Muslims – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Outrageous UN-Court Rape Of Croatian Historical Truth And Global Common Sense

December 2, 2017 by inavukic 21 Comments

General Slobodan Praljak

There are good reasons why death sentences have in most countries been abolished – one is that innocence of crimes can escape even those judges that enjoy the reputation of impeccable competence in judging evidence before the courts.

Do not for one moment even consider let alone believe that Croatian General Slobodan Praljak was a war criminal – his ICTY indictment did not include any crimes that he himself had committed against Muslims/Bosniaks, by his own hand. The crimes he and others in the group were indicted for basically come in the form of participating in a politically concocted concept and doctrine of joint criminal enterprise/line of command responsibility even if some actual crimes that have been said to have been committed occurred hundreds of kilometres away, hundreds of kilometres away from any knowledge or participation, any planning on their part…

The Croatian general Slobodan Praljak’s act of suicide by poison in the courtroom, Hague, on Wednesday 29 November 2017, after standing up in the dock and saying “Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal and I reject your judgment with contempt”, is perhaps the strongest statement of disdain for unjust court verdict, injustice, the modern world has seen. Having served much of the 20 year prison sentence passed, awaiting ICTY trial and appeal, Praljak would have been out of prison within a couple of years. To his credit, that just and decent human being, Croat, was not going to serve a prison sentence as a wrongfully convicted war criminal a single day longer! That speaks volume of his courage and honour!

Rest in God’s peace and embrace, General Slobodan Praljak.

In its final judgment, before it closes operations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague had shown its true, immersed in politics rather than facts colours. ICTY has on Wednesday demonstrated that it is a body that toys with history and evidently writes history – false history! If anything defines a joint criminal enterprise then this judgment itself would surely rate among the top culprits.

I am certain you have read numerous news articles or seen numerous videos, heard numerous audios paraphrasing and interpreting, in the simplest of forms, that which occurred in the Hague on 29 November 2017, in words to this effect: “While Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were busy carving out the borders with ethnic cleansing and genocide of what became Serbian Republic within Bosnia and Herzegovina state borders, stamped as valid entity in the Dayton Agreement 1995, in the southwest, Herceg-Bosna region, Croat forces with significant support from Croatia turned on the Bosnian Army (Bosniaks/Muslims) and set out to establish their own ethnically homogenous space, using some of the same methods of ethnic cleansing employed by the Serbs…”. Yes, the bottom line of the ICTY Appeal Chamber finding was exactly that. The fact that the Croat-Muslim conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina broke out to a full war rests with Muslim/Bosniak (helped by Mujahedin’s from Middle East and surrounds) attacks and massacres, not the other way around. Just consider the massacres of Croats by Bosniak/Muslim forces in the villages of Luzani, Gusti Grab, Dusina in January 1993 and track the Muslim onslaught that continued with regular and vicious force against which the Croats needed to defend themselves, and your conclusion would be that Croats were not the aggressor as ICTY says.

The facts that are well known to the ICTY will lead you to Muslim-led Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ABiH) with its attachments of foreign fighters referred to as “Mujahedin” or “Holy Warriors”. The “Mujahedin”, who principally came from Islamic countries, began to arrive in Bosnia and Herzegovina sometime during the middle of 1992. The “Mujahedin” were prepared to conduct a “Jihad” or “Holy War” against those of different faith and religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ABiH with its Mujahedin forces attacked towns and villages mainly inhabited by Croats. Predominately Bosnian Croat civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and the infirm, were subjected to wilful killings and serious injury. In the course of, or after the attacks, many Croat civilians were killed and many more were wounded or harmed while attempting to hide or escape. In several instances, ABiH forces killed Croatian Defence Council (HVO) troops after their surrender. Mainly Bosnian Croats were unlawfully imprisoned and otherwise detained in ABiH detention facilities. The imprisoned and otherwise detained Bosnian Croats were killed and beaten, subjected to physical and / or psychological abuse, intimidation and inhuman treatment, including being confined in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, and suffered inhumane deprivations of basic necessities, such as adequate food, water and clothing. They were provided little or no medical attention. Bosnian Croats who were imprisoned and otherwise detained were forced to dig trenches, to build bunkers and to collect human bodies in hostile and otherwise hazardous conditions. Some such imprisoned and otherwise detained persons were killed in the course of being forced to engage in such activities. Imprisoned and otherwise detained Croats were used as both human shields and hostages. ABiH forces plundered and destroyed Bosnian Croat property with no military justification. Bosnian Croat dwellings and buildings, as well as civilian personal property and livestock, were destroyed or severely damaged. In addition, Bosnian Croat buildings, sites and institutions dedicated to religion were targeted for destruction or otherwise damaged or violated…

Listing the atrocities committed by Bosniaks/Muslims against which Croats needed to defend themselves in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be an almost endless exercise if one were to examine ICTY recorded facts, but on 29 November 2017 the ICTY chose to pontificate without proof of individual responsibility for crimes on a doctrine of joint criminal enterprise against Croats. Were Croats driven by any shape or form by the alleged joint criminal enterprise would they, instead of Muslims/Bosniaks not have been the attackers in the first instances that led to full out war?!

ICTY’s finding regarding Croats and joint criminal enterprise to do with Herceg-Bosna and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, really, could not be further away from the truth, from the facts, and it must be reacted to with outrage.

What ensued in the Appeals Chamber of in The Hague on Wednesday 29 November 2017 regarding judgment against six Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić) is nothing short of outrage. Outrage pointed at the UN Tribunal that, in majority opinion from the bench, disregarded facts and evidence, which, if given due evidentiary weight, would give them no option but to overturn the 2013 Trial Chamber verdict of joint criminal enterprise. But, its not far-fetched to conclude that the ICTY has made up its mind a long time ago to brand Croatia and Croatians including the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) defending themselves from brutal aggression by both Serbs and later from Bosniak (Muslims) onslaught in early 1990’s as aggressors rather than defenders. That political agenda had been set a long time ago, including with the cunningly executed help by the former president of communist Yugoslavia Stjepan Mesic whose corrupt and perverse fabrications of false political agendas evidently made an impact with ICTY that would see Croatia be equated to Serbia when it comes to aggression. Yugoslav communists have never forgiven Croatian people for establishing an independent and democratic state, for seceding from communist Yugoslavia and last week, at The Hague, the world saw a victory of communist lies.

The indisputable fact is that both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were the victims of a Serbian aggression that sought to create a Greater Serbia. “During wartime events in Bosnia and Herzegovina there was not a joint criminal enterprise on the Croatian side nor was there any idea that would include actions that are not in accordance with the international legal order. It should be emphasised that Croatia is the most responsible for the establishment and survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent country,” said a statement by Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic
Photo: Screenshot

In its first reaction to the ICTY joint criminal enterprise verdict the Croatian government said that many of the allegations in the verdict handed down by the Hague war crimes tribunal in the case of six Bosnian Croat wartime political and military leaders did not take into account the historical truth and facts, that those allegations were unfounded and politically unacceptable, and that it would consider all legal and political mechanisms available to contest them.

“The government expresses deep dissatisfaction and regret over today’s verdict which confirmed the sentences for Jadranko Prlic,Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic. Many of the allegations do not take into account the historical truth and facts, they are unfounded and politically unacceptable,” the Croatian government said in a statement.

The government recalled the assistance Croatia had extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina when the Serbian military aggression threatened its territorial integrity.

The Croatian government has announced that it will proceed with plucking out parts of the ICTY Appeal Chamber judgment that are wrong and do not fit evidentiary facts and present those to the UN, Security Council with view to discrediting the judgment. This needs to be done post-haste and immediacy in order to stop the grave human suffering this judgment has caused and is causing.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
Croatian President
Photo: Screenshot

Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who spoke Thursday 30 November 2017 said: “His (Praljak’s) act struck the heart of the Croatian nation. As the president of Republic of Croatia I want to say clearly and unambiguously that the court in The Hague yesterday did not pronounce a verdict against the Republic of Croatia or against the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia was not the aggressor, but did most for the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, and the Croatian people were the first to resist the Greater Serbia aggression, defending their survival and the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as its own country. Croatia and Bosnia were attacked by Milošević’s Serbia and the Yugoslav National Army and those are facts. Croatia didn’t attack anyone…We Croats must have the strength to admit that some of our nationals in Bosnia and Herzegovina did commit crimes and they must be held responsible for them. It’s unjust that Bosniak and Serb crimes against Croats have not been punished in the same way…I call upon Bosniak leaders to do everything in their power to ensure this judgment is not abused, but that it be the end of one and the beginning of a new era… Regretfully, at the very end of its (ICTY’s) existence a conclusion jumps at us that the Tribunal has omitted to achieve its goal of bringing justice for victims of crimes. It placed itself as a political arbiter and not a judicial body… Croatia, along with the United States of America has done the most for the unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina …We will fight with all legal and political means for the truth and justice…”

Well, no, the ICTY did not deliver a verdict against Croatia or Croatian people specifically but the effects and the meaning of the verdict are exactly that. As it stands, the verdict gives a certain licence for all manner of persecutions against Croatians in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the least of which are criminal indictments of similar nature against persons who have committed no crimes. Such an outlook would serve no other function but to aid the Bosniak plan for supremacy in the Federation of Bosniaks and Croats within Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is an outlook that is in itself criminal and utterly perverse, for it satisfies no justice for victims who perished by the hand of others, not of the accused. It’s regretful that the president did not reject the ICTY verdict outright or, at least, announced that she will do everything in her power to challenge it.

The facts to which the ICTY Appeal Tribunal in its verdict of joint criminal enterprise (that Croats formed Herceg-Bosna entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina with view to joining that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia and in that name committed war crimes) wilfully turned a blind eye to include:

If it were not for the Croatian defence Council (HVO) – which ICTY has branded as the military component of what it says was a joint criminal enterprise – Bosnia and Herzegovina would not have been successful in its defence from Serb aggression nor would it have been internationally recognised as an independent state (beginning of April 1992 Croatia was the first country to recognise Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent and sovereign state);
Croats and Croatia at all times maintained the resolve that the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina should remain as is, without divisions and continue as triethnic state made up of three constitutionally equal peoples: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Croats gave decisive votes at referendum beginning of 1992 to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina as undivided and one state while at the same time the Serbs proclaimed part of the state as their republic, just as they did in Croatia the year before;
All humanitarian and military assistance to Bosniaks/Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina went via Croatia; Croatia enabled and carried out within its own territory and with own resources the training of various formations and hierarchy of Muslim/Bosniak army personnel; Croatia took over the care of over 500,000 Bosnian/Muslim refugees during the war; over 15,000 war wounded Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina were treated in Croatia’s hospitals and medical centres; – these certainly are no actions a country, Croatia, intent on being an aggressor against Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the ICTY says, would undertake;
Croatia and Herceg-Bosna were signatories together with Bosniak representatives to all international agreements during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – neither was considered criminal then;
Bosniaks pursue the line that Herceg Bosna was a criminal enterprise that wanted to attach itself to Croatia – this defies all logic and common sense, let alone the facts that serve as evidence to the contrary – the fact that Bosniaks and Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the Washington Agreement in March 1994, forming a Federation of Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of these facts;
Croats and Bosniaks/Muslims fought side-by-side to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina against brutal Serb aggression; defending, for example, the city of Bihac in 1995 which, if not defended by Croats would have seen another Srebrenica/genocide of Muslims – the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina actually called upon Croatia and Croats to intervene and help their defence against the Serb aggressor (ref. Split Agreement/ Declaration, July 1995).

Without a doubt, the ICTY Appeal Chamber had ample evidence to overturn the Trial Chamber finding of joint criminal enterprise against Croatians. No one would dare dispute that members of all three ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina committed crimes during the war but the responsibility for those crimes must be attached to individuals who committed them not to some flight of fancy of some doctrine that’s driven by a direction of a geopolitical gang and steered by opinion rather than fact.

Not a single person among the six Croats who faced ICTY Appeal judges on Wednesday 29 November 2017 had commanded, planned or committed war crimes.

General Zeljko Glasnovic
Member of Croatian Parliament for Diaspora
Photo: Screenshot

And so if one wants to tell it like it is/was one cannot ignore the words spoken by Member of Croatian Parliament for the Diaspora, General Zeljko Glasnovic, on Thursday 30 November 2017: “…what occurred yesterday (in The Hague) was rape of historical truth and common sense…”

The very body that hands down justice, or is supposed to hand down justice, whose verdicts must serve civilisation’s standards, to reflect both historical and factual truths – ICTY for example – turns the victim into an aggressor! For political gain that serves someone’s agenda and it’s not that difficult to decipher whose agenda. We live and learn. We live and suffer injustice, we do not and should not engage in revenge because of injustice struck against us – we wait as the Bible says: “…vengeance is mine, said the Lord!” Truth will out! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej Plenković, Berislav Pusic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniak, Bruno Stojic, command responsibility, Croatia, Dusina, equating victim with aggressor, former Yugoslavia, Gusti Grab, Herceg-Bosna, ICTY, Jadranko Prlic, joint criminal enterprise, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Luzani, Milivoj Petkovic, mujahedin, Muslims, political court, Slobodan Praljak, Valentin Coric, Zeljko Glasnovic

No Dogs, Catholics Or Muslims Allowed

October 2, 2016 by inavukic 41 Comments

Civilians of Sarajevo in
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1993
running for cover to
avoid Serb snipers during the city’s siege
Photo: Chris Helgren/Corbis

The referendum held on 25 September 2016 in the entity of Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska/RS) within Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) regarding confirmation that 9 January should be set as public holiday for the celebration of the Day of Republika Srpska/Serbian Republic Statehood Day may to many in the outside world seem benign but given BiH’s geographic position coupled with the 1990’s history puts it all in a different light. But, in reality and in truth this frighteningly defiant move led by Milorad Dodik, RS president – and nourished and supported via Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s promises of financial supports – has all the hallmarks of officially legitimising war crimes, especially ethnic cleansing and genocide (including Srebrenica) committed during 1990’s against Croatians and Bosniaks/Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina/BiH in that self-proclaimed Serbian territory situated within sovereign borders of BiH.

It once again brings to a chilling reminder the chilling “banner”, the “warning sign” under which Serb aggression operated there in that BiH sovereign territory in the 1990’s: No Dogs, Catholics or Muslims Allowed.

OHIO, Nov. 21, 1995
from Centre left:
President Slobodan Milosevic
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,
President Alija Izetbegovic
of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
and President Franjo Tudjman of the Republic of Croatia
sign the Dayton Peace Accords.
Photo: U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Brian Schlumbohm

In November 1995 the primarily US-driven international Dayton Accords peace agreement ended the war in BiH and it preserved BiH as a single sovereign state, divided into two largely autonomous parts/entities: the Bosniak-Croatian Federation and the Serbian Republic. Dayton Accords, although made having peace in mind, in essence meant that peace had no chance as no conductive environment was created for proper reconciliation, in many ways the Serb aggressor was rewarded with its own region to govern autonomously. Dayton Accords agreement had sealed the fate of BiH as a sovereign state made up of three constitutional peoples (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs) into a perpetual state of ethnic rivalry, recriminations, dysfunction and fear that Serbs were only “an inch” away from achieving their initial goal of creating their own sovereign state from parts of BiH’s sovereign territory they’d cleansed of all non-Serbs.

Milorad Dodik had officially, with apparent newfound determination, begun threatening to hold a referendum on secession of Serbian Republic from BiH in 2014 if Bosnia does not become a confederation of three states (Serb, Croat and Bosniak). At that time he sought to seize on the Crimean referendum and subsequent Russian annexation as a political and moral guide and an example of self-determination in action, however wrong, tragic and misguided these actions may have been held by the leaders of the Western democratic world. Dodik had planned for the referendum regarding 9 January as the Day of Serb Republic/ Statehood Day (which date by the way coincides with the Serb Orthodox religious holiday) to be held on 15 November 2015 but this and any such referendum was thwarted via BiH Constitutional Court’s ruling, making such referendums illegal.

Milorad Dodik
September 2016
Photo: Reuters/ Dado Ruvic

Defying BiH Constitutional Court and BiH Parliament, to which Serbian Republic answers, the referendum held Sunday 25 September saw the Serbs living in that entity in overwhelming numbers voting Yes to declaring 9 January as the Day of Serbian Republic. The relatively very few Croats and Bosniaks now living in the Serb Republic (having returned there post 1995 Dayton Accords agreement) had refused to vote in the referendum because, in essence, the referendum represents Dodik’s rehearsal for an eventual secession of Serb Republic from BiH and, therefore, the destruction of BiH as the world knows it now.

A further element of defiance and repulsive attempt to legitimise genocide and ethnic cleansing committed by Serbs in this referendum can be seen through Biljana Plavsic’s comments as she voted in the RS representative office in Belgrade, Serbia. Biljana Plavsic, whose actions in 1992 as a member of collective presidencies of both Bosnia and the breakaway Serbian Republic of Bosnia constituted crimes against humanity and who actively supported the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in Serb-held lands, who is an ICTY convicted war criminal said last week that the referendum represents a defense of Serbian Republic – of that in which she herself had participated in the 1990’s.

Whether the leaders of Croatians and Bosniaks living in BiH consider Dodik’s defiant move with the referendum as some kind of an internationally acceptable foundation for a movement that would split BiH into three different ethnically defined sovereign states (Bosniak, Croat, Serb) is at this stage a disquieting point occupying a great deal of political analyses space throughout the world. As desirable as contemplation of such a division of BiH into three sovereign states may appear to each of the three ethnic groups at this moment may be, this articulated in the media desirability or political assessment in essence masks the real and dangerous prospect of the possibility of repeated Serb violence and aggression against Croatians and Bosniaks in BiH.

Croatian refugee families from Serb Republic
still today in their thousands seek return to their rightful homes in Banja Luka.
Photo: HINA

Dodik’s defiance with holding the referendum and his subsequent defiance of the BiH State Prosecutor by refusing to answer a summons to appear before the prosecutor regarding his breach of the Constitutional Court order that declared the referendum illegal, are acts that are very likely to motorise the Serb population’s energy for renewed attacks against non-Serbs in BiH. Dodik has found it handy to interpret everything commented against his referendum as threatening to his personal safety and so:
“I will not go to the prosecutor’s office in Sarajevo but I am ready to give a statement in any other judiciary office in the Serb Republic,” Dodik told a news conference 27 September 2016. He therefore rejects the jurisdiction of the government of Bosnia Herzegovina to which Serbian Republic entity must answer. He has therefore, in his mind and in his deeds already cut Serbian Republic’s ties with BiH.
“If Dodik fails to comply with a summons, and fails to justify it, the prosecution will then issue an arrest warrant,” said Bosnia’s Security Minister Dragan Mektic, a Bosnian Serb.

Map of Bosnia and Herzegovina
with entities of
Serb Republic/ Republika Srpska
and Croat Bosniak Federation

All this says that Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a more dangerous state than at any other time since Dayton Accords in 1995, with looming possibility of renewed violence and crimes against humanity. It confirms that, despite atrocities committed in early 1990’s and guilt confirmed via international criminal tribunal and domestic criminal courts, Serbs have not learned to keep their fingers off sovereign territories and state borders that have been established/recognised on an international level for many decades. Collective catharsis associated with the atrocities and war crimes as some guarantee of lasting peace in BiH has made no progress despite Dayton Accords and the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This latest behavior of Bosnian Serbs evidences the fact that reconciliation in BiH (in former Yugoslavia, really) has been a pipe dream, and a utopian dream concocted by the West and the European Commission who thought that equating the aggressor with the victim would reap positive results of reconciliation and peace. Permitting Serbian Republic to exist within BiH in the first place was the beginning of that pipe dream, which was above all cruel to the victims of war crimes and, as such, it was never going to work. Daytom Accord should have either split BiH into three distinctive sovereign states (Bosniak, Croat and Serb) or insisted on retaining BiH as a single sovereign state without entities or divisions of autonomous territory between its constituent ethnic/national groups.

But as things have panned out, the world must cringe with disgust watching the referendum signatures of the majority of the genocidal Bosnian Serb “nation” celebrating without an inkling of shame or remorse their “state” founded on war crimes, forced deportations, ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, genocide, torture…and all that permitted by way of world leaders’ benign political statements that offer only political analyses of the past and no visible intention for decisive involvement to stop such lunacy that is creating new victims of the imposed ethnic Serb superiority in that region. This is a true perversion of justice for the victims of crimes against humanity and freedom to live peacefully anywhere within one’s country’s sovereign borders.

By way of referendum for Serb Republic Statehood Day Bosnian Serbs are erecting a monument to those who committed genocide. This comes without real sanctions and practical intervention against this shame for humanity as all of the political analyses and statements by world leaders about this appear more benevolent toward this Serb cause of celebrating genocide than toward anything else. Turbulent times are on the cards once again for Bosnia and Herzegovina; for Bosniaks and Croatians. Together with political instability in Macedonia, violent protests in Kosovo, the destabilisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina will have a destructive influence on the entire Balkan region. The referendum in Republika Srpska also perfectly shows how history can be used to drum up hostility between nations. Desirous of peace and life without fear, a life that moves away from daily infliction of pain contained in politically live reminders of the 1990’s war, Bosnian Croats may do well by utilising this latest practically unchecked Bosnian Serb defiance and seek their own independence or autonomy within or without BiH. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Balkan War, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs, Croatians, Dayton Agreement, Milorad Dodik, Muslims, national divisions in Bosnia, Republika Srpska, Serbian Republic, Serbians

Slobodan Milosevic Not Innocent – Still, Serbia’s War Crimes Deniers Get Field Day

September 7, 2016 by inavukic 22 Comments

Former Serbian president
Slobodan Milosevic
is led into the courtroom
of the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague 2002
PHOTO : JERRY LAMPEN/AFP/Getty Images

Dubbed “the butcher of the Balkans”, Serbia’s late Slobodan Milosevic almost rose from the grave with a bright halo glowing above his head last month when a handful of apparent Serb war crimes and Slobodan Milosevic apologists briefly succeeded in convincing much of the unsuspecting world that The UN crimes tribunal in the Hague had acquitted/exonerated him of war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1990’s as part of joint criminal enterprise. Andy Wilcoxson and Neil Clark dropped into the world’s public arena a hotter than burning claim that sent members of Serbia’s leadership dancing in deliriums of denial and pathetic disregard for victims of horrible crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1990’s and false interpretation of justice – oblivious to truth and reality.

Neil Clark served the world (via RT) the evidently calculating sensational claim that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died 2006 in The Hague cells, was “exonerated… for war crimes committed in the Bosnia war …”. Clark appears to have let himself loose and reckless, saying: “The ICTY’s conclusion, that one of the most demonized figures of the modern era was innocent of the most heinous crimes he was accused of, really should have made headlines across the world. But it hasn‘t. Even the ICTY buried it, deep in its 2,590 page verdict in the trial of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who was convicted in March of genocide (at Srebrenica), war crimes and crimes against humanity…There was no official announcement or press conference regarding Milosevic‘s exoneration. We’ve got journalist and researcher Andy Wilcoxson to thank for flagging it up for us…”

Well, hello Mr Clark – Karadzic’s trial was not Milosevic’s trial and Milosevic was not tried – he went on and died in prison before the evidence against him could actually be tested in the court of law.

Ah, Andy Wilcoxon. Well, he wrote on a pro Slobodan Milosevic website in July 2016 analysing snippets of the ICTY judgment against Radovan Karadzic as if they were snippets from a trial against Milosevic where adequate or applicable evidence against Milosevic was tested! Wilcoxon in essence pronounced Milosevic innocent of war crimes by addressing a handful of paragraphs in the 2,615-page ICTY judgment against Karadzic. How calculating and cruel can some articles appear!

Radovan Karadzic
40 year prison sentence
for war crimes in
Bosnia and Herzegovina against
Croats and Bosniaks
Photo: AP

So, it was more than four months from the time the ICTY in the Hague delivered 24 March its judgment against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and sentenced him to 40 years imprisonment for war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during 1990’s war, which saw ethnic cleansing and genocide create the so-called ethnically clean Serb Republic within Bosnia and Herzegovina, that journalists Neil Clark and Andy Wilcoxson decide to interpret the ICTY Judgment against Karadzic as a finding of Slobodan Milosevic’s innocence and got the world thinking that Milosevic has in The Hague trial been found innocent of war crimes in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The full judgment does have 2, 615 pages (or 2,590 – depending on format at hand) and it takes time to digest that but one cannot but suspect that such articles purporting to confirm Milosevic’s innocence in Bosnia and Herzegovina were what “the doctor ordered” and to be used to feed Serbia’s deluded genocide denial, denial of any guilt in the war they started and played a critical role of aggression in it, regardless of whether that aggression was physical or verbal or political.

Truly disturbing stuff!

Wilcoxon in his article enumerates a selection of paragraphs from the Karadzic judgment that he says evidences Milosevic’s innocence but apparently fails to actually quote those paragraphs in full or link them to the actual ICTY Judgment (for the reader to access easily)! One of these paragraphs Wilcoxson heavily relies for his preposterous claim is paragraph 3460 and that one says:

“With regard to the evidence presented in this case (Karadzic case) in relation to Slobodan Milosevic and his membership in the JCE (Joint Criminal Enterprise), the Chamber recalls that he shared and endorsed the political objective of the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership to preserve Yugoslavia and to prevent the separation or independence of BiH and co-operated closely with the Accused during this time. The Chamber also recalls that Milosevic provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions, and arms to the Bosnian Serbs during the conflict. However, based on the evidence before the Chamber regarding the diverging interests that emerged between the Bosnian Serb and Serbian leaderships during the conflict and in particular, Milosevic’s repeated criticism and disapproval of the policies and decisions made by the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership, the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan.” (Full Radovan Karadzic Judgment ICTY pdf here)

So, no sufficient evidence against Milosevic in Karadzic’s trial equals Milosevic’s innocence of the crimes as far as one can deduce from Neill and Wilcoxson’s incredulous claims. Wilcoxson enumerates several other paragraphs from the Karadzic judgment that mainly address meetings in Belgrade or in Pale (administrative centre of Serbian Republic then created by Serb’s as ethnically pure entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and tend to suggest Milosevic’s certain disagreement with the politics of Bosnian Serb leaders, but to me this is not evidence of Milosevic’s innocence. Indeed, Milosevic’s attitudes reportedly expressed at meetings do not necessarily automatically follow that he is innocent of the war crimes covered in Karadzic’s trial.

(L) Ivica Dacic, Serbian foreign minister
(R) Aleksandar Vulin, Serbian labour, employment minister
Photo: Tanjug/Nenad Milosevic

What’s even more disturbing is that most of Serbia’s media and some outside it promoted this deception for days, leaving that lie permanently available in the public domain. What’s further distressing and obscene is the fact that Serbia’s leadership via foreign minister Ivica Dacic (former member of Milosevic’s ultra-nationalist party) and labour and employment minister Aleksandar Vulin “have been expressing triumphant satisfaction for days about claims (Clark and Wilcoxson) that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic also said that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic wasn’t guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dacic has said that the Karadzic verdict also shows that Serbia itself was innocent of wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But some Serbian analysts suggest that they are simply using these claims of Milosevic’s innocence in an attempt to rehabilitate the former leader’s policies and their own role in the wars of the 1990s, with which the country has never truly come to terms…”

Poor, wretched soul, Dacic, who accused the West of keeping quiet about Milosevic’s innocence because, if it spoke about the findings in ICTY Karadzic case about Milosevic’s innocence, then the West would tear down the justification for its politics towards Serbia! This man is truly mad! It doesn’t seem to cross his mind that Karadzic’s case was not Milosevic’s case and that the case did not pronounce Milosevic innocent nor would it have been just to do so (as all evidence tested was that to serve indictment against Karadzic).

An army of world’s top psychiatrists couldn’t heal this lot in Serbia from the devastating, dangerous delusions that include persistent and false sense of victimhood and denials of Serbia’s role in war crimes during 1990’s in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But, wouldn’t you know it – Russian Pravda swiftly published a piece after Clark’s article saying that “International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague quietly acknowledged the innocence of former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic and went on with an interview with the French/ Russian journalist Dimitri de Koshko, another Milosevic apologist it seems, who went on to say: “Today, we are talking about the trial in The Hague that has seen its legal ending only now. Milosevic was posthumously and very quietly acquitted by the Tribunal.”

Unbelievable garbage! Nobody can be acquitted or found not guilty via a trial held against someone else!

The Tribunal did not acquit Milosevic. Trial against Milosevic stopped when he died. Did not continue! Did not finish. Perhaps Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina should join forces and seek to have it finished posthumously.

The indisputable facts are that Slobodan Milosevic presided over and oversaw the worst atrocities committed against humanity since WWII on European soil. Serbia’s soldiers as they entered Croatia’s Vukovar in 1991 with guns, knives, bombs, tanks sang: “Slobo, Slobo (meaning Slobodan Milosevic) bring us some salad, there’ll be meat – we’ll slaughter the Croats”; thousands of Bosniak men and boys slaughtered in Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the banner of Serb superiority and land theft – to just mention the very tip of the horrendous iceberg of war crimes committed.

Has Milosevic been exonerated of war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Has he been found or declared innocent? Heck no – not by a court of law; just by handful of journalists twisting and bending facts about the most serious matter of human existence – crime – to suit a political agenda that has nothing to do with justice. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

US based attorney Luka Misetic, who has significant experience in ICTY trials and appeals for war crimes recently tweeted the following on the matter (click on image to enlarge):