An Outline Whereby ICTY Judges Should Judge Radovan Karadzic
By Jill Starr
At the end of the day, some three years from now in the final judgment of Radovan
Karadzic’s case being tried at the ICTY,
and,
in morally judging his guilt or innocence insofar as whether he is directly responsible for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and isolated incidents of rape and summary executions during Srebrenica,
first and foremost, the ICTY judges have a duty, a ”Noblesse oblige” if you will (used to imply that with wealth, power and prestige come responsibilities of morality-even in judging Radovan Karadzic and the other Bosnian Serbs awaiting trials/appeals at the Hague’s highest court),
The ICTY judges have an international duty to compare, contrast and analyze the
annals of human history of war, torture and war crimes before rendering their
judgement in the case. Why?
When analyzing rapes, executions, pilgrimages and torture of former wars,even dating
back as far as Medieval Times, cases in point: American soldiers in Vietnam, the Roman Catholic Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition in which women were sexually tortured and burnt alive at the stake, as well as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal recently in Iraq,we discover that the soldiers guilty of these monstrous acts, are themselves guilty and should be tried and sentenced,
HOWEVER, one can not rationally say that for instance President Bush was directly
responsible for the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq merely owing to the matter of
fact he was the United States President at that time.
By the same token we can not reasonably conclude Radovan Karadzic is directly
responsible and guilty for the crimes against humanity lower level Serb soldiers
committed against Muslims in Srebrenica.
For the American and international news media to at this premature point in time to try swaying everyone watching it daily insofar as the Karadzic case, and for this media to daily pronounce Karadzic’s so-called ”guilt” saying ”he is responsible for the crimes that in actuality, may or may have not occurred at Srebrenica,” even before the evidence and trial has even taken place and been presented; is morally wrong and illegal in and of itself.
This entire judgement remains murky and leaves a tremendous ”reasonable doubt”
hanging over whether Radovan Karadzic is directly responsible for ordering executions in Srebrenica.
