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	War Crimes and the promise of Justice in The Hague by Eric Stover Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights Series USA   In an ever-changing global landscape, the world community has demonstrated a renewed commitment to the pursuit of international criminal justice. In 1993, the United Nations established two ad hoc international tribunals to try those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Ten years later, the International Criminal Court began its operations and is in the process of developing prosecutions in its first two cases (Congo and Uganda). Meanwhile, national and hybrid war crimes tribunals have been established in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, and Cambodia.   Thousands of people have given testimony before these courts. Most have witnessed war crimes, including mass killings, torture, rape, inhumane imprisonment, forced expulsion, and the destruction of their homes and villages. For many, testifying in a war crimes trial requires an act of great courage, especially as they are well aware that war criminals still walk the streets of their villages and towns. Yet despite these risks, little attention has been paid to the fate of witnesses of mass atrocity. Nor do we know much about their experiences testifying before an international tribunal or the effect of such testimony on their return to their postwar communities.   The Witnesses, the first study of victims and witnesses who have testified before an international war crimes tribunal, examines the opinions and attitudes of eighty-seven individuals—Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats—who have appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.   As the world turns increasingly to international criminal justice to respond to mass violence, Eric Stover argues that we must reexamine how we think about and interact with victims and witnesses who enter these new judicial processes. Most of all, we have a duty to make the process of testifying in war crimes trials as respectful and dignified an experience as possible.   Eric Stover is Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books, including Witnesses from the Grave: The Stories Bones Tell (with Christopher Joyce) and editor of The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions (with Elena O. Nightingale).   "The Witnesses is clearly an important work contributing distinctively and with analytical skill to the growing literature on tribunals and commissions. . . . Stover"s interviews are often riveting, punctuated with critical evaluative and emotional voices of simple people describing unspeakable hardship. The author"s compelling presentation succeeds where no structured randomized sample would shed light, namely, in demonstrating the very human moral sensitivities of the respondents as they talk about their family tragedies, their self-styled moral duty to testify on behalf of the dead, their aspirations for justice, and their disappointments."—Richard Pierre Claude, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland Visit the related web page
	Srebrenica Victims Remembered by AFP Bosnia   12.7.2006.   Tens of thousands of Muslims from across Bosnia have commemorated the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when Bosnian Serb troops slaughtered nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in eastern Bosnia.   More than 40,000 people gathered in Srebrenica for a simple ceremony and burial of 505 massacre victims aged 15 to 78.   The victims were identified after being exhumed from more than 60 mass graves uncovered in the area since the end of Bosnia"s 1992-95 war.   The service at a memorial cemetery in Potocari just outside Srebrenica was attended by the UN chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who expressed frustration over the continued liberty of the two men considered most responsible for the slaughter, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.   Hague commemoration   At the same time, around 200 people gathered in front of the Dutch parliament in The Hague to commemorate the anniversary.   The names of 440 Srebrenica victims who were buried in the Potocari cemetery were read out while people silently circled the city"s central square.   An imam offered prayers for the dead and around a hundred balloons with cards carrying the names of victims were released.   To date just six people have been convicted over the atrocities in Srebrenica and only two of those have been convicted of genocide.   Mladic, Karadzic still at large   The two people considered most responsible for the massacre - Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic – are still at large and face genocide charges over the massacre.   Mrs Del Ponte repeatedly accused Belgrade of sheltering Mladic, while Karadzic is believed to be hiding in mountainous parts of Bosnia occasionally crossing into Serbia.   In the largest joint trial ever seen at the UN war crimes court in The Hague, seven top Bosnian Serb military officials are to go on trial this week before the UN war crimes court in connection with the massacre.   So far some 2,500 victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been identified by DNA analyses, while human bones contained in some 3,500 bags are still awaiting identification.   Their bodies were initially buried in a dozen mass graves, but Bosnian Serbs moved them later to other locations to cover up the massacre.   New mass graves are still being found in the area, and the remains of Srebrenica Muslims killed while trying to escape to Tuzla are scattered around the forests in the area.   No Bosnian Serbs present   Many international and Bosnian officials attended the ceremony in Srebrenica, but not a single Bosnian Serb representative was present.   In Belgrade, the Serbian President Boris Tadic and deputy Prime Minister Ivana Dulic Markovic condemned the massacre, stressing that all those responsible must be brought to justice.   There was also no representative from the Dutch government present at The Hague commemoration.   In 2001 the Dutch government resigned over a report that found it had sent Dutch peacekeepers on a "mission impossible" to Srebrenica, but it has always stressed that responsibility for the bloodbath lies solely with the Bosnian Serbs and has refused to take the blame or to apologise, pointing out that the Dutch soldiers were on a UN mission.
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