In effort to presumably streamline Mladic's prosecution & asserting that it will be both more expeditious and favorable for fair proceedings, the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) reduced the number of cases/instances to be presented to 106 rather than the original 196 initially cited. Further, the number of municipalities to be covered in presentation of such crimes covers 15 rather than 23.Will this though facilitate justice or deny history and victims of satisfaction - jury is out? The reduction/streamlining was made on basis of Prosecution motion, and the Court rationalized: “In the interests of a fair and expeditious trial, the Chamber fixes the number of crime sites or incidents of the charges in respect of which evidence may be presented by the Prosecution in accordance with the Prosecution Submission.” In conjunction with the Ruling the Court “decided that the Prosecution may not present evidence on crimes other than those it has proposed to retain from the Operative Indictment, unless it considers such evidence necessary to establish an element of any of the counts of the indictment. The Prosecution is to file an amended indictment and amended lists of victims within two weeks of the date of this decision,“ (from ICTY Press Release: www.icty.org/sid/10868). Historical Record or Streamlined Proceedings: Undoubtedly the Prosecution and Court must be influenced by two considerations: (1). Sir. Geoffrey Nice in charge of prosecution of former Serbian despot Slobodan Milosevic was criticized for the extended proceedings and implicitly breadth of case. Many felt that justice was cheated because Milosevic died before formal judgment was rendered. However, as important as guilt and innocence is the historical record. I do not find fault with Sir. Nice’s strategy as perhaps the wide latitude given to Milosevic by the Court to interrupt, disrupt and stall the proceedings. In this context justice and the historical record were more cheated by the deliberate decision of relevant ICTY judges/officials to keep confidential a treasure trove of documents and highly relevant evidence, much of it directly from Belgrade. Further, this decision was made specifically with purpose of denying such evidence before the International Court of Justice in a parallel case initiated by Bosnia & Herzegovina against the then Serbian/Montenegrin regime (starting with Milosevic) for violation of the “Genocide Convention.” (I was Agent for BiH from initiation of such case in 1993 to 2001). (2). The ICTY is short on resources and personnel. The Mladic case is one of few remaining, and streamlining the indictment-presentation of case may be motivated by resource availability – Read: - “ No Staff to Prosecute Mladic, Karadzic & Hadzic” - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/no-staff-to-prosecute-mladic-karadzic-hadzic/41711 The prosecution of Florence Hartmann by the ICTY for "contempt" - or more accurately disclosing details of how the ICTY came to keep above evidence of Belgrade direct involvement and complicity in conflict/genocide in BiH - was both a waste of resources/focus and denial of historical record and justice: Read: - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/guilt-justice-transperency-at-ex-yugoslav-tribunal-by-ambassador-mo/41865 Victims’ Sense of Justice: To the credit of many victims and families, it is not about punishment or revenge. Rather, they want recognition of the crimes and injustice committed against them. The broader global community has too frequently resorted to rationalizing the conflict and genocide from now two decades earlier as a religious or civil war where everyone was doing it to everyone. The ICTY proceedings should address such overt and implicit efforts to streamline history. Undoubtedly though victims will feel cheated if their particular suffering, loss and victimization is overlooked in favor of judicial expediency regardless of rationale. Further, we would hope that the ICTY imprints upon the historical record that such streamlining of proceedings does not imply either exoneration or that in fact there was no grave violation of international humanitarian law - historical revisionists have misrepresented the streamlining of cases as effective exoneration or even to deny the crimes. By Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey Facebook – Become a Fan at “Diplomatically Incorrect” Twitter – Follow us at DiplomaticallyX “Srebrenica Genocide” Channel - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/c/the-genocide-of-srebrenica