Court Rape
Ivo Skoric
I love watching the International War Crimes Tribunal whereabouts. I
mean - the fact that we can have a Nygerian judge instructing an
American lawyer defending a Bosnian Muslim what can she and what she
cannot ask a Serbian witness on stand - is very promissing, and maybe
one day this actually may work: law shall not know the limitations of
nationality, race, religion, etc. It should be the same for every
human being anywhere on the planet. However, it still isn't: of 74
persons indicted for war crimes in the wars of Croatia and Bosnia,
only 7 (seven) are apprehended so far (less than 10%), and contrary
to popular opinion that overwhelming majority of 74 indicted are
Serbs, except for the token Serb Dusan Tadic, most of the other 6
suspects already in custody are either Croats or Bosnian Muslims -
making the entire trial look like a joke: like if at Nuerenberg they
first brought to trial Stalin's soldiers that raped German women on
their way to Berlin, so to make Germans more comfortable watching
Goering take a stand. The problem with International Court is that it
desperately needs International Police to enforce its subpoenas. The
U.S. despite its John Waynesque image of the world's sheriff does the
job poorly and Bosnia looks like the Dodge City divided between
rivaling mobs before the legendary cowboy rode in - yet, he IS already
there, so, wait a minute, what the hell happened to the happy ending?
Bosnian Muslim and Croat witnesses to the crime of rape therefeore
obviously have to resort to giving their testimonies through the
public means - like Jadranka Cigelj and Nusreta Sivac gave in Mandy
Jacobson's and Karmen Jeliencic's film "Calling The Ghosts" - because
it is not sure if they will ever be called to face their tormentors
(Zeljko Mejakic from Omarska camp) in the courtroom - like the Serb
rape witness Gordana Cecez just was. It would be very interesting to
interview Ms.Cecez and to introduce her to Ms.Cigelj and Ms.Sivac:
actually the most interesting would be to ask Cecez about Mejakic and
Cigelj and Sivac about Delic (read the following NY Times article
about Delic below). Maybe those three women could find a common
language of peace that would lead others their way? It should be
tried.
ivo
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New York Times
April 3, 1997
A War-Crimes Trial, but Not of Serbs
By MARLISE SIMONS
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Once again, the courtroom of the war-crimes
tribunal here echoes with accounts of cruelty and murder, the ghastly but
now familiar tales of Bosnia's war.
But in this case, it is not Serbs who are on trial.
The three Bosnian Muslims and one Croat stand charged with 14 murders and
numerous incidents of torture and abuse committed against Serbs at a prison
camp in 1992.
The Bosnian Serbs are blamed for almost all the horrors of the war, and
they in turn accuse the tribunal of political prejudice. But court
officials have insisted that the U.N. tribunal is evenhanded and not driven
by politics. Cases like this one, tribunal officials say, show that the
court will try war-crimes suspects regardless of their politics or ethnic
origin.
At the same time, the latest trial is also a reminder of how little the
tribunal has achieved since its creation in 1993. It has only seven
defendants in its custody, four of whom are now in court. Of the 74 people
indicted for war crimes, 67 remain at large, even though in many cases
their whereabouts are known.
The four men now on trial are charged with terrorizing hundreds of men
and women who spent time at a prison camp controlled by Bosnian Muslims
between May and December of 1992. The camp, at Celebici in the mountains
some 30 miles southwest of Sarajevo, used to be a military storage site.
Prosecutors said that some 500 people passed through the camp during
those months, most of them Serbs from villages around Konjic. Some had
helped defend their villages when Muslim forces attacked, but others had
not. The indictment said that many of the camp's inmates suffered hunger,
beatings, torture and rape.
The camp conditions described in the court sound familiar. They mirror
the stories that have been told and retold by survivors of dozens of
Serbian-run camps where Bosnian Muslims were held and persecuted.
But Celebici was run by Muslims and the victims were Serbs. Two of the
men charged in the Celebici case are the highest-ranking defendants so far
to stand trial in The Hague. Zejnil Delalic, 48, and Zdravko Mucic, 41, are
charged with overall responsibility for the atrocities linked to the camp,
Delalic as regional commander of the Bosnian Muslim forces, Mucic as the
camp commander.
Hazim Delic, 32, deputy commander of the camp, is individually charged
with four murders and torture, including the rapes of two women. Esad
Landzo, 24, a camp guard, is accused in five deaths, and of torture and
cruelty. Their crimes, as listed by the prosecutor, included beating
elderly men to death with wooden planks, baseball bats and shovels. The
prosecutor said the two charged with torture also used pliers, acid,
electric shocks and hot pincers to torment their prisoners.
In the courtroom, the four defendants appeared to follow the proceedings,
conducted in English, via earphones providing them with translations. At
times they took notes; often they looked bored or dozed. Each defendant has
two lawyers paid for by the court.
The defense lawyers have requested that their clients be tried
separately, in part because they fear that the suspects may testify against
each other, as they already have in pretrial statements.
But the court has ruled that the four were closely linked through the
chain of command and that separate trials would mean duplicating much work
and recalling the same witnesses many times.
Among the first witnesses to appear was Mirko Babic, 63, a Serb. He
pulled up his trouser leg to show his scars. He said Landzo had poured
gasoline on his legs and set fire to them. "I saw the flames, it was very
painful," he told the court.
Another witness, Branco Gotovac, 66, also a Serb, said Landzo had beaten
him so hard that he swallowed his tongue and nearly suffocated until a
fellow prisoner, a nurse, rescued him.
"I had to put my hands behind my head and then he kicked me in the
testicles," Gotovac said. "During all this, my tongue went inside my
throat. I was urinating blood." Gotovac had lasting injuries.
Gotovac, a frail and sick man, was questioned by Landzo's lawyer in such
a strident way that the presiding judge, Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, from
Nigeria, intervened. He said to the lawyer, Cynthia White McMurrey, an
American, "I left you at large when some of the things you said have been
complete rubbish. If you continue being irresponsible, I think I will have
to take a different attitude."
In the courtroom, Grozdana Cecez, 47, a Serb, came face to face with the
man who she said had raped her at the camp. Speaking of Delic, she said: "I
thought he was going to beat me. Then he started to rape me. I will never
be the woman that I was."
On another night, four men raped her, she said. Delic did not look at his
accuser. While she described the event in detail, he chewed gum and kept
his hand over his face.
For this trial, Bosnian Serbs have cooperated with prosecutors and agreed
to testify. Until a year ago, tribunal workers frequently complained that
they were unable to conduct their investigations in Belgrade or in the
Serbian-controlled part of Bosnia.
As a result, much of the evidence they collected involved crimes against
Muslims or Croats, to whom the investigators did have access, but they
learned little of what had happened to Serbs. Serbs nonetheless accused the
court of being anti-Serbian.
Belgrade's attitude toward the court began to change when, as Antonio
Cassese, the tribunal president, put it, "the Serbs understood finally that
they were making a huge blunder" by not talking to court investigators.
Even during this trial, some Serbs continue to criticize what they call
the tribunal's anti-Serbian bias.
Branco Jovanovic, a representative of an association of Serbian war
victims based in Belgrade, said her group is demanding that charges against
the four defendants be broadened.
Prosecutors have defined the charges as "grave breaches of the Geneva
Convention" and as "violations of the laws and customs of war." But Ms.
Jovanovic said her group wants the crimes to be classified as "genocide"
and as "crimes against humanity," which carry greater legal and moral
weight.
"What happened at Konjic was ethnic cleansing against Serbs," she said.
"More than 5,000 Serbs were driven out. More than 150 were killed and 120
women were raped. Why is that different, I ask, why are those attacks
defined only as war crimes, and not as crimes against humanity?"
The prosecution has not explained why it selected some charges over
others. But crimes against humanity must involve a widespread or systematic
attack on a people or group, court officials say, and many Serbs have been
indicted on these charges in connection with planning and carrying out
ethnic cleansing.
The trial is expected to go on for several months. Prosecutors said they
have a list of 76 witnesses but may not call all of them.
Copyright 1997 The New York Times
Ivo Skoric ***** i...@reporters.net
PO Box 46, NYC NY 10029, USA
http://www.peacenet.org/balkans/
ivo.html
Ivo Skoric
Well, it is always good to have pills ready when you go to a rape
camp. I hope Radmila Melentijevic would use this to prove that
Serbian women are smarter and more urbane than Muslim. Does defense
actually use this fact to prove that she was inviting the sexual
advances? In that case, if I am prosecutor I would call that attorney
(she is a woman, isn't she) at a stand as a witness and bluntly ask
her if she ever used contraceptives and whether did she expected to
be raped while carrying the pills on her, i.e. does the mere
possession of the pill qualifies as active invitation to have sex? If
she say yes I would tell her that she hsould see me for dinner. I
hope that would show to jury the absurdity of her defense.
ivo
From: Bow...@aol.com
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:52:33 -0400 (EDT)
To: isk...@igc.apc.org
Subject: Re: Court Rape
hey ivo wanted to wish you luck and love and all the forces of the universe
on Friday.. I am in San Fran from thurs to next friday.....
you should see the defense attack on Cecez.. she had contraception pills on
her the day she was interned!!! One day I hope to be able to respond to this
ugly world with the my pen in the same way you do so eloquently dear Ivo....