Why has Milosevic Not been Indicted?
- A Guide to Internet Resources  -

                                BosNet Web

                        Why has Milosevic Not been Indicted?

                        A Guide to Internet Resources

Introduction-In conjunction with its program entitled,'The World's Most Wanted Man 'which chronicles the life and times of Radovan Karadzic ,the P.B.S series "Frontline " has set up a web site. This site contains a page about bringing war criminals to justice which asks  the highly pertinent question,"Why has Slobodan Milosevic not been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague?"
     Answering this question is hardly an academic exercise.As thousands of refugees from Kosovo stream over the Albanian border ,fleeing an assault of their villages by Serbian paramilitary and police forces,it become clear that failing to punish the crimes of the past can only lead their perpetrators to believe  that they can commit similar crimes with impunity.
     The question of Milosevic's war guilt concerns us all. Despite the recent events in Kosovo  which have made it amply clear  that  the strategy ,adopted at Dayton, of asking the man who started the Balkan Wars to police the peace  is a failure,neither the International  Criminal Tribunal at the Hague nor the leaders of the international community have seriously considered bringing Mr. Milosevic to justice. It seems clear that they will not even raise the  question of Mr Milosevic's culpability if human rights activists and persons concerned with building a lasting peace in the Balkans do not bring serious pressure to bear on them to do so. The following guide to the resources on the Internet that allow the reader to examine the question of Mr Milosevic's culpability,is meant to provide a tool with which to begin raising this question of public interest.
 

                                The Legal Case

Balkan Institute-       War Crimes and Individual Responsibility
A Prima Facae Case for  the Indictment of Slobodan Milosevic
aul Willams and Norman Cigar
http://www.balkaninstitute.org/analysis/cw-6-97.htm

A study which applies the criteria used to indict Ratko Mladic and Rodavan Karadzic to the 'case ' of Slobodan Milosevic and demonstrates that there is sufficient evidence to indict Milosevic.
 

Frontline Series-        Indict Milosevic -Paul Williams and Michael Scharf
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/trial/scharf.html

Argues that the events in Kosovo strengthen the case for indicting Milosevic." The immediate next step of the War Crimes Tribunal should be to issue a public indictment of Mr. Milosevic based on his responsibility for the heavily armed, systematic attacks on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian civilians, which have led to their being hung, summarily executed, burned and tortured."
 

What About Milosevic?-Michelle Nicolason-
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/trial/milosevic.html

Examines the arguments for and against indicting Milosevic. Interviews include Cigar and Williams, Jim Hooper of the Balkan Institute, Judge Goldstone, former Us Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman
 

Dayton's Mandate For Apprehending War Criminals by Jim Hooper
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/trial/hooper.html

In which Hooper argues that at Dayton the Nuremburg precedent of holding the persons responsible for planning genocide accountable was turned on ist head  when "senior American officials assumed that the indictment of Milosevic - who had instigated the war and formulated the policy of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Croatia - would undermine his commitment to implement the peace agreement, thereby increasing the risk of casualties
for NATO peacekeepers."
     This decision led to a situation where "failure by the U.S. and NATO allies to secure the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic has undermined the integrity of the judicial process, encouraged  Milosevic to avoid compliance with Dayton  obligations and emboldened him to prepare for more ethnic cleansing in Kosovo."
 

                Milosevic's Role in the Fomenting the Balkan Conflict

Cal Tech Site-  Serbia chief linked to mass killings coming for talks  -Roy Gutman
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~bosnia/criminal/newsday_1.html

Details Milosevic's role in pllanning and ordering massacres in Eastern Bosnia,and why he can be held legally accountable for them.
 

Federal Army Tied to Bosnian Crimes\Serb leader's death camp link -Roy Gutman
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~bosnia/criminal/newsday_2.html

Ties Milosevic to crimes against humanity committed at Prejidor Contains an interview with Former Secretary of State Laurence Eagleberger who states'""I never believed" in the change of command,"Through the period that includes the camps, I believed Milosevic . . . gave the right kind of nod" to run them.

                                Who Gave the Orders

A Deal with Devil Won't Stick-Josua Marevich
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~bosnia/articles/deal1130.html

" Milan Martic, the "president" of the defunct Republic of Serbian Krajina (in Croatia ), has been indicted by the tribunal. In a recent interview with the Belgrade newspaper, Telegraf, Martic said, "No one in Krajina undertook any moves, even of the smallest nature, without informing or consulting Milosevic."
 

Serb Chief Painted as Warmonger by ex-aide by Jane Perlez
http://www.amber.ucsf.edu/homes/ross/public_html/bosnia_/milos2.txt

The New York Times correspondent reviews a book by former Yugoslav president Borislav Jovic in which he "directly contradicts Milosevic's public explanation that Serbia was an innocent bystander in the war". ....It was apparently so disturbing to Milosevic that after its publication Jovic was unceremoniously stripped of his senior position in the president's political party. "
 

Community of Bosnia Site-
Documentary Claims Serbia Provided Arms For Srebrenica Massacre
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/berserk/sreb_arms.html

Describes a Reuteurs TV Special that traced the smuggling of Serbian arms to Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica and Momcilo Krjisnik's role in it.
 

                                The Nuremburg Trials

The Avalon Project-Yale University-
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm

This project has begun to put the proceedings of Nuremburg Trials and the documentation of Nazi crimes  presented there on line. Still a work in progress. The site gives the reader ready access to a wealth of documentation.Showing how the Internet can make such information more readily accessible.
 

The Lessons of Nuremburg Christopher A Long
http://www.calong.dircon.co.uk/print.nurtri.html

"True, some say the Nuremberg Trials were flawed - one argument being that the court represented only the winning powers who then assumed the roles of both prosecutor and judge while denying any right of appeal.
     Such critics seldom suggest who else had the moral right and organisational ability to arrest and convict Nazi war criminals, let alone where any appeal could, reasonably, have been made - as things were at the time. And few have demonstrated that any of the convictions were manifestly wrong.
     Yet the International Court in The Hague doesn't even face these dilemmas.
     So, if we could get it right then, why can't we do so now?"
 

                                        The Law

Avocats Sans Frontiéres-
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
http://www.link.be/asf/convention/convention.html
 

Sources: The following Web Pages -Mario's Cyberstation, The Balkan Institute, Major War Crimes Suspects (Cal Tech), Frontline, Domovina Net, Avocats Sans Frontières, Human Rights Watch Arrest Now Site, Community of Bosnia, Yale University Avalon Project, New York Review Books, War Crimes Watch, Coalition for International Justice

Part  2:  History of the Balkan Wars And Milosevic's Involvement appeared on  BosNet on June 23:

                Why  Milosevic Has Not been Indicted Part II

                        The Historical Background

In part one of this reference guide (BosNet,June 4 1998,Digest vol. 5 No.892 ) we catalogued the resources on the Internet that showed that a persuasive case can be made for indicting Slobdan Milosevic for crimes against humanity and genocide. The second part of this   guide consists of a  list of internet resources that  provide an introduction to the history  of the Balkan Wars.The History of this conflict reads like a  catalogue of Mr Milosevic's crimes.

Mark Danner's six part series of articles on the Balkan Wars provides an excellent overview of the subject.Many of the major books dealing with the Balkan conflict are reviewed here:

1. Mark Danner: The US and the Yugoslav Catastrophe
    http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1997112056R

Part 2.:America and the Bosnia Genocide
            http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1997120455F

Part 3.:Clinton, the UN, and the Bosnian Disaster
           http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1997121865F
Part  4:Bosnia: The Turning Point
            http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1998020534F
Part 5:Bosnia: Breaking the Machine
            http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1998021941F
Part 6: Bosnia: The Great Betrayal
            http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?1998032640F

The Danner articles provide insight into why the United States did not intervene to stop genocide  in the Balkans. The following account of Secretary of State Baker's meeting with Slobodan Milosevic late 1992 points to the genesis of  the West's impotence when facing the  butcher of Belgrade:

As Zimmermann, Hutchings, and the others in the room well knew, and as Zimmermann writes, Milosevic was a "ruthless leader who might have been impressed by real military power but not by diplomatic overtures." Yet in his "last ditch effort to head off the violence," Baker not only refrained from making any explicit threats but went out of his way to make it plain that the country he represented-the superpower whose military only months before had destroyed the Iraqi army in a matter of days-had already ruled out any use of force. David Gompert says that "not even Baker the poker player could disguise the fact that the warning to the Serbs was not backed by the threat of force"

Many of the books reviewed in the Danner series can be purchased from the Friends of Bosnia electronic bookstore.The bookstore  stocks a wide variety of   Balkan titles  which can be purchased  over the internet at a discount from amazon.com :

Friends of Bosnia Electronic Bookstore:
http://www.crocker.com/~fob/resour.htm

The Community of Bosnia Website :
http://www.students.haverford.edu/vfilipov/home2.html

contains a section' Visit Bosnian Towns' were genocide occurred 'which chronicles the  unfolding of Serbia's campaign of genocide in Bosnia.The Srebrenica section is particularly instructive. Much of this information points to Slobodan Milosevic role in the commission of war crimes.

You can go directly to the Srebrenica section of this site by pointing your browser to:
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/srebrenica.html

Excerpts of David Rohde,s powerful book recounting the Srebrenica Massacre, 'End Game' are reproduced on this site.

Roy Gutman 's article:
UN's Deadly Deal :How troop-hostage talks led to slaughter of Srebrenica:
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/gutman.html

shows how   the UN negotiations with Milosevic allowed him to feel he had the green light to attack Srebrenica. As Kosova burns this is surely a cautionary tale.

Bianka Jagger's article, 'The Betrayal of Srebrenica'  places the details of the complicity within a larger moral vision and exposes the stakes for all of us when genocide is appeased and  facilitated. It quotes Tribunal President Cassese's eloquent defense of the importance of the Tribunal and of justice. The end of the article also includes a chilling account Bianca Jagger's recent trip to Srebrenica and the nearby extermination sites.

Part 1: http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/BiancaJagger1.html
Part 2: http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/BiancaJagger2.html

Before the Milosevic visited  upon Bosnia the scenes of horror at Omarska,the destruction of Bosnian cities, rape, and the Srebrenica massacre ,his troops razed Vukovar and shelled Dubrovnik.The attack on that historic city prefigured the destruction of Bosnia's cultural heritage. The Address of Pero Poljanic, Former Lord Mayor of Dubrovnik chronicles the attack on that city:

http://www.hr/dubrovnik/docs/barbars/poljanic.html

Andras Reidelmayer's testimony before the US Congress  on the cultural destruction of Bosnia,points out the motives  behind attacks such as the assault on Dubrovnik  and the destruction of Bosnia's National Library:

http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/killing.html

"History is the raw material for nationalist or ethnic or fundamentalist ideologies, as poppies are the raw material for heroin addiction...If there is no suitable past, it can always be invented. The past legitimizes. The past gives a more glorious background to a present that doesn't have that much to show for itself [Open Society News, Winter 1993].
     To this, one should add: before inventing a new past, the old must be erased. The destruction of a community's past, of its institutions and records is, in the first instance, part of a strategy of intimidation aimed at driving out members of the targeted group. But it also serves another long-term goal. These buildings and records were proof that non-Serbs once resided and owned property in that place,that they had historical roots there. By burning the documents, by razing mosques and Catholic churches and bulldozing the graveyards, the nationalist forces who have now taken over these towns and villages are trying to insure themselves against any future claims by the people they have driven out and dispossessed."

                                History Repeats itself

On June 5 1998, a report of Dutch TV revealed that  YPV,s captured from Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica were used in the attack on the Kosovar city of Prekaz.Proof, if proof were need ,that Milosevic's campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosova is part and parcel of his genocidal attacks against the non-Serbian populations of the former Yugoslavia which began when he robbed  the Kosovars of their autonomy in 1989. Domovina Net brings us this report:

http://www.domovina.net/NOS/video/980606.ram

To  understand the historical  context of the conflict  in Kosova and read a fisrt hand account of the events in Drenica ,one can turn to the Special Report on Kosovo in 'Convergencies'  March-April .I have translated three of these article into English. They can bee seen at:
http://services.worldnet.net/corent/AECNantes/converge/conv0298/c0298A1.html#Preface

Spécial Kosovo in French :
http://services.worldnet.net/corent/AECNantes/converge/conv0298/c0298_3.html

Spécial Kosovo also contains  a series of photos taken in Kosovo by Sébastien Nouvel
 

Mario's Cybersation's Kosovo Crisis Page :
http://mprofaca.cro.net/kosovo.html

contains a  series of documents on the genisis of the Kosovo crisis including  reports  from OMRI and the Balkan Institute,the debate on Kosovo in the US  Congress March 6 ,1998 and a report from the American Federation of Sceintists. It is also has links to all the major web  pages and news sources dealing with the Kosovo crisis.

For daily updates on the  Milosevic's assualt on the villages and towns of Kosova point your browser the site of the independent newspaper Koha Ditore:

http://www.kohaditore.com/ARTA/index.htm

This site also had special reports on the Drenica and Decane massacres.

Kosova Updates are also available at:  http://www.alb-net.com/

Real Audio and Video Files and updates at: http://www.domovina.net/index1.html
 

                        Audio Visual Sources

Photos of the destruction of Vukovar can viewed at the Photos of War site at:
http://vukovar.unm.edu/vukovar/docs/100days.html

BosNet's Sarajevo page:   http://www.bosnet.org/bosnia/cities/sarajevo.html-ssi

contains a Quick Time VR view of Sarajevo under siege,compliments of David Pitchford and  a  version of the Sarajevo  Survival Map reproduced with the permission of Saray Net and Fama. There are also links to the sites where these items were authored.

Serbian militias  armed by Milosevic were instrumental in the destruction of Croatia and Bosnia and now taking part  in the destruction of Kosova. Christian Amampour's portrait of Arkan,one of the more vicious of the miltia leaders can be on seen on Domovina Net at:
http://www.domovina.net/Menu/A_eng.html

Domovina Net's Srebrenica Unsafe Area  Report:
http://www.domovina.net/Menu/S_eng.html

is an excellent  index of  print materials on the subject.It's documents in Real Audio and Video contain some of the most powerful images and sounds of the war. These include:

The Death of Yugoslavia Part 6
Nova televisions's the Fall of Srebrenica
BBC Srebrenica the year after
An Interview with General Morrilon(the UN commander who  first promised to protect Srebrenica)
Excerpts from the International Criminal Tribunal Mladic Hearings

Copies of Internews and BBC account coverage of the proceeding of the Hague Tribunal can  found at:   http://www.domovina.net/Menu/T_eng.html

Domovina Net and Internews will soon be broadcasting daily reports from the Tribunal at:   http://www.domovina.net

Excerpts of ITN award winning series  'War Crimes in Bosnia 'can be  viewed at the Amnesty International Press Award 1996 site:   http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press_awards/news.html

The International Monitor  Institute  maintains an audio -visual archive of the Balkan Wars. Its Web page allows you to see Real Video Clips from twenty six of these holdings including the  Death of Yugoslavia,Bosna by BH Levy,The Cook Report on Arkan,ITN's Report from The Besieged City of Dubrovnik,A Town Called Kozarc, and the ITN report in the visit  of ist news crew to Omarska.

IMI  Balkan Archive:     http://www.asnap.com/imi/html/ba_list.htm