Brčko, 24 February 2012
ICTY Outreach officer Almir Alić today gave a presentation on the Tribunal’s work and achievements to a group of 29 fourth-grade students, two professors and the deputy school director at the ‘Vaso Pelagić’ high school in Brčko.
Brčko sits on the Sava river in north-east Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH). In April 1992, Serb forces took control of the strategically positioned municipality, which connected Serb-held areas in western BiH and Croatia with eastern BiH and Serbia. In a systematic campaign targeting non-Serbs, Serb forces expelled Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims from their homes and detained hundreds of civilians at various locations in the city.
The two-hour multi-media presentation was followed by a lively discussion on a number of issues related to the work of the Tribunal, including sentencing policy and the serving of sentences, the UN Detention Unit, and, more generally, on the differences between war crimes and crimes committed during peacetime.
A majority of the students agreed that all those who committed crimes should be held responsible regardless of their ethnicity and that the Tribunal has made positive contribution to the punishment of crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.
The feedback received after the event was very positive and the school management expressed an interest in organising similar presentations in their institution in future.