Human rights violation and war crime are done with impunity before the eye of international community. Syrians and Palestinians are burning amidst violence and bloodshed; however it seems that the conscience of the international onlookers is not outraged at all. In other words, the poignant tragedy of the war victims will move one into tears but no reaction is taken by the international community, albeit it is stated in the permeable of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law….”
The International Tribunal has to prosecute the war criminals the same as it brought the Bosnia-Herzegovina war criminals into justice – especially the leaders as Dusan Tadic. The Bosnian, a country fractured by a violent civil war when it split from the former Yugoslavia in 1992, civil war pitted three ethnic groups against one another – Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. Each side charged the other with atrocities and war crimes. Much attention, however, focused on the side winning the civil war – the Bosnian Serbs.
To carve out a separate state for themselves, Bosnian Serbs adopted a policy of “ethnic cleansing.” As Serb fighters moved into a Bosnian Muslim area, they raped and terrorized civilians to force them to flee from their homes. Serbs rounded up military-age Muslim men and boys and held them in detention camps. In 1992, the international press exposed starvation and other mistreatment of these prisoners. Suddenly, many in the world saw the image of concentration camps in Europe once again.
To know more about the history of Bosnian war, during this war in the early 1990s ethnic cleansing, genocide and other serious crimes were committed on all sides. Stung by press criticism, the Bosnian Serbs dismantled many of their prison camps. But in July 1995, when the Bosnian Serb army captured the city of Srebrenica, about 8,000 Muslim men and boys disappeared. Witnesses say that they were all shot and buried in mass graves. In May, 1993, the UN Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) to try those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. The purpose of the tribunal was to bring justice to the victims of the conflict and deter future leaders from committing similar atrocities. The ICTY had also taken on cases from the Kosovo crisis of the late 1990s.
The ICTY was the UN’s first special tribunal and came under intense scrutiny. It has been criticized for being politicized, biased, unfair and very costly. Lengthy trials and controversial decisions had led to a growing loss of faith in the tribunal, and critics question the tribunal’s ability to ease tensions and promote reconciliation in the Balkans. Despite its shortfalls, the tribunal had however been instrumental in the creation of the first permanent international criminal court, the International Criminal Court (ICC), providing a number of ‘lessons learned.’
According to witnesses, Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb war criminal and former SDS leader in Kozarac, raped at least one woman, beat more than a dozen people to death, and made his victims drink mud and motor oil. If this were a typical criminal case, Tadic would be charged with rape, murder, mayhem, and assault and battery. But Tadic’s case was not a typical criminal trial. The victims were prisoners of war. The alleged incidents took place in a concentration camp in Bosnia. Tadic’s trial took place in The Hague, Netherlands, before a special international tribunal established by the United Nations. Dusan Tadic was the first individual prosecuted before an international court since the famous Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials following World War II.
By international agreement, war crimes generally involve the intentional killing or mistreatment of prisoners of war and other noncombatants during wartime. One of the purposes of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials was to warn those who might commit such acts in the future that they would be held accountable and punished by international law. Yet Tadic was the first person to be prosecuted by an international court in almost 50 years. Why haven’t there been other war crimes trials? Do we need a permanent international criminal court?
“Violence breeds violence. In 1993, emboldened by Milosevic’s campaign of terror against the Muslims and the Western powers’ consistent denial that genocide had taken place, the Croats entered the war against their former Muslim allies, using many of the same methods as the Serbs – terror, deportations, concentration camps, indiscriminate bombardments of civilians, massacres, the blocking of humanitarian aid, destruction of religious shrines, and appropriation of property.”
The International Tribunal carried out a humanitarian and fair act. It is urged to break the silence and pay special attention on the war victims and bring the war criminals into justice as soon as possible. In short, Syrians, Palestinians, etc. are also supposed to be entitled with the basic human rights and enjoy their rights in secure atmosphere.