Thursday, November 30, 2017

On a dramatic exit, fake news and fake justice

I meant to post something about the ICTY - or as I have called it over the years, the Hague Inquisition - after they reached the preordained verdict against Ratko Mladić last week, but didn't get a chance to do so before another defendant decided to spite the fake court with a dramatic gesture.

Slobodan Praljak, the former movie director who became a general during the Bosnian War (and "directed" the destruction of Mostar's Old Bridge in 1993), rejected the Inquisition's verdict "with contempt" and drank poison in the courtroom. His gesture prompted me to contemplate the ICTY's existence, practices, and effects:
Rather than promoting reconciliation, by selectively prosecuting Serbs and Croats over killing Muslims (but not each other), the ICTY has nurtured the feeling of righteous victimhood that has prevented Muslims from reaching any sort of viable accommodation with the Christian majority. As a result, 22 years after the Dayton Peace Accords, Bosnia is still a gunshot away from another war.
Read the rest at RT.com