A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Women in Black Newswire

Radovan Karadzic Extradited to The Hague

July 30, 2008, The Hague: Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader indicted for genocide and other war crimes was flown from Serbia to The Hague early Wednesday to face a U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Serbian authorities issued an extradition order for Mr Karadzic a little more than a week after he was captured, ending almost 13 years on the run. Mr Karadzic will now be held in a detention center in the Netherlands, where he will appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. A trial is not expected to begin for several months.

Mr Karadzic was one of the two architects of the Srebrenica massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men in July 1995. His extradition comes after about 15,000 far-right Serbian nationalists rallied in his support in Belgrade Tuesday. Advocacy Project (AP) Peace Fellow Janet Rabin, who is volunteering with Women in Black-Serbia in Belgrade this summer, describes the change in the city after Mr Karadzic’s arrest in her blog.


Serbian Women Condemn War Crimes Committed “In Their Name”

July 17, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: More than 30 people from the Women in Black Network from Serbia traveled to Srebrenica last week to mark the 13th anniversary of the brutal 1995 massacre committed by their countrymen.

Holding signs which said “Solidarity” and “Never Forget Srebrenica,” Women in Black joined the Women of Srebrenica Civic Association of Tuzla and more than 40,000 others to mourn the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed and to rebury 307 recently-identified victims. 

Janet Rabin, an Advocacy Project Peace Fellow volunteering with Women in Black this summer, traveled with the group to Potocari, Bosnia, for the ceremony and was struck by the warm relationship between the Serbian and Bosnian women. These friendships, and Women in Black’s efforts, are building blocks of trust and bold first steps toward reconciliation in a region deeply scarred by ethnic conflict.

“These two groups have been working together, and mourning together, for years,” Ms Rabin said. “In the midst of so much tragedy I could not comprehend, the small gestures of kindness and friendship between these women was a glimpse of something familiar, and more importantly, something hopeful.”

While many in Serbia remain in denial about the atrocities committed at Srebrenica, Women in Black has called for army commander Ratko Mladic, who ordered the massacre, to be brought to justice. Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have both been indicted by a United Nations war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide for masterminding the slaughter. Both remain at large in the Balkans.

Last week, Women in Black held an event on the main square in Belgrade where they screened the film “Women of Srebrenica Speak.” The short film features the testimonies of women who lost family members in the Srebrenica massacre, and provided a way for the Srebrenica victims to address the Serbian public. Women in Black also held one of its trademark silent demonstrations in the square. Its members wore black, but carried white roses in honor of the massacre victims.

• Read the blogs of AP Peace Fellow Janet Rabin.
• Read more about events marking the Srebrenica anniversary.