Yesterday I ran an article relating to the book that Milan Lukić wrote, the transcript of which was smuggled out of the UN Detention Centre illegally. I discovered the videos below on the ICTY YouTube channel and found them to be riveting.
Cousins Milan Lukić and Sredoje Lukić were sentenced to life and 30 years' imprisonment respectively, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad during the 1992-1995 conflict.
The body of evidence brought against the cousins was extensive and at one point, the judge even refers to a multitude of complaints and testimony that they didn’t even charge the cousins on. This shows a pattern of murder, rape, extermination and persecution that took place over a period of about three years leading up to 1995.
They did charge and convict them on several specific incidents including the infamous murder of 59 Muslim women, children and elderly men in a house on Pionirska Street in Višegrad and the murder of at least 60 Muslim civilians in a house in the Bikavac settlement of Višegrad.
Both Milan and Sredoje Lukić showed no remorse during their trial. They both entered a ‘not guilty’ plea and you can see in the video that Milan shows a specific lack of respect to the proceedings.
I don't know if you're familiar with Visegrad Genocide Memories blog. The author has spent a number of years trying to draw attention to what happened in Visegrad in 1992. He warns however against "Lukicisation" of the crimes that took place in Visegrad. Milan Lukic was out of control, but there were people who allowed him to be out of control. http://genocideinvisegrad.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteIt's one of the Tribunal's great failures that Bakira Hasecic's efforts to have Lukic prosecuted for rape failed on the Prosecution's inability to answer the challenge until the last mkinute, when the Tribunal ruled that it was too late for the defence to have a fair chance.
@ Owen: Hi there. Yes, thank you, I am. I have linked to them in my sidebar too. It is interesting what you say about "Lukicisation".
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, yes, there is too much going on during a genocide to pin it on any one person. There is certainly a greater context that must be taken into account and there were people more powerful to Lukic and there were his subordinates that moved together to allow it all to happen.
But on the other hand, a genocide requires coordination, planning and intent. I believe this is why they ran concurrent trials in both Rwanda and the ICTR in Aruba, for example. The trials in Rwanda (Gacaca courts) focused more on the killers, expediting justice and punishment in the name of healing and reconciliation. The ICTR trials in Aruba went after the organisers, those who incited genocide or were seen to be responsible for it.
While the ICTR looked at under 100 indictments, the Gacaca courts looked at thousands.
I think this is the problem in the Balkans. No real work has been put into healing and reconciliation, no work has been put into correcting the perceptions of people who only knew about war time propaganda and no efforts were really made to tackle the reality that thousands of soldiers perpetrated these rapes and massacres, not just the five or six men sitting at The Hague.