Srebrenica

[Ret10Echo]

Now this is an interesting twist....


UN Srebrenica immunity questioned
A Dutch court is considering whether the UN can be sued for failing to prevent the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.

About 6,000 relatives of those killed have brought a case against the UN and the Dutch government over the killings.

Dutch peacekeepers, under a UN flag, failed to intervene as Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in one week in July 1995.

The enclave had been designated a UN safe haven.

The UN has refused to take part in the case, claiming immunity - a position backed by the Dutch government.

Immunity 'undesirable'

Dutch government lawyer Bert-Jan Houtzagers said the UN must be allowed to operate without facing the threat of prosecution.

"The Bosnian Serbs are the ones who are to blame, especially General [Ratko] Mladic. He is a war criminal," he said.

Gen Mladic led the Bosnian Serb forces that overwhelmed Srebrenica. He has been indicted but is still at large.

But Axel Hagedorn, lawyer for the victims' relatives, said: "Functional immunity does not mean that international organisations are wholly above the law.

"Boundless immunity of the UN is both unacceptable and undesirable for the proper functioning and credibility of the UN."

Genocide

A number of cases have been brought by small numbers of Srebrenica survivors or relatives - including one by two families which opened in a Dutch court on Monday - but this collective action is distinguished by its size, representing thousands of relatives, including the Mothers of Srebrenica group.

The Srebrenica massacre has been established as genocide, by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

The Dutch cabinet resigned in 2002 after a report blamed politicians for sending the Dutch UN troops on an impossible mission.

Now Dutch judges, at The Hague District Court, have to decide whether the UN can be held responsible for the tragedy, under Dutch or international law.

The court will also consider whether the Dutch government can be sued.

After Wednesday's hearing, the court said it would announce its ruling on 10 July.

Many nations are likely to be watching the decision carefully, says the BBC's Nick Miles.

If it opens up the way for the Netherlands to be sued it could make governments more wary of committing troops for peacekeeping operations - making it still harder for the UN to sustain keep them going.

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by Ret10Echo

UN Srebrenica immunity questioned

I guess the question is:

Do wars settle court battles

Or do courts settle war battles...


"Who's on 1st??"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeNtNFJTGNM

This so stupid,, it's funny..

Next the Dutch will use the Blackwater defense,, Shari'a law.

[KW9598]

Where do you suppose ole Ratko is hiding out these days?
Think he'll surface since our precense has decreased in the past few years?

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by KW9598

Where do you suppose ole Ratko is hiding out these days?
Think he'll surface since our precense has decreased in the past few years?

Probably in some villa (or his Mom's house) with Phrench security...

[Dealer]

Originally Posted by KW9598

Where do you suppose ole Ratko is hiding out these days?
Think he'll surface since our precense has decreased in the past few years?

He was hiding out at his own house in Republika Srpska when I was there 11 years ago. NATO didn't have the balls to authorize us to go after him (what with the propaganda going around from PIFWC hits in Brcko). We didn't do much more than surveillance on the dude.

[ODA 226]

I saw his fat-ass at Ada Ciganlija in Belgrade in 2003, sunning himself while surrounded by at least 10 bodyguards. If it wasn't him, it was his twin brother...

He suppossedly lives in a villa in Banica, a rich suburb of Belgrade, not too far from the American Ambassador's residence.

[Ret10Echo]

Serbia raids factory in Mladic hunt
1 hr 55 mins ago

BELGRADE (AFP) – Security forces searched Monday for war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic at a factory in Serbia, whose new government must capture the ex-Bosnian Serb general in order to speed up its EU accession.

Armed with automatic firearms and dressed in all-black masks and outfits, the police surrounded the factory in the southwestern town of Valjevo at mid-morning, according to officials.

"Under the orders of the war crimes prosecution, the interior ministry conducted a search of the Vujic Valjevo factory," an interior ministry source told AFP.

"We were verifying information according to which Mladic could be there, but according to the first information, nobody was found," the source said.

Vujic Valjevo is run by a large Serbian company that manufactures windows and bottled water. Sources said police also searched houses occupied by its management in a bid to find some evidence of financial aid for Mladic while in hiding.

Mladic, 66, is wanted by a UN tribunal for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during his time as commander of the Bosnian Serb military forces during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

He notably faces charges relating to the siege of Sarajevo which claimed more than 10,000 lives and for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys -- Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

The wartime Bosnian Serb general has used the Valjevo region as a hideout in the past, a former Serbian police chief said.

He was located there in 2001 after security services intercepted a telephone call, according to Goran Petrovic, who used to head Serbia's secret police, in a report in 2006.

Journalists were prevented from getting close to the site, said broadcasters B92.

Citing unnamed high-ranking officials from the interior ministry, B92 said the security services were also hunting for people thought to have helped Mladic avoid justice.

Speaking to the media later, the factory's owners, Vladislav and Vidoje Vujic, whose houses were searched and had some photographs confiscated, denied they had any links with Mladic.

"I have never met him in my life, nor do I know him privately," Vidoje Vujic told B92 television.

Mladic has been wanted since 1995 by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where the Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic now is on trial.

Last month, Serbia said it had intensified its hunt for Mladic to an unprecedented level ahead of a confirmed visit in a week's time by the UN tribunal's chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz.

"That's three weeks before he submits his report on Serbia's cooperation with the tribunal to the UN Security Council," Rasim Ljajic, minister in charge of cooperation with the ICTY, told the Vecernje Novosti newspaper.

Serbia's cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal is a key condition for closer ties with the European Union, which the new pro-Western government in Belgrade hopes to join by 2014.

Such cooperation notably involves the arrest and transfer to The Hague of Mladic and the only other remaining war crimes fugitive, Goran Hadzic, a wartime Croatian Serb leader.

But Mladic remains at large despite several similar operations in the past few years.

Karadzic was arrested in July on a bus in Belgrade, where he had been living incognito as a bearded alternative medicine guru.

According to Serbian officials, Mladic lived openly in Belgrade under the protection of the military up until June 2002. He received its pension until the end of 2005.

For three-and-a-half years up to January 2006, Mladic sheltered in at least five relatively modest Belgrade flats, aided by supporters who fed him and paid the rent.

[KW9598]

only a matter of time...can't wait to see what HE looks like