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[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Tuesday, 10 April 2007, 16:58 GMT 17:58 UK

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Jail for Serb video death squad

The video shows the bound victims marched into the woods and shot
Serbia's war crimes court has jailed four Serb paramilitaries who were filmed as they shot dead six captured young Bosnian Muslims.
The Scorpions unit leader and one of his accomplices were given 20 years each - the others 13 and five years.

A fifth man was cleared of the murder which took place during the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia in July 1995.

This was the first trial in Serbia to deal with the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys around Srebrenica.

It was also the biggest war crimes trial of Serbs by Serbs to date.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6540645.stm

[mindmetoo]

And yet Serbs will still swear these guys were only protecting their way of life...

(Not that the Croats are spotless.)

[Junior]

What would they have done to the serbs if the boot was on the other foot? provide them with 4 square meals and a free interpreter?

[mindmetoo]

[Junior]

[thepeel]

[Adventurer]

[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Tuesday, 10 April 2007, 21:58 GMT 22:58 UK

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Verdict helps Serbs confront past

As court in Serbia sentences four paramilitaries filmed killing Bosnian Muslims during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the BBC's Nick Hawton, in Belgrade, assesses the verdicts' wider impact:

Relatives of men killed at Srebrenica witnessed the sentencing

In the courtroom corridor, the men with the scorpion tattoos and short hair waited to hear the verdicts for their five friends, former members of the Scorpion paramilitaries.

A few metres, away female relatives of the victims huddled together, drinking coffee, waiting to be ushered into the high-tech, high security courtroom.

In a country where there has been a great deal of denial about what happened at Srebrenica this video has had a powerful effect.

When it first came out two years ago, it sent shock waves around the region.

These were not just statistics and allegations and propaganda.

These were real people. Perpetrators and victims now had faces. People could identify with the pain of others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6543393.stm

{Good for the Serbians who made this possible. I think the sentences were a bit too lenient, but at least there was a sentence.]

[Junior]

What about the pilots who firebombed Dresden in WW2? Plenty of innocent German women and children got incinerated. Same at Hiroshima.

War criminals? Do you think America and England could be so brave as the Serbians, and put their war veterans on trial?

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]

[waggo]

[Adventurer]

Junior brought up a valid point. You said what about Americans trying those committing war crimes. The United States has done that when it comes to those who were involved in Abu Ghraib. If you say that only touched the surface, you may be right, but I could say the same regarding this trial of these Serbians by their fellow Serbians. I think there is probably much more pressure on smaller countries to try those guilty of war cimes or crimes against humanity like people who come from Serbia or Rwanda or Chile (Pinochet), and Croatia. Of course, there are exceptions.

As far as Dresden and Hiroshima, the bombing of those civilians is not taught to have been morally wrong. I never heard one of my teachers or professors state that. In reality, one could argue that it was state-sponsored terrorism including whether done by Germans or the Allies.
If you go by the strict definition of knowing that what you will do will directly kill civilians then it is terrorism.

What happened with the Serbian Scorpions and others is they were ethnic cleansing areas in a style reminiscent of the 1930s to the end of World War II.

[ddeubel]

forget Junior, another yahoo......

I saw this video raw about a year and a half ago. Incredibly repugnant.

I say bravo but I would also add a moment of caution. What of all those atrocities not caught on camera. This is just one brief frame on the film of that whole conflict. But for the blindness, more people should be held accountable. And too bad Milosevic didn't have his day....

Too often these people go unscathed, unchallenged, unpunished because of geopoliticing and the fact there "is no video". I lived years in the Sudetenland and don't know of any Czechs prosecuted for atrocities, so horrific against the Germans. To name one ..... also we might look at Libya. Now we are cheerleading instead of prosecuting this government that killed thousands.....all because we look after our own and don't give a rats ass of the thousands of Libyans fed to the lions. Lockerbee was horrible but really just a small thing in comparison to the other things done to Libyans....

I'm off topic but my point remains. We need a world court so that we can maintain uniform standards of justice across this world. Otherwise it is all just hit and miss diplomatic expediency. The great powers are to be condemned for their tepid support of this notion, support of the Hague and support for anything based on concensus of what is "humane" around the world.

DD
DD

[mindmetoo]