Arresting the wrong general

Dobrovoljacka

The arrest of Jovan Divjak is an embarassement. After Ganic’s arrest last year in London, the arrest of General Divjak  in Vienna on a Serbian arrest warrent undermines Serbia’s credibility. Serbia’s request to have Ganic extradicted for the “Dobrovoljacka case” was thrown out by a London court with the explanaition that “proceedings are brought and are being used for political purposes, and as such amount to the abuse of process of this court.” There is not much to add to the arrest of Divjak. It is not without irony that his role during the Dobrovoljacka case is well documented: He is shown during the incident in the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia trying to convince the ragtag group of Bosnian territorial defense forces  to stop shooting. Clearly they ignored him and an unidentified soldiers tells him to f*** off (see documentary, 44 min, hat tip to Ivana) Hardly the stuff war criminals are made of.

As with last years’ case, it is also entirely unclear on which grounds Serbia claims jurisdiction over the case. The arrest of Divjak is even more ironic. Not only does he come from a Serb family, opting to defend Bosnia and standing for a multiethnic society, he has remained moderate and without bitterness after the war. While he was retired after the war because a Serb general no longer fit into the ethnic categories imposed at Dayton, he once told me that he was grateful to have more time to work on humanitarian projects.

Pursuing this case is doing Serbia and the domestic war crimes chamber a great disservice. It undermines the credibility of the Serbian war crimes chamber and other European countries might have to start thinking twice as to whether to executed Serbian arrest warrants.

After there has been much progress in recent months in terms of judicial cooperation in the region, preventing criminals seeking refugee across the border through mutual extradition agreements, Divjak’s arrest constitutes a major blow to these efforts. It has also helped to fuel tensions in Bosnia as Dodik has immediately seized on the arrest and stating that “this should have happend a long time ago. The crimes committed by Divjak and others Dobrovoljačka in Sarajevo are obvious.”

In order to help to clear up this case once and for all, it would be good for the Bosnian war crimes chamber to seriously investigate the case. It began a parallel investigation with Serbian authorities, but it needs to ensure that it does not appear to be a non-investigation. Instead it will need to clarify the number of victims which remains contested, the exact events and those responsible. I strongly doubt that Jovan Divjak would find himself on such a list, but it will need to be a Bosnian court to determine this.

 

 

Srebrenica typo

If you thought that the Department of Records in Brazil mistyping “Buttle” instead of “Tuttle” was one of the worst historic bureaucratic blunders, you’re wrong.
In a court case in the Netherlands in which survivors sue the UN and the Netherlands over the genocide in Srebrenica, the UN noted that “its office in Sarajevo refused air support in Srebrenica because the Dutch commander there failed to fill the request form correctly.”

Did they cross in the wrong box (please support us with UN navy maritime support) or did they wrongly identify what happened in the form (calling it mass murder prior to an independent UN confirmation based on an extended fact finding mission) or where some signatures missing (of the victims/perpetrators confirming events) ? I’m curious.

Chirping about evidence

When crickets become evidence… Jutarnji List reports that some have questioned the recently released recording of the meeting in Brijoni of Tudjman and the army to plan operation Oluja in 1995. According to the report there is no sound of crickets when Tudjman talks about the expulsion of Serbs, unlike elsewhere on the recording. In its comprehensive reporting, it also shares some information on crickets: they only chirp when its warmer than 25 degrees (in fact you can calculate the temperature by the frequency of the chirps) and they don’t chirp when they are in danger or they rest.
So if there was no chirping during during these statements, I would propose several alternative theories to that of a doctored tape: a) the crickets were exhausted and took a quick break; b) they thought they would be expelled next and as noted above, crickets in danger don’t chirp or c) there was an unexpected drop in temperature (a certain chill in the air so to speak) or d) they just didn’t want to be on the soundtrack to such a project…

Veljko in Florida?

Where’s Veljko?

A few years ago when looking to rent a flat in Belgrade, we nearly rented from Veljko Kadijevic daughter-in-law. She shared her outrage with us that he was wrongly maligned as the last minister of defense of Yugoslavia. Apparently the USA agrees.
As Blic reports, he is living in Florida, advising the Pentagon in Iraqi bunkers these days. Wasn’t that the same Kadijevic who was raving about the ‘foreign factors’ destroying Yugoslavia …

Don’t cry for me Serbia…

On Saturday, I stopped by the ‘meeting’ to commemorate the death of Miloesvic in front of the Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro. Although the numbers were impressive (80,000 according to police, 500,000 according to SPS), the gathering was pretty pathetic. The atmosphere was too pathetic for a meeting or protest, and too angry for a funeral.
Particularly striking were the women who cried at the manifestation for Milosevic’s funeral not for Slobo, but for themselves. They cried over their own misery and poverty. The tragedy lies in the fact that they do not realize that the one they are formally crying for is the one mostly responsible for their misery.

Needle in the haystack

I guess that Minister of Defense of SCG Zoran Stankovic took the metophor of parallels between finding Mladic and finding a needle in a hay stack a bit too literally.