Serbian General Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison by the UN Tribunal

Serbian General Perisic was recently sentenced to 27 years in jail by the UN tribunal. He was found by the UN tribunal to have overseen the Yugoslav army’s “provision of extensive logistical assistance” to ethnic Serb forces in Bosnia and Croatia. His charge consisted of aiding and abetting murders, inhumane acts, political, racial and religious persecution and civilian casualties during the war in Bosnia and Croatia during which he commanded the Yugoslav army. He is also guilty of not punishing his subordinates for their crimes of murdering and injuring civilians during rocket attacks on Zagreb in Croatia. Although he did not commit any of these crimes directly, his role in assistance was deemed sufficient to convict him.

The issue in this case is whether or not Perisic can be sentenced to 27 years in jail based on aiding and abetting alone. If he is not directly involved with any of the crimes should he receive such a harsh sentence? If so then should all generals and presidents also be sentenced for their orders during war? All of this leads to the question of whether or not the UN should have the power to interfere with other countries matters. It’s logical that he was charged with not punishing his subordinates for their crimes, for it is a Generals duty to keep his soldiers under control. However sending Perisic to jail for 27 years for aiding and abetting murders is not such a clearly defined case. It is war, and it doesn’t matter what countries are fighting, whether it is the United States or Iraq, there will be immoral things taking place. The responsibility of the UN is to try and keep these things to a minimum, and by convicting people like General Perisic, it sets an example that will hopefully discourage these actions from occurring in the future. The charges for aiding the ethnic Serb forces also sets an example that will hinder other officers of similar statures from helping ethnic groups. This really raises the question of ethics. If a general can be convicted of civilian casualties should all military commanders be charged with murder? Perisic didn’t order his army to massacre any civilians. When do war casualties become a commander’s responsibility? This usually boils down to which country wins the war. The commanders of the losing side will have to face consequences despite the fact that the commanders on the winning side maybe have issued the same orders. Whether it be right or wrong, it is the nature of war.

These issues can be traced to judgment and what is considered right or wrong. When somebody is considered guilty of a crime it means they are responsible for the consequences. However there is a gray area in responsibility. To what extent does a person have to participate in an action for him/her to be responsible? Also how would a person calculate the “amount of participation” of an individual? Since it is impossible to know for certain if a person committed a crime the best people can do is examine the evidence. The nature of all evidence however, is that not all of it can be examined. It is impossible and impractical to examine every piece of evidence from all angles. The nature of examining a case is that most details will be excluded to make way for what is considered to be most important. However this makes the whole process flawed. It also takes humans to decide what evidence is to be considered making the process even more prone to imperfection. There is also an issue of how to determine what is right or wrong. There are so many different cultures in the world that there are no set ideals. What may be considered extremely offensive to one culture may be acceptable to another. In some places of the world it is completely normal to persecute others for ethnic or religious differences. In these cases, powerful organizations such as the UN step in and stop whatever they deem to be wrong. What makes the ideals of the UN more correct than any other ideals?

A recent story with a similar problem was the case of Casey Anthony. Casey Anthony had been accused of the murder of her daughter. Her daughter Caylee’s remains had been found buried in the nearby woods and there was sufficient evidence to determine Casey Anthony had buried her daughter. However there was insufficient evidence linking her to the actual murder of her daughter and she was charged only with deceiving an officer. In this case, all accounts of the incident points to Casey Anthony murdering her daughter, however due to the lack of evidence the authorities were unable to charge her as guilty. As there is exact amount of evidence that determines the guilt of a person it is really up to human judgment, and this leads to inevitable flaws.