Breaking the Silence leads the way for all ….

SREBRENICA GENOCIDE IS NOT A MATTER OF ANYBODY’S OPINION; IT’S A JUDICIAL
FACT RECOGNIZED FIRST BY THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER
YUGOSLAVIA AND SUBSEQUENTLY BY THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE.

PHOTO #1: Traumatized woman, Bosniak rape victim. Serb forces used rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia. Photo taken by Antony Loyd, noted war correspondent and former British Army officer. Image used for Fair Use Only and in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 for research and educational purposes.

During the Bosnian War many women from all Bosnian ethnic groups were raped. Estimates of the numbers raped range from 20,000 to 50,000. This has been referred to as “mass rape“, particularly with regard to the coordinated use of rape as a weapon of war.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

(ICTY) declared that “systematic rape“, and “sexual enslavement” in time of war was a crime against humanity, second only to the war crime of genocide. The Kunarac casewas the first time in judicial history anyone had been found guilty of these crimes.

According to Margot Wallström, U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, only 12 cases out of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 have been prosecuted.

Rape in Bosnia Inspired Holocaust Survivors to Talk About Their Experiences During the Holocaust

Sonja Hedgepeth is a professor of foreign languages and literature at Middle Tennessee State University. Rochelle Saidel is a political scientist, author, and the founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute in New York City.

These two women hope their book will spark serious discussion and exploration. But it resulted, at least in part, from an effort to keep them silent. While running a workshop for teachers five years ago at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, the pair raised the subject of sexual violence against Jewish women.

The path to this discussion has been paved by developments only seen with the passage of time.Men made up the bulk of those who interviewed survivors in the first 40 years after the war, Goldenberg says, and they may have been reluctant to raise the question of rape. But after mass rapes during the Bosnian War of the 1990s came to light, she says some Holocaust survivors began, when she asked them, to share their own stories — in whispers and out of earshot from their husbands. Continue reading this story on CNN >>>

 

Wikipedia Lists ~ Individuals convicted of related war crimes:

See also: List of indictees of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia:

• Dragoljub Kunarac (28 years in prison) was found guilty of several rapes; inciting his soldiers to commit collective rape and forcing women into slavery. Judged guilty of crimes against humanity (Torture, enslavement and rape).
• Radomir Kovač (20 years in prison)
• Zoran Vuković (12 years in prison)
• Milorad Krnojelac (15 years in prison)^[
• Dragan Zelenović (pleaded guilty, 15 years in prison) Personally found guilty of 9 rapes, 8 of which qualified as torture. Two rapes through ‘co-perpetratorship‘ and one through aiding and abetting where the woman was raped by at least 10 soldiers and lost consciousness.
• Hazim Delić (18 years in prison) Found guilty of raping two Serbian women whilst he was Deputy Commander of Čelebići prison-camp. Also found guilty of willful killing and torture.
• Anto Furundžija (10 years in prison) Found guilty of torture, outrages upon personal dignity, including rape of a Bosniak woman during Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing carried out by the Croats against Bosniaks in 1993.

Convicted by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina:

• Radovan Stanković (20 years in prison; escaped from prison in May 2007) Committed, incited, aided and abetted; enslavement, torture, rape and killing as part of a widespread attack against the non-Serbian population.
• Neđo Samardžić (24 years in prison)
• Gojko Janković (34 years in prison) Indicted for ordering, committing and inciting the rape of a Bosniak woman and found guilty of raping, murdering and torturing Bosniak and Croat civilians between 1992 and 1993.
• Dragan Damjanović (20 years in prison) Convicted of war crimes including murder, torture and rape.
• Momir Savić (18 years in prison) “For the killing, rape and torture of Muslims in eastern Bosnia early in the 1992-95 war.”
• Željko Lelek (13 years in prison) “For the persecution and torture of Bosnian Muslims and the rape of Muslim women in the early 1990s.”
• Miodrag Nikacevic (8 years in prison) “For the rape and illegal detention of Muslims in the eastern town of Foca early in the country’s 1992-95 war.”
• Ante Kovač (9 years in prison), former Commander of the Croat Military Police in Vitez, has been sentenced under a second instance verdict for crimes against Bosniak civilians in Vitez including rape.

RAPE – CRIME in INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW: Where Do We Go From Here?

” …According to the Bosnian government, more than 30,000 women have been raped in this former Yugoslav republic’s nine-month-old war, with some of the victims as young as 12. ” Children Born to Rape Victims in the Bosnian Genocide.

PHOTO: The maternity hospital at Sveti Duh is packed due to the influx of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) refugees in Zagreb, Croatia. As a result, these babies (born to rape victims) are grouped on patients beds before being turned over to CARITAS, a Catholic humanitarian organization. Photographer: Sophie Elbaz.

The Story of Almira Bektovic – Bosnian Child of War Rape

In mid-August 1992, Almira Bektovic among other girls was brought to ‘Karaman’s house’ by Radovan Stankovic, this lasted for ten days until she was returned to her mother whom she told that “she had worked as a waitress, washed clothes, cleaned and cooked, and that there were many other girls there who did chores and things for the Serb soldiers”.

During the Bosnian war, Serb forces conducted sexual abuse strategy on Bosniak/Bosnian girls and women which will later be known as mass rape phenomenon. Between 20,000 and 44,000 women were systematically raped by the Serb forces. Considering the estimates and the demographics of Bosnia, by the end of the war approximately up to seven out of every hundred sexually capable Bosniak women and girls had been raped by Serb forces. The women and young girls were often held captives for up to 8 months or more, before being released or killed, often strategically beyond the possibility of abortion. During this time they were kept under constant fear, trauma, threat, violence, oppression, humiliation, sexual abuse and slavery by soldiers in ages ranging from 20 to 60 years.

Common profound complications among surviving women and girls include gynaecological, physical and psychological (post traumatic) disorders, as well as unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The survivors often feel uncomfortable/frustrated/sickened with men, sex and relationships; ultimately affecting the growth/development of a population and/or society as such (thus constituting a slow genocide according to some). In accordance with the Bosnian society, most of the girls not married were virgins at the time of rape; further traumatizing the situation.

Among the most appalling and deplorable accounts of inhuman treatment and cruelty brought upon young Muslim females of Bosnia is that of the 12-year-old Almira Bektovic, a helpless war victim for whom virtually no compassion was shown whatsoever. Born in the town of Mostar in the year 1980, she lived in Miljevina in the municipality of Foca, the birth village of her father, Ramiz Bektovic, at the time of the Serb attack on these areas in the summer of 1992. Her father was taken away by the Serbs in june 1992 and was never seen again. Almira and her mother were instead detained in the Partizan Sports Hall with hundreds of other Bosniak women and girls under inhuman conditions and with lack of food or water. In mid-August 1992, Almira Bektovic among other girls was brought to ‘Karaman’s house’ by Radovan Stankovic, this lasted for ten days until she was returned to her mother whom she told that “she had worked as a waitress, washed clothes, cleaned and cooked, and that there were many other girls there who did chores and things for the Serb soldiers”.

Afterwards in mid-september 1992 deportation busses were prepared for elderly Muslim women and young children that were to take them to Bosnian-government-controlled areas for exchange; in a bus were Almira and her mother and two sisters, however suddenly the bus was stopped at the Drina bridge, and entered did men sent by Radovan Stankovic, who called out the name of the girl and snatched Almira Bektovic from her mother’s arms, who then screamed repeatedly “Give me back my child!” before losing consciousness, Almira was heard screaming and crying “Don’t take me, I’m only twelve!”. One of the surviving witnesses from Karaman’s house reported that Almira was brought to the house holding her doll tightly to her chest, apparently not knowing what was awaiting her. Soon thereafter Nedo Samardzic raped Almira Bektovic and reportedly bragged about “having taken her virginity” and “having fooled soldier Pero Elez (who was always looking for virgins) in who was to be the first to take her virginity”.

Almira was found crying and vomiting after the assault (as part of rape trauma syndrome), by one the surviving girls from the house. Over the next three months Almira Bekotvic was forced into much the same pattern as all the other women and girls detained in the house; she had to do household chores, cook for the soldiers and sexually please these, at the age of merely 12. Almira’s status however was even more vulnerable than that of the other girls who (in contrast to Almira) were ‘assigned’ to specific soldiers who got to rape them only, Almira thus not being assigned to any specific soldier was free to be raped by any soldier that was granted entrance to Karaman’s house. Radomir kovac detained, between or about 31 October 1992 until December 1992 Almira Bektovic (and other girls).

During their detention they were also beaten, threatened, psychologically oppressed, and kept in constant fear. During this period Almira was moved between various locations and apartments in Foca in order to ‘serve’ Serb soldiers and friends of Radomir Kovac. At one or more occasions she was forced into sex with 50-year-old soldier Slavo Ivanovic. On about 25 December 1992, Radomir Kovac sold Almira Bektovic to a Montenegrin soldier (who were known among the detained women as “more aggressive”) for 200 DM (100 Euro), and from there on the tracks of her are lost (probably murdered shortly thereafter).

Dedicated to all the Bosnian women and girls who suffered in the aggression on Bosnia and still have an overwhelming grief in their hearts and minds.

SOME ACTS ARE UNforgiveable.