Posted on 06/08/2007 7:46:11 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations said Friday it has immunity from a lawsuit by survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia but remains committed to assisting those affected and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Thousands of survivors of Europe's worst massacre since World War II sued the United Nations and the Dutch government Monday for their failure to protect civilians in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb forces overran the U.N. safe haven in 1995 and slaughtered up to 8,000 men and boys.
U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Friday that the United Nation had just received the legal documents relating to the case.
She said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joins the survivors in demanding justice and "the international community should not rest" until Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are apprehended and brought to justice.
The U.N. will not rest, she said, "until it's fully equipped to prevent such tragedies from occurring in future within its peacekeepers' midst."
Asked whether that meant the United Nations would not be seeking to assert immunity and have the case against the organization dismissed, Okabe said: "The fact that the U.N. is immune from the legal process under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations in no way diminishes the U.N.'s commitment to assist the people of Srebrenica in the aftermath of this tragedy."
The 1948 convention states that the U.N. and its property "shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process except insofar as in any particular case it has expressly waived its immunity."
Since the legal papers just arrived, Okabe said, "I don't know what the next step is."
The degree of culpability of the U.N. and its Dutch soldiers in the killings is fiercely debated.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, the U.N. declared Srebrenica — which had been besieged by Bosnian Serb forces — a safe area for civilians. But around 450 Dutch soldiers on peacekeeping duty stood by helplessly as thousands of Bosnian Serb forces stormed the area in July 1995.
In the chaos, Dutch soldiers even assisted in separating the women from the men, who were taken away in buses by the Serb forces and killed, their bodies plowed into mass graves.
An independent study by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation cleared the Dutch troops of blame, noting they were outnumbered, lightly armed, undersupplied, and under instructions to fire only in self-defense.
However, the institute's 2002 report assigned partial blame to the Dutch government for setting the troops up to fail, prompting the Cabinet of Prime Minister Wim Kok to resign.
In evidence-gathering civil hearings in 2005, a lawyer for the Dutch state argued that compensation claims should be directed at the perpetrators of the massacre: Mladic and Karadzic.
About 200 survivors from the group known as the Mothers of Srebrenica accompanied lawyers as they delivered the civil summons at the Dutch Supreme Court Monday, where claims against the state must be filed.
The case will eventually be heard by the Hague District Court. Dutch authorities are expected to pass on details to the U.N., and must file a written reply within several months.
A report commissioned by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted "errors of judgment" regarding Srebrenica in 1999 and highlighted a series of U.N. reforms to prevent a repetition.
The Dutch government has accepted "political responsibility" for the mission's failure, and gives around $20 million in aid to Bosnia annually, of which a third is reserved for projects related to rebuilding Srebrenica.
Of course “Diplomatic Inmmuniteee!!!* *BANG*
We put a bounty on Saddam and his sons and that worked out pretty well.
We should do the same with Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Heh, for good measure we can hand them over to be hung by the survivors and hope they’ll smuggle out a video so we can all watch on U Tube.
Of course it was a massacre..."we got 8,000 bodies right over there to prove it! See...See!" /Baghdad Bob
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