Women’s Space

Jul 22nd, 2008 by admin

After 14 years on the run, mostly hiding out in Eastern Orthodox monasteries, Radovan Karadzic, who masterminded the campaign of rapes for genocide of Bosnian and Croatian women in the former Yugoslavia in the early ’90s — in which millions of Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian women were raped, tortured, murdered, raped until they conceived children and forced to bear those children — has been arrested.

Natalie Nenadic, who worked with some of the rape survivors, wrote of the rapes as they were happening:

Serbian (military) are committing genocide through mass rape and serial rape ending in death and mass rape and serial rape in order to produce what they consider Serbian babies to populate and maintain the Greater Serbian state. Corpses are also raped. Women’s breasts are sliced off and their wombs ripped out. …These rapes are committed on the Serb occupied territories of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, in different types of concentration camps and in rape/death camps, in which the victims who survive the initial massacres and deportations are interned. If women are already pregnant…their bellies are ripped open since those babies are not Serb. Birthing women are left to die in ditches. ..the majority of women and girls who survive the various types of Serbian concentration camps …have been interned in them for at least 21-28 days to ensure pregnancy.

…[Serbians] also use rape as a public spectacle to induce women to leave their homes and never return. These sexual atrocities are done “for Serbia”. Sometimes they are filmed as they are taking place. The film footage…the pornography of genocide…is used as propaganda in which the identities of the victims and the aggressor are switched…

In 1992 at the request of a number of Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian rape survivors, radical feminist attorney Catharine A. MacKinnon brought a lawsuit in the United States against Karadzic under the obscure Alien Tort Statute which allows war criminals to be prosecuted for their crimes if they can be served on American soil. Working pro bono MacKinnon won a jury verdict of $745 million on behalf of the rape survivors. The decision of the jury was upheld on appeal in August 10, 2000. This meant that for the first time in history:

Women survivors of genocidal rape got jurisdiction over their rapists under international law;
Women survivors of genocidal rape got their first judicial recognition of the role of rape in genocide under international law. Now, when rape is an act of genocide, it is recognized as such;
For the first time women as a subordinated people were able to complain officially of systematic violations of their human rights during a war while that war was going on. (Catharine A. MacKinnon, Remedies for War Crimes at the National Level, from The Journal of the International Institute, Vol. 6, No. 1)

The women who survived these brutal rapes and their children never received the judgment the jury awarded to them because Karadzic could not be found. Now he has been found. Maybe now they will receive this small compensation for the horrors they suffered.

Heart

Spread the word! These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Posted in Feminism

18 Responses to “RADOVAN KARADZIC, ORCHESTRATOR OF SERBIAN RAPES FOR GENOCIDE ARRESTED”

on 22 Jul 2008 at 10:19 am1Rebecca

This is such great news — a small bit of justice!

By the way it’s Natalie Nenadic (not Nadia).
on 22 Jul 2008 at 12:33 pm2admin

Thanks, Rebecca, fixed.

I’ve been following this for many years now. I felt horrified when Milosevic committed suicide in prison. That made him more of a martyr to too many and with Karadzic having gone missing, there was such an increased chance of erasure of this horrific genocide.

Here’s the appellate court decision in Kadic v. Karadzic:

Kadic v. Karadzic
70 F.3rd 232 (2nd Cir. 1995), Rehearing Denied, 74 F.3rd 377 (2nd Cir. 1996) Cert. Denied 518 U.S. 1005 (1996).

Appellants’ allegations that Karadzic personally planned and ordered a campaign of murder, rape, forced impregnation, and other forms of torture designed to destroy the religious and ethnic groups of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats clearly state a violation of the international law norm proscribing genocide, regardless of whether Karadzic acted under color of law or as a private individual. The District Court has subject-matter jurisdiction over these claims pursuant to the Alien Tort Act.

(b) War crimes. Plaintiffs also contend that the acts of murder, rape, torture, and arbitrary detention of civilians, committed in the course of hostilities, violate the law of war. Atrocities of the types alleged here have long been recognized in international law as violations of the law of war. See In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1, 14, 66 S.Ct. 340, 347, 90 L.Ed. 499 (1946). Moreover, international law imposes an affirmative duty on military commanders to take appropriate measures within their power to control troops under their command for the prevention of such atrocities. Id. at 15-16, 66 S.Ct. at 347-48.

After the Second World War, the law of war was codified in the four Geneva Conventions, which have been ratified by more than 180 nations, including the United States, see Treaties in Force, supra, at 398-99. Common article 3, which is substantially identical in each of the four Conventions, applies to “armed conflict[s] not of an international character” and binds “each Party to the conflict … to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions”:

Persons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) taking of hostages;

(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) the passing of sentences and carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court….

Geneva Convention I art. 3(1).

Thus, under the law of war as codified in the Geneva Conventions, all “parties” to a conflict–which includes insurgent military groups–are obliged to adhere to these most fundamental requirements of the law of war.

The offenses alleged by the appellants, if proved, would violate the most fundamental norms of the law of war embodied in common article 3, which binds parties to internal conflicts regardless of whether they are recognized nations or roving hordes of insurgents. The liability of private individuals for committing war crimes has been recognized since World War I and was confirmed at Nuremberg after World War II, see Telford Taylor, Nuremberg Trials: War Crimes and International Law, 450 Int’l Conciliation 304 (April 1949) (collecting cases), and remains today an important aspect of international law, see Jordan Paust, After My Lai: The Case for War Crimes Jurisdiction Over Civilians in Federal District Courts, in 4 The Vietnam War and International Law 447 (R.Falk ed., 1976). The District Court has jurisdiction pursuant to the Alien Tort Act over appellants’ claims of war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.

(Footnotes omitted).

Link
on 22 Jul 2008 at 12:57 pm3sparklematrix

“I’ve been following this for many years now”

Me too when it started in the pre-internet days. We nurses used to sit at work on night shift sharing the newspapers, and none of us could hardly believe it. Just shows how the net has opened information up on a global scale.

This has just made my day, !
on 22 Jul 2008 at 2:33 pm4funnie

Thanks for this post. Picture I like:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/22/world/0722-KARADZICSUB_9.html
on 22 Jul 2008 at 2:35 pm5funnie

I think I’m being sent to the spam-bin!
on 22 Jul 2008 at 2:51 pm6admin

Duly despammed, sorry!
on 22 Jul 2008 at 2:53 pm7admin

Thanks for the link, funnie. Everyone should take a look– powerful and devastating.
on 22 Jul 2008 at 4:35 pm8Jeyoani

I wonder if anything will happen to the higher ups in the Orthodox church that let him disguise as a priest, etc?
on 22 Jul 2008 at 4:44 pm9JENNIFER DREW

Karadzic’s arrest has been widely reported on the UK’s national television news but unfortunately or perhaps it was obvious - the focus was predominantly on the numbers of men murdered on Karadzic’s orders. Nowhere was there any mention of the innumerable numbers of women and girls imprisoned, regularly group raped in order to impregnate them with supposedly Serbian babies’ and then forced to carry these foetuses to term. No, systematic male sexual violence against women is non-news according to the UK’s media. Yes men and boys were systematically murdered on Karadzic’s orders but omitting the male atrocities committed against Serbian women and girls is a deliberate tactic because men’s lives are considered more important than women’s.

Not only that, but channel 4 news here in the UK attempted to understand how Karadzic could escape detection for so many years. After all Karadzic was a ‘normal man’ and yet according to channel 4 news he is ‘evil.’ Truth is many men who commit rape against women and/or order male soldiers to commit multiple rapes and other sexual tortures against women are all ‘normal men.’ The only difference is these men believe women are either sub-human or else dehumanised beings because their ethnicity is not identical to the rapist(s) or they are members of the enemy group. It is called indoctrination and this is precisely what Karadzic did - he used nationalism and patriotism in order to indoctrinate male soldiers into believing it was their duty and right to commit multiple group rapes on certain women and girls because they were dehumanised beings.

The question now is will Karadzic be convicted of the crimes he committed against women and girls or will the focus remain on the atrocities committed against men and boys? Also, is Karadzic really an ‘evil man’ or did he enact the extreme of masculine indoctrination?
on 22 Jul 2008 at 5:16 pm10admin

Yeah, Jennifer– as has been true from the outset. From the outset, when this was *happening*, there was this continual attempt to minimize the significance of these rapes or to erase them all together– INCLUDING AMONG WESTERN FEMINISTS. i wrote a lengthy article, carefully documented, about this some years back that has still never been published. I am tempted to publish it here but I am pondering what would gain it the most exposure. But the story of how the raped women were ignored and ignored and ignored, and then finally raped women were able to connect with Catharine MacKinnon who listened to them and believed them, and then MacKinnon was trashed, INCLUDING by American feminists, for representing the women (at their request), and worst of all THE WOMEN WERE NOT BELIEVED INCLUDING BY WESTERN FEMINISTS. Or their rapes were trivialized or called everything besides what they were: rape for genocide.

It took — finally — the investigations of the UN and the UN Special Rapporteuer and other human rights NGOs to get the truth out and even THEN MacKinnon was STILL trashed for representing these women! Now that we’ve had the whole freaking Human Rights Tribunal and the truth cannot be denied, STILL there is this horrible horrible silence around the rapes. I spent a bunch of time looking everywhere and anywhere for websites or blogs which foregrounded these rapes: I found NONE. Even though everybody knows about them now.

It is an atrocity piled upon atrocities and a horror that the focus is completely on the men and children murdered, given what the women and girls suffered.

Jeyoani, the Orthodox church spent millions of dollars to public relations outfits in an attempt to cover up the acts of the Serbian military. I don’t expect much from them in terms of apologies. So, so awful.

Heart
on 22 Jul 2008 at 5:21 pm11admin

Here is an article:

Bosnia Rape Victims Forgotten

Through the years as I’ve read, I have read articles about the children of these rapes, the ones who survived, who have come of age and are asking questions.

Bosnia’s rape babies: abandoned by their families, forgotten by the state

Bosnian children born of war rape asking questions

Even here, the focus is so much on the babies, the children, not on the women.

Part of the resistance of Western feminists was despicable in the extreme: pornography was made of these horrific rapes during wartime and Catharine MacKinnon, Natalie Nenadic and the raped women talked about it, and PRO-PORN WESTERN FEMINISTS FOR THE MOST PART DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR IT. They don’t like hearing about all the ways pornography, prostitution and rape during wartime intertwine.
on 22 Jul 2008 at 5:23 pm12admin

Also, there are still thousands and thousands of genocide/rape deniers determined to erase what happened here. Really, it is beyond horrifying.
on 22 Jul 2008 at 5:30 pm13admin

Also, this is Exhibit A of why it makes no sense to focus inordinately on misogynist acts of Muslims. The Serbs who committed these acts of rape for genocide, mass murders, unbelievable atrocities, torture, mass graves, deportations, you name it, were CHRISTIANS. They were EASTERN ORTHODOX. Their targets were Muslim women (Bosnians mostly) and Roman Catholic women (Croatians mostly).

This was only 15 years ago that this happened.
on 22 Jul 2008 at 8:14 pm14Jeyoani

I wonder if charges, though, could be brought against the Orthodox church for hiding and basically abetting this man- a war criminal, murderer, a commander of femicide?
Of course the church will not apologize, and of course will spin their truth however they want it re Serbian culpability, however, when it comes down that they have in fact been HIDING this man?, even letting him dress up as a priest?! and live in monasteries?!
It’s chilling! I can’t see how they can be protected from charges, what they have done is aid and abet a war criminal, one of the biggies. The US accused Afghanistan of the same thing and for that innocent people of that country were utterly destroyed by US warheads. So Afghan civilians and babies had to pay with their lives for what terrorists did, but a couple dozen bishops/priests in the Orthodox church don’t have to so much as be charged with thier aiding and abetting? They need to go to prison.
Imagine it was found out that the Southern Baptist Church, or the African Methodist Episcopal Church, or the Apostolic Church or whatever denomination you want– were hiding and letting pose as a preacher Timothy McVeigh? or one of those involved with 9-11?-any terrorist, or any war criminal.
Jennifer Drew I know what you mean– I went to news sources and saw nothing about the femicide this man orchestrated. The news says that he murdered men and also committed “other warcrimes”.
The usual erasure of womankind, of femicide.
I love C. MacKinnon for giving a name to what is femicide and through her work, and the bravery of the women who told women who would listen and see what was happening.
And I hope the women who still live collect all 475 million of the funds they were granted and more.
And maybe the transformative power of this atrocity will be that “rape during war” as if its a special kind of allowable rape (well, it is), will come to be called “femicide” implying all the horrors always known to women during war and brushed aside by patriarchy. I think giving certain acts certain names can sometimes illustrate them, in this case the horror the act of femicide, both nuancing and mainlining the violence of the acts, making them unacceptable?
I don’t want to think I ask for too much here. I want to be hopeful.
***HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE WOMEN WHO WERE VICTIMS FOR REFUSING TO BE SILENCED AND MACKINNON FOR ANSWERING THE CALL OF HER SISTERS. *** Much everlasting respect to all of the Croatian, Albanian, and Bosnian women who demanded they be heard, and to the ones who heard them and fought for them. Hearrt *I can’t wait* for your piece to be published.
Re the women who would not listen to other women, and who sought to destroy and discredit MacKinnon’s work for these women:
“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” -Madeline Albright
on 23 Jul 2008 at 12:10 pm15admin

Jeyoani, so true, the bishops and priests who supplied this guy with a *cossack* so he could hide should also go to prison. It’s hard to even get the mind around how disgusting it is, here’s a guy who has orchestrated thousands and thousands of rapes, tortures, murders, and holy men so-called provide him with priest garments so he can hide for over a decade. Not to mention he STILL has many supporters in Serbia.
on 23 Jul 2008 at 3:46 pm16Satsuma

Guess the clergy supports this guy, and obviously approve of his actions. Child raping priests, Orthodox monestaries hiding a new Hitler… ah patriarchy at its best.
on 08 Aug 2008 at 3:14 pm17Sis

Have they finally found a way that this can be important to them?

Why the concern about these rapes, but not the Bosnian rapes?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/world/africa/08aids.html?ref=world
on 18 Jan 2009 at 6:14 pm18Radovan Karadzic…arrested for war crimes, former Yugoslavia… « Sparkle*Matrix

[...] From Woman’s Space After 14 years on the run, mostly hiding out in Eastern Orthodox monasteries, Radovan Karadzic, who masterminded the campaign of rapes for genocide of Bosnian and Croatian women in the former Yugoslavia in the early ’90s — in which millions of Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian women were raped, tortured, murdered, raped until they conceived children and forced to bear those children — has been arrested. [...]