Crimes by humanity, against humanity

(Disclaimer: This post may contain optimism due to the interest I personally have in this subject)

February 26th, 2007 – It has been nearly twelve years since the massacre of Srebrenica in 1995 that made just under twenty thousand victims in just under a month. The International criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) determined a few years back that this episode constituted an act of genocide on the part of the Belgrade government at the time under Slobodan Milosevic. Along with this last head of state, which regretfully died before his trial ended, such characters as Ratko Mladic (General in charge of the Srebrenica incident) as well as Radovan Karadzic (Bosnian Serb leader) have been mandated to appear in court at The Hague, Belgium. These last two are still on the run, rumoured to be hidden by the Serbian Orthodox Church as well as by the Serbian and Montenegrin police forces. The European Union has said that Serbia and Montenegro will have to hand over these two as well as other «war criminals» before their candidacy can be taken seriously.

A second party was also being judged in The Hague until today, the Serbian and Montenegrin people. It definitely is a much more controversial subject as well as a very vague one to judge. The ICTY "ruled that Serbia and Montenegro had violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by not preventing or punishing the perpetrators of the genocide" (BBC News Service) in accordance to the Geneva Convention. Despite these findings, the Serbian and Montenegrin people as a whole were found innocent of the Bosnian/Muslim genocide of 1995.

The verdict has two important, direct consequences; firstly, the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples will not have to ‘do time’ by apologising and carrying this burden of internationally recognised guilt for decades if not centuries. Secondly, the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples/gouvernments can not be dragged in front of international tribunals by Bosnian/Muslim class-action suits that aim financial restitution. A very important, indirect consequence of the verdict is the improvement of diplomatic relations between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as between Serbia and Croatia who were also invaded by the Serbian army (APY) in 1992.

Inevitably, this week’s historical link is with the condemning of the German and Austrian people following the First and Second World Wars. The Germanic populations of Europe carry the burden of Wilhelm II’s aggression in 1914 and the Nazi Regime/holocaust of 1938-1944. They have collectively been found guilty in various treaties of not preventing certain atrocities that have lead to over a hundred-million deaths. I am certainly an advocate for nuancing this accusation of ultimate responsibility, we could likely make a case for the non-intervention of France under Daladier and Great-Britain under Chamberlain when they simply sat by (and even signed a treaty in Munich) and allow Hitler to invade and take control of Czechoslovakia in 1938. It is certainly a thing of the past on which we cannot come back on by the touchiness of the subject. Nevertheless, the financial and especially moral burden that Germany carries is still visible decades later as is demonstrated when the German chancellor apologised to the Jewish people of the world and when all Nazi or extreme-right activities and merchandise is explicitly illegal.

Responsibility lies with the aggressor and with provokers but I believe that generalised responsibility should not be carried indefinitely by people that were present without participation as well as by their children and their grand-children. Reconstruction and reconciliation in the Balkans must go through a time-demanding process of forgiveness and cooperation, as Germany and Austria went through, to resolve the loose ends of the destructive wars (1992-2001) across the peninsula.

(Pictured: The current German flag with its crest)

End.