March 29, 1994 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....
Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/military-intervention-in-haiti-or...
Richard Caplan: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....
Diane Orentlicher: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....
Robert Borosage: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....
The term Bosnian Genocide is used to refer either to the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995, or to ethnic cleansing that took place during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
In the 1990s, several authorities, in line with a minority of legal scholars, asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide. These included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and four convictions for genocide in German courts, (the convictions were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by international courts). In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that "the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms defining genocide."
However, in line with a majority of legal scholars, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have ruled that, in order for actions to be deemed genocide, there must be physical or biological destruction of a protected group and a specific intent to commit such destruction. To date, only the Srebrenica massacre has been found to be a genocide by the ICTY, a finding upheld by the ICJ.
While the majority of international opinion accepts the findings of the international courts, there remains some disagreement about the extent of the genocide and to what degree Serbia was involved.
The Bosnian community assert that the Srebrenica massacre was just one instance of what was a broader genocide committed by Serbia.
The International Court of Justice veered away from the factual and legal findings of the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the Dusko Tadic case. In the judgment delivered in July 1999, the Appeals Chamber found that the Army of Republika Srpska was "under overall control" of Belgrade and the Yugoslav Army, which meant that they had funded, equipped and assisted in coordination and planning of military operations. Had the International Court of Justice accepted this finding of the Tribunal, Serbia would have been found guilty of complicity in the Srebrenica genocide. Instead it concluded that the Appeals Chamber in the Tadic case "did not attempt to determine the responsibility of a state but individual criminal responsibility". Paradoxical as it may be, the outcome of this legal suit filed back in March 1993 arrived too early for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Radovan Karadzic arrest came over a year after the ICJ gave its judgement, and Ratko Mladic, also accused of Bosnian genocide, has yet to be arrested. Slobodan Milosevic died during the trial and three trials of former Serbian officials have just started.
Although the ICTY prosecutors had access to them during the trials, some of the minutes of wartime meetings of Yugoslavia's political and military leaders, were not made public as the ICTY accepted the Serbian argument that to do so would damage Serbia's national security. Although the ICJ could have subpoena the documents directly from Serbia, it did not do so and relied instead on those made public during the ICTY trials. Two of the ICJ judges criticised this decision in strongly worded dissents. Marlise Simons reporting on this in the New York Times, states that "When the documents were handed over [to the ICTY], the lawyers said, a team from Belgrade made it clear in letters to the tribunal and in meetings with prosecutors and judges that it wanted the documents expurgated to keep them from harming Serbia's case at the International Court of Justice. Diane Orentlicher, a law professor at American University in Washington, commented "Why didn't the court request the full documents? The fact that they were blacked out clearly implies these passages would have made a difference."
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Military Intervention (2/11): Robert Borosage on the U.S. Defense Budget (1994)by thefilmarchive649 views
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