARAJEVO, Jul 11, 2010 (IPS) – It’s been quite a while since Mevliha Cebo enjoyed the job she was educated for: a pre-school teacher in her native Sarajevo.

For six years, Mevliha, 52, has been working as a chef at a small restaurant in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Kandilj. A typical day is spent preparing omelettes covered with sour cream or embedded in tasty beef sausages for her customers.

"What you see is all home-grown or home-made honey, bread, eggs coming from my mother’s farm nearby, and jam, sausages, and tomatoes from her garden," Mevliha says. "That is what keeps this business going, and also feeds my extended family of 20."

Mevliha says her family has endured many financial crises in the last two decades. She hopes she will tide over this one as well.

Mevliha’s story is similar to many others in the Balkans, which has been impacted hard by the 2008 economic crisis. It came just as the nation was on the cusp of recovery after many turbulent years of war and bloodshed. Layoffs and shriveling incomes are now compelling many like Mevliha to stoically adopt new professions and lifestyles in dealing with economic hardships.

"First there was the war between 1992 and 1995. I lost my job as a pre- school teacher then, only to get it back for a couple of years, but lost it again in 2004 because of budgetary cuts," she says. "I had to look for another source of livelihood. So here I am cooking breakfast for others."

But her worries are hardly over even after finding a new vocation. Mevliha’s two sons, who graduated with degrees in banking and veterinary medicine in 2008, are having a tough time finding jobs in Sarajevo.

Unemployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina stands at 40 percent, according to official estimates. It was expected that the region would recover because of government efforts to rebuild the country between 1995 and 2000 after years of war. But it failed to transition into a market economy, largely because of corruption and a poor investment climate. Since the economic crisis began in 2008, the pace of development has slowed down even further.

"It’s a new distortion for people," Zijad Jusufovic, 45, who works as a tourist guide in Sarajevo, told IPS. "We were just returning to normal life, but are consumed by hopelessness again. After years of war, life should have become better by now, particularly for the young. But they haven’t seen what a decent life looks like."

Even for Slovenia, whose people are known for their rich lifestyle in the Balkans, fortunes have dramatically changed since 2008.

Apart from its involvement in the EU’s costly bailout of Greece last month, Slovenia is reeling under painful reform of its pension system, which is putting an additional strain on the nation’s economy. Slovenia had to issue state bonds to collect 387 million euros of its share of the 110 billionn euros bailout of Greece, a sum that amounts to 3.6 percent of its annual budget in 2010.

The Law on Small Work, a new law introduced by the government in June, sets to limit the working hours for students and employed individuals to 20 hours per month. There were no limits to working hours before this. This new law caused violent protests by students last month. They pelted eggs and stones at the parliamentary building in Ljubljana, and had to be dispersed by the police.

"We were so well off compared to the others in the region. These protests are therefore understandable," Rado Pezdir, a young university teacher told IPS. "Now people have to count every euro cent."

Like others in former Yugoslavia, Slovenes are now banking on the government to solve the problems.

"That is something that can barely change all over (former Yugoslavia)," Pezdir says. "People are apathetic here; they want full shops and money to buy all these goods, but no one thinks they have to work hard for that or face a job loss. The state should provide for all, they believe, but that cannot happen now."

In Serbia, the biggest nation of the region with a population of 7.4 million, people have similar expectations from the government. Unemployment here has touched a record high of almost 30 percent since 2008.

Since 2009, 250,000 people lost their jobs, according to official estimates — which equals the total number of job losses between 2001 and 2008.

"Statistics can be misleading," street vendor Zoran Stamenkovic told IPS in downtown Belgrade. "I eat cabbage, you eat meat. But statistics will mislead you to say we eat sarma (traditional Balkans dish of cabbage leaves stuffed with minced meat)."

The state is unable to generate more jobs, there are fewer investments, and the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is growing.

"My unemployment benefits give me 10,000 dinars (120 dollars), which is enough to buy utilities only. It means survival for a family of four is tough in Belgrade," says Nikolina Strajic (43) who recently lost her job in one of Belgrade’s supermarkets.

"But I’m happy I did not take any bank loan for the renovation of our apartment. We’ll have to rely on my husband’s salary of 45,000 dinars (535 dollars). I hope we can manage until I find a job. I don’t know when that will be possible."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Economic Policy, Europe, Featured, Politics Tagged With: , ,

A difficult week for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

March 6, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites

Heather McRobie, 5 March 2010

Link to the original article on openDemocracy.net

The ICTY’s struggle to prosecute war criminals causes a further decline in credibility in times when progress is vital for Croatia and the relation between Serbia and Bosnia.

It seems strange to think now that, until recently, the ICTY was intended to be closed by December 2010; the UN Security Council recently extended its mandate to December 2012, meaning that the work of the court will continue past the milestone of twenty years since the start of the devastating wars in the former Yugoslavia. Yet the events of the past week seem to indicate that even two more years is not long enough for the ICTY to fulfil its goal of prosecuting those responsible for war crimes and genocide—high profile war crimes fugitives Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic have still not been arrested, whilst Radovan Karadzic managed to hide from justice for twelve years between his ICTY indictment and his arrest in 2008. Meanwhile, as Karadzic is now busy making a mockery of the ICTY’s process, Britain has found itself in a divisive diplomatic row with Bosnia over the arrest of University of Sarajevo professor Ejup Ganic, whilst last week saw the announcement of a concert to raise money for those indicted by the ICTY in Croatia.

While war crimes were committed by all sides during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the 44 month siege of Sarajevo—estimated to have killed 10,000 and injured 56,000—stands out as one of the most shocking. One of the 11 indictments against Radovan Karadzic is his role in the siege as Bosnian Serb leader during the 1992-1996 assault on the city. On Tuesday, a day after Karadzic’s trial reopened, the former Bosnian leader—as defiant as Milosevic at the start of his trial in 2001—claimed that Bosnian Muslims orchestrated the siege of Sarajevo in order to engineer a Nato attack on Bosnian Serbs, whilst dismissing the 1995 massacre of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica as a “myth.” Then, just as these old wounds were being reopened, Karadzic’s trial was postponed once more, so that the Appellate Chamber could decide on Karadzic’s appeal against a previous decision in which the Trial Chamber rejected his request for postponement. Like a bad parody of Kafka, the court has postponed Karadzic’s trial in order to rule on an earlier postponement. In the meantime, witnesses who came to The Hague to testify have been turned away a second time, and the traumas of those affected by the siege and by Srebrenica have been forced to the surface without any chance to respond.

Whilst Karadzic has been allowed to make a mockery of the ICTY’s process, there was nonetheless a glimmer of hope this week that, despite Karadzic’s theatrics, the process of bringing war criminals to justice was functioning at least as well as normal. The arrest of alleged Montenegrin war criminal Veselin Vlahoiv Batko, known as the ‘Monster of Grbavica’, in Spain on Tuesday had little of the drama and myth-making that Karadzic has brought to the justice process: Batko claims he is “tired of running” from the arrest warrants against him and seems likely to co-operate with the judicial process. Spanish newspaper El Pais quoted police sources saying that Batko confessed to his role in raping, torturing and killing civilians in the Grbavica area of Sarajevo during the war. Both Montenegro and Bosnia requested his extradition to their countries after his arrest in Spain; Serbia’s Ministry of Justice later added their own extradition request for crimes they claim Batko has committed in Serbia. While the question of which country will succeed in extraditing Batko largely rests on the still unresolved question of whether he has a Bosnian passport, his confession and Bosnia and Serbia’s mutual desire to see him brought to justice, could have signalled a return to the grim normality of prosecuting war criminals.

However, Batko’s arrest has been quickly overshadowed by that of Ejup Ganic at London’s Heathrow airport, provoking a diplomatic row to rival the dispute in late 2009 in which Britain failed to guarantee that Israeli politician Tzipi Livni would not be arrested for war crimes. It seems fair to say that Britain has not yet given a consistent answer as to why they arrested Ganic without bail, yet quickly attempted to make amends with Israel after ‘universal jurisdiction’ was very briefly invoked in relation to Livni. () A source of particular grievance to many Bosniaks this week has been that Ganic was arrested in Heathrow after an extradition appeal that came directly from Serbia to Britain: the ICTY has already investigated allegations made against Ganic and has refused to issue an indictment for war crimes.

An academic by profession, Ganic was President of Bosnia for around 48 hours in 1992, whilst Alia Itzetbegovic was held hostage by the JNA in Sarajevo airport as he returned from peace talks in Portugal. During this period, Serbian officials claim that Ganic ordered an ambush of a UN-sponsored evacuation, leading to the deaths of 42 soldiers. That Ganic’s arrest came just as Karadzic’s trial commenced in The Hague has strained tensions between Serbia and Bosnia, as Bosnian officials have seen the arrest of Ganic as ‘retaliatory’ and an attempt to make an equivalence between Ganic and Karadzic. As of Thursday, a Facebook fan page calling for the release of Ganic has reached over 17,000 members, and the Bosniak member of BiH’s three-seat Presidency has vowed to “fight to defend the rights of our citizens and the dignity of war resistance to the aggression that was launched on Bosnia.”

It remains to be seen how the ICTY will respond to this escalation of accusations and counter-accusations. It is, however, becoming clearer that citizens from all countries involved in the 1990s conflicts are losing faith in the processes of prosecuting those responsible for war crimes. Last week, it was announced that a concert of Croatian musicians will be held in Split to raise funds for the defence of three we crime indictees accused of the deportation and murder of Serb civilians in 1995—another indication that the UN Tribunal can no longer ignore the issue of its declining credibility in the region, and that allowing Karadzic to turn his trial into a farce is further exacerbating the issue.

Of course, the ICTY’s credibility has often been disputed. In her 2004 book ‘They Would Never Hurt A Fly’, journalist Slavenka Drakulic describes how, in the early days of the Tribunal, nationalist politicians—often the same politicians as had been in power in the early 1990s—created a powerful rhetoric equating defiance of the ICTY with patriotism, and evidence of its alleged bias were widely disseminated. As Drakulic notes, Serbia’s experience of sanctions and the NATO bombings in the 1990s also lent weight to feelings that Serbia has been disproportionately targeted or portrayed as the sole aggressor, as did the comparative lack of public acknowledgement of the war crimes committed against Serb civilians. In Bosnia, meanwhile, post-Dayton institutional entrenchment of ethnic divisions means that children from the three official ‘constituent nations’ now study different curricula based on their official ethnic identity: history classes attended by Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb children use textbooks from the neighbouring states, while lessons for Bosnian Muslims use textbooks created for their purposes. All three curricula explain the 1990s wars in terms of a struggle for independence and self-defence against the aggressors of the other ethnic groups: the ICTY prosecutions betray these official histories.

With Karadzic’s mocking theatrics, a concert for war crime indictees in Croatia, and a diplomatic row over Ejup Ganic’s arrest in London, it is hard to see how the ICTY will recover legitimacy amongst the communities to whom it is intended to bring justice, whilst in the time since the Tribunal was established the compulsory ethnic-identification has become increasingly institutionalised and entrenched. Relations between Bosnia and Serbia had recently been improving—the Sarajevo-Belgrade railway had symbolically re-opened in late 2009—yet Ganic’s arrest could easily set back this normalisation. Moreover, the election of the moderate Jospovic in late 2009 in Croatia had been seen as a sign of hope that the country could fully move on from the Tudjman era. The events of this week unfortunately seem to indicate that there is much further to go than had recently seemed possible.

This article is published by Heather McRobie, Global Geopolitics Net, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it without needing further permission, with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines.


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