In October 2001, the investigators involved in the Milosevic case had a major breakthrough. They released the names of several Serbian officials, who had been under close scrutinization, as members of Milosevic’s ‘joint criminal enterprise’. Rather than face criminal indictments, it was believed that these men would rather cooperate with the investigators. By the end of the year, literally dozens of former Serbian officials, some of whom had been close associates of Milosevic, had agreed to testify against him. Many of these men were considered to be the former backbone of Milosevic’s ‘secret’ state and could therefore be influential in the outcome of the tribunal. It was felt that if these men would name and shame the people who actually ordered the killings, it would help the prosecution convict Milosevic. However, Milosevic proved to be quite a formidable force when it came to attacking the prosecution. He skilfully manipulated the witnesses and he seemed to have a natural ability to throw his opponents off the scent.
Towards the end of his trial Milosevic started to complain of health problems and demanded that he be given a provisional release to Russia for treatment. His request was denied and the tribunal’s own doctor was ordered to examine him. His ill health caused many intermissions and prolonged the trial by at least six months. The trial wasn’t resumed until October 2004 and the former Soviet premier, Nikolai Ryzhkov, became the first high-profile witness to testify for the defence. Had Milosevic been able to complete his defence, it was believed that he would have gone down the route that NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia was aggressive, thus making it a war crime under international law. For example, the bombing of a Serbian state television building in April 1999, in which 16 people died, was a deliberate attack on a civilian target.
The death of Slobodan Milosevic on 12 March, 2006, brought both shock and disappointment to all who were associated with his ongoing war crimes trial. He was found by guards in his prison cell at the detention centre for the International Criminal Tribunal, and although there were rumours that he had poisoned himself, this was later disproved. His wife and family blamed the tribunal for his death, saying that they had refused him medical treatment.
Although the outcome was not what the prosecutors had hoped for, and many felt Milosevic’s death was his ultimate victory over justice, the trial in itself was quite a milestone for justice. No other head of state had ever been tried for such crimes in modern history, so the fact that he was brought to trial is ultimately more important than its final outcome. The fact that Milosevic was forced to come face to face with his actions should pave the way for an individual’s right to freedom from fear. Hopefully the trial is just a stepping stone to bringing other brutal dictators before the scales of justice.
In addition to Milosevic, eight former Serbian policemen, including former senior police commanders, went on trial in October 2006, on charges relating to the worst massacres of the Kosovo war. They were accused of executing 48 ethnic Albanian citizens, all, with the exception of one, from the same family. The killings took place in Suva Reka in March 1999. The victims included 14 children, two babies, a pregnant woman and a 100-year-old woman. Their bodies were all discovered several years later in a mass grave at a police training camp near Belgrade.
In the same week that the trial started, Serbia’s deputy prime minister, finance minister, health minister and energy minister all resigned from the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. This was due to the ongoing inability to arrest the fugitive Ratko Mladic, who was the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s army chief throughout the Bosnian war. Mladic has been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity, including the massacre of some 7,500 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. Mladic disappeared from view when Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in 2001 and it is believed that he is being protected by sympathizers within Serbia.
PART SIX: WAR CRIMES AND ATROCITIES 1950–2000
No Gun Ri Massacre and Other Korean Atrocities
During the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, the Korean people were subjected to the most atrocious war crimes, which resulted in the loss of about 6 million lives. Of these, it is estimated that as many as 4 million were civilians, not even soldiers in the bloody war between North and South. These people were exposed to immoral massacres and indiscriminate napalm or germ-bombing.
The principal combatants in the war were the North Koreans, later joined by the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) of the People’s Republic of China and advisors, aircraft pilots and weapons from the Soviet. South Korea fought alongside the USA, the UK, Canada and the Philippines, with many other nations joining in under the flag of the United Nations. Soldiers from all the armies seemed to target civilians and/or prisoners of war and there were reports of many massacres taking place during the three-year war.
However, one thing is clear: US troops were certainly under orders, following a total defeat at Taejon, to treat any approaching Korean civilians on the battlefield as hostile and were instructed to ‘neutralize’ them before they could inflict any harm. This order led to fear among the US military and led to the indiscriminate killing of hundreds, if not thousands, of Korean civilians. One such atrocity occurred at a village called No Gun Ri.
The village of No Gun Ri is a remote and mountainous region, about 160 km (100 miles) south of Seoul. From 26–29 July, 1950, around 400 Korean refugees fled from their villages and headed towards the small hamlet of No Gun Ri. Many rode on ox carts, while others walked, carrying their children. All were in fear of what lay behind them – the North Koreans. The invasion was in full force and members of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division of the US army, had positioned themselves at either end of a bridge. There were fears that the North Koreans had already infiltrated the refugees, and that if they were allowed to cross the US line, the Koreans would then be able to attack from the rear.
The US soldiers ordered the refugees to leave the road and follow the railway track until they were underneath the bridge. The refugees were forced to stay under the bridge, and at dusk on the third day the soldiers heard sporadic gunfire coming from the direction of the enemy. Next the battalion runner came by with orders to shoot and kill anyone standing under the bridge. Unsure of where the order came from, one of the soldiers asked exactly who had given such an instruction. He said it had come from the executive officer who was assigned to the Second Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry. All of a sudden, machine guns started firing randomly into the crowd of people under the bridge. Bodies fell everywhere and terrified parents dragged their screaming children into a narrow culvert beneath the tracks. The refugees resorted into pulling the already dead bodies around themselves for protection. Mothers wrapped their children with blankets and hugged them with their backs turned towards the entrance.
Some of the US soldiers refused to shoot what one of them described as ‘civilians just trying to hide’. Another soldier at the scene described the event as ‘unnecessary wholesale slaughter’. Both veterans and survivors of the horrendous event are haunted by the memories of those three nights. They say they can still hear the sound of the little children crying and the screams of their desperate parents. The haunting sight of the children clinging desperately to their blood-sodden mothers is a nightmare that will possibly never leave them.other incidents.