Unrepentant Mladic goes on trial

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Nearly seventeen years after he was first indicted, former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic went on trial today for crimes against humanity that culminated in Europe’s worst massacre since World War II in July 1995.

In a courtroom packed with relatives of victims of the three-and-a half year Bosnia war, prosecutor Dermot Groome read out a catalog of crimes allegedly committed by Mladic’s men, ranging from the taking of hostages and shelling of civilians to rapes and mass killing.  The 69-year old general is accused of double genocide, stemming from a massive ethnic cleansing campaign at the beginning of the war and the killing of 7,000 Muslim prisoners in Srebrenica at the end.

Dressed in a dark suit, Mladic waved and gave the thumbs-up sign to spectators in the public gallery at the start of a trial that is expected to take at least two years. He also held up a book emblazoned with the image of King Peter II of Yugoslavia, who was overthrown by the Nazis at the beginning of World War II.

“Mladic wanted to send a message to us that he, too, is some kind of king,” said Munira Subasic, who lost 22 members of her extended family in the Srebrenica killings, including her husband and son. “But I am happy because he is finally in jail. God will punish him.”

To read the full blog post on Foreign Policy, click here

 

Missteps that led to a tragedy

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Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images

I will be in the Hague on Wednesday for the long-awaited start of the Mladic trial, almost seventeen years after he was first indicted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. While we wait to hear the prosecutor’s opening statement, let’s take a look at some more “roads not taken” during the run-up to the Srebrenica tragedy of July 1995, which features prominently in the Mladic indictment.

While primary responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre certainly rests with the Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Mladic, the international community also played a role through a series of diplomatic missteps. Here are three more key moments, selected by the former United Nations civil affairs official, David Harland, that led directly to Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.

For three earlier decision points, click here.

Key Moment 4. The Bosnian government’s decision to block the evacuation of Srebrenica in April 1993. On April 2, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees reported to the Security Council that non-combatants were “desperate to escape to safety because they see no other prospect than death if they remain where they are.” On instructions from the Bosnian government, the Muslim commander in Sarajevo, Nasir Oric, prevented the evacuation of refugees on the grounds that it would pave the way for the takeover of Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serbs, and would facilitate their policy of “ethnic cleansing.” A convoy of United Nations trucks was forced to leave the enclave without any refugees on board. Ironically, Oric himself left Srebrenica in April 1995, three months before the town fell.

Key moment 5. On April 16, 1993, the Security Council adopted resolution 917 declaring Srebrenica a “safe area.” Subsequent resolutions authorized the dispatch of a lightly-armed peacekeeping battalion to the enclave, but failed to provide it with sufficient fire power to deter the Serbs. One UN commander, General Francis Briquemont of Belgium, commented that he had stopped reading United Nations resolutions due to the “fantastic gap” between rhetoric and reality. Security Council members, led by the United States, never resolved this fatal contradiction.

To read the full blog post on Foreign Policy, click here.