Radovan Karadžić 'criminally responsible' for genocide at Srebenica

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić has been “held criminally responsible” for the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica and sentenced to 40 years in jail.

The key verdict from a United Nations tribunal in The Hague was delivered 18 months after a five-year trial of Karadžić, who was accused of being one of the chief architects of wartime atrocities.

The 70-year-old, who pleaded not guilty and insisted his actions were aimed at protecting Serbs during the conflict, faced 11 charges at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), including two counts of genocide.
...
The presiding ICTY judge delivering the ruling, O-Gon Kwon, earlier said the court had found Karadzic not to be responsible for genocide in attacks on other towns and villages where Croats and Bosnians were driven out.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/24/radovan-karadzic-criminally-responsible-for-genocide-at-srebenica

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Good. I could see no way he was not responsible.

[yourpaljoey]

1. Justice

[2naSalit]

2. Took a long time

but the appropriate decision seems to have been made. I'm sure I will be discussing this with my friends from Croatia next time we talk.

[PatrynXX]

3. why restart old wars.

it was a revenge war to begin with. Yes I took the Bosnians side but the sentence of re revenge doesn't stop anything I wish they'd stop acting like children. Yes they know my feelings on this. Bit awkward they can have someone take a position and not have a fuss over it. They can prove me wrong fast. I was always against the Serbs war but not the Serbs.. the worst one is already long dead

[JustAnotherGen]

4. How does an old war get restarted

By Justice being served?

A Genocide has been committed - and the attitude of:

Let's just play patty cake and be happy happy happy is precisely why we are in the Age of Genocide. What side you took makes no difference.


The actions must be account for.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. It acts as a deterrent against other people contemplating genocide

If someone thought "I can get away with literal murder because I can say 'it is in a revenge war'", they would be more likely to commit such crimes.

[PatrynXX]

7. it's not gonna deter anyone

thats the problem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Your problem seems to be with human nature (as you perceive it, anyway)

You're saying he shouldn't have been prosecuted (and so, presumably, should just be able to live as a free individual in some Serb enclave somewhere).

You're also saying that no-one who contemplates war crimes ever thinks "I might get caught and punished for this". I'd agree that some people who commit such atrocities might not be deterred, but I think some of them are capable of reason and deciding to hold back from the murders to keep themselves out of jail.

[PatrynXX]

13. whatever you say

You don't seem to know the history here. So me has nothing to do with it. This is pure revenge and I just don't agree with it. Can't believe I'm arguing in ecense anti war on a Democratic site (face palm)

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. You don't seem to be "arguing anti-war" at all

What you're arguing is that it would have been better to leave the leader of a genocidal regime unprosecuted. That's not an "anti-war" stance. The one justification you gave for leaving him free was that you didn't think the idea that genocide could get prosecuted would deter anyone else from trying it in the future. I disagree, because I think some people who commit such crimes are nevertheless rational, and give weight to their own future before committing them. You think human nature is different, and that people who commit genocide never weigh the consequences for themselves.

[PatrynXX]

15. go ahead make stuff up

but that is what I'm saying born out of the movie Savior. This is just trying to start one, I'm done with this hateful conversation you keep at it on your own

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Presuming you mean this film, from 1998 - it's fiction

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120070/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

That doesn't really help us. If there's some message from it, you'd need to explain it, and why you think the writer is correct.

I don#t think I've been at all unfair to you. You've explained very little of your position, except that you don't think he should have been prosecuted, and as far as I can tell, that's because you don't think the conviction will deter anyone else. I don't see that as a 'bad' position or anything (so I can't see why you think this conversation is 'hateful'), but I disagree with it.

[cigsandcoffee]

6. They should also charge him with having too many accented letters in his name. Good Lord. n/t

[PatrynXX]

8. what you can't prounouce his name?

I've heard it going on 20 yrs. like saying not spelling Gorbi's name

[HughBeaumont]

9. Oh, so the Hague DOES convict madmen of war crimes.

Hmmmmmmmmm.



HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.



[font size=5]HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM . . . .[/font]

[moondust]

11. Next up.

Ratko Mladić, Butcher of Bosnia



His trial at the Hague began four years ago. Maybe he'll claim he was just following orders.

[Blue_Tires]

12. Karadzic defenders:

http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/articles-deniers.htm

[StevieM]

18. You might want to take a closer look at the link you provided.

I'm not attacking you or suggesting that you have done something wrong. But you might not have seen some of what is written there.

The blog makes repeated comments about the left and leftist deniers. The language, just on the front page, includes some of the familiar rhetoric of liberal-bashing.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. In 1993, a BBC reporter asked him if he might one day look back from a Hague prison cell

BBC 6pm news today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07414kq

From around 29:20 (after the reporter, Alan Little, calls Karadžić "bizarrely self-deluded&quot :

"In early 1993 I went to see Karadžić in a hotel room in Geneva. We sat together on the end of his bed. He had just rejected the latest peace plan, opting instead to keep the war going. I asked him privately whether he feared he might one day look back from a prison cell in The Hague, and see this as the moment he might have chosen peace over war, and change the fate of his country, and his own destiny. He tipped his head back slightly, and laughed politely, and dismissed the idea as implausible and naive. Back then, the idea of international justice was a naive dream. It is still in its infancy, still flawed, but it has come a long way since the killing fields of Bosnia helped propel it into existence."