@Kenan
I'm no match for your technocratic skills. You've nailed the photo. The old man could not find it if I devoted all my remaining days in this vale of tears. Dinner's on me. Wear something sexy.
MAB, you are a witty, smart guy but saying that the photo I posted above shows "just thin people in cast off clothes voluntarily standing behind a fence" is completely fucked up.
The photo shows inmates at Omarska camp set up for Bosniak and Croat men and women.
From Wiki:
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, has found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska[1]. Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common.[1,2]
Death tollAbout 6,000 Bosniaks and Croats were held in appalling conditions at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment beatings and ill-treatment. UN prosecutors compared the camps to those run by Nazis.[2]
As part of the ethnic cleansing operations, these four camps helped the Crisis Committee of the Serbian District of Prijedor to reduce the non-Serb population of Prijedor from more than 50,000 in 1992 to little more than 3,000 in 1995, and even fewer subsequently.[3] While precise calculations about the number who actually died in these camps are difficult to make, US State Department officials, along with representatives of other Western governments, have estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 people perished at Omarska.[4]
TrialsThe Republika Srpska officials responsible for running the camp have since been indicted and found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Camp commandants Miroslav Kvočka, Dragoljub Prcač, Milojica Kos, and Mlađo Radić, and a local taxi driver, Zoran Žigić were all found guilty of crimes against humanity. Kvočka, Prcač, Kos and Radić were sentenced to five, six, seven and 20 years respectively; Žigić was given the longest term of 25 years.
Željko Mejakić was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) as a direct perpetrator of one instance of mistreatment and under the theory of command responsibility as the de facto commander of Omarska camp. He was also found guilty under the theory of joint criminal enterprise for furthering the camp’s system of mistreatment and persecution of detainees. Defendant Mejakić was sentenced to 21 years’ long-term imprisonment.
Momčilo Gruban was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) under the theory of command responsibility for crimes committed in the Omarska camp, and under the theory of joint criminal enterprise. Defendant Gruban was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.
Duško Knežević was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) as a direct perpetrator of crimes committed in the Omarska and Keraterm camps. He was also found guilty under the theory of joint criminal enterprise for furthering the Omarska and Keraterm camps’ systems of mistreatment and persecution of detainees. Defendant Knežević was sentenced to 31 years’ long-term imprisonment.
The Judgment of the ICJThe ICJ presented its judgment in Bosnian Genocide Case on 26 February 2007, in which it had examined atrocities committed in detention camps, including Omarska, in relation to Article II (b) of the Genocide Convention. The Court stated in its judgment:
Having carefully examined the evidence presented before it, and taken note of that presented to the ICTY, the Court considers that it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps.1997-2000 controversyThere was academic and media controversy regarding the events that took place in Omarska and Trnopolje in 1992, due to claims of false reporting and "lies". These allegations, promoted by the state-controlled Radio Television of Serbia and the British Living Marxism (LM) paper, prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to accuse the LM of libel; the ITN won the case in 2000, effectively forcing the paper to close down.
Human Rights Watch classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
1. ICTY: Miroslav Kvočka, Mlado Radić, Zoran Žigić and Dragoljub Prcać judgement".
2. May, Larry (2007). War Crimes and Just War. Cambridge University Press. p. 237. ISBN 052187114X.
3. "The Prijedor report". Final Report of the Commission of Experts. Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780. United Nations. 28 December
4. The Unindicted: Reaping the Rewards of "Ethnic Cleansing" in Prijedor". Human Rights Watch. 1 January 1997.
5. Campbell, David (March 2002). "Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia – the case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part 1". Journal of Human Rights 1 (1): 1–33.
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