• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

REMEMBERING THE BOSNIAN GENOCIDE PSHE / History / Politics / Law Lesson Plans Student Activity Pack KS3 / KS4 / KS5 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Islamic Human Rights Commission PO Box 598, Wembley, HA9 7XH © 2017 Islamic Human Rights Commission All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN: 978-1-903718-50-6 www.ihrc.org.uk 2 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide Table of Contents LESSON ONE .................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................... 9 Suggested questions ........................................................................................................ 15 LESSON TWO ................................................................................................................. 16 Suggested questions ........................................................................................................ 16 Appendix 1 ........................................................................................................................ 17 Appendix 2 ........................................................................................................................ 17 Endnotes ........................................................................................................................ 25 3 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide In commemoration of the genocide that took place in Bosnia where countless innocent lives were lost, IHRC have compiled a set of two activities for students to participate in. 4 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide LESSON ONE: Comparing the Nuremberg Trials and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Read the following essay by with the systematic murder of millions of Demir Mahmutcehajic: people, but also for planning and carrying out war in Europe. Politics or Justice Differentiating Lt. Col. Murray Bernays, an attorney in the between the Nuremberg Trials U.S. War Department who collected evidence on crimes committed against GIs, had devised and the International Criminal a scheme to try the Nazis as conspirators for Tribunal for the Former waging an aggressive war and to try Nazi Yugoslavia organizations as a means of reaching hundreds of thousands of members. His ideas were INTRODUCTION promoted by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and it eventually was incorporated into the indictment. inston Churchill said in 1944 that The indictment of Nazi organizations was Nazi leaders should be “hunted designed to deal with the problem of what to down and shot”. (Courtroom do about the hundreds of thousands of people Television Network LLC) The French and Soviets who had been members of organizations such Walso supported summary executions. The as the SS and the Gestapo. The idea was to label Americans, however, pushed for trial after the them as criminal organizations, and hold faction within the U.S. government led by hearings to determine the extent to which a Henry Morgenthau, who supported a harsh member is considered guilty. plan designed to prevent Germany from ever The Nuremberg trials became a model after rising as an industrial power, lost a domestic which subsequent international enforcement of battle over the U.S. position on punishment for justice might be patterned. Indeed, to many, the the Nazis. trials indicated that the international In August 1945, the British, French, community would no longer tolerate Americans and Soviets, met in London. They transgressions against basic, universal human signed the agreement that created the values, and that a mechanism was now in place Nuremberg court, officially the International by which to hold people accountable for Military Tribunal, and set up ground rules for “crimes against humanity.” the trial. Judge Charles E. Wyzanski Jr. explained in In early October 1945, the four prosecuting “Nuremberg in Retrospect” ( Atlantic , nations — the United States, Great Britain, December, 1946), that the exemplary manner in France and Russia — issued an indictment which the trial had been conducted had against 24 men and six organizations. The dispelled his scepticism about the feasibility of individual defendants were charged not only forging an international legal system: “Judged 5 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide as a court trial,” he wrote, “the Nuremberg attach any name to this evil because that could proceedings were a model of forensic fairness.... be an offence to the Serbs.” (Judge Rodrigues But the outstanding accomplishment of the (Presiding) over Trial Chamber I, case Krstic IT- trial...is that it has crystallized the concept that 98-33 “Srebrenica”) there already is inherent in the international In the words of Judge Rodrigues we can see community a machinery both for the an almost apologetic approach to the expression of international criminal law and for sentencing of Krstic and especially interesting is its enforcement.” the fact that the Judge goes into depth to show The International Criminal Tribunal for the that the Serbian people are not to be blamed for Former Yugoslavia (‘Tribunal’) was established crimes committed in their name. by the United Nations Security Council in 1993 While fatal creation of the state of ‘Israel’ and in order to put an end to the widespread and capitulation under blackmail from the United flagrant violations of international States has brought UN to become the only humanitarian law occurring in the former mediator between the two superpowers it is Yugoslavia. Set up under the umbrella of the obvious that general indictment of the German United Nations and established with the view people gave a moral ground to the Zionist to bring to justice individuals who organised lobby to demand for an establishment of a and perpetrated war crimes in former Jewish entity. Turning a blind eye to the Yugoslavia, its mandate is very much different support that the illegal state of ‘Israel’ was from that of the Nuremberg International receiving from the United States; in its quest to Military Tribunal. Even though crimes depopulate Palestine and to create a Jewish committed by the Nazis cannot mathematically state; was the first major betrayal of UN’s be compared with the crimes committed in founding ideals. Silent acceptance of mass former Yugoslavia it is a cause for concern that deportation of Palestinians was contrary to ever the “Tribunal” is only concerned with louder cries of condemnation of Nazi policies. individual quilt and not collective On the contrary, defining the crimes responsibility. committed against Muslims in the former ” I believe it is essential to make a distinction Yugoslavia as being an individual between what might be collective responsibility responsibility is the way to prevent Muslims and individual responsibility. The Tribunal has from achieving the same moral ground towards not been established to deal with the possibility their killers as achieved by the Jews towards the of collective responsibility. What is of interest to whole of Germany. me in each of the trials in which I have sat in In this paper I question the wisdom of this court is to verify whether the evidence making a distinction between justice at presented before it makes it possible to find an Nuremberg Trials and justice at the “Tribunal”. accused guilty. I seek to judge an accused. I do I will try to prove that even though the scale of not judge a people. Yes, in the former the crimes committed is different, the crimes Yugoslavia there were attacks against civilian itself are the same, both committed by Nazis populations. Yes, there were massacres and and by Serbian forces, and that both Nazis and there was persecution. Yes, some of these Serbian forces were supported by majority of crimes were committed by Serbian forces. German and Serbian people. To ignore the fact However, to paraphrase a great humanist, I that overwhelming majority of Serbs supported consider that to associate this evil with Serbian ethnic cleansing, mass murder, rape and identity would be an insult to the Serbian genocide and not to find them accountable for people and would betray the concept of civil being supporters of such crimes is defiantly a society. But it would be just as monstrous not to betrayal of international justice. 6 Remembering the Bosnian Genocide CHAPTER 1 early as 1933 the German people would have been able to see what the real objectives of the Nazi party was. An article written by he rise to power by the Nazi party in Guy Stern (The Burning of the Books in Nazi early 1930s have brought new phase of Germany, 1933: The American Response) racial conflict in Europe. Jews as a studied the consequences and response to nation, not as a religious group, have been burning of titles of Jewish and foreign Tpersecuted in Europe for centuries. The idea authors and quotes the poet Heinrich Heine, of a justifiable extermination of Jews was not

Load more

  26

Copy Link