As DIPLOMATICALLY INCORRECT commemorated the INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY on December 10, one of our Facebook fans commented on Ambassador Mo’s blog report from the day prior, “Assessing Cooperation with War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY).” A month ago, I previously post a comment from Dragan Petrovic (Facebook profile name: Dragan Peterson) in, ‘Hvala’ Thank you, Dragan.”
Although I haven’t met Dragan personally, his words speak of a man intent on building bridges. This will happen with critical assessment and a courage to face the truth in confronting ghosts of the not-too distant past and making constructive changes through outreach, dialogue, and education.
As follow-up to International Human Right’s Day, I give you Dragan’s comment in full:
Dragän wrote: "Even if ICTY complete all cases with desirable conclusion, that is just one part of entire story. Judicial conclusion brings nothing without sociological one. "Outreach" program should do that, but it is still almost non-existent in ex-YU. ICTY should demand from all parties to implement "outreach", cause even if you punish criminals, that will bring no message to those who are seeing criminals as their heroes. In that case, ICTY is in final position to demand (after capturing all indicted persons) from Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia to implement ICTY legacy into educational programs in order to make people think about their past more critically.
Even IMT had that, and thru history is well known that punishing without explaining and reasoning that punishment, brings nothing. More like, it can cause specific group to think "court was made to judge them for nothing" and to reject ICTY’s conclusions, verdicts, etc. It can also bring another wish for retaliation, cause if you punish a "hero" without making proper progress to explain "why?" and/or "to educate people", they will grow another anger.
Ex-YU states have big problem with worshiping war criminals. That is another side of story which ICTY and UN try to see as minimal problem. I meet people, all the time, who think "their old leaders cannot be criminals at all". That is very dangerous.
After ICTY (or any international court) completes its job, there should formed an office in UN, which will be responsible for OUTREACH. Such office can be permanent. In fact, it should exist by now, not to wait ending of ICTYs involvement, and it should implement conclusions of all criminal courts by working on field in "affected" countries. So, this is part of story which no country did at all, so that should be next step."
Dragan, Hvala, “Thank you” again. Whether we agree or not with some or all, your message is an inspiration and/or provoking further consideration for our readers .
----By, Susan Sacirbey
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More Related Reports – “Srebrenica Genocide Channel” - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/c/the-genocide-of-srebrenica/most_recent/6
“ ‘Hvala,’ Thank You Dragan,” By Susan Sacirbey http://diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/hvala-thank-you-dragn-by-susan-sacirbey/42012
“Assessing Cooperation with War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY)” By Ambassador Mo diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/assessing-cooperation-with-war-crimes-tribunal-icty-by-ambassador-mo/42471
