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July 30, 2008
Posted 9:14 AM
by Mary
Karadzic in UN custody in Netherlands ap.org/Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a U.N. jail cell Wednesday after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. His arrival in a white Serbian government jet marked the end of a 13-year effort by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to take custody of its most wanted war criminal. Karadzic is accused or orchestrating the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the sufferings of hundreds of thousands more. "The arrest of Radovan Karadzic is immensely important for the victims who had to wait far too long for this day," prosecutor Serge Brammertz said. It is also important showed "that there is no alternative to the arrest of war criminals and that there can be no safe haven for fugitives." The tribunal will "ensure his well being and right to a fair trial as much as possible and in accordance with the highest international standards," spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said in confirming Karadzic's arrival at the detention center outside The Hague. Labels: ICC, Karadzic
July 25, 2008
Posted 10:52 PM
by Mary
The New Human Rights Dialogue Series* Presents Fortress or Sand-Castle? Human Rights in the Age of Counter-Terrorism Panelists: Emi MacLean, Center for Constitutional Rights Joanne Mariner, Human Rights Watch Robert Orr, Executive Office of the Secretary-General Margaret Satterthwaite, New York University School of Law Joanna Weschler, Security Council Report Moderator: Craig Mokhiber, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Wednesday, 30 July 2008 3:00pm to 6:00pm – Conference Room 2 Sponsored by:The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Right.the Department of Public Information, the NGO Committee on Human Rights and the Permanent Missions of Mexico and Sweden | Labels: HCHR, Human Rights
July 22, 2008
Posted 3:50 PM
by Mary
Arrest Gives Credibility to War Crimes Tribunals By DAVID ROHDE , NYT July 22, 2008 The arrest of Radovan Karadzic on Monday gave badly needed credibility to international war crimes tribunals that have struggled for years to bring fugitives to justice, according to former prosecutors, legal experts and human rights groups. And the arrest bolstered arguments from tribunal officials that patience, multilateral diplomacy and creativity can make the institutions more effective. “It’s building up piece by piece,” said Martha Minow, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on war crimes trials. “This is building up the legitimacy of these institutions.” Mr. Karadzic will be the third high-profile figure to be brought before a United Nations-backed tribunal on war crimes charges in the last six years, following in the footsteps of President Charles Taylor of Liberia and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic. For years, supporters of the tribunals have argued that if leaders were brought to trial the courts could serve as a deterrent. But Mr. Karadzic, who remained free for nearly 13 years, made a mockery of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in 1993 became the first such body established by the United Nations. Although repeatedly seen in public when American and NATO forces entered Bosnia in 1996, he was not arrested, in part out of fear that seizing him could cause a violent backlash against NATO forces. Instead, the United States and the European Union tried to use economic and diplomatic pressure on Serbia to force his arrest. Until Monday, the policy appeared to be a failure. At the same time, other war crimes tribunals established by the United Nations came under fire. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was criticized by Rwandans as being hugely expensive, based outside Rwanda and largely detached from the country itself. And the establishment of the International Criminal Court — a permanent tribunal intended to prosecute war crimes globally — was delayed for years by tortuous negotiations and fierce opposition from the Bush administration. Only last week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was criticized for requesting that genocide charges be filed against President Omar al- Bashir of Sudan. Critics warned that the move would complicate peace negotiations for the Darfur region of Sudan and never lead to Mr. Bashir’s arrest, given the international community’s poor track record on arresting fugitives. “When Karadzic was indicted back in 1995, nobody really expected he’d ever actually get arrested,” said Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and the author of “Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals.” “It’s not clear how exactly Bashir could wind up in The Hague,” he added, “but the Karadzic example has got to make Bashir think hard.” Privately, officials from the war crimes tribunals have argued that the United States and its allies have lacked the political will to make arrests and at the same time failed to use a complex array of diplomatic and economic measures to bring fugitives to justice. The international community has more options than either using military force to arrest a fugitive or doing nothing, they say. Economic sanctions, indictments and travel restrictions all place small but steady pressure on individuals accused of war crimes and on their patrons. Labels: ICC
Posted 10:33 AM
by Mary
Indictment of Sudanese Leader Seen as Threat to Peacekeepers By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 20, 2008; A01 UNITED NATIONS -- Six days before Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was charged with genocide, a group of 200 fighters on horseback, supported by more than 40 vehicles mounted with machine guns, carried out the bloodiest and most sophisticated ambush yet on a fledgling U.N. and African peacekeeping mission. The July 8 attack -- which killed seven peacekeepers and wounded 22 -- bore similarities to Sudanese-backed raids by Janjaweed horsemen that have led to the deaths of more than 300,000 civilians and forced nearly 3 million people from their homes in Darfur over the past five years, according to internal U.N. accounts. Some U.N. officials suspect the operation was intended to serve as a warning to U.N. peacekeepers and humanitarian workers of Sudan's intent to use deadly force if the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court targeted the country's leader. On Wednesday, those fears were heightened after a Nigerian company commander was killed by unidentified assailants in the town of Forobaranga in West Darfur. "We are very worried there could be a gradual increase in violence, which could make the mission quite vulnerable," Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping, said in an interview. But it "will be very hard to pin down responsibility" for the attacks, he predicted. The Sudanese government has strenuously denied involvement in the attack, accusing a rebel faction, the SLA-Unity, of responsibility. U.N. peacekeeping officials said that Sudanese authorities actually improved cooperation in the days following the announcement of the charges against Bashir. The U.N. case, said Sudan's U.N. envoy, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, "doesn't hold water." Labels: darfur, ICC
July 21, 2008
Posted 9:22 PM
by Mary
BELGRADE, Serbia — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of massacres making him one of the world's top war crimes fugitives, was arrested Monday evening in a raid that ended a near 13-year manhunt, the country's president and the U.N. tribunal said. Karadzic is the suspected mastermind of mass killings that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history." They include the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe's worst slaughter since World War II. "This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law," said Serge Brammertz, the tribunal's head prosecutor. President Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic has been taken before the investigative judge of Serbia's war crimes court _ a legal procedure that indicates he could soon be extradited to the U.N. court at The Hague, Netherlands. If Karadzic is transferred to there, he would be the 44th Serb suspect extradited to the tribunal. The others include former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in 2000 and died in 2006 while on trial on war crimes charges. Heavily armed special forces have been deployed around the war crimes court in Belgrade where Karadzic reportedly was being held. Karadzic's brother, Luka, also arrived at the location in central Belgrade. Serbian police deployed throughout central Belgrade as well as in front of the U.S. embassy, which was targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of independence in February. The White House called the arrest "an important demonstration of the Serbian Government's determination to honor its commitment to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal. Labels: ICC
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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