YUGOSLAVIA
After Tito’s death, the presidency rotated. In 1986 it was Milosevic’s turn. His vision was to create a Greater Serbia, a land untainted by foreign blood.
Serbia: The Serbs are the bad guys. Serbia’s population is 10 M, Croatia 5 M and Bosnia 4 M. The Serbs were the dominant force in Yugoslavia and wanted the same power. The Army followed orders from the Serbs, and thus from Milosevic. But Serbs didn’t just live in Serbia, they lived in Bosnia (Bosnian Serbs) and in other regions.
Slovenia and Croatia were alarmed at Milosevic’s plan so they declared independent from Yugoslavia, which signaled the end of Yugoslavia.
Slovenia had 2 M and few Serbs, so when they declared independence in 1991 Milosevic did not care.
Croatia followed suit. Milosevic was also willing to let Croatia have its independence if it was willing to give up Slavonia, a region with a large Serb population. But President Tudjman was unwilling.
Bosnia. For Bosnia, Slovenia and Croatia’s independence was a disaster. Yugoslavia was now a Serbian dominated state, which was intolerable for Bosnian Muslims. Bosnia wanted to become independent too, to protect its Muslim population.
There was a vote in 1992. Bosnian Serbs did not want to separate from their Serb brothers, but Muslims –who made up 65% of the population, won the vote for independence. So Milosevic attacked Bosnia and Croatia.
The Croatian War: Serbs lost the war
Sarajevo: BOSNIA
The Bosnian Serbs already controlled the military and began a systematic policy of cleansing large areas of Bosnia of non Serbs. Serbia attacked the main Bosnian city of Sarajevo. In any orgy of murder, the Serbs sent hundreds of thousands of Muslims fleeing (largest refugee movement in Europe since WWII).
In 1992, the UN created the ICTY.
Genocide:
In 1993, the UN designated six Bosnian cities as safe areas and sent UN peacekeeping forces.
In 1995 Serb forces began to attack these safe heaven, including Srebrenica.
Fearing that the war could spread to Europe, NATO invaded Bosnia.
After more than 200,000 people were killed, Milosevic and NATO reached a peace accord known as the Dayton Accords: (i) it affirmed Sarajevo as the capital of Bosnia, (ii) it carved Bosnia into two autonomous and ethnically based entities, separated by a demilitarized zone and (iii) it rewarded the Serbs with 49% of the Bosnian territory. Then NATO arrived in Bosnia.
Kosovo:
In 1997 Serbs began a systematic mass murder of Albanians in Kosovo.
In March 1999 NATO intervened again.
In 2000 after losing an election, Milosevic was arrested and sent to the ITCY.
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
ORIGIN:
The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was
established by Security Council resolution 827. This resolution was passed on
25 May 1993 in the face of the serious violations of international humanitarian
law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991, and as a
response to the threat to international peace and security posed by those
serious violations.
SEAT:
The ICTY is located in The Hague, The Netherlands.
OBJECTIVES :
In harmony
with the purpose of its founding resolution, the ICTY's mission is fourfold:
to
bring to justice persons allegedly responsible for serious violations of
international humanitarian law
to render justice to the victims
to deter further crimes
to contribute to the restoration of peace by promoting reconciliation in the
former Yugoslavia.
JURISDICTION:
1. Subject-matter :
The Tribunal’s authority is to prosecute and try four clusters of offences:
Grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Violations of the laws or customs of war.
Genocide.
Crimes against humanity.
2. Geographic and Temporal:
Any of the crimes as above listed, committed on the territory of the former
Yugoslavia since 1991.
3. Personal :
Only over natural persons and not over organisations, political parties,
administrative entities or other legal subjects.
Vis-à-vis national courts
The ICTY and national courts have concurrent jurisdiction over serious
violations of international humanitarian law committed in the former
Yugoslavia. However, the ICTY can claim primacy over national courts, and may
take over national investigations and proceedings at any stage if this proves
to be in the interest of international justice.
RWANDA
In Central Africa, European colonial rule was based on the overwhelming military superiority over its subjugated populations. Resistance was futile and dealt with harshly. The modern history of Africa is the history of men blinded by power, succumbing to greed. This is but one reason why there has been so much bloodshed in the Central Republics of Angola, Rwanda and Burundi.
The atrocities that took occurred in Rwanda in 1994 might be the worst thing you will hear in this course. They make other parts of the world look like vacation spots. To understand what happened yu need to know a bit about the two main tribes in this part of the world –the Hutus and the Tutsis.
The Tutsis
Over the last 2000 years, the people who are now known as Hutus and Tutsis developed a single language, crafted a common set of religious beliefs and created a common culture. How on earth then did the Hutus and Tutsis come to be two separate peoples?
As Belgium ran the colony, they favored the Tutsis over the Hutus on the belief that they were more European (they were tall, thin and narrow featured). As a result, the Tutsis had a virtual monopoly on public life. But Hutus far outnumbered the Tutsis.
So, in the 1961 independence election, some 80% of Rwandans voted a Hutu dominated political party into power, in what became the Hutu Revolution.
The ensuing years brought Rwanda the usual mixture of success followed by corruption and rebellion. A fall in international coffee prices in the 1980’s made matters worse. And by the late 1980’s the Rwandan community in exile (Tutsis) had grown to approximately 600,000 people.
Rwandan Tutsi opposition forces (RPF) decided to go back to Rwanda and demanded the establishment of a more democratic government.
In response to the news, the great majority of people, Tutsis and Hutus alike, came to the support of the government. But President Juvenal Habyarimana thought that the Tutsi attack might encourage the Tutsi opposition within the country. So, he decided to change the enemy in order to stay in power. Now all Tutsis, inside or outside the country, were considered extremists and enemies. The RPF rebels were no longer the country’s enemy, rather its own Tutsi minority had officially become the enemy.
The President and his closer colleagues began portraying Tutsis inside Rwanda as RPF collaborators, even though this was essentially untrue. For 3 and a half years the government elite worked to turn the Hutu against the Tutsi by reminding the Hutus of the Tutsi legacy of domination. But destroying the bonds between the Hutus and the Tutsis was not easy. For years, they had lived in peace. They shared a common language, history, religion and cultural practices. They were neighbors and friends, they went to the same schools and churches and they worked and played with one another. Nonetheless, in a campaign that utilized propaganda, the Habyarimana government was able to increase the divisions between the two people.
Then in 1993 a military victory by the RPF and a subsequent peace agreement that was favorable to the Tutsi rebels left the government facing imminent loss of power. So by late March 1994 Hutu leaders had decided that they solution lay in murdering mass numbers of Tutsis.
Firearms and machetes were freely distributed to the Hutu population.
On April 6, 1994 the plane carrying President Habyarimana, crashed killing him. This was attributed to the Tutsis (National Post). So, the prime minister ordered that the enemies had to be killed.
This was a real genocide. In Rwanda, Hutus planned a real genocide –the intentional, systematic, premeditated murder of a distinct group (although moderate Hutus were also killed).
Government officials drove Tutsis to various places to be murdered. They were also in charge of recruiting murderers and giving them weapons.
Authorities also encouraged people to steal from the Tutsi farms, homes, cars and businesses. The Rwandan genocide was also unique in that rather than hiding their objective, the murderers were quite open in their goal of exterminating their Tutsi brethren.
1 million Tutsis were killed in 100 days.
Jurisdiction
RATIONE MATERIAE: genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II shall be punish-able;
RATIONE TEMPORE: crimes committed between 1 January and 31 December 1994;
RATIONE PERSONAE ET RATIONE LOCI: crimes committed by Rwandans in the territory of Rwanda and in the territory of neighboring States, as well as non-Rwandan citizens for crimes committed in Rwanda.