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| Radovan Karadzic: Courtesy of the ICTY |
I think both sides of the debate can agree that the decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to acquit former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide in 1992 is momentous.
Serbs and Bosniaks alike are vexed by the media's concentration on the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, Serbs because they say it was a reaction to crimes against Serbs in the region in 1992, Bosniaks because it distracts attention from the brutal ethnic cleansing they experienced all over Bosnia in 1992.
The focus on the symbolically-important Srebrenica massacre may explain why the decision has, judging by BBC, Sky and ITN TV news programmes this evening, received scant coverage so far.
But the lack of coverage of this momentous decision is surely not just due to this. It seems to me also due to a reluctance to present the public with news that calls into question widely held assumptions about the war. Today’s decision does not sit well with the Western perception of Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb leadership in general. Where it has been covered on English-language news websites, the headline has often been about the predictable failure to have some of the charges dropped, rather than the real story, the ruling on Count One, the charge of genocide in various municipalities in Bosnia from March to December 1992.
Surely his his monstrous reputation is what makes the headline “Karadzic acquitted...” all the more newsworthy? The ruling is particularly interesting given that it would seem much easier to connect Karadzic with the events of 1992 than with the Srebrenica massacre. As James Gow writes of the massacre in the excellent 'The Serbian Project and its Adversaries': “Mladic’s bloody determination in this situation almost certainly means that the Bosnian Serb political leader Karadzic was not involved and knew nothing about it – potentially creating significant problems for the prosecution, if he faced trial for genocide in The Hague, based on events at Srebrenica.”
That today’s news is of interest to audiences outside the Balkans is suggested by the wide attention given to the ruling by RT, the English language TV station funded by the Russian government.
As with all RT’s news on the former Yugoslavia, the coverage is undoubtedly due to the channel’s strong pro-Serb bias. But I think the Western media’s lack of coverage of the decision is also for the wrong reasons.
