Chuck Sudetic is a former writer and journalist from the United States whose work focused mainly on the lands and peoples of the now defunct country of Yugoslavia. He has written extensively on the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, international war-crimes prosecution efforts after the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, and life from the fifth century B.C. to the present day in and around what is now the seaside town of Dubrovnik. Sudetic also wrote on the Roma of Europe, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [ excessive citations ] mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [ excessive citations ] and crime in New York City. [17]
Sudetic reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 1995 on Yugoslavia's breakup, including the conflict in Slovenia and the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the transition from Communism in other countries of Southeastern Europe; and the Iraqi Kurd refugee crisis after the 1991 Gulf War. He authored Blood and Vengeance (Norton, 1998, and Penguin, 1999), a chronicle of a Bosnian family's experiences during the turbulence of the 20th century that ended with the act of genocide committed at Srebrenica in 1995. Blood and Vengeance was named a "Notable Book" by The New York Times and a Book of the Year by The Economist , The Washington Post , and Publishers Weekly .
For a 2001 French anthology of writing on war, Sudetic contributed "Le criminel de guerre," which describes the family background and motives of the Bosnian war's most notorious killer, Milan Lukić, a Serb militia commander who led ethnic-cleansing operations in the Drina-river town of Višegrad from 1992 to 1995 and was convicted on war crimes charges in 2009 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. [18]
Sudetic coauthored La Caccia (Feltrinelli, 2008, released in English as Madame Prosecutor by Other Press in 2009), the memoirs of the Swiss war-crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, whose controversial revelations led to two successful international criminal investigations and the establishment of a special court to try individuals indicted on charges involving allegations of hundreds of kidnappings and murders, including alleged instances of murder linked with human organ harvesting, in Kosovo and Albania during the months after the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999. [19] [20] [21]
Sudetic worked as a contributing editor to Rolling Stone [22] and published articles in The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist , politico.eu, [23] [24] Mother Jones (on the effects of the United Nations sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein), [25] The Washington Post , Das Magazin (Zurich), Transitions (Prague), The Independent (London), and other periodicals. His story for Rolling Stone on the Srebrenica massacre was a finalist for the 1996 National Magazine Award.[ citation needed ]
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio to American-born parents of Irish and Croatian descent, Sudetic studied British and American literature, Slavic languages, and journalism at Ohio State University, Indiana University, Cleveland State University, Davidson College in North Carolina, and the Pushkin Institute for the Russian Language in Moscow (1978); he was a Fulbright Scholar in Yugoslavia during 1984 and 1985 and traveled throughout the East-bloc countries and in the Soviet Union. Sudetic worked as an analyst for the International Crisis Group, a consultant for the International Rescue Committee, an analyst for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's Office of the Prosecutor, and a writer for the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, with whom he coauthored The Philanthropy of George Soros: Building Open Societies (Public Affairs, 2011). [26]
For a series of country studies prepared by the United States Library of Congress's Federal Research Division, he wrote book chapters on the histories, economies, and societies of Hungary, [27] Albania, Romania, [28] and Yugoslavia. [29]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
The Bosnian genocide refers to either the Srebrenica massacre or the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians by VRS units under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the "Homeland War" and also as the "Greater-Serbian Aggression". In Serbian sources, "War in Croatia" and (rarely) "War in Krajina" are used.
The Velepromet camp was a detention facility established in the final days of the Battle of Vukovar during the Croatian War of Independence. The camp was set up by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which shared control of the facility with Croatian Serb rebels. The facility, originally an industrial storage site, was located on the southern outskirts of the city of Vukovar, in close proximity to the JNA barracks. It consisted of eight warehouses surrounded by a wire fence, and was established on 16 November 1991, when the first detainees were brought there.
The breakup of Yugoslavia was a process in which the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was broken up into constituent republics, and over the course of which the Yugoslav wars started. The process generally began with the death of Josip Broz Tito on 4 May 1980 and formally ended when the last two remaining republics proclaimed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 27 April 1992. At that time the Yugoslav wars were still ongoing, and FR Yugoslavia continued to exist until 2003, when it was renamed and reformed as the state union of Serbia and Montenegro. This union lasted until 5 June 2006 when Montenegro proclaimed independence. The former Yugoslav autonomous province of Kosovo subsequently proclaimed independence from Serbia in February 2008.
The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals is a book written by Carla Del Ponte, published in April 2008. According to Del Ponte she received information saying about 300 Serbs were kidnapped and transferred to Albania in 1999 where their organs were extracted. The book caused a considerable controversy with Kosovan and Albanian officials denying these allegations and Russian and Serbian officials demanding more investigation. ICTY stated no substantial evidence supporting the allegations was brought to the court.
John Clint Williamson is an American diplomat, lawyer, and educator who has served in a variety of senior-level roles with the United States Government, the United Nations, and the European Union. He is the leader of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA), the agreed trans-Atlantic community mechanism for addressing atrocity crimes in Ukraine.
On 12 April 1993, the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) launched an artillery attack against the town of Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, which left 56 dead and 73 seriously wounded, among whom were 14 children dead in a school playground. The attack came following the suspension of cease-fire talks, hours before NATO would implement a no-fly zone according to an UN resolution. VRS officials had previously told UNHCR representatives that the VRS would shell the town within two days unless it surrendered.
Numerous war crimes were committed by all sides during the Kosovo War, which lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. According to Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of abuses were attributable to the government of Slobodan Milošević, mainly perpetrated by the Serbian police, the Yugoslav army, and Serb paramilitary units. During the war, regime forces killed between 7,000–9,000 Kosovar Albanians, engaged in countless acts of rape, destroyed entire villages, and displaced nearly one million people. The Kosovo Liberation Army has also been implicated in atrocities, such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians. Moreover, the NATO bombing campaign has been harshly criticized by human rights organizations and the Serbian government for causing roughly 500 civilian casualties.
Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992.
Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) is the Serbian non-governmental organisation with offices in Belgrade, Serbia, and Pristina, Kosovo. It was founded in 1992 by Nataša Kandić to document human rights violations across the former Yugoslavia in armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, later, Kosovo.
The Armed Boats Squadron Dubrovnik was a volunteer unit of the Croatian Navy that ran the naval blockade during the siege of Dubrovnik which formed part of the Croatian War of Independence in 1991–1992. It consisted of 23 vessels, mostly of the runabout type, lightly armed and armoured. The unit was crucial in the defence of Dubrovnik, providing a resupply route for the Dubrovnik population and troops defending the besieged city. Boats assigned to the squadron transported approximately 6,000 troops and civilians, about 100 wounded and 2,000 tonnes of various cargo. A total of 117 personnel served with the squadron during the siege, suffering two fatalities.
The independence of Croatia was a process started with the changes in the political system and the constitutional changes in 1990 that transformed the Socialist Republic of Croatia into the Republic of Croatia, which in turn proclaimed the Christmas Constitution, and held the 1991 Croatian independence referendum.
The Varivode massacre was a mass killing that occurred on 28 September 1995 in the village of Varivode, Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence. According to United Nations officials, soldiers of the Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian police killed nine Serb villagers, all of whom were between the ages of 60 and 85. After the war, six former Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village, but were all eventually released due to lack of evidence. In 2012, the Supreme Court of Croatia ruled that the Republic of Croatia was responsible for the killings, dubbing the massacre an "act of terrorism," and the following year the municipal court in Knin announced that the Government of Croatia must provide compensation to the children of a couple who were murdered.
The Paulin Dvor massacre was an act of mass murder committed by soldiers of the Croatian Army (HV) in the village of Paulin Dvor, near the town of Osijek on 11 December 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence. Of the nineteen victims, eighteen were ethnic Serbs, and one was a Hungarian national. The ages of the victims, eight women and eleven men, ranged from 41 to 85. Two former Croatian soldiers were convicted for their role in the killings and were sentenced to 15 and 11 years, respectively. In November 2010, Croatian President Ivo Josipović laid a wreath at the graveyard of the massacre victims and officially apologized for the killings.
Operation Jackal, also known as Operation June Dawns, was an offensive of the Bosnian War fought between a combined Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian Defence Council (HVO) army against the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) from 7–26 June 1992. The offensive was a Croatian pre-emptive strike against the VRS, a Bosnian Serb military formed in May 1992 from Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) units that were stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The HV concluded that the JNA offensive operations of April and May 1992, resulting in the capture of Kupres and much of the Neretva River valley south of Mostar, were aimed at capturing or threatening the Croatian Port of Ploče and possibly Split. To counter this threat, the Croatian leadership deployed the HV, under the command of General Janko Bobetko, to the "Southern Front" including the area in which Operation Jackal was to be conducted.
Operation Tiger was a Croatian Army (HV) offensive conducted in areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina near Dubrovnik between 1 and 13 July 1992. It was designed to push the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) away from the city towards Popovo field and secure a supply route via Rijeka Dubrovačka, which was gained in early June as the siege of Dubrovnik by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was lifted. The operation's success was facilitated by the establishment of the HV's Southern Front command and the successful conclusion of the May–June 1992 operations against the VRS in the Neretva River valley, which concluded with Operation Jackal.
The Vance plan was a peace plan negotiated by the former United States Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in November 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence. At that time, Vance was the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations; he was assisted by United States diplomat Herbert Okun during the negotiations. The plan was designed to implement a ceasefire, demilitarize parts of Croatia that were under the control of Croatian Serbs and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), allow the return of refugees, and create favourable conditions for negotiations on a permanent political settlement of the conflict resulting from the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Events in the year 2018 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.