Serbian Nationalists and Karadzic

It's no surprise that Serbian nationalists believe that the Hague ICTY is incapable of providing Radovan Karadic with a fair trial. That said, the trial is going forward. One of the most recent developments concerns Karadzic's attempt to sack his court-appointed attorney. Karadzic is doing everything in his power to delay the trial, and continues to insist that he is innocent on all 11 counts of war crimes. His most infamous act was to oversee the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica. Karadzic continues to argue that war war was avoidable and that Alija Izetbegovic as well as foreign (German) interference was largely responsible for the outbreak of war. Also, there's no denying that the origins of the conflict are difficult to unravel. Still, this trial is not ultimately about establishing blame for the outbreak of the war. Karadzic needs to stand trial for specific war crimes.

Karadzic wants to reduce his Indictment

Karadzic is advising the ICTY, suggesting they should "cut down his indictment" in order to avoid a long, drawn-out trial that will last years. Slobodon Milosevic died after 4 years in custody, and so he was never brought to justice. The Associated Press reports that the Security Council is pressuring the ICTY to wrap-up its work as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Russia Today claims that Karadzic is seeking help from Russian officials in support of his claim that the US government offered him a deal in 1995.

Finally, a recent poll in Serbia reveals that 65% of Serbians would refuse to help international authorities bring Radko Mladic to justice. Mladic was the mastermind behind the massacre of at least 7,500 Bosnians at Srebrenica in 1995.

More about Karadzic

From Serbian broadcaster B92:
Radovan Karadzic continues to insist that Richard Holbrooke offered him a deal back in '95. According to Karadzic, Holbrooke (and by extension, the Clinton administration) promised him amnesty if he agreed to withdraw "from political and public life".
For his part, Holbrooke is about to join Hillary Clinton in the new Obama adminstration as an emissary. Holbrooke gets "the tough (and tougher) Southwest Asia portfolio, which includes India, Afghanistan and Pakistan".

Criticism of the ICTY in the Hague

Marko Attila Hoare's essay (12/24/08) is highly critical of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He compares the course of its trials to those at Nuremberg following WWII, and concludes that the "difference in aim and organization" between the two insitutions explain why one was far more successful than the other. The ICTY, in his opinion, has proved "toothless" because it sought reconciliation rather than justice. This, in turn, has been the result of the international community's failure to "impose a narrative" assigning blame for the "War of Yugoslav Succession". Ultimately, all sides feel simultaneously victimized and vindicated. "There is a lesson to be learned from the respective experiences of the IMT and ICTY: so far as war-crimes are concerned, there can be no real justice without the real defeat of the perpetrators."

Radovan Karadzic faces Two Counts of Genocide

On July 18, 2008, Serbian security forces arrested Radovan Karadzic, who had successfully evaded capture for over a decade since the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995. Karadzic, a Serbian ultra-nationalist, is now imprisoned in the Hague and will go on trial for--among other charges--two counts of genocide. He is best known for commanding Bosnian Serb forces, orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo and ordering the Srebrenica massacre (1995). Just today, United Nations war crimes judges in the Hague [ICTY] rejected a request from Stojan Zupljanin to combine his own trial with that of Karadzic. Karadzic himself continues to claim that United States officials offered him immunity in 1996, a claim that former peace envoy Richard Holbrooke denies. UN judges have ignored Karadzic's claims, asserting that they are "invalid under international law".

The following is an AP report on the arrest and extradition of Karadzic to the Netherlands in July:



Compare the first account to the story as Al Jazeera covered it: