We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2011
Questions of uncertainty and responsibility have been central to the political and legal investigations of the failed UN/Dutch peacekeeping mission in Srebrenica. The official Dutch NIOD report on the peacekeeping mission has reconstructed the fall of Srebrenica as a surprise attack and as an ‘intelligence failure’. The report and its understanding of tactical uncertainty has led to a call for more intelligence in UN operations. I argue that the report builds its claims on a problematic epistemology of intelligence studies drawing upon a politics of ‘hard knowledge’. A similar epistemology can be identified in the proceedings of the war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) in the legal approach of criminal intent for the violence in Srebrenica. Although it is recognised that the political responsibility to prevent genocide and the juridical responsibility to punish those who have committed crimes have different implications for what can be called relevant foreknowledge or criminal intent, both the juridical and the political approaches close off paths for the mobilisation of histories that are more sensitive to the productive workings of language and images and thus to their bearing on possible futures.
1 Musil, Robert, The Man Without Qualities (London: Picador, 1997), pp. 1059–1060Google Scholar .
2 Wiebes, Cees, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995: The Role of the Intelligence and Security Services in Srebrenica a ‘Safe Area’: Reconstruction, Background, Consequences and Analysis of the Fall of a Safe Area (Amsterdam: NIOD, 2002)Google Scholar , Appendix II, Ch. 8, §8, ‘Conclusions’. Available at: {http://www.srebrenica.nl}.
3 Wiebes, Cees, Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992–1995: De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten (Amsterdam: Boom, 2002)Google Scholar . For the internet version in English see fn. 2 above.
4 Wiebes, Cees, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, Vol. 1, Studies in Intelligence History (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2003)Google Scholar .
5 Wiebes, Cees, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995 (2003)Google Scholar , chap. 8, §8.
6 Ibid.
7 Cees Wiebes, ‘Intelligence and the war in Bosnia, 1992–1995 (Speaking Notes)’. Paper presented at the Peacekeeping Intelligence Conference, Ottowa (4–5 December 2003).
8 Aldrich, Richard J., ‘America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims’, The Guardian (22 April 2002)Google Scholar .
9 Ibid.
10 See, for example, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US, The 9/11 Commission Report (July 2004), Butler, Lord, ‘Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction’, in Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors (London: Ordered by the House of Commons, 2004)Google Scholar ; and Select Committee on Intelligence US Senate, Report On the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq (7 July 2004).
11 Jehl, Douglas, ‘Senate Iraq Report Said to Skirt White House Use of Intelligence’, The New York Times (8 July 2004)Google Scholar .
12 Jong, Ben De, Platje, Wies and David Steele, Robert, Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future (Oakton, Va.: OSS International Press, 2003)Google Scholar .
13 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 1, §4.
14 NIOD, Srebrenica een ‘veilig’ gebied: Reconstructie, achtergronden, gevolgen en analyses van de val van een Safe Area (Amsterdam: Boom, 2002), Epilogue, p. 3154Google Scholar . (This Epilogue is not available anymore in the English internet version of the report).
15 NIOD, ‘Authorised Summary for the Press of the Srebrenica Report’ (2002).
16 International Court of Justice, ‘Case concerning the application of the convention of the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro): Judgment’ (26 February 2007) §294.
17 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, Ch.1 § 2.
18 Ibid., chap. 1, §4.
19 Ibid., chap. 2, §4.
20 Medlicott, Carol, ‘Re-thinking Geographical Exploration as Intelligence Collection: The Example of Lewis and Clark's “Corps of Discovery”’, Terrae Incognitae, 35 (2003), pp. 54–68, 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., p. 54.
23 Dorinda Outram quoted in Carol Medlicott, ‘Re-thinking Geographical Exploration as Intelligence Collection’, p. 54.
24 Carol Medlicott, ‘Re-thinking Geographical Exploration as Intelligence Collection’, p. 54.
25 Blokker, Bas, ‘Knippen en plakken’, NRC Handelsblad (9 November 2002)Google Scholar . Author's translation.
26 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 8, §3.
27 Ibid., chap. 8, § 8.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., chap. 1, §1; Wiebes quotes Välimäki, Pasi, Intelligence in Peace Support Operations (Helsinki: National Defence College, 2000), p. 27Google Scholar .
30 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 1, §1.
31 Ibid.
32 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 1, §1.
33 Ibid., chap. 8, §8.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., chap. 6, §4. In chap. 8, §5.
36 Ibid., chap. 8, §8.
37 Yoeri Albrecht and Thijs Broer, ‘Je reed daar gewoon door de killing fields’: Het verhaal én de nooit gepubliceerde foto's van een Dutchbat-soldaat’, Vrij Nederland (13 April 2002). Author's translation.
38 Ibid. Author's translation.
39 Argos (Gerard Legebeke, Huub Jaspers and Franz-Joseph Hutsch), ‘Het onderzoek’, VPRO Radio (1 November 2002).
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 BBC Newsnight, ‘Secrecy still shrouds Srebrenica’ (22 October 2009), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8321388.stm}.
43 See Wiebes's judgement of General Smith's warnings that the enclave would be attacked. Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 8, §3.
44 Cees Wiebes, ‘Intelligence and the war in Bosnia, 1992–1995 (Speaking Notes)’. Paper presented at the Peacekeeping Intelligence Conference, Ottowa (4–5 December 2003).
45 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 8, §3.
46 Ibid.
47 UNSCM, Report of the Security Council Mission Established Pursuant To Resolution 819 (1993) (30 April)Google Scholar p. 7.
48 Ibid., p. 6.
49 Ibid., p. 8.
50 Ibid., UN Security Council, Resolution 819.
51 UNSCM, Report of the Security Council Mission Established Pursuant To Resolution 819 (1993), p. 2Google Scholar .
52 International Court of Justice, ‘Case concerning the application of the convention of the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro): Judgment’ (26 February 2007), § 279.
53 Ibid.
54 Prosecutor vs. Radislav Krstic: Judgement. Case No. IT-98-33-T (19 April 2004), p. 29.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid., p. 91.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., p. 29.
59 International Court of Justice, ‘Case concerning the application of the convention of the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro): Judgment’ (26 February 2007), § 292.
60 Bećirević, Edina, ‘More Than a ‘Local Genocide’, IWPR's ICTY Tribunal Update (25 July 2008)Google Scholar , availale at: {www.iwpr.net}.
61 Hemon, Aleksandar, ‘Genocide's Epic Hero’, The New York Times (27 July 2008)Google Scholar . See also for footage of Karadžić's speech NATO Review, ‘Karadžić: from Sarajevo to the Hague’ (July 2008). Available at: {http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2008/07/VID_BOSNIA_KARADZIC/EN/index.htm}. Note that The New York Times and the NATO Review use different translations of Karadžić's speech. The New York Times speaks of ‘annihilation’ and the Nato Review of ‘disappearance’ of the Muslim people.
62 Bećirević, ‘More Than a ‘Local Genocide’.
63 Hemon, ‘Genocide's Epic Hero’.
64 Ibid.
65 See for an elaboration on ‘political sense making’, Oliver Kessler, ‘The same as it never was? Uncertainty and the changing contours of international law’, this Special Section.
66 Brown, Wendy, Politics out of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 172Google Scholar .
67 Herik den, Larissa Van, ‘The Schism between the Legal and the Social Concept of Genocide in Light of the Responsibility to Protect’, in Henham, Ralph and Behrens, Paul (eds), The Criminal Law of Genocide: International, Comparative and Contextual Aspects (London: Ashgate, 2007)Google Scholar .
68 Ibid., p. 93.
69 Van den Herik also describes a tendency in law to broaden the definition of genocide, but this is only a relative broadening in the light of the political (or what she calls the social) approach of genocide as mass killings.
70 See ICTY, ‘Prosecution's Third Amended Indictment (The Prosecution vs. Radovan Karadžić)’, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT (27 February 2009); and the ‘Proscecution's marked-up indictment’, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT (19 October 2009).
71 Jennings, Simon, ‘Prosecutors Seek to Streamline Karadžić Indictment’, IWPR's ICTY Tribunal Update (26 September 2008)Google Scholar .
72 ICTY, ‘Prosecution's Third Amended Indictment (The Prosecution vs. Radovan Karadžić)’, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT (27 February 2009); and the ‘Proscecution's marked-up indictment’, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT (19 October 2009). The eight municipalities are Bratunac, Foča, Ključ, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica, and Zvornik In total Karadžić is charged with eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
73 Radio Netherlands Worldwide, ‘Prosecutors refine indictment against Karadžić (23 September 2008).
74 Florence Hartmann, ‘Re: Prosecutors refine indictment against Karadžić’, comment made on the Justwatch-List (23 September 2008).
75 Edina Bećirević, ‘More Than a ‘Local Genocide’. Later Milorad Dodik denied that it had been a case of genocide at all. See, for example, BBC Monitoring Newsfile, ‘Bosnian Serb leader disputes Srebrenica genocide “definition”’ (8 April 2010).
76 Ibid.
77 Quigley, John,‘Genocide: A Useful Legal Category?’, International Criminal Justice Review, 19:2 (2009), pp. 115–131, 128CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
78 Ibid.
79 Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, chap. 8, §8.
