October 12th, 2009
Radovan Karadzic on trial
Ed Note: See comments across time to follow the progress.
Radovan Karadzic, political leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the early 90s, will go on trial next week.
A Guardian piece looks forward to that — and back to Srebrenica. Very much worth reading.
See here for a primer on War Crime law, such as it is.
And see here for a reminder of what all the shooting was about.
ed says:
And PBS re Srebrenica.
Sigh. Gendercide.
A British special forces soldier spilling his guts in 2002 re the deadly Sloth of the western forces.
October 12th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
ed says:
Karadzic’s motion for immunity and a delay of trial is rejected.
Here is a more interesting account, with some behind the scenes thinking.
A rep of the court writes that “this means that at the very latest, the trial will start on 26 October.”
October 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Grady says:
Your link to a story about the SAS man is to a story around the story. Are his stories published?
October 16th, 2009 at 10:15 am
ed says:
Yes, it WAS something of an idle link I posted.
I did it anyway because this Brit special forces fellow is mentioned in the current Guardian piece (linked in main post above).
From the Guardian:
Even now, it remains a mystery why the massacre was allowed to take place. The Dutch soldiers who failed to protect the people of Srebrenica were not alone. An SAS unit was in the town, radioing back a clear description of what was happening to Nato commanders, the most senior of whom was British general Michael Rose.
One of those SAS soldiers, a sergeant using the pseudonym Nick Cameron, wrote a book in which he describes telling his commanders about the impending massacre.
“I had visions of swarms of angry aircraft diving and destroying the attacking Serb targets at will,” Cameron wrote. “There was nothing . . . we waited and waited.” He said that his SAS commander later told him: “We never intended to fight for this place. That was never the plan.” Cameron concluded “the whole UN thing was to get Srebrenica finished with.”
Despite the fact that he had been awarded the Military Cross for bravery, the MoD took legal action against Cameron, and the book was withdrawn. He has not spoken about it since, and has not responded to my emails.
END QUOTE
I looked for half an hour about the web for the soldier. You probably did too.
1. Seems his memoir was never published in New Zealand (or anywhere else).
Here’s a brief scholarly bit re his experiences in Bosnia and then back in London.
2. But he published a security-conscious travel guide
Note that the Amazon reviewer says the book is utterly stupid and advises people not to buy it.
Hmm, an odd review of an odd book. But from other bits on the web it seems the review is accurate — ie, the reviewer does NOT seem to be an SAS employee trying to squash a book that tells all and spills guts.
So maybe “Nick Cameron” was given a contract for a dumb useless book as a gift after settling with his Government and remaining silent about what bothers him.
3. Just a guess — this may be him talking here as “MikeC62001″.
That is: “Mike Caborn” is the other alias the soldier is said to use. And this Mike C seems to know a lot about the mystery soldier.
4. I once had a copy of the CIA’s history of the Yugoslavian wars in hand for two weeks. They produced it as a big thick book, to sell publicly, but then thought better of it.
(I took it to Sarajevo after the war — it should be in the library of the National Museum — Kemal Bakarsic’s library.)
The CIA book is pretty clear about Srebrenica — about the complacency and then withdrawal of the Danish and Brit troops across the days the massacre was conducted. Not that the CIA is the high authority …
October 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
ed says:
Coverage at Balkan Insight, as the trial finally commences:
http://www.balkaninsight.com/?tpl=852
October 27th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
ed says:
A review of the controversy last year, at his arrest, re promise of immunity from the Americans.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/investigations/12277/
October 27th, 2009 at 4:29 pm