This outreach involves working with high school age students in communities like Foča and Prijedor, where massacres, concentration camps, and mass rapes were committed by Serb military and paramilitary groups. High schools, jails, and hotels were used to detain and enslave women, who were raped repeatedly by soldiers. Many of these buildings were returned to their original purpose after the war, and students are often shocked by what took place there, sometimes denying that these things happened.
The ICTY also produces documentary films, discussing the atrocities committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and also the ICTY's role in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Because I have been working with survivors of war-time rape in Srebrenica, I thought that it would be valuable to visit the ICTY in the Hague and bear witness to the trial of Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military leader stands accused of being responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre in Srebrenica. The ICTY will close in the next year, and only four trials remain. I met one of the ICTY's filmmakers in Sarajevo this spring, and he referred to the trials as our generation's Nuremburg. Mladić's trial commenced in May 2012, and the Defense began their case in May 2014.
I knew that seeing Mladić in person would be jarring. He is known for being showy, making jokes and gesturing rudely in response to widows of Srebrenica in the viewing gallery. My seat ended up being directly in the front row, facing the defense. Which means that the moment the partition was raised on the courtroom, I was essentially face to face with Mladić, who promptly grinned, looked me up and down, and blew me a kiss.
Over the two days I was in the Hague, I listened to testimony from Mladić's fellow generals, explain that disarming the Muslims near Prijedor was essential to protecting the Bosnian Serbians in the area. Periodically, Mladić would start yelling in protest of something the prosecutor said, or in support of his fellow generals - to which the president judge would reprimand, "Mr. Mladić, no loud talking, you know the rules." Mladić sits between two security guards, every day. After being at the court for two days, I became familiar with all of the guards and asked them, frankly, about Mladić's behavior.
"He's always joking around," one of them said, "But it's really important to not react, not respond. Some of the girls giggle when he waves, and some people laugh about it. We don't react."
It was all-together a bizarre experience. I have read so many books about this man. I have watched footage of him, declaring his intention to exert retribution upon the Muslims of Srebrenica. I am working with patients injured by snipers surrounding Sarajevo, under his command. I'm seeing patients in Srebrenica, who were rounded up and raped by the thousands, as a weapon of warfare. To see this person sitting in front of me and listening to the defense portion of the trial was an experience I still don't fully understand.
I was also shown, first-hand, how progress can be so inhibited in an international court. Every sentence must be translated from or into English from or into Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, and even then, it seemed that there were problems with the witnesses understanding the questions, or with the judges understanding their answers.
Live feeds of all trials are available on the ICTY's website, as well as additional information about the convicted war criminals.